System Builder Marathon Q2 2015: $1600 Gaming PC
- Introduction
- $1600 Gaming PC
- Component Selection
- Hardware Installation
- Overclocking
- How We Test
- Synthetics
- Gaming
- Media, Productivity And Compression
- Power, Heat, Efficiency And Value
For this quarter’s SBM, we built a gaming PC with a GeForce 980 paired with a Core i5. Can it keep up with our i7-based builds from previous SBMs?
System Builder Marathon Q2 2015
Here are links to each of the five articles in this quarter’s System Builder Marathon (we’ll update them as each story is published). And remember, these systems are all being given away at the end of the marathon.
To enter the giveaway, please fill out this SurveyGizmo form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!
- $1600 Performance PC
- $1600 Mini Performance PC
- $1600 Gaming PC
- $1600 Mini Gaming PC
- System Value Compared
$1600 Gaming PC
So this is my first foray in tackling the System Builders Marathon. I’ve built plenty of machines over the years, but my background is mostly IT and my emphasis was usually to build with a good CPU. When I was offered the chance to work on this quarter’s System Builder Marathone, I was told that the SBM would be a totally different experience. They were right, but with a little help from Thomas who answered my questions regarding our System Builder Marathon rules, I was ready to spend some money.
With Paul and Don not available for this quarter’s System Builder Marathon, I knew I had to step into some pretty big shoes. With $3200 at our disposal, Thomas and I were tasked to build two $1600 machines each. One of the two machines was to be ATX-based, while the other would be mini-ITX. To change things up a bit, Thomas would focus on building out a CPU-driven machine and I would focus on a graphics-heavy build.
Oh the fun we had!
Is $1600 an unrealistic target? I’m pretty sure that’s not an over-the-top price for a great machine, even if some of us would have to collect the pieces over a period of time (or save up a bit longer for the big payoff). Regardless, the budget Thomas and I were given is pretty fair, especially for the level of performance we were aiming for.
By the way, I’m simply dubbing this first machine “Big Build”. It’s a tower-based system running Windows 8 and housing an ATX-sized motherboard, which should leave plenty of room for any future upgrades or expansion.
Here’s what I chose for Big Build:
Case | Cooling | CPU | Graphics | Memory | Motherboard | PSU | Storage | Storage | Optical | Accessory | Software | |
Products |
DIYPC Adventurer-9601G |
Zalman CNPS10X Optima |
Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 |
Team Xtreme 16GB (2 x 8GB) |
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 |
Corsair CSM 750W |
SanDisk Extreme Pro (240GB) |
Seagate Barracuda (1TB) |
Samsung DVD Writer |
Orico AC52535-1S -BL |
Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-bit) |
Pricing |
- Platform Cost: $1348
- Total Hardware Cost: $1499
- Complete System Price: $1599
In order to accomplish the goals I set forth for Big Build, I had to choose a graphics card first, and I went with a brand I’m familiar with. We use Gigabyte’s Windforce-cooled GeForce GTX 970 in our reference systems, so I was pretty cranked to upgrade to the latest/greatest in the Windforce family. Once I got my graphics card settled, I moved on and picked a CPU and motherboard. After all that, I just picked the pieces that made sense and fit into the budget.
Component Selection
In keeping within the spirit of the GPU vs. CPU challenge, I focused a huge chunk of my budget on the platform’s 3D potential. In fact, just over one-third of this first machine’s System Builder Marathon funding went to graphics, followed by the CPU.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980
Graphics
Running 2048 CUDA cores and 4GB of 256-bit DDR5 RAM is powerful reason to go with this card, but I also gave the Gigabyte Geforce GTX 980 a big thumbs up because it’s a pretty quiet card. The three Windforce fans it uses don’t make much noise as they’re spinning, especially when the system is running idle. The graphics card also features plenty of options to connect multiple monitors using different configurations. Included on the card are three DisplayPorts, one HDMI, and two DVI ports (DVI-D and DVI-I).
Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon
CPU
Since a huge chunk of my funds just went to the graphics card, I compromised and went for the fastest i5 I could get. Since we’ll be overclocking these machines, and sticking to a budget at the same time, going with Intel’s Core i5-4690K was a no-brainer. This 22nm Devil’s Canyon quad-core processor runs at 3.5 GHz, maxes out 3.9 GHz, and supports up to 32 GB of RAM, giving the lucky winner of this machine plenty of room to upgrade.
