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$300 Budget Gaming System Benchmarked

jpeyton

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
I see lots of threads in General Hardware for budget everyday/gaming systems in the $500 range (+/- $100).

In my opinion, the three most important components are:

1) Inexpensive Sandy Bridge CPU
2) Strong Mid-Range GPU
3) SSD

I built a system to test my theory, and benchmarked it. The benchmarks are all available at techPowerUp!. All benchmarks were run at their default settings. Some benchmarks use your native Windows resolution as their default; in those cases, the resolution was 1920x1200. The system was running Windows 7 x64 and the Catalyst 12.2 preview drivers. No overclocking was done to any of the components. The system specs:

Celeron G530 $45 (MacMall)
ECS H61H2-M2 $20 AR (Newegg)
4GB DDR3 $15 (FS/FT)
Radeon 6870 $100 (FS/FT)
Kingston 64GB SSD $35 AR (Staples)
Cooler Master Hyper212+ $20 (Newegg)
DVD/CD Writer $15 (Newegg)
Antec P150 w/ Neo HE 430W PSU $60 (FS/FT)

Total: $310

The total could have been lower if I skipped the Hyper212+ and the nicer case/PSU, but those two components alone made my system silent at idle and very quiet even while gaming.

If there are any benchmarks you would like to see tested, please reply to this thread with a link and I will run it (as long as the benchmark is free to use).

3DMark11 1.0.3 - P3411

3DMark Vantage 1.1.0.0 - P11091

AvP D3D11 1.03 - 44.1FPS Average

Geekbench 2.2.3 - 4388

Lost Planet 2 DX11 Test A - 44.9FPS Average

Unigine Heaven 2.5 - 34.2FPS Average (Score 862)

PassMark x64
PassMark Rating - 1432.9
CPU Mark - 2514.6
2D Graphics Mark - 368.2
3D Graphics Mark - 2508.1
Memory Mark - 1085.2
Disk Mark - 1123.1

HAWX 2 - 57FPS Average
 
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That's a pretty nice setup for the money. I give you a thumbs up. :thumbup:

My full enthusiastic recommendation is reserved though as buying that system for a G530 doesn't make much sense for most people when you can keep your old 775 system and just upgrade the video card for roughly the same results in gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/406?vs=66
 
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tumblr_lltzgnHi5F1qzib3wo1_400.jpg
 
Nice. Willing to run passmark on the CPU? It's a freebie for trial period. http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

Here's your competition:
Phenom ii x4 830 for $50.- at microcenter

Scores:
CPU Mark: 4727.4
CPU - Integer Math: 715.5
CPU - Floating Point Math: 3602.2
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 979.9
CPU - SSE: 18.4
CPU - Compression: 4932.7
CPU - Encryption: 22.0
CPU - Physics: 325.8
CPU - String Sorting: 3582.6
 
janas19 said:
My full enthusiastic recommendation is reserved though as buying that system for a G530 doesn't make much sense for most people when you can keep your old 775 system and just upgrade the video card for roughly the same results in gaming.
Click to expand...
The G530 doesn't make sense for people upgrading a recent system; it's a good option for people on a tight budget building a box from scratch.
 
Last edited:
monkeydelmagico said:
Nice. Willing to run passmark on the CPU? It's a freebie for trial period. http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

Here's your competition:
Phenom ii x4 830 for $50.- at microcenter

Scores:
CPU Mark: 4727.4
CPU - Integer Math: 715.5
CPU - Floating Point Math: 3602.2
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 979.9
CPU - SSE: 18.4
CPU - Compression: 4932.7
CPU - Encryption: 22.0
CPU - Physics: 325.8
CPU - String Sorting: 3582.6
Click to expand...
PassMark x64

CPU - Integer Math: 838.7
CPU - Floating Point Math: 1052.2
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 640.7
CPU - SSE: 8.2
CPU - Compression: 2715.4
CPU - Encryption: 6.9
CPU - Physics: 148.3
CPU - String Sorting: 1715.3

Other PassMark results:

PassMark Rating - 1432.9
CPU Mark - 2514.6
2D Graphics Mark - 368.2
3D Graphics Mark - 2508.1
Memory Mark - 1085.2
Disk Mark - 1123.1

HAWX 2 - 57FPS Average

I wish Microcenter did their CPU deals online instead of B&M only; the least expensive Phenom II X4 on Newegg is $95.
 
