System Builder Marathon Q1 2014: System Value Compared

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Benchmark And Overclocking Configurations

By using a non-K-series processor and a motherboard without much overclocking flexibility, Paul misses most of the thrill that would have come from tweaking his $750 system. Graphics is all that remains for him to optimize.

In the first day of this quarter's System Builder Marathon, I mentioned that my huge liquid cooler could be seen by some as a waste of money, since the Core i7-4770K's die seems to suffer from thermal density issues. I guessed I'd shed no more than 3 °C and gain no more than 100 MHz compared to my results with larger air coolers. We see that 100 MHz difference here, even though the $1600 machine’s heat sink is slightly smaller those I had in mind.

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Test Hardware Configurations
Row 0 - Cell 0 $750 Gaming PC$1600 Enthusiast PC$2400 Reader's PC
Processor (Overclock)Intel Core i3-4130: 3.4 GHz, Two Physical Cores No O/CIntel Core i7-4770K: 3.5 - 3.9 GHz, Four Physical CoresO/C to 4.4 GHz, 1.20 VIntel Core i7-4770K: 3.5 - 3.9 GHz, Four Physical CoresO/C to 4.5 GHz, 1.25 V
Graphics (Overclock)Zotac GeForce GTX 770: 1098 MHz GPU, GDDR5-7010O/C to 1283 MHz, GDDR5-7610Galaxy GeForce GTX 780: 928 MHz GPU, GDDR5-7000O/C to 1128 MHz, GDDR5-73002 x EVGA GeForce GTX 780: 902 MHz GPU, GDDR5-6008O/C to 1059 MHz, GDDR5-6720
Memory (Overclock)8 GB Adata DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-24, No O/C8 GB Corsair DDR3-1866 CAS 9-10-9-27, No O/C16 GB G.Skill DDR3-1866 CAS 9-10-9-28, O/C to DDR3-2133 CL 10-11-10-28, 1.585 V
Motherboard (Overclock)Asus H81M-K: LGA 1150, Intel H81 ExpressStock 100 MHz BCLKASRock Z87 Pro3: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 ExpressStock 100 MHz BCLKASRock Z87 Extreme4: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 ExpressStock 100 MHz BCLK
CaseRosewill Line-MNZXT Phantom 410NZXT Phantom 410
CPU CoolerIntel Core i3 boxed coolerCooler Master Hyper 212 EVOThermaltake CLW0217 Water 2.0 Extreme
Hard DriveWestern Digital WD10EZEX: 1 TB, 7200 RPM, 64 MB CacheSamsung MZ-7TE120BW 120 GB, SATA 6Gb/s SSDSanDisk SDSSDHP-256G-G2 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
PowerRosewill Capstone-450-M: 450 W Semi-Modular, 80 PLUS GoldCorsair TX650: 650 W, 80 PLUS BronzeCorsair HX750: 750 W Semi-Modular, 80 PLUS Gold
Software
OSMicrosoft Windows 8 Pro x64
GraphicsNvidia ForceWare 332.21 WHQLNvidia GeForce 334.89Nvidia GeForce 335.23
ChipsetIntel INF 9.4.0.1017Intel INF 9.4.0.1026Intel INF 9.4.0.1026
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Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Battlefield 4Version 1.0.0.1, DirectX 11, 100-sec. Fraps "Tashgar" Test Set 1: Medium Quality Preset, No AA, 4X AF, SSAO Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Preset,  4X MSAA, 16X AF, HBAO
Grid 2Version 1.0.85.8679, Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA Test Set 2: Ultra Quality, 8x MSAA
Arma 3Version 1.08.113494, 30-Sec. Fraps "Infantry Showcase" Test Set 1: Standard Preset, No AA, Standard AF Test Set 2: Ultra Preset, 8x FSAA, Ultra AF
Far Cry 3V. 1.04, DirectX 11, 50-sec. Fraps "Amanaki Outpost" Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA, Standard ATC, SSAO Test Set 2: Ultra Quality, 4x MSAA, Enhanced ATC, HDAO
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe After Effects CCVersion 12.0.0.404: Create Video which includes 3 Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously
Adobe Photoshop CCVersion 14.0 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates
Adobe Premeire Pro CCVersion 7.0.0 (342), 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality
Audio/Video Encoding
iTunesVersion 11.0.4.4 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.99: Video from Canon Eos 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile)
TotalCode Studio 2.5Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Productivity
ABBYY FineReaderVersion 10.0.102.95: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
Adobe Acrobat 11Version 11.0.0.379: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption
Autodesk 3ds Max 2013Version 15.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080
BlenderVersion: 2.68A, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1
Visual Studio 2010Version 10.0, Compile Google Chrome, Scripted
File Compression
WinZipVersion 18.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r"
WinRARVersion 5.0: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3"
7-ZipVersion 9.30 alpha (64-bit): THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5"
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
3DMark 11Version: 1.0.5.0, Benchmark Only
3DMark ProfessionalVersion: 1.2.250.0 (64-bit), Fire Strike Benchmark
PCMark 8Version: 1.0.0 x64, Full Test
SiSoftware SandraVersion 2014.02.20.10, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia / Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth Benchmarks

