Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/4025/holiday-2010-system-builders-guide



Welcome to the second part of our Holiday 2010 shopping guides. We started with a look at notebooks, in part because they're a popular item but mostly because Dustin just happened to be quicker to the draw when it was time to put together a shopping guide. While notebook and laptop sales continue to grow and now account for more units than desktops, every one of the editors at AnandTech still packs a desktop (or two or three or...) for those times when performance and screen size take priority over portability.

For this guide, we're taking a break from our traditional buyers' guides and giving each editor a chance to put together a system that they would recommend. There's definitely some overlap in taste and intended use, though, so we also broke things down into broad categories to make sure we had representatives for each market. From pure budget builds through the midrange and up to the high-end, we'll provide options. We'll also have a couple different takes on HTPC and a discussion of overclocking. While we won't be able to dedicate lengthy portions of the article to each specific component, you can also consider the individual parts as recommended upgrades/purchases in their own right.

Before we get to the guides, we do want to take a minute to discuss the market as a whole. We've said in the past that the right time to build is whenever you feel your current system isn't meeting your needs/wants. If you happen to be in that situation, then normally we'd say go ahead and spec out a new system and take the plunge. Waiting for the Next Big Thing™ can be an exercise in futility, as new parts are always just around the corner—new processors, chipsets, sockets, graphics cards, SSDs, etc. And the fact is, you can still put together a great system right now that will continue to be great in three months, even if something faster comes along.

We're reaching the stage where even PCs that are several years old (yeah, ancient!) are still more than fast enough for 95% of users. That old Core 2 Duo E6600 plugging along at 2.4GHz may not stand up well to the latest desktops in raw performance, but come on: it can still run circles around most laptops, it can handle HD YouTube content, and with an appropriate graphics card it can even manage medium to high detail games! [Jarred: Yes, I've got just such a PC in my living room pulling duty as an HTPC, never mind the old single-core Athlon 64 3800+ running in my eight-years-old daughter's computer!] So sure, new parts are just around the corner once again, but a good PC today will continue to be plenty fast for a couple years at least.

All that said, we do need to take a moment to name drop: Sandy Bridge. Our early testing shows it to be around 25% faster than the currently shipping parts, especially Lynnfield and Clarkdale. It will have better multi-threaded and single-threaded performance, and while idle power may not change much the load power consumption should drop quite a bit. Anand measured 121W for the entire system under load with an i5 2400 (3.1GHz), and that's 8% less power while being 23% faster than the i5-760 it replaces. If that pattern holds up, we're looking at overall performance per watt going up by almost 35%. To make matters worse, Sandy Bridge will also usher in a new socket, chipset, and motherboards: goodbye 1156, hello 1155! If you're looking to get the best performance from the most efficient architecture and you don't want your motherboard outdated next month, it will likely be worth waiting for.

Sandy Bridge isn't the only new component coming, naturally. The SSD companies are talking about several new controllers that will improve performance and perhaps even lower cost in the not-so-distant future. AMD just launched their HD 6800 cards, but it's no secret that the 6800 series is the replacement for the 5700 and Cayman (6900 series) is coming real soon. How fast will it be and how much will it cost? You'll have to wait a bit longer to find out. Likewise, NVIDIA just released GF110/GTX 580; we will probably see trickle-down parts like a 570 before long as well. AMD will also have Bulldozer launching in 2011, probably in the first half of the year but likely in the latter part of Q2, so you still have maybe six months to wait. Brazos isn't going to set the desktop world on fire (though it ought to do well in nettops and HTPCs), but Bulldozer might be able to hang with Sandy Bridge. It will also require a new motherboard/socket (AM3r2), so whether you're going Intel or AMD, the bleeding edge is about to switch sockets next year.

We're still going to give you a bunch of current system builds, regardless of the above, and most of the components can easily transfer over to a new Sandy Bridge or Bulldozer setup when those arrive. Whether you choose to wait or buy now and then upgrade (or buy again) later is up to you. So here's our holiday system guide picks, starting with the budget builds, moving through midrange, overclocking, and high-end, and wrapping up with the HTPC options. There's something for everyone, and even if you're happy with your current system you might have a friend or family member that would benefit from the content. There's no conclusion, so enjoy our picks and feel free to join the conversation in the comments below.



Dustin's AMD Pure Budget System
Hardware Component Price
Processor AMD Athlon II X4 640
(Propus 45nm, 3.0GHz, 4x512KB L2, 95W)
$99
Video Integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 -
Motherboard MSI 880GM-E41 (AMD 880G/SB710 AM3) $75
Memory Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333 CL9 (CMV4GX3M2A1333C9) $59
Hard Drive Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB
(HD502HJ 7200RPM 16MB)
$40
Optical Drive LG 22X DVDRW (GH22LS50) $17
Case Cooler Master Elite 360 $40
Power Supply Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D 380W
(380W 80 Plus Bronze Certified)
$45
Base System Total $375

Over the past summer I wound up building a rash of budget systems for friends and family; over the past year you can chalk a couple more up. I actually have about two more queued up for the holiday season, so suffice it to say I keep a list of go-to parts for my builds that I've been consistently satisfied with. For this build I decided to go for a sort of "optimum budget" machine, and with most selections I'll have a suggestion as to how to reduce the price tag without hurting overall quality. There are some compromises made here—note the lack of a video card—but I'm perfectly happy putting my stamp on this system.

The first big decision is the processor, and I want something that'll last. It's true that Grandma Millie may not need all that power, but I've found that the AMD Athlon II X4 has been my go-to for nearly every budget build since its inception; it's just that good of a deal. The price-performance is undeniable and when you can get a quad core for $99, why would you settle for less? If you need to make a deeper cut for users who aren't going to push the system that hard, I've been remarkably impressed by the AMD Sempron 140. It's a 2.7GHz single core, but of the three I've built, two have unlocked into stable dual-cores—i.e. Athlon II X2—and at $33, it's an absolute steal.

Picking the motherboard turned out to be a bit trickier, but I've found myself consistently satisfied with boards from MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS. After narrowing the brand down, I want an integrated chipset that's going to pass my "Grandma Test:" is it powerful enough to play Hulu and YouTube HD video? That leaves us with the 785G and 880G chipsets, and since those have hit price parity (actually the 880G is cheaper now!), I opted to go with MSI's 880GM-E41. I'm not too thrilled about the SB710 Southbridge, but the lack of 6Gbps SATA isn't devastating. The ATI Radeon HD 4250 integrated graphics part offers enough horsepower to even play the odd game, but mostly it's there for hardware-accelerated video and Flash (with 10.1), which can make a big difference with Hulu. Unfortunately, this is about as low as I'll go; other cheaper integrated chipsets don't bring that acceleration to the table.

As far as memory goes, I'll be blunt here: I only buy Corsair for my own builds. Jarred recommends an A-DATA set on his build and I've been happy with them; the fundamental deal with RAM is this: it either works or it doesn't. The problem is that when RAM is bad, it can be difficult to figure out. I've used Corsair on nearly every build I've done for friends and family and I've seen a whole one bad stick of it. With 2GB kits only shaving maybe $20 off the cost of the build, it's hard to justify not going the full 4GB. If every penny must be spared, I wouldn't be unhappy with this Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3-1333 kit at $38; in my experience Kingston is another good, reliable brand.

With hard disk prices the way they are, your bottom rung should really be 500GB of storage; the amount you pay for the capacity you get below $50 just isn't worth it. I've also been consistently happy with Western Digital's Caviar Blue drives, but this would be a good time to bring out a new cult favorite: the Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB drive is stupid fast, and if you know where to look you can usually get it for about $60. For the budget sector, we opted to go with the 500GB model and save $20.

