System Builder Marathon, June 2011: Value Compared

Here are links to each of the five articles in this month’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 Google form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!

Day 1: The $2000 Performance PC
Day 2: The $1000 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $500 Gaming PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected
Day 5: Tom's Hand-Picked SuperCombo

Much of the hardware in our previous few System Builder Marathon machines is pretty stagnant, and it has been since the end of last year. AMD still offers the best value in graphics and Intel still sells the the fastest CPUs.

AMD’s value in the low-cost CPU overclocking market remains unchallenged as well, and that’s where this round’s big surprise happened: Paul Henningsen picked a locked, low-end Intel CPU for his $500 build. Anyone who lives for change might have seen this move as confrontational. But a few gaming wins and a significant efficiency improvement at least partly vindicated his component choices.

Don Woligroski’s $1000 build lost its Radeon HD 6950 and gained a pair of Radeon HD 6850s, while this editor’s $2000 PC gave up some Blu-ray burn speed and CPU cooling to gain Quick Sync via Z68 Express and a more glamorous case.

June System Builder Marathon Components MotherboardASRock H61M-VS
LGA 1155, Intel H61 ExpressMSI P67A-G43
LGA 1155, Intel P67 chipsetASRock Z68 Extreme4
LGA 1155, Intel Z68 ExpressGraphicsSapphire 100315L
Radeon HD 6850 1 GB2 x Gigabyte GV-R685OC-1GD
Radeon HD 6850 1 GB, CrossFire2 x MSI R6970-2PM2D2GD5
Radeon HD 6970 2 GB, CrossFireProcessorIntel Core i3-2100 LGA 1155
3.1-3.1 GHz, 3 MB CacheIntel Core i5-2500K LGA 1155
3.3-3.7 GHz, 6 MB CacheIntel Core i7-2600K LGA 1155
3.4-3.8 GHz, 8 MB CacheMemoryCrucial CT2KIT25664BA1339
DDR3-133 C9, 2 GB x 2 (4 GB)G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH
DDR3-1333 C7, 2 GB x 2 (4 GB)G.Skill F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM
DDR3-1600 C8, 4 GB x 2 (8 GB)System DriveSeagate ST3500413AS
500 GB, 7200 RPM HDDWestern Digital WD7501AALS
750 GB, 7200 RPM HDD2 x A-Data S599
64 GB MLC SSDStorage DriveSamsung F3 HD103SJ
1 TB, 7200 RPM HDDOpticalAsus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
24x DVD±R, 48x CD-RLG GH22NS70 DVD-RW
22x DVD±R, 48x CD-RLG WH10LS30 BD-RE
10x BD-R, 16x DVD±RPowerAntec EA380D 380 W
ATX12V v2.3, 80 PLUS BronzeCorsair CMPSU-650TX 650 W
ATX12V v2.2, 80 PLUSSeasonic SS-850HT 850 W
ATX12V v2.31, 80 PLUS Silver

Will incremental changes in each builder’s system value add up to a surprise in our final comparison?

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System Builder Marathon, June 2011: Alternative $2000 PC

Here are links to each of the five articles in this month’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 Google form, and be sure to read the complete rules before entering!

Day 1: The $2000 Performance PC
Day 2: The $1000 Enthusiast PC
Day 3: The $500 Gaming PC
Day 4: Performance And Value, Dissected
Day 5: Tom's Hand-Picked SuperCombo

Our most recent System Builder Marathons have included a fourth PC. The first three are generally the product of reader feedback from one quarter to the next. We came up with the Day 5 SuperCombo to give one builder (Ed.: It has always been Thomas' $2000 build, so far) the opportunity to hand-pick the parts he'd want in his own machine.

This time, we didn't plan on following through. When asked what I'd improve on the original $2000 build, I told Chris that I wouldn't change anything; for the first time in a while, there would be no fourth machine. But after the feedback started coming in from Day 1, we couldn't help but place a rush order to Newegg for the parts for another machine with a couple of superficial tweaks based on the feedback.

And after all, we were still itching for one more opportunity to give away hardware to our readers. If you haven't yet entered this quarter's giveaway, look up at the top of the page and be sure you do.

Aside from our inability to ship prizes internationally (thank the IRS for that), the second-most frequent complaint we read was more of a division between readers of various aesthetic tastes. While some liked the $2000 PC’s simple and clean appearance, others thought its case was overpriced for such a plain black box. The most recommended replacement part was Cooler Master’s HAF X.

