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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 14 March 2019 13:09
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Written by garfi3ld
Nvidia introduced the GTX 1660 Ti late in February and this answered a lot of questions about how the rest of the product stack would fill in under all of their recently launched Turing based RTX cards. The GTX 1660 Ti showed that they were bringing Turing to the mainstream cards by dropping ray tracing and it quickly jumped past the GTX 1070 and put AMD into a pricing bind with the Vega 56 as well as the RX590. Well, the GTX 1660 Ti name did bring up a lot of questions as to why they didn’t stick with the 2000 series or even move up to the 1100 series from the previous GTX cards. But the Ti in the name did let us know that there would most likely be a model that slotted in below it and today that card, the GTX 1660 launches. There aren’t Founders Edition models so we had to reach out to get a card and Zotac was kind enough to send their GTX 1660 so I am going to take a look at that today and see how Nvidia’s new card compares to the GTX 1060, GTX 1660 Ti, and of course the RX580 and RX590 from AMD.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 18:22
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Written by garfi3ld
So the GTX 1660 Ti has proven to be popular and a nice step up from the GTX 1060 Ti as a card for 1080p focused budget builds. I have had a few in the office now but I love getting the chance to compare card to card between manufacturers to see what everyone is doing for styling and to compare the performance of the coolers which are typically the most drastic difference between cards that share the same base GPU. In this case, Gigabyte sent over their GTX 1660 Ti OC 6G which is their entry level GTX 1660 Ti. It does still come overclocked with a clock speed of 1800 MHz over the 1770 MHz that Nvidia recommends but this is a touch lower than the other GTX 1660 Ti’s that I have had in. But with the RTX 2060’s so close in pricing to the GTX 1660 Ti’s that are selling over the base price these more basic GTX 1660 Ti’s seem to be in the sweet spot so I excited to see how the Gigabyte card does!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Saturday, 23 February 2019 18:27
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Written by garfi3ld
Well, the GTX 1660 Ti that has been rumored for what I can only assume is 15 or more years is finally out. I took a look at an MSI card in our initial launch and while impressed with the performance of the GTX 1660 Ti I did have a few concerns with the card itself. Luckily EVGA also sent over their GTX 1660 Ti XC Ultra. So I’m going to take a look at EVGA’s top GTX 1660 Ti and see what they have to offer. It has a boost clock of 1860 MHz which is faster than the MSI Ventus XS’s 1830 MHz and well above the 1770 MHz stock speed that Nvidia had listed for the 1660 Ti. So let's dive right in and see what EVGA has to offer.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 22 February 2019 19:16
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Written by garfi3ld
Nvidia has been slowly refreshing their product stack for about six months now as they have been introducing their new RTX 2000 series of cards. Well, we are finally getting down into the sweet spot and today they are introducing the replacement to the always popular GTX 1060. But what may come as a surprise to some of you is that replacement isn’t going to be an RTX card. Nvidia’s new card is still Turning based, but with this launch, they have dropped the Tensor and RT cores that make an RTX card so this launch is a GTX card. Today they are launching the GTX 1660 Ti. I’m not going to pretend to understand the reasoning for the move away from the 2000 series numbering, but today I’m going to dive into what is different with the GTX 1660 Ti and then check out the MSI GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS and see how it performs.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 21 February 2019 00:09
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Written by garfi3ld
With the RTX 2060 launch Gigabyte introduced a whole variety of models including a Mini ITX model that really caught my eye but also a new “pro” designated model that looks to keep the styling simple. The RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G is the card they have been sending out and I have been checking out the card for a little while now and today I’m going to finally dive into it for testing. This isn’t the first RTX 2060 I have had in the office. The Gaming OC Pro 6G is interesting because it doesn’t have crazy lighting or anything flashy, but it has the same 1830 MHz clock speed that the MSI Gaming Z had. So the Gaming OC Pro 6G has the potential to be a sleeper with great performance. Let's dive in and check out what it's all about!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 18 February 2019 20:28
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Written by garfi3ld
So we recently figured out that the RTX 2060 is a bit of a gem with performance rivaling the GTX 1070 Ti and in some situations, even the GTX 1080 and that was just with the Founders Edition. I also had the MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z 6G come in and MSI has cranked up the clock speeds from the 1708 MHz boost clock of the Founders Edition up to 1830 MHz. So today I’m going to see what the additional bump in clock speed does for performance and I’m also curious how MSIs cooler design performs as well. With it being tax time, a lot of you might be looking for a gaming performance bump for this season. Is the MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z the way to go? Let’s find out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 31 January 2019 21:28
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Written by garfi3ld
