Computer Power User - April 2014 - FiLELiST

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INTELSSD 730 SERIESENTHUSIAST PERFORMANCE MEETS DATA CENTER

EFFICIENCY & DEPENDABILITY

April | Vol. 14 Iss. 04

Complimentary Copy

MPD-01: SFF WMDSCRATCH BUILD WINS LANFEST 2013


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45Mad Reader Mod: MPD-01

54CPUSystem Workshop: The PAX Predator

APRIL 2014 | VOL 14 ISSUE 04

FRONTSIDE P. 3

News, product release information,

and stats from the tech industry.

HEAVY GEAR P. 16

The latest PC hardware is here:

reviews, product profiles, and

category roundups.

HARD HAT AREA P. 45

CPU s Mad Reader Mod winner,

LAN party coverage, and in-depth

looks at the latest and greatest

hardware and technology.

LOADING ZONE P. 76

Software reviews, betas, updates, and

how-tos.

DIGITAL LIVING P. 81

Games and leisure, news from

around the web, tech company

interviews, and more.

BACK DOOR P. 86

Monthly last-page interview with

people who help to shape the PC

industry.

DID YOU FIND THE HIDDENCPULOGO ON OUR COVER?

Gotcha. Here it is.

Copyright 2014 by Sandhills Publishing Company. Computer Power Useris a registered trademark of Sandhills Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing

in Computer Power Useris strictly prohibited without written permission.

Contact UsP.O.Box 82545Lincoln, NE 68501

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120 W. Harvest Drive

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Advertising:(800) 247-4880Fax: (402) 479-2104

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Icy Dock FlexFit Trio Fits 3 Bays In 1Icy Dock has come out with another interesting bay

conversion kit for DIYers. Te FlexFit rio is a one-pieceplastic enclosure that provides a way for you to pack threedrives into the space of one 5.25-inch bay. he front ofthe FlexFit has a dock that holds a 3.5-inch drive, plus youcan slide two 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs into the top of theenclosure. Icy Dock says the front-facing 3.5-inch bay createsthe opportunity to mix/match various components. Forexample, you could have two SSDs and a multimedia cardreader, or two 2.5-inch HDDs and a 3.5-inch fan controller.Or you could even use another optional conversion partfrom Icy Dock that converts the 3.5-inch bay of the FlexFitrio into two more 2.5-inch slots, giving you room for fourSSDs in the space of the original 5.25-inch bay. Te FlexFitrio works with any standard-sized 3.5-inch or 2.5-inchdrives and comes with a snap-off solid faceplate that you canuse as an optional dustcover on the front panel.

Apricorns Aegis Padlock SSD Offers

Encrypted Protection For Your DataMobile is good; ruggedized mobile is better . . . but encryptedruggedized mobile? Now, were talking. Mobile storagemanufacturer Apricorn has come out with a ruggedized USB3.0 SSD that uses AES-XS 256-bit hardware encryption toencrypt data in real time. Data access requires a unique userPIN, and the drive has a timed autolock as well as a BruteSelf Destruct feature that wipes out the encryption key after20 consecutive incorrect PIN entries. Apricorn says the SSDis water resistant as well as crush resistant to more than 6,500pounds and that it will work in extreme temperatures. Tey

designed the drive to meet military and law enforcement specs.(Bitcoin vault, anyone?) Prices start at $429 for 120GB.

WATCHING THE CHIPS FALL

Here is the pricinginformation forvarious AMD andIntel CPUs.

* As of March 2014** Manufacturers

estimated priceper 1,000

CPU Released Original Price Last Months Price Online Retail Price*

AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core 6/11/2013 NA $299.99 $299.99

AMD FX-9370 Eight-Core 6/11/2013 $375 $249.99 $249.99

AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core 10/23/2012 $195 $199.99 $199.99

AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core 10/23/2012 $169 $159.99 $159.99

AMD FX-6350 Six-Core 4/30/2013 $132 $139.99 $129.99

AMD A10-6800K Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $142** $139.99 $139.99

AMD A10-6790K Quad-Core 10/28/2013 $130 $129.99 $119.99

AMD A10-6700 Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $142** $148.99 $148.99AMD A8-6600K Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $112** $119.99 $119.99

AMD A8-6500 Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $112** $118.99 $118.99

Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition 9/3/2013 $990** $1,049.99 $1,049.99

Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition 11/12/2012 $999** $1,039.99 $1,139.99

Intel Core i7-4930K 9/3/2013 $583** $579.99 $579.99

Intel Core i7-4770K 6/2/2013 $339** $339.99 $339.99

Intel Core i7-4770 6/2/2013 $303** $309.99 $309.99

Intel Core i5-4670K 6/2/2013 $242** $239.99 $239.99

Intel Core i5-4670 6/2/2013 $213** $219.99 $219.99

Intel Core i5-4570 6/2/2013 $192** $199.99 $199.99

Intel Core i5-4430 6/2/2013 $182** $189.99 $189.99

Intel Core i3-4340 9/1/2013 $149** $159.99 $159.99

CPU / April 20143


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DryBox Invents A New Way To Dryhe words splash and mobile device dont go well

together, and now one company is seeking to turn thosemoments of panic into a revenue stream. DryBox (www.dryboxrescue.com) says it has created a drying processthat can save your phone as well as other types of mobileelectronic products (cameras, MP3 players, key fobs, andthe like) after accidental dunkings. DryBox is a service; thedevice you use is available at retailers (the company is workingat getting more boxes set up nationwide). When you dropyour phone in the lake, for example, you can look up thelocation of the nearest DryBox, take the device there, andthen the patent-pending drying method will completely dryyour phone inside and out in less than 30 minutes. DryBoxdoesnt guarantee all devices will work again after they aredried out, but they do say the sooner your device gets to thenearest DryBox, the better your chances. Oh, and dont sealthe phone in a bag of rice rst DryBox advises against usingthat particular drying technique.

ZOTACs Updated ZBOX Models AreMini-PCs That Pack In The PowerLooking for a pixel-pushing HPC for that fancy new 4K HD

screen? ZOAC has updated several models in its ZBOX lineof mini-PCs. Just released is the ZBOX ID45 PLUS, whichcombines an embedded 3rd Gen Intel i3 (dual core, 1.9GHz)with NVIDIAs GeForce G 640 with 2GB DDR3 VRAM.Te system includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi and a 500GB 5400RPMHD; just install the operating system of your choice (thesystem is Windows 7 and 8 ready) and off you go. ZBOXsystems look equally at home on an HDV stand or yourdesktop. With 4GB of DDR3 RAM, one HDMI port, andone DVI port, combined with two SAA ports (1 x 6.0Gbpsand 1 3.0Gbps) and four USB ports (two USB 3.0 in frontand two USB 2.0 in back), you have a small but powerfulsystem with discrete graphics that can output to your 4KHDV or connect to accessories. After the movie, you cannish off that work you brought home from the office.

Midtower With Style: The NZXT H440Midtower cases offer that space-saving compromise betweeneverything-but-the-kitchen-sink full towers and smaller formfactors, but sometimes they compromise on looks, too. Notso with NZXs H440, an attractive midtower that packs inplenty of features. Te front of the case comes lled with threeof NZXs FN V2 120mm fans, with another 140mm in the

rear (and theres room for you to add two 140mm or three120mm fans on top). Te case can support AX mobos andhandle graphics cards up to 406mm (without a drive cage; withthe HDD cage the clearance is 294mm). Tere are six 3.5-/2.5-inch drive bays and room for multiple radiators on the top,front, or rear. NZX says it designed the H440 to offer up to80% more room to manage cables than many midsize cases.Te case has a steel top/front (no external ODD) and steelHDD cages. Dimensions are 510mm x 220mm x 475.33mm(HxWxD). Te H440 comes in your choice of black (with redhighlights) or white (with black highlights) for $119.99.

4 April 2014 / www.computerpoweruser.com


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HARDWARE MOLE

Towering Anti-Inferno:The Zalman FX-70 CPU CoolerPassive is quiet, but it can also be cool. As in temps that keepyour CPU from melting while you multitask, keeping every corepegged. And passive can be beautiful, as in the nely machinedlayering of ns and pipes that makes up Zalmans towering FX-70CPU Cooler. Te FX-70 has a half-dozen copper heatpipes thatshimmy up through 16 levels of black pearl, nickel-plated heatsink.Te heatsink layers have a twisted n design that maximizes airowthrough the cooler. Although the FX-70 is designed to be usedwithout fans, Zalman suggests you attach a fan to the front orback for CPUs that run over 95w (note that the cooler ships withjust one fan clip). Zalman says the cooler is compatible with mostsockets including Intels 1150, 1155, and 2011, and AMDs FM2,

AM3, and AM3+. Make sure you have some room in your case,as the cooler measures 158mm x 140mm x 110mm (HxWxD).Zalmans ZM-SG2M thermal grease is included.

File Access & Backup SecurityWithout The Monthly Feesoshiba recently announced a new line of home NAS

devices called Canvio. Te Canvio Home Backup & Shareis a storage product that supplants the need to subscribeto a cloud-based storage serivce, as it lets you save yourles at home, but access them using your portable devicesor any device connected to the Internet. You can useCanvio to stream music locally around the house or toaccess home movies while youre on the road. Schedulebackups of your computer as needed; access files withAndroid and iOS apps. he Canvio currently comesin two congurations, 2B and 3B, and is priced at$199.99 and $259.99 respectively.Biostar Goes Small WIth J1800NH

Mini-IX seems to be the new black, as manufacturershave recently announced a number of new smallformat boards and cases. Biostar is coming out with theJ1800NH, a Mini-IX board that sports the dual-coreIntel Celeron J1800. Te board also will have one slotto support a SO-DIMM of DDR3L memory, Intel HDGraphics, and Charger Booster technology (which speedsthe charging of any Apple devices). Te board will alsofeature Biostars BIO-Remote 2 echnology, which letsyou access the system using an Android or Apple mobiledevice. Expect to pay around $60 for this motherboard.