As far as budget cases go, I've been very happy with the Cooler Master Elite 360 and have used it on a few builds; in fact, I actually have one in my house for my media center PC. The Elite 360 isn't built for big, power-hungry builds, but it's usually cool and quiet enough for even a decent gaming machine provided you opt for a video card that will fit in the enclosure. I've elected to pair it with a 380W Antec EarthWatts Green power supply (don't forget the power cord if you don't have extras!); there's enough room to breathe for an efficient video card like an ATI Radeon HD 5770 down the road (which will fit just fine in the Elite 360), and you never want to cheap out on the power supply if you can avoid it.

The rest is going to be a matter of religion and taste. You can get a decent display with (crappy) built-in speakers for a low price. For the operating system, there's always Ubuntu, or you can usually find a good deal on Windows 7 if you know where to look (student discounts are amazing for this). But the build I've specced out here is something I'd be confident with. I've got comparable parts running in machines at home and in the machines of friends and family, and there's been nary a peep from anyone. That should tell you the real value of speccing out a good system from the get-go and not cutting corners on parts: peace of mind, and peace and quiet.



Balraj's Intel Budget System
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel Core i3-550 Clarkdale 45nm
(Dual-core + HTT, 3.2GHz, 4MB L3, 73W)
$130
Motherboard ASRock H55M/USB3 R2.0 (Intel HM55 MATX) $85
Video HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB (H545H1G) ($10 MIR) $45
Memory Corsair 4GB DDR3-1333 (CMV4GX3M1A1333C9) $57
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
(7200RPM 16MB Cache WD5000AAKS)
$47
Optical Drive LG 10X Blu-ray/DVDRW Combo (UH10LS20) $70
Case/PSU Athenatech A100BB.350 $75
Total System Price $509

When tasked with putting together a "bang-for-buck" system, the challenge is trying to find where you're willing to compromise the most. For me the motherboard and CPU take precedence over everything else. Storage and RAM are easy future upgrades, while graphics mileage varies. My target budget was $500 for the base system, though you can certainly spend less if you're willing to drop features and performance.

Starting with the processor, I thought it was best to stick with Clarkdale here with a goal of staying under $150. This sent me down the Core i3 route, so unfortunately I'd have to sacrifice Turbo Boost. Usually I value this extra clock speed headroom, but the cheapest way into a boosted Clarkdale is the Intel Core i5-650 that runs at 3.2GHz and can boost up to 3.46GHz. However; $180 for a mere 266MHz gain (8.3%) is far too rich for me. The recently released Intel Core i3-560 will run all day at a very nippy 3.33GHz for $150, butmy decision was made thanks to a 15% discount bringing the similarly spec'd Intel Core i3-550 down to $130. This dual-core, Hyper-Threaded CPU balances good multi-threaded capabilities with plenty of clock speed (3.2GHz) to get through single and multi-threaded tasks (media encoding I'm looking at you).

Now we need a motherboard with an LGA1156 socket. Keeping costs in mind, the Intel H55 chipset is going to be the way to go as the lack of native RAID and dual graphics card support isn't really an issue on a budget system. With a budget system, it's important to be able to grow as time goes by and more money comes your way. It's also important to try to be somewhat future-proof. I mean what's "budget" about spending another hundred bucks to upgrade in a few months time? Therefore, my board of choice is the ASRock H55M/USB3 available for $85 with USB 3.0. Sure, Sandy Bridge will still require a new mobo and socket, but at least you have USB3.0 until you upgrade.

Graphics is something that really depends on what the system is going to be used for. For me the integrated Intel GMA is always best avoided; it works, but I'd like a few more features thankyouverymuch. With this in mind I wanted a slim, capable, quiet card to handle media and basic gaming. I settled on the HIS Radeon 5450 card available for $55, or $45 with a mail-in rebate. While not a gaming card, it should comfortably handle any media tasks thrown at it. If you'd rather save the $45, you can leave out the card and try to live with the Intel HD Graphics, but I'm not willing to do so.

RAM isn't the place to be paying premium prices for a couple of ticks less latency when you're on a budget. Fortunately, I found this recently reduced Corsair 4GB DRR3 stick for $57, leaving another slot free on the board for a future upgrade. (Since we're dealing with a two DIMM slot motherboard, I thought it best to leave the option to go to 8GB when/if the need arises.)

Perhaps Anand's praise of SSDs is rubbing off, because I was initially going to liven up this boring money-pinching system with a 30GB SSD in there; unfortunately, $80 for a decent Kingston drive made me reconsider. A lot of superstition goes into hard drive purchasing, and since I've never had a Western Digital drive fail on me (yet), I settled on a WD 500GB 7200RPM Caviar Blue drive for $55. You can always add an SSD down the road when you get the funds, and perhaps waiting for the next round up SSD controller updates is warranted. For optical drive duties, I'm probably going to draw some flak here, but in my opinion every $500 home desktop PC these days should come with a Blu-ray player/DVDRW combo drive. The problem is once again cost, naturally, but I had aspirations with my budget system here and blew $50 on an LG Blu-Ray drive $70 on a Samsung BD-ROM combo drive. [Ed: Sorry, the other LG is out of stock; I had to replace it with a more expensive model, unfortunately.] (Save the $45 or so if you really don't want Blu-ray support.)

Wrapping things up—or enclosing them—means I needed a case and PSU for all of these components. There's a lot of personal preference that goes into choosing a case, but splashing out on a proper GPU and Blu-ray drive left me ultimately choosing a case and PSU which let me scrape into my budget (just!). There are better power supplies out there, certainly, but I like the look of the Athenatech design and wanted a decent MicroATX case. You can add an upgraded high-efficiency PSU if you'd like, but for my budget build I'm probably already overshooting. Blu-ray or efficiency? You'll have to decide for yourself, but short-term you can use the included PSU and then upgrade to a better unit when you can afford it. $10 more will get you the Antec PSU and Cooler Master case from Dustin's build if you prefer that look.

This basic system will come in just over $500. For me the CPU, graphics card, Blu-Ray drive, and USB 3.0 support should make this a more than capable PC with serious gaming being the only real stumbling block. To put it into perspective, this Pentium-powered machine with integrated graphics was what we could put together for roughly the same price in February—what a difference 9 months makes! Perhaps next year I'll finally be able to recommend an Intel PC without a dedicated GPU, especially if early Sandy Bridge testing is anything to go by.

If you like comparisons, while some of the features are clearly different (i.e. Blu-ray, case, etc.), this Intel setup checks in at $40 more than our AMD build looking just at the motherboard and processor. It's true that Intel has plenty of less expensive processors, but rather than pitting Pentium G6950 against the Athlon II X4 645 we decided to go with the more capable i3-550. AMD's budget parts easily win in multi-threaded tests, but the Core 2010 architecture does very well in other areas. In other words, neither choice is always "right" but instead you need to decide what tasks are most important for your workload.



Jarred's AMD Budget Gaming System
Hardware Component Price
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
(Deneb 45nm, 3.4GHz, 4x512KB L2, 6MB L3, 125W)
$166
Motherboard ASUS M4A88T-V EVO/USB3 (AMD 880G AM3) $110
Video ASUS EAH6850 Radeon HD 6850 1GB $200
Memory A-DATA 2x2GB DDR3-1333 CL9
(AD3U1333B2G9-DRH)
$62
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB (WD6402AAEX) $70
Optical Drive Samsung 22X DVDRW (TS-H662SA) $15
Case Antec Three Hundred Illusion $70
Power Supply Antec BP550 Plus 550W
(-$30 Combo)
$35
Total System Price $728

When it comes time to put together a PC for friends or family, price is usually a driving factor in every component selection. Depending on what compromises you're willing to make, you can easily get a complete system for under $500 (sans LCD, OS, and peripherals), but if I'm putting together a system I don't want compromises—I want a good PC that I'm confident will last at least three years, barring unforeseen component failures. So, my go-to system tends to focus on balancing price, quality, and performance, which means I check in right around the $500 mark. That's not bad for a PC, but what if you're interested in gaming?

