TheOverclocker Issue 30

Issue 30 2014 rev 2.1

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. FOREVER. Reviewed

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC-FORCE FIND OUT WHY THIS SCORCHING HOT MOBO IS AN OVERCLOCKER’S DREAM.

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OVERCLOCKING SCHOOL

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watched a video not too long ago, where a tech guru was explaining overclocking to his followers, supposedly the layman.

In his explanation he said a lot of thing about overclocking which were true but in all of that, he said that overclocking has no purpose or place in today’s computing environment. He went on to explain the risks, and all that is supposedly involved with overclocking and in essence was deterring people or at least his followers from getting into it.

I sat and thought about what I had just watched in contrast to what I’ve been seeing and obviously what took place at COMPUTEX 2014. It dawned on me that many people who may have had some limited exposure to overclocking have not understood that it has evolved. It has become something that exists to primarily serve itself, but has huge and practical benefits as well outside of just being a hobby.

For instance, while it’s true that most overclockers started out as gamers and many remain so. The average competitive overclocker is vastly more adept at electronics than say the average gamer is at programming. The intention was not to be an expert at electronics or anything of the sort, but inevitably at some point or another you’ll find yourself with a soldering iron at the very least. A soldering iron, some trimmers and a DMM are the fundemental tools that every overclocker who has ever been competitive owns. Add to that, a temp probe; others get oscilloscopes, heck some even go on to get full re-work machines (aka ViVi and such) amongst many other things.

The difference between overclocking and gaming is that, while both have similar challenges and both are immense fun and frustration at the same time. When overclocking, you learn a lot about a related industry without even knowing it. When you’re gaming, you’re not at any point pressed to become a programmer. You can game competitively and casually without ever having written a single “Hello Word” program. Some gamers go on to become phenomenal programmers, artists and level designers as history has shown this before, but it is not a requirement at any level. With overclocking - as stated before - this is an inevitable part of the hobby that you will find yourself faced with.

The tools of the trade almost always require you to learn basic, rudimentary electronics even if you didn’t take a class in middle, high school or college. You’ll experience and put to use Ohm’s law before you even know how to write it. To follow any one of TiN’s guides for example will require you to know a little electronics and know how to use a soldering

iron. The same goes for many other guides and even overclocking guides that are highly detailed such as Sin’s guides.

There’s no real difference between motherboards in a gaming context that cannot be eliminated by buying the right piece of hardware or software. For example if you buy a cheap Z97 motherboard from any one of the lesser motherboard vendors, you’ll have to do without decent, audio. No dedicated LAN controller, fewer USB ports, etc. There are several things you’ll have to sacrifice, but it’s nothing a Creative or ASUS audio card can’t fix.

A Killer NIC card will get you those uninterrupted low latency gaming sessions and you can always buy a USB adapter as well.

You may still have a crappy BIOS, but since you’re gaming you’ll not likely ever spend any time within the BIOS. This isn’t true for overclocking; where a sub-standard motherboard will hinder you from any useful scores and prevent you from being competitive. This goes for graphics card, memory, a PSU and what have you.

Like cars are not from getting from point A to point B anymore and we have F1 racing. Overclocking is exactly that, it has nothing to do with browsing e-mail, watching movies, and working on spreadsheets. It’s far removed from any of that. Overclocking is being at the cutting edge, pushing for hundredths of a second, ever going faster in an attempt to get to the top. With all of that comes the benefits of increasingly better, PSUs, better motherboards, more reliable products, processors, better energy efficiency and a whole list of other things.

How much a Gaming keyboard or mouse helps a team win a game or series of games is subjective, most certainly the best equipment will always help. With overclocking however, the results will speak for themselves in scores and frequencies. There’s no two ways about it. The best memory overclocking motherboard is the one that does the highest frequency more reliably. It’s simple but definitely not easy.

Thus, overclocking may be self-serving, but its benefits and merits are so much more that we haven’t even begun to imagine where it can go. So to all overclockers, amateurs and pros alike, I say to you “keep pushing”. We have so much farther to go, as this is only the beginning.”

