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Winter 2009 PC Buyer's Guide December 09, 2009 Jacob Vandy |
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Summary: We've come up with a new PC buyer's guide just in time for the holidays. Our latest guide includes two new PC builds, a $1,500 system and a $2,500 high-end PC. Plan on upgrading or building a new PC in the next month or so? See which components made the cut in today's article!
 Winter 2009 PC Buyer’s Guide | Page:: ( 1 / 11 ) |
The HD 5000 series of Radeon GPUs from ATI are the first to support DirectX 11. With no competing products from NVIDIA this year, they are also at the top of the performance ladder. Unfortunately, chip shortages combined with high demand for these cards means it’ll be tough to get your hands on one this holiday season. Many of the builds in this article include affected graphics cards, but alternate recommendations will be presented in case you’re ready to buy and don’t want to have to wait to jump at any new stock that comes in.
The new Lynnfield CPUs are a boon for the thrifty enthusiast since they are poised to be the new kings of bang for the buck. Motherboards based on their P55 chipset are cheaper than those featuring the Bloomfield’s X58, yet performance is surprisingly competitive between the two. Lynnfield has the benefit of using 35W less power, but it doesn’t have support for triple-channel memory. If you’re in the market for a Core-i7, be sure to check out the more expensive builds in this article for advice.
No matter how much you’re looking to spend, there is something for you in the Holiday 2009 Buyer’s Guide, so what are you waiting for? Turn the page already!
All prices cited were taken from Newegg.com as of 12/9/09. Items marked with a double-asterisk feature a mail-in rebate that is not factored into the build price.
All system builds contained in this article are educated suggestions. We cannot be held responsible for unforeseen incompatibilities or availability issues or any other problems you might associate with our advice.
| AMD Entry-level: $500 | Page:: ( 2 / 11 ) |
For the gamer with more passion than money, this rig is easy on the wallet, yet will play most new games on High settings.
| AMD Entry-level Gaming PC | ||
| $500 | ||
| GPU: | XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB | $99.99 |
| CPU: | AMD Athlon II X3 425 Rana 2.7GHz | $76.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P** | $79.99 |
| RAM: | G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $94.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache | $49.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460W | $39.97 |
| Grand Total: | $508.90 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
GPU shortages and production cutbacks by ATI mean that the Radeon HD 4850 is no longer available in any significant quantity. So, the 9800 GT had to be substituted for these two low-end builds. It’s not quite on par with the 4850 in performance, but for $100, it’s the best you’re gonna get. Of course, you aren’t restricted to the XFX, but some of those cheaper variants have slower clock speeds, so be wary of that. There’s also a nearly identical version of the same card for $10 more, but it has a 6-pin power connector for overclocking and a free copy of Call of Duty 4.
The Athlon II X3 425 is a great performer for the price. It’s a 45nm tri-core processor clocked at 2.7GHz for under $80, and runs on the AM3 platform for DDR3 support! Gigabyte’s GA-MA770T-UD3P is still our budget board of choice, but unfortunately, the price of the G.Skill 4GB kit that accompanies it has gone up by nearly 50% in the past five months. However, with the CPU savings, it was still able to be included.
The rest of the build is fairly straightforward. Any one of these can be easily swapped out for something more expensive depending on your tastes and/or needs. At this price point, hard drive sizes are separated by only a few dollars, so you could spend a little extra and get 500GB or more. It costs only $1 more for the DDR3 1600 version of the G.Skill 4GB kit, so if looser timings don’t bother you, you could opt for that in this or any of the other builds that use the same RAM. If you don’t like the NZXT case, you can get something else, or even recycle an old case you may have and spend the money elsewhere.
| Intel Entry-level: $500 | Page:: ( 3 / 11 ) |
If you’ve got blue running through your veins, this alternate build will let you represent while it performs on par with the previous one.
