I agree that it would have been interesting, but I understand too why we didn't see it in this review, which was about systems built by iBUYPOWER and others, and not a direct GPU to GPU comparison test.
hi Dustin is there a reason why you guys review this machine as oppose to, say HP Z1, you know, something every one can buy instead of IBuyPower which only servers US market to the best of my knowledge. is there something so special about iBuyPower systems that you guys just feel the need to cover all of their products?
Well, Nvidia's recommendations would put the PSU at 750W for 2 680s in SLI.
You need some headroom if you plan to overclock the video cards, but I don't see that requiring another 450W. An 850W PSU should be more than plenty, unless you want room for installing 2 more cards, or 1 more card and plenty of room to OC the 3.
You did read the test results showing max draw to be less than 500W, right?
It's all good to say "never buy pre-built" when you personally have the time and inclination, and I more or less agree with the sentiment, but rigs like this one from iBUYPOWER are very much known quantities - everything in it is name-brand, and the unit itself has been tested here at Anandtech favorably. I wouldn't fault anyone for buying this rig over building his own.
"We've heard that Ivy Bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge does, and I can confirm those findings by comparing the thermal readings from our Sandy Bridge-based Erebus GT against our Ivy Bridge-based Erebus GT."
The images that you have to compare the two systems... show the 2700k system with a maximum vcore of 1.06v and the 3770k with a maximum of 1.36v.
I would expect the system with .3 higher vcore to run "hotter" even if they were the same chip...
The same screenshot show that +12V is at a maximum of 7.03V... Don't put too much faith into software readings, especially with very hardware there are often errors. Given that the current value is 1.10V during idle, that 1.36V is likely just a freak reading, the VCore will not vary that much.
Where are Metro 2033, Mafia II, Witcher II with ubersampling and Crysis or Starcraft II MP benchmarks ??? No one, and I mean absolutely no one in their right mind would buy such a beast only to play the games tested.
hmm, i would say starcraft 2 is pretty POPULAR. and if you say it doesnt stress the CPU/GPU enough, well you also have portal 2 up there hitting almost 300 fps. i would've liked to see metro 2033 also just because it's been one of the most demanding games so far. as well as crysis 2
i always figured when systems are given to sites for reviews, the manufacturer provides "guidelines" for what benchmarks they want or dont want shown
What impresses me the most about the system is that iBUYPOWER is actually able to obtain not one, but TWO WHOLE 680s... oh wait a minute tigerdirect has a PNY model at least listed as in stock right now, so I guess anything's possible.
I'm quite disappointed that you pretty much only reviewed performance. The review would have been much better (and up to the Anandtech standard), if you wrote more about the build, the cooling system/noise, the value of the system and support (options). Those are also very important for the purchasing decision, yet you leave many questions open here.
Please provide full information on the build/ the components of the system. What are the components of the watercooling loop? In the other Erebus GT review you talk about the case being based on a NZXT case - why leave that information out here? Also: Please provide more/better pictures! If there were more pictures, I could identify the full watercooling the system. Surely you have someone on staff at AT who could do the same and provide information on whether this is a good setup or not. (One thing they did wrong is to connect the GPUs in series, parallel would have been better in this configuration).
More on noise (incl. measurements & a subjective comparison) would be very nice. You mention it has a fan controller, but make no mention of how it works, and how the system compares to an air cooled high-end system (because at stock settings that's what you're getting the watercooling for: it's more powerful and thus potentially quieter than air - but is it quieter here?). What fans are used, and what is the minimum RPM you can set them to, and is that setting still able to cool the system under full load?
I can understand that you don't know the price yet, but you should still talk about value. Since pretty much all of these parts are retail parts, I would like to see a listing how much it would cost to buy them and assemble the system yourself. How much extra has iBUYPOWER charged in the past over component price? What service/warranty do you get for that?
i went to ibuypower to mess around with the customization, and i could not find the Z77 platform. Also, i could not find the liquid cooled 680 as an option on any of them. Is this something they are updating soon, or am i just completely missing something?
What benchmark/software do you run to max out power consumption for the load testing? I'm curious because to be valid it would have to be something that maxes both CPU and GPU, otherwise you aren't getting a true load value.
1,36 V for that 3770K max Voltage reported by HW-Monitor - which genius came up with these BIOS-Settings??? Even water cooled - that cant be good in the long run. Every review and forum discussion I read suggests that 4.4 GHz on Ivy is doable with 1,15 - 1,25 V and u start to get serious temp problems if you go above 1,25 V - even water cooled.
I've never heard of someone having a good experience with ibuypower. Everyone I know who's purchased a prebuilt (or semi built) machine from them has regretted it almost immediately.
The specs are nice, but I doubt the built quality is worth the eventual price of admission.
Based on my recommendation, a friend bought one of their systems two years back. It had better specs than Dell or other large OEMs, and the total price for the box was $800. He's been very pleased with the computer and hasn't had any hardware problems at all. It runs quiet and fast, though it's not like he actually pushes it that hard. So there you go: at least one story of someone that bought IBP and didn't regret it at all.
Our two iBuypower machines have good build quality, all brand-name parts and worked out of the box. Almost two failure-free years later, we are ramping up to buy two more, using the old machines as a media server and an NAS. So, ignore troll and check iBuypower forums for real comments by actual owners.
Chalk up another two for avoiding iBuypower. As stated before both my brother and I had absolutely horrendous experiences with both build quality and customer support. I would personally avoid them like the plague.
Maybe company computers or reviewers they take care of, but as far as the general public is concerned they are horrible.
Resellerrating is the first google search and it lists them fairly highly, though.
So really I can only speak for my own personal experience with them, and it was not good twice in a row. To call someone a troll just because they stated their own personal opinion as well seems a bit much.
Ive never done water cooling so forgive me if this sounds stupid but what is going on with that vga cooling? They have one cards cooling coming directly off the cpu and the other directly off the reservoir? Wont that lead to one card being much hotter than the other?
