One of the best things about being a power user is that, basically, you get to play god when the time comes to build a new system. Don’t like the case selection from a boutique builder? Go buy the one you want. Have an exotic liquid-cooling setup in mind? Get all the right parts and put your new system together exactly the way you want. Every choice is yours, and you have the satisfaction of bringing your creation to life. Whether it’s your first or your fiftieth, custom builds are at least half the fun of being an power user.
With PAX East on the horizon, we had a perfect excuse to roll up our sleeves and flex our creative muscles. Although we don’t have the omnipotence to say “Let there be gaming rig,” snap our fingers, and produce a high-end machine out of thin air, we do have the knowledge necessary to put together a truly beastly PC for the East Coast expo. So, we immediately set out to work on the PAX Predator, a gaming PC at the top of the evolutionary ladder.
PC Parts Safari The PAX Predator had to have the DNA of a killer, naturally, so the first component we targeted in our parts hunt happens to be one of the most advanced desktop CPUs money can buy: Intel’s Core i7-4770K. Formerly codenamed “Haswell,” the 4770K represents Intel at the top of its game. Manufactured on the same 22nm process as its predecessor, Ivy Bridge, Haswell is a brand-new microarchitecture. The 4770K has a base clock of 3.5GHz (and has a Max Turbo frequency of 3.9GHz) and brings to the party four physical cores with the ability to handle eight threads simultaneously.
The CPU also features 8MB of L3 cache and Intel’s new-and-improved HD Graphics 4600 processor graphics. It’s all wrapped up in a neat little package that doesn’t exceed 84W TDP.
Upon Haswell’s arrival, Intel released a host of Lynx Point chipsets to complement its new processors. We chose the Z87 chipset, so we tapped GIGABYTE’s GAZ87X-UD5H for our motherboard. The GA-Z87X-UD5H is part of GIGABYTE’s legendary Ultra Durable family; specifically, this is an Ultra Durable 5 Plus motherboard.
The board’s solid-state capacitors have a life span of 10,000 hours and are rated to work at up to 105 degrees Celsius. It has lots of features that overclockers look for, too, such as voltage read points, a debug display, and onboard buttons for power, reset, and clear CMOS. The GA-Z87X-UD5H supports up to 32GB of DDR3-3000 and 2-way SLI/CrossFire. And of course, it doesn’t hurt one bit that the board has sleek style down cold, with its tri-color heatsinks in black, gold, and gray.
By now, you know that we equip every CPU System Workshop build with a graphics card capable of playing any game we want, and the PAX Predator is no different. NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 760 has been available for some time now, but GIGABYTE’s GeForce GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC (model GVN760OC-4GD) isn’t your garden-variety GTX 760. Sure, this card has everything you’d expect from any GTX 760, such as 1,152 CUDA cores, 96 texture units, and 32 ROPs, but the GV-N760OC-4GD’s WINDFORCE 3X cooler lets GIGABYTE have a little fun with the GPU’s speeds and feeds. Take note: Stock GTX 760s have base and boost clocks of 980MHz and 1,033MHz, respectively, but the GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC runs at speeds up to 1,085MHz and 1,150MHz. In addition to the WINDFORCE 3X cooler (a monument of heatpipes and aluminum fins that’s topped with three 92mm PWM fans), the GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC uses GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable VGA technology, a sweet suite of Japanese solid caps, ferrite core chokes, and a PCB infused with 2 ounces of copper. We expect that an enterprising overclocker will be able to tease even more power out of this graphics card.
This system’s boot drive has a lot of fight in it. It may even want to fight you.
Lucky for everyone involved, though, we were able to subdue Kingston’s HyperX 3K 120GB SSD and incorporate it into the PAX Predator’s genetic makeup. Armed with an LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller and Intel’s 25nm NAND, the HyperX 3K SSD has the muscle to move data at a breakneck pace. Kingston indicates that the 120GB HyperX 3K SSD can deliver sequential reads up to 555MBps and sequential writes up to 510MBps. Our 120GB HyperX 3K SSD offers outstanding random 4K performance, with reported max random 4K reads/writes of 24,000/79,000IOPS. This drive injects a ton of speed into the PAX Predator.
We grabbed a small mountain of memory to stuff inside the PAX Predator. Thanks to a 16GB kit of G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 (model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL), multitasking with this rig won’t be a problem.
The kit contains four 4GB modules with timings of 9-9-9-24, so every one of the GA-Z87X-UD5H’s DIMM slots got a stick. The 1.5V operating voltage is exactly what Haswell wants, and those gnarly heat spreaders look ferocious.
In the CPU System Workshop, we tend to favor processors with unlocked multipliers, which lets us overclock our way to some extra performance for free. Of course, overclocking means more heat, and more heat means we needed a CPU cooler that isn’t a slouch.
