Updated: The Best All-rounder PC you can build today

Adrian Rundle
17 July 2011, 8:00 AM


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An All-rounder PC should be good across the board, handling everything from Office to videos and games. Pro PC builder Adrian Rundle picks the best components for one.


Adrian (ss-rotel) Rundle is APC's Live Builds editor for general and perfomance PCs. In his other job, he does everything from building computers to setting up Windows Server and Linux -based networks.  Most of all, Adrian loves to build PCs. This one is a good all-rounder that achieves a nice balance between price and performance, and which can be overclocked. "It covers all the bases, and you won’t have to sell a kidney," Rundle says. All prices below in AU dollars.


CORE SYSTEM [price updated: September 19, 2011]

(This might seems a short time between updates, but @ this level of system, updates may well happen often)

 

CPU – Intel i5 2500K  - $219

Intel’s new 2nd Generation (Sandy Bridge) CPU. With a speed of 3.3GHz that ranges up to 3.7GHz in Turbo mode, it's a quad core processor  with an unlocked multiplier.  We all know you’re going to try and over-clock it, so you are going to want to spend the extra few dollars and get the K version.  There's an EASY 4GHz over-clock, with stock cooler.

Motherboard – GIGABYTE-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD - $289

Latest Z68 chipset board, with Quicks Sync virtualisation giving you access to the GPU core for video encoding. Apart from the standard SATA 3, USB 3.0, and most importantly Crossfire/SLI, this board also ships with a 20GB Intel SLC SSD.  What, only 20GB you say?  This is for a “turnkey” solution for the Intel Smart Response Technology, that GIGABYTE claims will give you 4 times the standard performance over the HDD on its own.

Video card – VTX3D HD6790 - $149

The AMD Radeon HD 6790 has, in theory, slightly better performance over the HD 6850, since it has better memory bandwidth.  In the real world, it’ll be able to keep up with it, as long as you keep low AA and AF settings.  For $40 less, it’s the better bang-for-buck card

Memory – Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 - $79 

PRICE UPDATE! Ram prices have dropped a little, and you can get 8GBs of name brand memory, with enough overhead to over-clock the CPU nicely, and all for less than $80.  This pushes this system dangerously close to a sub $1000 computer.

Hdd – WD Caviar Blue 1TB - $69

With the SSD on the motherboard, running Intel SRT, it almost becomes irrelevant what sort of HDD you choose.  Western Digital Caviar blues are fast, and reliable, and insane value for money.

Optical drive – DVD +/-RW burner - $49

You have to have one, but if you’re anything like me, you won’t use it often.  At the end of the day, your chosen brand for a DVD burner is personal preference.  If you wanted, you could upgrade this to a full Blu-ray burner from between $60-$100.


Case – BitFenix Shinobi - $69

BitFenix is a relative newcomer to the scene, and as such, their line up is a little small, but the build quality of what they have released so far is excellent.  The Shinobi case is their first "main stream" case release, but for the money, you get excellent cooling, cable management 8 3.5inch drives, and room for a video cards up to 13inches long.  The only thing it doesn’t have is front USB3.0 ports.

PSU – Silverstone Strider 500W ST50F-ES - $89

This PSU is technically a 528W PSU, going by the spec, and Silverstone claim it will supply 500W continuously for 24 hours before it overheats.  It is 80+ rated, runs a single 12v rail and has typical Silverstone build quality.  The 12v rail will supply enough current to power a second video card, or a decent over-clock.

Cooling Fans – 2x Zalman ZM-F3 @ $15ea - $30

I would definitely add a couple of 12cm fans.  Not imperative, but not a bad idea.  These Zalman ZM-F3 12cm fans are a personal favourite.  85CFM at full noise, but they ship with a connector to drop that by ½ to make them silent.  The only downside with these is they run a sleeve bearing, so only have a “short” MTBF.  That said, life expectancy of these fans is still around 2 yrs.

Total cost of parts - $1042


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ss-rotel (Senior Forumologist):

i'm supprised no one has commented on this system. i updated it like a week after the first one was posted

This system is awesome :)

25 August 2011, 7:16 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

DVS Industries (New user):

I have been in the market for putting together a good all rounder PC for a little while now as the dual core is getting a bit slow and tired these days. As usual I did the hunt to find the best prices that I could for all of the components that are in this build only to find out that the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD is no longer available. Maybe I am wrong but this mother board must of been more useful as a paper weight than anything else to be discontinued so soon after its release. Any chance of modifying the build to use a mother board that is actually available to Joe Bloe?

09 October 2011, 12:13 AM (7 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

ss-rotel (Senior Forumologist):

wow. didn't expect that. i guess the SSD drive became expensive/hard to get. (or it just didnt' sell)

anyway, GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-D3, Z68 CrossFire Support 2xSATA3 4xUSB3.0 7.1HDAudio, $150ish, giving you enough to add a 60gb SSD drive of some sort.

09 October 2011, 1:59 PM (7 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Chris.Lampard (User):

OCz new 1TB SSD Hybrid is PIMP !!!

09 October 2011, 9:03 PM (7 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

ss-rotel (Senior Forumologist):

sure, you say this now... :) dead island is pimp... until your new laptop's video card over heats, and crashes...

bought a HP envy14 Beats edition. really nice lappy. i7 8g ram, 750g hdd, hd5650 video... some funky sound card..

harddrive's noisy. and it runs a little hot, sodingly hot.

keys glow red! which is sexy. like that alienware lappy on this site somewhere. it's like the one thing they didn't mention in it's review.

you can choose the colour of the keys glow!

09 October 2011, 10:12 PM (7 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Hyperaxe1 (User):

The prices need to be updated; the WD HDD price's have spiked over 3x as much (to buy a 1TB HDD now it costs about $240...)

11 December 2011, 4:17 PM (5 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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