System Builder Marathon, August 2012: System Value Compared

[Sakkura]

I see no anti-AMD conspiracy here, but if the next SBM doesn't show some AMD graphics cards after their new (post-GTX 660 Ti) round of price cuts...

And honestly, comparing a $1000 machine to a $2000 machine as much based on 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 gaming as on 1920x1080 and 2560x1600 gaming is just never going to give useful results.

 

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]I could argue for right now. Today NewEgg has a shell shocker deal for an OCZ Agility 3 240GB SSD for only $139.99!!!!!!!!!![/citation]
You mean $164.99 after rebate; see - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227727 I was going to buy one @ $140 🙁

Here's a heck of a deal for $500 if you're okay with a Biostar - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1046992

 

[Onus]

...comparing a $1000 machine to a $2000 machine as much based on 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 gaming as on 1920x1080 and 2560x1600 gaming is just never going to give useful results.

I disagree, because the $2000 machine wasn't built for gaming, but for productivity (my take on what "Performance" means, as opposed to "Gaming"). The question becomes then, can it ALSO handle games, and how well? That's what motivated my prior post, suggesting three different [close] budgets but all machines built for the same purpose. The question to be answered is, what incremental improvements can each bump in the budget provide? A value analysis (especially with some pass/fail grading applied) can then help determine where the point of diminishing returns has been reached. One SBM series might vary the CPU a lot, and another might vary the graphics card(s), or other focal points can be tested.

 

[Sakkura]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]I disagree, because the $2000 machine wasn't built for gaming, but for productivity (my take on what "Performance" means, as opposed to "Gaming"). The question becomes then, can it ALSO handle games, and how well? That's what motivated my prior post, suggesting three different [close] budgets but all machines built for the same purpose. The question to be answered is, what incremental improvements can each bump in the budget provide? A value analysis (especially with some pass/fail grading applied) can then help determine where the point of diminishing returns has been reached. One SBM series might vary the CPU a lot, and another might vary the graphics card(s), or other focal points can be tested.[/citation]
But why would you test whether a $2000 machine can game by using a 1280x1024 resolution? Use resolutions that make at least a little sense, like 1920x1080 or 2560x1600.

 

[pacioli]

[citation][nom]chmr[/nom]I know it's probably hard to do, but it would be awesome if Tom's could find out the price where price/performance is optimal instead of searching for the optimal build for a set price.[/citation]

That is fairly easy to do... Just put an i5 2500K or i5 3570K together with a GTX 660 Ti, GTX 570, HD 7950, or HD 7870.

 

[bustapr]

The largest single market we can try to help is the gamers out there looking to play at high resolutions. And so we’ve decided to take another run at the $2000 PC build, shifting focus from CPU to GPU power. In order to overcome the limits of our gaming suite, we're adding the latest high-end 5760x1080 resolution to our tests. You’ll see that alternative, gaming-centric build tomorrow.

looking forward to this

 

[Onus]

But why would you test whether a $2000 machine can game by using a 1280x1024 resolution? Use resolutions that make at least a little sense, like 1920x1080 or 2560x1600.

While I definitely see your point, I've got a pair of monitors on my desk at work, and each is only 1280x1024. I suppose it would depend on what tasks the "Performance (Productivity)" build is meant to handle (I've asked for a description of its user in other comments, in order to judge fitness for purpose). Graphic design implies a nice big 2560x1600 monitor, but database crunching or numerical analysis might not.
We are not in disagreement here, we probably just need more context.

 

[TeraMedia]

Thanks for the articles guys. Looking forward to the surprise build tomorrow! Also hoping that the addition of 5760 x 1080 becomes a regular occurrence.

 

[SinisterSalad]

If only they had a k-series i3...

 

[esrever]

I think it would be nice to have a game in the benchmarks that takes advantages of more cores. Maybe Metro 2033 or even left 4 dead 2.

 

[dalethepcman]

shifting focus from CPU to GPU power. In order to overcome the limits of our gaming suite, we're adding the latest high-end 5760x1080 resolution to our tests

Hurray!

Can you throw in some multi screen 3d gaming tests as well (maybe in next quarters build) to really push the hardware to its knees? I want to see what can be done with 2k.

As a side note, I prefer 2560/1920 for primary and 1080x2/1920 for the peripheral vision

 

[noob2222]

Pure nonsense. Way to take a quote out of context.

That comment was a direct response to someone who called the use of a Pentium G860 CRAP for our pure gaming system, while instead suggesting a Llano-based Athlon II as a better option, with zero proof offered to back up his claim.

you had the same excuse for not using a phenom X4

Many are talking about a Phenom II X4, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that choice. It's especially attractive when we consider competing throughout the whole test suite, not just games.