| Intel Entry-level Gaming PC | ||
| $500 | ||
| GPU: | XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB | $99.99 |
| CPU: | Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz | $80.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L** | $89.99 |
| RAM: | OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 Dual-Channel Kit** | $86.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache | $49.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460W | $39.97 |
| Grand Total: | $514.90 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
Most of the build is identical to the one on the previous page, but some people prefer to have Intel inside, so we also make a recommendation based on that. The Pentium E6300 is basically a newer version of the Core 2 Duo, based on a 45nm Wolfdale core clocked at 2.8GHz with a 2MB cache. Going this route may be a bit more expensive and DDR3 is sacrificed on the LGA 775 platform, but this chip overclocks just as well as its older cousins. You should definitely get an aftermarket heatsink/fan if that is your goal, then very little will stand in the way of reaching upwards of 4GHz.
| AMD Mid-range Single-GPU: $1,000 | Page:: ( 4 / 11 ) |
Those of you with some more cash to spend will appreciate this system’s ability to handle new games on High settings with some anti-aliasing, to boot.
| AMD Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 Budget | ||
| GPU: | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB | $309.99 |
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz | $165.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P | $174.99 |
| RAM: | G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $94.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA | $74.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream 700W** | $79.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe MUGEN-2 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,002.87 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
Doubling the budget can net you a lot more performance, even with the way the market is today. Despite the recent price increases at the high-end of the Radeon 5000 series, we were able to come up with a $1,000 build that includes the HD 5850. That is, if you can get your hands on one – you may need to substitute something like the GeForce GTX 275, or else opt for a multi-GPU setup like that on the next page.
The Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition is still at the top of the AMD food chain. The price has actually fallen by $44 since it was featured in Summer Buyer’s Guide, and the only thing that separates it from its more expensive brother is 200MHz. You can easily make that up by overclocking with the Scythe MUGEN-2.
| AMD Mid-range Multi-GPU: $1,000 | Page:: ( 5 / 11 ) |
This variant on the last machine is a bit less balanced, but you don’t care, you want as much gaming performance as you can get your hands on. This will max out all but the most demanding of new games.
| AMD Multi-GPU Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 Budget | ||
| GPUs: | 2x XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB | $359.98 |
| CPU: | AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz | $119 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P | $174.99 |
| RAM: | G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $94.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache | $69.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream 700W** | $79.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe MUGEN-2 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,000.91 | |
| Prices Sourced From Newegg | ||
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Notes
That’s right; we managed to squeeze in dual Radeon HD 5770s into this build while keeping the total right around the $1,000 mark! This will out-perform a single 5850, but one major concession had to be made: the CPU was down-graded to the Phenom II X3 720. On the bright side, all it’s really missing is one core and 400MHz, so it’s not much of a loss when you consider that games still don’t take advantage of four cores. Not to mention, this chip retains Black Edition status, so it’ll overclock very well and easily make up for the decrease in clock speed.
Other than that, it’s mostly the same except for the hard drive, which has a bit smaller capacity. Make sure you pay attention when buying the 5770s on Newegg, because the cheaper ones have the “Egg” cooling solution that doesn’t exhaust hot air straight out the back of the case like the rectangular “Phoenix” cooler does. Beware the Gigabyte HD 5770 – it seems people buying it are getting ones with Egg coolers when they expected the more efficient Phoenix one, as is depicted in the images.
| Intel Mid-range Single-GPU: $1,000 | Page:: ( 6 / 11 ) |
Those of you with some more cash to spend will appreciate this system’s ability to handle new games on High settings with some anti-aliasing, to boot.
| Intel Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 Budget | ||
| GPU: | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB | $309.99 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz | $199.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R | $139.99 |
| RAM: | G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $94.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA | $74.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream 700W** | $79.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe MUGEN-2 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,001.91 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
This configuration is largely the same as the $1,000 AMD Single-GPU one, only with one major difference: Lynnfield. Even the Core i5, the cheapest of all of this family of processors, blows away anything that AMD currently offers. With turbo mode and/or some overclocking, this chip even gives a Core i7 Bloomfield a run for its money! Whereas the $500 Intel build is more an issue of preference than performance, the tables have turned and that is now true of the $1,000 AMD setups.
| Intel Mid-range Multi-GPU: $1,000 | Page:: ( 7 / 11 ) |
This variant on the last machine is a bit less balanced, but you don’t care, you want all the gaming performance you can get your hands on. This will max out all but the most demanding of new games.
