• Review

System Builder Marathon, Q1 2014: The $2400 People’s Choice PC

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Graphics, CPU, And Memory

The most cogent criticism of our previous machine was that its Radeon R9 290 graphics cards were overpriced, ill-tempered, and noisy. When I ordered them, though, 290s were still $400 each. It's only unfortunate that we can't go back in time to lock down pricing on AMD's second-fastest single-GPU board. This time around, however, we know better. 

Graphics Cards: Two EVGA GeForce GTX 780s in SLI

Tom's Hardware readers recommended Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 780 to replace the previous build’s Radeons, and picking EVGA as the supplier was as easy as selecting “Sort By: Lowest Price” from Newegg’s list of models.

Read Customer Reviews of EVGA's GeForce GTX 780


I love blower-style coolers for their ability to remove GPU heat from the case, but concede that many of those coolers are too noisy to satisfy a majority of our readers. Nvidia put a great amount of effort into developing a radial fan cooler that could deliver the best of both cooling and noise, and EVGA’s part number 03G-P4-2781-KR employs it.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K

CPU selection is always contentious, especially when some of our benchmarks effectively utilize more than four cores and others don't. Fans of the Core i5-4670K's value rightly point out that part's excellent overall performance and overclocking headroom, while proponents of the Core i7-4930K have more cores, cache, and Intel's Hyper-Threading technology on their side.

Read Customer Reviews of Intel's Core i7-4770K


Between those extremes, the Core i7-4770K has four cores, a little more shared L3 cache, and Hyper-Threading to schedule up to eight threads concurrently. Those features do improve core utilization however, and the performance boost in a few applications is enough to garner support in the high-end space.

System RAM: G.Skill 8 GB Dual-Channel DDR3-1866 C9

Based on a ton of testing, it appears that G.Skill uses only a few DRAM ICs across a wide variety of products. Of them, the company's most value-oriented overclocking modules are usually labeled DDR3-1866 C9 or DDR3-1600 C8 at 1.50 V. Available in a variety of colors and heat spreader styles, and I usually opt for the lower-profile Ares version.

Read Customer Reviews of G.Skill's Ripjaws X F3-1866C9D-16GXM


But Ripjaws X was a little cheaper than Ares on the day my parts were ordered, so I went that route instead. Likewise, DDR3-1866 C9 was a little cheaper than DDR3-1600 C8. And the cheapest color was blue.

The specific part number I went with is F3-1866C9D-16GXM. If you know what to look for, though, you might find a better deal on the same RAM under a different part number on a different day.

Previous Next
Summary
  1. Our High-End Build Evolves
  2. Graphics, CPU, And Memory
  3. Motherboard, Case, And Power
  4. CPU And Motherboard Cooling
  5. An Alphabet Soup Of Storage: SSD, HDD, And ODD
  6. Hardware Installation
  7. Overclocking
  8. Test Hardware And Benchmark Settings
  9. Results: 3DMark And PCMark
  10. Results: SiSoftware Sandra
  11. Results: Battlefield 4 And Far Cry 3
  12. Results: Grid 2 And Arma 3
  13. Results: Audio And Video Encoding
  14. Results: Adobe Creative Suite
  15. Results: Productivity
  16. Results: File Compression
  17. Power, Heat, And Efficiency
  18. A Gaming Build That Works Hard
About the author
Thomas Soderstrom

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.

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41 comments
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  • Darkerson
    Interesting move, showing the nicest build 1st instead of last. Cant wait to see all the builds compared and see what you all come up with as the budget goes down.
  • captain_jonno
    Looks good. Surprised only went with a 750w PSU though. Considering 2x 780 ti's and overlocking
  • Crashman
    494851 said:
    Looks good. Surprised only went with a 750w PSU though. Considering 2x 780 ti's and overlocking
    Yessir, two 780s and a bit of experience in part picking lead me to expect around 700W of required system power. And, it came out just a little less than 700W.

    Power supplies of greater capacity and similar reliability at this price tend to be lower-efficiency units. And we like efficiency too.
  • YellowBee
    I dont get the "W" usage?680+237 = 917w. Not 802w as meation above?
  • Crashman
    411186 said:
    I dont get the "W" usage?680+237 = 917w. Not 802w as meation above?
    It's not calculated power, it's measured power for the entire system (at the power plug). No addition or subtraction was used.

    1.) Start the system, wait for all processes to load, take a measurement (Active, but idle)
    2.) Load the CPU using eight thread of AVX-optimized Prime95, take a reading (CPU Load).
    3.) Load GPUs with 3DMark 11 Test 1 in loop, take max reading as it heats up (GPU Load).
    4.) Load both applications (CPU+GPU Load).

    The "math problem" is that any program used to fully load the GPU also partly loads the CPU. So when test 4 is Prime95+3DMark, Prime95 can only use whatever CPU resources are left with 3DMark running.

    So the most accurate system power reading is with "CPU+GPU Load" applied. The system measurement for "CPU Load" still includes the power of an idle GPU. And the system power measurement for "GPU Load" still includes the amount of CPU energy it takes to run the GPU's test application.
  • YellowBee
    8708 said:
    411186 said:
    I dont get the "W" usage?680+237 = 917w. Not 802w as meation above?
    It's not a calculation, it's a reading for the entire system (at the power plug). Load the CPU using eight thread of AVX-optimized Prime95, take reading one. Load GPUs with 3DMark 11 Test 1 in loop, take max reading as it heats up. The "math problem" is that any program used to fully load the GPU also partly loads the CPU. So when test 3 is Prime95+3DMark, Prime95 can only use whatever CPU resources are left with 3DMark running. So the most accurate system power reading is with "CPU+GPU Load" applied. The system measurement for "CPU Load" still includes the reading of an idle GPU. And the system power measurement for "GPU Load" still includes the amount of CPU power it takes to run the GPU.


