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System Builder Marathon, June 2010: $1,000 Enthusiast PC

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June 16, 2010 6:00:19 AM

This quarter, we're dropping the budgets on all of our systems, the enthusiast-class build, specifically, by $500, giving us $1,000 to fight the $1,500 system's performance. Read on to see what value we managed to squeeze out of this shrunken-cost box.

System Builder Marathon, June 2010: $1,000 Enthusiast PC : Read more

More about : system builder marathon june 2010 000 enthusiast

June 16, 2010 6:19:35 AM

When you say SBM: Enthusiast System, I am expecting this to be more than just another gaming rig. You may have your own reason for sticking to a Phenom II x3 720 and HD5830 crossfire but I believe a Phenom II x4 955 and HD5770 crossfire would make more sense or more well-balanced (instead of trying your luck by unlocking cores). In fact, we could also grab a HD5870 and downgrade our mobo a little and that would make a truly well balanced enthusiast system.
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26
June 16, 2010 6:26:06 AM

Nice CPU choice you morons. My grandma could build a more balanced system.
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-21
Related resources
June 16, 2010 6:29:22 AM

I'm with one-shot, 6core AMD for $200 can't be beat.
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2
June 16, 2010 6:30:03 AM

It would have been nice to see the PII X6 1055T with a moderate downgrade in GPUs to afford the higher cost of CPU and motherboard. The i7 embarrasses the PII X3.
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7
June 16, 2010 6:37:58 AM

I find it surprising that you are always successful in unlocking the 4th core
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25
June 16, 2010 6:37:59 AM

not a fan of the 5830's or the 720 cpu choice is all.

Would have rather seen a dual 5770's or a 5870 with a i5-750 or a 955

games more and more are using cpu for doing things. I also tend to use a comp for other things more then games.
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3
June 16, 2010 6:38:34 AM

Bad choice of components especially CPU and GPU
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-14
June 16, 2010 6:38:59 AM

A phenom II 955 BE:160$+2 Xfx hd 5770sfor320$+GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H for 140$=620$ would certainly have been a better choice than your 670$ for CPU+GPU+mobo.
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15
June 16, 2010 6:39:45 AM

Tamz_mscA phenom II 955 BE:160$+2 Xfx hd 5770s for 320$+GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H for 140$=620$ would certainly have been a better choice than your 670$ for CPU+GPU+mobo.

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0
June 16, 2010 6:43:51 AM

A Thermaltake V3 instead of the Antec 300 would have saved you $15
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-1
June 16, 2010 6:45:13 AM

adbatI find it surprising that you are always successful in unlocking the 4th core

I've succeeded in unlocking cores in 3 out of 3 tries, but the point stands, buy the processor you want right off the bat. Imagine if it were a dud. 1055T is the only AMD processor on the market worth thinking about.
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1
June 16, 2010 6:47:27 AM

one-shotIt would have been nice to see the PII X6 1055T with a moderate downgrade in GPUs to afford the higher cost of CPU and motherboard. The i7 embarrasses the PII X3.
If you're going to make this about i7, you can point to the $2000 system and I can point out the 100% price difference. Do you really think the $2000 system is "more" than 100% better?
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17
June 16, 2010 6:58:20 AM

CrashmanIf you're going to make this about i7, you can point to the $2000 system and I can't point out the 100% price difference. Do you really think the $2000 system is "more" than 100% better?


This isn't about i7, but rather a better CPU choice. I would rather point to the $1500 system that the current system is being compared to. The $2000 system is twice the price, hardly comparable to a $1000 system. We both know there are marginal gains the higher the system cost is. In the graph above, it says September 2010, but I'm going to assume it was a misprint intended to be September 2009. Even so, prices have changed in that time frame.

