Hardware Revolution

Budget Gaming PCs v3.3: Lower cost or higher performance!

Mathieu Bourgie — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:45:06 +0000

Updated on February 3rd 2012.

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Building a PC has never been easier. We have hundreds of readers who had no experience and who built their first PC with the help of Hardware Revolution. If they can do it, so can you!

Start by reading our “Building Your First PC?” article, which covers everything that you need to know to get started.

Is this the right type of PC for me?

If you’re looking for a budget Gaming PC, to play video games, or a PC to browse the web, you’re at the right place. Otherwise, check out our other Do-It-Yourself Computer Systems or The Best Laptops For Your Money instead.

The video card for Tier 0.625 of the Gaming PCs got upgraded to the much more powerful Radeon HD 6750 1GB, while all other Tiers got a nice price cut.

Click on a section to jump to it:

- Five Tiers to choose from
- Recommended parts summary
- Computer Builds FAQs
- Recommended parts in details
- Mainstream/High-End Gaming PCs
- Mainstream/High-End SFF Gaming PCs

About Hardware Revolution’s Budget Gaming Computers:

Performance and reliability at a low-cost

With their low-cost, our Budget DIY(Do-It Yourself) Gaming Computers feature parts that were hand-picked to offer the maximum bang for your buck, or in other terms: to offer the best performance possible at a given price, while fitting within your budget.

However, these low-cost PCs are still designed with reliability in mind. They feature a safe, reliable power supply and a case with good cooling abilities, so that your PC will last you many years and to ensure that it will not overheat.

Tier System:

Instead of having several articles that each cover one specific build, there are Tiers, allowing you to pick one of several systems at broader price points.

The Tiers are color coded as such:

Choose from five Tiers:

Tier 0.5: Web PC (Identified by a Light Blue color): $281

This is our lowest cost Tier that’s perfect if all you want to do is browse the Internet, watch some videos, listen to some music, do some Office work and the like, on a reliable and relatively quiet PC that doesn’t consume much power.

Tier 0.625 (Identified by a Dark Red color): $386

This is our lowest cost Gaming PC, which is fine for older games or more modern games at a low or medium resolution (1600 x 900 or 720p HDTVs).

Tier 0.75 (Identified by a Fuchsia color): $443

Our 2nd lowest cost Gaming PC. Recommended for older games, or for more recent games on a low or medium resolution (1600 x 900 or 720p HDTVs).

Tier 1 (Identified by a Green color): $527

Great entry-level gaming machine, perfect for gaming at a 1680 x 1050 or 720p resolution.

Tier 2 (Identified by an Orange color): $616

This Tier can handle most games at high/maximum settings at 1920 x 1080/1080p.

Need a Tier recommendation for a specific video game?

Ask us on the forums: Tell us about the video game, the level of details that you want (i.e. I just want to be able to play the game, medium, high or maximum details) and the resolution (e.g. 1920 x 1080. NOT the size) of the monitor (HDTVs: 720p or 1080p) that you’ll use.

Recommended Parts Summary:

Main recommendations, upgrades and alternatives:

1. Recommended Components are in Bold, with one or more colors/symbols for the Tier(s).
2. Suggested Alternatives and Upgrades are in Italic. You can upgrade as many parts as you want to, including parts from higher Tiers.
3. All Parts are interchangeable/compatible with each other. Ask us on the forums if you want us to double-check your build.

Budget Gaming PCs Tiers: Tier 0.5 (in light Blue): Web PC, for web browsing, music, Youtube, Office, etc. Tier 0.625 (in Dark Red): Lowest cost Gaming PC Tier 0.75 (in Fuchsia): Low cost Budget Gaming PC Tier 1 (in Green): Best Bang For Your Buck Tier 2: (in Orange): Higher Performance than Tier 1 Click on a component’s name (e.g. CPU) to jump to the detailed section of it.	Price $281 $386 $443 $527 $589
CPU Tier 0.5: Intel Celeron G530 Dual-Core 2.4GHz Tier 0.625: Intel Pentium G620 Dual-Core 2.6GHz Tier 0.75-1: Intel Pentium G860 Dual-Core 3.0GHz Tier 2: Intel Core i3-2120 Dual-Core + HyperThreading 3.3GHz Intel Core i5-2400 3.1-3.4GHz Turbo Quad-Core	- $45 $70 $93 $120 $190
Motherboard All Tiers: BIOSTAR H61MGC Intel H61 LGA1155 ASRock P67 PRO3 LGA1155 USB 3.0 SATA 6.0Gbps ASRock Z68 PRO3 GEN3 Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0	- $50 $90 $105 $122
RAM All Tiers: G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHz G.Skill 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz	- $23 $37
Video Card Tier 0.5: Intel HD – Integrated Tier 0.625: Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDD3 Tier 0.75: Radeon HD 6770 1GB Tier 1: Radeon HD 6850 1GB Tier 2: Radeon HD 6870 1GB Gigabyte Geforce GTX 560 Ti Dual fans Radeon HD 6950 2GB	- Free $80 $110 $140 $165 $210 $258
Storage Tier 0.5-0.625-0.75: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA III Tier 1-2: Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB SATA III Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB SATA 6.0Gbps Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB SATA 6.0Gbps Patriot Torqx 2 2.5″ 32GB SATA II SSD Crucial 64 GB SATA III SSD SanDisk Ultra 2.5″ 120GB SATA II SSD	- $70 $85 $130 $162 $53 $102 $140
Optical Drive All Tiers: LG SATA 22X DVD Burner ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM SATA Blu-ray Reader Lite-On Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE SATA Blu-Ray Burner	- $16 $58 $80
PowerSupply Tier 0.5-0.625: ENERMAX NAXN ENP350AST 350W Tier 0.75: ENERMAX NAXN ENP450AST 450W Tier 1-2: Silverstone 500W 80PLUS Rosewill HIVE 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Modular	- $37 $41 $60 $70
Case Tier 0.5-0.625-0.75: NZXT GAMMA Classic 1 x 120mm fan Tier 1: Cooler Master HAF 912 2 x 120mm case fans Tier 2: COOLER MASTER CM690 II Advanced 2x120mm + 1x140mm Cooler Master Storm Scout 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm Sentey Optimus Extreme 2x120mm 1x140mm 1x180mm fans Rosewill Blackbone 2 x 120mm fans Cooler Master Elite 430 2 x 120mm fans Rosewill Destroyer Mid-Tower, 3 x 120mm fans NZXT Apollo 2 x 120mm fans NZXT M59 2 x 120mm fans NZXT Guardian 921 3 x 120mm fans NZXT Vulcan 2 x 120mm, 1 x 200mm fans + handle LIAN-LI PC-K57 1 x 120mm, 1 x 140mm fans Thermaltake Armor A60 2 x 120mm, 1 x 200mm NZXT Lexa S 3 x 120mm, 1 x 140mm LIAN-LI PC-K57W 1 x 120mm, 1 x 140mm Cooler Master Storm Scout 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm Cooler Master Storm Enforcer, 1 x 120mm, 2 x 200mm Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm LIAN-LI PC-K7B Aluminium 3 x 120mm Cooler Master HAF 922 Red LEDs 1 x 120mm, 2 x 200mm LIAN-LI PC-K62 1 x 120mm, 3 x 120mm LIAN-LI PC-K59 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm LIAN-LI PC-K59W 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm Fractal Design Core 3000 1x140mm 1x120mm Fractal Design Arc Midi 3x140mm NZXT H2 H2-001-WT White 3x120mm NZXT H2 H2-001-BK Black 3x120mm SILVERSTONE Precision PS06B-W 1x180mm 1x120mm Corsair Carbide 400r 3x120mm Rosewill Challenger Mid-Tower 2 x 120mm, 1 x 140mm fans Fractal Design Define Mini Micro-ATX 2 x 120mm fans NZXT Phantom 410 Black 1x140mm + 2x120mm fans NZXT Phantom 410 White 1x140mm + 2x120mm fans Antec Eleven Hundred 1 x200mm + 1x120mm fans Antec Three Hundred Two 1x140mm 1x120mm Corsair Carbide Series 300R 1x140mm 1x120mm	- $40 $60 $70 $80 $60 $40 $50 $50 $60 $50 $70 $70 $70 $85 $80 $80 $80 $90 $70 $80 $89 $100 $90 $90 $70 $100 $100 $100 $100 $100 $65 $110 $100 $100 $130 $70 $85
Cooling All Tiers: Stock Cooler Included with CPU Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Cooling fans: CM Barometric Ball .6k-2k RPM 26-86CFM 13-30dBA PWM Rosewill 1.2k-2.2k RPM 43-87CFM 23-38dBA Blue LED fan contr. AC Fluid Dynamic .3k-1.35k RPM Max 57 CFM w/ 4 Pin PWM Silverstone 2Ball .8k-2.4k RPM Max 110CFM 17-40dBA fan contr. Noctua SSO .9k-1.1k-1.3k RPM 33-54CFM 13-20dBA adj. speed Cooler Master 120mm Red LED Fan Cooler Master R4 Series Silent 140mm Fan 200mm Red LED fan for Cooler Master HAF cases	- Free $24 - $17 $9 $10 $17 $25 $9 $9 $14
Sound All Tiers: 5.1/7.1 sound card: Integrated on motherboard ASUS Xonar DG	- Free $35
Network All Tiers: Ethernet Up to 1000 Mbps: Integrated on motherb. Rosewill 802.11b/g 54Mbps USB2.0 Wireless 2dBi Antenna Rosewill 802.11b/g/n 300Mbps Wireless USB2.0 5dBi Antenna TRENDnet TEW-684UB Dual Band 802.11b/g/n 450Mbps USB2.0	- Free $10 $20 $57

What happened to Tier 1 OC?

Simply put, it got too expensive for me to recommend it anymore. Even overclocked, it’s no longer price competitive and you’re better off with Tier 2 or 3.

Building this System, Got a Question, Need Help?

Computer Builds FAQs:

I often get questions such as:
- Who are you to tell me which parts to choose?
- Can you suggest me a step by step guide to build a computer?
- Why should I build a PC instead of buying one in a store?
- And many more…

1. You will find the answers to all of these questions and more in this article: FAQ: How to Build Your Own Computer
2. Is this your first build? Here are 10 Quick Tips for 1st Time Builders to get you started.
3. Newly built computer won’t start? I invite you to read Help me: Why won’t my newly assembled PC start or boot?
4. Visit our forums here, where you can join our helpful community and ask questions.

Recommended step-by-step guides to build your PC:

1. Arstechnica Outstanding Guide for Hardware (Building the PC)
2. Arstechnica Outstanding Guide for Software (EFI/BIOS, Windows, etc.)

Free Assistance

If you have any question(s) about the build, simply head over to the forums and our community will be there to assist you.

No worries, there are no stupid questions here on Hardware Revolution. We all started from scratch and learned through our mistakes. We”ll just help you make sure to avoid those mistakes

If you want to have your final build double-checked and get my opinion on it before ordering, or for anything else, don’t be shy, just post a thread on the forums.
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Recommendations in details:

Motherboard:

Tier 0.5, 0.625, 0.75, 1 and 2:

$50 – BIOSTAR H61MGC Intel H61 LGA1155

This motherboard offers Intel LGA1155 support at a great price ($50), making it an excellent choice for the Budget Gaming PCs.

