TheOverclocker issue 29

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. FOREVER.

Issue 29 2014rev 2.1

AMD A10 7850K APUReviewed

INTEL 730 480GB SSD

Reviewed

Jon “Elmor” SandströmInterview

MSI GT70 Dominator Pro Gaming Notebook

Lifestyle

Cover Feature

A TINY PC WITH GREAT POTENTIAL

GIGABYTE BRIX PROAVEXIR Blitz 1.1

1600MHz DDR3 8GB Kit

Reviewed

SANDBAGGINGFeature

CHEATING OR STRATEGY?

Issue 29 | 2014 The OverClocker 3

BETTER THAN EXPECTEDAs we approach Computex 2014, which

is undoubtedly going to see the biggest overclocking gathering of the year. There

should be plenty of things to look forward to, including the G.Skill overclocking competition. Finally we break into the $10,000 USD mark for prize money. Sure that’s the entire purse and coming in at number two will net you nothing at all. However, it is a positive trend and in many ways something that Overclocking has been in need of for a very long time.

If you think that is an excessive amount of money, consider that gaming competitions regularly award upwards of $50,000 for competitions and some going into the six figure region. In comparison, overclocking is for all intents and purposes unrewarding financially. Think also about just how much the average competitive overclocker spends on buying hardware. Sure they may sell it after they have used it but most of the time there is a huge knock in the reselling of the hardware and in a normal calendar year it’s not unusual for an individual to spend upwards of $6,000 for hardware. If you include LN2 costs to it you easily reach the $10,000 mark. A single GTX 780 Ti depending on where you are in the world will cost you up to $1,000 or more, add a X79 CPU to the mix and some useful memory and you’re already at half the spend stipulated above. This is before binning, the pots, time spent and all things related to it. As far as earning prize money is concerned, competitive overclockers are still spending far more than they can ever hope to make doing this.

Yet it is going strong and the incentive is still being number one or in the high ranks rather than how much financial gain you can get from it all. Hopefully G.Skill will encourage others and we as a community can implore vendors to take it from here and improve upon these competitions. The days of a $3,000 first prize must be left behind us, because just in preparation for such a competition you may end up spending twice as much. Make no mistake about it, at the upper levels of overclocking; it is a very expensive hobby.

It is great though to see an upward trend in vendors supporting the hobby and actually releasing products that are geared for extreme overclocking despite all the so called risks involved. One such example is the Rampage IV Black Edition which despite its price seems to be doing surprisingly well in the retail channel with all things considered. It’s a three year old platform yet a motherboard built around this platform can still command a $500 USD price tag and sell contextually well.

On the flip side of that we have the GIGABYTE Z87X-OC, the best value for money overclocking motherboard that’s ever existed

and one that we hope to see in its Z97 soon. Even though it is an identical board, at this juncture with the updated K SKU Haswell CPUs showing up soon, it is still a worthwhile investment.

With Z97 I also have a feeling that MSI will likely be a very competitive as they refine their initial Z87 outing once again. The others that cater to the high end and competitive overclocker market such as ASRock, GIGABYTE and ASUS are unlikely to offer something tremendously better, but I do have a feeling that MSI will surprise us all by delivering a very competent board that will be near indistinguishable from the other celebrated boards for this socket and CPU generation.

Where VGA cards are concerned, as much fun as the 780 Ti has been and continues to be, I have to say I’m looking forward to what Maxwell will bring as far as the next generation of performance. At worst I hope NVIDIA has the same restrictions on overclocking as they do at present but not worse. The one thing that I keep hearing from everyone concerned with making NVIDIA powered graphics cards is that it is increasingly difficult to get the kind of control that overclockers desire without risking the business end of the deal between NVIDIA and the vendor. It’s a situation that is dire and certainly could do with some improvement. However, all we can do is hope right now that things improve. There is some positivity though regarding all of this, if INTEL could change its tune from a company that in its legacy discouraged overclocking to one that makes specific CPUs tuned for overclocking. NVIDIA and perhaps even AMD may do the same in future. Hopefully that future is sooner rather than later.

Overall, things are much improved in 2014 in the overclocking economy. We will return after Computex to see how it all went down, with our biggest issue yet. Until then, keep pushing.

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]

4 The OverClocker Issue 29 | 2014

The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media (cc).

EditorNeo Sibeko

Art DirectorChris Savides

Marketing & SalesJayda Wu

Contributors Dane RemendesPieter-Jan “Massman” PlaisierJonathan Horne

For editorial and marketing please contact:

[email protected]@theoverclocker.com

REGULARS3 - Editor’s note

FEATURES12 – GIGABYTE BRIX PRO

16 – An Opinion On Sandbagging

35 – HWBOT/OC-TV "The OC Show"

REVIEWS20 – AMD A10 7850K APU

22 – AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 1600MHz 8GB Kit

24 – INTEL 730 480GB SSD

26 – OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD

28 – ASUS GTX 750Ti OC

LIFESTYLE38 - Thief

42 – Luxa2 GroovyW

44 – MSI GT70 Dominator Pro

46 – CORSAIR Obsidian 250D

47 – CMStorm Mizar Gaming Mouse

28

42

22


Q Awith Jon “Elmor” SandströmCountry Name and City:I grew up in Härnösand, Sweden but I’m currently living in Taipei, Taiwan.

What language(s) do you speak? Swedish, English , some German and Chinese

Your nickname elmor, seems like this story has been told lots of times, but once again for those who do not know. How did you come about this nickname?Pretty much it’s a name I randomly came up with for using while playing games at LAN parties with friends.

Your overclocking, I’m talking LN2 and all that, when did it begin and what got you hooked?After building my own computer as a teenager I started comparing its performance with friends’ setups using 3DMark01. This soon resulted in discovering overclocking through internet forums which lead to competing with people online. This got me hooked and I started trying out voltage modifications, dry ice and from there the step to LN2 was not far.

Which is your favourite benchmark if any and what is your least favourite and why ?3DMark01, it’s what got me started and has always been a lot of fun during my years of overclocking through all its dimensions.

You’ve worked with MSI for some time or at least through various generations of both motherboards and graphics cards. How did that relationship begin and what was it that made you go your separate ways?The initial connection was made during the yearly MOA competitions. When I decided to go to Taiwan for

exchange studies they contacted me and offered me a part time position. It’s been an on and off thing whenever I was around in Taiwan. Last time it ended because I went to Berlin in order to finish my Master’s degree.

In your context, what do you consider to be your main challenges regarding overclocking? Do you compete for ranking in any of the leagues or cups? That would be companies locking down their products. Let’s say INTEL decides to stop making a K-skew, there’s not much we can do. Nowadays most products are so highly integrated at an IC level that it’s close to impossible to do hardware modifications to adjust frequency. The days where you could achieve a 50% overclock by simply changing the clock crystal are over.

I haven’t been competing seriously pretty much since I started working

for MSI. This is mostly because of declining interest due to actually overclocking for work and because competition is not really fair if you work at the heart of a company in the industry.

Between NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards, which ones do you prefer to overclock or does it make no difference for you? I don’t really mind either way but traditionally I’ve preferred NVIDIA cards due to high overclocking margins and less issues related to overclocking. Their advantage in 3DMark01 is not hurting things either.

You’re originally from Sweden but have lived all over the place essentially? What’s the place that is the most fun for you and which place has the cheapest LN2 (and beer)? Sweden (Stockholm) is a very


nice place to live and grow up, but right now I’m in a phase where I’m exploring other parts of the world. For some reason I keep coming back to Taipei, there’s just this easy way of life with very friendly people around and cost of living is definitely a big advantage (50 USD for 180L of LN2, delivered). Plus you’re at the heart of the computer industry and can keep a close watch on what’s happening next. I just finished a six month stay in Berlin during my last semester as a student and it’s really an awesome place, especially as a student. I dare say it’s the party capital of the world and the energy of the city with its characteristic minimal techno is just amazing. The beer is cheaper than water and there are really cool people around. It is however not a place I see myself living and working in long term. I will definitely be back to revisit for many weekends to come though whenever I have the chance.

Word is you’ve moved on to another vendor mainly ASUS. Is there any truth to this and how did this move come about if you’re allowed to share this with us?Gossip moves fast in the overclocking industry. This is true though, we’re in talks and finishing up the details. Essentially I’ll be joining Shamino at the ROG R&D together with coolice as a full time engineer. It’s very exciting for me since it’s the first full time position after my studies and the benefits of working with Peter and the rest of ROG R&D need no explanation.

You won your first MOA competition pretty early on in your overclocking career, or at least in a serious capacity. Have you ever had a problem getting a hold of hardware? Not necessarily great overclocking hardware but hardware in general?The years between 2008 and 2011 were golden when it came to live

overclocking competitions. The timing was perfect as I just had gotten serious about extreme overclocking due to teaming up with Kinc back in Sweden. Everyone started doing it and wanted to make it as big as possible; there were a lot of company contacts around wanting to meet overclockers in order to collaborate in order for them to gain market share and influence in the overclocking/gaming segment. I was already in a position where I had backing from Intel and Asus in Sweden which meant I was in a very good position, and it’s certainly a reason that I’ve been able to be as competitive has I have been.

How often do you have overclocking sessions in a month?It’s varied a lot over the years. At some intense periods I’d do sessions every day, but on average I guess about once a week.


What was the last bit of overclocking you did and when was it? Since leaving MSI in August last year I’ve actually not overclocked at all, except for maybe some help with troubleshooting at the following MOA 2013.

Any hardware you’re looking forward to using this year? X99 and 8-core Haswell-E for sure, I’ve been missing real improvements of the high performance segment pretty much since the X79 launch almost three years ago. NVIDIA’s upcoming high-end Maxwell GPUs on TSMC 20 nm process is also something that I look forward to trying out.

I suspect I know the answer for this but what is your favourite motherboard and graphics card to date? Actually I’d have to say the Asus Rampage III Extreme combined with Gulftown 980/990X. This was for a long time a very solid platform I used together with Kinc for several 3DMark records. When it comes to graphics there’s no competing with the MSI Lightning series. The most fun for me was the MSI GTX 480 Lightning which required figuring out GPU overclocking on LN2 all over again due to Fermi’s insane power density.

What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement?All of the overclocking competitions have been a blast, but the most memorable event has to be at the last moments of MOA 2010. ME4ME and I were overclocking the MSI GTX 480 Lightning at hundreds of MHz higher than the others and everyone around us was wondering what the hell we were doing with all those hair dryers. We figured out that if we kept the PCB from freezing and the thermal paste fresh though thermal cycling down to roughly -50*C at high load after a crash we could hit really high frequencies. It resulted in us winning our second consecutive MSI MOA competition and an infamous after party that got a bit out of hand. (:D)

Anything you’d like to see changed in the overclocking community right now?I’d like manufacturers to be more open to the people outside the inner circle and release tools to enable everyone in the community to have the same chance to compete. Of course you’ll

https://www.facebook.com/Corsair

https://twitter.com/CorsairMemory

http://www.youtube.com/user/CorsairMemoryInc

http://www.corsair.com/K70

www.corsair.com


still have the advantage of binning but I like the idea of that anyone could be lucky and buy a golden product of the market. Also it’s not a good thing that people working in the industry are competing with people benching from their basements. HWBot is doing good work experimenting with how to divide the overclockers to make it more interesting to compete.

What do you do outside of overclocking that you spend as much time on as you do overclocking?Overclocking is still my main hobby, there’s nothing I spend as much time on even if I’m not actually benching myself. I casually play Dota 2 though and the last two years I’ve been travelling around a lot in Asia and Europe which has taken a lot of time and money.

