Build Your Own: Introducing Tom's Hardware's BestConfigs!
Welcome to a new feature we call BestConfigs, where you can find recommended parts for office PCs, gaming rigs, a workstation, or a home theater setup. If you're so inclined, feel free to chip in with suggestions for next month's recommendations, too!
Picking the parts for your next system build just got a little easier…
Every quarter, Tom’s Hardware gives you its System Builder Marathon, which pits three of our authors at three different price points in a friendly little competition to demonstrate to you, our readers who generally don’t mind tweaking your systems for extra performance, the best possible value for your money (and then we give the computers away). In case you missed it, December’s series can be found here:
$700 Gaming PC
$1,300 Enthusiast PC
$2,500 Performance PC
System Value Compared
While this is always quite a bit of fun for us, it really focuses on gaming, and then only at three different prices. But there are oh-so-many other ways we use our systems, aren’t there?
That’s where our new section, which we call BestConfigs, comes into play. I’ve set up nine different configurations right off the bat, each with a parts list needed to build the machine in question.
For as many of the items going into each of these builds, we’ve linked you to our PriceGrabber shopping engine to help you find the best possible deals as you compile your parts list. For the items that aren’t well-represented in the engine, we pulled the prices from NewEgg.
Now, here's where it gets fun. We’ve parted out each of these systems based on our own experiences with the hardware. As a starting point, they’re solid builds any of us would be happy to own. But you have your own experiences and recommendations. So, each month, we’ll go through your feedback on this page and alter each of the builds as necessary. If another is warranted, we’ll consider the pieces and add the components. If you want to see peripherals or displays, we’ll work that out as well.
For the time being, enjoy the first edition of our BestConfigs and feel free to contribute your own ideas for whichever builds are most applicable to your own needs!
Chris Angelini
Managing Editor, Tom’s Hardware
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Well to start of i'd like to say i enjoy this new feature... even though i've got a new rig a few months back i would have liked to have something like this to help me make a few decisions...
here are my thoughts:
AMD-Based Office PC - i like what i see, i would probably just put in a smaller harddrive like a 500Gbs max to cut the price down to the $500, because in an office of at least more then 2 computers id like to have a NAS to keep all the important and commonly used data.
Intel-Based Office PC - same thing as the AMD based office PC, i would just put in a smaller HDD to save for a NAS system
High-End Workstation - i would probably buy an ATI graphics (yes i'm guilty of beeing a fan boy sorry), and for storage i would go with 2Gb Western digital drives for the new techs they have to help stability and durability (even if they werent RE4 editions) and minimum 3 drives for a RAID 5 or 4 drives for a RAID 10.
Budget Intel-Based Gaming PC - Seems nice...
Budget AMD-Based Gaming PC - would definitely change to a Gigabyte board even if it would cost a bit more, and dual-cores dont go very well with me at the present so an Athlon 620 would be a much better choise... dont like hitachi very much so i would probably end up changing the harddrives but i guess it would depend on how much money id have lol...
Home Theater PC - i would like a lower power AMD CPU and a low cost 785G board, one thing that i see missing is an audio card... the Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 does a wonderfull job with movie audio... but what about audiophiles? what happens if you want to hear a nice concerto with your new media center? the HD 5750 wount do you much of a job there... A Xonar from Asus would be a very nice addition.
MicroATX Gaming Build - looks good, i would just change the graphics card to just a single card like a 5850 or 5870 cause i dont like cross-fire that much and sometimes it doesnt scale that good, if needed the case would be changed...
High-End Gaming PC's - i would just add more hard drives for added security... ia've had to much trouble with data loss due to bad HDD's =)
i would say that peripherals would be nice to although i guess those even depend more on personal taste, but a few suggestions wont do anyone harm i guess =)
PS: i didnt add links to any price item in particular because i live in portugal and i prefer to give a more universal idea =) hope something of this might help someone =)
US only ?