It also comes with video outputs (VGA and DVI), making it a perfect choice for the Web PC.

It also allows you to use the integrated graphic processor (IGP) from the CPU, so that you can use your PC without a dedicated video card if necessary. This is great if you’re waiting to get your dedicated video card or to troubleshoot your PC if your dedicated video card isn’t working.

Note that since it’s based on the Intel H61 chipset, it does not support CPU overclocking. Mind you, none of the CPUs recommended for the Budget Gaming PCs do support overclocking anyway, since their multiplier is locked and that overclocking via the BCLK won’t result in much more than a 5% overclock before you get stability issues.

Ports, expansion slots, features, what’s included in the box, etc.

Ports on the back: Four USB 2.0 ports, two PS/2, VGA and DVI outputs, Gigabit LAN and 6 Channels audio on the back.

Expansion slots: On the board itself, you have one PCI-Express 2.0 16X and two PCI-Express 1X slots.

Other connectors/features on the motherboard: Two fan connectors (One for the CPU Cooler, one for a case fan. Note that all recommended cases either have one 3-pin fan or use Molex connectors for their case fans), four SATA 3.0Gb/s and two USB 2.0 headers.

Included in the box: Motherboard, two SATA cables, manual, CD with drivers/utilities and I/O backplate.

Why Tier 1 and 2 no longer have the $70 – ASRock H61M/U3S3 Intel H61 LGA1155:

I use to recommend the $70 – ASRock H61M/U3S3 Intel H61 LGA1155 motherboard for Tier 1 and 2, as it brought USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gbps support for only $20 more.

Unfortunately, as time passed by, more and more customers complained about various issues with it and based on that, I no longer recommend it as I don’t consider reliable enough to recommend it now.

The least expensive motherboard with USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gbps that’s reliable enough for me to recommend costs $90, $40 over my recommendation above.

In my opinion, I’d say that those features not worth an additional $40 to recommend it by default for Tier 1 and 2, considering that neither of them will be taken advantage of.

Think about it: Hard Drives do not benefit from SATA III, you’re unlikely to get a SSD with that kind of budget, how many devices really take advantage of USB 3.0 and how likely are you to use one?

You’re better off investing that $40 on a better CPU or better video card in my opinion. However, if absolutely want USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gbps, check out the alternative motherboards that I recommend below.

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Alternatives:

1. $90 – ASRock P67 PRO3 LGA1155 USB 3.0 SATA 6.0Gbps – This motherboard brings USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gbps and CPU overclocking (thanks to the P67 chipset) support, for $90.
2. $112 – ASRock Z68 PRO3 GEN3 Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 – The ASRock Z68 PRO3 Gen 3 brings quite a few interesting features to the table:

Support for the next generation if Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” CPUs.
PCI-Express Generation 3.0 support (with Ivy Bridge CPU, Sandy Bridge CPUs support Gen 2) makes it more future-proof.
100% Japan-made high-quality Gold Capacitors with 2.5 times longer life time (according to ASRock).

3. $125- ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0 – The ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 brings a few additional features to the table, on top of what the PRO 3 motherboard offers:

Power and Reset buttons on the motherboard, allowing you to easily test your PC outside your case.
A Clear CMOS button is located on the back of the motherboard. The Clear CMOS button alone is hugely useful when you overclock and need to clear the CMOS. No more need to move a jumper, which is a pain compared to using a simple button.
Two slots worth of space between the two main PCI-Express 16x slots, which gives the top video card some space to “breath” in order to stay at a reasonable temperature.

In short, if you intend to invest into your PC and upgrade it as time goes by, the two last motherboards are as future-proof as it gets.
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CPU:

Tier 0.5

$45 – Intel Celeron G530 Dual-Core 2.4GHz

Don’t get fooled by the frequencies:
The Intel Celeron G530 is based on Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture and despite running at 2.4GHz, it has no problem outperforming the Athlon II X2 260 3.2GHz in about every application.

Lower power consumption:
On top of outperforming the Athlon II X2 260, the Celeron G530 is also more power efficient, consuming about 22W less at load, according to XbitLabs.

Lower cost:
Finally, the Intel Celeron G530 only costs $45, versus $69 for the AMD Athlon II X2 260, a $24 advantage for the more powerful and more efficient Celeron G530.

Ideal for:
Budget builds, if all you want to do is browse the Internet, watch some videos, listen to some music, do some Office work and the like.
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Tier 0.625:

$70 – Intel Pentium G620 Dual-Core 2.6GHz

VS the Competition:
AMD’s similarly priced CPU is the Athlon II X3 455 ($80, Triple-Core 3.3GHz, No L3 cache)

I picked the Intel Pentium G620 over the AMD Athlon II X3 455 because:

The Pentium G620 easily outperforms it in gaming and in most applications.
The Pentium G850 is way more efficient,consuming 54.7W less at load, according to AnandTech.

Ideal for:
A budget Gaming PC, when you can’t afford the 400MHz faster Pentium G860 below.

The 300MHz faster Pentium G850 is quite faster than the G620, as you can see here.

Tier 0.75 and Tier 1:

$93 – Intel Pentium G860 Dual-Core 3.0GHz

VS the Competition:
AMD’s similarly priced CPU is the Athlon II X3 455 ($80, Triple-Core 3.3GHz, No L3 cache)

I picked the Intel Pentium G860 over the AMD Athlon II X3 455 because:

The slightly slower Pentium G850 easily outperforms it in gaming and pretty much any applications.
The Pentium G850 is way more efficient,consuming 51.8W less at load, according to AnandTech.

Ideal for:
A budget Gaming PC, when you can’t afford the much faster Core i3-2120.

However, if you have $37 more to invest and can afford that Core i3-2120, then by all means, go for it. AnandTech’s bench tool clearly shows how much more powerful the 200MHz slower Core i3-2100 is versus the Pentium G850, so add a tad more of a lead to the Core i3-2100 performance and you’ll get an idea of the performance of the 200MHz faster Core i3-2120, which is only $5 more or so than the Core i3-2100.
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Tier 2:

$120 – Intel Core i3-2120 Dual-Core + HyperThreading 3.3GHz

VS the Competition:
AMD’s similarly priced CPU is the Phenom II X4 955 (AM3, Quad-Core 3.2GHz).

I picked the Intel Core i3-2100 over the Phenom II X4 965 because:

Don’t let the dual-core part fool you.

Thanks to Hyper-Threading, its high 3.3GHz frequency and the high IPC performance of the SandyBridge architecture, the $130 Core i3-2120 performance is, on average, 13.7% higher than the $120 AMD Phenom II X4 955, when it comes to gaming, according to this Tom’s Hardware article.

Even better, the Core i3-2120 outperforms the Phenom II X4 955 by 25.4% when it comes to minimum frames per second, according to the same Tom’s Hardware article.

Alternative:

$190 – Intel Core i5-2400 3.1-3.4GHz Turbo Quad-Core – The Core i5-2400 is based on the same Sandy Bridge architecture as the more expensive $215 Core i5-2500, it’s simply a notch slower and costs $25 less. A great upgrade over the Core i3-2120, improving performance all around, as well as making your PC more future-proof, thanks to its quad-core nature.

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Video Card:

A few important recommendations and notes regarding video cards:

Get the latest version of the video card drivers directly from AMD or Nvidia. That way, you’ll be sure to get the latest bug fixes as well as the best performance possible from your video card(s).
Most video cards require one or two PCI-Express 6 or 8 pin power connector(s) to be plugged into them to function properly. Make sure that your power supply comes equipped with enough 6 and/or 8 pin connectors for your video cards. Of course, I double-checked that already for the recommendations in this article, I simply mention it if you decide to modify a build to your own taste.

Tier .05

Free – Intel HD – Integrated

Seeing as all you’ll be doing with this Web PC is browsing the web, listen to music, watch videos and other tasks that don’t require a powerful dedicated video card, an onboard video chipset offers plenty enough power, while being free since it’s integrated in the CPU.

The recommended motherboard has a VGA and a DVI output, allowing you to use older or newer monitors or even two monitors at once if you wish to do so! If you’re looking for a low-cost monitor, I recommend the $90 – Acer G205HV 20″, which is a 20″ monitor with a great 1600 x 900 resolution for only $90.

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Tier 0.625:

$80 – Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDD3

Replacing the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670, the Radeon HD 6750 is significantly more powerful and is now the best video card for $80.

Note that this $80 Radeon HD 6750 is equipped with GDDR3 memory, as opposed to the faster GDDR5 found on the standard $100+ Radeon HD 6750 1GB.

This makes it slower than the $100 Radeon HD 6750 equipped with GDDR5, but it still faster than the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670 and the Nvidia competition at this price range.

Recommended monitor to go with it:
The $90 – Acer G205HV 20″, with its 1600 x 900 resolution and its 5ms response time for only $90, is a great match for this video card.

Tier 0.75:

$110 – Radeon HD 6770 1GB

Replacing the previously recommended Geforce GTX 260

The Radeon HD 6770: A rebranded Radeon HD 5770
That rebranding at least brings with it Bluray 3D decode support.

Performance, DirectX 10/11, power consumption and noise:
The Radeon HD 6770 performs on average on par with the previously recommended Geforce GTX 260, while offering DirectX 11 support (GTX 260 is limited to DirectX 10), consuming less power and being less noisy.

What games can this video card handle?

This card is capable of handling the vast majority of games at 1600 x 900, although you might have to lower details for the most demanding games.

Recommended monitor to go with it:
The $90 – Acer G205HV 20″, with its 1600 x 900 resolution and its 5ms response time for only $90, is a great match for this video card.

If you can afford it, upgrade to consider:
If you have $30 more in your budget to spend, most definitely spend it on a Radeon HD 6850 (recommended below), which offers a significantly step-up in performance.
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Tier 1:

$140 – Radeon HD 6850 1GB

Performance:
Much faster than a Radeon HD 6770

I’m recommending the Radeon HD 6850 1GB once again, seeing as the Geforce GTX 460 256-bit is no longer available for $130 and also seeing that there’s currently a $25 price gap between the Radeon HD 6850 1GB and the more powerful $165 Radeon HD 6870.

The Radeon HD 6850 1GB supports DirectX 11 and will do the job at 1680 x 1050 and even 1920 x 1080 although you might have to lower details in more recent and more demanding games.

The Radeon HD 6850 1GB also offers a significantly step-up in performance over the Radeon HD 6770 (same performance as Radeon HD 5770), despite costing only $30 more.

Recommended monitor to go with it:
The $130 – Acer V223WEJbd 22″, with its 1680 x 1050 resolution and its 5ms response time for $130, is the ideal match for this video card.

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Tier 2

$165 – Radeon HD 6870 1GB

Performance:
A nice step-up over the Geforce GTX 460 1GB

The Radeon HD 6870 has no problem outperforming the Geforce GTX 460 1GB or outperforming the Radeon HD 6850.

