System Builder Marathon, Q4 2012: $1,000 Enthusiast PC

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[citation][nom]doggysoft[/nom]1. HDD... Seagate Barracudas 1TB SATAIII 64MB cache ~ $70 -This saves about $302. CPU... FX-8320 -Saves ~$403. RAM... CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) is $36 -Saves another $144. GPU... 7970 has the same price as the card you used but it's better and this time the unit you got was crap...5. CPU Cooler... COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus is $10 more but better for this CPU6. PSU... XIGMATEK XCP-A600 600W ATX12V Ver2.3 -Sales for $50 and saves $20 (or other PSU for more money whatever I've stripped down $74 so far)Well I think you've pretty much f*cked up this build...noob2222 "I wonder if the stock AMD copper heatsink wouldn't have been better. the 8150 was capable of hitting 4.4 ghz on the stock cooler, this pile of junk only allowed 4.3 on the 8350? lol Definately $24 thrown away." I don't even wonder, I'm sure the boxed heatsink is better (maybe louder but better cooler).Like americanbrian said "this site has become so pro Intel that they can't even put together an AMD system when they try".[/citation]

It isn't even about budget. The previous build spent MORE money on it ($48), they had absolutely no need to cut corners.
 
Good choice on cooling. Xigmatec Loki is a very good budget cooler. I bought it for 19€ ($24), used fan for something else and put on two PWM silent fans. It cools even Q6600 (105W TDP when not overclocked) heavily overclocked and silent.
 
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Regardless, I'm not going to put a 550W PSU in a machine that pulls 500 at the socket.We'll have to agree to disagree. If you want to cut it closer in your builds, go to town.[/citation]Well Don, It Gets Complicated when you're using a low-efficiency power supply. Say you have a system that pulls 600W peak power from the wall and has 70% efficiency, you need "at least" 420W and, even with padding (extra for unforseen circumstances), a quality 500W unit would do. In that situation, the choice between a high-efficiency 500W or low efficiency 600W unit should favor the higher-quality part. And then, maybe the draw at your socket will drop from 600W (at 70% efficiency) to 477W (at 88% efficiency) 😛
 
[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]Think of it this way then: If the XFX PSU is a 550W, the CX600 is a 530W PSU. This is definitely not about cutting it closer.[/citation]
I don't think you even realize how a psu is rated. Take your corsair link for example. 12V rail at 480Watts, and 3.3V rail at 150 watts = 630 watts and thats not including the other rails ... its rated at 600.

Total wattage is just that, total. it doesn't matter how much 12v by itself or how much 5v by itself. its 600W total or 550 total, and thats on the entire psu, 12V+3.3v+5v+(-12v).

If you take the individual rail ratings on your xfx psu, its 740 watts. it can only handle 550W total. It doesn't make the corsair a 500W psu just because it has 48W more available to +12V. The fxf shorts out at 550w and the corsair at 600W.
 
Yes yes, and if the 5V rail had a million amps you'd have a 5 million watt PSU... that would be absolutely useless since the vast majority of power is drawn on the 12V rail.

Today, you can almost ignore the secondary rails. Almost.

You also forget that the CX600 is rated at 30 degrees C, which artificially inflates its performance.
 
Cleeve

Bet you wish you didn't bother, huh? In any case, I derived a few things from the article (thank you) - don't overclock FX 83xx CPUs, don't play with anything less than max settings and resolutions, and play with undervolting as it might save you a bit of power and heat (stop when you get the 0x124 STOP errors though!). The 43xx series might be of interest if we were only talking gaming, however Piledriver didn't fix a lot. We've got to either wait for Steamroller for a decent stab at beating the next crop of i5s or just go with Intel.
 
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Regardless, I'm not going to put a 550W PSU in a machine that pulls 500 at the socket.We'll have to agree to disagree. If you want to cut it closer in your builds, go to town.[/citation]

I try to get what I need and nothing more in an 80+ PSU. Why? It saves me money, and keeps my system more stable. Aim for 50w more than the max of what you think you'll load on a system.
 
[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]CleeveBet you wish you didn't bother, huh? In any case, I derived a few things from the article (thank you) - don't overclock FX 83xx CPUs, don't play with anything less than max settings and resolutions, and play with undervolting as it might save you a bit of power and heat (stop when you get the 0x124 STOP errors though!). The 43xx series might be of interest if we were only talking gaming, however Piledriver didn't fix a lot. We've got to either wait for Steamroller for a decent stab at beating the next crop of i5s or just go with Intel.[/citation]
sbm are supposed to be testing configuration builds. Its not supposed to be testing intel component builds where you limit all cpus and mobtherboards to intel only. Note that this build uses the exact same components as the august 2012 build and comes in $50 less.

one thing this does show is that the december 2011 build (last AMD build was that long ago) was completely hosed from the ground up. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-overclock-crossfire-ssd,3098-13.html

Intel had a 37% lead to the 6100 at stock, now its 9%, 71% overclocked to 31% with being 10% actual clock speed due to the weak cooler.

the 6100 build was bugged and faulty, that or PD improved 20% over bd, wich we know didn't happen.
 


Not at all!

