System Builder Marathon: The $5,000 Extreme PC

I can't help but think - what do you get for $10,000
Thanks for these keep it going. I'll not be spending that about anytime soon.

@waxdart:

i7 Skulltrail (if the rumours are true) with 24GB of RAM. Hell, each i7 CPU can deal with 24GB, so would QPI allow for 24GB EACH?

A pair of 965s overclocked to 5GHz+ each with 48GB RAM...my Christ! Hell, bring on the Vapochill units and see if we can go to 7GHz! Overclocked GTX295s, SSDs in a RAID 0 on a dedicated controller card...

THAT is what $10,000 will allow :-D

In all seriousness though, although it's great to spec up these stupid systems, what is really interesting is the overall value of them. Tom's price-performance ratio is always a very good guide as to exactly what you benefit from with these insane builds (other than a techno-boner the size of Mount Fuji and extreme bragging rights).

And now that I've finished the article, I must say I'm a little disappointed that the 965 couldn't even get up to 5Ghz on liquid, but as pointed out who knows what quality that Extreme edition was inside - the 920 could've been a fluke or the 965 could've been unfortunate.

Still, it is heartwarming to know that I'm not missing out clocking my 920 to 4GHz - who needs 6.4GT/s anyway?

would 2x80Gb RAID 0 SSDs be much faster then a single 160Gb SSD?

RAID 0 is the hard drive equivalent of dual channel memory where both drives are accessed at the same time for each file request - thereby giving you an instant theoretical doubling of bandwidth. In the real world you don't get exactly double the normal speed but you do get a significant increase over a single drive.

wow nice.... But wtf???!! graphics drivers for quad sli is somekinda weird at 2560x1600

@david__t:
I thuoght dual channel memory works very different than a RAID0 because you can read only one memory address at the same time. With dual channel you can just use the "gaps" between 2 read requests while in RAID0 you can address both drives simultaneously.

Thanks for building my dream PC!! I wished you build such a system about 2 months ago and you didn't disappoint me.
I have a few notes.
1)Thomas, could you please just tell us the brand of the failed PSU? A failing high-end high wattage unit is a disaster!
2)I did't see any real world performance gain from the dual SSDs!! Comparing to the last months build, you attributed the performance gains in synthetics, encoding and productivity tests to the added ram. Am I wrong? Are SSDs worth the price? From what I understand the storage drive usually have little impact on the overall performance.
3)For 5000$ I expected you to cool the whole system with water..There are water cooler ready ram kits from OCZ, GTX 295 water blocks offered by many brands (suprisingly more than the older socket 1366 blocks!), north bridge and even HDD water blocks!!! Perhaps if you drop the SSDs you could have afforded them within the price range, and the GPU and video RAM could have reached higher clocks. After all, expensive systems as this one are all about superiority and uniquity!!
Again thanks for the great work, you've put a lot of effort into this one and we appreciate it.

@avatar_raq:

In this specific case I doubt they'd get any higher OCs - as already stated you are sometimes at the mercy of the quality of the production, and it looks like this 965 topped at the 4.2GHz - I don't thinking watercooling Northbridges or whatever to push the chipset is going to get much further here.

For UK:
Component
Model
Price (GBP)

CPU
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965
£825

CPU Cooler
Cooler Master Aquagate Max
£165

Radiator Upgrade
Swiftech MCR320-QP Quiet Power
£35

Fan Upgrade
3x Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120 mm 1,600 RPM
£45

Water Block Upgrade
Swiftech Apogee GTZ with LGA-1366 Bracket
£62

Motherboard
Asus Rampage II Extreme
£290

RAM
Mushkin 998679 DDR3-1600 6.0 GB Kit
£195

Graphics
2x MSI N295GTX-M2D1792 GeForce GTX 295
£725

System Hard Drives
2x Intel X25-M 80GB SATA Solid State Disk
£695

2.5" Hard Drive Adapter
SYBA Mobile Rack for 2.5" SATA (2 drives)
£25

Storage Hard Drive
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB SATA 3.0 GB/s
£110

Sound
Asus SupremeFX X-Fi Audio Riser Card
0

Network
Integrated Gigabit Networking
0

Case
Cooler Master Cosmos-S RC-1100
£150

Power
Cooler Master Real Power Pro RS-850-EMBA
£130

Optical
LG Blu-ray Burner/HD DVD-ROM GGW-H20LK
£145

Total Price

£3,597

Prices taken from various uk big-sellers as of febuary 14.

