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Category: Audio
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Published: Thursday, 27 June 2019 13:45
If everyone could afford to pick up high-end headphones everyone would have them but for people getting their first gaming setup (PC, Console, or Mobile) or someone who wants to save money for the “go fast” parts it is important to have a lineup that fits that budget. I’ve had a few headsets come in that fit that range but up until now, Corsair has stayed a little higher with mid-range offerings like their HS50 and HS60. Well, today they are introducing a new more budget-friendly option in the HS35. It is still a full size over the hear headset but at a $39.99 price point. Not only that but Corsair is offering four different color options which is a little unusual for them but it fits perfectly in this price range. I can imagine brothers getting different color HS35’s to prevent fighting or LAN centers using them to prevent confusion. Either way, I have been testing them out for a few days now and with them launching today I thought I would give everyone the rundown on their features and performance. So let’s check them out.
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Wednesday, 26 June 2019 22:00
OnePlus has their new OnePlus 7 out now and leading as their flagship but with the 7 being available it also pushed down the pricing on the Oneplus 6T. I’ve been using the 6T for a while now and with the new discounted price I thought it would be a good time to check it out and see how it compares with a few of today's top phones. I’ve got the Note 9 and S9+ to test alongside of the 6T today which are both similar in size and the S9+ is similar to the 6T in that it was a flagship that was recently surpassed by the S10. So let's check out what OnePlus has to offer with the 6T then run it through all of our tests to see how its performance compares.
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Tuesday, 11 June 2019 18:25
At CES earlier this year Corsair’s biggest introduction was their new CAPELLIX RGB’s which drop the conventional package that PC LEDs have been using to create a much smaller, brighter, and energy efficient LED. Now smaller means the potential for much higher density and energy efficiency could mean you could see them used more in wireless devices. But the first product they introduced with CAPELLIX LEDs was the Dominator Platinum RGB memory kits. So in addition to being the first Corsair RGB kit to come into the office, I’m also excited to see what the CAPELLIX LEDs can do. I will also talk a little more about the benefits later as well.
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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Monday, 03 June 2019 11:43
At this point, I couldn’t even count how many SFX power supplies that have come into the office. I love the form factor, even when building in smaller cases that can fit a full ATX power supply. Early on the SFX form factor was limited in power and because of the overall density struggled with heat and with that noise. That has improved a lot over the years, especially with Silverstone being a champion for SFX all the way from the start. They used to be the only option available if you wanted an SFX power supply with modular cables. Recently they introduced a few new SFX power supplies and one really stood out. This time it wasn’t about the jump in wattage, this model, in fact, has the same 450-watt rating of the early Silverstone SFX PSUs. The NJ450-SXL stands out for two reasons, it is 80 Plus Platinum rated which is great and also because it has no fan at all. The noise issues of the past can’t be an issue if there isn’t a fan to make noise right? Well, today I’m going to check it out and while we don’t do full PSU testing I am going to take a look at the thermals of the NJ450-SXL while under load to see how it does for cooling with no fan.
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Friday, 31 May 2019 20:46
Earlier this year Crucial I covered two sets of Ballistix Sport DDR4 and while I liked where they were going with the performance of the new kits I did feel the aesthetics were starting to look a little dated. Well, Crucial makes a lot of different styles of memory, especially in the Ballistix lineup and they sent over a new set which happens to be from their Elite lineup. I’m hoping their more premium kit is upgraded in looks (spoiler they are) and I’m curious how this 3600MHz kit performs as well. So let's take a look at them then run them through our testing.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Tuesday, 28 May 2019 17:45
Typically I prefer mechanical keyboards but recently I have been on the lookout for a basic wireless keyboard to use in our living room with our VR setup. Currently, I have a keyboard with a short cord under the TV and while most interaction is through the VR headset and controllers from time to time I need to update things or change settings and it’s a pain to do. It also makes the current setup impossible to use for viewing media. We do use a Shield TV in the living room, but there have been a few times I wouldn’t have minded using Twitch Multistream on the PC. Well, I originally was going to use a normal wireless mouse along with a Corsair Laptop and keyboard but Corsair came out with the K83 which is a lot more compact and seems to have the potential to be perfect for couch use. So today I’m going to check it out and see what the K83 has to offer and then figure out how it worked out for our setup.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 16 May 2019 18:55
Western Digital reintroduced their WD Black M.2 NVMe SSD back in January with the new SN750 model. I took a look at it and was impressed once again by its performance and pricing and it won an Editor’s Choice award. At the same time as that launch, they teased their 2TB model and a new SN750 that would have a heatsink those weren’t available yet. Well, the SN750 with the heatsink is available now and I’ve had one here on my desk and on the test bench. Today I’m going to check it out and see how it is different from the standard SN750. They share the same base SSD, so my goal today is to take a look at if the heatsink really helps and if so how much. We already know the SN750 is fast, but is buying it with heatsink worth it. Let's find out!
