System Builder Marathon Q2 2015: $1600 Gaming PC

[vertexx]

I agree with the consensus here. Too much for the case, memory, motherboard & PSU. - no excuse not to stretch to the 980TI for a $1,600 gaming focused build.

 

[ykki]

Whoa? A 980 for $170? Newegg really did it for me!!

 

[duttonta]

I'm actually surprised at how nice these comments generally are. Good job being one of the more polite communities on the internet. This build is by no means perfect, but it is definitely representative of the rabbit holes newer builders often find themselves going down. I appreciate the builder's effort, and hope future efforts continue to improve and explore the design space of PC building.

About that air cooling scheme... For some of these SBMs I think it would be useful to add a schematic of the case showing which fans are blowing in which direction. If I understand your layout correctly I would posit that blocking off that top, rear fan would get you lower cpu temps than having it blowing in. You're adding pressure downstream of the cpu cooler with your current configuration. Those top fans are best for a radiator, but in lieu of that you should focus on pulling or pushing as much air as possible across the cpu, i.e. creating a large pressure gradient. Also, I wonder how bad the recirculation would be if you had the top, front fan blowing in and the top, rear fan pulling air out. It should really encourage airflow across the cpu, but you'd probably be pulling in hot air unless you had something to split the flow.

Maybe Tom's can get a test case with lots of fans and play with some airflow schemes...

 

[Onus]

I did not like this build article. It isn't that all the parts were bad, but they seem to have been chosen independently of one another. The build seems to have been done in a haphazard manner, without consideration of how the parts would go together.
The cooler and RAM need to be considered together, to avoid blocking issues. If it means low-profile RAM, so be it; timing differences are not going to make or break the machine.
Heat rises. The top fans should remain exhaust. Cases with pre-installed fans are set up for good flow through them, and this should be preserved. Was the Rosewill Blackhawk considered? It comes with five fans, has a top HDD dock, lots of USB ports, and is $30 cheaper. It looks like a lot of effort was used to kludge this build into this case, and still there were cooling issues.
Yes, I'm one of those who would not use a CWT-built Corsair PSU. Modular is good, but there are other choices, and as pointed out, the GTX980 doesn't need 750W. Looking at the range of choices available today, it looks like a better unit could have been obtained for $20-$30 less.
I realize we have a new writer doing this, however next time I hope the biggest lesson learned from this is "Synergy matters."
OTOH, I do have a certain sympathy for the poor OC results. This will not be the first time a builder lost the silicon lottery.

 

[James Mason]

I agree with Onus and others, i see a lot of, weird decisions made for this build. Even with such a large budget, it feels money was spent really poorly on some parts.

 

[Frozen Fractal]

About that air cooling scheme... For some of these SBMs I think it would be useful to add a schematic of the case showing which fans are blowing in which direction. If I understand your layout correctly I would posit that blocking off that top, rear fan would get you lower cpu temps than having it blowing in. You're adding pressure downstream of the cpu cooler with your current configuration. Those top fans are best for a radiator, but in lieu of that you should focus on pulling or pushing as much air as possible across the cpu, i.e. creating a large pressure gradient. Also, I wonder how bad the recirculation would be if you had the top, front fan blowing in and the top, rear fan pulling air out. It should really encourage airflow across the cpu, but you'd probably be pulling in hot air unless you had something to split the flow.

Maybe Tom's can get a test case with lots of fans and play with some airflow schemes...

Heat rises. The top fans should remain exhaust. Cases with pre-installed fans are set up for good flow through them, and this should be preserved.

As I said before, top & front fans as intake and rear one as exhaust works, and this shows that it's actually an optimal config
.

here's a guide to arrange airflow in a system. Notice that it's opposite to what most of us actually implement in our builds.

 

[synphul]

I think simply trying the fans in various combinations and comparing real results are far better than theory. I almost wanted to stop reading the silverstone page when they started off by babbling about positive vs negative 'pressure' for cooling a case. The sides of the case do not expand or contract, there is only airflow in an unsealed case meaning pressure does not exist. Another reason for running air flow front to rear is because typically the case is located in such a way that a user has the front of the case nearest to them whether on the floor or on the desk. To reverse airflow means to have air blowing at the user and in a worst case scenario, blowing around their face. I'd much rather have warm air exhausting away from my face then into it and potentially dust along with it. It's not worth the minor difference in temperatures. Rather than diagnosing the crap out of a case's 'perfect world' airflow scenario, simply turn the a/c on and watch temps fall.