Outside of overclocking what is it that you do and what did you study or are currently studying? I’m at the end of finishing my Master’s degree in Microelectronics. The interest for this subject actually came through overclocking and I’ve always had an interest in technology. Through the studies I’ve been able to go deeper into how these things actually work. It’s also a lot of fun actually being able to create things through engineering; most recently I put this into practice by creating the eVc.

Any other insights you would like to share with the community regarding overclocking, hardware or anything related? I hope high performance components and extreme overclocking will still be around for years to come even with the trend of things moving more and more towards mobile. Don’t stop trying to reach the highest performance and stay out of the drama guys, there’s too much of it in this industry. [ The OverClocker ]

www.corsair.com

http://www.corsair.com/zh-tw/landing/250d

https://www.facebook.com/Corsair

https://www.youtube.com/user/CorsairMemoryInc

http://www.corsair.com/


A TINY PC WITH GREAT POTENTIAL

When INTEL initially previewed their NUC concept last year, we weren’t really sure what

to make of it. It was a small computer essentially and that’s about it. How small it was perhaps could have been the focal point, but there have been many small computers before, so that by itself was not going to move us to write any particular editorial about it.

Fortunately and surprisingly, it looks like one vendor took this idea, literality ran with it and what we have is the GIGABYTE Brix computer. Once again, not having read any literature about this prior to its arrival, we knew nothing about it other than that it was once again, “a small computer” built around INTEL’s latest platform or technology if you prefer.

That in itself doesn’t say much to you, but what should speak volumes to you is that this little PC is good. It’s actually very good. Mind you, it’s not a perfect product by any means, but as far as these kinds of computers go, there isn’t a single one better than the GIGABYTE Brix Pro and what follows is our experience with it, detailing how we came about this conclusion.

PRESENTATION The Brix Pro is small, measuring just 2.4” in height, 4.5” in length and a little under that in breadth. It fits in the average adults hand just fine. In pictures it’s rather hard to tell just how compact it is, but imagine a chassis that’s no bigger than a CD sleeve.

The finish on the Brix Pro is great and it does feel very much like the $650 USD (at least for this model) PC it is. The top of the Brix Pro has a highly reflective gloss finish which makes it look classy (especially in black), however it is a finger print magnet. Over and above that, since the power button is located at the top of the chassis you’re guaranteed to end up with prints on it. That is the plight of virtually all products however that use such materials.

As result of the diminutive dimensions, the Brix Pro needs air vents just about every save for the top. All other faces of the unit have ventilation slots but they do not detract from the overall look and especially on the face of the chassis. The mesh looks particularly good,

serving both as aesthetics and functionality. We tested the 4770R based model and thus, which has no other colors on the chassis save for the blue USB 3.0 ports at the front and rear.

There are a total of four USB3.0 ports, two located in the front and two at the rear. This may seem more than enough at first, but if you plug in a mouse and keyboard you’ve used up half of them. We would have liked to see at least one or two more ports even if they were USB2.0 where one may plug in these basic peripherals and save the 3.0 slots for storage devices and the like which can take advantage of or at least better use the 3.0 ports.

To be found at the rear of the unit as well, is a GIGABIT Ethernet port, a full HDMI, Mini DisplayPort and power adapter port. Where display support is concerned, digital output is obviously the only two methods supported, but with that you can use both outputs simultaneously. The HDMI port supports a maximum 4096x2304 resolution but that is only at 24Hz, so it is unlikely you’ll ever want to use


such a resolution for much. On the other hand the Mini DP has enough bandwidth to deliver 3840x2160 pixels at a more comfortable 60Hz. In essence the Brix Pro is 4K content ready regardless of which output method you use.

HARDWAREUsually with a normal PC the hardware used along with the performance (covered later) is what matters the most. However, we are dealing with something a little different here because it offers a flexibility that many similar systems will not give you, but with that you get a minimum performance level you can be assured off. So then what makes the Brix Pro tick? Well obviously as the detailed model name suggests, it’s powered by the INTEL Core i7 4770R CPU. This is an embedded platform CPU obviously and carries with it a 65W TDP. Instead of the 8MB cache you would expect to find in the desktop 4770 you’ll find notice that the 4770R only has 6MB. For the usage scenario and context, this will make absolutely no difference. For what is of real concern or should be is the IGP which is the real driver behind this machine, at least where performance and notable hardware is concerned.

Audio on the Brix Pro is an embedded solution Realtek ALC269 codec which is certainly not to be considered anything but low end. In general the audio on the Brix Pro could do with some improvement but for what it is, it’s acceptable. Its dynamic range is not going to

wow anyone, but none the less if you’re looking for better audio perhaps look at an external unit. Given the dimensions of the system, it is perfectly acceptable to have a 2-channel audio codec.

The LAN adapter is also courtesy of Realtek (RTL8111G to be exact) which once again is to be expected as we find this LAN controller in many standard low end ATX motherboards. It may not have any traffic prioritization software or at least any hardware traffic control, but it does get the job done.

GIGABYTE states that the system officially supports 1333/1600MHz memory, but with the latest BIOS you could use DRAM rated at up to 2133MHz. A few 1600MHz Kits will make that speed without any voltage adjustments, so there is some room for overclocking. It isn’t much however as there’s nothing in the BIOS that allows adjustment of DRAM voltage or DRAM timings for that matter. For a system that is so power and heat sensitive, it is sensible to not allow voltage adjustments, but perhaps being able to change the primary timings on the DRAM would be useful. The Brix Pro isn’t a perfect machine and in particular the 4770R based model that we tested for this feature. The performance as such but it’s just that the choice of CPU, cooling system or both has marred a somewhat perfect experience.

Getting right down to it, the main issue is that the TDP budget for the 4770R is, as you would expect, split between the iGPU and the CPU. Thus, that 65W TDP isn’t much when you’re

trying to get the best performance from each. Such a situation is easily observed when running 3DMark for instance or a fairly taxing game. The Brix Pro can get very hot and in fact because of the heat that’s generated the system throttles the CPU and GPU speed, which ultimately leads to lower performance as you would expect.

In addition to this, the system becomes relatively loud as there’s a lot of heat that must be exhausted from the tiny chassis. This isn’t ideal but we do understand how GIGABYTE came to this particular CPU. INTEL simply doesn’t offer any other CPU with 8 threads and this kind of graphics performance. So if you want this specific combination, you’ve no choice but to build a system around the 4770R.

The 4570R based model is in our opinion a better purchase as it will inevitably run cooler, thus producing more consistent performance. However, for those tasks that do benefit from having more than four logical cores, you’ll suffer for picking the 4570R based model. So it is a situation that is a little more complicated than one would imagine at first.

What can help the situation we found however is that disabling Turbo all together which locks the CPU frequency to 3.2GHz. Yes the scores will be slightly lower (as you can see in the benchmarks) but you also get less noise, heat and a more consistent GPU clock which actually ends up delivering better performance in games.

This is only a temporary measure

EDITOR’S CHOICEAWARD


though as the system is still running at what we would consider a high temperature. There will be no damage to the system caused by this heat and we experienced no instabilities, but the noise level was still bothersome somewhat. If the BIOS had a multiplier option available we would have probably dropped the CPU clock down to 2.6 or even2.4GHz. Another option sorely missed is the iGPU clock multiplier which we would have used to lock the GPU clock at 1300MHz or even higher given that we had significantly reduced the CPU speed.

Yes PCMark8 would report a lower score and so would virtually all synthetic benchmarks, but the game performance of the Brix Pro can be increased as we found by using XTU, especially when you factor overclocking into it. With just the two options we could further reduce the noise generated while maintaining the graphics power which is one of the best aspects about the 4770R and hence the Brix Pro. With these two options we would have at our disposal the ability to preserve graphics performance while reducing the noise produced by the system. Not all is lost however, because all of this is can be implemented in software in quite a number of ways.

At the time of writing there was a performance and quiet mode introduced in the latest BIOS which is somewhat addressing some of these issues. It is very likely that future updates will further add options which may completely alleviate all concerns of this nature entirely.

THE 5200 SURPRISEUnexpected from the BRIX PRO was just how efficient it is at graphics processing. We are mainly talking gaming here, where in a very real sense, INTEL’s Iris Pro 5200 is faster than what AMD can offer on their fastest integrated solution. The assumption is that with such a heavy silicon investment AMD made with Kaveri, it would be far ahead of anything INTEL would be able to produce at present. Yes, the HD 4000 series as present in desktop Haswell CPUs was a marked improvement in performance, but to dramatically improve upon that in one or within the same generation is nothing short of remarkable.

Intel’s Iris Pro 5200 and thus by extension the BRIX PRO offers better gaming performance than any system built around any APU can. This is not to be glossed over because it is a milestone for INTEL, which has traditionally been synonymous with

the worst graphics processors on the PC landscape. How much faster the 5200 is over AMD’s solution varies and in some tests it’s slower by a very small fraction. However for the most part the 5200 is faster and as a result game capable which is largely the reason why the BRIX PRO is a valid candidate for a Steam Box. In fact, it was one of the machines revealed at CES by none other than Gabe Newell himself as a possible or plausible concept of the Steam Box. The Brix Pro actually plays games.

It may not allow you to play every title at 1080P, in fact most games will be limited to 720P but the point is they are playable at fairly decent graphics settings, something that was previously unheard of on any INTEL graphics processor. There are many contexts which make the BRIX PRO appealing, but we here are largely concerned about its performance and it delivers where it counts. In a very odd way it vindicates what AMD had been saying all along about graphics

3DMark Cloud Gate 3DMark Firestrike Catzilla 1.3 720p Resident Evil 6 720p

PCMark8 Creativity Suite

CineBench R15 CPU CineBench R15 OpenGL

Memory Copy Memory Latency LuxMark v.20 (OpenCL GPU+CPU)

GIGABYTE Brix Pro (Turbo Mode)

11253 1482 3624 4023 4195 706 48,24 36446 68,6 721Graphics: 13693 Graphics: 1557 Hardware: 3531

GIGABYTE Brix Pro (Performance mode)

10466 1335 3288 3521 3993 647 45,99 36577 68,8 654Graphics: 12750 Graphics: 1421 Hardware: 3211

AMD A10 7850K @ 4.4GHz 7972 1621 2766 4115 4053 364 51,57 21507 82,4 696

960MHz GPU / 2400MHz Memory

Graphics: 12081 Graphics: 1805 Hardware: 2743

AMD A10 7850K 7035 1575 2581 4053 3770 319 47,15 20879 83,2 634

720MHz GPU/ 2400MHz Memory



3DMark Cloud Gate 3DMark Firestrike Catzilla 1.3 720p Resident Evil 6 720p


CineBench R15 CPU CineBench R15 OpenGL

Memory Copy Memory Latency LuxMark v.20 (OpenCL GPU+CPU)

GIGABYTE Brix Pro (Turbo Mode)

11253 1482 3624 4023 4195 706 48,24 36446 68,6 721


GIGABYTE Brix Pro (Performance mode)

10466 1335 3288 3521 3993 647 45,99 36577 68,8 654


AMD A10 7850K @ 4.4GHz 7972 1621 2766 4115 4053 364 51,57 21507 82,4 696



AMD A10 7850K 7035 1575 2581 4053 3770 319 47,15 20879 83,2 634



performance taking over from traditional CPU centric workloads. The difference is that INTEL isn’t asking you to sacrifice any CPU performance because of this approach or philosophy. It’s matter of just dramatically improving where they had traditionally been weak.

