Toms Hardware System Builder Marathon Every quarter, Toms Hardware sets out to investigate the PC hardware market. Armed with three budgets - usually $500, $1000, and $2000 - they assemble three builds and compare overall performance and value. Were right in the middle of the August System Builder Marathon this week. On Monday they showed off a $500 gaming PC. Tuesday highlighted a $1000 enthusiast PC, and today showcases a $2000 performance powerhouse. I always look forward to reading these articles every few months. When youre a PC gamer on a budget, building a computer is all about balance. Reading reviews of $500 video cards is great, but if youre planning on pairing that GTX680 with a dual-core i3 and 2GB of RAM youre going to be disappointed. Toms does a great job of demonstrating what you can get for your money using currently-available parts. Theyre experiments, and theyre not always perfect, but thats the beauty of it: read a few of these and youll get an idea of what percenta...