System Builder Marathon, December 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 SurveyGizmo form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!

Day 1: The $2400 Performance PC
Day 2: The $1200 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $600 Gaming PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected

Introduction

Bigger budgets make room for better hardware. Bigger cases facilitate more cooling. Bigger motherboards allow more cards to be installed.

And yet, somewhere along the way this quarter, that concept went horribly wrong. We ended up with a $1200 PC that underperformed its $1000 predecessor, a $600 PC that went way over budget, and a $2400 full-sized PC that never lived up to the high-expectations set by the microATX build upon which its hardware choices were based.

We're perhaps most sympathetic to the $600 gaming machine's budge woes, since its builder was most vulnerable to recent price surges. Those same price surges also hit the high-capacity drives used in the larger machines, but they weren't as disruptive as an overall percentage of the budgets. Besides, it’s hard to feel sorry for an over-achiever (Ed.: Haters gonna hate?).

Concern about the fact that Paul Henningsen’s $600 PC wouldn't overclock at all was quickly squelched by its clean sweep in benchmark performance over the previous System Builder Marathon's overclocked $500 machine.