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NonProtEasy Helps NonProtOrganizations Manage OperationsMost not-for-prot organizations have much better thingsto do than focus on paperwork. NonProtEasy is a companywith an integrated software product by the same name thathelps small- to mid-sized nonprot companies manage theirday-to-day operations. Te software has built-in tools thatassist with such universal non-prot activities as managingevents, scheduling volunteer hours, sending out donorsolicitations, tracking memberships, and more. Pricing tiersfor the software range from $20 per month for small startupsthat just need the basics for a single user on up to $300 permonth for larger organizations that need to manage a widerange of activities and support unlimited concurrent users.

Free two-week trials of the full package are available fororganizations that want to see exactly what the software cando. For more infomation, see www.nonprofiteasy.com.

Safety First: Back Up Your RigWith Backup & Recovery 14 HomeParagon Software recently released Paragon Backup & Recovery

14 Home, an integrated package for backing up data on homePCs and recovering from data disasters. Te software supportsWindows PCs from Windows 2000 up through Windows 8.1and includes full support for UEFI-based congurations. TeStorage Spaces feature in Windows 8 that denes a virtual spacefor multiple drives is also fully supported so you can createbackups. Te Recovery Media Builder lets you create bootableenvironments in Linux and Windows on USB drives, andyou can use the P2P Adjust OS Wizard to migrate a Windowssystem to new hardware. Te software sports a new GUI witha Metro-style interface that is compatible with Windows 8;theres also a ribbon style launcher. Paragon says its virtual harddrive technology (pVHD) can create backups that are only1/4th the size of the original data. You can get the software for$39.95 at www.paragon-software.com.

SOFTWARE SHORTS

New Browser Beta AddsTouchscreen Capability To FirefoxMozilla has introduced a Firefox For Windows 8 ouchbeta that lets users access their favorite sites and history

with a single tap on their Windows 8 tablet and notebooktouch screens. Familiar touchscreen gestures such as swipesfor transitions and pinch-to-zoom are also supported. Testart screen offers a big tile option to highlight sites for easynavigation. You also can view an app in full-screen mode,snapped mode (where an app appears in a limited region ofthe screen much like a sidebar), or Fill mode (where it lls thescreen area not already taken by a snapped app). Mozilla sayspopular features such as the Awesome Bar are still available.You can download the Firefox For Windows 8 ouch beta atwww.mozilla.org/en-US/refox/beta.



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If A Tree Falls In The Forest,Does It Make A Video Clip?Te World Resource Institute has worked with partners tocreate a beta site (www.globalforestwatch.org ) for its GlobalForest Watch initiative that combines current mappingand satellite technology with institutional datasets andcrowdsourcing. Te resulting overlay of information providesa way to visualize what is happening over time with forestsaround the world. You can see what is happening overseasas well as in your own backyard, and you can view trendsover a multiyear period. Along with the visual mappingpresentations, you can read rst-person accounts submittedby scientists as well as casual users of the site. Some areas showan uptick in forested acres, while others reveal a steep decline.

Global Forest Watch says its goal is to provide informationthat helps people better manage local forest resources.

U.S.A! U.S.A! We Rank . . . 8thAkamai echnologys latest State Of Te Internet report, whichexamines global Internet trends in matters such as security andprotocol usages, shows that the U.S. continues to lag behind

other countries when it comes to overall connection speeds. Hereare the global top 10 rankings as measured by Akamai.

Avg Speed Year-Over-Year

Country (Mbps) Change

1. South Korea 22.1 51%2. Japan 13.3 27%3. Hong Kong 12.5 39%4. Netherlands 12.5 46%5. Switzerland 11.6 33%6. Czech Republic 11.3 49%7. Latvia 11.1 28%8. United States 9.8 31%

9. Belgium 9.7 46%10. Ireleand 9.6 43%

SITE SEEING

Find What You Didnt KnowYou Were Looking For On Troverrover is the brainchild of Rich Barton (founder of Expedia andco-founder of Zillow) and mobile expert Jason Karas. Te site

lets users view travel photos marked by location and groupedin various ways. Photogs can upload and share their favoriteshots during a vacation, for example, and then users browsingthe site can discover new places to visit or things they would liketo see. Mobile users can load a free eponymous app that workswith their GPS to show pics of sites near their location. ravelerscan discover the best dishes at local restaurants, interestingmuseum exhibits, and off-the-beaten-path local favorites such asarchitectural oddities or natural wonders. Te site has contestsfor theme-based photos (best winter scene, for example) and youcan follow and show support for your favorite photographers.

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Job Of The MonthNVIDIA, the company that invented the GPU in 1999 and became a favorite of gamers everywhere, is looking

for someone with some serious parallel computing chops. Team Green wants to nd a world-class SoftwareEngineer to work with its Developer Technology Team and expand the boundaries of High PerformanceComputing. Youll need to be a gifted math wonk, as youll be developing computing algorithms anddiscovering new uses for GPUs as well as pushing the performance limits of GPU technology on next-genplatforms. As a Parallel Computing Software Engineer, youll work closely with the architecture and softwaregroups at NVIDIA to design new GPU architectures. Youll also help educate key developer partners about allthe latest, greatest tech from NVIDIA. Youll need parallel computing experience, strong knowledge of variousprogramming languages, and a good degree from a leading university in engineering or comp sci. Thisopening is at Santa Clara, Calif.; see the website for more info.

Source: careers.nvidia.com

SSDs Are In . . . HDs & Optical Drives Are OutContent streaming and the relentless downwardpricing pressure on SSD storage on a per-gigabytebasis are having a noticeable effect on storagepurchases. As the relative price of SSD storagedrops, the other advantages it offers are helpingSSDs eat away at the market share of hard drivesand optical drives. IHS Technology released a recentstudy of worldwide storage shipments that showsthat while SSD shipments are growing rapidly,

shipments for hard drives and optical drives are

steadily trending down. It will take a few years, buteventually optical drives and then hard drives willbe surpassed and then relegated to niche status. Asalways, technology marches on....

Source: IHS Technology

Yes, I Game I Always DoWhat I Can For My CountryThe next time somebody questions the value of yourhard-won gaming prowess, just point out the impact that

one area of gaming the games themselves has onour economy. The NPD Group recently estimated that thetotal games market (used, virtual, and real) for consolesand PCs was worth more than $15 billion in the U.S. lastyear. Take that, you and the rest of the Zerg Swarm.

VALUE OF GAMING CONTENT TO U.S. ECONOMY

New Console & PC Games (Physical Discs) $6.34 billion

Other Physical Forms Of Content (Used & Rental Games) $1.83 billion

Digital Gaming Content (Game Downloads; Subs; Mobile Games; Social Games) $7.22 billion

TOTAL VALUE OF GAMING CONTENT $15.39 billion

Source: The NPD Group

2012 2013 2014

500

450

400

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

HHD ODD SSD

Global Storage Unit Shipments (In Millions)

31The date in October 2014 that Microsofthas set as the last day for systemmanufacturers to sell computers toconsumers that are preloaded with almostall Windows 7 versions. The lone exceptionis Windows 7 Professional; Microsoft hasnot yet set the end date for that particularversion of the operating system.

Microsoft.com

63%Percentage of U.S. households withbroadband Internet access that have at least

one television set in the home connected tothe Internet.

The Diffusion Group

8 millionNumber of so-called smart bands,

a subcategory of the wearable bandtechnology market, that manufacturers areexpected to ship during 2014. In all, some17 million wearable band devices (smartand otherwise) are forecast to ship duringthe year.

Canalys Market Research Group

$23.9 billionEstimated value of the worldwide mobilegaming market in 2016. This would

represent nearly 100% growth in threeyears, as the market at the end of 2013 wasestimated to be about $12.3 billion.

Newzoo.com



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Intel SSD 730 SeriesNo-Compromise Storage Has Arrived

Advertisement

Intel, combining Intels own third-generation controller, 20-nanometerIntel NAND flash memory, andfirmware that is optimized for per-formance. 730 Series drives are morethan just the sum of their parts, though,

as Intel factory-overclocks the 730scomponents before they nd their wayto you, bumping up the controllersspeed by an additional 50% and adding20% to the NAND bus speed.

Tis results in low 50s read latencyand measurable performance up to550MBps in sequential reads, withrandom reads reaching 89,000 IOPS.Combining two or more 730 Series drivesin a RAID 0 conguration provides evenmore impressive results, thanks to Intels

for more than four decades, and pro-vides world-class solutions both toconsumers and corporate customers.he companys latest SSD family,the 730 Series, is the culminationof all Intel has learned about solid-

state storage. hese drives combineenthusiast-grade performance with theendurance and dependability that hastraditionally been reserved for datacenter storage products.

In other words, its the best of bothworlds, and what that means to you isfreedom from compromise.

Extreme PerformanceTe 730 Series solid-state drives are

the fastest consumer drives yet from

High-speed random reads and writes.High-speed sequential reads and

writes. Compressible data. Incompressibledata. RIM and garbage collection.Long-term endurance and dependability.A fast, capable controller. Cutting-edge

NAND flash memory. Solid firmware anda useful software toolkit.Tere are many factors to consider when

deciding on SSDs for your PC, and up tonow the process has largely come down topicking one or two areas that were mostimportant to you and settling on the rest.But what if you didnt have to settle? Whatif there were an SSD built from the groundup to excel at, well, everything?

Intel has been leading the charge toinnovate in semiconductor technologies
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Whether youre looking for a sol id-state drive for a general-use PC, ahigh-end gaming rig, or a workstationfor creating digital content, the IntelSSD 730 Series combination of perfor-mance and dependability makes it theobvious choice for those who are nolonger willing to compromise.

For more information on Intels SSD 730Series drives, visit intel.com/SSD730Series.

that you can count on every minute ofevery day, 24/7/365. Tats why Inteltapped its internal data center rmwareteam to build advanced algorithms intothe 730 Series drives firmware thatgive them the endurance to handleup to 70GB of writes per day for fiveyearsmore than three times thetypical 20GB writes per day for SSDsover the same period of time. hatsperformance you can rely on, whetheryoure working with compressible or

incompressible data.

