The Magic Of Anticipation

System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: The Articles

Here are links to each of the four articles in this quarter’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 $600 Gaming PC

Day 2: The $800 Enthusiast PC

Day 3: The $1,000 Performance PC

Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected

Day 5: The $1,600 Alternative PC

Introduction

Surprise! You thought our System Builder Marathon ended last week, right? Well, we were busy working on one final follow-up that doubles the price of Don's $800 machine to see if the limitations of this quarter's narrow price band can be overcome at a still-reasonable $1,600.

Most of Tom's Hardware's editors were enthusiasts before they ever dreamed about covering technology in print. We read dozens of competing review sites to gather the most unbiased balance of opinion and test results before finally plopping down our hard-earned dollars on a handful of parts.

Now, a lot of the components we write about show up at our offices before they're even available to everyone else, and sometimes that pile of free stuff pulls us away from the realities of saving up over the course of weeks or months for a value-packed system to replace once-modern technology. Fortunately, regular interaction with our audience helps keep us grounded.

We continue building our own boxes and participating in the comments for each of the stories we write. Because of this, we're pretty good about anticipating the responses we're going to get for each of our System Builder Marathon machines. Although we're not prophets, we have a pretty good bead on the ways of the enthusiasts. We knew that tightly framing this quarter's competition around the expected price/performance pinnacle would leave a lot of you searching for something more.

That anticipation compelled us to order the parts for an upgraded version of our $1,000 PC for a fifth-day bonus build more than a month ago, priced at $1,600.

But wait. We've been sitting on the parts for a month. The Marathon was published last week. What took us so long to get this story done? What did I fail to anticipate? Today's piece is loaded with twists and turns. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and join us as we put this last System Builder Marathon machine together.

Q1 2013 $1,600 Alternative PC Components Processor Intel Core i5-3570K: 3.4 GHz Base Clock Rate. 3.8 GHz Turbo Boost, Quad-Core, 6 MB Shared L3 Cache $230 Graphics 2 x PowerColor PCS+ AX7870 Myst Edition 2GBD5-2DHPPV3E $520 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H: LGA 1155, Intel Z77 Express $170 Memory Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2K4G3D1608ET3LX0: DDR3-1600 C8, 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) $48 System Drive Mushkin MKNSSDCR240GB-DX: 240 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSD $180 Storage Drive Western Digital WD1002FAEX: 1 TB, SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive $105 Optical Asus DRW-24B1ST: 24x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R DL $20 Case Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window $120 Power Corsair HX750: 750 W Modular, ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS Gold $120 CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D14 $81 Total Cost $1,594

The prices in that table were what we paid when the parts were ordered, and a lot of them changed over the last six weeks. For example, the PowerColor card is $20 less, per board. Other prices are up. All told, then, the total cost of buying our machine and replicating the build is within $20 of our original invoice.