What is the PC Perspective HW Leaderboard? The PC Perspective Hardware Leaderboard is going to become the first place you look to find the components that will make up your next computer. On this page you will find our editor's combined opinions on the best systems you can build based on three different budgets. You can expand each of the systems (High End, Mid-Range and Budget) to show you all the components that we believe represent the best products in their price ranges.
Why a Leaderboard? We like the idea of a Leaderboard because it presents a no non-sense way of looking at the best hardware available. On this page, you won't find paragraph after paragraph telling you why this processor is better than that processor. Instead you'll find the quick and dirty on our editor's choices for the best hardware you can get. No beating around the bush here. Of course, if you still want to get our full and detailed opinions on various hardware, you can look through our reviews page. But the HW Leaderboard is going to give you our final decisions in one quick look.
Updated Aug 18, 2010:
Along with the PCPer HWLB its self, you can also head to
the PCPer Hardware Leaderboard forum! This forum is where you can discuss my selections and offer your own suggestions. It is also the place for you to talk about the new system build you are working on even if it's NOT based on anything here.
Our Dream System's CPU is not quite so new anymore but the 6 core 3.33GHz Core i7 980X is still the performance king. This is an incredibly expensive chip, but it is currently the best 6 core processor available by a long shot. The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Extreme is (more or less) extinct so the GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R gets a chance to show off its support for the latest storage interfaces. Our graphics subsystem is protean as always, three HD 5870's have been trumped by a pair of GTX 280's as the price has come down quite nicely, making the 280's a better deal. If you are willing to purchase one of the few and incredibly expensive motherboards that can do three 16x PCIe cards at full bandwidth, keep in mind that three GTX 280's pass the point of diminishing returns and you will see very little return for the extra $459. Sandforce is a very welcome addition, in part thanks to the extra 20% of storage space now available for it but also for the sheer speed this controller offers. 12GB of DDR3-1800 comes back into the recommended build thanks to a drop in price and the ability of the new Windows to take advantage of that amount of system memory.
There is also an alternative Dream System, the system so powerful it has gone to plaid! The price increases by an additional 50% but you will be running a dualie and 4 graphics cards at 16x speeds.
The new High End system shares its motherboard with the Dream Machine meaning anything in the Dream Machine can be installed into your existing system giving you a great template for an upgrade path. Pick up a second set of Corsair's DDR3-1600 and slap in a second GTX480 and you will be gaming in style. You can use nVIDIA's nVIEW for
multiple monitors and 3D Vision to add depth to the extra width!
Our Mid-Range System recommendation underwent some big changes with the advent of Lynnfield and now it is changing up again. The low end of Intel's new unlocked K series chips, the i5-655K offers incredible overclocking potential for anyone will to try it. The new P55 motherboard that houses your components comes from Gigabyte; their 2oz copper design and dual-BIOS features are impressive and native USB 3.0 support ensures you can use the fastest external storage available! The move to a P55 board also necessitates a change in DDR3 choice, in this case Corsair provides 4GB of dual channel DDR3-1600.
The Budget Leaderboard's Athlon II X4 635 will give you four cores of processing power on a budget and will run rings around previous generations of AMD CPUs in BOINC and Folding@Home applications. The GIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 has a price just under the $100 mark and offers a feature set that is brilliant at the price and now that USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s components are more common it makes sense to be able to take advantage of them. The HD5670 is still a very viable GPU for use as an HTPC and it can handle light gaming if you keep the resolution reasonable and the price just keeps getting lower. As with all of the HD5xxx the series of cards a second or third display is possible although I would recommend that for productivity or browsing and not so much for gaming. The sale on Corsair's XMS3 Xtreme Performance RAM is back, though not quite as cheap as it has been in the past 2GB of DDR3-1333 is well worth it.
That's it for this month readers! Don't forget to drop by the Hardware Leaderboard forum to share your comments!
| Processor |
Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 980X Hexa |
$999 |
 |
Gulftown has arrived, in the form of the 32nm Westmere, at 3.33GHz, 12MB cache the Core i7 980X CPU is the only six core CPU on the market.
It is also a significant jump in the fight against power consumption as the Core i7-980X uses less power than the Core i7-975 while performing noticeably better in many of the tests Ryan ran in his full review.
This performance comes at a premium and many programs just can't utilize the 12 threads that this CPU is capable of, but that will change in the near future and the Dream Machine will be ready!
Also of note, the price dropped almost $100 over the past few months; however this month it is back up to $1000. It seems likely that the price is not going to vary by much more than a few percent up or down for the near future
If money is absolutely no barrier and you are looking for the most extreme machine then you can abandon the Core i7 lineup and instead pick up a pair of Intel Xeon X5650 2.66 GHz hexa-core processors for $1024@, for a total CPU cost of $2048.
