Tech News
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MSI X299 SLI PLUS @ techPowerUp
Cannot say I approve of XPower going away but, in this fine world of gaming boards that aren't any good for gaming and RGB LEDs everywhere it makes sense to simply go meta and call things how they are.
MSI has gone and stripped "GAMING" and "X-POWER" from its motherboard, and what's left is what we've got to look at today. MSI's X299 SLI PLUS is exactly what its name says it is and not much more... or is it more than anyone could have hoped for?
I hope it doesn't come back to byte them. Afterall some companies have gone under once they changed their brand marketing. *cough*Foxconn*/cough*
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Introducing the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti K|NGP|N
July 25th, 2017 - The GeForce® GTX™ 1080 Ti was designed to be the most powerful desktop GPU ever created, and indeed it was. EVGA built upon its legacy of innovative cooling solutions and powerful overclocking with its GTX 1080 Ti SC2 and FTW3 graphics cards. Despite the overclocking headroom provided by the frigid cooling of EVGA's patented iCX Technology, the potential of the GTX 1080 Ti still leaves room for one more card at the top...and man is it good to be the K|NG.
Featuring iCX Technology, a new efficient heatpipe layout, and edge-plated PCB for improved cooling, the GTX 1080 Ti K|NGP|N is ready to go from the moment you power on and also features:
- Guaranteed 2025 MHz+ Overclock*
- Highly-Efficient Digital VRM
- Dual-slot profile
- Single-slot capable with Hydro Copper Waterblock**
Single Graphics Card World Records:
- 3DMark Time Spy World Record – 14,219
- 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme World Record – 19,361
- 3DMark Fire Strike World Record – 31,770
- UNIGINE Superposition – 8,642
Learn more at www.evga.com/kingpin
Unboxing overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNAh64hD_Zk -
Gigabyte to reorganize motherboard and graphics card businesses
OMG this is huge news!
Gigabyte Technology will begin a business reorganization on August 1 and merge its motherboard and graphics card businesses together. The new department will be led by Eddie Lin, sales and marketing associate vice president of Gigabyte's Gaming Product Business Unit.
For the general public most of you wouldn't know that the Graphics card and Motherboard divisions of Gigabyte have always been seperate. Different budgets, different branding, different marketing and different people. This is why several years ago you saw the Aorus brand on video cards and pherpriphals but not on motherboards. Likewise motherboads were branded under "Ultra Durable" and also came with strange logos.
Well, with to the uptick of video card sales and continual decline of motherboard sales it makes sense to combine the departments (finally) and deliver a consistent message.
Or in this case equalize the books
They (Gigabyte) started on this path during CES 2017 and I can only hope things will get better as time goes on.
Although Gigabyte had excellent performance in the second quarter, its motherboard shipments continued to drop and reached only three million units. Gigabyte's strong performance in the second quarter was contributed mainly by its graphics card business, which enjoyed high revenues due to the cryptocurrency mining trend, and server orders from Russia-based Internet service provider Yandex. However, since the two sources of income are only short term, Gigabyte has already turned cautious about its future operations.
Several of Gigabyte's motherboard executives will be shuffled and will report to Lin after the merger is completed.
With the business reorganization, some market watchers believe Gigabyte will see a series of layoffs and resignations after October, but operations should return stable in the fourth quarter with a new team.
However, the business reorganization and exchange rate fluctuations are still expected to impact Gigabyte's profitability in 2017, the sources added.
This is the part I worry about. As you can imagine I have friends that work inside Gigabyte and a restructure is one of the few times where cleaning house is just part of the process.
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Tt eSPORTS Draconem RGB Gaming Mousepad Review at Modders-Inc
Remember how we talked about how RGB was taking over and that everything is becoming RGB?? Well the end has begun; we now have a confirmed review of a RGB Mousepad.
I'm not going to pretend that I know this product, cause I don't, and I'm not even going to say I looked at the view, cause I didn't, but, I can tell you that.... umm. wow?
I knew they existed and Darren talks about them quite often on the Hardware Asylum Podcast and here one is in the "plastic" (cause flesh doesn't work)
Tt eSPORTS has injected new life to the boring standard mouse pad with the implementation of a feature they are well-known for lately: RGB LEDs. This colorful feature feels at home on a higher-end product so it is implemented on the new Draconem RGB mousepad series. The original Draconem is made of tough aluminum and integrated a mouse bungee
I'm guessing this little device is USB controlled and might even have a USB passthru for TT Gaming mice so you can control two sets of RGB with a single piece of software., Now wouldn't that be something.
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HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ CPCR
What good is a gaming keyboard if you have sloppy keys?? I'm not talking about keyboards with sticky soda spills mixed with cheetoes but rather keyboards with rubber membrains and keypresses that resemble pushing grapes into a corner while you wait for the rats to pick out the seeds.
Maybe that is a bad example however, the HyperX Alloy Elite is not, In fact as far as keyboards go it is pretty darn good.
