Power User PC Buyer’s Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts For October 2008
Posted 10/10/08 at 12:30:08 PM | by Benson Hong
Last week we updated our Budget Badass to reflect the current price drops and made some improvements in hardware. This week we are shifting our focus to the power user. Shifting our focus also means shifting our cost up, but a higher budget means better hardware and faster performance. We've made a couple of adjustments to the video card and CPU as well as adding a second hard drive while taking your suggestions into consideration. While the final cost of this build exceeds a little past the $2500 mark, we believe the extra performance gain is well worth it. Keep in mind this is a Power User's PC, where our main focus is on utilizing the power of the processor through multitasking and multimedia programs. Read on to see our new setup for this Power User beast.
Videocard
Gigabyte Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
$530, www.gigabyte.com.tw
Many felt the Radeon 4870 was a little weak for a power user rig, so we took your suggestions and doubled the GPU power to a Radeon 4870 X2. Running this card in our 2008 Dream Machine showed very impressive results and with the extra money we saved on the CPU (read below), we allocated some extra cash to boost GPU performance.
Motherboard
MSI P45 Platinum LGA 775
$170, www.msicomputer.com
Intel's new P45 chipset gave us many reasons to love this board. Not only is it fast and full of new features, it also flaunts an exotic chipset heatsink design which makes it that much more cool!
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3GHz
$550 (Retail), www.intel.com
You may be wondering why we downgraded from a Core 2 Extreme to Core 2 Quad. The truth is it's not much of a downgrade. Both chips are running at the same speed and cache with performance staying the same. The only difference is an unlocked multiplier which the Core 2 Quad lacks but when you are saving $400 that is something we can look past.
Memory
Patriot Viper 4GB DDR2/1066
$109, www.patriotmem.com
Not much explaining needed here. Memory is cheap and the more the better. With 64-bit Vista, 4GB is the minimum you'll need to become the power user you strive to become.
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No one jump me for asking,
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Sun, 2008-10-19 22:26
No one jump me for asking, but why not go with this?
AMD Phenom9950 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor-$184.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103291&Tpk=AMD%20Phenom%209950
ASUS M3A79-TDeluxe AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard-$188.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131339
Coz i would suck ass
Submitted by killerxx7 on Wed, 2008-10-22 06:03
Coz i would suck ass simple!!
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Tue, 2008-12-16 01:11
Can I get a responce that doesn't sound like it came from a twelve year old?
Phenoms arent the best chips...
Submitted by Devo85x on Tue, 2008-12-16 15:13
I have nothing against AMD (belive me, I have one of their CPUs) but AMD sucks for overclocking and the current Phenom can barely hit 3.0 Ghz... not to mention that most programs dont use four cores anyways so using a faster dual core will usually lead to better performance (not to mention, intel chips seem to get crazy overclocks)
Submitted by tacogamer on Tue, 2008-10-14 06:04
thats meeee ftw
AWESOMMEEEEE :D: :D :D :D
Someone give me $50 so i cant buy it plzzz >:(
grapics card
Submitted by Stephenh1984 on Sat, 2008-10-11 10:28
i am not an nvidia fanboy, but i think you should have used a gtx280(or 3), cause right now i have my computer has a 8800gt and i can run most games on its highest settings except for crysis and if read the DM issues you would see that the 4870 didnt do anything for crysis so an gtx280 would give you better support for most games and it is about $100 cheaper.
Lol? If you had an Radeon
Submitted by s3th on Sun, 2008-10-26 01:07
Lol? If you had an Radeon 4870 x2 or just a plan 4870 for that matter, it owns any nvidia card, and no, nvidia doesnt support more games than ati at the moment, their 4850 and 4870 cards both support the new PhysX technology. So I have no idea where your getting your lies from
Submitted by Danieldrum1 on Thu, 2008-12-11 08:51
Sure if your gonna run your games set in stone with MED settings go with what your talking about. ATI is getting mowed over with GTX200 series. Benchmarks arent even cutting it close there is a clear 30+ FPS on all games. This is a huge statement seeing as how ATI is always strong in First Person Shooters. Nvida is always great for your MMO's and RPG's. But after the release of gtx200 series dude, ATI just got left behind. As for PhysX technology..thats the biggest BS sales hype ever spit out. PhysX will flop within half a year watch!
Secondly, you cant judge the GTX280 by its benchmarks alone, unless you have Intel's new CPU which isnt out yet. Your processor will bottleneck the cards proformance. Thats right the actual GPU is slowed down by the CPU's settings. Now thats a Graphic Card!
Submitted by tehR0XX0Rz on Sat, 2008-10-11 08:43
Didn't MPC write that you should go with XP for a new machine, rather than Vista? I remember the advice being to continue using Vista if you have it, but buy XP if you're putting a new machine together.
Why use Vista? Unless you need more than 4Gb of RAM, I don't get it.
