Power, Heat, Efficiency And Value
The new build maxes out at 594W pulled from the plug when fully loaded and fully overclocked. Even at 90% efficiency, that means the power supply never had to output more than 535W. A 600W-rated unit of adequate quality could have supported the load with current to spare.
Using December’s build as the baseline, we find that the new machine offers up to 92% as much storage performance and up to 130% of the average graphics performance when it's overclocked.
The new machine also required 43% more power, which offsets its 6% stock-clocked performance gain to introduce a 26% efficiency loss. Overclocked power numbers are even worse, offsetting an 11% overall performance gain to force a 29% efficiency deficit.
Value
Since my machine sits at low load most of the time, I don’t personally put much stock in overall efficiency. I want the power to be there only on the rare occasions that I need it, and am happy to use non-efficiency performance scores to guide my purchases.
A 7%-higher system price and 6%-higher performance mean that today’s machine starts off 1%-down in value. Poor DRAM and GPU overclocking also prevent it from taking a value win over the previous overclocked configuration. Value scoring of today’s build looks even worse for upgraders, as the parts you need are a greater portion of the overall system price.
All of this data means that the system fails to provide the extra $150 worth of performance that our new budget should have allowed. It can't even eliminate unrealistic compromises with its lack of a $55 storage drive. The memory upgrade didn’t exactly pan out either, since the big boost in one benchmark was balanced by small losses in others.
But I do understand why so many readers wanted to see an SLI upgrade. If gaming is your only performance priority, and if you only game at high resolutions, you’ll love the extra graphics performance enabled by SLI. Today’s build is a far better high-end gaming value compared to previous efforts.
In spite of the gaming prowess demonstrated today, I’m still a big proponent of the do-everything machine. Following the suggestion of a couple other readers, I’ve gotten permission for a Day 5 SBM bonus build that offers more CPU, rather than GPU, performance. But first, let’s see how this machine compares to the cheaper build in tomorrow’s race to the official finish line!
