System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $1200 Enthusiast PC

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punnar

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Remember when AMD was took lead in releasing DX11 cards and the 64 bit processors before that? I know that BD isn't performing to what the fans had hoped for but AMD did aknowledge that it wasn't competing in that arena. It wasn't too long after the release of DX11 cards that software developpers started taking advantage of DX11 and 1 year till nVidia released their DX 11 cards. Im hoping, just hoping, that there is hidden potential for BD.

I'm not bias, I have intel and nvidia products in my builds too. The balance need to be maintained for our, the consumer's, sake.
 
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woow ... kinda of strange...

why you guys need a cf or sli ? now really, a gtx 580/570 runs everything in 1080 ...

1200$ is enough for a 2500k and a gtx570 & at least 8gb ram ...

last month was a better pc:D
 
enjoyed reading the article. good to see zambezi being used in the build. the 990fx motherboards are simply awesome imo, with dual x16 cfx/sli support at such a low price. and the 6950's are performance beasts. it was nice to see something different being done with the build.
i hadn't come across any performance analysis of the 6100 ... this was prolly the first one. i hoped that the 6100 would fit in a price-performance area where it'd match intel with it's overclockability and price. but it looks like it's one of the worst performers among fx. i mean bottlenecking amd's own 6950s at 1280x1024 all the way to 2560x1600, ridiculous vcore to reach 4.8 ghz, oc'ed performance barely keeping up with stock i5 2500k (or 2300), what the hell. the power consumption figures were terrible for 6100. the 990fx chipset is wasted on zambezi.
i really hope trinity does better than this.
 

justme1977

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I'm shocked, I didn't expect it to be this huge of a bottleneck. It looks like the FX6100 was broken from the get go.
(http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150--8120-6100-and-4100-performance-review/4)
In this review it scores a 3.34 in Cinebench 11.5 while my Phenom II x3 @3.6ghz scores a 3.29.
In many of the benches on guru3d the FX6100 is way closer to the FX4100 then it is to the FX8xxx series.
In some benches the FX6100 can't even beat the Phenom II x4, and at the same time the FX4100 does beat the Athlon II's and Llano's.

The FX6100 and the FX4100 are in my opinion to close in performance, for a FX6100 to make any sense.
 

Zeh

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[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]I can't imagine doing something new with the 2500K, we've seen it all before and I've used the CPU in most of my SBM builds for a year. Sometimes it's nice to mix it up.[/citation]

I agree with what you did. I was positively surprised when I saw a chance for AMD on SBM, altough now i'm quite sad that it just couldn't hold it's ground.

In the beginning, I was sure this rig would crunch the i5 on 2560x1600 tests, and maybe in a few demanding 1080p games. What a surprise!

It's as if ATi bought AMD, not the other way around. I really like AMD GPUs, but they're way, way behind on CPUs. :(
 

Zeh

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I forgot to ask, Cleeve, how was the gaming experience? Not talking about numbers, though. Was it smooth, as smooth as with September's rig? No microstuttering, sudden slowdowns or such on any of the builds?
 

madooo12

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[citation][nom]stm1185[/nom]Any chance you could drop in a 1055T and run the tests again. I'd be curious if the old Thuban would outperform the FX chip![/citation]
it would, the 8150 barely did
 

billybobser

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I fancy a 2 core (4 diddy core) bulldozer to be honest. Though the prices are offputting, the overclockability and temps looks nice. Given It's for a home pc, I can't see a great need for 4 cores.

Ivybridge looks tasty from a purely technical point of view, but I doubt there will be 'deals to be had'. Nor will there be a 2 core 4 thread chip that you can overclock, and prices need to fall by 20%+ on 6/8 core fx chips too even take consideration for a new build. (imo ofc!)

Though one issue I have at the moment is, is that I am not 'experienced' with AMD on a board/cpu level. I had built a budget phenom system for a relative, and it just seems a bit MEH, when comparing to my e8500. The AMD seems to boot quicker (probably down to ram and on board controller), but the general load and processing times for programs seems poopzilla.(purely subjective ofcourse)
 

blibba

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[citation][nom]billybobser[/nom]I fancy a 2 core (4 diddy core) bulldozer to be honest. Though the prices are offputting, the overclockability and temps looks nice. Given It's for a home pc, I can't see a great need for 4 cores.Ivybridge looks tasty from a purely technical point of view, but I doubt there will be 'deals to be had'. Nor will there be a 2 core 4 thread chip that you can overclock, and prices need to fall by 20%+ on 6/8 core fx chips too even take consideration for a new build. (imo ofc!)Though one issue I have at the moment is, is that I am not 'experienced' with AMD on a board/cpu level. I had built a budget phenom system for a relative, and it just seems a bit MEH, when comparing to my e8500. The AMD seems to boot quicker (probably down to ram and on board controller), but the general load and processing times for programs seems poopzilla.(purely subjective ofcourse)[/citation]

Your e8500 will wipe the floor with a 2 core BD in every application.
 

