Welcome to our next better system build guide. Now, a better system involves
parts that still deliver great value for the dollar without going over the top
just for bling, but also means that we're not really skimping on anything.
So, our target budget for this system was $2,000. Now, in our last build
guide, we went with a straight gaming build. So, we didn't really spend extra
money on anything unless it gave us more cooling or more gaming performance in
some way. This system is going to be more about well-rounded overall
performance. So, it's still going to be a rocking gaming machine featuring the
Intel Core i7 4770K unlocked processor.
We're still going to overclock it, but maybe not quite to the same extent. And
it also features because it has hyperthreading, because it's got lots of
RAM, and because we're using silence optimized components, a very quiet
workstation like element to it as well. So, it's going to be the silent machine
that's suitable for gaming as well as light workstation use such as HD video
editing. Now, we're going to show you how to build step by micro step exactly
the system we have in front of us, but many of these principles will be able to
be applied to other systems as well. So, we'd love for you to come back and
reference this video when you're building your own system. With that in
mind, we've made some menu navigation. So you can go to the main menu up on
your top right and you can navigate between chapters on the bottom right
allowing you to skip in between the parts that you find most interesting.
Now it should be noted we're using annotations to make that functionality
work. So if you're watching on a mobile device you may not be able to access
that functionality. If you switch over to a desktop that'll work just fine for
you. Now without any further ado, let's get started with our better
gaming/lightworkstation build optimized for silence. Now with our better class
of system sort of nomenclature in mind, we did give ourselves a bigger budget
this time around because we were trying to do a couple of more specialized
things. That is to make the machine great for not only gaming but also light
workstation use as well as make it quieter. So with that in mind, for our
CPU, we went with the 4770K. This is a
Core i7 processor, meaning it has hyperthreading technology. So, while it
doesn't really offer much tangible performance benefit over a top tier Core
i5 like a 4670K in gaming applications,
the 4770K will deliver a significant performance improvement in things like
video editing or 3D work to justify its
additional cost. Now, the
i74770K is an LG150 processor, meaning that it is
compatible only with LG150 motherboards.
So, we went with a saber-tooth D87 board. This supports all the
overclocking features of the chip as well as other Intel technology such as
smart response technology with SSD caching and all that good stuff. And it
also has some ASUS exclusive features as well. It's got their thermal armor,
which is a dust coating that goes over top of the entire board and even you can
have little pieces to cover up the slots, allowing you to keep the board
operating in pristine condition for the extent of its lifetime. It has their
thermal radar 2 technology, which allows you to quickly and easily diagnose
hotspots on the board as well as monitor the board, make sure your entire system
temperatures are good. It has their fan expert 2 technology allowing you to
control all the fans in your system and keep everything nice and cool and
optimized. You guys noticing a theme here. And it also looks fantastic. And
since we're using a windowed case, that is an advantage. Last and certainly not
least, the reason we went with a saber-tooth tough series board for our
workstation e better gaming build is the
fact that it uses tough components and comes with a 5year warranty. ASUS
supports this board for 5 years. That's industryleading, meaning that if you're
buying something that you want to really work for a long time, a tough series
board like a Saber-Tooth is never a bad option. The one thing you may recognize
from our last better build guide is these Corsair Vengeance DDR3 modules. We
didn't change our memory configuration cuz I still feel that a 2x8 gig DDR3600
kit is pretty much the best bang for your buck. It does a number of things.
It gives you upgradability options for the future, meaning you can move to up
to 32 gigs without any difficulty, without taking these out and tossing
them in the bin. And it gives you definitely more memory than you need for
any modern game, as well as probably enough memory for your light workstation
load. However, if you're doing a lot of Da Vinci Resolve or, you know, After
Effects rendering or whatever else, then you may want to right from the get- go
step up and get two of these kits for a total of 32 gigs. Now, our budget gave
us a ton of options in terms of graphics cards. We could go with an entry-level
Quadro. We could go with a dual GPU solution with fairly high-end cards. We
could go with a very high-end single card solution such as a GTX 780. That's
the route that we ended up going. And
the reason we did that is because a single GPU solution still delivers the
best performance regardless of micro stuttering or SLI profiles in any game.