Enter Thermaltake’s Water 3.0 Pro, a closedloop liquid-cooler. The Water 3.0 Pro might have “just” a 120mm radiator, but this radiator has it where it counts: At 49mm thick, the Water 3.0 Pro’s radiator is one of the fattest you can bolt to a single fan slot.
Thermaltake includes a pair of 120mm fans with the Water 3.0, so we had a push-pull configuration right out of the box.
The power supply that feeds our beast is LEPA’s MaxBron B1000-MB, a semimodular unit with a whole kilowatt of juice at its disposal. As its name suggests, the MaxBron B1000-MB is an 80 PLUS Bronzecertified PSU. It has a single, mighty 12V rail that dishes out up to 83A of current, as well as 3.3V and 5V rails that are each rated for 24A. Another nice thing about the MaxBron B1000-MB is that we had connectors to spare. The power supply has six 6+2-pin PCI-E, 12 SATA, and six 4-pin Molex connectors, which will let you add a pile of other components when the time comes to upgrade the PAX Predator. Finally, we sought out a case for all of our sweet, sweet loot. What we found was Cooler Master’s COSMOS SE. Admittedly, we’ve always been big fans of Cooler Master’s COSMOS cases. The COSMOS SE brings the COSMOS’ iconic silhouette down to a price that’s accessible to a far wider group of power users. To do this, Cooler Master opted to use steel, as opposed to aluminum, for the majority of the COSMOS SE, and replaced the quick-release side panels with standard panels you secure with thumbscrews. Just looking at the case, though, you’ll hardly notice a difference. Functionally, the COSMOS SE is just as easy to work with, thanks to ample cable management holes, a precut hole to make installing CPU cooler backplates easier, and support for a wide variety of radiators.
On The Prowl Assembling the PAX Predator from its base components was plenty of fun, as it always is. Our GTX 760’s custom cooler turned out to be slightly longer than the COSMOS SE allows out of the box (10.9 inches), but Cooler Master was smart enough to build contingencies into its midtower.
By removing a couple of the case’s 3.5-inch internal drive bays, we had more than enough room to accommodate our graphics card, and we gained some breathing room for a few of our PSU cables, as well.
The pair of 120mm fans included with the Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro worked in our favor as well. We removed the 120mm rear exhaust fan that’s included with the COSMOS SE and relocated it to the top of the chassis. Between the Water 3.0, our GTX 760’s WINDFORCE 3X cooler, and the COSMOS SE’s four case fans, the PAX Predator has cooling handled.
A closer look at the PAX Predator’s parts follows, with profiles of each component. As always, we have a full suite of a benchmark results to wrap up this month’s CPU System Workshop, so you can see how this animal performs in its natural habitat.
With PAX East on the horizon, we had a perfect excuse to roll up our sleeves and flex our creative muscles. Although we don’t have the omnipotence to say “Let there be gaming rig,” snap our fingers, and produce a high-end machine out of thin air, we do have the knowledge necessary to put together a truly beastly PC for the East Coast expo. So, we immediately set out to work on the PAX Predator, a gaming PC at the top of the evolutionary ladder.
PC Parts Safari The PAX Predator had to have the DNA of a killer, naturally, so the first component we targeted in our parts hunt happens to be one of the most advanced desktop CPUs money can buy: Intel’s Core i7-4770K. Formerly codenamed “Haswell,” the 4770K represents Intel at the top of its game. Manufactured on the same 22nm process as its predecessor, Ivy Bridge, Haswell is a brand-new microarchitecture. The 4770K has a base clock of 3.5GHz (and has a Max Turbo frequency of 3.9GHz) and brings to the party four physical cores with the ability to handle eight threads simultaneously.
The CPU also features 8MB of L3 cache and Intel’s new-and-improved HD Graphics 4600 processor graphics. It’s all wrapped up in a neat little package that doesn’t exceed 84W TDP.
Upon Haswell’s arrival, Intel released a host of Lynx Point chipsets to complement its new processors. We chose the Z87 chipset, so we tapped GIGABYTE’s GAZ87X-UD5H for our motherboard. The GA-Z87X-UD5H is part of GIGABYTE’s legendary Ultra Durable family; specifically, this is an Ultra Durable 5 Plus motherboard.
The board’s solid-state capacitors have a life span of 10,000 hours and are rated to work at up to 105 degrees Celsius. It has lots of features that overclockers look for, too, such as voltage read points, a debug display, and onboard buttons for power, reset, and clear CMOS. The GA-Z87X-UD5H supports up to 32GB of DDR3-3000 and 2-way SLI/CrossFire. And of course, it doesn’t hurt one bit that the board has sleek style down cold, with its tri-color heatsinks in black, gold, and gray.
