KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
To test our Core i7 Media center today we are using a variety of synthetic and real world testing, including recently released games in the attempts to measure overall performance. Would this system be ideal within a living room and gaming with friends in social situations for instance, or would it still be limited to media playback duties?
If we step outside generalised media demands how fast would the system be for encoding duties or professional level rendering?
We will also be comparing to a handful of AMD and Intel low power processors in specific parts of the review. Just to highlight the potential performance benefits from moving to this higher specified Core i7 system.
System build:
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k (reference cooler)
Motherboard: Sapphire H67 Pure Platinum
Memory: ADATA 4GB DDR3 Memory
Power Supply: Antec High Current Pro 850W
Graphics: Sapphire HD6670 Ultimate Edition
Chassis: Thermaltake Armor A30
Boot Drive: Intel 510 Series SSD 250GB
Storage: Samsung 2TB HDD (HD204UI)
Optical: Asus USB 2.0 BluRay Drive
Monitors: Sanyo 50 inch 1080P LCD Television and LaCie 730 for IQ testing.
Software:
Windows 7 64 Bit Enterprise Edition
Fraps Professional
SiSoft Sandra
CPUz
GPUz
CPUID Hardware Monitor Professional
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
CyberLink PowerDvd 11 Ultra
CyberLink Media Espresso
CrystalDiskMark
HDTach
AS SSD
Super PI XS
HQV Benchmark V 2.0
3D Studio Max
PCMark Vantage
PCMark 7
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Games:
Dirt 3
Dead Space 2
Total War: Shogun 2
Resident Evil 5
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
BulletStorm
The Witcher 2
Home Front
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests across five closely matched runs and averages out the results to get an accurate median figure.
Now thats what im talking about !
Thats a hell of a nice little system, better than my big ass desktop rig 🙁
Id put in the new iceQ 6970 or something like that. let it kick some serious ass, but noise and wattage would rise a lot.
I think over £1000 is a bit much for any media center, but thats more a full fledged performance PC. that case seems pretty cool though.
Nice board from Sapphire, under £100 is a good price point
The board is fantastic. its put me in mind to build a high end, small computer for downstairs. id probably opt for the 2500k.
The PSU seems overpowered for the build, but at least it would be running quiet due to low overhead?. a method in the madness? obviously there for a better discrete card later if wanted.
I always meant to build a media center and never got tempted by Fusion or ATOM as my mate has an atom desktop he built for 200 quid. he has lost all his hair using it, its that bloody slow.
this board looks to be ideal for a new PC. its got everything you need,. well maybe except crossfire support.
Yeah thats lovely, nice job, I could live with that myself
Personally id go for a silverstone case, and use a 2500k with maybe a low noise card in the 68xx range.
AT first I thought the system was unbalanced, why put a low end video card in with a Core i7 2600k? I see however the point now, its to keep noise down to as low as possible, but still offering decent gaming. im surprised that card is as good as the tests show. very impressive from sapphire.
Nice system, my media center isn’t as powerful as that, but I really only use it for watching tv shows via the tv.
The 2600k is really a very good price now, just over £200 for 4+4 cores. wasnt it closer to £300 when it was released?
All very well, but where do you plug in the TV tuner (or more likely, TWO tuners)?
The problem with mini-ITX is that there just aren’t any slots to plug stuff into, which is a bit of a non-starter for a media centre. USB isn’t really the way to go for this kind of thing (hardly makes for a tidy system and it’s relatively expensive), so the only way to go is a larger mother board.