It also runs extremely quietly, runs cool, and it's going to offer great CUDA
performance for applications such as Adobe Premiere or Da Vinci Resolve. Now,
why we might go with some of those other options? Dual GTX 660Ti would have been
better for gaming performance, but would have added heat output, power
consumption, as well as a little bit of inconsistency in terms of the
performance. And I usually prefer a stronger single card to two weaker ones
whenever possible. We could have gone with an entry-level quadro. And
honestly, if I was going to take advantage of the 10-bit color output or
if I was going to take advantage to some of the CAD applications that can be
accelerated by a Quadro, then I might go that route instead. But that won't offer
a satisfying gaming experience like a GeForce card will. Now, we could also
pony up and spend more and get a GTX Titan, but that contributes nothing to
the gaming experience and is more useful for someone like a CUDA developer that
needs the double precision floating point capabilities of a GTX Titan that
are cut down significantly on the 780. Last but not least, if we were leaning
more towards the gaming side and we were willing to wait for Adobe to upgrade
their suite to support Open CL with all the features, or if we didn't need some
of the CUDA only features right now, you could go with a Radeon graphics card
such as a 7970 GHz edition. And you'd also get some free games to go along
with it with their never settle bundle. And we're going to make the most
exciting video ever about storage.
All right, storage isn't that sexy, but we've got an Intel 520 series SSD. This
is their highest performing consumer grade SSD, and we went with that because
again, we had a slightly bigger budget. We also up the capacity. We've got 240
gigs. Now, that gives us flexibility. We can either install a ton of apps and
games on it or we can segment 60 gigs of it to use as a cache to accelerate our
mechanical drive. Now, this is where it's going to come down to personal
choice. We went with a three terbyte WD
green drive and the reason for that is that with its low power consumption and
quiet operation. It was a good fit for our build here. However, if you wanted
to use a dedicated scratch disc or if you needed more storage for large video
editing projects, you might end up with an internal RAID array for example and
then an individual dedicated scratch disc rather than going with this single
green drive solution. So, the options are totally out there. But remember
guys, green isn't like it was before where you were getting great power
consumption and low noise at the cost of performance, particularly in sustained
performance. They're right up there with many 7200 RPM drives now. So, you don't
have to make that trade-off. And that's why we went this
route. Whoa. Excuse me. Now, I've talked
a lot about the silence optimized aspects of the system, but I haven't
shown you how we're doing it yet. It starts with the power supply. A loud
power supply is difficult to deal with because you can't just swap out the fan
without special training or pretty serious danger. So, we've gone with a
CIC G series. CIC has a legendary
reputation for building quiet as well as high performance power supplies. In
fact, many of the power supplies you see in the market with other brand names on
them are actually manufactured by CIC. This one is 80 plus gold, meaning we
don't have to remove as much heat from the inefficiency of the power
conversion. It is also semi-odular, meaning that we don't have to have
unnecessary cables jumbling up the case, so we don't have to have our case fans
spinning louder. It uses a single strong 12volt rail, meaning you don't have to
worry about what plugs into where. And last but not least, it has a 5year
warranty to go along with that 5year warranty on your motherboard. Now, those
two components that fail most often over time, the motherboard as well as the
power supply, have 5-year warranties in this system. Now, it's only a 550 W
power supply, but I'm going to show you guys what the power consumption of the
system looks like when you're done. And I think you're going to be pretty impressed at the way it handles it, even
though NVIDIA recommends a 600 watt
power supply for a GTX 780based system.
