Tech News
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MSI B85M Gaming Motherboard Review @ Modders-Inc
Budget gaming doesn't have to empty the wallet, in fact the whole process should leave you with some extra dollars for a disproportionately powerful processor or video card. Of course buying hardware on a budget has its drawbacks like having to give up good quality sound or living with a slow network adaptor. The MSI B85M Gaming is designed to bring high-end gaming features down to a human level.
For those of limited budget, the MSI B85M Gaming motherboard paired with a Haswell i3 or even an Intel Pentium G3220 saves a lot of money which is better spent on getting a powerful discrete graphics card and an SSD.
Sadly you give up the ability to overclock but that will be the least of your worries once you start fraggin at 60fps.
Be sure to check out our review of the MSI B85M Gaming and remember, K series processors have no busines being on a B-series motherboard.
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Kingston HyperX Cloud Review @ Vortez
Looking at this headset, and I'm not sure what I like more about it, the look and specs on it, or the side bag full of extra accessories such as different plugs, extension cables, adaptors and even a second set of headpads made of velour. The modularity it brings to the table, to adapt to a multitude of different platforms, especially now as the number of internet connected devices per household comtinues to climb is impressive. I don't know if this will become the norm, but maybe it should.
Now having deeper roots in eSports, sponsoring many teams between LoL (Cloud9 HyperX) and DotA2 (Alliance, TeamLiquid), it would appear that they are at it again. This time they team up with QPad to mix a little HyperX branding magic with the QH-90 to create the HyperX Cloud. Though it would appear that the QH-90 itself is a modified Takstar PRO 80, the formula itself is a logical one, excellent audiophile level audio with desirable features that distinguish contemporary gaming headsets from older generation ones.
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be quiet! Shadow Rock Slim High Compatibility CPU Cooler Review @HiTech Legion
So recently, it seems that the space around the CPU is starting to get rather crowded. With RAM growing taller with new packaging and larger heat spreaders, it getting hard to fit underneath full-size single, and even dual-tower coolers. But, it's not going unnoticed, as some cooler companies are finding ways to build over and around the problem. Rather than cutting space away from the cooler to make everything fit, can a more compact solution be found while keeping up with the cooling needs of modern CPUs? be quiet! thinks so.
At first glance, the Shadow Rock Slim simply looks like a really nicely designed and constructed smaller heatsink. It has the nice, brushed aluminum top, well-constructed fin array and well polished nickel plated contact plate. Then you get to looking closer and you notice the four 6mm copper pipes, rather than the usual three, in a slim cooler with a unique layout and that 135mm fan.
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MSI Z97 MPOWER MAX AC Motherboard Review @ HiTech Legion
Dressed up in the yellow trimmings that represent MSI's overclocking class of motherboards, the MPower Max is the newest flagship motherboard for the Intel Z97 chipset, and definitely has all the trimmings. Shielded digital audio, WiFi, Bluetooth, and the newest generation of PCIe architecture. This board looks to be a killer on the test bench or in an enthusiast build.
From the first look over, the MPower Max AC shows a great blend of workmanship, aesthetics and engineering. The eight layer PCB has great rigidity and the layout is flawless. The placement of each and every component makes perfect sense, and the enlarged empty space around the CPU is a huge benefit not only to LN2 users, but to anyone mounting a CPU cooler of any type.
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Gigabyte R7 250X OC 1GB GDDR5 Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
With a lot of the attention lately on the 280, 290 and 295X's I thought I'd take a step back and show off some more recently released budget friendly cards for beginning enthusiasts as well, especially one that's factory overclocked. Apparently for just a few bucks more, there is also a 2GB version as well.
With the R7 250X OC video card, Gigabyte succeeds to provide for the entry-level market a competitive card which can run games at either medium or high detail levels, while using display resolutions up to 1680x1050. Plenty of connectivity options are also offered, along with a dual-slot cooling system which remains silent at all times.
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Thermaltake Massive TM Notebook Cooler Review @HiTech Legion
During our Massive 14 review, we discussed that it could accomodate up to a 17" laptop fairly comfortably. So with it covering the large majority of standard notebook sizes in the market, we wondered what the next Massive cooler could offer to trump their older model. As it turns out, they had an Ace up their sleeve.
The Thermaltake Massive TM is a 17” laptop and notebook cooler that comes with a little extra. The Massive TM by Thermaltake uses 4 temperature sensors that can each be repositioned to track temps on different parts of your laptop.
So now rather then just manually cranking up or down the fan speed by dial, the cooler can sense the heat while the notebook is under load and adjust automatically for you. Though it appears the tradeoff was a shrink in the fan size from dual 14cm fans to a pair of 12cm's and run them 200 rpm faster while in Turbo mode which would increase the fan noise a bit more. -
CYBERPOWERPC Debuts Suitcase-size FANG Battlebox to Level Your LAN Party Competition
From the official press release:
CITY of INDUSTRY, CA (June 9, 2014) – CyberPower Inc. (www.CYBERPOWERPC.com) a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, notebook systems, and high performance workstations, has a secret weapon that you can easily tote to your next LAN party. The company debuts its FANG Battlebox today, a high- performance gaming rig stuffed inside a suitcase-like shell that you can carry anywhere.