Rapid Storage echnology. Connectingtwo 240GB 730 Series drives in RAID0 to a Q87-, H87-, Z87-, or X79-basedmotherboard provide the same storage asa single 480GB drive, but almost twice asmuch throughput in sequential read andwrite operations. Adding additional drivespushes the 730 Series performance to evengreater heights.

Data Center DNATe only thing better than blazing-fast

performance is blazing-fast performance
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the separation of the PCB layers. hismotherboard also utilizes studio-classNichicon MUSE MW series bipolaraudio capacitors.

o reduce lag, the G1.Sniper Z5Scomes with a Killer E2200 Ethernetcontroller from Qualcomm Atheros.You can manually prioritize traffic withthe Killer E2200, but you may nothave to. he Killer E2200s AdvancedStream Detect technology automatically

identies and prioritizes network trafficfor applications that most need high-speed access. If you prefer to do ityourself, just open the Killer NetworkManager, and you can increase ordecrease the bandwidth each applicationuses. You can also block an applicationfrom network access.

Graphics capabilities are a primeconcern for any gamers motherboard,and the G1.Sniper Z5S doesnt

output. You can also switch out OP-Amps (operational ampl iers) to makesubtle changes to the boards audiooutput. For instance, you could installan OP-Amp thats designed to providecleaner audio, more hard-hitting bass, orincreased dynamic range. GIGABYEmakes the process simple, too. Allyoull need to do is pull out the existingOP-Amp and install the new one byaligning the notches and pressing the

chip into the socket.GIGABYE even goes the extramile to maintain the integrity of theG1.Sniper Z5Ss audio signals. heboards integrated audio componentsare protected with a noise guard thatseparates the analog audio componentsfrom any EMI noise from the rest of thePCB. We also like that the G1.SniperZ5S traces the noise guard path with agreen LED light, so you can actually see

Most enthusiasts are familiar withGIGABYEs G1-Killer series, the

lavish motherboards that are deckedout with high-end gaming capabilities.GIGABYE recently announced twoboards for midrange systemstheG1.Sniper Z5S and G1.Sniper Z5to expand the G1-Killer lineup. Boththe Z5S and Z5 come with many ofthe features youll find on the upperechelon G1-Killer series motherboards,

such as Killer E2200 networking andGIGABYE AMP-UP Audio. Here, welltake a look at everything youll get withthe Z87-based G1.Sniper Z5S.

Game audio remains a priority withthe G1.Sniper Z5S. Its built witha Realtek ALC1150 HD audio codecthat supports up to 10 audio channels.We like that the boards two front panelaudio channels can deliver an 115dBsignal-to-noise ratio for crisp analog

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z5S

G1.Sniper Z5S

$149.99GIGABYTEwww.gigabyte.us



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happy to know that they too can nowhire the services of a G1-Killer.

BYNATHANLAKE

internal header) , and seven USB2.0 ports (three on rear panel, fouravailable via two internal headers).

We tested the G1.Sniper with an IntelCore i7-4770K running at stock clocks,a GIGABYE GV-N760OC-4GD, and8GB of ADAA XPG V1.0 DDR3-

1866. In Metro: Last Light, we topped30fps at 2,560 x 1,600 with all settingson high. Our test system produced evenbetter results in Aliens vs. Predator,with 32.9fps at the highest quality. Weran 3DMark Professionals Fire StrikeExtreme test and saw an overall scoreof 3057, highlighted by a Physics scoreof 11057. he Memory Bandwidthresults of 21.45GBps and 21.74GBpsin SiSoftware Sandra 2014 are nicenumbers for the 1,866MHz memory in

our test rig.he G1.Sniper Z5S provides youwith a variety of tools to help get themost out of your videogames. Weespecially liked the motherboardshigh-end audio and bandwidth controloptions. Builders on a budget will be

disappoint here, either. It offers threePCI-E x16 3.0 slots that can supportup to 2-way SLI or CrossFire. In 2-waySLI and CrossFire, the top two PCI-Ex16 slots will run at x8 speed. FourPCI-E x1 slots are provided for otheradd-in cards.

he G1.Sniper Z5S i s a l so noslouch with memory. It can supportup to 32GB of DDR3-3000. You canutilize preset memory configurationsfor modules that support Intels XMPprofiles.

he G1.Sniper Z5S is a capableoverclocker, thanks to GIGABYEsUltra Durable 4 Plus technology,which consists of all solid capacitorsand low RDS(on) MOSFEs that arerated for use with higher temperatures.

he design helps to ensure stabilityand a long life span. Many of theconnectivity options on the G1.SniperZ5S are what youd find on the stockZ87 chipset. here are six 6GbpsSAA ports, six USB 3.0 ports (fouron the rear panel, two available via

Benchmark Results

GIGABYTE

G1.Sniper Z5S

3DMark Professional

(Fire Strike Extreme)

3057

Graphics Score 3140

Physics Score 11057

PCMark 8

Creative Score 5010

SiSoftware Sandra

2014 Lite

Dhrystone AVX2

(GIPS)

156.4

Whetstone AVX

(GFLOPS)

104.72

Multi-Media Integer

AVX x32 (Mpixels/s)

445.35

Multi-Media Float

FMA3 x16 (Mpixels/s)

411.46

Multi-Media Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

236.36

Multi-Media Float/Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

311.85

Integer B/F AVX/128

(GBps)

21.45

Floating B/F AVX/128

(GBps)

21.74

POV-Ray 3.7 Beta* 1624.27

Cinebench 11.5** 8.53

Games (2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

30.1fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

32.9fps

* pixels per second

** points

Specs:Form Factor: ATX; Max memory: 32GB (DDR3-1600; Max OC: DDR3-3000); Slots: 3 PCI-E 3.0 x16; 4 PCI-E x1; Storage: 6 6Gbps SATA; Rear I/O: 1HDMI, 1 DVI-D, 1 VGA, 4 USB 3.0, 3 USB 2.0, 1 PS/2, 1 Ethernet, 1 coaxial S/PDIF out, 1 optical S/PDIF out, audio I/O; Warranty: 3 yearsTest system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K; GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD; RAM: 8GB ADATA XPG V1.0 DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB CrucialRealSSD C300; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)

CPU / April 201417


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Cooler Master Seidon 120VTe included 120mm fan can generate

up to 86.15cfm at its top speed andproduces a listed noise level of 40dBA. At600rpm, the fan moves air at 19.17cfm andproduces a mere 19dBA. Cooler Masteralso lists the fans air pressure, which an

important specification because high airpressure will help to push cool air throughthe radiators tight spaces. At 2400rpm,the fan will produce an impressive4.16mmH20, while the 600rpm speeddelivers an air pressure of 0.31mmH20.

When you power up your system, a blueLED in the middle of the pump/heatsinkwill light up to indicate that the unit isoperating. Te blue LED isnt too bright,so it wont be distracting if youve designedyour cases interior around a different colorscheme. Te installation process with theSeidon 120V was quick and hassle-free, andCooler Master provides mounting bracketsthat support all major Intel and AMDsocket types.

We tested the Seidon 120M withIntels Core i7-4770K (at stock clocks)

Weve taken a look at Cooler MastersSeidon 120M in the past, and the

Seidon 120V is similar in that it comes witha 120mm PWM fan that runs as slowlyas 600rpm and as fast as 2,400rpm. hewide PWM range ensures that the closed-

loop system will perform well under loadand will function relatively quietly whenthe computer is idle. Cooler Master alsoprovides a second set of screws to let youattach the 120mm radiator to an existing120mm fan on your rig, which makes iteasy to create push/pull airflow over theradiator and improve performance.

Te 1.1-inch thick aluminum radiator isconnected to the pump/heatsink unit withFEP tubing, and we found that the ribbedhard plastic hoses are nearly impossible tokink. Another benet of the FEP tubing,according to Cooler Master, is that it offersa high thermal stability and high pressuretolerance. he pump features a rotationspeed of between 1,400 and 1,600rpm andoperates at 12V. Te pumps noise level islisted at less than 23dBA.

and a GIGABYE GA-Z87X-UP7 Hmotherboard. After 10 minutes of idle use,the Core i7-4770K delivered a maximumtemperature of 32 C. Next, we pushed theprocessor by running POV-Ray 3.7 andrendering the benchmark on all cores for 10

minutes. We saw a maximum temperatureof 59 C. Finally, we ran four instances ofPrime 95s Small FF test for 10 moreminutes. his demanding test produceda maximum temperature of 65 C. As youcan see, theres plenty of cooling overheadto overclock the Core i7-4770K using theSeidon 120V.

he Seidon 120V is available as astandalone closed-loop CPU cooler or in aCooler Master bundle with the CM 690 IIcase. Tis closed-loop CPU cooler is smartlydesigned, and thanks to the PWM fan, theSeidon 120V will operate quietly in idle anddeliver performance when under load. Te120mm radiator and fan should t withinmost any build.

BYNATHANLAKE

Specs:Materials: Copper (waterblock), aluminum (radiator); Socket compatibility: Intel LGA1155/1156/1366/2011, AMD AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2; Pump: 1400to 1600rpm, 12V; Fans: one 120mm fan that can operate from 600 to 2400rpm; Radiator dimensions: 154 x 119 x 27mm; Two-year warranty

Test System Specs: Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K; Motherboard: GA-Z87X-UD7 TH; GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD; RAM: 8GB ADATA XPG V1.0 DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)

Seidon 120V$49.99

Cooler Masterwww.coolermaster-usa.com



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GX Gaming Imperator Pro White Editionall the kids love these days. GX Gamingadvertises a 3.8mm travel distance for theImperator Pro Whites keys; thanks to this,the keyboard felt quick and responsivewhen we used it in StarCraft II. It was also

quite comfortable and effective for general-purpose use, as well.