Next up, we've got a Dark Rock 2 CPU cooler. It looks great. It's quiet. It
runs cool. No complaints about it whatsoever. We decided to go air cooling
with this build rather than liquid cooling. We showed you liquid cooling last time, so we're going to shake
things up. Finally, we've got the Fractal Design Define R4. This is the
black windowed version, but it's available in different colors or without
a window if you prefer. It is again silence optimized with acoustic
dampening materials as well as it has the ability to provide ample air flow
with ventilation in the front and it gives you the option to remove some of
the silence optimized material and add more fans with their modu vent
technology should you so desire. Not
only that, but it looks fantastic. Oh, my case is gone. I guess
that means we're going to talk about peripherals now. We're going to start with the Razer Death Adder 2013. I think
it's a fantastic value, even though it's a little bit of a higherend mouse. So,
while the peripherals don't fit into my $2,000 budget, the goal here was to pick
peripherals that I thought were appropriate for someone spending two
grand on their tower. And the Death Adder 2013 has great heritage. The Death
Adder is extremely well regarded, but it's got some tweaks. A higher
sensitivity optical sensor, making it great for gaming without any
acceleration issues. It's got tweaked ergonomics as well as rubberized grips
that make it feel great and I just like it. So, there you go. Next up, we've got
the Filco Magistouch Ninja. We've got a Cherry MX Brown full-sized keyboard.
This gives a good balance between a typing experience and gaming experience.
I personally love Cherry MX Brown key switches, and it looks fantastic and
very professional with the key caps printed on the front rather than on the
top. That also means that the printing will last forever because it won't wear
off with your fingers. For our mouse pad, we've gone with the Steel Series
QCK because regardless of budget, I use it for everything. I love this mouse
pad. Just just get one. Even if you're not building this system, don't worry
about it. Now, let's talk about the peripherals that you don't generally touch. We went with the Custom One Pros
from Bayer Dynamic for our headphones. These are closed, making them great for
going off to your own little world, whether it's work or play. They sound
fantastic. They have an adjustable bass port, meaning you can decide, okay, I
want a ton of bass for this music or not as much for another one, which is
actually very, very cool. And last but not least, they are incredibly
comfortable. These are the personal headphone of choice for Slick right now.
The one drawback being they don't have a built-in microphone, so you will need a
standalone microphone. For our monitor, this is what I expect to be a bit of a
contested topic. Now, many gamers will opt instead for fast response TN panels
because those are going to give you less motion blur as well as less input lag
when you're gaming. Now, Slick and I discussed it at length and we decided to
go with a PA248. This is a ProArt series from ASUS because we prefer the vibrant,
rich colors and better viewing angle to the faster response time for our gaming
enjoyment. With that said, neither of us are pro gamers. So, what's the advantage
of this monitor? It's 1920 x 1200 instead of 1080, giving you a little bit
more vertical resolution. It comes pre-calibrated, meaning those colors are
going to be accurate right out of the box. And honestly, having gamed on this
monitor a fair bit, I don't notice any particular input lag. I don't notice any
particular ghosting even compared to TN panels. So, I'd say for the price, given
that the 248 isn't that much more expensive than a TN panel, especially a
gaming grade one, I would go with this option. But of course, the choice is
yours. And now it is step by
step. I got kind of far away from the mic there. Time to build this PC. So,
we're going to start with our usual procedure where we install the
components. We assemble them together before putting them in the case to make
sure that everything is working a okay
before we make more work for ourselves when we're trying to swap things in and
out and they're inside a chassis. The motherboard box makes a fantastic test
bench. Before we get started, here's everything you need. A nice anti-static
place to work. I don't recommend working on carpet if you can avoid it. We are
actually using a Modmat Extreme from ModRate, which is a nice rubberized
surface, so we're not going to damage anything. It's not going to slip off away from us and it's anti-static. I
recommend using an anti-static wrist strap that you then attach the other end
to either a grounded out power supply or similar or to a grounded wall outlet.
And finally, you'll need a standard Phillips head screwdriver. First up,
once we've got our motherboard on our well makeshift anti-static test
platform, is to install the CPU. The only things you need from the CPU box
are the processor itself and the stock heat sink, which we're only going to use
to make sure that the system's working outside of the case. Step one is to lift
up the retention ARM. There shouldn't be too much force that you need to apply.
