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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experttech - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Thanks for the suggestions. You always have gaming rigs in your recommended setups. A lot of us are not gamers and need to build workstations for video rendering/encoding etc. How about an article targeted at such users. It would be very helpful. Thanks.laday2 - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
The 90-Day average "Hey Good Lookin'" is off by about $20, should be $1512.72. Both builds take a different approach and I appreciate their diversity.jardows2 - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Pretty sure I entered first time around, but don't remember, so I covered my bases here and entered again. I know that if I enter twice, the 2nd entry will be discarded, but I don't want to miss out on this.Overall, I'll take either one. I wouldn't use the power of the Corsair build, though more power is always nice, And the Zotac build is just nice looking!
Since we are mostly enthusiasts here, I know most people here lean towards the Corsair build, but the average computer user will go for looks every time, as long as the performance doesn't drag them down.
monkeydelmagico - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Funny little zinger from Corsair including the Zotac GPU in their build.....The Corsair rig is going to stomp the Zotac in performance measures. It's not even going to be close.I'd still enjoy the Zotac if it was free
nismov35 - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Personally, I'd take Zotac's build. Yes, the GTX970 is not as powerful as the GTX980Ti. However, I really dislike the GTX980Ti reference design cooler as it is single fan so higher fan RPM thus higher noise. Also, all I play is CSGO, DOTA2, LOL and I don't game in 4K. GTX980Ti not powerful enough for 4K max setting gaming anyways. Also with the given cost limitation, assuming no further products will be added having a visually pleasing system is just as important as the system performance, I feel Zotac did a great job on balancing this. It is not an "all show no go" nor "all go no show" system. Like the corsair. For us folks that are not looking for peak performance, and want a daily driver PC I would choose the Zotac system.benjamin.mtzgr - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
really, it'd be awesome to get either one. I purchased brand new parts 2 days ago and am awaiting everything to show up by next thursday. I spent right around $1400 for the build and it is going to perform probably around where the zotac will (i have faster ram, faster cpu, and a 970 SC).Winning either one of these systems will simply pay for the computer i'm building. If i win one of these, I'll either sell my new system or sell theirs. Either way gonna be a nice free system =)
I wonder what the odds are of winning...
Barilla - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Terrible choices from Zotac TBH. I mean, a few months back I put together a rig that is faster, smaller and looks better (subjective I know, but I think most people would agree). Oh and it was under 1200$.Corsair went in a better direction, though they could surely cut some costs to improve the looks, if you spend more than a grand on a pc you probably don't want to think about it as a "big black box".
I'm really surprised neither company decided to go into a smaller form factor, especially Zotac since they sacrificed performance for looks anyway.
Cautionfire - Saturday, August 1, 2015 - link
I feel like the Zotac build is actually kind of better in many ways than what Corsair came up with. It may seem really silly because the Corsair build is obviously more powerful, but Zotac's build is probably the perfect stop gap between now and when 4k gaming can really take off. It seems to me like the 980ti is not really sufficient for 4k gaming of AAA title at a consistent 60+ frames per second. It's just think that if you can't do that with putting extra money into the GPU, then what is the point if you can get decent frames at 1080p with a 970 and spend more on components you can carry over to a next build, making your PC look flashy (if you are into that), or increasing storage. I think how Zotac finished their build really reflects that with the sleeved cables, 750 watt PSU, bigger SSD, DVD drive, lights, sexy RAM, and a better CPU cooler to reduce noise and heat. I also don't like Corsair's choice of CPU cooler. It's easy to tell they they were trying to promote their products with this build, but the h60 just isn't that good. You could easily pick up something like the Silver Arrow for around the same price and have a much better performance to noise ration and not run the risk of leaking. I'm not saying the risk of leaking is high, just merely that it is there as another point of failure along with the pump. I used an h80i for my girlfriend's rig and it's been great, but things tend to happen more often with water cooling than with air in my experience.Unless you have the money to go SLI with high end graphics cards, I don't really feel it's worth it at this point to chase 4k and the Zotac build is more than good enough for 1080 right now. The only thing I wish they would have done is find a way to spend a bit more money on getting a better case. Maybe ditch the DVD drive and get a slightly lower wattage PSU to make room in the budget. It was a really solid build in my opinion.
doggface - Saturday, August 1, 2015 - link
It is interesting to see these two because in many a way they are opposite ends of the spectrum.I feel I would have ended up somewhere in the middle. I used to build systems like the corsair but as i get older I try and build more balanced systems.
Easily could drop back to a 980 and use that money for a bigger SSD.
Or drop even further back to a 970 and get a nicer case as well.
All, just a bit of fun though.
MAM2 - Sunday, August 2, 2015 - link
HIi want pc like this one but the problem is shipping and where i live
is there anyone can help ?