System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $2550 Performance PC

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Case, Power, And CPU Cooler

Case: Lian Li PC-9NA

ASRock’s X79 Extreme6 motherboard appeared to be a bargain, but that bargain came at the cost of slot layout. Since each graphics card requires an extra slot for cooling, a third card in the board’s bottom slot necessitated a case with an eighth expansion slot.

Read Customer Reviews of Lian Li's PC-9NA

Finding an eight-slot case for $100 wouldn’t be easy, since Newegg’s search engine bundles them with 7+1 (side slot) units. That eighth slot needed to be directly beneath the seventh slot in standard spacing. Combining fair performance with high build quality, Lian Li’s PC-9N should have sufficed…before the price went up. Currently, the black version is $95.

Power: Corsair HX850

My search for an 80 PLUS Gold (or better) power supply that could feed three GeForce GTX 760 graphics cards and a power-hungry Sandy Bridge-E-based CPU was complicated by the need to keep its price under $150. After scrolling past a list of brands I’ve never tested, Corsair’s HX850 became the clear choice.

Read Customer Reviews of Corsair's HX850

Semi-modular design means all the cables Corsair thinks you’ll need (motherboard and dual 6+2-pin PCIe) are permanently connected to the unit. Removable cables (four 6+2-pin PCIe, secondary EPS12V, and several SATA power cables) are packed in a separate bag.

CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011

Sandy Bridge-E-based processors are known to run hot. In fact, they require so much cooling that Intel doesn’t even pack them with its own solution. The firm instead suggests separately purchasing its own branded version of Asetek’s closed-loop liquid cooler.

Read Customer Reviews of Noctua's NH-D14 SE2011

But sealed liquid systems don’t do a very good job of cooling the motherboard-mounted voltage regulator, so I instead picked the award-winning Noctua NH-D14. Though the standard kit can be installed in LGA 1366 fashion, the SE2011 kit adds special springs and standoffs for LGA 2011’s integrated mounting bracket.

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.
88 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rolli59
    Nice one I got surprised, Tri SLI! I can see why editors wanted to try it knowing that the GTX770 is just an power efficient and overclocked GTX680.
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    3x7970's would decimate this build for the same amount of money...
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    The gaming benchmarks are surprisingly disappointing. Maybe going with a 3770K/4770k with three 7970 or 770 may have provides better results.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    11596966 said:
    3x7970's would decimate this build for the same amount of money...
    Not sure about decimating, but it would have cost a little more and not filled Paul's curiosity. IIRC, the 760 4GB's were around $20 cheaper on order day.

    On the other hand, Paul's single GPU was OK with 2GB. I figured we'd need a jump to 4GB with 3-way on his GPU, but 3GB on the 7970 probably would have been enough. Also, a total difference of $60 still would have fit within the budget limit, so, maybe Ivy-Bridge E and Radeons for the next build?

    11597019 said:
    This build proves that spending the most money does not equal to best performance.
    In order to prove what you're saying, I would have needed to search for worse-performing overpriced parts. You'll see on Day 4 that this build has the best performance of the three. So this build actually doesn't prove anything, except maybe that six core processors boost six-core benchmarks and that more graphics power gives you better frame rates at 5760x1080 (etc). But we didn't actually need any proof for those things, did we?
    Reply
  • lp231
    This build proves that spending the most money does not equal to best performance. It's all about balance and most of the time, it's getting 2 or more graphic cards that drives these systems pass the $2K mark. If I had $2550 to spend on a build, I know that half of the $2550 won't be going towards 3 graphic cards.
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    11596998 said:
    Maybe Ivy-Bridge E and Radeons for the next build?

    Tom, the future builds need to have better budget tiers. The doubling of the funds in each tier is fine in certain cases but it doesn't provide real insight into hardware choices. Having the tiers with a fixed figure increase such as a $250-400 increase in budget per tier would make more sense. Also, I would love to see the comeback of the $500 budget builds.

    Lastly, what happen to the idea of themes each quarter?
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    ^ Check the prices. A 7970 is the same price as the 4GB 760's. A 7970 is 20% faster than the a 760 and that lead grows at higher resolutions. Just look at how 3x7970's gain on 3xTitans...
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    ^ Check the prices. A 7970 is the same price as the 4GB 760's. A 7970 is 20% faster than the a 760 and that lead grows at higher resolutions. Just look at how 3x7970's gain on 3xTitans...
    Reply
  • Yargnit
    I'm assuming going with Nvida as opposed to AMD video cards had to do with AMD not fully supporting frame-pacing across multiple monitors and all settings. Thus with 3-way video cards they wanted to go with what would provide the smoothest experience.
    Reply
  • persuse
    not overclockable ram ?
    Reply