With the Iris Pro, INTEL has clearly taken graphics very seriously, to the point where they have actually dedicated a significant amount of silicon space to this sole task or rather package space. In 2013, at IDF Beijing, an INTEL rep would not or perhaps was not allowed to divulge to us just how big the L4 cache they had on the then, new Haswell mobile CPUs was. 128 was the only number we could discern, but at the time 128MB cache seemed far too large and obviously a 128KB cache would be next to useless. Obviously we now know that it is the former. Unlike with AMD’s APUs, in testing we found that going from DDR3 1600MHz to 2133MHz made a smaller difference in performance than we would have thought. It wasn’t as pronounced and certainly far less than it is on the Kaveri APU. This is possibly related to the large L4 cache as there’s less reliance on the main memory for data that can be stored locally. Given that the L4 cache does not work as a frame buffer, we have to assume that it is because of more technical reasons why DRAM speed impacts performance in this way. What is good about this is that, you’re not forced to commit to the fastest Low voltage memory money can buy to

get the best out of the system. You’ll benefit from 2133MHz DIMMS but the system will not suffer dramatically or in any noticeable way if you choose to go with lower frequency modules. (We would however implore you to go with as high a speed as you can afford especially given the pricing of 1866 and 2133MHz kits at present). Whatever INTEL did with the 5200 over and above more execution units, a fast and large L4 cache and all the rest. The result is that they have produced the fastest iGPU you can find on the desktop to date. We would have never thought that such honors would be bestowed upon an INTEL graphics part, yet here we are.

Right now we know nothing about what INTEL has lined up for Broadwell CPUs, but we can assume that the replacement for the 4770R for instance, will obviously be built on the smaller 14nm node. If that is true for the Graphics L4 cache as well will remain to be seen. Logic would dictate that this should be the case, but even better performance can extracted from the current 22nm logic by the mere fact that the CPU will use even less power, which will free up the TDP budget. A frequency increase is the most direct way to go about this, without sacrificing the power and thermal properties of the total package.

That is a debate or analysis of another time however. The BRIX PRO that we have today should sell very well. If not the 4770R model at least the 4570R version as they are identical in performance for most tasks.

SUMMARYFor a first generation product, GIGABYTE’s Brix Pro is a phenomenal unit. It may not be perfect but by and large it more than delivers where it counts and the build quality is exceptional. When you buy it in store or online, you’re not going to purchase it with any form of storage or memory. It’ll be up to you to decide what hardware you pair with it. For those who want maximum performance and storage you can outfit it with 16GB DDR3 Low Voltage DIMMS like the CORSAIR Vengeance set we used for our system. In addition to that you’ll want to maximize your disk performance by way of an mSATA drive as your operating system storage and a second magnetic 2.5” drive for everything else. This will undoubtedly drive the cost up and everything combined will likely cost over $1,000 USD. A steep price, but you can at the opposite end settle for the 4570R version, outfit it with a single 2.5” 7200RPM 500GB magnetic drive and 8GB of DDR3 1600MHz memory for instance and have the entire machine up and running for $590 or so (which is less than the price of the 4770R model). So whatever budget you may have, chances are if you’re looking for a mini PC, one of these two models will be what you’re looking for. There are other models as well that make use of the lower end 4000 series graphics processors. We would however not consider these as viable alternatives because they lack at the very heart of it all what it is that makes these two special.

We have heard that there may be future models which are based on this INTEL platform but have an MXM module embedded with a discreet GPU for even greater performance. When this will materialize and if it will at all, remains to be seen. Even if that doesn’t come to be, the current models offer something that no other vendor we are aware of can offer. If there ever was a great showing for INTEL’s NUC concept, the GIGABYTE BRIX PRO would have to be it. It’s a tiny machine that delivers incredible amounts of power in a very small form factor. We are thoroughly impressed by what GIGABYTE has produced with the BRIX PRO!

[ The OverClocker ]


SANDBAGGINGA N O P I N I O N O N

SANDBAGGING IS NOT A CR IME , EMBRACE THE STRATEGY!

There’s no doubt that Australia deserves the title of Country Cup winner this year. And yet,

during the competition, the boys Down Under caused quite a bit of commotion. Not because of their results – those are phenomenal – but because of the attitude of sandbagging their scores until the last day of the competition (stages). Some even call it a “coward’s move!” Sandbagging has been a part of competitive overclocking for a long time, and it is still causing discomfort amongst participants. Reason enough to have a closer look at the problem and alternative solutions.

Before we continue, let’s first explain what Sandbagging really is. Sandbagging is a term used in overclocking to indicate someone has been holding back the winning overclocking result until the very last moment of the competition. In the worst case, the competitor did not even inform the others that he was going to submit any score, let alone the winning score.

Most of the suggested solutions brought forward in the discussion forums relate to adjusting the points system. By incentivizing to submit a score early, the hope is to get the big scores out earlier in the competition. In this editorial I will try to cover the problem of sandbagging from various angles and argue that a change in points system does not address the issue at core. I will also suggest and alternative solution which distinguishes itself by not adjusting the points, but the addressing the root cause of the emotional reaction.

IT’S IRONIC, AND TIME DOESN’T MATTER.The most common suggestion to resolve the problem of sandbagging is to introduce multiple phases during the competition timeframe. The concept is similar to the one used in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, or for the Points Classification in the Tour de France. Simply put: you can earn points at the end of each phase during the competition.

There are two fundamental problems with this suggestion. 1) The system increases the importance of sandbagging scores and 2) submission time is now part of the equation to value a benchmark score. By introducing intermediate stages with points, we increase moments for sandbagging. In the situation sketched above, we have now five instead of one occasion for sandbaggers. This is rather ironic given that the goal is to reduce sandbagging.

The intermediate stages don’t only increase the amount of sandbag opportunities, but may also motivate people even more to hold on to their best results until the sandbag moments. Currently sandbagging only occurs at the end of the competition. During the majority of the competition, there is no reason to hold back scores. In fact, you only need to hold on to your best score if


you want to sandbag. In a situation with five intermediate stages, it may be more interesting to hold on to at least five results. The increased importance of sandbagging caused by the introduction of intermediate stages might lead to participants submitting even less during the competition, and hold on to the scores even tighter. After all, a bag of sand is now worth five times more!

Time is not relevant to the value of a score.

The second criticism requires more elucidation. Let’s assume that at the

end of each intermediate stage, one (1) point is awarded to the

best score, and ten (10) points at the end of the competition.

So if you submit the best score between the start of the competition and point A, you get a point. Also assume that the winning score of the competition stage is 300,000 points in 3DMark03 – that would be a World Record. So, the value of the “World Record” at the end of a competition is:

10 points, if submitted in between point D and the end of the competition.

14 points, if submitted in between the start of the competition and point A.

According to the logic, it means a score becomes more valuable over time. That is not sensible! The value of a

benchmark score relates only to the selection of

hardware components and the amount of scores

beaten. For example, scoring below 10 minutes in SuperPI

32M with an AMD Phenom II – something only one person has

achieved so far – is impressive regardless the date it was achieved

it. It was impressive in 2011 and it will be as impressive in 2015.

One could argue that next to the factual parameters (hardware

components and scores beaten), there are subjective parameters that should also be taken into account when valuing a score. For example: effort, dedication, skill, knowledge, or persistence. Most of the parameters relate to the overclocker, not the hardware. Although these are hard to quantify or measure, I tend to agree they could add extra value to a certain benchmark score. Sometimes it takes weeks to beat a record that someone else set, just because the hardware does not clock that easily. In that case, breaking the record can be considered ‘more’ impressive.

What does it take to submit early in competition? From the Country Cup comments, I find that the following items determine if you can set a score early in the competition: hardware availability, cooling availability, and time. Even though the Country Cup stretched a period of a month and a half this year, many teams did not complete all the stages with the required amount of scores. For example, even the Country Cup winner Australia didn’t manage to close the AMD Aquamark stage with 5 scores. The reason is usually simple: the hardware did not arrive in time.

The question then is: “Is it reasonable to give extra points to teams who have the time and hardware to submit scores early in the competition?” I don’t believe so.

In conclusion, I am convinced the timestamp of the benchmark submission does not affect the value of the score. In addition, not submitting a score early is usually not a matter of unwillingness, but rather related to the availability of time and of course the hardware. Therefore, it is unreasonable to give more points to a score because it’s submited earlier during the competition.

A DAVID AND GOLIATH STORYA couple of days ago Hendra, better known as Coldest, from Jagatreview came by our Taipei office. Of course we debated the topic of sandbagging, and during the discussion we realized we overlooked another part of the sandbagging story: the perspective of the sandbagger.

After all, why would anyone want


to sandbag? We all know it will piss people off, and unless we believe sandbaggers are by nature horrible people who enjoy the pain of others, it seems odd to make that choice.

During the discussion with Hendra it became apparent that the sandbag story is similar to the story of David and Goliath. Goliath, in this case, is the overclocker with near-unlimited resources. Goliath can bin more CPUs than anyone else, and has plenty of time to re-do scores if necessary. David, on the other hand, can only buy one or two CPUs, and only has two weekends to set a score. To have a chance at winning, David has to outsmart Goliath, and in online overclocking competitions, sandbagging is the way to do it. It’s very simple: if you know your competitor has better hardware, or can bin for better, you need to come up with a way to beat him. Not informing about your best results is a great tactic, as it prevents Goliath from looking for better hardware or re-benching his superior hardware.

“I could’ve beaten that”One of the comments from sandbag-

haters is that they could’ve beaten the winning score with their setup. The argumentation is that putting a score on the board earlier serves as a target, and it motivates overclockers to push harder. That is true, but the argumentation goes both ways as we know from the David and Goliath analogy. In this case we should actually not address the sandbagger, but the person who was beaten by the sandbagger. The question is: “if your setup could’ve beaten the winning score, why didn’t you?”

After all, a principle for all competitive environments is that each competitor does the best he or she can. This principle applies to all sports: holding back and thinking your current result will be enough is not the right attitude. Think about Formula 1 for example: a driver who finishes in the 11th place during the qualifying phase because he thought the time was good enough and refused to do another lap, will be blamed by the team manager. Or the Champion’s League football, where a coach might opt to start with the B-squad to give the players of the A-squad rest, and figures qualification is a guarantee. If the team loses, and then also loses the qualification, everyone will ask why the coach didn’t play the A-squad.

Both examples have happened many times before and the same applies

to overclocking. If you get beaten by a sandbagged score that you’re sure you could’ve beaten, you should slap yourself over the head for not pushing harder. The reason for not winning is because you didn’t max out the system, not because you didn’t have the target!

SUGGESTION: DARK DAY AND POPCORN TIME.Until now, I have tried to form an argument supporting the idea that sandbagging isn’t as bad as we might think. I have explained how introducing a NASCAR-style point system increases the amount of sandbagged scores, and how it imposes a logical error by rating benchmark scores by the time it was submitted. I have also pointed out that it is a necessary tactic for less resourceful overclockers to beat those with plenty of time and hardware binning possibilities. I concluded by pointing out that people who say they could’ve beaten the sandbagged score, should ask themselves why

they didn’t max out the system.Conclusion: the sandbag is a

legitimate tactic which we should embrace to give the less resourceful more chances to win a competition.

Of course, all this reasoning doesn’t resolve the issue. It doesn’t matter how much ratio and logic you throw at the issue, if you are beaten by a sandbagger you will feel angry. We still need a solution! Because I believe we should embrace sandbagging as a legitimate practice, I suggest to address the problem from a different angle: the emotional aspect. After all, the debate is not if the best score should get the most points. We all agree on that. But being beaten by a sandbagged score triggers an emotional reaction. The emotional reaction may be caused by the dissymmetry of the competition and the point grading. Let me explain.

