Build-A-Rig Round 2, SilverStone vs. Crucial: The $800 PC Showdown
by Daniel Williams on November 12, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Build-A-Rig
- Systems
- Crucial
- SilverStone
Power, Temperature, and Noise
Some may not be too worried about power and noise, especially students who may be aren't paying a power bill at their dorm or their parents’ house. Still, the more power a computer draws the more heat it has to deal with and the more cooling required, and that in turn makes it harder to keep noise levels low. This problem is made worse in smaller builds where there isn't room for a large cooler with plenty of surface area. So in the end one way or the other all three of the areas covered here will have an impact on one's experience.
One quick note here: for the Mighty Milo I’m using the silent fan profile for the stock performance – with the aftermarket cooler even silent is plenty – and when overclocked I’m using the higher speed performance fan profile.
Out of the gate, we find a surprising difference in idle power consumption between the two systems. SilverStone’s build idles with much less power consumption than the Crucial build. Since we’re looking at complete systems it’s not immediately clear what the difference is, but as the Thermaltake PSU in the Crucial build is a larger 600W unit that is not 80Plus rated, it’s likely that the PSU is greatest factor here.
Shifting over to load power consumption the story hasn’t changed much. The Crucial system draws more power at every stage, this despite the fact that it’s the SilverStone system with the more power-hungry video card. Even overclocked, Mighty Milo still draws less power than the Ballistix Bantam, though I suspect in practice Milo is actively using more power. This once more points to the PSU and energy conversion losses being the biggest contributor here.
Moving on to temperatures, it’s the Mighty Milo that has the edge with CPU temperatures. With its larger, non-reference cooler and lower rated wattage of the Pentium CPU, this was its metric to win, even with the silent fan profile. Otherwise I suspect that the cases are playing a role here as well, though certainly not as much as the coolers.
With GPU temperatures on the other hand it’s the Ballistix Bantam in the top spot. The GTX 950 is innately a cooler running video card, and that makes everything easier when it comes to keeping down temperatures. Though it’s interesting that at idle this build is quite a bit warmer than the Mighty Milo, which may be the cooler on the card or it may be the case.
Finally, with system noise, both systems produce similar results. The Mighty Milo has the overall edge, particularly when stressing just the CPU or GPU. Otherwise when both processors are under full load, the gap between the two systems is just 0.8dB. I have to say a number I loved seeing during testing was the OCCT (CPU) load noise for the Mighty Milo at stock speeds on the silent profile. With a measurement of less than one decibel above idle, the volume under load is indiscernible from the volume at idle. In day to day life in anything less than a very quiet environment, it wouldn't be hard for a machine such as this to be rendered inaudible except when the GPU really kicks in.
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DanNeely - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
At the same time, the efficiency penalty from being significantly below the PSUs sweet spot is much larger than from being near its max output. You're also paying a lot in higher running costs now for that big low efficiency PSU. At typical US energy prices, if you leave it on 24/7 it's about $30/year; and is still $10/year if only on for 8 hours a day (triple these numbers for somewhere like Hawaii or Germany that have really high power costs). A 450/500W model makes a lot more sense now and would do much better in the face of your potential high end upgrade than the current one does now. If you're going with an oversized PSU now because you don't want to buy a bigger one after a future planned upgrade, it really pays to get a high efficiency model to avoid the much higher operational costs when the system is at idle.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
The cost concern would vary from place to place, as you've pointed out, but I think the difference in cost even in areas where electrical rates are high aren't that significant. Say you'd spend $90 a year feeding a computer electricity to leave it on 24/7 in a high cost area of the world. A more efficient power supply that burns less power might help, but you'd realize a pretty small overall price difference over the useful lifespan of the computer. I don't deny the idea of a more efficient, lower wattage PSU being a better choice, but I don't think electrical costs are a very significant factor in computing hardware unless the savings are pretty dramatic (say netbook vs gaming desktop) or involve large numbers of computers in a business/enterprise environment.However, I wouldn't even upgrade a system like the Crucial box unless I could do so by waiting a few GPU generations to get more performance for less wattage rather than grabbing a higher end and more demanding current generation part, but I'm also pretty happy with gaming on a GeForce GT 730. If my desktop vanished today, I'm also not against using my admittedly old Atom n270 netbook as my only computer since gaming isn't a major concern. As such, I'm guessing you're more well informed and better suited to make a recommendation. :)
DanNeely - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
You appear to be misunderstanding my numbers. It's not $90 total, it's $90 *more*. The rule of thumb conversion factor for something on 24/7 is that at a price of 10 cents/KWH is equal to 1 dollar/watt-year. Somewhere that power is 10c/kwh (slightly below the US average) the Might Milo would cost $38/year left at idle, Ballistic Bantam would cost $64; a $26/year difference. At 35c/kwh its $133 vs $224 per year for power, that 26 watt difference ends up costing an extra $91/year.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, November 17, 2015 - link
Oh, okay! Sorry for the misunderstanding. I do think the cost difference isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things. In the hypothetical college student in a dorm situation, electrical inefficiency isn't going to result in a cost increase unless the university is metering individual dorms. They didn't when I was a student, but that isn't even remotely recent history. For someone who's paying their own electrical bills, $90 a year is only the price of one person's dinner at a nice restaurant. I still agree the power supply is overkill, but energy costs just aren't dramatic enough to matter. Don't buy that extra pair of shoes or skip out on girls/boys night out once or twice -- you won't miss them anyway since you'll be busy playing whatever game it is that makes you happy anyway.nikaldro - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
I think you should have tested frame times. 2 vs 4 threads can make a substantial difference sometimes.tipoo - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Yeah, Digital Foundry has pretty much solidified that even two extra virtual threads make a huge difference. 2 cores alone can sometimes drop a lot of frames in a game, two cores with hyperthreading for four virtual threads usually does really well. To the point where the CPU can push over 60fps in games if the GPU is up to it.geniekid - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
It's interesting to see how balanced both systems are - they both run into various bottlenecks depending on the application/settings. Objectively, I feel Crucial's more balanced system is the better choice for a true back-to-school system but, subjectively, overclocking SilverStone's G3258 by 34% is much cooler. I'd recommend the former to someone else. I'd take the latter for myself :)Flipper34 - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Not too bad for the price.crimson117 - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Giveaway, shmiveaway! I hope I win.reorx - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
This is the perfect PC build for school - especially that Silverstone slim case!