System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $895 LAN Box PC

[James Mason]

(I just wanna say i like the look and performance of this build)

Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm not saying everyone has to agree with me. I welcome good, rational debate. Complaining about things one person didn't say and about rules they didn't invent is not rational or productive

Is there anything you would have changed in this quarter? And if so, why?

Besides making the jump to Skylake (with also maybe a chance at OCing a locked i3, and DDR4) which you said you couldn't do, and thus also getting a lower wattage PSU (less weight and heat) I don't think there's really anything that'd be changed, but that'd likely be more expensive anyways. Weight is typically not a factor for a PC, but since it's designed to travel it's definite consideration.

Case wise for a "Lan box", i'd also consider how easy it is to carry under your arm maybe, with the previous Elite 130 maybe being easier to carry than the V1, but idealy a case with a handle would be best, but all the cases with handles i've seen have bad ventilation.

I'm typing this response on almost the same PC you built
i3-4130
8GBs 1600mhz
GTX 750ti
CM Elite 130

On the topic of "better for a Frequent LAN events" I kind of wish you guys could have have some $800-900 laptops with 960/970Ms to compare it with. They may be an "easier" solution than a whole computer while still performing "adequately" (but not beating).

Like for other SBMs maybe, have systems designed to do X at X dollar amount, what are your options, if you sacrifice performance for ease of use is it still acceptable, ect.


This was a pretty tricky and unique SBM though.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I think full modularity was indeed a wise choice. Even in my mATX case in a build I made yesterday, I had such excess cables and had to shove them all into the 5.25" drive bays.

I think perhaps one area that could have been saved is the motherboard, you could have gotten the ASRock B85M-ITX for about $30 cheaper, which would really not affect performance enough to account $30, but I totally respect your decision for a better motherboard rather than the cheapest, it's sometimes better just to go a bit higher than the lowest.

My only last thing is, doesn't that GPU use the reference cooler? You should be able to find a GTX 970 with 2 fans, which would definitely help with the noise level.

 

[RedJaron]

I would have been happy to get a lower wattage PSU, especially if it meant saving a few bucks. But the list of top-quality, modular PSUs in the 400W - 500W range for $50 - $60 is practically non-existant. The only option I would have had was to get the 520W instead of the 620W I chose. There was only a $1 difference between the two, and since this machine is going to some lucky winner, I figured the extra 100W would be a nice bonus for them if they decided to re-purpose it somewhere.

Skylake would've been nice. It definitely would've helped the value comparison against Thomas and Chris with the higher memory bandwidth and efficiency. But other than not being available three months ago, I had another reason for sticking to Haswell, which you'll see tomorrow.

I know that a lot of the "tricky" parts I faced this time were of my own fault. Since I decided to make a high-powered gaming LAN box last quarter, I had to stick with that theme again. If I made a general use PC last time, I would've had a lot more flexibility now.

 

[Onus]

Turkey, I'm pretty sure he said he chose the reference cooler because it exhausts the heat out the back, rather than just moving it around in the case. A little more noise from one GPU fan beats the crap out of howling from the CPU fan and one more more case fans, plus motherboard overheating concerns.

 

[RedJaron]

I think full modularity was indeed a wise choice. Even in my mATX case in a build I made yesterday, I had such excess cables and had to shove them all into the 5.25" drive bays.

I think perhaps one area that could have been saved is the motherboard, you could have gotten the ASRock B85M-ITX for about $30 cheaper, which would really not affect performance enough to account $30, but I totally respect your decision for a better motherboard rather than the cheapest, it's sometimes better just to go a bit higher than the lowest.

My only last thing is, doesn't that GPU use the reference cooler? You should be able to find a GTX 970 with 2 fans, which would definitely help with the noise level.

In general purpose, I'd have no problem with that mboard. If this was just a desktop PC, I would have gone with that board, actually. However, I set the requirement last quarter that WiFi would be included. The H81M-ITX/WiFi was cheaper, but Joe reviewed it poorly, especially since it has no USB 3.0 header. That left the board I chose as the cheapest at the time, and Joe gave it an award so I went with it.