Liquid-cooling allows the cooling medium (water) to store a LOT more energy than air-cooling, with the net result being that as long as your pump has a decent flow rate, it's not a huge concern. By the time the water passes through the CPU and on to the GPU, it might be a few tenths of a degree warmer is all. If you were doing tri-SLI, perhaps parallel would help the third card more, but for 2-way it's not enough to really matter. Here's a lengthy posts someone with more experience put together on the subject:
It doesn't make much of a (noticeable) difference, but it does show that whoever set up that loop doesn't know all that much about watercooling unfortuantely. So maybe this isn't the only detail they missed - add up a couple of those smaller details in the setup and even if they only are around 0.5C each, together they do make a noticeable difference.
The general consensus on parallel vs. series water-cooling is split. There are many that say series is better, simply because you don't have to worry about as many factors. To say "they don't know much about water-cooling" is a highly biased opinion, especially since you know nothing about the person/people that decided this was a good way to put together the PC. A more correct statement would be: "iBUYPOWER chose to go series, and since they are knowledgeable enough to build, sell, and support PCs for a lot of customers, we can guess that they did it this way because it costs less, takes less time, and/or the results are close enough that it for this setup it doesn't matter."
There is no general consensus because unfortuantely, most people don't understand the math behind watercooling. There are a lot of people with poor understanding of the principles, so a lot of sub-optimal choices are made and a lot of sub-optimal "advice" is given.
Parallel will always lead to more flow through the rest of the loop, which will improve CPU temperature, and in a big loop like this, flow is an issue. Serial may lead to better GPU temps, but you're GPU overclock is hardly ever limited by a few degrees, while a few degrees in CPU temp often makes a difference in CPU overclockability (meaning that CPU temp should be prioritized over GPU temp in a combined loop).
Looking around the web a little bit, they also seem to be using a full Koolance setup, and the Koolance radiators are known to be relatively poor performers with normal fan speeds of around 1500 RPM or less: http://skinneelabs.com/koolance-cu1020v/4/ They're definitely giving away a few degrees with that radiator there compared to other similarly priced rads.
I of course know nothing about the people at iBUYPOWER, but they overclock a CPU that is known to run hot, and run the video cards at stock under water and yet they prioritize GPU over CPU temperature in that detail I named. Given some of the problems in your previous Erebus review, there definitely are several details that can be improved.
PS: Don't get me wrong, the setup is definitely much better than cooling setups offered by HP, Alienware or whatever watercooling loop your local store is likely to build for you. It's definitely a decent setup, but with a few changes it could be a very good watercooling setup.
Okay, there's two topics to discuss here. First, let's talk IVB vs. SNB:
I don't think IVB runs all that hot, particularly with better cooling. I mean, sure, it's a few degrees hotter than SNB at 200MHz lower clocks right now (in the Erebus GT), but unless you're striving for that last 2-3% overclock it doesn't really matter. I think it's more interesting to discuss why "Ivy Bridge runs hot" rather than just making blanket statements. IVB runs hotter than SNB because it's a more dense chip with a new process. It's a tick, and ticks have never been the "must have" upgrades in my book. Two cases in point are Penryn and Lynnfield (our only two "ticks" so far):
Lynnfield primarily improved performance through enhanced Turbo Boost rather than anything architectural. In many cases, high-end Bloomfield was still faster than Lynnfield (partly because of the tri-channel memory, partly from higher clocks at launch). Penryn was more of a universal improvement over Conroe, but it still wasn't a major improvement in performance.
What both Penryn and Lynnfield--and now Ivy Bridge--did bring to the table was much better power use, especially at load. Lynnfield was a good 40W lower at idle than Bloomfield, and under load it was generally 20-40W less. Penryn was 35W less at idle and nearly 50W less at load (at the same clocks and without widespread use of power gating). Basically, you got more performance for less power, even if the performance increase wasn't all that much.
Personally, I'm not at all surprised that IVB doesn't really overclock better than SNB, and it my be some time before we consistently see any CPU that can hit more than 5GHz on air cooling by your "average Joe" overclockers. SNB is basically right under 5GHz, and I think going forward we'll see wider designs and other IPC improvements rather than higher clocks. Power and heat just start to scale too quickly at higher frequencies, and if you need more voltage to hit those frequencies you end up with a double whammy.
That thread starts with someone suggesting that a parallel configuration could cool 5C better and how much of a difference it would make, and then he uses some equations to "prove" his point. Later, someone responds with additional equations and points out that 5C would be a MASSIVE difference for water-cooling, and that it's more like a <.5C change at most. He ultimately suggests that parallel would likely be better just for the help it gives to the CPU (which is what you're suggesting as well), but how much of a difference does it really make versus the cost?
Actually, that's the biggest variable right there: cost. As you state, the Koolance radiators aren't necessarily the best. I'd wager the pump, waterblocks, etc. probably all fall into the same category. If you want the best possible water-cooling setup you can get, you'd have to spend quite a bit more money. I recently saw a build where the total cost for all the water-cooling kit was around $1000, so consider the following.
The core parts for the Erebus GT IVB setup should cost around $2500, not counting the extra water-cooling accessories. If we assume iBUYPOWER charges around $350 to go from a basic air-cooled setup to the full CPU + GPU water-cooling (that's what I calculated by looking at the $1929 vs. $2529 builds here: http://www.ibuypower.com/Info/erebus-GT.aspx), that would mean they'll probably charge about $2800-$3000 for the build seen here. For that you get a 4.4GHz IVB that runs very fast, paired with a couple GTX 680 GPUs, and you get a factory warranty on everything. If you were to purchase everything yourself and put it all together with a top-shelf water-cooling setup, you'd be looking at closer to $3500. I can't imagine such a build would be able to run even "10% better" than the current iBUYPOWER configuration, as the law of diminishing returns comes into full effect.
So really, all I'm saying is: Sure, the Erebus GT isn't the best water-cooling setup around. What it offers is a good overall configuration, ease of setup (no hassle putting the water-cooling together yourself), and a lower cost than if you were to build your own slightly better performance water-cooled rig. Or if you want to build the same quality rig as the Erebus GT, you'll probably save $150 on all the parts but have to do all the labor yourself, and you lose the 3-year factory warranty. That's the real draw here; not everyone has the time to build their own gaming system. Then again, most of the people that don't have time to build their own gaming system also don't have time for games. :-)
Oops. As pointed out below, Lynnfield wasn't a tick; I'm not sure I'd call it a tock either, as it was really just a "delayed, mainstream Bloomfield" which was the real tock. Anyway, nearly everything said about Lynnfield above can easily be adjusted to Westmere in some fashion, but since Westmere for desktops was confined to Clarkdale (dual-core plus HD Graphics) or Gulftown (hex-core LGA1366 with no IGP) it's very difficult to do any direct comparisons.
