Tech News
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ZOTAC ZBOX EN760 Plus Review @ Vortez
Zbox might be the future, still doesn't have the raw horsepower of a desktop but can rival any portable computer out there.
EN760 Plus is a mini-PC which features a dual-core Intel processor, 8GB DDR3 and NVIDIA’s GTX 860M. Along with these components there are also many features which gamers and enthusiasts are likely to find useful. On paper EN760 Plus appears to be quite a capable machine, but will it be able to handle everything we throw at it?
I have seen demos of these machines playing high-end triple A titles but never bothered to check the specs. Seems like an important thing to do, maybe next time.
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Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion Reviews
Most enthusiasts would agree that X99 motherboard rumors have been rather flat since CES except for the new X99 SOC motherboard from Gigabyte called the Champion. or.. Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion if you like the long proper name. This motherboard is designed to replace the X99 SOC Force and goes back to the Gigabyte OC roots by giving you plenty of overclocking controls without the hardware bloat.
As I heard from Gigabyte the Champion is designed with memory overclocking in mind and should push X99 performance higher than ever. Assuming the system is properly overclocked and cooled with LN2. Not many review sites bother with LN2 anymore but, they aren't afraid to put the hardware thru their testing suite to give you an "accurate" assessment.
Web Reviews
- GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion LGA 2011-v3 Review @ [H]
- GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion Review @ Hardware CanucksI'm still waiting for my sample and when it arrives I plan to look at what changed between the Force and Champion editions and maybe, just maybe, do some LN2 testing and see just how good my 5960X really is.
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The Podcast of the Month @ Podcast Land
One of the side benefits to having a podcast listed on iTunes is that other sites tend to use that directory to create an index of active Podcasts. Podcast Land is one such site and they take things a step further and implemented a cleaver voting system (read: popularity contest) two determine a podcast of the month.
I was trolling /r/Podcast and noticed they feature the Podcast Land podcast of the month at the top of the subreddit for the entire month.
Here is a crazy idea. For those of you who like the Hardware Asylum Podcast, how about throwing down a vote to make it the podcast of the month over at Podcast Land.
Just enter an email address and press vote.
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EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC - Now Equipped with 4GB of GDDR5 Memory
March 3rd, 2015 – The EVGA GeForce GTX 960 delivers incredible performance, power efficiency, and gaming technologies that only NVIDIA Maxwell technology can offer. This is the perfect upgrade, offering 60% faster performance and twice the power efficiency of previous-generation cards*. Plus, it features VXGI for realistic lighting, support for smooth, tear-free NVIDIA G-SYNC technology, and Dynamic Super Resolution for 4K-quality gaming on 1080P displays. These new versions come outfitted with 4GB of high speed GDDR5 memory giving you higher texture qualities and better 4K performance!
The new EVGA ACX 2.0+ cooler brings new features to the award winning EVGA ACX 2.0 cooling technology. A Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate (MMCP) reduces MOSFET temperatures up to 11°C, and optimized Straight Heat Pipes (SHP) reduce GPU temperature by 5°C. ACX 2.0+ coolers also feature optimized Swept fan blades, double ball bearings and an extreme low power motor, delivering more air flow with less power, unlocking additional power for the GPU.
New Features:
- 4GB of High Performance GDDR5 Memory – Improved 4K gaming performance and higher texture qualities!
- dBi (dB Noise Inverter) – EVGA’s ACX 2.0+ fan turns off below 60C, generating 0dB of noise.
- MMCP (Memory MOSFET Cooling Plate) – Full size cooling plate makes direct contact with memory and MOSFETS, reducing memory up to 9°C and MOSFET up to 11°C.
- QSD (Quick Switch Dual BIOS) – Multiple integrated BIOSes allow you to switch to the secondary with the flick of a switch.
- OPT (Optimized Power Target) – The power target is precisely tuned for the perfect balance of thermal, power and performance, offering 33% more power over reference.
- SHP (Straight Heat Pipes) – Triple 8mm straight heat pipes offer 6% better heat dissipation than bent heat pipes with reduced thermal resistance.
Learn more about the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB lineup here: http://www.evga.com/9604GB
See the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SuperSC video overview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65mjPjodnnk
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10 Years of Techgage.com
I prolly shouldn't promote other hardware review sites this way but Rob Williams is a good friend of mine and I'm happy to see that he, and his website, is still alive and kicking after 10 long years.
To help celebrate the occasion it seems the familar yellow/orange site color has been replaced with a nice blended shate of blue and they may have some hardware promotions in the near future.
Rob, hats off buddy! May there be 10 more!
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Five GeForce GTX 960 cards overclocked @ The Tech Report
I had this article in the news inbox for about a month now wondering if I should post it with some comments or hit the /dev/null button and be done with it. As you can see I decided to give it some love and see what some people thought of the conclusions.
What I'm saying is that I should have the basics of this gig down pretty well by now. One would think.