This year at CES Nvidia introduced more than self-driving car technology. They announced their latest video card, the RTX 2060. The RTX 2060 continues to fill in the RTX lineup which started months ago with the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 launch. The RTX 2070 came in October and things have been fairly quiet from Nvidia. But the rumor mill has been teasing the RTX 2060 for a while now. The RTX 2060 is based on the same TU106 GPU as the RTX 2070, only cut down slightly from 15 SMs to 10 SMs. While we are a little late to the party, we do have the RTX 2060 Founders Edition in hand and today I’m going to check it out and see how it compares to the previous RTX cards and check out the performance of the RTX 2060 to see if this is the card you should be picking up in your tax time builds.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 14 January 2019 17:37
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Written by garfi3ld
One of the card designs that stood out to me with all of the RTX launches was EVGAs new designs. I was surprised to see them go with a transparent cooler design that lets you look inside and see the heatsink. I wanted to get a closer look so EVGA sent over their RTX 2070 XC Gaming. The XC Gaming isn’t their fastest RTX 2070, but it does have the same overclock that the Founders Edition card and it sells for less. So I was really curious to see how it performed and to see if it might be worth spending some of that valuable post-Christmas or tax time money. So today I’m going to run it through all of our normal testing and take a closer look at the card itself. Let's go check it out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 12 December 2018 13:03
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Written by garfi3ld
Well RTX finally has a game that supports it and the market for GTX 1080s and GTX 1080 Tis has all but vanished with new stock finally clearing out so it is looking more and more like RTX is the way to go on the high end of the market. Well not long after the original launch of the Founders Edition cards I did get an aftermarket card in from Asus, their ROG Strix RTX 2080. It's about time I put it through our testing and take a closer look at the card to see how a 2080 with an aftermarket cooler performs. So today I’m going to do just that, then at the end revisit and see if the RTX 2080 is any better of an option 3 months past the launch.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 21 November 2018 18:15
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Written by garfi3ld
Well with the original RTX 2070 launch I had to switch right back over to my Intel i9-9900K testing and I haven’t really had a chance to revisit the 2070. At launch, I covered the Founders Edition model and while I talked about the pricing on other 2070’s the Founders Edition model runs more and also has a higher factory overclock. So after that launch, I did reach out to a few companies hoping to get the “cheaper” model in to get a better idea if the $100 lower price point really made a big difference when it came to performance or value. Well, I’ve finally had a little time to check one out, I have had the Gigabyte Windforce RTX 2070 in the office and have been testing it. Today let’s look at its features, performance, and then see how it all fits in the market.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 16 November 2018 18:19
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Written by garfi3ld
So yesterday AMD introduced the RX590, a refreshed Polaris GPU based on a 12 nm FinFET manufacturing process. I did a full review of it while testing the XFX RX590 Fatboy, you can check that out HERE. Well in an accidental set of circumstances I ended up with two matching cards. Normally I patch together Crossfire or Multi-GPU testing with two different cards. Well, I spent the rest of the day yesterday after everything went live testing out the XFX RX590 Fatboy in our same tests only with both cards running. As always these results depend a lot on the games that you play but I was curious how things would work out with our test suite. Like our previous Crossfire and SLI coverage, the commenting will be at a minimum and this is just a quick article to show off the numbers so keep that in mind and use the information however you would like.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 15 November 2018 09:01
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Written by garfi3ld
Unlike Nvidia, AMD has actually had a few more recent launches, they all fell right in the middle of the coin mining craze though that played havoc on GPU prices and availability. The RX580 launched last April and then Vega came in August to fill some of the gap in the high end. The RX580 was a refresh of the popular sweet spot card, the RX480 that launched back in 2016. They were both on the Polaris architecture and here we are again with a new Polaris based card in hand. AMD is officially introducing the RX590 today, just two weeks short of two and a half months after the original launch. AMD surprisingly decided to stick with the 500 series naming and just slip in a card hoping to fill in the gap between the RX580 and the GTX 1070.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 16 October 2018 09:01
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Written by garfi3ld
So just over 3 weeks ago both the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 were unveiled. You can find my reviews of the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 at those links. While both were extremely fast, they were also expensive and a lot of the main features weren’t really out yet. With those at the top of Nvidia’s product stack that left a lot of people wondering what to do for builds that aren’t as expensive as a used car. Some people just decided to go with last generation cards, but today the RTX 1070 is finally available and with a $499 starting point it is at least in reach of a lot more people. But before you run out and buy one, let’s take a look at how they perform. With the RTX 2070 Founders Edition in hand, I’m also curious to see how different it is than the two other RTX cards so I will take a quick look at that as well.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 20 September 2018 21:20