From the stock speeds of the June 2010 $1000 SBM, to the overclocked $1500 September 2009 SBM, one can see the large difference in performance for a relatively small increase in price. Even the overclocked speeds of each system leave a lot to be desired from the PII X3 system. However, another i7 build would be more of the same. It would be nice to see something different rather than two powerful GPUs limited by a slower CPU.
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-2
June 16, 2010 7:19:29 AM

one-shotFrom the stock speeds of the June 2010 $1000 SBM, to the overclocked $1500 September 2009 SBM, one can see the large difference in performance for a relatively small increase in price. Even the overclocked speeds of each system leave a lot to be desired from the PII X3 system. However, another i7 build would be more of the same. It would be nice to see something different rather than two powerful GPUs limited by a slower CPU.
I probably would have started the list with a n X6 1055T, but I can appreciate Don's desire to save money for graphics. Were gaming my overwhelming concern, I would have angered everyone by picking an i3-530 for its overclocking capability. Either way, I wouldn't characterize the X3 720 as an embarrassment.
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6
June 16, 2010 7:22:55 AM

That's a whooping 48,000 pesos in the Philippines, I could build a more powerful rig with locally available parts.
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-5
June 16, 2010 7:37:24 AM

i5-750 or the 955 (as mentioned in another post)is where you should have gone unless you want hyper threading, in which case i recommend the i7-930 though it costs a bit more total system-wise, i would have been able to do it), or the 1055T (even if it doesn't have HT 6 physical cores is as good in my opinion, especially for the price.)
also i would have gotten the Seagate 7200.12 500GB you can find it for 42 and free shipping. my system that im building now (bought 4 JUNE)

specs:
Phenom II x4 955
ASRock 870 Extreme 3 (allows for xfire on a 870 board)
Sapphire 5770
OCZ platinum DDR3 1333 7-7-7-20
Xigmatek Midgard
$20 optical drive
Antec EarthWatts 650W 80Plus
Seagate 7200.12 500GB
Total: $742

If i added another 5770 would perform simmiler and even if i added another 5770 it would only cost $890, at that price you could also add in a good air cooler, and more fans for the excellent case i got. and i would only be at $960, oh i forgot to mention that the price includes the operating system, if i take that out (since it isn't included in the system builder marathon) the price is actually $870 for everything mentioned.

i received discounts from combos and searching Google shopping, and came up with a savings of about $210 on this system.
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5
June 16, 2010 8:04:26 AM

I really can't see why they always stick to high end crossfire and skimp on the CPU either, at $1,000 it simply doesn't make sense to me to have anything less than a Phenom II x4(or x6) or an i5-750. I'd much rather see a slightly higher end single card, or 5770's if you really insist on crossfire to make up the price difference. Then again I do a fair amount of CPU-intensive things and have yet to want to play anything that didn't run fine on my 8800GT imo, so maybe I'm biased.
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4
June 16, 2010 8:43:52 AM

I built one for under a thousand
amd x6 1055t
GTX 470
700 w Corsair
haf922
4gb 1333
gigabyte 870
dvd rw asus
and 500 gb 7200rpm
and this beats this system by a huge margin
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-14
June 16, 2010 8:56:59 AM

jetbruceliI built one for under a thousand amd x6 1055tGTX 470700 w Corsairhaf9224gb 1333gigabyte 870dvd rw asusand 500 gb 7200rpm and this beats this system by a huge margin
How does it do that?
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14
June 16, 2010 8:59:58 AM

Brilliant build man! Stellar performance for the money!
And while I wouldn't let myself build such a potent system without front fans or with this puny hdd the temperatures were in check and hdd isn't tested much here so these sacrifices are acceptable considering the circumstances.
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4
June 16, 2010 9:17:36 AM

I would also say not too bad. you've got a 2 year old triple core going up against a corei7 with faster graphics.
I think the old 720BE is holding up pretty well, and I've seen it under 100 bucks.
I am oh for 2 in the unlocking dept. Tried a Sempron and a x3 rana and no dice..
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1
June 16, 2010 9:25:03 AM

Two GPUs = zero girlfriends.
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14
June 16, 2010 9:35:10 AM

Requiemsallurealso i would have gotten the Seagate 7200.12 500GB you can find it for 42 and free shipping.


