System Builder Marathon, Q2 2014: A Balanced High-End Build

[g-unit1111]

Reading the reviews on newegg about that PowerColor 290x you chose was hilarious. So whoever win's this thing can look forward to many many rma's in the future. Apparently its plagued with artifacts, bad fans, bios issues, & performance degradation. I would have chosen another brand at the very least.

And that's exactly why I think store reviews are pointless - statistics and research shows that you're 95% more likely to get a negative review than a positive one, and a lot of crap gets highly rated, while decent / good products are overlooked and not purchased because some idiot didn't read the manual prior to installation.

 

[Crashman]

I'm rather surprised that so many AMD parts were used in this shootout. Especially, I would find it very difficulty to style a build around a 290 or 290x after the golden sample fiasco and the fact that the best available deals are at least as expensive as the launch prices in November of LAST YEAR. I feel like the writing is on the wall, in terms of AMDs future, and anyone recommending builds around their hardware needs to be mindful lest they end up wearing egg on their face.

It was fixed by increasing the fan speed (overriding BIOS fan speed) in the driver, within two months of launch. So the problem is dead news, even the fix is old news.

 

[lp231]

At $90 for a case, I would have gone with a Full Tower one, so that it can support E-ATX boards and not only that, you get more room to work with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815039
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146114

The second one you link is a mid tower. As for full towers, I put quality and convenience ahead of size. I've been dealing with a bunch of marginal-quality big cases lately.

So Newegg got it wrong then with their categorizing on that NZXT source 530, cause I searched in by
Case+Full Tower+Lowest Price and that case was on the list.
For me it would be quality and size because I prefer cases with huge interiors so they're is plenty of room to work with and I won't have to worry about if my graphic card will fit or not.
I'm still currently using my CM Cosmos 1000, maybe in the future probably a Cosmos 2 or Corsair 900D

 

[Crashman]

At $90 for a case, I would have gone with a Full Tower one, so that it can support E-ATX boards and not only that, you get more room to work with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815039
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146114

The second one you link is a mid tower. As for full towers, I put quality and convenience ahead of size. I've been dealing with a bunch of marginal-quality big cases lately.

So newegg did it wrong for 2nd case? I sorted by Case+Full Tower+Lower Price that that 2nd one was in the list.

Right, it's a mid-tower. Look at the picture of the back to confirm. Newegg seems to list these however they're told to, without consideration for any standardization. The second case you showed is 1 slot taller than this one, which would have made a dual-slot graphics card work in this board's bottom slot. The problem, this board's bottom x16 slot is only wired as x1. So the eighth slot wasn't even a consideration.

 

[brucek2]

I always enjoy these articles and find them useful and informative for what they do, which is to attempt to define some quantitative measurements and then optimize systems to those measurements.

I'm sometimes afraid to share them with less well versed friends who just want to blindly follow a build though, because the systems engineered this way can only be as good as the measurements they are geared to, which for many may not reflect the total experience of use.

To exaggerate a bit, these analyses can be a bit like a new car review that goes in to exquisite detail on the top speed achievable (down to 1/10th of a mph!), while failing to weigh in at all on acceleration, storage capacity, and luxuriousness of the interior. This is how you get to system builds that are stingy on SSD capacity or even go without; have less RAM than they could; and have aesthetic qualities that some may find out of place with the budget. (the fact that these things do not increase frame rates by 3fps does not make them unimportant over real world usage of a system for a few years of varied use.)

I don't have an easy solution for this. Enthusiasts will pick up a lot of the information they need by reading other articles on this site or elsewhere. I do also want to say I really appreciate that Tom's actually builds these entire systems, with the result of occasionally encountering unexpected physical, cooling, or other incompatibilities. That's valuable info too and much nicer than reports that pick parts on paper but never actually verify they all work together the way you'd expect them too.

 

[m32]

lp231, I would pay $30 more not to use the cases you chose. Aesthetics varies person-to-person.

 

[Taintedskittles]

I really feel Tom's did a good job with this selection of parts (may disagree about brands). For the sole purpose of benchmarks.

Well I just got home from work...I was thinking about this article all day long & talked about it with all my tech savvy co-workers. We were talking about if we had a budget of $1600. What we get & why? Well we all had very similar requirements; full tower, I7, 2 pcie x16 (or8x8) mobo, 240mm closedloop, ssd, 2tb or higher hhd, gpu's 290/290x/780/780ti range, & finally psu 750w-850w bronze, silver, or gold. This was my build selection on pcpartpicker that we did on are lunch break.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cz6WBm
Went less on the GPU power to make room for larger hdd & ssd. Thinking I m going to be using this for everyday use & gaming. Those seconds,minutes of load time saved all year long add up to hours if you have a ssd. The hdd for me personally, I would think any avid gamer/media junkie 1tb is pretty small now a dayz. Especially if you own 100+ games on steam. Also was $175 under budget for wiggle room for choices on a different PSU, Case, GPU (would probably upgrade to a 780 or 290x). This was my all purpose gaming build. That I personally would build for myself.

