Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Special > Buyers Guides > System Builder Marathon: $625 Gaming PC

Conclusion

08:10 - Monday 29 December 2008 by Paul Henningsen

As expected, the E7300 System provided better performance at stock clock speeds than last month's system did, but it didn’t nearly provide the same overclocking headroom. Let’s sum up the total performance gains we were able to achieve this month with our overclocking endeavors.

Looking at the average increase of 25%, we see that even when pushing a higher graphics card overclock, our lower CPU overclock keeps us from reaching the same 29% gaming increase that last month's system did. We simply removed more CPU limitation last month by overclocking. Those who don’t want to go back and compare old charts will need to wait for the Performance Analysis to see how the two systems compare in straight-out gaming performance.

Audio/video encoding took a much larger overall percentage hit from the CPU overclock, which dropped from an impressive 57% to just 40% this month.

With our other applications, we see large gains in three of the five benchmarks with the overclocked PC. Our 37% overclocking gain in applications from last month, dropped to just 25% this month.

A few pricing drops and a cheaper PSU made it possible to see if bumping up the CPU to an E7300 was worth considering over the impressive and fairly-cheap E5200. A total average performance increase of 30% fell 11% short compared to last month, but it still shows the system's ability to maximize the value of the chosen components by overclocking.

So, which is the better CPU? At stock speeds, no doubt the E7300 outperformed the E5200. But was it worth the extra $38 for an SBM machine with which we strive to overclock to maximize performance per dollar? To some extent we will need to wait for the Performance Analysis and a clear picture of the two overclocked systems pitted head-to-head before deciding which is better.

As overclocking does vary some from chip to chip, it isn’t fair to rule out the E7300 altogether based on one sample of each processor. But these disappointing maximum CPU clock speeds, as well as the few minor annoyances mentioned with PCMark Vantage and when cold booting, left room for discouragement about this month’s system. In contrast, last month's machine with the same motherboard overclocked far higher and was issue-free throughout the duration of testing. All that’s left now is to see how this system compares directly to last month's build and also to the other two more-expensive systems.

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v12v12 29/12/2008 13:18

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First(s) I'd like to say thanks, for the review... Ah yes, once again OC'ing proves the nay-sayers the fools we've always known they are: "Well why don't you take that money spent on fans and get a better CPU?" LMFAO be quiet and stick with Dells and the other mass-produced JUNK...

I'm a little curious about the way you determine your ram selection (aside from price)? Doesn't really seem like a "top end," aka: Corsair, Geil, OCZ, Kingston, Mushkin etc?

What thermal paste are you using in this test also? That is a CRUCIAL determining factor in your OC'ing results. 5-10C can make or break a top-end OC.

What about replacing the stock TIM on the GPU-sink? Everyone knows that stock "paste" is pure garbage, along with the extremely inefficient TIM-type "cloth" they use on the ram-chips b/c of poor engineering tolerances aka, huge GAPS between the chip and sink. I took apart my old 7800GS+ and was shocked at the ~2mm gap that was "filled" (smashed) with this white-ish-paste-cloth type TIM gunk?! Id rather have thermal pads in place of that mess... anyhow using IC7 Diamond/AS5—I've seen min 15C-20C drops in GPU Load temps! That's certainly an eye-opening temp drop. And definitely going to yield a better OC, even for the say of stability and hardware longevity...Anyhow thanks 4 the review!

Solitaire 01/01/2009 20:00

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Overall a good build, though a bit CPU-heavy and PSU-light for this level. Surprised at the OCd GPUs stability given the low-rated PSU - is that one of the newer Delta-built 430W Antecs? The older Seasonic 430W PSUs are generally considered one of the least effective aftermarket Antec PSUs and more often get bundled with (now obsolete/EoL) desktop/high-end-HTPC (Fusion) cases.

I do see a pattern though... despite the hype, Intel's mid-binned 45nm parts (E7000/Q8000) seem to suffer serious stability issues at moderate and high OC. Given that Intel's safety spec says that 45nm CPUs will start to die beyond 1.3625v and that many enthusiasts will think twice about running such parts beyond the 1.4225v mark I do think that its pretty cheeky that Toms ran the benchmarks above with a CPU barely hanging in there at a whopping 1.4875v, which is also beyond the limit Toms was supposed to use (1.45v).

And it wasn't even that much use, other than proving that the extra L2 cache probably isn't worth the money to the more cash-strapped gamers. A lot of the improvement in gaming benchmarks can instead be put down to the much improved drivers added to the fact that Toms was much more adventurous with OCing this time around (its the same Sapphire Value HD4850 as the last SBM!).

v12v12 - Patriot are a good high-end RAM supplier... in the US. Less well known and more expensive over here. OCZ modules would be more par the course for Europe. And those Sapphire Value cards are cheap because of an outrageously non-reference architecture. That's why ATT won't work on them. They also leave out heatspreaders on anything except the voltage regulators - a good decision, as you said they're more of a hinderance on anything other than hot-running power circuitry (like the regs) so Sapphire leaves the bare RAM chips just under the fan. Not just for cost - several tests suggested that those modules ran cooler and clocked higher than identical ones on other competing HD4830/50s that used discrete heatspreaders or the integrated heatspeader on the reference design slot-cooler.

Anonymous 10/01/2009 15:30

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again another good build but i have bg problem with em, they are on the U.K sit, i would liek to see a U.K one done, i know this will probly not be taken note of but it is hard to ind the samecompants at the equiv price here

but still great as usual =D