This drive has 15% one egg reviews on Newegg, more than double the amount compared to 500GB Samsung or WD. One egg reviews are almost all failed disks.

So 7200.12 is crap that's more than twice as likely to die on you.
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-1
June 16, 2010 10:01:50 AM

Quote:
That's a whooping 48,000 pesos in the Philippines, I could build a more powerful rig with locally available parts


Really? Which ones other than the ones above would you have used?
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0
Anonymous
June 16, 2010 10:10:13 AM

Nice build, interesting choice with the X3, was wondering why you did not leave it as a x3 after the dismal Overclock after the core was unlocked, Who knows, maybe you could have got 4ghz o the three good cores (done that with builds several times), that would have made the OC $1000 system interesting.

Can see where you have gone with this and has opened up food for thought so thanks..


Confirmed to me that 1055t and single 5870/5850 budget depending is most balanced and issue free AMD system you can go for and should be the only choice for mid range AMD buyers!
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7
June 16, 2010 11:21:04 AM

IMO a pure gaming machine on a not-so-tight-shoestring should get a PHIIX6 (the 2.8 one) and a 5850/dual 5770's. Would have been considerably faster than this one. Massive CPU bottlenecl. Remember the Tom's review which showed an i7 930 with a 5850 beating an Athlon X3 with dual 5870's?
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-3
June 16, 2010 11:29:40 AM

MY PHENOM 2 X4 965 , 4 GBDDR3 & 1GB HD 4870 SERVING ME GREAT!!
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1
June 16, 2010 11:36:51 AM

I did not like this build.

1. Even with the L3, I think based on the earlier Tom's article about the X3 440 for gaming, any success enjoyed by the 720BE in this high-end Crossfire configuration would be entirely contingent on the CPU unlocking, and then overclocking well. The former happened, the latter not so well; in any case results attributable to luck. I would have liked to have seen an Athlon II X4 instead, for a similar price. Someone who went this way and didn't get the unlock would be sorely disappointed.

2. Ok, a SSD wasn't in the budget, but a WD Blue? Only $6-$7 more buys a WD Black, Seagate 7200.12, or Samsung F3.

3. I will hold my tongue about the choice of the pair of HD5830 cards, provided ANOTHER manufacturer's pair can be tested in this machine. Never mind the budget, this is about finding out if the Gigabyte cards were the problem. No possible conclusion can be drawn about the merit of this choice until we know if someone else's HD5830s would work properly. Was it just bad cards? Bad drivers? An issue with the MSI mobo? There are too many variables here to know, but it looks like Gigabyte served up some EPIC with this FAIL.
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8
Anonymous
June 16, 2010 11:46:02 AM

Wouldn't it be better to put in a single 5870 for $ 400 instead of 2X 5830 and then when the system would become not capable of handling newer games then we could add in another 5870 down the line... for much cheaper than current $ 400.....

Wouldn't that increase the "LONGEVITY" of the System....???
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7
June 16, 2010 11:54:24 AM

great article.but It's unfair to compare these two systems.With a$500 difference (not to mention the architectural difference in CPUs) what did you expect???!!!!.But, frankly,I didn't expect the performance gap to be that small in games (between the $1000 overclock & $1500 stock).
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0
June 16, 2010 11:59:37 AM

rana_kirtiWouldn't it be better to put in a single 5870 for $ 400 instead of 2X 5830 and then when the system would become not capable of handling newer games then we could add in another 5870 down the line... for much cheaper than current $ 400.....Wouldn't that increase the "LONGEVITY" of the System....???



5830s would fare much better & tehy'r comparing the system to the last one to see whether the $500 had an effect on gaming performance
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1
June 16, 2010 1:12:53 PM

killerclickTwo GPUs = zero girlfriends.


