Holiday 2011 Mainstream High-End Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on December 9, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
- AMD
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- CrossFire
- Sandy Bridge E
- Holiday 2011
- NVIDIA
Final words
When designing and building a higher end PC, it is critically important to understand your needs. It might seem obvious that spending hundreds of dollars on a high end GPU is unwise if you're not going to game, but I frequently must actively discourage clients from spending money on parts they simply don't need. Similarly, it might be difficult to spend $500 on a single component, but if you will benefit from that part's power given your needs, then by all means, buy it.
Also keep in mind that while these systems each cost around $2000, it does not follow that you can't still shop for bargains and sales. Be sure to keep your eyes on prices throughout the holiday season. AnandTech's Hot Deals forum is a great place to learn about and share particularly compelling prices on components.
While this guide covered the computers, we did not detail recommendations about monitors, speakers, keyboards, and other assorted peripherals. PC hardware moves much faster than the other parts of the PC market. While our recent Back to School Guide focused more on less expensive products, it might be useful for higher end shoppers as well. We'll also have a display specific guide in the next week, so if you're in the market for a new LCD keep your eyes peeled for that.
Finally, AnandTech's General Hardware forum is always filled with folks who are knowledgeable about PC design and assembly and are happy to help you build your own PC. Don't hesitate to ask us which parts will suit your needs best.
Happy holidays!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
52 Comments
View All Comments
piroroadkill - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Mine's pretty similar :3i5-2500K
Asus P8Z68-V Pro
Corsair A70
Seasonic X-660
Fractal Design Define R3
8GB Patriot G2
Also, MSI Twin Frozr III Radeon 6950 (which unlocked to 1536 shaders)
87_heavyboy - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
The ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT looks nice at first glance, so I bought it, too. Together with the i7 2600K. I also thought "great, m-ITX + overclocking - something for the future". In practice, it has its problems. The mosfets don't have coolers on them, they get hot quite fast, resulting in throttling. The board can't hold 3.4 GHz for some minutes during compilation :( I did not even think about overclocking!The other problem: It supports Overclocking but no undervolting. SNB comes with quite defensive default-voltage, resulting in good undervolting-potential.
Positive:
It pulls just ~30W at idle.
I think, it would have been a better choice to go mATX, if it should be a smaller PC.
duploxxx - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
this HTPC design is a huge waste of moneyMrTeal - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
I was curious about that too.My HTPC is a low power, quiet affair with an X3, a modded and silent 5570 and an SSD, no mechanical HDD. Any encoding I do on my main rig so that my HTPC stays low power and silent, and just stream the data over the network.
Do many people really build powerful and expensive HTPCs? I find usingmine as a PC @ 1080p/47" is kind of a poor experience when you're sitting at normal TV viewing distances, so all I really use mine for is a media streamer and checking scores / watching Youtube. Any real computing I just do at my desktop. I'd be interested in how other people use these HTPCs.
Z Throckmorton - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Generally speaking, an AMD E-350 setup is sufficient for the majority of HTPC usage scenarios. However, I have built a few more powerful HTPCs for people who want to transcode video but don't want their primary home computer tasked as a video editor, and don't want to bother with a LAN.Death666Angel - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
That is bollocks. They clearly state they are not going with a traditional HTPC setup (i.e. just be able to play back everything). They want performance for coding, HDTV streaming capabilities and storage as well. If people are in the market for that and have the cash, there is nothing I would really see being done to bring down the price while maintaining the performance.I personally have a small media client and a large file server in the back and I'm not interested in HDTV stuff. I came away spending about 400€.
piroroadkill - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
I wouldn't recommend them, anymore. I've seen my 2GB Radeon 6950 use more than 1GB with GPU-Z open on another screen. For the slight extra cost, and the chance of unlocking (mine did, and it's not so old), 2GB 6950 all the way, all the time.prdola0 - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Zach, wouldn't it be better to use 2x non-reference GTX560Ti in SLI instead of 2x HD6950? There is quite a lot of GTX560Ti models clocked ~15% higher than the reference card, which matches even the HD6970 performance. They are both more price-efficient than HD6950 and also SLI tends to be more stable (you usually don't see negative scaling and similar problems). Of course there is also the added value of Nvidia actually supporting gamers, unlike AMD. The Skyrim graphics setup guide they just recently released is simply great and most other GeForce.com articles are helpful just as much.Take care,
Prdola
Death666Angel - Friday, December 9, 2011 - link
Hm....According to the bench, SLI 560TI and CF HD6950 trade blows the whole time except for Civ5 where nVidia clearly wins or anything above 1920x1200 where AMD clearly wins.
If you go with SLI/CF, gaming at 1920x1200 is moronic anyway, so I think it is very valid to recommend HD6950 over the 560TI. Also, most recent reviews of CF/SLI I have seen have them nearly on par, with nVidia leading in a few games and AMD in others. It is not a situation like two years ago where nVidia had a clear lead. And speaking for my market, there really is no difference between HD6950 and 560TI cards. You can find both at pretty much the same price points.
So, to summarize: to each his own, every company has great cards for good prices. Look at your usage pattern and a special deal, then decide. :-)
prdola0 - Monday, December 12, 2011 - link
That's hardly so. I am talking about overclocked editions of GTX560Ti. In this regard the GTX560Ti is almost as easily over-clockable as GTX460 was. And there are almost as many 560Ti non-reference OC models. And those editions trade blows with HD6970, yet are priced at HD6950 mark or some between HD6950 and HD6970.