Yet my attempt to cover a bunch of GeForce GTX 960 cards has left me flummoxed. I can't seem to get my head around how to approach it. Part of the problem is that I already looked at these five different flavors of the GeForce GTX 960 in my initial review of the GPU. I tested their power draw and noise levels, and I compared their performance. I then resolved to do a follow-up article to look at the individual cards in more detail, along with some overclocking attempts.
Seems simple, right? Yet as I sit here and attempt to pull together this article, I'm struggling to make it work.Basically the article was about Scott's quest to figure out what GTX 960 was the best and figured that overclocking would be the best way. As many of you know low end GPUs often are sold factory overclocked and you'll be hard pressed to find a "reference" design anywhere. That being said there is very little to compare against and given that each card is tuned for its factory overclock pushing the cards "further" isn't going to get you much.
Read: they are already maxed out.
I'm not surprised that Scott came up with nothing for his conclusion and basically said buy what you like. Now, as an overclocker I know that GPU and Memory quality a HUGE factors in pushing factory overclocked cards because they are already maxed out. Likewise PCB design helps the tuning process and can benefit if you wish to void your warranty and really see what they are capable of.
Bottom line: Most people looking to buy a GTX 960 are doing so because they cannot afford a GTX 970 and likely won't do anything to the card aside from installing it and maybe blowing out the dust. This begs the question of "Why?" and it comes down to competition on the shelf. EVGA has the highest core clock, lets buy that one, oh ASUS is the smallest, lets buy that one, wow MSI has a light up dragon, omg I need that.
These companies are giving you good performance on the dollar and the lack of performance gain from overclocking is actually a good thing, it means they actually did their job and delivered.
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GIGABYTE GA-X99M-Gaming 5 Review @ Vortez
I do like me some Gigabyte motherboards and I'm not just saying that cause I review them but, rather that they are pretty good.
(Wait I guess I literally just said that) doh!
Today, we get to look at the latest LGA2011-3 Socket X99 motherboard from GIGABYTE only this time it is far from the monolithic SOC Force we reviewed upon release. This time the motherboard is much smaller but still encompasses the Gaming-G1 branding so it will be interesting to see if this mATX motherboard still has what it takes to house Intel's finest range of processors or it is simply a diminutive but basic motherboard hoping to draw in consumers on the back of previous success and clever marketing.
Best thing about this motherboard is that it is tiny, MicroATX tiny and supports the new LGA2011v3 processors and single banks of quad channel DDR4 memory. The board also comes with Gaming G1 features assuming you buy into the marketing suggesting you need them for some reason.
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ASUS X99-DELUXE Motherboard Review @ Techgage
Typically the Deluxe motherboards are feature packed and often quite stable. There is no reason why the X99 variant should be any different.
The name “DELUXE” is often used on products that don’t quite deserve it, but when it comes to ASUS’ motherboards, the company makes sure that isn’t the case. Given that, it’s little suprise that the X99-DELUXE does in fact deserve its name, as it doesn’t just offer a slew of features and capabilities, it packs in extras we wouldn’t ever expect.
This review reminds me that it has been almost 3 years since I reviewed an ASUS product, (assuming you don't count the ASRock back in 2013), and it might be time to get back on that gravy train of awesome UEFI implementations and excessive design.
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Thermalright Silver Arrow ITX @ techPowerUp
Thermalright, now that is a name I haven't heard in a really long time. They are often credited with the introduction of the high performance heatpipe coolers back when most of us were scrambling to acquire an Alpha cooler backed with a 6000rpm Delta.
TechPowerUp has a review posted of the "Silver Arrow ITX" which will neither kill you in the event of a miss-fire nor fit in a MiniITX case. What it will do is make you wonder why we can't buy them in the states.
Thermalright is shaking things up with the Silver Arrow ITX. It features a tweaked design that offers better compatibility with Mini-ITX motherboards, especially the ASUS ROG line. With solid performance, exceptional style, and near-silent operation, the Silver Arrow ITX manages to hold its own against the competition.
One of the best heatsinks I have ever used is the Thermalright Venomous X. I reviewed this cooler back in 2010 and still use it today on my EVGA X79 Dark rocking the Core i7 4930K.
How did I do this? Well, I found a way and it isn't all that difficult to figure out.
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BIOSTAR Promotes Family of Gaming Hardware
February 24th, 2015, Taipei, Taiwan – BIOSTAR is promoting the gaming motherboard, the Gaming Z97X along with the VGA cards that are powered by nVidia’s GeForce GTX750Ti chipset as a compelling gaming hardware combo set. The motherboard comes with the new Gaming Commander Box accessory as well as cutting-edge features like USB 3.1 on-board and innovative durability enhancements. This gaming family of hardware from BIOSTAR gives you a gaming combination comprised of the best motherboard and value priced GPU for a superlative gaming experience.
