System Builder Marathon, March 2012: $2600 Performance PC

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a single gpu on x79 wouldn't be my choice, but i use my computer for gaming and coding. Longer compile times gives me longer breaks!
Nice build though, lot of people complaining about premium parts but in a $2600 computer they make sense.
Also nice to know the m4 stands up to the mushkin. It feels like crucial underestimates it's ssd in the official specs, but maybe it's the only company being realistic.
And i love the case. A window would be nice since it's a beautiful build but windows often look tacky.
 
@crashman: Were 7950s available at the time parts were ordered? If so, I would have gone this route:
Replace 1 x 7970 with 2 x 7950. $328 more. This also gives us a few interesting data points to talk about.
Replace SSD with something like the 128GB Crucial M4 (~$160), $114 less.
Replace BR drive with LG UH12LS29, $30 less.
Replace case with Rosewill Challenger Black (Toms rec.), $107 less.
Replace PSU with PC-P&C PPCS910, 910W SLI/Xfire cert 80plus Silver, $70 less.
Replace cooler with something a bit cheaper to make up the $7 difference.

Now instead of a 7970, you have xfire 7950s, but the same MB, CPU, and RAM, and a stronger PSU.

What you did definitely provides the most valuable individual parts to the winner, which is great. I hope I win this system because the balance of expenditures is outstanding. Winners can upgrade GPUs at their whim, and have something even better if they really need 79xx crossfire. But there are almost no other parts on this system aside from possibly the HDD that are worth upgrading or replacing. Outstanding!

Had you taken the 7950 xfire path, the value to the winner would have been less because of sacrifices in the case, BR drive, SSD, and in some ways (debatable) the PSU. Only with more extreme benchmarks such as Eyefinity or 3D mode gaming, or GPGPU applications would the twin 7950s really stretch their legs. So to make future enhancements to GPU power more worthwhile and measurable, I would also suggest adding such activities to the SBM test suite. Furthermore, such GPGPU testing could also highlight the benefits of Intel's on-die codec when used with the right MB platform and software (I believe it's disabled with P67 and other 6x variants?), creating more price/performance tradeoff decisions.
 

Thomas already answered that one which is why I ignored the GPU(s). As far as CF it'll be interesting what he says. The PSU would also need to be swapped out but for the same price the CORSAIR Professional Series HX1050 is a decent option.
 
A well balanced rig, but SBe isn't exactly mainstream. As many have said, this is an excellent workstation, but most builders will stick with a much heavier emphasis on gaming (50% + as opposed to 30%) and/or media transcoding than compute. IB is eagerly awaited to see how it improves the SB base and see if it leapfrogs the SBe, or just matches it.
 
@jaquith: I didn't see Crashman answering the question about 7950 availability, though he clearly did about 680s. I know 7950s were reviewed at the end of January, and SBM ordering occurred late February, but I don't know when 7950s appeared on the market.

Anyway, this still has to be my favorite SBM build of all time. I mean, the thing is an absolute beast, performs well at everything, and still manages to merely sip power most of the time. The speed-ups over the December build also bode well for the total value score against the other two builds. It will still lose, of course, but not as badly.
 
I'd be interested in seeing those types of benchmarks too. I wonder if video isn't included because of biases in rendering acceleration protocols ( AMD vs nVidia, etc. ) Yes, they could disable them and go for just CPU rendering, but that's not indicative of total system performance. I wonder if it would be possible to add some shared computing/folding benchmarks in ( probably not since they'd be almost impossible to duplicate. )
 
I'm looking forward to the comparison with the $1250 build. We get to see what the extra $600 in CPU alone gives us.

I would like to see a couple more gaming titles benchmarked for a more broad comparison.
 

The danger there is that every game they add to the suite weights the overall scores more toward gaming. I don't think anyone would mind adding some extra productivity benchmarks to even it out, but that adds a lot of time to benchmarking time.

The game titles used now are some of the most demanding currently in their respective areas. All the SBMs are current builds using some of the best bang/buck parts. If the systems can run Battlefield 3 well enough, games like WoW, Mass Effect, and Portal won't be a challenge for them.
 
I've been in the computer business since 1985 and the day I found Tom's Hardware was a god send. Another great job covering what us in the industry are asked constantly by our customers. I can't begin to comment on the number of calls about comparing the different i7 models and VGA card configurations I get. This site has been a wonderful reference site for me in my job and I'm very grateful its here. I have manufacturer reps com in all the time and tell us how great their stuff is and how it compares to their competition, but of course they pick the comparison that they'll win not what we want to see. Tom's does a great job filling the gap, though we are all human and some times there may be a slight lean one way or another. On the whole they do a very good job being fair. It would have been nice to see the GTX680 in this quarter's build however we all know now it wasn't available 2 months ago. They are very hard to find right now. It took me awhile to find an Asus GTX680 for a customer yesterday. I can't wait till the next system build and see what Tom's can do with the new cards like the GTX680 that will be out an much more available then. With prices around mid 400s for the GTX680s I expect to see some powerful configurations.
 
I think a World of Warcraft run would have been a good bench here, since it is the best game (I know of) to show the benefits of this CPU over the Q4 2011 build's. (Just a suggestion, not a complaint.)

Nice article and informative build.

😉
 
This is my FAVORITE SBM build ever (mostly)!

1.) I have that case! You're spot on with the "looks and feel" of the case. That's why it's in the "Professional" line up from Antec (hence the P in P280).

