System Buyer’s Guide: $1700 Performance Midrange
by Mike Jones and Jarred Walton on May 12, 2010 4:52 AM ESTClosing Thoughts
As usual, with the passage of time the amount of performance you can get for your dollar has increased quite a bit, and there are a ton of options. The choice today between midrange AMD and Intel platforms is really a question of priorities. Intel still wins the performance crown in single-threaded performance and has a commanding lead in many of our gaming results. Intel also appears to benefit from application specific optimizations in a few tests (i.e. 3dsmax). However, for thread-heavy work the AMD 1055T generally beats out Intel, sometimes by a large margin. Your choice boils down to 10~25% better multithreaded performance on AMD versus gaming performance that's anywhere from 5% to a whopping 60% faster on Intel. In most other areas, performance is close enough to not worry too much, which means we need to look at other factors.
For the same price, you can get similar features like SATA 6Gbps and USB3 (SATA6 is native with the 890GX on AMD, though). The Intel platform does use around 15W to 40W less power, however, so for a 24/7 system that works out to $13 to $35 per year--or just $4 to $12 per year for a system that's on eight hours per day. That being the case, depending on your particular needs you can go with either system and be happy. Gamers and "greenies" will likely prefer the Intel system while the content creators and video editors will like the AMD setup.
If you're not sure which system is right for you, again, we suggest you look at our complete Bench results. We've included the above chart with some of the more popular benchmarks to give you an idea of what to expect. While the components aren't the same as what we recommend in this guide, most of the differences will be slight. The Bench setup uses an appropriate motherboard/chipset for each platform, with an HD 5870 GPU and an SSD. The performance difference in gaming will be lower than what we show in our Bench results, mostly because the GPU becomes more of a bottleneck, but other than that, the performance will be very similar to what you see in those results.
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Jellodyne - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I actually have that mainboard in my system, and while it's a great board it's NOT a good choice for Crossfire. The secondary PCI-E slot is a 4X slot off of the south bridge (as opposed to the higher performance on-die PCI-E controller of the i750), and it runs with a 2.5 GHz base clock, not 5 GHz which is half the speed of a standard PCI-E 3.0, so in terms of bandwidth you should think of it as a 2X slot. It will work, but it's ugly, and I suspect a 2x slot is going to drop a huge performance penalty, even for a pair of 5850s.There are P55 boards out there which can split the on-die PCI-E controller into two proper 8x lanes in crossfire mode, which is actually plenty of bandwidth to drive even a pair of 5970s without issues.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
You mean like we mentioned in the text?"The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 is a feature-rich option... If you want to enable both USB3 and SATA6, the primary GPU slot will drop down to x8 speed, while the secondary x16 slot always runs at x4 bandwidth. For the price, however, it's a very good board and it has good overclocking abilities if you're interested.... If you prefer higher performance CrossFire/SLI, and you want Firewire, look at the MSI P55-GD65."
I'll clarify the paragraph by pointing out explicitly that the MSI board does x8/x8 for CF/SLI instead of x16/x4.
jleach1 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
You're a smart guy Jarred. I like it.Jellodyne - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
No NOT like it says in the text. The text is wrong. The text says the secondary works at 4x bandwidth. But it doesn't. It IS in fact a 4x slot but it's a HALF SPEED 4x slot, so it's REALLY 2X bandwidth.4X bandwidth would probably be enough for crossfire, 2x bandwidth is really unacceptable. Which is why I'm objecting to this board as a good choice for someone considering crossfire in the future. It's in fact a really bad choice if you're considering crossfire.
But it's still a great board if you have no interest in crossfire.
ekoostik - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
Great guide. But one clarification. The article states "The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 is a feature-rich option for the builder who might want CrossFireX or SLI down the road" - but this board isn't licensed for SLI. As far as I'm aware, NVidia won't allow it on any of the x16, x4 boards.JarredWalton - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link
Thanks... forgot about that. The MSI supports CF/SLI because it does the necessary x8/x8. Outside of SLI support, though, I wouldn't go with the MSI.Lazlo Panaflex - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
Adding benchmarks for both systems in the final thoughs section was a nice touch.Also, wonder how much of a performance penalty (if any) there would be using DDR2 w/ Thubian as opposed to DDR3?
Ninjahedge - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
Guys, the arguments over semantics are petty.This is at the upper range of mid, with many options listed in the article to reduce price.
If you DON'T OC, and only are using 1 card (no sli) then you can drop the PS, get rid of the cooler and save possibly $50 right off the bat.
Other cards were mentioned as well, dropping it even further, depending on your need for Gaming Speed.
As others have mentioned, a Blu-Ray may not be needed, dropping that $105 down to a $25 LG. We are already getting down to $1000 for a full box here.
Now, taking those parts and using your own KB, HD, DVD, Vid Card and other parts from your current machine (if you feel like it) can easily drop this down to $700 or less. You can then upgrade, piece by piece, until you get what you want at the price you want.
As for SSD? I have been watching those. the performance is great, granted, but that only comes with loading or transcoding, not with many apps for buisness, or in-game situations (Wow, you loaded up the board the quickest! You can now wait 47 seconds for everyone else to join!!!!).
You can always upgrade later. Storage is one of the most fickle price points on the market, excluding Vid Cards. A wait of 6 months may bring you 2X the capacity for the same price.
it is also kind of odd with people screaming about "THIS IS NOT MIDRANGE" and others screaming for an SSD.... I think the fact that there are both means you (the original writer) probably hit a good sweet spot in between!
Maybe instead of classifying them as "midrange", a different nomenclature should be used. Just state the price ranges and what they are built for rather than deciding what people should see them as.
This is in the range of a $1000-$1500 box. It is geared for performance, so maybe "$1000-$1500 performance Machine" and shut all the complainers up.....
Last point, when machines can be built for $500 all included, or $3000 for close to TOTL, screamiming that $1700 is not midrange is just plain silly.
Ditiris - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I'm just going to chime in and suggest losing the Blu-Ray. You don't really justify the necessity for it, and your other choice of components, in particular the overclocked graphics card and bargain 5.1 speakers, make clear the case for this being a gaming machine. So, I would suggest losing the Blu-Ray for the next go-around, which I'm eager to see. Thanks for the article guys.Fastidious - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I'd almost call anything with a 5850 high end nowadays for gaming anyways. Personally I am going to wait until I can put all of my programs, OS, games, etc I use on an affordable SSD to me before I get one($300 for 300gb sounds about right). I think having some stuff on an SSD and some not would bug me a lot more than just sticking to HDs like I do now. I also agree Blu-ray to me still seems very niche but it makes sense for the future to get it now even if it's a bit expensive.