System Builder Marathon Q3 2014: Mainstream Enthusiast PC

[Crashman]

What in the HELL did you do to the Q2 rig with a full on R9 290 to make it lose to a 770... you sure you didn't slip in another 770 in some of these test...

Don't think the Q2 rig was properly setup if you are losing to the 770 in every test...

It doesn't appear to be a problem with the previous results, but the current ones. I found some of his gaming results were incredible, but I'm using them anyway for the Day 4

 

[icerider]

I really feel you would have been better served with a 212 EVO in place of the NH-D14. The 212 has no issues cooling up to 175 watts in my experience. Also the Rosewill R5 case has the same amount of fans, better filtering, and at least equal quality/looks for 50 dollars less not counting the 20 rebate. total saved 90 bucks would have got you the R9-290.

 

[icerider]

The PSU received a Golden Award at HardwareSecrets, and it did mostly well on other sites as well, although at least three noted the presence of Samxon capacitors. They don't appear to be "GF" series though, which supposedly are the really bad ones.
I'd like to know more about the thickness / flexibility of the ASRock mobo. Otherwise, I don't think I have any niggles over performance-related parts.

You know, I kinda choked a bit also when I saw an Inwin psu in a performance build. Good to see that maybe they are trying to improve from a supplier that I absolutely refused to even consider.

 

[daveys93]

Just wanted to comment on your overclocking of the Zotac 770. In the overclocking section you mention that the voltage was increased to the +12 mV setting; although you can move the slider on the overclocking tool, the IC for the voltage circuitry does not enable software controllable voltage adjustment. The Richtek RT8802A PWM controller is only voltage adjustable through hardware modifications, so setting a +12 mV offset in the overclocking utility actually does nothing for this particular card (the board is a reference GTX 680 design with a GTX 770 GPU).

 

[Sparky4688]

Cooler Master HAF XM Computer Case: Bought this case last November for my personal build with no regrets. Lots of room to work with, good cable management, excellent air flow control - worth the price alone... front filter collects most of the dust and can be vacuumed from the front outside no disassembly required. SSD can mounted on inside of case saving bay space - room for 2 SSDs. Not much use for X-Dock yet, can turn off LED - a plus for me, VERY quiet stock case fans. This case is wider and deeper than most like cases but fits under my desk.

 

[f-14]

Don page 7
the sentence is in error, unless the chart is in error (doubtful by the #'s):

"...we can see the Physics suite, in blue, favors the new build's higher-clocked Core i5-4690K, while the Graphics component, in black, demonstrates a sizable lead for the Radeon R9 290."

 

[Onus]

Alternate builds that "break the rules" of the SBM (e.g. including non-Newegg parts) or that use unavailable parts will be deleted for being off-topic.

Edit: Such builds may be very good, but would belong in their own thread, not in a thread devoted to a SBM article; they're simply not relevant as they reflect choices that could not have been made, regardless of budget or other preferences.

 

[f-14]

also the Red Don. the black and red favor the new build, the blue favors the Q3... i'm tired too. seen this posted just before i went to bed and only 5 hours of sleep myself

 

[f-14]

Red Don <--- forgot to mention pun intended (was interrupted in typing that by a big yawn)

 

[f-14]

"Now that we've added an SSD back into the mix, you can see a huge difference in storage performance. This is a good approximation of the experience you'll have when booting off of these drives, too."

10.7 MB/s & 11.1MB/s ?
WDF???? even IDE was 66MB/s 10 years ago any one else question this?

 

[vagrantsoul]

Sorry, forgot about the newegg stipulation... here's a newegg only build:
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZVF2jX
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZVF2jX/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($82.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP600 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB DirectCU II Video Card ($329.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R Windowed ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($68.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1217.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-25 13:57 EDT-0400

 

[Rapajez]

Why would you orient the Noctua-14 vertically here? Wouldn't you want it horizontal, with the 2 fans pulling cool air in front the front intake fans, and pushing it out toward the rear exhaust fan? Right now it would be pulling hot air off the GPU, and kind of blocking off the rear-exhaust fan completely. Also, it looks, diagonal?

This is how I mounted mine:

 

[Onus]

With a focus on maximum overclocking, a Hyper212 EVO won't cut it; you need big air or a better CLC for that.

 

[de5_Roy]

The money saved on the case as well as the CPU cooler can be put towards R9-290.

nice experiment and you guys summed it up perfectly at the end. get a hyper 212, buy the value ram and maybe go for a $50 case and pump everything else into a GPU if you really want performance.

better coolers only get you a couple more MHz in the end and the added cost will not offset that since the more expensive coolers push you into the i7 category of chips which is better than an overclocked i5.