However, I moved the stock fans from the top the the inner mountings (which I don't think you mentioned), and installed 4 Antec 120mm Tri-Cool Blue LED fans: 2-front (molex powered), 2-top (mobo powered). I removed the rear fan, to use my Antec H20 Kuhler Water Cooling Kit in a push/pull set up (2-fans: 1-into radiator, 1-out of radiator, out of case. I used 2 Xigmatek 120mm PWM 4-pin fans, which plug into mobo). BTW, the fan header in the top rear of the case is a joke. I couldn't route a molex connetor to it, and couldn't plug it in, 'cause the radiator of the CPU cooler is in the way. I looked into moving it, but just ditched it.

2.) I love the facts that you made the comment about the PSU being (as they all are) top mount ready. I have a thread in here about that, and how to switch the SATA cables plugs orientation to better suite bottom mount. Very simple, but be careful. The "notch" on the SATA plug MUST be to the same colored wire! It really cleans up the cable wiring, and gets better use out of a single 4-plug SATA cable. (I actually have 5 SATA drives running off of 1 SATA power cable, but 3 of the drives are SSDs!)

My only criticism, well more of a question, I why such a "large" SSD. I know that 129GB perform better than 64GB, but does 256GB really perform better than 128GB? I think it does (unless the 128GB is an OCZ Vertex 3 MaxIOPS, which costs about the same)? May real concern is about all thet wasted space left over on the SSD after OS/Program installs. Wasted space = wasted money. I know about the concerns with RAID 0ing 2 SSD (which I have), but it'd be "more bang for the buck." Just a thought.

And, why an air cooler instead of a water cooling system (Corsair or Antec)? If overclocking is a major point in performance, wouldn't these be better? The price difference isn't much, if you stick with the single fan design.

So, overall, GREAT ARTICLE! We all have our own personal choices and recommendations, which many will post here. (snicker)
 
[citation][nom]RedJaron[/nom]The danger there is that every game they add to the suite weights the overall scores more toward gaming.[/citation]
Not necessarily. The weight of the gaming category on the total system score is 30%. They could add a couple more benchmarks and still limit the effect of the gaming score to 30%, but it would change how that 30% looks across all the different systems.
 
This is a very balanced build for the $ imo. For the folks purchasing today the nvidia 680 should be on the wish list. I forswore dual GPU configurations long time ago so this build is exactly what I would be going for with that type of a budget. Thaks Toms!
 

In general, larger capacity drives in the same model line have better write performance due to the data channels being more saturated ( explained here. )

As for wasted space, that's up to the consumer. If you've got more space available on your SSD, it gives you the option to put more applications on it. Smaller drives usually limit you to the OS and a few select programs ( maybe games, maybe productivity. ) My own 128 m4 has about 15 GB left on it after Win 7, Office, Adobe CS, and about five games. Everything else is stored on / run from my platter drive. If you've got the money for a bigger SSD, then you can throw more programs on it. If you're a gamer, that means you don't have to install/uninstall so often as you play through your library. If you're DV editing or Photoshopping, it means you've got space for a screaming fast cache.
 
Just a Great Build. This is one of the most solid, non-gimmicky builds I've seen in a SBM in a long time. Great job on putting together an every day monster that's easy to maintain yet has tons of room for future upgrades if wanted.
 
[citation][nom]llguitargr8[/nom]Just curious, did you guys purchase all these parts and right these articles before the GTX 680 was released? I really thought you guys would have gone with that, and if it wasn't because they weren't available at the time, then what makes the 7970 better in your opinion?[/citation]
What makes you think that when they right an article, the conclusions are write?
 

Ok, yes, I didn't word that very well. I'm curious how they average the gaming scores before applying the weighted values. I trust Tom's has it worked out so that high scores in something like StarCraft and WoW can't compensate for horrible showings in Metro or Crysis.
 
This is one of the few SBM builds that TH and I actually agree on. I've had almost this exact same build in a newegg wishlist for a couple of months with only minimal tweaks. I'm planning on investing another $500 for water cooling equipment. I already have a large storage drive I can plug in, but I upgraded the SSD for a 480gb unit from Mushkin that seems reasonably priced.

I usually always hope to win one of these systems, but I'm pulling for this one more than ever. Great balance between CPU and GPU performance. The 7970 is enough for up to 1600p resolutions and the 3930K can blow the doors off a 4-core Sandy Bridge in some highly multi-threaded apps which I'll be using.
 
[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]What makes you think that when they right an article, the conclusions are write?[/citation]
I see what you did there.

To be honest, for those people out there looking for a gaming machine with tons of power for other tasks, this is actually pretty good, and you don't necessarily have to rejiggle the build for SLi or Crossfire as a single card of this class is plenty for most things... and will cause you less hassle than a multi-card setup might present. Of course, if they'd done the build this week they'd have considered the 680, but we've flogged the dead horse long enough on that one.

It's a good machine... I just can't enter the competition. :)
 
[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]...and you don't necessarily have to rejiggle the build for SLi or Crossfire as a single card of this class is plenty for most things...[/citation]
I would be worried if you started to jiggle things around, something would work loose. I'd stick to rejiggering things.
 
Not to nit pick, but could you please follow the chart information layout that your co-workers use. For me it is much easier to follow the information when you always know witch build is in witch spot on the chart every time you look at a chart.
 
I love this build! Love the case, components, everything. Its a bummer about no second GPU, but it has the space to add another. Between last quarters and this quarters build, I'd prefer this one. Well done!
 
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