Benchmark Results: Productivity
In the past, 3ds Max has sometimes shown us inexplicably large performance increases when systems were overclocked. This isn’t the case today, with a 26% speed increase that falls right in line with the media encoding applications we’ve tested so far.
AVG demonstrates a surprisingly low 3% performance increase when the system is overclocked.
WinRAR delivers a solid 31% performance increase with the higher clock speed.
WinZip is showing us a 25% increase in performance with the over-clock, which is par for the course.
At this point, we can safely assume the 2.66 GHz to 3.44 GHz Core i7 920 overclock will provide about a 25% performance increase in the average application, with a few exceptions.
Now, we can get to the heart of things: game benchmarks. This is what a portable LAN-party-sized system is made for in the first place, and is unfortunately where the CPU overclock will likely deliver diminishing gains as the resolution is raised and the graphics cards become the bottleneck.
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I wonder why this system builder marathon was limited to Micro-ATX cases. Is there a general trend towards these things or what? I'm looking to build a whole new system soon and I can't see any reason to go Micro-ATX.
I don’t think it’s a trend, think of it as more of a challenge. Some people don’t want to have a giant full/mid tower sitting next to them.
Right, I don't mind that at all, so I'll stick to a normal case when assembling my next system. Thanks!
Nice challenge but what's the point when the system dies a couple of months down the line due to shorten life span of all components as a result of high temps. Then you spend another $1300?
I can't remember if it was this or one of the other SBM articles this month, but they mentioned something about these PCs being LAN boxes - if so heat is going to be even more of an issue (much higher ambient temps, cases right next to each other) so this system would be pretty unviable.
I know that my PC runs as much as 10 degress hotter in that environment - if it's in the low 90s on the CPU and at the limit of GPU stability already, another ten degrees will see it constantly throttling, making errors or shutting down.
Assuming that we were building a full ATX system, what would have been the motherboard of choice for this PC?
Can I also remind everyone that these articles are irrelevent on this side of the Atlantic? Intel and nVidia prices in particular are far, FAR lower in the US - such a system would be over 30% more over here! SLI GTX260 for £200 my arse!