System Builder Marathon Q1 2015: System Value Compared

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Overclock And Benchmark Settings

Paul spent big on the graphics subsystem of his $600 configuration, forcing tough limits on his CPU expense. We see no overclocking on his locked processor as a result. Meanwhile, both he and Don used XMP profiles stored on their memory modules as overclocks, relying on base SPD settings in stock trim.

Even though XMP is a tuning technology, it’s tough to call a memory setting that uses default voltage an overclock. In these cases, memory industry limits prevent modules from booting at DDR3-1866. We don't even get JEDEC-approved DDR3-1600 CAS 9 anymore. Understanding that SPD values often underclock better-rated DRAM ICs, I choose XMP as a baseline and seek even better settings for my overclocked configuration.

Test Hardware Configurations

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Header Cell - Column 0 Q1 2015 $700 PCQ1 2015 $1300 PCQ1 2015 $1750 PC
Processor (Overclock)Intel Core i3-4150: 3.5GHz, Two Physical Cores, Locked (No O/C)Intel Core i7-4790K: 4-4.4GHz, Four Physical CoresO/C to 4.5GHz, 1.28VIntel Core i7-4790K: 4-4.4GHz, Four Physical CoresO/C to 4.6-4.8GHz, +20mV
Graphics (Overclock)Sapphire R9 280: <940MHz GPU,  GDDR5-5000 O/C to <1080MHz, GDDR5-5400Asus GTX 970: <1216MHz GPU,  GDDR5-7012 O/C to <1433MHz, GDDR5-78122x PNY GTX 970: <1178MHz GPU,  GDDR5-7012 O/C to <1328MHz, GDDR5-7312
Memory (Overclock)8GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 CAS 9-9-9-24, O/C at Stock XMP Profile8 GB G.Skill DDR3-2133 CAS 9-11-10-28, O/C at Stock XMP Profile16GB G.Skill DDR3-1866 CAS 10-11-10-28, O/C to DDR3-2133 CL 11-12-11-24, 1.6V
Motherboard (Overclock)ASRock H81M-HDS: LGA 1150, Intel H81 ExpressStock 100MHz BCLKMSI Z97 PC Mate: LGA 1150, Intel Z97 ExpressStock 100MHz BCLKGigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5: LGA 1150, Intel Z97 ExpressStock 100MHz BCLK
CaseNZXT Source 210 Elite BlackCooler Master HAF XB EvoCorsair Graphite 230T
CPU CoolerIntel Boxed Heat Sink and FanZalman CNPS9900MAX-BCorsair H100i Closed-Loop
Hard DriveWD Blue 1TB, 7200RPM, SATA 6Gb/s HDDPNY Optima 240GB SATA 6Gb/s SSDCrucial MX100 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
PowerEVGA 100-W1-0500-KR: 500W, 80 PLUS (standard)EVGA 600B 100-B1-0600-KR: 600W, 80 PLUS BronzeRosewill CAPSTONE-750: 750W, 80 PLUS Gold
Software
OSMicrosoft Windows 8 Pro x64
GraphicsAMD Catalyst 14.4Nvidia GeForce 347.25
ChipsetIntel INF 9.4.0.1017Intel INF 9.4.0.1026

I used a far larger CPU cooler to get a slightly better overclock out of the same CPU Don used in his $1300 machine. Mr. Woligroski, however, found that his single graphics card was far easier to overclock than my pair in SLI. Paul put all of his overclocking efforts into the fairly good graphics card of his $700 PC.

Benchmark Settings

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3D Games
Battlefield 4Version 1.0.0.1, DirectX 11, 100-sec. Fraps "Tashgar" Test Set 1: Medium Quality Preset, No AA, 4x AF, SSAO Test Set 2: Ultra Quality Preset,4x MSAA, 16x AF, HBAO
Grid 2Version 1.0.85.8679, Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA Test Set 2: Ultra Quality, 8x MSAA
Arma 3Version 1.08.113494, 30-Sec. Fraps "Infantry Showcase" Test Set 1: Standard Preset, No AA, Standard AF Test Set 2: Ultra Preset, 8x FSAA, Ultra AF
Far Cry 3V. 1.04, DirectX 11, 50-sec. Fraps "Amanaki Outpost" Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA, Standard ATC, SSAO Test Set 2: Ultra Quality, 4x MSAA, Enhanced ATC, HDAO
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe After Effects CCVersion 12.0.0.404: Create Video which includes three Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously
Adobe Photoshop CCVersion 14.0 x64: Filter 15.7MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates
Adobe Premiere Pro CCVersion 7.0.0 (342), 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality
Audio/Video Encoding
iTunesVersion 11.0.4.4 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.99: Video from Canon EOS 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile)
TotalCode Studio 2.5Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1kHz, two-channel, 16-bit, 224Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Productivity
ABBYY FineReaderVersion 10.0.102.95: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
Adobe Acrobat 11Version 11.0.0.379: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption
Autodesk 3ds Max 2013Version 15.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080
BlenderVersion: 2.68A, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1
File Compression
WinZipVersion 18.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r"
WinRARVersion 5.0: THG-Workload (1.3GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3"
7-ZipVersion 9.30 alpha (64-bit): THG-Workload (1.3GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5"
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
3DMark ProfessionalVersion: 1.2.250.0 (64-bit), Fire Strike Benchmark
PCMark 8Version: 1.0.0 x64, Full Test
SiSoftware SandraVersion 2014.02.20.10, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia / Cryptography, Memory Bandwidth Benchmarks
See more PC Building How To
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cknobman
    So my conclusion from this is that SLI is not worth the investment when gaming @1080p even across 3 monitors.

