Graphics Cards And Hard Drive
Graphics Cards: PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-H Radeon HD 5770
The PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-H is a non-reference Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The cooler is quiet at idle and effective with auto-fan control, although it doesn’t vent air directly out of the case. The output port array is also non-standard, including 1 x DVI, 1 x D-Sub, and 1-HDMI.
Read Customer Reviews of PowerColor's AX5770 1GBD5-H
PowerColor chose to cut costs by going light on the retail bundle. You won’t find any cables, adapters, or even a CrossFire bridge, but rather just a folded manual sheet and driver CD. Plain and simple, its cheapest-in-class price is what made this Radeon HD 5770 an attractive option for our $550 build.
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB
Read Customer Reviews of Samsung's Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ
The Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ offers a good blend of price, performance, and capacity for our budget gaming PC.
It would be a shame to step down to 250GB-320GB of storage just to save $10-$15. This single-platter 500GB hard drive spins at 7,200 RPM, has 16MB cache, and is backed by a three-year manufacturer’s warranty.