Now back for round two is the HyperX Alloy FPS’s bigger, badder cousin, the HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard which we have for review today. While the HyperX Alloy FPS catered towards the mainstream gaming crowd, the HyperX Alloy Elite has a more robust set of features than its sibling targeted towards gamers who want
Be sure to check out our review of the HyperX Alloy Elite Gaming Keyboard before you scurry off to see what Custom PC Review has to say.
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Steep decline in cryptocurrency market has miners dumping their GPUs on Ebay
I'm going to go ahead and mark this one in the "told you so" column and move on. Be sure to check out the full article on PCGamer
While it is difficult to predict anything when it comes to cryptocurrencies, we are cautiously optimistic that GPU pricing should start trending back to normal in the coming weeks. That could change at the drop of the hat, of course, but with the way things are now, miners are less motivated to stock up on GPUs and mine Ethereum.
That was not the case a month ago when Ethereum reached an all-time high of $300 before recording another high of more than $400 a short while later. More and more miners jumped on the crytpocurrency bandwagon in hopes of making some extra dough, and maybe even eventually striking it rich, as some early adopters of Bitcoin did. But since then, Ethereum has fallen in value, declining to a low of $133 over the weekend. It's currently trading at around $170-$180.
It has also become more difficult to mine over the past month.
This is actually great news for gamers who can now get "mildly" used GPUs on ebay at a fraction of the cost while we wait for stocks of new cards to replenish in the open market. Of course if you would rather have a new card over one that has been running 100% for the past 4 months, and I don't blame you, then you are in luck. The sharp decline in demand means that gamers can finally buy the video cards they want for their intended purpose.
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MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z 11 GB @ techPowerUp
You really have to wonder how good a particular product is when the reviewer actually calls out the price in the review description. I'm not going to diss at almost a grand for a GTX 1080 Ti you really want to know if it is worth it.
Lightning is MSI's flagship card for the GTX 1080 Ti Series. Our review of the Lightning Z, which is the highest clocked variant, confirms it has the best cooler of all GTX 1080 Tis; delivering lowest temperatures and lowest noise at the same time. The Lightning Z is also the fastest GTX 1080 Ti we ever tested, but isn't exactly cheap at $999.
On a side note, I find it interesting how NVIDIA claims the Pascal architecture is super power efficient but programs them to run hot to save power and lower operational noise. THEN, you have companies like MSI offering triple slot coolers like this was the GTX 580 era all so they can say it delivers the lowest temperatures.
I'm like, no s#it, the cooler is super oversized and comes with triple cooling fans what did you expect?.
Super excessive and I love it.
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Ballistix Elite 3466 MHz DDR4 @ techPowerUp
It is hard not to be a fan of Ballistix memory given the Crucial and Micron are local companies. In terms of overall speed Ballistix is right up there with other performance memory modules but does lack when it comes to "overclocking" modules.
Ballistix Elite DDR4 sticks have been granted a speed bump all the way up to 3466 MHz. We take the 8 GB DIMMs for a spin on Intel's Z270 platform because these sticks are still too Elite for AMD systems.
Crucial/Micron will be releasing some Ballistix Tracer modules later this year that promise to be more than just a throwback to lighted modules from days gone by. Full RGB LEDs and a decent amount of performance to boot.
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ASRock X299 Taichi @ techPowerUp
Looking back at the X99 launch I can see and feel a major difference in the level of excitement surrounding the new X299 platform. Things are just down. I think some of that might be the lack of quality reviews from respected websites followed by a lack of available product.
TechPowerUp has posted a review of the ASRock X299 Taichi which, if I remember correctly, is their mainstream gamer'esq motherboard line that everyone loves because of the price.
The ASRock X299 Taichi comes with a fresh look that's still familiar. Boasting support for Intel's latest Skylake-X processors, the board features dual LAN, integrated Wifi, three M.2 ports and outstanding audio performance. Yet again ASRock manages to impress!
The board does look pretty darn pimp and even has some gears to show you how much work it can do. (you know cause that is a thing)
oh and this
On Monday, the 19th of June, at approximately 6:45 PM, there was a knock on my door. I was lying on the living room floor with my legs up on the seat of my office chair, sleeping. You see, I'm kind of between houses right now, with my worldly possessions strewn across two cities. My supple leather couch that I love to melt into is at the OTHER house, not this one, so I had to deal with it.
Uhh, I'm not sure if that is a good thing or just some asshat trying to tell the world how exclusive and cool they thing they are. Either way, I Like it
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Intel Core i7 7740X processor review @ Guru3D
The Core i7 7740X was a highlight processor of Computex 2017 due to some of the insane overclocking numbers the large quad core processor could turn out. While on the subject of cores, most tech YouTubers got all triggered on the quad core nature of the Core i7 7740X which simply tells me they are scraping for subject matter.
For this test we'll review the quad core Core i7 7740X from Intel. Yes this is Kaby Lake -X, the more affordable processor that you will need to seat on a X299 motherboard. Albeit limited towards dual-channel memory, the processor does a good job, as well as it being tweakable towards 5.2 GHz on all cores.
I have one of these processors in the lab and with any luck will be pushing it to its limit alongside my delidded Core i7 7700K that loves to clock.
