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Conventional wisdom says that PC performance doesn’t matter anymore. That’s because the average consumer, the average gamer, and the average PC jockey can’t tell the difference between a slow POS machine and a fast one. Well guess what, baby? That’s a bunch of crap.
Each part was carefully selected for its ability to kick ass
The truth is, the average gamer can tell the difference between a slide show and 110fps. The average consumer knows that a five-minute boot isn’t good and the average PC jockey really doesn’t like to wait five hours to encode a video. It’s not that they can’t tell the difference, they’ve just resigned themselves to the changing personal computing landscape, buying into the malarkey that portability and “the cloud” trump speed and power.
Dream Machine 2012 video preview
Well, not us. As power users our aspirations for an ever-more-capable, barrier-busting desktop rig never falter. For you, for us, and for all the PC enthusiasts who still give a damn, we present a preview of the utopia we envision: Dream Machine 2012.
This rig is lovingly crafted to be our most elegant Dream Machine yet, without compromising the thing that matters most: performance.
| Category | Make/Model | URL | Price |
| CPU | Intel 3.1GHz Xeon E5-2687W | www.intel.com | $1,885 |
| Motherboard | Asus P9X79 WS | www.asus.com/ | $380 |
| RAM |
64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DRR3/2133 |
http://www.corsair.com | $899 |
| GPUs |
2x EVGA Hydro Copper Geforce GTX690 |
www.evga.com | $2,400 |
| SSDs | 2x OCZ Vertex 4 512GB | www.ocztechnology.com | $1,198 |
| HDDs | 3x 4TB HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 | www.hgst.com | $1,587 |
| Case | Silverstone TJ11 | www.silverstonetek.com | $590 |
| Paint Job | Smooth Creations | www.smoothcreationsonline.com | $700 |
| Keyboard | Corsair Vengeance K90 | http://www.corsair.com | $129 |
| Speakers | Audioengine 5+ | www.audioengineusea.com | $399 |
| Mouse | Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino | www.cyborggaming.com | $99 |
| PSU | Corsair AX1200i | http://www.corsair.com | $350 |
| Monitor | 2x Dell U3011 | www.dell.com | $2,800 |
| Cooling | Various | $926 | |
| OS | Windows 7 Professional | www.microsoft.com | $140 |
| Total Cost | $14,482 |
Comments are closed on this article
Drew7
September 19, 2012 at 8:19pm
1100T 3.3 Ghz, 16GB Corsair, 1.25 TB of storage. Main use; Photoshop. No discreet graphics, but I will eventually. And uh... This set-up will last me just fine for quite a while. Not the fastest, not the best, and far from being a "Dream Machine", but... It's my baby. And I love her. :) :) :) <3 <3 <3
Valor958
September 20, 2012 at 5:31am
Let me guess... TL;DR for the article right? The last statement in the article is asking to tell them about your build in the comments section, which this guy did. Nice job being just another anonymous online e-jerk for the sake of it. Being on the internet is no excuse for stupidity.
kevaskous
September 21, 2012 at 5:19am
No worries, I'm sure mummy makes your PC all up to your standards. wish we all had a mum like that.
Andrew.Hodge
September 20, 2012 at 11:32pm
A piece if shit machine can still be a gaming rig. Just because someone doesn't have thousands of dollars to spend on a machine to play games on doesn't mean they don't have a right to talk about it.
kevaskous
September 20, 2012 at 12:54am
Obviously you, being you commented and dealt with the spam filter and all :)
UrbanSmooth
September 19, 2012 at 8:09pm
1. WHY, tell me WHY do you go with a two-monitor setup? With that much gaming juice under the good, go with three monitors for Nvidia Surround.
2. Come on, man! Really, 64GB of RAM? That's seriously overdoing it. You're wasting unnecessary money here. Go with the "sweet spot" of 8GB to 16GB of faster RAM, CAS 6 or 7.
3. Who the heck really needs over one petabyte of storage? What, are you trying to be the record-holder for the most downloaded torrents? Drop the slow HDDs.