While available again, PH II quads are still a bit more expensive, and that funding comes from where? A Boxed 965 BE is $110, (same as the FX4100). The stock PHII cooler is loud, but would likely take the chip near 3.8 GHz. Alternately, an oem 955BE is $95, add $10-20 for a cooler as desired. Either way, we are dipping into our GPU and Mobo budget. I’d want to break budget a bit to do the platform justice. I’m not crazy about an AMD build (Deneb, or Zambezi, or Llano) forced to use a $50 mobo and CAS 9 DDR3-1333.

Anyway, my take on PH II X4 is this: power consumption would be way up, noise and/or cost up, productivity (overall) once overclocked would be way up, the machine's overall "score" or value standing vs. the other two machine's would also improve (requires more cores).

However the focus here was gaming, and I suspect little difference in 3 of our games (BF3, Skyrim, and DiRT3). StarCraft II though, our testing has shown even a 3.7 GHz X4 980 trails the G860 by about 10%. We'd probably need at least 4.0GHz to match the G860 in SC2.

Bottom line, we have now seen what Intel has to offer gamers at this budget. If we shift focus towards all-round performance, not just games, then we need more processing cores. We can't grab 4 Sandy Bridge cores and maintain our GPU funds, so attention must shift towards AMD.

Whats pure crap, the fact that your picking cpus based on one article and mainly because of one game? Kinda funny you said the same thing twice, but its out of context since I quoted the atlon responce instead of the PII.
Like i said before, try playing BF3 online since its an online game and see if it even works (maintaining higher than 30 fps) wether or not you post the results or if they are "controlled", if it can't even play then it fails, and is CRAP like the guy said.

repeatedly earned the site's monthly recommendation for "Best Gaming CPU for the Money".

And what article are those based off of?

Watch AMD's pehenom II move down in the Hierarchy charts thanks to the "gaming article".
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3052-5.html <-- even with I3 2100
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html <-- below I3 2100

Amazing how one article can move the entire Intel line up one slot and yet even in those articles where your trying to defend using the g860 over the PII, the PII 955 is above it.

Ever since AMD released FX, all the articles have been nothing but a bashing fest for all of AMD's cpus. I find it funny that the 4170 is up with the top AMD cpus for gaming, yet when I take my 8120 and cut off 4 cores in the bios, it runs like crap in comparison.

Just one question on SC2, do you use the built in cpu test or test the actual gameplay on a recorded demo?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]spookyman[/nom]Also the 3930k looses out to native USB 3.0 support and PCIe 3.0 support.[/citation]

The 3930K has PCIe 3.0 (a supposedly beta implementation, but it works fine with AMD's cards and can be hacked into working with Nvidia's cards) and no decent X79 motherboard would lack USB 3.0 connectivity. Being native or not is irrelevant so long as a non-native USB 3.0 controller is at least almost as good as the native one. Besides, with USB 3.0, the only use for it that I see beating USB 2.0 by much is external storage, something that is generally better suited to eSATA anyway.

 

[jlwtech]

I defintely agree that intel is the way to go for best performance-per-dollar right now. I would like to see more AMD products in the SBM series as well, but thier CPU's are getting stomped by intel right now.

The games used to test gaming in this series of SBM's were the games that favored Nvidia's cards.
No Crysis 2, no Metro 2033, etc..
It has been shown that the HD7970 can outpace the GTX680 in games that demand a lot of memory bandwidth. Why not use a HD7970 instead of a GTX670?

What about a pair of HD7870s next time around? That would be very interesting.

 

[Guest]

When will we see a system based around an AMD processor in the SBM?

 

[aaab]

Just one question on SC2, do you use the built in cpu test or test the actual gameplay on a recorded demo?

Did you read the article?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]jlwtech[/nom]I defintely agree that intel is the way to go for best performance-per-dollar right now. I would like to see more AMD products in the SBM series as well, but thier CPU's are getting stomped by intel right now.The games used to test gaming in this series of SBM's were the games that favored Nvidia's cards.No Crysis 2, no Metro 2033, etc.. It has been shown that the HD7970 can outpace the GTX680 in games that demand a lot of memory bandwidth. Why not use a HD7970 instead of a GTX670?What about a pair of HD7870s next time around? That would be very interesting.[/citation]

I agree with the 7970 argument, but saying that AMD's CPUs are being stomped by Intel is not nearly entirely true. In highly threaded performance per dollar, AMD wins, hands down. In single/lightly threaded performance, overclocking the CPU and northbridge and for the FX series with six or eight cores, disabling one core per module can make them similar or superior to Intel in performance per dollar. The FX-6100 and FX-8120 are excellent for this. The FX-8120, with one core per module disabled, CPU frequency overclocking, and CPU/NB frequency overclocking can fight with the i5-2500K and the i5-3570K in performance quite well without having power consumption that is unmanageable. Doing the same to the FX-6100 will leave it as a tri-core that kicks that crap out of the similarly priced i3s to an extreme.

Intel isn't necessarily the way to go in performance per dollar, only performance per watt in most CPU-based situations goes to Intel with LGA 1155. In that, AMD simply doesn't compete with their current line of CPUs, although the disabling one core per module trick does help in lightly threaded performance per watt greatly.

