System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1184 Gaming PC

[Johnpombrio]

Not a bad build. My worse problem is with the 390 graphics card. These suckers can draw up to 420 watts when on a decent overclock. That is heat we don't need and possibly loud fan noise. NVidia Maxwell cards run a lot cooler and are more energy efficient which saves money and are QUIET.
EVGA power supplies? That is all I use now, as is the CM Hyper EVO cooler (Cryorg too thick).
Samsung 850 EVO is very good choice with the RAPID technology.
I have over 20 active and backup Seagate 2-3TB drives and not a single failure. Good enough for me...
8GB vs 16GB memory. 8 is probably fine but I always go with 16 now.
ASUS mobo just because I am used to them and I have yet to have a failure.
Nevertheless, decent build.

 

[10tacle]

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

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

Field proven reliability? What does that mean? We needs hundreds of thousands or millions of accumulated hours and years to prove reliability? How does that work for SSD MTBF ratings that nobody will ever see? No, I disagree.

At SOME point the torch needs to be handed over to a new design and better performer for the same price. CM's Hyper 212 was the best cooler for its price range ($25-$40 US) since its introduction in 2011, but there's a new kid on the block who took the trophy away, and it belongs to the Cryorig H7.

The company has been around since 2013. CM has not improved the 212 in four years, and not choosing the H7 which performs better than the 212 for the same price is a little disappointing. Times up CM!

 

[nitrium]

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

Agreed. It performs similar to a GTX 980 in most games, but is priced about the same as a GTX 970. And you get an extra 4GB of VRAM at no extra cost. I just upgraded to R9 390 from an HD7950, and it's pretty much twice as fast.

 

[Scarecrow1976]

Great build. With cool Hardware !

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Great build, no personal complaints from me.

 

[chechak]

Awesome article benchmarks ...

 

[DrakeFS]

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-backb...

The tweakwown article is just as misleading as the backblaze data. They are saying that because backblaze was not using the drives for their intended purpose (which we all agree, they where not), that the dataset is useless for consumers. They also seem to be implying that the Segate HDDs are somehow experiencing more hardship than the WD or Hitatchi drives.

I own both Segate and WD drives, I do not have a vested interest in ether company. The only significant reliability data we have is from backblaze. From the article, "Only one thing is certain; the drives were subjected to workloads well beyond their design limits.", this seems to imply because backblaze is abusing the consumer drives, that the data garnered is less useful. All drives where abused, not just Segate. The endurance data is still relevant to showing that some drives last longer in the worst conditions that a consumer would never subject their drive to. This speaks to quality of engineering into the drives that where used.

If I have a choice between no data or suspect data, I will chose the suspect data most of the time. I do use the backblaze data for 2 reasons. The first, no one else provides this data. The second being, I understand the limitations of the dataset. To say to data is worthless to the average consumer is a bit of a stretch. Basically, your average consumer is not going to see the failure rates that backblaze has recorded. Yes, the data set is flawed and should not be used as scientific data. However, it does not change the fact that the Segate drives failed at a greater rate than WD\Hitatchi when put under extreme stress.

Again, I still buy Segate. 5TB @ $130 vs a WD @ $170... it is a no brainer. The only time this changes is if I am planning on storing important info on the drives that need to be accessible. Then I am no longer looking at consumer drives anyhow and the backblaze data set is irrelevant.

 

[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.

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

"The majority of Backblaze's failures occur in the first few weeks of service, which is understandable considering their drive purchasing methods. The typical 'bathtub curve' of failures is expected with many storage devices, with the highest chance of failure in the beginning and ending stages of the product's life. However, it is feasible to conclude that their drive sourcing methods tainted their results. "


They bought the drives, put them in enclosures and worked the piss out of them. I don't see how this is faulty testing. Also that article is blatant clickbait. "The Real Story Covered", photostock type graphs with all sorts of "data" but no explanation of what the actual data is. ( This bell curve represents seagate, this one, WD, this one HGST, this one Toshiba. Nope, not included) if they did it would have confirmed BB's findings. Tweaktown was fishing for clicks, nothing more.

Especially considering the majority of seagate reviews on many many storefronts (Amazon, Newegg, Tigerdirect, Directron, ect...) have a seemingly higher rate of "Just bought it, it never worked." That's crappy QA pure and simple So why roll the dice on a Seagate drive when a HGST is the same price if not cheaper? Or throw down a few more bones and grab a WD which you yourself said know their failure rates? I've known 2 WD drives to tail, both WD greens, both of them used as backup disks. Never had an issue with Black or Blue.

 

[cst1992]

What are you trying to say? I didn't clearly understand.

The Green models are indeed less reliable than the Blue or Black models, I am not an expert on terminology, but I heard that there was something about the algorithm that the Green drives use, leading to more accesses and higher rate of wear. I think it was called 'parking'.

Here's an article: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/critical-design-flaw-found-in-wd-caviar-green-hdds.144404/

 

[dE_logics]

"future resistant than its NVidia counterpart"

What about the fact that AMD drops support for their hardware every few years?