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We don’t want just a smooth-running rig—we want a machine with benchmark numbers we can brag about!
To test the mettle of our $1,500 creation, we benched it against our standard zero-point system (which cost twice as much to build). The results? Pretty damned good. In the CPU-dependent tasks, our mildly overclocked 2.8GHz quad core outran the stock 2.67GHz Core 2 Quad Q6700 in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, Photodex ProShow Producer, and MainConcept Reference. All three tests are optimized for four cores and favor high clocks. In Photoshop CS3, however, our $1,500 rig was about 11 percent slower despite the slight clock-speed advantage. Why? Photoshop CS3 likes fast hard drives. While the 750GB Seagate is a fine performer, the zero-point’s single 10,000rpm 150GB WD Raptor is able to nullify the $1,500 PC’s RAM and CPU advantage.
We didn’t expect any wins in gaming—and we didn’t get any. Our zero-point machine packs two GeForce 8800 GTX cards in SLI mode. There’s just no way a single GeForce 8800 GTS 512 can beat those odds. Still, our $1,500 PC performed better than you might expect. The SLI 8800 GTX cards were roughly 30 percent faster in gaming, which isn’t a complete beat down. Of course, it helps that our current gaming benchmark tests are conducted at 1600x1200 resolution. At a much higher resolution of, say, 2560x1600, the SLI cards would whale on our singleton. But then again, how many budget buyers are going to pair an $1,800 monitor with a $1,500 box? The upshot is that we’re pleased as punch with our $1,500 PC’s performance.
| Windows XP Benchmarks | ||||
| Dell XPS 720 H2C | ||||
| Premiere Pro CS3 | 930 sec | |||
| Photoshop CS3 | 157 sec | |||
| Proshow | 969 sec | |||
| MainConcept | 1747 | |||
| FEAR 1.07 | 168 fps | |||
| Quake 4 | 205 fps | |||
| Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.67GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, 2GB of Corsair DDR2/800 RAM on an EVGA 680 SLI motherboard, two EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX cards in SLI mode, a Western Digital 150GB Raptor, a 500GB Caviar hard drive, an LG GGC-H20L optical drive, a Sound Blaster X-Fi soundcard, and a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad. The OS is Windows XP Pro. | ||||
We plan to pair these budget parts with our new PC
Sometimes the rapid pace of progress works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't
Bemoan the technology treadmill all you want, but there are times when a power user can really take advantage of the ever-fluctuating landscape. Last year’s $1,500 PC was a decent machine for its time, but it had a few fatal flaws: a tiny hard drive, criminally meager RAM, and onboard audio. Sure, we had a DX10 card, but the aforementioned compromises haunted us for a whole year. This time, we wanted to avoid such trade-offs, so we sought to make every penny count. And as it turned out, the treadmill worked for us. While 1GB of RAM cost us $150 last year, we were able to score four times the memory this year for $120 ($80 if you count the rebate). We also decided that there was no way in hell we would settle for a hard drive capacity that laptops can surpass. With the vast stores of video, music, and photos most of us own, not to mention all the other crap, Seagate’s 750GB seemed like a far wiser choice than last year’s 250GB number.
When you directly compare the budget breakdown of last year’s $1,500 PC against this year’s, it’s easy to see why there’s so little love between Intel and Nvidia. Last year, 30 percent of the PC’s total cost went to the GPU. This year, the GPU takes up just 24 percent of the budget, but that still outstrips the 18 percent that went to the CPU—a quad core, no less.
Last year, the puny 1GB of RAM ate up 10 percent of our total budget. This year, with quadruple the amount, RAM accounts for just 8 percent of our costs (sans rebate, mind you). In other words, it’s ugly to be in the RAM business right now.
The prices of the OS, PSU, case, and optical drive were pretty much static, but we did lower our motherboard bill. Last year, we shelled out for a high-end 680i, while this year a midrange P35 board fulfilled our needs.
The short story is that the treadmill was our friend this year, getting us way more machine for the money.
Comments are closed on this article
Jedi_Master_Revan
May 02, 2009 at 12:44am
But no RAID? What's with that? I see now that the extra RAM does actually get used (or at least microsoft claims so), so I guess I shouldn't have opened my big mouth on that one, and at $80, awesome. I still think you guys should give Ubuntu a try for one of these, especially if NT7 turns out to be as bad as vista. And remember-Linux is free.
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"When you always know what is right, where is freedom? No one chooses the wrong, Jacen Solo. Uncertianty sets you free."
Drzues
July 28, 2008 at 10:15pm
I'm no expert by a long shot...but I'm in the end part of my research for building my own new rig and from what I understand 4 gigs of ram is overkill for any OS less than Vista 64 bit (Linux not included as I know absolutlely nothing about it including whether or not I spelled it correctly). Is this a miscomception on my part?
MAJORzer0
December 18, 2008 at 1:11am
I do belive you are correct. From what I understand you need a 64bit OS to run more then 3.5 gigs of ram. You spelled Linux the right way from what I can remember. I would also assume there's a version based of unix that has 64bit capabilities or just unix with an addon. it's so much fun to plunk around with but I've never really gotten into it. Here at the office we are force to use windows on everything.... so sad.
Jedi_Master_Revan
May 02, 2009 at 12:29am
Yeah, it's total overkill, most system's wouldn't know what to do with that much RAM, and nothing outside of NASA needs it. As for linux goes, Ubuntu 9.04 can run on 264 MB of RAM, and it's pretty much the newest linux system out right now. Speaking of which, why didn't they just ditch some of the RAM as well as XP, install Ubuntu, and use the money they saved for other hardware?
