To finish up our week we have another quick look at the SLI performance of one of Nvidia’s latest cards. This time around I paired up two GTX 780’s and put them through our test suite. Even just a single GTX 780 had more than enough power for most users, so only the most hard core enthusiasts will be considering going with two. For those of you who are, here is an idea of what to expect.
With the Agility and Vertex product lines from OCZ in their fourth generations it was exciting to see OCZ change things up and introduce a new model late last year. With a unique design and an Indilinx controller inside it looks like it could really shake things up. I’m excited to see how it will perform, especially compared to the Agility 4 and Vertex 4 that we have recently taken a look at. OCZ gave it the Vector name and in some cases that means “a force or influence”, let’s find out if the OCZ Vector will be a force or influence in the SSD market.
I recently had the chance to check out a couple of Nvidia’s new GTX 760’s. Now that we are past the launch and things have calmed down, I can now also share the results of my SLI testing of those cards as well. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the GTX 770 SLI results as well as single card performance of the GTX 780 itself.
The headphone market is flooded these days. Whether you are strictly a gamer or enjoy watching TV and listening to music from time to time it seems to be harder and harder by the day to make call on which product you should settle on. Today I take a look at Alienvibes by Ineo Technology’s EP02 offering with active noise cancelling features and the promise of high-end sound in a portable mid-range price. Let’s see if the EP02’s have that special something that can separate itself from the pack or will simply fade into the crowd.
Our first introduction to the new 700 series of cards from Nvidia was impressive and I can say without a doubt that I have enjoyed our time with it through the review and beyond. I was especially impressed with the stock cooler aesthetically, but the performance wasn’t too bad as well. Of course that can be improved on and I finally have a chance to see that now with our latest card to come in, MSI’s GTX 780 Gaming or the N780 Twin Frozr 3GB Overclocked. Every time I have had a Twin Frozr card on the test bench I have been impressed, I wonder if this will be the same. Of course I am going to put it through our test suite to find out.
The action-adventure genre has been getting a decent amount of attention lately with the Batman Arkham games as well as more recent titles like Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry. Remember Me is a title in this same mold from Capcom and Dontnod Entertainment that looks to balance the standard mix of platforming, exploration and combat along with a few unique tricks up its sleeve to deliver us an entertaining experience in a sci-fi dystopia based around the interesting concept of memory transfer. Will this offering prove memorable or fall flat in its attempt? Join me as we take a look.
So up until now we have taken a look at the stock GTX 760 with its single fan, the EVGA GTX 760 with its dual fans, that really only leaves one logical option right? Today I’m going to take a look at the GTX 760 from Gigabyte with their Windforce cooler that packs in a whopping 3 fans. The card is also overclocked a little more than the previous card as well. I’m expecting good performance and I’m very curious about how well Gigabytes Windforce cooling will do because this is our first chance to check out a card with it.
Now that we have taken a look at the GTX 760 from Nvidia, which of course means it is time to see what some of the other manufactures have done with their GTX 760 designs. First up is a look at a card from EVGA called the GTX 760 Superclocked w/ACX. Some of you might remember the GTX 770 ACX that we recently took a look at, this is very similar. Hopefully the performance that we saw with the GTX 770 ACX will be similar to the GTX 760 ACX; if that is the case we should be very happy with the card. Of course there is only one way to find out, read on to see.
Great cooling is essential to PCs now more than ever. Most PCs will rely at least partially on air cooling crucial componets. One of the case fan manufacturers that is rising in popularity is Cougar. Cougar is a company from Germany that seem to have a grasp on what enthusiast crave when look for fans for thier rigs. Constantly increasing is the demand for cooling fans that are quiet, have great airflow, and are visually appealing to the consumer. Today we are taking a look at the Cougar Vortex PWN 120mm case fan to see how it performs in a large market of cooling fans.
Just this past week I was away on vacation, I came back to a stack of boxes with most of them being video cards. This time, most of them are a new model from Nvidia. Just like with other big launches, the Nvidia GTX 780 was quickly followed up by the GTX 770. To continue filling in gaps in their product line that the GTX 780 launch created Nvidia is launching the GTX 760 that will replace the GTX 660 Ti. Today we are going to take a look at the new GTX 760 and see what it is all about as well as seeing what it is capable in our test suite. The GTX 780 and GTX 770’s were both impressive, I am very curious to see what they will be following them up with.
