System Builder Marathon, Q4 2013: A $2400 PC That Costs $2700

[undercovernerd6]

nothing wrong with the build but GEE TOMS, i have bf4 and other new games benching bf3 means nothing. please update your games benches. welcome to 2014

 

[Crashman]

nothing wrong with the build but GEE TOMS, i have bf4 and other new games benching bf3 means nothing. please update your games benches. welcome to 2014

We did. In 2013:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-your-own-pc-overclocking-hardware,3713-5.html
Next?

 

[vertexx]

What about noise? How loud was that beast with its pair of hoovers running at max?

 

[videobear]

Why did you put the radiator at the INTAKE? Now you have just removed all that heat from the CPU only to blow it back into the case! Ideally, a radiator should neither suck air from the case (the warmer air makes the radiator less efficient at removing heat from the coolant) nor blow into the case. The intake and exhaust air from the radiator should both come from the surrounding room air.

 

[Crashman]

What about noise? How loud was that beast with its pair of hoovers running at max?

It's in the article, 40.1 db at stock. The only thing missing from the article is that the cards were also set to "uber" mode at stock.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Have to say that other than the CPU and Spot Cool, I would never choose any of those components.

 

[Crashman]

Have to say that other than the CPU and Spot Cool, I would never choose any of those components.

Hello Jack! You'd be the last one I'd need to remind that this wasn't a gaming PC right?

 

[ZippyPinhead]

Also what a waste of money on the 4930k Intel processor. Should have saved money with a Haswell 4770k unit........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXoNE14U_zM Since this has been answered in the article and the response thread several times, I must assume that you're not willing to consider any answer acceptable. However, if you look at the System Value Compared article, it makes sense to anyone willing to open their eyes and looks at the charts.

WHat are you talking about there Johnson? You could have saved roughly $300 going with the 4770k. A 4770k paired with $300 worth of a higher end graphics card or extra card will trump a 4930k with those bacon and egg fryers that were put into that build. DO THE MATH JOHNSON! =D

 

[ZippyPinhead]

Have to say that other than the CPU and Spot Cool, I would never choose any of those components.

Hello Jack! You'd be the last one I'd need to remind that this wasn't a gaming PC right?

Not a gaming machine Johnson? You are aware that 99.99% of your user base are tech head gamers righter? Not too many people doing powerpoint presentations and surfing their iphone look hard into the desktop pc section these days. Most people I know don't even own a desktop computer anymore. Many don't even own a laptop..........so WAKE UP JOHNSON! These are the hardcore gamers that hold your coal in place!

 

[Crashman]

You could have saved roughly $300 going with the 4770k. A 4770k paired with $300 worth of a higher end graphics card or extra card will trump a 4930k with those bacon and egg fryers that were put into that build.

Great! Except that what you said is blatantly untrue, which would be obvious if you simply opened your eyes and looked at all of the benchmarks instead of the 1/3 of the suite that you prefer to focus upon.

Not a gaming machine Johnson? You are aware that 99.99% of your user base are tech head gamers righter?

You can game on a cheaper machine. That is to say, you can game on a cheaper machine. You could also try to get a law passed that limits the size of soft drinks or the number of CPU cores. You could have been a Wall Street protester demanding caps on executive compensation, or you could focus those efforts on protesting against "super-users" who want a machine that can do everything exceptionally. Either way, you're trying to take options away from the computing one-percenters who can afford it.

 

[ZippyPinhead]

You could have saved roughly $300 going with the 4770k. A 4770k paired with $300 worth of a higher end graphics card or extra card will trump a 4930k with those bacon and egg fryers that were put into that build.

Great! Except that what you said is blatantly untrue, which would be obvious if you simply opened your eyes and looked at all of the benchmarks instead of the 1/3 of the suite that you prefer to focus upon.

Not a gaming machine Johnson? You are aware that 99.99% of your user base are tech head gamers righter?