4. Why do people think that they need to purchase two SSDs and raid them? One is fast enough!
5. Two dual-GPU video cards are slower and more expensive than three single-GPU video cards. Go with three GTX 680 4GBs to complement the three-monitor Nvidia Surround setup.
6. Next time you want to build a Dream Machine, consult with me first. Seriously.
avenger48
September 19, 2012 at 10:02pm
I would've gone with an EVGA SR-X, two of the same CPUs, the same GPU setup, 32GB of RAM (future-proof and you can get 4GB density cheaply nowadays). Top it off with a Sata-3 RAID card (Newegg has a nice Intel one, the RT3WB080) filled with 8 Corsair Force GT 480GB SSDs (In RAID 0+1, for ~2TB of redundant, ultra fast storage. Hey, it's the Dream Machine!), four of those Hitachis (Why not? Also, a Petabyte is 1,000TB, not 12...), same case (it'll fit an SR-X) but with a black and red paint job instead.
As Urban suggested, three of these monitors would be much better. I would also get a Logitech Z906 instead for speakers, so you can have surround sound with your Nvidia Surround. Upgrade the non-sub speakers to some nice bookshelf units to fix the sound quality difference.
I would use a Mionix Naos instead for the mouse, since I personally find it to be much more comfortable than the RAT (and yes, I have used a RAT, I found the sharp edges and central gap to be incredibly annoying, and was annoyed by the subpar PTE sensor). As for the keyboard, I would get a Razer Blackwidow Ultimate DA2 and reshell it with a standard blackwidow ultimate shell. The Dream Machine is price-no-object, and this is easy and would result in a cool, custom red-backlit Razer Blackwidow Ultimate. This whole monster would be powered by an EVGA SuperNOVA NEX1500 and run Windows 7 Ultimate (again, why not?). It also needs a disk drive (more convenient for game installs, especially old games). As such, I would toss in a Blu-Ray burner.
vrmlbasic
September 19, 2012 at 9:31pm
"4. Why do people think that they need to purchase two SSDs and raid them? One is fast enough!"
--MaximumPC has no need for fools who can imagine "enough" when it comes to performance. I think you've missed the point of the article.
Also, they don't have a petabyte in there, I hope you were being sarcastic.
jedisamurai
September 19, 2012 at 7:42pm
Sure performance matters...it just doesn't matter as much as it used to.
Unless you only play FPS and your work involves Autocad, Video Rendering, or CGI Rendering, most people just can't see that much of a difference between low end and high end.
Case-in-point: My aging Gateway 5662 with it's ancient Quad-Core 9500 and a measley 4 gigs of ram was running slower than molasses on a cold day in the arctic, but only on the desktop. Games ran just fine on my 23 inch screen with acceptable frame-rates using my truly old 9800GT.
I swapped the boot drive for a 120GB SSSD I got for a hundred bucks and wham! I'm good to go for a few more years (desktop slowdown is gone). And runs DC Universe and Old Republic at highest settings. What more does the average Joe need?
Granite
September 20, 2012 at 9:41am
The Average Joe is not going to be playing Crysis 3 on 2-3 27+" monitors. But someone who reads MPC will.
Granite
September 19, 2012 at 7:27pm
You should have gone with two 30+" touch screen monitors. That way you could upgrade to Win8 next month and have each UI on it's own monitor.
usernonfriendly
September 19, 2012 at 7:11pm
I have a slight problem with the watercooling setup aesthetically speaking. I would have had the tubing from the 560 rad to the single rad, then the supremacy block and then the 690's (in parallel). With this no tubes are crossing over each other which translates to a cleaner look. Lets not forget that the order of components do not matter so long as the reservoir feeds into the pump .
Hunter451a
September 19, 2012 at 6:59pm
I have to agree all that money spent and still no Maximum sound just on-board BS, Please amend and update the DM 2012 to reflect a complete "Future"!!!!
jzsn
September 19, 2012 at 6:36pm
To be honest a dream machine going above 5 digit price tag without dual xeon is pretty fail. Would hold the horses on 2x 690 (2x 680 to run the 2 30" flawlessly instead) and the crazy redundant storage solution (cut at least in half), and opt for dual xeon with EVGA Classified SR-X 270 for raw power instead, oh yeah that way you can have some left for a sound card. Pure performance starts at the CPU not the other way around.
