Developments in the Midrange Market

As with the budget segment of the DIY computer market, the midrange segment has seen many exciting new developments since the start of 2012. Perhaps the most noteworthy change is that Intel CPUs are now entirely dominant in systems that will set you back about $1,000. Ivy Bridge-based chips are now available at every price point from $100 up, leaving only the pure budget category untouched (at least until we see the Celeron IVB part). If you're interested in more information, we have a lot of information available on Ivy Bridge.

As with the latest CPUs, the newer B75 chipset has brought out of the box Ivy Bridge CPU support to less expensive motherboards, filling out the Panther Point platform. Ian thoroughly covered the Z77 chipset and compared it with H77. The B75 chipset is similar to Z77 and H77 with a few important differences for midrange buyers: two fewer USB 2.0 ports (eight vs. ten), one less SATA III port (one vs. two), and support for neither Intel RST (firmware RAID) nor SRT (SSD caching). PCIe 3.0 and 2.0 configurations are the same on B75 as they are on H77. The important point is that B75 enables less expensive motherboards that lack features that might not be important to midrange system builders, allowing money to spent on faster CPUs, GPUs, better SSDs, etc.

That said, AMD's impending launch of its Trinity APUs might very well put AMD back into the midrange market. AnandTech will be covering Trinity chips in more depth as the new APUs start hitting the mainstream desktop market over the next few months. While the parts are already shipping in OEM desktops, retail availability of the APUs has not yet occurred. For now, you can read more our current Trinity coverage.

As is often the case, the GPU market remains dynamic, with both AMD and NVIDIA wrestling for your money at multiple price points by introducing new cards and lowering prices on existing cards. We'll discuss the GPU market in more depth on the gaming rigs page.

Another development of note for midrange buyers is that prices on many of the best SSDs have been cut in half (or more!) compared to late 2011. This means that respectably-sized (i.e. 120/128GB and above) SSDs that perform very well and have great reputations for reliability are now comfortably within reach of even the lower end of the midrange budget. High capacity SSDs (i.e. those around 250GB) are also within midrange budgets; for many purposes, this means you can eschew a mechanical hard drive entirely—and either spend that money on better CPUs, GPUs, or just keep it in your wallet. Fortunately for consumers, prices on mechanical hard drives are declining in the wake of the Thailand floods, so the wallets of those with more demanding storage needs won't be hurting quite as badly as they were earlier in 2012.

Finally, case manufacturers have released many compelling choices for midrange system builders. Over the next few pages, we'll highlight new enclosures from Fractal Design, Corsair, Lian Li, NZXT, and others.

With that out of the way, let's get to the builds! We'll start with gaming machines on the next page.

Midrange Gaming Machines

As mentioned on the previous page, the GPU market has been very dynamic as of late. We've seen new 600-series cards from NVIDIA and 7000-series cards from AMD, as well as price cuts on many models from both companies. The following three builds are aimed at three price brackets: $750, $1,000, and $1,250. As the builds increase in price, the GPUs and CPUs increase in capability and cost while we hold the rest of the components more or less constant.

$750 gaming computer

Intel's new Ivy Bridge-based Core i3-3220 offers better gaming performance compared to its Sandy Bridge-based Core i3-2120 predecessor, the king of low-midrange gaming CPUs. The i3-3220 offers about a 10% increase in performance across the board while using less power, compared to the i3-2120. AMD's Radeon HD 7850 graphics cards can now be found for around $200 after its recent price drop. That puts its cost slightly above the NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti (which can be found for just under $200). You can compare the Radeon HD 7850 and GTX 560 Ti in Bench. The two cards trade blows with many titles, but when AMD wins, it usually wins more handily than NVIDIA when NVIDIA wins. Furthermore, the Radeon HD 7850 pulls less power under load; most 7850s require only one PCIe 6-pin power connector while 560 Ti requires two. Thus, because the 7850 generally performs better while using less electricity, it gets our nod here. That said, the 560 Ti remains a good choice that's worth your attention (i.e. watch for sales).