Tere are tons of gaming goodies on theImperator Pro White. A column of six macrokeys runs down the left side of the keyboard,and the Imperator pro lets you set up threeproles for each of them. (Dedicated prolebuttons labeled M1, M2, and M3are located at the top of the keyboard andmake prole switching fast and easy.) Likemost of GX Gamings other peripherals, thiskeyboard gives you tons of control over its

backlighting. You can choose from a paletteof 16 million colors, and there are fourbrightness levels: 33%, 66%, 100%, andpause-break. Again, a dedicated button onthe Imperator Pro White controls the effect.Te keyboard also lets you designate up to 18keys for antighosting.

Most of the above-mentioned magichappens courtesy of GXs Scorpion Gaming

Gamers are always looking for an edge.he labelprofessional, hardcore,

casualdoesnt matter; we strive to befaster, smarter, more accurate, and just plainbetter. A new and improved strategy can

do wonders for your game. Lots of practicehelps, too. We also make sure to go intobattle with the right peripherals. A solidkeyboard and mouse frequently makes thedifference between victory and defeat.

Lately, the consensus seems to be thatmechanical keyboards are the only choicefor 1337 gamers; anything else is for noobs.Let me take a stance that some wouldconsider controversial: What nonsense.Mechanical keyboards are great for some,but that doesnt make anyone wrong for

preferring to stay with a keyboard that usesrubber dome keyswitches. Tats why I waspleased to take GX Gamings Imperator ProWhite Edition for a spin.

Te Imperator Pro White Edition takesGX Gamings capable Imperator Pro andgives it a fresh coat of paint. Tis keyboard isdesigned for MMORPGs and RSes, and itshould work just ne in those MOBA games

UI software, which is included with theImperator Pro White. he utility isstraightforward and easy to use, which isalways a plus. Recording macros andconfiguring other settings on a keyboard

should not be a tedious task or requirearcane knowledge, so on the congurationfront, the Imperator Pro White succeeds.

You cant go to a LAN party these dayswithout seeing a white-themed build ortwo. If youre planning one of your own,the Imperator Pro White Edition is callingyour name. Better still, you can customizethe keyboards backlighting to complementother colors in your build, whether thathappens to be neon purple LED lightingor red anodized heatsinks. Visually, the

Imperator Pro White is top-notch.Solidly built and stunning in white,this Imperator Pro is a great option for anypower user who needs a high-end gamingkeyboard but doesnt want to deal withmechanical keyswitches. Put it on yourshort list.

BYVINCE COGLEY

Specs:Interface: USB 2.0; Cable length 5.9 feet; Rubber dome keyswitches; Antighosting: Up to 18 keys; Backlight 16 million RGB colors;Polling rate; 1,000Hz; Response time: 1ms

Imperator Pro White Edition

$79.99GX Gamingwww.gx-gaming.com

CPU / April 201419


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ADATA DashDrive Air AE800his is especially useful when you considerhow an extra 500GB of capacity could beused to supplement the local storage availableto your Android or iOS devices. his way,youre able to travel with large digital mediacollections and reduce the reliance on cloudservices for media and remote file access.Even better, youll have reliable access to the

les stored on the AE800, ideal for locationswhere you cant depend on Wi-Fi access orcellular connectivity.

With video, the AE800 supports up to1080p streaming for as many as three usersand 720p for a maximum of ve users. Filesupport varies by mobile OS, but in general,both the Android and iOS apps (downloadthe DashDrive Air Elite app) support the most

In the last couple of months, weve examineda number of ADAAs external hard drives.

he DashDrive Air AE800 is a 500GBexternal hard drive and much more. NearbyWi-Fi devices can wirelessly access files onthe AE800, effectively making it a portableserver that can stream video, audio, images,and documents to Android, iOS, Linux, and

Windows devices. It can also function as apower bank for your mobile devices, thanksto its 5,200mAh battery and USB port. Lastly,the AE800 works as a Wi-Fi hotspot. hisfeature is ideal for sharing connectivity at anyestablishment that charges for Internet serviceon a per device basis.

Te most interesting feature of the AE800is its ability to wirelessly stream and share les.

popular formats with photo, video, music, anddocument formats. For instance, the M4A,MP3, and WAV audio formats are supported

for both iOS and Android. he AE800supports 802.11/b/g/n and can deliver data atup to 300Mbps. PCs can wirelessly access theAE800 by joining the external drives wirelessnetwork. When plugged into a PC (using theincluded Micro-USB to USB cable), youll beable to access les via the external hard drivesUSB 3.0 port.

he AE800s power bank function issimple to use. Just plug your USB-powereddevice into the units standard USB port.ADAA indicates that the Li-Polymer batteryshould provide two full charges for mostsmartphones. You cant, however, use thepower bank and wireless transfer capabilitiesat the same time.

When functioning as a wireless hotspot, theAE800 can share an Internet connection withup to eight devices. You can secure the AE800with a WPA or WPA2 password to protectagainst unauthorized access.

We tested the DashDrive Air usingSiSoftware Sandra 2014 Lites storage tests.We connected the external hard drive to ourmotherboards USB 3.0 port. In the Physical

Disk test, the portable hard drive produceda read speed of 89.65MBps second, and wesaw a random access time of 13.57ms. Wealso ran the File System I/O benchmark,which tests the drive for transfer speeds withdifferent le sizes. In the 64KB les test, wesaw a read performance of 26.34MBps anda write performance of 28.15MBps. Movingup to the 16MB files test, the AE800produced a read speed of 62.79MBps and awrite speed of 64.12MBps.

If youre a traveler and need an easy way

to share data and/or recharge your mobiledevices, the DashDrive Air AE800 is a goodinvestment. Te wireless hotspot capabilitycould also save you some money if a hotelcharges you for every device you connectto the Internet. What more could you wantfrom an external hard drive?

BYNATHANLAKE

Specs:Capacity: 500GB; USB 3.0; 802.11b/g/n; Battery: Li-Polymer 5,200mAh rechargeable battery; Supported OSes: Windows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS X10.x and above, Linux 2.4 and above, iOS 5.0 and above, Android 2.3 and above; One-year warranty

DashDrive Air AE800

$115.99ADATAwww.adatausa.com



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GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 780 GHzEdition (GV-N780GHZ-3GD)

Many of the graphics cards weveseen from GIGABYE lately feature thecompanys WINDFORCE 3X cooler withriangle Cool technology, and why not?Its a very capable cooler that can dissipatean impressive 450 watts. he cooler

consists of a trio of 75mm fans, two 8mmand four 6mm heatpipes, a large vaporchamber over the GPU, a triangular blockof aluminum bristling with fins, and athin aluminum heat shroud covering thewhole thing. We also like that the coolerhas a metal shield over the side of thePCB that will be anking the CPU cooler,which gives you someplace to grip the cardduring installation and helps to dissipateheat coming off the back of the board.

On the backplane of this dual-slot card, youll find a dual-link DVI-Iport, a DVI-D port, an HDMI port,and a DisplayPort. he graphics card isapproximately 11.5 inches long. Powercomes to it via two 8-pin PCI-E powerconnectors, and dont even think aboutinstalling one of these unless you have a600-watt or better PSU with a 12V railrated for at least 42A.

In some ways, the GeForce GX 780GHz Edition is nothing new, and

in other ways, its a direct response toAMDs R9 290, which outperforms thevanilla 780 and dramatically undercutsthe 780 is astronomical price.

Te 28nm GK110 GPU in this graphicscard is architecturally identical to that of theearly GX 780s that came out almost a yearago, but this one uses a B1 revision of thechip, which lets GIGABYE squeeze evenmore performance from the dozen SMXunits, 2,304 CUDA cores, 192 texture units,and 48 ROPs. Like every other 780, this onehas a 384-bit memory bus, GIGABYEclocked the 3GB of GDDR5 at 6,008MHz.

Te 780s stock clock is set to 863MHz,and Boost 2.0 technology lets it climb to902MHz when the GPU needs the extrapower. With this revised chip, however,GIGABYE was able to overclock the cardsbase clock to 1,019MHz and its Boost clockto 1,071MHz. As a result, this card is capableof performance that is very close to that of theGX IAN, even though it has 384 fewerCUDA cores and 32 fewer texture units (notto mention a much more palatable price tag).

he GIGABYE GeForce GX 780GHz Edition scored well in 3DMarks FireStrike Extreme test and Unigine Heaven,with overall scores of 4925 and 1581,respectively. In Aliens vs. Predator and Metro:Last Light, this card ran at better than 60frames per second at 1,920 x 1,200 and stillmanaged a very pretty 50.8fps and 47fps inthose games when running at 2,560 x 1,600.In short, if you have one of these under thehood, feel free to crank the settings.

BYANDREWLEIBMAN

GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition$519.99GIGABYTEwww.gigabyte.us

Specs & Scores

GIGABYTE

GV-N780GHZ-3GD

Price $519.99

Core clock 1,019MHz

Boost clock 1,071MHz

Memory clock 1,502MHz

Memory interface 384-bit

Memory 3GB GDDR5

3DMark Professional

(Fire Strike Extreme)

4925

Graphics Score 5064

Physics Score 13788

Unigine Heaven 4.0 (1,920 x 1,200)

Score 1581

FPS 62.8

Games (1,920 x 1,200)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

68fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

83.8fps

(2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

47fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

50.8fps

Test system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X; GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N780GHZ-3GD; RAM: 16GB Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB OCZVertex 3 MAX IOPS; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)

CPU / April 201421


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the Coolouch-Es display off, if you donot like fun.

Installation is as easy as ever. Slide theunit into an open bay and secure it withthe included mounting screws. hatsreally all there is to it. hen, connectyour fans to the Coolouch-E. Again, theCoolouch-E takes a page from its bigbrother, as youre able to connect any casefan in your arsenal, whether it has a 3-pin,4-pin, or 4-pin Molex connector. Eachof the Coolouch-Es four channels cansupply up to 20 watts to connected fans.

he Coolouch-E gives you nicecontrol over your systems case fans

without requiring much space. heimpressive palette of display colorsis great, too. If you crave bells andwhistles, the $10 premium for AerocoolsCoolouch-R may be a better option.Otherwise, the Coolouch-E is a solid fancontroller at a friendly price.