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ] Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 3

REGULARS 3 - Editor’s note 6 - Interview with “Nacho Arroyo” 45 - OCTV Show Episode 4

FEATURES 12 – COMPUTEX 2014 42 – Best In the Biz

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

REVIEWS 26 – MSI Z97 GAMING 7 VS ASRock Z97X Killer 30 – GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force 34 – CORSAIR AX1500i PSU 36 – EVGA GeForce GTX 780Ti K|NGP|IN Edition

Editor Neo Sibeko Art Director Chris Savides Marketing & Sales Jayda Wu Contributors Dane Remendes Pieter-Jan “Massman” Plaisier OC-TV

LIFESTYLE 48 - Wolfenstein 52 – MSI GS60 Ghost Gaming Notebook 54 – Bit-Fenix Flo Headset

For editorial and marketing please contact: jayda@theoverclocker.com or neo@theoverclocker.com

56 – Razor Sabertooth

26 52

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QA

with Ignacio “Nacho Arroyo” Martin Arroyo Country Name and City: My name is Ignacio Martin Arroyo, from Argentina; I live in Rosario City, about 300Km away from the capital Buenos Aires What language(s) do you speak?

Spanish and some funny English (hahah) Where did your nickname “Nacho” come from?

The nickname is not exclusively for me, in my country we say “Nacho” to everyone called Ignacio.

You have been overclocking withLN2 for a long time, when did it begin and what made it so addictive?

I started with LN2 in 2010; I remember the first time using LN2 was in my attempt to qualify for GOOC LATAM where I got the 2nd place and an invite to Taiwan. First place went to my friend Juan Sebastian from Colombia.

What makes it so addictive, I think is the performance that u can gain by using LN2. I remember my first time with LN2 I just couldn’t believe the improvement in clock speeds it gave.

It was truly amazing.

I know you like 3D benchmarks a lot, but which is your favourite and why? If you had to start doing 2D benchmarks, which one do you think you would like the most?

Yes, I really like 3D benchmarks, far more than 2D bench, but I don’t’ mind 2D as well. My favourite 3D 6 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

benchmarks are 3DMark11 and Vantage. I’ve also started looking at the new Catzilla benchmark.

You’ve recently started doing some overclocking for ZOTAC. How did this relationship start and do you think one day in the future we may see an overclocking card from ZOTAC like we have with the MSI Lightning, ASUS Matrix series or EVGA classified?

Yes, I have been working with Zotac for more than a year. This relationship started when I proposed to Zotac that we begin a serious work relationship and I asked for their support. They said yes as they wanted to do that and here we are working together.

As for the overclocking cards, I hope so but I don’t think their focus is on that kind of product right now. I would like to have a stronger, more capable custom PCB from ZOTAC but right now it’s not in any plans that I know off.

Do you compete for ranking in any of the leagues or cups or do you just overclock because you have fun doing it?

I am on in the PRO OC League, and I am on Kronos TEAM. At present it’s my job to test hardware, write reviews, do some extreme overclocking and sometimes obtain some crazy results. I love my job, I enjoy it.

What was the most difficult graphics card for you to ever overclock and which was the easiest?

Well as you know, each card is different.

You can test ten pieces of the same

card and exact same model and they all turn out to have different overclocking performance, temperature and require different voltages.

I can say though that I really enjoy overclocking my ZOTAC cards, because even with the reference PCB I can get some really great scores.

Other than overclocking what do you do for a living or any other hobby that you spend as much time on as overclocking if not more?

I enjoy spending my weekends with my wife (Nati), my friends and my family.

For sport I swim, about four days a week actually.

How is vendor support for you and the guys you overclocking with, have you ever had a problem getting a hold of hardware? Not necessarily great overclocking hardware but hardware in general and what are the prices like over there?

All the hardware that I test, I get to keep and I’m lucky like that. I work so

close with Zotac, SeaSonic, Corsair and ASRock and from all four of these brands I get very good support.

How often do you have overclocking sessions in a month?

I have about 3 overclocking sessions in a month. The biggest problem here in Argentina is the cost of it all, including the LN2.

