Author’s note:
I won’t bother with the whole series,
just know that I have been considering a replacement for my current
computer and this is the survey of possible contenders.
I started off looking at server
machines because I like reliable solid gear but after digging into
the costs of buying the parts and seeing it was around $10k I decide
to rethink.
Here is the chart I made up comparing CPU power and cost for high end desktop gear:
So, from the CPU chart it can be seen
that although server grade Xeon CPUs beat the heck out of anything
else, the wallet is going to be bitten hard: and note that cost is only
the CPUs, one must add in the cost of the rest of the machine too . .
. . . . so why insist on server gear? Will I be running it 24/7?
nope. Will it need to be running full bore all the time? Nope.
Ten grand is a year’s worth of
savings for me so anything I buy better be worth it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sooooo . . . . how about the latest
Intel CPUs?
The Core i9-7980XE looks impressive but
once again the wallet will suffer for it and then there are a couple
of other issues: first, it uses a lot of power and generates a lot of
heat to get that performance so you better make sure it has lots of
cooling, and then there is the matter of getting hold of one: nobody
is selling made up machines with one in . . . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So that leads to the current
top-of-the-heap from Intel, the Core i9-7900X.
I wouldn’t be getting one without a
GTX 1080 Ti GPU card as that is the best current one - so, after a
bit of digging around here are a new group of contenders - all have
the 7900X and a GTX1080 Ti, I didn’t care so much about the other
bits.
(1) PCCG Phantom $6899
Has two 1080 Ti’s in SLI (joined
config)
(2) Alienware Area 51 $5999 ($1000
discount)
(3) Kenjun Special $5084
(4) Newegg Battlebox $4257
This might look simple but there
are hidden costs: all must be shipped to your door and the Newegg
will come from California. I can’t get any info about how
much shipping will cost at the moment – Newegg didn’t answer my
question.
Both (1) and (3) ship inside Australia.
If I knew what the shipping cost of the Battlebox was I might choose
it first but I get that sneaky feeling it’s going to hike up the
price near the $5k line again and the Battlebox has one of those
garish glass-n-lights boxes too.
The PCCG is a bit pricey - even
if you pull one of the GTX cards and The SLI bridge out, it still comes in at $5561 - and they won’t let you change the
config, you have to take what they sell and change it yourself after
which sucks.
The best is the Kenjun, they will let you
change things once you have placed your order and it comes in a plain
black case instead of one of those ugly glass-and-lights thingos.
They are based in QLD so it should not be too pricey to get a
delivery and I could even maybe get the door replaced with one that
does not have glass but sound deadening instead. Nice, quiet, plain
black box: I want all the action in my computer to be on the screen.
-----------------------------------------------------
This should give a net performance gain
of either 164 % according to Passmark or 184% according to Geekbench
when compared to my current computer.
Yeah, benchmarking is crap
huh? If you get nothing else from this article, bear this in mind. Look at the three benchmarking columns above - and how consistent they are. not.
-----------------------------------------------------
I was really hoping to double my
performance but the only way to do that without going overboard is
the 7980XE – well, unless I go back to the server gear again and
that adds $4k-$5k to the cost.
Considering that this (current)
computer has cost me about $7k without including several extras
(SSD’s, GPU card, RAM), paying out $5k doesn’t sound too bad. It
also has upgrade potential that the old one lacks. Well, okay, it
looks that way at the moment but then many have been infuriated in the past by changes in sockets, chips and so on so it doesn’t pay
to get too optimistic about that.
Well, regardless of that, I maintain
that if it took me six months to save the money I should take a
corresponding long time to spend it too.
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