Haswell and GK110 vs. Ivy and GK104: DigitalStorm Virtue System Review
by Dustin Sklavos on June 23, 2013 12:00 PM ESTConclusions
What we're evaluating here are really three different products. The DigitalStorm Virtue gives us an opportunity to test both Haswell and the GTX 780 in the wild, as well as a chance to see what a good Corsair Obsidian 350D build might look like.
First, Haswell. I may be unusually, possibly needlessly harsh on Haswell, but I can't help but be incredibly unimpressed. IPC has gone up generation by generation, so why is overclocking performance essentially flatlining? The Core i7-4770K basically needs to hit the same speeds Ivy could eventually hit to really justify itself. Intel didn't architect Haswell for the high end, they architected it for the low. This is an architecture that's supposed to be in ultrabooks, not in ultra-powerful desktops. We felt shafted with Ivy Bridge, but Haswell was our great white hope, and I think that's why the i7-4770K is as disappointing as it is. Ivy wasn't a big jump in performance, but it wasn't supposed to be, and Haswell was. Hopefully when I build out the custom liquid cooling loop review and take more of the heat out of the equation, the architecture can stretch its legs a bit.
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Second, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780. Not much to say here that hasn't already been said in Ryan's review. Extremely high end kit has always had a little bit of a problem justifying the expense, but the GTX 780 is a pretty weird beast. Even on its best day the less expensive GTX 770 will still have a hard time catching up to the 780, and with a little bit of TLC you can basically get a GTX Titan or better for two-thirds the price. 33% off is an awesome discount, but it's still 33% off a cool Cleveland.
Finally, the DigitalStorm Virtue itself is actually a pretty solid deal. The build we were sent is their Level 3 build, with only the crazy GeForce Titan model ahead of it. This exact system can be built on NewEgg for only maybe $200-$300 less at absolute most, so the pricing is definitely fair for what you get. But $2,563 is still an awful lot of bank, and I'm more of the opinion that gamers looking for a better deal would benefit from the Level 2 configuration. It means downgrading a few components, but the i5-4670K isn't a serious hit for gamers and going down to 8GB of DDR3-1600 isn't relevant for the majority of users. The cruelest cut is dropping from the monstrous GTX 780 to the GTX 770, but the 770 is still an incredibly capable card, and you're saving around $800 in the process. While I enjoyed my time with the Level 3 model, I'm far more willing to give the more balanced Level 2 model the recommendation. If you're looking for a gaming desktop, the DigitalStorm Virtue is a solid value for the money.
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JimmiG - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
You *will* be able to pay extra for a properly TIM'ed CPU but it won't be another $20. You'll be looking at the IB-E and upcoming Haswell-E which will be several hundred more than their LGA1150 equivalents, with more expensive motherboards thrown in for good measure.airmantharp - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
So, 1000W PSU's are just for shits and giggles? It couldn't draw more than 500w in the worst load situations, and 750W PSU's covering dual-GPU setups are far more reasonable.danjw - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Any chance you could be convinced to see what you could do by deliding the i7-4770K changing the internal TIM, and see what you can do with it? I would really like to find out what the real top end to Haswell is, without Intel's nerf.Ubercake - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
This is kind of a creative way to give Haswell a numeric boost. How about both systems with 780s? Probably not much of a difference whatsoever.When AMD starts creating meaningful CPUs again, we'll see Intel get back into competition mode. Until then, they'll just keep selling CPUs with ever-so-slight increases.
Klimax - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
I doubt we'll ever again see GHz race, because energy density is getting very high .(Smaller chip is, more heat per mm needs to be transferred)And without huge complexity, per-clock performance is walled too. (And GPU show how such complexity works with yields)
AndersP - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
If you choose to buy a 780 GTX over a 770 GTX, you gain 10-20% performance increase for 70% higher price.You have to pay 20% more if you choose to buy 770gtx SLI rather than a single 780 GTX for a 50-60% performance increase. In addition, a 770 GTX is a lot cheaper, faster and better temperatures than 680 GTX. Not sure, about new features such as shadowplay and automated performance/temperature control also works with older models.
In my eyes 770 GTX is defiantly very viable. If you want the most for your buck.
godrilla - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
My 3 year old rig with i7 980 xe at 4.3 ghz and 1 year old gtx 690 1150/6500 mhz is still top notch.halcyon - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
These kind of meagre performance upgrades are the reason I'm not upgrading. Yes, I have the cash. In fact, it's burning in my pocket.But a 10% or so improvement at best over what I have?
Even my secondary 2009 system has a 3-channel memory subsystem that can actually feed four cores, unlike Haswell chipsets.
GTX670 and GTX770 offer almost zip improvements for my CUDA based workload.
But I'm not complaining, I can spend this money on better digigams, new phone, new tablet, etc.
At least there have been _substantial_ improvement on those, unlike in CPU/GPU performance of the past years.
Bluejay234 - Monday, July 22, 2013 - link
As good as the Digital Storm build looks, the sad truth is that there is STILL no compelling reason to buy a new Digital Storm system, when the 2600k based one I bought at the beginning of 2011 is almost as powerful as anything I can get today (and overclocks better).Drittz121 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
Just do yourself a favor. STAY AWAY from this company. Yes they look good. But when it breaks and it WILL. All they do is give you the run around. They have had my system for over 2 months trying to fix the garbage they sell. Worse company out there for support. DONT BUY