SFF.Network SFF Build Challenge Voting - What to do for #2?

The next SFF Build Challenge is a mere two weeks away, and we're in need of the build that us four J's will construct next!

All builds are chosen by the community, and as such, we give the forum a full week to make suggestions and (eventually) vote for their favorite one. There are only three rules to suggesting a build:

1. There has to be a price ceiling (though this can be as high as you'd like)
2. The build has to be possible (no "quad-SLI within 2L for under $75", please)
3. The build can't be identical or really similar to something we've done recently

Whatever build is selected, the four J's will have to independently build, and then defend, during the last Low Volume podcast of the month.

So what shall we build, friends? Our fate is in your hands...
 

Ceros_X

King of Cable Management
Mar 8, 2016
748
660
Sub-10L
Premade case a must
$1000 budget
No OS, peripherals, monitor, etc included in budget.
TFlops/Liter performance winner?
 
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Reactions: Soul_Est

MrTiny

Caliper Novice
May 4, 2016
27
18
Lowest TDP per Tflop. 1.2k budget. OS included in budget. Mitx a must. The smaller the case, the better.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,827
4,902
I was too soon with my suggestion, but here goes:
I have a suggestion for the next challenge:

Performance per Liter Gaming PC

Limitations:
- budget, excluding OS: 1000$
- a closed, commercially available case (no test benches or other funny business eh James :p)

Goes without saying: functional PC gaming build, not a retail PC, size limitation is 19L, excluding various costs like shipping and tax.

Metrics:
- CPU performance per liter (rough PassMark ratings for instance)
- GPU performance per liter (rough 3DMark ratings for instance)
- Storage, RAM and noise are secondary but still important metrics
- will it be able to play Hearthstone, League of Legends, Fallout 4 or GTA 5 at 1080p ~60fps ?

Motivations:
- basically anything from a NUC to an Jonsbo V4 / Cooltek Coolcube Maxi
- anything from a SoC to the maximum cores you can stuff in (don't forget perf/MHz !)
- out of the box thinking is very much encouraged
- no "Intel is better than AMD" cheapshots, those APUs are vicious
 

EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
Budget: $1k
Limitations:
- All watercooled (AIO or single loop)
- No case-fans
- No component fans other than the PSU (because finding a non-custom water-coolable PSU is not really possible today)
Target: performance/litre

Will be interesting to see if deals on bulkier but cheaper AIO GPUs will swap the balance over a more space-efficient single-loop design.
 

Soul_Est

SFF Guru
SFFn Staff
Feb 12, 2016
1,531
1,926
Budget: $1,000 CAD
Target: Highest performance per litre for 3D rendering
Case: < 20 l in volume
Rebates: Yes
Sales: Yes
Bundles: Yes
 
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Ceros_X

King of Cable Management
Mar 8, 2016
748
660
Budget: $1,000 CAD
Target: Highest performance per litre for 3D rendering
Case: < 20 l in volume
Rebates: No
Sales: No
Bundles: No

I like this idea, but I don't think you should exclude rebates/sales/bundles - if I weas putting together I a PC today I would definitely utilize all three. I would also look on eBay, etc. What about OS? Case?
 

confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N
SFF Network
SFF Workshop
SFFn Staff
Jun 19, 2015
4,129
7,057
sff.network
We're trying to limit it to new parts from a couple retailers only - or else it'd just be a huge task to compile systems and then compare
 

Soul_Est

SFF Guru
SFFn Staff
Feb 12, 2016
1,531
1,926
I like this idea, but I don't think you should exclude rebates/sales/bundles - if I weas putting together I a PC today I would definitely utilize all three. I would also look on eBay, etc. What about OS? Case?
Good point. I'll remove those restrictions. The case and OS (free or paid) are up to the builders.
 

CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,233
2,556
Tflop for doing what though - that makes OS choice important!

Maybe we should keep it simple. Target build: gaming rig. Measuring gaming performance as highest FPS at 1080p per watt, or per liter.

CAD rendering performance is an interesting idea too, especially if it's wholly CPU dependent.
 

PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
Original poster
SFFLAB
Chimera Industries
Gold Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
1,052
1,990
Keep the suggestions coming, all! I'll make a poll on Wednesday aggregating the proposed ideas, and we'll end voting a few days thereafter.

Also, I just want to mention that "measuring performance" of our builds in any way will be tough, given that we aren't actually building them. So for a gaming rig, what makes it the "best" isn't going to be what benches the best, even if we tried to re-construct benchmark data from elsewhere and compared that way.

After all, maybe the best gaming rig for a given budget sacrifices some graphics horsepower for faster or larger storage. Or maybe it should be really compact like a console. Or maybe it should be scalable and expandable. What about lighting? Noise? Sound? Oh, and don't forget about a handle, right?...

...Basically, what makes any build the "best" is highly subjective, even when armed with objective benchmark data, and that's why we let the community decide as one voice through voting. Otherwise, we could just pull out calculators and pick the winner based on arbitrary criteria, which isn't nearly as helpful or fun :p