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Summer 2009 PC Buyer's Guide July 15, 2009 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: Planning to build or upgrade your existing PC and don't know what components to buy? If so, you'll definitely want to check out our Summer 2009 PC Buyer's Guide. Inside we've spec'ed out 7 different gaming PCs ranging in price from $500 to over $5,000. SLI and CrossFire, AMD and Intel builds are all included. See which parts made the cut in our latest article!
 Summer 2009 Buyer’s Guide | Page:: ( 1 / 9 ) |
In more recent weeks, ATI has also cut prices on their Radeon 4800 line of GPUs in an effort to take share away from NVIDIA. The move also helps them unload old inventory ahead of the introduction of the first DirectX 11 GPUs in the next 2-3 months. Unwilling to concede anything to the competition, NVIDIA countered ATI with price reductions of their own shortly thereafter. The tit-for-tat battle between both IHVs shows no signs of slowing even as we head into the summer doldrums.
As a result of these developments, the insanely low prices hardware enthusiasts have enjoyed as a result of the economic downturn have only gotten lower. Remember the days when gamers longed for the return of the $300 high-end graphics card? Today you can find Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 275 boards selling for less than $200 after mail-in rebate.
On the CPU side, prices on Intel’s Core 2 Duo E8600 have remained flat, but the introduction of the Core 2 Quad Q8400 and Core 2 Duo E7400 have made things interesting for the Intel enthusiast on a budget. And AMD’s Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is the best CPU on the market right now if you’ve only got $100 to spend on a new processor.
Things are going to get even more interesting when Intel rolls out their new Lynnfield processors, which will reportedly take place in early September.
Not everyone can wait for Lynnfield and the arrival of the first DirectX 11 GPUs however. Some of you have to make a decision before the middle of August, when it’s time to go back to campus for school. With this in mind, we’ve prepared a fresh new summer upgrade guide for you. This new guide also includes some of the feedback we received from Yoshi, and as a result, we’ll now be including AMD and Intel builds.
Before we get started though, a few quick pointers. As always when building a new computer, the first question you have to ask yourself (besides price) is what you intend to do with the computer. A gaming PC has very different needs than a home theater PC, or a PC that will primarily be used for surfing the web.
Since we’re a gaming-oriented site, our focus will obviously be on gaming PCs. Every gaming PC needs a good graphics card. It’s also important that you pair it with a competent CPU. You don’t want to blow too much of your budget on any one component; especially when it comes to components that won’t affect your frame rate or compromise the stability/reliability of the system. Therefore if you’re on a tight budget, you may have to skimp a little on parts like the case, or settle for a smaller hard drive capacity.
An even better solution would be to recycle as many parts as you can from your current system so that you can splurge on better components for your upgrade: if forgoing a new case gives you the money to step up to a Radeon 4890 or GeForce GTX 275, by all means do it.
As always with these upgrade guides, our prices are coming from Newegg, which is one of the most popular etailers online among enthusiasts right now. To keep things simple, we’re also going to be taking prices before mail-in rebate.
| AMD Entry-level Gaming: $500 | Page:: ( 2 / 9 ) |
Our entry level PC is designed for the gamer on a tight budget. This system will play most modern games on high settings with 2xAA/8xAF and some at up to 4xAA/16xAF.
| AMD Entry-level Gaming PC | ||
| $500 | ||
| GPU: | ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 | $99.99 |
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition | $99.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P | $79.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $64.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB | $49.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series CS-NT-BETA-B | $49.99 |
| Power Supply: | COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-460-PMSR-A3 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $504.92 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
As always when spec’ing out our upgrade builds, we start with the GPU we want to go with followed closely by the CPU, and then build the rest of the system around those two core components until everything works within the intended budget.
Right from the get go we knew we wanted to opt for ATI’s Radeon 4850 GPU. Launched over a year ago, the Radeon 4850 is a tremendous performer that can handle most games at high quality settings, even with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. We prefer the Radeon 4850 over the GeForce GTS 250 at this time due to its lower price tag and better performance under 8xAA. Yes, in older games you can crank the AA all the way up to 8xMSAA and the 4850 still delivers very playable performance. This is particularly feasible at the 1600x1200 (or 1680x1050) resolution our entry level PC would be gaming at. We chose the ASUS card in particular because of its low price, dual DVIs, and dual-slot cooler. If you’re willing to deal with mail-in rebates, MSI’s R4850-2D512-OC would be our top choice. It’s factory OC’ed, and has beefier 4+1 phase power, along with MSI’s seaweed blade fan. We reviewed MSI’s equivalent 4830 board back in December and loved it.
