System Builder Marathon: Price/Performance

Introduction

As we wrap up another system builder marathon, we realize while nothing in life ever seems to work out perfectly; sometimes things work out pretty well.

This marathon was supposed to be published a number of weeks ago – before the new Radeon 4800 series was launched – and therefore we didn’t have the option of selecting ATI’s excellent new cards for our builds. Unfortunately, our intrepid reviewer Thomas Soderstrom had an unlucky break (involving a few bones and some surgery) and was unable to assemble and test one of the systems, forcing us to defer the marathon. It was further delayed when Nvidia and ATI released their new video cards, the reviews of which of course took precedence over our marathon and pushed us back even further.

While the video cards we chose for these systems might not be our first choice if we could do it all over again (considering what’s available), the rebates available on the GeForce 8800 cards are so prevalent that even today a pair of them in SLI would be $100 cheaper than a pair of 4850s, and realistically the prices will likely drop even further. The rest of the builds were spec’d out well enough that these marathon systems are still viable hardware ensembles.

For more information on the components used to build each of the systems we’re comparing, in addition to the overclocked configurations, check out the sub-$1,000 PC, the sub-$2,000 PC, and the sub-$4,000 PC.

Let’s review the benchmarks we’ve used once more, see how everything stacks up, and analyze the price/performance data to see the value each system offers for the dollar.