Here's the thing so many people overlook when it comes to gaming consoles. The basic hardware will set you back $300 or less, but you end up occupying the living room, games cost more, and if you want to do things like surf the Internet, type a report, email, print, etc. you still have to have a PC somewhere in the house. So take your standard home/office PC, make sure you have a few upgrade options available (i.e. don't buy one of those ultra-budget systems with a tiny power supply, cramped chassis, and no PCIe x16 slot), and then you go out and buy a decent graphics card. Even the $115 graphics cards pack plenty of performance (i.e. the GeForce GTS 450), but for serious gaming you should plan on spending more like $200 and getting a GTX 460 or HD 6850. That's what I've done here, with a few other noteworthy extras.

First, notice the CPU: AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. The stock 3.4GHz clock is already more than fast enough for any games, but the Black Edition means you can play around with overclocking without needing to raise bus or memory speeds. Sure, Intel has faster processors available, but for less than $200 it's going to be very difficult to match the performance of the Phenom II 965!

With an AMD CPU and motherboard chipset, $10 more gets you basic CrossFireX support—in this case courtesy of the ASUS M4A88T-V. You also get native SATA 6.0Gbps ports from the chipset and USB3.0 ports, so you've got just about everything you need to last you through the next two generations of hardware. And if games get to the point where a single 6850 can't handle your chosen resolution/settings, you can grab a second card and boost your performance! If you're serious about the CrossFireX route, though, you might want a motherboard with dual x8 PCIe slots as opposed to the x16/x4 on the selected ASUS board, in which case you're looking at another $20 to get something like the Gigabyte A-890GPA-UD3H.

As far as the GPU goes, the video card I selected is AMD's latest Radeon 6850, which is roughly on par with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 1GB. Honestly, I would probably lean towards the latter on an Intel setup, but getting SLI support on an AMD platform is becoming rather difficult and pairing the AMD CPU with an AMD GPU has a nice symmetry to it. I'd suggest 1080p and high details as reasonable for the 460 and 6850, but you'll need to turn off antialiasing in some titles to get acceptable performance. The 6850 GPU I selected also comes from ASUS, by virtue of the fact that it was the quietest card in our 6850 roundup.

Some enthusiasts like to stay on the cutting edge, but that costs more money and the net difference often isn't worth the price of admission. I've been running an Intel Kentsfield processor at 3.2GHz for the past three years as my primary system (about the same performance as the Phenom II 965), and while I have a faster Core i7 desktop available I honestly don't notice the difference in most tasks. Gaming depends primarily on your GPU (unless you have a really slow CPU like Atom), so that's where you need to focus your money. You could even go with a cheaper CPU like the Athlon II X4 645 or the Phenom II X4 810, but as you can see from the linked results the overall performance drop likely isn't worth the money saved—especially if you want to upgrade to CrossFire down the road. Also worth noting is that there are games that hit the CPU quite hard (StarCraft II in large battles is particularly brutal), so don't skimp too much.

The rest of the components I've selected are still good in their own right, and there are plenty of sales and combo offers right now. If you have a bit of extra money left over, adding a moderate 64GB SSD as your OS/application drive is certainly worth doing, but with a focus on keeping costs down and gaming performance up, I left it out (and I'm sure others will include it). If you want an alternative to my selection, you could even go with the winning Newegg EggXpert PC SuperCombo (which has quite a few similarities to my build). Just add an OS, display, keyboard, and mouse and you're golden!



Vivek's Midrange Intel System
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield 45nm
(4x2.8GHz to 3.33GHz Turbo, 8MB L3, 95W)
$200
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 (Intel P55) $120
Video EVGA GTX 460 768MB (768-P3-1360-TR) ($30 MIR) $140
Alternate GPU ASUS GTX 460 768MB (ENGTX460 TOP)($20 MIR) ($150)
Alternate GPU ASUS Radeon HD 6850 1GB (EAH6850) ($200)
Memory Corsair XMS3 2x2GB DDR3-1600 CL9
(CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
$65
Hard Drive WD Caviar Blue 1TB (WD10EALS) $70
Optical Drive ASUS 24x DVDRW (DRW-24B1ST) $20
Power Supply OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W (OCZ700MXSP) ($25 MIR) $55
Case Antec Nine Hundred Two $89
Total System Price (Price based on GPU choice) $759-$819

When Jarred pitched his idea of a midrange gamer build, I liked the general idea except for one thing—the AMD processor. I'm more of an Intel guy at heart, so I tried to envision a similar midrange system built around an Intel platform. I built a very parallel system for personal use around this time last year, so I'll toss in a few anecdotes from my experience.

The processor was by far the easiest choice to make. At the price point we're looking at, the Core i5-760 makes the most sense. It's a quad-core Lynnfield running at 2.8GHz, with the only difference between it and the $280, 2.93GHz i7-860 being the clock speed bump and the lack of Hyper-Threading in the i5. Given that you've got four cores to work with, you won't miss the extra threading capabilities unless you're running some really highly threaded workloads. The 2.66GHz i5-750 is still kicking around at $199 (I can't believe that Intel has kept it at exactly the same price it was a year ago when I bought one!), but you can find the 760 for the same price. I figure it's not worth the $80 bump to the i7 line, as that money is better spent elsewhere.

For the motherboard, I went with the Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3. It's a rock solid board with USB 3.0 and a second PCI-E slot for CrossFireX support. In a mid-priced motherboard, there's not too much else you can ask for (except for maybe IEEE 1394). The Gigabyte P55 line has been popular since the launch of Lynnfield, and based on my experience I have no problems recommending it. As with Jarred's build, if you're serious about CrossFire you'll probably want to go with a different board that can do x8/x8 to the GPUs; as luck would have it, Biostar's T5 XE CFX-SLI has dual x8 slots and tosses in SLI support (via a PLX chip), and depending on the vendor it's even cheaper than the Gigabyte offering. Is it as reliable and does it have great support should something go wrong? We haven't had any serious issues with Biostar, but they can be a bit hit-or-miss.

RAM is kind of dependant on how much you need—I went with 4GB in my build last year and haven't felt short of memory, but I'm adding more this Black Friday just in case. For this build, I went with a Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) kit of DDR3-1600. Corsair's XMS3 was one of the more reasonably priced RAM kits on Newegg, but you can really go for whatever you feel comfortable with. I know a lot of people who like the G-Skill Ripjaws line, but they're rather pricey especially if you go for the 7-8-7-24 timings ($88 versus $75 for the 9-9-9-24 Ripjaws, and $65 for the XMS3s that also run at 9-9-9-24). Unless you have a specific preference for brand, you're probably better off going for whoever has the best sale.

Hard drives are another place where once you determine the capacity and speed, you're not going to get a whole lot of performance variation between different brands. I know people that swear by Seagate, I know some that swear by Western Digital, I know a lot that swear they hate either (or both), and there's Anand, who swears against hard drives on principle. In all honesty, I don't care either way, so I specced this system with the WD Caviar Blue 1TB 7200RPM drive, which at $69 is not a bad buy. There are 1TB drives from Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi at the same price, so you're not at a loss for choice.

The graphics card is where things get interesting. If you're a serious gamer, I figure the lowest you want to go is the NVIDIA GTX 460 768MB. Most of those are going for $169, but the bog-standard EVGA GTX 460 listed above has a $30 rebate on top of that, and the more customized (and mildly factory-overclocked) ASUS ENGTX 460 comes with a $20 MIR. So if you don't mind the MIR, you can get away with a "low-end" GTX 460 for $140-150. Given the overclocking potential inherent to the GTX 460, that's a pretty good price.

But what if you want something faster? The best place to look is the HD 6850 (the 6870, at $240-300, is a bit too expensive for a midrange build). Ryan really liked the ASUS EAH6850 when he looked at the XFX, MSI, and ASUS retail HD 6850 cards earlier this month, and so it makes another appearance here. At $200, it's competitively priced against the rest of the HD 6850 partner cards, and it makes a good tradeoff between temperatures and noise. Like the ASUS ENGTX 460, it comes with a token overclock and ASUS' highly effective Direct CU cooler. It's faster than the comparably priced 1GB GTX 460 cards, so it's a worthwhile upgrade to make if you'll make use of the extra graphics horsepower on hand.