It also performs on average almost on par with the $190+ Geforce GTX 560 (Non-Ti).

Recommended monitor to go with it:
The $140 – Acer S230HLAbii 23″, with its 1920 x 1080 resolution, its 5ms response time and LED backlight (lower power consumption) for $140, is the ideal match for this video card. A 1080p HDTV would also be a fine alternative.

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Upgrade to a more powerful video card:
$210 – Gigabyte Geforce GTX 560 Ti Dual fans
The Geforce GTX 560 Ti, which is not to be confused with the Geforce GTX 560 (without the “Ti”, which is a slower card), is an excellent card for ~$210, that performs nearly on par with the more expensive Radeon HD 6950 ($250+).

Do note that this particular model from Gigabyte comes with a nice dual-fan cooling, giving you some overhead to overclock this video card, if you want to that is.

Rest assured that the GTX 560 Ti has a lot of overclocking potential for you to take advantage of. As a matter of a fact, with a decent overclock, the GTX 560 Ti can perform on par with the more expensive GTX 570
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Alternative: An even more powerful Radeon HD 6950 2GB
The $258 – Radeon HD 6950 2GB is out of the box, a powerful video card, outperforming the GTX 560 Ti without any problem.

This card will run pretty much any game at 1920 x 1080, including Crysis Warhead (At Gamer overall settings, with some Enthusiast settings) and other demanding games, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game.

Want to use a different monitor that the one that I recommend?

That’s not a problem. I simply recommend to go with the same or a lower resolution than that’s what on the monitor that I recommend, for optimal performance.
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RAM:

Tier 0.5, 0.625, 0.75, 1 and 2

$23 – G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHz

4GB of RAM is pretty much mandatory to handle the latest video games along with Windows and background background such as your anti-virus, web browser, music/video player, etc.

Considering the price of RAM these days and the ever-expending memory use of games and programs, 4GB of high-speed DDR3 memory is a no-brainer.

I went with this particular kit from G.Skill for their mind-blowing low price and excellent reliability.

Is it worth it to get RAM with higher frequencies (e.g. 1600/2000MHz RAM vs 1333MHz RAM)?
In my opinion, there is little incentive to move to faster frequency RAM, as this usually only brings only a small performance increase, nothing noticeable (According to Tom’s Hardware ), while costing quite a bit more in some cases.

Besides, the recommended motherboard only supports up to 1333MHz RAM.
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Is it worth it to get more than 4GB of RAM?
Except for a few exceptions, according to Tom’s Hardware, current games and applications won’t take advantage of more than 4GB.

However, if you intend on keeping this Gaming PC for more than say, 2-3 years, I’d highly consider getting more than 4GB of RAM now, considering that RAM prices have never been this low!

Faster or More RAM?
Can’t decide between getting faster (Higher frequency) RAM, or more (More GB) RAM?

I recommend going with more RAM, as this will allow your PC to be more future-proof and it will improve its responsiveness when you’re using demanding programs/games.

In short: More RAM will give you more performance, in the long run.

Maximum amount of RAM: Motherboards in this guide that supports two sticks of RAM can be equipped with up to 8GB (2 x 4GB) of RAM and the motherboards that support four sticks of RAM, can be equipped with 16GB (4x4GB) of RAM.

If you want more than 4GB of RAM, here’s my recommended upgrade:

$37 – G.Skill 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz – Inexpensive and reliable choice for a 8GB kit of RAM.

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Heatsinks and CPU cooler clearance:
Every kit that I recommend in this guide feature either no heatsinks or small heatsinks that don’t raise too much above the RAM sticks.

Why?

Because RAM heatsinks barely make any difference when it comes to RAM temperatures. Besides, even if you overclock it/raise the voltage (at your own risk), RAM temperatures aren’t a problem as long as you have decent airflow in your case.
Tall RAM heatsinks can get in the way of larger aftermarket CPU Coolers, preventing you from installing your aftermarket CPU Cooler!

Important: RAM can require manual configuration within the BIOS to reach its full potential or function properly!
By default, some RAM kits will boot at lower frequencies than they are rated for. This is perfectly normal, it does not mean that your RAM is defective.

You simply have to go within the BIOS (The first thing that you see when your PC starts) and enable XMP, for your RAM to function at its rated speed. If XMP is not available or doesn’t work for some reason, you can adjust the RAM settings manually, such as frequency (In MHz, usually linked to the CPU, look for a CPU:RAM ratio), voltage (e.g. 1.65v) and timings (a series of numbers, such as 9-9-9-24). Refer to your motherboard manual and your RAM specifications for more information.
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Storage:

Tier 0.5, Tier 0.625 and Tier 0.75:

$70 – Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA III

The Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB hard drive recently got a price cut and now that it’s available for $70, it’s pretty much the least expensive modern hard drive that’s available on the market right now.

SATA III hard drive on a motherboard with SATA II? Not a problem.
The SATA standard is backward compatible, meaning that SATA III hard drives will work on a motherboard equipped with SATA II.

As I explain below, this will not result in any performance bottleneck, seeing as no hard drive offers performance that’s high enough to be bottlenecked by a SATA II connection.

SATA II 3.0Gb/s vs SATA III 6.0Gb/s: No performance difference for hard drives!
SATA 3.0 Gb/s (SATA II) and SATA 6.0Gb/s (SATA III) refer to the speed of the connection between the drive and the motherboard.

However, the best hard drives reach about 210MB/s (or 1.68Gb/s) in best scenarios. SATA 3.0Gb/s is plenty enough to handle that and for hard drives, SATA 6.0Gb/s does not offer any performance advantage, since the hard drives can’t even max out a SATA II 3.0Gb/s connection.

Only SSDs take advantage of SATA 6.0Gb/s due to their higher transfer rates.

In other words, if you take two otherwise identical hard drives, the SATA III model will not be faster than the SATA II model. SATA III for hard drives is just a marketing scheme

Tier 1 and Tier 2:

$85 – Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB SATA III

Seagate new Barracuda hard drives:
In November, Seagate launched their latest Barracuda line-up of hard drives, featuring higher density, with 1TB per platter.

Performance wise, they simply dominate the competition, as you can see here in this HardwareCanucks review.

The Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 is one of those new Seagate Barracuda hard drives that offers great performance.
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Hard Drive alternatives:

$125 – Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB SATA 6.0Gbps – Part of the new Seagate Barracuda line-up, offering top-notch performance.
$170 – Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB SATA 6.0Gbps – Part of the new Seagate Barracuda line-up, offering top-notch performance. $170 for the fastest 2TB hard drive on the market is actually not that bad of a deal, especially when considering the current prices of hard drives.

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Following the major flooding in Thailand last fall:
If you were not aware of this yet, there has been a horrible flooding in Thailand last fall, which has resulted in:

A horrible human tragedy and Western Digital/Seagate (who now pretty much owns Samsung hard drive division) been forced to cut down their production of hard drives since October, due to either factories or suppliers of hard drive parts that were affected by the flooding.

While production has resumed in many factories, it will most likely take another 4 to 7 months before availability to return to normal and for prices to return to what we were used to before.

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Recommended alternatives:

Solid State Drives
SSDs dramatically improve storage performance. With their prices coming down and capacities going up, they are getting more and more attractive.

Ideally, what you want to do is get a SSD to store Windows and your favorite (or most demanding) games, with the rest of your media/games on the hard drive.

Here are my recommendations, in order of storage capacity and price:

$53 – Patriot Torqx 2 2.5″ 32GB SATA II SSD – Ideal as a boot drive, however not for much more than that, as Windows 7 64-bit takes about 20GB.
$102 – Crucial 64 GB SATA III SSD – 64GB is a great choice for a boot drive with a few games. Upgrade your motherboard if you want this one, in order to take fully advantage of its SATA III performance.
$140 – SanDisk Ultra 2.5″ 120GB SATA II SSD – A great reliable 120GB SSD that’s selling for only $140!

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Optical Drive:

$16 – LG SATA 22X DVD Burner

This drive is able to read and burn CDs and DVDs. Silent, compatible with all major formats including DVD-RAM.

The recommended motherboards includes at least two SATA cables (One will be used for the hard drive and one for this DVD Burner), so no need to worry about cables, unless you decide to add a SSD or additional hard drive(s) or additional optical drives.

Also, seeing as DVD Burners often go out of stock, here are a two alternatives that you can use to replace it. Both are SATA based and are compatible with any Tiers.

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Upgrades:

If you’d like to watch BluRay movies or TV shows, this $58 – ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM SATA Blu-ray will do the job. However, note that it can only read CDs, DVDs and Bluray disks, not burn any of them.

If you want the ability to burn Blu-Ray disks as well, then the $80 – Lite-On Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE SATA is what you want. There are less expensive Blu-Ray burners available, but they are either much slower (4X instead of 12X) or not that reliable.

Regarding Blu-Ray playback:

As far as I know, you still require a specific software to playback Blu-Ray disks on a PC.

Based on various reviews and feedback on various forums, PowerDVD 12 is the software that I recommend to you. Note that you’ll need at least the Pro version for Blu-Ray playback.

PowerDVD 12 is fully compatible with Windows 7 and shouldn’t give you any problems.
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Case:

Tier 0.5, 0.625 and 0.75:

$40 – NZXT GAMMA Classic 1 x 120mm fan

Cooling wise, this case includes one 120mm case fan, which is enough for the Web PC and the Gaming PC Tier 0.625/0.75.You can also add five additional 120mm case fans (Two on the side, two at the top, one in the front) if you wish to.If you live in warm weather without A/C, adding a front 120mm case fan is recommended. See the cooling section for my case fans recommendations.

Features wise, you get:

Plenty of ventilation holes, so your parts won’t starve for fresh air.
2x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA, Audio out, MIC in at the front.
Various holes and space to route and hide your wires.

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Tier 1

$60 – Cooler Master HAF 912 2 x 120mm case fans

Cooling wise, this case includes two 120mm case fans, insuring proper cooling for your Gaming PC. You can also add many more case fans if you wish to. Here’s what possible:
- Front: 120 mm fan x 2, 1200 RPM, 17 dBA (one is included, one is optional, can be swapped for one 200mm fan)
- Top: 120 mm fan x 2 or 200mm fan x 1(optional)
- Rear: 120 mm fan x 1, 1200 RPM, 17 dBA (included)
- Side:120/140 mm fan x 1 (optional)See the cooling section for my recommended case fans.

Features wise, you get:

Mesh design front panel with dust filters.
2x USB 2.0, Audio out, MIC in at the top.
An unique industrial look.
An hole on the back panel, to easily install after-market CPU Cooler without having to remove the motherboard from the case.
Various holes and space to route and hide your wires.

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Tier 2:

$70 – COOLER MASTER CM690 II Advanced 2x120mm + 1x140mm

Currently $20-$30 off, the Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced case is an excellent case, especially for $70!

Cooling wise, this case includes two 120mm and one 140mm case fans, ensuring proper cooling for your Gaming PC.

