Winners of PCs in Our Dec. 2011 System Builder Contest
Contest is closed! Thanks to all those who entered and congrats to the winners listed below.
It's that wonderful time of the year! Yes, the holidays are upon us, but we're referring to the seasonal System Builder Marathon.
We've put together three great PCs with specified budgets, and as we always do, we're giving them all away to three lucky Tom's Hardware readers.
Hit up any of the articles linked below to find the entry form for our contest.
Day 1: The $2400 Performance PC
Winner: Michael Markgraf of Menasha, WI
Day 2: The $1200 Enthusiast PC
Winner: Shawn Seehorn of Salem, OR
Day 3: The $600 Gaming PC
Winner: Alex Chtcherbinin of Jackson Heights, NY
Good luck and happy holidays!
The contest opens on December 18, 2011 9:00 PM PDT and closes on January 4, 2012 9:00 PM PDT.
3 Winners Will Be Chosen Randomly.
DUE TO LEGAL REQUIREMENTS, THIS CONTEST IS LIMITED TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE USA (EXCLUDING RI) AND 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER.
UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL PERSONAL INFORMATION WILL ONLY BE USED TO QUALIFY AND CONTACT THE WINNER.

EDIT: Haven't checked the prices in a while. Actually, 2x4GB kit is also $40. All the more shame.
God compels you to click, God compels you to click
anyway, these builds are some toms....ummm, you know what, I'm not going to say it because someone will flame me for it.
Really? I for one would love to get a free machine of that caliber, who cares if the processor isnt as good as an i5, its free.
why should it be international...
cause the company adds on this page are international, that why!
Anyway, I'd be happy to win any of them. Their destiny would be:
$2400 PC:
The simple fact is that my 970BE is meeting my current needs. I would set up the mobo, CPU, and RAM for my non-gamer wife, as a massive/overkill upgrade from her 720BE. She creates a lot of sewing and crafting videos for her YouTube channel (sogua2000 for those interested), and would appreciate the speedup more than I would. Besides, the MSI mobo does not have enough SATA ports for the drives I already have. I'd set up the SSD as a SRT drive, not a boot drive, as I've had 2/4 SSDs I bought fail, and the RMA back from one looks like it might have failed now too. I would keep one of the GTX580s for myself, and give away or sell the other, and my current GTX560Ti.
$1200 PC:
I'd built this for my wife in her Antec Sonata III case, except for the GPUs and the SSD. I would keep one of the GPUs; not sure about the second, but I'd probably give it away or sell it. If the FX CPU performed worse than the 720BE my wife has now, I'd put that back in for her (but I'd hope BD doesn't suck THAT hard).
$600 PC:
Once again, my wife would benefit more from this system than I would, although she would not need a powerful GPU.
So essentially, I'd be happy to win any of these systems, and would put them to good use.
It is a nice system, but my laptop is better
I would love to win the $1,200 machine as a game system. It won in 3 out 4 games at the highest settings while producing playable frame rates. This is mostly due to the video cards tho which only start showing their potential in 2560X1600 resolutions while overclocked. In Crysis the current system hit 38.4 to Septembers build of 37.3. Just cause 2 was a loss at 51 to 59.2fps. With F1 2010 the current system got 55fps while Septembers 50.7. To round out Metro 2033 the current system won all the playable 2560X1600 settings and all the very high detail 1920X1080. The September system couldn't even beat the none overclocked current system in very high detail 1920X1080.
The one thing the $1,200 system needed was 3 monitor testing at the lower settings to really shine.
its retarded gambleing laws, i forget the places, but some where you can give away things like this, you have to give a puzzle for them to be entered, so its a game of skill not chance.
so many countries, so many different laws, and so many places you may get in major trouble, its easier to just make the contest us only than go international.
and correct me if im wrong but this is a toms us article right?