My new workstation at work is still more expensive
Xeon X5482 x2, 32gig ram, Quatro FX 5600 etc
Renders things a bit quicker than my older machine
Cost a bit over $13k =)

owww I'm getting a boner already... oh no wait sorry I forgot that my girfriend is here... seriously, bragging with your workstation is so sad...

owww I'm getting a boner already... oh no wait sorry I forgot that my girfriend is here... seriously, bragging with your workstation is so sad...

You guys have a cool job

But seriously what game or app uses that much power?
I'll stick with my E8400@4.7ghz and my HD4870's in Crossfire.

@OMGiTzzFATAL:

You've obviously had no experience with media production then - that sort of rig is fairly entry-level these days for video editing, motion graphics and 3D modelling. And to be honest, for some of the high-level stuff that rig is pretty under-powered.

As a gaming rig, it's more power than you're ever going to need (and the GPUs will be obsolete before games ever start making use of multiple cores) but for media, I'd up to at least 12GB of RAM and go dual CPU is I could (hence i7 Skulltrail) and SLI some Quadro CXs instead.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

Lol Lephuronn, I'm not saying my comp is the dogs bits, All im saying is i personally wouldn't spend that kind of money on a PC.

I don't understand your point regarding my multi GPU setup. Crossfire scales fairly well nowadays, Even fairly old games like cod4 has multi GPU support.

Some people work hard for their setup, I think you should learn to have some respect.

@OMGiTzzFATAL:

I'm not sure where you think I'm being disrespectful in stating above that this system has more power than any "normal" user will ever utilise any time soon (except for Crysis, but that glorified tech demo always throws spec comparisons out of kilter).

My point regarding multi-GPUs is quite simply as I stated - GPUs will become obsolete with games before the CPU ever will be, hence the focus on GPUs on gaming rigs not CPUs. Why else is a Core 2 Duo the prime choice for gaming systems when Core 2 Quads can clock just as fast but have twice the number of cores?

You asked the question "but seriously what game or app uses that much power?". I answered. I do things at work on a daily basis that would eat through the $5,000 spec and still have room for more.

I cannot see how me saying I know something that DOES use that much power is somehow disrespectful, and quite frankly I'm insulted at the insinuation.

To answer your question, A E8400 can easily overclock to 4ghz, And in my case 4.5ghz and 4.7ghz for benching. Where as a Q6600 (roughly the same amount of money) can only do 3.2-3.4, I know of two people that can only get to 3ghz without having heat issues.

An considering most games don't use 4cores, a higher clocked C2D will be the better option as far as games are concerned.

Sorry if i have insulted you, I was only trying to say that not everyone has a huge amount of money to spend on a pc.

@OMGiTzzFATAL:

I agree entirely with what you said (I was making a statement, not asking a question) and that's my point - games are driven by GPUs predominantly because they don't take advantage of more than 2 cores. So, to return to what I said previously, if you're a gamer then the $5,000 system is more power than you're going to need.

However, to respond to your question: media production, motion graphics, 3D modelling, etc. will utilise all that power and then some.

Never once did I say anything about people or realistic budgets - I was talking purely about the hardware - and I really don't see where you think I could've done. No need to apologise though it's just a kneejerk reaction I seem to get posting here - I get frustrated that everytime I say something on these comments there's always somebody who misinterprets what I say.

Such is thar interwebz.