System Builder Marathon, August 2012: $1000 Enthusiast PC

Bring on the usual motley crew of those who could have done it so much better.

What's going on with the processor price. The i5-3570k is $230 not $300. Then there's no mention of the CPU cooler in the price list.

And you're pairing an Ivy Bridge CPU with a P67 motherboard to save a few dollars?

Does anybody proofread these articles?

^^^ Just noticed and was starting to type that same mistake too
+1 for the p67 and not a maybe a B75 based mobo like:

or

Z77 based mobo for ~$95 shipped??


Just a though on the mobo situation....

^^^ Links didn't work, trying again below:

i love how much difference a few months had on the performance.

Just want to mention : i dont see the use of including an optical drive in 2012. i cant remember the last time i used an optical drive. And with digital sales outselling physical discs, i dont see why it is included.
Its not about saving $15. Its about buying a part that you will be using less than a couple of times in an year.probably lesser.

lighter17What's going on with the processor price. The i5-3570k is $230 not $300. Then there's no mention of the CPU cooler in the price list. And you're pairing an Ivy Bridge CPU with a P67 motherboard to save a few dollars?Does anybody proofread these articles?

Good catch. Not sure what was up with Don's pricing, but his CPU was way off, and he forgot to include the cooler in his price list. I've updated it, and it's only $7 bucks off his original quote, so we're still in good shape. Appreciate the sharp eye, guys!
Chris

mayankleoboy1i love how much difference a few months had on the performance.Just want to mention : i dont see the use of including an optical drive in 2012. i cant remember the last time i used an optical drive. And with digital sales outselling physical discs, i dont see why it is included. Its not about saving $15. Its about buying a part that you will be using less than a couple of times in an year.probably lesser.

I think there is still a place for optical drives. I just finished a new tower build myself, an i5 3570k myself with the same video card on an Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe. I put in a Blur Ray burner that was only $90. With almost all new phones doing 1080p video, I can burn discs for friends and family of personal videos. People also still have CD players in cars and honestly, on a price per GB bases, it's still the best form of backup.

60 gb SSD? why bother?

The asrock professional series is shown whereas the actual motherboard being used is the performance series.

I almost thought the motherboard had 3 pcie slots for only $100- that would have been a steal!

Any particular reason for P67 over Z77? Is it purely cost-based, or are there significant performance benefits?

Looks promising except for the UEFI issue. What motherboard would you recommend for someone who doesn't happen to have a spare Sandy Bridge processor around to update the UEFI?

I thought the ivy bridge wasn't that good in overclocking as sandy bridge, cause of the whole intel hd graphics being bigger and all the overheating?

In my opinion, you should stick to the budget, Tom's. Part of the fun (and the reality of the situation for most people) are the tradeoffs you have to deal with when assembling your PC. And no, it wasn't the extra memory or the SSD that pushed you over budget since you say those are compulsory components. It was the 670 that you wanted so much. If you can't fit it under $1,000, then just don't get the 670, get something worse or get a cheaper CPU with the 670. I understand going over budget by a few bucks, but $57, that's a pretty significant lapse in budgeting, in my mind.

mayankleoboy1i love how much difference a few months had on the performance.Just want to mention : i dont see the use of including an optical drive in 2012. i cant remember the last time i used an optical drive. And with digital sales outselling physical discs, i dont see why it is included. Its not about saving $15. Its about buying a part that you will be using less than a couple of times in an year.probably lesser.

Because it's needed. Need it to install Windows and certain software. Sometimes you can't avoid using the optical drive.

sterimarIn my opinion, you should stick to the budget, Tom's. Part of the fun (and the reality of the situation for most people) are the tradeoffs you have to deal with when assembling your PC. And no, it wasn't the extra memory or the SSD that pushed you over budget since you say those are compulsory components. It was the 670 that you wanted so much. If you can't fit it under $1,000, then just don't get the 670, get something worse or get a cheaper CPU with the 670. I understand going over budget by a few bucks, but $57, that's a pretty significant lapse in budgeting, in my mind.

But the SSD and RAM don't have much effect on the benchmarks preformed in the marathon. Those optional components are dead weight when it comes to the comparisons.

FokissedBut the SSD and RAM don't have much effect on the benchmarks preformed in the marathon. Those optional components are dead weight when it comes to the comparisons.

exactly. i get a few thumbs down from people that think a 60 gb SSD is worth it.

well what does it do?
boots windows faster thats it; a complete waste of $60 in terms of performance.

if its an advantage to install an SSD a minimum would be 120 gbs so at least all applications and games can be installed.

any PC built today needs an SSD. depending on your budget, choose the capacity. A PC cant be fast without removing the biggest bottleneck.

Again a build that is over limit and greedy, I regard $1000 as the basic enthusiast build and this doesn't reflect it adequately;

1] Fixation on 'k' chips is insane, the fact that I can run BF3 on a stock Thuban at well over 70 FPS with maxed presets is enough to suggest that $50 for the overclocking is actually not really needed.

2] Ivy bridge on a P67 setup, just to get a pretty board on a dead chipset, not only are you crimping the IB features you can settle on a Z77 UD5H from Gigabyte a far superior board.

3] GTX 670, a HD7850 can max out a game at HD res around 1080P why spend more?

I don't know how someone could put such components in a crappy case like this !

For this tier the 7870/660ti/7950B should have been the criteria, that is a price range from $270 to $330 total savings of $70-130 which is more than sufficient.

I too am at a loss as to why anyone would put an Ivy Bridge processor on a P67 motherboard and not a Z77 instead. Kinda like putiing a brand new Hemi crate engine in an 84 ford van.

Regardless of the performance and price of the ASRock motherboard, if you have ever had to return an ASRock prooduct, suffice is to say that you'd never buy another product from them again. Their entire process as stated on their website for receiving warranty work is the most confusing I have ever had to deal with. It's almost as if it's that confusing, on purpose i.e. to keep the number of rma/warranty requests down.

Just say no to ASRock products until they change their warrany/rma process.

Personally I would have gone a AMD 7950 and used the saved money for a bigger and better SSD and possibly a better case too.

Fokissed : But the SSD and RAM don't have much effect on the benchmarks preformed in the marathon. Those optional components are dead weight when it comes to the comparisons.

Your dead wrong on the SSD becaue it does a lot more than just boot windows faster. The builder should have used a bigger SSD (minimum of 120GB).

I use my SSD for a select few games where load times are important or excruciatingly long on a HDD. Best example is Battlefield 3. On my HDD it took 3-5 minutes to load a map where now on my SSD it takes less than a minute sometimes even less than 30 seconds. The people I play with who are on HDD's can join a map and then I can join my friends after through battlelog after they have already started to load and be in the game playing (usually already died once) before they even get to the screen to choose their loadout!