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System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $650 Gaming PC

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September 22, 2013 9:00:03 PM

This quarter, Paul Henningsen gives AMD's FX-6300 its chance to shine in our least-expensive configuration. He manages to fit in a GeForce GTX 760 graphics card and 8 GB of memory. The result is quite capable, as you'll see from our benchmark results.

System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $650 Gaming PC : Read more

More about : system builder marathon 2013 650 gaming

September 22, 2013 9:22:29 PM

Not a bad little entry system. Im sure it will get picked apart here in the comments soon, but for the price, its not that bad at all.
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18
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September 22, 2013 9:48:35 PM

I think this time you chose the perfect balance of cpu and gpu at this price point. The Athlon 750k is far too weak, please don't use it next month, even an fx41xx or 43xx would be a better choice. The Haswell i3 would be interesting as we might be able to get some overclocking wby increasing base clock strap settings
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September 22, 2013 9:57:54 PM

It looked great until I saw the mobo, then I thought "oops..."
Based on http://www.overclock.net/a/about-vrms-mosfets-motherboa... and https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ag... I would have gone with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... instead; it has a heatsink on its VRMs, and it currently offers free shipping and is $2 less (it's been that way for a while now; I've had my eye on it for recommendations). I'm concerned that the cheap MSI will pop in the middle of a long gaming session. Did you by chance point an IR thermometer at its VRMs during your testing?
Otherwise, it's nice to see the FX-6300 get a workout in which it performs in the same ballpark as its competition, maybe a little less "raw," but with higher bang/buck.
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a b K Overclocking
September 22, 2013 10:57:39 PM

its crazy how fast memory prices change, that kingston kit is now $84 and the team vulcan 2133 and 2400 are <60.
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September 22, 2013 11:05:05 PM

I'd be interested in seeing an FX 8-core more than the FM2 Athlons. In general though, it would be nice to see an AMD processor in these quarterly builds more regularly. I know you guys treat it as a competition, but, for readers like me, it's more informative to see how the competition shapes up rather than seeing 5% boosts from the latest Ivy-to-Haswell iteration. The higher budget guys are pretty much exclusively using Intel these days (I'll get my Haswell comparisons there), so your lower budget builds are the only place to reasonably see how a good AMD build stacks up. FX-6300 is definitely the best value AMD processor though, so it's going to be tough for you to beat this if you go up or down in cpu budget to get the Athlon or octocore.
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September 22, 2013 11:07:34 PM

Yeah, I would not touch that board...
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September 22, 2013 11:56:20 PM

I would have to put an fan over the VRMs to feel safe. That is just me. designasaurus, nice read and I agree.
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September 23, 2013 12:05:10 AM

nice build. though i probably would have went with a 7950, and took the $50 saved to get a cpu cooler like the hyper evo 212, and a better overclocking motherboard like the m5a97 R2.0... you probably would have been able to give that fx a bit better of a chance to hit mid to high 4s on the overclock then. if you can get a 6300 up around 4.7-4.9 (obviously not all of them can get there) you can pace an i5 pretty easily... so spending a little on the board and cpu cooler is a good option.

the 8 core 8320 is getting pretty cheap. the problem is in order to unleash that type of power you're probably going to NEED to go with a hefty cpu cooler and hefty overclocking board. so for the future i suggest you keep with the fx 6300 unless the prices on the 8320 come down a little more.
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September 23, 2013 12:14:53 AM

would love to see how well does the $350 pc compare with the Q2 $400 PC! then i would know how well my pc would perform when gta 5 is out!
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September 23, 2013 1:21:55 AM

Why is everyone saying "go with the HD 7950" when they clearly said in the article that it only became cheaper after they finished the build?
"AMD's Radeon HD 7950 now sells for even less. But at the time we picked our parts, the GeForce GTX 760 was more affordable."