BIOSTAR’s GeForce GTX750Ti series of cards brings the visual horsepower needed for high-end gaming. With 2GB GDDR5, on a full size PCB with a unique dual fan cooling design, this card in combination with the Gaming Z97X motherboard is all you need. It has Dual DVI/miniHDMI output support and supports NVIDIA PuroVideo HD Technology as well as DirectX 11. It also supports NVIDIA PhyX and CUDA Technology. You will need a motherboard that has a PCI Express 3.0 x 16 bus interfaces to stick this card in. For that BIOSTAR has the Gaming Z97X.
The basis for this super combo is of course, the motherboard. BIOSTAR’s Gaming Z97X mainboard ushers in the first complete gaming motherboard designed by BIOSTAR. This is something new from BIOSTAR, because it's not just a regular gaming motherboard that satisfies a typical gamers' needs by just merely offering top of the line hardware, rather it is designed from the ground up to be cool looking and high performing. Let's talk about what makes the BIOSTAR Gaming Z97X so special.
The Gaming Z97X comes with key features such as USB 3.1, three PCI Express 3.0x16 slots, PCIe M.2 support, Dual GbE LAN and BIOSTAR exclusive Hi-Fi 3D Audio technology. Two on-board HDMI supports 4K / 2K HD resolutions. There is also the introduction of the SATA Express Connector which supports both SATA and PCIe storage solutions giving maximum data transfer speed of up to 10Gb/s.
This board also heralds the launch of the BIOSTAR external Gaming Commander box. It fits in a standard 5.5" (CD-ROM) area; it is also comprised of software with voice control utility exclusively designed by BIOSTAR.
The Gaming Z97X is the first motherboard that comes with an onboard USB 3.1 connector, a new standard known as SuperSpeed +. The new standard doubles data transfer rate from 5Gbps to 10Gbps, and it's backward compatible with current USB3.0 and USB 2.0 devices.
Most of the features we’ve just talked about are related to system performance, how about. The Gaming Z97X adopts BIOSTAR’s exclusive Hi-Fi 3D technology and an additional amplifier, it enables high definition multidimensional sound to reach extreme high quality sound. With the Gaming Commander BOX, you can freely use either the sound chips from the motherboard or the BOX in different scenarios to get the maximum sound performance.
One thing no gamer can stand is a sudden internet disconnection; therefore, BIOSTAR prepared two LAN connectors, with the most popular Killer LAN and Intel LAN chips. With Dual LAN technology, the primary advantage is doubling bandwidth from 1G to 2G, and two high-speed gigabit networks can provide super high data transmission efficiency. Another major advantage is "Load Balancing", it allows a gamer to attach both network adapters into one single network. It will therefore support the aggregation "teaming" function by merging two connections to support multiple aggregation modes. In addition, Ethernet lightning protection circuits reduce the probability of damage from lightning or other power surge, so if one connection is disabled the other will automatically kick in.
We've covered its hardware specs, high quality sound and high speed LAN, what about product stability? BIOSTAR has it all covered. Around the CPU area, there is a 12 phase power design to prevent the CPU from overheating; BIOSTAR’s exclusive super-durable ferrite chokes and solid capacitors also enhance energy efficiency and extend the motherboard’s lifespan. An Anti-Surge and ESD protection provide the best protection to reduce the shocks caused by ESD as well as other damages arising from overvoltage transients thus enhancing system stability and durability.
Super durable box headers provide solid, secure and durable connections between the motherboard and peripheral cables. When running such high-end machinery sometimes such tight tolerances call for some expert debugging of overclocked or highly stressed systems. For that, there will be Super Rapid Debug 3 which gives out critical POST code information on a vivid digital LED display. This greatly helps trouble-shooting of a system.
And of course, it all looks cool and sharp with the silk black “Armor design”; there are a lot more great features such as LN2 switch, T-Overclocking utility and XMP button for easy CPU and memory overclocking, and dual HDMI ports support true 4k/2k HD video.
In short, to achieve a usable gaming rig, you really need to focus on two key pieces of hardware, the motherboard, as the basis of the system, and VGA card which powers the graphics. For both of these key items BIOSTAR has gamers covered with the Gaming Z97X motherboard and nVidia GTX750Ti series cards.
For more on the Gaming Z97X go to: http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=784
For more on the GTX 750Ti Graphic Card, go to: http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/vga/introduction.php?S_ID=202
About BIOSTAR MICROTECH INT'L CORP.
BIOSTAR, is a manufacturer dedicated to the production of motherboards, graphics cards and industrial computing systems. Since its establishment in 1986, the BIOSTAR GROUP has become a major motherboard supplier in the PC industry. In order to pursue continuous growth, BIOSTAR has invested heavily in acquiring the physical and human resources to excel at research and development. With a constant emphasis on quality, BIOSTAR always seeks to offer products with the highest price-performance ratio.