You can game on a cheaper machine. That is to say, you can game on a cheaper machine. You could also try to get a law passed that limits the size of soft drinks or the number of CPU cores. You could have been a Wall Street protester demanding caps on executive compensation, or you could focus those efforts on protesting against "super-users" who want a machine that can do everything exceptionally. Either way, you're trying to take options away from the computing one-percenters who can afford it.

Take options away from the 1%ers? If we are talking about the 1%ers here then we aren't going to be looking at a $2400 budget now are we? GIven the budget, and the single core performance of the 4770k(or even the 4/8 core performance) and what you can do with the money saved by putting it into higher quality GPU cards still trumps the 4930k setup.

Its all about the games........and even beyond the games, a 4770k has a ton of nuts to do most other processes just as good as a 4930k can........many things better even, for cheaper money.

Snap out of it Johnson! Your talking to Zippy the PINHEAD Washington here! I am a bad@ss! And this video proves it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRGBOw2Kd8

 

[Crashman]

GIven the budget, and the single core performance of the 4770k(or even the 4/8 core performance) and what you can do with the money saved by putting it into higher quality GPU cards still trumps the 4930k setup.

Again, blatently untrue. You do know that there's a Day 4 article that shows that about 1/4 of the benchmarks in these tests got big gains from the 4930K that they couldn't get with the 4770K? Because if you didn't know that, you're still wearing those game-only blinders.

And even if you refuse to take off those blinders, you can still see that some of these games are seriously capped. Tossing more graphics power at Battlefield 4 doesn't help when you hit the 200 FPS ceiling. F1 2012 and Grid 2 are going to run up against DRAM or CPU ceilings before they run out of card. And that's half of the gaming suite. Once the system hits gaming limits, the smart money goes towards improving non-gaming benchmarks.

 

[ingtar33]

You could have saved roughly $300 going with the 4770k. A 4770k paired with $300 worth of a higher end graphics card or extra card will trump a 4930k with those bacon and egg fryers that were put into that build.

Great! Except that what you said is blatantly untrue, which would be obvious if you simply opened your eyes and looked at all of the benchmarks instead of the 1/3 of the suite that you prefer to focus upon.

Not a gaming machine Johnson? You are aware that 99.99% of your user base are tech head gamers righter?

You can game on a cheaper machine. That is to say, you can game on a cheaper machine. You could also try to get a law passed that limits the size of soft drinks or the number of CPU cores. You could have been a Wall Street protester demanding caps on executive compensation, or you could focus those efforts on protesting against "super-users" who want a machine that can do everything exceptionally. Either way, you're trying to take options away from the computing one-percenters who can afford it.

Take options away from the 1%ers? If we are talking about the 1%ers here then we aren't going to be looking at a $2400 budget now are we? GIven the budget, and the single core performance of the 4770k(or even the 4/8 core performance) and what you can do with the money saved by putting it into higher quality GPU cards still trumps the 4930k setup.

Its all about the games........and even beyond the games, a 4770k has a ton of nuts to do most other processes just as good as a 4930k can........many things better even, for cheaper money.

Snap out of it Johnson! Your talking to Zippy the PINHEAD Washington here! I am a bad@ss! And this video proves it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRGBOw2Kd8

are you seriously talking about dropping the 6 core intel in exchange for... what exactly? the r9-290 is about equal to the 780... the titan is a little better, but twice the cost of the 290... (so 2, 290s in xfire will be a better option), while you can't get 2 780tis with the cash saved from the cpu and motherboard swap; and 2 290s will crush 1 780ti... and the difference from the 6core i7 extreme and the 4 core i7 is a less then $300

so i'm not sure you even know what you're talking about; other then the fact you don't seem to know yourself.

crashman seems to have the right of it... cause the options available with swapping out those cards aren't noticeably more attractive or affordable.

 

[Broc Kelley]

You could have saved roughly $300 going with the 4770k. A 4770k paired with $300 worth of a higher end graphics card or extra card will trump a 4930k with those bacon and egg fryers that were put into that build.

Great! Except that what you said is blatantly untrue, which would be obvious if you simply opened your eyes and looked at all of the benchmarks instead of the 1/3 of the suite that you prefer to focus upon.

