System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: $500 Gaming PC
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Benchmark Results: Audio And Video
The current machine’s 3.8 GHz Phenom II is unable to compete with June’s little Sandy Bridge-based processor in iTunes and Lame. This is, of course, a result of great per-clock performance from the Intel chip and two benchmarks that simply do not take advantage of multi-core processors. In titles that aren't threaded, Intel is tough to beat.
Meanwhile, the quad-core AMD chip scores easy victories in the well-threaded HandBrake and MainConcept tests, which benefit more from four physical cores than a pair of Hyper-Threaded cores.
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84 Comments
Comment from the forums
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alchemy69 Time to bring on the usual motley crew of fanboys and everyone who just knows that they could do better.Reply -
Outlander_04 The i3 2100 is a remarkable cpu , but it just cant beat 4 physical cores and a bit of overclocking .Reply -
slicedtoad very nice article, i was wondering how the 955 oced would do against the i3.Reply
While there are many unthinkable things in this build, the low price of $500 is also unthinkable. That's less than an ipad.... -
zooted This is my favorite build this sbm. I just love the fact that you can have a true 1080p gaming experience for $500 bucks.Reply -
bobfrys This is a tad bit better then the one I built off of the earlier build i used from toms. (Built it soon after school ended).Reply -
lunyone This is probably the ONLY $500 build (except for the very 1st one) that I've agreed on mostly (not liking the case too much, but it works in this budget).Reply
The last $500 build just was crap generally (micro-ATX and not many options on the mobo, IMHO).
This budget gaming rig is really close to what I'd build for a friend/family member that wanted to have a gaming rig. I'd change a few things, of coarse, but the overall direction (and selection of parts) is SPOT ON, IMHO!! Good job guys at TH!!!