Nehalem never saw a dual-core 45nm part, and Westmere never saw a quad-core 32nm part. All we can say is that Intel chose to put more cores into LGA1366, and they chose to put a smaller core into LGA1156 with a 45nm IGP on package. I'm not sure you can even try to compare the various options without running into apples and oranges!
I realize that IVB doesn't run hotter as in consume more power, but runs hotter because through both the die size and the TIM Intel used between die and IHS is simply not able to dissipate heat as well as SNB. Whatever the reason, better cooling does help a bit.
As for your analogies: Lynnfield wasn't a tick if I'm not mistaken, it's on 45nm same as Bloomfield and both are part of the Nehalem family, so they're not really suitable for comparison here.
Penryn on the other hand, especially with the E0 stepping, was a significant improvement compared to Conroe, even a C1 Q9550 is a much better overclocker than a G0 Q6600, and this is what people expected I think.
I would very much like to know how IVB performs thermally without the IHS, that way we can tell how much of the worsened heat dissipation is due to the new TIM and how much due to the smaller die. I got a mind to try it myself (and a little more ;), let's see if I can find the time/motivation…
As I already said, I realize that the difference for the GPUs doesn't matter, and the difference for the CPU is around 0.5C. The math of the OP in your link is obviously wrong, as you already pointed out, water in and water out of a radiator vary only very slightly. My point was that I knew two sub-optimal choices (rad and GPU connection, parallel would by the way only be a few more bucks for a connector), the leak on your last system and little information to be found in your review/on the web about the rest of the loop, I would be hesitant to recommend this system to someone after reading your review. There are several positives (blocks, pump, large rad area), but too many unknowns for me to judge the quality of the system.
As for your value calculation, that's just what I would have liked to see in the review itself! When buying such a system, I think it's important to know just how much you pay extra for service/warranty. Glancing over the prices I think that they charge a little more extra than you do (I guess you got the air-water difference from the §356 they charge tofor the GT E2 to go from Asetek to custom water-cooling, that's CPU only though). Their watercooling extras vary wildly in price though. They only want $122 extra for the waterblock for the GTX680 but $206 for a 7970 (Koolance itself charges $120/$123). The water-cooling setup in your review sample is worth around $600 btw.
After having played system builder/ tech support for quite a few friends, I definitely see the value of paying extra for pre-tested systems with a good warranty. I know there are often discussions about the value of not having to invest a lot of time into your system, you don't need to convince that they deserve to charge more than the sum of the parts.
PS: There's also the case where you do have enough time to build your system, but then don't have the time to play games - I still have barely touched SC2 ;)
My "still need to find time to play" list right now includes:
Mass Effect 3 Witcher 2 Fallout: New Vegas Finish Skyrim Finish Batman: Arkham City
If we go back to include games I really wanted to play but never got around to (and they're now collecting digital dust), add Bioshock 2, both Knights of the Old Republic games (I'm not even remotely interested in the new Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO, though -- not my type of time sink!), and dozens of others I can't think of right now. Thankfully, at least my work allows me the chance to play more games than most! LOL
Koolance does offer low-fpi rads (better for low-speed fans, all else being equal), but not in a 3x140mm format -- so if iBUYPOWER uses only Koolance (because they might have a good relationship), they're stuck with the 30 fins per inch rad Koolance has.
But for flow, that loop won't have a problem, at all -- there are no very restrictive blocks (like those silly motherboard blocks). Rads aren't restrictive, and the Koolance CPU block is a low-restriction component: http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/03/12/i7-3930k-cp... Parallel might gain you a few degrees, but in the grand scheme of things it just won't matter.
thanks for the info. I figured that it would make some difference just by the logic of the water passing over the cpu then hitting the gpu. But the flow rate and temp of the water would obviously play a huge role in the raising of the temp. One other question. Where's the radiator (and its fan) on that system? Make that two questions... what is the tube at the back connected to and why? It looks like theres an expansion slot at the top with a connector going to it then connecting to the cpu and top gpu like theres supposed to be an external radiator or something coming out the back... but when you look at the back pic theres nothing coming out.
Actually, the loop goes: - Reservoir (in the bottom 5.25" bay) - Pump (at the bottom of the case, next to the hard drive bays) - GPU blocks, in series - 1 x 140 mm Radiator on the back exhaust (that's what the tubes at the back are connected to -- the rad is the black rectangle between the fan and the back wall of the case) - CPU block - 3 x 140 mm Radiator in the roof, with the three top fans blowing on it. - back to the Reservoir.
The tube that goes to the side of the roof, about half way from the front of the case, is for the Fill port, which is the round thing you see on the left side of the top of the case.
Why? To see Bulldozer get manhandled? Here are the gaming results at lower detail settings (e.g. to put the strain more on the CPU). These results are pertinent because when you move to SLI or CrossFire, the CPU becomes more limiting than the two GPUs in many games. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-r...
Unfortunately, the best the FX 8150 can do against Nehalem i7-920 and Sandy Bridge i5-2500K with a single 7970 is to match it in some titles, while on average even Nehalem tends to match or slightly exceed Bulldozer. That Sandy Bridge 2500K is 9% faster at 2560x1600 with a single GPU is pretty much all you need to know. Ivy Bridge will be even faster still (unless you're into overclocking, in which case it's pretty much a tie), all while consuming less power.
The Asus Maximus V Formula Z77 board is due for release within the next 2 weeks or so, and includes a built-in water cooling loop for the power choke heat sinks. Would be interesting to see how water cooling with that board would affect overclockability. Will they (iBUYPOWER) be offering an updated Erebus GT using that Z77 board?
It will likely have very little effect -- you can already buy motherboard blocks, but they mostly exist for show -- people just use them because they can.
"...a solid value and worthy of enthusiast attention." How can you say it's a solid value when you don't tell us a price? You don't even hint at a price (i.e. "Less than $3K"). So I'm going to ASSUME (since you give me no information to base a reasonable presumption on) that this system costs $25,000. And is therefore a TERRIBLE value.
