Hi all! Thanks for the comments! I’m tied up all day today, but real quick, just to address a few:
As bemused_fred pointed out, the text mentions the GTX 760 was cheaper than a HD 7950 at the time we picked our parts. There was no money to save there unless stepping way down.
Moving forward, fingers crossed I’m banking on cheap 7950 allowing more platform options next time. Should we stay at $650, we could likely net a more-overclocked FX 6300, or a rather stock FX-8320. And I agree, to do either right, they deserve better cooling, or at least a mobo upgrade anyway. So we’d have to wait and see what’s available when Q4 discussions surface. State what you’d like to see though, especially on day 4, as budgets aren’t set until later.
I ‘m always concerned, but wasn’t alarmed about the VRMs actually, as I knew going in this would be a mild OC of a 95W part at stock voltage. Numerous IR readings at worst hit 65C under loads, with room temps between 76-80F. Not great, but acceptable IMO. But I did put thought into this, with the case selection and a VGA blower (lowering internal temps for free). The budget I wanted to attack this time really didn’t allow more money into the Mobo or CPU cooling. A rig like this deserves 8GB RAM, etc. and I wanted a direct comparison to Core i3, budget-wise, for now.
DarkSable, same budgets as last round. That was a quick and easy decision. My concern has been $650 isn’t really budget these days, which is why I volunteered another cheap build this time also. Yes, it will be compared to the $400 Mini-ITX, though it’s a very different build.