Your Top Picks: Tom's Hardware Forums' Q1 2013 BestConfigs

Round-ups
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So you like our System Builder Marathon? Ever come up with your own idea for a killer rig? Don't forget to tell us about it on the Tom's Hardware forums. The following ten setups were configured by forum members and chosen in Q1 2013 BestConfigs Poll.

High-End AMD-Based Gaming PC

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Five entrants were chosen to compete in this quarter’s High-End AMD-Based Gaming PC.

The choosing of this quarter’s AMD enthusiast system was a heated battle. But every battle has a victor, and in the end, g-unit1111’s Build smoked rival Mjmj’s No Microstutter AMD Rig by a single vote.

Congratulations to forum member g-unit1111 for having his recommended build picked by the Tom's Hardware community this quarter! 

With a budget of $2,000, forum member g-unit1111 was making it rain over at Newegg. Naturally, any top-of-the-line AMD rig is built around the Vishera-based FX-8350, the company’s current flagship CPU. Keeping this octo-core chip cool and ready for heavy-duty overclocking is Noctua’s NH-D14, a behemoth of a heat sink that smashes all but the priciest liquid-cooling systems in thermal performance.

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The choice of motherboard hammers home the overclocked theme of this build. As an enthusiast platform, Asus' Sabertooth 990FX has a BIOS loaded with every option an old-school overclocker could want.

While this build only has 8 GB of G.Skill Ares DDR3-1600 memory, additional RAM isn’t really necessary for gaming.

A pair of Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards from Sapphire brings a ton of graphics horsepower, though the motherboard leaves room for yet another set of cards.

The OCZ Vertez 4 acts as a 256 GB boot and application drive, while a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint serves as a spacious-enough data disk. Keeping this collection of hardware running stably is PC Power & Cooling’s Silencer Mk II 950W 80 PLUS Silver PSU.

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OCZ Vertex 4

The entire build is enclosed in the iconic white NZXT Phantom 410. In a somewhat refreshing change of pace, g-unit1111 chose a Lite-On DVD writer for the optical drive.

When originally spec’ed out, this rig rang up to $2,006.84. The current prices of g-unit1111’s Build can be found in the BestConfigs shopping tables.