| Intel Midrange Multi-GPU Gaming PC | ||
| $1,000 Budget | ||
| GPU: | 2x XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB | $359.98 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz | $199.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R | $139.99 |
| RAM: | OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1066 Dual-Channel Kit | $72.99 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache | $49.99 |
| Optical Drive: | Samsung 22X DVD/CD Burner SATA | $26.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Beta Series ATX Mid-Tower | $39.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream 700W** | $79.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe MUGEN-2 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,004.90 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
By incorporating two Radeon HD 5770s in CrossFire, this rig is even more powerful than the one on the previous page. In order to retain the Lynnfield processor, a couple small sacrifices needed to be made with the RAM speed and hard drive capacity, but it’s worth it. This may be the most powerful setup you can buy for $1,000.
| Upper Mid-range: $1,500 | Page:: ( 8 / 11 ) |
Mo’ money? No problem! Put that extra green to work in enhancing the Intel Single-GPU build and you’ll have a gaming system that should max out any game and handle some anti-aliasing on top of it.
| Upper Midrange Gaming PC | ||
| $1,500 Budget | ||
| GPU: | XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB XXX Edition | $439.99 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz | $279.99 |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R | $139.99 |
| RAM: | 2x G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Dual-Channel Kit | $189.98 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA | $109.99 |
| Optical Drive: | LG 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD ±R Combo w/ LightScribe SATA | $119.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest ATX Mid-Tower** | $109.99 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ StealthXStream 700W** | $79.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Scythe MUGEN-2 | $34.99 |
| Grand Total: | $1,504.90 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
The Radeon HD 5870 is the greatest single-GPU video card on the market today. The XXX Edition from XFX is listed here because it is the only one in stock on Newegg at the time of writing, but if you can get a cheaper one, by all means, do so. The Lynnfield CPU was upgraded to Core i7 to gain Hyper-Threading and enhanced Turbo capability, both of which bring it very close to the i7-920 Bloomfield in performance; if those things aren’t important to you, you can stick with Core i5 to save $80.
It seemed more sensible to just double up on the amount of RAM – for a total of 8GB – rather than spend a lot more for clock speed increases or slightly lower timings. This will fill all four DIMM slots on the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R, but don’t bother trying to get sticks in densities higher than 2GB… a single 4GB DDR3 module costs over $200.
The case has been upgraded to the NZXT Tempest for a bit more space and extra cooling, which should benefit the entire computer. The optical drive is a combination Blu-Ray player and DVD burner, maintaining the function of the basic drive found in cheaper builds while expanding the system’s entertainment capability. Finally, the hard drive has a 1TB capacity because, well, why not?
| High-end: $2,500 | Page:: ( 9 / 11 ) |
If you absolutely have to crank up every setting in every new game, including full AA, and still have some power to spare, then this is what you’re looking for.
| High-end Gaming PC | ||
| $2,500 Budget | ||
| GPUs: | 2x XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB XXX Edition | $879.98 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz | $288.99 |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P6T | $219.99 |
| RAM: | 2x OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600** | $299.98 |
| Performance HDD: | Intel X25-M 80GB SSD SATA | $299.99 |
| Storage HDD: | Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA | $109.99 |
| Audio: | HT Omega Striker 7.1 PCI Sound Card | $89.99 |
| Optical Drive: | LG 8X BD-R 6X BD-ROM 16X DVD±R SATA | $149.99 |
| Case: | NZXT Tempest ATX Mid-Tower | $109.99 |
| Power Supply: | PC Power and Cooling S75QB 750W | $159.99 |
| CPU Cooler: | Noctua NH-U12P SE2 | $74.99 |
| Grand Total: | $2,683.87 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
This rig is a beast. Yes, we went over the “budget” by nearly $200, but at this price point, who’s to say what a high-end budget is? Besides, there’s enough flexibility that you could easily shave that much off or more.
There is probably not a single game out there that can challenge one HD 5870, let alone two of them in CrossFire. With sufficient funding, the High-end build has evolved into the Intel X58 platform, supporting Core-i7 Bloomfield CPUs and triple-channel DDR3. It also provides more PCI-Express bandwidth than the Lynnfield’s P55 platform, making it able to much better serve the multi-GPU setup.
