System Builder Marathon: Sub-$4000 PC

[Gazz]

That was a realy good article but I am not too clued in with sli configaration that board can run 3 x 8800 gtx @ 16x corect
so does this mean that each gpu is scaled back to 2 x 8x per 9800gtx2 meaning that you have 4 gpus running at 8x then 3gpus running 16x
My motherboard restricks my to 2 x 16x or 4 x 8x but i am useing amd
can anyone explain to me why the 2x2 in the tri 16x didnt work

 

[Crashman]

Where do you come up with these figures? Ever heard of the Charts page on this website? My SLI scales very well with 8800GT cards. Learn to read before opening your mouth.

Great concept, but in this instance it turns out the 9800 GX2's don't scale well. What you said would likely apply to several other cards, such as the 8800GT, 8800GTX, 8800Ultra, and probably the 9800GTX

 

[Crashman]

That was a realy good article but I am not too clued in with sli configaration that board can run 3 x 8800 gtx @ 16x corect
so does this mean that each gpu is scaled back to 2 x 8x per 9800gtx2 meaning that you have 4 gpus running at 8x then 3gpus running 16x
My motherboard restricks my to 2 x 16x or 4 x 8x but i am useing amd
can anyone explain to me why the 2x2 in the tri 16x didnt work

The GX2 doesn't do 3-way SLI because it only has one SLI bridge connector. You need two connectors for 3-way SLI, so that all three cards can communicate directly.

 

[Preclude]

[citation][nom]razor512[/nom]for the price, it is only a little bit faster than a PC thats half the cost it is not worth it,SLI it the worst bottleneck on earth 2 cards = twice the price for only a 10-20% performance boost[/citation]

I could not agree more, +1.

 

[rhysee]

SLI is ok , but price v performance just doesnt make it worth while ..
CrossFire seem to do a better job..

Its all down to drivers in the end ..

CHoose your resolution that you are going to play games at and buy the card that suits it - no need to go overboard if you only have a 17" at 1280x1024 and gaming at this resolution..

My 8800GTS 640MB plays all my fav games very well .. ( apart from Crysis of course) ..

 

[randomizer]

I'm actually surprised that the first page of comments wasn't flaming about only including 2 games.

 

[randomizer]

I mean 5 games, I missed page 14 :lol:

 

[Guest]

$4k isn't an insane amount of cash for a system built on newly released components (or reasonably new anyway). 3-4k has been typical for as long as I can remember. This year is one of the first where it would be easy to spend 5k if you don't keep your wits about you. 5k is certainly approaching foolishness unless you need a tooled up pc for your profession or your swimming in dough.

With that said, 4k is still a lot of cash for most people. If you don't mind using last years components, you can get great performance sub-2k.

 

[dragoncyber]

HAHA, my Q6600 Overclocked to 3.6 Ghz (on Air no less) with (2) SLI'd 8800GT's and an EVGA 790i Ultra board and 4 gigs of DDR3 Corsair @ 1333mhz, spanks this rig ALL DAY!! My current best 3dmark06 score is 19,352 at the same settings I use everyday. And I get the same or higher FPS in all the same games. Something is not right here. You guys need to work on configuration and testing for best performance and stability.

 

[Crashman]

HAHA, my Q6600 Overclocked to 3.6 Ghz (on Air no less) with (2) SLI'd 8800GT's and an EVGA 790i Ultra board and 4 gigs of DDR3 Corsair @ 1333mhz, spanks this rig ALL DAY!! My current best 3dmark06 score is 19,352 at the same settings I use everyday. And I get the same or higher FPS in all the same games. Something is not right here. You guys need to work on configuration and testing for best performance and stability.

Hahahah you're such a joker, comparing a highly overclocked rig to a stock speed rig in a program that favors such a configuration. You knew that the overclocking competition was coming Monday but decided to confuse the neophyts with your deception?

 

[Luscious]

Speaking of budget, biohazard computers currently offers a skulltrail rig with phase-change cooling on both cpu's, and liquid-cooled TRIPLE GTX 280 cards. Fully-loaded, this thing will set you back a good $18,000. And that's without the 30" display.

Kind of makes you wonder what the word budget means to some people these days...

 

[xellos013]

Why that NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive.
its totaly useless now, 😛
you should get a card reader or something 😀

 

[thexder1]

The reason you have received criticism for the PSU is simply because of the multiple 12V rails. I have read in many places where people have had problems with PSUs that supply 18A or less per 12V rail since the video cards could draw more than 18A. If you have not had any problems than that issue might have been fixed but I will not buy a PSU with more than 2 12V rails any more because of that issue and I do not know what is going to happen in the future. What about using a Silverstone OP750 PSU? This has a single 12V rail, will supply plenty of power and is around the same price as the one you chose. or how about the OCZ OCZ800EXS, or the Corsair CMPSU-750TX? I have also read in many places that with CoolerMaster PSUs it is hit and miss sometimes you get one from a good source other times you do not while the ones I have listed here are more consistent on their quality.

 

[Crashman]

Why that NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive.
its totaly useless now, 😛
you should get a card reader or something 😀

Something tells me that the author is an XP user. You need to either slipstream the RAID drivers into an XP CD, or use a driver floppy, to install XP on a RAID array.