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Sun, 2008-10-19 22:28
You don't even need it for that if you get XP 64-bit
Submitted by bcweir on Fri, 2008-10-10 15:20
Somehow I doubt the WD raptor is available on Samsung's website. Perhaps you meant www.wd.com?
correct it
Submitted by wk on Fri, 2008-10-10 12:54
in optical drive you choose LG GBW-H20L Blu-Ray Burner but the picture say otherwise (Samsung)!!!!
MPC is my home page
Good call on the
Submitted by dreamreality on Fri, 2008-10-10 15:46
Good call on the mistakes. They have been corrected. Thanks!
Hai der
Submitted by mikeart03a on Fri, 2008-10-10 12:53
You don't always have to the greatest hardware to get a decent rig going. I have one built here that's just under 2g. I'm reusing my old keyboard, mouse & X-Fi card. It may not be a dream machine, but it'll handle all my stuff without an issue and I'll still be able to play games.
Note: Prices are Canadian dollars.
Component Type Manufact. Description Price/Unit Quant. Sub-Total Case Cooler Master Centurion 590, Mid-Tower, Steel Cons., Black $85.99 1 $85.99 External Drives - 3.5" x1/5.25" x8 Internal Drives - 3.5" x4 7x Expansion Slots, 6x 12cm Fan Ports (2 included) 2x Front USB, 1x Front FireWire, 1x Audio (Phone/Mic) Power Supply OCZ Stealth Xstream - 600W, 12cm Fan, SATA, PCI-E $97.99 1 $97.99 20+4 Pin Main x1, 8 Pin Main x1, P4 MB 4 Pin x1, SATA x3, Floppy x2, PCI-E x2, Molex/IDE x6 Motherboard ASUSTek P5QC Motherboard - Intel P45 Chipset $207.99 1 $207.99 Support for Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme/Quad Series CPUs Intel Celeron D 400-series/Dual Core, Pentium D FSB ratings: 800/1066/1333/1600mhz Max Memory Supported: (Dual Chan) 4gb 32-bit/16gb 64-bit Memory Support: DDR2 @ 667/800/1066/1200mhz OB Audio: 8 channel Realtek ALC1200 1x IDE Port, 8x SATA, 6x Ext. USB 2.0, 1x Ext. FireWire 1x Gbit LAN, 3x (Dual Device) Int. USB, 3x PCI, 3x PCI-E x1 1x PCI-E x16, 1x PS2 Keyboard, 1x PS2 Mouse CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4ghz, 8mb cahe, 1066mhz FSB $256.99 1 $256.99 RAM Patriot Patriot Extreme 4gb Dual Chan. DDR2-800 Mem (2x2gb) $87.99 1 $87.99 Video Card Sapphire Radeon HD4850 - 512mb/2x DVI/HDTV/HDMI/VGA $213.99 1 $213.99 DVD Burner LG LG GH22NS30 SATA Dual-Layer $30.99 1 $30.99 Hard Drive WD Caviar 500gb SATA 7200rpm/8mb cache $79.99 2 $159.98 OS Microsoft Windows Vista OEM SP1 32bit $134.99 1 $134.99 LCD Acer X243Wbd 24" 5ms/3000:1 Contrast/1920x1200 res/DVI/VGA $354.99 1 $354.99 Sub-Total $1,631.89 Shipping $62.63 Tax $218.16 Total $1,912.70 Edit: didn't realiaze that excel tables could be posted. o.o;;
- mike_art03a
IT Technician
Gov't of Canada
I agree, but it sure would be nice though.
Submitted by SARGE on Wed, 2008-10-15 21:08
Here is a build close to what I am getting. It's all from Newegg.com and the prices are current from 10/15/08.
I think that this build gives you better gaming performance, but that is just me. I also am using my old keyboard and speakers.