Of course, now you have to decide if you're at all interested in adding a second GPU in the future; if so, you should note that most budget P55 boards only support CrossFireX. For those going the AMD route, the specced Gigabyte board will be fine, but if you're after SLI support, the Biostar T5 XE CFX-SLI has what you need for $15 more than the GA-P55, with an epic, highlighter-esque colour scheme thrown in just for kicks.

For the power supply, I went with the OCZ ModXStream 700W. This is what I ended up buying for my build last year, and I’ve had no problems with it. There's usually a good sale on it somewhere; I picked it up for $49 last year (after a $35 rebate) and it’s currently going for $55 after a $25 rebate. I know that the Corsair line of PSUs is very popular, but they’re significantly pricier than the OCZ, as are the Antec PSUs (unless you get a combo deal on one with a case like in Jarred’s build). Generally speaking, most of the 80 Plus certified PSUs will work well; some are still better than others, but the difference between 82% and 87% efficiency isn't all that great and the price often climbs rapidly once you move beyond the Bronze level. The OCZ is a standard 80 Plus model at a good price, but if you're looking for other options the Seasonic S12II 520W is Bronze certified, well reviewed, and costs just $10 more than the OCZ.

Case choices are very personal; I prefer flowing and elegant cases, like the old Cooler Master WaveMaster and the Thermaltake Tsunami, which is what I got for my own system. I abhor the design of the wildly popular Antec Nine Hundred—something about the weirdly pentagonal side just doesn’t sit right with me, though I must admit that it is a very high quality case. The Nine Hundred Two on the other hand has a more rectangular design that suits my taste much better, but at $90 it’s not the cheapest case on the block. Jarred specced his build with the Antec Three Hundred, which is a bit smaller and a bit cheaper, but get what you like.

So how does this stack up against Jarred's build? It has a more expensive case, PSU, motherboard, and processor with a slightly slower GPU (assuming you get the standard GTX 460 768MB), but then the i5-760 will generally outperform Phenom II 965. As configured and with the mail-in rebate for the GTX 460 and PSU, the net difference is only around $30, but if we just look at the motherboard and processor the "Intel tax" is about $50 (or about 7% looking at the entire system). Whichever GPU and system you choose, both of our midrange builds will handle just about any task you might throw their way—including gaming.



Raja's Midrange Overclocking Systems

What about building a bang-for-the-buck overclocking experience, you ask? As our resident overclocking guru and motherboard reviewer, Raja has more experience with this area than the rest of us so we turned this section over to him. In order to keep things simple, we kept nearly all of the components in Vivek's midrange build but switched out the motherboard, processor, RAM and PSU. We also added an aftermarket cooler to allow the CPUs to reach their full potential. Here's what Raja put together. [Ed: Text by Jarred, most of the picks by Raja.]

Raja's Midrange AMD Overclocking System
Hardware Component Price
Processor AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
(Thuban 45nm, 2.8 to 3.3 GHz, 6x512KB L2, 6MB L3, 125W
$179
Motherboard ASUS M4A89GTD Pro (AMD 890GX AM3) $135
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm SSO $60
Video ASUS Radeon HD 6850 1GB (EAH6850) $200
Memory G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3-1600 (F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ) $65
Hard Drive WD Caviar Blue 1TB (WD10EALS) $70
Optical Drive ASUS 24x DVDRW (DRW-24B1ST) $20
Power Supply Seasonic S12II 620W Bronze (80 Plus Bronze) $75
Case Antec Nine Hundred Two $89
Total System Price $893

For AMD overclocking, I chose one of the hex-core Thuban CPUs, just so you can get every last ounce of performance out of AMD's architecture. The ASUS motherboard ended up being our top AM3 overclocking selection--at least when keeping prices in check--and is good for up to a 50% overclock by raising the base clock. Thuban will generally top out in the 4.0-4.2GHz range, making this board a perfect fit. The Noctua cooler will help keep things cool without making a ton of noise, and the Seasonic S12II 620W power supply should deliver clean, stable current to the system.

Alternately, if you want to spin the wheel, you can also try your hand at core unlocking and save some money. $100 will buy you the Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition, which has two disabled cores. The ASUS board allows core unlocking, provided your CPU can handle it. Many users have had success with core unlocking, but there's no guarantee, and you'll never get the six cores that Thuban processors offer.

Our memory kit may not look like much, with its DDR3-1600 speed and CAS 9 timings. In reality, it shouldn't limit you but it's getting tricky to determine which memory to buy for overclocking. Vendors are now covering up their IC choices so much it's difficult to know what's inside; what we're looking for is an Elpida BBSE type variant or a similar IC from PSC. The G.Skill kit should work, but YMMV.

Raja's Midrange Intel Overclocking System
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield 45nm
(4x2.8GHz to 3.33GHz Turbo, 8MB L3, 95W)
$200
Motherboard ASUS Maximus III GENE (Intel P55 1156) ($20 MIR) $127
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm SSO $60
Video ASUS Radeon HD 6850 1GB (EAH6850) $200
Memory G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3-1600 (F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ) $65
Hard Drive WD Caviar Blue 1TB (WD10EALS) $70
Optical Drive ASUS 24x DVDRW (DRW-24B1ST) $20
Power Supply Seasonic S12II 620W Bronze (80 Plus Bronze) $75
Case Antec Nine Hundred Two $89
Total System Price $906

Okay, first let's get this out of the way: Sandy Bridge is right around the corner. Think your hopped up i5-760 overclock is impressive? Imagine an unlocked Sandy Bridge chip running at 4.3-4.5GHz on air cooling. If you're into Intel overclocking, we'd really consider just waiting a bit longer right now. But, if you must buy a P55 system right now and you want a good overclock....

For the CPU, the i5-760 remains the most sensible choice. Priced at $200, you still get four cores with great overclocking potential--hitting 4.0-4.2GHz is generally common with an appropriate motherboard and cooling. The jump to i7-870 is $80 and all you really get is Hyper-Threading, since maximum overclocking means you'll want to disable the Turbo Boost feature and most of the Lynnfield CPUs are going to top out around the same 4.2GHz. We might be swayed to make an investment in Core i7 if it weren't for Sandy Bridge; then again, there's an upside: motherboards that used to push nearly $200 have come down quite a bit and there are plenty of rebates going around right now.

The motherboard is always a critical component for overclocking, and even though there are plenty of options that can do well, we wanted something more than just a decent overclock. The ASUS Maximus III GENE can easily hit BLCKs far beyond what you'll need for an i5-760, but even better is the excellent voltage regulation that will allow you to push 4GHz and higher without pumping a ton of current through your CPU. ASUS also makes overclocking very easy on the less experienced, with only minor tweaks necessary to get your system running at top speed.

Cooling for both systems comes courtesy of the Noctua NH-U12P SE2, a high quality push-pull cooler capable of keeping your CPU temperatures down without raising noise levels. While there are decent coolers for a bit less money, we've never been disappointed by the Noctua; it works well even with hex-core processors if you move to X58, so the Lynnfield CPUs aren't going to be a problem.

You'll notice that the power supply isn't the OCZ model Vivek used; instead the PSU is a higher quality Seasonic S12II capable of delivering the clean, stable power you'd want in an overclocked system. If you want to move to dual graphics cards and a heavily overclocked CPU, the 620W power supply should still keep up with everything short of the fastest GPUs. If that's what you'd like, I suggest looking at Ryan's X58 high-end SLI build.



We've got a lot of great builds this year--some great options below $1000 and some great ones much higher than that. I wanted to offer something a little different for the mix.