 

[Crashman]

The reason you have received criticism for the PSU is simply because of the multiple 12V rails. I have read in many places where people have had problems with PSUs that supply 18A or less per 12V rail since the video cards could draw more than 18A. If you have not had any problems than that issue might have been fixed but I will not buy a PSU with more than 2 12V rails any more because of that issue and I do not know what is going to happen in the future. What about using a Silverstone OP750 PSU? This has a single 12V rail, will supply plenty of power and is around the same price as the one you chose. or how about the OCZ OCZ800EXS, or the Corsair CMPSU-750TX? I have also read in many places that with CoolerMaster PSUs it is hit and miss sometimes you get one from a good source other times you do not while the ones I have listed here are more consistent on their quality.

Last time people were saying "Cooler Master is listed on someone's Tier 3 list and that means that the power supply MUST be junk. Of course those people were WRONG, but as for your selections:

The Silverstone OP750 doesn't have enough 8-pin PCIe connectors. Several other Silverstone power supplies were considered and rejected due to the large number of complaints about the end of the PCIe power cable burning (the ones considered were modular units with two plugs on one end and one on the other).

The OCZ OCZ800EXS and Corsair CMPSU-750TX are supposed to use 6+2 pin connectors, which nVidia says won't fit into the card's connector hole due to the fact that the latch is offset to one side. This is nVidia's fault, for not making the release tab notch big enough in the card shroud.

 

[Jaq_Draco]

Nice article, just wondering why they didn't consider the Thermaltake Kandalf case that comes with water cooling built in and a 3x 120mm Rad for close to the same price as the case they chose alone. Plenty of space, plenty of bays and loads of fans.

 

[Crashman]

Nice article, just wondering why they didn't consider the Thermaltake Kandalf case that comes with water cooling built in and a 3x 120mm Rad for close to the same price as the case they chose alone. Plenty of space, plenty of bays and loads of fans.

You're not going to like this:

"Even though the new processor is ready to astonish us in our SBM Day 4 overclocking comparison, we can't possibly overstress the value of a high-end case and cooling configuration for turning a run-of-the-mill performance system into a dream machine. To be quite honest, the liquid-cooled case of our previous high-end machine would have been more valuable as scrap metalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/scrap - it is in no way comparable to the quality of Silverstone's Temjin TJ09, and the functionality of our custom-selected Swiftech liquid cooling kit."

Here's a link for that quote:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/system-builder-marathon,1797-15.html

And here's the case they were refering to:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sbm-high-end-system,1689-8.html

The Armor LCS was junk. The Kandalf LCS uses the same structure and pump, but relocates the radiator into a huge door. Though the Armor LCS was inferior in nearly every way to any quality case, mounting the pump was the biggest problem, so the site didn't even bother substituting the Kandalf.

Thermaltake's Armor and Kandalf aren't even in the same league as the Cooler Master Cosmos S, let alone Silverstone TJ09, when it comes to fit, finish, and mechanical design.

 

[btg]

Wow what a fantastic rig, all that processing power, amazing graphics, loads of memory and storage.......but its a shame it will be used as a DOORSTOP as someone has forgotten to include an OPERATING SYSTEM in the qoute !!!!

Someone was too busy with the Chrome fittings, floppy drives & hose clamps that they forgot to say to themselve "Hmmm now what shall we run it on..... an OS might be good"

Could be an idea to keep it simple eh?

DOH !!!

 

[GlItCh017]

I'm not really that surprised about the performance after owning a 7950 GX2 a lot of the same problems existed there. I do wonder however how the SLI GTX 260/280 does they are obviously the new contenders.

 

[jitpublisher]

Enjoyed this article. Good information, good job.

 

[spotless]

what a rush.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]btg[/nom]but its a shame it will be used as a DOORSTOP as someone has forgotten to include an OPERATING SYSTEM in the qoute !!!![/citation]

Luckily I have a simple, 2 step system to help you out:

1. Take the price as listed
2. Add $100 to $220 to that for your Vista install of choice. 😛

 

[Crashman]

Luckily I have a simple, 2 step system to help you out:

1. Take the price as listed
2. Add $100 to $220 to that for your Vista install of choice. 😛

Heheh, it does have a floppy, even if it's not installed. I'm sure the builder has a few Windows XP licenses laying around.

 

[rhysee]

When will Toms review the E8600 ?.. seems others have been ..

 

[Guest]

As someone that has had several Striker II Extremes and 790i Ultra boards. I would not recommend the Striker II. Instead I would go with one of the EVGA or XFX 790i Ultra boards. They cost less and yeild better results. Especially since they did not even use the water cooled fusion block. Also the coolant used seems to be conductive and not a good mix with electronics. The newer generation non conductive coolants do just a good a job of cooling and will not smoke your board and cards if there is a leak.
If all you are going to liquid cool is the CPU then, the better CPU cooler would be the Ultra ChillTec Thermo Electric CPU Cooler (ULT33186), that will cool the CPU better, simpler, less parts and will allow one to overclock the system better than the liquid cooling.