As an added bonus, it’s actually slightly cheaper than the ASUS card after rebate: $89.99.
The next component, AMD’s Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition was another no-brainer. As its name implies, the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is based on the exact same 45-nm Deneb core AMD uses in their latest Phenom II processors. The only difference is AMD activates two processing cores, leaving two cores disabled. Because it’s based on the same core as AMD’s other Phenom II parts, the same key architecture features carry over unchanged. The chip features 64KB of L1 cache per core for data and instructions (256KB L1 total) and 512KB of L2 cache per core for a grand total of 1MB of L2 cache active on the processor. The L3 cache carries over unchanged, with the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition sporting 6MB of L3 cache shared amongst the processors two cores.
AMD clocks the chip at 3.1GHz, with the chip featuring a 15.5x multiplier. Keep in mind that as a Black Edition CPU, the multiplier is unlocked and can be adjusted to whatever setting you wish when OC’ing.
For the motherboard, we chose the Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P. We reviewed this motherboard a few weeks ago and found it delivered solid performance with a robust BIOS and good feature set.
G.SKILL’s DDR3-1333 memory kit is the cheapest available on Newegg right now. G.SKILL also offers DDR3-1600 memory modules that are priced similarly, but we opted for the 1333MHz modules due to their lower latency.
NZXT’s Beta case is pretty popular among enthusiasts on a budget right now. The case boasts a perfect score on Newegg and has room for up to four 120mm case fans. It’s also offered with a $10 mail-in rebate right now, bringing the total price down to $39.99 if you don’t mind waiting for your rebate check to arrive.
To go alongside the Beta case, we chose a slightly less powerful PSU from Cooler Master due to its better power ratings on the 3.3V and 5V rails. Note that ATI officially recommends a minimum of a 450W PSU for the 4850, so we’re just getting by in this regard, but again, the 460W Cooler Master actually has better specs than comparably-priced 500W PSUs. We acknowledge that this is one of the key weaknesses of our system, so if you can afford to spend a little more on this component, we’d highly recommend it. A 600W PSU would be a good starting point.
Alternatives
In terms of the CPU and GPU, we wouldn’t recommend any other alternatives at this price point. However, as we mentioned you could save a little money by opting for the MSI 4850 card if you’re willing to deal with rebates.
Another big area you could save a little money on is switching from the AM3 platform we used, and reverting down to AM2+. Gigabyte’ GA-MA770-UD3 is actually $5 cheaper than the GA-MA770T. You’d also be able to save on the DDR2 memory. G.SKILL offers 4GB DDR2-800 kits for as low as $46.99.
In exchange, you could then opt for a more powerful PSU or get a good CPU cooler.
We actually debated long and hard about making this AM2+ setup the primary $500 AMD build, but ultimately opted for the newer AM3 platform. As DDR3 prices continue to fall, the AM2+ platform will be phased out. We figured we may as well go ahead and get on the boat.
| Intel Entry-level Gaming: $500 | Page:: ( 3 / 9 ) |
Our entry level PC is designed for the gamer on a tight budget. This system will play most modern games on high settings with 2xAA/8xAF and some at up to 4xAA/16xAF.
| Intel Entry-level Gaming PC | ||
| $500 | ||
| GPU: | ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 | $99.99 |
| CPU: | Intel Pentium E6300 | $87.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L | $79.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2-800 | $46.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB | $49.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series CS-NT-BETA-B | $49.99 |
| Power Supply: | hec Orion XPOWER585 585W | $34.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Masscool 8WA741 | $22.99 |
| Grand Total: | $497.91 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
We’re sticking with the Radeon 4850 for our Intel budget setup for all the reasons outlined on the previous page. Intel CPUs are a little pricier than AMD’s though, so we had to step down from a Core 2 Duo processor to Intel’s Pentium E6300 CPU.
The E6300 is based on Intel’s dual-core 45-nm Wolfdale core and runs at 2.8GHz with 2MB of L3 cache and 1066MHz FSB. Like all Core 2 processors, the chip OCs like mad, but as we observed in our recent Phenom II/Athlon II article, performance takes a hit in comparison to the Core 2 Duo E7000 series due to the small L2 cache.