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The G530 is an amazing budget chip. The best currently on the market, as a matter of fact. It's faster than the Athlon II X2 250/255 and consumes a lot less power while costing less.
 
monkeydelmagico said:
Thanks for posting up the cpumark bench. I'm also curious about the settings you used for the heaven run. I want to duplicate there as well.
Click to expand...
Everything was at default; the resolution was 1920x1200.

unigine.jpg


I'm not sure why CPU-Z is showing an incorrect core voltage.
 
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jpeyton said:
I see lots of threads in General Hardware for budget everyday/gaming systems in the $500 range (+/- $100).

In my opinion, the three most important components are:

1) Inexpensive Sandy Bridge CPU
2) Strong Mid-Range GPU
3) SSD

I built a system to test my theory, and benchmarked it. The benchmarks are all available at techPowerUp!. All benchmarks were run at their default settings. Some benchmarks use your native Windows resolution as their default; in those cases, the resolution was 1920x1200. The system was running Windows 7 x64 and the Catalyst 12.2 preview drivers. No overclocking was done to any of the components. The system specs:

Celeron G530 $45 (MacMall)
ECS H61H2-M2 $20 AR (Newegg)
4GB DDR3 $15 (FS/FT)
Radeon 6870 $100 (FS/FT)
Kingston 64GB SSD $35 AR (Staples)
Cooler Master Hyper212+ $20 (Newegg)
DVD/CD Writer $15 (Newegg)
Antec P150 w/ Neo HE 430W PSU $60 (FS/FT)

Total: $310

The total could have been lower if I skipped the Hyper212+ and the nicer case/PSU, but those two components alone made my system silent at idle and very quiet even while gaming.

If there are any benchmarks you would like to see tested, please reply to this thread with a link and I will run it (as long as the benchmark is free to use).
Click to expand...

I know it probably doesn't relate to your benchmark, but what about a big mechanical HDD too? Seems hard to get by on only 64gb on an SSD...
 
jpeyton said:
Everything was at default; the resolution was 1920x1200.
Click to expand...

shoot, I can only go up to 1920x1080.....jpeyton you willing/able to do a run at that res?


I'm running an ATI 5870 at stock settings for the follwoing run:


Powered by Unigine Engine

Heaven Benchmark v2.5 Basic

FPS:36.4
Scores:916
Min FPS:18.6
Max FPS:85.5

Hardware

Binary:Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1600 Release Mar 1 2011
Operating system:Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64bit
CPU model:AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 830 Processor
CPU flags:3220MHz MMX+ 3DNow!+ SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4A HTT
GPU model:ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series 8.920.0.0 1024Mb

Settings

Render:direct3d11
Mode:1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders:high
Textures:high
Filter:trilinear
Anisotropy:4x
Occlusion:enabled
Refraction:enabled
Volumetric:enabled
Tessellation:normal

Unigine Corp. © 2005-2011
 
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jpeyton said:
I wish Microcenter did their CPU deals online instead of B&M only; the least expensive Phenom II X4 on Newegg is $95.
Click to expand...

You got a really good deal on the mobo from the egg though. A thread over in CPU section talks about a Tom's hardware analysis of the celeron's. Very good for the money.
 
schott1984 said:
I know it probably doesn't relate to your benchmark, but what about a big mechanical HDD too? Seems hard to get by on only 64gb on an SSD...
Click to expand...
I put a storage drive on the second SATA port if needed. But I will wait for prices on large drives to come back to normal before I buy any.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
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