System Builder Marathon: The $5,000 Extreme PC

Case And Power

Case: Cooler Master Cosmos S

As one of the few cases to support a large standard radiator, Cooler Master’s Cosmos S RC-1100 started getting attention from the System Builder Marathon (SBM) team even before it was featured in our June case roundup. Cooler Master’s legendary quality, along with thoughtful features such as a side-intake fan large enough to assist graphics, RAM, and chipset cooling also helped assure its place in today’s build

Read Customer Reviews of Cooler Master's Cosmos S

We’ll show additional case photos as we detail the assembly process, but a more comprehensive analysis can be found in its review.

Power: Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850 W

We know that at least two-thirds of our readers will be surprised or even appalled at the thought of a multi-rail 850 W unit powering a quad-SLI build, but better-informed readers will note that this is the same unit we’ve used to test even more power-hungry equipment in our most recent quad-SLI article.

Read Customer Reviews of Cooler Master's Real Power Pro 850 W

In fact, the Cooler Master RS-850-EMBA we placed in today’s build was pulled from a test bench where it had been used for over a year to test all types of hardware. It's one of approximately eight units used by editors all over the world as part of Tom’s Hardware’s most-recent reference system and none of these editors have reported a single problem with their sample.

Multiple 12 V rail designs often suffer from load imbalances when two high-current devices share a single low-amperage rail, but Cooler Master designed its RS-850-EMBA to counter that problem by giving the ATX 12 V/EPS 12 V connectors and each PCI Express (PCIe) connector its own rail. This feature gives the RS-850-EMBA the safety factor of multi-rail output with most of the added stability that normally requires a single-rail design.

Each SBM PC is supposed to use new parts specifically selected to match its hardware profile, so why did we recycle this item? Unfortunately, a higher-rated part, one respected by most of the same readers who will question this one, failed due to a defect.

The change in power supply dropped our total system cost by around $100.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • xx12amanxx
    Nice article!

    I wish i could own a rig like that,but it would be that or a 383 stroker for the F-body..lol I can dream cant I?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    xx12amanxxNice article!I wish i could own a rig like that,but it would be that or a 383 stroker for the F-body..lol I can dream cant I?
    383 strokers are for copycats. Basically, too many bad 400 blocks and people found a cheap way to re-use the cranks to make their 350's bigger. If you have THIS kind of money, you'd might as well go BIG BORE too. Maybe a bowtie block? At any rate, you'll win more races with a real 400 (or larger custom size) so long as the block is good.
    Reply
  • one-shot
    It is interesting to note on Page 14. On the Sandra XII Multimedia test the Core i7 965 @ 4.2GHz scored 486,971, while the i7 920 @ 4.0GHz scored 386,867. The difference was 200MHz and made such a large difference. Did the Intel SSDs influence such a large gain in performance or the DDR3 @ 1800MHz or perhaps a combination of both?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    9469314 said:
    It is interesting to note on Page 14. On the Sandra XII Multimedia test the Core i7 965 @ 4.2GHz scored 486,971, while the i7 920 @ 4.0GHz scored 386,867. The difference was 200MHz and made such a large difference. Did the Intel SSDs influence such a large gain in performance or the DDR3 @ 1800MHz or perhaps a combination of both?

    The 965 has a higher-bandwidth QPI link, so it should be good for boosting at least a few synthetic scores.
    Reply
  • gim159
    BAH!! Why is it always Intel? Only Servers and people that wish they MAC should use Intel stuffs.. Who else is going to use all of it's features? Not gamers, that is for sure!! Like a gamer is going to spend the extra $$ for ECC memory and not spend it on more important stuff like a GC or a great board. That and an economy minded PC buyer will go AMD anytime, more bang for the buck...

    Also, Ati is better a better card, for linking I mean. The support may be crap, but it is usually worth it to get them! 4850 X2, Water cool one and watch the clock go through the roof!
    Reply
  • xx12amanxx
    Intel is the fastest thats why...This is supposed to be an uber rig.

    Ya crashman thats the problem i dont have that kind of money..lol A fresh stock rebuild bolt on's and spray will have to hold me off until better times!
    Reply
  • gim159
    ¿ "Intel is the fastest" ? Amd 2.0 is a 4.0 in the intel world...
    Reply
  • JeanLuc
    I would love to seen those Windows boot times with those RAID 0 Intel SDD's!
    Reply
  • gim159
    Yeah, Optimize the heck out of it and take all of the unnecessary stuff out.. Probably 4 sec boot, Awesome!
    Reply
  • Crashman
    xx12amanxxIntel is the fastest thats why...This is supposed to be an uber rig.Ya crashman thats the problem i dont have that kind of money..lol A fresh stock rebuild bolt on's and spray will have to hold me off until better times!
    I spec'd out a friend's 406 C.I. mouse a few years ago and he got through under $4500 with aluminum heads and a roller cam!
    Reply