Since the dawn of computing, gamers on a budget have been flaunting their ability to best higher-spec'd systems courtesy of a little extra cooling and a lot of time fiddling with BIOS settings. So, no real surprise here that an Intel Core i5 processor can keep up with a Core i7 when properly configured. What
is surprising is that you can get one suitably configured with a warranty. The provider in this case is Digital Storm, the system is the Core i5-750, and the warranty is three years.
HotHardware put one through its paces and found that, if anything, it was too aggressively overclocked. But, with a few minor tweaks (which hopefully will be made standard for future iterations) the machine was stable, fast, and rather noisy. It managed to keep up with Alienware's Core i7
Aurora ALX in most benchmarks, despite being about $2,000 cheaper. That kind of savings should buy enough thermal paste to last you at least 18 months.
posted December 17th 2009 9:39AM
sleek :)
lol there is my computer gaming case
Lol there is my case
@Antiapplekid Is that your case?
@Xudd In his case it is
@Antiapplekid
I have the same case as well. Absolutely the best case I have ever owned. So easy to work in, the cooling is fantastic, and it looks awesome.
@Antiapplekid Your case is empty?
@Antiapplekid
my case as well =P, best case ever, i have my CPU overclocked to 4ghz on air and it stays a cool 31-32 degrees
@BrianH Same here, amazing case.
That is surprising! Hey, what's up?!
@cdsfire not much dude hows life??
what no link?
I don't see an link, but do you mean that an overclocked i5 can keep up with stock i7s? That should not be a surprise....
Forget the i5 beating a i7, I want to know where they found the invisible parts to put in that case!
No surprise. i7 is more beast than what matters. It's not like any game can take advantage of 8 processing threads.
So of course an i5 overclocked to above i7 speeds will beat an i7.
An overclocked lower end processor is able to trump the stock speeds of a non-overclocked higher end processor...
This just in, China has a communist government.
Yeah, I saw a modded minivan take a Mustang Cobra in a quarter mile. Still liked the Cobra better.
Do people just read the tittle and comment for the sake of commenting. Seems like no one read the source article. Whats interesting is the fact that hothardware, pointed out some interesting configuration flaws with digital storm's system, that are downright inexcusable. If I paid 2k for a system and it kept crashing, or lacked performance because of configuration errors I'd be a seriously unhappy customer. This is a fail on digital storms front.
@bnapy Agreed to some extent. They didn't report on any major crashing issues with the way the system originally shipped. The main issue with the graphics cards was that it just put the system at a severe disadvantage. I agree that the mistakes are inexcusable, as well as the crazy 60+ db noise.
Even still, a $2000 system that keeps up with a $4000 Alienware is quite impressive.
@ktarson Read it again, they had to downclock the gfx cards in order to run common benchmarks, meaning they were unstable at configured clocks. I'm not saying, its not a great system for the $$$, it just seems Digital storm made some really stupid mistakes. That would leave an uninformed customer pissed.
@ktarson
ehh alienware has to many problems. im tinkering with my area 51 right now trying to make basic things work like the fans!! whats cool is they send me a replacement system because i had so many problems guess what the graphics card is making a train noise you know like choo choo
Three year warranty, EVGA motherboard, reasonably fast ram, and SLI GTX 275s... for just under $2,000? While you can build it yourself, this has a full three year warranty. That's incredible. I haven't seen anyone come close to this for $2k.
I just built this same computer on Newegg. The total, after shipping, was $1,700. So you're paying $300 for a three year warranty and an *outstanding* factory OC.
BUY THIS COMPUTER.
What if you don't like noise? Or you'd rather have them OC a cheap i7 like the i860? Or you want DX11? I mean there are advantages to being able to pick your own components.
The diff between an ii5 and an i7 does not have to be $2K.
And 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 275 is nice but isn't DX11 like 2x HD5870, and 4GB isn't 6GB RAM
@Wwhat What's the point anyway when they barely made use of DX10.
@(Unverified) Future proofing for a small premium. Why not?
this is like saying that a core 2 duo overclocked to 4ghz can beat out stock quads.
o wait....
Well to be fair the comparison is to the most expensive stock quad i7, in a known alienware that does indeed cost $2K more, plus they OC with a warranty so it's a safe OC if you will.
All that makes the comparison a bit more nuanced and fair.
After reading the link, I found the PCMark score of this machine is way strangely high, according to the reviewer, people in digital storm must have done something to the system, or drivers. What ever changes the performance, I hope it can be used on other DIY machines