Honestly, read the article before commenting!
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September 23, 2013 1:29:25 AM

designasaurus said:
I'd be interested in seeing an FX 8-core more than the FM2 Athlons. In general though, it would be nice to see an AMD processor in these quarterly builds more regularly. I know you guys treat it as a competition, but, for readers like me, it's more informative to see how the competition shapes up rather than seeing 5% boosts from the latest Ivy-to-Haswell iteration. The higher budget guys are pretty much exclusively using Intel these days (I'll get my Haswell comparisons there), so your lower budget builds are the only place to reasonably see how a good AMD build stacks up. FX-6300 is definitely the best value AMD processor though, so it's going to be tough for you to beat this if you go up or down in cpu budget to get the Athlon or octocore.


bemused_fred said:
Why is everyone saying "go with the HD 7950" when they clearly said in the article that it only became cheaper after they finished the build?
"AMD's Radeon HD 7950 now sells for even less. But at the time we picked our parts, the GeForce GTX 760 was more affordable."

Honestly, read the article before commenting!


Wooooosaaaaa.... :D 
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September 23, 2013 1:55:13 AM

great article. really happy to finally see an fx in an sbm build. you picked a perfect time to put the fx to test. is this the first vishera based sbm pc? it's been so long that i've forgotten the last time i saw one, lol. can't criticize any of the component choices. the config really shows what a real fx6300 based $650 budget gaming pc would look like.

debunked one of my personal myths on overclocking possibility and limits. i thought the cpu would be more oc'able with an aftermarket cooler at this price point. it clearly shows that you gotta compromise gfx budget and perf to afford better mobo and 3rd party cooling.

i hope amd drops prices more since they're very silent about am3+ platforms upgradability. that'll make the fxes even more viable for budget builds pricewise.

i am sure some people will start comparing current prices to old ones despite the article stating reasons in the very first page. :lol: 

edit: just remembered that there was an fx8350 based $1k sbm pc... making this one the second one..i think..
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September 23, 2013 3:24:41 AM

I'm really confused why you used the reference cooler on the 760 when there are multiple better cooling designs available such as EVGA ACX, Asus DirectCUII, etc. for around the same price. Modern cases with an adequate amount of ventilation can easily deal with the waste heat and the cooling potential is just so much greater.

I also would have gone with a slightly higher wattage Seasonic or Super Flower designed PSU like the XFX ProSeries 550w that currently sells for only around $10-20 more and as others mentioned a motherboard with actual VRM cooling.
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September 23, 2013 3:34:08 AM

Anyone else somewhat blown away by the budgets?

Unless they're treating "performance PC" as "Workstation with graphics," methinks that there's a bit of a 'subtle' push for the more expensive Haswell, and probably 4k displays.
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September 23, 2013 4:19:55 AM

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.
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September 23, 2013 4:29:50 AM

Based on this, I'd just get the i5. The Q1 system was $600, not $650, and it's 8+ months old, uses less power which means less noise... so it's better overall. Just use the leftover $50 and any price drops to get a faster GPU and you'll blow away the current $650 build.
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September 23, 2013 4:36:12 AM

Something to think about for the next SBM, including a max price it would be interesting to see, (similar to the itc system) to centralize on 1 item (like all 3 builds must use a amd 8300 fx processor) and each level has XXX amount to spend around the processor. It would be interesting read on how the performance of the parts around the centralized item affect the performance of the system as a whole
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September 23, 2013 5:04:46 AM

Great build! I would like to see how it fares in a year when more games coded with modern architectures in mind come to the market , vs a core i3.
Don't you think it would be a good idea to dump Skyrim out of the testing suite? This is a game coded for old architectures that will hinder the performance of this processor. But this won't be the standard from now on...
Probably including Crysis 3 , BF4 or Metro LL would be better. Besides , Skyrim ,or FY2012 are not that demanding nowadays
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September 23, 2013 5:18:48 AM

Lee Yong Quan said:
would love to see how well does the $350 pc compare with the Q2 $400 PC! then i would know how well my pc would perform when gta 5 is out!


