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System Builder Marathon, Q2 2014: A Balanced High-End Build

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  • Build Your Own
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a b K Overclocking
June 25, 2014 11:59:22 PM

Competition tightens (along with pricing) as we respond to frequently-requested budget updates for $500, $1000, and $1500 machines. In response to other requests, we add an operating system to each machine. Can today’s cheaper PCs still perform well?

System Builder Marathon, Q2 2014: A Balanced High-End Build : Read more

More about : system builder marathon 2014 balanced high end build

June 26, 2014 12:31:09 AM

Only 8GB RAM for a high end PC? Just plain too much money spent on graphics card. Also, too much money spent on "yuppie" power supply/case
Score
-27
June 26, 2014 1:26:17 AM

kidding me, hdd and windows 8, pls, read up on hardware toms hardware.....and software.
Score
-26
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a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 2:37:46 AM

thermaltake nic L32 doesn't seem well suited for the cpu for stock operations. at stock settings, the cpu's load temp is 57c over ambient according to the temp. chart. the q1 $1600 pc has a hyper 212 evo and it ran the stock i7 4770k under 40c over ambient. from the looks, the tt nic cooler seemed a better performer than the hyper 212 evo.
was multicore enhancement enabled for both the q1 $1600(asrock z87 pro3) and this quarter's high end pc(asus z97-a)? did it affect the heat output? asus keeps m.c.e. enabled by default. i can't see any other factors atm.

all 3 builds look very well-performing this quarter. looking forward to the perf-value analysis.
Score
0
June 26, 2014 3:07:39 AM

Reading the reviews on newegg about that PowerColor 290x you chose was hilarious. So whoever win's this thing can look forward to many many rma's in the future. Apparently its plagued with artifacts, bad fans, bios issues, & performance degradation. I would have chosen another brand at the very least.
Score
5
June 26, 2014 3:32:27 AM

To be fair though, look at the dates of those negative Newegg reviews. All but one of the complaints appeared after this system was ordered mid-May. Prior available feedback WAS almost all positive. And a manufacturer rep jumped in to resolve that one.
Score
3
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 4:07:51 AM

mrmike_49 said:
Only 8GB RAM for a high end PC? Just plain too much money spent on graphics card. Also, too much money spent on "yuppie" power supply/case
A yuppie power supply...OK...

wabba said:
kidding me, hdd and windows 8, pls, read up on hardware toms hardware.....and software.
The last time I checked the "Samsung 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW" wasn't an HDD, and nobody wanted us to run OS/2 on a modern gaming system. Please read the charts, wabba

Score
9
June 26, 2014 4:25:50 AM

Make this "competition" global please... :(  You have "Tom's Hardware" in every major region in the world... :)  Also FedEx and DHL ships everywehere in the world :)  make all readers happy :)  Our traffic is good for your site, but we never get something special :( (
Score
4
June 26, 2014 4:38:44 AM

If I had a specs like this, I don't want it to be encased. I'd stick it to my wall even if it means I had to figure out how to do it.
Score
2
June 26, 2014 4:41:14 AM

If aesthetics doesn't play a role, this is a pretty damn good build...
Score
2
June 26, 2014 5:20:37 AM

I think the author hit his mark for the intent of the build/article based on the budget limit and provides a good starting point for us. However, if I was actually building and buying for myself, I would make some changes to add headroom and compatibility.

I would go with 16 GB of memory for $85 more, since that’s only $85/$1600=5% more cost. I’d also go ahead and get the Asus 780 for $520. (Side note: I disagree that most would go AMD in a 780 vs 290x, but I know better than to open that can of worms). SLI was mentioned but not used, and I also would not get SLI unless I KNEW it worked with the game I was most interested in. The posts on various forums about SLI causing problems in most games, along with SLI “issues” dating back to 3dFX Voodoo2 cards, keeps me away from SLI.

I also would stay away from “generally stable, but usually not stable in the games I want to play most” (not quoting the author here) overclocking of the system/video card. It’s nice to see it in the charts, but I read about way too many problems in games caused by overclocking for me to rely on it to get my ‘value’.