Andrew.Hodge
September 19, 2012 at 6:08pm
Finally, a big boy CPU instead of last year's mainstream quad core. I also like the fact that for the first time since I began reading back in 2010 that the decision was made to use two dual gpu cards instead of three singles. The paint scheme is also georgeous; I love the blue on white. As far as gripes go, though, I am having trouble understanding why anyone would chose to use that motherboard. If I am gonna drop the dough on a server CPU, I would definately go with either the SRX or that other enthusiast dual 2011 board. They would both allow at least a mild bclock overclock and several more PCIe slots. Also, a computer running the graphics power of this one ahould have AT LEAST 3 monitors. I would have personally gone for 3+1 touchscreen.
I would comment more, but I am moving and don't have access to anything but my note, and typing on it sucks. Either way, badass build. Wish I had the money for something on this scale.
myh1tlist101
September 19, 2012 at 5:26pm
Onboard audio...why, WHY!
Seriously even with a cheap sound card the difference is astounding. Nevertheless this is my new favorite Dream Machine appearance wise. I love the TJ11 case. Also two screens is useless for a lot of games because of the stupid bezel running down the middle. Three is the way to go.
mewarmo990
September 21, 2012 at 5:26pm
Sound cards aren't worth it anymore. When they talked about speakers, they implied that a USB DAC was used. Basically, it combines the functions of a sound card and a portable amp - even an inexpensive DAC from a good manufacturer (yes, Chinese ones too) can make a world of difference with good headphones or speakers. A DAC/amp combo device (like the FiiO E17) is as good and more versatile than a dedicated sound card.
Of course, if I was spending $15,000, I would throw in a full-fledged AV receiver or vacuum tube amp (not sure how good that is for gaming though)...
Strangelove_424
September 19, 2012 at 5:06pm
Every component is special. Really awesome build. They should name it "Big Blue".
Baer
September 19, 2012 at 4:51pm
I am getting ready to start my next rig. I am really trying to wait until after CES but I know that as soon as I choose a case the rest is like dominoes, when domino one falls, the case the rest are soon to follow.
Domino one; .......I love that TJ-11 case.
X2brute
September 19, 2012 at 4:49pm
beats the crap out of mine. I'm runnin 3 amd cores and a GTS 450
SleepyCatChris
September 19, 2012 at 4:41pm
The speakers are a bit silly. If I were paying ~$15k for a computer, I wouldn't plug in a couple of self-powered speakers, I'd use a receiver with digital audio connection.
Otherwise, very nice DM addition.
nitricpyro
September 19, 2012 at 3:47pm
... Oh man... that longing feeling that sticks to the insides of your throat and rots out your brain from the very inside out... it's back... Makes me want to take my i7 920 and Raid 0 Agility 3's out and pis* on them screaming at the top of my lungs WHY OH WHY HAVE YOU FAILED ME! MADE ME A MOCKERY!
LeithKemon
September 19, 2012 at 3:43pm
This Dream Machine kicks Dream Machine 2011 in the nuts!
Love it :)
Biceps
September 19, 2012 at 3:16pm
Are you guys going to do a give-away for this? That would be awesome.
jgottberg
September 19, 2012 at 1:49pm
This is just an amazing ensamble of parts. 15 large on a PC? That's epic! :)
I know the paint hasn't even dried on this case but in next year's DM, I'd like to see if the oil immersion technology is used to cool it!
somethingelse
September 19, 2012 at 1:36pm
Nice speakers, but no sound card? Really? Is the onboard Realtek ALC898 better then the Xonar Essence or Xense? keep dreaming...
Freebackrubs
September 19, 2012 at 1:21pm
About time! I see that amazing looking computer every I come on this site and always want to know more about it.