The competitive aspect of an overclocking competition is spread over a specific timeframe, but is asymmetric. For example: someone may compete during the first week


of the competition and set all his scores, where someone else may only compete in the very last week. It is not a direct competition like MOA or AOOC. In contrary, all the benchmark scores are graded at the exact same time: at the end of the competition. My suggestion to address the issue of sandbagging relates to that last point. We should change the way the competition is “closed” and how the points are awarded, and make it as asymmetric as the competition itself. For this, we need two additional phases during the competition: “Dark Day” and “Popcorn Time”.

Dark Day is the 24H period before the end of the competition during which competitors can still submit results, but the ranking and scores are no longer be visible. You are in fact competing in the dark; you don’t know who is submitting what scores, and you don’t know who is leading. You also don’t know who has just submitted sandbagged results. The only information you have is the ranking before Dark Day, and of course the information from your competitors as they tease in the forum or on social networks.

Popcorn Time is the three hour period after closing the competition. Instead of grading the scores at

an exact time, the competition engine randomly reveals the scores submitted during Dark Day. The ranking is adjusted accordingly. Popcorn Time essentially stretches the emotional experience of competition closure over a longer period: from a single instant to three hours. Additionally, you’re not sure if a score was sandbagged or in fact achieved on the last day of the competition. Popcorn Time also allows to create a more exciting ending of the competition. It introduces a three-hour live show, and highlights more than just the scores of the teams competing for the top ranking. Envision a live updated scoreboard, an embedded chat, and of course beer with snacks.

IN CLOSINGSandbagging is a source of frustration for many competitive overclockers. It makes the competition experience worse, and that is a problem for the competition host. Overclockers have suggested solutions to resolve this problem. In an attempt to motivate participants to submit their best score earlier in the competition, the usual suggestion is to re-arrange the points system. In this editorial, I argued that a new points system does not necessarily resolve the situation.

In addition, I am of the opinion that there are plenty of arguments to be made in favor of sandbagging. For example, it allows the less resourceful overclockers to outsmart those with lots of time for binning

and re-benching. Also, being beaten by a sandbagged score that you could’ve beaten had you known the target score, is not a reason against sandbagging. In a competition, you are supposed to push as hard as possible and squeeze every point out of the system. If you stop pushing, and get beaten, well than that’s your fault. If you squeezed every bit and you still get beaten, well then the other won legitimately and there’s nothing or no one to blame.

As an alternative solution, I propose to address the emotional reaction to the end competition by introducing the principle of Dark Time and Popcorn Time. Dark Time freezes the rankings 24h before the end of the competition. None of the participants can see the new scores and the effect they have on the ranking. Popcorn Time introduces a new experience of the competition closure, as over a period of three hours after the closure the engine randomly reveals the scores submitted during the Dark Time.

The goal with Dark Time and Popcorn Time is the same as for every other suggested solution: to reduce the negative emotional experience of sandbagging. The main difference between the two solutions is that rather than detest sandbagging and trying to get rid of it, the suggested solution embraces sandbagging as a legitimate strategy and focuses mainly on adjusting the competition experience.

[ Pieter-Jan Plaisier ]


AMD has been pushing their APUs rather aggressively since the A10 5800K

Trinity from a few short years ago. The idea was and does remain simple. A synergistic relationship between a graphics core and a traditional serial compute core or host CPU. From just having these on the same package to having these two parts unified on a single die. AMD has for the most part done something incredible and unprecedented with the latest Kaveri APUs. Performance and other factors aside, just from

AMD A10 7850K APURRP: $185.99 | Website: www.amd.com

Test Machine

• GIGABYTE G1.Sniper A88X• CORSAIR Dominator

Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10

• INTEL 730 480GB SSD• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2

1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1

(Catalyst 13.25 WHQL)

an engineering point of view this is a milestone for AMD and most certainly a first for general computing platforms.

AMD’s journey to this point hasn’t been easy, but the APUs are by and large a successful part of AMDs strategy and it is fairly obvious why much of the communications from the company is centred around their APUs or at least more so than their CPUs which have actually grown long in the tooth for the most part.

APUs however over a slew of features out the box like a very competent graphics sub-system, native USB3.0 support, SATA 6Gbps and a PCI-Express 3.0 complex. In essence there is some parity with AMD’s latest APU platform and what INTEL offers on their products. The only difference then mostly is performance and power consumption which can be further broken down into many other aspects.

We won’t go into the really detailed parts of what makes Kaveri significantly different

(at least from a graphics perspective) from Richland which it’s predecessor. As AMD did not provide this information to us amongst other things, but the good news is that it is using the same GCN architecture as found on the 7000 series graphics cards. In practical terms this not only means better performance, but it also means that the Kaveri APUs have full DirectX11.2 hardware support along with OpenCL, Mantle and obviously the latest OpenGL support as well. Assuming that the performance is there, it is easily the most feature rich IGP on the planet today.

Physically the new APU die is massive, at over 2.4Billion gates, compared to less than 1.4Bilion on the outgoing Trinity APUs. The process node is smaller though and Global Foundries 28nm SHP process has obviously allowed AMD to manufacture these at a reasonable cost without sacrificing too much in terms of frequency or heat output. These may be built on a 28nm process,

All results were obtained on an un-optimized Windows 7 64-bit. These are our figures, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

3DMark Cloud Gate

3DMark Firestrike

Catzilla 1.3 720p

Resident Evil 6 720p


CineBench R15 CPU

CineBench R15 OpenGL

Memory Copy

AMD A10 7850K @ 4.4GHz

7972 1621 2766 4115 4053 364 51,57 21507


Graphics: 12081

Graphics: 1805

Hardware: 2743

AMD A10 7850K 7035 1575 2581 4053 3770 319 47,15 20879


Graphics: 10814

Graphics: 1714

Hardware: 2559


Summary

Would you buy it?

AMD has produced a competent and capable APU here, it’s a pity about the price however because it creates more problems than it solves. Moreover, unlike what AMD had said, most regions will not be receiving copies of BF4 with the purchase of these APUs which further makes the value proposition of the 7850K questionable. Our money is still on the 6800K, but if you absolutely must have the latest APU, then you have little choice but to go with the A10 7850K

Not really, unless we absolutely had to take it over the A10 6800K

but that isn’t significantly smaller than the 32nm node that was used on Trinity APUs. The big thing here for AMD is their push for heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) and Kaveri is the most direct way to go about achieving this. Perhaps this is the first realization of a vision that started more than seven or eight years ago with the then acquisition of ATI. With Kaveri AMD has made improvements (at least on paper) to both the CPU and GPU element of their APU. The frequencies are lower (not by too much) but with these changes AMD was hoping to offset these lower frequencies by virtue of better IPC. This has worked out for the most part or has at the very least managed to keep performance levels about the same, while marginally decreasing TDP as well. This is especially true for the 7850K which is rated at 95W as opposed to the 100W of the outgoing 6800K Richland A10 APU. Given just how much more significantly larger the die is on the 7850K, it is remarkable that, although small, AMD managed to shave of 5W. That’s not even talking about the A8-7600 which may not be as powerful as the 7850K, but is available in a 45W package.

When it’s all said and done, we were rather excited to see what AMD had come up with. Add official 2,400MHz support and their vaguely promoted A.M.P certified memory, we were sure to see some sizeable gains in compared to Richland. What ended up happening though was unexpected. The 7850K is

faster than the 6800K alright, but that speed advantage is marginal at best. In some cases it’s actually slower courtesy of the lower CPU frequency. The differences in clock speeds are not small however, because at the highest Turbo multiplier, the 6800K was operating at 4.4GHz, while the newer 7850K is limited to 4GHz. Given how modest the IPC improvements are when comparing the new Steamroller cores against the older Piledriver cores, the 7850K was holding its own rather well. When you factor in the graphical improvements of 512 graphics GPU cores as opposed to the 384 and less capable ones featured on the 6800K, one can appreciate just how much better the new APU is.

With all that said, for all intents and purposes we were still expecting so much more from AMD’s 7850K. It may be unreasonable from a technical point of view, but consider that the new flagship model is about $185 making it significantly more expensive than the outgoing APUs (6800K can be had for as little as $130). At that price range you’re also competing with other INTEL products. If you’re going to use a discreet graphics card or any price range, then the 7850K instantly becomes a bad investment because AMD’s own FX CPUs deliver significantly better performance, let alone the INTEL parts.

As for the competitive overclockers, we will have to look elsewhere because the new CPUs just don’t’ clock well

at all. There’s a single report of a 6GHz capable chip but that’s about it with all others coming in significantly below that. Even for IGP records for APUs the Richland APUs are still a better investment. As it stands it’s very hard to outright recommend the 7850K. Technically it’s a very important product and one that AMD is sure to refine and improve dramatically in the future, it’s just that at present it doesn’t offer anything in the real world that makes it desirable over the 6800K.

[The Overclocker]


Single sided Hnyix MFR memory. What could anyone possibly want

from such sticks? Moreover, they are 1600MHz sticks as well. Surely these are not for the discerning overclocking who demands nothing but the best hardware and is more than likely willing to pay or at the very least bin for such parts.

Well, that is the theory anyway and something that we wish was true for every overclocker out there regardless of experience or capability and perhaps even resources. Sadly this isn’t the case and the truth is that most beginners and people

AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 1600MHz DDR3 8GB KitRRP: $129.99 | Website: www.avexir.com

Test Machine

• INTEL Core i7 4770K• GIGABYTE Z87X-OC (F8)• INTEL 730 480GB SSD• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2


just getting into overclocking can only afford memory at this price and lower. A lot of us who may have gone on to LN2 overclocking started this on our gaming machines which would more times than not have memory at this price rather than the high end 2600Mhz and higher kits we take for granted.

With this AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 1600 MHz kit, upon discovering that it is MFR, we immediately set about trying to see just how far we could push the memory. It is only the most obvious thing to try and do given that not too long ago, the only thing we did with Haswell CPUs and motherboards was push memory clock frequencies. This is where we were able to reach speeds of just over 2500MHz for the kit. That is mighty impressive for budget 1600MHz DIMMs. That’s almost 1GHz above the standard clock speed without the use of LN2.

However, that speed was

anything but stable and thus we settled for the frequencies you see in the table above. Timings could be run relatively tight at 1600MHz but that frequency was never going to satisfy the systems need for more bandwidth, thus the best performance is going to be at 2133MHz even though some sacrifices have to be made to the primary timings. You’re not going to get much more by tuning secondary timings on this kit and even with a low TWCL setting, you’ll only introduce instability so that avenue is lost to you.

Given that you can buy fairly generic 2133MHz memory kits from just about anywhere. You may be wondering why anyone would settle for the AVEXIR Blitz set for this kind of spend. The answer may seem ridiculous but it’s purely because this is amongst the best looking sets of memory you can buy. In fact, we would wager that these are


Summary

Would you buy it?

These sticks are exclusively for gamers who want the best looking DIMMs for showing off at their LAN parties or wherever their computers may be in public view. As single sided MFR sticks, performance isn’t the main concern here but capacity and aesthetics. Arguably the best looking heat sinks on any set of memory to date. For gamers on a budget who still want flash, you should consider these.

For the right price, yes

the best looking DRAM sticks we’ve ever see.

