System Builder Marathon: $625 Gaming PC
Table of contents
- 1. More CPU, Please
- 2. CPU And Cooler
- 3. Motherboard And Memory
- 4. Graphics Card And Hard Drive
- 5. Case, Power Supply, And Optical Drive
- 6. Assembly And Overclocking
- 7. Test System And Benchmarks
System Builder Marathon, December 2008: The Articles
Here are links to each of the four articles in this month’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published).
- Day 1: The $650 Gaming PC
- Day 2: The $1,250 Mid-Range PC
- Day 3: The $2,500 Enthusiast PC
- Day 4: Performance and Value Dissected
Ed.—You’ll notice that we have once again paired up with NewEgg to deliver this month’s SBM. It’s an arrangement that gives us access to the latest retail components, which ideally delivers an experience more representative of what our readers would go through and eliminates the uncertainty associated with engineering/cherry-picked samples. Good news--you'll notice that this month we're back to three distinct system builds. That's because i7 is now widely available and we were able to build it into our high-end. There's also a bit of a surprise on day two. But for now, check out what Paul was able to piece together for $625!
Introduction
Readers seemed to appreciate the November SBM pricing points so we again stick to the $625 budget for this month’s Gaming PC. Many of our previous components also found their way into this system, but there was a little extra room in the budget to allow for a potential upgrade or two.
Our maximum-detail SBM gaming settings have so far brought our single-GPU gaming PCs to their knees, so attempts were first made to fit more GPU power into this month’s build. Ideally, dual HD 4830s or 9800 GTs were the goal, but unfortunately a CrossFire- or SLI-capable motherboard, dual $115 graphics cards, and a sufficient power supply unit (PSU) did not even come close to meeting the constraints of this budget. Even a single GTX 260 or HD 4870 would have required the HDD capacity or system memory to be cut in half and would have also limited us to $30 cases. While more GPU power remained just out of reach, there were enough pricing changes to instead increase our CPU budget so we could take a look at the Intel Core 2 Duo E7300.
With slightly higher stock clock speeds, a higher front side bus (FSB) clock, and more L2 cache, we expected the E7300-powered system to outperform November's E5200 setup right out of the box. But since this is an SBM review, we are thus more interested in seeing just what this rig will do once we find its maximum stable overclocked speeds. Let’s take a look at the other components selected for this month’s $625 Gaming PC.
| $625 Gaming PC System Components | ||
|---|---|---|
| Component | Model | Price (USD) |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66 GHz | 120 |
| CPU Cooler | Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro | 27 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L | 105 |
| RAM | Patriot Viper 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) | 53 |
| Graphics | Sapphire 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512 MB | 150 |
| Hard Drives | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500 GB 7200 RPM 32 MB | 65 |
| Sound | Integrated HD Audio | 0 |
| Network | Integrated Gigabit Networking | 0 |
| Case | Antec Three Hundred | 50 |
| Power | Antec NeoPower 430 430 W ATX12V | 40 |
| Optical | LITE-ON 20X DVD±R SATA Model iHAS120-04 | 22 |
| Total Price: | $632 | |
A few pricing changes on order day brought the $624 in selected components up to a slightly over-budget $632. The one change most worth mentioning is that the $10 savings on the E7300 expired, meaning we needed to obtain an extra $38 worth of performance out of this CPU vs. last month's E5200. And while we are on the topic, once again keep in mind that these prices and even availability are almost guaranteed to change by the time you read this article. Also, some readers may value knowing there were $40 worth of mail-in rebates available for these components at order time. With that said, it’s time to take a closer look at each of the components used in the December $625 PC.
Latest Buyers Guides News
Latest Buyers Guides reviews
- 10/02 – Eight 5.1- And 7.1-Channel Gaming Headsets, Reviewed
- 19/01 – Five Overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Cards, Rounded-Up
- 23/12 – System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: System Value Compared
- 21/12 – System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $600 Gaming PC
- 20/12 – System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $1200 Enthusiast PC
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!
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.
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
As above, we could really do with these done on UK sites/shops. Scan for example or Overclockers UK.....