iBUYPOWER Erebus GT Review: Ivy Bridge and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 in SLI
by Dustin Sklavos on April 27, 2012 2:00 AM ESTConclusion: Still a Solid Buy
My conclusions from the previous review of iBUYPOWER's Erebus GT are going to be echoed here: the system continues to be a solid value and worthy of enthusiast attention. What's also worth mentioning is that this review unit exhibited none of the issues I dealt with in the last one that merited the response from iBUYPOWER's Ricky Lee: it was solid from start to finish. Boutique systems tend to be a bit inflated in terms of price, but the Erebus GT is actually a good deal for an enthusiast looking for a liquid-cooled system but unwilling to actually wrestle with assembling one. Liquid-cooling the CPU is, at least in this reviewer's opinion, generally overrated unless you're really stressing it, but the video cards benefit from it in a major way.
I think the big story is actually Ivy Bridge and what it means to enthusiasts. Pretty much everyone else here has weighed in on it over the past few days, but as an enthusiast I'm a bit lukewarm to the i7-3770K. I feel like a lot of us were hoping for either a bigger performance improvement or better overclocking headroom due to the new process, but what we have instead is a chip that, when pushed to its conventional limits, is essentially still only the equal of its predecessor in terms of performance. It's difficult not to feel at least a little bit underwhelmed in that respect, but hopefully as Intel's 22nm process matures and new steppings become available, that overclocking headroom will improve and Ivy Bridge can fully supplant Sandy Bridge in the hearts and minds of enthusiasts. Such is the nature of Intel's "ticks", I suppose—Penryn and Westmere didn't exactly set the world on fire with improved performance.
On the other hand, where Ivy Bridge and Kepler do offer a substantial improvement over Sandy Bridge and Fermi is in performance-per-watt. This Erebus GT is hands down the most efficient gaming desktop we've ever tested, providing essentially the best quad-core performance and absolute best gaming performance we've ever seen while drawing less than 500 watts from the wall. When you're used to seeing gaming systems regularly draw far more than that, it's a big deal, and the best part is that idle power consumption is still entirely reasonable. This is one place where NVIDIA's and Intel's engineers can really be proud of themselves; Ivy Bridge may ultimately not provide enthusiasts any tangible performance advantage, but the power consumption advantage is undeniable.
In terms of gaming, the iBUYPOWER Erebus GT with Intel Core i7-3770K and pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680s in SLI is the fastest system we've ever tested. CPU performance is essentially competitive, but tasks that benefit from additional cores are going to continue to prefer Gulftown and Sandy Bridge-E. Those are, I think, corner cases with benefits that for the majority of users won't outweigh the added expense and power consumption. The result here is that iBUYPOWER has produced a system with exceptional component choices, excellent power characteristics, and solid thermals. The Erebus GT as a chassis and cooling solution continues to be exceptional, and now it benefits from advances made by Intel and NVIDIA in recent months. That's worthy of a recommendation.
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JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
My "still need to find time to play" list right now includes:Mass Effect 3
Witcher 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Finish Skyrim
Finish Batman: Arkham City
If we go back to include games I really wanted to play but never got around to (and they're now collecting digital dust), add Bioshock 2, both Knights of the Old Republic games (I'm not even remotely interested in the new Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO, though -- not my type of time sink!), and dozens of others I can't think of right now. Thankfully, at least my work allows me the chance to play more games than most! LOL
UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Koolance does offer low-fpi rads (better for low-speed fans, all else being equal), but not in a 3x140mm format -- so if iBUYPOWER uses only Koolance (because they might have a good relationship), they're stuck with the 30 fins per inch rad Koolance has.But for flow, that loop won't have a problem, at all -- there are no very restrictive blocks (like those silly motherboard blocks). Rads aren't restrictive, and the Koolance CPU block is a low-restriction component:
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/03/12/i7-3930k-cp...