Only if you're spending so much time on games such that you never get out to meet girls. Quite a few of us enthusiasts have some pretty neat hardware and still manage to date and get married to real women. However, the HW budget generally seems to dry up quite a bit when that happens...
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8
June 16, 2010 1:44:40 PM

I would have liked to see what the processor overclocked to leaving the "bad" core unused. AMD and Intel test their processors at higher clock speeds than stock, for obvious reasons, and this processor very possibly is the limiting factor for overclocks if it's been disabled.

Also, if the price changes between when you bought it, and the day the review comes out, I think it's more meaningful to use the CURRENT price. Certainly, the purchase price is relevant when explaining the choices, but, if I am looking to buy right now, it's not important. The price I can buy it at is.

Strangely, the author used the higher cost due to a package deal being discontinued, but then didn't take into account the cards fell $20 each. Why?
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4
June 16, 2010 1:45:06 PM

I think the components chosen in this build were pretty solid as a gaming machine. Two 5830's show that great gaming performance can be had with a lower-end processor such as the X3 730.

HOWEVER, it is my personal opinion, and the opinion of what seems like a few others, that many builders would have rather gone with a more balanced system. For the budget of this system I definitely would not gone with an i7, but an i5 or PII X4 would definitely be my two considerations. I would then pair that with a single 5850 and call it done.

That wouldn't give as good performance in games, but to me it's a more attractive system. I would also have chosen a faster HDD.

Tom's can't please every builder out there though. You guys still did a good job of getting a great gaming system built. Most naive people probably didn't think this system would game that well.
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4
June 16, 2010 1:54:47 PM

Phenom 720 BE FTW!!! That is one hell of a processor for the money. Great read!
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-1
June 16, 2010 1:59:54 PM

I LOVE these articles. The only bad thing is they only come out once every quarter!

While I agree it would have been safer to choose a X4 or i5, i can see why they went with the AthIIx3. They gambled on a cheaper processor, hoping it would unlock an overclock like a beast and putting the extra money into some awesome graphics. In this case, the results may have been underwhelming, but a good counter-example is the $750 build from last quarter using an unlocked/overclocked AthIIx3 435 and getting amazing results.
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0
June 16, 2010 2:01:03 PM

Am I the only one that remains totally unimpressed with the 5830?
It seems the best thing I've ever read about them is "They're OK" (paraphrasing)...
I understand you wanted to use newer tech (DX11), but if the real goal is best bang for the buck it would seem 2 4890's would have been a no-brainer over these lumps.
I just keep feeling the 5830's are made up of left over sub-par parts.
The money saved could have easily gone towards a WD Black....
But then again, I dont build computers for a living....just for fun.
Great article nonetheless. Even though the results left us a little wanting.
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4
June 16, 2010 2:06:27 PM

I'll admit trying your luck with a unlocked core for the sake of buget is a little strange but with few apps and games able to use a 4th core I can see it like a bounus. Great build IMO, really shows just how little cpu power you need to get your crysis on at max settings maybe not at 2560x1600 but you would need to shell out another few hundred dollars for a monitor anyways. Ive been messing around on newegg experimenting on differnet bugets and I have 2 builds, cheap as possible without sacrifice of quailty and best performance per dollar and for my P/D build i spent about the same amount as you did on all the components except for graphics I would slide that around base on how much graphics muscle I wanted. I used AMD X3's for both builds they are just so powerful but so cheap. If I were to build the $1000 system I would save money by using a cheap base $60 X3, overclocking it and change from the dual gpu setup to a 5870 to save some more money. Im not sure with the 1 gpu I could downgrade the PSU to save more money. I think I could knock $100 off that price and still end up with about the same power maybe a tiny bit less but this isn't my build so to each his own. Tumbs up Tom
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0
June 16, 2010 2:09:39 PM

What the hell Tom, the dam hp add for this artical would not go away.
I do not want some stupid hp product in my house. Got it.
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1
June 16, 2010 2:10:46 PM

the board sucks, the rest is good
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1
June 16, 2010 2:25:01 PM

one-shotThe i7 embarrasses the PII X3.

