Puget Systems Deluge Mini: The Art of Custom
by Dustin Sklavos on April 5, 2011 4:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- GTX560
- Puget Systems
- NVIDIA
Gaming Performance
It's at this juncture that we'll get to see if the extra cache and Hyper-Threading on the i7-2600K has any noticeable impact on performance (comparing the otherwise identically-clocked Origin Genesis with Puget Systems' Deluge Mini). We'll aslo get a better look at how this comparatively inexpensive gaming configuration (two GeForce GTX 560 Ti's in SLI) fares against NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 590.
In certain cases that were already CPU-limited, the extra logical cores on the i7-2600K seem to help, but it's at this juncture we should point out a vital difference in how these systems were tested. At our standard 1080p testing, the Origin Genesis was using NVIDIA's 267 series drivers while the Puget Deluge Mini used the older 266 driver; these machines were tested concurrently, and it was actually with the Deluge Mini that we discovered just how dire the situation was for NVIDIA Surround. On 266.66 Surround just plain didn't work, but we didn't discover this until after we'd completed our 1080p testing for the Deluge Mini.
When we went to test the Genesis, we updated to the beta 267 driver right off the bat, which is likely what's causing results in Metro 2033 and STALKER to skew somewhat. This is also a good time to remind you that all of our tests are run thrice to ensure variations are weeded out. Interestingly, the 266 driver actually ran substantially better in Metro 2033 at "High" than the updated 267 driver (and of course now there's a new 270 beta driver available).
I can't stress this enough: for many of these gaming machines, running at 1080p (even with anti-aliasing) the GPUs are overkill. The two GTX 560 Ti SLI systems essentially bunch up, with Hyper-Threading either producing a gain or taking its cut and the driver difference making its presence known in STALKER, where abnormally high results in the "Night" benchmark skew the average. Let's move to surround gaming to remove the CPU bottleneck.
Finally, our surround testing continues to show freakishly favorable results for the Origin Genesis in STALKER, while in every other test the systems essentially fall in line. This is really where multi-GPU solutions shine and we hope to continue adding to these results in the future, but it's also a crime that getting NVIDIA Surround to work properly is as fraught as we discussed in the iBuyPower LAN Warrior II review. Those issues occurred across the board on all of these systems.
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Velotop - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I may have to think twice about building my own. Plenty of research time saved with something like this one.michal1980 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
Why? Just use their 'research' and save a few hunderd bucks. I priced out one of their systems vs newegg, and the difference in price was ~400+ bucks. The only thing missing was their water cooling system. Which is worth what? a 100 bucks max.for 300 bucks, you can get a very decent size ssd a
RaistlinZ - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
For $2,200.00 there's no reason not to have at least small SSD in conjunction with the 1TB WD Caviar Black. I really like the system overall though, and that case is sexy.bplewis24 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
That was my initial thought as well. I understand there is a premium for them building it, so $100-200 over cost seems reasonable. I'm curious as to how much the liquid cooling adds to the cost. I would likely do away with one of the GPUs and liquid cooling to get it a bit cheaper.scook9 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I love this case. For 3 years my desktop was in a Mini P180. It can house 2 full length graphics cards easily with the bottom cage removed and even can fit 3x 1.120mm radiators if you want to watercool (I did it :D)This post has all the pictures of the various incarnations I crammed into that case
http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-cosmetic-...
jigglywiggly - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
They just ruined the case by adding that fan on the side, the case is so quiet otherwise... sound dampening materials etc.HangFire - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
Hmm, the review says "one of the quietest gaming desktops we've ever tested", "noise is virtually a non-issue", and "major victory" on "both better thermals on the CPU and much better acoustics".I'm trying to find the "just ruined" in here.
When I build a quiet system I avoid side fans, because it is difficult to keep the side panel from becoming a sounding board and amplifying the noise of the fan mounted on it, and also because the left panel is highly likely to be in line of site of the user's ear.
However just being difficult doesn't mean it can't be done, and it appears Puget Sound has done it, and did it well.
sully213 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
I have to agree that the side fan is adding "noise", but visual noise, not auditory noise. They can keep the fan itself there, internally mounted, but do away with the ugly fan grill and have a honeycomb or some other pattern of holes for the air to flow through. It provides the same amount of air flow without having a distracting and cheap looking grille mounted to the outside of the otherwise smooth visual line of the case.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - link
I agree, if the fan substantially helps temps I'm all for including it, but a black honeycomb/mesh grille mounted from the inside would look a lot less cheesy.Also, isn't this essentially the same watercooling system you complained about in the Origin system? Any idea why it is so much quieter here? And is it only the overclock resulting in the large differences in power consumption?
A5 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
For the lazy enthusiast, you could just order the base system (with an SSD if you want it - reinstalling Windows after the fact is kind of a pain) and then add in the 2nd card for SLI later, do the OC yourself, and get a big drive for storage on your own to save some coin and avoid the markups. You'd still pay a decent premium, but at least you'd know it worked when it got to your door.