BYVINCE COGLEY

selected channel is displayed in the middleof the screen, and arrows on either side

let you switch channels. Just to the left,theres a control that lets you disable agiven fan. On the other side of the channeldisplay, two speed control buttons fulfillthe Coolouch-Es promise. he fancontroller can run fans at three speeds:50%, 75%, and 100%. Most of the tophalf of the Coolouch-Es screen is a speedindicator, so you can see just how hard theCoolouch-E is working your fans.

We cant forget about the buttontucked away in the bottom-right ofthe Coolouch-Es screen. Another

carryover from the Coolouch-R, thisbutton lets you change the color of thefan controllers backlight. aste thisrainbow: red, green, yellow, blue, purple,light blue, and white. Obviously, thismakes the Coolouch-E an excellentchoice if your build has a particular colortheme and youre looking to match orcomplement that color. You can also turn

Recently we gave Aerocools Coolouch-Ra spin, letting it give our test systems

fans a spin. (See the January 2014 issue ofCPU.) he Coolouch-R packs a heck of alot of fun into a single 5.25-inch bay, withfour fan channels, a temperature sensor, oneUSB 3.0 port, and two memory card slots.Having this much utility in a single-bayfan controller can be helpful, of course, butthere are plenty of users who simply needa fan controller to, you know, control fans.If youd rather have a jack-of-one-trade andsave a few bucks in the process, Aerocoolhas your thing: the Coolouch-E.

Te Coolouch-E is the minimalists fan

controller. Up front, it has a touch-sensitiveLCD screen, as is often the case withAerocool fan controllers, and nothing else.he screen itself measures approximately4 inches diagonally and displays a wealthof information. On the left, theres a fananimation similar to the Coolouch-Rs;like the Coolouch-R, it means all systemsare go for the selected fan. Te currently

Aerocool CoolTouch-E

CoolTouch-E

$39.99Aerocoolwww.aerocool.us

Specs:Connectors: 4 3-/4-pin connectors, 4 4-pin Molex connectors; Max wattage per channel: 20W; Cable length: 26.5 inches (main powerand fan power cables); Compatibility: 1 5.25-inch bay; LED backlight: 7 colors



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ULTRA Etorque A5port, three USB 2.0 ports, headset andmicrophone connectivity, and a hot-swapdock that supports both 2.5- and 3.5-inchdrives. Te dock itself is cleverly concealedwith a spring-loaded fold-down door.

Another smart addition to the exterior isa fold-down pull for the side panel, whichmakes it easy to remove.

Te interior of the Etorque A5 is a samematte black color found on the exterior,and is nicely equipped. Te case supportsboth AX and micro-AX motherboards,and provides a full complement ofrectangular cable management openingsalong the side and bottom of themotherboard tray. ULRA also includessome cable ties to bundle wires for a clean

look. o ease CPU cooler installation,theres a large square opening in the uppersection of the motherboard tray. ULRAbuilt in support for up to seven expansionslots, and youll nd the PSU mount onthe bottom panel along with rubber anti-vibration supports and an intake vent witha removable mesh lter.

Good airflow is a key concern for a casewhen youre using components that

generate a lot of heat. With the EtorqueA5, ULRA has designed a mid-towerthat makes airflow a priority. In all, the A5

offers six fan slotsthree of which ULRAhas pre-equipped with fans for decent airmovement right out of the box. heres a120mm fan at the front of the chassis,a 120mm exhaust fan in the rear, and a140mm fan installed beneath the top panel.he optional fan locations are ideal forgamers looking for extra cooling for the GPUand motherboard; two 120mm/140mmmounts behind mesh vents are built into theside panel, ideally located to pull cool air overyour graphics cards and your CPU cooler.

A 120mm bottom panel intake mount isavailable to bring in cool air.he all-black Etorque A5 is a mix of

steel and plastic materials. ULRA perfectlymatches the color (and texture, in somesections) of the two materials for a seamless,unied look. On the top of the case, theresa large silver power button, one USB 3.0

ULRA equipped the A5 with tool-lesslocking mechanisms for all four 5.25-inchbays, as well as the two 3.5-inch bays in thebottom cage. o install drives in the externalbays, youll just need to pull out a bay cover,

unlock the tool-less clips, slide in the drive,and use the clip to lock it into place. Tecenter HDD cage (with three drive slots)utilizes the traditional drive installationprocedure (mounting screws through side railslots) and is oriented so that installed drivesface the side panel. With the center cage inplace, the Etorque A5 accommodates videocards up to 11.5 inches in length. Withoutit, any card up to 15.8 inches long will nda home in the A5, and that leaves you withplenty of options.

ULRAs Etorque A5 has a build-friendlydesign and a list of amenities that belie itsmodest price. If youre looking for a solidfoundation for your next gaming rig anddont want to break the bank, make sure yougive it a look.

BYNATHANLAKE

Specs:Dimensions: 19.2 x 7.9 x 19.5 inches (HxWxD); Materials: Steel, plastic; Motherboard support: ATX, mATX; Bays: 4 5.25-inch ex ternal,1 3.5-inch external, 5 3.5-inch internal, 1 2.5-inch internal; Fans (included): 1 120mm front, 1 120mm rear, 1 140mm top; Fans (optional): 2120m side panel, 1 120mm bottom; Ports: 1 USB 3.0, 3 USB 2.0, audio I/O

Etorque A5

$79.99ULTRAwww.ultraproducts.com

CPU / April 201423


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he lower portion of the enclosurecomes with convenient access panelson either side; its where you installthe PSU (over a large vent), the optical

drive (using a bracket bolted to thebottom of the motherboard tray), andyour storage drive(s) (via holes in thebottom panel). You can install a pair ofSSDs, but the HDD mounting holesactually overlap the SSD holes, so if youwant to install an HDD to the bottomof the case, you wont have room foreven one SSD.

Youl l have to remove close to 30Phillips screws to disassemble this casefully, but it feels incredibly solid when

theyre all tightened. Each screw holeis countersunk, and the screws are allanodized black to match the case. Ifyoure as impressed with Mountain Modscases as we are, but have always hungeredfor something a little less imposing, theMerkaba is one square deal.

BYANDREWLEIBMAN

5.25-inch bay cutout occupied bya slab of smoked acrylic with theMerkaba and Mountain Mods logos.You can also swap the acrylic plate and

the drive cage to make the optical driveload from the rear of the enclosure.

Remove four screws along the sidesand six from the I/O panel, and thetop section of the Merkaba lifts off toreveal a wide-open motherboard tray.Youll be able to install a Mini-IX ormAX motherboard here, and up tofour full-height expansion cards. hemotherboard tray has four oblong holeson three sides for routing PSU and datacables up from the bottom section of

the case. Te top section doesnt haveany fan mounts (and without a 120mmfan port, closed-loop liquid-coolersare also not supported), but there aretriangular hole patterns on both sidesof the top section for ventilation. Tecooling in this portion of the case willbe largely driven by the CPU cooler andthe graphics card heatsink fans.

Typically when we get a case fromMountain Mods, the doors have

to come off their hinges just to get itinto the office. In the Merkaba, though,

we found a significantly scaled downenclosure thats just as eye-catchingas its big brothers, the Ascension, U2UFO, and Pinnacle.

he Merkaba is actually a modifiedversion of the MM-ektronix mAXtest bench from Mountain Mods,which is designed to run with thetop panel removed. he Merkaba is apowder-coated mirror-black cube thatmeasures approximately 12 inches onall sides. he panels are constructed

of 1.65mm-thick aluminum, andthe case rests on a quartet of billetmilled aluminum case feet. he frontpanel has a clean overall appearance,interrupted only by a 5.25-inch opticaldrive bay and a backlit, machinedaluminum switch, which does doubleduty as an LED indicator and powerbutton. he back side has another

Mountain Mods Merkaba mATX Cube

Merkaba

$249.99Mountain Modswww.mountainmods.com

Specs:Dimensions: 12 x 11.8 x 11.75 inches (HxWxD); Material: Aluminum; Motherboard support: mATX, Mini-ITX; Bays: 1 5.25-inch external, 1 3.5-inchinternal, 2 2.5-inch internal; Finish: Powder coat mirror black



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be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3recommend measuring your modules heatspreaders to be sure theyll all fit beneaththe Dark Rock Pro 3. New system buildersshould also keep in mind these dimensionswhen selecting their components.

Te heatsink is plated with dark nickel,and be quiet! adds a brushed aluminum topcover that matches nicely. Tere are seven6mm heatpipes arranged across the heatsink.he heatpipes feature a copper lining andaluminum caps to optimize heat transfer tothe aluminum ns. According to be quiet!the Dark Rock Pro 3 offers a cooling capacityof up to 250W DP, which should give youplenty of headroom to overclock todayshigh-end processors. Te Dark Rock Pro 3is compatible with current desktop processor

sockets from Intel and AMD, and it alsosupports a ton of legacy sockets.he SilentWings fans are capable of

moving a lot of air. he 135mm fan canproduce a maximum airflow of 67.8 cfmat 1,400rpm, while the 120mm fan will

The Dark Rock Pro 3 is a tall, double-tower heatsink that comes with two be

quiet! SilentWings PWM fans for nearlynoiseless operation. In the middle of theheatsink, be quiet! installed a 135mm fan

that runs at a maximum speed of 1,400rpm.A 120mm fan is installed on the side of onetower to create a push/pull configuration. Attheir top speed, the fans maximum noiselevel will reach a mere 26.1dBA. Anotherset of 120mm fan clips provided with theDark Rock Pro 3 lets you add a third fan foradditional cooling.

When you include the CPU mount, theDark Rock Pro 3 is a little over 6 inches tall.he heatsink is around 5.25 inches wide,which means that itll likely extend over at

least one of your motherboards memoryslots. Te Dark Rock Pro 3 has 1.5 inches ofclearance between the CPU mount and thealuminum ns, which was enough to t thelow-prole heat spreaders on our ADAAXPG V1.0 DDR3-1866 modules. Wed

generate 57.2cfm at 1,700rpm. be quiet!indicates that the heatsink is built with wave-contour cooling fins with small dots on

the surface to increase air circulation. Tedesign helps the Dark Rock Pro 3 provideimpressive performance at relatively low fanspeeds for extremely quiet operation.

