System Builder Marathon Q3 2015: Value Comparison

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How about "no reduced scores"? That would mean everything would either have to be the same or upgraded :)

 


How about by fixing, it means what would a normal user of the system do to upgrade the system, without completely going to new platforms/new system.
 
How about "no reduced scores"? That would mean everything would either have to be the same or upgraded :)
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Do one with what the average person would upgrade, nothing major like changing motherboards or CPU's just storage, GPU, memory and possibly the case/cooling. Keep the original scores and then compare it to upgraded components. Treat the Q3 builds as entry level for building a system, then pick typical components a person would normally upgrade before building a completely new system. This gives us a better understanding on just how well these systems could perform with upgrades later. But as always great articles and good info here. Been visiting since I found the site around 1998
 
Idea: Best performance/value out of a silent machine. Silent would require no HDD, passive cooling, and psu/graphics card where the fans don't start up until under load. Is this even possible?
 
i think my idea for $100 to do "upgrades" with the "old part" recovery factor makes for a pretty solid and realistic way a budget builder would approach a personal system with hard limits. Here's to hoping the idea gets a thumbs-up :)
 

No slight at Munchkin; an 860K is a lot more viable than an X4 5350. You might need a true Crossfire board to get enough graphics power for 4K though. So much for Kabini; it only has 4 PCIe lanes.
The rules should include same motherboard, and same initial targets. Since Eric's initial target included "mini-ITX," he's got to keep that form factor, but a case replacement IS something a builder might do if he realized it could solve his thermal problems. I'd love to see what Munchkin could do in a Neutron. Munchkin+cooler+Neutron+OC could be a substantial upgrade, for ~$120. Do it...do it...DO IT!

(If budget allows, throw a SSD in there too)
 
I love the idea of adding a large compile to the benchmark.

There are 2 other ideas that really stand out here. For the next round, slightly higher budget (not necessarily as strict amount) to fix the current SBM builds or the idea of picking a target use case and seeing how low you can go to hit that target.

I realize budgeting is important for the business, but maybe they can submit a target goal and could go over by ~$100 if needed at the time of purchase.
 
I also think it would be very interesting to see who can get the best price to performance ratio when there is no budget.

Everyone likes their high end parts, but when it comes to the performance per dollar - what makes a measurable difference in price to performance ratio?
 
I suppose I should have clarified: we were joking about going full min/max for a 4K/VR build at $900, as someone requested.

We might need some feedback threads about some of this. I explicitly rejected the Neutron because if you're going that big, you may as well do mATX. I've got a few ideas for rev 2.0:

First, the obvious is just to take everything as is, but add an AIO waterblock to it. That solves the CPU heat problem, though I'm not sure how well the coolant tubes will fit in the case. If it gets crowded up front, the secondary intake fan will still cool the mboard section.

Second, I can switch to the case I originally wanted and get an external ODD. That case has 140 mm of clearance above the CPU for a cooler. Since it also has a 200mm intake fan up front, I could just opt for some less expensive air cooling. I doubt I'd get a maximum OC, but it should be decent for the money. Water cooling in that case isn't as straight forward. The only "official" place to mount the radiator is up front, replacing the 200mm fan, but I don't really like that idea. I wonder if I could attach it to the vented case wall opposite the GPU.

Whichever way it goes, I'd definitely like to get a SSD in there and get a better PSU.
 
I'd say put each computer in front of 10 different co-workers and ask which they like best. They are to consider overall balance. Because really, the best computer is the one a person wants to use.

I bought a $600 PC. I cut corners to make it fit the budget. Each time I use it, I am reminded of that. I bought a CX430 which rings when I turn on the computer. I got it for like $35, so it was decent, but not great.

I bought an Asguard II case. It came in the mail bent diagonally, so it has have pressure on the case to get the power supply screw holes to align to a power supply. The case looks and feels cheap. I've decided that this case is not going to survive my next rebuild.

I bought an i5-2400 which is great, but overkill for what I use my desktop for. It's still a good processor, but I would have went with an i3 and saved $60 had I known better as it was a budget build. Alternatively, my next build I'd consider going for an unlocked i5 for "future proofing".

Ram is whatever was cheap and compatible - no regrets there.

Motherboard was an mATX Asrock. I've decided against going with Asrock again. I had random problems (ethernet under linux mostly) and some weird issues when trying to install linux, even though it wasn't a new board. I'm going to try Asus or Gigabyte next time. I'm either going to go for a full ATX and fit it into a nice case or a mini-ITX and cram it into a CM Elite 130.

My graphics card was a Radeon 6850. It worked well for what I needed (mostly starcraft). I'm not going with AMD again though because of driver issues under linux. Never could get rid of screen tearing either. Oh, and after using CCC, I'm thinking Nvidia is the way to go.

My monitor was a cheap acer 1080p 23". I always wonder if an Asus for $20 more would have looked better. Either way, the Acer did fine and even worked for attaching a console to (despite needing a separate audio spliter). Next monitor I'll get speakers with it, so I don't need to worry about consoles that force audio over HDMI despite having composite capablities. :/

HDDs were Seagate 1 TB and 2TB. Not the most reliable brand according to some people, but both have survived thus far and I keep data backed up, so not too worried.
 
My interest in these articles is to determine the optimal amount that I have to spend. I want a big bang, but I don't have stupid bucks, case scenario...

1 - play games at a high level of detail (not 3 monitors at 4k)
2 - determine which parts get the most benefit (don't need $300 mb for options I will never use)
3 - determine which parts are pretty much necessary for an enjoyable PC (like SSDs are great and required for enjoyment but may not be optimal for gaming)(but still I need it anyway...)
4 - determine what ancillary parts are worth the money or not.

