System Recommendations: Your BestConfigs Are Online!
After weeks of poring over submissions, setting up polls, and watching the votes add up, the BestConfigs section of Tom's Hardware is finally up to date with your top choices. Thanks to all who participated; feel free to share your favorite builds!
We asked you to build them. We asked you to vote on them. Now we’re asking you to check them out and recommend them to friends and family building their own PCs!
Alright, so it seems like you guys are doing quite a bit of work here, and the entire Tom’s Hardware staff appreciates the heck out of it. Our Q3’11 BestConfigs are finally up to date, and the winners have their props.
A bit of back-story: a couple of months ago, we asked you to weigh in with components for 10 different builds in the Systems section of our forum. The submissions poured in and, after a couple of weeks, we locked those threads. Thomas, Don, Andrew, and I sat down and picked our top three options in each category, trying to mix it up as much as possible to give you some real variety. Our community manager, Joe, took those selections and created a poll for each system, and we turned the contenders back to you for a vote.
Well, the votes are tallied, and we have winners in all 10 categories. They are:
Budget Intel-Based Gaming PC: The community chose techo’s build
Budget AMD-Based Gaming PC: The community chose lunyone’s build
High-End Intel Gaming PC: The community chose sadams04’s build
Intel-Based Office PC: The community chose r0aringdrag0n’s build
High-end AMD Gaming PC: The community chose mjmjpfaff’s build
AMD-Based Office PC: The community chose ice919’s build
MicroATX Gaming Build: The community chose ojas’ build
Home Theater PC: The community chose sadams04’s build
High-End Workstation: The community chose gkay09’s build
Do-It-Yourself NAS: The community chose palladin9479’s build
Don’t worry if your submission wasn’t picked this quarter. We’re going to keep the BestConfigs feature refreshed, preserving each winner on the Update section of the page, but making sure we’re covering the very latest hardware. So, we’ll have a whole new round of famous builds in a few more months for you to recommend to family and friends!
Thanks for contributing, folks. Your collective efforts serve as a resource for less experienced builders looking for the experts’ recommendations on their next do-it-yourself build. And while we experiment around with different parts in our quarterly System Builder Marathon, it’s hard to beat the opinions of the world’s foremost hardware enthusiasts.
Best regards,
Chris Angelini
Worldwide Editor-in-Chief, Tom’s Hardware
That's one of the reasons many people repeatedly asked Tom's to define the actual budget of the "budget" builds in the first place.
That's one of the reasons many people repeatedly asked Tom's to define the actual budget of the "budget" builds in the first place.
Would you need an Intel based office PC with more graphics than the H2000 is able to provide? I know it doesn't even deserve calling it graphics, but a 6700 card is overkill.
Thought the same about it, but if you made an AMD based 900$ PC you wouldn't call it a budget PC anyway.
We can change the budgets next quarter, for sure. But yeah, those were the systems that folks built and voted on ;-)
2500k is the best gaming CPU while 2600k is the best workhorse
and a gaming machine is all about the GPUs-2600k is a waste
P07h34d-955 BE is a great chip for the money for GAMING
Best bang for buck gaming CPU out right now
what chip were you thinking?
Nobody pointed out that the multimedia build doesnt have a tuner in it?
Any media PC needs to have a tv tuner.
So perhaps 2x 6950 2GB cards might offer a better bang/buck ratio, at least that's the way I see it.
That wasn't in my build. They've added that on their own (check the forums for the original).
I remember putting a $350 computer together for my friend back in the day for light gaming; I want to know what a budget like that is capable of now!
1 budget intel builds, a BUDGET in mind would buy a Core i3 at most and a 560Ti at most i built for my little brother a core i3 witha 6850 and a 720p good quality monitor so no scaling would ruin the image and he is happy with 570 dlls of rig
and
2 i happen to agree that a 955 or any AMD phenom ll with a crossfire config with high end cards will bottleneck
How about this?
DVD =19
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136236
HDD = 40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136770
6670 = $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121442
ram = $26
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161279
athlon ii plus mobo = $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.699098
case =$30
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815006
total 349.88
Thanks a ton. Last thing we want on the forums is people asking if it's possible to fit 2 cards in one slot or something as vague (and cursing me for wasting their $330)
Proud to be a Tom's member!