System Builder Marathon Q2 2014: System Value Compared

[Crashman]

The race tightens as all three builders try to squeeze the ultimate performance out of smaller budgets and the addition of an OS. Can the cheap gamer still game? Will one of the better-equipped systems finally top a comparison of performance to price?

System Builder Marathon Q2 2014: System Value Compared : Read more

 

[TechyInAZ]

It's interesting how the $1200 build actually beats the $1600 build at 1080P. I can see at ultra wide resolutions but it surprises me at 1080P.

 

[revanchrist]

Are you sure it's 770 rather than a R7 265 inside that $454 budget build?

 

[Herr_Koos]

On page 2 it says you used a GTX770 for the $600 budget build. Surely this is a typo? The GTX770was from last quarter.

 

[Crashman]

It's interesting how the $1200 build actually beats the $1600 build at 1080P. I can see at ultra wide resolutions but it surprises me at 1080P.

I think your expectations are reversed. Most readers expect a higher CPU clock to boost performance at lower resolutions where the graphics card isn't stressed, and to have little effect at triple monitor resolutions where the GPU limits the frame rate.

On page 2 it says you used a GTX770 for the $600 budget build. Surely this is a typo? The GTX770was from last quarter.

Thanks, fixed!

 

[de5_Roy]

awesome sbm, awesome articles, all of them. awesome job, guys. this quarter's was a lot of fun. no shortage of interesting stuff, excitement. or drama, lol.

 

[abbadon_34]

should give the winner his choice of $100 cash or OS

 

[envy14tpe]

One thing I notice is that overclocking, even with $30 coolers, seems to give an overall boost in performance of 10%. Not too shabby.

 

[Crashman]

should give the winner his choice of $100 cash or OS

Do you think any of us wants to buy your prize? If we didn't ourselves pay for these OS's, what makes you think we would pay for these OSs?

I got my two licenses for like, $20. Though I probably couldn't get any more like that, I don't need any more at the moment, thanks. If you don't want the OS, and you win my PC, just tell me and I'll keep it. Thanks!

 

[firefoxx04]

The mid range beating the high end in 1080p make sense considering it had a higher cpu clock and only 2-4 threads utilized most likely. I'm sure both gpu were in the 50-70% range

 

[Onus]

Ok, with the final article, time to enter the contest!
Disposition should I be a fortunate winner:
1. Having not messed with a "new" Athlon, I might put a 92mm cooler on it and see what I can get out of it for a week or three. I'd almost certainly contribute a SSD to it, then most likely donate it to a startup I know of that actually is more in need of office-type PCs (but they do play some games).
2. If the motherboard were micro-ATX, I'd probably use most of these parts to upgrade / replace my Phoenix PC, as they represent a platform upgrade. It would be a substantial upgrade to my Omega PC, but I like the idea of maintaining that AM3+ system due to the overall quality of the parts in it. If the Apevia case surprises me due to its quality, I may use it anyway. One way or another, this would lead to another complete system donation though.
3. The parts in this one appear to be of sufficient quality / durability that I would probably end up forsaking the Omega PC for this one. I'd put its 990FX onto my test bench though to keep it around, and donate that one (MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming) as above.

 

[Patrick Tobin]

Too bad the article wasn't done just a little later so they could put in a 4790K 🙁

 

[dgingeri]

I find it quite funny that clock for clock and core for core, the Intel architecture is between 3 and 4 times as fast as the AMD architecture. AMD really needs to step up their game, badly.

 

[Crashman]

Too bad the article wasn't done just a little later so they could put in a 4790K 🙁

You do realize that you get a new one in September, right?

 

[Amdlova]

why we not have a mini itx config with 1600 bucks ? 4770k arock z97 itx noctua d14 bitfenix prodigy and a nice and heavy gtx 780ti. maybe a raid 0 samsung pro with 4 tb storage ? i think will be better than this one.

 

[allanitomwesh]

Get's real hard to justify $2000 plus worth of hardware unless you'll actually do some powerful stuff with the rig. Go go budget rig,liked it from the start.

 

[Duckhunt]

I really appreciate the article using AMD. I ought to go the AMD route for a NAS.

 

[Duckhunt]

I wish they talked more the RAM prolonging the live of the SSD.

Id also want system build for NAS and UPS and things. If you want to put your swap file in your memory. Get a UPS and link it so if the power fails you computer will shut down correctly. I wish they would of put that in this article.
Power outage is a b+ch. I have not done this but i wish there would be an article on UPS's that work well and turn off everything orderly.

It would be good if we had load shedding and other particulars to make the reliability higher. Id like a solar system with load shedding 😛. So much fanciful thinking.

 

[Duckhunt]

I wish they talked more the RAM prolonging the life of the SSD.

 

[SirTrollsALot]

Forum Hijack Alert!!!
I really wish they make more articles on upgrades or recycling, that would coexist with these new builds. I believe most Tom viewers, correct me if I am wrong, are not new to computers. For instance, I had an aging OC'd i7930 x58 with triple channel memory, the mobo died after many years, but tracking down a x58 board new is impossible today. So I had about $300 at the time to spend on a new CPU/MOBO (Im saving up for X99 btw) and wanted to use my old DDR3 1600 memory, SSD , HD, video card, and case.... Now what would be a good recommendation for that scenario? I went the following specs on my signature... $270 + about $30 shipping to Hawaii... :|

 

[chucklepard]

I always love the System Builder Marathons, as they are targeted exactly to me and my price/performance/usage model. Have you ever considered occasionally including other types of builds? Such as the "My parent/sibling/spouse/friend" has asked me to build the cheapest basic web-surfing/music/photo uploading build I can make them. What's the lowest-cost, stable-running CPU/MB/RAM/SD/Optical/PS/Case actually worth using? Or ""I need to run virtual machines with Linux/XP/8.1 simultaneously. What are the best virtualizing MB/CPUs/HDs at specific prices points?" Your focus on gaming is admired and appreciated and is definitely the right approach for the average reader's personal use. However, the components you research are the ones I suspect most of us (and perhaps most of you) enjoy researching, and saving us research time on other component and system types would free up more time to build and use the personal builds you help us identify!

 

[jmayo]

When will the Q2 winners be announced?

 

[Crashman]

When will the Q2 winners be announced?

Isn't the contest still running? It always takes them a month to get us the list...

 

[ceh4702]

I don't play video games so these articles are not worth much. I usually build a computer to use with my HDTV looking for wireless, watching Internet videos, E-Mail, YouTube, etc. Last build I used an I-3 4330 with 4600 graphics and mounted the power supply upside down using a Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI motherboard with AC wireless.

 

[Lars Riisnaes]

There really isn't any need to keep subtracting 100% from the efficiency chart every time. Yes, efficiency can't exceed 100%, but that's *absolute* efficiency, while you're talking about *relative* efficiency. Case in point, if you ever had a PC that had three times the performance with the same power draw, you'd still have a result of 200% with your current method.