System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2010: $2000 Performance PC

[redgarl]

At Avatar...

Yes, but we all know that already. Toms went this route to show... alternatives.

 

[goodguy713]

well it looks like we got our core i7 vs 1055 review .. i would of liked the radeon's though.. but cant complain good review

 

[Deadstick50]

OK, So Im confused here, is this a new contest we can win the builds for or is this the same contest i signed up for back in june?
"Win One of the Three Systems From Our June System Builder Marathon"
If I sign up for this now, it sounds like I could be doubled up and get kicked for it, clarification please??

 

[dertechie]

[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]I have no temptation to build another rig for myself until I see what Bulldozer and Sandy Bridge bring to the table. With only one GTX480, this system would outperform my current primary though, so I'd be very happy to win it.[/citation]

Yeah, I was drooling over the i5-750 OC results for a while, then realized that the 1156 motherboards was going the way of the 775 (kept around because it still works pretty well, but no upgrades forthcoming in the high end). Waiting to see what SB and BD can do.

Honestly, I love Intel's CPUs, but I loathe their chipset approach (very little thought given to forward-compatibility). Meanwhile I want more single-thread performance than Thuban can give me (really hoping BD's
second generation turbo core can help with that), but I love motherboards that were built with the next gen CPU in mind.

Of course, part of this is me hating the idea of giving even more money to the company that sold me a Pentium D and an i945P motherboard 4 years ago, back before I actually understood reviews.

 

[cinergy]

I wouldn't recommend GTX 480 even for my greatest enemies.

 

[duk3]

I can't find a way to fit 2x 460s in an intel build for under $1000.
I guess the next build will be AMD.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]Deadstick50[/nom]OK, So Im confused here, is this a new contest we can win the builds for or is this the same contest i signed up for back in june?"Win One of the Three Systems From Our June System Builder Marathon"If I sign up for this now, it sounds like I could be doubled up and get kicked for it, clarification please??[/citation]

Should be September--I'll ask to have that fixed!
Chris

 

[skydream]

It's good to know that the Amd Phenom x6 isn't as good as it seems. Guess Intel is the way for now.

 

[killerchickens]

It would be nice to see some loading time, program start up time and system boot benchmarks to show the benefits of different hard drive and ssd.
I think raid 0 would be a much better value than a ssd at this point.

 

[foscooter]

Love that they were honest: Big FAIL on the CPU!

Not a real fan of this SBM, the case is weird (sideways), no SSD, too much RAM, and not a fan of the graphics card choose.

Waitng for the next one!

 

[Notleh]

Not a bad setup for multi-monitor gaming. Would have still gone i7 over the AMD, but it was very interesting to see you results. I love the SBM articles.

 

[geok1ng]

[citation][nom]SpadeM[/nom]Misuse is the right word...given the right circumstances it could have dominated the benchmarks. Too bad this article didn't come out before the testes were done, maybe the builder could have picked up some ideas.http://www.anandtech.com/show/3877 [...] -scaling/7[/citation]
A quick re-reading of that article and i totally agree with you. NB overclock could increase gaming numbers by 16% , enough to salve the value of the Overclocked AMD system.
It is not too late for Tom to re-run the benchmarks with NB overclock in place, before day value comparison.

 

[jonahkirk]

I have to agree with several of the posters-for $2000 I better have at least a 80-100gb SSD Application/boot drive. It might not help the benchmarks that much but its sure going to make for a much better general computing experience. If I am forced to replace before Bulldozer, I would consider the 1055, but I'd pair it with an 870 mobo (I don't need crossfire) and 4 gigs of memory. Then your only looking at like $340 or better with rebates and deals before adding gpu, psu, storage, case and cooling. It's a great processor for builds under $1000. P.S. Still sporting my $175 dana-electric Intel G1 ssd. It rocks!

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]geok1ng[/nom]A quick re-reading of that article and i totally agree with you. NB overclock could increase gaming numbers by 16% , enough to salve the value of the Overclocked AMD system.It is not too late for Tom to re-run the benchmarks with NB overclock in place, before day value comparison.[/citation]
Yes, for AMD's "Northbridge" it is too late, because it was already overclocked by 44%:

It's also "too late" to overclock the 980a, because it would require modified cooling for the motherboard. The 980a runs too hot on stock cooling to accept a moderate overclock.

