System Builder Marathon Q2 2015: $1600 Mini Performance PC

How-to
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

We’ve seen how far I can push a six-core Haswell-E in our full-sized performance build, but can the same performance level fit into a mini cube?

Gaming

Arma 3 sees the weakest benefit from the Q1 system’s SLI configuration, while Battlefield 4 and Far Cry 3 get the most benefit from the extra card. The 200FPS cap in Battlefield 4 is a primary reason why SLI systems don’t do better in our SBM gaming tests, and a good reason why we have a separate value chart for gaming at high resolution. Unlike most other games, Far Cry 3 actually needed the second card to play Ultra Quality smoothly at 5760x1080.

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Grid 2’s “High Quality” is actually a fairly low setting for testing high-end graphics cards, and is typically limited first by memory performance, then by CPU performance. We indeed see the benefits of DDR4 at our lowest Grid 2 test settings, but surprisingly see little difference between dual-channel (Mini ITX) and quad-channel (Full ATX) configurations.

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.
37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • UltimateDeep
    Baby PC able to out-overclock the Papa PC, gosh, this shouldn't be happening but it did anyway!
    Reply
  • MasterDell
    PSU used is not Haswell Certified.
    Reply
  • eldragon0
    Great write up, but the 5820k has 6 cores ( OC section says four physical cores)
    Reply
  • RazberyBandit
    Tricky tricky tricky tricky!

    Relate to a younger generation? A reader would have to be at least 35-years old (and into Hip-Hop) to have gotten that reference...

    You Be Illin' =)
    Reply
  • Crashman
    16145478 said:
    Tricky tricky tricky tricky!

    Relate to a younger generation? A reader would have to be at least 35-years old (and into Hip-Hop) to have gotten that reference...

    You Be Illin' =)
    I'm just fighting for your right to party. No need to take this on all by yourself, any more.

    Reply
  • CaedenV
    @Razbery and Crashman
    Nice :)
    Reply
  • Aspiring techie
    Sweet. The mini itx form factor doesn't limit performance at this price level. I guess you learn something new every day :)
    Reply
  • daveys93
    "High-resolution performance might have been better still had that machine contained a pair of R9 290X cards rather than a pair of GTX 270s."

    Typo? I think you mean 970s.
    Reply
  • atheus
    Again you sacrifice cooling performance to pick up an optical drive. Are you being paid off by big optic...oil?

    Admit it, you just chose that motherboard because it lets you plug this bad boy in:
    Reply
  • Nythious
    It's about time people start realizing that smaller cases restrict the impact of ambient temperatures because the total air volume is recycled faster than larger cases.
    Reply