System Builder Marathon, March 2011: Value Compared

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Power And Heat

With AMD’s former dominance in CPU efficiency long gone, the $500 machine’s only powerplay comes from its smaller and less power-hungry GPU. A second graphics board hurts the $2000 machine’s power draw in a similar fashion, but it remains to be seen whether the performance it adds compensates.

A low-wattage graphics card also helps the $500 PC top the cooling charts. The $2000 PC’s graphics cards get cooler when overclocked, but only because overclocking necessitated manual fan adjustment.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
51 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tapher
    A $500 build, together with a Sony FW900 or equivalent monitor, could be had for under $800 total. Wow!
    Reply
  • hmp_goose
    Did you just say "$300 monitor on a $500 box"? Really?
    Reply
  • qwertymac93
    hmp_gooseDid you just say "$300 monitor on a $500 box"? Really?
    how much is a good surround sound system?
    how much is a blu-ray player?
    I rest my case.
    Reply
  • jsowoc
    What if you scaled down from 100% as opposed to up from 100%? If the 2kOC machine had 100 in each category, the SSD would be "naturally" toned down. The $500 machine would be at ~40% for gaming, A/V and productivity, and ~10% for storage.

    Taking a simple average you'd get that the $500 machine is typically about 30% the speed of the $2000 OC machine. An SSD does improve the day-to-day performance of a computer significantly.
    Reply
  • Ragnar-Kon
    Being the poor college student I am, the blue bar is my favorite. And that O/C'd $1000 build is looking pretty good in my book. I've built AMD systems since the Athlon XP days because the price/performance ratio of Intel chips just wasn't worth it to me. But, I shall have to take a close look at the Intel i5 for my next build.

    qwertymac93how much is a good surround sound system?how much is a blu-ray player?I rest my case.1) Surround sound system = not worth it.
    2) Blu-ray player = Definitely not worth it.
    3) $300 monitor = not worth it.

    Of course, this could be the my inner poor college student talking. I'm sure for some people it is worth it.
    Reply
  • sudeshc
    you can get good LED monitor of decent size in under $100 and that would be perfect for $500 build.
    Reply
  • Luay
    A job well done Tom! Thankyou.
    The $500 AMD machine underperformed in the CPU department. I think the Intel i3 2120 paired with a H61 motherboard would have been the better choice.
    $1,000 rig was near perfection.
    $2,000 rig suffered from CPU bottlenecks at resolutions lower than 2560x1600 so it should be paired with at least $600 worth of display(s).
    Reply
  • Dyers Eve
    Well I think we are all thinking the same thing and that is holy jebus SSDs are awesome. 60GB SSDs are at around $120 now so maybe in a year the $500 builds will get an SSD.

    Your second to last paragraph needlessly bashes the $500 system. So a cheap build is bad for a user that only wants performance? Well, duh.

    Your $500 build was titled as a gaming PC and now that only counts for 30% of average performance. Mixing all of the stats into one performance bar is useless to everyone. Keep the gamer/av/production separate as that is more useful.
    Reply
  • scootermg
    If you wanted to alter these PCs from "Gamers Rig" to "Programmers Rig" (ie. capable of running several virtual machines, with Ubuntu 64 as host). What would you alter?

    I was thinking of taking the $2K model and
    -- doubling up the RAM from 8 to 16
    -- cutting from 2 SSD to 1
    -- downgrading the graphics card, to I don't know what
    -- deleting the CPU cooler.. I will not be over-clocking
    -- leaving the rest as is

    I propose downgrading the 2K PC vice upgrading the 1K because I feel ASUS/INTEL/Ubuntu64 combo is better for virtualization than AROCK/INTEL.

    Maybe the 1K PC can do it also.
    Reply
  • lamorpa
    In the conclusion:
    the $2000 machines twin SSDs
    the $2000 machines twin SSDs
    Reply