Based on previous pricing by iBUYPOWER, I'd guess they'll end up charging around $3000. However, we can't really print that since it's just a guess. :-p
Would be nice to see noise measurements for this water cooled setup. Seems to me that it would be an important consideration for a potential buyer compared to building their own (more likely air-cooled) setup.
Normally I would overlook this little slip up but it is the third time I have heard an anandtech article refer to Lynnfield as a tick when in fact it is a tock. It did not use a new fab process and it did employ a new architecture. Lynnfield was a tock. Get it right, you're a hardware site.
Sorry, you're right. I screwed up and looked at Lynnfield. The article has been adjusted, but in my above comment, if you just replace "Lynnfield" with "Clarkdale" not a whole lot changes. Clarkdale was very underwhelming, and Gulftown is highly specialized. I never actually ran either one other than seeing a hex-core Gulftown stuffed into a Clevo X7200. :-\
The problem is that Intel made comparisons very messy with Westmere. On the desktop we had Clarkdale (dual-core plus IGP) and Gulftown (hex-core and no IGP). On laptops we had Arrandale (basically just mobile Clarkdale). There were no mainstream quad-core Westmere parts, so you had mainstream dual-core or high-end hex-core and never the twain shall meet.
Anyway, don't feel too superior for catching the error -- try writing about technology and code names for a few years and I can pretty much guarantee you'll make some mistakes. Heck, just read the tech junky posts in hardware forums and even the best people make mistakes.
Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with people using 1200W of power to play computer games? Considering that there is a power shortage all over California, it's pretty abusive to hoar all that juice when there are better ways to spent it.
Not trying to be judgemental or anything, but there should be regulation on energy consumption for computers that are not work-related. No different than emission standards for cars and such.
1200 W is just the power supply's capacity. If the components draw less than that (in this case, much less than that), the supply will only give them what they need. And it will do it very efficiently, since the AX-1200 is 80+ Gold.
In this case, even though the power supply is rated 1200 W, the system, under load, only consumes 471 W of power. Some of it is wasted, but over 80% is used by the system.
I'm sure having a 80+ Gold PSU is great, but you are still using alot of power. I'm guessing if you plan to have a SLI config, you are going to OC the CPU, and everything else.
A regular PC consumes < 150W, this PC is using 471W.
I'm also guessing that people who buys these bad boys aren't exactly casual gamers, so these PCs will be under load way more often than an average PC.
Its funny, AMD comes out with a product that equals its previous efforts and its a major fail. Why do we find it so easy to forgive Intel?
"I feel like a lot of us were hoping for either a bigger performance improvement or better overclocking headroom due to the new process, but what we have instead is a chip that, when pushed to its conventional limits, is essentially still only the equal of its predecessor in terms of performance."
And doesn't overclock as well. Aren't you glad you ran out and bought that Z77 board?
Obviously it has a little to do with power and efficiency. At least BD is much more capable with respect to overclocking. I am very underwhelmed.
Which is what confuses me. Ivy Bridge has been overhyped as much as bulldozer was. People really should be asking, "what happened?"
Ivy Bridge is still directly superior to Sandy Bridge in almost every way BUT overclocking headroom. I'm underwhelmed by Ivy Bridge, but it's much more efficient in terms of power consumption than Sandy Bridge. Before overclocking, you get slightly better performance for much less power.
Bulldozer was in many ways a step BACK from Deneb and Thuban. The FX-8150 should always have at least equalled the Phenom II X6 1100T, but in certain cases it was actually slower.
That, and everyone wanted and needed Bulldozer to do well for AMD's sake, the sake of the market, the sake of the community. Nobody was really looking at Sandy Bridge and going "boy, if Intel could make this thing faster we'd all be better off."
it seems that the graphics processor on the ivy bridge takes up alot more die(%), so the difference, when you only consider the cores, should be even greater.
Because the surface area of the cores is so tiny the heat dissipation decreases resulting in worse temperatures.
Just do yourself a favor. STAY AWAY from this company. Yes they look good. But when it breaks and it WILL. All they do is give you the run around. They have had my system for over 2 months trying to fix the garbage they sell. Worse company out there for support. DONT BUY
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fastman696 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
A single 680 to compair to the 7970 would have been nice to see!Sabresiberian - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I agree that it would have been interesting, but I understand too why we didn't see it in this review, which was about systems built by iBUYPOWER and others, and not a direct GPU to GPU comparison test.;)
Wreckage - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
680 is upwards of 20% faster than a 7970.CherryBOMB - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
or at least 2x 7970's in crossfire.Stabgotham - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Curious how the temps fared with the custom setup...Stabgotham - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
At full load, I mean....Dustin Sklavos - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
They're there. Look at the max in the HWMonitor caps.seanleeforever - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
hi Dustinis there a reason why you guys review this machine as oppose to, say HP Z1, you know, something every one can buy instead of IBuyPower which only servers US market to the best of my knowledge. is there something so special about iBuyPower systems that you guys just feel the need to cover all of their products?
Hourglasss - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Ibuypower probably sends them the machines to review, HP probably doesn't. That simple. It's not a conspiracy.Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Basically.Kimbernator - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
1200w for 2 680s? that's probably not wasteful.Never buy prebuilt gaming computers, building is cheaper and you'll get better performance.
Sabresiberian - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Well, Nvidia's recommendations would put the PSU at 750W for 2 680s in SLI.You need some headroom if you plan to overclock the video cards, but I don't see that requiring another 450W. An 850W PSU should be more than plenty, unless you want room for installing 2 more cards, or 1 more card and plenty of room to OC the 3.
You did read the test results showing max draw to be less than 500W, right?
It's all good to say "never buy pre-built" when you personally have the time and inclination, and I more or less agree with the sentiment, but rigs like this one from iBUYPOWER are very much known quantities - everything in it is name-brand, and the unit itself has been tested here at Anandtech favorably. I wouldn't fault anyone for buying this rig over building his own.
;)
DigitalWolf - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
"We've heard that Ivy Bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge does, and I can confirm those findings by comparing the thermal readings from our Sandy Bridge-based Erebus GT against our Ivy Bridge-based Erebus GT."The images that you have to compare the two systems... show the 2700k system with a maximum vcore of 1.06v and the 3770k with a maximum of 1.36v.
