System Builder Marathon: High-Cost System

I think that particular model limps up to Tier-4, but still I don't know anyone of the many people here I'd consider knowing what they're doing recommending or buying a Coolermaster PSU.

I have to agree with the PSU comment. With an extra 600 bucks to blow, there's no reason to have gone with that particular PSU. In addition, I was kind of expecting 1066 ram to push the limits of overclocking this system, especially with the watercooling setup.

Those things aside, at least this build makes a lot more sense than the previous two...

It was the only power supply they had on hand with cables long enough to reach the CPU 12V power connector. They didn't choose the Coolermaster, it "chose them". The one they were supposed to use simply wouldn't work.

They said the cords in the modular PSU they used in their last high-end system were too short. They still could have picked out a better PSU that's out on the market.

Yes, it probably should have been explained in the article a little better, but the photos help:
1. The top radiator sits above two exhaust fans, so it's always at the temperature of the inside of the case (which is still much cooler than the CPU).
2. The front radiator sits behind an intake fan, so it gets down close to the temperature of the outside of the case.

Water goes from the CPU to the top radiator where it's cooled to case temperature, then to the bottom radiator where it's cooled even more, before returning to the CPU. Reasons for that design include:

1. The fact that there was no "cold" place to put the big radiator and the small one wouldn't offer the performance they wanted by itself
2. The small radiator has a reservior, so they didn't need to drill holes and waste space for a separate reservoir.

Wow that case is beautiful! It's so simple and concise, yet so elegant. DAMN YOU TOM"S HARDWARE now I must get it!!

^Hey, it came with the motherboard, imo. it is better than the normal usual on board sound.

^ Well unless you are in to audio work,etc those cards are fine.

The sound card looks good.
I have the same case then that one and the most beautiful thing about it his the way I can work with the removable tray for assembly.
I'm not really sure if the water cooling solution with two radiator could lower so much the temperature. i'm pretty sure they can have the same or may be better temp with a Coolit freesone elite and took thefans and put it on top of the case to get more exhaust and the air flow will increase inside the case. Because now the cold air coming in the case is just come from the rear fan, all others fans throw hot air inside.

Last idea, why they don't go for sli-ready memory, like Patriot Extreme Performance 2x2gb and EPP correction. If you do the math the difference will not be over the budget they have and everything is highly available for now.

But to be honest it's damn good machine.

I dont under stand with another $600 to blow and a wonderful water cooling why not waterblocks for the GPU's it would perform awesome on ocing

I agree with most of the components on this system. It's pretty darned close to the way I'd go if I were to build one myself, and I wouldn't waste money on a sound card with the current onboard sound quality.

Anyone who's run Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 knows that not only will it do 1066MHz without a sweat, it'll also do over 1200MHz. It runs up to 960MHz on 4-4-4-12 timings with 2.1v and up to 1235Mhz (slightly higher or lower on the 3 sets I have) with 5-5-5-15 timings at 2.1v. Not many 1066Mhz modules can claim as much. I might have upped it to the Ballistix Tracer 8500, which runs exactly the same but also includes the nice LEDs.

CRAP, they outed me didn't they....

Correct, they left two slots open to accomodate a future 3-way SLI configuration

Again, here's the part that got me:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] age15.html

"The hardware in this month's System Builder Marathon is, in many ways, far more advanced than anything before it, but two places where we couldn't find a significant improvement were the hard drives and graphics cards."

Couldn't find ? Maybe try reading the TH site ?

I know, I know....in the Tom's Reference system article it was noted that WD gave TH 15 free HD's, but that doesn't mean that they should wind up in every single build. The low end and hi end builds get Caviars and the mid range gets Raptor ?????

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] page4.html

"We've been fond of Western Digital's 750 GB Caviar WD7500AAKS ever since it made its record-breaking-performance debut last year.

Hello ! we building last year's high end system or this year's ?

In November, TH published this test

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/1 [...] page9.html

HD Read DTR's - (Peak / Average / Minimum)
WD 750 AAKS - 94.3 / 74.8 / 48.0
Seagate 7200.11 - 100.3 / 80.9 / 51.0
Samsung F1 - 118.7 / 91.7 / 56.3

So why pick a HD in a high end system that tests 20% slower than the "king of the hill" in your own tests ?

There's a new WD 6400AAKS that has the same platter density as the the F1 so, if they married to WD, I can't fathom why they didn't use the newer, faster model. Despite it's cache being only 16 MB as compared to the F1's 32 MB, it should still be a better performer than the older 750 GB model.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/s [...] =3269&cp=2

Sorry I'm so far behind on this. So the front fan is blowing cool air across across the radiator. That makes sense. But by doing that, the downside is that intake is basically blowing warmed air around the inside of the case, right? I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, but that seems odd to me.

That happens to everyone: You buy parts and by the time they're delivered something better has been announced. You assemble the system and by the time your programs are loaded the newly announced part is on the market.

Shurely Shum Mishtake.

I think you should lambast the author for missing a good read!

WOW what a P.O.S. If you spend that much on a PC get 2x 3870 X2s not GTXs. Also WHY THE HELL DID THEY GET A TJ09?!?!? For $270 you can get cases that are SO much better than that. The only reason to get that case is that you have too much money and like the looks of it A LOT. The cooling is not worth the money, cable management is impossible, and it is VERY heavy for an aluminum case. Also that PSU is rediculous. Lastly that WC CPU cooler SUCKS, for that amount of money they could have gotten a much better cooler or just went with air. Wow, they need to get ME in there and I will show you a great PC for much less than what they paid.

I'm just going to ignore I ever read that article, after all I like THW, and I don't want my opinion to drop.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned this yet... but... only 4 GB mem?

You have $4k and you only got 4 GB mem?

Other than that... and the obvious arguments about HDs... *most* of the other arguments can be personal preferences (once the fact that timelines and vendor cooperation are included). It's not a horrible setup. I think it's the... least disappointing... out of all three builds.

Yeh, 4GB sux for Vista, but Vista 64 doesn't have the compatibility. Even one of the benchmarks was incompatible with Vista 64.

They'd have been better off with XP, for which 4GB is huge and there's no need to use XP 64 just to add more.

Ah well, the site is moving to DX10.1 and DX10 is just part of the transition.

The floppy was kept on the side for a possible experiment with WinXP. XP needs a floppy to load RAID drivers, unless you really like figuring out how to slipstream them.

Only one of the hosts on that show could say that line with powa

I run vista (admittedly x86) with 2GB RAM and it's fine, although 4GB would be nicer, it isn't necessary.

Because no rig is 1337 without a floppy

Nothing will upset me more than trying to install XP without a floppy. It's literally the most frustrating thing on the planet. Literally.

IIRC, Xp w/ SP2 doesn't need the floppy ..... at least not for the SATA optical drive issue.......still needed for some RAID setups.

He must be single.