The Utility Player
Value without major compromises

Our Utility Player build packs a Core i5 processor, a fast DirectX 11 graphics card with plenty of memory, and some nice extras, all for just over $800.

Processor
If you've read our review of Intel's new Lynnfield-based Core i5 and i7 processors, then this pick should be self-explanatory. If not, well... we recommend reading the review. To sum up, the Core i5-750 performs better overall than any previous-generation processor in its price range. Thanks to the matching P55 chipset, it also enables prodigiously low idle power consumption—lower than many dual-core systems, in fact.

The Core i5 comes with very reasonable platform costs, too, since P55 motherboards and dual-channel DDR3 memory kits don't suffer from the same markups as their X58 and triple-channel counterparts. We can therefore squeeze the Core i5-750 into this build without cutting corners.

Motherboard
We have a nice handful of sub-$150 P55 motherboards from which to choose, and among them, Gigabyte's GA-P55-UD3R looks like the best solution for the Utility Player. This mobo has dual PCI Express graphics slots with AMD CrossFire support, eight internal SATA ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, a pair of external Serial ATA ports, and heatsinks on the power regulation circuitry.

Competing Asus boards may have more PCIe slots, but they're all crammed right under the primary PCIe x16 slot, which is where you're probably putting a double-wide graphics card. The GA-P55-UD3R smartly positions one PCIe x1 slot above the primary x16, so you can use it without impeding airflow even in a dual-GPU setup. Not even Asus' more expensive P7P55D has as many USB and SATA ports as the UD3R, either.

Memory
Despite memory pricing increases, our budget lets us include 4GB of Crucial DDR3-1333 RAM in our primary config here. After all, the Utility Player would look a little lopsided with a quad-core CPU, DX11 graphics, and just two gigs of RAM. Just make sure you install a 64-bit operating system, or you won't be able to make use of all this RAM easily.

Graphics
What we wrote on the previous page rings true here, also. The Radeon HD 5770 performs quite closely to the old Radeon HD 4870 1GB and costs pretty much the same, but it has lower power consumption, quieter cooling, better texture filtering, and DirectX 11 support, so we think it's a better deal. If you're after a little more performance and don't mind getting a previous-gen part, see the next page.

Storage
This Caviar Black is the fastest member of Western Digital's 640GB line, and it's the only 640GB hard drive we know of with five-year warranty coverage. The Black should be pretty quiet, too, making it a great all-around choice for both the Econobox and the Utility Player.

We're sticking with the Samsung SH-S223L as our optical drive. DVD burners have become commodity items, so we're not terribly inclined to get something fancier just because of our more generous budget.

Audio
Our inclusion of a discrete sound card in previous Utility Player builds elicited some very polarized responses, with some folks praising the Asus Xonar DX for its superior analog sound quality and others labeling it a waste of money. This time, we've stuck with onboard audio in our primary config—not because we now side with the latter camp, but because price increases on other components (namely memory) mean the Xonar would push us $100 over budget, making it much tougher to justify.

This decision involved a fair amount of hand-wringing and some experimentation with the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R's Realtek-powered onboard sound. Our verdict is that, if you use a pair of cheap headphones or speakers, the Realtek codec will sound okay—not great, just okay. Good enough for gaming, YouTube, and listening to MP3s, certainly. Besides, with digital speakers, the burden of good digital-to-analog conversion will rest on built-in DACs in your speakers anyhow.

If you have a halfway decent analog audio device and care the slightest bit about sound quality, however, a good sound card will make a very real, palpable difference. Bass will be less boomy, mids will sound far more detailed, and highs won't chirp away louder than they should. Everything will just sound more natural. If better analog sound is worth an extra $90 to you, then skip over to our alternatives page.

Enclosure and power
The Antec Sonata III costs more than the NSK 4480 II we selected for the Econobox, but it has several advantages, including a beefy 500W power supply with an 80% efficiency rating, a clean layout with sideways-mounted hard drive bays, and a host of noise reduction features. Antec even slaps an eSATA port on the Sonata's front bezel, should you wish to plug in a fast external hard drive without crawling behind the system.