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
Gaming Performance
Things should get interesting with gaming performance, but unfortunately we hit a snag when testing the Puget Systems Deluge, and it's a snag that you'll uncover if you start checking out other forums: as of this writing, surround gaming in SLI doesn't work on X79 and Sandy Bridge-E. I'm not sure exactly where to place the blame; it's hard to argue that Sandy Bridge-E didn't feel rushed (especially with how disappointing X79 turned out to be), but shouldn't this also have been something NVIDIA was on top of? It's tough to tell. NVIDIA has confirmed that a driver which enables surround on this platform will be available soon, so at least we know they're working on it, but it really should've been working when Sandy Bridge-E launched. That leaves us with 1080p testing for now, which is something of a joke when you're packing this much hardware.
Update 11-30-2011: With the NVIDIA 290 series beta drivers, we've now added surround testing.
In most cases on our soon-to-be-retired "high" testbed, we find the systems essentially CPU-limited, producing results that are academic at best. At these settings even the GeForce GTX 460 768MB in the budget WarFactory Sentinel is able to produce a playable experience. Let's see how things work out when we start to shift more of the load to the graphics subsystem.
From the looks of things, our testbed is definitely a bit long in the tooth. Performance is excellent across the board, though, right where it should be, although the extra 100MHz (and perhaps better platform optimizations) on the i7-2600K in the DigitalStorm Enix seems to be paying off in StarCraft II. Hey Blizzard, you think maybe someday you'll release a game that scales beyond two threads? Guess we'll know when the next chapter in the StarCraft II saga comes out.
Once we get to our surround testing, we unfortunately see just how much Sandy Bridge-E and its 40 dedicated PCI Express 2.0 lanes bring to the table: not a whole lot. I don't want to say this is conclusive, but our results here mirror those of other sites; eight PCIe lanes per card seem to be enough for at least a pair of GPUs.
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neelwebs - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Me too. They should have two 6990s and 16GB of RAM instead of 32GB and two 580s.piroroadkill - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Yup. Most games won't use more than 2GB, let alone 32GB, and somebody who actually will use that much RAM for video editing, image editing or CAD, or some such.. won't be be using a system like this. They'll have bought a Xeon workstation loaded out with RAM.inighthawki - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Considering that most games are still running 32-bit binaries, its literally impossible for most to use more than 4GB. But a lot of ram can have its advantages. Though this is clearly targeted towards gamers, it's certainly possible that this PC can make use of a lot of video encoding, CAD, and have a game open as well, which could push the limits of 8GB easily, especially if you turn off the paging file.Beenthere - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
...or a proper gaming system instead of a hacked server platform. ;)DarkStryke - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
8K and you get a crappy low end case that isn't even painted in the interior, with some abhorrent wiring on the side window fan and nothing sleeved.You can build a rig yourself for close to half this with the exact same parts, then spend the extra $3k on a real enthusiast case, a high quality water loop with aquacomputer quality plated blocks and some high end sleeving (not to mention a better PSU like the seasonic 1k platinum).
For a custom high end build this aesthetically looks like garbage, something you'd expect from a junior modder at best.
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
The Antec P183 V3 is a "crappy low end case"? That's news to me.But whatever. I actually have this unit in house and while I disagree with the price, this is definitely one of the cleaner, nicer builds I've tested.
piroroadkill - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
I agree with him in a sense. This is probably one of the fastest, neatest turnkey system you can buy, but there are some seriously nice things you can do if you go all custom, and get someone to custom fabricate bits for a high end case.Rick83 - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
I got one even though I exclusively use the optical output for my Z-560s, because even though my mainboard's audio has a fancy 'SoundBlaster' branding, it doesn't support dolby-encoding of surround streams. The Xonar does have a license though, so that works.Additionally, I find having multiple soundcards rather convenipent, it allows me to use the onboard optical out to hook up a small digital head phone am.
Beenthere - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
This system is just for bragging rights. No one who knows what they are doing with PCs would use an X79 and SB-E for gaming. At best this thing would make a poor server.fluxtatic - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Yeah, definitely a heinously expensive e-peen extender. I knew they'd come, but it doesn't make them any less ridiculous. I hope anyone that thinks this is a good idea buys one, as idiots deserve to lose thousands on poorly-conceived ideas.Really too bad there wasn't a better AMD system on comparison, too. I know AT is at the mercy of what gets sent to be reviewed, but this makes it look even worse. Give me numbers on a box with an X6 and a current GPU just so it's on level ground.
And yes, I understand entirely that the SB procs here are quads...but I also know that AMD quads can't compete with SB, sadly.