Case performance comes down to two things: cooling and noise. An exceptionally cool-running case could help overclocking, and thereby allow improved system performance. Yet, variability in the manufacturing of other components could have an even larger impact on temperatures and overclocking, so for today’s article we retained the exact motherboard, CPU, memory, and CPU cooler from our original build. The winner of the fourth machine will get all of the same parts, though.

MotherboardASRock Z68 Extreme4: LGA 1155, Intel P67 ExpressGraphics2 x MSI R6970-2PM2D2GD5: Radeon HD 6970 2 GB, CrossFireProcessorIntel Core i7-2600K: 3.4GHz-3.8GHz, 8 MB  Shared L3 CacheMemoryG.Skill F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM: DDR3-1600 C8, 4 GB x2 (8 GB)System Drive2 x A-Data S599 64GB, SATA 3Gb/s SSDStorage DriveSamsung F3 HD103SJ 1 TB, 7200 RPM HDDOpticalLG WH12LS30 BD-RE: 12x BD-R, 16x DVD±RCaseCooler Master HAF X RC-942-KKN1PowerSeasonic SS-850HT: 850 W, ATX12V v2.31, 80 PLUS Silver

Note that we also updated the optical drive, due to the original build’s drive being discontinued. A reduction in memory price makes the case primary in total system cost difference.

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Gory Gaming: Bulletstorm Performance Analyzed

Although the game had significant performance issues when it was released, Bulletstorm now benefits from the latest graphics drivers and a patch from its developers. Now is the perfect time to see what kind of hardware this game requires for smooth play.

Bulletstorm is a title we were eager to try for a number of reasons. The viral marketing approach, with a Halo-mocking trailer and demo that pokes fun at the Call of Duty series, definitely provided a few laughs. The ultra-violent “Skillshot” system looked intriguing. We were also interested in testing the newest iteration of Epic’s Unreal 3 engine. All told, that was enough motivation for us to take an in-depth look at the game and its performance.

MSI provided a variety of graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia for our tests in order to demonstrate what kind of frame rates you can expect to get from Bulletstorm across a wide spectrum of hardware. We're looking at both single-card and SLI/CrossFire performance, too. But before digging into the data, let’s go over the game for folks who aren’t familiar with it.

Bulletstorm might be best described as shoot 'em up-style with a furious pace and a delinquent sense of humor. Most enemies are outclassed by such a large margin that you’re more concerned with the elegance of your kills than survival. Dispatching foes in a creative fashion may be recognized as a Skillshot. The rarer and more creative the Skillshot, the more points are awarded. These points can be traded for enhancements that often improve your ability to perform increasingly impressive Skillshots, and the cycle continues.

You unlock a number of weapons as the game progresses, but shooting is often less effective than kicking or yanking (with boots or a wrist-mounted leash, respectively), both of which create a temporary anti-gravity field that immobilizes your victim in the air for a short time.

The game might sound grim, but it's fully immersed in Duke Nukem-esque tongue-in-cheek flair and gruesome (but cartoony) violence. Your avatar is a tough mercenary named Grayson Hunt, whose dialogue could easily be read by Ash from Army Of Darkness. The language is vulgar and deserves the Mature rating, but if you’re in the mood for juvenile potty humor, it’ll steal a smirk from you once in a while. Just don’t expect anything in the way of puzzles or intellectual progression. The game is on obvious rails. There is no jump button, and you can’t fall off cliffs even if you try. Your biggest hurdle will be to figure out the next thing you’re supposed to shoot at.

A game that revels in juvenile laughs and nonstop action can be a guilty pleasure, but this particular approach also leads to annoying situations. For instance, if you’re too involved with a specific enemy you might not notice the prompt telling you to move on to another vital target, and if you’re a bit slow on the uptake, the game rewards you with a quick, scripted death sequence. The Dragon’s Lair-style, do-the-right-thing-immediately-or-die mechanism doesn’t appeal to me, but some people might appreciate the way it breaks up the missions.

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to complain about. If you crave an entertaining diversion with breakneck action, crude jokes, cartoon gore, and some very nice visuals, I’m not sure you’ll find anything that fits the bill better than Bulletstorm.

Now that you’re a little more familiar with the game, let’s take a closer look at the engine behind it and check out its performance.

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Three 2.5" SAS Drives: Enterprise Data Giants, Compared

Currently, 2.5" enterprise drives are leaving their 3.5” competitors behind. They're faster, more flexible, and now they offer comparable capacities (we're up to 1 TB now). In this piece, it's Hitachi versus Seagate battling for high-density supremacy.

SSDs are slowly but surely sending good old magnetic disk drives into retirement...at least when it comes to the workloads that simply cannot get enough performance.