I would expect the system with .3 higher vcore to run "hotter" even if they were the same chip...
Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
The same screenshot show that +12V is at a maximum of 7.03V... Don't put too much faith into software readings, especially with very hardware there are often errors. Given that the current value is 1.10V during idle, that 1.36V is likely just a freak reading, the VCore will not vary that much.Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
*with very new hardware there are often errors.leonzio666 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Where are Metro 2033, Mafia II, Witcher II with ubersampling and Crysis or Starcraft II MP benchmarks ??? No one, and I mean absolutely no one in their right mind would buy such a beast only to play the games tested.imaheadcase - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
No one buys a system for just the games YOU listed to. Games are subject to the user, the games they used are POPULAR games so they went with them.Starcraft MP does not stress a GPU/CPU much. Metro 2033 is not a game many play, Mafia 2 not many play, etc.
jonbanh - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
hmm, i would say starcraft 2 is pretty POPULAR. and if you say it doesnt stress the CPU/GPU enough, well you also have portal 2 up there hitting almost 300 fps. i would've liked to see metro 2033 also just because it's been one of the most demanding games so far. as well as crysis 2i always figured when systems are given to sites for reviews, the manufacturer provides "guidelines" for what benchmarks they want or dont want shown
Sabresiberian - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Oh yeah, popularity is always the top reason a game should be included in a benchmark suite.Dustin should have included "Angry Birds".
;)
Tchamber - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
When do you expect to get the chance to compare 7970s in CF to the 680s in SLI?Ryan Smith - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Soon.randinspace - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
What impresses me the most about the system is that iBUYPOWER is actually able to obtain not one, but TWO WHOLE 680s... oh wait a minute tigerdirect has a PNY model at least listed as in stock right now, so I guess anything's possible.Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I'm quite disappointed that you pretty much only reviewed performance. The review would have been much better (and up to the Anandtech standard), if you wrote more about the build, the cooling system/noise, the value of the system and support (options). Those are also very important for the purchasing decision, yet you leave many questions open here.Please provide full information on the build/ the components of the system. What are the components of the watercooling loop? In the other Erebus GT review you talk about the case being based on a NZXT case - why leave that information out here? Also: Please provide more/better pictures! If there were more pictures, I could identify the full watercooling the system. Surely you have someone on staff at AT who could do the same and provide information on whether this is a good setup or not. (One thing they did wrong is to connect the GPUs in series, parallel would have been better in this configuration).
More on noise (incl. measurements & a subjective comparison) would be very nice. You mention it has a fan controller, but make no mention of how it works, and how the system compares to an air cooled high-end system (because at stock settings that's what you're getting the watercooling for: it's more powerful and thus potentially quieter than air - but is it quieter here?). What fans are used, and what is the minimum RPM you can set them to, and is that setting still able to cool the system under full load?
I can understand that you don't know the price yet, but you should still talk about value. Since pretty much all of these parts are retail parts, I would like to see a listing how much it would cost to buy them and assemble the system yourself. How much extra has iBUYPOWER charged in the past over component price? What service/warranty do you get for that?
ggathagan - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
This is a review of a complete system.If you want to compare it to DIY, that's *your* job to find out the components.
Call or email IBUYPOWER.
rickmoranisftw - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
i went to ibuypower to mess around with the customization, and i could not find the Z77 platform. Also, i could not find the liquid cooled 680 as an option on any of them. Is this something they are updating soon, or am i just completely missing something?Denithor - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
What benchmark/software do you run to max out power consumption for the load testing? I'm curious because to be valid it would have to be something that maxes both CPU and GPU, otherwise you aren't getting a true load value.Folterknecht - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
1,36 V for that 3770K max Voltage reported by HW-Monitor - which genius came up with these BIOS-Settings??? Even water cooled - that cant be good in the long run. Every review and forum discussion I read suggests that 4.4 GHz on Ivy is doable with 1,15 - 1,25 V and u start to get serious temp problems if you go above 1,25 V - even water cooled.nemt - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I've never heard of someone having a good experience with ibuypower. Everyone I know who's purchased a prebuilt (or semi built) machine from them has regretted it almost immediately.The specs are nice, but I doubt the built quality is worth the eventual price of admission.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Based on my recommendation, a friend bought one of their systems two years back. It had better specs than Dell or other large OEMs, and the total price for the box was $800. He's been very pleased with the computer and hasn't had any hardware problems at all. It runs quiet and fast, though it's not like he actually pushes it that hard. So there you go: at least one story of someone that bought IBP and didn't regret it at all.gmallen - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Our two iBuypower machines have good build quality, all brand-name parts and worked out of the box. Almost two failure-free years later, we are ramping up to buy two more, using the old machines as a media server and an NAS. So, ignore troll and check iBuypower forums for real comments by actual owners.Money Loo - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Chalk up another two for avoiding iBuypower. As stated before both my brother and I had absolutely horrendous experiences with both build quality and customer support. I would personally avoid them like the plague.Maybe company computers or reviewers they take care of, but as far as the general public is concerned they are horrible.
Epinions - 2 and a half stars, many negative 1 star reviews
http://www.epinions.com/webs-Web_Services-All-Merc...
Resellerrating is the first google search and it lists them fairly highly, though.
So really I can only speak for my own personal experience with them, and it was not good twice in a row. To call someone a troll just because they stated their own personal opinion as well seems a bit much.
shin0bi272 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Ive never done water cooling so forgive me if this sounds stupid but what is going on with that vga cooling? They have one cards cooling coming directly off the cpu and the other directly off the reservoir? Wont that lead to one card being much hotter than the other?JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Liquid-cooling allows the cooling medium (water) to store a LOT more energy than air-cooling, with the net result being that as long as your pump has a decent flow rate, it's not a huge concern. By the time the water passes through the CPU and on to the GPU, it might be a few tenths of a degree warmer is all. If you were doing tri-SLI, perhaps parallel would help the third card more, but for 2-way it's not enough to really matter. Here's a lengthy posts someone with more experience put together on the subject:http://www.overclock.net/t/519131/series-versus-pa...
Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
It doesn't make much of a (noticeable) difference, but it does show that whoever set up that loop doesn't know all that much about watercooling unfortuantely. So maybe this isn't the only detail they missed - add up a couple of those smaller details in the setup and even if they only are around 0.5C each, together they do make a noticeable difference.JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
The general consensus on parallel vs. series water-cooling is split. There are many that say series is better, simply because you don't have to worry about as many factors. To say "they don't know much about water-cooling" is a highly biased opinion, especially since you know nothing about the person/people that decided this was a good way to put together the PC. A more correct statement would be: "iBUYPOWER chose to go series, and since they are knowledgeable enough to build, sell, and support PCs for a lot of customers, we can guess that they did it this way because it costs less, takes less time, and/or the results are close enough that it for this setup it doesn't matter."Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
There is no general consensus because unfortuantely, most people don't understand the math behind watercooling. There are a lot of people with poor understanding of the principles, so a lot of sub-optimal choices are made and a lot of sub-optimal "advice" is given.Parallel will always lead to more flow through the rest of the loop, which will improve CPU temperature, and in a big loop like this, flow is an issue. Serial may lead to better GPU temps, but you're GPU overclock is hardly ever limited by a few degrees, while a few degrees in CPU temp often makes a difference in CPU overclockability (meaning that CPU temp should be prioritized over GPU temp in a combined loop).
Looking around the web a little bit, they also seem to be using a full Koolance setup, and the Koolance radiators are known to be relatively poor performers with normal fan speeds of around 1500 RPM or less:
http://skinneelabs.com/koolance-cu1020v/4/
They're definitely giving away a few degrees with that radiator there compared to other similarly priced rads.
I of course know nothing about the people at iBUYPOWER, but they overclock a CPU that is known to run hot, and run the video cards at stock under water and yet they prioritize GPU over CPU temperature in that detail I named. Given some of the problems in your previous Erebus review, there definitely are several details that can be improved.
PS: Don't get me wrong, the setup is definitely much better than cooling setups offered by HP, Alienware or whatever watercooling loop your local store is likely to build for you. It's definitely a decent setup, but with a few changes it could be a very good watercooling setup.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Okay, there's two topics to discuss here. First, let's talk IVB vs. SNB:I don't think IVB runs all that hot, particularly with better cooling. I mean, sure, it's a few degrees hotter than SNB at 200MHz lower clocks right now (in the Erebus GT), but unless you're striving for that last 2-3% overclock it doesn't really matter. I think it's more interesting to discuss why "Ivy Bridge runs hot" rather than just making blanket statements. IVB runs hotter than SNB because it's a more dense chip with a new process. It's a tick, and ticks have never been the "must have" upgrades in my book. Two cases in point are Penryn and Lynnfield (our only two "ticks" so far):
Penryn: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2362/4
Lynnfield: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832
And Lynnfield overclocking: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2838/2
Lynnfield primarily improved performance through enhanced Turbo Boost rather than anything architectural. In many cases, high-end Bloomfield was still faster than Lynnfield (partly because of the tri-channel memory, partly from higher clocks at launch). Penryn was more of a universal improvement over Conroe, but it still wasn't a major improvement in performance.
What both Penryn and Lynnfield--and now Ivy Bridge--did bring to the table was much better power use, especially at load. Lynnfield was a good 40W lower at idle than Bloomfield, and under load it was generally 20-40W less. Penryn was 35W less at idle and nearly 50W less at load (at the same clocks and without widespread use of power gating). Basically, you got more performance for less power, even if the performance increase wasn't all that much.
Personally, I'm not at all surprised that IVB doesn't really overclock better than SNB, and it my be some time before we consistently see any CPU that can hit more than 5GHz on air cooling by your "average Joe" overclockers. SNB is basically right under 5GHz, and I think going forward we'll see wider designs and other IPC improvements rather than higher clocks. Power and heat just start to scale too quickly at higher frequencies, and if you need more voltage to hit those frequencies you end up with a double whammy.
The second is the water-cooling and parallel vs. series. again I refer to the post I mentioned before:
http://www.overclock.net/t/519131/series-versus-pa...
That thread starts with someone suggesting that a parallel configuration could cool 5C better and how much of a difference it would make, and then he uses some equations to "prove" his point. Later, someone responds with additional equations and points out that 5C would be a MASSIVE difference for water-cooling, and that it's more like a <.5C change at most. He ultimately suggests that parallel would likely be better just for the help it gives to the CPU (which is what you're suggesting as well), but how much of a difference does it really make versus the cost?
Actually, that's the biggest variable right there: cost. As you state, the Koolance radiators aren't necessarily the best. I'd wager the pump, waterblocks, etc. probably all fall into the same category. If you want the best possible water-cooling setup you can get, you'd have to spend quite a bit more money. I recently saw a build where the total cost for all the water-cooling kit was around $1000, so consider the following.
The core parts for the Erebus GT IVB setup should cost around $2500, not counting the extra water-cooling accessories. If we assume iBUYPOWER charges around $350 to go from a basic air-cooled setup to the full CPU + GPU water-cooling (that's what I calculated by looking at the $1929 vs. $2529 builds here: http://www.ibuypower.com/Info/erebus-GT.aspx), that would mean they'll probably charge about $2800-$3000 for the build seen here. For that you get a 4.4GHz IVB that runs very fast, paired with a couple GTX 680 GPUs, and you get a factory warranty on everything. If you were to purchase everything yourself and put it all together with a top-shelf water-cooling setup, you'd be looking at closer to $3500. I can't imagine such a build would be able to run even "10% better" than the current iBUYPOWER configuration, as the law of diminishing returns comes into full effect.
So really, all I'm saying is: Sure, the Erebus GT isn't the best water-cooling setup around. What it offers is a good overall configuration, ease of setup (no hassle putting the water-cooling together yourself), and a lower cost than if you were to build your own slightly better performance water-cooled rig. Or if you want to build the same quality rig as the Erebus GT, you'll probably save $150 on all the parts but have to do all the labor yourself, and you lose the 3-year factory warranty. That's the real draw here; not everyone has the time to build their own gaming system. Then again, most of the people that don't have time to build their own gaming system also don't have time for games. :-)
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Oops. As pointed out below, Lynnfield wasn't a tick; I'm not sure I'd call it a tock either, as it was really just a "delayed, mainstream Bloomfield" which was the real tock. Anyway, nearly everything said about Lynnfield above can easily be adjusted to Westmere in some fashion, but since Westmere for desktops was confined to Clarkdale (dual-core plus HD Graphics) or Gulftown (hex-core LGA1366 with no IGP) it's very difficult to do any direct comparisons.Nehalem never saw a dual-core 45nm part, and Westmere never saw a quad-core 32nm part. All we can say is that Intel chose to put more cores into LGA1366, and they chose to put a smaller core into LGA1156 with a 45nm IGP on package. I'm not sure you can even try to compare the various options without running into apples and oranges!
Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
As you see in my reply, I still haven't learned to refresh before posting...Nickel020 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I realize that IVB doesn't run hotter as in consume more power, but runs hotter because through both the die size and the TIM Intel used between die and IHS is simply not able to dissipate heat as well as SNB. Whatever the reason, better cooling does help a bit.As for your analogies: Lynnfield wasn't a tick if I'm not mistaken, it's on 45nm same as Bloomfield and both are part of the Nehalem family, so they're not really suitable for comparison here.
Penryn on the other hand, especially with the E0 stepping, was a significant improvement compared to Conroe, even a C1 Q9550 is a much better overclocker than a G0 Q6600, and this is what people expected I think.
I would very much like to know how IVB performs thermally without the IHS, that way we can tell how much of the worsened heat dissipation is due to the new TIM and how much due to the smaller die. I got a mind to try it myself (and a little more ;), let's see if I can find the time/motivation…
As I already said, I realize that the difference for the GPUs doesn't matter, and the difference for the CPU is around 0.5C. The math of the OP in your link is obviously wrong, as you already pointed out, water in and water out of a radiator vary only very slightly.
My point was that I knew two sub-optimal choices (rad and GPU connection, parallel would by the way only be a few more bucks for a connector), the leak on your last system and little information to be found in your review/on the web about the rest of the loop, I would be hesitant to recommend this system to someone after reading your review. There are several positives (blocks, pump, large rad area), but too many unknowns for me to judge the quality of the system.
As for your value calculation, that's just what I would have liked to see in the review itself! When buying such a system, I think it's important to know just how much you pay extra for service/warranty. Glancing over the prices I think that they charge a little more extra than you do (I guess you got the air-water difference from the §356 they charge tofor the GT E2 to go from Asetek to custom water-cooling, that's CPU only though). Their watercooling extras vary wildly in price though. They only want $122 extra for the waterblock for the GTX680 but $206 for a 7970 (Koolance itself charges $120/$123). The water-cooling setup in your review sample is worth around $600 btw.
After having played system builder/ tech support for quite a few friends, I definitely see the value of paying extra for pre-tested systems with a good warranty. I know there are often discussions about the value of not having to invest a lot of time into your system, you don't need to convince that they deserve to charge more than the sum of the parts.
PS: There's also the case where you do have enough time to build your system, but then don't have the time to play games - I still have barely touched SC2 ;)
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
My "still need to find time to play" list right now includes:Mass Effect 3
Witcher 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Finish Skyrim
Finish Batman: Arkham City
If we go back to include games I really wanted to play but never got around to (and they're now collecting digital dust), add Bioshock 2, both Knights of the Old Republic games (I'm not even remotely interested in the new Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO, though -- not my type of time sink!), and dozens of others I can't think of right now. Thankfully, at least my work allows me the chance to play more games than most! LOL
UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Koolance does offer low-fpi rads (better for low-speed fans, all else being equal), but not in a 3x140mm format -- so if iBUYPOWER uses only Koolance (because they might have a good relationship), they're stuck with the 30 fins per inch rad Koolance has.But for flow, that loop won't have a problem, at all -- there are no very restrictive blocks (like those silly motherboard blocks). Rads aren't restrictive, and the Koolance CPU block is a low-restriction component:
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/03/12/i7-3930k-cp...
Parallel might gain you a few degrees, but in the grand scheme of things it just won't matter.
shin0bi272 - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
thanks for the info. I figured that it would make some difference just by the logic of the water passing over the cpu then hitting the gpu. But the flow rate and temp of the water would obviously play a huge role in the raising of the temp. One other question. Where's the radiator (and its fan) on that system? Make that two questions... what is the tube at the back connected to and why? It looks like theres an expansion slot at the top with a connector going to it then connecting to the cpu and top gpu like theres supposed to be an external radiator or something coming out the back... but when you look at the back pic theres nothing coming out.UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Actually, the loop goes:- Reservoir (in the bottom 5.25" bay)
- Pump (at the bottom of the case, next to the hard drive bays)
- GPU blocks, in series
- 1 x 140 mm Radiator on the back exhaust (that's what the tubes at the back are connected to -- the rad is the black rectangle between the fan and the back wall of the case)
- CPU block
- 3 x 140 mm Radiator in the roof, with the three top fans blowing on it.
- back to the Reservoir.
The tube that goes to the side of the roof, about half way from the front of the case, is for the Fill port, which is the round thing you see on the left side of the top of the case.
UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
And just for fun, if you wanted to build that loop out of Koolance stuff:- Reservoir TNK-501 - $80 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
(there are much cheaper, but less featureful, reservoirs available elsewhere, though)
- Pump PMP-450 - $77 http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
(also known as the Laing D5, you can find this pump rebranded by other companies, but $77 is reasonable)
- GPU blocks VID-NX680 - $130 x 2 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- 1 x 140 mm Radiator HX-CU-1401V - $50 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- CPU block CPU-370 rev. 1.1 - $80 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- 3 x 140 mm Radiator HX-CU-1403V - $75 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
So main components = $622
You could save on the reservoir by going with something simpler (which it seems iBUYPOWER did), like this $35 XSPC:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2184/ex-res-104/...
However, you still need tubing (fairly cheap) and fittings (they get expensive relatively fast.
You need 2 fittings/component (unless they have built-in barbs, like the pump, or you use something like the tube that's between the GPUs).
For that system, you'd need something like 11 fittings, at $6.50 ea. for compression fittings:
http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
+ adapters, the fill port, and video card connectors.
All told, that setup might cost around $750 if you bought the parts at retail.
Wreckage - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Ivy bridge and 680's vs Bulldozer CPU and Bulldozer 7970's.JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Why? To see Bulldozer get manhandled? Here are the gaming results at lower detail settings (e.g. to put the strain more on the CPU). These results are pertinent because when you move to SLI or CrossFire, the CPU becomes more limiting than the two GPUs in many games.http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-r...