While we linked to the fully boxed Intel processor with heatsink/fan, the stock cooler Intel provides is junk. Throw it away and replace it with a nice cooler like the unit we mentioned from Masscool. Your processor will thank you.
For the motherboard we opted for Gigabyte’s GA-EP43-UD3L. We actually debated between this board and ASUS’ P5QL, but opted for the Gigabyte board due to its larger North Bridge cooling and Ultra Durable 3 features. The ASUS board is priced identically with somewhat similar features, so this was a close decision. The power supply is a tough call. We decided to highlight a different PSU than the Cooler Master used in the AMD build, honestly we trust the Cooler Master brand more, but if you’re willing to try an unknown brand, the hec PSU would be an interesting choice. Based on the user reviews, it’s biggest issue seems to be units that arrive DOA. Here we should also mention that name brand companies like OCZ offer 600W and 700W PSUs that sell for $50 after mail-in rebate. Honestly this is the route we would go if it were our money, but we also needed to stick to our $500 budget as closely as possible and we aren’t factoring mail-in rebates as some users just don’t like them.
Alternatives
Besides the aforementioned alternatives on the motherboard and power supply, if you’re willing to splurge the Core 2 Duo E7400 delivers better performance than the Pentium E6300, only it will set you back about $120.
| AMD Midrange Gaming: $1,000 | Page:: ( 4 / 9 ) |
With a little more room to splurge on faster components, our midrange build should be able to handle most games with high quality settings and 4xAA/16xAF. It’s designed to be affordable, yet at the same time provide an upgrade path for future hardware releases.
| AMD Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 | ||
| GPU: | MSI R4890-T2D1G OC | $199.99 |
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition | $210 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5P | $169.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $64.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache | $99.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest | $99.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W | $72.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe Mugen-2 | $36.99 |
| Grand Total: | $979.92 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
Picking a GPU at the midrange price point wasn’t as clear cut as the entry-level system. At this price point the grudge match between ATI and NVIDIA is much closer, with the GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890 performing very evenly with one another. Each card has its games that it excels in, with the GeForce card having the advantage of PhysX, while ATI’s 4890 has a performance edge under 8xAA. Ultimately it’s going to come down to which is more important to you.
We gave the nod to the Radeon 4890 due to its lower price. While Radeon 4890 cards start at about $190, pricing on GTX 275 cards starts at $205.
So why the MSI card in particular? In part due to its killer mail-in rebate. We also like the fact that the card is OC’ed slightly. Really all of the 4890 cards at this price point are based on ATI’s reference design, so from a fundamental hardware perspective, they’re all identical to each other.
On the CPU front, the Phenom II X4 955 was a no-brainer. Its AMD’s best CPU yet, and thanks to a $5 price cut Newegg implemented on Tuesday, it’s cheaper than ever. This 3.2GHz CPU is a tremendous performer as well, giving high-end Core 2 CPUs a run for their money in some cases. Thanks to our $1,000 budget, we also managed to squeeze in a CPU cooler from Scythe, the Mugen 2. The Mugen 2 delivers very good performance for its price thanks to its heatpipes and extensive use of copper.
After much debate, the motherboard we selected is Gigabyte’s GA-MA790FX-UD5P. We recently took a look at high-end AM3 motherboards from ASUS and Gigabyte and prefer the GA-MA790FX-UD5P due to its extra SATA supports (up to 10 are provided), excellent feature set, and great performance/stability. The ASUS Crosshair III Formula is a good board too, but it’s priced a little higher than the Gigabyte board and it doesn’t quite have the pedigree of previous ASUS Republic of Gamers motherboards.
On the storage front, we selected Western Digital’s Caviar Black. The WD HDD sports a 5-year warranty, and with a 32MB cache and 7200 RPM spindle speed, it’s quite a performer as well. 1 Terabyte worth of storage doesn’t hurt either.
In terms of the system RAM, we actually wanted to splurge and get some DDR3 memory with more powerful cooling here, but then we remembered that the AM3 CPU socket and the DDR3 DIMM slots are located too close to one another, making tall RAM modules impossible with a high-profile CPU cooler. Ugh. We’ll just stick with the G.SKILL RAM and pocket the change then.
NZXT’s Tempest case is an incredibly popular solution at the $100 price point. It boasts a 5/5 user rating on Newegg right now. Don’t forget that this is a FiringSquad Editor’s Choice Product either.