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Written by garfi3ld
In addition to the new RTX 2080 Ti that I already took a look at. Nvidia also introduced the cheaper RTX 2080 and I have also been testing the RTX 2080 Founders Edition to see how it performs and compares to the 2080 Ti and everything already on the market. The RTX 2080 Ti had a shockingly high price tag and the RTX 2080 FE comes in $400 less so it does have the potential to be a little better on the pocketbook. While still not cheap, it is currently the cheapest way to get the Turing architecture and you still get that great looking Founders Edition cooler design. So let’s dive in and see how the RTX 2080 does and figure out of the RTX 2080 Founders Edition is the right direction to go if you decide to go RTX 2080, or if you should look at some of the aftermarket designs.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 20 September 2018 03:09
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Written by garfi3ld
Just to put things in perspective, the GTX 1080 launched May 27th, 2016, that was the last consumer launch of a new series of cards and microarchitecture from Nvidia. That is nearly two and a half years ago. In that time the US elected a new president, we saw a total eclipse over the US, the Cubs broke their 108-year long curse and won the world series, we have even been through TWO Olympics, and not to mention the whole crypto craze! Even crazier, the PC market has completely changed as well, The Intel i7-6700K was the top dog in the consumer market with its 4 cores and the bleeding edge was the recently introduced i7-6950X with its 10 cores. Now 6 and 8 core CPUs are the norm in the mainstream lineups and AMD has the 2990WX with 32 cores on the high end! So even with the 1080Ti and later the 1070Ti, we are long overdue for big graphics launches and Nvidia is going all out. Today both the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 launch, I’m going to check out the 2080 Ti first and dive into the new Turing architecture, the use for RTX over GTX, the completely new cooler, and of course performance so hang on we have a lot to get through and a short time to get there (RIP Bandit).
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 13 December 2017 18:46
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Written by garfi3ld
We might be late to the party, but we did finally get a Vega card into the office and I have been testing it and getting a feel for it. Like Ryzen, the Vega launch was hyped up over an extended period of time because AMD fans have been looking forward to being able to rejoin the high-end market. The RX580 is a good card but when you are looking to game at 1440 or 4k your options have just been the GTX 1070, GTX 1080, and recently the GTX 1080 Ti. Well AMD is back, they do have a few options up in the high-end range again. Of course, there has been a lot of drama as well, today I’m going to check out performance now that Vega has been out for a little while. Talk about the differences between the cards, and take a closer look at the RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled model that AMD sent over.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 16 June 2017 18:28
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Written by garfi3ld
When Nvidia announced the extremely powerful GTX 1080 Ti they slipped in a few other launches as well, mostly unnoticed. The GTX 1080 with the Ti’s 11 Gbps memory was one of them and I have covered those recently. Then there is the GTX 1060 with upgraded memory running at 9 Gbps. This didn’t get much attention, but with AMD introducing the RX 500 series of cards I’m curious if the upgrade to the GTX 1060 was enough to keep up. Gigabyte sent one over and today I’m going to check it out, focusing on how it compares to the normal GTX 1060, the RX 480, and the RX 580.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Friday, 02 June 2017 10:18
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Written by garfi3ld
While getting components in for an upcoming build, Asus sent over their new GTX 1080 that is running the new 11Gbps memory from the 1080 Ti. I couldn’t just have the card come into the office without taking a closer look. I was really digging what Asus had going on with the Strix RX 570 that I took a look at, so today I’m going to see what they have to offer in the Strix GTX 1080 11Gbps and then run it through all of our normal testing to see how it performs as well as how it compares to the similar MSI card that already covered.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Saturday, 27 May 2017 05:00
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Written by garfi3ld
With two RX 570 reviews out of the way, before packing them back up I grabbed both cards and set them up in Crossfire. I was really curious to see if an upgrade to Crossfire would be worth it to anyone who couldn’t afford a more expensive card when they built their computer. In the past, this has been very dependent on the games you play and I imagine it will be the same again but there is only one way to find out. Like our previous Crossfire and SLI coverage, the commenting will be at a minimum and this is just a quick article to show off the numbers so keep that in mind and use the information however you would like.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 25 May 2017 09:30
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Written by garfi3ld
Well the Strix RX 570 isn’t the first RX 570 that has come into the office but it is the first Asus video card that we have had in a while. Today I want to check out what Asus is doing to set themselves apart from everyone else, compare the performance of this card to the XFX 570 as well as the rest of the competition, and see how it compares in value. I’ve been impressed with the Asus Strix styling on motherboards recently and it looks like some of that has carried over to the GPU market so it should rate high but the only way to find out is to get to it so let's do that.
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