When installing the Dark Rock Pro 3,youll start by inserting long screws into thebackplate. be quiet! includes locks that securethe backplate to the motherboard. Next,youll affix the Intel or AMD mountingbracket to the base of the heatsink. Afterapplying some of the included thermal paste,you can mount the heatsink to the backplate.Te Dark Rock Pro 3 features a smart designwhere youll just need to tighten the screwson the backplate to secure the heatsink to themotherboard. We found that this was mucheasier than trying to tighten screws near theheatsinks base because we didnt have towork around any internal components or theheatsink itself.

We installed the Dark Rock Pro 3 in asystem running an Intel Core i7-4770K(at stock clocks). First, we let our systemidle for 10 minutes; during this time, werecorded a maximum temperature of 34

degrees Celsius. In our POV-Ray stress test(100% load on all cores), the Dark RockPro 3 limited the CPUs peak temp to 62 C.Finally, we ran four instances of Prime95sSmall FF test for 10 minutes, which raisedthe maximum temp to 65 C. Te numbersare impressive, considering the coolershouldnt exceed 26.1dBA.

In the Dark Rock Pro 3, be quiet! hascreated a CPU cooler that does its jobwithout making much of a commotion. Youmight not even be able to hear it over the

other fans and components in your case. Tecoolers performance is solid, and the heatsinkitself is attractive, thanks to the dark, brushedaluminum top cover.

BYNATHANLAKE

Specs:Materials: Copper (base, heatpipes), aluminum (ns); Fans: 1 120mm, 1 135mm fan; Heatsink dimensions: 6.4 x 5.2 4.8 inches (HxWxD); Socketcompatibility: Intel LGA775/1150/1155/1156/1366/2011, AMD 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/FM1/FM2/FM2+; 3-year warranty

Test system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K; Motherboard: GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z5S; GPU: GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD; RAM: 8GB ADATA XPGV1.0 DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)

Dark Rock Pro 3

$89.90be quiet!www.bequiet.com

CPU / April 201425


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State-Of-The-ArtStandards802.11ac

referred to as IEEE (Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers)802.11 (legacy mode); it was finalizedin June 1997 and specified 1Mbpsand 2Mbps data rates transmitted viaeither infrared signals or using FHSS(frequency-hopping spread spectrum)or DSSS (di rect-sequence spreadspectrum) in the 2.4GHz band.

Using spread-spectrum transmissiontechniques rather than a xed-frequencytransmission to transmit wireless signals

fueled the mobile revolution. Wi-Fiisnt the only way the Internet getsaround these days, but it is one of thefastest and most popular protocolsavailable. Heres a look at the latestiteration, 802.11ac, what came before,and what lies ahead.

A Look BackWi-Fi has been the de facto wireless

technology for nearly 15 years. It allstarted with 802.11-1997, sometimes

The spread of the Internet played amajor role in technologys infusion

of a majority of todays consumerelectronics, but it was Wi-Fi thatpushed the Internet beyond the realmof desktops and onto notebooks,tablets, smartphones, Vs, and ourhome appliances, not to mentionplaces as varied as airports and onplanes, restaurants, businesses of allkinds, public parks, and more. Indeed,Wi -Fi is the core tec hnology that

Within a certain range, the latest Wi-Fi protocol to hit the store shelves is powerful enough to handle anything a wired connection can.



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streams. he 5GHz band employedby 802.11a ran on a frequency that isless prone to interference and capable of

theoretical speeds of 54Mbps, or closerto 20Mbps in real-world terms. hosewere impressive speeds at the time, butthe higher 5GHz band is more prone tobeing blocked by walls, oors, and otherobstructions. Additionally, the 5GHzband suffers from sharper signal drop-offas range increases. hese factors made802.11a fairly impractical for home use.

802.11b, on the other hand, couldmore readily pass through structuralhindrances and maintain data ratesover longer ranges. In the move fromlegacy mode to 802.11b, FHSS wasabandoned as a transmission schemeand DSSS took over. he downsideof 802.11b i s that thi s protocoloperates in the more crowded 2.4GHzfrequency, which makes it susceptibleto interference from all manner ofappliances and electronic devices.802.11b is capable of 11Mbps peakdata rates, but in real-world terms,that works out to between 4Mbps and5Mbps (not counting overhead) under

ideal conditions.

and easy to implementfor manufacturers andsimple to use for the

rest of us was an earlyguiding principle forthe IEEE, and thetechnologys currentdominance owes muchto this decision. ButWi-Fi didnt really beginto spread its signals untilthe fall of 1999, whenthe IEEE launched apair of standards, the5GHz 802.11a andthe 2.4GHz 802.11bprotocols. All futureiterations would be basedon these standards.

Back then, therewere drawbacks tobo th . he sp r e ad -spectrum technologyused in 802.11a wasOFDM (orthogonal

frequency-divi s ion mult ip lexing),which splits the signal among severalnearby orthogonal subcarrier signals

to enable mult ip le paral le l data

provides a number of benefits, in-c l ud i ng i n c r e a s e d r e s i s t anc e t onar rowband in te r f e rence , be t te r

resi stance to eavesdropping, andthe ability to coexist with a varietyof transmissions without negativeimpact. In FHSS, both the transmitterand receiver share a pseudorandomsequence that dictates how the signalhops between multiple frequencychannels very rapidly. DSSS-basedtransmissions, on the other hand,fill the entire band with pulses of apseudo-noise code sequence, calledchips. his chip sequence is known

by both transmitter and receiver, forthe purposes of reconstructing it intodata the device can utilize. Benefits ofDSSS include higher data rates andlower latency compared to FHSS.

he radio-frequency-based iterationof legacy mode Wi-Fi used the 2.4GHzISM (industrial, scientic, and medical)band, which was open for use by thoseindustries. Why? Because using thisfrequency band, crowded as it is (andwas even back then), was free to dowithout a license. Keeping Wi-Fi open

Believe it or not, transmission via infrared is part of the 802.11 (legacymode) standard.

Antenna technology has played a big part in Wi-Fis range and speed advancements.

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in reality, youd be lucky to experiencehalf that. 802.11n boasts maximumdata rates of 300Mbps, with real-worlddata rates of up to 74Mbps. Ranges

had also been boosted from about 100feet with 802.11g to as much as 300feet with 802.11n.

o i m p r o v e u p o n p r e v i o u sstandards coverage, 802.11n usesMIMO (Mult ip le Input/Mult ip leOutput) technology, which employsmultiple antennas to spread the signalmore widely. he 802.11n standardalso utilizes packet aggregation, whicheffectively reduces the channel accessoverhead necessary to send multiple

data packets of varying size. he thirdtechnology that lets 802.11n earnits racing stripes is channel bonding,which doubles the channel bandwidththe protocol has to work with bycombining two adjacent 20MHzchannels into a single 40MHz channel.

When th e st anda rd wa s fi na li ze din 2009, Wi-Fi was suddenly able tohandle applications that were formerlytoo bandwidth-intensive to be donewirelessly. Wi-Fis HD video streamingcapabil ities opened up new home

streaming, reliable online gaming, andmore. We mentioned that 802.11a/goffer peak data rates of 54Mbps, but

In 2003 802.11g came to the fore,combining 802.11bs 2.4GHz frequency,making it ideal for medium-range use,

with 802.11as OFDM transmissionscheme. As you can imagine, 802.11gsratication was heralded as the best ofboth Wi-Fi worlds. In practice, however,802.11gs backward compatibility with802.11b limited the protocols speed toapproximately 80% of that of 802.11a.But that didnt stop the protocol frombecoming a standard feature in manyconsumer electronics devices. 802.11gsimproved signal range compared to802.11b also played a role in thetechnologys success.

Six years after 802.11g, the nextWi -Fi protocol was finalized, buthardware had been on store shelves fora year prior to 802.11ns ratification,using the designation Draft N. heIEEE 802.11n standard leveragesboth the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandsto support faster wireless Internetaccess, large file and photo sharing,rapid remote pr int ing, improvedaudio streaming, high-definition video

Roughly the size of a quarter; the latest Wi-Fi radios are compact and powerful.

This 802.11ac wireless chip from Marvell also supports Bluetooth, NFC, and has a built-in

Location Engine.



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i s detected) by delivering a shortRS (Request to Send) packet to theintended destination, which in turn

sends back a brief CS (Clear toSend) packet. When the CS packetarrives, the initiating node beginssending that 5MB audio fi le as aseries of smaller collections of data inpackets, to make the trip to our tablet.he protocol stack on the sendingcomputer generates a header for eachpacket, which includes the addresseson the network of both the sendingand receiving computers. Some packetsalso include data in a trailer, or theportion of the packet that follows thedata thats being sent.

Other data found in the headeris a sequence of numbers that letsthe rece iving computer proper lyreassemble the song so you can listento it. he next stop for our songpackets is the wireless NIC, whichadds its own wrapper to each packetindicating the IEEE 802 standardbeing used for the transfer. If thedestination of the songs packets isnot on the local network, the protocol

stack includes the address of the routerin each packets header; the NIC thenrewraps each one with a header thatdescribes the off-network destination.Because any radio wave passingthrough the air has the potentialto never reach its destination, therecipient node also occupies someof your routers bandwidth to send ashort ACK (Acknowledgement) packetafter each successful transmission,letting the sender know when to

forward the next packet.he peak theoretical data ratesof Wi-Fi equipment also assumes al abora tory env i ronment , f r e e o finterference, obstructions, and atfairly close range. As Wi-Fi technologyhas advanced, the latest protocolshave ut i l i zed advanced f i l t e r ingtechnologies, multiple antennas tosend and receive data simultaneously,and high-density frequency modu-lation techniques to improve range andaccelerate data rates.

in January 2014, and routers anddevices that support the latest Wi-Fistandard are readily available.

