System Builder Marathon: Day One

[pschmid]

Over the next three days, we'll select components for, build and test low, medium and high cost PC systems. Today's system comes in at $525.

 

[fx51]

If they add one AGP system to the test, this will answer , a lot of questions like :

Is good to upgrade to a budget pci-x system, or buy a new AGP card. ?

 

[cleeve]

We won't be adding an AGP system to the tests. If you're putting together a new system, it really wouldn't make sense to go AGP at this point.

As far as upgrading your AGP card in an existing system, we've already compared AGP to PCIe cards. The difference in performance is essentially nonexistant.

 

[sojrner]

Good article though man. Solid component choices IMO. Even w/ the core2 stomping on the x2 I still think it is a viable budget system that would give the owner good service. Looking forward to seeing the "real world" diffs between the 3 systems.

rock on man.

 

[TSIMonster]

False/Misleading info on that PSU. The 12 volt rails do not have 36 AMPs of power available. More like 25-26.

After all, to calculate watts you multiply the volts times the amps. 36x12 = 432 Watts. The PSU in this article is a 400 watt PSU with 450 watt Peak. I would be weary powering an 8800 GTX with any bit of overclocking at all.

Just something I think you guys should change/make more clear. It is a good PSU (I have it), but don't mislead people to think they have 36 amps worth of 12v

Good article, nonetheless.

 

[heltoupee]

Why in the article do you talk about the 'Fortron Source AX450-PN Power Supply', yet in the components list you give us the 'Aero Cool Zerodba 620W Crossfire/SLI ready'?

On the whole a good article, though. A cost table would be useful, however, as I am not clear on if Windows was included in the price, or a monitor, or what-not. I had some of the same decisions to make when I built my new rig (see sig) a couple of months ago.

 

[mationman]

I've been thinkin of upgrading on a budget and I was gonna get a am2 3800 and only 1 gig of ram. Nice to see I've got it right!
Dunno about the case though i'm sure you can get cheaper cases that look ok, I was looking at one the other day for £25 with a 25inch side fan! and from customer reviews it seemed pretty good, it looked ok too was all black.

 

[caamsa]

Nice article...budget stuff is cool.....in regards to gaming I imagne a single core cpu of the same speed would have fared just as well in the benchmarks. But hey why buy a single core when the dual core is so cheap.

 

[goldragon_70]

The power supply is still enough to support most cards out there, and in time we will probably see cards that have the same power as the 8800, but consume less power.

 

[cleeve]

Not just a gaming system though. This is an all-round system, so dual core will help.

I'm trying to see if I can bench the low-cost system with an 8800 GTX to compare in the final article. Purely from a gamer's perspective, I'm interested in seeing if it can take on the much more expensive mid-range system...

 

[cleeve]

Thanks, I'll pass that info about the PSU on to the web guys, it should be the fortron PSU.

The article mentions the cost doesn't include the monitor or OS (or the benchmarking software)

 

[cleeve]

False/Misleading info on that PSU. The 12 volt rails do not have 36 AMPs of power available. More like 25-26.

You're right about that, I knew better and I had thought I corrected that line - or reworded it at least. Nice catch.

 

[sojrner]

while yes there is a diff between peak and nominal loads, the specs on it are listed as dual 12v rails w/ 18 amps. Yes, that is peak but that is what the manufacturer rates it as. I do not think it was "false" info, just not "all" of the info for n00bs. Most ppl that are reading it know that ALL psu's are rated on a peak level and only some include nominal ratings.

Regardless, yours is a good point that you would not sustain that peak for very long, but still... kinda nit-picky about whether it clarifies that the listing of the specs are peak or not don't you think?

Not arguing against you, just countering the point with logical moderation.

 

[TSIMonster]

False/Misleading info on that PSU. The 12 volt rails do not have 36 AMPs of power available. More like 25-26.

You're right about that, I knew better and I had thought I corrected that line - or reworded it at least. Nice catch.

Thats cool. A newb like me would take that info and run with it though. I don't doubt that the PSU could power a non-overclocked GTX system, but it would be pushing it.

You guys should most definitely include a cost table. Also, they have that ampx RAM in dual channel for $50 on the egg, that could increase the performance and bring the price down a little.

I really do love these articles, really helpful for the budget builder without a lot of time to research parts.

 

[skyguy]

Overall, a very solid budget build. Personally I'd spend just a bit more money on a better PSU and consider it an excellent investment on the system.

ONLY thing I'd change without a doubt would be the case to a Coolermaster 534......better layout, rotate hard drive, airflow.....and for the same price! I honestly don't know why people persist in pushing the Centurion 5, it's clearly bested by the 534, and costs the same :roll:


Other than that, well done! Great article for newbies or budget-conscious builders.