Here's another article that did Bulldozer vs. Nehalem vs. Sandy Bridge all with a single 7970:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU...
Unfortunately, the best the FX 8150 can do against Nehalem i7-920 and Sandy Bridge i5-2500K with a single 7970 is to match it in some titles, while on average even Nehalem tends to match or slightly exceed Bulldozer. That Sandy Bridge 2500K is 9% faster at 2560x1600 with a single GPU is pretty much all you need to know. Ivy Bridge will be even faster still (unless you're into overclocking, in which case it's pretty much a tie), all while consuming less power.
Here's another article on the subject, only with 3-way HD 6970 on i7-2600K and FX-8150. Warning: it's not pretty, unless you like Intel.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4353/amd_fx_8150...
vailr - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
The Asus Maximus V Formula Z77 board is due for release within the next 2 weeks or so, and includes a built-in water cooling loop for the power choke heat sinks. Would be interesting to see how water cooling with that board would affect overclockability. Will they (iBUYPOWER) be offering an updated Erebus GT using that Z77 board?UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
It will likely have very little effect -- you can already buy motherboard blocks, but they mostly exist for show -- people just use them because they can.saf227 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
"...a solid value and worthy of enthusiast attention."How can you say it's a solid value when you don't tell us a price? You don't even hint at a price (i.e. "Less than $3K").
So I'm going to ASSUME (since you give me no information to base a reasonable presumption on) that this system costs $25,000. And is therefore a TERRIBLE value.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Based on previous pricing by iBUYPOWER, I'd guess they'll end up charging around $3000. However, we can't really print that since it's just a guess. :-pawall13 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Would be nice to see noise measurements for this water cooled setup. Seems to me that it would be an important consideration for a potential buyer compared to building their own (more likely air-cooled) setup.ewood - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Normally I would overlook this little slip up but it is the third time I have heard an anandtech article refer to Lynnfield as a tick when in fact it is a tock. It did not use a new fab process and it did employ a new architecture. Lynnfield was a tock. Get it right, you're a hardware site.JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Sorry, you're right. I screwed up and looked at Lynnfield. The article has been adjusted, but in my above comment, if you just replace "Lynnfield" with "Clarkdale" not a whole lot changes. Clarkdale was very underwhelming, and Gulftown is highly specialized. I never actually ran either one other than seeing a hex-core Gulftown stuffed into a Clevo X7200. :-\The problem is that Intel made comparisons very messy with Westmere. On the desktop we had Clarkdale (dual-core plus IGP) and Gulftown (hex-core and no IGP). On laptops we had Arrandale (basically just mobile Clarkdale). There were no mainstream quad-core Westmere parts, so you had mainstream dual-core or high-end hex-core and never the twain shall meet.
Anyway, don't feel too superior for catching the error -- try writing about technology and code names for a few years and I can pretty much guarantee you'll make some mistakes. Heck, just read the tech junky posts in hardware forums and even the best people make mistakes.
JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
And yes, I know that Clarkdale's IGP was actually 45nm on package.web2dot0 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with people using 1200W of power to play computer games? Considering that there is a power shortage all over California, it's pretty abusive to hoar all that juice when there are better ways to spent it.Not trying to be judgemental or anything, but there should be regulation on energy consumption for computers that are not work-related. No different than emission standards for cars and such.
UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
1200 W is just the power supply's capacity. If the components draw less than that (in this case, much less than that), the supply will only give them what they need. And it will do it very efficiently, since the AX-1200 is 80+ Gold.In this case, even though the power supply is rated 1200 W, the system, under load, only consumes 471 W of power. Some of it is wasted, but over 80% is used by the system.
web2dot0 - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
I'm sure having a 80+ Gold PSU is great, but you are still using alot of power. I'm guessing if you plan to have a SLI config, you are going to OC the CPU, and everything else.A regular PC consumes < 150W, this PC is using 471W.
I'm also guessing that people who buys these bad boys aren't exactly casual gamers, so these PCs will be under load way more often than an average PC.
Just saying ....
buzznut - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Its funny, AMD comes out with a product that equals its previous efforts and its a major fail. Why do we find it so easy to forgive Intel?"I feel like a lot of us were hoping for either a bigger performance improvement or better overclocking headroom due to the new process, but what we have instead is a chip that, when pushed to its conventional limits, is essentially still only the equal of its predecessor in terms of performance."
And doesn't overclock as well. Aren't you glad you ran out and bought that Z77 board?
Obviously it has a little to do with power and efficiency. At least BD is much more capable with respect to overclocking. I am very underwhelmed.
Which is what confuses me. Ivy Bridge has been overhyped as much as bulldozer was. People really should be asking, "what happened?"
Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Ivy Bridge is still directly superior to Sandy Bridge in almost every way BUT overclocking headroom. I'm underwhelmed by Ivy Bridge, but it's much more efficient in terms of power consumption than Sandy Bridge. Before overclocking, you get slightly better performance for much less power.Bulldozer was in many ways a step BACK from Deneb and Thuban. The FX-8150 should always have at least equalled the Phenom II X6 1100T, but in certain cases it was actually slower.
That, and everyone wanted and needed Bulldozer to do well for AMD's sake, the sake of the market, the sake of the community. Nobody was really looking at Sandy Bridge and going "boy, if Intel could make this thing faster we'd all be better off."
hjalti8 - Sunday, April 29, 2012 - link
According to these pics :http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/IvyB...
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/sand...
it seems that the graphics processor on the ivy bridge takes up alot more die(%), so the difference, when you only consider the cores, should be even greater.
Because the surface area of the cores is so tiny the heat dissipation decreases resulting in worse temperatures.
762m964 - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 - link
Expansion Slots 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) *21 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *3
3 x PCIe 2.0 x1
Sli @ 8 x 8 , imagine another motherboard with sli @ 16 x 16 !!!
kyleb2112 - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
Question marks on the price? Seriously? Not much point in coming to this site if you start leaving out the most important data points.Drittz121 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
Just do yourself a favor. STAY AWAY from this company. Yes they look good. But when it breaks and it WILL. All they do is give you the run around. They have had my system for over 2 months trying to fix the garbage they sell. Worse company out there for support. DONT BUY