System Builder Marathon Bonus: Newegg Customer Choice PC

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Paying The Price In Power And Efficiency

Both Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti and AMD's Radeon HD 7970 are known to be fairly efficient, but the Radeon HD 7970 employs a newer 28 nm manufacturing process and a handful of technologies specifically intended to help reduce power consumption. As a result, Don's $1300 PC takes one of its few wins in our power-conservation chart. And that's not a bad place to show some dominance, since we'll be considering efficiency here in a second.

Significant performance advantages could end up being offset by the Customer Choice PC’s higher power consumption in our efficiency charts. Let's set the $1300 build’s performance as our 100% baseline.

Since nothing can be more than 100% efficient, we move the baseline to “0” in our efficiency charts by subtracting one from our Performance/Power calculation.

Today's Customer Choice PC remains inefficient, regardless of its excellent performance. Overclocking actually improves its efficiency rating, since performance scales upward at a higher rate than power.

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.
75 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mikenygmail
    Nice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.
    Reply
  • Pezcore27
    Is it sad I liked this build the best out of them all?
    Reply
  • a4mula
    Interesting, still not surprising given recent results in group dynamic studies. Groups will often make better choices than individuals, that's not to say a group can replace or perform on par with an expert individual, just better than the average.
    Reply
  • aznshinobi
    Just saying, Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 would save some and not bad rated. Could go for something like the OCZ ZT 750w which also is solidly rated, both saving money and offering similar if not better performance. For the GPUs, probably would've been better just to go with 2x7850 just to see how it does after all I haven't seen a whole bunch of those benchmarks.

    Understood that this is best on best rated components, just saying it would've been nice to see the ones I mentioned for a value build.
    Reply
  • mikenygmailNice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.
    Yeah that was what I was thinking, if you have a 2560x1600 monitor then the 2 6950s wont see that performance hit at that res like the 560ti's do. And would outperform the 7970 as a result while still costing enough less to move up to that 2500k.

    When I can drop $1300 for a Dell U3011 or HP ZR30w I doubt I would be pairing it with a $1300 PC, so I wonder if its even necessary for a mid range build as how often are you really going to find that pairing. Though hopefully soon Apple is going to push the LCD makers kicking and screaming into the 4k and 8k display era!


    Reply
  • hmp_goose
    Wow: And here I was thinkin' "maybe the SBM should work like the monthly Best X articals, where it's not anchored to a price point".

    Drunk Min's t'ink alac, and all that.
    Reply
  • ammaross
    "...with none of the compromises that plagued Don't maligned build"

    Last page. Should be "Don's" but "Don't" works good enough :P

    Definitely would have loved to see a pair of 2GB cards duke it out though. The base system called for it (nearly). Take the price from the hide of the mobo.
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Not a bad system at all. Im just waiting for people to start whining about 680s like in the other builds.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    mikenygmailNice, but would have been better with 2 x 6970 2 GB or 2 x 6950 2 GB unlocked to 6970.Better choices outside of "consumer choice" are irrelevant to a "consumer choice" selection.a4mulaInteresting, still not surprising given recent results in group dynamic studies. Groups will often make better choices than individuals, that's not to say a group can replace or perform on par with an expert individual, just better than the average.Yes, the motherboard could have been better AND cheaper if not for the fact that it was picked by the group rather than an expert individual, but the complete unit was still acceptable.aznshinobiJust saying, Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 would save some and not bad rated. Could go for something like the OCZ ZT 750w which also is solidly rated, both saving money and offering similar if not better performance. For the GPUs, probably would've been better just to go with 2x7850 just to see how it does after all I haven't seen a whole bunch of those benchmarks.Understood that this is best on best rated components, just saying it would've been nice to see the ones I mentioned for a value build.Right, part choices were limited to the top two rated parts, based on which of the top two customer rated parts most closely matched the rest of the system.DarkersonNot a bad system at all. Im just waiting for people to start whining about 680s like in the other builds.LOL, I'm waiting for a stream of "Why didn't YOU pick THIS" when Newegg Customers were the pickers and the "THIS" they're screaming about doesn't even have a customer rating :)
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Im sure it will be inevitable. ;)


    Stupid TomsHardware, Y U NO PICK MY PARTS! :P

    Edit: Obvious sarcasm is obvious. Ah well, Ill take this as all the non article reading 680 noobs being offended. I dont care.
    Reply