Yes, this uses a blower cooler. That's intentional. I didn't want an axial cooler to just recycle the hot air inside a tiny case. In a mini tower, you can rig up good front - back airflow to use an axial cooler, but it's almost impossible to do that in an ITX cube.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Ah, okay, GPU makes sense now. In that case it leaves me with 0 complaints.

 

[Crashman]

Ah, okay, GPU makes sense now. In that case it leaves me with 0 complaints.

Take a look at the noise numbers on the $1055 PC using the same card. I just put the vented side panel on the opposite side to keep the noise from escaping next to the card fan. I love blower coolers that remove heat and solid case sides that contain that noise.

 

[RedJaron]

Yeah, I don't have a mic setup, so I can't get an empirical noise value. It wasn't too bad though. Probably just as loud as my normal desktop, though a slightly higher pitch so it's more noticeable.

 

[Math Geek]

i loved the Original for it's use of the 860k and a high end gpu. the numbers were good to have and the thermal issues that showed were eye opening for the small case build.

the change made to the i3 gave some nice comparative numbers with the same gpu and ram used. overall, i loved the build and though the psu was a bit overkill, often the quality units at lower watts are pretty costly at moving up is not much more so why not

i do like the idea of even cheaper budgets, i recently read a review of an AMD A10 APU paired with an r7-250 for dual graphics pitted against the mythical pentium and a discrete gpu. i think they were both at ~$200 for cpu/mobo/gpu in total and the apu came out ahead with the dual graphics going over the pentium and single gpu it could fir into the budget. could be an interesting budget option to try out since you actually have the gonads to try something new and different

loved the way you stuck to the spirit of the build and did not throw it out for something totally different despite having no budget.

 

[RedJaron]

overall, i loved the build and though the psu was a bit overkill, often the quality units at lower watts are pretty costly at moving up is not much more so why not

Yes, 620W is complete overkill for the draw of this unit. I would've been happy with a smaller unit had I been able to find one. My criteria for PSU was at least 450W, by a quality manufacturer, and modular. At time of purchase, the SeaSonic 520 M12II and 620 M12II were the cheapest that met that criteria at $69 and $70. The 520 would've been more than enough as well, but the 620 was only $1 more. The two are exactly the same size so I got the bigger unit as a bonus gift for whoever ended up winning the system. Had I seen the 400W unit Thomas used, I might have considered that. Newegg didn't list is as having a PCIe power lead, so it turn up in my searches. And though it's not modular, it doesn't have a lot of cables to tuck away anyway.

And you're right, it's often only a few dollars difference between getting a good 450W and a good 550W or 650W PSU so unless your budget is extremely tight, stepping up the capacity a little doesn't hurt anything.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

The 620W is smarter than the 400W, you have headroom, less stress on the capacitors, and actually are in the sweet spot of efficiency. Plus the one Thomas used wasn't modular, was it?

 

[RedJaron]

No, it wasn't modular, but like I said, how many cables on it wouldn't be used? I need a 24-pin ATX, a 4-pin CPU, a 6+2/8-pin PCIe, and at least one SATA power cable. It's a little hard to tell on some of its product pictures, but I think that would've only left one Molex power cable left over. It would have been a little more crowded, but I think I could've done it ( can't say for certain of course ).

As for efficiency, under normal gaming load this thing only draws 240W from the wall. Estimating 85% efficiency, that's a little more than 50% load on a 400W unit, which is closer to the efficiency sweet spot than the 33% load this is doing on the 620W unit.

 

[Math Geek]

i do love the psu choices in the SBM as they are often much lower watts than what folks swear are needed in the forums here every day. i often point folks to these articles as evidence that you don't need 750w for an i5 and gtx 960!!

i can do the math for people all day but in the end actual evidence is no match for "my cousin had 650w and it wasn't enough, the whole thing would not even boot up.... blah blah blah"

i would like to see someone do a budget build with what apparently is the greatest cpu/gpu combo EVER. that is the unlocked pentium and the 750ti. apparently based on the same nonsense "facts" this can easily keep up with an i5 and a 960 if overclocked!! would love some hard numbers on the combo proving just how false this notion is just to shut these folks up for maybe an hour or two.....