 

[siman0]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6pttFT

Note if you will the abilities of the computer, value of the computer, and the emphasis on GAMING. Since we are trying to make a GAMING PC, I focused on GAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tomshardware...........

I would ditch this build anyway given this SBM is far better than what you provided. For this, it would be pointless to find faults in it.

But even if I were to, these are what I'd find:

1) i5 4460 + Z87 board = BAD IDEA

2) i5 4460 per se is worse over i5 4590 even if we just wanting non-K Haswell

3) For a CFX platform, H50 is too "filmsy" (note that quote mark) for the CPU

4) H50 itself is pointless for a non-OCable i5 4460

5) Why get two R9 290 for ~$600 when you can have a GTX 980 Ti, Fury X, or R9 295X2 (or even GTX 970 SLI) for that money?

6) If it's about 4K-ready gaming build, CFX makes sense and all those GPUs in my previous point. If it's for nothing more than 1440p, then GTX 980, R9 390X is enough.

7) Seagate Barracuda 1TB 2.5" 5400RPM drive for a PC? That's another BAD IDEA.

If you are hurt by my words, please pardon me. This is how I tend to talk.

1. the chipset will provide enough bandwidth for the selected components anything more is unnecessary, we are going to FPS for the money with livability.

2. CPU makes vary little difference in games. The north bridge is more than enough to push good FPS for the cost. This is about affordability and the ability to push frames

3. the H50 provides more than enough cooling for the CPU's TDP its mostly to keep sound down and CPU life up. IDK what your getting at with this.

4. see 3

5. its about pushing frames the 290 is still more than enough for any game out there and will be for a long time. In crossfire its even more potent still able to push more frames than a single fury 980 ect... If you stated this might change with new APIs I might agree with you on the fury but as right now a Crossfire 290 is still much more powerful than a single card.

6. see 5 and this is able to push a 1440p monitor at 144Hz with good graphics too. more frames better quality. playing games is cool and all but having good quality settings also makes a difference.

7. its for storage its not meant to be fast. most of the games would be stored on the SSD. Movies, music, not often accessed applications, ect... would be stored on the HDD. Its a hybrid 2.5 so regularly accessed data would be retrieved faster (porn). In the end its about livability of the computer, and if it makes you feel better you could get a bigger 7200rpm and a 1tb SSD with the money you saved from everything else. or get 3 512gig SSDs and raid them...

 

[littleleo]

Whoa? A 980 for $170? Newegg really did it for me!!

They must have fixed that glitch when I checked it was at $499

 

[ykki]

Whoa? A 980 for $170? Newegg really did it for me!!

They must have fixed that glitch when I checked it was at $499

Yeah. Earlier they had linked the mobo to the 980.

 

[CK7]

There's 960TB SSD's now?

Wow, that technology sure evolved quickly in the past few hours.

 

[tsnor]

I expect better gaming PC from you guys
Intel Core i5-4690K $239.00
ASRock Z97 Anniversary 89.99
Team Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600 $84.99
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB G1 $689.99
NZXT V2 700W $84.99
Western Digital Blue 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB $52.99
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240GB $84.99
Noctua NH-D14 $78.49
ASUS DVD-Writer $19.99
Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-03 $59.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit $99.99
total: $1586.39 price also from newegg

Any chance of building/benching this one too?

 

[ykki]

There's 960TB SSD's now?

Wow, that technology sure evolved quickly in the past few hours.

Man this comment cracked me up!! :lol:

 

[Frozen Fractal]

1. the chipset will provide enough bandwidth for the selected components anything more is unnecessary, we are going to FPS for the money with livability.

2. CPU makes vary little difference in games. The north bridge is more than enough to push good FPS for the cost. This is about affordability and the ability to push frames

3. the H50 provides more than enough cooling for the CPU's TDP its mostly to keep sound down and CPU life up. IDK what your getting at with this.

4. see 3

5. its about pushing frames the 290 is still more than enough for any game out there and will be for a long time. In crossfire its even more potent still able to push more frames than a single fury 980 ect... If you stated this might change with new APIs I might agree with you on the fury but as right now a Crossfire 290 is still much more powerful than a single card.

6. see 5 and this is able to push a 1440p monitor at 144Hz with good graphics too. more frames better quality. playing games is cool and all but having good quality settings also makes a difference.

