System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1184 Gaming PC

[Guest]

Can loose budgets help tighten the course on high-performance, mid-priced gaming? We put aside several of last-quarter's compromises to find out.

System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1184 Gaming PC : Read more

 

[envy14tpe]

Awesome. Nice to see the 390 performing as a killer. It's a great GPU that is overlooked.

Check out the Q4 $1184 Arma 3 Ultra Quality graph. The 4800x900 of the non overclocked is much higher than the overclocked one.

 

[cst1992]

Isn't the CRYORIG R7 Universal CPU cooler mainstream yet? I hear it doesn't have the clearance issues of the 212 Evo, has the same price and also performs better.

 

[3ogdy]

It's a nice build. Except the overclocked 290 with 8GB and the Seagate HDD with unbelievably high failure rates. The company charges about $1000 for a recovery, in which case the final price for this build is $2184, as the HDD is nearly guaranteed to fail. Windows 10 Home? So no Group Policy editor by default, and no control over updates being forced on you by Microsh!t? No, thanks.
Other than that, it's an OK build, especially for featuring USB 3.1 and Type-C.

 

[cst1992]

What proof do you have that Seagate drives are guaranteed to fail? Technically every drive is, but that's a different matter.

Don't point to Newegg reviews, please. Nobody bothers to comment about a working hard drive. Once one fails, everyone's clamoring to report it. It's just the high volume of Seagate drives.
I have two HDDs from Seagate working perfectly well, and it's been years. I am also happy about the performance.

 

[clonazepam]

Excellent read. Excellent build!

I scratched my head briefly when reading about price vs performance comparison in the RAM section and then again about the case. They're at odds but what build doesn't have a little give and take.

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=17204914,0,389923]Excellent read. Excellent build!

I scratched my head briefly when reading about price vs performance comparison in the RAM section and then again about the case. They're at odds but what build doesn't have a little give and take. [/quotemsg]Comments section at the bottom of the article is working for you? It's been missing all day for me, gone offline probably some time this morning.

 

[clonazepam]

[quotemsg=17204957,0,8708][quotemsg=17204914,0,389923]Excellent read. Excellent build!

I scratched my head briefly when reading about price vs performance comparison in the RAM section and then again about the case. They're at odds but what build doesn't have a little give and take. [/quotemsg]Comments section at the bottom of the article is working for you? It's been missing all day for me, gone offline probably some time this morning.[/quotemsg]

No, it's missing but I was determined to comment anyway.

 

[Nuckles_56]

I noticed a problem with the comparison table, as it says that the Q4 build has an i7 6600K in it

 

[cst1992]

[quotemsg=17204957,0,8708]Comments section at the bottom of the article is working for you? It's been missing all day for me, gone offline probably some time this morning.[/quotemsg]

I thought it was just me, but it seems others are having the problem too.

 

[Crashman]

I added a link at the end of the article that we can use until the webpage bug is sorted.

 

[3ogdy]

[quotemsg=17201191,0,1472755]What proof do you have that Seagate drives are guaranteed to fail? Technically every drive is, but that's a different matter.

Don't point to Newegg reviews, please. Nobody bothers to comment about a working hard drive. Once one fails, everyone's clamoring to report it. It's just the high volume of Seagate drives.
I have two HDDs from Seagate working perfectly well, and it's been years. I am also happy about the performance.[/quotemsg]

I was perfectly happy with Seagate too. Not after having Barracuda after Barracuda failing on me. First it was the 7200.12 500GB ones, now the (currently in production) 7200.14 2TB ones. Enough is enough. No thanks. Even though HGST (WD) have higher prices, they come with 5YR warranty and look at those failure rates, barely touching 5% at best. That's 5 drives out of every 100 sold. A far cry from Seagate's half 3TB inventory.

I didn't even know these unbelievable statistics until I was forced to look it up with so many dead drives in recent years. Around 1 in 2 (3TB) Seagate drives fail. If that's what you call acceptable, well that's just the result of sh!t company doing its business by selling faulty hardware and then trying to make more money by providing paid-for data recovery services. Mind you there will be a case against Seagate in the European Court based on these practices.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/blog-fail-drives-manufacture-2015-june.jpg

 

[maxalge]

the hyper 212 does not make sense with the cryorig h7 available

 

[cst1992]

[quotemsg=17207620,0,264464]Around 1 in 2 (3TB) Seagate drives fail.[/quotemsg]

I do know the 3TB ones had a bug. But not the others. Well, that's what they say... ymmv.

