System Builder Marathon, Q2 2013: The Articles
Here are links to each of the four articles in this quarter’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published). And remember, these systems are all being given away at the end of the marathon.
To enter the giveaway, please fill out this SurveyGizmo form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!
Day 1: The $650 Mini-ITX Gaming PC
Day 2: The $1300 Mini-ITX Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $2500 Mini-Performance PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected
Day 5: The $400 "True Spirit of Mini-ITX" PC
Introduction
When it comes to compact PCs, the boutique companies that can afford to commission their own designs are often the ones pushing the performance envelope hardest. And yet, enthusiasts still believe that adopting a form factor like mini-ITX necessarily means making severe compromises. But we showed in Meet The Tiki: Core i7-3770K And GeForce GTX 680 In A Mini-ITX Box? why this doesn't have to be true.
Of course, the only way to get Falcon Northwest's enclosure is buying the company's PC. So, for this quarter's System Builder Marathon, we wanted to give fans of speed in small spaces a handful of do-it-yourself options. Although none of the boxes we built are as small as the Tiki, they represent a healthy cross-section of what can be constructed using today's most efficient components.
Formerly a love-it or hate-it form factor reserved for boring little office PCs, mini-ITX gained gaming cred thanks in part to AMD’s DTX efforts, perhaps almost ironically given the power consumption figures of modern components. All three of our builds employ ITX motherboards, yet all three cases have the DTX-mandated second slot required for double-wide graphics cards. Similarly, all three builds use full-sized power supplies to feed those hungry cards.

Having thoroughly deviated from VIA’s ITX specification, we’ve now moved into an era of semi-compact, open-architecture, full-performance computing.
We already proved that our smaller builds can perform like their full-sized predecessors, and now we’re ready to see how they compare to each other in terms of performance and value.
| Q2 2013 System Builder Marathon | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| $650 Gaming PC | $1300 Enthusiast PC | $2500 Performance PC | |
| Processor | Intel Core i3-3220: 3.3 GHz, Dual-Core, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache | Intel Core i5-3570K: 3.4 GHz Base, 3.8 GHz Max. Turbo Boost, Quad-Core, 6 MB Shared L3 Cache | Intel Core i7-3770K: 3.5 GHz Base, 3.9 GHz Max. Turbo Boost, Quad-Core, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache |
| Graphics | PowerColor PCS+ AX7870 2 GB 256-bit GDDR5 | Sparkle GeForce GTX 680 2 GB 256-bit GDDR5 | Asus GTX690-4GD5 GTX 690 4 GB |
| Motherboard | ASRock B75M-ITX: LGA 1155, Intel B75 Express | MSI Z77IA-E53: LGA 1155, Intel Z77 Express | Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe: LGA 1155, Intel Z77 Express |
| Memory | Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer BLT2KIT2G3D1608DT2TXRG: DDR3-1600 C8, 4 GB (2x 2GB) | G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM: DDR3-1866 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) | Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2K8G3D1608ET3LX0: DDR3-1600 C8, 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) |
| System Drive | Western Digital WD5000AAKX: 500 GB, SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive | Adata XPG ASX900S3-64GM-C: 64 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD | Mushkin MKNSSDCR240GB-DX: 240 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD |
| Storage Drive | Uses System Drive | Western Digital WD1002FAEX: 1 TB, SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive | Western Digital WD2002FAEX: 2 TB, SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive |
| Optical | None | Lite-On iHAS124-04: 24x DVD±R, 48x CD-R | Asus DRW-24B1ST: 14x BD-R, 16x DVD±R |
| Case | Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced | Lian Li PC-Q08B | BitFenix Prodigy BFC-PRO-300-RRXKR-RP |
| Prodigy Mesh Front Panel C-PRO-300-KRFXA-RP | |||
| BitFenix 140 mm Fan BFF-SCF-14025WW-RP | |||
| SilverStone FF143B 140 mm Dust Filter | |||
| Power | Corsair CX500: 500 W, ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS Bronze | Corsair CX750M: 750 W Modular, ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Bronze | Seasonic SS-660XP2: 660 W Modular, ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS Platinum |
| CPU Cooler | Intel boxed heatsink/fan | Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System | NZXT Kraken X40 RL-KRX40-01 |
| Build Cost | $653 | $1354 | $2451 |
The comment I made about paying $50 bucks extra for $50 fewer features to enable a mini-ITX configuration still stands. Paul's $650 gaming PC had to give up its optical drive to approach its now-theoretical budget limit. That’s alright for many people who have second machines to rip images that they can then drop onto USB thumb drives. But it's something you'll need to keep in mind before committing to such an approach.