Zalman CNPS10X Optima
Cooling
In order to keep Big Build’s Core i5 cool, I went with Zalman’s Shark’s Fin CNPS10X Optima CPU cooler. Sporting a 120mm fan, the CNPS10X Optima can also accommodate a second fan if needed. Definitely chosen as more of budget buy for this build, a feature that I liked about the Zalman was the direct touch heatpipe design where the copper pipes are positioned at the bottom heat sink’s base. As opposed to being buried within the heat sink base’s aluminum material, the copper pipes make direct contact with the hot CPU surface. This direct contact essentially takes out the middleman, promoting better heat conduction away from the processor.
Even though the Zalman didn’t make the cut in Thomas’ Nine Big Air Cooler’s for Intel’s Haswell CPUsreview from a couple of years ago, I’m banking that the case fans (there’s five of them) can help cool things down even more when we overclock the machine.
After choosing the two key components for Big Build (and spending more than half of my budget), the next thing I needed to focus on was memory and storage. I wanted to keep things interesting, so I bounced around a bit to fit in at least one well-known goodie (the SSD) along with one brand I’m not too familiar with (RAM) and a couple of obvious accessories (hard drive and DVD).
Team Xtreme 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Memory
Looking for 2400 speed RAM wasn’t easy, especially with a CAS latency of 10 or better. To top it off, I needed to keep within budget. So after filtering down and compromising a bit due to what was available, I went with 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) of Team Xtreme DDR3 memory. At $115 for the pair, the cost was perfect. My only concern with this pair of RAM was if the uber-sized heat sinks would get in the way of anything.. Personally, I haven’t used Team products in anything, so I based this decision on the customer reviews on Newegg which seemed pretty favorable.
Hey, as long as they work and prove to handle the overclocking, they’ll be fine with me. Plus, if the heat sinks, that remind of the “Kid ‘n’ Play” high pro haircut from the ‘80s, do their job, even better. Due to the way I’m laying out the cooling fans, these heat sinks will be getting plenty of air to work with.
For storage, I’m going with a nice tiered subsystem sensitive to my budget limitations, including an SSD for the operating system and a HDD for user files. In this case, I’m throwing in a 240GB SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD for the system drive, and a 1TB Seagate Barracuda for the music, movies and documents.
SanDisk Extreme Pro (240GB)
Storage
The SanDisk Extreme Pro has been topping our “Best SSDs for the Money” list with its 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 TB models, pretty much going up against Samsung’s 850 Pro. Though the Samsung edges out performance-wise over the SanDisk, the difference isn’t much, so why not promote a little diversity in these builds? I decided that since I had the option to use either the SanDisk or Samsung models, I’d use the SanDisk Extreme Pro in Big Build and the Samsung 850 Pro in the smaller machine, dubbed “Mini Build”. Since both drives target the same prosumer/enthusiast crowd, it should be interesting to see how each drive fairs.
Seagate Barracuda (1TB)
Storage
As for the hard drive component of our storage solution, I went with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD. I could have gone with Western Digital equivalent, but I’ve had better luck with the 7200 RPM Seagate drives over the years, so along with the 64MB cache, 6Gb/s SATA interface and a two-year warranty, I’m passing my luck with these drives to the lucky winner of this machine.
Samsung DVD Writer
Optical
Finally, to round out the storage components for Big Build, I included a Samsung DVD-ROM. For $20. It’s the one component on this machine that would be most likely fall under the endangered components list as DVDs are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Even though most of the updates were downloaded from each manufacturer's website, a lot of the software installed on both Big Build and Mini Build came from accompanying CDs.
Once I figured out all of the big components, I needed to build out the backbone and chassis to put it all in. The motherboard was priority one in this group, followed by a power supply and a nice big case.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6
Motherboard
We tested the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard in August of 2014 and even gave it the Tom’s Hardware Smart Buy award. There was a lot of good stuff packed on this board that made it promising for this quarter’s SBM and any future upgrades. Some of the stuff included on the board are six USB 3.0 ports on the I/O panel, two M.2 slots and ten onboard SATA ports.
