System Builder Marathon, Q4 2013: The Articles
Here are links to each of the four articles in this quarter’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published). And remember, these systems are all being given away at the end of the marathon.
To enter the giveaway, please fill out this SurveyGizmo form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!
Day 1: The $800 Gaming PC
Day 2: The $1600 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $2400 Performance PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected
Introduction
With $300 tacked on to my budget for the last System Builder Marathon of the year, my goal was to go out with a bang by targeting hardcore gaming. And when it comes to stacking the performance deck, gaming means graphics processing, so you shouldn't have any trouble guessing where the extra money is going.
With that said, I did make some other interesting changes. For example, I'm using a faster SSD and a larger hard drive for user data.

Functionally, the compromises I made to save money don't have any negative impact. I went with a cheaper (but still-effective) heat sink instead of a closed-loop liquid cooler. You can also see the inexpensive (but good-quality) enclosure in the picture above. And I bought a mid-range (but overclockable) motherboard for tuning performance.
This is the complete list of parts purchased from Newegg for today's $1600 Enthusiast build.
| $1600 Enthusiast System Components | ||
|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | Asus Z87-PLUS, LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express | $163 |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-4670K: 3.4 GHz Base Clock Rate, 3.8 GHz Maximum Turbo Boost, 6 MB Shared L3 Cache | $240 |
| Heat Sink | Enermax ETS-T40-TB Air Cooler | $35 |
| Memory | 8 GB Patriot Viper 3 (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 Model PV38G186C9K | $95 |
| Graphics | 2 x MSI Gaming N770 TF, GeForce GTX 770 2 GB 256-bit GDDR5 | $660 |
| System Drive | Samsung 840 Pro MZ-7PD128PW 2.5" 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s (SSD) | $150 |
| Storage Drive | Seagate Barracuda 2 TB, 7200 RPM, 64 MB Cache, SATA 6Gb/s | $100 |
| Optical | Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner | $18 |
| Case | NZXT Gamma Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case | $35 |
| Fans | Apevia 140 mm, Rosewill 120 mm ($7 each) | $14 |
| Power | Corsair TX750 V2 750 W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Bronze PSU | $90 |
| Total Cost | $1600 | |
You can't get any closer to a budget ceiling of $1600 than this. Of course, since I bought the parts, some prices have changed. Today, the same shopping list will run you $20 more. That's fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, particularly with both Paul and Thomas getting throttled by price increases on AMD's cards.
- Bring On The High-End Graphics
- CPU, Motherboard, And Cooler
- Video Cards, Power Supply, And Case
- Memory, Hard Drives, And Optical Drive
- System Assembly And Overclocking
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Media Transcoding
- Results: Rendering And Productivity
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Compression Tools
- Results: Battlefield 3 And The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: F1 2012 And Far Cry 3
- Power And Temperature
- Two GeForce GTX 770s In SLI Are, Obviously, Fast

I'm really surprised to say the least.
Cheers!
Before commenting about benches, read:
"Keep this parting thought in mind: we're fully aware that the SBM test suite is showing its age, and we have new benchmark results with more modern games. You're going to see this surface in our Day 4 analysis from Thomas."
Last page, last paragraph.
Nice build, hilariously good performance in BF3, In the more modern games, will there be any GPU memory bottlenecks with triple monitor setups? We shall see!
What will the budget be for next times enthusiast pc?
Now it is at $1,600. So next time it will be $2,500 cause getting them 2x GTX 880 in sli is consider as a budget enthusiast pc?!
It depends on which resolution you look at. I advise you to go back and look at the higher resolutions where the 770's in SLI can actually show a huge difference over one 770. It almost doubles in FPS over last quarter's build if you look at some 5760x1080 res. graphs.
just because SLi works a lot better then xfire does not mean it's flawless. SLi has had serious scaling issues for a long time, and just like xfire simply doesn't work in a number of titles and screen settups.
people have forgotten the issues with SLi since xfire is so obviously broken, but they're still there.
Seriously, multi-gpu is there to stay. My two 6850 in CF are still rendering anything I give them at 1080p. I honestly didn't see the difference from passing of single gpu to multi-gpu... but it's true that 6XXX series was working really well in CF.
Seriously, multi-gpu is there to stay. My two 6850 in CF are still rendering anything I give them at 1080p. I honestly didn't see the difference from passing of single gpu to multi-gpu... but it's true that 6XXX series was working really well in CF.
i would beg to differ, i had 6850's in crossfire, they worked well in a few games, more recent games were running out of vram causing major stuttering, unless your happy running medium details and minimal AA to reduce vram usage. Some games stuttered anyway unless you dropped details to get fps up high so the stuttering goes unnoticed. but then your only really getting a second card to get higher fps, without being able to turn up detail settings, which is not what i wanted. For me a single gtx660 was much smoother in all games than crossfire 6850's, despite producing lower average fps.
Perhaps slide the HD back to a WD 1 TB rather than a POS Seagate...
And $7 fans?