The $1200 and $1600 machines employ different models of the same quad-core Haswell-based die. Don's Core i5 doesn't benefit from Hyper-Threading though, and 2 MB of its shared L3 cache is disabled compared to my Core i7. The i5 is also clocked 100 MHz slower by default, but Don was able to overclock his -4670K 100 MHz higher than my Core i7.
Still, the i7 wins this face-off, demonstrating the benefits of parallelization, even through a technology like Hyper-Threading, where two threads are scheduled to each physical core.

My more conservatively-overclocked high-end machine also enjoys an advantage in Sandra's Cryptography module, though we know that this is related to memory bandwidth available for shuttling instructions to the processor's cores.

Sure enough, there's the source of my advantage (at least in the AES-NI-accelerated Encoding metric). Memory bandwidth charts should never scale proportionally to system price. But this one does. That’s partly because Don doesn’t overclock his memory, and lets it run at underclocked defaults as a baseline. At the other end of the chart, Paul can blame AMD's integrated memory controller for the $600 machine’s poor results.
Fortunately for both of my fellow editors, real-world software rarely reflects memory bandwidth with a 1:1 relationship. It's more likely that we'd see slightly lower performance in certain tests attributable to these numbers.

- A SBM Based On Reader Feedback
- How We Tested Our Q2 2014 SBM Builds
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Battlefield 4
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: Arma 3
- Results: Far Cry 3
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Results: Power And Heat
- Results: Overall Performance And Efficiency
- Our System Builder Marathon, By The Numbers
I got my two licenses for like, $20. Though I probably couldn't get any more like that, I don't need any more at the moment, thanks. If you don't want the OS, and you win my PC, just tell me and I'll keep it. Thanks!
Disposition should I be a fortunate winner:
1. Having not messed with a "new" Athlon, I might put a 92mm cooler on it and see what I can get out of it for a week or three. I'd almost certainly contribute a SSD to it, then most likely donate it to a startup I know of that actually is more in need of office-type PCs (but they do play some games).
2. If the motherboard were micro-ATX, I'd probably use most of these parts to upgrade / replace my Phoenix PC, as they represent a platform upgrade. It would be a substantial upgrade to my Omega PC, but I like the idea of maintaining that AM3+ system due to the overall quality of the parts in it. If the Apevia case surprises me due to its quality, I may use it anyway. One way or another, this would lead to another complete system donation though.
3. The parts in this one appear to be of sufficient quality / durability that I would probably end up forsaking the Omega PC for this one. I'd put its 990FX onto my test bench though to keep it around, and donate that one (MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming) as above.
Id also want system build for NAS and UPS and things. If you want to put your swap file in your memory. Get a UPS and link it so if the power fails you computer will shut down correctly. I wish they would of put that in this article.
Power outage is a b+ch. I have not done this but i wish there would be an article on UPS's that work well and turn off everything orderly.
It would be good if we had load shedding and other particulars to make the reliability higher. Id like a solar system with load shedding
I really wish they make more articles on upgrades or recycling, that would coexist with these new builds. I believe most Tom viewers, correct me if I am wrong, are not new to computers. For instance, I had an aging OC'd i7930 x58 with triple channel memory, the mobo died after many years, but tracking down a x58 board new is impossible today. So I had about $300 at the time to spend on a new CPU/MOBO (Im saving up for X99 btw) and wanted to use my old DDR3 1600 memory, SSD , HD, video card, and case.... Now what would be a good recommendation for that scenario? I went the following specs on my signature... $270 + about $30 shipping to Hawaii... :|