Build-A-Rig Round 1, Zotac vs. Corsair: The $1500 PC Build Logs
by Ryan Smith & Ganesh T S on July 30, 2015 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Build-A-Rig
- Corsair
- ZOTAC
The End Result
Zotac
For looks and cleanliness, the Zotac system looks significantly better. Aside from the near-black internals accentuated by the lights from the GPU and the DRAM, cable management removes some of the more garish ends of the power supply should someone decide to shine a light in (or the eventual winner uses the LED kit also included in the bundle). A minor concern comes from the extra cable space behind the motherboard tray due to the large extension cables to improve the look, however once installed it becomes a relative non-issue.
Zotac's 'Hey Good Lookin' System (above)
Chinny Chuang and Buu Ly from Zotac (below)
Corsair
In contrast, the Corsair system is the quintessential black-box PC designed to be used, not seen or heard. It can be quite hard to argue with the performance components under the hood, and we expect to see monster performance results, but a box has nothing to show off if the winner wants to take it to LANs or ends up with it on their desk. The danger with a bland machine is putting it on the floor and forgetting about it, allowing dust to build up, whereas a windowed machine at least gets some obvious hint if it needs a cleaning.
Corsair's 'The Accelerator' Build (above)
Dustin Sklavos from Corsair Memory (below)
Performance results are inbound for the final part of Build-A-Rig Round 1, with both of these machines nearing the end of their testing and we will post those results soon.
How to Enter
For Build-A-Rig, we are posting the survey link on each piece so users can enter at any time. The final entry date is August 1st, as the Build-A-Rig challenge is quickly coming to a close..
For the purposes of the giveaways, we should state that standard AnandTech rules apply. The full set of rules will be given in the survey link, but the overriding implementation is that the giveaways are limited to United States of America (US50), excluding Rhode Island, and winners must be 18 years or older.
With apologies to our many loyal readers outside the US, restricting the giveaways to the US is due to the fact that AnandTech (and more specifically our publisher, Purch) is a US registered company and competition law outside the US is very specific for each nation, with some requiring fees or legal implementations to be valid with various consequences if rules aren’t followed. It’s kind of difficult for the rules of 190+ countries/nations worldwide to all be followed, especially if certain ones demand fees for even offering a contest or tax on prizes. We recognize that other online magazines and companies do offer unrestricted worldwide competitions, but there are specific rules everyone should be following in order to stay on the side of the law. That’s the reality of it, and unfortunately we cannot change on this front, even with the help of Purch.
The survey link is:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2209797/AnandTech-Newegg-Build-A-Rig-Challenge-Sweepstakes-Q2-2015
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53 Comments
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wperry - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
It looks like the power cable for the mobo could have easily been routed to come out of the top tray slot rather than be snaked over from the hard drive cage, where it's impeding airflow between an intake fan and the GPU.Sure, if it's your own PC and you just want to slap it together, giddyup. But if you're going to be displaying it online, and for a reader vote, none-the-less, spend the extra few minutes.
faster - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
I am salivating over that Corsair build. I hope I win! Slap in a 512GB SSD and its good to go! I have acrylic windows on my computers and they are buried under my desk unappreciated. I'll take the power over the aesthetics any day.HollyDOL - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Imho Corsair build leaves Zotac far back in the dust. I might have done a little bit different setup (cpu cooler down, psu+ssd up) but I am completely fine with the result. Having 240GB SSD myself I find it completely enough for my gaming needs.zodiacfml - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
No complaints on the Corsair build. For personal preference, I'd have it on a mini-itx build for more challenge. :)gamer1000k - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Pretty much exactly what I did. It actually got picked up by the authors and mentioned on the last page of the previous build-a-rig article.I ended up getting the same CPU and GPU as the Corsair build (complete with 600W PSU and Corsair H55 for overclocking the CPU/GPU) and put it in a Silverstone FTZ-01 case. The budget was tight, but I made it even with mini-itx.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
I still prefer the Zotac build. Performance is certainly better with Cosair's box, but I wouldn't bother overclocking anything and I really have no desire to game at higher than 1366x768 so the difference in GPUs is pretty much a moot point. What appeals with the Zotac system is that it has a lot more storage so there's no need to add another form of mass storage right away. It also strikes me as quieter, cooler, and more power efficient with the nice touch of some reasonable lighting to make it pretty inside. Personally, I wouldn't have gone with a water cooler. Intel's whatever-comes-in-the-box HSF is good enough and the temperature difference in the CPU with the huge cooler is more academic than meaningful. If it were me doing this build, I would have opted for a micro ATX case, smaller and cheaper PSU, air cooling only, doubling the RAM (at least) and a GPU somewhere in the GT 740 range (with a mind for GDDR5 over DDR3 of course). Then the rest could have been tossed into more SSD storage space. I also probably would have looked pretty hard at installing an optical drive as well instead of going with a USB solution. Still though, Zotac got a lot closer to my ideal desktop computer.HollyDOL - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
With your target resolution I think you could consider running with a form of CPU integrated graphics. 1Mpx is pretty low resolution these days, almost everything can handle that decently (not saying perfect, but if you were after perfect you'd be on 2+Mpx resolutions anyway).BrokenCrayons - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Yes, I agree that processor graphics are probably good enough in the majority of cases at that resolution. The only reason why I'd opt for adding a dedicated GPU is for an acknowledgement of some near future when whatever CPU is in the system wouldn't be quite enough to play things at that resolution with most settings turned up to their maximums otherwise.On a side note, I did play around with NewEgg a little and came up with an idealized $1500 build for myself:
DIYPC MA01-G Black SPCC MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case - $27.99
Antec VP-450 450W ATX 12V v2.3 Power Supply - Intel Haswell Fully Compatible - $39.99
ASUS H81M-K LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - $54.99
Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell Dual-Core 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W BX80646I34130 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 - $116.99
Mushkin Enhanced Stealth 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 997069S - $86.99
MSI N740-2GD5 GeForce GT 740 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card - $98.99
SAMSUNG 850 EVO MZ-75E2T0B/AM 2.5" 2 TB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - $799.99
LG Internal 24x Super Multi with M-DISC Support SATA Model GH24NSC0B - OEM - $19.99
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro - Full Version (32 & 64-bit) / USB Flash Drive - $199.99
Total - $1,445.91
It's a lot "better" for my wants from a desktop, though I really could have dumped the 2TB SSD in favor of a 2TB hard drive. In my personal experience, the benefits of increased storage performance don't outweigh the $640 price difference between the two.
khanikun - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
For drive mounting, like in the Accelerator build, I use an 90 degree bend SATA cable. I plug the 90 Degree bend into the ssd, then I mount the drive backwards. This helps hide the extra slack of the cable.alaricljs - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
My main is already very similar to the Corsair build as it has a 256G ssd. My games storage is an iSCSI LUN off my server in the basement. At this point in pricing I'm torn between 1 local SSD or a set in RAID to feed the 4 gaming systems in the house.