System Builder Marathon: Sub-$1000 PC

Supreme Commander, UT3, Warhammer

A combination of low-end processor and upper-mainstream graphics set gives the current build a slight advantage at Supreme Commander’s basic settings.

Increasing fidelity and turning on anti-aliasing in Supreme Commander puts both the current and former configurations on par.

UT3 results are nearly indiscernible, and both systems are likely CPU limited.

Warhammer shows moderate gains for the new configuration, but an apparent CPU limitation makes for far from smooth game play.

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.