Lastly, I think the pendulum has swung too far towards “value” for the high end build. I suggest tweaking that a little for future high end builds (eg..780Ti, 16 GB memory, 500GB SSD, but continue to stay away from $1000 CPU, $1200 SLI, etc).
Score
4
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 6:04:34 AM

I'm a little curious why a Crossfire / SLI build wasn't used; I'd expect a pair of $260 cards to beat a single $520 card in many things, and where the pair of cards didn't work too well, even one such card would still allow "decent" settings for an enjoyable experience. That's not a criticism; it is a genuine curiosity. Note that I am generally not a fan of multi-card setups, but then I don't see paying almost as much for one graphics card as for an entire system.
The big lesson here though, is that people should NOT rely on the silicon lottery to meet their performance needs. Overclocking is NOT a sure thing. I seem to recall this happening before in the SBM; it's a lesson that needs to stick.
I might have made some different choices, but I'm not going to fault the ones that were made here (the head-scratching is left over from Don's choices yesterday of an Apevia case and a Corsair "CX"). I might be curious about the single-card choice, but I don't think I have grounds for criticism of the build in general.
Score
2
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 6:52:43 AM

Alternate builds that do not follow the well-established rules of the SBM (e.g. parts from alternate sources) will be moderated out of existence. When mentioning pricing, keep in mind the LONG lead times for the series, and prices will almost certainly be different now from what they were then.
Score
0
June 26, 2014 7:24:07 AM

Yikes, give that gpu some support! Seriously though, how heavy is that thing?
Score
1
June 26, 2014 7:26:33 AM

I am so confused. Are the different builds in a SBM compared against each other or are Q2 builds compared against Q1?

If the Q2 builds are compared against each other on day 4, then the price categories should be comparable. Please compare the way WB 1T is placed in "Enthusiast" build vs "High-End" build. Different categories, if I understand correctly. And the high-end build DOES include the SSD in the Platform cost. Anyway, the price categories are named differently , so I cannot compare the builds directly.

I dont know if I made myself clear... The prices are divided in these sections Platform-TotalHardware-CompleteSystem, but Enthusiast build is divided differently.
Score
1
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 7:53:13 AM

Onus said:

The big lesson here though, is that people should NOT rely on the silicon lottery to meet their performance needs. Overclocking is NOT a sure thing.

+1.
Score
4
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 8:45:31 AM

Onus said:
I'm a little curious why a Crossfire / SLI build wasn't used
For the same reason I used a 750W power supply: I wanted the owner to have a CrossFire upgrade option. The board practically supports only two cards, the third slot is...x1 as I recall.

zooted said:
Yikes, give that gpu some support! Seriously though, how heavy is that thing?
Nah, it's nice and light. Unlike a lot of similar-looking cards, the cooler on this one is mostly air. That's mentioned in the card's review too.

Score
2
June 26, 2014 9:23:31 AM

I'd rather have 8gb and a better gpu than 16gb that I won't using

And these giveaways might not be allowed to be global due to United States laws. They don't just ignore international viewers
Score
7
June 26, 2014 10:02:14 AM

Newegg reviews also rave about craptastic Logisys and other horrid power supplies. Random consumer reviews and a sack is worth the sack.
Score
4
June 26, 2014 10:03:44 AM

Windows 8? Next, please.
Score
-8
June 26, 2014 12:09:44 PM

Simply put, $1500 is not enough for a high quality PC. Oh well.
Score
-6
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 12:23:49 PM

lp231 said:
At $90 for a case, I would have gone with a Full Tower one, so that it can support E-ATX boards and not only that, you get more room to work with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The second one you link is a mid tower. As for full towers, I put quality and convenience ahead of size. I've been dealing with a bunch of marginal-quality big cases lately.

Score
1
June 26, 2014 12:42:58 PM

I'm rather surprised that so many AMD parts were used in this shootout. Especially, I would find it very difficulty to style a build around a 290 or 290x after the golden sample fiasco and the fact that the best available deals are at least as expensive as the launch prices in November of LAST YEAR. I feel like the writing is on the wall, in terms of AMDs future, and anyone recommending builds around their hardware needs to be mindful lest they end up wearing egg on their face.
Score
-2
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 12:43:56 PM

Taintedskittles said:
Reading the reviews on newegg about that PowerColor 290x you chose was hilarious. So whoever win's this thing can look forward to many many rma's in the future. Apparently its plagued with artifacts, bad fans, bios issues, & performance degradation. I would have chosen another brand at the very least.


And that's exactly why I think store reviews are pointless - statistics and research shows that you're 95% more likely to get a negative review than a positive one, and a lot of crap gets highly rated, while decent / good products are overlooked and not purchased because some idiot didn't read the manual prior to installation.
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 1:34:35 PM

Achoo22 said:
I'm rather surprised that so many AMD parts were used in this shootout. Especially, I would find it very difficulty to style a build around a 290 or 290x after the golden sample fiasco and the fact that the best available deals are at least as expensive as the launch prices in November of LAST YEAR. I feel like the writing is on the wall, in terms of AMDs future, and anyone recommending builds around their hardware needs to be mindful lest they end up wearing egg on their face.
It was fixed by increasing the fan speed (overriding BIOS fan speed) in the driver, within two months of launch. So the problem is dead news, even the fix is old news.