Not a gaming machine Johnson? You are aware that 99.99% of your user base are tech head gamers righter?

You can game on a cheaper machine. That is to say, you can game on a cheaper machine. You could also try to get a law passed that limits the size of soft drinks or the number of CPU cores. You could have been a Wall Street protester demanding caps on executive compensation, or you could focus those efforts on protesting against "super-users" who want a machine that can do everything exceptionally. Either way, you're trying to take options away from the computing one-percenters who can afford it.

Take options away from the 1%ers? If we are talking about the 1%ers here then we aren't going to be looking at a $2400 budget now are we? GIven the budget, and the single core performance of the 4770k(or even the 4/8 core performance) and what you can do with the money saved by putting it into higher quality GPU cards still trumps the 4930k setup.

Its all about the games........and even beyond the games, a 4770k has a ton of nuts to do most other processes just as good as a 4930k can........many things better even, for cheaper money.

Snap out of it Johnson! Your talking to Zippy the PINHEAD Washington here! I am a bad@ss! And this video proves it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRGBOw2Kd8

are you seriously talking about dropping the 6 core intel in exchange for... what exactly? the r9-290 is about equal to the 780... the titan is a little better, but twice the cost of the 290... (so 2, 290s in xfire will be a better option), while you can't get 2 780tis with the cash saved from the cpu and motherboard swap; and 2 290s will crush 1 780ti... and the difference from the 6core i7 extreme and the 4 core i7 is a less then $300

so i'm not sure you even know what you're talking about; other then the fact you don't seem to know yourself.

crashman seems to have the right of it... cause the options available with swapping out those cards aren't noticeably more attractive or affordable.

What I've learned..always go the cheapest route to the resolution you want, future proofing is shite

my 2 cents

 

[SessouXFX]

Gotta agree. But there comes a limit to what's supported with those two cards as well. Particularly with AMD, as not every game has a profile for Crossfire.

Even so, 2 lower cost solutions have the ability to trump any one card solution. Not just 2 R9 290X's, but I think even 2 R9 280X would give the Titan and 780 Ti some issues.

 

[americanbrian]

I am just gonna add my 2 centi-LTC. I am building a Litecoin miner which is pretty similar to this build. I will answer why I chose a dual 290 when it comes at a premium over 280x. Basically, I bought one at a good price because there was no stock of 280x's. I then managed to pick up a second one from a forum because the original purchaser was unhappy with the noise for a hefty %15 discount over RRP two weeks old. Now, I should recoup the difference in price between a 290 and a 280x in less than a week of mining. so if I waited a week for a 280x then I would have been worse off. Also, I can run the cards lightly with a very moderate core OC (30Mhz) and hit the highest hashrate of a 280x that is stressing the shit out of its memory because the 290 has a 512-bit bus vs 384-bit.Basically a near stock run of the 290 can equal or better that of a 280x that probably will blow quickly. Also I expect a 290 will hold its value better in the long term so if I need to sell it not only am I confident that I am not screwing over my buyer with a stressed card, but it should fetch a better price. As for my build, I am using a i3 3220T (35W TDP) IB cpu which I hope will reduce stress on the mobo VRM's and PWM. I am changing out the cooler on the R290s to a icy vision for quietness (one done, another to go) and superior cooling (needs some extra tweaking for the VRMs which is in process). Using a 1000w 80+ gold PSU (should be about 90% efficient at my loads of ~575W) and also supplementing 2 spotcool fans in the case, one for mobo VRM's and one for GPU Vrms. My case (gigabyte GZ-G2) has 7 fans (2 front (140mm), 1 rear (80mm), 1 top (140mm) and 2 side (120mm) + PSU fan (140mm)) so 9 fans total with the spotcools (100mm fans). I hope I can just leave the thing running and 6 months later it will more than pay for itself. At that point I can either sell the gear or keep on mining. As for power cost, I am lucky enough to have a fixed price til 2017 with my supplier (secured before the recent price hikes) and at the current difficulty and exchange value it is very profitable. It is a risk that things change dramatically, but I will still have the gear to sell so for now it does not concern me.