Yes, it does, but compare it to a Core i3 that is in the same price class as the PII X3. You'll see a different story then.
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3
June 16, 2010 2:37:20 PM

In real life I would pick a pair of GTX 465, since they are unlockable into GTX 470.

Also, nVidia scales better than crossfire, and have PhysX.
The power source is enough. Congratulations for not wasting money on it.
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-9
June 16, 2010 2:45:32 PM

To the person that felt like the 5830s were subpar parts... that is because they are. (The 5870s are the "5% of the best," the 5850s are the "mainstream," and the 5830s are the "bad, but will work" chips.)

As for the overall build, I am yet another builder that would have gone for a single 5850 or 2x 5770s in the build instead of 2x 5830s. Crossfire's ability to increase fps is not as "steady" as that of SLI, and relying on 5830s to potentially overclock...

I would have kept the Crossfire capable system board, even in a build with a single 5850. Why? The ability in the future to add a 2nd card and Crossfire. (And, if 2 5770s had been chosen, you would have needed it anyway.)

The extra money saved from the reduction in graphics muscle could have been spent on a decent hard drive (WD Blues are good for data storage, but that is about it.) Maybe a single or dual platter WD Black or Samsung Spinpoint in the 500 GB or 1 TB range. (Depending on whether you spent the money with the idea of a media user or a pure gamer.)

As for the CPU choice, I rather liked it. However, I would have also liked to have seen what the overclock would have been without unlocking the 4th core. (I have used Athlon x3s in my past two builds, thus... I love the chips. However, I never unlock the cores since I use GB boards... which don't offer the option anymore.) Your own testing many months ago showed that you did not get the same linear gain going from a x3 to a x4 as you did from a x2 to a x3. (And, most gamers know to not run any aggressive programs except "the game" while they play. Thus, this makes the 4th core of a gaming system nearly pointless.) Speed in this case would have been better than 4 cores.

In short, a $1k build from me would have been:
1. Phenom x3 720 BE
2. Crossfire capable system board. (Potentially a 890 series for USB3 and Sata3 if could fit in budget.)
3. Same ram.
4. 1 500GB or 1 TB "good mechanical" hard drive. (Note: Not a Seagate.)
5. Same case.
6. Same cooler.
7. 2 x 5770 or 1 x 5850, with a strong leaning to the 5850 for future upgradability.
Score
6
June 16, 2010 2:46:00 PM

You know it's entirely possible to do a xfire 5850 build for a little over $1k if you're using combo's.

Optical $20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec 300 Case $49.50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24 4gb $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GPU/PSU Combo
XFX 5850 and OCZ 700w Stealthxstream $320 w/ $15 MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

GPU 2 and free stuff
XFX 5850 $277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

CPU/MOBO
Phenom II x3 720 and MSI 790XT-G45 $179
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

HD
Spinpoint F3 500gb $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HSF
CM RR-H101-22FK-RA $15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Total comes to $1020.87 before $15 MIR and shipping

Score
7
June 16, 2010 2:46:03 PM

Thanks for the interesting build.
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0
June 16, 2010 3:25:24 PM

^ Well technically for a balanced $1k build, the best idea would be a i5-750 + 5870 build. Add in a 500gb Spinpoint F3, Ripjaw RAM, and you'll be able to fit it in under $1k.

Use a SATA 6.0 USB 3 GA-790x-UD4 which is xfire capable, and you're basically set for future xfire 5870's.

ok I was totally not thinking when I wrote that lol. You'll have to go with an ASUS P7P55D-E, for xfire.
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1
June 16, 2010 4:23:26 PM

how better is the overclock using only three cores?
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3
June 16, 2010 4:38:55 PM

Since not everyone can unlock the 4th core, and you didn't get too far in overclocking with it, I would have liked to have seen what overclock you would get with just 3 cores and compare with those numbers. After all, this site has shown that many games don't benefit much from 4 cores over 3, and thus a higher CPU speed would probably have been more beneficial overall. It would have been interesting to see, but of course that would eat up alot more of your time running all those benchies again, but hey that's what we come here to see :D .
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1
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