System Builder Marathon Q2 2015: $1600 Gaming PC

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For this quarter’s SBM, we built a gaming PC with a GeForce 980 paired with a Core i5. Can it keep up with our i7-based builds from previous SBMs?

Gaming

We ran into an issue gaming at 4800x900 on the 4K monitors. Basically, the resolution wasn’t available, even though 1600x900 was. Because of that, we had to exclude it from our comparison.

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Overall, Big Build excelled at 1600x900 and 1920x1080 across the four games we benchmark. This wasn't the case at 5760x1080, though. Grid 2 is the exception; it was fairly smooth at the High Quality setting.

Looking at the charts from a historic perspective, the overclocked Big Build kept up with Thomas’ past creations, including his dual-card configuration from Q1 2015. The only trouncing I really received in the game testing came from Battlefield 4's Ultra quality preset, where most of Thomas’ builds outright beat me (though in one case, just by 3.2 FPS).

40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • pasow
    your listing for the GTX 980 in the article links to the motherboard.
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    i like that the builds finally contain both ssd and hdd as well as some alternative cooling solutions this time around. nice to see that there are other options for cooling besides the normal suggestions that still do a nice job. that case also seemed like a decent choice though for the money, i'm sure there are better ones you could have gotten.

    now cue the corsair psu haters in 3....2.....

    edit: i see a lot of different ideas of what "could" have been done with the money, but honestly we all know what these suggested parts can do already. using non-traditional parts in the build gives up numbers on some pieces we may not have tried out before. the numbers may not be overly positive but i learn something from them either way. so maybe take this as a lesson on "what not to do" and move on if you're so inclined. always nice to see stats on machines built with "other" parts at least for the learning opportunity :)
    Reply
  • balister
    Is there a typo with the price on the gtx 980 or did you pay more for it when you got the components? I'm showing that the price of the system (minus Windows and not counting in shipping) of ~$1295 (a little over $200 shy of the $1600 mark).
    Reply
  • SylentVyper
    There is a LOT of waste in this build. You can get the same build, with all the same specs, while paying $300 less.

    You can get RAM for almost half that price, a good SSD for about half that price, and an SLI-capable motherboard for half that price.
    Reply
  • AdviserKulikov
    According to tom's own benchmarks, RAM doesn't have a significant impact on performance in gaming, any reason why the gaming PC is featuring memory overcosted by about $50-$60?
    Reply
  • Jeffs0418
    There are some major typos and incorrect links here. Somehow I doubt the GTX980 price of $169.99...
    If it is I want one!
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    Wow they were only getting to 4.2GHz at 1.24v and hitting 89C+ on three of the four cores. That is not good. Not sure if it's a bad chip, but even that mid-range cooler should do way better than that. For comparison with my 4690K on a Noctua NH-D14, in the summer I scale back my overclock and run at 4.3GHz at 1.12v and hit mid-50C even with a 78F indoor A/C setting.
    Reply
  • Andrewst1021
    A lot of waste, 8 gb of ram and a cheaper case would of put you just shy of the gtx 980ti price range.
    Reply
  • WHComp
    You can get an Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 for $7 more on newegg: http://goo.gl/qlzkrA

    I am not a gamer but I do build a lot of CAD workstations at work. I do not see why the xeon is not a massive improvement over the i5. It is missing the integrated graphics, but that should not matter for gamers same as it works for my CAD workstations.

    I have wondered about this for a long time, someone please explain.
    Reply
  • Aspiring techie
    Was it possible to mount a case fan on the other side of the Zalman cooler, or did I miss something? If it was, then you could have gotten the temps down by a few degrees in a push-pull configuration.
    Reply