Benchmarking Our New Gaming PC
Post by KostaAndreadis @ 05:05pm 18/01/18 | Comments
Where we put our new gaming rig through its paces...
Late last year we embarked on an epic journey, to build a new AusGamers gaming rig from the ground-up. We even made lofty goals of not recycling a single part, or cable for that matter. Instead promising to use the remains of our previous USB 2.0 powered PC in some kind of religious sacrificial ritual. To ward of evil spirits. Spectral floppy drives, haunted CD-ROMs, zombie Thrustmaster Joysticks. The usual.
Anyway, we did it! Built a new Gaming PC that is. Minus the fact that we’re still shopping for a dedicated screen. So be sure to read Part One and Part Two of our journey to build the new AusGamers 3000.
Just a little name that we came up with.
And today, after a few delays, we finally bring you the long-awaited benchmarks. Which were completed and ready to run prior to the holiday break - but then the whole CPU security flaw and mandatory updates thing happened. Where key flaws in CPU hardware design, over several years, led to critical OS updates just this past week that would impact performance in just about every system. And with names like Spectre and Meltdown, you knew they were serious.
Which meant that we then had to re-run all tests this past weekend. As per previous notes from AMD it was expected that the main performance hits for the mandatory updates would be felt on Intel-based systems. Which seems to be true as we saw very little if any change to performance across most games and even productivity benchmarking. The only noticeable difference was a slight performance drop in Assassin’s Creed Origins.
For reference here are the full specs:
For game performance we tested and re-tests various games at various resolutions, including the native UltraWide 3440x1440 resolution of the brilliant Acer Predator X34 screen. A resolution that for the 1070 Ti and Ryzen combo seems to be the sweet spot. Plus, the UltraWide aspect ratio does wonders for the immersion.
So, without further ado, here are the game performance results!
As expected, 1080p gaming on our new rig turned in impressive results especially compared to the stock 1070. In the same PC we saw anywhere from a 10-30% increase in performance. Also tested but not listed above, Destiny 2. Due to the lack of in-game tools other than FPS display and incompatibility with FRAPS we couldn’t accurately gauge the performance but at 1080p we were getting DOOM levels of performance, sometimes hitting the FPS cap of 200.
The jump to a native 4K resolution in terms of pixel count is huge, which is why you still find several gaming displays today either sporting 1080p or 1440p output. The reason is that outputting an image at the native resolution of the display (or higher) results in the best image. As an in-between resolution you can tell the different between 1440p and 1080p, which makes the 1070 Ti a great option for this resolution. In addition to having a great CPU like the Ryzen 1800X.
In terms of pixel count the UltraWide 3440x1440 resolution of the Acer Predator X34 screen is fairly close to the 3840×2160 of native 4K. The extra vertical pixels saw another performance dip across the board for each game tested. But nothing major, which meant that this would probably be the best option the AusGamers 3000 in 2018.
In terms of 4K Gaming titles like Overwatch, DOOM, Wolfenstein II, and many others are more than playable. And for the more demanding titles, with a few detail settings turned down, it was possible to get a steady frame-rate in 4K with our gaming rig. It’s worth noting that in terms of breaking down 3D Mark numbers, the CPU generally scored higher and performed better than the 1070 Ti.
For all tests, on average, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 Ti was about 65 degrees. Rarely if ever hitting 70. Impressive.
In terms of pure performance, the AMD Ryzen 1800X turned out to be the biggest surprise, with results far exceeding expectations and when it comes to value for money it’s hard to overlook the Ryzen line. In terms of temperature, under load for a large amount of time did see things sit in the mid-70s, but for the most part Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120 keeps the CPU in check – with an idle temp of roughly 40 degress, and 45 or so for regular desktop usage.
Below you’ll fin Cinebench, PC Mark, and 3D Mark Results.
In the end the decision to upgrade and re-join the better than thou race known as PC gamers was a smart decision. Having control over every single element of the build and then being able to tweak and change things is a blessing. And sure, in five years it will be obsolete but 2018 is going to be a great year for gaming on PC with our new rig.
Special thanks to our many hardware suppliers and partners including AMD, Nvidia, Cooler Master, Gigabyte, Crucial, Seagate, Logitech, Sennheiser, and Audioengine.