Rounding out the rest of the build, we're recommending Crucial's M4 128GB SSD. Anand reviewed this model a while back and it remains a very good performer with a solid reputation for reliability. That said, larger gaming libraries will quickly eat up a 128GB SSD's capacity. Thus, you might need a higher-capacity HDD instead to stay under the $800 budget, and the 1TB Western Digital Black is an alternative to the SSD. Of course, if you want to go over budget, you could install both the SSD and HDD.

MSI's B75MA-E33 motherboard is a nicely-featured product with an attractive price tag; in my experiences thus far (a handful of builds) it is stable and reliable. It also ships with a BIOS that fully supports the newer i3-3220 out of the box.

Ivy Bridge supports DDR3-1600 natively, but you won't notice any real world differences between DDR3-1600 and DDR3-1333, so either speed is fine. Given that DDR3-1600 kits are typically only a few dollars more than DDR3-1333 kits, it doesn't really matter what you go with. We're putting together midrange builds here so we decided to spend a bit more for a kit of DDR3-1600 (about $4 more than this DDR3-1333). Most of the major brands are at parity, so just look for a good price and look at the CAS Latency and voltage--there's not much point in paying more for RAM that requires 1.65V and runs at CL 11, for example.

NZXT's Tempest 210 has become an AnandTech forum favorite: it offers a lot of bang for the buck and is a very high quality case given its price tag. Because the i3-3220 CPU and Radeon HD 7850 are relatively low power components, a lower-wattage, high-quality 80 Plus power supply is included in the build. The Antec Neo Eco 400C frequently goes on sale for $30 or less (sometimes not even with a rebate).

$1,000 gaming computer

While the less expensive system outlined above is a very capable low-midrange gaming computer, this $1,000 machine, in my opinion, really hits the sweet spot for gamers. The Core i5-3570K, like its Sandy Bridge-based Core i5-2500K predecessor, is the king of the gaming CPUs. Keep in mind as well that the 3570K is an unlocked CPU, so it can be easily overclocked. That said, we're not spending extra money on an aftermarket CPU cooler with this build because the 3570K overclocks well with its stock thermal solution (though more agressive overclockers will want to look for an aftermarket solution). To support the Core i5-3570K's overclocking capability, we're recommending a Z77 chipset-based motherboard, and Samsung's 8GB kit of DDR3-1600 listed in the build is a great kit of overclocking RAM.

Stepping up from the $800 gaming build also gets us a faster GPU: AMD's Radeon HD 7950 or NVIDIA's GTX 660 Ti. Both the Radeon HD 7950 and NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti are priced around $300. Bench illustrates how the 7950 and 660 Ti compare: very evenly. The AMD card wins some titles and the NVIDIA card wins others. They use very similar amounts of electricity. You'll want to do your research and weigh how important specific current game titles are to you before deciding which card to use. Here, we're recommending either one. You can compare the GTX 660 Ti to the above system's Radeon HD 7850 on Bench here and the Radeon HD 7950 to the Radeon HD 7850 on Bench here.

The Samsung 830 128GB SSD was reviewed on AnandTech and it performs very well (like the Crucial M4 128GB SSD), with a similarly stellar reputation for reliability. The same Antec Neo Eco 400C power supply is capable of powering both the more powerful CPU and GPU, though you'll need to upgrade this power supply if you intend to add another GPU down the line. As an alternative to the NZXT Tempest 210 we're highlighting the Fractal Design Core 3000. Like the Tempest 210, the Core 3000 offers great build quality for its price, excellent thermals to accommodate the higher-powered components, and sleek aesthetics. Compared to the Tempest 210, its only real drawback is its lack of front panel USB 3.0 support.