 

[TSIMonster]

while yes there is a diff between peak and nominal loads, the specs on it are listed as dual 12v rails w/ 18 amps.

Ever under peak load, I do not think it would be capable of providing 36 amps. Most (quality) 450watt PSUs have about 300 watts available for the 12v rail which is only 25 amps. 25 and 36 are pretty far apart.

It is kind of nit picky, but I think it is important. Most people think that by combining the amps on each 12v rail that you get your total available amps... which is incorrect.

 

[sojrner]

agreed.

was only pointing out how those numbers came up. You are right though.

 

[sojrner]

Also, they have that ampx RAM in dual channel for $50 on the egg, that could increase the performance and bring the price down a little.

I personally like the ram they chose better if only that the upgrade path is better with 1-gig sticks rather than 512 sticks. I assume the dual channel for that price is 2x512... if it was 2x1024 then by all means get it! With 1 gig sticks you can get another later on and have 2 gigs w/o scrapping your existing 512 sticks.

But for total cost vs. immediate performance your dual 512s are better.

 

[runswindows95]

For what they built for the money, it's a solid system.

 

[joex444]

I wonder what the price points for the mid and high end are. I spent about $1270 on a new rig a few months ago, but went ahead and ordered more parts this week. I'll try overclocking it in a bit. So, here's what $1450 got me:

- Gigabyte DQ6
- 2x1GB OCZ 1066 (and 2x1GB G.Skill 800, I'll ebay one of them, price includes the OCZ)
- Core2 Duo E4300 with Tuniq Tower
- 8800GTS 320MB
- Coolmax 600W
- Antec P180B
- 4x320GB Seagate 7200.10 (2 RAID10 partitions [XP/Vista] and 1 RAID5 [large files])
- LiteOn LH-201AS 20x DVD burner SATA

I'd like to think, once overclocked (I've seen it load XP at 3.0GHz on an overheating Northbridge), it would be firmly in the high end.

Of course, today, I'd have saved $50 on the CPU, but would probably go for the E4400, and $60 on the 800MHz RAM and $40 on the 1066MHz RAM. Atleast the other stuff didn't change price.

I hope they don't do something like use an $800+ Core 2 Quad CPU in the high end. Though high end, it's a sure way to make the bang per buck go through the floor.

 

[sojrner]

while your system is nice, w/o the massive storage your budget would be much lower. You would probably be under $1k. Looking at the cpu and videocard I would think high-end might be a stretch for gaming. My guess would be that your storage, while certainly freakin' sweet would not be taken into account much if you ran the benches they are running here. (or at least it would not move the rank much)

Don't get me wrong, I like the system. Would be very nice indeed.

Personally I put budget systems at ~$500, midrange ~$800 and high-end at $1500+. This is for the same components that they list, (single hard drive, video, cpu, mobo etc) with the addition of a dedicated soundcard and speakers. (and what about keyboard/mouse? ) No monitor, os or anything else.

Specializing a system within those levels for file serving, video editing, CAD work is going to raise that systems budget and perform better on that discipline, but not necessarily change the "performance bracket" overall. Sometimes it might... IMO the cpu, ram, videocard and mobo are the big factors for bracketing.

Naturally, OC'ing is not in this thought process...

Just my 2 bits, take it for what its worth. 8)

 

[gm0n3y]

Good article, thoroughly appropriate choices. Having a reference point for the benches would have been nice, but I guess it can wait for the other articles.

 

[cleeve]

I'm happy with the Fortron, I think it'd scale well from the 3800+/7600 GT combo to a faster CPU/videocard with little problem.

As far as the case, yeah. I even mentioned in the article that's more of a subjective style choice than anything else. Everyone's going to have their own take on what a good case is, some will like cheesy plastic alien looking things, and others won't be satisfied unless it's all aluminum.

 

[cleeve]

I just wanted to say to everybody - thanks for the kind words.

I thought we were going to be crucified for some of the choices Thomas (Crashman) & myself made for this build, but everyone's being very respectful and pleasant. Looks like we didn't have much to worry about.

Then again, as the price gets higher in the midrange and high end segments, people's opinons on our choice of hardware might polarize. We'll see what the next few days has to offer.

 

[akahuddy]

A nice article and a nice solid budget build. I built my mom a machine a couple months ago and although I went with a 939 platform, the parts are near identical and it performs admirably.

ONLY thing I'd change without a doubt would be the case to a Coolermaster 534......better layout, rotate hard drive, airflow.....and for the same price! I honestly don't know why people persist in pushing the Centurion 5, it's clearly bested by the 534, and costs the same :roll:

The 534 is a nice case, but it needs to be about 3 cm wider. With rotated SATA HDD's, the case has inadequate clearance for the plastic ends of most SATA cables. :? I had to rob my DFI lanparty board of 2 cables that had extremely short plugs so that the drives could be plugged in.