Who do you overclock with the most out in Argentina and how is the overclocking scene there? Is it growing or has it pretty much stayed the same since you started overclocking?

Well, this is a sad part, because as I had said to you, everything here is so expensive, so it is extremely difficult start with your own money for the hardware, pots, Dewar. I did all of it three years ago.

That is the real problem. There are plenty of guys with great overclocking skills in Argentina; the problem is the economy of it all unfortunately.

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How easy is it for you to get LN2 out there and how much is it?

Not easy at all, as there’s only one place in the city that sells LN2 and is not close to me in addition to being expensive. So it’s far from being easy. You also need your own Dewar as well which you have to obviously bring with you.

Outside of COMPUTEX overclocking and the HWBOT anniversary, what did you overclock and on what platform?

Any thoughts on Devil’s Canyon so far, have you tried overclocking any of the CPUs and how fast is the best one you have tried currently?

I haven’t tested one and in fact, I’ve never even seen one in person. So I’m still waiting.

My best CPU ever was a Core i7 980X, golden chip which clocked like hell. I think I still have some World Records with it.

What is your favourite motherboard?

My last session before COMPUTEX was with Zotac GTX Titan Black and some 780 Ti cards on the ASRock Z87 OC Formula, Asus R4E BE, Intel 4770K and 4930K, and off course SSDs Corsair, Dominator Platinum 2666MHz C10 (this RAM rocks!) and SeaSonic PSU.

My favourite motherboard on the Z87 chipset is the ASRock Z87 OC Formula, and for X79 it’s the Asus Rampage IV Extreme BE.

Any hardware you’re looking forward to using this year?

My greatest achievement was not a score but the first time using LN2 on the CPU and VGA. Off course the scores was a sh1t, but it was amazing nonetheless. Really good fun and I learned so much from it.

That’s the part of all of this this that

I am waiting for the next generation GeForce 800 series from NVIDIA and the new Intel Haswell-E CPUs. 8 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement?

I most enjoy. I like the learning part, trying to understand why things happen and how to prevent the death of hardware or bad performance.

Anything you’d like to see changed in the overclocking community right now?

I don’t much like the new PRO OC league. I mean I enjoy being part of a team, but I prefer the old version because in my case, my team makes are like 20,000Km away me, so we can’t bench together. Maybe bring back the older version while adding some TEAM based competitions. In my case that could be a much better solution.

Any other ideas or opinions you would like to share with the community and vendors regarding overclocking, hardware or anything related?

I only want to say thank you to all the vendors that support me along with the guys that support me. Many times I need help and lots of overclockers around the world are really awesome, always helping other.

[ TheOverclocker ]

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The OverClocker at

COMPUTEX 2014 OVERCLOCKING, OVERCLOCKERS LN2 AND MORE!

hat was this year's show for us at TheOverclocker. It was COMPUTEX 2014, for a lot of overclockers as well. I saw a ton of stuff from tablets, to phones and even cars or should I say car, courtesy of Ford (Race red 2014 Ford Mustang, wonderful car this). There was nothing as plentiful as LN2 at the trade show.

This is without question the most visible overclocking has ever been in the history of COMPUTEX. Let’s run through it quickly, ASRock, GALAXY, GIGABYTE, G.Skill, INTEL, KINGSTON, MSI and ZOTAC. All of these vendors either had overclocking at their individual booths or were heavily involved in it at the many events during the week long show. As always, the G.Skill booth was the home base for just about everyone in the community and if you wanted to find anyone, chances are they would be spotted there, on one or several of the days.

To top it all, we had the HWBOT 10th Anniversary Gathering. This is where many of the overclockers who stayed after COMPUTEX gathered, to run the benchmarks they wanted, and how they wanted at their own pace. In my brief visit to TheMaker Bar which was the host venue for the anniversary. I saw many tired eyes, but at the same time enthusiasm and tons of hardware all ready to be chilled and pushed as far as possible. It was a necessary gathering given just how many people had showed up and dare I say, it is something that I sincerely hope will be with us again next year.

