System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2009: $2,500 Performance PC
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Page 1:Our Most Powerful Build Yet?
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Page 2:Graphics And Power
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Page 3:Motherboard, CPU, And RAM
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Page 4:CPU Cooling And Case
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Page 5:Storage
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Page 6:Hardware Installation
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Page 7:Overclocking
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Page 8:Test Settings
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Page 9:Benchmark Results: Crysis And Fallout 3
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Page 10:Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2 And H.A.W.X.
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Page 11:Benchmark Results: World In Conflict
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Page 12:Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
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Page 13:Benchmark Results: Productivity
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Page 14:Benchmark Results: Synthetics
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Page 15:Power, Heat, And Efficiency
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Page 16:Uncompromising…Compromises?
Motherboard, CPU, And RAM
The ability to support two high-performance graphics cards at adequate bandwidth, plus a top-overclocking Nehalem-based processor, was the primary concern we had for our motherboard selection. Because so much money had been spent on graphics, we also wanted a bargain price. Recently awarded for its excellent value, Gigabyte’s P55-UD4P fit the build perfectly.
At $170, the P55-UD4P is one of the least-expensive motherboards to support both high-amperage CPU overclocks and automatic pathway switching for two PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards. While the extra PCIe pathways of an X58-based solution might have proven slightly better from a performance standpoint, the higher price of entry would have killed our budget.
CPU: Intel Core i7-860
Lacking any stock-speed performance benefits compared to its Bloomfield-based predecessors, our experience has shown that Lynnfield-based processors are still slightly better for overclocking and usually run a little cooler. Overclocking at a reduced cost is key to our final value analysis, so the only remaining question was “which one?”
At around half the price of Intel’s 2.93 GHz Core i7-870, the i7-860 provides most of the clock speed and, hopefully, most of the overclocking capability of its high-priced sibling. For an extra $80 compared to the 2.66 GHz i5-750, the i7-860 benefits from a higher 2.80 GHz base clock, a higher five-bin maximum Intel Turbo Boost multiplier increase, and an increase to eight virtual cores via Hyper-Threading that can help keep the execution pipeline full. Comparing price to potential performance makes the Core i7-860 appear to be the best-value product to fit within our $2,500 budget.
DRAM: Two Crucial CT2KIT25664BA1339 4GB Memory Kits
The most highly awarded memory we’ve ever used, Crucial’s DDR3-1333 CAS 9 consistently impresses us with a low price and superb overclocking capabilities even after testing several kits, usually purchased from Newegg.
Most builders would expect us to use so-called “high-end” memory in a $2,500 machine, but our budget would have limited us to 4.0GB of the expensive stuff. Crucial’s low-cost kits get us close to the high rated speeds of high-priced parts while leaving enough room to expand our configuration to an impressive 8.0GB.
- Our Most Powerful Build Yet?
- Graphics And Power
- Motherboard, CPU, And RAM
- CPU Cooling And Case
- Storage
- Hardware Installation
- Overclocking
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: Crysis And Fallout 3
- Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2 And H.A.W.X.
- Benchmark Results: World In Conflict
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Synthetics
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Uncompromising…Compromises?
Cpus are almost identical in price, wich leaves only the MB.
UD4P - 170
UD3R - 188
I think in my book it would have been worth the $18.
The other thing thats a bit overpriced is the HDD as mentioned. At $300 for 2TB, thats $150/TB. 1.5TB drives cost that much, put in 3 drives and save $150 and have .5TB more space.
Aside from that, good build.
Tom's.
I am disappoint.
Aside from that, the build is nice, and I can't wait to see the other ones.
The $860 dollars spent on video cards and $600 for hard drives is a waste. This system should have went with one 2TB WD Caviar Black hard drive for storage and then a 160GB SSD hard drive as the main drive. For a video card, one Radeon 5870 is more then enough, the money saved by not buying a second 5870 should have gone to buying a good full tower case and better CPU cooler.
Yes I was thinking just that.... an SSD for the master, and a 1tb or a 2tb for backup slave drive.... then a 5970. That would have been ideal as this is considered high end.....
Yes we know you're a disappointment. Geez you're worse than kevin parrish.
$300 for a 2TB drive? Are you insane? How can you possibly justify not getting 2 x 1TB Caviar Blacks for $200 total and then getting an SSD?
2 X 5870 for $860 over 5970 for $650? How much of a performance difference can you possibly expect with Crucial CAS 9-9-9-28 over CORSAIR XMS3 9-9-9-24 which costs $90 for 4GB?
No water cooling on a system that costs $2500?
This is the worst build I've ever seen at this price point.
did you even read the final page?
Programs start faster but with the exception of Crysis at super-high resolutions and PCMark, the SBM benchmark set doesn't show noticeable performance gains.