With Dead Island: Riptide on the horizon it only seems appropriate to revisit the original to see what all the initial hype was about. Released in 2011, Dead Island had already generated its fair share of publicity due to the eye-catching logo and the nice bit of cinema that was the announcement trailer before it even hit shelves. From that first trailer to the assurance of a full on zombie survival RPG with four player co-op, Dead Island promises players a unique experience they enjoy on your own or with a friend. However with so many zombie games out there nowadays, does Dead Island do enough to distinguish itself or end up dead in the water?
Smartphones have become a way of life in this day and age and with them, a mountain of accessories to choose from. The market for cell phone stands, however, has always been quite bare in the way of quality offerings with only a few of the more popular phones getting stands specifically designed for them. Thermaltake aims to change that with a single stand capable of supporting any device you may have now or in the future. Today I take a look at the Luxa2 H1 Premium Mobile Holder to see if the quality Thermaltake is known for in their coolers and cases has transferred over into the mobile market.
There are a lot of different sizes of PC cases available today. Some prefer huge rigs where they can pack everything possible into giant chassis, for others space saving designs are more attractive. The German company, Cougar is back with another option for gamers looking to put their components into a new micro-sized case. Enter the Spike which is a Micro ATX form factor light weight case. The Spike is Cougar's smallest case to date. We are going to see how the features and performance stack up on the Micro sized newcomer.
Cloud storage and wireless networking are pretty much staples in everyone’s day to day lives at this point. Being so used to the constant stream of data can leave you feeling disconnected at times where you don’t have access and even simple data transfers can become a hassle. Carry Technology seek to lessen this burden with their Apotop DW09 Wi-Reader and DW17 Wi-Reader Pro designed for use with Apple and Android/Apple mobile devices respectively. Join me as I take a look at this pair of wireless cloud servers you can fit in your pocket and see if they deliver as promised.
Eagletech may be one of best kept secrets at our LAN parties, generously providing many of their Zen headsets under the brand name Orion as prizes. As we saw at CES this past January, Eagletech has a wide variety of portable accessories, the majority utilizing Bluetooth, in store for 2013. We’ve received the first of many teased during a private showing in Vegas this winter, the Neptor Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard, just in time for an editor hungry to take productivity on the road.
Over the past 10 years there has quietly been a small change in the mobile computer market that I don’t think everything has noticed. The name laptop has slowly been dropped and everyone uses the term notebook now. This might seem like a small change but this was actually to help prevent issues for a lot of manufactures. You see, with the name laptop, a lot of people would actually use them on their laps sometimes causing overheating issues. Even now with the new name, heat is still a concern. That is exactly why we have products like Cooler Masters new Notepal Ergostand II.Today I am going to take a look and see what has changed from the original.
Blackberry has a special place in my heart; my first smartphone was the original BlackBerry Storm. The Storm was their first full touch screen phone and frankly it was also a very hard phone to love. Being my first smartphone I really wanted to love it, but dealing with lockups, limitations, battery pulls, and bad battery life was just life with the Storm. After experiencing Android I never went back to BlackBerry, until they introduced their Z10. For the first time it seemed like BlackBerry had listened, so I made sure to get one in and today finally I will tell you how it went.
After what feels like months of prepping, testing, photography, videos, and writing are finally reaching the end of our Haswell launch motherboard coverage and I think we may have saved the best for last. We haven’t covered one of Asus’s TUF Series of motherboards official although we do have one in our cooling test bench and we have seen countless boards in our reader’s rigs. So to finish things off we are going to take a look at Asus's new Micro ATX TUF Series Z87 Gryphon. Its smaller form factor is a first for the TUF line and I am very excited to see what the fuss has been about.
This weekend the first motherboard we took a look at was the MSI Z87-G45 Gaming, MSI’s lower priced gaming model. Along with the gaming product line they also have a line they are calling MPower that is focused more on the overclocking community and general enthusiasts. There are two models the Z87 M Power and the Z87 MPower Max, today I am going to dive in and take a look at the Z87 M Power. I’m excited to see what sets it apart from MSI’s gaming boards.
For the past few years Cooler Master has really been pushing their Notepal notebook cooling product line. They have introduced a wide variety of coolers with various cooling designs, different sizes, and for different uses. Even so, of their product line there has been one line specifically that I have been especially fond of. I have been using my Notepal U3 on my 18.4 inch notebook every time I travel. This is both because of its portability and also it’s cooling capabilities. Cooler Master is now introducing a new version of its U2, the Notepal U2 Plus. I’m not sure what they can improve on the original, but I’m excited to find out.