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Monday, 13 May 2019 18:36
All the way back in 2014 Logitech introduced the G502 Proteus Core. Up until that time Logitech had a very specific style which ironically they just brought back with the reintroduction of the MX518. The G502 was a complete departure and Logitech followed the G502 up with other mice and keyboards that continued the new styling. It is also their most popular gaming mouse, you can find people using the G502 all over the place. The G502 has always been a wired mouse though, today they are finally introducing a wireless G502 called the G502 Lightspeed Wireless. Logitech has been killing it with wireless mice, adding the G502 into their lineup, especially given how popular the design is, should make for an interesting mouse. I am a little concerned with the weight, the wired G502 is a little heavy. But I’ve heard that Logitech did a little work to keep
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 01 May 2019 23:07
So the GTX 1650 launched last week and I have been a little behind the curve on getting our card tested and reviewed. The new card follows the same naming of the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti which were launched in February and March respectively. The GTX 1650 is another Turing based GPU only this time based on the TU117 GPU and with a significantly lower TDP. Like the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti, there isn’t a Founders Edition of the GTX 1650 so today I will be checking out the MSI GTX 1650 Gaming X, an overclocked model.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Wednesday, 10 April 2019 20:10
Back in January WD introduced their new WD Black SN750 SSD and I took a look at it. Its performance was extremely impressive but as I pointed out in our Crucial P1 and XPG SX6000 reviews, not everyone is looking to get the biggest and best SSD. Up until now the people looking for a cheaper drive have basically had to settle for SATA based drives. Recently though a few NVMe drives have been finally getting down into those SATA M.2 drive prices and WD has joined in as well with their new WD Blue SN500. It might not be as exciting when it comes to raw performance like the WD Black, but I am curious to see how it performs with its $54.99 price point right now for the 250GB model. So today I’m going to see what the new drive is all about, check out its performance, then see how it compares to the other cheaper NVMe drives on the market.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Tuesday, 02 April 2019 13:43
Back in 2016, I ran across a community inspired case called Sentry. It was designed in Poland as a side project by a wind turbine company. I reached out at potentially getting one in at the time but it being a side project they didn’t have any extra. It went on to have a successful Indiegogo campaign early in 2017. Well, they didn’t go away, in fact, they have been busy bringing in feedback all this time from the Sentry 1.0 owners and working on a new design. Talk about exciting! I was excited about the first design, being able to pack a true PC into a console form factor. What could they possibly have changed? Well, their changelog reads a lot like an open source software roadmap including showing what ideas they decided not to implement with reasons why. Even better, this time around for the Sentry 2.0 they made a few more test cases to spread around. You most likely have seen a few of them around YouTube and the internet by now. Well, we had a Sentry 2.0 come in as well and I’ve been playing around with it. I’m excited to finally take a closer look at this unique design and see if it was worth being excited about all this time.
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Category: PC Cases
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Published: Tuesday, 26 March 2019 13:18
A majority of the builds that I have at this point are SFF (Small Form Factor) builds but typically going SFF requires compromises. If you want something extremely fast, you are going to deal with heat. The other option is to go with one of the community made cases which are more compact and have better cooling without having to go with an ITX length video card. But they are expensive. So I was excited to see that Raijintek had a new design with a Dan Case like design with a full-length GPU on one side and the motherboard on the other. Their Ophion is also much cheaper as well and available in two size options. I was most excited for the Ophion Evo which is a little taller and adds support for a 240mm radiator. I’ve been using the Ophion Evo for a while now, you might have even seen it in our Asus Ryuo review, and today I am finally going to give the rundown on my experience with the case.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 14 March 2019 13:09
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
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: Audio
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Published: Wednesday, 27 February 2019 23:00
While looking for the best gaming audio setup over the years I spent a lot of time testing different gaming headsets and what I found was that a lot of companies focused more on making their gaming headsets “look” gaming more than they tried to really give you the best possible audio experience. This has improved over the last few years some, but still the best possible configuration, in my opinion, is a traditional set of high-quality headphones design for music use and then to provide your own microphone in the form of a table microphone or an add on microphone like the ModMic which I have reviewed twice in the past (ModMic 4 and ModMic 5). The desktop microphone is more convenient but often picks up any noise around you including your keyboard and the ModMics both performed flawlessly but you do have to fight with a second cord in addition to your headphones. Well, Antlion Audio now has a solution to that, their ModMic Wireless and that is what I’m going to take a look at today.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Saturday, 23 February 2019 18:27
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
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
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
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: Storage
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Published: Wednesday, 13 February 2019 22:17
When it comes to hardware that comes in, from time to time things slip through the cracks. In this case, ADATA sent their XPG SX6000 drive in the 256GB capacity last year and well I missed it and as you can tell I’m very late. But I do still want to check it out and see what ADATA has going on and how the drive performs. The drive itself is EOL but can still be found in some of its capacities and at good prices as well. So hopefully this information will come in handy for some of you.
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