Features wise, you get:

Mesh design with dust filters.
An hole on the back panel, to easily install after-market CPU Cooler without having to remove the motherboard from the case.
Various holes and space to route and hide your wires.
2x USB 2.0, E-SATA, Audio out and MIC in on top of the case.
Support for 1.8″ and 2.5″ drives.

Recommended alternatives:
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If you a want with a different look, more case fans, a smaller form-factor, an handle (LAN parties anyone?) and/or other features (e.g. fan controller, USB 3.0 front ports, etc.), take a look at my list of other recommended cases.

The vast majority of them are compatible with any Tier, although it’s always good to check the video card length clearance, CPU Cooler height clearance and the accepted motherboard form factors (ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX, etc.).

Ask us on the forums if you have a doubt about whether a case is compatible or not with your build.

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Power Supply:

Tier 0.5 and Tier 0.625:

$37 – ENERMAX NAXN ENP350AST 350W

With Tier 0.5 that uses an IGP and Tier 0.625 that uses a Radeon HD 6750 that doesn’t need much power, you don’t need a power supply that’s very powerful.

However, the power supply is one of the most important components when it comes to the stability and reliability of a PC.

This is why I’m not cutting corners here, by making a recommendation for a fairly high-quality Enermax 350W power supply.

Mind you, at 37$, it is still a very affordable power supply considering its quality.

It is capable of delivering up to 350W, but more importantly, 25A on the 12V line, the most important line for a power supply in a modern PC.
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Tier 0.75:

$41 – ENERMAX NAXN ENP450AST 450W

With Tier 0.75 featuring a Radeon HD 6770, a video card that draws a bit more power, I’m making a recommendation for a 450W unit.

This power supply is capable of delivering up to 450W, not that you should rely on this information only as I often point in posts such as Warning: 6 Surefire Ways of Blowing Up Your Computer Due to an Inadequate Power Supply, but more importantly 30A on the 12V line, the most important factor when it comes to choosing a power supply for a gaming computer.

At only $40 for a reliable 450W power supply, this is one great bargain.

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Tier 1 and 2:

$60 – Silverstone 500W 80PLUS

With Tier 1 and 2 featuring more power-hungry dedicated video cards, I’m making a recommendation for a more powerful power supply here, a Silvertstone 500W unit.

This power supply is capable of delivering up to 500W, not that you should rely on this information only as I often point in posts such as Warning: 6 Surefire Ways of Blowing Up Your Computer Due to an Inadequate Power Supply, but more importantly 34A on the 12V line, the most important factor when it comes to choosing a power supply for a gaming computer.

It is also 80PLUS certified, making it fairly efficient, so that you don’t waste money on your electricity bill. Its efficiency also helps it remain fairly cool and quiet, as there is less wasted energy converted to heat to dissipate.

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Power Consumption:

How to calculate power consumption:
I recommend using the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator. Here are the settings that I used:

CPU depending on the Tier, 90% TDP.
Video Cards depends on the Tier
Two sticks sticks of DDR3
One regular SATA drive
1 DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive
4 USB Devices
4 x 120mm regular fans
System Load: 90%
Capacitor Aging: 20%

A quick note about the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator:
While this is the main tool that I use to estimate power consumption, do note that sometimes, I’ll do some additional research on my own to verify these numbers. This is why you may notice that the numbers that I give below may or may not match what the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator gives you. In doubt, stick with my numbers or ask us on the forums.

Give your power supply some overhead:
While you can match a 650W PSU with a 630W requirement, it is good practice to add about 75-100W of overhead, so that your PSU doesn’t run at full capacity all the time, as that will reduce its lifespan, increase its chance of failure, increase its heat output and its noise output.

Estimated Power Consumption, per Tier:
According to the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator, with the settings that I described above, it is estimated that this system will require at load (peak usage), the following numbers. The minimum requirements are in Italic, while my recommendations (including overhead) are in Bold:

175W/300W with the Intel Celeron G530 and the Integrated Intel HD (Tier 0.5).
240W/350W with the Intel Pentium G620 and the Radeon HD 6750 (Tier 0.625).
323W/450W with the Intel Pentium G860 and the Radeon HD 6770 (Tier 0.75).
350W/450W with the Intel Pentium G860 and the Radeon HD 6850 (Tier 1).
385W/500W with the Intel Core i3-2120 and the Radeon HD 6870 (Tier 2).
400W/500W with the Intel Core i5-2400 and the Radeon HD 6870.
440W/550W with the Intel Core i3-2120 and the Geforce GTX 560 Ti.
455W/550W with the Intel Core i5-2400 and the Geforce GTX 560 Ti.
400W/500W with the Intel Core i3-2120 and the Radeon HD 6950 2GB.
415W/500W with the Intel Core i5-2400 and the Radeon HD 6950 2GB.
450W/550W with the Intel Core i3-2120 and the Radeon HD 6950 2GB unlocked to a Radeon HD 6970.
465W/550W with the Intel Core i5-2400 and the Radeon HD 6950 2GB unlocked to a Radeon HD 6970.

The Tiers recommendations will cover you up to 500W. If you need a 550W PSU because you’re upgrading the video card to one of the recommended alternative, go with the $70 – Rosewill HIVE 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Modular instead.

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Cooling:

CPU Cooler:

All Tiers:

Stock Cooler

To save on costs, I recommend using the cooler included with the CPU.

While there are better coolers, the one that is included is good enough to keep the CPU at safe temperatures.

The recommended case includes several cooling fans as well to help you keep your system cool.

However, here are two reasons why you may choose to upgrade your CPU Cooler:

To keep your CPU temperatures lower, which improves the reliability of your PC and the longevity of your CPU.
To lower noise, as the stock cooler can get noisy at times, especially during prolonged work sessions, or in a warm room.

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Alternative:

$24- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus remains the heatsink that offers the best bang for your buck, offering great cooling performance and much lower noise compared to the stock cooler, for only $26.

Need help figuring out how to put the Thermal Compound with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus?

Follow this tutorial, where they compare different methods to figure out the best one.

Thermal compound:
All recommended CPU Coolers include thermal compound which are pretty good, so no need to spend more money on a tube of thermal compound.

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CPU and Case Fans:

On the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus, you can add a second 120mm fan to improve performance.

If you want to add a different fan to your CPU Cooler, or simply want to add a case fan to help keep your computer components cool, here are my recommendations:

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Sound:

8 channels sound card: Integrated on the motherboard

Integrated with the motherboard, this sound card will handle many different sound setups, including headphones, a microphone and more.

While integrated audio on a PC used to be absolutely horrible, it has gotten much better in the last few years, thus why I have no trouble recommending it.

Recommended upgrade:
However, if you do want better sound quality, the $35 – ASUS Xonar DG is a bargain for an excellent and affordable PCI sound card.

Equipped with an headphone amplifier, with three settings in the control panel, it will bring out the best out of your headphones!

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Network:

Ethernet RJ-45 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN: Integrated on the motherboard

Integrated with the motherboard, this network adapter will allow you to access your local network and Internet, using a standard LAN (RJ-45) cable.

If a LAN network is not an option or if a wireless network is preferable for you, know this before you use wireless for a Gaming PC:
The problem with wireless is that:

It’s not as reliable as LAN, with signals dropping out, interference and the like.
It induces additional latency compared to LAN, which is the last thing that you want when you’re playing online, especially with first-person shooters.

In short, for reliability and getting a low ping, LAN is simply superior (and cheaper!).

If you understand that and still want to go with wireless, here are my suggestions:

I recommend three adapters:
The $10- Rosewill 802.11b/g 54Mbps USB2.0 Wireless 2dBi Antenna for a simple, inexpensive USB 2.0 Wireless G 54Mbps dongle, which will be fine as long as you are not too far from the router.

If you rather have a faster adapter and/or if you’re pretty far from the router, I’d then consider the $20- Rosewill RNX-N180UBE Wireless USB 2.0 Dongle 802.11b/g/n w/ 5 dBi Antenna, which also connects in a USB 2.0 port. It comes with a base, so that you can move it away from the PC for better reception and a 5dBi external antenna to improve reception further more. It support 802.11b/g/n, with transfer rates up to 300Mbps.

The best solution is the $57 – TRENDnet TEW-684UB Dual Band 802.11b/g/n 450Mbps USB2.0 which offers the best range and the best throughput at 450Mbps

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Recommended operating systems:

The operating system cost, if there’s one, is not included in the total cost. The two reasons for this are:

The budget only considers hardware.
You may be able re-use a previous license, go with an open-source OS such as Linux or, if you’re so inclined and are aware of what you’re doing, use torrents.

If you decide that you need an OS, here are some recommendations:

Windows 7

Despite Linux gaining more and more support, Windows still is the platform of choice for compatibility at the moment.

Considering that you’ll have 4GB of RAM or more, along with a dedicated video that also has memory (512MB or 1GB), you’ll need a 64-bit version, as 32-bit is limited to 4GB of memory for the entire system, which is not enough now, nor in the future if you decide to upgrade.

64-bit drivers are widely available for pretty much any devices nowadays.

Windows 7 is by far better than Windows Vista, looks better, more functional, less annoying, consumes less resources and brings DirectX 11 to the table.

Three Available Versions:

Windows 7 Home Premium: The basic edition, with all the looks, most of the functionality and DirectX 11.
Windows 7 Professional: If you want the virtual XP mode, you’ll need at least the Professional edition. Also required if you want to backup to a network, using the built-in backup mode in Windows. Also good to know: You’ll need at least the pro version to take advantage of Remote Desktop Connection.
Windows 7 Ultimate: To help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker and to work and switch between 35 languages.

OEM Versions:

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM SP1 – $99
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM SP1 – $140
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit OEM SP1 – $189

Retail Versions:

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Retail – $182
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Retail – $250
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Retail – $233

OEM vs Retail:

The OEM version allows you to only install it once on a computer. You cannot transfer the license to another computer in the future and you do not receive support from Microsoft. It’s the same type of license you get when you get Windows on a desktop or laptop that you buy from Dell, HP and such. It’s less expensive, but gives less flexibility. Ideal if you intend on keeping your computer for many years.

The Retail version is the full version, which allows you to transfer the license to another computer in the future and you can call Microsoft if you need any form of support. Ideal if you intend on upgrading/changing your computer down the road.

Other than that, you get the same features on both, only the license differs. The price between the two differs obviously.
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Linux

A lot of people these days boot more than one OS. Linux is a wonderful choice: powerful, cool, and cheap. Take your pick of distribution and have fun! For Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, and Mandriva, try Distrowatch.com, Cheapbytes.com, LinuxQuestions.org or one of the many others.

While Linux does not offer the wide compatibility of Windows with video games, gaming on Linux is still possible, through projects such as Wine, Cedega and Crossover. For more on the topic of Linux Gaming, I invite you to read this excellent article from AnandTech: Linux Gaming: Are we there yet?

What about Word processing, Excel and other Windows-based programs that you need? Linux, being an open platform, has many free alternatives for you. For Word/Excel and such, try LibreOffice.
Cost: Free

Conclusion

What do you think of the latest version of the Budget Gaming PCs? Let me know if you have any suggestion to improve this article or your opinion on it by leaving a comment below. Additionally, if a part goes out of stock, let me know.