Score
1
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 3:22:07 PM

Quote:
lp231 said:
At $90 for a case, I would have gone with a Full Tower one, so that it can support E-ATX boards and not only that, you get more room to work with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...


The second one you link is a mid tower. As for full towers, I put quality and convenience ahead of size. I've been dealing with a bunch of marginal-quality big cases lately.



So Newegg got it wrong then with their categorizing on that NZXT source 530, cause I searched in by
Case+Full Tower+Lowest Price and that case was on the list.
For me it would be quality and size because I prefer cases with huge interiors so they're is plenty of room to work with and I won't have to worry about if my graphic card will fit or not.
I'm still currently using my CM Cosmos 1000, maybe in the future probably a Cosmos 2 or Corsair 900D
Score
-2
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 3:30:54 PM

lp231 said:
Quote:
lp231 said:
At $90 for a case, I would have gone with a Full Tower one, so that it can support E-ATX boards and not only that, you get more room to work with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...


The second one you link is a mid tower. As for full towers, I put quality and convenience ahead of size. I've been dealing with a bunch of marginal-quality big cases lately.


So newegg did it wrong for 2nd case? I sorted by Case+Full Tower+Lower Price that that 2nd one was in the list.
Right, it's a mid-tower. Look at the picture of the back to confirm. Newegg seems to list these however they're told to, without consideration for any standardization. The second case you showed is 1 slot taller than this one, which would have made a dual-slot graphics card work in this board's bottom slot. The problem, this board's bottom x16 slot is only wired as x1. So the eighth slot wasn't even a consideration.

Score
0
June 26, 2014 3:50:17 PM

I always enjoy these articles and find them useful and informative for what they do, which is to attempt to define some quantitative measurements and then optimize systems to those measurements.

I'm sometimes afraid to share them with less well versed friends who just want to blindly follow a build though, because the systems engineered this way can only be as good as the measurements they are geared to, which for many may not reflect the total experience of use.

To exaggerate a bit, these analyses can be a bit like a new car review that goes in to exquisite detail on the top speed achievable (down to 1/10th of a mph!), while failing to weigh in at all on acceleration, storage capacity, and luxuriousness of the interior. This is how you get to system builds that are stingy on SSD capacity or even go without; have less RAM than they could; and have aesthetic qualities that some may find out of place with the budget. (the fact that these things do not increase frame rates by 3fps does not make them unimportant over real world usage of a system for a few years of varied use.)

I don't have an easy solution for this. Enthusiasts will pick up a lot of the information they need by reading other articles on this site or elsewhere. I do also want to say I really appreciate that Tom's actually builds these entire systems, with the result of occasionally encountering unexpected physical, cooling, or other incompatibilities. That's valuable info too and much nicer than reports that pick parts on paper but never actually verify they all work together the way you'd expect them too.
Score
1
June 26, 2014 5:45:08 PM

lp231, I would pay $30 more not to use the cases you chose. Aesthetics varies person-to-person. ;) 
Score
0
June 26, 2014 7:54:36 PM

I really feel Tom's did a good job with this selection of parts (may disagree about brands). For the sole purpose of benchmarks.

Well I just got home from work...I was thinking about this article all day long & talked about it with all my tech savvy co-workers. We were talking about if we had a budget of $1600. What we get & why? Well we all had very similar requirements; full tower, I7, 2 pcie x16 (or8x8) mobo, 240mm closedloop, ssd, 2tb or higher hhd, gpu's 290/290x/780/780ti range, & finally psu 750w-850w bronze, silver, or gold. This was my build selection on pcpartpicker that we did on are lunch break.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cz6WBm
Went less on the GPU power to make room for larger hdd & ssd. Thinking I m going to be using this for everyday use & gaming. Those seconds,minutes of load time saved all year long add up to hours if you have a ssd. The hdd for me personally, I would think any avid gamer/media junkie 1tb is pretty small now a dayz. Especially if you own 100+ games on steam. Also was $175 under budget for wiggle room for choices on a different PSU, Case, GPU (would probably upgrade to a 780 or 290x). This was my all purpose gaming build. That I personally would build for myself.
Score
1
a b K Overclocking
June 26, 2014 8:36:13 PM

Its that hard to get a decent overclocking haswell? Seems like every one Tom's bought is stuck at 4.3 or lower. I must've been really lucky with mine
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 1:31:45 AM

airplanegeek said:
Its that hard to get a decent overclocking haswell? Seems like every one Tom's bought is stuck at 4.3 or lower. I must've been really lucky with mine

