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System Builder Marathon Q3 2014: System Value Compared

System Builder Marathon Q3 2014: System Value Compared
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System Builder Marathon, Q3 2014: 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 Budget Gaming PC
Day 2: Our Mainstream Enthusiast System
Day 3: The $1600 High-End Build
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected

Our latest round of System Builder Marathon machines saw Paul and Don chasing bigger overclocks while I simply tried to fix mine. Purchased just before Intel launched Devil's Canyon, my machine last quarter was stuck with a mere 4.2 GHz CPU overclock that required a massive 1.28 V to reach. Lacking the Haswell update's cooling advantage, my -4770K appeared to be nothing more than a reject, cast off from Intel’s binning process as the company began stockpiling anything resembling a good die for its next new model. Or maybe it was just bad luck-of-the-draw.

Paul switched his $500 PC to Intel’s low-cost overclocking CPU, the Pentium G3258, after noting a new way to use cheap boards with unlocked CPUs.

Don took advantage of a long-standing $75 discount on Zotac’s factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 770, putting any savings on his $1000 PC towards a larger CPU cooler.

Meanwhile, I avoided the binning tomfoolery altogether by ordering its flagship Haswell-based Core i7-4790K, using a recent motherboard price drop to offset the CPU upcharge.

But wait, didn’t we call these $600, $1300, and $1600 builds? In theory, we’re supposed to have $500, $1000, and $1500 to cover mandatory hardware, and negotiations with all three builders yielded $100, $200, and $300 for stuff that wouldn’t be needed to make the system operational (the platform).

That leads to $600, $1200, and $1800 budgets including the operating system, case, optical drive, and accessories. Paul can’t fit anything more than the OS into his $100, so he refers to his platform budget at $450. Don overspends, so he just changed the name of his $1200 machine to $1300. And though more money was available to me, I’m still trying to fit all of my hardware into a 3x multiple of Paul’s total hardware budget.

Q3 2014 System Builder Marathon Components
 Q3 $600 PCQ2 $1300 PCQ3 $1600 PC
ProcessorIntel Pentium G3258
3.2 GHz, no Turbo Boost
Two Cores, 3 MB L3
Intel Core i5-4690K:
3.5 GHz-3.9 GHz
Four Cores, 6 MB L3
Intel Core i7-4790K:
4.0GHz-4.4GHz
Four Cores, 8 MB L3
GraphicsSapphire Dual-X
100365L 2 GB
Radeon R9 270
Zotac AMP! Superclocked
ZT-70303-10P 3 GB
GeForce GTX 770
PowerColor PCS+
AXR9 290X 4 GB
Radeon R9 290X
MotherboardMSI H81M-P33:
LGA 1150, Intel H81
ASRock Z97 Killer:
LGA1150, Intel Z97
MSI Z97 Gaming 5:
LGA 1150, Intel Z97
MemoryTeam Dark
TDBD38G1600HC9DC01
DDR3-1600 C9, 8 GB
G.Skill Trident
F3-2400C10D-8GTD
DDR3-2400 C10, 8 GB
G.Skill Ripjaws X
F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM
DDR3-1600 C8, 8 GB
System DriveWD Blue WD10EZEX:
1 TB, SATA 6Gb/s HDD
ASP920SS3-128GM-C
128 GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
Plextor M6S PX-256M6S:
256 GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
PowerAntec VP-450:
450 W Non-Modular
No Efficiency Rating
IN WIN GreenMe 650
650 W Non-Modular
80 PLUS Bronze
EVGA Supernova 750 B2:
750 W Semi-Modular
80 PLUS Bronze
CPU CoolerIntel Boxed CPU CoolerNoctua NH-D14Phanteks PH-TC14PE
 Platform $455 $946 $1,397
Storage DriveUses System DriveWD Blue WD10EZEX:
1 TB, SATA 6Gb/s HDD
WD Blue WD10EZEX:
1 TB, SATA 6Gb/s HDD
OpticalLG GH24NSB0B:
24x DVD±R, 48x CD-R
Asus DRW-24B1ST:
24x DVD±R, 48x CD-R
LG GH24NSB0B:
24x DVD±R, 48x CD-R
CaseRosewill ChallengerCooler Master HAF XM
RC-922XM-KKN1
Enermax Ostrog GT
ECA3280A-BR
 Total HW $523 $1146 $1535
OSWindows 8.1 x64 OEM
 Total Price $623 $1246 $1635

