Build It: How to Build a Kick-Ass Ivy Bridge Gaming PC, Step by Step

Posted 07/06/2012 at 12:37pm | by Nathan Edwards

1. These fold-down panels can accommodate several 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch hard drives mounted vertically.

2. Both 12cm front intake fans and the 18cm side-panel fan (not shown) have speed and light controls in the case’s top panel.

3. This PSU-securing strap seems more decorative than functional, but why take chances?

THE IVY BRIDGE DIFFERENCE

IVY BRIDGE dOESN’T overclock as easily as Sandy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-E, but I was still able to get to an easy 4.2GHz by boosting the CPU’s Turbo ratio in the BIOS, and I could have pushed it further if I had more time. Regardless, Intel’s not joking about Ivy Bridge’s prowess: This machine, with an Ivy Bridge i7-3770K at 4.2GHz, performed slightly better than our June 2012 Build It, which featured a Sandy Bridge-E i7-3820 at 4.4GHz. Clock for clock, Ivy Bridge wins.
We used the exact same GPU in both the Ivy Bridge box and the Sandy Bridge-E machine, and they performed the same in gaming benchmarks. No shock there.

BENCHMARKS	ZERO POINT	Ivy Bridge
Vegas Pro (sec)	3049	2,418
Lightroom 2.6 (sec)	356	258
ProShow 4 (sec)	1,112	887
MainConcept 1.6 (sec)	2,113	1,698
stalker: CoP (fps)	42.0	62.6
Far Cry 2 (fps)	114.4	151.3

Our current desktop test bed consists of a quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, 6GB of Corsair DDR3/1333 overclocked to 1,750MHz, on a Gigabyte X58 motherboard. We are running an ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card, a 160GB Intel X25-M SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate.

To my surprise, the lack of an SSD didn’t hurt me in the benchmarks, except perhaps in Sony Vegas Pro 9, where my machine lagged slightly behind last month’s build. Windows doesn’t load quite as fast, nor do game levels, but despite its lack of an SSD, this month’s rig feels very fast. Granted, the VelociRaptor is a $300 mechanical 1TB drive, and the fastest we’ve ever experienced.

If you’re building a gaming PC from scratch today, Ivy Bridge—specifically the Core i7-3770K—is the way to go, unless you think you’ll want to upgrade to a six-core CPU down the line. But for $1,888 with a top-of-the-line graphics card, this Ivy Bridge machine is tough to beat on either price or performance.

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NavarWynn

July 12, 2012 at 12:17pm

Overall, the article, and the tech, and the end product is pretty typical. A wicked fast gaming PC built w/ off the shelf parts (that would stress even most 1%ers budgets ;-)) But guys, I feel like you are missing a lot of the creativity. Here are just a *few* things *creative* you could try out...

A workstation based gaming rig? don't tell me the thought of 3 GPUs, 2 CPUS, 20 cores / 40 threads, and 512gb of RAM @ 1800mhz doesn't give you a bit of a stiffy. Sure it may not run all your benchmarks, but some of us have the $25k necessary to run a single machine like that... Maybe you could show us if it would really be worth it?

A *real* budget price/performance machine - say $400?

An upgradable custom case rig?

How about upgrading an existing case to improve thermals, access, capability, etc.? Even something as simple as lighting? (just an idea ;-) ) With benchmarks, and load tests to show how much you improved it?

Setup a proper test bench to load test individual components & individual component upgrades?

Pop the top off an Ivy bridge to upgrade it's thermal dispersion?

Maybe do some proper white pages (like in the past) on the proper procedures for your articles/ conclusions/predictions?

Frankly guys, while the 'everyday' MPC articles are usually decent, frankly, they are getting kind of boring. I know most of you (like us) are just geeks - not mechanical and electrical engineers, but maybe you could at least *stretch* the box a little (even if you don't actually go outside it)...

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Danthrax66

July 08, 2012 at 11:06am

What is with the table on the last page????????

compguytracy

July 08, 2012 at 7:28am

it looks like you went out of your way to get a crappy case, bad design, plastic clips, cable routing problems. why not get a better case?

waynesalt

July 08, 2012 at 4:50am

Curious, I know this is MPC, but is the kickass pc supposed to be budget friendly? I mean I Know that $1888 isn't Really pricey, but can't some of the things have been changed to fit a lower budget, for mainstream people? Like maybe a 2TB HDD and lose the SSD and V-raptor, a 7870 instead of 670, 8GB ram, a 3570k instead of a 3770k, should save at Least a couple hundred dollars...

Penterax

July 07, 2012 at 4:01am

Thanks for using the 1 TB VelociRaptor. It's nice to see someone build without following conventional "wisdom".

