System Builder Marathon, August 2012: $500 Gaming PC
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Page 1:Serious Gaming, On The Cheap
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Page 2:CPU And Cooler
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Page 3:Motherboard And Memory
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Page 4:Graphics Card And Hard Drive
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Page 5:Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
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Page 6:Assembling Our Budget-Oriented Box
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Page 7:Limited To Graphics Overclocking
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Page 8:Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
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Page 9:Benchmark Results: Synthetics
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Page 10:Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 And DiRT 3
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Page 11:Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim And StarCraft II
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Page 12:Benchmark Results: Audio And Video
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Page 13:Benchmark Results: Productivity
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Page 14:Power Consumption And Temperatures
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Page 15:Performance Summary And Efficiency
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Page 16:Did We Spend Our Money Wisely?
Power Consumption And Temperatures
We enabled power-saving features on both rigs and didn’t override automatic fan controls during testing. In effect, we traded higher core temperatures for quieter fan operation.
Both systems are driven by the same Antec VP-450 power supply, which offers respectable efficiency, despite the fact that it lacks an 80 PLUS certification.
Although idle consumption was only 50.2 W last quarter, and 50.1 W back in June of last year with a Core i3-2100 and Radeon HD 6850 under the hood, this marks the first time our budget gaming PC pulls less than 50 W from the wall. Outfitted with a higher-clocked Pentium processor, however, today's rig consumes 2 W more at 100% processor load than our previous efforts.
MSI's GeForce GTX 560 reaches a respectable 950 MHz core frequency after a voltage bump to 1.050 V, though that results in a substantial increase in peak power consumption under 3DMark 11.
While the performance of Intel’s bundled heat sink isn't impressive, it does offer quiet operation and adequate cooling for our multiplier-locked processor.
MSI’s dual-fan thermal solution effectively cools the overclocked and overvolted GeForce GTX 560, never ramping up past 53% duty cycle. We also have to keep in mind the greater interior volume of today’s enclosure. Bottom line: GPU temperatures were of little concern on either build, as both GeForce cards had cooling to spare.
- Serious Gaming, On The Cheap
- CPU And Cooler
- Motherboard And Memory
- Graphics Card And Hard Drive
- Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
- Assembling Our Budget-Oriented Box
- Limited To Graphics Overclocking
- Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 And DiRT 3
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim And StarCraft II
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power Consumption And Temperatures
- Performance Summary And Efficiency
- Did We Spend Our Money Wisely?
On the contrary, for a 500$ build, energy consumption and heat should be least concerns. Tweaking, overclocking and extracting the last possible performance from your hardware are the primary concerns of a 500$ gaming build. Even after HEAVY overclocking, you wont get 50W over the stock settings.
Also i agree with itzsnypah, Tom hardware should make an article on PC build with maximum performance that you can squeeze out of lowest watt, some people started to care about those things, and being green to the environment is nothing to be ashamed of.
Ever since I read the 7950B/7970GE review on here/anand performance per watt for me has been a priority when selecting components.
On the contrary, for a 500$ build, energy consumption and heat should be least concerns. Tweaking, overclocking and extracting the last possible performance from your hardware are the primary concerns of a 500$ gaming build. Even after HEAVY overclocking, you wont get 50W over the stock settings.
One may presume that someone after a $500 build is on a budget and hence doesn't want higher power consumption from overclocking.
According to the performance summary and efficiency page of this article Overclocking the GPU had a 13%(average according to this article) increase in power consumption for an extra 2% (average) performance. That seems like the opposite thing I'm talking about.
Overclocking is good for performance per dollar, not performance per watt.
Why not substitute some existing parts for either an I3-2100 and/or an eVGA 560 Superclocked?
Also i agree with itzsnypah, Tom hardware should make an article on PC build with maximum performance that you can squeeze out of lowest watt, some people started to care about those things, and being green to the environment is nothing to be ashamed of.
Then i have this Excellent VIA CPU+MB combo for you. Efficient as hell. Best bang for the Watt possible. Ever.
"Pentium"
I bet that my good old Phenom 955 will blow away ANY pentium you've put so far in 500$ crappy pc.
PLEASE I beg you stop using this sh*t...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-10.html
pretty damn close, the Phenom 955 is definitely more attractive for overclockers, but offer limited upgradablilty because of motherboards etc. Pentiums use the 1155 socket, and therefore are upgradable to a better 2nd gen or 3rd gen processor, which anything above the g860 kicks the shit out of the Phenom
Well, there is "living in my parents basement and unemployed" budget. And there is "living on my own" budget. Clearly, mayankleoboy1, is the loving parent budget.
Not hating though, the Kardashians all do
Of course a $500 machine should be able to play any PC games today. It can't play nearly as well as a higher end setup can, but are you so elitest that you think that people with less money shouldn't be allowed to play?