At the opposite end of the pricing scale, a somewhat-costly Blu-ray burner gets my $2500 closer to its budget while adding convenience and expanding its capabilities. I simply couldn’t find a compelling performance upgrade on which to spend my left-over loot, and instead decided to focus on features.
In the middle, Don’s enthusiast build breaks the bank to add a 60 GB SSD to its 1 TB hard drive. He gets an artificially-inflated storage score, since the boot drive really can't hold all of the applications he's benchmarking. Even still, on a budget, we'd rather see a small SSD than no solid-state storage at all.
With Paul dropping his optical drive to stay within budget and Don almost ignoring his budget to keep his SSD, the fact that I was adding features to my machine simply to burn through the budget is going to come back and bite me on the rear, I just know it.
- Mini-ITX, Done Three Ways
- Test Settings And Overclocked Configurations
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Battlefield 3
- Results: F1 2012
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Far Cry 3
- Results: Media Encoding
- Results: Adobe CS6
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power And Heat
- Efficiency
- So Which Diminutive Box Is Best For You?
Someone looking at just this article, which isn't that unlikely, would be lead to believe that an i7 is something that an "ultimate" gaming computer has, that an expensive motherboard helps, and that a $2500 PC is going to be far better than a $1500 one.
Someone looking at just this article, which isn't that unlikely, would be lead to believe that an i7 is something that an "ultimate" gaming computer has, that an expensive motherboard helps, and that a $2500 PC is going to be far better than a $1500 one.
They really should include performance per dollar figures in this writeup.
For the parts, or for the computers themselves? Either would be nice, actually.
One thing that would go a long way is stressing how wonky their testing is - most people reading this as advice for building a computer are going to be building a gaming computer purely, rendering 70% of the test bench pointless.
And I'm not griping at tom's, all review sites seem to do this. There should be some way to create a better benchmark. Maybe host a custom server and load it up with scripted "players" or something.
I feel like they've modified the benchmarking suite to favor AMD as much as possible.
And when was the last time an AMD CPU made it into a SBM? Modifying benchmarks to favor a product that is never showcased is a moot point.
Someone looking at just this article, which isn't that unlikely, would be lead to believe that an i7 is something that an "ultimate" gaming computer has, that an expensive motherboard helps, and that a $2500 PC is going to be far better than a $1500 one.
They really should include performance per dollar figures in this writeup.
were you looking for something other than the performance per dollar charts present in the last page?
if you're looking for perf/$$ for individual componentes, look into the component reviews. sbm has figures for the whole pc only, because the whole pc is being tested.
They really should include performance per dollar figures in this writeup.
Isn't that exactly what the last two graphs are all about?
Did you even read the article? At all - or did you just flip through charts? And then not all of the charts, just some of them. In every SMB they always talk about diminishing returns and sweet spots - ALWAYS. And nearly every time the lowest end wins the price/performance category. I've seen the mid rig win a few times, but that was only when they were doing off-the-wall rigs.
Anyway, that's not what i had to say.
What i had to say was, always looking at perf/$ is sort of narrow minded too.
If someone wanted a minimum of 50 fps maxed out at 1600x900 and above, they'd be looking at the $1300 build.
If someone wanted the best of everything, they'd look at the $2500 build.