By now, you know that we equip every CPU System Workshop build with a graphics card capable of playing any game we want, and the PAX Predator is no different. NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 760 has been available for some time now, but GIGABYTE’s GeForce GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC (model GVN760OC-4GD) isn’t your garden-variety GTX 760. Sure, this card has everything you’d expect from any GTX 760, such as 1,152 CUDA cores, 96 texture units, and 32 ROPs, but the GV-N760OC-4GD’s WINDFORCE 3X cooler lets GIGABYTE have a little fun with the GPU’s speeds and feeds. Take note: Stock GTX 760s have base and boost clocks of 980MHz and 1,033MHz, respectively, but the GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC runs at speeds up to 1,085MHz and 1,150MHz. In addition to the WINDFORCE 3X cooler (a monument of heatpipes and aluminum fins that’s topped with three 92mm PWM fans), the GTX 760 WINDFORCE OC uses GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable VGA technology, a sweet suite of Japanese solid caps, ferrite core chokes, and a PCB infused with 2 ounces of copper. We expect that an enterprising overclocker will be able to tease even more power out of this graphics card.
This system’s boot drive has a lot of fight in it. It may even want to fight you.
Lucky for everyone involved, though, we were able to subdue Kingston’s HyperX 3K 120GB SSD and incorporate it into the PAX Predator’s genetic makeup. Armed with an LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller and Intel’s 25nm NAND, the HyperX 3K SSD has the muscle to move data at a breakneck pace. Kingston indicates that the 120GB HyperX 3K SSD can deliver sequential reads up to 555MBps and sequential writes up to 510MBps. Our 120GB HyperX 3K SSD offers outstanding random 4K performance, with reported max random 4K reads/writes of 24,000/79,000IOPS. This drive injects a ton of speed into the PAX Predator.
We grabbed a small mountain of memory to stuff inside the PAX Predator. Thanks to a 16GB kit of G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 (model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL), multitasking with this rig won’t be a problem.
The kit contains four 4GB modules with timings of 9-9-9-24, so every one of the GA-Z87X-UD5H’s DIMM slots got a stick. The 1.5V operating voltage is exactly what Haswell wants, and those gnarly heat spreaders look ferocious.
In the CPU System Workshop, we tend to favor processors with unlocked multipliers, which lets us overclock our way to some extra performance for free. Of course, overclocking means more heat, and more heat means we needed a CPU cooler that isn’t a slouch.
Enter Thermaltake’s Water 3.0 Pro, a closedloop liquid-cooler. The Water 3.0 Pro might have “just” a 120mm radiator, but this radiator has it where it counts: At 49mm thick, the Water 3.0 Pro’s radiator is one of the fattest you can bolt to a single fan slot.
Thermaltake includes a pair of 120mm fans with the Water 3.0, so we had a push-pull configuration right out of the box.
The power supply that feeds our beast is LEPA’s MaxBron B1000-MB, a semimodular unit with a whole kilowatt of juice at its disposal. As its name suggests, the MaxBron B1000-MB is an 80 PLUS Bronzecertified PSU. It has a single, mighty 12V rail that dishes out up to 83A of current, as well as 3.3V and 5V rails that are each rated for 24A. Another nice thing about the MaxBron B1000-MB is that we had connectors to spare. The power supply has six 6+2-pin PCI-E, 12 SATA, and six 4-pin Molex connectors, which will let you add a pile of other components when the time comes to upgrade the PAX Predator. Finally, we sought out a case for all of our sweet, sweet loot. What we found was Cooler Master’s COSMOS SE. Admittedly, we’ve always been big fans of Cooler Master’s COSMOS cases. The COSMOS SE brings the COSMOS’ iconic silhouette down to a price that’s accessible to a far wider group of power users. To do this, Cooler Master opted to use steel, as opposed to aluminum, for the majority of the COSMOS SE, and replaced the quick-release side panels with standard panels you secure with thumbscrews. Just looking at the case, though, you’ll hardly notice a difference. Functionally, the COSMOS SE is just as easy to work with, thanks to ample cable management holes, a precut hole to make installing CPU cooler backplates easier, and support for a wide variety of radiators.
On The Prowl Assembling the PAX Predator from its base components was plenty of fun, as it always is. Our GTX 760’s custom cooler turned out to be slightly longer than the COSMOS SE allows out of the box (10.9 inches), but Cooler Master was smart enough to build contingencies into its midtower.
By removing a couple of the case’s 3.5-inch internal drive bays, we had more than enough room to accommodate our graphics card, and we gained some breathing room for a few of our PSU cables, as well.
The pair of 120mm fans included with the Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro worked in our favor as well. We removed the 120mm rear exhaust fan that’s included with the COSMOS SE and relocated it to the top of the chassis. Between the Water 3.0, our GTX 760’s WINDFORCE 3X cooler, and the COSMOS SE’s four case fans, the PAX Predator has cooling handled.
A closer look at the PAX Predator’s parts follows, with profiles of each component. As always, we have a full suite of a benchmark results to wrap up this month’s CPU System Workshop, so you can see how this animal performs in its natural habitat.