I really feel you would have been better served with a 212 EVO in place of the NH-D14. The 212 has no issues cooling up to 175 watts in my experience. Also the Rosewill R5 case has the same amount of fans, better filtering, and at least equal quality/looks for 50 dollars less not counting the 20 rebate. total saved 90 bucks would have got you the R9-290.

i hope this will clear things up:

Many of you are probably already familiar with the Marathon. This quarter, you'll see our format change a bit, largely based on your feedback. First, we are focusing specifically on the prices of components that affect performance, leaving the parts that don’t impact benchmark results out of the value equation. In other words, the case, optical drive, and operating system have no bearing on our price/performance calculations. Everything else falls under the “Price of Performance Hardware”.

from q2 sbm.

 

[icerider]

With a focus on maximum overclocking, a Hyper212 EVO won't cut it; you need big air or a better CLC for that.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-roundup-six-coolers-from-noctua-silverstone-and-cooler-master/4

That chart is done with a I7-2700K OCed to 4400 with 1.4 volt which is a 150 watt load. Your OC on the I5_4690k is a 130 watt load.

2.3 degrees is the worst separation between the 2 coolers in any test mode. They didn't even use the supplied brackets to put a 2nd fan on the back of the EVO for a push/pull.Tell me again how an EVO won't cut it?

I use it on an FX-6350 OCed to 5000 with 1.45 volt. A veritable 200 watt furnace compared to these intels.

To be totally honest. unless your running a intel chip from 3 gens back or one of 6 or 8 core current amd chips even the EVO is overkill. (won't swear to this with the new 6 core 12 thread intels though)

 

[Onus]

Note that's 44C over ambient, not 44C period. Yes, CPUs can run at 70C, but most people prefer to keep them a little cooler. Another 4C may not seem like a lot, but it is at the margin; and 12C from a decent water cooler is a lot, margin or no. It's not that the Hyper EVO is a bad cooler, just that it is overrated.

 

[fkr]

Note that's 44C over ambient, not 44C period. Yes, CPUs can run at 70C, but most people prefer to keep them a little cooler. Another 4C may not seem like a lot, but it is at the margin; and 12C from a decent water cooler is a lot, margin or no. It's not that the Hyper EVO is a bad cooler, just that it is overrated.

overrated is a bit much

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPUCooling/772

maybe 8 degrees of difference and this is at full load. no game ever made yet pushes all 4-8 cores like a benchmark will. so yes the 10C can mean allot while benchmarking but while gaming the hyper 212 evo is an equal cooler and the $50-80 you save is a move up to the next GPU.

If you are pushing 200+ continious watts then yes you will need something else and you will fall into the 0.10% of users

 

[icerider]

Note that's 44C over ambient, not 44C period. Yes, CPUs can run at 70C, but most people prefer to keep them a little cooler. Another 4C may not seem like a lot, but it is at the margin; and 12C from a decent water cooler is a lot, margin or no. It's not that the Hyper EVO is a bad cooler, just that it is overrated.

Well, I disagree on the overrated part, with 2 fans mounted it's as big air as I intend to weight a motherboard with. If I need more cooling than that it's time to break out a D5 Laing, 2 case fans, some tubing, and a 79 Bonneville heater core.
That particular setup will out cool any closed loop currently known and still cost ya less than a NH-d14.

 

[Onus]

If you're not in that extreme fraction of a percent needing good liquid, then the same can be said of any number of competitors to the Hyper EVO, some of them costing 30%-40% less (e.g. I bought my Gaias for $20 when the EVO was up to $34. Once again, I'm not calling it a bad cooler, but you will never convince me it is anything special; it simply isn't.

http://www.techreaction.net/2011/07/07/review-xigmatek-gaia-sd1283/7/
http://www.techreaction.net/2011/11/27/review-cooler-master-hyper-212-plus/4/

(and it was the EVO they tested, not the Plus)

 

[RedJaron]

What in the HELL did you do to the Q2 rig with a full on R9 290 to make it lose to a 770... you sure you didn't slip in another 770 in some of these test...

Don't think the Q2 rig was properly setup if you are losing to the 770 in every test...

The 290 didn't lose in every test. You need to look at the bars again ( particularly the green and blue ones, ) and understand the entirely of the system specs.

The Q2 machine had the better GPU. The Q3 machine had the faster CPU and better memory sub-system. The stronger GPU doesn't come as much into play without a significant graphical load. BF4, Arma 3, and Far Cry 3 all show the same thing: the Q3 machine was faster at low resolutions but slower in the triple screen tests.

Both GPUs are near overkill for a single screen so the CPUs take more of the load in those conditions. Considering the Q3 was clocked higher, that makes it look like the 770 is pushing ahead. The multi-screen tests pushes the load back to the GPU where the 290 flexes its fatter memory pipe and shader advantage and comes out the winner.

Grid is a little different because it shows love for memory performance. At lower detail settings, the GPU doesn't get much of a workout and the system with the tuned memory gets a huge boost. But crank it up to ultra and you'll see the stronger GPU once again assert itself at the higher resolutions.