Once it's out of the way, you can actually lift up the entire hold down
plate. Next up, align the golden
triangle on the corner of the CPU with the triangle or dot on the CPU socket.
There should also be two indentations. The CPU only fits in one way. Never
force it. The socket is very fragile. Give it a little wiggle to make
sure it's in the right spot. Lower the cover plate and then
bring down the retention ARM. There should be a little bit of force required
this time. You'll have to swing it out a little bit wide and then hook it
underneath the hold down clip. And what you'll notice is that protective
covering over the pins in the CPU socket now pops off completely on its own and
your CPU is installed. Installing the stock heatsink is a snap. Well, four
snaps, actually. It has thermal compound pre-applied, so you don't have to worry
about that. Just make sure that you have enough slack on the four pin CPU fan
connector to reach the header on your motherboard. I'm going to plug that in.
There we go. Then apply pressure in a diagonal fashion to the four hold down
pins until you hear them snap into place.
Installing RAM is easy as pie. 3.14 that
is. I usually recommend using the two slots that are furthest away from the
CPU socket. And then all you have to do is make sure that you align the notch in
the bottom of the RAM with the notch in the socket. In this particular
motherboard, you can see only one side has a retention clip. So, put that side
in. Put the side with no retention clip in first. Then press down firmly until
the clip goes into place. Rinse and
repeat. Please don't rinse your memory.
Now it's time to move on to the case. So, we're going to open up the side
panels, both side panels, because we're going to need access to the back of it
for all of our cable management. Keep your screws somewhere safe. I recommend
keeping them in a small dish, such as the one that I of course have readily
available right here. thumb screws go in there and put your side panels somewhere
safe. The last thing you want to do is trip over them or something like that
and scratch them or dent them before you even have a chance to put together your
computer. I recommend putting them in the box that they came in with the
packing foam in between. This is an optional step, but I like to do it. So,
you take the box or baggie or whatever the accessories for your case comes in,
open it up, and dump them all out. Make sure they're all there. This particular
case comes with a little inventory on the back of the box that tells you
exactly what should be inside. Then you take all those pieces and dump them in
your tray. That way you know where everything is when you're looking for it
and you don't have to be fumbling around. The next thing to install is the
IO shield. You're going to regret it if you forget this one, so I recommend
doing it first. All you have to do is take it out of the motherboard box,
position it at the back of the case. Sometimes there's a placeholder there.
Don't worry, you're not supposed to use that. just take it out. On this case, we
don't have that, though. And then press on all four corners firmly until you
hear them snap into
place. Next, we're going to prepare the case to have the motherboard inside it.
Fractal includes a little adapter from Phillips head to the hex pieces that are
the motherboard standoffs that you're going to screw into the tray. They also
clearly label with an A for ATX and an M
for MATX or shorter motherboards where
you need to put in the standoffs. We're going to put in nine standoffs in all
the ones marked A. Next, the motherboard goes into the
case. I'd really recommend laying your case flat before doing this.
Then what you do is you position the IO
on the back of the motherboard with the IO in the back of the IO panel which you
just installed. Slide it into place very carefully without scraping the back of
the motherboard against the motherboard standoffs that you also just installed.