    Unless you are going to do 4k gaming the current crop of CPUs combined with the current graphics engines out there are more than capable of 1080p multi monitor gaming at high or even the highest settings.

    Reply
  • sumarongi
    I think the performance of your GTX 970 SLI is completely out of line in comparison with the single GTX 970. A quick look around shows most reviewers reported much better scaling than you are showing??
    Reply
  • Crashman
    15386669 said:
    I think the performance of your GTX 970 SLI is completely out of line in comparison with the single GTX 970. A quick look around shows most reviewers reported much better scaling than you are showing??
    Pandering perhaps? A reviewer can use a limited range of high settings to find up to 80 or 85% performance gains from the second card. You'll see SOME of those results in this article.

    On the other hand, maybe we're pandering to the low-end system by not removing the low-end settings. Look at BF4's 200 FPS cap, and Grid2's DRAM performance bottleneck, both at lower-than-optimal settings for the GTX 970.

    Or maybe we just balance out the pandering-to-the-high and the pandering-to-the low. But if it's balanced, we're no longer pandering. Anyway, these details explain the difference between what you've seen there and what you're seeing here.

    Edit: Or maybe pandering to the top and bottom cancel each other out to boost the middle. Don's $1300 PC wins!
    Reply
  • sumarongi
    15386727 said:
    15386669 said:
    I think the performance of your GTX 970 SLI is completely out of line in comparison with the single GTX 970. A quick look around shows most reviewers reported much better scaling than you are showing??
    Pandering perhaps? A reviewer can use a limited range of high settings to find up to 80 or 85% performance gains from the second card. You'll see SOME of those results in this article.

    On the other hand, maybe we're pandering to the low-end system by not removing the low-end settings. Look at BF4's 200 FPS cap, and Grid2's DRAM performance bottleneck, both at lower-than-optimal settings for the GTX 970.

    Or maybe we just balance out the pandering-to-the-high and the pandering-to-the low. But if it's balanced, we're no longer pandering. Anyway, these details explain the difference between what you've seen there and what you're seeing here.

    Edit: Or maybe pandering to the top and bottom cancel each other out to boost the middle. Don's $1300 PC wins!

    Fair enough, I understand what you are saying. The rating system you are using creates it's own viewpoint on the world that you need to remain consistent within. Maybe value needs to be addressed from the point of view of each individual system and what a real end-user that would buy that system would expect and experience. No one runs SLI GTX 970 on 1600 x 900 resolution so the fact that performance is not great at that resolution has no value at all - negative or positive - and those data points just distort things when it comes down to comparisons.....
    Reply
  • Crashman
    15387046 said:
    Fair enough, I understand what you are saying. The rating system you are using creates it's own viewpoint on the world that you need to remain consistent within. Maybe value needs to be addressed from the point of view of each individual system and what a real end-user that would buy that system would expect and experience. No one runs SLI GTX 970 on 1600 x 900 resolution so the fact that performance is not great at that resolution has no value at all - negative or positive - and those data points just distort things when it comes down to comparisons.....
    We have some of that in the final chart, 5760x1080 gaming. I could further refine it to include only 5760x1080 at the highest quality test settings, but it already makes that point.

    Perhaps another value chart at 1920x1080 for the low-end system would help, and another for non-gaming if I'd used an X99 system with a cheaper graphics card. I'll toss ideas like that back to the other guys and see what they think.

    Reply
  • Onus
    A system has value in the context for which it was built. Even if I were to put a tuner card into it, I'm not likely to judge the value of my PC on its ability to receive broadcast TV, or my TV on its ability to add up numbers. "Is it fit for purpose," though limited, is a fair question, especially on a tight budget.
    Reply
  • SinxarKnights
    Whelp that explains the flying pigs I seen today, Paul lost.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    15387451 said:
    Whelp that explains the flying pigs I seen today, Paul lost.
    Yes, we can't have any of that. TIME TO REPLACE DON!!!

    Reply
  • Kulamata
    You're tying yourself up in knots. Instead of setting an arbitrary limit for each category, I'd suggest designing a build for each category, and then listing the costs, and then, from that, suggesting changes to meet various cost thresholds, with a discussion of why those changes deviate from the "ideal".

    This would prevent some of the significant limitations that can occur for want of a nail, or a few dollars. I'd regard a machine with only an SSD, and a smallish one at that, to be crippled, and to not kick the system cost from ~$1750 to ~$1800 to provide a hard drive makes the system a victim of misplaced priorities.

    That's bean-countin' son!
    Reply
  • OhSnapWord
    Personally, I'm getting tired of seeing all Intel in the SBMs. I would like to see all AMD for an SBM as it would help give a real nice comparison between the two platforms.
    Reply