System Builder Marathon, December 2010: $1000 PC

Features
By Don Woligroski
published

Although we were afraid of the results, this time around we decided to try something new, forgoing the Core i5 in favor of a dual-core Core i3 CPU in our build. Can the higher clock rate compensate for the loss of two physical cores in our $1000 system?

Memory, Hard Drive, And Optical Drive

Memory: GeIL Black Dragon 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) DDR3-1333 Memory Kit 

We’re trying something new in the memory department, too. GeIL’s Black Dragon dual-channel 4 GB kit has a low $80 price tag combined with a low CAS latency of 7.  The tribal art treatment doesn’t look bad, either.

Read Customer Reviews of GeIL's Black Dragon 4 GB DDR3-1333 Kit


Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB

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

A price tag of $70 isn’t going to buy you anything better than this when it comes to hard drives. Western Digital’s Black series has been a price/performance favorite, ever since we began the SBM series. And 750 GB of capacity is enough to get you started.

Optical Drive: OEM LG GH22LS50 22x DVD Burner

Read Customer Reviews of LG's GH22LS50 DVD Burner

LG’s OEM optical drive performs well, and for the low $18 price tag, it helps keep us under our $1000 budget limit.

Don Woligroski
116 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AMW1011
    I can't say I'm impressed this time. You should never have went with a clarksdale, they are simply bad. Getting a more reasonably priced motherboard, cutting another $20 from the HDD and PSU, and an i5 750, would have been much better.

    Still, we have more information than before so I can't complain.
    Reply
  • Poisoner
    That PSU only has 2 PCI-E hook ups. So you'll have to use adapters in this build. Pathetic.
    Reply
  • ivan_chess
    The CPU choice was a little disappointing this time around. A Core i5 or even a comparably priced AMD processor would have done much better (especially in productivity because four cores are typically better than two).
    Reply
  • adbat
    I think it would be good to include previous build in the test system page it would make comparison easier.
    Reply
  • duk3
    1 tb 7200.12 hard drive?
    GTX 570? (debatable)
    Cheaper motherboard, maybe not supporting SLI if gtx 570 is taken over 460 sli?
    $50 corsair ddr3 1600?
    i5 760 with these savings?
    Reply
  • Core2uu
    I think we're missing the point of including the Core i3 in this month's build. The purpose was to explore the CPU bottle-necking that can be observed on today's common applications because threading implementation has managed to find itself actually put into effect. Throwing in an i5 760 would have been too predictable and too boring. This puts perspective on the fact that dual-cores matched with high clock speeds are no longer the performance kings as was true more than a year ago.
    Reply
  • scrumworks
    Tom's nvidia -line continues. No surprises there.
    Reply
  • amirp
    like they said in the previous article even the 6000 series radeons weren't out when they made these articles,
    reading comprehensions noobs
    Reply
  • amirp
    *comprehension
    Reply
  • sudeshc
    Not impressed, could have been better.
    Reply