Component
TypeManufact. Item
DescriptionPrice Quant. Mail in Rebates Sub - Total Case Cooler Master HAF 932, ATX Full -
Tower, Black Steel case$159.99 1 $159.99 6x 5.25" bay, 1x 3.5" bay
(inside 5.25" bay), 7x expansion slots3x 230mm (FxSxT), 1x 140mm (back)
fans2x Audio, 4x USB, 1x Firewire, 1x
eSata, Power + Hdd leds on Front panelPower Supply Pc Power & 750W Silencer SLI
& CrossFire Certified Power supply$144.99 1 $25.00 $119.99 Cooling 1x 20+4pin, 2x 6pin & 2x 6+2pin
PCI-e, 1x 12v (4pin), 1x 12v (8pin),8x Peripheral, 6x Sata, 1x Floppy
Connectors83% Efficiency, 80 Plus Certified,
60A 12v railMotherboard Asus M3A32 - MVP Deluxe
WiFi AM2+ 790FX 2600Mhz FSB motherboard$199.99 1 $199.99 8GB DDR2 Dual Channel 1066mhz ram,
"N" chip AMD 790FX, "S" chip AMD SB600,4x PCIe x16 w/ ATi CrossFireX
support, @ dual x16, triple x16 / x8 / x8, or quad x82x PCI slots,OB 8 Channel ADI AD1988
audio, 1000Mbps LAN,1x PS/2, 6x USB 2.0, 1x 1394a, 1x
eSata 3Gb/s, S/PDIF 1x Optical, 1x Coaxial,CPU AMD Phenom 9950 2.6GHz
Black Edition, AM2+, 4000Mhz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache$184.99 1 $184.99 Ram Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) Dominator
Dual Channel DDR2 1066Mhz ram, 5-5-5-15, (PC2 8500)$124.00 1 $40.00 $84.00 Video Card Diamond HD 4870, 1Gb 256-bit
GDDR5 OB ram, PCIe 2.0, 2x DVI, 1x HDTV, HDMI via adapter$299.99 1 $299.99 DVD Burner Asus Asus 20x DVD+/-R/RW,
DL, Sata Burner with LightScribe$34.99 1 $34.99 Hard Drive Seagate Seagate
640Gb, 7200rpm, Sata, 32MB Cache, 3.5" Hard Drive$79.99 1 $79.99 OS Microsoft Windows Vista Premium
OEM SP1 64bit$99.99 1 $99.99 LCD Acer P243WAid 24",
2ms(GTG) 3000:1 Contrast, 1920x1200, HDMI$349.99 1 $349.99 Mouse Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse, 5
button, Tilt wheel, USB Wired Laser Mouse, 3200 DPI$89.99 1 $89.99 Sub - Total $1,778.90 Shipping $40.43 Total $1,819.33
$199.99 1 $199.99 $184.99 1 $184.99 $124.00 1 $40.00 $84.00 $299.99 1 $299.99 $34.99 1 $34.99 $79.99 1 $79.99 $99.99 1 $99.99 $349.99 1 $349.99 $89.99 1 $89.99 Sub - Total $1,778.90 Shipping $40.43 Total $1,819.33
Submitted by guest001 on Sun, 2008-10-12 19:40
Some of these pricings are quite expensive. You could probably knock off a few hundred dollars if you bought it from newegg, plus I don't think there would be tax. The canadian website is newegg.ca
Submitted by Devo85x on Sun, 2008-10-12 11:59
Good parts but most of your parts are underpowered compaired to what they could be... the ram is slower the cpu can be overclocked so i wont talk about that (i dont know how far that ram can be overclocked) and the graphics card is nothing compaired to what they chose... not only that but vista 32 bit???
Submitted by mikeart03a on Thu, 2008-10-16 22:02
Regarding under-powered parts and Vista 32-bit. I was aiming for a more middle-of-the-road type system. I made some sacrifices in order maintain cost-effectiveness. I'm not too concerned about speeds either, I just want a decent workhorse system that I can use to run VMs, deal with my graphic work, etc. Gamres are not really a high priority for me, so I can afford to clock back on the RAM and Videocard a bit. As for Vista 32bit, have you tried running some older electronic circuit design software (my younger brother is an electronics course in college, so he needs to use some specialized software for his assignments and my PC can handle it better) on a 64bit OS? Ain't gonna happen.
- mike_art03a
IT Technician
Gov't of Canada
Submitted by Digital-Storm on Fri, 2008-10-10 14:33
Still have no idea why you chose Vista 32bit over 64bit.
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Fri, 2008-10-10 11:54
I still think the Antec ninehundred is better.......
Submitted by madc0w on Fri, 2008-10-10 11:48
What I just built with a $2500 budget was:
Proc: Core2Quad Q9550 2.83GHz (saved $200 for 200MHz that I can easily OC to regain)
Mobo: eVGA nforce 790i FTW Edition
Ram: Patriot Viper 4GB DDR3 1333
Vid: 2x (SLI) Zotac Gefore GTX260 650MHz
Storage: 150GB Velociraptor & 1 TB Western Digital Caviar Black
Case: Zalman Professional GS-1000-TT (cus I wanted a REAL case w/ lots of room and
real features instead of bells and whistles)
Power: XCLIO Greatpower 1200WVista Prem x64, Blue-ray and MPC's picks for mouse and keyboard also were included in
that $2500 budget.All through NEWEGG who got it to me from California in under 4 days
Submitted by uncleck on Fri, 2008-10-10 11:13
What about the screwdriver, which is clearly shown on top of the rig in the first picture? After all, you did an entire article on them without naming one the "Best of the Best".
Submitted by whitneymr on Fri, 2008-10-10 13:54
That one is a Craftsman, Was that in the review?
Submitted by uncleck on Fri, 2008-10-10 15:11
I don't recall any Craftsman mentioned in the review. Perhaps there wasn't a Sears nearby?
Submitted by sinan on Fri, 2008-10-10 10:54
it also flaunts an exotic chipset heatsink design which makes it that much more cooler!
Much more cooler!!? :)
Submitted by karnak on Fri, 2008-10-10 11:02
They should have said 'much more gooder!'