System Builder Marathon Q1 2014: System Value Compared

[Crashman]

This quarter's Marathon included a GeForce GTX 780 Ti-enhanced enthusiast PC, a budget gaming machine at a lower price, and a high-end build altered to reader specifications. What effects will all of those changes have on overall performance—and value?

System Builder Marathon Q1 2014: System Value Compared : Read more

 

[blackmagnum]

Paul always wins. Why not switch it up sometime?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

You really should add noise measurements on those builds. I'd much rather have a low noise system with mediocre performance than a fast but loud system. For that reason I returned my 7990 card in december and decided to stick with my trusty old 6950 that wasn't causing tinitus

 

[redgarl]

Value is such a contradicting analysis. If your goal is to be 4k ready, the the two cheapest build are not going to make the cut. It's all depending on your needs.Also, for any single graphic card, I would cut on the CPU. There is no need to link a 4770k with a single 780 GTX.

 

[vertexx]

Nice work with the targeted High End Gaming value analysis! I'd 2nd switching it up so that Paul doesn't always win....

A couple of thoughts:

1. Is it true that gaming only gets 20-30% of the overall performance weighting? If so, I'd suggest moving that up to at least 50%. Even though I'm one for a balanced system, I still think the amount of $$ you're spending on the graphics capability should be reflected more in the overall performance rating.

2. There is quite a bit of back-and-forth on the impact of power consumption on these forums, and I think this competition would be a great place to factor in and raise awareness on the real costs of power consumption. I understand that electricity costs and system use varies greatly. But I would add in another value analysis incorporating the present value of 3 years' electricity costs using a discount rate (simple excel function 'pv'). Of course you would have to make some broad assumptions around average power, hours of use per day, whether or not you idle the system 24x7, and electricity cost, but I think the present value of 3 year electricity cost would make a decent impact on your value calculations across these systems.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Of course you would have to make some broad assumptions around average power, hours of use per day, whether or not you idle the system 24x7, and electricity cost, but I think the present value of 3 year electricity cost would make a decent impact on your value calculations across these systems.

I would suggest making a forum poll regarding this. From my steam library I can tell that I've been playing games on average 2.25 hours a day over the last 5 years, and since the bulk of my games are on steam (1400+) it's not much below my real usage. However despite being a gamer I find myself having the computer either idle or playing youtube etc for an amount equal to the time I'm playing games. Assuming I'm around average, with regards to gaming:idling ratio, that'd mean perhaps 3 hours gaming and 3 hours idle/video playback a day on average.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Your link is broken.

 

[geoffrey4283]

I'm not sure if this is what Gin Fushicho is referring to, but SurveyGizmo has been subject to a DDoS attack for the last ~24 hours, making your contest survey inaccessible.

 

[winwiz]

Yes to me and most people I know, cost for power and noise is more important than 199 FPS in BF4

 

[geofelt]

A typo:Your $750 build used a i3-4130, not the i7-4770K listed in the tested configurations

 

[de5_Roy]

the links at the top of the page aren't enabled. the 4th link for value comparison is disabled on all 3 of the sbm pages.

i didn't agree with any of the motherboard choices in this quarter's build. despite that, all three builds were very interesting in terms of performance, choice of parts and builds.
my takeaway from this is that ddr3 1333 is not the baseline for cheap system memory anymore. 2x 4GB ddr3 1600 and higher, especially 2x 8GB ddr3 1866 or higher memory is optimum for performance. don not enabling xmp for the $1600 pc's stock performance analysis helped me understand this.
haswell i7 ramped power and heat really high after 4.4ghz and bit more voltage. both were higher than don's previous o.c. of i5 4670k with asus z87-a board. i still don't like asrock. can you guys compare o.c. clockrates, temperature and voltage of haswell cpus used in sbm in q4 to see which combo was better? imo it'd help with how haswell behaves in real pcs instead of open test benches or test pcs.

 

[McgheeL]

Good article, The visual studio test is a little out of date since 2010 is two versions behind the current version VS2013. And the newer versions are starting to use the GPU more, which might shake things up a bit. It might be interesting to add a productivity metric using sql server express, since there are a number of apps out there that use it. It would be nice to see a build off for productively/development machines.

 

[PepitoTV]

mmm, I'd swear that those i7's are quad-cores...

 

[Sparky4688]

I echo the noise measurements in db. Not all water coolers are quiet and not all case fans are loud but my work environment hears everything.Currently hard drive noise on a healthy drive is sometimes too loud….

 

[stubby326]

Survey link is busted?

 

[stubby326]

Survey link is busted?

 

[Onus]

I don't mind seeing Paul win all the time, not at all. I think it illustrates quite nicely that it is simply not necessary to bust a budget to build a competent gamer. Define your minimum requirements, then build for perhaps a notch above that (plus some upgrade room), and you'll be set.
I'll repeat again my request for non-linear value assessments for FPS>60 in games. I'm not saying it's invisible, but once play is smooth, the subjective experience is not going to get much better. This will make Paul's machine even better in the value analysis.

I'm really not sure what I would do with any of these. They're all built with some nice parts, but my existing PCs are meeting my needs quite nicely.

1. $2400 PC: Massive overkill for my needs, but there are things about it I like. I might build this with just one of the graphics cards, then pull the RAID Array out of my "Omega" system and add that, then donate the remainder of Omega for use as a server to a group that needs one. The second graphics card I'd probably give away to a Tom's reader who is not in the US.
2. $1600 PC: Not sure; I'd probably do some mixing and matching with parts from "Phoenix," likely ending up donating most of this one too (except for the graphics card).
3. $750 PC: I'd pull the graphics card for a HD6850, add a SSD, and build it for my Mom. She's not a gamer, but would no doubt appreciate the speedup from her older AM3 machine for editing her photos and other media.

 

[shovenose2]

In the beginning of the article in the chart, you say the I7-4770K is Hexa core it's actually a Quad core. Other than that, this was an interesting and well written SBM.

 

[filippi]

802W from the socket using a Corsair HX750? This is why I recommend a 850W PSU for GTX780 SLI.

 

[Onus]

802W from the socket? You don't need half that to play games on "enjoyable" settings.

 

[MrBlonde]

When did intel update their 4770k's to hexacore? and yes, I know it's just a stupid typo.

 

[ruban71]

So if I set my goal to be able to play BF4 at 60 FPS the $750 build is more than adequate?

 

[RedJaron]

802W from the socket using a Corsair HX750? This is why I recommend a 850W PSU for GTX780 SLI.

You're forgetting to factor the PSU's efficiency. 802W * 87% efficiency = 700W power delivered to the internals. That's a 93% load on the PSU. It's perfectly safe, you just wouldn't want to add to it. And that's only at a torture test load. Typical use would put you around 80% load or less. If you were mining with this machine, then an 800W or larger PSU would probably be a good idea.

 

[texastim65]

What I'd like to see in these roundups is older builds from prior quarters. I know you compare against the prior quarter in the individual writeups but I would like to see comparisons against machines 1, 2 and 3 years ago.The reason is when I build a higher end machine (1800-2400 price range) I expect it to last me for 3-5 years (potentially upgrading the video card/RAM if they get really out of date) and not just 1 quarter. That's where the real value of the 2400 PC is going to come into play vs the 750 one which will be out of date far faster.

 

[Onus]

The $750 PC has a great upgrade path. In addition to video card upgrades, you could put an i5 or i7 on it. I think it will be some time before they become obsolete.
Fwiw and imho, inability to play with "ultramaxOhWOW!" settings does not mean a machine is obsolete; if you can reach "enjoyable," you're good to go.