Parallel might gain you a few degrees, but in the grand scheme of things it just won't matter.
shin0bi272 - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
thanks for the info. I figured that it would make some difference just by the logic of the water passing over the cpu then hitting the gpu. But the flow rate and temp of the water would obviously play a huge role in the raising of the temp. One other question. Where's the radiator (and its fan) on that system? Make that two questions... what is the tube at the back connected to and why? It looks like theres an expansion slot at the top with a connector going to it then connecting to the cpu and top gpu like theres supposed to be an external radiator or something coming out the back... but when you look at the back pic theres nothing coming out.UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
Actually, the loop goes:- Reservoir (in the bottom 5.25" bay)
- Pump (at the bottom of the case, next to the hard drive bays)
- GPU blocks, in series
- 1 x 140 mm Radiator on the back exhaust (that's what the tubes at the back are connected to -- the rad is the black rectangle between the fan and the back wall of the case)
- CPU block
- 3 x 140 mm Radiator in the roof, with the three top fans blowing on it.
- back to the Reservoir.
The tube that goes to the side of the roof, about half way from the front of the case, is for the Fill port, which is the round thing you see on the left side of the top of the case.
UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
And just for fun, if you wanted to build that loop out of Koolance stuff:- Reservoir TNK-501 - $80 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
(there are much cheaper, but less featureful, reservoirs available elsewhere, though)
- Pump PMP-450 - $77 http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
(also known as the Laing D5, you can find this pump rebranded by other companies, but $77 is reasonable)
- GPU blocks VID-NX680 - $130 x 2 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- 1 x 140 mm Radiator HX-CU-1401V - $50 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- CPU block CPU-370 rev. 1.1 - $80 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
- 3 x 140 mm Radiator HX-CU-1403V - $75 - http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
So main components = $622
You could save on the reservoir by going with something simpler (which it seems iBUYPOWER did), like this $35 XSPC:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2184/ex-res-104/...
However, you still need tubing (fairly cheap) and fittings (they get expensive relatively fast.
You need 2 fittings/component (unless they have built-in barbs, like the pump, or you use something like the tube that's between the GPUs).
For that system, you'd need something like 11 fittings, at $6.50 ea. for compression fittings:
http://koolance.com/index.php?route=product/produc...
+ adapters, the fill port, and video card connectors.
All told, that setup might cost around $750 if you bought the parts at retail.
Wreckage - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Ivy bridge and 680's vs Bulldozer CPU and Bulldozer 7970's.JarredWalton - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
Why? To see Bulldozer get manhandled? Here are the gaming results at lower detail settings (e.g. to put the strain more on the CPU). These results are pertinent because when you move to SLI or CrossFire, the CPU becomes more limiting than the two GPUs in many games.http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-r...
Here's another article that did Bulldozer vs. Nehalem vs. Sandy Bridge all with a single 7970:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU...
Unfortunately, the best the FX 8150 can do against Nehalem i7-920 and Sandy Bridge i5-2500K with a single 7970 is to match it in some titles, while on average even Nehalem tends to match or slightly exceed Bulldozer. That Sandy Bridge 2500K is 9% faster at 2560x1600 with a single GPU is pretty much all you need to know. Ivy Bridge will be even faster still (unless you're into overclocking, in which case it's pretty much a tie), all while consuming less power.
Here's another article on the subject, only with 3-way HD 6970 on i7-2600K and FX-8150. Warning: it's not pretty, unless you like Intel.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4353/amd_fx_8150...
vailr - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
The Asus Maximus V Formula Z77 board is due for release within the next 2 weeks or so, and includes a built-in water cooling loop for the power choke heat sinks. Would be interesting to see how water cooling with that board would affect overclockability. Will they (iBUYPOWER) be offering an updated Erebus GT using that Z77 board?UltimateKitchenUtensil - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
It will likely have very little effect -- you can already buy motherboard blocks, but they mostly exist for show -- people just use them because they can.saf227 - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
"...a solid value and worthy of enthusiast attention."How can you say it's a solid value when you don't tell us a price? You don't even hint at a price (i.e. "Less than $3K").
So I'm going to ASSUME (since you give me no information to base a reasonable presumption on) that this system costs $25,000. And is therefore a TERRIBLE value.