Ode to Boutique PC Builders

[Overmind One]

See, this is the kind of thing a boutique does:



And this:



The Tiki Z is in its own way the quintessential enthusiast PC. It does something which at least on the surface is kind of insane (putting the Titan Z in an ITX format). But Falcon got it to not only work but overclocked it to boot. It uses a variant on the SilverStone 600W PSU that Falcon actually helped SilverStone develop, dual SSDs in RAID 0, an ASUS ITX form factor motherboard that again ASUS developed together with Falcon and even has Intel's "Devil's Canyon" class CPU. All this in that small case. Something tells me you would never see Dell or HP push the envelope like that! Minitower ITX full speed gaming on 4K displays...this unit makes any gaming console look amateurish in comparison.

ANY quad core PC puts the very best most powerful game console to shame. They are not even in the same category of power that PCs can use. I am convinced that console buyers are getting them because they just dont know any better. Not a single thing gives an advantage to a game console over a PC attached to a big screen TV.

Origin PC on their side developed the Millennium case which lets the user mount the motherboard in any number of different ways to get more use out of the interior space and optimize cooling. They don't have the cred of Falcon yet where OEMs like ASUS come to them for design consulting but I can see them getting there. The PC in the video is vintage gamer PC - big, brawny and lots of bays and ports! They'll have growing pains (as the video evidences) but keep an eye on these guys!

I still think that the true boutique shop is going to take orders for your custom specs rather than sell you a fully completed rig. Should we start a DIY thread on building PCs? I built mine, and Tripler built his, and I assume you have the skills to build your own from what you have posted here. Not in a contest sort of fashion, just a good old geek PC building thread? Ill start one.

 

[Overmind One]

Every component is high end and the case is custom manufactured. Then there is the paint work, the tuning, burn in, cabling work and such. Also the warranty and the hand building work and such. Actually $3700 for those components is not crazy.

The TITAN Z itself is $2800, the Devil's Canyon CPU is $365 bin pricing. Not sure on the rest.

Um, to me it is! I have been buying dual Xeon rackmount servers with 24 memory slots for well under $2000 on NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117259

The specs blow these boutique units away in power. The paint job on the case is not important to me at all. The case units are easier to refit new graphics cards though Look at the parts here:

http://www.newegg.com/Servers-Workstations/Category/ID-271

 

[Joelist]

Um, I quoted list prices for just the CPU and GPU and they add up to $3165. Building servers is completely different (and cheaper on a per unit basis) than building out a custom high performance gaming rig. So given the components the pricing is not out of line. And remember who the audience for such a unit is - these are the kind of gaming geeks who want to run games at full speed on 4K displays (which Falcon includes with the unit - they ship you an ASUS PB287Q 4K monitor). And on 4K this puppy runs extremely demanding games like Tomb Raider with everything cranked to max at 60fps. On 1440p at 121 fps.

Rig building has a couple of different schools - there are those who do it to make a nice rig at potentially a lower price and there are those who are just trying to go nuts and push out the performance envelope. PC Boutiques definitely cater to the second bunch.

 

[Overmind One]

Um, I quoted list prices for just the CPU and GPU and they add up to $3165. Building servers is completely different (and cheaper on a per unit basis) than building out a custom high performance gaming rig. So given the components the pricing is not out of line. And remember who the audience for such a unit is - these are the kind of gaming geeks who want to run games at full speed on 4K displays (which Falcon includes with the unit - they ship you an ASUS PB287Q 4K monitor). And on 4K this puppy runs extremely demanding games like Tomb Raider with everything cranked to max at 60fps. On 1440p at 121 fps.

Rig building has a couple of different schools - there are those who do it to make a nice rig at potentially a lower price and there are those who are just trying to go nuts and push out the performance envelope. PC Boutiques definitely cater to the second bunch.

My strategy is to buy an enterprise level server and then mod it for home use. The rackmount machines rarely make it easy to install a gaming graphics card, but the boards do support them easily. You can remove the board and throw it into a fancy case if you want. No game in existence is going to challenge a dual Xeon rig with 24gb of RAM and a 4gb 4k Nvidia-Maxwell graphics card.