Unfortunately, as Jarred mentioned in the introduction, building a new system today is pretty ill advised. Intel is set to release Sandy Bridge in another two months and with it we'll see a big reset in the components we recommend. Within six or so months of the Sandy Bridge arrival, AMD is expected to release its first new high end server/desktop architecture, codenamed Bulldozer. Thus my ideal build would limit spending on the CPU and motherboard, and move those dollars toward the rest of the components in the system. The idea is that you spend enough on a CPU/motherboard today to get good performance, but minimize the expense to enable upgrading in the not too distant future. You can then take your "old" CPU and motherboard and turn it into an awesome secondary system for a family member or even yourself (hello HTPC!).

Anand's Ready for Bulldozer/Sandy SSD System
Hardware Component Price
Processor AMD Athlon II X3 450 $79
Video ASUS EAH6850 Radeon HD 6850 1GB $200
Motherboard MSI 880GM-E41 $75
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3-1333 (2x4GB) $125
Solid State Drive Corsair Force F120 128GB SF-1200 SSD $220
Hard Drive 2 x Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB HDDs in RAID-1 $200
Optical Drive Samsung 22X DVDRW $15
Case Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case $280
Case Alternative Antec P193 $183
Case Alternative #2 Antec Three Hundred $60
Power Supply Antec BP550 Plus 550W $65
Base System Total $1039 - $1259

Below $100, you can't beat AMD on the CPU. Personally I like having more than two cores on a system, which is why I went for the Athlon II X3 450. It gives you a great balance of price/performance without even breaking $80. The MSI 880GM is a good motherboard from an upgrade standpoint. You can always reuse the Athlon II X3 + 880G setup later on as an HTPC as long as you don't mind not having TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming support. The rest of the system is well configured, with 8GB of memory that will be re-usable in whatever DDR3 platform you have next year.

People are always asking me what my ideal storage setup would be given my affinity for SSDs these days. The configuration above almost exactly mimics the setup I have at home. I've put a 128GB Corsair Force F120 based on the SandForce SF-1200 controller as the OS drive; you may want to upgrade your SSD in another 12 months or so which is the only reason I'd shy away from the F240. If you can get away with less space, then by all means go for it but I personally like having all of my applications and at least one frequently used game reside on my SSD to maximize the low-latency goodness.

If you don't have a NAS or some form of massive file storage at home, I highly recommend the SSD + two HDDs in RAID-1 approach. I grabbed a pair of 2TB Seagate Barracuda LPs for mass storage, although you could use smaller drives if you don't have a lot to store. These drives would be for other game installs, pictures, movies, music. The RAID-1 is just to protect things in case of a single drive failure, although you still want to have some sort of a backup plan external to your PC.

A good GPU is important if you're going to be gaming at all. I picked the Radeon HD 6850 because it is a good balance of price and performance and sufficient for most of my gaming needs at this point. While personally I'd probably opt for something faster, that's only because I tend to use relatively high resolution displays - no need in penalizing the system because of it.

The case selection is an interesting one. Typically I don't spend much money on a case in my builds, my focus is always on the internal hardware. Gary Key, our old Senior Motherboard Editor likes to view cases as an investment - something that'll last you several builds. I figured I'd give Gary's approach on this build and go overboard with the case. Corsair's Obsidian 800D is super easy to work inside, looks very sleek on the outside and seems like the type of case you could keep around for several builds. If you want to save a bit of money there are always cheaper alternatives from Antec.

Closing out the list is the power supply. We don't need to go overkill on power supply since we're not running a ton of hard drives or have a multi-GPU setup. The 550W Antec works well and is a decent choice to any midrange setup.

The end result is a system that's pretty quick today, and with a motherboard/CPU swap next year you've got a huge improvement in performance as well as leftover hardware to build a decent HTPC in the near future.



Ryan's High-End Gaming System
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield  45nm
(Quad-core + HTT, 3.06 to 3.33 GHz, 8MB L3, 130W)
$295
Motherboard EVGA X58 SLI3 (Intel X58+ICH10R, LGA1366) $210
Video EVGA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB $510
Alt. Video Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GB $460
Memory Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600
(TR3X6G1600C9)
$120
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5TB (WD1501FASS) $120
SSD OCZ Vertex 2 120GB (-$30 MIR) $205
Optical Drive LG 22X DVDRW (GH22LS50) $17
Sound Card Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium $80
Case Antec P183 Black Aluminum $155
HSF Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme $65
Power Supply Antec TPQ-850 (850W) $150
Monitor HP ZR24W (24" 1920x1200, S-IPS) $400
Alt. Monitor ASUS VG236H w/3D Kit (23" 1920x1080 TN, 120Hz) $475
Total System Price (Range based on GPU and LCD choice) $2277-$2402

Although PC gaming can actually be quite cheap these days (see our midrange systems from Jarred and Vivek), for the hardcore among us a system built with a GTX 460/6850 class video card isn't going to cut it when it comes getting the most out of the PC's graphical advantage. For that you need to turn to something faster, better, more expandable, and ideally not much louder. To accomplish this goal I went to work on piecing together a system for around $2000 that should be able to tackle everything short of Crysis on Enthusiast settings.

The centerpiece of the system is one of NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 580s, which currently holds the mantle as the fastest single-GPU card on the market. Being NVIDIA's highest-end video card the GTX 580 is  by far the most expensive component in our system, but it does a great job of mixing performance, image quality (transparency AA), and reasonable amounts of noise. As all the GTX 580s on the market are reference cards, the choice comes down to the manufacturer and whether you want a factory overclocked model or not; in this case I went with EVGA based on availability, their overclocking tools, and their lifetime warranty.

An alternative here is the Radeon HD 5970, which ends up being cheaper. The performance is actually better than the GTX 580 so long as we're not VRAM limited, but the dual-GPU card means we give up some flexibility as 4-way CF scaling is limited at best, and the 5970 is a louder card than the GTX 580. However this option is a better choice if you want to take advantage of AMD's Eyefinity system in combination with 3 cheap 1080P TN monitors.

With our GTX 580 in hand we want to pair it with a fast processor and an SLI-capable motherboard to leave future expansion on the table. For this I'm going with an X58 board, specifically EVGA's X58 SLI3 as it offers strong overclocking abilities and is one of the cheapest SLI capable X58 boards on the market. EVGA has also equipped it with third-party USB3.0 and SATA 6Gbps controllers, giving the board plenty of capability in the future with new generation USB and SATA devices.

For the processor I chose Intel's cheapest X58 Core i7, the Core i7 950. At 3.06GHz base and a 3.33GHz Turbo mode it's already fairly fast, but at this stage in the game Bloomfield overclocking is dead simple. Combined with the massive Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme cooler, there's a very good chance of hitting 4GHz (or more!) on the 950, which should be plenty for even the most stubborn single-threaded game. Just be sure to install the Tuniq Tower on the motherboard before installing the motherboard in the case.

Since this is primarily an overclocked gaming system, I selected Corsair's XMS3 6GB triple-channel DDR3 1600 kit. The CAS9 latency at DDR3 1600 speeds is nothing to write home about, but gaming is rarely latency sensitive and the high speeds of the RAM will be very helpful for overclocking. 12GB is also an option here at a higher price, but at the moment only a couple of games are capable of using more than 2GB/4GB of RAM since few games come with a 64-bit executable.

As for storage, a high-end system deserves flexibility and speed, so I used both an SSD and a traditional hard drive; unfortunately, the size of modern games makes an all-SSD setup impractical. There are a number of fast SDDs on the market, and while you don't necessarily need something that's great at random reads and writes OCZ's SandForce-1200 based Vertex 2 120GB is no slouch at that or at sustained reads and writes; if nothing else it will keep Windows very responsive. Furthermore at 120GB it's big enough for at least a few games, making it perfect for MMOs and their need to aggressively pre-cache and log everything. For more traditional games that don't hit up local storage between levels, the 1.5TB Western Digital Caviar Black is plenty fast and big enough to hold more games than most people could possibly play at once.

Rounding things out I decided to go with a discrete sound card rather than relying on onboard sound. Creative's X-Fi line is still the premiere line of soundcards for gaming, as they bring the audio quality benefits of a discrete sound card with support for OpenAL for modern games and support for EAX for older games. As for external storage just about any DVD burner will do; I'm using a 22X Samsung but there are a number of alternatives. Blu-ray readers are coming down in price, but at this point there's no momentum to distribute games for PCs on Blu-ray discs.

