
The $1600 PC enjoys a 34% lead over the $800 machine in gaming performance, which is particularly significant since this quarter's System Builder Marathon targets gaming.
My $2400 PC enjoys a similar lead, but productivity is where its pricey Ivy Bridge-E-based CPU makes the most difference. Also, average performance doesn't include the results at 5760x1080, since Paul didn't test his $800 machine at that resolution.

The $1600 PC overclocks far better than the $800 system. Once again, we see even larger overclocking gains from my $2400 submission, even if its price continuously overwhelms a strict comparison of performance value.

Power use also overwhelms performance on the $1600 and $2400 machines, but by less than expected given that shocking power consumption chart on the previous page. Low-voltage overclocking helps the $800 PC gain over its stock configuration.
The above chart is zeroed out by subtracting 100% from the baseline, so that it doesn't show any PC being more than 100% efficient. Remember that these efficiency ratings are relative to the stock $800 PC baseline, and that the actual efficiency of a machine doing no physical work is zero.
- Let The (System Builder) Games Begin
- Benchmark And Overclocking Configurations
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Battlefield 4
- Results: Arma III
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: Far Cry 3
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power And Heat
- Overall Performance And Efficiency
- Who Wins The Value Comparison?
The first one I can think of, being kind of boring as it might be, its the most obvious one to have: loading times. There are games that load a bazillion things on the fly and are some-what storage sensitive (MMOs basically) and we all hate waiting for everything to load, right? It can be clocked with a 10% error margin (thinking it usually takes around 200ms for human response).
I'm asking this, because RAID0 could become important if we see the value it adds to our builds. I know they're nowhere near SSDs, but Steam + other games take a LOT of space. My own Games folder racks up 410GB, where Steam is 300GB alone. You could slap 2x500GB HDDs in RAID 0 for half the value of a 240GB SSD if memory serves right and 2x1TB HDDs are just a tad more expensive. You can even use notebook HDDs if you want, haha.
Cheers!
Also, I would have cut the memory by half and remove the SSD for getting these 2 cards. Also... you really needs to change your SBM... it is ridiculous at this point.
1.) The $2400 PC was built with the entire benchmark set in mind, not just games
2.) The graphics cards were $400 at the time and nobody knew that they'd be capped in Far Cry 3
3.) Top-mounting the radiator would have further boxed-in the voltage regulator sink
4.) The NH-D14 had been found slightly-insufficient in the previous high-end build
What would you have liked to see changed?
Compression, dude! It's your best friend in digital gaming. And if all else fails, get an external drive. They're still pretty useful and cheap...
And I think the only thing I can disagree with the $1600 build is the case. OMG!! My eyes! Ughhhhh!
Whatever popular game your playing at the time, load it into the ram disk, when you grown tired of the game, unload it from RAM disk and back onto the HDD. Speed when you need it, storage when you dont.