System Buyer’s Guide: $1700 Performance Midrange
by Mike Jones and Jarred Walton on May 12, 2010 4:52 AM ESTIntel Performance Midrange System
Since the introduction of Intel’s i5-750 in Q3 09—delivering quad-core performance that tops the i7-920 for significantly less money—reviewers and builders alike have praised its performance, efficiency, flexibility and value. Even as Intel has rounded out their CPU lineup with various Clarkdale CPUs, the i5-750 remains a compelling processor that can serve as the base for a performance/value machine. Compared to our last Intel performance midrange system, enthusiasts can begin their builds with $100 or more of combined CPU and mobo savings in the piggy bank, or use it to beef up other components. Better performance for a substantially lower platform cost? That's music to the DIYer's ears. Here's the basic setup.
At $200, the i5-750 is a terrific bargain. As noted in our Lynnfield article from September 2009, the i5-750 brings quad-core performance that tops the i7-920 in most benchmarks to the significantly less expensive LGA-1156 platform. While the lack of Hyper-Threading costs the i5-750 some performance in well-threaded applications, its aggressive Turbo Modes—which enable the clock speed to rise to 3.2GHz whenever two or more cores are idle—makes it a processor that punches well above its weight in the majority of usage scenarios. The i5-750 is also a great overclocker, but requires overvolting to get anywhere near its full potential. If you’re buying the 750 with anything more than mild overclocking in mind, the retail cooler is not going to be sufficient.
The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 is a feature-rich option for the builder who might want CrossFireX down the road and it comes at a midrange price. It's an excellent choice for an i5-750 system designed to maximize performance, flexibility, and value. Its feature set includes eight USB 2.0 ports with two more headers on the board, and two more USB 3.0 ports on the rear I/O panel. For hard drives, the board has six SATA 3Gbps ports and two more SATA 6Gbps ports. If you want to enable both USB3 and SATA6, the primary GPU slot will drop down to x8 speed, while the secondary x16 slot always runs at x4 bandwidth. For the price, however, it's a very good board and it has good overclocking abilities if you're interested.
Options for Intel 1156 motherboards abound, and we want to mention a few alternatives. First, if you prefer higher performance CrossFire (or you want the potential for SLI), look at the MSI P55-GD65. It provides GPUs dual x8 lanes as opposed to the x16/x4 combination on the P55A-UD3; you also get Firewire support. Though not without a blemish or two, it offers performance and features on par with more expensive offerings and exceptional power consumption characteristics. One major drawback with the MSI board is that tweaking memory timings is an all-or-nothing affair, so if you prefer to set most to "Auto" while only changing a few important items, look elsewhere. For non-CrossFire/SLI setups, the ASUS P7P55D-E LX also boasts USB3 and SATA6 support, with your primary GPU slot always running at x16. Not surprisingly, the P7P55D-E LX is another great overclocking board for this price range, just like most ASUS boards.
All of the boards we mentioned are P55 chipset offerings, which is preferable for overclocking and dual GPU configurations. However, if you don't need a lot of CPU cores and want to save money on your power bills, the H55 chipset boards and Clarkdale CPUs are certainly a great option. You can also get an H55 board and use a Lynnfield CPU as the boards do tend to cost a bit less. The BIOSTAR TH55XE, ASUS P7H55D-M EVO, and Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 are all worth a look. Paired with an Intel Core i3-540, they can shave ~5W to 60W off your system power consumption relative to the recommended i5-750 + P55 setup, and the total cost of the system will drop around $100.
On the other end of the spectrum, overclockers and users looking to potentially move to hex-core Intel chips down the road might want to think about X58 and socket 1366. With the Core i7-920, 3x2GB DDR3, and the least expensive X58 motherboard you're looking at a price increase of around $150 and performance that may not be noticeably better in most applications. Still, some will prefer going with the higher-end Bloomfield route.
A nice change since the days of DDR2 vs. DDR3, triple-channel vs. dual-channel memory is that all of the remaining components for our AMD and Intel platforms are the same. You can find additional information about the other parts and accessories on pages four and five. First, let's look at the AMD motherboard and CPU recommendations.