The pulsating effect isn’t new to AVEXIR memory, but the colour scheme and design of these sticks make them stand out above the rest. The best part is that these can be paired with just about every great motherboard or rather relevant motherboard vendor’s products as they come in a variety of colours and insignias. You can select the standard and possibly best looking AVEXIR branded set of memory (works wonderfully well with the ASUS ROG line of motherboards), the GIGABYTE Ultra Durable branded kits, MSI Gaming, ECS L33T and ASRock OC-Formula version for example. The heat sinks are removable of course, so you could essentially use them on other more powerful memory if you prefer as they are perhaps wasted on 1600MHz DIMMs.

Going back to performance, in the synthetic tests you’ll find that the memory delivers exactly what you’d expect single sided MFR memory to

give. However, in a gaming environment, there’ll be no discernable difference between this kit at 2133MHz and another one that costs twice or three times at much at a much higher speed. For the sake of synthetic tests, yes you’ll not want to be attempting SuperPi records with this memory or gunning for a high 3DMark11 Physics score. For that you’ll need the other kits in the series. This kit really is for gaming and while it is nice to know that you can get a useful overclock out of it that should not be your primary goal for this memory.

For anyone looking for the most aesthetically pleasing kit that matches their current machines, then you need look no further, especially if you are on a budget and concerned aesthetics the over and a few fps here and there. We still believe the price may just be a tad higher than it should be for this frequency grade because you can get similar 8GB kits for around the $80. Sure they won’t look as good, far from it in fact, but if money is tight then perhaps look at an

alternative kit from AVEXIR’s Core line of memory instead. If your budget can stretch however, take a look at this memory. The pictures don’t’ do it any justice at all. This series really does have the best looking memory on the market right now. Well worth your consideration.

[ The Overclocker ]

All results were obtained at 4600MHz s on a normal install of Windows 7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Memory AIDA 64 Read AIDA 64 Write AIDA 64 Copy AIDA 64 Latency

SuperPi 8M Frequency Timings

AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 DDR3 1600MHZ Kit

23510 23902 22322 50,8 1m29,766 1600 8-9-8-24-1T

27290 27518 25515 47,3 1m28,867 1866 9-10-9-24-1T

30460 31503 29166 46,1 1m27,398 2000 10-12-12-30-1T

32341 33552 31656 48,1 1m27,359 2133 11-13-13-30-1T

33189 34595 32202 46,6 1m27,266 2200 12-14-14-35-1T

Hardware Award


INTEL has had a fairly respectable history concerning SSDs. With

every INTEL SSD review we do, we can’t help but think of the old X25-M drive they introduced back in 2008. At the time it there wasn’t anything remotely close to it in performance. Since then however, it’s become an increasingly more competitive market and what made the INTEL drive stand out then is not enough to even warrant a second look today.

With that said, the 730

INTEL 730 480GB SSDRRP: $479.99 | Website: www.intel.com

Test Machine

• INTEL Core i7 4770K• GIGABYTE Z87X-OC (F8)• CORSAIR Dominator

Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10

• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W

• Windows 7 64-bit SP1

drive represents INTELs’ most high end consumer level SSD. Much like the X25-M at the time, the 730 brings with it some enterprise level features and obviously incredible performance numbers. The stand out feature for this drive is the Power-loss protection which as far as we know is a feature that doesn’t exist on any other SSD on the market, at least at this level. Oddly absent however from the 730 drives is support for AES encryption. One would think this would be a key feature for INTEL when selling a drive like this one. Especially at this price where every other competing drive has this feature. That will obviously invalidate this drive for several usage scenarios but for those who are not concerned, this is a really fast drive.

The NAND is obviously INTEL’s own 20nm NAND and its custom 3rd

generation SSD controller (PC29AS21CA0). Together with some smart firmware, all these parts come together to make a truly compelling performance SSD for those who are unwilling to compromise on performance or rather at sustained, reliable and predictable performance numbers. For the 480 GB model that we tested INTEL claims a maximum read IO performance figure of 89,000 IOPS and 75,000 for writes. Sequential read figures are at a respectable 550MBps and 470MBps. Not the highest we’ve seen but these days sequential read and write performance are all but meaningless as they don’t really tell you anything about a drives performance.

Drive reliability to perhaps better stated, drive endurance has gone up dramatically with the 730. Whereas the previous 530 was rated at 36TB, the 730 has increased that by a


Summary

Would you buy it?

INTEL has once again raised the performance bar for their high end consumer level SSDs. When you’re looking at high performance SSDs there aren’t many that can claim to be better than the 730. As far as value for money is concerned, this drive doesn’t score well, but that aside it is still a solid offering and one that will certainly find its way into many enthusiasts’ machines.

Yes

factor of three such that the 240GB model’s endurance rating is 91TB and 128TB for the 480GB drive. In practical terms this translates into the ability to write 70GB a day or a little over that for years on end, as opposed to the previous drives 20GB a day rating. Again this is not something that the vast majority of desktop users or even power users would be concerned with, but it definitely helps.

Besides speed and data reliability, INTEL has configured the drives for some incredible RAID performance. That is, should you use two of these drives in a raid configuration, sequential data throughput speeds are going to hover at the 1GB/s mark or at least that is what INTEL states is possible when using their Rapid Storage Technology supporting motherboards/or platforms. We didn’t’ have two drives to validate

this claim when we did this review, but we may take a look at this later to confirm if indeed it is true.

If there was anything to dislike about this drive, it would be the price. Yes, it is a high end drive that offers fantastic performance, incredible data reliability and some nifty technologies for data loss prevention, but it does lack AES encryption support. With a $480 price tag, you’re literary paying $1 per GB of unformatted capacity. Compare this with the Vector 150 which retails for $120 less, offers roughly the same performance and also carries a 5 year warranty. Sure it’s endurance rating is only 50GB a day but for most people that is more than enough. Add to which that drive does support 256-bit AES encryption. With that said however, the 730 is still an incredible drive and most certainly amongst the fastest you can buy today.

[ The Overclocker ]

All results were obtained at 4600MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Drive Average Read

Average Write

4K Read(QD32)

4K Write (QD32)

Read IOPS Write IOPS Maximum IO response time (ms)

M5 Pro Xtreme 256GB 543,4 465,2 292,2 295,5 74775,11 77009,86 9,2617

Corsair Force LS 240GB 538,8 408 154 207,9 35965,05 61083,73 10,543

OCZ Vector 256GB 524 524,7 394,3 367,9 66937,34 91065,67 7,9844

OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD

514,1 517,4 342,3 358,7 57488,84 85357,18 8,1211

OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB 492,3 327 145 264,4 57070,86 48527,04 11,4531

Intel 730 480GB SSD 488,1 496,8 356,6 327 81651,43 79115,8 8,5469

INTEL 335 240GB SSD 486,9 239,6 183,5 97,82 31971,3 58152,8 11,7661

OCZ Vertex 450 256GB 480 511,1 343,4 366,9 56965,82 87582,38 8,2266

Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB

473,6 496 294,3 316,2 76753,7 83326,26 8,3643

ADATA SX910 128GB SSD 463,9 320,2 120,6 251,9 23166,93 57496,08 11,3945

OCZ Vertex 4 512GB 463,5 509,3 306,6 318,6 71962,4 85423,25 9,2627

Corsair Neutron 240GB 457,3 370,9 284,9 307,9 76642,4 82769,19 11,2734


Despite all the trouble that OCZ has endured in the past, we have to

admit that they have always had solid products. The business side of things may have faced many challenges, but with the recent acquisition by TOSHIBA things should be turning around very quickly.

Fortunately for OCZ, technology has never been a weak area for the company.

OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSDRRP: $159.99| Website: www.ocz.com

Test Machine


Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10

• ASUS GeForce GTX 750Ti• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2


Value Award

The drives have always been at the forefront of desktop storage performance and this has never changed. With the expertise of building in-house controllers, OCZ has yet to deliver a disappointing drive to us or one that we did not find impressive in one respect or another.

The 460 then is a direct successor to the 450 we reviewed in issue 27 (Which you can read over here). At the time, the OCZ Vertex 450 cost $219 in its 256GB guise. With the 460, you’re paying significantly less at $160 while getting the same performance and in many areas, improved performance. If that drive had a great value proposition, this one has an even better one. Sure you’re going to lose out on a few GB of space, but you’re saving

$60. That in our books is always a good thing.

What makes the 460 tick then is the proprietary OCZ Barefoot 3 M10 controller and 19nm TOSHIBA toggle NAND flash. As you will recall the 450 drive used 20nm IMFT MLC instead, but did share the same controller. Basic performance is generally the same especially in the sequential performance tests. It’s only in the sustained IOPS performance where the new drive sees a significant improvement by a factor or three. What this will mean to your desktop usage is hard to understands, but suffice to say, increased performance is never a bad thing especially if you’re getting it at a lower price than before. If the Vector 150 is the highest performance 2.5”


Summary

Would you buy it?

The Vertex 460 builds on the previous 450s strengths but brings with it a much lower price. Better performance at the miniscule cost of capacity. For the most part there will be no useable capacity difference between a 256GB and a 240GB drive. Thus you’re most certainly better off with the 460 drive than the 450.

Yes

SSD from OCZ, the Vertex 460 is the mainstream drive which carries with it slightly lower performance and a shorter warranty period. Given that both lines of drives use identical parts, it’s not easy to decipher where exactly these performance differences come from. Perhaps it is in firmware or controller clock frequencies. Regardless of where they stem from, it is comforting to know that the BOP for the more expensive Vector 150 is the same as that for the Vertex 460 at least in the context of drive reliability.

When dealing with performance drives these days, it’s very rare for us to see real world differences between drives. Synthetic tests obviously show massive variations between drives and vendor solutions

but for the most part we are primarily looking at tangible differences which are hard to come by these days with almost every drive delivering exceptional performance.

Still, looking at the synthetic results it’s very obvious that the Vertex 460 is amongst the fastest drives we have ever tested here. It’s still not a match for the original Vector drive but it is close enough for it to not matter. From where we are standing, this is more than enough performance for most mainstream users and even those who would consider themselves power users.

For this price, they don’t really come in any better and as such, we have no qualms with awarding the Vertex 460 our value award!

[ The Overclocker ]

All results were obtained at 4600MHz on an un-optimized Windows 64-bit. These are our figures; yours may vary, so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Drive Average Read

Average Write

4K Read(QD32)

4K Write (QD32)

Read IOPS Write IOPS Maximum IO response time (ms)

OCZ Vector 256GB 524 524,7 394,3 367,9 66937,34 91065,67 7,9844

Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB

473,6 496 294,3 316,2 76753,7 83326,26 8,3643

OCZ Vertex 4 512GB 463,5 509,3 306,6 318,6 71962,4 85423,25 9,2627

Corsair Neutron 240GB 457,3 370,9 284,9 307,9 76642,4 82769,19 11,2734

INTEL 335 240GB SSD 486,9 239,6 183,5 97,82 31971,3 58152,8 11,7661

OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB 492,3 327 145 264,4 57070,86 48527,04 11,4531

M5 Pro Xtreme 256GB 543,4 465,2 292,2 295,5 74775,11 77009,86 9,2617

OCZ Vertex 450 256GB 480 511,1 343,4 366,9 56965,82 87582,38 8,2266

Corsair Force LS 240GB 538,8 408 154 207,9 35965,05 61083,73 10,543

ADATA SX910 128GB SSD 463,9 320,2 120,6 251,9 23166,93 57496,08 11,3945

Intel 730 480GB SSD 488,1 496,8 356,6 327 81651,43 79115,8 8,5469

OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD

514,1 517,4 342,3 358,7 57488,84 85357,18 8,1211

WD 4TB Black FZEK 191,2 190 1,825 1,431 439,37 513,74 32,315


It’s rare if ever we look at mid-range GPUs here at TheOverclocker, and we look

at entry level graphics cards even less frequently. However, given that in this issue, we have the likes of the AMD APU, AVEXIR Blitz memory and some other budget orientated components, the GTX 750 was a fitting graphics card to review.