Finally, as you can see we managed to splurge for an OCZ 700W PSU. OCZ backs their PSUs up with a lifetime warranty, and this is yet another highly rated product on Newegg, making it another no-brainer.
Alternatives
As we noted above, the most obvious alternative choice for our midrange AMD PC would be a GeForce GTX 275 GPU. Just keep in mind that you’ll have to pay extra for GeForce hardware.
An even better alternative way to splurge on this build would be to opt for CrossFire though. We did just that with our next system…
| AMD CrossFire Midrange Gaming: $1,000 | Page:: ( 5 / 9 ) |
With dual Radeon cards running in CrossFire, our midrange gaming PC should be more than capable of handling most games with maximum quality settings and 4xAA/16xAF.
| AMD CrossFire Midrange alternate | ||
| $1,000 | ||
| GPU: | 2xXFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB | $293.98 |
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition | $119 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5P | $169.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $64.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache | $99.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest | $99.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W | $72.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe Mugen-2 | $36.99 |
| Total: | 982.91 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
2xRadeon 4870 1GBs > 1xRadeon 4890. That’s your math lesson for today boys and girls.
With this in mind the rig listed above would make for an excellent alternative to our primary $1,000 midrange AMD build. With 1600 stream processors on tap amongst both Radeon 4870 GPUs, you’d be able to run any game you want with maximum eye candy and blistering frame rates.
In order to make this happen and still fit within our budget, we had to downgrade from the Phenom II X4 955 to the Phenom II X3 720. As a result you’ll have to give up one processing core, but as any gamer will tell you, most games don’t take advantage of quad-core yet anyway. The bigger issue is the loss of clock speed: the X3 720 is clocked 400MHz slower than the X4 955. Fortunately Phenom II is an excellent overclocker in triple-core as well as quad-core guise; so you shouldn’t have any problems dialing the X3 720 to speeds well beyond 3.2GHz.
In stock form though, the 2.8GHz clock speed of the triple-core AMD CPU could be a bottleneck for your CrossFire setup.
As you can see, with the money we saved by downgrading the CPU, we managed to retain all the other key ingredients found in the original midrange rig. This is particularly important in the case of the power supply and case, which are two components which will be tested more heavily by our CrossFire rig (ATI recommends a 600W PSU for 4870 CrossFire).
Alternatives
You could go with SLI instead of CrossFire for this PC. We selected CrossFire for this particular configuration for two reasons: to save money and because it’s also getting tough to find SLI-compatible motherboards that support AMD’s latest Phenom II CPUs.
| Intel Midrange Gaming: $1,000 | Page:: ( 6 / 9 ) |
With a little more room to splurge on faster components, our midrange build should be able to handle most games with high quality settings and 4xAA/16xAF. It’s designed to be affordable, yet at the same time provide an upgrade path for future hardware releases.
| Intel Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 | ||
| GPU: | MSI R4890-T2D1G OC | $199.99 |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 | $219.99 |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P5Q Premium | $179.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2-800 Dual-Channel Kit | $46.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache | $99.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest | $99.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W | $72.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe Mugen-2 | $36.99 |
| Grand Total: | $981.91 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
Our midrange Intel build should deliver more than enough performance to please most gamers. Visuals are delivered by a Radeon 4890: again, we selected the 4890 over the GeForce GTX 275 due to its lower price tag. This is particularly important for our Intel build, as quad-core Core 2 CPUs sell for a premium in comparison to their AMD counterparts.
Processing duties are handled by Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9550. The Q9550 is a 2.83GHz part based on Intel’s 45-nm Yorkfield core, sporting 12MB of L2 cache and a 1333MHz FSB. It’s the massive L2 cache that we’re most interested in however. Once OC’ed, this CPU really screams.
We debated long and hard on the motherboard, but ultimately settled on ASUS’ P5Q Premium due to its combination of price and features. There are a ton of really good P45 choices out there though, so you may want to substitute a Gigabyte or MSI board if it has a particular feature that you need.
Everything else is pretty much carried over from the AMD build on the previous page, so flip back to see our comments on the rest of the components.
