System Builder Marathon Q3 2015: Value Comparison

Opinion
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Three experienced builders struggle to find the ultimate performance for the same low price — no excuses, no concessions. Who will win?

The Builds

Sticking with an Intel CPU while dumping most of his money into graphics left Chris with few options. He could give up any hope of overclocking and gain Intel Hyper-Threading for better core utilization with the Core i3-4170, or he could try to make up what he lost in core utilization by overclocking the cheaper Pentium G3258 — he chose the former.

AMD Mini PC

CPU
AMD Athlon X4 860K

Motherboard
ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+

Graphics
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 TURBO

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ProcessorO/C to 4.0-4.3GHz, 1.4V
GraphicsO/C to 1400MHz, GDDR5-7410
MemoryO/C to DDR3-2400 12-13-13-31, 1.65V
Motherboard2000MHz NB @ 1.40V
  • Platform Cost: $645
  • Total Hardware Cost: $707
  • Complete System Price: $797

Gaming PC

CPU
Intel Core i3-4170

Motherboard
ASRock H97M Pro 4

Memory
G.SKILL Ares 8GB

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ProcessorStock
GraphicsO/C to 1080 MHz, GDDR5-6520
MemoryO/C to Applied XMP Profile
MotherboardStock
  • Platform Cost: $620
  • Total Hardware Cost: $700
  • Complete System Price: $800

Prosumer PC

CPU
Intel Core i5-6600K

Motherboard
Gigabyte Z170-HD3

Memory
Crucial CT2K4G4DFS8213

Swipe to scroll horizontally
ProcessorO/C to 4.4GHz, 1.30V
GraphicsO/C to <1300 MHz, GDDR5-6000
MemoryO/C to DDR4-2133 CL 14-14-14-28, 1.24V
MotherboardStock
  • Platform Cost: $656
  • Total Hardware Cost: $700
  • Complete System Price: $800

Eric on the other hand was able to get a reasonably good overclock out of his quad-core Athlon X4 860K without paying extra for an oversized cooler. That’s something I would have liked to try with my Core i5-6600K, except Intel no longer ships its top Core i5 with a “free” cooler.

Chris’ CPU choice left Eric with the greatest amount of money for graphics, leaving us only to question whether his CPU had enough processing efficiency (instructions per cycle, or IPC) to push the higher-priced card through games.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
78 Comments Comment from the forums
  • TNT27
    Console PC ~ 300-400$ build, Average Pc 800, and 1600$ ultimate
    Reply
  • Crashman
    How about we throw out the budget limits next time and ask everybody to fix all the problems with their current build specs? We'd still need to compete for value, so the "no budget" part should still yield machines in the $900 to $1200 range, because once you go "too far" you start to loose the "price/performance" math.
    Reply
  • TNT27
    16706286 said:
    How about we throw out the budget limits next time and ask everybody to fix all the problems with their current build specs?

    Im kool with that!
    Reply
  • synphul
    I can appreciate the results of these specific systems in terms of performance but I'm seeing some serious flaws here. The 'gaming' build opted for an ssd which has little impact on gaming performance and settled for a lower end gpu while the amd mini build went with a gaming gpu and ditched the ssd? No wonder the amd mini system got best marks for performance/price in gaming. It would have been a much different story the other way around.

    Unfortunately prices are volatile and some of the prices listed aren't accurate. The gtx 970 used in the amd mini build must have been having an incredible sale as it's still offering a rebate card and yet right now on newegg it's $325 ($305 with rebate) which alone blows the $800 budget. I was thinking the newegg links automatically updated to reflect current pricing via newegg's site but it doesn't appear to.

    Similarly I don't recall the wd blue 1tb being close to $70, most times in pc partpicker it's around $48-52 and currently on newegg it's $53. If that gtx 970 were actually $250 it could've been added to the i3 gaming build but at it's actual price blows the budget. Then again it blows the amd mini pc budget based on current price anyway.
    Reply
  • Onus
    I like the idea of seeing what would happen if the current builds were "fixed." This will give useful information on the future-resistance of each build.
    Otherwise, three machines at the same budget has provided some excellent data points. IMHO, this is the best SBM we have seen in a good while now. They're one of my favorite features of the site, and this quarter's series was exceptional.
    Another idea would be to keep the same purposes (and budgets) for which these three PCs were built, but randomly assign each one to a different builder; same purpose, same budget, ok who wins?
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    I'd like to propose lowering the budget to $400 and aiming the "gaming" and "HTPC" builds to 1080p. Have a "pro" PC build to target pro and casual gaming workloads with a resoluion of 1440p.
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    How about we throw out the budget limits next time and ask everybody to fix all the problems with their current build specs? We'd still need to compete for value, so the "no budget" part should still yield machines in the $900 to $1200 range, because once you go "too far" you start to loose the "price/performance" math.
    In my estimation, (read: guess ;-) slap a Fury or a Fury X on the AMD mini PC and the "gaming" PC and you're pretty much done. That falls within the $900 - $1200 price range.

    I guess the builders could also do a Crossfire or SLI experiment if they really wanted to test out wild ideas (or heck, just look around for a cheap 295X2 :-)
    Reply
  • Crashman
    16706789 said:
    I like the idea of seeing what would happen if the current builds were "fixed." This will give useful information on the future-resistance of each build.
    Otherwise, three machines at the same budget has provided some excellent data points. IMHO, this is the best SBM we have seen in a good while now. They're one of my favorite features of the site, and this quarter's series was exceptional.
    Another idea would be to keep the same purposes (and budgets) for which these three PCs were built, but randomly assign each one to a different builder; same purpose, same budget, ok who wins?
    Randomly...but we each picked our own, it's not as if Eric was assigned the gaming build just because he's filling in for game-system-builder Paul :)

    Reply
  • Aspiring techie
    How about we throw out the budget limits next time and ask everybody to fix all the problems with their current build specs? We'd still need to compete for value, so the "no budget" part should still yield machines in the $900 to $1200 range, because once you go "too far" you start to loose the "price/performance" math.
    I like it! I'd like to see what would happen if the builder can spend whatever he wants. One thing I have never seen here is a build that is completely and totally overkill. That would be cool to see.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    16706970 said:
    How about we throw out the budget limits next time and ask everybody to fix all the problems with their current build specs? We'd still need to compete for value, so the "no budget" part should still yield machines in the $900 to $1200 range, because once you go "too far" you start to loose the "price/performance" math.
    I like it! I'd like to see what would happen if the builder can spend whatever he wants. One thing I have never seen here is a build that is completely and totally overkill. That would be cool to see.
    We started out with a completely overkill $4400 build the first time. No OS in the price either :) Everyone hated it.
    Reply