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Jellodyne - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I actually have that mainboard in my system, and while it's a great board it's NOT a good choice for Crossfire. The secondary PCI-E slot is a 4X slot off of the south bridge (as opposed to the higher performance on-die PCI-E controller of the i750), and it runs with a 2.5 GHz base clock, not 5 GHz which is half the speed of a standard PCI-E 3.0, so in terms of bandwidth you should think of it as a 2X slot. It will work, but it's ugly, and I suspect a 2x slot is going to drop a huge performance penalty, even for a pair of 5850s.There are P55 boards out there which can split the on-die PCI-E controller into two proper 8x lanes in crossfire mode, which is actually plenty of bandwidth to drive even a pair of 5970s without issues.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
You mean like we mentioned in the text?"The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 is a feature-rich option... If you want to enable both USB3 and SATA6, the primary GPU slot will drop down to x8 speed, while the secondary x16 slot always runs at x4 bandwidth. For the price, however, it's a very good board and it has good overclocking abilities if you're interested.... If you prefer higher performance CrossFire/SLI, and you want Firewire, look at the MSI P55-GD65."
I'll clarify the paragraph by pointing out explicitly that the MSI board does x8/x8 for CF/SLI instead of x16/x4.
jleach1 - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
You're a smart guy Jarred. I like it.Jellodyne - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
No NOT like it says in the text. The text is wrong. The text says the secondary works at 4x bandwidth. But it doesn't. It IS in fact a 4x slot but it's a HALF SPEED 4x slot, so it's REALLY 2X bandwidth.4X bandwidth would probably be enough for crossfire, 2x bandwidth is really unacceptable. Which is why I'm objecting to this board as a good choice for someone considering crossfire in the future. It's in fact a really bad choice if you're considering crossfire.
But it's still a great board if you have no interest in crossfire.
ekoostik - Thursday, May 13, 2010 - link
Great guide. But one clarification. The article states "The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 is a feature-rich option for the builder who might want CrossFireX or SLI down the road" - but this board isn't licensed for SLI. As far as I'm aware, NVidia won't allow it on any of the x16, x4 boards.JarredWalton - Friday, May 14, 2010 - link
Thanks... forgot about that. The MSI supports CF/SLI because it does the necessary x8/x8. Outside of SLI support, though, I wouldn't go with the MSI.Lazlo Panaflex - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
Adding benchmarks for both systems in the final thoughs section was a nice touch.Also, wonder how much of a performance penalty (if any) there would be using DDR2 w/ Thubian as opposed to DDR3?
Ninjahedge - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
Guys, the arguments over semantics are petty.This is at the upper range of mid, with many options listed in the article to reduce price.
If you DON'T OC, and only are using 1 card (no sli) then you can drop the PS, get rid of the cooler and save possibly $50 right off the bat.
Other cards were mentioned as well, dropping it even further, depending on your need for Gaming Speed.
As others have mentioned, a Blu-Ray may not be needed, dropping that $105 down to a $25 LG. We are already getting down to $1000 for a full box here.
Now, taking those parts and using your own KB, HD, DVD, Vid Card and other parts from your current machine (if you feel like it) can easily drop this down to $700 or less. You can then upgrade, piece by piece, until you get what you want at the price you want.
As for SSD? I have been watching those. the performance is great, granted, but that only comes with loading or transcoding, not with many apps for buisness, or in-game situations (Wow, you loaded up the board the quickest! You can now wait 47 seconds for everyone else to join!!!!).
You can always upgrade later. Storage is one of the most fickle price points on the market, excluding Vid Cards. A wait of 6 months may bring you 2X the capacity for the same price.
it is also kind of odd with people screaming about "THIS IS NOT MIDRANGE" and others screaming for an SSD.... I think the fact that there are both means you (the original writer) probably hit a good sweet spot in between!
Maybe instead of classifying them as "midrange", a different nomenclature should be used. Just state the price ranges and what they are built for rather than deciding what people should see them as.
This is in the range of a $1000-$1500 box. It is geared for performance, so maybe "$1000-$1500 performance Machine" and shut all the complainers up.....
Last point, when machines can be built for $500 all included, or $3000 for close to TOTL, screamiming that $1700 is not midrange is just plain silly.
Ditiris - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I'm just going to chime in and suggest losing the Blu-Ray. You don't really justify the necessity for it, and your other choice of components, in particular the overclocked graphics card and bargain 5.1 speakers, make clear the case for this being a gaming machine. So, I would suggest losing the Blu-Ray for the next go-around, which I'm eager to see. Thanks for the article guys.Fastidious - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I'd almost call anything with a 5850 high end nowadays for gaming anyways. Personally I am going to wait until I can put all of my programs, OS, games, etc I use on an affordable SSD to me before I get one($300 for 300gb sounds about right). I think having some stuff on an SSD and some not would bug me a lot more than just sticking to HDs like I do now. I also agree Blu-ray to me still seems very niche but it makes sense for the future to get it now even if it's a bit expensive.