Theoretical Vs. ActualAs weve re peatedly mentioned,

theres a marked difference betweenthe rated throughput printed on theretail packaging of every Wi-Fi routerand adapter you can buy and thespeeds youll actually experience. heactual data rate can be as much as halfof the rated maximum throughput.hats because any given wirelesstransmission includes not just the

bits that account for the file or mediayoure transmitting, but also the bitsthat comprise the header and otheritems classified as overhead.

For instance , i f we re pass inga 5MB song between our home PCand a tablet connected on a Wi-Fine twork , the send ing compute rfirst checks to see if theres a mixed-mode wireless protocol in use. hefour-way handshake lets networksavoid midair collisions (particularlywhen an 802.11b network connection

entertainment possibilities, and with thecapacity to handle multiple simultaneousdistributed connections and low-latency

VoIP (Voice over IP) calling, 802.11nmade it possible for businesses toseriously consider going wireless.

802.11ac, the latest Wi-Fi protocolto hit the shelves, drops support forthe 2.4GHz band and relies solelyon the 5GHz band. o achievemulti-station WLAN throughputs ofat least 1Gbps and peak single linkthroughputs of 866.7Mbps, 802.11acbui ld s on the t e chnolog i e s thataccounted for 802.11ns advancements,

inc lud ing wide r RF bandwidth,up to eight MIMO spatial streams,multi-user MIMO, and high-densityOFDM. he new protocol also usesbeamforming, a technique of usingdirectional antennas or Wi-Fi chip-based signal amplification and phasingto concentrate wireless coverage overspecific spaces, instead of relying onomnidirectional antennas that mightensure your ne ighbors get bettercoverage than you do. he 802.11Working Group approved the standard

Beamforming enables a router to focus wireless coverage on devices, rather than spreading it

evenly in all directions.

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character strings as WPA passwords arenot considered secure.

One of WEPs biggest failings was that

it was not mandatory and difficult toconfigure. o encourage more wirelessnetwork users to implement security, theWi-Fi Alliance came up with a simpliedconnection scheme, cal led Wi-FiProtected Setup. Unfortunately, thescheme made WPA-protected networksvulnerable to brute-force attacks.

Most routers for sale today shipwith WPA2 security standard as well asother security features, including SPI(stateful packet inspection) firewalls,which are capable of keeping track ofthe state of network connections to siftout illegitimate packets originating fromunknown connections. RADIUS (RemoteAuthenticat ion Dial In User Service) isanother common security feature; thisone is capable obfuscating passwords inwireless networks.

Wi-Fis Futurehe Wi-Fi Alliance is also

working to promote its latestwire less protocol ; formerly

designated 802.11ad and nowsimply referred to as WiGig,the new protocol utilizes the2.4GHz, 5GHz, and unlicensed60GHz frequency bands (thelatter of which is currentlyused by a competing protocol,Wi re le ss HD ). h is prot oc olboasts 7Gbps peak data rates,but the 60GHz transmissionsdegrade quickly when passingth rough w a l l s and o the r

obstructions. Late last year, theWi-Fi All iance announced thatthe new technology would beused in a forthcoming versionof Wireless USB, and thatproducts should become morewide ly ava i l ab l e somet imethis year.

Wi th th e mob il e in du stryexpanding at a faster pace thanever before, we expect to seeWi -F i gr ow an d evol ve ri gh talongside our wireless needs.

o address WEPs weaknesses ,the IEEE introduced WPA (Wi-FiProtected Access) in 2003, which

refers to the draft version of the802.11i standard. WPA utilizes KIP(emporal Key Integrity Protocol),which is an RC4 (Rivest Cipher 4)s t ream c ipher that dynamica l l ygenerates a new 128-bit key for eachpacket. A year later, the Wi-Fi Alliancedebuted WPA2, or the f inal i zedversion of the 802.11i specification.W PA2 re l i e s o n a n AE S -ba s e dencryption mechanism that is evenstronger than KIP.

WPA and WPA 2 both re ly onpasswords or passphrases to protectthe network. Like any password youchoose, the strength of the WPA/WPA2 password is greater if the wordor phrase is 14 or more characterslong and includes some or all randomcharacters. Dictionary word or short

Wi-Fi SecurityFor data thieves to breach a wired

network, they need to access a machine

physically connected to the network.Once a network goes wireless, on theother hand, anyone with the right toolscan snag packets as they course throughthe air, making wireless security a vitalaspect of Wi-Fis ultimate adoption.

Prior to 2004, 802.11a/b routers,adapters, and equipment relied onthe WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)encryption standard to protect wirelessnetworks. It came in 64-, 128-, and256-bit schemes, but in 2001, a trio ofcryptographers proved that WEP couldbe bypassed remotely. In 2005, theFBI showed they could use publiclyavai lable tools to breach a WEP-protected network in three minutes.Wired equivalent it aint. In 2008,the Payment Card Industry took stepstoward banning WEPs use.

The ASUS RT-AC66U router supports the fth generation of Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11ac.



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DIY PC SuperCombo Test Drive

SuperCombo denitely didnt disappoint.ASUS SABEROOH 990FX is the kindof motherboard any self-respecting AMDenthusiast must have. Te SABEROOH990FX is bristling with imposing heatsinkswherever theyre needed, and the heatsinksthemselves received a layer of ASUS UFCeraM!X Heatsink Coating technology.As the name suggests, this is a speciallydesigned ceramic coating that ASUS claimsincreases the heatsinks dissipation area by50%. With military-grade alloy chokesand solid caps, an 8+2-phase ASUS DIGI+

This month, we figured wed do some-thing crazy. We decided to double-

down in the CPUSystem Workshop andconstruct a pair of mean machines. Its anextravaganza of gaming rigs, a bonanza ofbuilds. Its an extravabonanza, and wereexcited about it.

For this particular experiment, weretaking a slightly different approach.Newegg, as you know, carries so many PCcomponents that you could gorge yourselfall day without putting a dent in theinventory. Its the Old Country Buffet ofcomponents. When the time comes to builda new system, you can take a couple of

approaches: Pick what you want yourself,or you can let Neweggs crack team of PCoperatives do the reconnaissance for you.Neweggs DIY PC SuperCombos consist ofhand-picked components shipped to you,ready for assembly.

So this time, were sharing space in theCPUSystem Workshop. Newegg raided itsvault, sent us some of the choicest loot, andsaid, Have fun. And have fun we shall.

Special Delivery

After unboxing all of our trea sures,the rst part we wrapped our greedy littlehands around was AMDs FX-8350, whichis an eight-core processor that breaks the4GHz barrier. Tis Vishera-based chip hasa base clock of 4GHz, but when the CPUsurbo mode kicks in, the FX-8350 is ableto eke out a few extra megahertz and bumpits clock speed up to 4.2GHz. he FX-8350 has 8MB of L2 and L3 cache and atidy DP of 125W.

Every good AM3 processor needs agood AM3 motherboard, and our DIY PC

VRM, and ASUS UF Termal Radar, thisboard is an overclockers best friend and apower users dream.

We know what kind of damage AMDsRadeon R9 280X is capable of doing, soyou can imagine our delight when XFXstake on ahiti XL showed up ready toplay. Te GCN-based GPU has base andboost clocks of 850MHZ and 1GHz,respectively, a 3GB GDDR5 frame bufferrunning over a 384-bit bus, 2,048 streamprocessors, 128 texture units, and 32 ROPs.It also has XFXs take on GPU cooling, a

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one of the reasons this SSD is such a burner.Our DIY PC SuperCombos mass storagedrive is a 1B WD Black HDD. Its theperfect destination for our music, movies,and everything else.

Speaking of media, our optical drive is amaster. We received an ASUS BW-12B1S,popularly known as a 12X Blu-ray burnerthat does it all. Tis drive will whip up aBD-R for you at 12X, while BD-R DLsand RD-REs come off the assembly line at8X and 2X, respectively. Te BW-12B1Shappily handles every type of DVD format,plus CDs (duh), and includes a copy ofCyberLinks Power2Go software.

We slapped on one of Antecs newKHLER H2O 650 closed-loop CPUcoolers to keep the FX-8350 frosty. Te

new and improved version of the companysDouble Dissipation cooler. With a big, badheatsink and a tandem of 90mm fans, thisR9 280X means business.

Completing the AMD trifecta is a kitof Radeon Performance Series DDR3memory. win sticks of 4GB modules areclocked at 1,866MHz. Te modules havesleek, black aluminum heat spreaders andtimings of 9-10-9-27.

Our storage drives are a one-two punchfrom Samsung and Western Digital.Samsung gives us our boot drive, a 250GB840 EVO SSD, which relies on a triple-core Samsung MEX controller, 19nmoggle 2.0 LC NAND, and SamsungsMagician software. Magician is practicallyoverowing with Samsung secret sauce; its

650 has a new design, and we dig it. Antecmoves the units pump from the cold plateto the fan mount assembly. Te extra-largepump keeps coolant moving through the650s tubes and its 120mm radiator, whilea 120mm PWM fan delivers the airow.Te top of the cold plate assembly has anRGB LED that changes color according toCPU tempvery cool.

Tis DIY PC SuperCombo gets its go-gojuice by way of an XFX ProSeries 850WFull Modular Edition (P1-850B-BEFX).he power supply combines convenience(thanks to its flat, modular cables) andefficiency (the 80 PLUS Gold-certied P1-850B-BEFX is up to 90% efficient). XFXinternally tested this PSU at 50 degreesCelsius, so its built for brutal conditions.

Finally, all of our gear resides in XFXsype 01 Bravo AX case. op to bottom,

inside and out, the ype 01 Bravois a power users case. Looking at, andworking within, the ype 01 Bravo, youdhave no idea that this is XFXs rst case;its that well done. All of our hardware tperfectly, and thanks to the abundance ofcable management holes, our assembledsystem looked ultra-clean. We wouldntsettle for anything less.

Newegg Smarts, CPU Skills,Your Thrills

Well say thi s: he good people atNewegg know how to pick parts. Our DIYPC SuperCombo was one of the smoothestbuilds weve ever done. It really has it allahighly overclockable CPU, a monstrouslypowerful graphics card, a speedy SSD withtons of room for games, and tons of othercrave-worthy components.