The FANG Battlebox is small and portable, but has the headroom to accommodate high-end hardware like quad-core CPUs, dual-loop liquid cooling, and full-length graphics cards such as the AMD Radeon™ R9 295X2 and NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX TITAN Z GPU. The use of all standard components means the configuration possibilities for this small machine are endless.
With the FANG Battlebox you can arrive at your next LAN party ready to dominate. CYBERPOWERPC took all that gaming hardware and crammed it into a suitcase form factor. The FANG Battlebox’s unique carrying handle and ideal weight distribution allows for easy transportation to LAN parties. It can even fit in airline overhead compartments after it’s done attracting attention at the check-in line.
The portability of the FANG Battlebox allows it to function flawlessly in many environments because CYBERPOWERPC compartmentalized cooling in the chassis to help isolate and remove heat from various components efficiently and without obstruction. The FANG Battlebox also supports liquid cooled graphics cards and processors simultaneously.
The FANG Battlebox features a Mini-ITX motherboard packed with either AMD A-Series APUs or 4th Generation Intel Core processors, and supports the full range of graphics cards from both NVIDIA and AMD. It also has room for two high performance hard drives and up to 16GB of DDR3 memory. All models have Wireless AC and Bluetooth connectivity, USB 3.0 ports, and Microsoft Windows 8.1 in the default configurations.
With its dual EZ Swap drive bays, the Battlebox thrives at work or play. Users just swap out their confidential business files stored on the drive and replace it with their game library. No tools are needed just slide the drive in the bay and you are set.
The base model FANG Battlebox is the I-100, which features an Intel Core i3-4150 Processor, 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive, and Intel HD Graphics 4400 for a price of $619. The Battlebox can be customized with a number of performance hardware upgrades such as discrete graphics cards, solid state drives and storage hard drives, memory, peripherals and business software to enhance your productivity. All CYBERPOWERPC FANG Battlebox systems include an industry best 3-year limited warranty.
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LarKooler SkyWater 330 DYI Kit Review @ Madshrimps
With watercooling finding it's way further into mainstream builds, AIO kits have become extremely popular as functional and accessible components. LarKooler has taken a different path, and instead of having everything pre-built, offering everything needed to build your own.
Since a few years AIO units took over a big part in the cooling business, with the most successful being the Corsair Hydro series. Ease of installation is their main trademark, however as most of these are closed loop, there is no option to integrate extra components in the cooling loop.
A good point is made, that many of the popular AIO kits out today are all closed loop systems and we're now starting many new additions to the component market like custom watercooling blocks for video cards becoming more readily available. These components could benefit greatly with a more convenient option to tie into existing watercooling loops which is where the DIY systems are beginning to shine since they're scalable. -
SteelSeries Rival Review @ Vortez
This article (aside from reviewing a very gorgeous optical mouse) hits on an interesting point during their review about modern mice posting crazy DPI figures. I've been wondering the same thing. Is the latest seeming one-upsmanship with DPI simply a case of posting numbers for the sake of bragging that you have the highest number regardless of if it's even usable. I saw a laser mouse the other day with a 16k dpi setting, and I wondered would anyone even be able to control it to use it accurately at that speed?
At what extreme point does it all simply become too much, too uncontrollable, and fall off into the upper tail-end of the standard curve? To examine that question from another angle, is this why many optical mice are feeling more like laser mice recently, because their polling and DPI settings have gotten them up into that comfortable sweet spot where precision meets speed for a mass majority of the population at large.
The SteelSeries Rival is an optical mouse but could quite easily be mistaken for a laser device for the figures match up to many laser devices. Couple this with SteelSeries know how when making a gaming device and the Rival presents us with, on paper at least, a very well specced peripheral suitable for any gamer from any level.
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RSI Gives First Look at Life in Space with Arena Commander Pre-Alpha Launch
In gaming news today, Roberts Space Industries, the developing studio and crowdfunding paragon behind the upcoming space combat sim Squadron 42 and perpetual universe Star Citizen, gave their early adopters a taste of what they've been working on. Late last night, the long anticipated pre-alpha release of Arena Commander, their space flight and combat training module was launched.
Originally dubbed the Dogfight Module, the team at RSI has been working to crush the showstopping bugs in order to get a stable build into the hands of it's fans for additional testing. As of late last night, the green light was lit, and testers took to the stars.
An interesting stats tidbit from the RSI site regarding the launch.
For now, we’re extremely happy that Citizens everywhere are getting into space. To share a little data about Arena Commander’s launch:. As of 1 PM PST (about twelve hours after launch), 33,813 people have successfully played an Arena Commander match! We’ve served 820 TB of data, which means that in half a day we put out more data than we did in August, September, October and November of last year combined!
Currently the module is a little bare bones, only offering a free-flight mode, or flying against bots in a wave-style survival match. However, RSI does plan to continue to iterate on the initial build, adding additional ships, as well as additional game modes and player vs player combat as well.
