Synthetics
For starters, the overclocked numbers generated in 3DMark show the machine did fairly well out the gate, especially if you notice the graphics score. Compared to Thomas’ other machines, Big Build couldn’t catch up to Q1 2015’s dual GeForce GTX 970-based rig, but then again, two GM104 GPUs might have something to do with that. On the other hand, Q4 2014’s $1600 Performance PC was as close as I could get to an even comparison. Putting both $1600 rigs up against each other, Big Build may have scored lower, but I was about to squeeze out a better score spread between the baseline and overclock configurations.
The Sandra results show what happens when you compromise and go with Core i5 when the other kids go i7. Still, I’m really proud of the smaller gap in Big Build’s scores.