350$ PC is a terrible idea... when you build this? double the budget or be disappointed. It may be fun for many of us to squeez out most performance you can on this much of money but c'mon... It would not be my advice to anyone to build gamming pc with this money.
What are the exact specs ?
If gta V will be equal quality port to GTA IV I'm afraid you are better off getting it on console.
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September 23, 2013 6:02:12 AM

Will you please update Winrar and Winzip to their latest versions? You will see much better threading.
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September 23, 2013 6:03:50 AM

I love that you decided to use the fx-6300 but I don't see the point of using the stock cooler. We want to see the fx processors overclocked to their limits. Also, I'd rather get 4 GB of RAM and a better PSU, just for peace of mind. And where are you going to include Guild Wars 2 in your benchmarks? That is a cpu heavy game that most people are playing now.
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September 23, 2013 6:22:53 AM

vehlor said:
I love that you decided to use the fx-6300 but I don't see the point of using the stock cooler. We want to see the fx processors overclocked to their limits. Also, I'd rather get 4 GB of RAM and a better PSU, just for peace of mind. And where are you going to include Guild Wars 2 in your benchmarks? That is a cpu heavy game that most people are playing now.


I think that if you don't want to OC you should buy i3. It's much better choice.

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September 23, 2013 6:26:34 AM

Go AMD! You really showed them, with ALMOST coming close to a 6 month old cheaper machine that uses less power! Hip hip Hooray!
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September 23, 2013 6:27:48 AM

This costs 965.97 US Dollar in my country ( FML )
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September 23, 2013 6:35:22 AM

@Trac

I'd say AMD is doing pretty damn well, considering how they only have ~10% of the CPU market.
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September 23, 2013 6:43:02 AM

@MajonCry, Yeah, it's not terrible. Just why would anyone buy this over the Q1 PC? It makes no sense what's so ever. I have no idea how AMD is even still selling CPU's.
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September 23, 2013 6:43:40 AM

I've been as anxious as you it seems about the price drops on the FX 6300 series! Glad to see it perform decently.
As a side-note: I know you don't included the price of the OS and peripherals in these competitions since they're a foregone conclusion and wouldn't affect performance... but how about an article on a linux box vs. windows box using the savings to boost performance? I'm not a linux fanboy. I installed it two months ago for the first time just to goof off, and using Wine isn't my favorite thing in the world, but when you're in a pinch, it gets you through.
At any rate, great build! Here's to hoping I win it :) 
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September 23, 2013 7:10:10 AM

crimson87 said:
Don't you think it would be a good idea to dump Skyrim out of the testing suite? This is a game coded for old architectures that will hinder the performance of this processor. But this won't be the standard from now on...

Games designed "for the old architectures" still represent something like 99% of total PC games out there and I doubt many game designers aside from the high-profile CPU-intensive names will bust their asses with writing finely threaded code unless they absolutely have to due to considerably increased complexity.

Many games simply lack the computational complexity to justify bothering with threading in the first place, so no point in bothering with the effort there.
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September 23, 2013 7:53:21 AM

geok1ng said:
I stopped reading when i saw the USd 250 GTX 760 instead of the USD 200 HD 7950, a card with more memory and better results at 260x1600. TH NVIDIA's bias gets worst every day.


Let me just say this...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

How I wish there was a facepalm smiley.
And one more thing... Better results at 1600p? SUUUURE...



And I own 2 HD7950s, so stop complaining and wake up.
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September 23, 2013 8:01:03 AM

vehlor said:
I love that you decided to use the fx-6300 but I don't see the point of using the stock cooler. We want to see the fx processors overclocked to their limits.

that kind of o.c. requires higher budget, outside this article's budget limit unless you cut into other component's budget such as the gfx card's. a cm hyper 212 evo will push it to near $700 w/o compromising gfx card i.e. gaming budget, since this is a gaming pc.
vehlor said:

Also, I'd rather get 4 GB of RAM and a better PSU, just for peace of mind. And where are you going to include Guild Wars 2 in your benchmarks? That is a cpu heavy game that most people are playing now.

budget contstraints, again. imho, i too, would like a beefier psu for a fx-gaming pc. 4 GB ram? not for a new gaming pc.
here's toms' gw2 testing:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-perfor...
geok1ng said:
I stopped reading when i saw the USd 250 GTX 760 instead of the USD 200 HD 7950, a card with more memory and better results at 260x1600. TH NVIDIA's bias gets worst every day.