$1,250 gaming computer

The only major differences between the $1,000 gaming computer above and this $1,250 system are increased overclockability thanks to the aftermarket CPU cooler and a more powerful GPU. That said, as an alternative to the Crucial and Samsung SSDs noted in the above two builds, here we have an Intel 330 series 120GB SSD, which is reviewed here. Like the Crucial and Samsung SSDs, Intel's solid state drives have a great reputation for reliability. (Keep your eyes on their prices—if you catch one on sale, grab it.) The ASRock Z77 Pro4-M is another solid Z77 performer with an attractive price tag as an alternative to the Biostar board in the above build. Though the stock cooler that comes with the Core i5-3570K is capable of facilitating modest overclocks, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO will help you overclock more aggressively.

To accommodate the higher power draw of an overclocked Core i5-3570K and a more powerful video card, we're stepping up to the Antec Neo Eco 520C, a 520W model that like its less powerful sibling features solid quality at a relatively low price.

As for the more powerful video card, how about (arguably) the fastest single-chip GPU on the market? NVIDIA's GTX 680 was released back in March of this year, and accomplished what Ryan called the 'holy trifecta'—best performance with lower power consumption at a lower price than the previous GPU king. In response, AMD re-worked the Radeon HD 7970 into the "GHz Edition," which Ryan reviewed and compared to the GTX 680. Bench gives you a further idea of how the two cards compare. While the two top cards perform very similarly in games, we give the nod to the NVIDIA GTX 680 in this guide because it uses less power, is quieter, and cooler than the 7970GE. (Note that while the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition uses more power than the GTX 680, both can be run on the Antec Neo Eco 520C recommended.) You can also compare the GTX 680 to the Radeon HD 7950 in the $1,000 gaming system on Bench.

Conclusions

The three gaming computers detailed above represent three distinct segments of the gaming market: moderate (1080p on high without anti-aliasing), upper midrange (1080p high with 4xAA), and very high end (typically able to handle most titles at >60FPS at 1080p, and even 2560x1440/2560x1600). There is a substantial jump in both CPU and GPU capability going from the $750 to $1,000 build. The increase going from the $1,000 to $1,250 build is less pronounced and starts to show diminishing performance returns—though for some readers, bragging rights about owning a GTX 680 alone might warrant the extra money spent. Thus, of three builds above, the $1,000 system represents the best value for a midrange gaming desktop computer.

What if you don't play games, and are instead interested in productivity work? Check the next page for our workstation builds.

Midrange Workstation

If you are considering building a midrange workstation, one important question you need to ask is whether your workloads will benefit from Hyper-Threading. This is the most important difference between the Core i5-3570 and Core i7-3770 CPUs. Anand previewed and reviewed the Core i7-3770 at length, and given that the cost differential between the two aforementioned chips is about $100, they're worth reading. Succinctly, workloads heavy on compression, encryption, multi-threaded audio and video transcoding, and multi-threaded software compilation are among the more common tasks that benefit greatly from the addition of the i7's Hyper-Threading. Many functions in Adobe Creative Suite 6 benefit from Hyper-Threading.

In my experience, Hyper-Threading increases productivity in certain SAS and Excel functions but not others. While we don't have the i5-3570 in Bench yet, comparing the previous generation i5-2500 (non Hyper-Threading) to the i7-2600 (Hyper-Threading) will give you a sample of applications that benefit from Hyper-Threading. Because so many productivity titles benefit from Hyper-Threading, we're recommending the Core i7-3770 here. Note that if you are interested in overclocking, you'll need to spend a few more dollars on the multiplier unlocked i7-3770K. While overclocking modern CPUs is often unproblematic (especially with modest overclocks that don't entail overvolting), a workstation needs to be as stable as possible, so we are not recommending an overclocked CPU for this build.

