System Builder Marathon, September 2011: The Articles

Here are links to each of the four articles in this month’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published). And remember, these systems are all being given away at the end of the marathon.

To enter the giveaway, please fill out this Google form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!

Day 1: The $2000 Performance PC
Day 2: The $1000 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $500 Gaming PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected

Introduction

Every three months, our top builders face off in a competition that usually looks a lot like the one that preceded it. This quarter was different, though.

While the builders collaborated on many of the hardware decisions that went into past System Builder Marathons, all three went autonomous this time around. The end result was machines that looked a lot different from their predecessors in more ways than we'd expect.

Sure, they look similar. But as many mothers tell us, "it's what's on the inside that counts.” Both the $2000 and $1000 PCs shifted toward Nvidia graphics from the long-favored AMD parts, while the $500 machine re-adopts an AMD processor after exploring what it'd be like to center on an unoverclockable Intel part. 

Another big change was the $1000 machine’s addition of an SSD, which is far smaller than the benchmark set it’s meant to represent. And yet, Don still used it to run all of the benchmarks. We’ll figure out a way to account for that small issue in our final value results.