System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $1300 Enthusiast PC

[jaquith]

Funny thing is I'm spending more on a 2560 x 1440 monitor and a pair of GTX 770's...

 

[Onus]

The $650 build is called out as a gamer, and I don't think it is too unreasonable to assume that "enthusiasts" are also gamers, but I definitely think the "Professional" build must be targeted to a specific [type of] user, who perhaps only wishes to play games as an afterthought.
The problem is that the way these are scored only counts performance, and counts it linearly. While it would be very hard to objectively score on qualities like appearance, I think it would be possible to create a non-linear scale for performance, such that FPS up to 60 scores at one rate, FPS up to 90 scores at a second, lower rate, and FPS over that scores at the lowest incremental rate; more granularity can be introduced, and someone specifically going for 3D gaming would also score differently, but conceptually this could be done to illustrate that faster may be better, but only up to a point, after which it may become less irrelevant.
To apply this in a real world example, I play on one monitor, and I can use max settings in my mostly older and/or less demanding titles on a HD7870 and get smooth frame rates. A HD7970, though providing measurably faster FPS, doesn't "play" any smoother, so it is of no greater value to me. Someone playing Crysis 3 or Tomb Raider is obviously going to feel differently, but at some point the concept of diminishing returns will apply. Once I've met my primary performance targets, secondary measures like power use and noise become a lot more important, as do more subjective measures like size, appearance, and convenience. If the Professional is an accountant, perhaps his idea of a sweet build incorporates RAID1 and a UPS for data safety, and looks distinctly professional sitting beside his desk, or maybe it lives in a pair of 2U chassis in a rack against the wall.

 

[akula2]

Corsair Liquid Cooling? It's an overkill.
Also, this isn't complete "PC" cost either. Say at least $300 will go for a solid Monitor. And some more cool Hardware costs, add another $400 min. Software cost? At least $200 for sure. There goes $900+

Now, what would be total price of this PC? $2200 :O

 

[goinginstyle]

The ASUS ROG Hero board is much better than that GB OC board when paired with that CPU. Why not select it? These choices are so weird.

 

[slomo4sho]

The ASUS ROG Hero board is much better than that GB OC board when paired with that CPU. Why not select it? These choices are so weird.

Better in what respect?

 

[chaospower]

Fact is, the person who made this article got it to 4.3ghz with water cooling.
Fact is, I was talking about the results he got from OCing it. Was I supposed to talk about your OC which I was not aware of?

Not sure where you got the idea that I was talking to you or correcting your misconceptions but now that you have brought your illogical and ignorant reply to my attention...

Fact is that any Z87 board will provide roughly the same overclock capacity as the biggest variable in the overclock capacity is the CPU itself so the $200 motherboard provides almost zero benefit when it comes to overclocking headroom for this build.
Fact is that the H50 performs worst than most quality air cooler.
Fact is that Don lost the silicon lottery when when purchased the 4670K for this writeup.
Fact is that a sample size of one does not provide an accurate depiction of overclock capacity of the Haswell lineup.
Fact is that Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge counterparts also had a substantial percentage of the of chips that didn't overclock well (albeit the proportion may be larger in Haswell).

First of all, I wasn't responding to you but to the other quote... Because I wanted to respond to you earlier I didn't realize that your quote was still stuck there, which caused confusion. I'm new to tomshardware forum system.
And you are right about the motherboard and the choice of cooling.
But... Fact is, Sandy bridge never had problems with OC because its IHS was soldered to the CPU die, It all started with Ivy Bridge when intel stoped doing that.
Fact is, to get much higher OC than the one achieved in this writeup, you had to delid your cpu, as do most people who OC it. In order to get your CPU to work right, you need to risk damaging it? Sorry if I don't count that as a positive thing when I'm comparing this brand new cpu to the 2 year old sandy bridge.
Now check these benchmarks out:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/01/intel_haswell_i74770k_ipc_overclocking_review/5#.UkUoRdJ7L4c

Haswell is certainly an improvement over Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge when you look at the numbers when they check it with all settings as low as possible, but what about when they actually play them on 1080p and highest settings as most people would? The difference is tiny. And considering you could OC the sandy bridge higher, the difference is then non-existent as far as gaming is concerned.
What I'm trying to say here, is that i'll get a used sandy bridge I7 over an haswell i5 any day of the week, the hyper threading will also make it a good future proof option with all those 8-core optimizations that are going to be made for all the newest games.

 

[slomo4sho]

But... Fact is, Sandy bridge never had problems with OC because its IHS was soldered to the CPU die, It all started with Ivy Bridge when intel stoped doing that.
Fact is, to get much higher OC than the one achieved in this writeup, you had to delid your cpu, as do most people who OC it. In order to get your CPU to work right, you need to risk damaging it? Sorry if I don't count that as a positive thing when I'm comparing this brand new cpu to the 2 year old sandy bridge.

The soldered IHS has nothing to do with overclock potential but everything to do with temperatures which can potentially limit the overclock potential of the chip. The lack of soldered core and the poor application of thermal paste on Ivy and Haswell make it necessary to have better cooling solutions for overclocking. However, on the other end of the spectrum, the ability to removed the IHS actually enables better cooling of the core by enthusiast especially when dealing with extreme overclocking using LN or LH.

As far as me needing to delid my 4770K, a stable 4.8GHz overclock was reached prior to delidding the chip. The chip was delidded to enable higher overclock potential because pushing past 4.8Ghz required voltage past 1.35V and lead to throttling due to temps. The alternative would have been to step from the Seidon 240M to a custom water loop. Delidding was the cheaper option and the cooling performance obtained would actually carry over to the custom loop if the need ever arises

Lastly, those benchmarks are based on a single GPU. If you want to know the true potential of a CPU, you have to create a bottleneck at the CPU and this requires multiple GPUs. A single Titan is not going to tell you the true story of the chip but, instead, only show how the GPU is bottlenecked.

 

[abarabas]

I would have gone for a 760 and a 4770k.

 

[Crashman]

I would have gone for a 760 and a 4770k.

You might be right, I just tested a machine in that configuration and compared all the data. You'll see it in an upcoming review, thanks for the suggestion!

 

[masmotors]

i have 4670k with hd 7950 and it seems nice so if i had gtx 770 it would be better or r9 290x nice glad i got it micro has that deal going on now for both amd also so if you live by go there anyway good reading

 

[ceolstan]

I wish that Toms would have videos of their builds. I'd been looking at systems to get ideas for the next build when my laptop (stop gap measure between desktop builds) needed to be RMA'd. I opted to go for the enthusiast build, swapping in a 280x for the graphics card and opting for a different SDD. The result shaved off a significant amount off the price. Also, I used a HAF 922, purchased on a really great newegg sale, as my case.

The H50 has been the problem child. The board has more features than I need. It really is an OC board, and while I do plan to overclock, my primary use will be gaming, so my OC will be higher than the turbo, but the goal is to be cool and stable.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not get an exact lineup between the holes on the mobo and the holes for the back bracket. Getting the cooler installed took a couple of hours. I would really love to see a video of how Tom's managed to install this sucker, since I have had a lot of trouble.

Oh, and my temps are sky-high. I will likely have to reinstall the cooler and try again, as it may be the case the cooler isn't making complete contact with the cpu.

There is a great thread on overclockers for the Gigabyte z87 chipset. I'll be using that to achieve a respectable--but not extreme--overclock.

 

[youssef 2010]

You could've saved $30 by going with a 550Watt PSU like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104180
You could've used the extra money for a larger SSD, faster RAM,.....etc