System Builder Marathon, Sept. '09: $1,250 Enthusiast Build

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
[citation][nom]mdk777[/nom]1 AMD 9651 AMD 5870Cost less and blow this out of the water. You ignored previous post by saying cross-fire 5850 would have been more expensive. Get real.[/citation]

2 4850 OC @ 800MHz are about 7% slower than 2 4870... or... a 2X4870.

A 5870 is about as strong as a GTX295 that is slower in some case to a 2X4870. Logically 4 4850 have more raw power than a 5870, but I am pretty sure that the crossfire technology isn`t able to use this power efficiently...
 


You're forgetting power there, Dirt.

Three 4890's would require 6 PCIe power cables, and the most I could find in a reasonably priced PSU was 4. Not to mention raw power usage requirements... wasn't comfy with cheating using molex converters.

Hell, three 4890's use 270 W at idle!

Regardless... yeah, I indulged myself. It felt good, you should try it sometime. 😀

Everyone's so damn sure it's going to scale terribly because that's the way they assume it should be. I'm personally looking forward to the results when it's pitched against Thomas' $2500 build with three 4890s. I suspect it's not going to get such terrible results after all, considering the graphics subsystem is $200 cheaper than three 4890s.
 
[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Yeah, clicking the 'enable CrossFire' checkbox was a real feat. After that epic stuggle, it seemed to work well at every game I threw at it...[/citation]

Well, for me it wasn't this that really bother me, it was the cable management and the case you used. I will never build something like that in such a badly designed case. You need to add this in perspective. If I am about to build something similar or a dual GPU PC, I would at least buy a Cooler Master HAF 922. I got a Cosmos S for 2 Asus 4850 TOP and I still think I have took a good decision back then for heat and space issues.

Of course, I need to say that I have 3 hard drives, a sound card, a Blu-Ray player and a DVD player... It would have been an hassle to build my PC in your tiny case with 5 sata cables, 1 IDE cable and all the stuff of the Cosmos S.
 
Logically 4 4850 have more raw power than a 5870, but I am pretty sure that the crossfire technology isn`t able to use this power efficiently...


I don't know?
, you think..???

Diminishing returns on SLI and Crossfire...WoW...Never heard of that before....

You appear to have intentionally crippled this system. An informed person can't really deduce anything else.
 
I apologize if someone has already asked this as I haven't read through all 4 pages of posts... but what would be better 2x4890/1Gb or 4x4850/1Gb? It is actually cheaper to get the 2x4890/1Gb setup. Also with the MB used in this article there is always room to add 2 more 4890/1Gb in the future... 😉

But for now... which is more powerful? Thanks.
 
You appear to have intentionally crippled this system. An informed person can't really deduce anything else.
Click to expand...

There is another possible deduction you're missing: you appear to be making huge assumptions based on Phenom II vs. i7 results, before seeing how it fares against another AMD system.

Having seen the results, I can say some of you were too quick to pre-decide that CrossFire scales too poorly to make four cards worthwhile, or that quad 4850's are a bad value proposition compared to triple-4890s... 😀
 
They talk about how i5 might change these builds, yet they don't seem to work them in anywhere.

Besides, there's more to being an enthusiast than gaming. What about Audio Engineers, 3D animators, etc?
 
Well this build can make some sense as pure gaming rig, or if you want to test something or make a point, but i don't know any one who will even consider do build this configuration.
I hope you will think of more practical configuration next time.

 
Why the AMD and ATI favouritism? You could have gone with the same as last time (260's and i7) with a better case and maybe an SSD. This is a terrible build, quadfire is just dumb. SBM is supposed to be about building the best for your money. This is about as bad as it gets.
 
[citation][nom]Sushi Warrior[/nom]Why the AMD and ATI favouritism? You could have gone with the same as last time (260's and i7) with a better case and maybe an SSD. This is a terrible build, quadfire is just dumb. SBM is supposed to be about building the best for your money. This is about as bad as it gets.[/citation]

This quarter's SBM series is all-AMD, per the request of readers after the *last* series. Each time we do one of these, we shoot to address requests from the Marathon before! Please feel free to chime in with suggestions for the next one ;-)
 
A couple things I'd be curious in having answered is what the performance difference between 2 or 3 cards compared to 4 would be like mentioned previously, and also, what sort of noise difference is there? I'm not sure how loud the video cards are, and if it gets much louder by having 4 of them.