Housing all of this will be Antec's P183, the latest in Antec's noise-optimized P18x series of cases. Ideally we don't want to make any compromises, and a fast system doesn't need to be noisy. Along with the quieter GTX 580 and the Tuniq Tower 120, the Antec P183 is the third and final piece of the puzzle. The triple-layer panels will deaden what sound comes from the CPU and GPU coolers, and the 120mm fans will provide enough airflow to keep things cool. As a mid-tower case it's not particularly huge so I'd suggest removing the upper hard drive bay to give the video card(s) extra room, and consider a 120mm fan mounted behind that if you ever expand to two cards. Antec does build the bigger P193, but this shouldn't be necessary with external exhaust cards like the GTX 580.

In order to power our existing system and to have enough extra power for SLI in the future you'll need a fairly strong PSU, and the Antec TPQ-850 is exactly that; it's also the 850W version of the PSU we use in our GPU test bed. The TPQ-850 balances our power needs against the P183's longer cable requirements (since the PSU is bottom-mounted), and the half-modular cable system means there's no need to clutter the case with extra cables unless they become necessary.

Finally, in a break from most of the other systems, I'm also going to throw in a monitor with this collection. It's my belief that a good monitor should outlast the rest of the system, so it's better to buy something good now rather than something cheap now and something still-cheap later. While this is a high-end system, 30" monitors are in a price category of their own so that leaves us with 24" LCDs. Our choice here is HP's ZR24W, a 24" 1920x1200 S-IPS monitor. It has fast pixel response times that are good for gaming without needing to compromise on the color palate or color accuracy at an angle. However since our default card here is an NVIDIA card, 3D Vision is also an option; if that piques your interest we'd go with ASUS' top of the line VG236H, which is a 23" 120Hz TN panel. The overall image quality isn't as good as the ZR24W, but a 120Hz monitor can be worth it if you like 3D Vision, or just like the 120Hz experience in general. The VG236H also includes an NVIDIA 3D Vision kit, so it won't be necessary to buy that separately.

My high-end gaming build ultimately comes out to just shy of $2000 without the monitor, or $2400-$2500 with it. Peripherals should add another $50-$200 depending on whether you're going to buy anything on top of the mouse and keyboard, such as gamepads, steering wheels, and joysticks.



Brian's Intel Dream PC
Hardware Component Price
Processor 2x Intel Xeon X5660 Westmere 32nm
(Hex-core + HTT, 2.8 to 3.2 GHz, 12MB L3, 95W)
2x $1225
CPU HSF 2x Xigmatek Dark Knight-S1283V 2x $45
Motherboard  EVGA Classified SR-2
(Intel 5520, ICH10R, 270-WS-W555-A2)
$590
GPU 2x EVGA SuperClocked GTX 580 2x $530
Hard Drives 4x Western Digital 1.5TB (WD1501FASS) 4x $120
OS Drive (SSD) OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCI-E 4x SSD $680
Memory 2x Patriot 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 1333 2x $360
Power Supply Antec TPQ-1200 80 Plus Silver $250
Case Lian Li PC-V2120X ATX Full Tower $500
Optical Drive LG 10x Blu-Ray Burner w/Lightscribe $100
Keyboard Das Keyboard Professional Model S Silent $135
Alt Keyboard Logitech G510 Keyboard $100
Mouse Razer Mamba 5600 DPI Wired/Wireless $130
Monitor Dell U3011 30" 2560x1600 IPS $1350
Sound Card Creative 7.1 24-bit PCI-E X-Fi Titanium $75
Total System Price $8610

When I heard that the whole AnandTech staff was going to get to put together a rig of their choice, I instantly gravitated to the super high end. Heck, there's no reason you can't at least ask for the absolute best, even if you know it's out of your price range. For others, maybe you really do want to go sky high and push the limits of what's possible with desktop parts without getting too exotic. Either way, this dream machine build isn't for the faint of heart.

I've configured and built a number of dual processor Xeon 56xx series workstations in the past, yet each time destined for a fairly mundane existence doing computational modeling or some other serious business. Each time I'm finished, there's a brief but overwhelming temptation to install Crysis, Metro 2033—heck, something!—with all the eye candy on max with a 2560x1600 display. Each time, I shake that thought away right after finishing burn-in testing as I pop in the latest version of whatever *nix flavor is appropriate. I kid myself that maybe eventually I'll be able to build something like this without having to justify every bit of it as being vitally critical for modeling complicated scientific something or other. Anyway, if you've got nearly limitless piles of sweet cash lying around, this is the rig for you.

Starting out is really the motherboard. Initially, I wanted to go with a server-class motherboard, the SupermicroMBD-X8DTi, having worked with it and similar workstation boards in the past. If you want a dual CPU motherboard, the options basically dictate either a similar class of "server" motherboard like theMBD-X8DTi from Supermicro, something comparable from Tyan, or the only choice in the more conventional desktop class of products, the EVGA Classified SR-2. TheMBD-X8DTi and SR-2 are actually quite similar; both are built around the Intel 5520 and ICH10R chipsets, both are happy with an unreasonable number of triple channel ECC or non-ECC DDR3-1333 memory, and both actually present similar PCI-E lane configurations. The Supermicro comes with onboard graphics, but we'd obviously recommend disabling that in the BIOS and forgetting about it. The Supermicro board costs $430, whereas the Classified SR-2 costs a slightly mind-bending $590. The difference between the two is ultimately whether you want SLI licensing so you can stick in some some multi-GPU goodness from NVIDIA. Remember that NVIDIA still requires either a BIOS key or NVIDIA bridge chip for SLI to work, both of which the cheaper Supermicro board lacks. AMD CrossFire remains feasible on both, but that difference, along with the more enthusiast-oriented features like overclocking support, ultimately led me to settle on the SR-2, despite its nose-bleed-inducing price tag.

Of course, now that we've incurred such a large price premium to get a two-socket motherboard, we should stick in at least a couple hex-core CPUs, right? Two 6-core CPUs with Hyper-Threading gives a whopping 24 threads of power. For that, there's Intel Westmere—the SR-2 andMBX-X8DTi both support Xeon 5500 and 5600 series. At the most extreme, there's the 3.33GHz Xeon 5680, which runs $1725, but anyone can sort by price and see what's the most expensive, and we're still at least somewhat interested in performance per buck (or are we?) The Xeon 5680 can Turbo from 3.33GHz to 3.6GHz. Subjectively, the Xeon X5660 seems to be a better tradeoff between price and stock clock speed at 2.8GHz, plus you get a larger turbo boost up to 3.2GHz. Either way, the two CPUs will set you back a big chunk of change. As one reader pointed out, you also need a heatsink for Xeon, as it doesn't ship with one, so we grabbed a couple of Xigmatek Dark-Knight coolers.

In the traditional workstation configuration, I usually opt for a Cooler Master Cosmos or Cosmos S, and when I think about what's really ultimate in the case market these days, my mind immediately settles on either the iconic Thermaltake Level 10 or the ABS Canyon 695. TheMBD-X8DTi and other workstation boards are E-ATX, which would fit in all the aforementioned cases but the Level 10. Unfortunately, the SR-2 is enormous and necessitated EVGA to define their own motherboard form factor entirely—HPTX—which is a mind-numbing 13.6" x 15". The result is that our case recommendation is limited unless you're willing to go custom or break out the Dremel. Luckily, there's a line of HPTX cases by Lian Li that are attractive and fit the SR-2 just fine. If you're opposed to finding a motherboard tray properly machined for HPTX or loath to do modifications yourself, the Lian Li PC-V2120X is what you should go for.

Moving along we come to the GPUs; I talked with Ryan on this to get his input, and ultimately we both agreed on 2xSLI GTX 580s. EVGA is (at time of this writing) offering the Superclocked version at 797MHz core/1594MHz shader clocks for prices on par with the competition's regularly clocked GTX 580s. The choice is simple at that point: go for the factory overclocked EVGA while it's still feasible.