Not ever before have we had this many overclockers and people involved in the OC community in one city at the same time. You’d just not believe the people who showed up, even old faces

T

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like Moloko and Bob NZ were there. That alone should tell you, it was a week packed with so many people who have at one time or another been serious overclockers, or heavily involved in the community. Literally from all regions of the world there were overclockers, lots of drinking, lots of fun but most of all, you guessed it, overclocking.

It was great to see so many vendors come out and support in various degrees and in a way, the struggle that individuals, organizations and the community as a whole has had in trying to get the deserved recognition is paying off. We may not be there yet, but it’s certainly a huge step in the right direction.

This year alone, there will be more overclocking competitions than ever before and if that doesn’t sway you to get into it, nothing will. Consider that we also had the largest collective purse this year. In comparison to gaming events, perhaps it’s not much, but realize that every event offered more than any single overclocking competition we’ve had throughout the entire history of MOA, AOCC and GOOC. If there ever was a time where anyone could call themselves a professional overclocker, this would be it.

INTEL had a booth at NANGANG as usual and throughout the show plenty of individuals from HQ showed up. However I would have to say that the main attraction was the INTEL OC Challenge at the luxurious BELLAVITA Hotel where, as you know, we saw a live competition on air/water cooling and LN2 using the new Intel Core i7 4790K CPUs. For those who don't know, the teams and results were as follows; Pepinorang, Pt1t and TopPC (MSI) walked away with the prize for the highest clocked 4790K at 5498.72MHz (4c/8t). The ASUS team consisting of Elmore, Slamms, Smoke and Xtreme Addict for the single core, single thread frequency record at 5515MHz. On the LN2 side, it was GIGABYTE’s team with Dinos22, HiCookie and Sofos1990 that dominated with 6.33GHz and 6.4GHz. You can find the rest of the results here.

Soon after the INTEL event (actually on the same day) we had the G.SILL OC World Cup where der8auer, Splave, 8Pack, Xtreme_Addict, Zer0_Dan and Hero competed for the top spot. In the end it came down to 8Pack and Splave who eventually won by 3 points after all four benchmarks and walked away with $10,000 USD. Just before the last day of the show we had the HyperX OC Takeover (HOT) where I was bowled over by KINGSTON’s commitments to making a big event. Just the sheer scope and presentation of the competition at the Keiti International Building, was incredible. As soon as we arrived we were greeted by Ferrari 458 Italia Super cars in full HyperX livery.

From there it only got better (No it wasn’t the VIP area with

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Krispy Kreme doughnuts and other goodies that did it). Mind you it was the League of Legends competition between tier-one teams battling it out for lots of cash was the primary focus.

Kingston used this opportunity to present some of their latest products and all the changes that have happened within the HyperX brand. On the overclocking side, KINGSTON had a $15,000 USD purse and it ended up with Team GIGABYTE at the helm once again with the memory clocking competition as they achieved 2,282.8MHz (4565.6MHz DDR), breaking the memory overclocking record. The team also went on to win the INTEL XTU benchmark and took with them a total of $3,750 USD. TeamAU competitors, SniperOZ and JJJC, had the second highest memory frequency, 2nd quickest SuperPi 32M time and second place in the INTEL XTU benchmark, for a total of $3,250 USD worth of prize money. HOT along with Hero and DFORDOG took third place with $1,500 USD. Another good show and great competition that further showed Kingston’s commitment to overclocking. At the time of writing, we had heard of the first round of the next HOT competition for the LATAM region. You can click here to find out more about it and be sure to enter.

That is just some of the overclocking that was taking place in Taipei in early June, without even considering how much more was happening at the individual vendor offices and at the HWBOT 14 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

Anniversary. As far as overclocking goes, this year was a winner.