 

[Crashman]

With a focus on maximum overclocking, a Hyper212 EVO won't cut it; you need big air or a better CLC for that.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-roundup-six-coolers-from-noctua-silverstone-and-cooler-master/4

That chart is done with a I7-2700K OCed to 4400 with 1.4 volt which is a 150 watt load. Your OC on the I5_4690k is a 130 watt load.

2.3 degrees is the worst separation between the 2 coolers in any test mode. They didn't even use the supplied brackets to put a 2nd fan on the back of the EVO for a push/pull.Tell me again how an EVO won't cut it?

I use it on an FX-6350 OCed to 5000 with 1.45 volt. A veritable 200 watt furnace compared to these intels.

To be totally honest. unless your running a intel chip from 3 gens back or one of 6 or 8 core current amd chips even the EVO is overkill. (won't swear to this with the new 6 core 12 thread intels though)

First of all, Onus is right. Second of all, one often needs a BIG change in cooling to see a SMALL change in temperature with Haswell.The "90's" might have improved TIM, but as we've seen from the motherboard roundups it isn't a cure-all. You're still getting luck-of the draw, you're just drawing from a slightly better deck.

Any cooler reviews that use a CPU with superior thermal conductivity are irrelevant, which is why I don't post links to irrelevant sites.

 

[fkr]

If you're not in that extreme fraction of a percent needing good liquid, then the same can be said of any number of competitors to the Hyper EVO, some of them costing 30%-40% less (e.g. I bought my Gaias for $20 when the EVO was up to $34. Once again, I'm not calling it a bad cooler, but you will never convince me it is anything special; it simply isn't.

http://www.techreaction.net/2011/07/07/review-xigmatek-gaia-sd1283/7/
http://www.techreaction.net/2011/11/27/review-cooler-master-hyper-212-plus/4/

(and it was the EVO they tested, not the Plus)

sure we can take into account who has a better deal at any point and time but they cost the same at retail, hell I can buy a used for $15 bucks and I have extra fans (beat that deal)

you can get any i5 k-series for $225 then spend another $30 on a cooler which takes you to $255 all together. if you spend another $45 on a cooler ($75 all together) then you could have just bought a i7 3770 for $300.

All I am trying to get across is that unless you just enjoy overclocking everything like i do then it is just a waste to spend more than $35 on a CPU cooler . No quad CF/SLI configuration needs anything more than an i5 and as far as productivity goes getting an i7 will serve you better than an overclocked i5.

 

[Onus]

you can get any i5 k-series for $225 then spend another $30 on a cooler which takes you to $255 all together. if you spend another $45 on a cooler ($75 all together) then you could have just bought a i7 3770 for $300.

All I am trying to get across is that unless you just enjoy overclocking everything like i do then it is just a waste to spend more than $35 on a CPU cooler . No quad CF/SLI configuration needs anything more than an i5 and as far as productivity goes getting an i7 will serve you better than an overclocked i5.

Oh, I completely agree with this (not sure why anyone would buy two coolers though). Furthermore, if overclocking is not a goal (but it was in this SBM build), the only reason for any aftermarket cooler is to reduce noise, in which case $20 ought to do it (I've seen the Hyper212+ at that price lately; competitors are often there too).

 

[icerider]

First of all, Onus is right. Second of all, one often needs a BIG change in cooling to see a SMALL change in temperature with Haswell.The "90's" might have improved TIM, but as we've seen from the motherboard roundups it isn't a cure-all. You're still getting luck-of the draw, you're just drawing from a slightly better deck.

Any cooler reviews that use a CPU with superior thermal conductivity are irrelevant, which is why I don't post links to irrelevant sites.

I kind of feel like this discussion is devolving but, here is a what I would hope you would consider a "relevant" link to a 212 evo on what you would have to agree is a cpu without superior thermal conductivity.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/enthusiast-pc-under-1300,3856-14.html

Your own testing shows 53 above ambient on a clearly inferior thermal package.
If you still believe the EVO couldn't cut it, I will personally send you one with a stick of Arctice Silver and some detailed instructions on best application method and await your testing.

I've used both coolers, Stock the EVO is a close match, add a 2nd stock fan and it's superior.
I am in no way affiliated with Cooler Master.
Just a rabid fanboy of the EVO, I guess

 

[icerider]

Oh, I completely agree with this (not sure why anyone would buy two coolers though). Furthermore, if overclocking is not a goal (but it was in this SBM build), the only reason for any aftermarket cooler is to reduce noise, in which case $20 ought to do it (I've seen the Hyper212+ at that price lately; competitors are often there too).

I actually always add a 120 mm aftermarket cooler (and not always a 212, depends on what's on sale) to my customer builds even at stock clocks because of ease of cleaning, easily and cheaply replaceable fans, and acoustic properties. I consider them an investment in the machines overall longevity considering the horrible housekeeping practices most people submit they're machines to.