Power Consumption And Temperatures

Probably the best bang for buck build compared to the $2400 and $1200 PC. I remember seeing Anandtech using the A8 series with integrated gpu for their $500/600 build. This looks much better for gaming.

The 2500K is really worth the extra cash over the 2400, but only if you purchase a Z68 or P67. For gaming, you might be better off with an i3 and putting the remainder towards a faster GPU as suggested in the conclusion.

For the price, the 2500K + a P67 or Z68 is unbeatable and certainly worth breaking the budget over. But for SBM, I can see why going the 2400 plus H61 route makes sense.

Personally, I would have preferred to see a cheaper motherboard and CPU config with an SSD (instead of the mechanical storage). It wouldn't have scored as well, but I can't get by without an SSD as easily as I could a slower processor.

I wanted the $500 build to get bumped up to $600, but that was to add a SSD so that each SBM machine could have some solid state action.

i might be missing something but on the just cause 2 chart:

The chart seems to indicate that the current machine did beat the former... though perhaps not by alot.

nice all around build

I was waiting for this to come out.

So would a 6950 + i3 give better performance in games @ 1080x1920 than this build?

Would a duel-core Celeron hurt gaming that much?

I must be lucky that I can get 2500K for $180 around here. Cheaper than the 2400 they have in this.

I wonder how this compares to the $1200 fail rig?

Definitely a kick-ass machine, but imo this line is simply wrong and misleading.
If you factor out today's and September's cpu and motherboard, the difference between the rest of the parts is a mere 8$. Furthermore, with only 2 dimms and no overclocking capability whatsoever I really can't see how you can call this MSI board a more "feature-rich" than September's ASRock.

The way I see it, today's and September's machines are in two different price segments, and at this low budget, pouring an extra ~90$ can actually give you a lot. For example, given today's system, if we take out the cpu, motherboard and gpu, we will be able to fit inside a Phenom II x4 960T (125$), some 60$-70$ motheboard, an hd6950 1gb gpu, and probably still have room for a 20$ HSF. Talk about value.

I'm not trying to defend amd here or anything, It's just that a lot of times people come to me asking for advice on what computer to get, and I can fairly confidently say that when someone wants a 4 core sandy bridge at this budget, I'll say to him that I won't help and tell him to go find a deal somewhere because in my eyes, getting a cpu that's 1/3 of your budget only to be able to get an extra minute or two in every benchmark or getting high fps in low resolutions, is too much of a compromise in every other component.

I don't understand why use i5 2400 with a h61 ? They can build by a simple i3 + h61 or phenom ii x4 + amd am3+ budget MB and save the money for a better gpu like 6950 or 560 ti

If only Intel had unlocked i3!

... Then less people would buy i5, so why should they?
If AMD had offered a similarly compelling alternative to i5 then Intel might have done so.

What I don't get is why you went with an mATX board at all last time. You could have easily gone with a slightly slower processor or some cheaper RAM or something and had a full board. Last I checked, AMD boards were still cheaper than the Intel counterparts.

why not the AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma , a true quad core , and amd haven't cancel it yet like other phenoms and its 125 $ , when a core is near 200 $ even if its good its not value and budget any more

and sorry whats the point of 6870 if its gonna be bottle necked abit by the cpu i think the 6850 would be more balanced and cheaper and no extra power pin so more efficient , and balanced = stable , tom hardware forget that this is a budget build

yh 1 more thing i gave every one i dont like a thumb down

Emad, your first comment actually made sense, I'm not sure if that was intended.

I wouldn't cross-off Micro ATX. Take a look at the $2400 PC, then the Micro ATX build that came before it. For slightly less money, Micro ATX was better.

That should have read, (unlike Crysis or JC2 @ low settings), the current STOCK pc, was unable to beat the OVERCLOCKED September PC because of the GPU demands at 8xAA + Max. But you are right, both stock or both overclocked the current PC was a bit ahead.