
Case: Rosewill R101-P-BK MicroATX Mid Tower
The fit and finish details of the Rosewill chassis we used last quarter left us impressed. But we had concerns about the structural rigidity around back, also finding cable management to be a chore. So, we looked at different enclosure options for today's machine.
Although it’s only 1.25" taller, the mid-tower R101-P-BK sports three external 5.25” bays and six 3.5” bays. The inclusion of a 120 mm exhaust fan, adequate room to house our components, and an affordable $30 price tag were our three main considerations for giving Rosewill another shot this quarter.
Read Customer Reviews of Rosewill R101-P-BK Mid-Tower
Power Supply: Antec VP-450 450 W
Since our ECS GeForce GTX 560 Ti comes with a power adapter, we knew we could count on Antec's affordable VP-450 to drive our system. The combined +12 V rating of 30 A is plenty for our needs, while a quiet 120 mm fan, protection circuitry, and Antec’s two-year warranty add to this PSU's value.
Read Customer Reviews of Antec's VP-450 450 W PSU
Optical Drive: LG 22x DVD Burner SATA Model GH22NS90B-OEM
We don't have a lot of room to splurge on fancy optical drives here, so we always look to spend as little as possible on a reliable SATA-based DVD burner. This time around we chose the same favorably-reviewed 22x LG model that served our needs back in March.
- 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