 

[Joelist]

Remember they run these at max on 4K displays (to me that's just nuts but whatever). NVidia itself says you need three Maxwell GTX 980s in triple SLI to get good performance in such a setting. That means an SLI motherboard which creates issues with using a server setup.

Plus there is the issue of the CPU being able to keep up here. Xeon's are wonderful for their intended purposes and indeed in I/O intensive scenarios they rule. However in this specific scenario something like Intel's Devil's Canyon (8 Cores running at 4.0+ Ghz) fits the need closer:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/4th-gen-core-desktops-brief.html

Obviously the tech advances over time. By next year Intel will release the Broadwell version of Devil's Canyon and NVidia will update the TITAN Z to the Maxwell architecture.

 

[Overmind One]

Remember they run these at max on 4K displays (to me that's just nuts but whatever). NVidia itself says you need three Maxwell GTX 980s in triple SLI to get good performance in such a setting. That means an SLI motherboard which creates issues with using a server setup.

Plus there is the issue of the CPU being able to keep up here. Xeon's are wonderful for their intended purposes and indeed in I/O intensive scenarios they rule. However in this specific scenario something like Intel's Devil's Canyon (8 Cores running at 4.0+ Ghz) fits the need closer:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/4th-gen-core-desktops-brief.html

Obviously the tech advances over time. By next year Intel will release the Broadwell version of Devil's Canyon and NVidia will update the TITAN Z to the Maxwell architecture.

Yeah, Im just not going to ever spend more than $2000 on any computer just because it is not worth it to me.

 

[Joelist]

Me neither.

But when I see what these types of gamers are trying to do I can understand how it gets so pricey.

And I still admire the boutiques. That type of personal touch, every unit is custom hand built as opposed to churned out by robots on an assembly line in Asia is very encouraging for me to see. Also the pride in craftsmanship and the little extra personal touches these boutiques do.

 

[Tripler]

I will probably spend more than $2000 on my Intel rigg .

 

[Joelist]

Here's a rig build I was pricing out:

ASUS Rampage V X99 Motherboard: $379
Core i7 5960X CPU roughly $800
Corsair RM1000 1000W PSU $130
Corsair Hydro H105 Liquid Cooling $115
Arctic Silver 5 $20
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2800 SDRAM $400
Rosewill ATX Full Tower Throne W Case $100
2X EVGA GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB cards in SLI $1000
2X Intel 730 480GB SSDs in RAID 0 $600

There are odds and ends still needed but that shopping list right now is at $3524. So when I see the Tiki Z starting out in the $3700 range with all the extras it has I don't think it is a bad value.

 

[Bluce Ree]

 

[Joelist]

Overmind One = I still think that the true boutique shop is going to take orders for your custom specs rather than sell you a fully completed rig. Should we start a DIY thread on building PCs? I built mine, and Tripler built his, and I assume you have the skills to build your own from what you have posted here. Not in a contest sort of fashion, just a good old geek PC building thread? Ill start one.

That is what they do. I mentioned it in the System 76 thread. Falcon for example has you use an extremely detailed configurator - there are no "standard models". They then contact you and review your build with you item by item. There will also be a final quote stage where the price may change if you altered a spec or they were able to get a better price on one or more components. You accept the quote and they start the hand build with regular progress reports. Then comes the "burn in" and other testing. You get those results as well with the PC. Also initial benchmarking and other metrics which you receive. Only after all that do they ship.

 

[Overmind One]

Here's a rig build I was pricing out:

ASUS Rampage V X99 Motherboard: $379
Core i7 5960X CPU roughly $800
Corsair RM1000 1000W PSU $130
Corsair Hydro H105 Liquid Cooling $115
Arctic Silver 5 $20
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2800 SDRAM $400
Rosewill ATX Full Tower Throne W Case $100
2X EVGA GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB cards in SLI $1000
2X Intel 730 480GB SSDs in RAID 0 $600

There are odds and ends still needed but that shopping list right now is at $3524. So when I see the Tiki Z starting out in the $3700 range with all the extras it has I don't think it is a bad value.