Anyway, we did it! Built a new Gaming PC that is. Minus the fact that we’re still shopping for a dedicated screen. So be sure to read Part One and Part Two of our journey to build the new AusGamers 3000.
Just a little name that we came up with.
And today, after a few delays, we finally bring you the long-awaited benchmarks. Which were completed and ready to run prior to the holiday break - but then the whole CPU security flaw and mandatory updates thing happened. Where key flaws in CPU hardware design, over several years, led to critical OS updates just this past week that would impact performance in just about every system. And with names like Spectre and Meltdown, you knew they were serious.
Which meant that we then had to re-run all tests this past weekend. As per previous notes from AMD it was expected that the main performance hits for the mandatory updates would be felt on Intel-based systems. Which seems to be true as we saw very little if any change to performance across most games and even productivity benchmarking. The only noticeable difference was a slight performance drop in Assassin’s Creed Origins.
For reference here are the full specs:
- The CPU: AMD Ryzen 1800X
The CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120
The Motherboard: GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5
The GPU: ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
The Memory: Crucial Ballistix Elite 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 Memory
The Storage: Crucial MX300 525GB M.2 SSD / Crucial MX300 525GB 2.5" SATA III SSD
The Storage (Cont’d): Seagate 4TB BarraCuda 3.5" SATA3 Desktop Hard Drive
The PC Case: Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6
The Input Devices: Logitech G613 Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard / Logitech G903 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse
The Headset: Sennheiser Game Zero
The Soundcard: Audioengine D1 Premium 24-Bit DAC / Headphone Amp
The Sound: Audioengine 5+ Premium Powered Speakers
Game Performance
For game performance we tested and re-tests various games at various resolutions, including the native UltraWide 3440x1440 resolution of the brilliant Acer Predator X34 screen. A resolution that for the 1070 Ti and Ryzen combo seems to be the sweet spot. Plus, the UltraWide aspect ratio does wonders for the immersion.
So, without further ado, here are the game performance results!
As expected, 1080p gaming on our new rig turned in impressive results especially compared to the stock 1070. In the same PC we saw anywhere from a 10-30% increase in performance. Also tested but not listed above, Destiny 2. Due to the lack of in-game tools other than FPS display and incompatibility with FRAPS we couldn’t accurately gauge the performance but at 1080p we were getting DOOM levels of performance, sometimes hitting the FPS cap of 200.
The jump to a native 4K resolution in terms of pixel count is huge, which is why you still find several gaming displays today either sporting 1080p or 1440p output. The reason is that outputting an image at the native resolution of the display (or higher) results in the best image. As an in-between resolution you can tell the different between 1440p and 1080p, which makes the 1070 Ti a great option for this resolution. In addition to having a great CPU like the Ryzen 1800X.
In terms of pixel count the UltraWide 3440x1440 resolution of the Acer Predator X34 screen is fairly close to the 3840×2160 of native 4K. The extra vertical pixels saw another performance dip across the board for each game tested. But nothing major, which meant that this would probably be the best option the AusGamers 3000 in 2018.
In terms of 4K Gaming titles like Overwatch, DOOM, Wolfenstein II, and many others are more than playable. And for the more demanding titles, with a few detail settings turned down, it was possible to get a steady frame-rate in 4K with our gaming rig. It’s worth noting that in terms of breaking down 3D Mark numbers, the CPU generally scored higher and performed better than the 1070 Ti.
For all tests, on average, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 Ti was about 65 degrees. Rarely if ever hitting 70. Impressive.
PC Performance
In terms of pure performance, the AMD Ryzen 1800X turned out to be the biggest surprise, with results far exceeding expectations and when it comes to value for money it’s hard to overlook the Ryzen line. In terms of temperature, under load for a large amount of time did see things sit in the mid-70s, but for the most part Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120 keeps the CPU in check – with an idle temp of roughly 40 degress, and 45 or so for regular desktop usage.
Below you’ll fin Cinebench, PC Mark, and 3D Mark Results.
Conclusion
In the end the decision to upgrade and re-join the better than thou race known as PC gamers was a smart decision. Having control over every single element of the build and then being able to tweak and change things is a blessing. And sure, in five years it will be obsolete but 2018 is going to be a great year for gaming on PC with our new rig.
Special thanks to our many hardware suppliers and partners including AMD, Nvidia, Cooler Master, Gigabyte, Crucial, Seagate, Logitech, Sennheiser, and Audioengine.
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