In the same way that in 2013, ASUS dominated the overclocking at the show, this year it was GIGABYTE that was head and shoulders above every other Z97 motherboard. I lost count of how many times the memory frequency record was broken on the GIGABYTE Z97X SOC boards and just how many other records fell just before COMPUTEX and during the show. Be it you’re a fan or not there’s no denying that in regards overclocking, GIGABYTE stole the show. To top it all, there was the announcement of the limited edition LN2 board. We’ve seen overclocking motherboards before, incredible ones at that, but they are always presented as overclocking boards selling their gaming credentials before anything else. Not with the LN2 model as it is literarily built for the sole purpose of overclocking. If you don’t believe me try mount a water or air cooler on it and you’ll find out that you can’t. There are only two memory slots and they have been moved incredibly close to the CPU. The signal routing is also different as there are no mounting holes to get around. There’s never been a motherboard that has spoken so eloquently a single purpose than the Z97X SOC FORCE LN2. Back to the more “regular OC boards” though, I was taken aback by just how efficient this board could be at every discipline you can imagine for today’s overclocking components.

This was not in theory but shown repeatedly by the multiple successes the SOC FORCE had at the show. Is this the best Z97 family of overclocking

motherboards money can buy? Well, that certainly seems to be the case.

For the gaming side, what can I say? With E3 happening almost immediately after COMPUTEX, we were missing some vendors such as RAZER, LOGITECH and a few others. However, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything to see as far as gaming peripherals are concerned.

What was of particular interest here is that for the first time there was some innovation. We have truly moved on from the days of vendors making near identical keyboards and mice, just varying the number of macro keys on them. Now that virtually everyone is on the mechanical key and LED bandwagon, the time has come for some real ingenuity and we got it via the CORSAIR RGB series of Keyboards. Improving on what we had with the previous generation, this time you can truly configure your keyboard exactly as you want and there’s even software apparently that will let you (in a supporting game obviously) know from which direction an enemy is approaching via lighting different sections of the keyboard. Once again, thinking outside the box and pushing gaming peripheral development further than it has been in the last few years. CORSAIR may not have been on the show floors, but they did host a fantastic party at HIVE, a night club that was a perfect fit for the evening and the RGB theme CORSAIR was going for. This is where we also got to see the new CORSAIR HG10 GPU Water Cooling Bracket for reference AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards.

Similar to what NZXT has with the Kraken G10, this one cools your

VRM area and memory as well. While I’m at it, I should mention that CORSAIR displayed two of the best looking cases to ever come from the company, probably two of the best looking cases period in the form of the Graphite 780T and the smaller Mini-ITX 380T. When you place the Obsidian series cases next to these two it’s hard to imagine they are from the same company. Angles, angles and more angles is what I remember and they sure look spectacular.

I’ll definitely be on the lookout for these.

During the countless hours spent snapping photos and visiting vendors, I also came across GAMDIAS. A relatively new brand, but when you look at the product lineup that becomes unimportant. All their peripherals are inspired by either Greek or Roman mythology and they sure have some nifty gear. Aiming right at the top and all the way to the bottom, the products are purpose built not only for professional gamers but for regular Joe soap as well. Of particular interest to me was their ambidextrous mouse which isn’t just a symmetrical design, but can actually be configured to fit left or right handed user’s palms. An obvious feature that strangely enough had never been put in place in any other gaming mouse I know off. It is such things that made me take notice of this brand and I’m confident they’ll go far, despite just how saturated this market is quickly becoming if not so already.

ROCCAT was another vendor that had an interesting mouse concept with the TYON that features an analogue rocker which will make it a lot easier to fly air crafts and steer vehicle mounted turrets amongst other things in FPS games. This is but an example of the change I was talking about earlier. It’s definite progress from what we saw in previous years. One can only imagine what we’ll be seeing in years to come. As always I do believe that peripheral vendors need to embrace the casual gamer with controllers.

Eventually more will figure out that products such as the RAZER ONZA and SABERTOOTH are viable products to make and have huge potential outside of the traditional gaming peripherals.

Here is the rest of COMPUTEX for you then in pictures.

There was no way to cover all of it, but this is some of the kick-ass stuff we saw and if you haven’t figured it out by now, COMPUTEX 2014, rocked hard.

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ADATA

ADATA had a wonderful stand once again, with everything from USB flash drives to the latest M.2 solid state storage. We got to see their new enthusiast line of SSD drives and high performance DRAM modules. Water proof SSDs and all kinds of things that set ADATA apart from so many memory companies at the show. Their booth was always packed with people, be it for the booth babes or the products, we can’t be sure, but they most certainly it garnered plenty of attention.