Alternatives
Again, the GeForce GTX 275 is the most obvious alternative for this particular build. Some users may prefer a different case and that’s fine, as cases are a pretty personal decision that’s going to vary based on your tastes and preferences in a case. We really would’ve liked to have gone with a DDR3 platform at this price point, but we decided to stick to DDR2 just so we wouldn’t go over our $1,000 budget. If you feel like splurging a little, that may be another area to tinker from our build.
Some performance junkies will want to go dual-GPU at this price point though. For these users, we’ve put together an SLI build at the $1,000 price point. Why SLI over CrossFire for the Intel system? No particular reason really. Simply because it’s the more difficult route for us to go and still remain under budget. Besides, one of our systems needs GeForce inside right?
| Intel SLI Midrange Alternate: $1,000 | Page:: ( 7 / 9 ) |
Many gamers prefer SLI over CrossFire. NVIDIA has an excellent track record when it comes to profiling the latest games for SLI. ATI CrossFire has improved here, but they’re definitely still behind NVIDIA in this regard.
With this system you should be able to play most games at maximum settings with 4xAA/16xAF.
| Intel SLI Midrange alternate | ||
| $1,000 | ||
| GPUs: | 2xXFX GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 | 319.98 |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz | $167.99 |
| Motherboard: | XFX MBN790IUL9 nForce 790i Ultra SLI | $179.99 |
| RAM: | G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $64.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB | $56.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest | $99.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W | $72.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe Mugen-2 | $36.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,024.90 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
Because of the added cost of the GeForce cards and SLI-compliant motherboard, we had to skimp on the CPU in order to remain on budget. As a result we had to settle for an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU.
The E8400 is a dual-core CPU based on Intel’s Wolfdale core with a 3.0GHz clock speed, 1333MHz FSB, and 6MB of L3 cache. Its core is basically half of a Yorkfield like the Q9550 we just used on the previous Intel build. The Core 2 Duo E8xxx CPUs are known for their ability to scale to high clock speeds; in fact we managed to hit over 4.6GHz on air with an E8600 CPU last year, so you’ll definitely want to see how far you can push this processor in order to keep the dual GeForce GTX 260 cards fed with data.
On the motherboard side, we settled on an nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard from XFX. Why XFX over the other manufacturers? Simple. Cost. The XFX board is the cheapest on Newegg right now, and considering we’re slightly over budget, we can’t splurge on an nForce 790i board from one of the other manufacturers. The XFX board has earned solid user review scores anyway.
Alternatives
Switching from SLI to CrossFire would get us to our $1,000 budget. We’d be able to save $26 by switching to dual XFX 4870 1GB boards. Food for thought if you have absolutely must spend $1,000 and have no room to splurge in your budget.
| Ultimate Gaming PC | Page:: ( 8 / 9 ) |
The Ultimate Gaming PC is designed to handle all of the latest games with maximum graphics settings and 8xAA/16xAF. It’s for the gamer who craves the absolute best image quality and performance.
| Ultimate Gaming PC | ||
| Unlimited Budget | ||
| GPUs: | 2xMSI N295GTX GeForce GTX 295 | $999.98 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition 3.33GHz | $999.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME | $328.99 |
| RAM: | 2xOCZ Reaper HPC 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) 6GB (12GB total) | $269.98 |
| Performance HDDs: | 2xIntel X25-M 160GB (320GB total) RAID 0 | $1,258.00 |
| Storage HDD: | Western Digital RE4-GP 2TB | $329.99 |
| DVD Drive/Burner: | Samsung 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA | $24.99 |
| Blu-ray Burner/Drive: | Pioneer Internal Blu-ray Burner 8X Blu-Ray DVD Burner | $208.99 |
| Audio Card: | Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series | $199.99 |
| Fan Controller: | Scythe KM02-BK 5.25\\" Bay Fan Controller | $39.99 |
| Case: | Silverstone Raven RV01 | $249.99 |
| Power Supply: | Silverstone ST1200 1200W 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply | $329.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 | $74.99 |
| Grand Total: | $5,315.86 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
If you had an unlimited budget, the system represented above is as close to PC perfection as it gets in our opinion. You’ve got dual GeForce GTX 295 GPUs running in SLI, providing 4-Way SLI. These cards running in tandem are more than enough to power all of today’s latest games with maximum image quality settings and 8xAA. You’ll of course want a nice 24” or 30” monitor to go alongside these cards.
The processor of choice is another easy decision. Intel’s Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is the fastest processor in the world. It sports a 3.33GHz clock speed and relies on a new stepping that enables higher clock speeds. We managed to push our CPU to over 4.3GHz. If you want the absolute best, this is it.
