Build-A-Rig Round 2, SilverStone vs. Crucial: The $800 PC Showdown
by Daniel Williams on November 12, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Build-A-Rig
- Systems
- Crucial
- SilverStone
Build-A-Rig Round 2: The Conclusion
As we wrap up the second round of the Build-a-Rig contest, both SilverStone and Crucial's back-to-school computers gave us significantly different configurations. With a budget of $800 we have builds that more people may be able to relate to, and with both machines happening to be Mini-ITX builds both are much more portable than a traditional machine which will be much more convenient for the college lifestyle theme that these were designed around.
We got to see from our performance numbers that while SilverStone's Mighty Milo can pull a substantial lead in graphics heavy games, in other cases where the CPU is the bottleneck there’s a definite difference between the Pentium in that system and Cruicial’s choice of a more powerful AVX and Hyper-Threading capable Core i3. That said, thanks to its ability to overclock, Milo can close much of this gap in more lightly threaded or single threaded workloads, falling behind on any remaining HT-sensitive workloads.
On the other hand, Crucial's Ballistix Bantam maintains itself as a more balanced machine and does a better job of keeping its GPU fed and happy. Aside from performance other factors such as a larger Boot SSD and faster WiFi will make the Bantam a nicer machine to use day to day when browsing the web and doing work.
With performance covered we found that the Ballistix Bantam pulled more power thanks to a less-efficient PSU, and that Mighty Milo was quieter at stock thanks to its larger aftermarket CPU cooler. When overclocked Milo does give up that noise advantage though, so as performance equalizes so does noise.
Finally, in the grab bag category we have a lot revolving around the cases themselves. The Mighty Milo uses a fairly narrow case with a handle on top, which is great for actually toting the system around. On the other hand the Ballistix Bantam uses a wider cubic case, but it manages to work in a window so that it can show off just what it’s made of.
And with that, we wrap up the second round of the Build-A-Rig Challenge. The systems have been speced, built, and tested, and now all that remains is for many of you what will be the most fun part of this series, the giveaway. Today is the final day to enter the Build-A-Rig Round 2 giveaway, so be sure to submit your entry before midnight tonight in order to earn a chance to win either Mighty Milo or Ballistix Bantam.
Lastly thanks go out to SilverStone and Crucial for participating in this giveaway and configuring these builds for us. And of course additional thanks go to Newegg for providing parts for these systems.
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nathanddrews - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
But... but...https://youtu.be/9gSQg1i_q2g
shmuck - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Damn straight! Somebody's got to do the complaining around here. Harumph.https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detai...
The privacy information which was missing from the link:
https://www.surveygizmo.com/privacy/
This is a lot more encouraging.
eanazag - Tuesday, November 17, 2015 - link
My only gripe about the contest is it is closed too fast. It seems like you have less than 24 hours to enter it. The first one was confusing because Anandtech used to just place a post on the article and you were "entered". I think I have it figured out now. We just need a few more of these for me to enter.I understand the marketing hope on having it end so quickly. I typically read all the headlines when they're released and then read the articles later.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Even after benchmarking, I still find it very difficult to favor one system over the other. They're both very solid builds without any show stopping flaws. Either system would serve a college student well in a variety of computing tasks. As usual, I love reading these build-a-rig articles.Samus - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Damn that Silverstone is a sexy beast. Throw in i5-4690k in there and damn...racerx_is_alive - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
The only problem with spreading these articles out they way they are is that I'm only 75% sure I signed up for the sweepstakes with the first article, but don't want to do it again and get my entry tossed. But otherwise, I really like the way this series is organized, and the computers they've built.smorebuds - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
"IF YOU ENTER MORE THAN ONCE, ALL BUT ONE ENTRY WILL BE DELETED."Sounds like you'll still have an entry in there.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Humm, interesting. I hadn't considered that angle before. Thanks for the feedback.ShieTar - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Nice, but am I the only one that feels that more fun should be poked at the 600W-PSU in the 200W-PC?Just shows that even when somebody knows what they are doing in general, they will always remain capable of messing up on some important detail.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
The 600 watt PSU is excessive for the computer's current hardware, but it might be worth considering the extra wattage as headroom to grow into a more powerful CPU and/or graphics card later without being concerned about wattage. The Core i3-4170 is a 54 watt TDP processor and the GTX 950 is a 90 watt card. Moving up to a GTX 980 would add 75 watts more demand (165 watts total power according to NV's site) and an i7-4770 would need another 30 watts (84 watt TDP). That'd quickly turn the 200+ watt PC into a 300+ watt one which puts the PSU at 50% load which is well into the more efficient areas of its power delivery curve.