APACER

Apacer may not have been huge in the overclocking scene, but with upcoming DDR4 they seem to be a lot serious about it. We got to scope out some DDR4 modules, dressed in some stylish heat sinks. This vendor is one to watch for as they just may come out of left field and bring stiff competition to everyone.

ASROCK

We didn’t’ spend too much time here, but we did go and check out the familiar faces of Nick Shih and John-Lam who have become the go to overclockers associated with ASRock along with Splave. As usual it was memory and CPU overclocking on the latest and greatest Z97 Motherboards like ther Z97 OC Formula.

ASUS

No COMPUTEX is complete without a look inside the ASUS ROG booth. This year there was nothing resembling the ZEUS, but we did get to look at their entire Z97 range and their gaming PCs, which we must admit look incredible.

Hybrid cooling graphics cards. cutting edge designs and components in their notebooks, this may not have been the most amazing year for ASUS, but as always it remains thoroughly impressive.

AVEXIR

Have you ever seen DRAM that looks this good? Neither have we. Say what you may about AVEXIR but they sure know how to flatter the eye and especially the system. You know as well it’s not just the looks, because AVEXIR kits go like the clappers as well.

BIT-FENIX

By all rights, the inventor of the full GPU capable mini-ITX cases or at least to most people, BF was back this year. Some exquisite case designs were the order of the day.

Many have to be seen in person to be appreciated. Let's not forget the FLO Headset which made an appearance.

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COLORFUL

Do not be fooled Colorful is a huge company. In fact second to SAPPHIRE, no other vendor ships more graphics cards in China than Colorful. That however is just their AMD line, they also have an incredible NVIDIA line of graphics cards, that are not just shameless stickers on reference cards but true custom designs with some of the best if not the best coolers on the market. We will have to see how they perform in future, but aesthetically, very few graphics cards can match what Colorful provides.

In addition, showecased was a vast array of motherboards across a variety of chipsets which took us by surprise. We literally had not idea that Colorful had such a rich portfolio of products. In between the shock and awe we managed to grab a pic of the products and will certainly be looking to include them in our future reviews. Stay tuned!

COOLER MASTER

This year’s booth for Cooler Master was a lot more spacious than in 2013. Same size, but they had far fewer products to show. This isn’t a bad thing mind you because their entire product line has been culled to just their best products, and we have to say they do have some really awesome gaming and enthusiast grade offerings. Take for instance the stylish CMStorm Resonar headphones, the Sirus-C gaming headset, the incredible V1200 Plus and as always, the ever impressive and stunning Cosmos II. These are just some of the products they had on show.

With every generation of product, Cooler Master keeps improving and as we’ve always said, some of their products are under appreciated, however that may soon change once you get to see what Cooler Master has been cooking in their labs.

CORSAIR

Done in a style that is unique to CORSAIR, almost every other vendor and media they partner with was present at the HIVE, including retailers, distributors, gamers and hardware enthusiasts. Be it they came for the open bar, the show girlss, product introductions or all of the above, it was a great show for CORSAIR it seems.

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EVGA

EVGA, another vendor located at The Grand Hyatt Taipei, had a few surprising components to show us, not limited to their overclocking graphics cards and motherboards, but the all new TORQ series gaming mice. We managed to get a look at an announced gaming keyboard as well, which may or may not see the light of day, but we certainly hope it makes it to retail eventually. Of particular interest was the water cooled TITAN-Z. This model is certainly the slimmest, most silent and perhaps even coolest running TITAN-Z on the market which should allow some monster overclocks and incredible 4K gaming performance.

We saw for the first time, an upcoming version of the Precision X software, built completely by EVGA and not based on Unwinder’s work, featuring even more tuning capabilities than the previous versions. In line with this new version of Precision X was the similarly skinned companion software for the new TORQ and TORQ X10 gaming mouse. This was one of the more intriguing mice with some unique features that we will be sure to look at in future. Leading the Z97 range was the Z97 Classified, followed by the FTW and the Mini-ITX Stinger motherboard.