Though I blamed a lackluster CPU sample for my previous overclocking woes, I wanted to remove all doubt from your minds concerning this quarter’s build. Choosing a cheaper case allowed me to spend more on CPU cooling. Don had the same idea, but chose to add the cost of a similar cooler on top of his budget. He did keep the total cost below $1250 though, so I still would have probably called it a slightly over-budget $1200 PC rather than pretend its budget was higher. Then again, I’m treating my $1800 budget as if it were $1600…

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  • 1 Hide
    ingtar33 , September 26, 2014 12:37 PM
    Agree with your conclusions. My personal experience on intel dual cores back it up. the performance drop off from a true quad core is far too extreme to justify the saved money. While it might give you great bang for your buck, the tradeoffs are just too extreme if you plan to use it for more then just a steambox.
  • 0 Hide
    Onus , September 26, 2014 12:58 PM
    All three machines in this quarter's SBM were well-devised and well-executed IMHO. All three are similar to what I might build for myself at similar budgets.
    The first I think I'd build as an uncle-nephew project, then he and his sisters would have an excellent homework machine that would be capable of some fun too.
    Either the second or third I'd mix and match with some of my own parts, but their platforms would become my new primary machine, just to update what I've got. I'd love to win any of them.
  • 1 Hide
    DouglasThurman , September 26, 2014 2:33 PM
    I think to spice things up their next build-off should make static one item...like the CPU, and then have them all build low, middle and high end systems around that item. And spice it up by going either Intel or AMD. The whole "Don't include items which don't affect performance" should be thrown out the door and include stuff like that. I mean when I build a system I have to take everything into account, not just the juicy bits.
  • 4 Hide
    centralpoint , September 26, 2014 2:54 PM
    It's past time to get rid of 1600x900 and make 1920x1080 the base line resolution. Also you guys need to add 2560x1440, it is starting to become the new norm. My high school son and I do not now anybody who uses 1600x900. He says it is old fashion tech for desktops.
  • 1 Hide
    DXRick , September 26, 2014 7:48 PM
    If one were thinking of building a Haswell-E-Based system instead (X99 motherboard, 5820K CPU and DDR4 RAM), what would be the performance and price difference?

    Thanks.
  • 0 Hide
    Crashman , September 26, 2014 8:16 PM
    Quote:
    It's past time to get rid of 1600x900 and make 1920x1080 the base line resolution. Also you guys need to add 2560x1440, it is starting to become the new norm. My high school son and I do not now anybody who uses 1600x900. He says it is old fashion tech for desktops.
    The new norm? We all have 2560x1600 displays and were told to quit using them because they were outdated. They don't support 2560x1440 though, and "it's the new norm" is not going to convince everyone to buy new hardware to enable the downgrade from 2560x1600 to 2560x1440. Eventually we'll all upgrade to 4k displays, it's just not needed for everyone yet.

    Conversely, 1600x900 and 1280x720 ARE able to run on 1920x1080 displays.

    Nobody thinks you're using a 1600x900 display. 1600x900 is a backup resolution for people who want to run 1920x1080 with super-high quality, but find that their graphics card is too weak. Options for a slightly-underpowered graphics card are to set 1600x900, which looks good on a 1920x1080 display, or to use lower quality settings. If you're not geek enough to know that, you've no room to complain.