 

[airplanegeek]

Its that hard to get a decent overclocking haswell? Seems like every one Tom's bought is stuck at 4.3 or lower. I must've been really lucky with mine

 

[Crashman]

Its that hard to get a decent overclocking haswell? Seems like every one Tom's bought is stuck at 4.3 or lower. I must've been really lucky with mine

Well, let's take a look:

$2400 Performance PC
Intel Core i7-4770K: 3.5
to 3.90 GHz, Four Physical
Cores
O/C to 4.50 GHz, 1.25 V

Nope. I don't know about Don's processors, but the high-end build usually gets around 4.4 to 4.6 and I think it's only had two bad-overclocking CPUs in the past 2 years.

 

[HardcoreGamer1]

Really? Radeon r9 290x? $530? Stock brand? Just go with a Gigabyte R9 280x. It'll play every game out right now on ultra, and we all know that future-proofing is impossible. You don't wanna get anything higher than the 280x or you're wasting your money.

 

[lp231]

lp231, I would pay $30 more not to use the cases you chose. Aesthetics varies person-to-person.

You mean the two I've link to Newegg? I wouldn't either, just pick those as it's the cheapest for a full tower.
I kind of like the functionality of the Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935, but not its design.
It's 2 cases in 1, A mid tower with a Mini ITX.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119290

 

[Onus]

I've only owned 1-2 PowerColor cards, and neither gave me any grief.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

I don't understand why the 4790k is not used? It's 500mhz faster for the same price.

 

[de5_Roy]

I don't understand why the 4790k is not used? It's 500mhz faster for the same price.

in 2nd page:

It was the fastest unlocked CPU in Intel’s LGA 1150 arsenal back when we placed our orders for this quarter, and nothing less than the best would approach that machine's compelling performance. Of course, in the time between then and now, Intel introduced the Core i7-4790K. But it's only supposed to hit availability today.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pc-system-build-value-compared,3859.html

 

[toddybody]

Always enjoy these articles but was expecting something with CFX/SLI and possibly 2011 socket. IMO, a single card (unless its a dual GPU) and 1150 i7 are phenomenal...just not "High End"

 

[kunthakenthe]

um sorry im new but how do you enter into the giveaway any free computer is welcomed especially one with a 300$ cpu,540$gpu and sexy windowed case. I will win could some direct me though

 

[coolitic]

Why amd gpu? It will mean you need to spend more money on higher wattage psu and it makes a lot of noise.

 

[RedJaron]

hello help with the giveaway

Easy, you can't exactly expect an immediate reply on a Friday evening. First page of the article has a link to take you to a survey. It's only valid for US residents, though.

 

[Crashman]

Why amd gpu? It will mean you need to spend more money on higher wattage psu and it makes a lot of noise.

It doesn't make a lot of noise, and that's one of the reasons it won an award. The actual two reasons were noise and price.

 

[kunthakenthe]

hello help with the giveaway

Easy, you can't exactly expect an immediate reply on a Friday evening. First page of the article has a link to take you to a survey. It's only valid for US residents, though.

im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys

 

[RedJaron]

im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys

Not a problem. But this isn't necessarily for US citizens, but US residents. International trade laws prevent a lot of contest prizes being shipped internationally.

 

[kunthakenthe]

us resident

 

[Crashman]

im us citizen. I was a little pushy sorry guys

Not a problem. But this isn't necessarily for US citizens, but US residents. International trade laws prevent a lot of contest prizes being shipped internationally.

Right, resident citizen, resident alien, as long as it's not going outside the country (this means you Rhode Island ) you're fine.

 

[10tacle]

The power supply is the weakest link. A Rosewill, and only 750W with a Bronze rating? Not much headroom for expansion and SLI/Crossfire either. Going cheap on the PS is never wise. I'm really surprised at that low-ball for this level of a build. At this level, ~$150-$170 needs to be thrown at an 850W Gold like the SeaSonic X Series X-850. Just my opinion of course, but I'd find concessions elsewhere in the build for the same $$.

 

[grokem]

I like the new format but there are still issues. The other two builds all went with HDDs instead of SSDs because it saved $50. I can't imagine anyone making this choice in real life. The $50 extra for an SSD will do more for the performance of the machine than any other $50 you could spend. The problem is that boot times and load times aren't bench marked. How about including that as a part of the score in some way?