I recommend holding the motherboard by the CPU heat sink, that stock heatsink
that we're going to take off, in order to prevent touching sensitive parts on
the motherboard or putting undue strain on other parts of it. Once it's in
position, put in at least one screw so
that it holds in place. Then put in the other eight screws and your
motherboard's installed. Now we're ready to get that stock CPU cooler out of
there and replace it with our aftermarket one. Now, the reason we put
the stock one in in the first place was just in case we had some weird clearance
issues while we were trying to install things in the system. We didn't want to,
you know, have to take an aftermarket one back off because it can be a little
bit more difficult than the plastic push pins that are used on the stock one. So,
I've pulled that off. Now, boop. Now, all we got to do is install our
aftermarket one after, of course, cleaning off the CPU. So, use 99%
isopropyl alcohol, wet a piece of toilet
paper, clean off the bulk of the thermal compound, then follow up with a lintfree
cloth. That's going to allow you to make sure that there's no residue left on the
CPU. Next up, you're going to put some thermal compound on. Your cooler is
going to come with thermal compound. Put on about the same amount as uh about a
cooked grain of rice is what I would go for for a modern
CPU. Now, we need to make a decision about how we're going to orient the heat
sink in our case. Now, if we had top exhaust, we might consider mounting the
heat sink horizontally like this so we could take advantage of it. But we left
the module vents in, which means we don't have top exhaust. So, we're going
to opt to position our heat sink vertically like this. Then, when we
install our fan afterwards, we're going to install it pushing air towards the
back of the case, pulling air through the heat sink so that we're leveraging
that rear 140 mm exhaust. Now, to
install it, you want to make sure that you have enough clearance around your
RAM for the side that you're going to have your fan on. If we had the fan on
this side, say for example, like this, we wouldn't have room with this
high-profile RAM. So, something you might want to consider is going for a
lowprofile Vengeance RAM kit rather than a high-profile one like this if you're
going to use an air cooling heat sink. Instead, what we're going to do is we're
just going to turn it around. So, our fan is going to be right next to our exhaust fan right here on the heat sink.
The good news is that mounting this be quiet! Dark Rock 2 is quite simple. All
you do is position the heat sink. Then you can actually squeeze the back plate
under the thermal armor on the saber-tooth, which is kind of neat because it holds it in place and screw
the four screws in from the back. Then all that's left to do is mount the fan
to the heat sink using the included clips. Plug the CPU fan connector into
the header on your motherboard and you're done. Your heatsink is now
mounted. Next, we're going to install the power supply. So, you have the
option of either having the fan on the bottom of the power supply or on the
top, but we're going to go with the fan pointing down this time around. This
case does have a filtered intake down there, so you don't have to worry about it getting completely clogged up with
dust. But the main reason that we're going this route versus the other way
around is that it looks like our cables are going to have a little bit of
trouble reaching the very top where our eight pin CPU connector is unless we
install it this way. Because the fixed cables on this power supply, the 24 pin
and the 8 pin are going to be over on your right hand side, my left, if I
install it with the fan down. To attach the power supply to the case, we simply
use the four screws that come in their own little baggie that are threaded
correctly for the back of the power supply. So now it's time to start
running some of the connectors. So we're
going to start with the 24 pin connector. This provides most of the power to your motherboard. We get to go
through that nice cable management hole down there at the bottom, through this
other nice cable management hole up here at the top. Then we curve around, plug
that bad boy in, and we have wired our
24 pin connector in a nice, neat, tidy, clean way. Next, we've got our eight pin
connector, which is also going to route behind the motherboard tray. So, it's
going to go right through that bottom spot there. Then is going to come back
up the There we go. top left of the
motherboard tray and plug right into that eight pin connector up at the top
left. This part's a little bit tricky, so if you can't get it yourself, maybe
get someone with small hands to help you out with it. Now, this is the point in
the build guide where it's all about social
networking or making connection. Yeah, making connection connecting things.
That's what I was looking for, right? Connecting things. So, we're going to
start with our front panel connectors. USB 3 is a large block of a connector,
usually blue, very thick, very inflexible. You want to run that as
close as you can to your front USB 3 port, which in the case of this
motherboard happens to be right angle, which is awesome, meaning it's going to
look nice and tidy, and you don't have to have a big loop toloop. Next up,
you've got front USB 2. These ones have a small missing pin, so it only goes in
one way. Plug that block into any of the USB 2 headers on your motherboard.