 

[jdwii]

Their is no way i would use a Pentium dual core in a gaming build for 500$ i would use a Amd Phenom II x4 965 and a Radeon 7770. You can even upgrade later and buy a 212+ coolermaster and overclock that 965 to 3.8-4.0Ghz just fine.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]dalethepcman[/nom]Hurray!Can you throw in some multi screen 3d gaming tests as well (maybe in next quarters build) to really push the hardware to its knees? I want to see what can be done with 2k.As a side note, I prefer 2560/1920 for primary and 1080x2/1920 for the peripheral vision[/citation]Now that EyeFinity and Surround are practical at the high end, I'd like to see a return to 5x4 monitors. 2560x2048 x3 anyone?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]Their is no way i would use a Pentium dual core in a gaming build for 500$ i would use a Amd Phenom II x4 965 and a Radeon 7770. You can even upgrade later and buy a 212+ coolermaster and overclock that 965 to 3.8-4.0Ghz just fine.[/citation]

Why go down to the 7770 when the 7850 will probably drop into a price low enough for a $500 build? It wouldn't get better for a single GPU setup.

 

[jdwii]

Why go down to the 7770 when the 7850 will probably drop into a price low enough for a $500 build? It wouldn't get better for a single GPU setup.

I would never use anything else but a Quad-core For gaming at least the video card is easy to upgrade if needed. And a 965 Overclocked to 3.8-4.0Ghz wont even bottleneck a 7870 so buying a 965 is a great foundation to any gaming rig priced at this area. A 7770 is like a 6850 which can play most games at 1080P at medium to high settings. And a 7850 is like my video card the 6950 which can play games at 1080P with around High-extreme settings. But to say you cant buy a gaming rig for 500$ is not true you just have to be wise and use the right parts and you should probably think about Overclocking a bit.

 

[geneo2036]

Many people post price points but you miss the usefulness of those articles at the price points suggested by many of you.

3 price point article
750- real world budget work machine/budget gaming
1000- work/gaming (most people's budget limit)
1500- hard core machine (majority of hard core buyers that are on some type of money constraint- you can always spend more but very very few do- maybe 0.1% of buying public tho guys at toms would have the more accurate figure of what % of total PC sales are 2K+)

those 3 price points will show the differences of 3 real world budgets, like the article pointed out $500 is just too low a price to pay to get a serious machine though i'm aware many sell at that price- those buyers are very basic users and causal gamers that just want cheap and usable.


the most difference is actually within $250 of each other so the price points to get a useful information and show difference, you need points $500,750,1000, 1250, 1500, 2000+
I don't know the budget you have to do this type of article but it would actually inform someone of the advantage/disadvantage of buying a PC at a given price point.
As you said in your own article $500/$2000 are just too far to either side of the bell curve to matter

 

[-Fran-]

I think I made this point some time ago, but you guys should *really* start introducing monitor pricing in your articles, since like many point out, a USD$500 build should not be meant for anything above high/medium @1680x1050 and the USD$1000 should target ultra @1680x1050 and high/medium @1920x1080 and the USD$2000 should be built to push either high resolution gaming (eyefinity/sorround) or wide productivity (like this build, which I think came out pretty well balanced).

Other than that, great insights as usual.

Oh, add some more games to the mix if you can, please. Or some way to measure them in MP rounds 😛

Cheers!

 

[brucek2]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]all values above 60 are the same[/citation]
Assuming you're not planning on throwing your system out the week after you built it, the point of numbers above 60 is what they say about how long the system will remain current. If it was me, and knowing I like to keep my system a minimum of 18 months, I'd want some headroom on today's games so I'm not dialing down quality on next quarter's releases. The other point is that there are some games, like Skyrim, that can be modded so heavily that you could bring even one of these 120+ monsters to their knees.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]I would never use anything else but a Quad-core For gaming at least the video card is easy to upgrade if needed. And a 965 Overclocked to 3.8-4.0Ghz wont even bottleneck a 7870 so buying a 965 is a great foundation to any gaming rig priced at this area. A 7770 is like a 6850 which can play most games at 1080P at medium to high settings. And a 7850 is like my video card the 6950 which can play games at 1080P with around High-extreme settings. But to say you cant buy a gaming rig for 500$ is not true you just have to be wise and use the right parts and you should probably think about Overclocking a bit.[/citation]

I have no idea where you're going with any of this. I never said that you shouldn't have a Phenom II x4 (In fact, I've voiced my support for it over a Pentium several times), I never said that a $500 machine can't be a good gaming machine, I never said that the 7770 is too weak to be used (I've played around with several and know first-hand that good models can have a lot of overclocking headroom). My point was that a 7850 at under $210 can be fitted into a $500 machine that also has a Phenom II x4 as its CPU, so going down to the 7770 seems foolish. Overclocking will never let the 7770 compare to the 7850 because the 7850 has even more headroom than the 7770 does and double the GDDR5 memory bus width.