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Probably more cables that you'd think. My 500W EVGA power supply (yeah I have that in a minor build, I know it's poor quality) has just an unbelievable amount of unused cables that I wish could be avoides. Tons of molex, sata, PCIe connectors, berg connector. If anything it seems to me like these companies still put a crap ton of cables into lower wattage units. I mean, it would be absolutely impossible for me to even use my 5.25" bays unless I had 10 cables dangling in the middle of the case and obstructing airflow and creating ugliness.

I just do wish we had a good market for quality 300W 400W units, but they are all just near as expensive as the 550-650W units always.

 

[RedJaron]

I just do wish we had a good market for quality 300W 400W units, but they are all just near as expensive as the 550-650W units always.

That's because the mfr costs to make a good 400W PSU are barely less than to make a good 500W unit. To reduce tooling lines, and therefore overall costs, they just make the 500W unit since it can do anything the 400W can.

 

[koffeeshop77]

man its too late now but you could us the asrock itX AC board, a skylake I3, DDR4 ballistics and you would have wiped the floor with the pro-sumer, and left the AMD in the dust, have "modded and corsair i50 in there somewhere...lol how strick are the policies? blow torch anyone, does that count as part of the build?

 

[koffeeshop77]

but good job!thumbs up

 

[Tomahok2]

The only thing that I dislike about this build is the case. Thermal take blatantly copied caselabs cases, fractal design cases, swiftech blocks, and corsair fans and I do not think it is right to support a company who does this. This particular case may be fine, but it is still supporting a company who copies other products. If this is something the tech community does not want, the best way to show it is to not buy from companies who participate in copying, vote with your wallet.

 

[koffeeshop77]

switec is mucho $$$ expensive, but who cars bout the case screw it to a block of wood with a fan on it main thing is IT PERFORMS!

 

[RELIABLE_ACORN]

Hello my names Herbert,

I'm a 25yr old maintenance mechanic for aluminum extrusion company and ive been building and playing with computers since i can remember. I have a 1gpu coolermaster haf mid atx build that i want to replace with a smaller desk friendly computer like a cube case or something because I don't have any reason to have a big rig if i can do the same thing with a small rig. I found the article and it appealed to me for this and was a good read and gave me more ideas. I'm going to read more these sbm articles and stuff because im really concerned about temp difference between a larger builds and a small cube like rig.

good read helps thank you very much

i also read some comments and i just wanted to add that i felt Mopar63 dude said some good stuff and i would encourage that...kinda like if your surrounded by only yes men then your never considering different ideas. A devils advocate is nice to have around to bounce ideas off of. I really felt someone took the commentor a little to serious and got butt hurt.

 

[viv3ka]

Over the weekend I built a box with my kids based on this system. It was tremendous fun to do, they're rapt, thank you for writing it up. It was my first system build since the KIM-1 microcomputer I built with my Dad when I was a kid, so this website was invaluable.

We went pretty much as above but with an i5 6500 to make sure we exceed the Oculus Rift requirements (those are NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater, Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater, 8GB+ RAM). The Rift is another reason to consider the 970 – "by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering". I also went a bit over this spec with the motherboard and PSU, partly for headroom and partly based on what was available at my local parts supplier (MSY in Sydney). We haven't bothered with an optical drive or spinning disk yet.

The case is perfect for us – really easy to open up and plenty of room to manoeuvre, but small enough to be unobtrusive and to transport for a gaming session at a friend's house. The space inside and the big slow built-in fan, plus no spinning disk means it all runs nice and quiet (for a gaming PC anyway).

So thanks again. This was a lot of fun to make and we're delighted with the results.

 

[viv3ka]

If this is something the tech community does not want, the best way to show it is to not buy from companies who participate in copying, vote with your wallet.

Nah, I'm OK with copying. It's how invention progresses.
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" – Isaac Newton.