Don’t agree with my choices? Have a better idea?

Feel free to leave a comment. There’s always place for improvement and after some research I may change the part according to your suggestion.

Building this PC?

If you build this system, I invite you to share your experience on how well it runs: What applications do you use, what type of work do you do, how well does this PC performs, is there anything that slows it down? Your feedback will help other people make an informed decision on what to buy for their own needs.

Do you need a guide on how to build a computer, need help or do you have some questions?

Computer Builds FAQs:
I often get questions such as:
- Who are you to tell me which parts to choose?
- Can you suggest me a step by step guide to build a computer?
- Why should I build a PC instead of buying one in a store?
- And many more…

Recommended step-by-step guides to build your PC:

1. Arstechnica Outstanding Guide for Hardware (Building the PC)
2. Arstechnica Outstanding Guide for Software (EFI/BIOS, Windows, etc.)

Free Assistance

If you have any question(s) about the build, simply head over to the forums and our community will be there to assist you.

No worries, there are no stupid questions here on Hardware Revolution. We all started from scratch and learned through our mistakes. We”ll just help you make sure to avoid those mistakes

If you want to have your final build double-checked and get my opinion on it before ordering, or for anything else, don’t be shy, just post a thread on the forums.

Build your Gaming PC today!

Why should you?
For the same price, you’ll get more performance out of your custom PC, or you’ll save money while getting the same performance compared to a retail PC. Not to mention that retail PCs come with tons of bloatware and limited warranties. Why settle for less?

Stop relying on HP, Dell and other companies:
Build your own custom PC today. It’s easier than you think!

This Build includes all the parts/cables that you need and it was double-checked to ensure compatibility. Simply order your parts, set aside some time, grab a screwdriver and build your own personal PC. No worries, we’ll (the HR community) be there to assist you if you have questions or need help.

Then you’ll be able to say, “See that computer over there? Yeah, I built that.” Talk about being proud of a job well done.

Want or need a more powerful Gaming PC? No problem.

If you’re looking for a Gaming PC that boots and launch games/applications faster thanks to a SSD (Solid State Drive) and that can handle most of the latest video games at a 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution at their maximum graphic settings, head over to our Mainstream Gaming PCs article.

If you’re looking for a Gaming PC that can handle all of the latest video games maxed out at a 1080p (1920 x 1080) on a 120Hz monitor or to play video games on a multiple monitor setup or to play games in 3D, head over to our High-End Gaming PCs article.

Want or need a Gaming PC in a much smaller case? No problem.

Tier 4 or Tier 5 of the Mainstream HTPCs/SFF Gaming PCs are Gaming PCs that come in a much smaller Mini-ITX case.

Performance wise, Tier 4 of the Mainstream HTPCs/SFF Gaming PCs is equivalent to Tier 1 of the Budget Gaming PCs, while Tier 5 of the Mainstream HTPCs/SFF Gaming PCs is equivalent to Tier 2 of the Budget Gaming PCs.

Do note that they both come with a SSD (Solid State Drive), meaning that they boot and launch games/applications much more quickly than the equivalent Budget Gaming PC.

If you want more power, check out the High-End HTPCs/SFF Gaming PC, which, at its stock settings, offers performance equivalent to about Tier 6 of the Gaming PCs, while still being in a case that is more compact than the usual Gaming PC case.

However, thanks to its outstanding pre-assembled, all-in-one liquid-cooling, it can be overclocked to offer even more performance, without sacrificing reliability nor noisy.

All of those builds being HTPCs (Home Theater PCs) as well, you can rest assured that they are very quiet too.
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The Best Video Cards For Your Money: February 2012

Mathieu Bourgie — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:50:24 +0000

The Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB video card.

The best video cards for your money?

By that, I mean the cards that offer the best performance at a given price. Why would you want that, you ask?

Because you want the best bang for the buck, because you want the best possible card for your hard-earned money and because you want the highest FPS possible!

However, I do realize that not everyone has the time to read detailed video card reviews nor does everyone have the ability to make sense of video card specifications.

This is why I write this guide for you: To help you save your time, sanity and money by doing the research for you and letting you know what are the best video cards for your money.

Keep in mind:

1- These video cards recommendations are for gamers who desire the best bang for their buck, or in other words, the best performance/features for their money. These video cards are way overkill if you don’t play videos games.
2- This list is based on the best U.S. prices for new video cards from NewEgg and/or Amazon that I’ve seen as of February 2nd 2012.
3- Each video card performance will vary depending on the game. Some games run better on Nvidia cards and some run better on AMD cards.
4- The resolution that I mention below should only be used as a guideline to give you an idea of the capability of the video card on recent games.

February 2012 update:

AMD launched the Radeon HD 7950:

To keep it short, let’s just say that it outperforms the Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 by a good margin, consumes quite a bit less power and offers the same outstanding overclocking potential as the the Radeon HD 7970.

I invite you to read either the AnandTech review and/or the Tech Report review for more information.

Best video card for $80:

Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR3

Replacing the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670, the Radeon HD 6750 is significantly more powerful and is now the best video card for $80.

Note that this $80 Radeon HD 6750 is equipped with GDDR3 memory, as opposed to the faster GDDR5 found on the standard $100+ Radeon HD 6750 1GB.

This makes it slower than the $100 Radeon HD 6750 equipped with GDDR5, but it still faster than the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670 and the Nvidia competition at this price range.

Good to know:

This video card will do the job at 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900 and 1680 x 1050 although you might have to lower details in some games.

Best video card for $110:

Radeon HD 6770 1GB

$94.99 after $20 Mail-in Rebate

Replacing the previously recommended Geforce GTX 260 (which is no longer available), the Radeon HD 6770 (rebranded Radeon HD 5770 with Bluray 3D decoding support) performs on par on average, while offering DirectX 11 support (GTX 260 is limited to DirectX 10), consuming less power and being more silent.

Single slot version:
The Radeon HD 6770 1GB is also available as a single slot version, in the form of the $120 – XFX Radeon HD 6770 1GB Single slot. Do note that if you do have the two free slots for a video card, get the double-slot recommendation instead, as it’s less expensive, less noisy and you don’t need to purchase Mini-Displayport adapters.

Nvidia Alternative:

If you prefer Nvidia cards, the $125 – EVGA GTS 450 SuperClocked 1GB is a good alternative. Thanks to its factory overclock, it is able to trade blows with the Radeon 6770, being faster in some games and slower in others.

Then again, considering that you can get a faster Radeon HD 6790 1GB for the same price, it’s getting tough to recommend the GTS 450.

Be careful if you decide to pick a different GTS 450, as frequencies and thus performance, varies.

Best video card for $125:

Radeon HD 6790 1GB

Replacing the no longer available or too expensive 256-bit Geforce GTX 460s, the Radeon HD 6790, offers considerably lower performance than it, but is nonetheless the fastest video card for $125.

The Radeon HD 6790 supports DirectX 11 and will do the job at 1680 x 1050 and even 1920 x 1080 although you might have to lower details in more recent and more demanding games.

Best video card for $140:

Radeon HD 6850 1GB

I’m recommending the Radeon HD 6850 1GB once again, seeing as there’s currently a $25 price gap between the Radeon HD 6850 1GB and the more powerful $165 Radeon HD 6870.

The Radeon HD 6850 1GB supports DirectX 11 and will do the job at 1680 x 1050 and even 1920 x 1080 although you might have to lower details in more recent and more demanding games.

Best Video Card for $165

Radeon HD 6870 1GB

Nvidia doesn’t really have much of a competitor at this price range, as the GTX 550 Ti overclocked is on par with the $125 Radeon HD 6790.

As for the Geforce GTX 560, it starts at $180+, but the factory overclocked cards with core frequency at 850MHz, which are on par with the $165 Radeon HD 6870, only start at $190, why is why I still recommend the Radeon HD 6870 at $165.

The Radeon HD 6870 has no problem outperforming the $140 Radeon HD 6850, as well as the older Radeon HD 5850, while performing above the stock Geforce GTX 560 Non-Ti and on par with the factory overclocked 850MHz core GTX 560.

What games can this video card handle?

This card is capable of handling the vast majority of games at 1920 x 1080. As usual, keep in mind that you might have to lower details for the more demanding games.

Best Video Card for $180-200: None

While you can pick up a Geforce GTX 560 starting at $180-190, I don’t recommend it, seeing as it performs on par with the much less expensive Radeon HD 6870 recommended above.

Best video card for $210:

Geforce GTX 560 Ti 1GB

Competition:

Simply put, the $210 Geforce GTX 560 Ti doesn’t have much competition at this price point:
- It outperforms the $175 Radeon HD 6870.
- As for the Radeon HD 6950, which outperforms the GTX 560 Ti, it starts at $258, $48 more.

So why are you recommending the Geforce GTX 560?

Well, the Geforce GTX 560 Ti isn’t that far behind the Radeon HD 6950 and costs $30 less, making it a good choice if your budget is closer to $200 than $250.

Also, the Geforce GTX 560 Ti has a reputation for being a card with a lot of overclocking potential and this particular Gigabyte card, with its dual fan cooling system, has enough cooling to accommodate quite a bit of overclocking without sounding like a turbo jet.

Best Video Card for $258:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

With AMD’s performance improvement of the 6xxx series through newer drivers, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is now considered quite a bit faster than the Geforce GTX 560 Ti instead of being just a tad faster and is easy to recommend for $258.

Single-slot card:
If you want a video card that takes only one free expansion slot, then I recommend the:
$270 – PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 1GB Single-slot

Best video card for $320:

Radeon HD 6970 2GB

$299.99 after $30 Mail-In Rebate

While the recently launched Geforce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores at $290 offers similar performance to the Geforce GTX 570, I recommend avoiding both the $290 GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores and the $350 Geforce GTX 570.

Why? Because you can get a Radeon HD 6970, which edges out both the Geforce GTX 570 and the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, for $320.

Not convinced? See yourself how it compares to the Nvidia Geforce GTX 570.

This card will run nearly any game at 1920 x 1200 (or 1080 for 1080p) maxed out, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game, as well as most games at 2560 x 1600, although with lowered details in some games.

Best video card for $450:

Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Comes with a free Dirt 3 coupon.

Launched in January 2012, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB is a solid addition to the world of video cards.

It outperforms the Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 by a good margin, consumes quite a bit less power and offers the same outstanding overclocking potential as the the Radeon HD 7970.

I invite you to read either the AnandTech review and/or the Tech Report review for more information.

This card will run any game at 1920 x 1200 (or 1080 for 1080p) maxed out, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game, as well as most games at 2560 x 1600 without any problem. Gaming on multiple monitors is also possible, although you might have to turn settings down, depending on the game.

Best Video Card For ~$550:

Radeon HD 7970 3GB

Simply put, this card features the fastest single-GPU on the market. It also has a reputation as an excellent card for overclocking, with a lot of potential.