More than that, this just so happened to be NVIDIA’s newest GPU at the time, prior to the release of the TITAN Black and TITAN-Z, both of which aren’t available in anything but their reference form. Thus it falls

ASUS GTX 750Ti OCRRP: $159.99 | Website: www.asus.com

Test Machine


Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10

• INTEL 730 480GB SSD• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2

1500W• Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW

337.50 13.12 beta)

on NVIDIA’s latest addition to the 700 series of VGA cards to essentially move us forward or at least give us some idea of what Maxwell GPUs are about. This is particularly important because on paper the 750 Ti is weaker than the 650 Ti, but in practice it is at the very least delivering the same performance. In most cases it is just faster, which is always appreciated given that we are dealing with an entry to bottom mid-range graphics card here.

The ASUS GTX 750Ti is rather simple, not really deviating too much from the reference card. It uses a 4-phase PWM, Samsung HC03 GDDR5 memory chips rated at 6GHz even though the memory is operated at 5,400MHz like most 750 Ti cards. Cooling is taken care of by a large aluminum heat sink with two low noise fans on them. A black shroud with the typical three red racing stripes on it wrap up the visual element. The PWM controller is the standard uPI uP1608TK as found on several other 750 Ti

cards. At the time of writing we were not able to adjust voltages on the card and this particular sample remained at 1.187V in full screen 3D mode, a little less than the 1.2V we had seen on another GTX 750 Ti card, however with BIOS tweaking you can get up to 1.21V. For more, look to hard mods.

Doing the standard testing, this card was obviously faster than the reference card in all the benchmarks and certainly in in-game benchmarks. The margin by which it was faster varied from title to title. Synthetic test results always showed larger differences in performance than games, but then again this is to be expected, given that the factory overclock is rather conservative on this card at just 1162MHz (real clock) under load. If you’re not familiar with other 750 Ti models, there are some that have a 3D clock that is just over 1,300MHz. That doesn’t mean however that you can’t achieve the same thing with the ASUS card.

The only thing that may get

Value Award


Summary

Would you buy it?

The ASUS GTX 750Ti is one of the cheapest 750 Ti graphics cards you can buy on the market. At the shipping clocks and asking price there aren’t any other options really. If you’re in need of a backup card for your benching or simply want a reasonably affordable card for playing your games at medium to high quality settings, you’ll not find anything better than this card.

Given its selling price in comparison to others, yes

in the way of that is the cooler which ASUS has provided with this card. Unlike other competing 750 Ti cards, this one does not make use of any heat pipes and as stated earlier, it is a rather simplistic aluminum heatsink with a large number of fins and two fans. It’s a quiet cooler for sure, but we did find that it ran warmer than the other cards we tested reaching 57’C in the most intense scenes of HWBOT’s Unigine Heaven Xtreme test. 57’C is still a very low temperature for a graphics card under load, so the cooler is still doing a great job at keeping heat at bay. Other 750 Ti cards were coming in between 5 and up to 7’C lower, but once again those use heat pipe designs and as a result they do cost a lot more than the $160 asking price of this ASUS model.

With some patience and tuning though we were able to run this card comfortably at 1325MHz on the core (real clock) and 1450MHz on the memory. This is just under the rated 1500MHz for the GDDR5. For some reason our particular sample did not do well with memory overclocking, however we have seen the very same ASUS model reach

speeds over 1,600MHz. So this is certainly an isolated incident. In fact if you are interested in just how far the ASUS card can be taken there are recorded clock speeds of over 1,450MHz without the use of LN2 or any other exotic cooling method. What seems to do the trick for higher limits is bringing down the temperatures even with slightly better air cooling. Whichever way you go about it, you’ll find that this card responds well and scales accordingly.

In a gaming context, there is not much to say about this card that you can’t have figured out by now. Knowing how the 650 Ti performed and how this is not only cooler, consumes less power but faster at the same time should illustrate to you just what kind of performance you should be expecting. We didn’t manage to find a game that we couldn’t run comfortably at 1080p with high to very high detail levels. Obviously this is without any AA, but such a thing is a small sacrifice given how much you’re paying for the graphics card.

Overall this is a neat little card that offers some exciting

overclocking possibilities together with some great out the box performance, low noise and power consumption. If you have to buy a budget card and but do fancy some overclocking, you may just want to take a look at the ASUS GTX 750Ti OC edition.

[ TheOverclocker ]

All results were obtained at 4600MHz on an un-optimized Windows 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Graphics Card 3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

3DMark11 3DMark Vantage

Catzilla: 1080p HWBOT Heaven Extreme

ASUS GeForce GTX 750Ti 4072 1979 5858 22634 4770 1143,67

Graphics: 4269

Graphics: 1979

Graphics: 5346

GPU Score: 20289 4629

Hardware:

4487 2188 6561 24869 5265 1347,7781325MHz Core/1450 Mem

Graphics: Graphics: 2178

Graphics: 6075

GPU Score: 22728 5114

Hardware:

4767

MSI GTX 750 GAMING 4218 2061 6341 21633 4727 1168,257


RANDOM OCHWBOT OC ANNIVERSARY

If you haven’t heard or read about it yet, HWBOT is celebrating their Anniversary gathering this yeah during the weekend following Computex 2014. From the horse’s mouth as they say “we are hosting the HWBOT OC Anniversary Gathering in an amazing venue near the GuangHua Computer Market in Taipei, Taiwan. We will provide 1000+ liters of LN2 and welcome everyone to join the festivities. From today until the end of May you can pre-register to attend the event. In total there are 30 bench spots and 50 visitor passes. A Bench Spot costs EUR €25 ($35), and visitors can choose to pay what they want to donate to the event. The income will be used to cover food and drinks”. If you have the opportunity to join this event you should definitely add your name to the list. Beit for the company or for the scores or anything else for that matter, this is going to be one of the best OC gathering events ever. You can check out the event page here and make your reservations.

WHICH IS THE FAIREST 780TI OF THEM ALL? In the never ending battle for dominance, it seems three 780Ti cards have shown up in the rankings that are worthy contenders for the best 780Ti of them all. On the one side we have the Galaxy HOF V2 780Ti. We’ve seen the scores and clocks by Mad 222, but have yet to see any other example of the card in the wild. No doubt it should make its arrival at some point to the mass market, the question however is when will this be? For several months we’ve seen some mighty clock speeds and some close to 2GHz or at least according to GALAXY. There’s obviously some great potential in this card and if indeed it is as good as it seems thus far then we may have the card to beat.

Not to be outdone, ASUS has once again introduced their MATRIX Platinum offering and this time it is doing some incredible numbers right out the door. 8-Pack has demonstrated its prowess by breaking several records with core clocks all above the 1900MHz range and it looks like this isn’t an isolated incident. Vivi has also shown clocks

in pre-testing higher than 1900MHz in FiresStrike Extreme. There seems to be some validity to just how potent this graphics card is. We await more results eagerly. Thus far it seems to be legit and only time will tell as more of these cards are frozen. As far as claiming the crown for the fairest 780Ti of them all, the Matrix Platinum has a valid claim.

Last, but certainly not least is the K|NGP|N 780Ti graphics card. Looks great and under his hands as you’d expect has shown some marvelous numbers. The question is though can it do the same outside of the lab and in Joe Soaps lab. Indications thus far are that it is as equally capable.

In a listing that seems to validate all here cards as worthy contenders, 3DMark Firestrike on the Futuremark ORB has all three cards as the highest scoring at present. The Galaxy HOF is leading the race, followed by the KP Edition 780Ti and finally the ASUS Matrix Platinum 780Ti. This race is likely to go on for some time still or at least until the next generation Maxwell GPUs show up, until then we’ll be keeping an


eye on this race. It’ll be fairly simple to determine the best of the cards at the end. It’ll be the one that has the most records achieved outside each vendor’s respective overclocking lab with their own overclocker or engineer.

INTEL SHOWS SOME LOVEINTEL’s decision to change the thermal compound or material between the IHS and the CPU may not have sat well with overclockers but that has not prevented us from overclocking the CPUs. In a great showing of support for the community, the news of an improved thermal transfer material in the Haswell CPU update has sat well with many people in the community. We may all be eagerly anticipating the Haswell-E CPUs along with all related platform changes, but there has to be some excitement about the prospect of even higher clocking CPUs or at the least the variation in clock speeds between good and bad CPUs decreasing. There’s been no specific reason why the updated K SKU CPUs only show up later but at this point it’s less than two month and the wait is


essentially coming to an end. How well these CPUs overclock

we will have to find out, more specifically what other changes have been made to the silicon that may directly or otherwise have an impact on performance. Good news all around though because we may not have to de-lid CPUs anymore to get the best from them. Even outside the scope of overclocking, regular desktop users will appreciate the changes which will no doubt allow higher clock speeds than what the present CPUs can manage.

With, competitions, XTU, 8 Core Haswell-E and the new Haswell refresh K SKU CPUs, nobody can say INTEL has been doing anything other than been active supporters of overclocking.

X99A new chipset, socket pin layout, memory and CPUs. With what happened with X79, we are wondering if we will see the same thing again with a single vendor making the only meaningful and useable boards for the platform. Will all the vendors come to the party and make the landscape a lot

more interesting like they have with Z87? Who knows, but we are eagerly awaiting the first few boards from everyone to see just what they have managed to put together. We’re aware of some vendors who have been working on these boards since last year already and logic would dictate these are likely going to be the most refined products at launch. Merely working as expected isn’t enough, but the first board to show those ridiculously high clock speeds with the 8 core chips and very high memory frequencies will be the one to watch out for. DDR4 may prove to be a bit tricky with some memory vendors not able to validate speeds much higher than 2133MHZ because of the absence of supporting motherboards. However, we can imagine the challenges that face memory vendors are analogous to those that motherboard companies are dealing with. With the release of the platform relatively soon here’s hoping every vendor hits the ground running. Regardless of what happens, this is going to be a very exciting platform (provided it does overclock well that is). [ The OverClocker ]

2

Looking at the overclocking competitions, we must emphasize Morper and Psyins’ Rookie Rumble victories. Also congratulations to HwBox Hellas O/C Team and Overclock.net for winning the respectively two and one team competition. Last but not least, a big thumbs up goes out to Xtreme Addict for winning the first live overclocking competition of 2014.

Yes, the HWBOT rankings are back by popular demand! From this issue forward, TheOverclocker will bring you the latest standings of the Pro OC, Overclockers League and Enthusiast League at HWBOT. In addition, we put the spotlights on the competition winners. "The past two months were pretty intense in terms of overclocking activity. We see OCUKPro currently leading in the Pro OC, Vivi is still number 1 in the Overclockers League and Poparamiro can call himself the king of the Enthusiast League.

