Power, Heat, And Efficiency
We knew that two GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards would hurt our power consumption numbers, but we had no idea that this system would pull over 1000 W when overclocked. 80 PLUS independent testing shows 84% efficiency for this power supply at this load level, so component power consumption was closer to 900 W.
AMD’s thermal junction appears to be miscalibrated for this generation of CPU core, consistently reporting temperatures below ambient. Anyone who thinks they can make the corrections will want the raw data (15° and 31° Celsius at stock speeds [idle and load], 19° and 42° overclocked, at an ambient temperature of 21.6°).
Increased fan speed keeps the GPU cores “cool enough” when overclocked.
The June build was a better overall performer, setting this month’s system up for complete failure in an efficiency calculation.
Because overclocking increased performance to a greater degree than power consumption, both systems had higher full-load efficiency when pushed to the limit. Unfortunately, the new system faired far worse at its best efficiency settings than the previous system at its worst.
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Love the case choice everything else is pretty much can't really hate it or love it, but i mean you can't really hate any of the parts when they cost that much as they are all good but some just not right for some jobs.
I do not care for AMD and SLI just because you'll be using an nvidia chipset and my past experiences with them have been poor.
I also do not care for 6 cores for games although i mostly use my computer for other things which may like those 6 cores, but i don't find too many uses for 2 480's outside of gaming.
Hopefully the next one will be one i can't help but agree with, A i5-750/760 with 2 460's in sli
This month's SBM is forgettable.It confirms that AMD+SLI = BIG fail.
A better option( without sacrificing GTX 480 SLI) in my opinion is:
Core i7 950 (add 100$)
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R (add 50$)
GSkill 6GB RAM(subtract 70$)
Big CPU fail. I love your honesty, good one Tom's! Nice try nevertheless. Keep it up!
The lesson here? AMD hexacores are still the best value on the market, but is still unable to keep up with the i7 in overall performance clock for clock. It's sadly not the best choice in high end systems, but it still wont stop me from recomending it to friends interested in sub-$1000 systems.
I dont like systems Based on AMD's chipset
With Sandybridge and Bulldozer just right around the corner I don't think that it makes any sense to build right now with current (especially CPU + motherboard)components.
With Sandybridge and Bulldozer just right around the corner I don't think that it makes any sense to build right now with current (especially CPU + motherboard)components.
Maybe not...this system was built a couple months ago.
Love the honesty. I think this is just shows that a MUCH cheaper AMD chip ($700 less) is close but not quite in true competition with the top of the line Intel chip. I'll stick to my AMD chips because I am not made of money.
Again, I love the honesty and straight talk TH brings with these bi-monthly features that give system builders a real idea about performance and cost-effective parts.
I really do value the AMD Hex vs Intel, 6 cores is already cutting edge and 12 threads is going beyond a desktop computer for this year atleast.
Good article, you never know how some things will work out until you try them. Kudos to Mr. Soderstrom for putting a different build together and not sticking to the same old pattern.
If you looked at Tom's best CPU for the money every month. The tier list at the end of the articles shows what tier the AMD x6 is at. Basically an i5 750 or 760 cpu is ranked higher than the Phoenom II x6 cpu. They are basically the same price around $200. So around that price range it just depends which brand you would go for. I prefer the i5 and this months set up I appreciate what Tom tried to do.
I dont like systems Based on AMD's chipset
As opposed to Nvidia's chipset of which many in the past few years are well known for their overheating and failing? I've had an 8200m fail on me completely. My friend had his 6150 in his notebook overheat so badly his battery was at less than max capacity within a year (from heat exposure).
The only good ones have been the 6100 and the 7xxx series.
8 GB of RAM is still excessive...
well, all the adds i see for the amd six cores read "our six or their four?". I think a 1055 should be tested against a Hyperthreaded quad, and a non hyperthreaded quad. that would be an interesting test
What is with the AMD chip in this machine? I would have thought that a CoreI7 chip would have been a better choice!
8 GB of RAM is still excessive...
I would actually like to see a small article on RAM usage on a PC during various uses and scenarios and to show where more RAM or faster RAM would be more beneficial.
They are only showing the $2000 computer? What about the $500 and $1000 one?
Just plain stupid choice of components, don't blame AMD.Why didn't you choose single Radeon 5970 and 1090T,even with 8 gigs of RAM.