I do fear that sometimes you guys/gals buy parts based on price alone and short term usage - e.g. doing well on a benchmark. For example, one could buy a crappy power supply and not spend the extra 10 bucks to get something that won't fry my system in 2 years.
 

This is what makes the discussion after the article as valuable as it is, those points get to be hashed out. From the three builds in this cycle, it looks like $800-$900 can build a very nice machine.

 
UPDATE: Quick question to everyone. What do you think about the 4800x900 resolution gaming tests? How many people use that? Comparatively, how many people game at 2560x1440?
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I'm still at 1080p and single monitor for gaming, although using two monitors in general. (It definitely helps with productivity.) Any higher is an investment that is outside of my budget scope. (While QD and 4K monitors are coming down in price, they still aren't really all that close to 1080p pricing... AND my current 1080p 24" primary monitor is still going strong.)

THAT being said, I'd say stick to common resolutions and configs. Just because I am still a single monitor @ 1080p gamer (and dual monitor developer) doesn't mean that there are not enough "Eyefinity" (AMD's term) setups out there not to test for.


As to price/performance ratios, I think this is still a super metric to measure. We all know Intel holds the performance crown. (Will Zen threaten it? WAY too early to speculate.) Its at the lower price points that combinations are made to determine what has the best ratio. Is the pricing structure of AMD's lower (in comparison to Intel's top end parts) performance parts still enough to keep them truly competitive in various build targets? These SBMs can help answer these questions as simple reviews of parts usually are focused on performance and not ranking them in any other way.


I like the idea of "upgrade" competitions regardless if they are integrated as SBMs or not. I like competitions that have a target in mind and those that don't. Sometimes I do get the feeling sometimes the builds do get targeted for what will work for the budget at the moment, and wouldn't mind seeing targets that are chosen with average lifespan for their target in mind as determined by the usual user-base for the target. We all know, for example, that overclocking competitions focus on max stable over-clocks and not so much on longevity beyond a few months... office computers and HTPCs usually for as long as possible, and gaming PCs 2-3 years, 5 at the very most.
 


I went the 32" tv route, 1080p, 60hz, any tv recently made will have a pc/gaming mode option, almost makes it identical to monitors, very good text clarity, no noticeable response delay, and great color while gaming. And it can function as a tv too, while being much cheaper than any monitor of similar size.
 
I'm not sure I like the hard budget. It seems that because of the compromises your forced to make to meet your budget, you always end up making systems that no one would actually build. Which really isn't very helpful. They don't really tell you much about what you can realistically build for x amount of money. That's what I'd like to see.

Here's my suggestion: Make these things as if you were building them for someone. For example, pretend a client walks in and asks you to build them an gaming PC with a budget of $800. Then rate them on how well they fulfill their purpose.


I didn't realize HTPCs were supposed to be gaming PCs. I thought they were for TV and Netflix and maybe Blu-rays. Not the sort of things that even require a dedicated GPU.
 

That's just it, I'm trying to get a feel for what are the common resolutions. I know that single screen gaming is still by far the most common, even though many people do have secondary screens ( I being one of them ). I'm guessing that gaming at 2560x1440 is more common than gaming at 4800x900, since the latter doesn't even show on Steam's stats ( and I know, Steam statistics aren't everything ).
 

Two reasons we have 4800x900 is that we needed a step-down triple-wide resolution for instances where 5760x1080 was barely out of reach, and because it's a good replacement for the former 2560x1600 resolution. If not for that second detail, we might have picked 3840x720 as a larger step-down. Basically, if you have the three monitors you'll want to find a setting that's playable even if 5760x1080 isn't.
 
I'd like to propose lowering the budget to $400 and aiming the "gaming" and "HTPC" builds to 1080p. Have a "pro" PC build to target pro and casual gaming workloads with a resoluion of 1440p.
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I love this idea. Us PC guys are always giving the consoles grief - let's see what sort of PCs we'd get for similar money and how well they'd perform at the same/similar price point - GTX950 is freaking amazing and if found for cheap enough then I rate you'd have some very telling data-points. We know there are major differences but throw those arguments out the window - let's just see some benchies!
 


I also thought so: 100% silent boxes that merely stream media or read it off of an optical disc or USB drive. However, look at the GPU that was chosen for the HTPC box. ;-)
 

The problem has been that most people never really understood the concept of a PC in the living room, and have limited it to media playing roles where it's not really needed (I once had a USB drive enclosure that could do that without the PC). The solution has always been a quiet PC that replaces every video device in the living room (media players, DVD players BITD, gaming consoles, cable boxes).

Limited vision has pushed things like TV tuners (including CableCard) off the market as "experts" told people what they shouldn't want (you don't want a gaming PC in the living room because you don't want ANY fans running no matter how quiet they are). First to go was ATI's All-In-Wonder, since "only an idiot" would have a fan in a living room PC. Next was ATI's TV tuning program, with the thought that we didn't need it once WMC became usable. But WMC was never good. And now WMC is gone.

To put this another way, 10 years ago you could put everything into a single box that ran so quietly you wouldn't notice it. Everything. You could even use that box as a media server. Before that we had stupid devices like WebTV, and now we're turning full-circle by turning our PC's into stupid devices that resemble WebTV.

We need the dinosaur PC not because a few of us are dinosaurs, but because they give us more workspace to accomplish more tasks, along with the performance to better-drive those tasks. That dinosaur PC just happens to be good at playing games, which means the same hardware could ideally power the full "digital experience" from the big screen in a living room. Yet as the world gets used to sacrificing nearly everything in return for the portability of things like smart phones, they also become comfortable with the smart phone experience and are, in essence, turning set top boxes into a smart phone for your TV.
 
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