System Builder Marathon: The Enthusiast's System
System Builder Marathon, November 2008 : The Articles
Here are links to each of the three articles in this month’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published).
- Day 1 : The $650 Gaming PC
- Day 2 : The $1,250 Mid-Range PC
- Day 3 : Performance and Value, Dissected
Introduction
We got a lot of feedback from our last System Builder Marathon concerning the choice of words used to describe that $1,500 machine. A lot of readers just didn’t think a water-cooled box priced at $1,500 could be called "mainstream," so we’ve taken this into consideration and lowered the price range a bit. We’ll also be careful not to reuse that naughty term this time around, since it seems to be such a subjective word. Instead, with this builder’s eye toward great bang-for-the-buck performance coupled with high overclocking expectations, we’re calling it the "enthusiast" system.
With plenty of requests steering us clear from water-cooling and luxury components, like $180 cases, we’ve re-focused on good value-oriented performance parts, spec’d a good air cooler, and decided to leave the luxurious extras to you folks for this mid-range $1,250 machine.
We even went to the forums to get some feedback as to the direction our readers would like to see us take the $1,250 system. So let’s see how this month’s components stack up :
| Component | Model | Price (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 | 190 |
| CPU Cooler | Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (& ACK-I7751 Retention Bracket) | 42 |
| Motherboard | DFI LanParty X38-T2R | 175 |
| RAM | PNY XLR8 2 x 4GB | 60 |
| Graphics | Powercolor Radeon 4870 X2 | 529 |
| Hard Drives | Western Digital Caviar black 640GB 32 MB cache | 85 |
| Sound | Integrated | 0 |
| Network | Integrated Gigabit Networking | 0 |
| Case | Antec Three Hundred | 55 |
| Power | Antec Neo 650W | 90 |
| Optical | LITE-ON 20X DVD±R SATA Model iHAS120-04 | 24 |
| Total Price | $1,250 |