The only thing I really missed on the ASRock board was an onboard Wi-Fi adapter. The lack of wireless doesn’t really kill the use of the board for me, but if I really wanted to go wireless, I would have to buy a USB or PCIe Wi-Fi adapter for the machine. Usually adding Wi-Fi to a machine like Big Build wouldn’t be a problem, but it would end up putting me over budget, so I’m better off skipping the purchase and moving on.
Corsair CSM 750W
PSU
One of the things I usually end up regretting when building a machine, is getting stuck with an underpowered power supply. In this particular case, however, if I’m looking to add on more components onto this machine, I might as well go big. In Big Build’s case, I went with the Corsair’s 80 Plus Gold certified CS750M. To be honest, I went back and forth on which ATX power supply to, but had to scale down before deciding on the final choice.
Modularity is king when it comes to this level of power supply. Even though the main power leads aren’t detachable, having the option to pick and choose which other power cables I can use definitely helps keep unnecessary wires from blocking Big Build’s ventilation.
DIYPC Adventurer-9601G
Case
By the time I chose most of the components for Big Build, I was starting to run short on funds. Most of the money was spent on the higher end pieces like the graphics card and CPU. At the near-end of the shopping portion for this quarter’s marathon, the last thing I needed was a decent computer case to put all the components in. I also knew I needed plenty of space and plenty of fan cooling.
Fortunately, the DIYPC Adventurer-9601G was a suggestion I didn’t regret taking. The case’s 19”x 8”x 20”dimensions worked out for the better since I didn’t have any trouble fitting either the motherboard mounted 6.1” tall Zalman CPU cooler or the 12.3” Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 inside the case.
Fan-wise, the case comes with five 120 mm fans; two on top, two in front and one in the back. My requirement for cooling options was met.
Hardware Installation
CPU & RAM Cooling
Big Build’s Overview
There were two key components I wanted to emphasize with my cooling: the CPU and memory modules. The DIYPC case I picked has five 120mm fans. Originally, the top fans were blowing air out of the case, but since they were positioned right above the CPU cooler and the RAM’s heat sinks, it made sense to flip them both over and have their air blown downwards. If I had a decent piece of plastic board, the right tools and the time, I would have loved to build an air channel that would separate the airflow between the CPU cooler’s fan and the rear fan, but I didn’t. In this configuration, the rear fan will not only push out hot air from the PC, but it’s also going to get some of the fresh air meant for the CPU.
Shot of the two fans blowing fresh air down to the CPU cooler’s fan (left) and the RAM’s heat sinks (bottom right). The rear fan on the far left is blowing air out.
One other possibility to maximize CPU and RAM cooling would be to position the CPU cooler fan on the other side of its heat sink, letting the front-top fan blow fresh air over the CPU cooler and RAM at the same time. If that were possible, I could have kept the rear-top fan in its original position where it’d help exhaust hot air out, along with the rear fan. Ultimately, this wasn’t possible since the Zalman fan was too thick and wouldn’t fit between the CPU cooler’s fins and the RAM’s heat sinks.
Storage & Graphics Card
The two front fans inside blow air past the emptied out hard drive cages.
Next, I wanted to address where to put the storage drives. I expected that the hard drive and SSD would generate some heat, so I wanted to make sure I did something to lessen their thermal footprint.
In the “Big Build’s Overview” picture, you’ll notice an empty space between the motherboard and the the front panel’s fans. That space was originally occupied by two hard drive cage. The middle one is removable and slips right out. The bottom hard drive cage, unfortunately, is riveted into the case’s frame and cannot be removed without some heavy-duty modification. The good thing, though, is that the hard drive trays inside the bottom cage are removable. As a result, in order to maximize the amount of fresh air going into the front of the case, I emptied out that entire section and put the hard drive and SSD inside the hard drive cage at the top of the case where they’ll both sit right below the DVD writer.
There were two advantages to moving and isolating the storage drives into the top hard drive cage. The first was that by not using the lower cages, I can get cool air in from the front of the cage and direct it towards the GPU. A second benefit is that I have one less set of power cables to run from the power supply to the lower cage area. Now I only have a single SATA power cable that goes from the power supply to the top hard drive cage, and by having just that one cable, airflow towards the back of Big Build is going to be a little less obstructed.
