Puget Systems Deluge: Revisiting the Art of Custom With X79
by Dustin Sklavos on November 24, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Gaming
- Intel
- Puget Systems
- mid-tower
- Water Cooling
- NVIDIA
Application and Futuremark Performance
On the processor side, the Puget Systems Deluge we have on hand is undoubtedly the fastest system we've yet tested. That's a given: Sandy Bridge-E is the fastest desktop processor available, and Puget Systems overclocked it to a speedy 4.6GHz. That's higher than any i7-990X we've ever seen, and combined with the new platform and other enhancements (relative to Bloomfield/Gulftown and X58) that should give the Deluge a comfortable lead. And it does, for the most part.
Generally speaking, the new X79 monster from Puget Systems takes the lead, but what's interesting is the comparison between the Deluge and the DigitalStorm Enix. The Enix is using a quad-core i7-2600K that's been overclocked to 4.7GHz, up 100MHz from the Deluge's i7-3960X's 4.6GHz. In places where SSD performance and graphics performance may also come into play, the Deluge actually has a hard time climbing to the top of the charts...which is where a $7,200 desktop really belongs. Still, particularly in heavily threaded workloads, Sandy Bridge-E can't be beat.
3DMark06 gets by on the increased CPU power, but Vantage and 3DMark11 are happier with the quad-GPU configurations we've tested. That's to be expected, but performance is pretty excellent and in Vantage the Deluge is even able to just barely best AVADirect's i7-990X-based system with a pair of AMD Radeon HD 6990s. Let's see how things pan out with some actual gaming tests.
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Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
If I could keep it, why would I give it to you? ;)vol7ron - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Umm, possibly a prize give away to the more active readers/forum participators/commenters?Onslaught2k3 - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
"We start at the top with Intel's shiny new top-of-the-line Core i7-3960X. Built on a 32nm process, the new chip features eight hyper-threaded Sandy Bridge cores and 20MB of L3 cache, although in this chip 5MB of L3 and two of the cores are disabled."to this
"We start at the top with Intel's shiny new top-of-the-line Core i7-3960X. Built on a 32nm process, the new chip features SIX hyper-threaded Sandy Bridge cores and 20MB of L3 cache, although in this chip 5MB of L3 and two of the cores are disabled."
Can't anyone willing buy the same system AND build it themselves at less than half that cost? Nice review though, Dustin.
Death666Angel - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Read the SNB-E review:"If you look carefully at the die shot above, you'll notice that there are actually eight Sandy Bridge cores. The Xeon version will have all eight enabled, but the last two are fused off for SNB-E."
This version is a hexacore, not a quad-core as you say. But the chip it is built on actually has 8 cores.
Onslaught2k3 - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Ok, no corrections are needed. I wonder if at some point a BIOS-based unlock would be available for this chip exclusively... since... you know... it's over $1k in price...JarredWalton - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Pretty sure they're fused off; AMD has allowed core unlocking on some chips in the past, but I don't recall that from Intel any time in recent history.mfenn - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Anybody want to take bets on whether or not Dustin can make it through an entire article without using the word "dire"?Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Outlook...dire. ;)ckryan - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
When will the Dustin Sklavos Review kit become available for purchase?You get a case with dire cable management, a laptop with a dire TN panel, and an AIO with dire thermals AND a dire TN!! It's a can't-win proposition.
I don't have a beef with boutique builders putting boutique prices on boutique builds. I do have a problem with laying out that much feddy and not getting an Asus Xonar Essence STX, but instead receiving the DX. If I using someone else's money to buy this system I could easily massage it into the system is could be. I could adjust the overclock my damn self.
FWIW, I think it's hard to really make a high end X79 build, when you get most of the actual features from a P67/Z68 chipset.
wickman - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
1920x1080 is a pretty low resolution to be using for a system powered by dual GTX 580, 590s, 6990s, and so forth. I don't think anyone running this type of gpu subsystem would possibly be running such a low resolution when the cards themselves are capable of running games at 2560x1400, 2560x1600, or higher when used with multiple panels.Would be nice to see what these systems were able to do at much higher resolutions.