That's certainly the case in the consumer segment, where it is absolutely worthwhile to replace the Windows boot drive with a quick SSD to accelerate the entire system. However, it is not necessarily the best route for enterprise drives.

SSDs Left Out in the Cold?

Finding the right time and place for SSDs is another story altogether in professional storage environments. Although SSDs offer significantly higher I/O performance, other criteria like reliability and system validation also have to be taken into considered. In contrast to hard drives, the reliability of SSDs is less proven, causing IT decision makers to tread lightly before integrating them into mission critical systems.

Moreover, most solid-state drives employ SATA; only a handful of models support the enterprise-class SAS interface (with its dual ports) that ensure optimal protection against a failed HBA. Really, OCZ is the only player making that technology possible right now with its Talos family.

But it is precisely those virtues that our three test candidates use to score their points. Hitachi's Ultrastar C10K600, Seagate's Constellation.2, and Seagate's Savvio 10K.5 all support the established interfaces and configuration paths with their speedy SAS 6 Gb/s ports, and some models even come with Fibre Channel support. Seagate also offers its drives in a self-encrypting model, which runs a 256-bit AES cipher and is marketed to server environments where secure data storage matters most. Our test candidates also perform admirably in terms of reliability: Hitachi and Seagate estimate the MTBF (mean time between failures) for their C10K600 and Savvio 10K.5 at around 2 million hours; this is a high standard even in the enterprise segment.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

We asked enterprise hard drive manufacturers to tell us why 2.5" disks are a good choice in the server segment, and they gave us three reasons. The most obvious has to do with the power consumption of the IT infrastructure. In contrast to 3.5” hard disks, the smaller drives use less power and consequently don't get as warm, therefore requiring less cooling. Because of this form factor, enterprise hard drives require less space in the server cabinet and therefore contribute to improved scalability. The third argument revolves around the capacity of 2.5” drives, which have matched their 3.5” counterparts at the 10 000 and 15 000 RPM spindle speeds. This is demonstrated Seagate's Savvio 10K.5 and Seagate's Constellation.2, which offer 1000 GB and 900 GB of storage, respectively. Our tests show that the 2.5” drives are also equal to many 3.5” drives when it comes to performance.

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Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 3.0/USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive 35180

The Iomega Prestige Desktop Hard Drive USB 3.0 is a fast and affordable solution for all your storage needs. Ideal for adding capacity to your system, this stylish drive offers a sturdy metal construction and included stand. It's the easiest way to save photos, music, videos and more! Iomega USB 3.0 drives are backward compatible to USB 2.0 using the same cable, so enjoy fast speeds now if you have a USB 3.0 computer, or use USB 2.0 and be confident you can upgrade later! AES 256-bit hardware encryption is built-in to secure your data at home, in the office or at school. Iomega Protection Suite is included with solutions to easily backup your data and protect your computer and online experience. Software available via download. A 3-year limited warranty is included with product registration.

Price: $102.39

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TRENDnet 4-Port Firewall Router TW100-BRF114 (Blue)

TRENDnets TW100-BRF114 4-Port Cable/DSL Firewall Router allows multiple users to share internet access pro-tected from unwanted intruders via a robust Stateful Packet Inspection Firewall (SPI). The Firewall provides advanced protection against popular Denial of Service attacks. Multiple Web Patrol features allow parents and Network Administra-tors to restrict internet access based on clients IP Addresses, Time/Date, URL Keywords, and Service Types. Setting up the router is effortless with the Web Browser Configuration. Surf and share the Internet with ease knowing that your computers and information are safely protected

Price: $54.99

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Apricorn Aegis Padlock 320 GB USB 2.0 128-bit Encrypted Portable External Hard Drive A25-PL128-320 (Grey)

Looking for an effortless way to secure your data on the go? Apricorn’s Aegis Padlock Secure USB Drive with 128-bit hardware encryption provides the ultimate in data protection whether at the office, home or on the road. Ideal for workplace environments or business travel, the Aegis Padlock’s easy-to-use keypad and software free, cross compatible design enables you to access the drive with your own unique PIN. Featuring seamless real-time encryption, keeping your data safe even if the hard drive is removed from its enclosure, the Aegis Padlock’s robust, shock mounted design and integrated USB cable is ideal for securing data on the fly. Real-time 128-bit hardware encryption; PIN Access; Integrated USB cable; Shock mounted, portable design; Software free design - Perfect for Corporate deployments; Setup takes just minutes; Compatible with any OS;

Price: $99.00

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