A view from the community

RANKINGS

Overclockers league

1 Vivi 2044.10 pts

2 Wizerty 1887.40 pts

3 sofos1990 1829.30 pts

4 zzolio 1630.50 pts

5 mtech 1610.20 pts

6 Moose83 1594.50 pts

7 StrategosSan 1515.90 pts

8 SniperOZ 1491.70 pts

9 michel90 1433.20 pts

10 Hideo 1386.00 pts

Enthusiasts league

1 poparamiro 983.40 pts

2 zupernico 748.20 pts

3 Doug2507 704.30 pts

4 Punk Sods 678.80 pts

5 Berchorange 666.70 pts

6 alexmx 661.40 pts

7 Faster 645.10 pts

8 vadimua 641.30 pts

9 helkis 614.00 pts

10 Ximi 603.60 pts

Pro OC

1 OCUKPro 523 pts

2 United Overclockers 515 pts

3 KRONOS PRO OC 508 pts

4 KPC PRO OC #2 450 pts

5 NP2Korea Pro OC 414 pts

6 Team Germany 381 pts

7 The Overlcocking Knights 377 pts

8 Hardware.info Pro OC 370 pts

9 KPC Pro OC 319 pts

10 Overclockers Pro OC 303 pts

Rookie Rumble Cup #31 morper 121 pts

2 Paulie_AU 109 pts

3 jab383 86 pts

March Team Cup Warm-up Contest Part21 HwBox Hellas O/C Team 118 pts

2 PC Games Hardware 67 pts

3 Belarus OC Team 63 pts

February Team Cup Warm-up Contest1 HwBox Hellas O/C Team 99 pts

2 HwMaster OC Team Italy 89 pts

3 XTREME OC Team Bulgaria 70 pts

March's Z77 Team Fire Strike1 Overclock.net 94 pts

2 Overclockers Australia (OCAU) 77 pts

3 HwMaster OC Team Italy 67 pts

Rookie Rumble Cup #21 Psyins 123 pts

2 Zmn668 106 pts

3 magavk 94 pts

HyperX OC Takeover (HOT) Final1 Xtreme Addict 82 pts

2 Vivi 72 pts

3 l0ud_sil3nc3 59 pts

Competition Winners

(standings as of april 28, 2014)

The OC Show Your Overclocking talk-show

Discuss this episode:

url.hwbot.org/tosdiscuss

In This Episode In the third episode, we look forward to the overclocking activities at Computex 2014. We mainly focus on the G.SKILL OC World Cup competition and the HWBOT OC Anniversary Gathering. We also have Elmor on as guest and talk about his work on EVC, what it’s like being an in-house Overclocker and the overclocking industry in general.

The OC Show Concept As The Overclocker moved to a new publishing platform, Neo (editor-in-chief) informed us it is

now possible to embed videos in the magazine. He suggested to embed an OCTV video in each magazine. The response from OCTV was very positive, and quickly the idea rose to do a bi- monthly chit-chat talk about overclocking related topics.

In each episode, Pieter (Massman - HWBOT) and Tim (Xyala - OCTV) cover things that happened in the overclocking community. This includes upcoming events, new hardware releases, interesting overclocking records, benchmark discussions, and maybe even a tiny bit of industry gossip. "This is long overdue" says Tim, "but now that OCTV and HWBOT are both

located in Taiwan, setting up this kind of initiative is much easier."

HWBOT and OCTV have collaborated on several productions in the past. The OC Show marks as a first long-term scheduled partnership.

Why TheOverclocker? "TheOverclocker is today's main go-to magazine-style read for overclockers and hardware enthusiasts" says Tim, "it makes sense to share our content to the TOC readers first." Of course this video is also hosted on the OCTV YouTube channel, and can be shared and embedded by everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBTjjWHGiaM

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ACER ASPIRE R7 REVIEWED.


ThiefRRP: $59.99 (PC) | Website: www.thiefgame.com

Torchlight dances on the walls in the next room, playfully darting across the ornate wallpaper.

The alleyway below the first floor window through which I just entered is quiet. The curtains gently billow behind me, a soft breeze giving them life. I listen intently. I can hear the sounds of a thug verbally bullying this shop’s owner somewhere on the ground floor. This is good. It means I won’t be bothered. I scan the tiny room. Just a broom closet, nothing of interest. Silently I slip through the sole doorway, and spot the glinting of precious shinies.

Everything that would fetch a price in The City goes into my enchanted Bottomless Pants of Thieving. Hand mirrors, scissors, even hairbrushes, all spirited away by my eager hands. Suddenly, there’s a noise behind me. Someone clearing their throat. A door leading to the hallway outside swings open. A burly bald oaf enters, whistling. He announces to the air that he’s here with the same purpose as I, and starts scanning for valuables. Even though I’m a master thief, able to blend into the shadows as though I were made of their very essence, I’m surprised he hasn’t seen me. He leans over a table to assess its contents. I move into position. My blackjack strike is swift, and hits its purpose. He goes down without a sound. But his friend, who just stepped into the room, makes very many sounds. Damn. And this was all going so well.

The Thief reboot was never going to live up to its legacy. Nostalgia is a powerful thing to have to overcome, and when the franchise you’re attempting to reboot is credited as having defined an entire genre in gaming, you’re in for a rough ride. Thief: The Dark Project and its siblings are incredible pieces of game design, and there’s a reason (many reasons, actually) why so many people view them with such overwhelming reverence. So no, Eidos Montreal’s Thief is not nearly as impressive as its influential


forebears. But it’s an excellent stealth game nevertheless, one that occasionally even flirts with greatness – but always falls just short of it.

Once again, you play as Garrett, the Master Thief. Or at least, you’re an alternate version of him. There’s a story to follow in the game, but it’s pretty meaningless. It’s a mess of ridiculous pantomime villains and shoddy writing, the plot awkwardly bouncing all over the place to the point where it becomes difficult to follow even if you desperately want to. I get the definite sense that somebody misguidedly intended for it to be “gritty”, or “edgy”, or something of the sort to appeal to people on the prowl for things that are gritty and edgy, but instead it comes across as nothing but vapid and shallow. It’s best to just ignore it really, and get about the business of stealing everything that isn’t nailed down.

In between the story missions, you’re able to explore The City. There’s a ton of stuff to be done within, and when you’re not just exploring the environment there

are two different types of missions in which to engage yourself. The first are mini side-jobs, tasking you with a variety of objectives. These range from stealing a priceless cure from a doctor’s office to disarming the traps in a particular apartment. There are loads of these, some obviously more enjoyable than others, but they’re overall a worthwhile distraction. Then there are the more substantial client jobs, which are far more interesting and definitely worth pursuing. There are two of them, each one featuring a series of themed missions that string together to form a pair of neat little sub-stories.

Unfortunately, traversing the city does present some annoyances. The developers have chosen to implement an Assassin’s Creed-style one-button movement system, which means that you’re only able to jump when it’s done in the correct context. This depressingly limits your acrobatic ability, which is immensely disappointing in a game that casts you as a supposedly nimble thief who’s able to reach places that others cannot. The


previous games in the series had no such limitations, and they were carefully designed to reward players who took the time to search for alternate routes.

Similarly, rope arrows – a series stable – are now nothing more than items used to solve movement puzzles in very specific circumstances. In the previous games, rope arrows were very rarely disallowed except when they’d have made things far too easy. Here, they’re so scarcely employed that they feel like a worthless party trick. There’s also an ever-present feeling throughout

that The City lacks personality. It feels devoid of life, which cheapens your interactions with it.

When you’re not messing around in The City, the story missions themselves are brilliant. I love the design of the levels, all of them so purposefully put together. They’re all quite meaty too, each one taking a satisfying amount of time to carefully work your way through. Their layouts are more strictly linear than we’re used to, but nevertheless each one manages to provide multiple methods of approach, and each one is filled with loot and secrets to reward


Would you buy it?

The Score

8.5/10

I would, but I’d recommend you go into Thief not expecting it to match the glory of its ancestors.

those who take the time to hunt them down.

Perhaps the most surprising facet of the game is its attempt to please seemingly everyone with its plethora of difficulty options. You’re able to tweak practically everything, disabling things like loot glint and even elements of the HUD to perfectly tailor the experience to your liking. It’s like Eidos Montreal anticipated the inevitable whinging that was sure to arise from rabid fans complaining that the experience is too easy or has been watered down or something similarly damning. There’s even an Iron Man mode, which means that you only get one life for your entire play through – if you die, it’s game over. I’d imagine most Thief fans will want to turn off Focus mode, which when activated slows down time and highlights important objects throughout the game world. It does tend to make things easier and eliminates the need to pay careful attention to the environment to do things like avoid traps and uncover secrets, which I’m sure will irritate some players.

There’s a lot I like about Thief. It’s a fantastic stealth game, and its mechanics are inherently satisfying. It’s lacking the heart and soul of its forebears though, which will no doubt mean that very many gamers will shun it for what it isn’t instead of appreciating it for what it is. It’s a shame really, because if you approach it as something entirely new rather than suffocating it under the weight of its past, you’ll find a very entertaining experience.

[ Dane Remendes ]

1

5

4


Luxa2 GroovyWRRP: $109.99 | Website: www.luxa2.com

Never heard of the brand Luxa2? Well neither had I until I came across this little speaker

system. The name is apparently pronounced as “Lu-sa-tu."This

particular speaker model is the GroovyW.

So what is it about this speaker that allows it to command a $110 price tag? Well you should be aware that from the time I first received this unit to when this review was actually published, the price of the GroovyW dropped by $50. So from retailing for about$160 to $110 it’s had almost a third of its price cut. This price reduction changed the review as I was initially not moved by the GroovyW at all.

At this price though, it is far more

BLUETOOTH SPEAKER WITH WIRELESS CHARGING STATION

appealing given just how much it does. All the little issues it has can be overlooked because; ultimately it does everything it sets out to do. It may not be the best portable speaker there is, but there isn’t another one at this price that can claim to deliver the same number of features the GroovyW can. So if I had to weigh it all against the most recent price, then I would not be opposed to recommending this wireless speaker to anyone who may be looking for it such a thing. Below I have highlighted some features on the GroovyW and these are my findings.

1 The GroovyW comes in one color, a solid black with a chrome highlight around the base and

top of the unit. The wireless charging

station is matt black as well. The button may be a little tricky to find from a distance as it doesn’t light up or anything of the sort.

2 The top of the speaker is concave with a gloss black finish. This is where you’ll find the LED

touch panel where you can control everything on this unit. From answering telephone calls, to playing or pausing playback. It can all be done here. The power button is absent though and that is to be found on the other side of the unit at its base.

3 The sound quality delivered from the GroovyW ranges from just acceptable to appealing

depending on the kind of music you’re

3

2

Value Award


listening to. Keep in mind that you’re not dealing with a premium portable speaker system here so don’t expect BOSE Soundlink quality here as you’re not going to get it. However given once again the price point, the sound quality isn’t bad at all. Depending on placement you may want to put it on the floor where the bass is vastly improved and helps eliminate any rattling that may occur at high volume levels. Speaking about volume levels as well, the GroovyW can get very loud. Good for those outdoor parties where there may be some ambient noise to compete with.

4 As stated, but not shown. On the rear of this unit you’ll find the USB and auxiliary audio inputs.

You can use the USB input to charge the unit obviously and the auxiliary stereo mini-jack input to connect any other audio source you desire. The Power button for the speaker is located here as well.

5 Streaming music on the GroovyW can be achieved in several ways, either through

Bluetooth, NFC or as mentioned before via stereo-mini jack input. You can also wirelessly charge your phone should you have a Qi compa-tiable device by placing it on top of

the 4000mAh charging station. As a first attempt the GroovyW

is pretty good, especially at this price. Sure you could opt for the ANTEC SP-1, which is similarly

priced, but it doesn’t have many of these features and just doesn’t sound as good. The only real threat to this speaker system is the Logitech UE which also happens to retail for $15 more. Luxa2 was smart to adjust the price of the GroovyW because it simply has no direct competition and for up to $150 there just isn’t anything like it.

