We compare our new build to the $1,500 Core i7 system we put together for our last SBM in March of 2010. That system had the benefit of two Radeon HD 5850 cards in CrossFire, in addition to the Core i7-920 CPU.
With $500 chopped off of our budget, we're not fooling ourselves into thinking we'll achieve the same performance. However, we do think that there's a good chance our overclocked performance will be in the same league as the stock performance that the $1,500 Core i7 system achieved.
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$1,000 Enthusiast PC Test Settings
Row 0 - Cell 0
Standard Speed
Overclocked
Motherboard
MSI 790X-G45 Socket AM3 Chipset: AMD 790X
Unchanged
Processor
Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition 2.8 GHz 3Cores, 6MB L3 Cache (OEM)
3.424 GHz at 1.5V,16x multiplier, 214 MHz Base Clock
Memory
Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3-1333 Dual-Channel Desktop Memory Kit, CAS 9-9-9-24-1T
DDR3-1426, CAS 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics
2 x Radeon HD 5830 (CrossFireX) 1GB GDDR5-4000 Per CardRadeon HD 5830 GPU at 800 MHz
GDDR5-4400 820 MHz GPU
Hard Drives
WD Caviar Blue 320GB 320GB, 7,200 RPM, 8MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s
When you say SBM: Enthusiast System, I am expecting this to be more than just another gaming rig. You may have your own reason for sticking to a Phenom II x3 720 and HD5830 crossfire but I believe a Phenom II x4 955 and HD5770 crossfire would make more sense or more well-balanced (instead of trying your luck by unlocking cores). In fact, we could also grab a HD5870 and downgrade our mobo a little and that would make a truly well balanced enthusiast system.
It would have been nice to see the PII X6 1055T with a moderate downgrade in GPUs to afford the higher cost of CPU and motherboard. The i7 embarrasses the PII X3.
A phenom II 955 BE:160$+2 Xfx hd 5770sfor320$+GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H for 140$=620$ would certainly have been a better choice than your 670$ for CPU+GPU+mobo.
Tamz_mscA phenom II 955 BE:160$+2 Xfx hd 5770s for 320$+GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H for 140$=620$ would certainly have been a better choice than your 670$ for CPU+GPU+mobo.