 

[was3000]

Yikes heat.

 

[CommStarr]

Hi, I was wondering what the community thought about EVGA GeForce GTX 480 SuperClocked+ w/ High Flow Bracket and Backplate compared to the Msi GTX 480. The price difference is ~$20, the evga has 26Mhz faster gpu, the memory clock speed is about 100MHz faster. But what I've been trying to find out is that EVGA is supposely a true openGL 4.0 while everything else is 3.2. Is this true and is this a big difference since the 4xx series was suppose to be 4.0?

 

[Onus]

Hi, I was wondering...

Excellent question for the Graphics forums, I'd say.

 

[jfem]

Gtx 480's wouldn't even cross my mind even if I had the money.

 

[mattmock]

It might have been better to space the GTX480s out even if it meant putting one in a 8x slot. When HardOCP tested they found little difference in 16x/16x vs 16x/8x. This might help keep GPU noise and temperatures under control.

 

[liquidsnake718]

In otherwords, GTX480 is overkill with the current "affordable" 6 core chips and unless you are using a 2560x1600 display or a huge LCD for entertainment ANG massive gaming, then again, its OVERKILL. Still im shocked that even after reaching 4.0ghz the Thuban couldnt come close to the June build which I also thought was good but a bit too much.

Which games make use of at least 3 to 4 cores? This would have also been a good bench, does dirt or aliens vs predator? Metro 2033? It would be interestring to see if 3ds max would be any different as well and comparing this setup with a studio workstation with firepro's and quadros.

 

[brucek2]

We need a solution for the "users love SSDs but they don't show up in benchmarks" issue. Are there folks who truly believe they are just placebos? If so, an article proving or disproving that theory would be very interesting. If we're past that, it ought to be possible to define some benchmark that quantifies the real benefits. Perhaps one focused purely on app start/exit, system boot, game level load time, game saves to mostly full/fragmented drives, import of full camera SD card into photo library application, etc.

Bottom line: just too important an issue to not receive serious consideration and debate in performance oriented systems.

 

[Onus]

I agree with brucek2. The SBM articles have long been a guide to "What You "Might" (if the experiment succeeds) Build if you have $xxxx." I think more people than not would put $200 or so of a $2000 budget into a SSD.

 

[anonymous_user]

Is it normal to spend 47% of your computer budget on video cards? I know they're are important for gaming, but it seems very unbalanced.

 

[IzzyCraft]

I agree with brucek2. The SBM articles have long been a guide to "What You "Might" (if the experiment succeeds) Build if you have $xxxx." I think more people than not would put $200 or so of a $2000 budget into a SSD.

experiments yes what you might eh.. i remember not too long ago they did a quad fire of i think 4850's

 

[f-14]

This rather tedious process requires builders to hold the CPU cooler in place atop the CPU with one hand, align it’s the motherboard to its mounting holes with a second hand, insert screws through the support plate and motherboard with a third hand, and drive the screws into the CPU cooler with a fourth hand (Ed.: It's a good thing you're a mutant!)

try some scotch tape for holding the back plate on, i found 2 strips over opposing corners works great, you can even drop the screws in the plates and a little square over the screws hold them in place, the screw driver head twists the tape up/off and i just pick it up/off when finished attaching the cpu cooler.

great article, reaffirms what was known about application performance and confirms a few things i suspected and glad i didn't have to spend the $2k to find out. tell AMD to get back on the ball with the CPU bottleneck advancements.

once request i will make, is add multiple application's at once performance, you've got multi cores, and one app running, i usually have a minimum of 4 apps going since pentium mmx 200mhz days, now days it's close to 6. most guys i know are downloading (torrents) stuff while playing online fps/mmo and playing music/video, some IM client/webcam/skype/voice chat. i'll burn a cd/dvd and encode cd/dvd's during all that also. it's an insane way to tax a quad core system and i'm curious if hexacore and octacore systems are going to benefit by 50 percent or more.
don't look at me like that, i'd make one core run something for SETI, i'm not entirely evil. if you give me the power to do something, i'll find ways to push it to the limit and i'll show it's never enough.