I learned a ton. Had no idea that Vishera needed so much cooling... I mean, I knew it needed more than Intel, but I didn't know it needed THIS much more. :)


As for the biggest complainers who claim they would have done better with $1000, I take it with a grain of salt. Anything other than a beefier cooler would make no change in performance, and a beefier cooler and higher overclock would have pushed power usage through the roof. Then you have guys complaining that the PSU was too much for an overclocking rig at the same time... and the guys who didn't bother reading the actual copy to see what the point was....

You can't please everyone on the internet. I try to focus on pleasing the reasonable people, that's all you can do. 😉


 
@JonnyDough:
Aim for 50w more than the max of what you think you'll load on a system.
Click to expand...

That's fine as long as you have clean power at the wall / UPS, never upgrade or add any components, and have accurate specs on every component for the intermittent power scenario.

I used to make the mistake of buying "just enough" power. But then, I wanted to add HDDs, fans, tuner cards, and other components to a system and I started running into stability problems. So rather than buying an $80 PSU once, I bought a $65 PSU and then a $85 PSU. Yippee for the extra PSU collecting dust.

The power grid in my area is shoddy at best. I use UPSes, but even then it can take a moment for the UPS to switch over. If the PSU doesn't have enough hold-up time to let the UPS switch to battery, my system crashes. Bigger PSUs have higher hold-up energy capacity.
 
Thank you for a good and informative article.

There has been a lot of speculation about AMD builds, especially with Vishera here.
It has been touted a a bargain answer to Intel.
The build suggests my reservations oncerning hidden costs are valid. Both building and using costs more fore lower performance.

This does not make the FX-8350 BAD, just be certain "you know its limitations" before you get carried away.

 
[citation][nom]noob2222[/nom]the 6100 build was bugged and faulty, that or PD improved 20% over bd, wich we know didn't happen.[/citation]

Well, per watt, PD is 15-20% more efficient in general. Remember you're getting higher clock speeds as well as about 10% more IPC.

The 6100 had a base clock of 3.3GHz, the 6300 is 3.5GHz - a good 10 to 15% faster if you include IPC. Both turbo up 600MHz. The 6200 is 3.8GHz but the 6300, with a 300MHz LOWER clock speed, actually noticably outperforms it almost universally across the board in benchmarks as well as power usage, meaning that the hexacore Bulldozers really were lame ducks. Perhaps the 6200 constantly ran into thermal limits.
 
$1000 dollar PC and you are using an Agility 3 60GB GPU, a 8350 on a 970 board w/ a 92mm CPU cooler, a Hatachi HDD and~.... Just what duh heyull where you guys thinking when you made this. Psshh. That's $1000 wasted right there.
 
Article accomplishes comparison objective.

AMD is a perfectly good build, just not competitive.
And yes, having read the posts in various forums concerning FX-8350 builds, there are no surprises here.

 
It's is a shame they intentional crippled the processor They have done enough test on the 8350 to know that cooler was not sufficient. Their bias shows every time they review a AMD processor. Let's put AMD's Flagship chip with a under whelming cooler and a cheap $70 motherboard with poor quality poor stage. Just sit back and report how fail the CPU was. The system design was the only thing that was fail here.
 
It's not their fault that AMD makes space heaters. Conversely, nobody tried to hide away Ivy Bridge's poor thermal paste.

Performance between top and bottom boards isn't much (unless we're talking Biostar, I guess) so is the money really worth it if you don't need the additional features?

AMD needs much higher IPC along with the new decoder setup. It's coming, but will it actually mean anything when it appears?

Hell, does AMD actually need to dump AM3+ - is it holding FX back?
 
So people must not realize that this AMD chip specifically is aimed at the 3570. If you look at graphs and charts you will see it matches the performance almost exactly. And why not have 4 additional cores for back ground services. We often wonder what the hell windows is doing anyways in some cases, let those cores deal with it. Its a solid chip. Only issue is additional power usage. Big deal if EXTREME users use a bigger or dual video cards. You guys are using that extra 150 Watts right there, when this chip is only 30 over the intel (approx)

I own a intel chip currently, and looking at this one ( not this build specifically ) its very tempting. Why pay more to be hip. I can almost, almost compare intel to apple for "hip" price and cool.
 
If you like to "play" with overclocking, realize a $50-60 cooler minimum is a good idea, and do not mind power and heat usage. Faster RAM is supposed to aid overclock, at added cost.
Usually you see these on more expensive motherboards, also.
Closer but not yet.
 
[citation][nom]ccovemaker[/nom]It's is a shame they intentional crippled the processor They have done enough test on the 8350 to know that cooler was not sufficient. Their bias shows every time they review a AMD processor. Let's put AMD's Flagship chip with a under whelming cooler and a cheap $70 motherboard with poor quality poor stage. Just sit back and report how fail the CPU was. The system design was the only thing that was fail here.[/citation]
100Watt more! And you want to overclock it even higher? For what? Heating up your room? Certainly not for beating i5 in games...
 
it's Tom's methode, see the Xeon benchmarks, they adjusted the benchmarks to fit the Xeon but in this test they just criple the AMD with bad memory, bad harddisk, bad cooler etc. and just 1-core x86 benchmarks.
 
what on earth is bad about 1600 ram? Slower for games? All system builder maraton benchmark are the same to compare builds for gamers. No xeon was ever reviewed on those tests
 
I thought the point of the system builder marathon was to show changes in pricing and stuff between quarters. It really makes no sense to keep most of the components the same when there can be better parts for cheaper prices (point of the SBM).
 
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