System Builder Marathon, June 2011: $1000 Enthusiast PC

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By Don Woligroski
published

Memory, Hard Drive, And Optical Drive

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws series 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) 240-Pin DDR-1333 Kit

At $55, this dual-channel kit offers solid value with attractive 7-7-7-21 latencies and a 1333 MT/s data rate. Unfortunately, the set we received this time around is specified to run this low latency at the slower 2T command rate. This memory is only qualified 9-9-9-22 timings at the 1T command rate.

Read Customer Reviews of G.Skill's Ripjaws 4 GB DDR3-1333 Kit


Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB

Read Customer Reviews of Western Digital's Caviar Black 750 GB

While we toyed with Samsung’s Spinpoint last time around for a higher capacity, $70 can’t buy much more hard drive performance than Western Digital’s Caviar Black 750 GB model offers.

This series has been a price/performance favorite since we began the System Builder Marathon series, and three-quarters of a terabyte is ample to get us started.

Optical Drive: LG GH22NS70 SATA 22x DVD Burner

Read Customer Reviews of LG's GH22NS70 DVD Burner

We simply chose the lowest-priced OEM drive available at the time of writing, which happened to be LG’s GH22NS70 22x DVD burner. At $20, it serves our purposes.

Don Woligroski
69 Comments Comment from the forums
  • seller417
    650W is enough power for this rig?
    Reply
  • kelby0320
    Radeon HD 9950 I want one
    Reply
  • whysobluepandabear
    What? 6850 x 2 = $340? Um, I could get TWO 6870's for $350~ EASY. Sure, they have mail in rebates, but who cares.


    Two 6870's would stomp the 6850's, and you would literally spend the same, if not a measly $10 more.
    Reply
  • quixilver1
    Why change the cooler from the $200 pc. It is only $5 more and still within the budget.
    Reply
  • whysobluepandabear
    seller417650W is enough power for this rig?Well, looking into my tarot cards and crystal ball, I see It peaks at 400W at full load. So yeah, I think 650W may be a bit of an overkill.
    Reply
  • quixilver1
    quixilver1Why change the cooler from the $200 pc. It is only $5 more and still within the budget.Should read $2000 pc.
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    Overall, its a good build.
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    whysobluepandabearWell, looking into my tarot cards and crystal ball, I see It peaks at 400W at full load. So yeah, I think 650W may be a bit of an overkill.Why would it be overkill? Its the kind of headroom you should have so your not straining the psu. Sure you could get away with less, but for a few dollars more than a 500w unit you can get a 650w. Its perfectly balanced and leaves room for upgrade. Its good to see what 2 6850's can do but i think if I were building this PC i would chose a faster single card and upgrade to dual cards later.
    Reply
  • akorzan
    seller417650W is enough power for this rig?Yes. There is a misconception that rigs need over-sized power supplies. I have a Core i7 875k and a Radeon HD5850 running on a 400 Watt power-supply. Is it pushing it? Yes, if I clock it to 4.2 GHz and run Furmark and Prime95 none stop...
    No if I run Furmark and Prime95 at 3.33 GHz, and definitely no for any realistic workloads.
    Why did I get a 400 watt power-supply? Because it is darn silent and was recommended on Silent PC Review for "budget" power-supplies. (Bare in mind that "normal" are gold SeaSonics)
    Reply
  • whysobluepandabear
    iam2thecroweWhy would it be overkill? Its the kind of headroom you should have so your not straining the psu. Sure you could get away with less, but for a few dollars more than a 500w unit you can get a 650w. Its perfectly balanced and leaves room for upgrade. Its good to see what 2 6850's can do but i think if I were building this PC i would chose a faster single card and upgrade to dual cards later.
    Because he was asking if 650W was enough, when all he had to do was look at the chart and clearly see the 399W max system (CPU+GPU) load.


    So essentially, for that system, the 650W is more than enough, and ...effectively an "Overkill".
    Reply