    Quote:
    If one were thinking of building a Haswell-E-Based system instead (X99 motherboard, 5820K CPU and DDR4 RAM), what would be the performance and price difference?

    Thanks.
    The motherboard would cost around $120 more, the CPU $50 more, and the DRAM at least $50 more to reach slightly lower overall performance rating (DDR4-2133 CAS 16, for example). The added threads would allow faster encoding and compiling times in roughly 20% of the tests, while lower clock rate would cause slower performance in nearly all the other tests. We'd probably be lucky to break even on this benchmark set, while spending more money.

  • 0 Hide
    Amdlova , September 26, 2014 9:50 PM
    For what I need today... Just a p3 1000mhz will be fine to me. the 600us machine its perfect fine to me. With mantle and direct x 12 i will never spend again 360us on one processor. I will get a pentium g3258 and a 390x. I miss the old days with the e7300 Oc at 5.0ghz
  • 0 Hide
    centralpoint , September 26, 2014 11:19 PM
    crashman 1080x720? I think you meant 1280x720 which will display on a 2560x1440 monitor along with 1600x900 and 1920x1080. Who is telling you to get rid of your monitor? I know it is possible to display 1600x900 on a 1920x1080 monitor, if you read my post it only says the resolution and does not specify a monitor. I added the last sentence because I thought it was funny what he thinks is old tech. He is always asking me about the olden days back in the 80's. Anyways most people I know are wanting to, or already have upgraded to a 1440 monitor that's why I said the new norm.
    Thanks for not thinking of me as a geek now go tell that to my ex-wife.
  • 0 Hide
    Crashman , September 26, 2014 11:29 PM
    Quote:
    crashman 1080x720? I think you meant 1280x720 which will display on a 2560x1440 monitor along with 1600x900 and 1920x1080. Who is telling you to get rid of your monitor? I know it is possible to display 1600x900 on a 1920x1080 monitor, if you read my post it only says the resolution and does not specify a monitor. I added the last sentence because I thought it was funny what he thinks is old tech. He is always asking me about the olden days back in the 80's. Anyways most people I know are wanting to, or already have upgraded to a 1440 monitor that's why I said the new norm.
    Thanks for not thinking of me as a geek now go tell that to my ex-wife.
    You asked for the drop of the lower resolution (1600x900) because nobody uses it any more. I explained why some people will use it on their 1920x1080 display, to gain a few FPS without lowering details.

    People asked us a long time ago to quit with the 2560x1600 tests because hardly anyone had 2560x1600 monitors. And our 2560x1600 monitors won't do 2560x1440, so we'd have to pay for a new "QHD" monitor in order to drop to 2560x1440 from our long-forgotten 2560x1600.

    3x 1920x1080 is cheap enough for most high-end builders (I got my screen for around $120 each), and gives you the advantage of peripheral vision. Gaming is pretty cool in "Surround", a lot of guys even prefer it.

  • 0 Hide
    ralanahm , September 27, 2014 6:57 AM
    I have noticed that the lowest system never has a hybrid drive like a seagate 1tb desktop drive the price is less than $20 more and would make the pc more snappy about 80% of the time. It is totally worth it for regular work I got one and cloned my work laptop and now my 6 year old laptop is great now for office work.
  • 0 Hide
    de5_Roy , September 27, 2014 11:11 AM
    Quote:
    For what I need today... Just a p3 1000mhz will be fine to me. the 600us machine its perfect fine to me. With mantle and direct x 12 i will never spend again 360us on one processor. I will get a pentium g3258 and a 390x. I miss the old days with the e7300 Oc at 5.0ghz

    for playing mantle-enabled titles, ..... may be. as long as amd properly supports it and the game developer as well. but mantle and dx12 won't help with overall non-gaming application performance, even after overclocking.
  • 0 Hide
    ingtar33 , September 27, 2014 11:35 AM
    Quote:
    I have noticed that the lowest system never has a hybrid drive like a seagate 1tb desktop drive the price is less than $20 more and would make the pc more snappy about 80% of the time. It is totally worth it for regular work I got one and cloned my work laptop and now my 6 year old laptop is great now for office work.


