Build-A-Rig Round 2, SilverStone vs. Crucial: The $800 PC Showdown

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.