We summarize performance and efficiency using last quarter's stock $650 system as a baseline.
Performance Summary
Earlier this year, the $650 PC delivered just enough performance to edge out Don's pricier enthusiast-oriented system in overall bang-for-the-buck value, despite being GPU-heavy and built specifically for 1920x1080 gaming.

After achieving only 68% of last quarter's overall performance at 77% of that last system's cost, today's $500 build prepares for total embarrassment in tomorrow’s value comparison.
No, this doesn't come as a surprise. By spending just 10% of our smaller budget on an entry-level CPU, we knowingly showed up to this battle armed with big graphics and little more. Don't get us wrong; the Celeron G530 offers very good performance for its low price tag. But it's not able to compensate for the fact that our big-ticket item only shines in one particular component of the SBM's weighting system.
Efficiency

Using the same amount of energy, on average, as last quarter's effort, while only delivering 68% of its overall performance, today's system suffers a big loss in efficiency. But breaking the power results down a little more tells a more complete story.
In office productivity or content creation tasks (or any other time the GeForce GTX 560 Ti sits idle), this machine's power consumption would be extremely low, and its efficiency would be more in line with the preceding build. Where efficiency suffers is gaming, in which case you care more about playable performance than what's being pulled from the wall.
- Paying The Price For Ambition
- CPU And Cooler
- Motherboard And Memory
- Graphics Card And Hard Drive
- Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
- Assembling Our Budget Box And Limited Overclocking
- Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 And DiRT 3
- Benchmark Results: The Elders Scroll V: Skyrim And StarCraft II
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power Consumption And Temperatures
- Performance Summary And Efficiency
- Did Our Gamble Pay Off?
To think, for $500, one can experience most of what PC gaming has to offer.
In this day and age, an Xbox 360/PS3 is absolutely inexcusable.
any enthusiast with limited budget would want to maximize his core clocks with higher voltages.. the card can keep cool by increasing the fan speed.
More noise for a gaming session is acceptable.
pun intended ?
I can't give you exact fps rates, but my machine is very similar to this one (only difference is the GPU: 6950+Z68) and I get similar frame rates in all the tested games. So I'll infer to you what this rig would probably get close to.
Diablo 3 maxes out at 60fps with occasional dips down to ~30fps when getting mobbed on hell. As for SC2, frame rates for me tended to be around 35fps on average with everything maxed out at 1920x1080 for both games.
Ah, but think way back.... slot 1, 440BX, and the Celeron 300A? I had a 266@412MHz, a 300A@464MHz, a 300A@450MHz, and a 333(that topped out down at an 83 MHz FSB).
While not the first chips I had overclocked, those slot 1 Celeron's gave me the incurable OC bug! *dreams of G530K*
I did notice one thing when I compared this build with my system - mine idles at 48-52 watts, too, and I use a 500W S12II. I think right-sizing the PSU will add to the efficiency. A 350w PSU is my bet for bringing the idle power draw closer to the 20% mark of the PSU rating where efficiency starts to pick up (as per 80plus requirements). I say 350w because whoever gets this will likely want to upgrade the CPU to something beefier sooner or later. Nah, sooner!
Thanks, Paul! for tackling love and system-building with reckless abandon.
As mentioned, it was maiinly a matter of consistency with the past few builds. Dealing with fixed CPU clocks and memory frequency, I just haven't been too aggresive with previous efforts with Radeons, and thus didn't want to boost voltage here with the GTX. Trying to play it fair, that's all. Maybe once we revisit overclockable platforms, and are already dealing with increaded noise, I'll get itchy to max-out the GPU.
Thanks for the feedback though. I'm actually surprised given the balance of the system, that people would desire to see aggressive GPU overclocking.
PC gaming FTW!!
If you read the gaming CPUs hieracy chart, PhIIX4 965 roughly equals Core i3 2100t (power saving) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html and is better than a Celeron. Simply put, Core i3 2100 (not power saving) is better. PhII 965 can only match it with a ~almost 4GHz OC.
It's nice to know that my Ph II X3 isn't going to need to b replaced anytime soon
To think, for $500, one can experience most of what PC gaming has to offer.
In this day and age, an Xbox 360/PS3 is absolutely inexcusable.
So we're left with 3 systems. One just short of high-end, one just short of enthusiast, and one just short of budget gamer.
Once you've seen the market, you should have put more reason into the price limits.
pentium g530 can't handle a 560Ti, its too weak.
it is almost equal to or less than phenom 2 x3