Usually, there are a couple of them. Finally, we've got front panel
audio. Front panel audio usually has a couple of different options, HD and
AC97. This one only has HD. That's great because it's been a long time since any
motherboard required an AC97 pin out. Once again, missing one block in the
pins. So, just plug that into the front panel connector. Guys, this is the point
in the build where don't be shy about checking out the motherboard manual to
double check where all of these things are, which leaves only the front power
button, reset button, and power LED to
plug in. Now, I normally show you how to
plug these in directly to the board, but because I'm a bit of a purist, but there
is an easier way. ASUS has what they call their Q connector, which allows you
to plug them all in easily where you can see what you're doing and then take that
whole block and plug it into the motherboard. I still insist on doing it
the other way simply because it makes the connector slightly more low profile
so there's less chance of them interfering with anything and I
personally think it looks better this way. But you have either option. We've
got two drives to install. One's a 2 and 1/2 in SSD. The other is a 3 and 1/2 in
hard drive. We're going to opt for using the lower of the drive bays. This is
just to make cable management a little bit more tidy. And to mount our SSD is
very, very simple. You orient the ports towards the back of the case, the side
that we're not working from. Put in at least a couple screws. Let's face it,
it's a non- mechanical device. It's not like it's going to get broken if you don't put in enough screws. And
then slide the cage into place. For the
hard drive, the process is slightly more complicated. Retrieve the sled. We're
still using the same ones. Grab the screws that have the
spacer on them because there are rubber grommets in the sled positioned
perfectly for 3 and 1/2 in drives. Then
orient the ports towards the back of the case that we're not working on. Screw
all four in securely. Remember, this is a mechanical
device. And then slide the sled into the
case. Those rubber grommets are going to help prevent vibrations from being
passed from the drive to your case, which is going to make it operate much
more quietly. Now, we've got to connect those
drives that we just added to the system. This power supply is modular, though, so
there's no SATA connectors attached to it. Go into the usually a little baggie
or box inside your power supply box and grab a dual SATA connector. So, this
will allow us with one cable harness to plug in both drives. You can plug the
six pin connector into any of the outlets on the power supply itself as
long as they are the same. So, six pins.
Then, plug each of the SATA power connectors into the back of the
drives. Once you're finished with power, grab a couple SATA data cables. These
will be included in your motherboard box. I would recommend grabbing one
straight one and one right angle one. Plug the other ends where they're both
straight into the
motherboard. Then plug the straight connector into the SSD and the right
angle connector into the hard drive at the back. As we get close to the end,
you guys are probably starting to notice that this is a really, really tidy
looking build. You can hardly see any wires. This is what great cable
management, a wellthoughtout build, and modular cables will do for you because
we're only going to plug in one more modular cable harness. And this is going
to allow us to get power to our fan speed controller as well as the fans
that are integrated to the case. We're going to allow the ASUS motherboard to
control the CPU fan because it does a really good job of that and it can be
controlled from within AI Suite. So, all we need to do now is plug the modular
connector into the power supply, run it through the back just
like we've done with all the other ones, and we can power all of the fans in this
case simply by plugging one Molex connector into the Molex lead that comes
out of the front panel. Now, at the back of the case, connecting our fans is
simple. We've only got two fans in the case, one at the back, one at the front.
So, we take those leads and plug them into ones that are coming out of the
front fan connector. So, there's one short one. I'd recommend running that
one to the front. And there are two long ones. I'd recommend connecting one of
those to the back. And you can use that other one for something else in the
future should you desire. Maybe an additional front fan if you decide to
add that. So close, guys. Time for a little bit of cable management. Now,
here's a tech tip for you. A lot of your components are going to come with twist
ties. I usually put those with the zip
ties that came with my case because it gives me even more cable fasteners to
use. Some of the zip ties can be particularly long. And these are great
for when you want to take a nice big bundle of cables, take one of those
little hooks that are on the back of the motherboard tray, and then tie the whole
bundle together all in one place like so. Because there's so much cable
management room on the back of the motherboard tray in the Define R4, you
don't have to worry too much about bulky cables causing you to not be able to
close up the side panel once you are done. And now it's time to put that sexy
GTX 780 into your rig. So find the top
PCI Express slot, PCIe16 is the long
slot, and remove the next two PCI slot
covers down from that. So that means removing the thumb screw, not letting
the PCI bracket cover fall onto anything
random because that might be bad. Okay, loosen the thumb screw. Undo it again.
