Benchmarking Build

[Ophidio]

So, last night I posted about the 970 vs 390x performance and well there were so many arguments that I thought maybe I'd be better off just buying the two cards and testing them both myself. So I need help in making a build for just benchmarking. It will be used in benchmarking games only since that's what most people are going to ask for. I may do some stress test on them but I doubt it. Now here's what I have so far. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($226.99 @ NCIX US) 

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($74.89 @ OutletPC) 

Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK2 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($162.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($67.97 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($116.89 @ OutletPC) 

Case: Lian-Li PC-T60B ATX Test Bench Case  ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Newegg) 

Total: $898.70

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-04 13:08 EST-0500

 

Now my biggest question is, since it is just for benchmarking games, would the i5 be perfect for the situation? Or would it actually be better to get an i7 for these kinds of test. I'm hoping the i5 is the better decision for this. I really don't feel like forking out the money for two i7 processors. 

 

Second question, should I go ahead and go with Skylake or stick with the Haswell-refresh that I have put in the build above? Will Skylake maybe help me with newer cards in the future? 

 

Also feel free to make any other suggestions to this build. I'm going with 16GB of RAM for the reason that Star Wars Battlefront Apparently recommends that you have 16GB so that is just for future games that may recommend the same thing. Very unsure on the PSU at the moment because I don't know if I'll want to SLI or Crossfire test any cards or if I'm just going to test single GPU's. I'm going with an Air Cooler because that seems to be what more people use even though you see people posting all the time about them getting an AIO I just feel like I'd get more accurate results for everyone using an Air Cooler. Harddrives are literally just for boot device and storage for games.

[minibois]

- i5 is good enough for gaming only benchmarks

- i5 4690K is good. No need for Skylake IMO

- Don't have any suggestions to the build.

 

What I would suggest/ask is can you also include some heat, sound and power benchmarks? If possible of course. Or at least write a bit on all three, as those are often things that get talked about with 970 vs 390X topics.

[ThatOneRussian]

I dont get it so you use any build and as long as you keep all the components the same he test would be accurate?

[thatguyyouknow75]

I would get an i7. You may not want to benchmark other things now, but if you did later you'd already have an i7.

[Ophidio]

I dont get it so you use any build and as long as you keep all the components the same he test would be accurate?

Not really sure what you're asking here, I'm just trying to go with the average components that most people would have in a general gaming build. 

 

- i5 is good enough for gaming only benchmarks

- i5 4690K is good. No need for Skylake IMO

- Don't have any suggestions to the build.

 

What I would suggest/ask is can you also include some heat, sound and power benchmarks? If possible of course. Or at least write a bit on all three, as those are often things that get talked about with 970 vs 390X topics.

If I was to include heat and sound would it be better to get a mid tower case to test everything in instead of an open test bench? 

 

I would get an i7. You may not want to benchmark other things now, but if you did later you'd already have an i7.

This is true, but even if I did want to do other benchmarks like CPU intensive ones or something like that I'm about to build an i7 Skylake machine that I could just use for that if I ever needed to. 

[ThatOneRussian]

Not really sure what you're asking here, I'm just trying to go with the average components that most people would have in a general gaming build. 

 

-snip-

that makes sense. but then again are ou going to be benchamarking gpu's cpu's?

[minibois]

If I was to include heat and sound would it be better to get a mid tower case to test everything in instead of an open test bench? 

Oh yeah, that's true..

I forgot for such tests you need a silent room and all that stuff..

[Ophidio]

Oh yeah, that's true..

I forgot for such tests you need a silent room and all that stuff..

Yeah, I could do the heat with a closed case because it'd be in my office area which is what I would consider a typical gaming environment for most people. Sound would be my only issue. 

 

that makes sense. but then again are ou going to be benchamarking gpu's cpu's?

I will be benchmarking GPU's only. CPU's are pretty standard for the most part and I'll leave that to the professionals to benchmark. I was wanting to do GPU's because they are all different and it would just be easier to give my own input on graphics cards knowing myself how they perform against each other in what I would consider an average gaming environment and build.