Storage on a dream build would be incomplete without an SSD for the OS. Thankfully, the RevoDrive X2 is indeed bootable and thus makes an ideal drive for the OS and critical system apps. On every system I've built in recent memory, I've gone with an SSD + RAID array of slow but capacious storage; I think the same is best here. Get four or five 1.5TB or higher HDDs of whatever brand makes you feel warmest inside, toss them in a RAID5 set, and enjoy a crap-ton of storage that's fully redundant. I suppose if you're really feeling ultimate, you could get a RAID card instead of using the ICH10R's software fakeRAID, but it probably isn't critical unless you want to eek out everything you can from those mechanical drives.

My dream PC would be incomplete without at least 12GB of RAM—it's just that simple. I think it's safe to say that 6GB is pretty standard for midrange X58 gaming builds, with 8GB and 12GB starting to become the norm at the fringes. To stay safely ahead, you've got to move to 24GB, which is actually surprisingly common for workstations processing huge datasets that need to exist entirely in RAM. Of course, it's more than likely that no game will ever make use of the 24GB, but we're building the ultimate system here, right? The objective is to play Crysis within Crysis if we could. I settled on two sets of matched Patriot 12GB (3x4GB) kits, as all the 24GB (3x8GB) kits I could find were either sold out or lacked heat spreaders. You should still get triple-channel performance on either the SupermicroMBD-X8DTi or EVGA SR-2 with six populated memory slots, but it definitely makes me a little uneasy populating so many if you don't have lots of airflow.

For the power supply, we're big fans of the Antec TPQ-1200 Silver, which packs a half and half modular/fixed set of cables. It's a combination that provides the best of both worlds for not blocking airflow with unused power cables, and fixed cables for being absolutely certain connectors aren't a concern. The TPQ-1200 is (as the name implies) 1200W, which should be adequate for the SR-2, two Xeons, and two GTX 580s, plus all those mechanical drives.

I'm a fan of LG's 10x Blu-ray burner with LightScribe support, purely because it's SATA, well received, and I've built a number of systems with it in the past. You get DVD+/-R support at 16x, and CDR support at 48x, which is pretty standard. I'm a sucker for LightScribe support just because I always convince myself that the next batch of writeable disks I buy will also be LightScribe; sadly, I've somehow avoided ever doing it. Regardless, the optical drive is quickly becoming marginalized, but for your ultimate build, why not include one? Same thing with the sound card—you don't really need one anymore if onboard audio suffices, but if we're going for the ultimate, you might as well consider it.

Since we're going all out, we'd be remiss if we didn't include suggestions for the peripherals as well. When I think of the ultimate keyboard, I immediately think of one keyboard—the Das Keyboard. If you haven't heard of it, chances are you've been living under a rock, or been blind sighted by all the flashy gaming-focused keyboards with copious amounts of LED lights but little attention to the mechanics of keydomes. If you want a gaming keyboard, get the Logitech G510—it's awesome and I have one—but if you're serious about typing, consider the Das Keyboard. Das Keyboard is essentially the modern IBM model M equivalent, and is a joy to type on purely because of the serious mechanical and aural feedback. For the mouse, I'm a huge fan of Razer. I worked my way from the Logitech MX1000 (the first laser mouse) through a number of Logitech and Razer mice alike, but keep settling back down on Razer. It's ultimately a matter of personal taste.

Last but certainly not least is the monitor. The choices here are quite obvious: either buy a 30" Dell U3011 or its archrival, the HP ZR30w. Both are IPS, both look superb, and both round out the dream configuration. Or maybe you need two 30-inchers? I've left out a fan recommendation since the stock fans for these Xeons have (thus far) seemed sufficient, but the usual Zalman 120mm or similar are always an option I'd encourage.

This configuration is again insane, but at the end of it all, I still find myself thoroughly convinced that if I had infinite monies, I'd put it together in a heartbeat—and maybe even splurge for that 3.33GHz Xeon 5680, regardless of the fact that it's overkill even for Crysis. If you had infinite cash or an appetite for the drooling-on-the-carpet insane—and need it right stinkin' now—this is the system I'd recommend, right after I note that Sandy Bridge is right around the corner. If this configuration is financially justifiable to you, by all means, do it! (And send us some benchmarks and pictures!) Alas, for me, it's still little more than a holiday dream.



Ganesh's Midrange HTPC
Hardware Component Price
Processor Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale 45nm
(Dual-core + HTT, 3.2 to 3.46 GHz, 4MB L3, 73W)
$113
Motherboard ASUS P7H55D-M EVO
(Intel H55, USB 3.0, MATX 1156)
$180
Video Clarkdale Integrated Intel HD Graphics $0
Alternate GPU HIS Silence Radeon HD 5570 1GB (H557HR1G) $75
Alternate GPU Zotac GeForce GT 430 1GB Zone Edition 1GB
(ZT-40601-20L)
$85
Memory G.Skill Eco Series 2x2GB DDR3-1600
(F3-12800CL8D-4GBECO)
$83
Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB
(ST32000641AS 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6.0Gbps)
$170
Optical Drive ASUS 8X Blu-ray/16X DVDR Combo Drive
(BC-08B1ST) ($20 MIR)
$69
Power Supply Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W
(80 Plus Bronze Certified)
$92
Case Antec Black Fusion Remote MATX HTPC $135
Total System Cost (Price range based on GPU choice)  $842-$927 

The PC I've put together is not meant to be a powerful gaming machine/HTPC combo—Alan will cover that next. Instead I've specced out a midrange build that tries to do a bit of everything, while making sure that it excels at HTPC duties. Some of the components are left to choice, depending on the needs of the end user. For example, if gaming and support for native video refresh rates are not necessary for the end user, there is no need to invest in a dedicated graphics card. Similarly, the level of interest in 3D would influence whether to go the NVIDIA or the AMD route for the dedicated graphics card—and how high you might want to go. Many of the components in the system are similar to Balraj's value build, and the cost conscious consumer can refer to that for some of the costlier components in the table below.

For the motherboard, I went with the ASUS P7H55D-M EVO mATX. It is slightly costlier than the ASRock board chosen by Balraj, but you get the option to slot in extra DIMMs and take the total memory installed up to 8GB (or 16GB if you go with 4GB DIMMs). For the CPU, a quiet, dedicated HTPC can make do with Balraj's choice, but I prefer something with more muscle and the ability to Turbo Boost. The Core i5-650 is ideal. The stock cooler is good enough and considering the airflow allowed by my choice of chassis (more on this further down), there is little need to go for a fancier cooling solution.

The DRAM is one of the most understated components in an HTPC build. DIMMs that operate at higher voltages tend to heat up and have a reduced lifespan and also affect the nearby motherboard components. Fortunately, G.Skill has an excellent HTPC oriented DRAM product in the Eco series. 4GB of G.Skill Eco memory wraps up this department. We opted for the CL8 memory, though care needs to be taken to adjust the ASUS motherboard BIOS settings appropriately for the voltage (1.35V) and CAS latencies.

As mentioned earlier, the integrated GPU in the Clarkdale is good enough for most HTPC purposes. However, people wanting a bit more muscle in the gaming department and better video quality should go in for an AMD HD 5570. The better 3D solution right is the GeForce GT 430, which performs as well as the 5570 in most HTPC benchmarks. For people who have already invested in the 3D ecosystem for the rest of their home entertainment, the GT 430 is the way to go. You could try adding a "near-silent" GPU with more performance, but my focus is on keeping things as silent as possible so I limited my selections to fanless GPUs.