This was not the only action there was for EVGA though, as K|NGP|N along with ViVi competed in the INTEL OC Challenge on the new EVGZ Z97 board and overclocked together again a set of the EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition cards for hours on end, hammering away at the records.

GALAXY

GALAXY was all about overclocking this year. With their team of elite overclockers, Mad 222, Little_Boy, OC_WindForce and Duck_San the team hammered away at benchmarks every day of the show showing off what the new GALAXY GeForce GTX 780Ti HOF V2 could do in the right hands.

As far as build quality is concerned GALAXY has produced the goods as the graphics cards ran for days on end under extremely strenuous conditions.

GAMDIAS

GAMDIAS of course, offering a different take on gaming peripherals and managing to stand out in the ever maturing gaming peripherals market. Innovation is aplenty here as the company caters to everyone from the competitive gamer to the weekend warrior.

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GIGABYTE

I already spoke about the overclocking motherboards earlier, however the Gaming boards with the new eye insignia from their graphics card division were present in full force as you can imagine. There was a heap of them as well. Form the very high end with the most advanced audio to the lower end models which made use of the ALC1150 codec.

We also found ourselves presented with the new Black series, which essentially translate into motherboards that have passed server grade testing enduring over 160 hours of continuous high level strain testing. How useful this will be to end users remains to be seen, but it is great to see that GIGABYTE is as always determined to offer the best quality motherboards around, not only through component choice, manufacturing and design but through rigorous testing as well.

Where graphics cards are concerned, we got to view an all new triple GPU water cooled setup. While other vendors attempt to be different, manufacturing hybrid graphics cards that feature great liquid coolers or electronic components. GIGABYTE has married all of that into a behemoth of a package with the Water Force. A package which includes a monstrous all in one GPU cooler that has a built in radiator, pump and reservoir, along with three full coverage water blocks mounted on three GeForce GTX 780 Ti Graphics cards. You read that correctly, GIGABYTE will sell this as an entire package for those who want to buy once and be ready for 4K gaming now and in the years to come.

The graphics cards are clocked just as high as the GHz edition so for all intents and purposes, GIGABYTE has taken the GHz cards, water cooled them and provided you with an all-inone solution, eliminating the hassle form your side.

G.SKILL

A total of six records were broken at this booth as G.Skill invited overclockers to represent the top four vendors, pushing G.Skill memory as far as possible along with 3D Benchmarks and in just about every discipline imaginable.

INTEL

No COMPUTEX would be complete without INTEL and as usual it was INTEL showing off so many other vendors’ products which use their technology at their core. From the 20 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

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Overclocking event to the mobile product presentations, if you wanted to find out anything about INTEL products, this was the place to be.

We witnessed plenty of these at the show along with some interesting information that we gathered about Haswell-E which was not public at the time. As you read this, just about everything is known about the platform and the CPUs so let google or Bing (who uses that?) gather it all for you.

KINGSTON

As stated earlier, Presentation wise, no other event was as well put together as the HyperX event, its grandeur and list of invitees was incredible with competitors showing up if only to see what they were up against. I was literarily blown away by the quality of the show, the bravado and even the hype leading up to the event. If you came to COMPUTEX unsure about what Kingston had to offer, you walked away at least feeling overwhelmed by their commitment to each respective market, both in products and in financial investments. From the Ferrari’s that dotted the entrance to the showgirls, the lights and the cameras it was big budget and an incredible way of promoting one’s products to an awe inspired crowd where a lasting impression could be made. This new enthusiasm at Kingston had everyone, overclockers and gamers alike excited for all the products that they were going to launch in future.

MSI

With MSI we saw both motherboards and graphics cards. Pepi and Pt1t, were there showing off the new Z97 boards and custom Lightning graphics cards. All decked out in the yellow and black. We got to see the Radeon 290X Lightning, but didn’t see the 780 Ti Lightning as we know there’s a long story behind that particular graphics card. Still, if you want cutting edge performance or are just getting into overclocking, MSI has almost everything you need to get started.

Gaming motherboards are arguably the strongest SKU for MSI as these boards have continued to get better very quickly, rivaling those of the top two vendors in many ways. Not only are these well priced, but they have great build quality, some wonderful gaming centered features, but best of all, they are actually good overclocking boards.

