System Builder Marathon Q4 2013: System Value Compared

Let The (System Builder) Games Begin

System Builder Marathon, Q4 2013: The Articles

Here are links to each of the four articles in this quarter’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published). And remember, these systems are all being given away at the end of the marathon.

To enter the giveaway, please fill out this SurveyGizmo form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!

Day 1: The $800 Gaming PC
Day 2: The $1600 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $2400 Performance PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected

Introduction

Getting into gaming is rarely cheap, but Paul Henningsen thrives against the struggle to get top performance for bottom dollar. That stuggle was threatened this month by stagnation in the low-cost gaming hardware market. His choices were to rebuild the same machine he presented last quarter, to step down to an even cheaper machine that would give up more performance than cost, or spend extra money on a few mid-range parts. Paul is typically not interested in boring, so we were all on-board with his decision to cram a high-end Radeon R9 280X into a mainstream-priced $800 machine.

We like to use budgets that facilitate easy comparisons. So, we could have stretched Don in one of two directions: build a $1200 machine at 1.5 times the cost of Paul’s or really step things up and use $1600 to try building twice the machine. The $800 system's specs are so impressive that nothing short of a $600 graphics subsystem represents a higher market class. We made the call to give Don $1600 for his effort.

The decision was made easier by my own desire to piece together a configuration faster than last quarter's flagship System Builder Marathon box for less money. At 1.5 times the cost of a $1200 PC, an $1800 machine wouldn’t have packed in enough performance. At twice the cost of Don’s machine, a $3200 build would have forced me to waste money chasing miniscule gains. By splitting the price structure into three multiples of $800, a $2400 budget was just what I needed.

The final line-up shows two gaming machines and a configuration optimized for general-purpose computing, which should be capable of doing everything exceptionally well. Games are one of its strengths. Crypto-currency mining could be another, if you're willing to run your R9 290s at 100% load all of the time. And the six Ivy Bridge-based x86 cores should take care of everything else.

The prices above represent what we paid for these parts back in November. All of us were able to find our hardware within the budgets we defined for ourselves, though a $10 discount expired between the time I picked my parts and when the order went through. Short-term specials are the least of anyone's worries today, though. As a result of big price hikes, Paul’s machine jumped by $125 and mine went up $300 after the orders were placed. I’ll go over how this affects each builder in my conclusion.