Vesta 5350 OC NCIX PC System on the Test Bench Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,224 words · ~6 min read
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Today I have another system from Crazy Russians Crazy Lab. This is the Vesta
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5350 OC and this is going to be a pre-overclocked system. Now we will be
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using the stock default Intel CPU cooler
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which has about 3/4 of an inch of
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aluminum finish going on to cool that. No, we're not going to do that. We're
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going to be using the Cool It Eco liquid cooling system. So, this is a 120 mm
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radiator with a copper heat exchanger as well as a built-in
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pump. That is what we will be using. We will be installing it in the Fractal
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Design Define R3. And this is the system
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configuration we will be using. We have this over here for validation purposes
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only. The system will not come on a high-speed PC tech station. So, what do
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we have in terms of spec? Well, this is the 5350, so somewhere in between the
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5300 and the 5400. It is also the OC. So, we will be pre-overclocking the CPU,
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although we have not yet validated the overclock that we'll be using. So,
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that's going to be to come in a video down the line. This will ship in its
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default configuration with 8 gigs of RAM, a GTX
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560Ti, a 2500 K unlocked CPU. Remember,
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for overclocking on the 1155 platform, you do have to have a K series unlocked
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CPU or you're not going to be going very far. And what we also have here is down
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at the bottom, we have an SSD. So, that's a 40 gig SSD. Now, I've always
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been of the mind that 40 gigs on an SSD is not nearly enough for a boot
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partition, but what we're actually using, and this is the Gigabyte Z68X
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UD3HB3 right here, is a Z68 board. So,
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we're taking that 40 gig SSD and we're using it as a cache using Intel SRT
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technology which is featured on this board for the Western
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Digital Caviar. Oh, well, hold on. Sorry
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guys. Crazy Russian was going like this to me and I thought he meant like, you
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know, one moment please or you're number one or something along those lines. But
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no, that's not what he meant at all. What he actually meant was this is a WD
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Caviar Blue 1 TB that we're using for the boot drive. So, we're using smart
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response technology to accelerate our boot drive without having to buy a
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larger capacity, more expensive SSD to boot off that exclusively. Since we're
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down here, actually, we also have a CIC M12
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uh 620 W power supply that is with 80 plus bronze efficiency. And let's move
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up to the motherboard itself. So, this is the Z68X
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UD3HB3. And if that's a tongue twister, then, well, you need to work on, you
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know, not being puzzled by easy tongue twisters, I guess. Um, but what it is is
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it's a Z68 board. So, that's what gives us support for Intel Smart Response
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Technology. What we also have support for, and you're going to have to come
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around and look at the back of the board for this, is onboard video with HDMI,
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DisplayPort, VGA, and DVI, as well as
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right there, you see that little sticker that says Lucid Virtue. So, we can use
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Intel quick path technology. I think that's what it's called, right? Quick
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path. I don't know what I don't know what it's called, but it's the one that makes your video transcoding go really,
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really fast. Maybe it says on here.
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Virtue virtualization for the onboard GPU. Yes.
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Okay. Yeah. See, they don't they don't say
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either. Either way, it doesn't really matter. What you get is better
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efficiency at idle because you're able to use the onboard GPU. Whenever you're
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idling or doing anything 2D, you can use the onboard GPU. Yeah. So, there's the
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idle power consumption of the system. 56 watts. I know, right? It's like almost
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nothing considering this is a full-blown gaming machine.
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You can use the onboard GPU for video transcoding, which it just kicks butt
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at. It's way faster than using the CPU. It's way faster than even using a
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high-end dedicated GPU. And then when you're gaming, you can actually use the
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power of your dedicated GPU. You can still output. Actually, I think the
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optimized mode is to output through the dedicated GPU and then virtualize this
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one. Either way, you can use this for gaming, this for what it's good at, and
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you win. You get better power consumption, great gaming performance, and great video transcoding performance.
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Now, with the Z68 chipset, uh, yeah,
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that's pretty that's those are the main features you get. We also have support
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on this particular board, which is an awesome value. That's why we went with
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this one for NVIDIA SLI technology as
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well as AMD Crossfire X. So, we can run
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up to two cards in SLI or Crossfire. You
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can configure your system either way you want. And that'll be running in 8x8x
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mode, which as we've tested in the past on my show, does not give you any sort
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of a performance disadvantage versus running in 16x and 16x mode. The board
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also has dual BIOS, which is nice. That's a great overclocking friendly
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feature because it means that even if you screw something up when you're
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overclocking it on your own, remember your NCIX PC warranty is not invalidated
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by overclocking. So, I mean, this is going to come pre-overclocked. You can
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see if you can push it a little bit further if you want. That's also good.
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Um, you can recover to the main BIOS if you screw something up, which is great.
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You've also got a solid power delivery system, especially for a board in this
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kind of a price bracket. That's a 6 plus one phase power design with lower RDS
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MOSFETs and ferite core chokes. Also, solid capacitors. And I think that
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pretty much covers everything to say about this little guy. Oh, actually, one
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more thing. Check this out. So, the front USB right here. So, your two front
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USB ports will be hooked up to the one with the red background. And what that
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means is that it can deliver up to 40%
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more amperage on your front USB. That means you can actually charge your iPad
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or even a tablet if you have the utility installed on your PC. And you can charge
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it right off a USB port without using a power adapter from the wall. So, thank
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you for checking out my little introductory video of the Vesta 5350 OC.
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And hopefully you guys will stick around and check out the video once we've got the overclock validated, once we've got
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it all built up, and once we have this thing priced out. Cuz I don't even have
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a price yet. We're just making sure that it's going to be awesome first.