A second important question is whether your workloads will benefit from GPU acceleration. Many popular productivity titles like Sony's Vegas Pro 11, Adobe CS 6, and MATLAB, as well as more specialized software titles like those that model electrochemistry and align DNA sequences, can complete certain tasks much faster when accelerated by a GPU than when the work is done solely by the CPU. A more thorough discussion of GPGPU is outside the scope of this article; suffice it to say that if you are not already familiar with GPU acceleration, it is worth researching whether your workloads will benefit from it. If you are already familiar with GPU acceleration, you likely know which GPU models best fit your needs. Less expensive GPGPU-purposed video cards are typically within reach of a midrange workstation builder's budget, but for the sake of simplicity, one is not included in this build.

No workstation should be without an SSD—nothing improves overall system responsiveness like an SSD—so we include the Samsung 128GB here. Windows 7, Office 2010, and Adobe CS 6 will all comfortably fit on a 128GB SSD but you'll likely need more storage. If you're a heavy Photoshop user, you might want to consider adding another SSD to use as a scratch disk. You can certainly upgrade to higher-performance 7200RPM drives or add more storage drives as necessary, but 2TB will give you plenty of storage space to start.

The Intel BOXDH77KC is, in my experience, a reliable motherboard with plenty of expansion slots; it includes a slot for an mSATA SSD if you prefer to use that either in place of or in addition to the Samsung 830 128GB SSD. The 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston DDR3-1600 RAM will likely be sufficient for most workstation users; if not, another 16GB kit can be added for 32GB total (note that you'll need Windows 7 Pro/Ultimate to benefit from more than 16GB). Powering everything, we're recommending the SeaSonic S12II 430B. This is an extremely well-built unit that will provide your components with stable, clean power. It's also very quiet.

Workstations come in legion configurations, and most people want them to be quiet and look clean. Fractal Design's Define R4 was reviewed by Dustin recently, and I agree with his pertinent conclusions: it is flexible, quiet, has great thermals, and is a very good value at just over $100. It can accommodate multiple, larger GPUs for GPGPU computing, many hard drives for lots of local storage, and is very easy to keep clean because of its many fan filters. It's also available with a windowed side panel if you want to impress people with your computer building skills.

Finally, this build includes a copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. You can get an overview of the differences between Windows versions at Microsoft and Wikipedia. Some of the more relevant and important differences between Professional and Home Premium are the former's support for more than 16GB of RAM, Windows XP mode, domain join, and integrated backup and restore features. Here's our final baseline workstation--many higher end users will want to add an appropriate GPU, which is easy to do.

That takes care of our primary builds for this guid, but read on for some additional concluding remarks.

Closing Thoughts

All four systems in this guide represent a lot of value in terms of how powerful they are relative to their costs. Two things strike me as particularly noteworthy: the high-mid range gaming system includes the most powerful single-chip GPU available on the market today, and the workstation is extremely well-rounded with top (or nearly) top of the line mainstream components. In other words, a tremendous amount of capability is available to midrange buyers. Spending more than about $1,000 today is mostly necessitated by niche purposes.

Compared to our last midrange guide, the gaming systems outlined here are substantially more capable due to much faster video cards, with better SSDs and overall lower power consumption. The workstation in this guide is about 15% less expensive than last year's workstation, while including a faster CPU and SSD, as well as offering more storage capacity. It will be interesting to see how developments from Intel's upcoming Haswell CPU architecture along with AMD's Piledriver and Trinity architectures affect the midrange market. Trinity in particular appears as though it will shake up at least the lower midrange market segment. AnandTech will, of course, be covering Trinity upon its mainstream retail launch; expect a full Trinity buyer's guide at that time.

The systems in this guide are ready to go as they are outlined, but once you start spending around $1,000 on a computer, you might be interested in more customization—that's the point of doing it yourself. There are a variety of options with pros and cons for any change, and while you're always welcome to ask for help in our article comments, we have other resources avaialble. In particular, our forums are full of computer enthusiasts who can help you research which components are best suited to your purposes. General Hardware is a good place to start, and you can also save money by checking the Hot Deals forum.