Winners of PCs in Our Dec. 2011 System Builder Contest

I gotta stop clicking on these articles. Bloody regulations

This is great, unfortunately the $1,200 machine isn't going to win any fans, let alone want to be won by many people.

To hell with those USA contests; I just saw that Tom's won Samsung's SSD giveaway and is getting 15 (IIRC) 128GB SSDs to give out to its members, and that should be international... please update us on that ASAP!

Oh, btw, horribly, horribly ugly cases. And here I thought that nothing looks worse than Cooler Master's HAF series... And seriously, $40 for a 2x2GB 1600 RAM kit when 2x4GB is just $10 more?! Somebody is really stingy out there!

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.

I would love to do some linux gaming on one of those

why should it be international...

cause the company adds on this page are international, that why!

It should be international because a a big number of members are worldwide ,not USA residents. And that is not fair. Id had to be stipulated , if a worldwide member win ,he pay the shipping.

I really hope I didn't enter this already from home; don't think so, but...I wish instead of discarding ALL entries if someone put in more than one, you kept just the last one submitted. People do make honest mistakes.
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.

I'm not going to enter this give away due to the risk that I might win that $1200 system.

The way I understand it, through no fault or intent of Tom's, the elected parasites in the U.S. have set up tax laws in a manner that prevents them from providing prizes to international recipients (similarly, Rhode Island's parasites have imposed legal restrictions on their own state's residents). Should I win any of these systems, I have decided that any parts I give away I will only send to a Rhode Island or International address.

nice xmas gift. not to crazy about the case designs thou

While I may not use it as built here, if I won the $1200 system I would be perfectly happy. I won the $1000 system in September and repurposed its guts into my home server and am selling the GPUs to a friend who has been using a lone GTS 450 for far to long!

It is a nice system, but my laptop is better (Alienware M18x)

Bulldozer, Biostar and Vertex Plus in $1200 rig, that's just sad.

I hope i win

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?

To all of the people wanting this to be an international giveaway. Most current technology is illegal to export to some countries, that is why these are all local. Basically the U.S. don't want them playing on our 360's until we get 720. It's bad enough having my arse kicked in Halo by 8 year old Koreans, let alone the rest of the world. Just log into WOW, find a friend in the US and use his address like all the Aussies I know....

personally, none of these systems have what i was hoping for, a 4tb hdd, i would really love to get my hands on one and take all 5 of my hdds out of my current build and store them for emergancy backups till a 4tb drive comes down to sub 200$ prices.

of all the systems, the only one i dont want would be the 600$ computer. the cpu is about the same as mine, gpu is about the same, but the motherboard... only 2 ram slots? i have to say hell no there, the only way for get more than 8gb of ram that way (and i have use for more than 8gb) would be to get 8gb sticks for insane prices.

im a bit iffy on the 1200$ one too, i dont like that motherboard much... only 5sata slots, 1 for dvd and i couldn't fit all my current drives into it granted 4 ram slots is pretty nice, but should be standard. my current cpu is in the same prefomance class as the bulldozer, at least till it gets properly implemented. the gpus are a step up, but i wouldn't need 2, most likely... the ssd, i could use that as a scratch disc, and move over other things that take up space but need to be fast.

the 2400$ is the the only one that completely outclasses my current computer, aside for the ssd and hdds.

I'd like to win this so I can give my current system to my bro for a Christmas present as I don't have much money.

Excluding Rhode Island? Man, that place must be really remote or something. Still Hawaii and Alaska (Not sure about the legal status of Puerto Rico) isn't excluded apparently so... Man, Rhode Island must be real special or something.

Sigh... this contest doesn't matter to me since I don't live in the USA anyway.

I enter these contests every time. I'm using a laptop originally manufactured in 2003 as my main computer. I would absolutely love to win any of these builds.

Because Samsung's contest was international.

Leftover tower cases from the 90s. People today buy space-saving all-in-one PCs and handy laptops.

GTFO troll

I would appreciate it if you set up an email notice for contests to US peeps, as opposed to making it appear all over the website and plastered in the RSS feeds for the rest of us non-US viewers of this website. An opt-in email mailing list for competition notices would lower visits to these competition pages from the rest of the world; and subsequent comments.

Thank you and seasons greetings from an Australian viewer of TomsHW

i would sure love a PC to run Battlefield 3.

As I said, Tom's should make contest by region.

You said it for me