If you want one of the fastest video card solution without messing with Crossfire, SLI or dual-GPU video card setups, this is the way to go.

For more info about it, read our article: 10 Facts about the Radeon HD 7970

More performance at 5760 x 1080/1200: If you want more performance to play at 5760 x 1080/1200, simply go with the two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire that I recommend at the $660 price point, or if you can afford it, two Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire for ~$1100.

Best Video Card for $660:

Two Radeon HD 6970 2 GB in Crossfire

Offering performance close to two Geforce GTX 580 in SLI, while consuming close to 250W less at load and costing ~$300-350 less.

Two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire remain an excellent solution, even after the introduction of the Radeon HD 7950 and the Radeon HD 7970.

Think about it: Two Radeon HD 6970 will set you back $660, compared to ~$550 for a Radeon HD 7970, while offering higher performance than a single Radeon HD 7970 in most cases.

To avoid:
The Radeon HD 6990 or the Geforce GTX 590. Those cards are equipped with two GPUs, making them a Crossfire or SLI solution on a single video card.

However, due to cooling limitations, those expensive cards end up performing slower than comparably priced SLI or Crossfire solutions. Also, due to having to dissipate the heat of two GPUs, the Radeon HD 6990 and Geforce GTX 590 are horribly noisy, as well as very long, thus not fitting in many computer cases.

Best Video Card for $900:

Two Radeon HD 7950 3GB in Crossfire

Easily outperforming both two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire or two Geforce GTX 580, two Radeon HD 7950 3GB in Crossfire are a force to be reckoned with.

They are also a “bargain” compared to two Radeon HD 7970 3GB in Crossfire, offering performance that isn’t that far behind, while costing $200 less.

Best Video Card for $1100:

Two Radeon HD 7970 3GB in Crossfire

If you want the best performance possible, without consideration for anything else, two Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire are the way to go. If you choose to go with such a setup, make sure to have:

A motherboard that supports Crossfire
A case with a high airflow to handle the heat dissipation
A very solid power supply to handle the power consumption

Overkill:

You consider getting three or four Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire, thinking that more is better. As a matter of a fact, it’s not.

Simply put, drivers support for Triple/Quad-Crossfire is pretty poor, resulting in equivalent or even lower performance than two cards too often. If you don’t run in a CPU bottleneck before that is. In other words, it’s not worth dropping that much cash for a solution that doesn’t work at its best more often than not.

Worse of all?

Most of the time, such setups are bottlenecked by the CPU anyway, even with a Sandy Bridge-E CPU (less if you overclock it, but still). I avoid recommending such setups as they are not suitable for most of you. Besides, if you know that you want such a setup and are ready to pay for it, you most likely know what you’re doing and don’t need this guide to begin with.

A few important recommendations and notes regarding video cards:

1- Get the latest version of the video card drivers directly from AMD or Nvidia. This will ensure that you get the latest bug fixes and the best performance possible from your video card(s).
2- To confirm whether Crossfire or SLI is working or not, use GPU-Z which will show that information to you in the last field at the bottom of the program.
3- SLI Guide: How to enable SLI, check if SLI is enabled, actually working in your game and what to do if it’s not is a great guide from the Notebook Review forums.
4- When using two or more video cards in Crossfire or SLI, you want to connect your monitors into the top video card, i.e. the video card that is the closest to the CPU.
5- Most video cards require one or two PCI-Express 6 or 8 pin power connector(s) to be plugged into them to function properly. Make sure that your power supply comes equipped with enough 6 and/or 8 pin connectors for your video cards.

Conclusion

What’s coming up in the next few months?

AMD

Rest of the AMD HD 7xxx series launch time:
The launch of the Radeon HD 7950, with its $450 MSRP and its performance above the GTX 580 pretty much makes the Geforce GTX 580 irrelevant at its current price.

With the rest of the AMD 7xxx series line-up launching this month, except the dual-GPU 7990, Nvidia will be under some serious competitive pressure from AMD, when it comes to offering the best performance at a given price.

Nvidia

Nvidia is still rumored to launch their Kepler GPUs (which most likely be branded as the Geforce 6xx series) towards the late of March or early April. You can bet that Nvidia will do anything that it can to stick to the schedule, in order to counter AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and to have cards ready in time for the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPUs.

I have yet to see any solid source that have leaked performance benchmarks or prices to expect, so all we can do at this point is be patient.

One can hope that we’ll see some price cuts on Nvidia cards as the launch of Kepler approaches, especially considering how poorly they are doing when you consider performance vs price, which explains why the GTX 560 Ti is the only Nvidia card that I recommend this month.

Both the GTX 570 and GTX 580 are due for a good price cut. Some price cuts at the lower end (GTX 550 Ti and GTX 560 non-Ti) wouldn’t hurt either, but I wouldn’t expect much on that level, but then again, we might be in for a surprise.

Tune in next month for the next edition of “The Best Video Cards For Your Money” to see

The Best SSDs and HDDs For Your Money: February 2012

Mathieu Bourgie — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:30:19 +0000

The Kingston HyperX SSD, the fastest 2.5" SSD available on the market right now, is recommended, in its 120GB model, as the best $215 SSD. With a $60 Mail-in Rebate, you can get it for as little as $155!

The Best SSDs and HDDs For Your Money?

By that, I mean the drives that offer the best performance, reliability and/or most capacity at a given price.

Why would you want that?
Because you want the best bang for the buck, the best possible drive for your hard-earned money and the highest performance, reliability and capacity possible!

If you have the time…

Reading SSDs/HDDs reviews are a lot of fun. However, most of us don’t have the time to do the research and just want to know the best option for our budget.

This is where this article comes in, by recommending to you the best SSDs and the best hard drives for your money, at various price points.

Keep in mind:
1. This list is based on the best U.S. prices from NewEgg and/or Amazon that I’ve seen as of February 1st. Prices and availability change everyday. I can’t keep up with accurate pricing everyday, but I can suggest to you great drives that you won’t regret buying at the price ranges that I list.
2. All prices are based on new drives prices, no used or open box drives are listed; they might be a good deal but come with trade offs such as limited return policy, limited warranty, etc.

This article is in four parts:

1. The Best Solid State Drives (SSDs) For Your Money
2. The Best Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) For Your Money
3. RAID 0,1,5 and 10: A quick and easy summary
4. Conclusion and future SSDs/HDDs.

The Best SSDs For Your Money:

SSD FAQ:

If you wondering “Who are SSDs for?”, if you want a quick recap on what a SSD is, wonder about reports of SSDs slowing down over time or want to learn more about TRIM and/or TRIM with RAID, I invite you to read our SSD FAQ.

February Update:

SSDs Prices:

- Corsair: Mostly up, except for Force 3 60GB which is down $5 and the Force GT 480GB, which went up by about $80, which is why I don’t recommend it at its current price ($907).
- Crucial: The M4 series SSDs all went down quite a bit in price compared to last month and are all terrific deals considering their high reliability.
- Intel: Mostly unchanged.
- Kingston HyperX: Both the 120GB and 240GB are down in price compared to last month and both are elligiable for $60 Mail-in Rebates. They are great deals if you want one of the fastest SSD currently available on the market.
- Mushkin: No major price changes, some models went slightly up in price, some went slightly down in price.
- OCZ: Now that the first wave of customer reviews are in, I no longer recommend the OCZ Petrol for now. While its price per GB is outstanding, it appears to offer poor reliability. The OCZ Vertex Plus 240GB SSD is no longer recommended for the same reason: poor reliability. The Vertex 3 90GB is priced $35 more than last month and is not price competitive at its current price point. Same goes for the RevoDrive 3 120GB, which went up $100 in price compared to last month.
- Patriot Torqx 2 32GB: It got a $10 price cut and it’s now an even less expensive entry-level SSD.
- Plextor M3: The 128GB model is $30 more than last month and is no longer recommended due to its price. The 256GB model is down $35 though and is a great deal for a reliable 256GB SSD with a 5 years warranty.
- Samsung 830 series: The 128GB and 256GB models went up by $5, the 64GB model costs the same as last month. The 512GB model is out of stock and will remain so for a while it would seem.

The SSD Comparative Table:

The SSD comparative table allows you to quickly compare SSDs based on capacity, performance, reliability, price per GB and price, which allows you to figure out which SSD is the best one for your needs.

Ratings are calculated based on website reviews, the wonderful AnandTech’s SSD Tool, failure rates published by Marc Prieur on hardware.fr, customer reviews and specifications. These are estimates, but at worse, they shouldn’t be off by more than one point.
Read performance weights for ~60% of the performance rating and write performance for ~40% of it, seeing as the average user’s SSD will experience much more reads when loading the OS/programs/games/various data. compared to writes when installing programs/games/working, saving data and the like.
Note that performance ratings are only comparable for similar capacity. That is, a “7″ 64GB SSD offers similar performance to another “7″ 64GB SSD, but not to a “7″ 128GB SSD. Generally, when comparing SSDs within the same line-up, higher capacity SSDs offer higher performance than smaller capacity SSDs.
Only SSDs with a competitive Performance, Reliability and/or Price (or $/GB) are included in this comparative table. If a SSD isn’t this comparative table, it’s simply because its performance/reliability is lower or its price is higher than the competition.
Performance and reliability scores are not related.
P: Performance, R: Reliability: On a scale from 1 to 10, higher is better. “~” are used to indicate estimates and “?” are used for scarce data. W: Warranty: In years
You’ll find in Bold: Performance of 8+, Reliability of 9+, Warranties of 5 years and a price per GB of $1.50/GB or lower.