 

[Onus]

I've not read much about high failure rates in 1TB drives, but I'll take a five year warranty over a mere two any day all day. If Seagate has that little confidence in its drives (compared to WD), who am I to second-guess their engineers? I'll stick to WD Black; can't remember a failure.

 

[skit75]

[quotemsg=17207978,0,760751]the hyper 212 does not make sense with the cryorig h7 available[/quotemsg]

Sure it does. It has a couple things on its side such as field-proven reliability, over time, at a low cost.

 

[IntelDiesel]

I'd love to play Rust on it @ 2560x1440. Seems legit and I could upgrade to my liking in near future.

Thumbs up

 

[BulkZerker]

What proof do you have that Seagate drives are guaranteed to fail? Technically every drive is, but that's a different matter.

Don't point to Newegg reviews, please. Nobody bothers to comment about a working hard drive. Once one fails, everyone's clamoring to report it. It's just the high volume of Seagate drives.
I have two HDDs from Seagate working perfectly well, and it's been years. I am also happy about the performance.

For any other goober wanting to look at HDD failure rates... Look no further

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

Seagate leads the pack by large margins at all capacities compared to their competitors for failure rates. That's q2 2015 and backblaze is very well known for using consumer drives in their storage centers.

 

[envy14tpe]

[quotemsg=17211075,0,367869]

What proof do you have that Seagate drives are guaranteed to fail? Technically every drive is, but that's a different matter.

Don't point to Newegg reviews, please. Nobody bothers to comment about a working hard drive. Once one fails, everyone's clamoring to report it. It's just the high volume of Seagate drives.
I have two HDDs from Seagate working perfectly well, and it's been years. I am also happy about the performance.

For any other goober wanting to look at HDD failure rates... Look no further

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

Seagate leads the pack by large margins at all capacities compared to their competitors for failure rates. That's q2 2015 and backblaze is very well known for using consumer drives in their storage centers.[/quotemsg]

I don't own any Seagate HDDs and I have had one WD fail on me. Yet I only own WD, simply cuz they were priced better. WIth that said, there is an article that sheds some light on the backblaze article. It looks at holes in what backblaze did.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6028/dispelling-backblaze-s-hdd-reliability-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

 

[sauron18]

I would choose the I5 6500 and overlock it. Z170 on some board there is a bios update and it can be done. Digital Foundry from Eurogamer did a test and overlocked the 6500 to 4.5GHZ, so you can save that money or spend it on another component.

 

[Cyberonic]

Personally wouldve loved 12 or 16 GBs of ram at the cost of reduced SSD size (or no SSD) or a cheaper case. And a 2TB harddrive wouldve been nice.

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=17215739,0,2153721]Personally wouldve loved 12 or 16 GBs of ram at the cost of reduced SSD size (or no SSD) or a cheaper case. And a 2TB harddrive wouldve been nice.[/quotemsg]"No SSD" is an option. The benchmark image requires a 240GB or larger drive.

 

[Taintedskittles]

Great build all around. Would build something very similar if I were building a new rig. The performance of the 390's are pretty stellar with amd new drivers "crimson".

Only small personal preference things would change like 16gb ram & larger mechanical HDD.

 

[cst1992]

[quotemsg=17216275,0,1342654]Only small personal preference things would change like 16gb ram & larger mechanical HDD. [/quotemsg]

I'd want to say the opposite. People usually have external hard drives these days - they aren't expensive. Once you've got your OS on the drive, you'd not want to remove it and install it on a SSD, if you decide the HDD is too much of a bottleneck in terms of speed and boot time.
Also, since most motherboards have four RAM slots, adding RAM is rather easy, and one can save some money initially by going for a 2x4GB kit and then adding another 2x4GB.

EDIT: I just realized you never said to remove the SSD, my bad. My impression was that you said to go for a larger HDD and 16GB of RAM instead of the SSD.

 

[Taintedskittles]

People usually have external hard drives these days - they aren't expensive. Once you've got your OS on the drive, you'd not want to remove it and install it on a SSD, if you decide the HDD is too much of a bottleneck in terms of speed

This is a gaming PC, says so in the header of the article. I build PC's as a side job for spare cash. In the last 3 years built 30 gaming PC's, not one client or friend has asked for an external HDD. So I dont know where that's coming from. Everyone I know who has a desktop PC has a SSD bootdrive & 7200rpm HDD for storage.