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"When you always know what is right, where is freedom? No one chooses the wrong, Jacen Solo. Uncertianty sets you free."
csdavid505
July 09, 2008 at 8:34am
Using today's prices from Tiger Direct, you can build a better system, for less. This system has a 22" Monitor, Trackball, joystick, and keyboard. On that basis alone (The ability to actually play on it) it is vastly better. Add in the fact is has twice the graphics performance, twice the memory, and twice as fast a hard drive subsystem, with comparable processor speeds (except for the 64 bit 32 bit thing).
Your system is probably capable of greater overclocking, but even tweaking to the max would be shredded by this system. For the extra 25$, I'd buy a Cedega subscription, so that I can play all the same Windows games, head to head.
csdavid505
July 09, 2008 at 8:28am
QTY DESC Cost Price 2 EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - Superclocked Edition, 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, Video Card 149.99 299.98 1 Asus M2N-SLI Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 560 SLI, Socket AM2/AM2+, ATX, Audio, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0, Firewire, Serial ATA, RAID 99.99 99.99 1 AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core Processor HD985ZXAGHBOX - Black Edition, Unlocked 2.50GHz, 4MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB, Agena, Quad-Core, Retail, Socket AM2+, Processor with Fan 205.99 205.99 1 Cooler Master Stacker 810 Full-Tower ATX Case with 850-Watt Power Supply 229.99 229.99 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB Hard Drive - 7200, 8MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM 54.99 109.98 1 HP DVD1040i Lightscribe Super-Multi Retail DVD Burner - 20x DVD±R Burn, 16x DVD±R Read, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD±R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, 48x32x CD-R/RW, Internal 34.99 34.99 2 Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB) 86.99 173.98 1 Logitech Optical Trackman Trackball 24.99 24.99 1 Keys U See Large Print Keyboard with Yellow Keys (Black) 29.99 29.99 1 Logitech - Force 3D Pro Joystick 54.99 54.99 1 Sylvania SK2201WB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms, 800:1, 1680x1050 (WSXGA+), VGA, DVI, Internal Speakers, Black 229.99 229.99 1 openSuSE Linux 11.0 x86_64 0 0 1494.86
rggavmxpc
June 28, 2008 at 1:43pm
I built this PC with the exception of using a ABIT IP35Pro XE motherboard(I wanted SPDIF out), Antec 900 case and I didn't install the sound card. It only cost me $1200 with the rebates I received. It is a very nice beast. My question is why did they overclock by only increasing the FSB. Why didn't they increase the multiplier? I was very conservative and set my FSB at 300. I'm running at 2.7GBs. In another MaxPC article on overclocking they increased the multiplier also?
Mao
April 22, 2008 at 1:56pm
How does Windows count video memory? If the system is 4 GB & video is 512 MB willl Windows 32 bit see a total of 4 GB or 4.5 GB?
Peace..
MAJORzer0
December 18, 2008 at 1:24am
A 32 bit system only recignizes 3.5 gigs of ram and that's also counting the video ram so if you have a 512 card and 3 gigs or ram you're done... if you have 4 gigs that extra gbit you have in there will not be used for any kind of performance enhancment. I do belive it still gets used ... maybe as a form of paging file or something. I have no Idea though. I've only gotten this from a few different web sites. you can google your question and get your answers. I'm currently at work and most of the sites are blocked.
ketwyld
April 17, 2008 at 2:43pm
smh449:
You need the XP drivers on floppy for SATA RAID installations when you are installing with the OS partition on a RAID. On all the SATA (non-RAID) installs I have done, you usually have to set the mobo BIOS into a compatibility mode for the OS to install until you can install the chipset drivers.
Digitally yours,
ketwyld
smh449
April 17, 2008 at 12:44am
I thought XP still needed a floppy drive to install SATA drivers. If so, where's the floppy? If you slipstreamed Windows you should at least say so.
heavyd42
April 09, 2008 at 12:04pm
Suppose you spent the same CPU and mobo $$$ on an AMD config - what parts would you recommend?
cfield76
April 09, 2008 at 1:53am
Warf Drive 2008
I built this machine a couple of weeks ago and it runs great. I added a 22" LG monitor, some creative speakers, MS wireless keyboard and mouse. Great job on specking out a smooth fast machine. It is a joy to operate and my Call of Duty 4 flys.
cfield76
April 09, 2008 at 2:04am
Warf Drive 2008
Well I paid $135 for an OEM version, SP2 from a reputable dealer. I could of paid a little less but I was skeptical of the seller.The OEM version can only be used on the pc you are building. Technically it can not be moved to another pc if you eventually scrap the pc it is installed on. MS will usually let you move it if your pc pre maturely fails and you have to build another one.
alanjrubin
April 02, 2008 at 2:40pm
I think the Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-T01-UW is too big and too heavy. What do you think of the Cooler Master CM690 instead.
Also, do you agree with a substitute psu that has a rear intake fan and a bottom exhaust fan; can you recommend a particular brand and model.
alanjrubin
April 04, 2008 at 4:34pm
I have just found the Cooler Master CM690, which sells for about $80, which I like better than the Antec 900. Any opinions?
Strongbad536
April 16, 2008 at 2:02pm
I think they went with a 65nm proc because the 680i's werent working with penryn, and the 780i boards are so expensive. hope that helps : )
Vondarkmoor
April 23, 2008 at 11:31am
but Gordon used a P35 based Intel board which supports 45nm CPUs.....