The Case
Overall, the design of the DIYPC case isn’t too bad. There’s plenty of space to work with. However, there were a couple of issues I had to work around.
First, the top hard drive cage holding the Samsung DVD writer, Seagate HDD and SanDisk SSD was too close to the motherboard’s main power harness and memory slots. Not only did I have to unplug the power harness and remove the memory modules to install the three storage devices, but I still had to use some of my old desktop support yoga skills to get the SSD into the cage, as some of the soldered parts on the motherboard stuck out and got in the way.
The second thing I didn’t care much about the DIYPC case were those lower hard drive cages that I ended up removing. Running the cables to the drives when I initially put the machine together was awkward. Because of the way the mounting holes were positioned, the SSD would only go in rear-first, while the hard drive went in front-first. At that early point in the build, the way the cables were laid out didn’t work for me, so moving the drives up into the top fixed the minor aesthetic problem I was having and helped with airflow.
Graphics Card Drivers
Transitioning from a single Acer S277HK got a little complicated…
When I started working on Big Build, I initially used a single Acer S277HK 4K display. Armed with the CDs that came with the ASRock motherboard and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980, I installed the necessary drivers, and then updated them over the network. Everything seemed fine until the day I moved the Big Build to its open test area in the office. As I plugged in three new 4K displays into the Gigabyte card’s DisplayPort outputs, just one of the interfaces worked. The second and third ones weren’t putting out any signal at all.
…when I moved to three 4K monitors – two Viewsonic VP2780 (left and right) and an Acer XB280HK (center) – but it eventually worked out. The fourth monitor (bottom) is a Dell P1913 display I was using to make sure the Gigabyte card’s DVI ports were working
After spending some time swapping cables around and verifying that the monitors weren’t misconfigured or defective, I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and software, only to find that the native drivers were working fine as all three displays came up and successfully displayed the Windows 8 desktop. Eventually, I was able to re-install the latest Nvidia drivers (version 353.05) again and got all three 4K monitors running.
Overclocking
After digging around in the OC Tweaker UI and getting mixed results with the ASRock Z97 Extreme6’s “Optimized CPU OC” settings, I went ahead and manually edited the overclock settings. I initially set the multiplier option to 42, and then started a conservative climb to 44. As I went along, I tested different multiplier/voltage settings by using Prime95 to generate a workload and RealTemp to see how hot the CPU was getting. Once I was able to settle on a combination that kept the CPU peaking in the low 90-degree C range, I made sure that I was happy with the 3.5GHz Core i5-4690K running at 4.4GHz and 1.24V by tacking on an additional workload – in this case, our Tom’s Hardware 3ds benchmark.
For the memory, I just ended up using the OC Tweaker’s XMP profile to set my DRAM. The time to get Big Build ready for the quarter’s SBM was getting shorter, so I had to put off the memory overclocking and re-prioritize. At that point, I had bigger fish to fry…
DRAM frequency fell short of 1200 MHz, but it was nice to get it out of the way so easily.
Next, I needed to overclock the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 graphics card using Gigabyte’s OC Guru UI. This took a little tinkering. I just so happened to start the tests with high memory and GPU clocks, and from there I slowly dropped clock rate until I found something stable in 3DMark’s Fire Strike benchmark. It took a few tries, but I ended up with the memory clock set to 8000 MT/s and the GPU base clock at 1365MHz. Lastly, I set the GPU fans to manual and pushed them to their fastest speeds. After one last run of Fire Strike, I started the automated benchmarks and headed home for a nap.
OC Guru with the specs I successfully tested using 3DMark’s Fire Strike benchmark.
In its overclocked state, Big Build ran the gaming benchmarks pretty smoothly. There were a couple of points when I was testing with Grid 2 that Windows crashed, so I dropped the memory to 7900 MT/s and the GPU 1350MHz. After that, the benchmarks went fine and I was ready to move on to the thermal and power tests. Similar to what I did when I was setting up the host processor the night before, I used Prime95 to stress the machine. Suddenly, I started getting one blue screen after another. It didn’t seem like a complete hardware failure since the machine didn’t immediately reboot and go into POST; it would just blue-screen and tell me that that it would eventually reboot itself.