underlined: that was a stupid thing to do. there is no nvidia bias in the article. did you read the prior sbm articles where radeon 7870 myst ed. was being used? nvm..
in the 'Graphics card and the Hard Drive' page (that is page 4 i.e. four), it says that gtx 760 was more affordable when they placed orders and also mentions radeon 7950's current price. your reading ability needs improvement.
i used simple and small sentences so that you can pay attention long enough to understand. :) 
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September 23, 2013 8:01:56 AM

Paul (and Don, and Thomas): in future SBM articles, please place a bolded paragraph on page #1 indicating that comments made by people who clearly haven't read the entire article may be deleted.
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September 23, 2013 8:08:42 AM

Microcenter sells the 6300FX bundled with a free motherboard for 110$
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September 23, 2013 8:12:31 AM

Aris Vasilopoulos said:
Microcenter sells the 6300FX bundled with a free motherboard for 110$

not everyone has access to a microcenter. most people might end up paying more to drive to one. mc sometimes charges more than other retailers for other components.
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September 23, 2013 8:37:13 AM

I went without an optical drive 3 years ago and haven't missed it. Please don't include it next quarter. It's a waste. For those who insist that that they need it, use an external usb optical drive.
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September 23, 2013 8:39:03 AM

Onus said:
Paul (and Don, and Thomas): in future SBM articles, please place a bolded paragraph on page #1 indicating that comments made by people who clearly haven't read the entire article may be deleted.


Thanks! Seems this is very necessary for the lazy ones...
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September 23, 2013 8:39:50 AM

Aegean BM said:
I went without an optical drive 3 years ago and haven't missed it. Please don't include it next quarter. It's a waste. For those who insist that that they need it, use an external usb optical drive.


Or just create a USB boot disc... :D 
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September 23, 2013 8:45:36 AM

Novuake said:
Aegean BM said:
I went without an optical drive 3 years ago and haven't missed it. Please don't include it next quarter. It's a waste. For those who insist that that they need it, use an external usb optical drive.

Or just create a USB boot disc... :D 

cost of the usb drive or the ext. o.d.d. would have to be counted in the budget. unless o.d.d.s go the way of floppy drives, those should remain an option, especially in tower pcs.
i don't mind skipping them for small form factor builds though.
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September 23, 2013 9:03:46 AM

F1 2012? Why not move ahead and use GRID2? You guys are getting stuck in the past for this game engine.

Also, why not use an aftermarket cooler instead of the DVDR? I mean, I would always recommend going for an aftermarket cooler and get a better OC than getting a DVDR!

You guys should start recommending the external drives for long term use. Besides, they can be shared among different PCs.

Cheers!
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a b K Overclocking
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September 23, 2013 9:21:32 AM

It'd be interesting if you could build a rig based on the FX 8320 next time.
That would mean stepping down to a HD 7950 which is an even better overclocker than the GTX 760.
In my opinion a build like this would dominate the overclocked avarage performance.
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September 23, 2013 9:44:17 AM

de5_Roy said:

cost of the usb drive or the ext. o.d.d. would have to be counted in the budget. unless o.d.d.s go the way of floppy drives

That's my point. IMHO, they have gone the way of the floppies. Even if they aren't there yet, I disagree that the cost has to be counted in the budget. Monitor, keyboard, and mouse are not included, and they are essential. USB optical drive or USB thumb drive can go in the same category.
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September 23, 2013 10:11:27 AM

Aegean BM said:
For those who insist that that they need it, use an external usb optical drive.

Personally, I prefer stuffing the DVD drive in my tower and not have one more external box with one more external power brick, power cable and data cable to mess with.

