System Builder Marathon, December 2010: $500 PC
CPU And Cooler
Processor: AMD Athlon II X3 445
Use of the retail AMD boxed cooler in September’s $400 PC capped performance gains from overclocking and unlocking the Athlon II processor. This time we chose an aftermarket cooling solution that was affordable and left greater headroom for pushing voltage and core speed.
Read Customer Reviews of AMD's Athlon II X3 445
The AMD Athlon II X3 445 sports three 128 KB L1 caches and three 512 KB L2 caches, but lacks the shared L3 cache found in AMD’s Phenom II processors. This 45 nm chip offers three processing cores, a 3.1 GHz stock core clock speeds, and solid overclocking potential.
CPU Cooler: Rosewill RCX-ZAIO-92
Read Customer Reviews of Rosewill's RCX-ZAIO-92
Rosewill's design features a copper base, three copper heatpipes, and aluminum fins, cooled by a variable speed 92 mm PWM fan. Although it's not the quietest or best-performing cooler, it offers a good blend of price, performance, and noise. This Rosewill was recently featured in Thomas Soderstrom’s latest cooler comparison.
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LuckyDucky7 And this is really the only PC build that will stay relevant come January- it will remain the only budget platform that can be overclocked, after all.Reply
Incidentally, this would be the only PC you'd want to contemplate building right now (since the new Core i3s don't come out immediately like the i5s and i7s do- and the Pentium G8XX series doesn't allow overclocking of its platform.) -
yyk71200 I wouldn't be very comfortable using a 380 watt PSU for a long time for GTX 460 even if it is good quality. Perhaps, I would put in something of 450 watt or higher.Reply -
Crashman LuckyDucky7And this is really the only PC build that will stay relevant come January- it will remain the only budget platform that can be overclocked, after all.Incidentally, this would be the only PC you'd want to contemplate building right now (since the new Core i3s don't come out immediately like the i5s and i7s do- and the Pentium G8XX series doesn't allow overclocking of its platform.)So you think there's going to be a replacement platform for the $2000 PC in January? That's not going to happen for a while. Or are you suggesting the next $2000 PC should be downgraded to P67?Reply -
dragoon190 I haven't been keeping up with the system marathon much, but what's the reasoning for choosing nVidia card over AMD's? Just wondering since I'm thinking about upgrading my computer soon.Reply -
jj463rd A really nice build this time.However the price of the case and power supply has gone up in price over at newegg.I haven't checked the prices of the other components though.This build seems to perform quite well especially in the gaming benchmarks.Good job!Reply -
tstng I would've gone with a 6850 instead of the 460. It's a tad cheaper, not at all slower if you don't start cranckin' up the tesselation, and should fit the 380W psu a lot better. But a solid build by all means.Reply