Finally found a happy place so I could finish my thermal and wattage tests
I suspected a combination of factors. Going back to the default CPU clock rate ultimately fixed the problem, and raising and lowering the GPU’s overclock settings didn’t seem to keep the machine running at the higher CPU clock setting. I was able to stabilize Big Build’s power and thermal testing by running the core speed at 4.2GHz and dropping the voltage down to 1.235V. Afterwards, I got my power and thermal numbers and put Big Build back into its prior 4.4GHz/1.24V configuration and reran the graphics benchmarks to confirm stability.
I also want to add some extra notes about getting past the problem I had with the power/thermal testing. I was able to stretch the amount of time between Windows crashing on me by disabling Nvidia’s Surround feature. I also reinstalled the Nvidia drivers after one particular crash and was able to run stably for a little while longer. Lastly, and interestingly enough, I noticed the CPU wasn’t overheating when the OS blue-screened; RealTemp usually reported that the processor was in the mid to high 80 degree-range whenever it crashed.
How We Test
Test Setup
I covered some of the points on how we tested Big Build in the prior Overclocking section. Aside from those notes, we purchased the parts, assembled the machines and ran the tests ourselves. I set up Big Build and the other machine in our Los Angeles test lab where I had access to the tools and space needed for this quarter’s System Builders Marathon. One key factor that I find important for working in the lab is having a climate-controlled environment to run the machines in, especially when testing the overclocking. Since most of my work was done at night, I had the A/C to myself and set the temperature to about 73 degrees F. With both machines fired up around mid-afternoon, the room’s temperature rose to about 78 degrees F.
Using the standard Tom’s Hardware image and software, I benchmarked the non-overclocked PC configuration first, then set the overclocking on that machine and ran the tests one more time.
The 27” Viewsonic VP2780-4K and 28” Acer XB280HK let us test in style and convenience thanks to Nvidia’s Surround setting.
Aside from the variety of tools and hardware needed, we also introduced 4K monitors to the test scenario. We used a couple of 27” Viewsonic VP2780-4K displays sandwiching a 28” Acer XB280HK. Since Big Build’s Gigabyte GTX 980 graphics card had three DisplayPort outputs, we used them all for testing.
The images we use center on Windows 8 and are pre-loaded with all of the System Builder Marathon software. We simply write a fresh image to the machine’s SSD, update the firmware, install the drivers and configure third-party tuning apps.
Comparison Systems
Q2 $1600 Gaming PC |
Q1 $1750 Performance PC | Q4 2014 $1600 PC | |
---|---|---|---|
Processor (Overclock) |
Intel Core i5-4690K: 3.5GHz, Four Physical Cores O/C to 4.2-4.4GHz, 1.24V | Intel Core i7-4790K: 4.0-4.4GHz, Four Physical Cores O/C to 4.6-4.8GHz, +20mV | Intel Core i7-4790K: 4.0-4.4GHz, Four Physical Cores O/C to 4.6GHz, 1.26V |
Graphics (Overclock) |
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980: 1178MHz GPU, GDDR5-7010 O/C to 1335MHz, GDDR5-8000 | 2x PNY GeForce GTX 970: 1178MHz GPU, GDDR5-7012 O/C to 1328MHz, GDDR5-7312 | PNY GeForce GTX 980: 1216MHz GPU, GDDR5-7012 O/C to 1456MHz, GDDR5-7972 |
Memory (Overclock) |
16GB Team Extreme DDR3-2400 CAS 10-12-12-31, Applied XMP Profile | 16GB G.Skill DDR3-1866 CAS 10-11-10-28, O/C to DDR3-2133 CL 11-12-11-24, 1.6V | 8GB G.Skill DDR3-2133 CAS 9-11-10-28, O/C to DDR3-2400 CL 10-12-12-28, 1.6V |
Motherboard (Overclock) |
ASRock Z97 Extreme6: LGA 1150, Intel Z97 Express Stock 100MHz BCLK | Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5: LGA 1150, Intel Z97 Express Stock 100MHz BCLK |
Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE: LGA 1150, Intel Z97 Express Stock 100MHz BCLK |
Case | DIYPC Adventurer-9601G | Corsair Graphite 230T | Thermaltake Chaser A31 |
CPU Cooler | Zalman CNPS10X Optima | Corsair H100i Closed-Loop | Phanteks PH-TC14PE 140mm |
Hard Drive | SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD | Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD | Plextor M6S PX-256M6S 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD |
Power | Corsair CSM Series CS750M: 750W, 80 PLUS Gold | Rosewill Capstone-750: 750W, 80 PLUS Gold | Rosewill Capstone-750-M: 750W, 80 PLUS Gold |
Software | |||
OS | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 | Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64 |
Graphics | Nvidia GeForce 353.06 | Nvidia GeForce 347.25 | Nvidia GeForce 344.75 |
Chipset | Intel INF 9.4.0.1017 | Intel INF 9.4.0.1026 | Intel INF 9.4.0.1026 |
Synthetics
For starters, the overclocked numbers generated in 3DMark show the machine did fairly well out the gate, especially if you notice the graphics score. Compared to Thomas’ other machines, Big Build couldn’t catch up to Q1 2015’s dual GeForce GTX 970-based rig, but then again, two GM104 GPUs might have something to do with that. On the other hand, Q4 2014’s $1600 Performance PC was as close as I could get to an even comparison. Putting both $1600 rigs up against each other, Big Build may have scored lower, but I was about to squeeze out a better score spread between the baseline and overclock configurations.