Brand	Model	GB	P	R	W	$ per GB	Price
Corsair	Force Force 3 Force GT Force GT Force 3 Force GT Force 3 Force GT Force GT Force 3 Force GT	40GB 60GB 60GB 90GB 120GB 120GB 180GB 180GB 240GB 480GB 480GB	5 8.3 9 9 8.3 9 8.3 9 9 8.3 9	8 8 7 10 7 8 8 10 8 7-8? 8-9?	3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs	$2.13/GB $1.59/GB $1.83/GB $1.78/GB $1.42/GB $1.58/GB $1.39/GB $1.50/GB $1.65/GB $1.42/GB $1.88/GB	$85 $95 $110 $160 $170 $190 $250 $270 $397 $680 $904
Crucial	M4 M4 (7mm thick) C300 (Micro-SATA 1.8″) M4 M4 (7mm thick) M4 M4 (7mm thick) M4 M4 (7mm thick)	64GB 64GB 64GB 128GB 128GB 256GB 256GB 512GB 512GB	7.5 7.5 7 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5	10 10 10 10 10 10 10 8 8	3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs	$1.56/GB $1.64/GB $2.06/GB $1.39/GB $1.25/GB $1.34/GB $1.35/GB $1.30/GB $1.37/GB	$100 $105 $132 $178 $160 $342 $345 $664 $700
Intel	320 Series – Retail 320 Series – Retail *320 Series 1.8″* – OEM 320 Series – Retail 320 Series 1.8″ – OEM**	80GB 120GB 160GB 300GB 300GB	5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5	8 10 8 8.5 8?	5yrs 5yrs 1yr 5yrs 1yr	$1.75/GB $1.57/GB $2.00/GB $1.77/GB $1.77/GB	$140 $188 $320 $530 $530
Kingston	HyperX HyperX	120GB 240GB	9.7 9.7	9 8	3yrs 3yrs	$1.74/GB $1.83/GB	$215 $440
Mushkin	Enhanced Chronos Enhanced Chronos Deluxe Enhanced Chronos Enhanced Chronos Deluxe Enhanced Chronos Enhanced Chronos Enhanced Chronos Enhanced Chronos Deluxe	60GB 60GB 120GB 120GB 180GB 240GB 480GB 480GB	~8.5 ~9.4 ~8.5 ~9.4 ~8.5 ~8.5 ~8.1 ~8.8	10 9 10 9 9 9 9 9	3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs	$1.83/GB $2.17/GB $1.42/GB $1.79/GB $1.33/GB $1.25/GB $1.38/GB $1.67/GB	$110 $130 $170 $215 $240 $300 $660 $800
OCZ	Vertex 3 Agility 3 RevoDrive 3 X2 PCI-E 4x RevoDrive 3 X2 PCI-E 4x	60GB 240GB 480GB 960GB	9 8.1 11+ 11+	7 7 8 8	3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs	$1.83/GB $1.24/GB $3.03/GB $3.33/GB	$103 $298 $1450 $3200
Patriot	Torqx 2	32GB	~5	8	3yrs	$1.88/GB	$60
Plextor	PX-M3S	256GB	7.5	10	5yrs	$1.29/GB	$330
Samsung	830 Series (7mm thick) 830 Series (7mm thick) 830 Series (7mm thick) 830 Series (7mm thick) Out of stock	64GB 128GB 256GB 512GB	9 9 9 9	10 10 10 10	3yrs 3yrs 3yrs 3yrs	$1.72/GB $1.64/GB $1.56/GB $?.??/GB	$110 $210 $405 $???
Sandisk	Ultra	120GB	5	9	3yrs	$1.17/GB	$140

Share your feedback on the SSD comparative table
Seeing as the SSD comparative table is a relatively new addition to the article, some of you to disagree with my numbers. If that is the case, I invite you to leave a comment and to respectfully explain why you disagree, using factual data to back up your claims. If I am indeed mistaken, I’ll make you sure to update the data in the table.

Also, if you have any suggestion to improve the SSD comparative table, let me know.

Reliability:

Reliability varies within a brand from one series to another and varies within a series from one capacity point to another. Reliability has more to do with specific series at a specific storage capacity than just brands or series themselves.

For example, do not buy lets say a 180GB Force 3 SSD from the Corsair brand because you heard good things about the brand (Corsair) or the series (Force 3) or the 120GB model. Instead, buy a Corsair Force 3 180GB because you heard good things about that specific model from that specific brand with that specific storage capacity.

This explains why I’ll sometimes recommend some models with a specific storage capacity from a line-up (e.g. Corsair Force 3) that are reliable but not other models from the same line-up with a different storage capacity that aren’t as reliable.

After all, part of my job is to help you figure out which specific models are reliable and which ones are to avoid. If you have any doubt about the reliability of a specific model that isn’t listed in the table, feel free to ask me in the comments why I didn’t list it.

Best SSD for up to $60:

Patriot Torqx 2 2.5″ 32GB SATA II SSD

Price: $60
Capacity: 32GB
Price per GB: $1.88/GB
Controller: Phison PS PS3105-S5
Performance: 5/10
Reliability: 8/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Unknown at this time.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? No.

Down $10 compared to last month, the Patriot Torqx cost per GB dropped below $2/GB, now being $1.88 per GB.

At $60, it’s also the least expensive SSD that I recommend.

If you’re looking for a SSD to upgrade an older machine, or simply to host the OS along with a few important applications/games, at a minimum cost, this is my recommendation.

It’s not the best or largest SSD, but for $60, it’s a great choice to give a second life to an older machine or laptop that doesn’t need much capacity, or as a boot drive that hosts the OS along with a few important applications/games.

Be assured that despite its low price, this drive is still reliable and does have TRIM support. It does not includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter, so if you want to use it in a desktop, make sure that either your case supports 2.5″ drives or get a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket, such as the $5- Rosewill RX-C200P 2.5″ SSD / HDD Mounting Kit for 3.5″ Drive Bay adapter.

Best SSD for $95:

Corsair Force 3 60 GB SATA III SSD

Price: $95
Capacity: 60GB
Price per GB: $1.65/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd generation
Performance: 8.3/10
Reliability: 8/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top notch
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

Recommended if you want a fairly reliable and fairly fast 60GB SSD at a great price.

Best SSD for $110:

Samsung 830 64 GB 2.5 Inch SATA III SSD

Price: $110
Capacity: 64GB
Price per GB: $1.72/GB
Controller: Samsung
Performance: 9/10
Reliability: 10/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, but poor long-term performance, not recommended for RAID.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

For $15 more than the Corsair Force 3 60GB recommended as the best SSD for $95, the Samsung 830 64GB offers an extra 4GB of storage capacity, higher performance and higher reliability.

Best SSD for $140:

SanDisk Ultra 2.5″ 120GB SATAII SSD

Price: $140
Capacity: 120GB
Price per GB: $1.17/GB
Controller: SandForce First Generation
Performance: 5/10
Reliability: 9/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch performance
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? No.

The Sandisk Ultra 120GB offers good performance and top-notch reliability at a incredibly low price of $140 for 120GB of storage capacity or $1.17/GB.

It does not includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter, so if you want to use it in a desktop, make sure that either your case supports 2.5″ drives or get a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket, such as the $5- Rosewill RX-C200P 2.5″ SSD / HDD Mounting Kit for 3.5″ Drive Bay adapter.

Best SSD for $170:

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SATA III SSD

Price: $170
Capacity: 120GB
Price per GB: $1.42/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd Generation
Performance: 8.5/10
Reliability: 10/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

Replacing the Corsair Force 3 120GB, the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB offers slightly higher performance, as well as higher reliability. Compared to the Sandisk Ultra 120GB SSD recommended above, the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos offers higher performance as well as an included 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter.

Best SSD for $215:

Kingston HyperX 120GB SATA III SSD

$154.99 after the $60 Mail-in Rebate!

Price: $215
Capacity : 120GB
Price per GB: $1.79/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd generation
Performance: 9.7/10
Reliability: 10/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? No.

Compared to the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB recommended above, the Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD offers even higher performance, without sacrificing reliability.

As a matter of a fact, the Kingston HyperX series is pretty much the fastest 2.5″ SSD series available on the market right now.

At $155 after the Mail-in Rebate, this is one outstanding deal for a top-notch SSD.

Best SSD for $240:

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 180GB SATA III SSD

Price: $240
Capacity: 180GB
Price per GB: $1.34/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd Generation
Performance: 8.5/10
Reliability: 9/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

Replacing the Corsair Force 3 180GB, the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 180GB offers slightly higher performance, as well as higher reliability.

Higher performance, same capacity but higher price alternative:
If you want slightly higher performance and slightly higher reliability without sacrificing capacity, the $270 – Corsair Force GT 180GB SATA III SSD is a solid alternative, with a 9/10 for performance and a 10/10 for reliability.

Best SSD for $300:

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240GB SATA III SSD

Price: $300
Capacity: 240GB
Price per GiB: $1.25/GB
Controller: SandForce Second Generation
Performance: 8.5/10
Reliability: 9/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

Replacing the Corsair Force GT 180GB SSD, the Mushkin 240GB offers 60GB more storage capacity at a similar price with slightly lower performance (8.5 vs 9) and similar great reliability.

Best SSD for $330:

Plextor PX-M3S 256GB SATA III SSD

Price: $330
Capacity: 256GB
Price per GB: $1.29/GB
Controller: Marvell
Performance: 7.5/10
Reliability: 10/10
Warranty: 5 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, but poor long-term performance, not recommended for RAID.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes

Replacing the Crucial M4 256GB SSD, the Plextor PX-M3S 256GB SSD offers similar performance and the same great reliability as the M4, as well as a longer 5 years warranty and an included 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter.

Its price dropped $35 compared to last month, so you’re interested by it, now is a good time to buy it.

Best SSD for $405:

Samsung 830 Series 256GB SATA III SSD

Price: $405
Capacity: 256GB
Price per GB: $1.58/GB
Controller: Samsung
Performance: 9/10
Reliability: 10/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, but poor long-term performance, not recommended for RAID.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

Replacing the Corsair Force GT 240GB, the Samsung 830 series offers an additional 16GB of storage capacity, similar performance as well as higher reliability, for a similar price.

Higher performance alternative:

If you want top-notch performance, I gave the $440 – Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA III SSD a 9.7 performance rating. With a 8 rating for reliability, it’s a bit less reliable than the Samsung 830 series SSD, but it remains still reliable. Another slight downside is its lower capacity, at 240GB.

Best SSD for $660:

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 480GB SATA III SSD

Price: $660
Capacity: 480GB
Price per GB: $1.38/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd generation
Performance: 8.1/10
Reliability: 9/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes

Thanks to a $40 price cut, the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos offers great performance and reliability at an even better price of $1.38 per GB.

Best SSD for $800:

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 480GB SATA III SSD

Price: $800
Capacity: 480GB
Price per GB: $1.67/GB
Controller: SandForce 2nd generation
Performance: 8.8/10
Reliability: ~9/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Yes
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? Yes.

With the Corsair Force GT 480GB price being up by close to $80, it gets replaced by the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe which very slightly lower performance (-0.2 performance rating) and higher reliability at a much lower price.

Note that for some reason, the Newegg product page names it the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos, without the Deluxe, but if you look at the product model (MKNSSDCR480GB-DX) and the product pictures, it’s clearly the Deluxe version.

Best SSD for $1500:

OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480GB PCI-Express 2.0 4x SSD

Price: $1450
Capacity: 480GB
Price per GB: $3.03/GB
Controller: 4 x Sandforce 2nd generation
Performance: 11+
Reliability: 8/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Nope, due to internal RAID.
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? N/A: PCI-Express card.

Now $1450, after a $210 price cut compared to last month!

From AnandTech preview:
“For the majority of users the RevoDrive 3 X2 is simply overkill. I even demonstrated in some of our IO bound tests that you’re bottlenecked by the workload before you’re limited by the hardware. That being said, if you have the right workload – I’ve already shown that you can push nearly 1.5GB/s of data through the card and hit random IOPS numbers of over 180K (~756MB/s in our QD32 test)…”

Simply put, this solution isn’t for the average gamer, it is more targeted to Workstation users, who work with heavy workloads, such as HD+ videos, big databases, etc.

Best SSD for $3200:

OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 960GB PCI-Express 2.0 4x SSD

Price: $3200
Capacity: 960GB
Price per GB: $3.33/GB
Controller: 4 x Sandforce 2nd generation
Performance: 11+
Reliability: 8/10
Warranty: 3 years
TRIM support: Nope, due to internal RAID.
Garbage collection (i.e no TRIM, for RAID)? Yes, top-notch.
Includes a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket adapter? N/A: PCI-Express card.