For storage, the WD Caviar Blue 500GB is still an option, but I feel that the capacity is too low for a desktop HTPC. Sometimes, I want to do some video editing too, and a fast hard drive helps. The 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT is the best combination of capacity, performance, quietness and price right now. If you want a bit of added performance, the Kingston SSD Now is quite cheap, with deals for the 128GB version coming in at $180. This could be an ideal OS drive choice too, but it increases the cost of the system too much and I wanted to invest the extra money in something that would last through multiple HTPC builds. The ASUS Blu-ray Combo Drive BC-08B1ST is my choice of optical drive for the system. The 8x speed ensures that 3D Blu-ray can also be read without issues. It's a little extra money that I believe is well spent for a reusable component.

The HTPC case is something that I expect to last beyond the usual life of a motherboard and processor. For HTPC purposes, I also like to have an MCE remote / IR receiver. LCD displays and volume controls are icings on the cake. If you're willing to increase your budget, the feature packed Antec VERIS Fusion Remote Max has multiple drive bays and support for ATX motherboards. This would ensure the reusable nature of the case for purposes other than a pure HTPC. However, I wanted to keep costs down so I decided to go for its smaller sibling. The Antec Fusion chassis has similar features with respect to media center capabilities but supports only two internal 3.5" drives and can support only Micro ATX and Mini ITX motherboards. The spacious and well ventilated chassis, along with the three partition internal structure, maintains a cool thermal profile for your HTPC even when the chassis fans are removed.

Unfortunately, the chassis doesn't come with a PSU. Allowing for builds with gaming GPUs requiring external PCI-E power connectors, I budgeted for the well reviewed Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W PSU. With a partially modular cable system, unused cables can be safely stowed away for later use while maintaining a clean assembly inside the chassis.

I have never been interested in the TV content that cable connections have offered. With online streaming becoming so popular, it shouldn't be difficult to view most content on the Internet. However, interested users can add a Hauppauge WinTV tuner to the system if streaming video isn't sufficient.

In the end, depending on your choices for the GPU and optional tuner, we have a good HTPC build that costs anywhere from $850 to $1050 (the higher price includes the GT 430 and WinTV tuner). That's a bit higher than we'd like for a midrange HTPC, but we put some extra money into reusable components. You can build the above system now and upgrade to the Sandy Bridge successor (Ivy Bridge) while keeping several hundred dollars worth of equipment, or you can take the above but wait for Sandy Bridge to come out.



Alan's Ultimate HTPC: Bringing Total Entertainment to the Living Room

Our final build is for those of you who do not like to compromise with your HTPC. Are you tired of hooking up multiple streaming boxes to get all your internet content, NAS for secondary streamers, and another gaming system as well? There are numerous users out there, myself included, that love HTPC as well as gaming. There are many ways to skin the proverbial HTPC cat; this guide is for those of you who want it all in one box on your big screen. There will be sacrifices however, and those come in the size department and in the old pocket book. If you're looking for a small, quiet HTPC that isn't as powerful but doesn't cost an arm and a leg, go look at what Ganesh is pushing.

Alan's Ultimate HTPC
Hardware Component Price
Processor Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
(Thuban 45nm, 3.2GHz, 6x512K L2, 6MB L3, 125W)
$210
CPU HSF Noctua NH-D14 $75
Motherboard MSI 890FXA-GD70 (AMD 890FX AM3) $200
Video Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB (100281-3SR) $300
GPU HSF Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme $57
TV Tuner Ceton InfiniTV4 CableCARD Quad-Tuner $400
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB DDR3-1600 CL9
(F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL)
$150
OS Drive (SSD) OCZ Vertex 2 120GB ($20 MIR) $210
Misc Icy Dock MB882SP-1S-1B $20
Hard Drives 3 x Western Digital Green 2TB (WD20EARS) $300
Optical Drive LG UH10LS20 Blu-ray Combo Drive $85
Case Lian Li PC-X2000F $300
Power Supply Seasonic SS-560KM 560W (80 Plus Gold) ($15 MIR) $115
Mouse Razer Mamba $110
Keyboard Logitech diNovo Edge $157
Software Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (OEM) $135
Software Hipporemote Pro $5
Software PowerDVD 10 Ultra $90
Misc Powermat for iPhone 3GS (PMM-1PB-B2A) $41
Total System Price $3015

The first thing to look at for an HTPC is the case, and the most important feature in the case of an HTPC is noise. This is the major problem with multipurpose machines. Gaming cases tend to stay cool but also tend to be noisy and filled with enough LEDs to be mistaken for a flight beacon; after all gamers tend to want to highlight all their high-end hardware. Finding components that will both be cool enough for gaming and quiet enough for a home theater is the key here. A great best of both worlds case is the Lian Li PC-X2000F. At $299 from Newegg as of this writing, the case is pricey, but it currently sports a $200 saving (though that may disappear soon). At that price, I think it is an excellent buy for a home theater/gaming enthusiast.

New to this version is USB 3.0 support and a redesigned case layout. With five 140mm fans, dust filters, and anti vibration solutions, the air-cooling is both highly effective and extremely quiet. Sporting seven HDD bays with the installed back plates for hot-swappable fun, this case has plenty of room for media drives; just make sure your motherboard or RAID card have enough SATA connectors.

Speaking of storage, currently 2TB WD20EARS drives are shipping for $100 and are a great way to expand your media storage capabilities and tend to run on the quiet side of things—no need for a NAS when your HTPC case holds enough traditional HDDs to feed every other device in your home with media! The case is limited to 3.5" drives, but throwing your favorite SSD into an Icy Dock or similar device will allow you to push it right into one of the HDD back plates to get your OS and applications loading at high speed with no noise whatsoever.

For the GPU, I chose AMD because of the bitstreaming support for HD audio codecs. We can argue about performance with the 5870 and 6870, but the 5870 has been around enough that aftermarket cooling solutions are readily available. Add a Noctua cooler to your favorite CPU as well as an Arctic Cooler Accelero on your high-end AMD graphics card for cool and quiet gaming that won't leave you straining to hear during quiet movie scenes. We've also selected a high-efficiency, near-silent 560W power supply from Seasonic to keep everything running; the GPU + CPU combination generally means we need more power than a typical HTPC, but since this is the main feature of the Home Theater/Gaming we went higher end.

At this point, we've taken your NAS or Windows Home Server, HTPC, and gaming PC and combined them into one glorious entertainment system. You'll need help accessing all that media however. Free applications like Boxee and My Movies 3 can help sort local and internet content past what Windows Media Center offers, but pay applications like PowerDVD will integrate well with Media Center and will also play nice with My Movies adding Blu-ray capability into the mix. But there's still more….

The smartphone is one of the best ways I have found to control a Windows-based HTPC. With HippoRemote on your phone and HippoVNC booting on your PC, you can use your smartphone to seamlessly open Windows Media Center, Boxee, Hulu, or myriad other applications. The touchscreen on the phone then transforms into a remote interface designed for the application of your choice. It is a great way to navigate seamlessly between applications that bring you internet or media content without having to browse endless webpages, and there's no need to hack Media Center. The problem is, using your smartphone in this manner depletes the battery at a rapid rate; that's why adding a Powermat on the coffee table will address this problem and charge your smartphone/remote each time you set it down. You'll still want a good wireless mouse as well as a keyboard for gaming. I like the Razer Mamba mouse, while the Logitech Dinovo Mini or Edge are excellent options for the keyboard.

Last but not least, you can add cable TV into your HTPC with a Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner. Although quite expensive and backordered, they bring four simultaneous HD streams into your PC through a single card. Streams can be accessed in other rooms via the Xbox 360, or by adding a network bridge to the tuners (a process still in beta firmware, but it should be available by the time the cards are out of backorder). Or, if you're one of those looking to cut the cable, save $400 and stick with streaming video.

You can see my list of components up top, but play around with what works best for you. I went with an AMD setup to keep the cost slightly lower and chose a single GPU as the system will likely be hooked to an HDTV that will limit the resolution for gaming to 1920x1080. Sadly, the single most expensive item is the CableCARD tuner. But for around $3000, you'll be ripping Blu-rays onto 6TB of storage, controlling your media with your phone, and playing the latest games on your 1080p TV. Enjoy!

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