Several application benchmarks have been updated for today’s presentation, so some of the numbers might appear inconsistent with previous articles, including individual build articles from this series.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
45 Comments Comment from the forums
  • blackmagnum
    Paul always wins. Why not switch it up sometime?
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    You really should add noise measurements on those builds. I'd much rather have a low noise system with mediocre performance than a fast but loud system. For that reason I returned my 7990 card in december and decided to stick with my trusty old 6950 that wasn't causing tinitus
    Reply
  • redgarl
    Value is such a contradicting analysis. If your goal is to be 4k ready, the the two cheapest build are not going to make the cut. It's all depending on your needs.Also, for any single graphic card, I would cut on the CPU. There is no need to link a 4770k with a single 780 GTX.
    Reply
  • vertexx
    Nice work with the targeted High End Gaming value analysis! I'd 2nd switching it up so that Paul doesn't always win....

    A couple of thoughts:

    1. Is it true that gaming only gets 20-30% of the overall performance weighting? If so, I'd suggest moving that up to at least 50%. Even though I'm one for a balanced system, I still think the amount of $$ you're spending on the graphics capability should be reflected more in the overall performance rating.

    2. There is quite a bit of back-and-forth on the impact of power consumption on these forums, and I think this competition would be a great place to factor in and raise awareness on the real costs of power consumption. I understand that electricity costs and system use varies greatly. But I would add in another value analysis incorporating the present value of 3 years' electricity costs using a discount rate (simple excel function 'pv'). Of course you would have to make some broad assumptions around average power, hours of use per day, whether or not you idle the system 24x7, and electricity cost, but I think the present value of 3 year electricity cost would make a decent impact on your value calculations across these systems.
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    12974969 said:
    Of course you would have to make some broad assumptions around average power, hours of use per day, whether or not you idle the system 24x7, and electricity cost, but I think the present value of 3 year electricity cost would make a decent impact on your value calculations across these systems.

    I would suggest making a forum poll regarding this. From my steam library I can tell that I've been playing games on average 2.25 hours a day over the last 5 years, and since the bulk of my games are on steam (1400+) it's not much below my real usage. However despite being a gamer I find myself having the computer either idle or playing youtube etc for an amount equal to the time I'm playing games. Assuming I'm around average, with regards to gaming:idling ratio, that'd mean perhaps 3 hours gaming and 3 hours idle/video playback a day on average.
    Reply
  • Gin Fushicho
    Your link is broken.
    Reply
  • geoffrey4283
    I'm not sure if this is what Gin Fushicho is referring to, but SurveyGizmo has been subject to a DDoS attack for the last ~24 hours, making your contest survey inaccessible.
    Reply
  • winwiz
    Yes to me and most people I know, cost for power and noise is more important than 199 FPS in BF4
    Reply
  • geofelt
    A typo:Your $750 build used a i3-4130, not the i7-4770K listed in the tested configurations
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    the links at the top of the page aren't enabled. the 4th link for value comparison is disabled on all 3 of the sbm pages.

    i didn't agree with any of the motherboard choices in this quarter's build. despite that, all three builds were very interesting in terms of performance, choice of parts and builds.
    my takeaway from this is that ddr3 1333 is not the baseline for cheap system memory anymore. 2x 4GB ddr3 1600 and higher, especially 2x 8GB ddr3 1866 or higher memory is optimum for performance. don not enabling xmp for the $1600 pc's stock performance analysis helped me understand this.
    haswell i7 ramped power and heat really high after 4.4ghz and bit more voltage. both were higher than don's previous o.c. of i5 4670k with asus z87-a board. i still don't like asrock. can you guys compare o.c. clockrates, temperature and voltage of haswell cpus used in sbm in q4 to see which combo was better? imo it'd help with how haswell behaves in real pcs instead of open test benches or test pcs.
    Reply