 

[cyanna]

Missing info from the article: you can't use that motherboard with that CPU OOB!!!! The bios needs to be flashed to v 3.4 before you can do anything. I think this should be mentioned in the article because a home us

 

[Crashman]

Missing info from the article: you can't use that motherboard with that CPU OOB!!!! The bios needs to be flashed to v 3.4 before you can do anything. I think this should be mentioned in the article because a home us

It's not mentioned because it's not true. If you buy from a company that frequently turns over stock such as Newegg, you're going to receive the board with a compatible BIOS.

 

[Christopher Shaffer]

Missing info from the article: you can't use that motherboard with that CPU OOB!!!! The bios needs to be flashed to v 3.4 before you can do anything. I think this should be mentioned in the article because a home us

It's not mentioned because it's not true. If you buy from a company that frequently turns over stock such as Newegg, you're going to receive the board with a compatible BIOS.

You'd think so, but that's definitely not always the case, as I'm sure many here can attest to. In fact, if you just take a moment to read the comments on Newegg from verified owners, this becomes obvious (not necessarily on this product, but many, many others).

The fact is, it's not Newegg's responsibility to flash a BIOS, anyway. They'll sell the stock they have, probably oldest first.

I actually purchased a Gigabyte GTX 770 4GB about 2 1/2 months ago, and just purchased another about two weeks ago. When I received the new one, I noticed the packaging was a bit different, the cooler was slightly different and there were two 8-pin connectors instead of and 8 & 6... it was a Rev 2.0 version. The other was a revision 1. The 2nd revision was released quite a while ago, so it's clear they had the 2nd and 1st on hand at the same time. Both cost exactly the same and both were ordered from EXACTLY the same URL (i.e. I had no version choice.).

The point is simple: you never know unless the version is specified, and even then a BIOS revision can't be expected on what you receive. I usually assume I need to check all BIOS versions on all hardware before expecting it to function properly.

What he posted was correct: the board may need a BIOS update, but this should be expected by any experienced builder. That said, it wouldn't hurt to mention that support for this CPU wasn't originally spec'd in this board.

 

[Crashman]

Missing info from the article: you can't use that motherboard with that CPU OOB!!!! The bios needs to be flashed to v 3.4 before you can do anything. I think this should be mentioned in the article because a home us

It's not mentioned because it's not true. If you buy from a company that frequently turns over stock such as Newegg, you're going to receive the board with a compatible BIOS.

You'd think so, but that's definitely not always the case, as I'm sure many here can attest to. In fact, if you just take a moment to read the comments on Newegg from verified owners, this becomes obvious (not necessarily on this product, but many, many others).

The fact is, it's not Newegg's responsibility to flash a BIOS, anyway. They'll sell the stock they have, probably oldest first.

I actually purchased a Gigabyte GTX 770 4GB about 2 1/2 months ago, and just purchased another about two weeks ago. When I received the new one, I noticed the packaging was a bit different, the cooler was slightly different and there were two 8-pin connectors instead of and 8 & 6... it was a Rev 2.0 version. The other was a revision 1. The 2nd revision was released quite a while ago, so it's clear they had the 2nd and 1st on hand at the same time. Both cost exactly the same and both were ordered from EXACTLY the same URL (i.e. I had no version choice.).

The point is simple: you never know unless the version is specified, and even then a BIOS revision can't be expected on what you receive. I usually assume I need to check all BIOS versions on all hardware before expecting it to function properly.

What he posted was correct: the board may need a BIOS update, but this should be expected by any experienced builder. That said, it wouldn't hurt to mention that support for this CPU wasn't originally spec'd in this board.

This board was purchased from Newegg, and did ship with updated BIOS. Not even the most recent update, but a 3-month-old update that was still compatible with the CPU. The update it shipped with was probably 2 months old at the time it shipped (this series took a while to get published). And anything you buy from Newegg today will have at least that update, if not a newer one. So it's a non-issue in the Tom's Hardware/Newegg System Builder Marathon.