Power Efficient Gaming PC

kar · 7 Oct 2011 at 20:29

I've done a bit of a search and I haven't quite found much on the sort of PC build I'm after. So please forgive me for starting a new thread.

Basically these days I use my PC for work far more than gaming. And I don't think that's likely to change going forward. So my current desktop E8400, EVGA 5870, 6 gig of ram with a million fans and 800w corsair power supply is perhaps overpowered even for what I use it for now.

What I was thinking, is I still want a system I can play games on, mostly starcraft 2, with a little bit of teamfortress and probably battlefield 3. But in the main I'm going to be using the computer for software development and I want to be able to run mac osx (osx86 project) on it if possible. Or failing that, a flavour of Linux.

What I want is a workstation that doesn't suck up excess power and is generally pretty quiet. I want a case that is 'professional' looking. I'm quite keen on the Corsair 650 series (although I've heard they are loud).

So things that are important to me in order of importance
1. High Performance per watt
2. Lots of ram
3. Excellent virtualisation performance
4. Good to very good gaming performance
5. Quiet
6. Attractive, 'professional/classy' looking case

I was thinking of waiting for the Ivy Bridge platform as that seems to be ideal in terms of power consumption for performance. But where I am getting tripped up, is what to do about Graphics. Integrated just wont cut it. But having a top of the line AMD/Nvidia graphics card is overkill as well. I need to balance the fact I'll be more likely to be writing gamecode with this PC than playing games on it.

To put things into context, I'm half considering a Mac Mini, or a 15" Mac Book Pro and ditching a desktop altogether. But I would rather not be extorted by Apple.

Any tips or advice on what to look for, or alternatives to consider?

Cheers for any help!

One last point to make, is price is not really a factor here (within reason, I wouldn't spend > 4k for example even if the system was perfect).

Orcvader · 7 Oct 2011 at 21:20

I think a 2500K and a 6850 would suit you perfectly. However, if you're willing to wait for Ivy Bridge, then the 7000 series should be released then. Looking at the specs so far a 7870 looks like it may bring 6970 performance with 6850 power draws, but we have to wait until they're released to actually see how well it goes against the 6000 series.

Seeing as you don't really have a price limit, you can buy the 650D and replace the fans with quieter ones, and to help silence it even further you can add some sound proofing foam too.

As for a nice quiet cooler for the CPU, maybe consider something like the H80? Maybe the H100 with lower RPM fans.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 7 Oct 2011 at 21:25

It might be worth seeing how Bulldozer performs when it is launched next week. Intel is also launching the Core i7 2700K too. With regards to the PSU I would be looking at the Seasonic X series or the similar Corsair AX series.

MikeHunt79 · 8 Oct 2011 at 16:20

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It might be worth seeing how Bulldozer performs when it is launched next week. Intel is also launching the Core i7 2700K too. With regards to the PSU I would be looking at the Seasonic X series or the similar Corsair AX series.

Ivy Bridge is also worth keeping an eye out for as it's gonna be a die shrink offering better performance per watt.

Reaper 392 · 8 Oct 2011 at 17:22

couple of questions:

what is your budget? i have a couple of ideas on where to go with this, but a lot of it depends on the budget

do any of your programs take advantage of cuda cores in Nvidia graphics cards? the reason i ask is that the higher end Nvidia graphics cards use up a lot more power for their returns, but if this power allows you to use the cuda cores then its totally worth it.
its probably best to do a check on each program you use because this is something i dont know much about (i know that it gives some programs a massive performance boost, but thats about it)

kar · 8 Oct 2011 at 18:58

Reaper 392 said:
couple of questions:

what is your budget? i have a couple of ideas on where to go with this, but a lot of it depends on the budget

do any of your programs take advantage of cuda cores in Nvidia graphics cards? the reason i ask is that the higher end Nvidia graphics cards use up a lot more power for their returns, but if this power allows you to use the cuda cores then its totally worth it.
its probably best to do a check on each program you use because this is something i dont know much about (i know that it gives some programs a massive performance boost, but thats about it)

Thanks for all the tips.

I don't think anything I would do day to day would require Cuda extremely. Unless virtual machines somehow suddenly started leveraging them in some fashion.

