System Builder Marathon: $625 Gaming PC
Conclusion
This month we set our sights on a more powerful graphics card in hopes of achieving better playable gaming frame rates at maximum details. However, the 16% overall increase in frame rates achieved at stock speeds is, in the end, a bit misleading.
The E5200 failed to keep up with the HD 4870 in two of our games, and in World in Conflict, the frame rates made the title unplayable. In Crysis and Supreme Commander, performance jumped quite a bit, but it still took overclocking to approach playable frame rates. Once both systems were overclocked, we had near-equal CPU power and raising the resolution or enabling AA brought out the benefits of the Radeon HD 4870. Of course, our two most demanding games should still be tweaked down a bit to find the best blend of performance and visual quality to maximize the system’s capabilities.
With the slower CPU, this month's PC lost in all nine of the encoding and applications tests, but with its 100 MHz higher overclock, it managed to surpass the overclocked December PC in eight of those tests. Overall, the two stock systems come out about even while the January/February PC takes the performance crown once overclocked. Those willing to overclock will probably agree that the E5200 provides more bang for the buck than the E7300 does, and the current $43 difference could be put to use in other components.
But performance is only part of the story this month, as pricing and availability led to a sacrifice in our case quality to achieve higher gaming frame rates. The better system will depend on personal preference and typical use. While gamers playing at high resolutions may prefer this month’s system, they will also want a better cooled enclosure if pushing high clock speeds. It is this author’s opinion that the case used this month is better suited for a $400-$500 PC or one that will at most see mild overclocking. While at current prices our $625 PC would be in a case such as the Antec Three Hundred if purchased today, some readers may instead prefer to pocket the money saved or use it to buy a new game, more storage space, or higher-end components.
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xx12amanxx Yeah Games are definatly more GPU bound than CPU bound at this time.But what about the user who decodes? Next month might be a good time to intro the new am3 triple core seeing as its being sodl for around 150$ and has been seen Oced up to 1ghz over stock.Reply -
As I read this review I wonder, why this is only server I know that provides such a throughout testing and evaluation of OC benefit...Reply
*THUMBS UP* -
nerrawg Nice article guys, like how you seem squeeze the value out of the builds, definitely a good choice of build! My only question is one of personal interest, I wonder if disregarding the set price of $625, a crossfire set up of 2 4830s would give more bang for the buck in gaming then 1 4870? Of course as you have shown it would depend on the cpu, I was thinking around 4 Ghz on a dual core and 4 gigs ram. I am wondering because 2 x 4830 can be had for as little as $170-180 now, and thats pretty awesome.Reply -
nerrawg Looking at the "Radeon HD 4830: High-Speed, Cheap CrossFire" article the results look fairly similar to that seen from this build, with maybe some very small gains in Supreme commander and crysis, while World in Conflict appears to due better on this newer january build. However the 4830 CF was on a test bed without an OC'ed cpu and without overclocking the 4830's, hence my curiosity to know if doing this would significantly increase performance and value over the single 4870?Reply -
StupidRabbit great article as always.. but what happened to the international builder marathon?Reply -
jv_acabal $43 difference bang for the buck. How about in the long run? Sure you'll be paying more than 43 bucks for the electricity bill. I think January's build is better. It might be slower than this month's build but is still very playable at most games.Reply -
maxwellsmart_80 Why do you keep building the same system (practically) over and over again?Reply
It would have been awesome to see a system based on the Phenom II X3 "700 Series" at this price point....especially paired w/ the ATI 4830 or 4850. Dont'cha think a 4870 is a tad much for a "$625 system?" - you would have had a "Dragon Platform" - very doable at your price range. You wouldn't have had to do DDR3 either - DDR2 would have worked quite nicely. -
cangelini StupidRabbitgreat article as always.. but what happened to the international builder marathon?Reply
International competition is in edits--almost ready to go live! Interesting results there, too. -
Onus Excellent article. I think this was a good build.Reply
That Rosewill case (and all their cheap ones like it) will take a front mounted 120mm fan. You had $6 left over, so it would have fit in your budget. -
jcknouse THG Staff note:Here are links to each of the four articles in this month’s System Builder Marathon...Reply
I hate being picky...but...
The links aren't imbedded in those 4 article designations at the top of the article, as of the writing of this note.