Tech News
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Springtime is Boring for the Hardware Enthusiast
Springtime is one of the worse for PC hardware. Sure there might be a random awesome speed SSD released, "big whoop" There might even be a video card out there so powerful it has been dubbed the GPU of Power, "meh, needs more VRM" and yes there is always LN2 but after you figure delivery and kneaded eraser invoices you have blown your wad and have nothing left for beer.
I guess it might be time for something new, something totally fresh and new. Something I haven't done in awhile.
Watercooling.
Seems I have one of those "S-Frame" cases and a closet full of hardware but nothing exotic enough in the cooling department to really make the case stand out.
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PNY GTX 980 XLR8 Pro OC Review @ Hardware Canucks
PNY still makes video cards! This is pretty impressive. Not only does it come with a custom (larger) VRM but features a very sleek heatsink design and comes with a custom backplate.
It my be a bit late to the market, but the GTX 980 XLR8 Pro OC is one of the best Maxwell-based cards on the market and boasts a lifetime warranty to boot.
In terms of layout the card looks to be following the 980 KPE with a single loaded site of video connections and has a few voltage test pads across the top. Keep in mind that PNY is still bound by the NVidia rules for overclocking so to get the most from this card you'll likely need a custom bios image and some great overclocking software.
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GIGABYTE Z97X Gaming 7 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review @ [H]
I have always iiked the Gigabyte Gaming motherboards, they seem extremely solid and come with the right amount of features.
GIGABYTE's Z97X Gaming 7 promises solid overclocking and performance. The feature list for the Z97X Gaming 7 is long and includes gamer focused features like a dedicated audio amplifier, Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 support and more. We've had mixed results with the GIGABYTE lately, so the real question is; does it work?
This might just be my opinion but, I really liked the green and black boards from the G1 series. It would seem that green is just too progressive for some folks or brings back frightful nightmares of that one time with Kermit.
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Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion, Budget Overclocker? @ Bjorn3d
I recenlty reviewed the Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion and felt it was an extremely solid motherboard and does overclocking really well. Thing is the X99 SOC Force seemed like the better board for the mainstream and cost more as a result.
When you’re looking at the 2011v3 Haswell E CPU family, nothing about it is inexpensive. The entry-level CPU is about $390 and it doesn’t even feature 40 full PCI-E lanes. The lowest tier CPU has 28 PCI-E lanes and you have to go to the second tray CPU, the Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz, to get full PCI-E lanes. So for a fully functional 40 PCI-E lane CPU, we are looking at $560 smackers. Decent air cooling will set you back around hundred bucks if you want to overclock. Sixteen gigabytes of quality, high-speed DDR4 memory runs in the $300 dollar range. Just the CPU, CPU cooler and memory means that we are just short of $1,000. If you are looking for a Champion Overclocker but don’t want to break the bank the Gigabyte X99 SOC come in at $300 when you can find it on the shelves.
Whoa. ^ This quote ^ wow
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The end of games consoles according to Twitch Boss
When it comes to gaming hardware there are two ways you can look at it.
The first perspective is from the game developer who sets out to build a game for the latest hardware and spends two years in development. At launch the game runs great on the intended system and even better on a modern PC. From this perspective do you need to upgrade your PC, No.
On the flip side looking at it from content consumers, aka gamers and companies building the hardware they are often annoyed at the development lag in games. To them upgrading isn't because you need to but rather because something broke and the hardware maker no longer has parts to support it. From this standpoint do you need to upgrade your PC to play modern games? Again, No.
The twitch co-founder claims that because of the long 7 year lifecycle of a game console that it will ultimlatly lead to the end of the gaming console completely. Thing is, gaming isn't always about the hardware but rather the game itsself, if the game is good and plays well on a console people will play it. Likewise, if a game plays better on a PC then people will swing to that camp. In fact, the only way to get games off a console is for game developers start building games that won't play on a modern console and is something they will never do.
“The problem is, the seven-year upgrade lifecycle doesn’t work in the face of the two-year upgrade cycles for every other hardware platform,” he said. “It’s so intrinsically built into how consoles get manufactured and made and the full business model, that I’d be surprised to see another generation.”
Shear, who co-founded the live video game broadcasting platform that now has more than 100m monthly users, suggests that future consoles will be more like set-top boxes: designed for a multitude of uses, and with a much shorter life cycle.The above quote (mispellings courtesy of The Guardian) is pure speculation and is basically saying that eventually someone will create an affordable steambox or steam machine style computer that will eventually replace the console. (read: Syber Gaming style or BRIX style) Chances are these game machines will be branded Xbox or Playstation however, the one thing that makes game consoles successful is the guarantee that when you buy a game for Xbox 360 or Xbox One it will be playable on those machines. When you start changing the hardware around you lose that assurance.
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The New Single GPU King Of The Hill: A Look At NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX TITAN X @ Techgage
Seems I missed the Titan X train but, by the looks of it, the sampling of this new GPU was rather limited. Despite this you can find plenty of preformance based reviews including this one at Techgage.
Continuing its TITAN legacy, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX TITAN X gives the gaming world its latest drool-worthy top-end offering. With sights on 4K gaming, TITAN X gives us a sleek black card that boasts 3,072 CUDA cores and an absurd 12GB framebuffer on a 384-bit bus. Words are not needed - let's dive in.