In terms of budget, I was in my head thinking around 2k. But if the machine was absolutely perfect and could tick all my boxes I wouldn't lose too much sleep pushing up to 4k. My missus would get very upset if I spent any more than that though... :-)

Reaper 392 · 8 Oct 2011 at 19:34

2k is more than enough for what your after. something like this will be great:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £249.98
1 x Silverstone Fortress 2 FT02B-W Windowed Gaming Case - Black £219.98
2 x MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Dirt3 & Deus Ex PC Games £215.99 (£431.98)
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £145.99
1 x OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £59.99
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £54.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £37.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total: £1,476.85 (includes shipping: FREE).

you will probably want to make a seperate order for a second lot of the RAM so you have 16GB, but i cant put that in my basket

the computer will pull no more than 600W, but i chose the 850W PSU because PSUs arent quite as efficient at the higher end of their output.

if you feel that two 6950s are complete overkill then you could happily back down to just a single card and a lower rated PSU. two 6950s will almost certainly max out BF3 on a single monitor, whereas one will probably get pretty high settings, but not maximum

i chose the case because it looks similar to the corsair 650, has amazing air cooling with its rotated motherboard and it has sound insulating panels which should make it nice and quiet

SheepBeast · 9 Oct 2011 at 00:16

in terms of CPU there's nothing which fits your requirements better than a 2600 or a 2600k. bear in mind that you probably won't want to overclock much as it would reduce performance/watt and increase required cooling hence noise levels. this http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1618527 also may affect your choice (right at the bottom of the page). non-k version has support for some stuff the k version doesn't. i don't have time right now to do further research for you but i thought i'd mention it as it doesn't seem to be very common knowledge. it's probably worth finding out if the programs you use would make us of this becase if they do the non-k version would be a better choice. i'm not sure how much of a performance difference it makes though so again either research yourself or start a thread specifically about it.

generally reaper's suggestions what i'd suggest too. maybe a corsair ax 750 or 850 for the power supply. bit more expensive but you're way under budget atm anyway. the ax series are completely passive at low loads (<20% iirc) so a lot of the time they make no noise whatsoever. you also definitely want 16GB RAM as it's so cheap at the moment.

SheepBeast · 9 Oct 2011 at 00:22

also regarding graphics - it's probably worth it for you to wait for the 7000 series to be released. should happen in the next few months and performance/watt should be roughly double that of the 6000 series, along with resultant noise reduction. you could maybe stick a crappy card in the rig for now and then put a new card in down the line when they're released.

it's too early to tell if ivy bridge will be worth the wait. i'm thinking not, as it's quite a long way off (no earlier than april 2012). by that time, haswell will be the new thing being hyped and you'll have a very similar dilemma. imho unless a superior product is literally a couple of weeks from release there's no point waiting.

MikeHunt79 · 9 Oct 2011 at 17:45

SheepBeast said:
also regarding graphics - it's probably worth it for you to wait for the 7000 series to be released. should happen in the next few months and performance/watt should be roughly double that of the 6000 series, along with resultant noise reduction. you could maybe stick a crappy card in the rig for now and then put a new card in down the line when they're released.

it's too early to tell if ivy bridge will be worth the wait. i'm thinking not, as it's quite a long way off (no earlier than april 2012). by that time, haswell will be the new thing being hyped and you'll have a very similar dilemma. imho unless a superior product is literally a couple of weeks from release there's no point waiting.

I guess so, it's hard to know how much performance per watt your going to get until the CPU's are actually made. i3/i5/i7 is pretty good though so you can't go wrong with them.

Reaper 392 · 9 Oct 2011 at 18:06

SheepBeast said:
bear in mind that you probably won't want to overclock much as it would reduce performance/watt and increase required cooling hence noise levels.

erm... what? overclocking increases the performance per watt. it allows you to run the processor faster while using the same amount of voltage and amps, giving better performance per watt.

stulid · 9 Oct 2011 at 18:11

Reaper 392 said:
erm... what? overclocking increases the performance per watt. it allows you to run the processor faster while using the same amount of voltage and amps, giving better performance per watt.

Overclocking increases the voltage/amps used.

MikeHunt79 · 10 Oct 2011 at 18:05

stulid said:
Overclocking increases the voltage/amps used.

Exactly, if you want the best performance per watt you're better off underclocking.

SheepBeast · 10 Oct 2011 at 18:37

Reaper 392 said:
erm... what? overclocking increases the performance per watt. it allows you to run the processor faster while using the same amount of voltage and amps, giving better performance per watt.

you have a point but only for minor overclocks. anything which requires a voltage increase (ie any decent OC) will reduce performance/watt hence why i said to OP "bear in mind that you probably won't want to overclock much as it would reduce performance/watt"

like mike said, the OP may be better undervolting as he could reduce power consumption and noise by quite a lot for not much of a performance hit. iirc the graph of power use against clock speed is a sorta exponential shape, with the stock usually set in the area before the slope becomes very steep but there should still be a solid reduction.