joytech22

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[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Nor realistic. I spent a day testing it with Tom's Hardware's motherboard test suite and saw 0% increase. Straight up, I pulled one of the boards from the review (Asus Sabertooth 990FX), plopped it on the bench, remounted the original test drive, added the patch and got zip.Nothing.Nadda.A day wasted during the holiday season, a day behind on my other articles.[/citation]

You forgot, that's an unfinished patch. :\
Your results are irrelevant.
 

theuniquegamer

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The Bulldozer is such disappointment and also the bottleneck . I would have build this rig by just swaping the cpu for a phenom 955 be + cooler master hyper 212 plus and the rest of the money for dual 6950 2gb
 

noob2222

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halls

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I was surprised by how far behind the Bulldozer system was in benchmarks. I knew the chips didn't make a splash in benchmarks before, but wow.

Either way, I'm glad you guys picked a BD chip for this build. It doesn't seem like the hardware scene has changed much recently besides their release and hard drive price increases - it was time for something different and I agree with your choice.
 
every time I see a bulldozer review I am surprised that something that big and powerful could flop so badly. I am very curious to see how the next gen chips play out. Maybe they will surprise us all like intel did with their core series chips that seemingly came from nowhere... but then again maybe not. At least the gpu and apu lines will keep them in business.

As you are going for something different will you try an APU in the $600 build?
 
Metro 2033 is extremely graphics-intensive, and this is the only game that shows a quantifiable (albeit slim) win in favor of the FX-6100/Radeon HD 6950 CrossFire system at very high detail settings.
This depends on importance of resolution. I would think with 2 GPU only the 1920X1080 and higher is important. In F1 2010 the current system destroys Septembers build in 2560X1600. These 2 systems even tie on another game at 2560X1600. A system with 2 GPU's should be tested at 1920X1080, 2560X1600, and a 3 monitor setup. If you want low resolution numbers by an I7 2600 and a single GPU. Really who in their right mind would pay this much to play at 1280X1024? Why use the games tests to rehash CPU benchmarks when you already have synthetics, Media Encoding, and Productivity? Far to much of the scores rest on the CPU by this flawed testing methodology.
 
I too am glad these choices were made, if only to show the magnitude of the outcome. Would there be any way to test for a platform bottleneck? I seem to recall another THG roundup some time ago (sorry, I couldn't find it) in which an AMD system showed a similar multi-GPU bottleneck.
How would one test this? Multi-GPU scaling, perhaps? What pair of lesser cards might be similar in performance to a HD6950? A pair of HD6770s? See how they compare (1 strong vs. two modest) on an Intel system vs. an AMD system.
Find a game where a single-card AMD system performs similarly to a single-card Intel system, where the resolution is high enough that the CPU makes little or no difference. Then test the scaling, to see how two modest GPUs on Intel perform vs. the same two GPUs on AMD.
 

iceveiled

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Seems like a decent budget CPU if you're gaming at 1080p or lower with a single card on a budget build. But yeah...after all the wait and hype up of bulldozer...this is just disappointing. I was hoping AMD would step up bigger than they did and they would have another big war with intel. Competition is a good thing for us consumers.
 
I really don't understand the crappy SATA 2 SSD choice. Why not a single 120GB SATA 3 SSD or 2X 60GB SATA 3 SSDs? Drop the WD HD and move up to a bluray burner. These changes could complete get around the huge price jump on the HD. Its a big waste putting that much in a slow Hard Drive that should see a huge price drop in 6 months.
 

ilikemacandpc

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This is a build I created on Newegg. It will far exceed the build on this page.

HIS IceQ X H687QN1G2M Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

2x $179.99 -$10.00 Instant $339.98

Rosewill BLACKHAWK Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, come with Five Fans, window side panel, top HDD dock

$99.99 $99.99

OCZ Fatal1ty 750W Modular Gaming 80Plus Bronze Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom

$119.99 -$20.00 Instant $99.99

MSI Z68A-GD55 (G3) LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

$169.99 $169.99

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 ...

$219.99 $219.99

SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Desktop Upgrade Kit

$169.99 -$40.00 Instant $129.99

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 996995

$54.99 -$15.00 Instant $39.99

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.D HDS721075DLE630 (0F13179) 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$99.99 $99.99

LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS-324-98B

$19.89 $19.89

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel ...

$29.04 $29.04

Subtotal: $1,248.84

It is cheaper, has the same amount of storage, better graphics capability since it is paired with the i5 2500k, a faster SSD, a quality motherboard and CPU cooler, 8gb of fast RAM, and a more powerful power supply.

This is far superior. End of Story.
If it is not, please tell me why.

 

giovanni86

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Great article, was very disappointed in the results. I had a similar wish list build on newegg just in case any friends wanted a AMD build but after seeing these numbers I'm with everyone else that build just got deleted. AMD really needs to step it up, i used to be a big fan back in the Socket 939 days when Athlon 64's ran circles around Intel.. oh how i miss those days...
 
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