Same as the previous recommendation, simply with twice the storage capacity.

Updating the SSD firmware

Recommended to get the latest bug fixes and the best performance possible out of your SSD.

Before you start using your SSD, I strongly urge you to update the SSD’s firmware to get the latest bug fixes and the best performance. Make sure to read the instructions available on each update page, in order to understand how to properly update the firmware.

Most SSDs have newer firmware available than the one that they are shipped with, so make sure to double-check your SSD’s firmware version and to update it if’s not the latest.

If you update your SSD’s firmware after starting to use it, make sure to backup your data beforehand, as something could go wrong during the update process and you could lose the data on the SSD.

If you have questions regarding firmware updates, contact the manufacturer or visit their support forums.

If a drive isn’t listed here, it’s either because I am unaware of a recent firmware release or because the drive does not need a firmware update (i.e. it ships with the latest one).

- Crucial C300/M4: Their latest firmwares are available here. There was a new firmware release for M4 SSDs in January.
- Intel 320: The latest firmwares are available here.
- OCZ Vertex 3, Vertex 3 Max IOPS, Agility 3, Solid 3, Revodrive 3 and Revodrive 3 X2: The latest firmwares are available here.
- OCZ Octane: The latest firmware increases write performance and it’s available here.
- Corsair Force (NOT Force 3 or Force GT): The latest firmware is available here.
- Corsair Force 3 and Force GT: The latest firmwares are available here.
- Kingston HyperX: The latest firmwares are available here.
- Mushkin Enhanced Chronos and Enhanced Chronos Deluxe: The latest firmware is available here.
- Patriot Torqx 2: The latest firmware is available here.
- Samsung 830 Series: The latest firmware is available here. There was a new firmware release for the Samsung 830 SSDs in January.

The Best Hard Drives For Your Money

February 2012 update:

Western Digital and Seagate reduced the length of their warranties:
Effective Jan. 2nd 2012, Western Digital is reducing their warranty on their Caviar Blue and Green hard drives from 3 years to 2 years.

Effective Dec. 31st 2011, Seagate is reducing their warranty from 5 years to 3 years on their Constellation.2. Constellation ES.2 and Barracuda XT hard drives, while the previously 2 years warranty on the Barracuda, Barracuda Green and Momentus 2.5″ hard drives gets reduced to 1 year.

Do note that these changes do not affect previously sold hard drives warranties and only applies to hard drives shipped after those dates, so you might still be able to find hard drives with the longer warranties for some time.

Needless to say, this move from WD and Seagate has pretty bad timing, following their purchase of Hitachi and Samsung hard drive divisions respectively and the flooding of course.

Seagate new Barracuda hard drives:
In November, Seagate launched their latest Barracuda line-up of hard drives, featuring higher density, with 1TB per platter.

Performance wise, they simply dominate the competition, as you can see here in this HardwareCanucks review.

Performance

Performance wise, the latest Seagate Barracuda hard drives top the charts, followed by the Western Digital Caviar Black and the Samsung F3 hard drives tied for 2nd and the Hitachi drives in last place. Keep in mind that the performance difference between each hard drive isn’t significant enough to make a perceivable impact in the vast majority of situations.

SATA II 3.0Gb/s vs SATA III 6.0Gb/s: No performance difference for hard drives!

SATA 3.0 Gb/s (SATA II) and SATA 6.0Gb/s (SATA III) refer to the speed of the connection between the drive and the motherboard.

Only SSDs take advantage of SATA 6.0Gb/s due to their higher transfer rates.

In other words, if you take two otherwise identical hard drives, the SATA III model will not be faster than the SATA II model. SATA III for hard drives is just a marketing scheme

Hard Drive Failure Rates:

From Marc Prieur, of hardware.fr, here are the hard drives failures rates according to a French e-tailer as of October 2011:

Samsung 1.5%
Seagate 1.8% (1.6% if you take out the 7200.12 160GB)
Western Digital 2.0%
Hitachi 3.0%

The failure rates are based on parts sold between October 1st 2010 and April 1st 2011, for returns before October 2011, so it represents 6 months to one year of usage. The statistics per brand are based on a sample of at least 500 sales.

Do note that although these numbers don’t paint the complete picture of world wide failure rates, but they are still an interesting sample to look at.

All hard drives and all SSDs are prone to failure though, which is why you should Have a Backup System that you can rely on!

Update on availability of hard drives:

Following the major flooding in Thailand last fall:
If you were not aware of this yet, there has been a horrible flooding in Thailand last fall, which has resulted in:

While production has resumed in many factories, it will most likely take another 4 to 7 months before availability to return to normal and for prices to return to what we were used to before, according to Seagate and Western Digital statements.

Update on prices of hard drives:

Prices of hard drives haven’t changed much since last month, although they seem to be on a slightly downward trajectory.

The Best Hard Drives For Your Money:

Prices as of February 1st 7:15PM EST:

The recommended Best Hard Drives For Your Money are in Bold
Alternatives are in Italic

High performance 7,200rpm hard drives:

$70 – Western Digital Caviar Blue 250 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM – The Best $70 hard drive, offering a 250GB storage capacity for $70.
$85 – Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200rpm 3.5″ ST500DM002 – (New model) The Best $85 hard drive, offering a 500GB capacity with top-notch performance for $85.
$88 – Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200rpm SATA III 16MB Cache – An alternative, with somewhat lower performance, currently at a slightly higher price.
$123 – Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 (New Model) 1TB 7200rpm SATA III - The best $123 hard drive, offering a 1TB capacity with top-notch performance.
$160 – Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200rpm SATA II – No longer the top-dog when it comes to performance, the Spinpoint F3 1TB still offers great performance and the best reliability when it comes to hard drives, making it an excellent alternative.
$170 – Seagate Barraduca ST2000DM001 (New Model) 2TB 7200rpm SATA III – The best ~$170 hard drive, offering a 2TB capacity with top-notch performance.
$215 – Seagate Barraduca ST3000DM001 (New Model) 3TB 7200rpm SATA III – The best ~$215 hard drive, offering a 3TB capacity with top-notch performance.

Lower performance/lower power consumption “Green” hard drives, ideal for storing media, backups, etc.:

RAID 0,1,5 and 10: A quick and easy summary

I’ve been asked by a few of you to explain RAID and the different modes in simple terms. In short, RAID consists of combining two or more hard drives (Or SSDs) to improve performance and/or reliability.

While there are other modes than 0, 1, 5 and 10 (1+0), these are the main ones that usually come integrated on motherboards (Not all motherboards support RAID) , so they are the modes that most of you have access to, hence why I’ll focus on these. Let’s get started!

An important note on using RAID for data loss protection:

Hard drives and SSDs do fail and RAID is not perfect. Sometimes, multiple drives will fail at once (Due to a faulty power supply, power surge, etc.). RAID has limits and is not a 100% fool proof solution for data backup.

It should only be used as one of many steps to protect your data, along with a Backup System that you can rely on!

Note:

In most cases, with motherboard’s integrated RAID controller, you must set up RAID within the BIOS and/or disk manager (i.e. Intel Matrix) prior to installing the OS. Consult your motherboard manual for details on how to set up RAID.

RAID 0:

Using a minimum of two drives and as many as you can install (3,4,5,6,etc.), the data is spread across all the drives, basically combining their read and write performance into one ultra-fast array.

The easiest and cheapest option to improve performance, you keep 100% of the combined drives capacity, but if any drive fails, you lose all data.

Important:

The more drives that you have in your RAID 0 array, the more likely it is to fail. You also get diminishing returns as you add more and more drives:

Two drives, get a theoretical 100% I/O performance gain but double risk of failure.
Three drives, get a theoretical 50% further performance gain but triple risk of failure.
Four drives, get a theoretical 25% further performance gain but quadruple risk of failure.
Five drives, get a theoretical 20% further performance gain and so on…

So you’ll want to avoid putting critical data that you can’t afford to lose on a RAID 0 array or at the very least, you’ll want to back it up somewhere else as well, since this is the least reliable solution, even less than a single drive.

RAID 1:

Using two drives, the second drive is a live backup of the first one, being an exact copy of it.

You lose a bit of write speed compared to a single drive (due to the overhead of copying the same data in real-time to two different drives), do gain read performance (Since the OS can read from both the drives) but you only get the capacity of one of the two drives (Two 1TB drives in RAID 1 =1TB total capacity).

The main pro is that you get a higher level of redundancy/reliability, compared to a single drive.

If one drive fails you do not lose data, you are still able to use the PC, but you will need to replace the drive and rebuild the RAID array before regaining redundancy and data loss protection from RAID 1.

RAID 5:

Requires a minimum of three drives. Unlike RAID 1 where data is identical on every drive, with RAID 5, data is spread across the drives, with parity bits spread across the drives in a way that if one drive fails, the RAID array will continue to function without any apparent change, other than some performance loss.

However, like with RAID 1, if you lose a drive, you’ll need to replace it before regaining redundancy and data loss protection from RAID 5.

RAID 1 vs RAID 5:

Both RAID 1 (mirroring or duplexing) or RAID 5 (striping with parity) offer good data redundancy should a single drive in a RAID array fail. The major difference however can be found in the system performance between RAID 1 and RAID 5.

RAID 5 experiences more heavy write overhead because of the additional parity data that has to be created and is then written to the disk array. RAID 1 does not experience this overhead.

Read performance, on the other hand, is usually better with a RAID 5 setup. This gets even better if your RAID 5 array has more than 3 disk.

RAID 5 read performance increases with more drives in an array because the more drives there are, the more read/write heads there are, and RAID 5 arrays have the awesome ability to read simultaneously from all the drives at the same time.

RAID 1 only has two drives by nature and is therefore limited in the number of read/write heads.

So in short, if all you want is decent redundancy and don’t care that much about performance, RAID 1 will be just fine. If you want more read performance (For faster applications launch, faster OS and game loading) and capacity (since RAID 1 is limited to two drives in most cases and more would be somewhat pointless), RAID 5 is the best out of the two.

RAID 10 (1+0):

However, if you want top notch performance and redundancy, RAID 1+0 (or 10, same thing) is the way to go. Basically, it’s a combination of RAID 1 redundancy with RAID 0 performance.

While RAID 1+0 is possible with two drives, four drives is preferable if you want the performance benefits.

Conclusion

What’s coming next?

Intel replacement to the 510 series:
Intel 510 series replacement, codename “Cherryville” was delayed and is now expected to be launched sometime during Q1 2012. Last thing I read was that they will use a SandForce controller, but with Intel’s firmware and Intel’s quality control.

What 2012 reserves for us:
In the first half of 2012, we’ll see the first 20nm chips make their way in SSDs. Their smaller size and lower manufacturing costs should eventually help reduce the cost of SSDs. We might also see some new controllers, but I simply don’t know much more than that at this point in time.

For more on what 2012 and 2013 reserve for us, I invite you to read this excellent AnandTech article.