    they don't work that good. my experiences with them have been rather discouraging. i'll take a high end Hard drive or a low end SSD over a hybrid any day of the week.
  • 0 Hide
    DuckTrivia101 , September 28, 2014 2:29 PM
    Too many typos in this article.
  • 0 Hide
    eodeo , September 28, 2014 9:02 PM
    While theoretically "free", the added speed from overclocks is depressing in both higher end systems. Focusing on gaming alone, you can simply conclude that the added speed from overclocks is depressing... from 29 to 31fps... sigh.
  • 0 Hide
    Crashman , September 29, 2014 12:11 AM
    Quote:
    Too many typos in this article.

    Are you a "one is too many" reader, or are there like a dozen of them? If they're in the tables I'd like to know, because I copy and paste stuff and miss it. If they're in the body our copy editors might like to know.
    Quote:
    While theoretically "free", the added speed from overclocks is depressing in both higher end systems. Focusing on gaming alone, you can simply conclude that the added speed from overclocks is depressing... from 29 to 31fps... sigh.
    This happens when the card is already close to its limit. Sometimes we get lucky, often we don't. I've had much better luck with the "CPU lottery".

  • 0 Hide
    Rapajez , September 29, 2014 12:55 PM
    I wonder how much difference in gaming you'd get in the $1600 build by dropping the i7 to an i5, and the R9 290X to a 290(non-X). I'd imagine the gaming performance would only take a slight hit, while the price drops ~$200.

    Granted that's only gaming, and 60% of this score is other stuff.
  • 0 Hide
    zakaron , September 29, 2014 1:35 PM
    Another great System Builder series! All 3 were good systems (too bad about having to cut the RAM heatsink though), but that Pentium with stock cooler really impressed. Paired with the R9 270, it made for a potent build at this price point. Thank you Tom's!
  • 0 Hide
    Dumbass_Too , September 29, 2014 9:44 PM
    Crashman makes several good points. I have a back-ordered 970 on the way for my 2nd build (1st was 2500k for wife) and I was questioning the 5820 cpu against the 4790. Thankfully I read this before getting the 5820. Crashman, do you feel the same about the 5930 or 5960 with 40 lanes, price aside? Thanks
  • 0 Hide
    Crashman , September 30, 2014 12:42 AM
    Quote:
    Crashman makes several good points. I have a back-ordered 970 on the way for my 2nd build (1st was 2500k for wife) and I was questioning the 5820 cpu against the 4790. Thankfully I read this before getting the 5820. Crashman, do you feel the same about the 5930 or 5960 with 40 lanes, price aside? Thanks
    IMO you buy LGA 2011-v3 to get 40 lanes, 6 cores, or both.The 5820k is the example where you get the cores, but with much of the cache disabled so that it resembles a 6-core heavily underclocked version of the 4790K. Bad deal for most users, even most power users, but there are probably a few production machines where it could be useful.

    Your decision gets complicated as you move up to the 5930K and 5960X, because you have to look even more closely at the balance of applications you're running. Many power users will likely benefit from the 5960X's added cores, enough to offset its smaller frequency deficiency. Some will even benefit from the 5930K. And you get all 40 lanes with both of those.

    Because the 5960X and 5930K are not as slow or as crippled as the 5820K, it's far more difficult not to consider them in any performance build where you have the money. And so, you end up spending a few hours poring over the performance charts and figuring out how much time you spend at each task.

  • 0 Hide
    Dumbass_Too , September 30, 2014 12:16 PM
    Crashman thanks for your response. With Broadwell and Skylake around the corner, I think it's best to stick with a 4790k for the next couple years. If we get a Skylake-K chip in 2016, the DDR4 prices should settle down by that point and I would consider switching. Maybe I'l even wait for Canonlake. IDK
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