The motherboard we selected is Gigabyte’s EX58-Extreme. The EX58 Extreme ships with an optional North Bridge cooler that’s larger than some graphics cards. It also has 10 internal SATA ports and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports.
This is the same motherboard we now use on our high-end X58 testbed.
Similarly we chose OCZ’s Reaper HPC memory modules. This is another high-end testbed component that we absolutely love. The Reaper modules sport heatpipe cooling on top of the conventional heatspreader. We selected the memory modules with lower timings over sheer clock speed. Again, in OC’ing we’ve found that modules with lower timings are quite capable of hitting higher clocks very easily. The higher latency, higher speed modules don’t tend to scale as far.
On the hard drive front, we’ve selected a pair of Intel X25-M SSDs for performance drive duty, while a Western Digital 2TB drive with 64MB cache is used for bulk storage of MP3s, video files, etc. The Intel SSDs are known for their incredible performance, but they’re also pricey. Like Core i7 Extreme though if you want the best, you’ve got to be willing to pay the price premium.
Our optical drives consist of the same SATA Samsung drive we’ve used in other builds along with a SATA Blu-ray burner from Pioneer.
We debated about relying on a high-end ASUS Xonar card for audio, but ultimately selected the Creative card for EAX effects. If you care more about movies and music, the Xonar HDAV 1.3 would be a good alternative.
We selected Scythe’s 5.25” fan controller due to its feature set, high quality build materials, and ease of use. In our opinion this is the best fan controller on the market right now. Newegg users happen to agree: this is a 5/5 star product.
Silverstone’s Raven is the case of choice in our ultimate PC. The Raven features an innovative design that mounts the motherboard 90 degrees. It’s designed to allow hot air to rise out the top of your case. Check out our review for more details.
Our PSU also comes from Silverstone. We selected their 1200W PSU because its 80+ certified, has more than enough power to drive our dual GPUs and Core i7 CPU, and its modular design will help reduce cable clutter.
Finally, we sourced a CPU cooler from Noctua. We honestly don’t know much about this cooler, as we use Thermalright coolers on our high-end X58 testbeds, but Newegg doesn’t carry their products so we selected this cooler due to its feature set. Twin 120mm fans on each side of the heatsink should ensure that your Core i7 CPU is running as cool as possible.
Alternatives
You’re kidding right?
If you did need to save a little money, you could knock off over $1,000 by dropping one of the GeForce GTX 295 cards, and skipping the second X25-M. If you need to save a little more money you could also opt for 6GB of memory instead of 12GB. You could also opt for a water cooler like the CoolIT Domino (or a higher-end setup if you don't mind periodic maintenace); Newegg doesn't seem to carry it at the moment though.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 9 / 9 ) |
That’s what we call progress.
There’s room for improvement however. While DDR3 prices have come down considerably since February, they still haven’t quite reached price parity with DDR2 and thus our thriftier Intel builds rely on DDR2 rather than DDR3 memory. If DDR3 prices continue to come down though we see no reason why both memory types shouldn’t hit price parity by the end of the year.
We also couldn’t quite squeeze Core i7 into our midrange Intel build. The X58 motherboards are still pricier than P45 (obviously), there’s the aforementioned memory price advantage that the DDR2/Core 2 Quad platform enjoys, and finally, Core i7-920 prices haven’t really come down all that much since the CPU was introduced last year.
Intel knows they have a good thing with Core i7, and they aren’t going to reduce prices on it until they absolutely have to.
That’s what makes the upcoming Lynnfield launch so interesting. Rumor has it that the midrange 2.8GHz Lynnfield CPU should be very competitive with Core i7-920. Now we just need to see where the two CPUs are priced, as well as the price of corresponding P55 motherboards. Hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze it into that $1,000 Intel build.
The first DirectX 11 GPUs are also right around the corner. DX11’s compute shader should finally bring GPU-based physics to ATI, and hopefully we’ll finally see game developers use the tessellation unit to bring us even higher detail game worlds and characters.
So as excited as we are about today’s PC builds, we really can’t wait to see the innovations we’ll be able to integrate into our Fall gaming PCs. Until then though, these seven PCs represent the best that you can get at their respective price points for gaming. If you think differently though, feel free to share your thoughts with us in the news comments!