Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Comparison of $2,500 Core i7 System Builds from Alienware, AVADirect, and Cyberpower

Tom's Hardware challenged gaming system building companies Alienware, AVADirect, and Cyberpower to go head to head in a challenge to build the best custom systems possible around the Intel Core i7 processor with a budget cap of $2,500. Extensive benchmarks were then conducted comparing the three systems. CPU speed vs. GPU speed design considerations taken into account by each of the three companies lead to no clear frontrunner (in my opinion); which vendor you choose very much depends on the intended primary use of the system.

In the market to buy one of these systems? Please note that this System Builds blog has links to Alienware, AVADirect, Cyberpower, and many more custom system building companies at the top right of the page!
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Tom's Hardware: Best Graphics Cards For The Money: March '09

Tom's Hardware has posted their March 2009 GPU comparison guide.

Best PCIe Card for ~$70:
  • ATI Radeon HD 4670
Best PCIe Card for ~$85:
  • Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
Best PCIe Card for ~$100:
  • ATI Radeon HD 4830
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT /9800 GT
Best PCIe Card for ~$130:
  • ATI Radeon HD 4850
  • Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+
  • Nvidia GeForce GTS 250
Best PCIe Card for ~$180:
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 (Core 216)
Best PCIe Card for ~$260:
  • Radeon HD 4850 X2 1 GB
  • 2x Radeon 4850 in Crossfire Configuration
  • 2x GeForce 9800 GTX+ in SLI configuration
  • 2x GeForce GTS 250 in SLI configuration
Best PCIe Card for ~$330:
  • 2x Radeon HD 4870 512 MB in CrossFire Configuration
Best PCIe Card for ~$360:
  • 2x Radeon HD 4870 1 GB in CrossFire Configuration
  • Radeon HD 4870 X2
  • 2x GeForce GTX 260 (Core 216) cards in SLI Configuration
Best PCIe Card for ~$500:
  • GeForce GTX 295
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

090309 - eWeek - Building a Virtualized Test Bed on the Cheap

A multi-part article at eWeek covers building a FrankenBox and FrankenNAS to be used as a virtualization test bed.

"The recession is putting pressure on IT administrators to cut costs at the same time that demands from the business side continue to grow. Using mostly free software and a collection of out-of-date hardware lying around, eWEEK Labs built a flexible (albeit somewhat underpowered) virtual machine test bed. Below, we offer the steps we took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance, plus the settings to get the two working together."
Enjoy!
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Monday, March 9, 2009

090305 - ExtremeTech - Build a Home Theater PC

ExtremeTech has published a guide to building an HTPC capable of Bluray, HDDVD, and DVD playback via HDMI.  Considering Digital OTA (over the air, or antennae) HD?  Looking to cancel your monthly Satellite TV or Cable TV fees with Internet a-la-carte programming?  This might be the article for you.

For just under $1,900, Loyd Case has assembled a very capable HTPC system.  Personally, I still can't decide between an XBox360 or a new gaming rig, but I should note that this HTPC build is probably not what you'll want if you are a serious PC gamer.
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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

090210 - Tom's Hardware Guide - $625 Gaming PC

Tom's Hardware posted a new guide:

It's interesting to see what can be done with $625 dollars, but this isn't a system I would ever consider buying, as it would quickly be a $600+ dollar obsolete waste! From the article's conclusions: "The E5200 failed to keep up with the HD 4870 in two of our games, and in World in Conflict, the frame rates made the title unplayable. In Crysis and Supreme Commander, performance jumped quite a bit, but it still took overclocking to approach playable frame rates.". If I am reading the article correctly, even with overclocking, this system would not play games that are nearly a full year old with full eye-candy enabled. What's the point?

My non-scientific conclusion is that the cheapest price point for a gaming system that I would be happy with it still somewhere between $1,250 and $1,700, a conclusion that hasn't changed since early 2007. I expect at least 2 to 3 years out of any system that I build, and I want to be able to play any new game that comes out during that time period without upgrading. I don't have $600+ to waste. Why not buy a Wii AND and an XBox360 and stick to your old system for surfing the web and running office apps?

I'll pass on this one, Tom and Co. Of course, Tom would call me names and remind me that the point of the article is squeezing as much GPU power as possible out of just over $600.
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Monday, March 2, 2009

Playing Catch-Up; Long Time No Post

No new posts here in quite a while! I figured I'd play a bit of catch up, since everyone should be buying new computers they don't really need when the economy is doing so poorly... right? I am just doing my part as an irresponsible American. So let's see. My last post was in July of 2007. I'll work my way forward from there as it is interesting to see how components and prices have changed over time.

I'll start with my favorite; ArsTechnica.com:
I am also a huge fan of the guides from TechReport.com, espeically their "Buy this complete system as Newegg" links. I buy most of my hardware from NewEgg.com, as I gather do most technology enthusiasts.
From the love-to-hate-them category (for instance, finding these guides on their website was extraordinarily difficult), here are the recent guides from TomsHardware.com.
More system builds can be found at ExtremeTech.com. Here are their recent builds:
I'd promise to keep this up to date, but we all know that is not likely to happen. In any case, enjoy, and have fun building!
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