First of all, there WASN'T ENOUGH MONEY to do that. The options were, $600 to buy 160GB worth of X25-M SSD's, OR two 2TB Caviar Blacks OR a single 80GB X25-M and a single Caviar Black. 80GB isn't enough to hold all the programs, 160GB isn't enough for long term storage, so two 2.0 TB drives were picked to at least add the redundancy option.
Next time try being honest about prices. A cheaper-but-adequate option would have been two 1.0 TB drives where the left over money could have been put towards something else.
At least you were honest here, but to hell with full towers. Mid-towers are beter. OH, but maybe I jumped the gun on calling you honest, as the article specifically stated that there were no other large coolers available at the time the purchase was made.
Read much? The parts were ordered before the 5970 hit the shelves, and even today you cannot buy that 5970. This is of course covered in the article.
Read much? There's a link to the memory comparison AND plenty of overclocking data in the article. The Crucial memory is better, it overclocks better, it supports tighter timings, and it cost less. Who would be stupid enough to pay more for worse parts?
Wait, you want Tom's Hardware to add $200 in hard drives, buy more expensive RAM, and add a $200 water cooler, and still keep the system under $2500? Your math needs work.
How about building a $4000 or $5000 COMPLETE SYSTEM which includes the monitor(s), speakers, keyboard, mouse and other accessories?
More:
Most of the parts are the same as a system I was considering (I decided to wait on NVidia). The main difference was a single WD 2TB, a second 1TB green WD and an Auzentech sound card. I do appreciate the reasons for your build as a "Power" system as well as price constrainsts to keep it in your $2500 build goal.
As for a future build for yourselves (and myself) the big question concerns NVidia's new DX11 cards. And for that, we'll just have to wait and see.
If the Gulftown CPU was $600 or lower (yeah, right) I'd probably end up with something like this:
- Intel Gulftown CPU (6C/12T, 32nm)
- NVidia 2xSLI of their new flagship single-GPU DX11 graphics card
- 6GB DDR3
- 2TB WD hard drive etc
I know I'll likely go with the i7-920. I did want the 860, however the graphics bandwidth prevents much more than 2xHD5870's; it's my understanding that two of these cards are very close to maxing out 16xPCIe 2.0 (I wish PCIe bandwidth was on the video card box). On the other hand this system is so powerful by the time I upgrade a new system would likely be in order. It's also very possible that this is my last PC. I think the future is Gaming Consoles. I'll buy my first one in 2012. I also think this generation of Console will mark the slow death of PC gaming especially if they really support switching between an HDTV setup and a monitor setup (including keyboard and mouse). This is another story but it is a factor in how much upgradeability I want in my next PC.
SSD's are about two years away from being the quality, size and price I want.
Other considerations:
- LucidLogix Hydra technology (more motherboards and testing needed but it looks promising on MSI's Big Bang)
- Pros and Cons of NVidia vs ATI (Idle power consumption, PhysX, Price, game optimizations, CUDA etc)
- audio
- NVidia, bring back Hybridpower for 0W idle!
(It's interesting to note how many people didn't read the article fully before commenting which is evident due to the nature of complaints about the parts chosen.)
Thanks for the comments. There were a few problems with the build and a few comprimises over the lack of available parts at order time, but much of what was learned had to be learned by experience. Thanks also for noticing the list of alternative choices in the conclusion.
Sorry about the confusion concerning the recent Vista vs Win7 article, but that one focused mostly on launch times. While launch times are important to daily use, the only place it shows up in the SBM benchmark set is in PCMark. PCMark scores aren't even used in the final performance tally, so the difference between Vista and Win7 is basically zilch. See:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-performance,2442.html?xtmc=benchmarking_windows_7&xtcr=1
Put in 2x ssd and get a lot of performance. Its that simple, you see in the graphs that you don't need more to get enough frames on even 2560 x1600. Also the 8gb seems to do very little and imho still pretty useless except for some very special tasks no ordinary person uses. But getting stuff started faster and snappier is a lot better then 10 frames extra on a framerate of 60+.
Also try and get some games that use dx10/11 for the comparisons, that would make it a lot more interesting. Using windows 7 is very good I like you people made that switch fast! kudos!
As for the rest of the build, my choice exactly, the midrange limit cpu and mobo provide the stuff we need.
To stow means to hide. The case has a place to hide (stow) cables
I hope the next will be better with ssd, better graphic and for god's sake a better looking case!
by the way, good job toms
And no SSD's? :\
oops. haven't thought of that. I stand corrected.
It's a nice case and has two intake fans. With the power supply, it also has two exaust fans. I can't understand why people keep getting those crappy huge cases with vents that serve no other purpose than to let noise out.
Also, the 2tb drives are expensive. Go with three 1.5 tb drives, get more space AND save a good amount of money.