If you need all this connectivity in a single speaker system, and the added portable battery, then you have to at least look at the GroovyW. From a cost vs. performance point of view I have to award this speaker system the Value award. It really is worth its asking price.

[ The Overclocker ]


MSI GT70 Dominator Pro Gaming NotebookRRP: $3,999 | Website: www.msi.com

Have you ever wondered what the ultimate game notebook looks like in 2014? Well, wonder no

more because according to MSI, they just may have the best offering on the market. As far as I’m concerned, I think that may be a valid claim because not only have I never used a faster notebook, but it’s very rare if ever, that I’m ever impressed by what are essentially desktop replacement machines.

The GT70 Dominator Pro is something a little special. Unlike most notebooks that I come across, this one is unapologetic about what it is. With a price tag of $4,000, it had a lot to live up to and it delivered for the most part.

Before I get into the details and my experience with it, do note that a notebook or at least one at this price has to be a lot more than just specifications. There is only so much that any vendor can fit into a notebook form factor and with these high end these systems, they are often very similar. It is everything else around the notebook that will perhaps set it apart from the competition. After all, when paying this much for any piece of

computer equipment, one should not have to justify the purchase. For this kind of pricing, one expects the best and the GT70 is very close to that.

You may be familiar with the DELL Alienware 18 notebook with dual GTX 770M GPUs. This notebook in the benchmarks (3D benchmarks specifically) will be faster than the GT70 Dominator Pro and yes it is about half the price. With that however there are many things that you sacrifice on, not only in specification, but in terms of battery life, storage and a plethora of others things that merely looking at benchmarks would not reveal to you. So I’m very aware that there are cheaper alternatives but before you write off the GT70 do consider that it is offering you the something close to the best hardware there is for any mobile platform.

Primarily this is a Gaming machine; sure enough it can be used for any other purpose that requires immense processing power, but it is geared at the gamers with very deep pockets who more than likely owns an already powerful desktop machine perhaps. The difference here is that said user may want to game on the go without

sacrificing too much or anything at all as compared to gaming on their desktops.

To that end, MSI has outfitted this notebook with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX880M, the fastest mobile GPU on the planet if the claims by NVIDIA are to be believed. This GPU is as you would expect based on the GK104 and that means it’s essentially the desktop equivalent of the GTX 680 or if you prefer, the GTX 680M and 780M. That’s correct, these are all based on exactly the same silicon with only the power saving features, TDP and clock speeds setting them apart. Do not be disappointed though as the GTX 880M is tangibly faster than the 680M and you’re not likely to reach the same clock speeds on a notebook with that GPU in comparison to one with the 880M such as this one which can boost upwards of 993MHz.

What MSI has done though, in a very peculiar move is pair this GPU with a staggering 8GB of GDDR5 memory on the standard 256-bit wide bus. This is undoubtedly a very large frame buffer; however it isn’t particularly useful at all. 4GB would have sufficed, and the reason is very simple. Chances are

EDITOR’S CHOICEAWARD


if you’re reading this you’re already familiar with the GTX 680 and how it performs. By the time you reach any resolution or setting that is loading up the frame buffer where you need even 3GB of memory. The performance is just not there. There is not a single scenario we can imagine where this overly generous buffer is going to be of use to you. Yet you’ll have to pay for it which without question is driving up the price of the machine.

This is analogous to the much touted (by MSI of course) Super RAID 2 configuration which is fantastic on paper, but doesn’t really translate into real world performance at all. This is simply a name for three 128GB mSATA drives in RAID, promising sequential data rates of up to 1,500MB/s. Speed is great and we can never have enough of it, but again. In my storage testing we found that it wasn’t any faster than a two drive configuration. Mind you it still offers blistering performance. Together with Windows 8.1 there’s simply no waiting for anything to load. It’s truly magnificent to use, but I can’t help but feel yet again, this is overkill that ends up costing the end user unnecessarily.

Those two things though are the only aspects of this machine I have qualms about. Everything else is geared up just right and MSI has gone the extra mile with this unit. Not only do you get the notebook, but a nice ambidextrous gaming mouse. It’s a little on the small side so people with big hands may opt for a 3rd party mouse, but it does work well. It’s as sensitive as you’ll need any mouse to be really even though it could do with slightly better weight distribution. It does tend drag at the sides. Button actuation is a little shallow as well. I must say though, for a free mouse it’s very useable and it is a worthwhile addition to the package.

Another accessory and perhaps a much valued one is the SteelSeries Siberia V2 gaming headset. As far as gaming cans go, these are amongst the better ones and perhaps could be considered mid to high end. On their own you could spend up to $100 on them, but MSI includes them for free (in some regions and with the specific configuration we tested). These accessories amongst everything else help to make this easily the most powerful and most focused gaming notebook MSI has ever sent my way.

Is it a perfect system, no it’s not

but its close enough to warrant its price tag. For this kind of power and configuration, you’re not likely to find a lighter notebook or one that can claim to have better battery power. The GT70 Dominator Pro really is at the forefront of what is possible to fit into a notebook. There is a lot that I didn’t mention here like the excellent tactile feedback keyboard and its SteelSeries Engine software, the Dynaudio speaker system with a headphone amp and host of other things. These are important features and ones that you will certainly be grateful to have. It’s more than just the sum of the components here, but it’s in how it all comes together to make a compelling gaming machine that you can take on the road.

From where I stand, there aren’t any gaming notebooks that can claim to be better than the GT70 Dominator Pro. For all its missed opportunities, it still provides the most compelling package I have ever come across for the very high end gaming notebooks. If your pockets are deep enough and you’re looking. I would strongly suggest you start here.

[ Iron-Synapse ]

Catzilla 1.3 1080p: 7494

3DMark Firestrike: 5503

PCMark 8 Creativity Suit: 5184

Battery test (PCMark8): 97min35sec


RRP: $99.99 | Website: www.corsair.com

Looking for a mini-ITX case with some punch? Well, you could either go for the classic and ever

phenomenal Bit-Fenix Prodigy, which I reviewed in a previous issue. The standard when it comes to mini-ITX cases for enthusiasts or you can look to the CORSAIR Obsidian 250D.

After producing the largest case I have ever laid my eyes on in the 900D, Corsair has been steadily increasing the number of products in the portfolio and as it is, there’s a case to fit just about every need I can think of. The 250D is but one of the cases that that CORSAIR introduced a few months ago which is surprisingly well featured.

At $100, it isn’t cheap. It is far from it and if you consider that the Prodigy sells for $70, the 250D has its work cut out for it. Fortunately for the 250D does live up to my expectations in most areas. For instance, consider that on the 250D you not only get robust construction but (it’s made from the same material as the 900D) you receive with it plenty of cooling capabilities for such a small case. Thermal performance isn’t going to be an issue here or at least wasn’t when I

used it. Air flow can be taken care of in any number of ways. For instance, you can have two 80mm fans, two 120mm fans on the side and an additional pair of these at the top of the, which is an ideal spot for a 240mm radiator.

When comparing it to the Prodigy, it does offer remarkably better air flow, however it is a lot bigger as well so this should not be surprising. With any of the quiet fans from CORSAIR, you can get a pretty quiet system despite using all the available fan mounts. It is worth noting though that should you choose to use the top fan mounts for a radiator, you’ll essentially lose the ability to mount an optical drive into the system. Having said that, an optical drive is not at the top of many people’s priority lists and thus it’s a sacrifice I myself am more than willing to make.

Another great aspect about this case is in how it handles full size graphics cards, actually I can’t think of any graphics card (dual GPU otherwise) which would not fit in the 250D. It is surprisingly spacious inside and as you’d expect is up to the typical quality standards from CORSAIR cases.

Where it hasn’t gone as well as

planned though is in the aesthetics department. I keep harping on about this every time I review a CORSAIR case and this time it’s no different. CORSAIR is selling you a black metal box and calling it a computer case. There’s absolutely no design language here as it has the aesthetic appeal of a mid-90s Toyota Corolla. There’s absolutely nothing about this that suggests it was meant to look great. It’s not ugly but just boring, especially when you consider just how appealing the new 760T case is. So CORSAIR does have the capacity to produce a beautifully designed chassis. I just don’t know what happened with this one.

With all that said, this is about as high end a mini-ITX case as you’re going to find. Should you be building a system around those fully decked out mini-ITX motherboards like the Maximus Impact, then this would be a good place to start. I only wish that it was a little cheaper and somewhat more appealing to the eye. Other than that this is a solid case that is worth your consideration.

[ The OverClocker ]

SPECS Size: 290mm x 277mm x 351mm Weight: 4.39Kg (9.7lbs)

Form Factor: Mini ITX

CORSAIR Obsidian 250D


RRP: $48.99 | Website: http://gaming.coolermaster.com

What can you get these days for 50 bucks in gaming peripherals? It used to

be that you couldn’t get much, but with the CMStorm Mizar, 50 bucks gets you a high end gaming mouse. If “professional grade” or rather competition grade gaming is a real term, then the Mizar would fit the bill.

A simple and minimalistic design sets the tone for the Mizar and it is one that I do appreciate. It’s not over designed and only has what is necessary for most games. Just seven buttons in total, obviously all of them customizable with profiles will take care of your gaming needs. The software I find though in contrast to the mouse and is somewhat convoluted, but once you figure out how to navigate and configure everything you’ll be on your way to what could possibly be the best value for money mouse I’ve ever come across.

This is a purist mouse that despite being suitable for several game types, it probably best when used for FPS games. It’s very precise with good weight distribution. You can’t change it but I found that I didn’t need to as it’s

a very light mouse. Some of you may prefer it a little heavier and personally I tend to want one that is bottom heavy but the Mizar worked very well in all the FPS games I tried it with.

The one thing that is slightly annoying about it is the Omron switches which are a little too clicky sometimes needing that little extra force to register. The travel isn’t long, but the resistance is higher than I am used to, thus double tapping the buttons was a little bit of an issue. After a while you will get used to it and it shouldn’t be a problem, but if you prefer a lighter touch for your buttons then you’ll perhaps consider another model.

Besides this there’s not much to complain about. The scroll wheel is responsive and it is great for switching out inventory or weapons in game. It’s notched but not to the point where it can become distracting. If anything it’s very smooth and some care will have to be taken not to cycle through your selection by mistake. I’m impressed by the Mizar in a way I thought I never would be. Above everything I have mentioned though, what I do like

are the rubberized sides. All of it feels good to the touch, but the anti-slip grips make it that much more comfortable during long gaming sessions. Not once did the mouse slip or did I have to adjust my grip. This is something I wish would be on many other gaming mice and executed in this manner with small circular indents on the material. It’s a trivial thing but one that tends to make a huge difference when you’ve been gaming for hours on end.

Overall, I’m impressed with this mouse. It ticks all the right boxes and the component list is sound. The Mizar features an Avago 8200DPI sensor, 1000Hz polling rate, light weight but durable plastic design, 128Kb of memory and a fully customizable button layout allows it to compete with the best in the business. With some better software this could be a very threatening mouse to the tried and tested mice that retail for far more money but don’t offer anything better where it counts.

CMStorm has executed well with the Mizar and it rightfully deserves the Gaming gear award.

[ The OverClocker ]

CMStorm Mizar Gaming Mouse

GAMING GEARAWARD

SPECS Sensor: Avago 9800 laser Sensor (8200DPI)Dimensions: 60.4 x 40.2 x 124.8mmWeight: 121g (0.27lbs)Buttons: 7

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