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 980X Hexa |
+ $35
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| Motherboard |
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R |
$209 |
 |
It seems that Gigabyte has moved on as the GA-EX58-Extreme that picked up a Gold Award in its review here is no longer available. In its place consider the GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R as a worthy replacement, Ken certainly does! You keep a pair of PCIe 16x slots that can run at full speed when they are both populated and add a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a pair of SATA 6Gbs ports as well. It can handle up to 24GB of DDR-2200 which ought to keep you at the cutting edge even as speeds on DDR3 increase.
If you are eyeing the above recommendation of a nice pair of Celeron X5650s, then you need a home for them and that would be the $612 EVGA Classified SR-2 Motherboard. Dual LGA1366 sockets for Xeons, no Core i7's as they are not set up for multiple CPU systems nor will their coolers fit over these sockets. You can have up to 4 PCIe graphics cards all running at 16x, if you slap in a fifth then they all cut back to 8x though getting that 5th card to work, even as a PhysX processor is probably going to be difficult.
Total cost of motherboard and CPUs for that option has now hit $2658, with the rest of the system still to be added.
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R |
- $0
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| Video Card |
GIGABYTE GV-N480D5-15I-B GeForce GTX 480 |
$459 |
 |
The GPU subsystem for the Dream machine is often one of the toughest choices to make on the Leaderboard. Previously the triple Crossfire HD 5870 was a great deal but it looks like they've been bumped for now. Sure there are a few instances where three GTX 480s will beat out two GTX 480's and you can drop another $459 for that third card and ensure you can provide at least 1000W simply for your graphics cards. That is why a pair of GTX 480's are recommended as the performance sits in a perfect place on the $$$/fps slope.
Right now the best deal will get you $20 back on each card after purchase.
Sticking with the extreme Xeon system you will want four cards, upping the running tally to $4496.
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
GIGABYTE GV-N480D5-15I-B GeForce GTX 480 |
- $0
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| Memory |
Corsair XMS3 12GB PC3-12800 |
$319 |
 |
This month there is a great deal on Corsair's 12GB PC3-12000 kit. With 8-8-8-24 timings you can expect a snappy response and this deal gives you the ability to slap in six 2GB DIMMs giving you serious memory bandwidth and the more space than most programs know what to do with. There are faster DIMMs out there but the price premium is so incredibly high and the performance return is so slight that there really is no reason other than bragging rights to pick up 2000MHz+ kits.
Just to think that a few years ago there was a good argument for not having more than 2GB of RAM ... how quickly things change at the bleeding edge of technology.
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Buy the Corsair XMS3 12GB PC3-12800 on our pricing engine! |
| Previous Selection and Price Change |
Corsair XMS3 12GB PC3-12800 |
- $10
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| Hard Drive |
OCZ Vertex LE 100GB |
$325 |
 |
Sandforce is here and it is stomping the competition in the SSD world, albeit at a higher price point. The OCZ Vertex LE 120GB will give you a bit more space than the X25-M 80GB and a big boost in speed and it remains cheaper than the X25-M 160GB model. The speeds that Allyn was seeing in his testing were very impressive and it will be interesting to watch the Sandforce controller evolve and become more mature.
The deal is even better this month for two big reasons. The first is a nice drop in price and the second gives you extra storage space for free. That's right, this the SDD Allyn posted about where a flash will pump the total storage space to 120GB with no negative effect to the speed! Do make sure to back everything up as flashing the drive will wipe the data on the drive.
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
OCZ Vertex LE 100GB |
+ $40
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| Sound Card |
Asus Xonar D2X |
$150 |
 |
The previously recommended Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe seems to have disappeared from PriceGrabber and NewEgg, which is too bad as Josh review proves. That leaves space for a very similar card, though without some of the extras that the HDAV Deluxe had. The Asus Xonar D2X is no slouch however, 7.1 surround and numerous input and output choices ensure you don't feel your sound card choice has let you down in any way.
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
Asus Xonar D2X |
- $42
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| Power Supply |
Corsair HX1000W |
$229 |
 |
If you need solid power with independent +12V rails @ up to 80A combined load along with six PCI-E connectors, consider Corsair's HX1000W. As with all the PSUs on the Hardware Leaderboard Lee has given the HX1000W high praise, a Gold Award in this case. It is even quiet at all but full loads, keeping to 24dBA at loads of 500W or lower, an impressive feat for a kilowatt class PSU. Corsair stands behind the PSU with a 5 year warranty, ensuring you can get help if you need it and an efficiency in the mid 80s under load will help with those power bills.
You will need to go even bigger if you are looking at the ultimate in ridiculously powerful systems, perhaps the $379 SILVERSTONE ST1500 1500W
PSU as you have little choice in the way of PSUs at that wattage rating. That brings that particular build to $5669; as I said before this build requires pockets so deep they hang past the bottom of your pants!
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| Previous Selection and Price Change |
Corsair HX1000W |
- $0
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