But thats not the best part. Weretaking this DIY PC SuperCombo onthe road, and if you happen to be inattendance at PAX East, youll have a shotto win it. Youre welcome.



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Radeon Performance SeriesDDR3-1866 (8GB)

AMD

lets you create a virtual drive for cachingfrequently accessed data. Tis can increaseperformance or reduce the wear and tearon the SSD housing your OS. Te license

that comes with this kit allows for up to a6GB RAMDisk. Te freeware version thatworks with any manufacturers memoryonly allows for the creation of a 4GBRAMDisk (though you can buy a licensefor more capacity, up to 64GB). If youwant to check it out for yourself, visit

Those who are new to the worldof building a PC tend to focus their

budget on the rock stars of the system,components like the CPU, graphics card,SSD, and the enclosure. Among thesebudding enthusiasts, even the motherboardhas more cachet than the DRAM. Butthis is a mistake. he processors L1 andL2 caches are so limited in space that thesystem memory is where a majority of thedata feeding into your processor resides. Ifthe DRAM is too slow, that hungry four-,

six-, or eight-core processor you just boughtwill be left starving for data and never liveup to its full potential. Games in particularare very sensitive to memory bandwidth.

AMDs Radeon Performance SeriesMemory is like a floodgate propped wideopen. Tis 8GB kit of DDR3-1866 DRAMfeatures a CAS 9 latency (9-10-9-27) and runsat a rated voltage of 1.5V. It supports AMDmemory profiles (AMP) for AMD-basedFM2, FM2+, and AM3+ systems, and youcan also tweak its performance from the AMD

Overdrive console, like you can with AMDRadeon GPUs and AMD APUs.he heat spreaders on this memory

are extremely low profile, adding just afew millimeters to the height of the bareDIMMS. he kit with its matte blackaluminum heat spreaders is approximately1.2-inches high, which gives you plentyof spare room for a bulky air cooler or aliquid cooler like the one were using inthis SuperCombo.

One add-on that sets this kit apart isthe Radeon RAMDisk software, which

www.radeonmemory.com/software_downloads.php.

If youre in the market for some fastbut affordable DDR3, the 8GB kit of

AMD Radeon Pe rformance Se riesDDR3-1866 is a great option with anunbeatable bonus.

Radeon Performance Series DDR3-1866 (8GB)

$91.99AMD | www.amd.com

Speed: DDR3-1866 (PC3 14900); Kit: dual-channel 2 x 4GB; CAS Latency: 9; Timing: 9-10-9-27;Voltage: 1.5V; Heat Shield: low-prole aluminum

SPECS

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840 EVO 250GB

SAMSUNG

testing standards,Samsung found thatthe 250GB vanilla840 SSD would lastat least 11 years evenunder workloadsconsisting of 75%random writes. Everyenthusiasts usagepattern is different,but Samsung backsthe 840 EVO witha 3-year warrantythat it will honorregardless of how

hard you want to hammer your SSD.A couple of proprietary technologies

help the 840 EVO keep pace with theother fast SSDs currently on the track.urboWrite combines a specializedwrite acceleration algorithm with awrite buffer to pump up writes, Hansand Franz-style. Between the 250GBversions for the vanilla 840 and the 840EVO, urboWrite helps sequential writesjump from 250GBps to 520GBps. Tatsno typo.

hen theres RAPID (Real-timeAccelerated Processing of I/O Data), aneat bit of dark sorcery courtesy of theSamsung Magician software. RAPIDboils down to this: Samsung Magiciandraws on a small amount of DRAM (nomore than 1GB) and some CPU cycles

Progress in the world of solid-state drivescontinues to march on, and Samsung

happens to be at the forefront of the advance.Despite sitting on the sidelines for the firstfew generations of consumer SSDs, Samsunghas come on strong over the last few years,releasing several top-notch drives to vie forperformance crowns and enthusiasts hearts.It certainly doesnt hurt that Samsung is ableto manufacture its SSDs storage controllersand NAND flash memory. For further proof,look no further than the 840 EVO.

Under the hood, youll find Samsung,Samsung, and more Samsung. Te 840 EVOrelies on a tri-core Samsung MEX storage

controller, which runs at 400MHz, animprovement of 100MHz over Samsungsprevious generation MDX controller. heNAND inside the 840 EVO is extra special,something weve yet to cover in CPU.Samsung refers to its 19nm oggle NAND as3-bit MLC, but thats really Samsungsamsinging LC, or triple-level cell, aslightly different way. Regardless of theterminology you want to use, LC NANDis capable of storing three bits of data perNAND cell, rather than MLCs two or

SLCs one. Te move from MLC to LCresults in cheaper, denser NAND, whichof course leads to cheaper, larger SSDs,but not everythings sunshine, lollipops,and rainbows. LC NAND on a smallermanufacturing process trades performanceand endurancetwo things power userstend to care a wee bit aboutfor thosecost savings. So, how does the 840 EVOdeal with this?

As it turns out, pretty well. First of all,the panic over tumbling NAND life spanis considerably overblown. Using JEDECs

to cache frequently used data. OnceSamsung Magician gures out which lesyou frequently access, it shuffles that datainto the cache, where your systems mainmemory can serve it up lightning-fast.

Te combination of these performance-enhancing technologies and LCNAND has produced a solid-state drivewith a serious set of wheels that is priceddangerously close to $0.50 per GB. Te840 EVO is a step in the right direction,but it feels more like a long jump of

Olympic proportions.

840 EVO 250GB$159.99Samsungwww.samsung.com

Sequential read/write (advertised): 540/520MBps; Random 4K read/write (QD1): 10,000IOPS/

33,000IOPS; Interface: SATA 6Gbps; MTBF: 1.5 million hours; 3-year warranty

SPECS



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Double D R9-280X-TDFD

XFX

Dissipation tech, which we saw rst on theRadeon HD 6000-series cards. his timearound youll nd that the cooler consists ofa large matte plastic heatsink shroud with aglossy XFX logo on the edge opposite of thebracket. Bands of chrome plastic trace theopen edges of the cooler and ring the pair of90mm IP-5X dust-free fans. Underneath thissleek exterior youll nd six copper heatpipes

threading a large aluminum heatsink, allcovering a large copper plate that rests againstthe GPU. XFX populated the PCB withDuratec high-end solid caps and chokes,which lets the XFX Radeon R9 280X runcooler, faster, and more efficiently.

For gamers and enthusiasts, the graphicscard is often the single most expensive

component they buy. Neweggs DIY PCSuperCombo deals are a great way to savemoney on the parts you need, and for thosewith an eye on AMDs Radeon R9 Seriesgraphics cards, every dollar saved counts. heXFX Radeon R9 280X is equipped with apowerful GCN-based GPU thats designedto tear through games, 3D workloads, andhighly parallel GPGPU compute tasks withthe same fervor.

Like the Radeon HD 7000 series, the GPUin the R9 280X is a ahiti GPU (technicallya ahiti XL), manufactured at 28nm. From

this point forward, AMD has chosen to ditchthe HD label from the graphics card modelnames and replace it with an R followed bya digit that represents the product categoryand a triple digit number at the end of thename that makes it easy to determine thecards place in the performance hierarchy. Asan R9 card, this one from XFX is targeted atenthusiasts, and the X suffix designates thisone as a higher-performing GPU.

he Radeon R9 280X is essentially anupdated Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Both cards have the same 2,048 streamprocessors, 128 texture units, 32 ROPs, similarboost clock up to 1GHz, and a 384-bit-widememory bus between the GPU and a largecache of 6Gbps GDDR5. XFXs R9-280X-DFD variant comes with 3GB GDDR5, a6,000MHz memory clock, and a base/boostclock of 850MHz and 1GHz, the lattermostof which are stock clocks. Supportedtechnologies include DirectX 11.2, PCIe 3.0,OpenGL 4.3, and AMDs Mantle API.

he custom cooler on the XFX RadeonR9 280X features the rms revamped Double

his card may not have the newarchitecture of the flagship Radeon R9290X, but it does perform well with moderngames run at high resolutions. As we went topress, this card had a street price of $469.99,despite a much lower initial launch price. Ifyoure looking to see what this card can dorsthand, this DIY PC SuperCombo fromNewegg is a good way to do it and save a

little green in the process.

Double D R9-280X-TDFD$469.99XFXxfxforce.com

GPU: 28nm Tahiti XTL; Clocks: 850 (core), 1,000 (boost), 6,000MHz (memory); MemoryBus: 384-bit; Frame Buffer: 3GB GDDR5; Ports: Dual-link DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI, 2 mini DP

SPECS

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WD Black Series 1TB WD1003FZEX

WESTERN DIGITAL

Load technologies work together to limitdrive wear. Te former can also keep noiselevels down and the latter ensures that therecording head never touches the disk media,to keep the platters pristine for as long asyou own the device. Tis drive also featuresWestern Digitals exclusive Corruption

Protection echnology (CP), which cannegate data loss that would normally occurdue to power outage of a sudden loss ofpower to the drive. If youre not interestedin performing a full nuke-and-pave, youcan download a free version of Acronis rue

Its true that solid-state storage capacitiesare beginning to creep up, but theyre

still light years away from the sub-$0.10 per gigabyte value were currentlyenjoying in hard drives. And as long asenthusiasts make a habit of amassing largemedia libraries, cheap mass storage willcontinue to be a must in our builds.

For this system, we have a 1B WDBlack Series drive (WD1003FZEX); inWestern Digital s color-coded productlineup, the Black Series drives are optimizedfor excellent performance and highcapacities. Applications Western Digitaltargets with these drives include gaming,

workstation and professional, and otherhigh-performance computing applications.

As capacities go, a terabyte is nothing tosneeze at; theres room for a sizeable Steamlibrary, hundreds of thousands of high bit-rate songs, dozens of hours of uncompressedHD video, and more applications and lesthan you can shake an actuator arm at.

Documents

Computer Power User - April 2014 - FiLELiST