I have to say though, that I can imagine it must be hard to not giggle maniacally when you look at that thing and see 4 video cards churning away.
 
Well, people have been begging for an AMD build, and there it is. Soundly trounced by the Core i7 build, even with its crappy stock cooler. It is what it is and I don't think anyone here is really surprised by the outcome. Core i7 is the king of the hill... for now. I will, however, be very anxious to see a build based on the AMD 6-core processor (when they are released next year) and Radeon HD 5870 card.
 
Ignore the price tag on this article. All the budget serves is a limitation to the possibilities. The fact that prices aren't real time invalidates the use of this article as best bang for the buck. If you want that, go into the forums into the home build section. Plenty of people there to help find the realtime deals to get you the most for your money. But realize, when you do, the posters helping you are looking at articles like this to say you can get more performance on this component or spend less here and more here because of articles like this. The only way they are going to know is reading benchmarks that think outside the box. So this build shows that CPU limitations aren't great for quadfire. I'll put that in my memory banks for later. We need these builds that challenge the status quo.

Cleeve: Whats the story on the TIM used?

LOL: I love that cangelini is listed as a youngster. Noticing that just made my day. Well, a second time, reading the article was the first.
 
great article. that is pretty impressive 4x 4850's and and amd processor cranking out those speeds for 1250. guess i hav'nt been looking at prices of stuff to much latly. but A++ to this article very interesting and uniqe. i am partial to intel never actualy owneed amd. but thats some good bang for the buck definatly.
 
people that say it doesn't compare to an i7 are missing the point. Nearly free x8 AA with the candy turned on it matches and even manages to exceed the i7 build
 
also it shows there's a lot more power than we know behind the 4850 quad i for one would love to see the true power under an i7 build
 


Well, since we went with AMD this time, it's sort of a foregone conclusion that the next SBM will be all-Intel. :)
 
If you are going to do gaming builds, you ought to include more, and more relevant games. Having several CPU limited titles is a bit of a shame, though I suppose it is not uncommon.

Interesting build (and good component selection!) - I am surprised at the power numbers!
 
[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]This quarter's SBM series is all-AMD, per the request of readers after the *last* series. Each time we do one of these, we shoot to address requests from the Marathon before! Please feel free to chime in with suggestions for the next one ;-)[/citation]

All intel or all AMD is not the point. How 'bout doing one that offers the best performance for the decided amount of money. Satisfying your "AMD" readers by putting 4 graphics cards in, which barely edges a gain over the previous SBM (only at higher resolutions than someone paying for this system would probably be running at), is ridiculous. What is in the next build, six cards? If your point is, after reading the first SBM and this one, that AMD can't compete right now so if you want to play you better buy a bunch of graphics cards then your point is taken. If you are really being serious about these builds recognize that changing the dollar amount might have made more sense for AMD builds. Maybe a $550, $750, and $1000 build. Anyone spending more would surely be looking at intel and if not they can probably qualify for some new medication to help them think correctly.
 


If it makes sense to do so, sure.

There is a lot of whining and complaining because the system has four graphics cards. Like there is a universal law that thou shalt not use more than two graphics cards.

Personally, I don't care how many it has as long as it performs well for the price, doesn't eat a ridiculous amount of power, and the heat is managable.

The four 4850's in this build use below 700w under load, probably somewhere in dual 4890 territory. The heat was never a problem. And it gamed high res like a champ.

If you want to hate it on principle -- just because it has four graphics cards -- be my guest.

But just because you don't like the fact that it exists... that doesn't make it bad.
 


Still doesn't provide us with a reasonably priced 700 W PSU that comes with 6 PCIe power cables.

And we probably shouldn't automatically assume that 3-4870's will beat 4-4850s either, should we? 😉
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom