System Builder Marathon, Sept. '09: $650 Gaming PC
Benchmark Results: Audio/Video Encoding
Audio/Video Encoding
The iTunes test largely favors the Pentium E5200, as the stock $600 PC even squeaks out a win against the overclocked $650 PC.
A similar situation is seen in Lame, where once again the $650 PC is handed a loss to the previous budget SBM PC.
The Pentium E5200 trails at stock clocks, but catches up to the Phenom II once both are overclocked. Clock-for-clock the outcome would likely have shifted to slightly favor the E5200.
Here the two systems scale fairly evenly based on CPU core speed. Our $650 PC’s CPU upgrade rewarded another substantial decrease in job time at stock speeds, while its slightly higher boxed-cooler overclock allows it to finish eight seconds quicker than the previous system.
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dirtmountain A nicely done build, great work with overclocking on a stock cooler and an impeccable write up. Thanks for the great article Mr. Henningsen. AMD did a good job for a budget build, especially at stock clocks.Reply -
I usually love reading these, but this time I just went directly to the comment section. There's no point in building or owning an amd box, they are too weak compared to modern Intel/Nvidia based systems.Reply
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anamaniac Wonderful. =DReply
What about the new $100 quad core athlon with no L3?
I know I like extra cores. Wonderful choice regardless.
I wonder what the quad core athlon with a 512MB 5850 (which would increase the budget though) will be like. Both cheap yet highend parts. =D
Nice to see what only a pocketful of cash can get you. -
tacoslave i know it wasn't available at the time but what about that 100 dollar quad core the athlon II x4?Reply -
rdawise Good article. I know you stated you were leaving the "unlocking" of the other cores to the winner of the contest, but were you guys able to unlock? If so, could you re-run those benchmarks? Again great article.Reply -
stray_gator While "forcing" all AMD builds for a single marathon is a good idea, the timing is somewhat unfortunate.Reply
An article which explores the performance and value of a complete Lynnfield build is something I (and many others, i'd dare to guess) would like to see but haven't yet, and this month's SBM is a missed opportunity in that regard. -
jj463rd That's a bitchin budget gamer system especially looking at the gaming benchmarks.Just this month I was thinking about building a similar type of system with the Phenom II X2 550BE.I was going to go with gigabytes 785G type board (just one graphics card slot) though however I may reconsider that especially with what you presented here although I was shooting for a much cheaper budget build (about $180 less than what you have),Newegg did have a gigabyte 785G board with the Phenom II X2 and $20 off in a combo deal until the end of this month.Reply
I think that your choices were better than mine (more powerful). -
gkay09 Another alternate mobo - 785G ...they are availbale in AM3/AM2+ flavours and have SB 710, which can allow core unlocking -http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394Reply
But not sure about their o/c potential though...