The Noctua NH-U12P is pretty much the crème de la crème of heatsink/fans, plus it’s nearly silent even with both fans attached. You can overclock the i7-920 to the moon and back with that, and with 12GB of DDR3 1600, you won’t have to worry about RAM for a very long time. There are some major mail-in rebate savings on those, by the way: $30 per 6GB kit. You have to purchase by 12/16, though.
Since there’s no way that anything could make games render any faster, at this price range you can start looking into things that make games load faster. Those things are called solid-state disk drives. The Intel X25-M series are some of the top-performing SSDs out there and one of them makes a very powerful addition to this setup. The capacity may not look like much at 80GB, but that’s all you need for Windows, applications, and a select number of games to load practically in the blink of an eye. The terabyte hard drive can be used for storing everything else that you don’t need to access so often. If that’s not enough, the Blu-Ray burner opens up a whole new realm of backup storage options.
When you’re spending this much on a gaming system, you’ve probably considered upgrading from the standard on-board audio. What you may not have considered, however, is the options beyond Creative Sound Blaster. Their driver support ever since the release of Windows Vista has been rather piss-poor, and their convoluted product naming conventions try to trick people into buying re-branded dated hardware. That said, we present for your consideration, HT Omega. The Striker 7.1 is their basic card, rivaling the X-Fi Titanium while costing a bit less. The newest drivers are from October ’09 and weigh in at only 7MB.
| Dream: $??? | Page:: ( 10 / 11 ) |
Let’s face it; this build is bordering on the ridiculous and practically nobody can afford it. It’s just so much fun to think about, though!
| Dream PC | ||
| Unlimited Budget | ||
| GPUs: | 2x Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GB | $1,259.98 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition Bloomfield 3.33GHz | $999.99 |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P6X58D Premium | $309.99 |
| RAM: | Corsair XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 Hexa-Channel Kit | $339.99 |
| Performance HDD: | OCZ Z-Drive 250GB SSD PCI-E | $1,375.00 |
| Storage HDD: | 2x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 5400 RPM 32MB Cache | $399.98 |
| Optical Drives: | 2x LG 8X BD-R 6X BD-ROM 16X DVD±R SATA | $299.98 |
| Audio | HT Omega Claro Halo PCI Sound Card w/ built-in HI-FI headphone amp | $249.99 |
| Case: | Lian Li PC-P80 ATX Full-Tower | $319.99 |
| Power Supply: | PC Power and Cooling 1200W | $559.99 |
| CPU Cooling: | Noctua NH-U12P SE2 | $74.99 |
| Grand Total: | $6,189.87 | |
| Prices Sourced from Newegg | ||
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Notes
This is the High-end build on steroids. Well, the High-end build was the Upper Mid-range build on steroids, so the Dream build must be the High-end build after being bombarded with gamma radiation and becoming very angry…
Most of this is the usual crazy expensive type of stuff, without going too too overboard. The coolest thing, though, has to be the OCZ Z-Drive. It is essentially a self-contained RAID 0 array of four 64GB SSDs that plugs into a PCI-E x8 slot and is altogether three times as fast as the Intel X25-M SSD from the High-end build. Even more amazing is that it’s available in sizes up to 1TB! That’s one terabyte. Of flash memory. In a 2.5” hard drive casing stuck to a circuit board that isn’t much larger than a lot of network cards. Wow.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 11 / 11 ) |
The other big story is Lynnfield. It’s cheaper than Bloomfield, uses less power and thus produces less heat, yet performs competitively. It’s a no-brainer for builds around the $1,000-1,500 range, especially if you intend to overclock. With the Core i5 priced pretty close to the Phenom II X4s, it has to be pretty tempting for anyone who was contemplating possibly going with the best AMD has to offer. Much like with the release of Core 2 Duo, Intel has just further solidified their grip on all markets mid-range and up. Fortunately, this hasn’t led to any stagnation in product or inflation of prices, since Intel seems to be content competing with itself. Let’s just hope that things stay that way until AMD can cook up some high-end chips.
As always, please feel free to voice your opinions in the comments section. Your feedback is invaluable in formulating future versions of this article, and we’ll try to answer any questions you have, as well. We here at FiringSquad hope you have found this guide useful and wish you Happy Holidays!