The Sandra results show what happens when you compromise and go with Core i5 when the other kids go i7. Still, I’m really proud of the smaller gap in Big Build’s scores.
Gaming
We ran into an issue gaming at 4800×900 on the 4K monitors. Basically, the resolution wasn’t available, even though 1600×900 was. Because of that, we had to exclude it from our comparison.
Overall, Big Build excelled at 1600×900 and 1920×1080 across the four games we benchmark. This wasn’t the case at 5760×1080, though. Grid 2 is the exception; it was fairly smooth at the High Quality setting.
Looking at the charts from a historic perspective, the overclocked Big Build kept up with Thomas’ past creations, including his dual-card configuration from Q1 2015. The only trouncing I really received in the game testing came from Battlefield 4‘s Ultra quality preset, where most of Thomas’ builds outright beat me (though in one case, just by 3.2 FPS).
Media, Productivity And Compression
We have a few more examples of what happens when you put a Core i5 up against an i7. For the scoring, lower numbers are better. And since I’m not seeing any numbers higher than mine, I definitely know my place in this section. In the end though, larger gaps between the baseline and overclock show what a difference time and patience can make when you’re trying to bump up performance with an overclock.
Power, Heat, Efficiency And Value
With all of the equipment inside the DIYPC case, Big Build drew quite a bit of power just sitting idle. But once the GPU and CPU received a load, draw from the wall increased 5x. Thomas’ experience in this series is apparent when you look at his results from Q4 2014 and Q1 2015, where power consumption went up by 10x under load compared to the idle measurements.
Even though I was looking forward to the power and thermal tests (mostly because they were the last ones I had to run), I spent quite a while trying to mitigate the system crashing whenever I started running Prime95. As explained earlier, I ultimately ended up dropping the CPU to 4.2GHZ and adjusting the GPU to lower settings as well. Other than the temperature and power tests, all of this build’s other benchmarks were run with the CPU at 4.4GHz.
Also a note about the results in the Temperatures Above Ambient graph. The fans on the GPU were set to manual and configured to go to 100% during the overclock testing. Also, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 I used got an unobstructed flow of air from the front of the case because of the hard drive cages I removed.
By going with a Core i5, I discovered that it’s possible to build a great gaming rig for $1600, though overclocking it (at least in this case) is a must. In its baseline configuration, Big Build isn’t going to win any awards. However, it does hammer home the point that finding time and patience for tuning can yield a rewarding performance increase. I would have had to go over-budget by $100 or $150 to score a higher-end Core i7 CPU.
Looking at the Overall Performance chart, the task that I was originally assigned – building a gaming PC – seems to have been accomplished, even if my take on the system needs to be overclocked for an optimal experience. Our Tom’s Hardware technical career guidance counselors deem the overclocked Big Build to be a decent graphics workstation, too. Interestingly enough, we also see the SanDisk Pro SSD thrusted into the spotlight as its storage performance misses the 100% target by just 1%. So, if you’re a gamer or a creative content producer, a machine like Big Build may just fit in with your career plans if you don’t mind a little overclocking.
[Source : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/q2-2015-newegg-system-builder-marathon-1600-gaming-pc,4198.html]