Well, let's take a look:

$2400 Performance PC
Intel Core i7-4770K: 3.5
to 3.90 GHz, Four Physical
Cores
O/C to 4.50 GHz, 1.25 V

Nope. I don't know about Don's processors, but the high-end build usually gets around 4.4 to 4.6 and I think it's only had two bad-overclocking CPUs in the past 2 years.
Score
1
June 27, 2014 3:56:18 AM

Really? Radeon r9 290x? $530? Stock brand? Just go with a Gigabyte R9 280x. It'll play every game out right now on ultra, and we all know that future-proofing is impossible. You don't wanna get anything higher than the 280x or you're wasting your money.
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 8:26:12 AM

m32 said:
lp231, I would pay $30 more not to use the cases you chose. Aesthetics varies person-to-person. ;) 


You mean the two I've link to Newegg? I wouldn't either, just pick those as it's the cheapest for a full tower.
I kind of like the functionality of the Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, but not its design.
It's 2 cases in 1, A mid tower with a Mini ITX.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 9:14:37 AM

I've only owned 1-2 PowerColor cards, and neither gave me any grief.
Score
0
June 27, 2014 10:04:17 AM

I don't understand why the 4790k is not used? It's 500mhz faster for the same price.
Score
-1
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 10:07:25 AM

xxsk8er101xx said:
I don't understand why the 4790k is not used? It's 500mhz faster for the same price.

in 2nd page:
Quote:
It was the fastest unlocked CPU in Intel’s LGA 1150 arsenal back when we placed our orders for this quarter, and nothing less than the best would approach that machine's compelling performance. Of course, in the time between then and now, Intel introduced the Core i7-4790K. But it's only supposed to hit availability today.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pc-system-build-val...
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 11:49:24 AM

Always enjoy these articles but was expecting something with CFX/SLI and possibly 2011 socket. IMO, a single card (unless its a dual GPU) and 1150 i7 are phenomenal...just not "High End"
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 5:48:48 PM

um sorry im new but how do you enter into the giveaway any free computer is welcomed especially one with a 300$ cpu,540$gpu and sexy windowed case. I will win could some direct me though
Score
0
June 27, 2014 5:49:53 PM

Why amd gpu? It will mean you need to spend more money on higher wattage psu and it makes a lot of noise.
Score
-2
June 27, 2014 6:04:30 PM

kunthakenthe said:
hello help with the giveaway

Easy, you can't exactly expect an immediate reply on a Friday evening. First page of the article has a link to take you to a survey. It's only valid for US residents, though.
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 6:07:31 PM

coolitic said:
Why amd gpu? It will mean you need to spend more money on higher wattage psu and it makes a lot of noise.
It doesn't make a lot of noise, and that's one of the reasons it won an award. The actual two reasons were noise and price.

Score
1
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 6:09:37 PM

RedJaron said:
kunthakenthe said:
hello help with the giveaway

Easy, you can't exactly expect an immediate reply on a Friday evening. First page of the article has a link to take you to a survey. It's only valid for US residents, though.


im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys :( 
Score
0
June 27, 2014 6:47:07 PM

kunthakenthe said:
im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys :( 

Not a problem. But this isn't necessarily for US citizens, but US residents. International trade laws prevent a lot of contest prizes being shipped internationally.
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 27, 2014 7:12:57 PM

us resident
Score
0
a b K Overclocking
June 28, 2014 5:48:55 AM

RedJaron said:
kunthakenthe said:
im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys :( 

Not a problem. But this isn't necessarily for US citizens, but US residents. International trade laws prevent a lot of contest prizes being shipped internationally.
Right, resident citizen, resident alien, as long as it's not going outside the country (this means you Rhode Island :p  ) you're fine.

Score
0
June 28, 2014 9:10:42 AM

The power supply is the weakest link. A Rosewill, and only 750W with a Bronze rating? Not much headroom for expansion and SLI/Crossfire either. Going cheap on the PS is never wise. I'm really surprised at that low-ball for this level of a build. At this level, ~$150-$170 needs to be thrown at an 850W Gold like the SeaSonic X Series X-850. Just my opinion of course, but I'd find concessions elsewhere in the build for the same $$.
Score
0
June 28, 2014 9:14:04 AM

I like the new format but there are still issues. The other two builds all went with HDDs instead of SSDs because it saved $50. I can't imagine anyone making this choice in real life. The $50 extra for an SSD will do more for the performance of the machine than any other $50 you could spend. The problem is that boot times and load times aren't bench marked. How about including that as a part of the score in some way?
Score
0
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