I keep wondering why no one tests 2 V-Raptors (or more) in RAID 0 against their SSDs; don't want to show up their favorites? Sure, they point to the single-drive numbers and say something like "See, even twice as fast, the hard drive just can't catch up to a modern SSD in any test." Okay then, bench it!

Okay okay I'm admitting it, I'm a V-Raptor fanboy looking to hold on to his favorite drives a bit longer. It'll be a bit sad for me, in a way, when I build again, and relegate my current ones to data drives behind that bad-boy SSD.

;)

Danthrax66

July 08, 2012 at 11:09am

velociraptors will always loose to SSDs. It isn't even a competition really since SSDs get 2-3x the read/write speeds and also have .1ms or less latency while the velociraptor has 7ms or more. Velociraptors are good for storage is you need speed, but even then you can get 15k rpm SAS drives that will perform better and more reliably.

Gezzer

July 07, 2012 at 3:46am

Okay this isn't a troll.
More of a gripe.

I remember when Max PC didn't pad it's page count with a "build a PC" how-to in every issue. When I saw the last build 3 different PCs article with no how-to I breathed a sigh of relief. Only to find another build how-to further on in the mag.

Yes there are Max PC readers who have never built a PC before, all 5 of them. But give me a break. How about a link to an in depth how-to instead. Then just add the link after each story, and update the on-line content as/if needed.

I'm just saying.

Hilarity

July 07, 2012 at 12:29am

FX 4170 + 7950 + 8GB DDR3 1600MHz, pocket the cash saved. No, you don't need Intel for a 1080p gaming build, and no Bulldozer isn't THAT bad. I'd also drop the SSD and get a single 2TB drive, loading times are irrelevant for a gaming system. You need bulk storage for today's ~15GB console ports.

cldmstrsn

July 06, 2012 at 10:12pm

I have a 670 and in my experience runs better than a 7970. so if you are looking for a great card pick the 670.

waynesalt

July 06, 2012 at 8:50pm

Is the 670 worth getting over say a 7870? If you look at performance vs price, isnt the 7870 just slightly behind but a fair bit cheaper?

Hooded

July 06, 2012 at 7:28pm

I can't say that I would be using any spinning disc for a gaming rig these days.

I have at least two 120gb ssd's in each of my gaming rig's.
Whats with the 8gb of RAM? Boost it up to 16 so you can run without a swap file.

ohsnaps1104

July 07, 2012 at 12:31am

Who uses 16 gigs of RAM? I have 8 with page file disabled, works just fine.

aferrara50

July 09, 2012 at 8:01am

I have 64 gb and nearly all of it gets utilized. You set up a ram disk and load all of the applications that you commonly use off of the ram, especially games. Read/write speeds ~7,000mbs destroys even today's fastest ssds in raid 0.

BryceBooth

July 06, 2012 at 10:18pm

Optical drives have their uses, such as transcoding your own movies, ripping cd's. As for RAM, I certainly agree with the minor cost of upping it to 16 GB, however, it's usually best to leave the page file as is. Yes, it's a gaming rig, but what happens when you start multi-tasking, or dive into Photoshop?
Sometimes it's best to err on the side of caution.

Hooded

July 07, 2012 at 7:00am

Running an x58 system with 24gb ram no swap file.

Run Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash all at the same time while in and out of either Access or an MS SQL DB. Also playing music with iTunes have never had a problem. No Swap file.
SSD's especially the sata3 ones are fast enough not to require a swap file. On a spinning disc a swap file is accessed faster because of it's size and location on the disc. Preventing alot of disc seeking. SSD'd don't have this limitation.

BryceBooth

July 07, 2012 at 9:40am

I believe you, but I was simply stating that not everyone uses their rig the same as everyone else. Some may delve into Photoshop's settings, and allocate all their RAM to the program. Sure, one can disable the swap file, but it's not hurting you if it goes unused either.

fygquas

July 06, 2012 at 7:44pm

You mean like 8GB RAM + 8GB RAM disk?

xenetic

July 06, 2012 at 5:34pm

If you want to spend more money on less gaming performance, follow this guide. If you want more performance for around a grand, go with a 3570K (hyper-threading is rarely used in gaming, not worth the extra $100), and an OC'd GTX 670 (matches the performance of a stock 680). Also, ditch the velociraptor. Grab a 120 gig SSD for less than $100 and a 2TB HDD.
I made an account just to respond to this "Kick-Ass" gaming PC guide. You guys should probably remove this post. Surely Gordon knows better than this.

TheMissingPiece

July 06, 2012 at 7:11pm

This article was written before the GTX 670 was even available, and Maximium PC hadn't reviewed the 3570K to recommend it yet, thus justifying the selection of those two parts. The use of the Velociraptor was more of a personal choice, although it is a good hard drive for those who do not want to deal with the troubles of micromanaging an SSD.