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Once the machine was built and the wiring tidied up a bit, I fired it up and installed Windows and all the drivers, then I updated the BIOS to the latest version and did a bit of overclocking. Well, my first attempt at updating the BIOS corrupted it. Fortunately the Gigabyte board automatically restored the BIOS from its backup, and I was able to successfully update that. A simple multiplier overclock brought the proc to 4GHz—not very ambitious, but very safe. I also made sure my RAM was set to its XMP profile timing of DDR3/2133. These efforts gave me modest improvements over the stock-clocked state in the CPU- and memory-bound benchmarks.
So how does my CrossFireX rig stack up? Against our aged zero-point it’s a slaughter: anywhere from 15 to 32 percent faster in CPU-bound benchmarks, and a whopping 238 percent improvement in STALKER: Call of Pripyat and 92 percent in Far Cry 2. So to make things interesting, I also tested it against our 2011 Dream Machine.
In CPU tests, the Dream Machine clearly has the edge—namely, a 20 percent clock advantage. With its unlocked 2600K overclocked to 4.8GHz, it crushed the i7-3820 in this month’s rig, which was a whopping 23 percent slower than its older rival in MainConcept Reference and 12 percent slower in Vegas Pro 9.
In graphics-bound tests, though, the Dream Machine is dethroned. The triple Radeon HD 7970s proved their mettle against even Superclocked GTX 580s, with 13 percent gains in Stalker and 24 percent in Far Cry 2. The triple 7970s are so powerful, actually, that they edge out the dual overclocked GTX 590s found in the CyberPower Fang III reviewed in this issue (page 76). That’s triple CrossFireX beating quad SLI!
As if that weren’t impressive enough, this rig puts out the second-highest 3DMark 11 Extreme score of any machine we’ve tested, at X7,619. That’s just a tiny bit below the X7,785 set by the Maingear rig we tested in February 2012. And Unigine Heaven 2.5? Try 75.4fps with all settings maxed out. That’s 5fps more than the dual Asus Mars II cards (quad GTX 580s) in the Maingear. For reference, the mighty Dream Machine’s three 580 cards came in at X5,863 in 3DMark and 43.4 fps in Heaven.
True, the rig I’ve built lacks water-cooling, a Blu-ray drive, or scads of storage. It’s also got a CPU with a modest overclock. But thanks to the extraordinary performance of its three Radeon HD 7970s, it’s a hell of a lot of rig for under $3,400.
Comments are closed on this article
andy_wh2000
April 17, 2012 at 9:35pm
Tomshardware did a good article on the latest GTX680 vs 7970 in SLI and CFX. The GTX did perform better overall in most benchmarks and it was only dual card setups, but one point they made was in the overclocking scalability of the cards. The AMD card had much more headroom and actually beat out Nvidia in some suites in that case due to the fact that the 680 is technically O/C'ed already from the GPU boost. stock for stock the 680 is a better board but they're capabilities are actually very much similar.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-sli-overclock-surround,3162-11.html
Pruneface
April 21, 2012 at 6:13pm
Agreed. However, I'd go with whatever is cheaper. I'll admit, i prefer nvidia to amd on the high end, but i prefer amd on the low end. i dont play metro 2033 at 2560x1600
h e x e n
April 17, 2012 at 4:29am
Did you experience any micro-stutter or have problems with the tri CFX setup? Everything gravy?
I like your choice of case. Very slick. :D
usmckozmo
April 16, 2012 at 8:15pm
Nice build! I'm sure the CPU has more then 4ghz in it with that cooler...why don't you see how far you can push it just on air?
On a side note: Whats the name of that multi-function panel in the top-most 5 1/4 slot? I've got my eye out for USB 3.0 front ports/card reader for my new build, and that looks like it will do the job nicely.
biggiebob12345
April 16, 2012 at 4:41pm
3960X + 4 GTX 680's in SLI. Read and weep:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1220962/vegas-heavyweight-display-and-computer-edition-2012
kixofmyg0t
April 16, 2012 at 8:24pm
AMD Brock Lesner-Driver + 12 7990's in multiway Crossfire. Read and weep
http://www.ofcourse4newercardsaregonnabefasterthan.3oldercards.xxx
vrmlbasic
April 16, 2012 at 3:22pm
My 6850 hangs its head in shame.
7970, 6850...amazing the difference "1120" makes, isn't it? ;)
Though with all that CrossFire goodness your build doesn't seem to have any expansion slots left open. Now, I haven't put anything into my rig's expansion slots (besides the aforementioned 6850) but I don't like the idea of not being able to.
Maybe that's just me?
Brett Schealler
April 16, 2012 at 2:33pm
On page 1 it states "The Core i7-3820 isn’t an unlocked part..."
On page 3 it states "A simple multiplier overclock brought the proc to 4GHz..."I thought only an unlocked processor could bump up the multiplier above stock levels?
OccultAssassin
April 16, 2012 at 2:48pm
It probably has a partially unlocked multiplier.
Edit: I think you need the right chipset mobo as well not 100% sure about that part.
Kinetic
April 16, 2012 at 1:51pm
Just out of curiosity, what are the temps on the top and middle graphics cards?
MCWacker
April 16, 2012 at 1:09pm
I know that the hard drive prices are inflated and all but $230 seems a bit expensive for a 3gb drive. May want to fix that to tb. ;)
nedwards
April 16, 2012 at 1:11pm
That was the price at the time of the build; I've added an editor's note at the top explaining this.
j_j_montez
April 16, 2012 at 2:26pm
I also thought it was high for a 3GB drive. Now a 3TB drive would be better fit. But maybe it is a really dependable drive.
Recidivist
April 16, 2012 at 1:48pm
He was trying to inform you that the image stating the specs shows a "3GB" HDD for $230, rather than a(presumably) "3TB" HDD, not that you had mispriced something.
MCWacker
April 16, 2012 at 1:51pm
We have a winner!
But yeah, it says Gb, where as I would assume it should say TB.
nedwards
April 16, 2012 at 6:16pm
Gah, the bad part about using images for charts is that it's a pain to edit them. Yeah, it's 3TB :P
j_j_montez
April 17, 2012 at 10:06am
I love that edit job. Thanks for posting articles like this, it's one of my favorite things about MPC.
JohnP
April 16, 2012 at 1:33pm
Isn't the relentless march of technology something? You can build it, test it, publish it, and half of the stuff has been bumped, dropped, tweaked, changed or cheaper. Hell, if you waited another week to put this online, you would be up against the new breed of Ivy Bridge coming out. You can't win, heh.