I have gone through the circus of taking one of my DVD drives out of a PC, putting it in an external USB box and shuffling it between two PCs because one of them didn't have a DVD drive in it a few times and the hassle isn't worth saving $30 IMO, even if I only need to do that 2-3 times per year.
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September 23, 2013 10:19:10 AM

Aegean BM said:

That's my point. IMHO, they have gone the way of the floppies. Even if they aren't there yet, I disagree that the cost has to be counted in the budget. Monitor, keyboard, and mouse are not included, and they are essential. USB optical drive or USB thumb drive can go in the same category.

i get it now. you want to count ext. o.d.d. like monitor, k/b and mouse. i think that may be true for internal drives instead. many people might have one or two usb thumb drives bigger than 4GB capacity. i can't say the same about external o.d.d.
if you want to make the internal o.d.d. external, you have to buy a sata-to-usb converter cable, or an external box with data cable. putting in the internal drive for installation and taking it out afterwards - is much less hassle.
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September 23, 2013 10:21:23 AM

Would have used a different MOBO! But good build. Now that the 7950 is cheaper, I would have gotten it and put that money into an i5. An i5/7950 rig for $650 is ridiculous.
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September 23, 2013 10:53:34 AM

InvalidError said:

Personally, I prefer stuffing the DVD drive in my tower and not have one more external box with one more external power brick, power cable and data cable to mess with.

I have gone through the circus of taking one of my DVD drives out of a PC, putting it in an external USB box and shuffling it between two PCs because one of them didn't have a DVD drive in it a few times and the hassle isn't worth saving $30 IMO, even if I only need to do that 2-3 times per year.

I agree with this. You may or may not have one to pull from another system, and shuffling drives that way is a PITA. Plenty of software is still sold on optical media, so I think it should be included.
I'd like budgets to get smaller. If your gaming PC is built with a HD7850 or GTX650Ti [Boost], you're hardly "suffering," even if you have to settle for "only" High settings.

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a b K Overclocking
September 23, 2013 11:58:01 AM

I like the Athlon X4 idea. Thanks for giving AMD a shot, it looks like they are a viable budget alternative, Especially considering the threaded workloads, Most of us don't use our computers to game exclusively, but when we do we want the machine to handle whatever we can throw at it.
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September 23, 2013 1:07:05 PM

Hi Paul,

I really enjoyed your article! Been waiting for the third quarter SBM anxiously and am glad its here. I also wanted to say that I appreciate your candor in explaining why you didn't get a 7950 and I'm sorry there seem to be a few folks that missed it.

Just to add to the discussion about optical drives - I do appreciate you and the other builders including them when possible. I still use optical media somewhat frequently and although I'm sure it will eventually phase out like floppies, it isn't quite gone yet. So that's my 2 cents. :) 

I do have a question for you about your choice of power supply. I noticed that the Antec VP-450 only has one 6-pin connector and your video card requires two. Can I assume you used a Molex-to-6 pin connector? I understand it is a small detail, I'm just curious.

Last comment that may or may not be helpful- CoolMax has a 500W PSU that has active PFC, is 80 Plus rated and sports a 6 pin and a 6+2 pin connector along with all the same protection features as the Antec VP-450 for a few bucks cheaper.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/coolmax-power-supply-zx500

Its been on my radar for the last few months and the price seems pretty stable. Would you consider it an option for a budget build?

Thanks again for the article- I look forward to the rest of them!
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a b K Overclocking
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September 23, 2013 1:18:22 PM

Cool article. Nice to see an SBM build with an FX at a price point where it is actually practical. I think there was a $1,000 SBM that used an 8350 which clearly offered less value. Also nice to have a go to article that should quell the i3 trolls without much argument lol.
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a b K Overclocking
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September 23, 2013 1:55:50 PM

While I believe this build touches the reasonable capacity limit of the VP-450, in the absence of a competent technical review, I would not trust anything with a "Coolmax" label on it. In particular, I don't see that one listed at http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDet... so the claim of certification may be an outright lie.
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September 23, 2013 2:24:06 PM

Onus said:
While I believe this build touches the reasonable capacity limit of the VP-450, in the absence of a competent technical review, I would not trust anything with a "Coolmax" label on it. In particular, I don't see that one listed at http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDet... so the claim of certification may be an outright lie.

Hardwaresecrets did a complete tear-down and review of this unit in 2012. It's made by FSP and scored above average:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Antec-VP450-Powe...

The PSU cannot claim any kind of certification however because it lacks PFC. It was still 80-85% efficient which would have put it in the 80+ certification category if it had PFC.


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