System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $600 Gaming PC
Results: Synthetics
Stepping up from a dual-core Pentium to a quad-core Core i5 gets us massive gains in 3DMark 11. The Physics and Combined scores more than double, in turn yielding a substantial increase in the Overall 3DMark score.
Even the Graphics score, which is designed to isolate platform performance as much as possible, shows our stock Radeon HD 7850 jumping by nearly 12%.
The $600 rig’s lead in PCMark 7 increases once we take advantage of the Core i5-3350P’s limited overclocking. Because we're forced to rely on a mechanical drive spinning at 7,200 RPM yet again, storage performance remains similarly unimpressive for both machines.
Sandra's Arithmetic module promises great potential performance increases over the Pentium we used last quarter, while the inclusion of AES-NI favors the Core i5 even more when it comes to our Cryptography benchmark. And by ditching the Pentium’s DDR3-1333 limitation, this quarter's configuration enjoys a 20-40% increase in memory bandwidth.
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Proximon Sounds about right. Not quite the sweet spot for a budget rig, but then we don't get too many requests for $600 firm. A higher clocked i3 would have been the way to go.Reply -
esrever I think you can fit the 7870 LE in there if you choose a cheaper mobo and went with an i3 or an AMD build.Reply -
EzioAs As usual, love the system builder article.Reply
This $600 build seems nice. Personally, I would drop the optical drive, replace the Z75 board with a cheaper H77 motherboard, get a cheap 8GB (2x4GB) memory kit and a 2GB version of the Radeon HD7850. I think it's possible that it'll be between $600-610.
That's just what I would change. This build is still nice to be honest. :) -
itzsnypah Why isn't noise a benchmark? Every build you showcase you ignore acoustics. A very noisy build should affect it's overall performance negatively, while a quiet one should affect it positively. Noise is a very important factor in Case Reviews so why isn't it a factor here?Reply -
g-unit1111 10450191 said:Sounds about right. Not quite the sweet spot for a budget rig, but then we don't get too many requests for $600 firm. A higher clocked i3 would have been the way to go.
That 3350P is a pretty nice CPU though. It performs at near FX-8320 levels while consuming 1/2 the power. I'd definitely use it in a low budget rig over anything else. -
slomo4sho The CPU budget is higher than the GPU budget for this gaming machine? I understand the desire for a 4 core processor but you could definitely have a better gaming rig by investing more in the GPU and trimming the CPU budget.Reply -
slomo4sho arich5i question the longevity of a 400w psu in a build like this though~54%(216W) capacity when under CPU + GPU load. There shouldn't be any concern with the PSU failing under these loads.Reply -
lunyone It would have been interesting with a 7870 GPU, like below:Reply
/ /
CPU: ($123.79 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ($76.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: ($209.99 @ Newegg)
Case: ($25.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $564.71
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-26 02:52 EST-0500)
But the 3350P makes things interesting when an app can benefit from more cores! I had to get a better PSU to fit the 7870 into the budget. There is also $50 in MIR's equated into the final price, so the actual price paid would be $614 out the door. I'm not sure the i3 would have been a better overall CPU, but it would have made things interesting in the gaming department :)