This time not letting it
fall. That time I let the thumb screw fall. Don't worry too much about this,
folks. Don't worry. We got this. We're experts here. All right. Now, you
position the graphics card with the PCI Express 16X slot aligned with the PCI
Express 16X slot in your motherboard.
Make sure everything is lined up correctly. Press down firmly. Then all
you have to do is put those two thumb screws back
in. And then once you're finished with the thumb screws, in much the same
fashion as you did before with your SATA drives as well as your fan controller,
plug the two PCI Express connectors into
your power supply. Run them up the back of the motherboard tray. bring them up
to your graphics card and plug one six
pin connector in. So that's with the two extra pins just left dangling and one
eightpin connector in to your graphics card. Now it has all the power it needs
to deliver all that juicy 3D
goodness. And there you have it, guys. If that's not a gorgeous build, then I
don't know what is. It goes to show you how optimized components as well as
somewhat careful assembly. I mean, we weren't totally militant about the way
that we did our cable management, but it goes to show you how those things
together can turn into a very, very nice
looking rig that you'd be proud to call your gaming machine, but not embarrassed
to call your professional workstation. Now, performance. One of the most fun
things about getting a new computer is comparing it to your old one and going,
"Yeah, that's a lot better." So, I
always like to run some rudimentary benchmarks just to see how much time I'm
going to be saving. But, I guess I'm wasting some of it running the benchmarks. Don't worry too much about
that because we're touting this machine not only as a gaming machine. So, you
might want to run some 3D Mark benchmarks or some built-in benchmarks
in some of your favorite games, but also as a workstation machine. We're going to
run Cinebench, which is a free application for benchmarking, and that
shows off the rendering prowess of your computer. So, we're going to run the CPU
benchmark there. Not only can you evaluate how much of an improvement you
got over your old system, but also how much of an improvement you got by
overclocking. By turning our CPU up from 3.5 GHz, which turbos up to 3.9 with one
or two cores active, all the way up to 4.4 4 GHz on all cores all the time. We
were able to get more than a 25% performance improvement in Cinebench,
which is going to be noticeable in the real world when you're actually working
on things, which I personally think is incredibly cool. And all of that is
while maintaining the silence of this machine to the point where you pretty
much have to put your ear next to it in order to hear the fans. But what's
performance without efficiency? Haswell offers unprecedented C states, that is
lower power states for the CPU to the point where this machine with a GTX 780,
that's a Titanbased GPU, so GK 110 with
a Haswell 4770K, so it's got your hyperthreading, it's got your
overclocking up to 4.4 GHz, idles at 55
watts drawn from the wall. That means the system is actually consuming less
than 50 watts once you factor in the inefficiency of the power supply
converting AC to DC power. Not only that, but when we created a load
scenario that was completely unrealistic running Firmark as well as Ida's CPU
test, we were only able to draw a total of 465 watts from the wall. That means
the actual system power consumption maxes out around 400 watts. Remember
when I said that 550 watt power supply was going to be just fine in this
system? There you go. I wouldn't exactly go and add another GTX 780 to it without
upgrading the power supply, but you'll certainly be able to do small
incremental upgrades like maybe a little bit more RAM or a couple more drives
without any difficulty whatsoever. Now, all of that's fine and good. So, now
we've got power and now we've got efficiency and performance and all that
good stuff. But what about temperatures? Because silence optimized is all fine
and great, but if it's running really hot, you're not going to be comfortable
with it. Even with our overclock, check this out. Running our stress test, we're
running at 63°. Now, this room's a little bit cool. So, let's say maximum
70°, even if you're in quite a warm room. That is pretty darn impressive.
Your Core i7 4770K is going to perform
great and last for a long time with those kinds of temperatures in this kind
of environment. I hope you guys have enjoyed this build guide with featuring
Intel's Haswell fourth generation 4770K. Don't forget to subscribe to
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