
In an effort to replicate the way you'd use this PC, we leave power-saving features enabled on both rigs. Also, we don't override the automatic fan controls on either of the stock configurations. As a result, we basically sacrifice thermal performance and impose higher system temperatures in order to enjoy less fan noise.
Both machines employ an Antec VP-450 power supply, which offers respectable efficiency, even if it doesn't boast an 80 PLUS certification.

There's clearly a problem with this quarter's active idle power use on the desktop, since we'd expect it to land right around 50 W. We're thinking that something was messing with the graphics card's power management. And, despite our best efforts, we were unable to solve this mystery.
Monitoring utilities confirmed for us that, at its stock and overclocked settings, the card was properly idling down to its 2D frequencies and voltage levels. Our power meter begs to differ, though. Confirming our suspicion of PowerColor's card is the fact that, when the system enters standby, consumption drops under 42 W instead of giving us the 10-12 W reduction expected from ZeroCore kicking in. For one reason or another, our graphics card simply chews up an extra 20 W on the Windows desktop.

Though the performance of Intel's bundled heat sinks and fans isn't particularly impressive, they serve up quiet operation and adequate cooling, particularly since we're unable to overclock.
At a 20-25% fan duty cycle, our Radeon HD 7850 runs hotter than last quarter's GeForce GTX 560. It's entirely possible that the higher temps are directly attributable to the power consumption issues mentioned above. But GPU load temperatures weren't a big problem. Both overvolted and overclocked cards had cooling in reserve. The Radeon barely hit a 50% duty cycle, while the GeForce peaked at 53%.
- Squeezing More Bang From The Same Buck
- CPU And Cooler
- Motherboard And Memory
- Graphics Card And Hard Drive
- Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
- Assembling Our Budget-Oriented Box
- Limited Overclocking Strikes Again
- Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Benchmark Results: F1 2012
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power Consumption And Temperatures
- Is This Our Best $500 Gamer Ever?
Exactly. Couldn't've said it better.
Linux for a gaming desktop I dont think so.
What about the Phenom II 965? It's only $75 at TigerDirect.
I think they'd be better off with a B75 motherboard, 4GB RAM and an i3-3220.
Exactly. Couldn't've said it better.
It's too expensive.
This was a hardware test. You're OS complaints are irrelevant and there's no practical difference between Home and Pro versions when it comes to simple performance tests. such as these.
Several Linux distros works pretty well with most modern popular games, just FYI. Also, getting Windows for free legally is easy if you care to do it. Dreamspark has many free versions available to college students and most people know at least one, even if by proxy. Even in the unlikelihood of not knowing any, there's still the eval copies that MS gives away for free on their own website.
I disagree. The current drivers for Windows 8 are pretty much on-par with the Windows 7 drivers. Heck, they're better than AMD's pre-Catalyst 12.6 drivers.
Meh, I would've preferred seeing at least an A8-5600K with a cheaper motherboard and memory kit or keep the same memory kit and get a cheaper case. It could have fit, IDK why Tom's didn't do it. Maybe there weren't good prices on other components at the time
Windows home still costs $100 which is still some how not part of the budget.