    Very much appreciated and satisfying answer.
    Thanks Crashman :)
  • bemused_fred
    Quote:
    411186 said:
    I dont get the "W" usage?680+237 = 917w. Not 802w as meation above?
    It's not calculated power, it's measured power for the entire system (at the power plug). No addition or subtraction was used.1.) Start the system, wait for all processes to load, take a measurement (Active, but idle)2.) Load the CPU using eight thread of AVX-optimized Prime95, take a reading (CPU Load).3.) Load GPUs with 3DMark 11 Test 1 in loop, take max reading as it heats up (GPU Load).4.) Load both applications (CPU+GPU Load).The "math problem" is that any program used to fully load the GPU also partly loads the CPU. So when test 4 is Prime95+3DMark, Prime95 can only use whatever CPU resources are left with 3DMark running.So the most accurate system power reading is with "CPU+GPU Load" applied. The system measurement for "CPU Load" still includes the power of an idle GPU. And the system power measurement for "GPU Load" still includes the amount of CPU energy it takes to run the GPU's test application.
    Any chance of including these calculations in all future articles, so that we know exactly how the power graph is calculated? Ta.
  • Crashman
    687157 said:
    8708 said:
    It's not calculated power, it's measured power for the entire system
    Any chance of including these calculations in all future articles, so that we know exactly how the power graph is calculated? Ta.
    Which calculations?
  • jabuscus
    wow. such performance. many ram. they should've put in 16gb of ram for real high-end specs. ;)
  • Versutia
    As I'm into quiet enclosures, I'd go along this route:

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3fuGw

    Wondering how much of a difference would non-reference cards make. Obviously, CPU cooler and RAM could be different, BR drive optional, storage drive as well.
  • sea monkey
    Quote:
    G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-1866C9D-16GXM: DDR3-1600 C9, 16 GB (2 x 8 GB)


    Shouldn't that be DDR3-1866?
  • vertexx
    Nice comparisons to last quarter's build. All things considered, I think this is the best build I've seen in this series for quite a while.
  • Sparky4688
    I like the new focus and high end review first. This build mirrors my own approach except I don't play games so save on multi-GPU costs and no need to water cool as no overclocking either – stability is key to me. My similarly parted machine in November less the water cooling and multi-GPU cost almost $800-900 less after rebates. Can you add sound/noise dB monitoring and include in results? Multimedia machines and home office machines need to account for noise.
  • Sparky4688
    I like the new focus and high end review first. This build mirrors my own approach except I don't play games so save on multi-GPU costs and no need to water cool as no overclocking either – stability is key to me. My similarly parted machine in November less the water cooling and multi-GPU cost almost $800-900 less after rebates. Can you add sound/noise dB monitoring and include in results? Multimedia machines and home office machines need to account for noise.
  • ojas
    Note: Arma 3 is largely CPU bound, and seems to favour IPC.
  • Treynolds416
    I enjoyed the article very much, and I appreciate the new direction you're going in for gaming value. However, you don't need to mention that the prices of the 290 spiked last year. Seriously, we get it and you only need to say it once or twice instead of seven or so. Aside from that, still a very informative and well-thought out article
  • bigstonebang
    When can we expect to see Tom's switch over to 4K gaming benchmarks? This build should be able to handle it and I want to keep tabs on both hardware and driver updates.Furthermore I think it is safe to say an enthusiast that is going to buy a multi-monitor setup probably already has one, but there are probably other like me that are waiting for reasonably priced hardware to be capable of handling 4K before buying a new monitor. Even though I haven't seen a 4K monitor that preforms like a "next Gen" technology should.Also now that Tom's has been very though covering multi-monitor resolutions I understand (and I hope other readers do as well) how they typically scale.I don't want to be a jerk I'm just trying to ask for an ETA, and if I don't ask, how will you know what I want?
  • Plusthinking Iq
    2400$ and hdd... pls
    my fix is get a 700gb ssd, 780ti no sli problems, and a i5 4670, this is a much better gaming pc, and can go quiet build.
  • CaptainTom
    ^ An i5 with a 780 Ti? Come on you are asking to be bottle-necked! I bet you were one of the people that kept advocating a Pentium + 660 a couple years ago when people mistakenly thought dual cores would be the standard forever...
  • sea monkey
    Quote:
    3.5-3.9 GHz, Quad-Core, 8 B Shared L3 Cache
    8 B?
  • de5_Roy
    963794 said:
    Quote:
    3.5-3.9 GHz, Quad-Core, 8 B Shared L3 Cache
    8 B?

    8MB L3 cache.
  • redgarl
    As much as I agree about the surge in AMD GPUs, right now newegg is offering the PC 290x pcs+ for 579$ with BF4. It's barely 30$ above the retail price of a non custom heatsink version.You paid for those 780 GTX. I can have those for the same price in CAD$.
  • Aalistor
    i5-4670k shows little to no improvement over 4770k in gaming. 90$ less.
  • Drejeck
    I'd throw through the windows that ODD unit. CDs are obsolete, people using CDs are obsolete, go back in 2005. Storage solutions are weak but this is a gaming machine. No good audio solution means you are going to use an external DSP and no good headset. I'd spend less on graphics and much more on music/audio. But I spent 2500 euros on my stereo, and 4000 on my PC. Stereo systems for audiophiles last much longer and never get obsolete. Investing a lot on graphics may leave you behind when new technologies come, and we have to be aware of diminishing return.
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