I personally look to spend that much that gives me around 50-60 fps minimum maxed out (with at least 4xAA) in all games that i play, at the resolution that i play on. Any additional funds go into other things, like storage, power, cooling, the case, etc.
I'm a big believer in an all round rig. If i'm spending money, i don't want to regret small sacrifices later, and i do that a lot (regret small sacrifices).
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I personally look to spend that much that gives me around 50-60 fps minimum maxed out (with at least 4xAA) in all games that i play, at the resolution that i play on. Any additional funds go into other things, like storage, power, cooling, the case, etc.
I'm a big believer in an all round rig. If i'm spending money, i don't want to regret small sacrifices later, and i do that a lot (regret small sacrifices).
This. You don't build a PC without specific purpose(s), and without performance targets. And, you cannot judge a build without considering the purpose(s) for which it was built. The SBM PCs are built to compete in certain benchmarks (and to encourage lots of discussion, hopefully intelligent). Most people don't build that way (which is no slight at the SBMs; they are consistently one of my favorite features on this site). My primary PC has a card reader, and one of those 5-1/4" drawers, and a pair of drives for storage in RAID1; you'll never find those in a SBM, nor would I ever call for them. The SBM provides interesting performance and general build data points, and does not claim to be a "build this" instructional article. I do remember a "Build a $500 Gaming PC" article some years ago (featuring a Pentium 805D) which very likely influenced the SBMs, but was written very differently. "Build a ________ PC" would indeed make another interesting and useful instructional series, perhaps one every 2-3 months, NOT always focused on gaming. I'd suggest every other one be devoted [primarily] to something other than gaming, such as HTPC, Home Office, "typical" office, CAD, database, etc. These need not be given away, but could be used as instructional articles for people looking to build. Flesh them out by publishing videos of each actual build, such as on YouTube.
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I personally look to spend that much that gives me around 50-60 fps minimum maxed out (with at least 4xAA) in all games that i play, at the resolution that i play on. Any additional funds go into other things, like storage, power, cooling, the case, etc.
I'm a big believer in an all round rig. If i'm spending money, i don't want to regret small sacrifices later, and i do that a lot (regret small sacrifices).
This. You don't build a PC without specific purpose(s), and without performance targets. And, you cannot judge a build without considering the purpose(s) for which it was built. The SBM PCs are built to compete in certain benchmarks (and to encourage lots of discussion, hopefully intelligent). Most people don't build that way (which is no slight at the SBMs; they are consistently one of my favorite features on this site).
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I do remember a "Build a $500 Gaming PC" article some years ago (featuring a Pentium 805D) which very likely influenced the SBMs, but was written very differently. "Build a ________ PC" would indeed make another interesting and useful instructional series, perhaps one every 2-3 months, NOT always focused on gaming. I'd suggest every other one be devoted [primarily] to something other than gaming, such as HTPC, Home Office, "typical" office, CAD, database, etc. These need not be given away, but could be used as instructional articles for people looking to build. Flesh them out by publishing videos of each actual build, such as on YouTube.
This hearkens to Paul's comment a few days ago how so many people think a certain budget range automatically denotes certain components, or how you can't claim a certain computer category name if you don't have certain components. I feel like Barbosa in that the code is more about guidelines than actual rules. Everyone can and should put their own spin on a build for their own purposes.
I like the idea of an instructional series of how to build machines specialized to a certain task. I remember Tom's used to have a standard configuration area where people could submit build lists for a lot of computer types like Sub $500 Intel, Sub $500 AMD, HTPC, Home & Office, Professional Design, Mid-range Gaming, All-Out Gaming, etc. Do those still happen? Have I just lost track of them due to the site changes?
were you looking for something other than the performance per dollar charts present in the last page?
if you're looking for perf/$$ for individual componentes, look into the component reviews. sbm has figures for the whole pc only, because the whole pc is being tested.
Those graphs use the $650 build as the baseline for comparison. This isn't a true performance per dollar representation.