Dude, you do realize that no software currently in existence available to the public can take advantage of all that power, right? No game, no scientific modeling software (Dassault stuff), not even climate models. The main reason to have all that speed and use it would be virtualization of multiple machines. Spending more than $2000 on any gaming computer is sorta out there to me. No computer needs liquid cooling. Why put a GTX 980 in a SLI configuration? It can handle everything by itself. And two SSDs? Games load in memory and then play out of the memory, not the hard drives. I would opt for standard SATA drives in a gaming rig.

Just my thoughts...

Just because the power is available to be put together does not mean one should do so. A pair of V12 engines and a 4-wheel drive kit can easily be put on a school bus and it would burn rubber and get kids to school in a hurry, but would it really be the smart thing to do?

 

[Joelist]

Actually there is software that would stretch that rig. I listed one such earlier - Tomb Raider running at maximum on a 4K display would need every bit of both of those 980s to drive the display at a respectable FPS. Also Crysis 3 and others. Remember this is 4K gaming. If you go lower - say 1080p or even 1440p - the demands lessen.

 

[Overmind One]

Actually there is software that would stretch that rig. I listed one such earlier - Tomb Raider running at maximum on a 4K display would need every bit of both of those 980s to drive the display at a respectable FPS. Also Crysis 3 and others. Remember this is 4K gaming. If you go lower - say 1080p or even 1440p - the demands lessen.

Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider are not rendering at 4K, so the graphics cards are being forced to synthesize it. Are there really people out there playing these games at 4K? I guess there are. Im just not into it like that, but it is interesting. Over the top, but interesting....sorta like lowriders and monster trucks.

 

[Joelist]

Nor am I - to me playing a game at max on a 4K display is basically nuts. Note the graphics power you need to do it - the rig whose parts I priced out is basically equal to three PS4s or three XBox Ones in raw graphics power and the memory speed and CPU are in a completely different league as well.

Just play it at max at 1080p and the hardware kit I priced out gets less pricey - you can ditch one of the 980s and one of the SSDs and cut $800 off the price right there. You can also save another $400 or so by going down a step or two on the CPU - say the 4790X instead of the 5960X. The resulting rig will handle games at 1080p well and come in at about $2300.

 

[Overmind One]

Nor am I - to me playing a game at max on a 4K display is basically nuts. Note the graphics power you need to do it - the rig whose parts I priced out is basically equal to three PS4s or three XBox Ones in raw graphics power and the memory speed and CPU are in a completely different league as well.

Just play it at max at 1080p and the hardware kit I priced out gets less pricey - you can ditch one of the 980s and one of the SSDs and cut $800 off the price right there. You can also save another $400 or so by going down a step or two on the CPU - say the 4790X instead of the 5960X. The resulting rig will handle games at 1080p well and come in at about $2300.

That sounds more like it! Its not that I could not afford the 3000+ rig, I just would not be able to make sense of it to myself or to anyone else who knew that I spent that much on it. I think it might be fun to try it out though...

 

[Tripler]

The reason I will be spending more than $2000 is because of FlightSim . FSX in particular . It kills puters for frame rates . My rigg plays FS9 easily but FSX kills it right down to less than 10 fps .

 

[Tripler]

http://jetlinesystems.com

http://jetlinesystems.com/performance.php

 

[Tripler]

The GTX 980 is catching my eye

 

[Overmind One]

The GTX 980 is catching my eye

It is an AWESOME gaming card. It allows your computer rig to breathe easier because of the GPU and memory on the card. Joelist mentioned throwing it in SLI but I would not do that. It is awesome all by itself, and it can output 4K and everything below that. You can run 4 screens at full 1080pHD with no lag.

Also, I would not recommend a 4K monitor over a standard 1080P monitor (at this time, because of them being so new). Do yourself a favor and check one out in the flesh. They are crispy and extremely fine in detail, but unless your games or simulations are using it, the 4K is not worth it. Stores like the one I checked out had an actual 4K demo playing on it. But none of the games on the market are rendering in 4K.