7. its for storage its not meant to be fast. most of the games would be stored on the SSD. Movies, music, not often accessed applications, ect... would be stored on the HDD. Its a hybrid 2.5 so regularly accessed data would be retrieved faster (porn). In the end its about livability of the computer, and if it makes you feel better you could get a bigger 7200rpm and a 1tb SSD with the money you saved from everything else. or get 3 512gig SSDs and raid them...

I really don't know if you are new to this but northbridge provides enough bandwith? For what? GPU? In case you don't know, PCIe 3.0 lanes are directly linked to the CPU, without any "middleman" in between. So what else would you be needing bandwith for anyway?

And again here, since northbridge doesn't "bridge" between GPU & CPU, it has no contribution to GPU performance, nor CPU performance in games, thus no effect on FPS.

You are not OCing the 4460, why would you then need an AiO cooler? Intel stock does enough. That's just wasting of money there.

Here also, in case you don't know, GTX 980 does enough to keep the frame rates high over 60 even at Ultra settings @1440p. So CFX or dual-GPU setup isn't necessery

 

[siman0]

1. the chipset will provide enough bandwidth for the selected components anything more is unnecessary, we are going to FPS for the money with livability.

2. CPU makes vary little difference in games. The north bridge is more than enough to push good FPS for the cost. This is about affordability and the ability to push frames

3. the H50 provides more than enough cooling for the CPU's TDP its mostly to keep sound down and CPU life up. IDK what your getting at with this.

4. see 3

5. its about pushing frames the 290 is still more than enough for any game out there and will be for a long time. In crossfire its even more potent still able to push more frames than a single fury 980 ect... If you stated this might change with new APIs I might agree with you on the fury but as right now a Crossfire 290 is still much more powerful than a single card.

6. see 5 and this is able to push a 1440p monitor at 144Hz with good graphics too. more frames better quality. playing games is cool and all but having good quality settings also makes a difference.

7. its for storage its not meant to be fast. most of the games would be stored on the SSD. Movies, music, not often accessed applications, ect... would be stored on the HDD. Its a hybrid 2.5 so regularly accessed data would be retrieved faster (porn). In the end its about livability of the computer, and if it makes you feel better you could get a bigger 7200rpm and a 1tb SSD with the money you saved from everything else. or get 3 512gig SSDs and raid them...

I really don't know if you are new to this but northbridge provides enough bandwith? For what? GPU? In case you don't know, PCIe 3.0 lanes are directly linked to the CPU, without any "middleman" in between. So what else would you be needing bandwith for anyway?

And again here, since northbridge doesn't "bridge" between GPU & CPU, it has no contribution to GPU performance, nor CPU performance in games, thus no effect on FPS.

You are not OCing the 4460, why would you then need an AiO cooler? Intel stock does enough. That's just wasting of money there.

Here also, in case you don't know, GTX 980 does enough to keep the frame rates high over 60 even at Ultra settings @1440p. So CFX or dual-GPU setup isn't necessery

lol no I've been around for a while the term north bridge has been used to describe the CPUs IO busses for a little while now. Generally comprises of PCIe buss and memory buss. The term used to describe a off die package that was on the chipset. Also yes there is still a "middle man" between "cpu" and the GPU, the same goes for the memory. Both still require a buss controller to operate. By definition the term CPU is still just the CPU cores, cash, and scheduler or the processing unit itself. It more along the lines that the northbridge has been merged onto the CPU's die package. That is why I used north bridge in the terms and aspects of the CPU rather than describing the motherboard.

If you want to call it a waist of money you can, but if your going along those lines Tom's computer is a giant waist of money in almost every aspect of their build's hardware choices...

yes, I have a 980 and a 980Ti and a bunch of others (both AMD and Nvidia) but for the frames you can get out of a crossfire 290 set up is still more than any single one card, period. It also allows you to not only turn up the quality settings but also push more frames. 60FPS is above average if you looking at a console, for a computer 60 is dirt slow. Its about getting more for your money, the money saved from this computer also allows you go grab a free sync monitor and other peripherals.

 

[Andrew Gurklies]

YOU DO REALIZE that the temps are in celsius, and 80c is 7.28c over rated thermal max from intel? and your picture show above 80c .... so YES YOU WERE OVERHEATING... please learn celsius from fahrenheit thank you.