What is really amazing about the Titan X is that from a board design stanpoint it is basically a GTX 980 with super huge GPU. It won't be long before we see ePower and gPower boards attached to them followed by reports of burned up Titans as they attempt for global world record overclocks with a chance that some hardware maker will offer them a job.
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Bitspower THOR EIX99 Full Cover Water Block for EVGA X99 Classified/FTW at Modders-Inc
I do hate email tracking links but the title of this review was good enough for me to get "captured" for marketing purposes.
Water cooling is a great way to remove heat from PC components. There are various types of water or liquid cooling solutions available such as the popular All-in-One (AIO or Closed loop) units, DIY liquid cooling kits, as well as fully customizable water cooling loops. As the name implies, a custom loop option is highly configurable and allows users to
In trying to find a good photo of this block combo I discovered that they make a good number of full coverage motherboard blocks, mostly for Asus and at least one for Gigabyte. Sadly, I couldn't find one for the EVGA block so check out the review for more details.
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ASUS STRIX GTX 960 DirectCU II OC Video Card Review @ [H]
The GTX 960 is a great little chip for us mainstream gamers who might not need or can afford something "good". The chip can deliver some amazing performance at the cost of a few visual effects and screen resolution, HardOCP has posted their review of the Strix 960 DirectCU II OC version of the GTX 960.
Does the long name warrent any attention?
For our GPU review today we have the ASUS STRIX GTX 960 DirectCU II OC, one of the highest factory overclocked GeForce GTX 960 that money can buy. We will compare it to the fastest overclocked Radeon R9 285 that we have at the Underground Bunker to see which reigns supreme at the $200 price point.
I'm curious only because of the DirectCU cooler and promise of street cred. Of course a custom PCB and enhanced VRM would be helpful however, none of that is photo documented in this review and as they say.
Pics or it didn't happen.
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Hardware Asylum Podcast now on Stitcher
In a valiant attempt to get the Hardware Asylum Podcast out to as many enthusiast ears as possible I have been working to get the Podcast into syndication for easy consumption by the masses. Of course the first step was to get a feed started with iTunes but, the iTunes directory is a fickle thing full of promise and heartache.
The next step in syndication is discovery. Over the past 50 episodes the podcast has enjoyed its fair share of listeners and I would like there to be more for the next 50. With that, it is time to branch out and move up.
Stitcher is a relatively new service that is similar to iTunes and covers a larger spectrum of shows and podcasts. Unlike iTunes you can also discover shows naturally by browsing their online directory.
Browse Stitcher's library of more than 25,000+ podcasts and radio shows. We'll help you discover shows you'll love. And you can listen to Stitcher on your iPhone, iPad, or Android.
Of course the best part is that they have mobile apps available giving you an easy way to follow the Hardware Asylum Podcast and know exactly when a new show goes live.
Check out the Hardware Asylum Podcast on Stitcher and let me know what you think!
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4Ghz Uncore on Gigabyte X99 Champion
For those of you unfamilar with Haswell and Haswell-E there are three basic frequencies you need to deal with when attempting to overclock.
- Core Frequency = which is Multiplier x Base Clock (BCLK)
- Base Clock = This is the speed of everything and defaults to 100Mhz (eg the PCI Express frequency)
- Uncore = This is the speed of the memory controller or you can call it the Northbridge frequency.
Question is, why are these important? Let's start with Base Clock as this is the speed of everything. Basically changing the BCLK will increase core frequency, memory frequency, Unicore and even PCI Express. Depending on motherboard quality you can sometimes get a decent overclock from this or it can spell disaster.
For instance 30 x 105 = 3150Mhz (core) and 2133Mhz x 105 = 2239Mhz (mem). Not bad for 5 extra mhz.
If you are running a non K edition processor adjusting the BLCK is your ONLY overclocking option. However, K and X edition processors offer a multiplier adjustment which opens up a whole new world and is how you reach 4.5Ghz on air.
I have been messing around with the latest Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion motherboard and decided to do some memory overclocking to test out the new "OC" socket and was able to run my Core i7 5960X at 4Ghz Uncore by doing nothing more than locking some frequencies and adding some voltage.
Now before you say "that aint no big deal" on most X99 motherboards they come with a traditional LGA 2011v3 socket that doesn't allow voltage adjustments for Unicore. Without voltage your memory overclocking options rather limited and often stop with setting XMP and rebooting. With the X99 Champion you can enable the extra CPU pins and get some rather substantial gains in memory overclocking, like this simple 4Ghz run I have posted here.
Right now the system is running 4.5Ghz core with the memory clock set to 2200Mhz at 100Mhz BLCK. I manually increased Uncore to 4Ghz and did some quick stability tests. The Sandra results are shown above at 50GB/s and I got over 600fps in the Call of Duty benchmark.
I'm sure 4Ghz isn't the limit and with any luck I can match Uncore with CPU Core or at least get somewhere close. Unfortunately, I have noticed that I cannot enable XMP with this method or run my memory modules anywhere near their rated speed. This could be an issue of temperature or a sub voltage I have yet to discover so I'll have to keep testing.