Add the occasional game bundle with it and you have the MSI gaming series being a real contender for the true gaming motherboards of the industry.

22 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

I appreciated all that but what really stole the show for us were the gaming notebooks. If MSI had to lay claim to anything at COMPUTEX, it would definitively have to be the notebooks which come in all shapes and sizes, catering to just about every pocket and need there is. You need a budget gaming notebook, MSI has you covered or if you need a very high performance desktop replacement machine, the GT72 is there for you.

For those of you in need even more than that MSI had a workstation notebook there as well featuring an NVIDIA Quadro graphics card.

OCZ

This year OCZ was away from the Showroom floor but at the Suite presented us with just three products.

We saw the Vertex 460, the Vector 180 and the REVODRIVE 350, each catering to different segments within the market. All of them had one thing in common though, and that is the SSDs were completely built in house.

From the controller to the NAND, save perhaps for the DRAM, they were all built around the new TOSHIBA NAND and superior controllers that OCZ always had. It’s a leaner lineup but a more potent one which is only going to further put pressure on other vendors, because what OCZ has done. is manage to offer class leading performance at prices that will be very hard to compete with. Only time will tell how things shape up, but right now, OCZ is looking very good.

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 23

PLEXTOR

Plextor, another prominent vendor of storage solutions featured a vast new array of products in all form factors. From PCI-Express to M.2, it was all there delivering blistering performance through a combination of smart software and some truly remarkable drive electronics.

Last year, Plextor like many others found themselves limited to what they could offer because the SATA 6GBPs standard was restraining performance, but this year with M.2 and SATA-Express, they have been able to unleash a slew of products at more cost effective prices, but even better performance.

24 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

SAPPHIRE

Fantastic products at SAPPHIRE as usual, driving the show’s highest fidelity display from a single GPU. We saw a wide variety of products and got to spend some time talking with a couple of big-wigs from the company about technology and all kinds of interesting things. Innovation is what they are about. How we wish they made overclocking cards.

ZOTAC

If you wanted to see Nacho Arroyo in action, this is where you’d catch him (other than at the anniversary) with the ZOTAC GeForce TITAN Black fully modified. Perhaps not as extravagant as other booths, it was very clear to see that ZOTAC was a vendor that is eyeing the gaming and enthusiast markets and are ready to do battle with the other vendors in the more extreme GPU market. We will have to see in future what they come up with.

See you all next year again. Until then, here are more pictures from the show.

ASRock Z97X Fatal1ty Killer VS MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4670K • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10 • EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition • INTEL 730 480GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 8.1 64-bit SP1 (FW 337.61) • Z97X Killer BIOS: 1.01B • MSI Z97 Gaming 7 BIOS:

26 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

Z

97 has been with us for a few months and we’ve seen plenty of boards and will continue to do so in the coming year. Many of these, we’ve noticed are geared towards gamers. All four vendors have similar Gaming boards and that makes them ideal to compare directly to one another. These two in particular are similarly priced and with just $32 odd dollars between them, they go about offering their gaming features in similar ways but ultimately they are

two distinct components and you’ll have to decide which one you prefer for your needs and budget.

AUDIO

MSI’s audio technology is called Audio Boost 2 while ASRock ushers in its second generation Purity audio 2. They are both based on the Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR codec and in each case both make use of Japanese Nichicon capacitors.

Amongst the differences is the choice of headphone amplifier.

ASRock Z97X Fatal1ty Killer RRP: $157.99 | Website: www.asrock.com MSI Z97 Gaming 7 RRP: $189.99 | Website: www.msi.com MSI uses two TI OPA1652 two channel op-amps. These are general purpose units that can drive headphones up to 600ohms much like most other motherboard headphone amps these days. The two amps allow you the option of plugging your high impedance headset to either the front or rear of your computer. An admirable little feature that doesn’t make the MSI board sound any better but does mean it’s a more flexible solution. ASRock on

the other hand uses two TI NE5532 op-amps. This op-amp is cheaper than the 1652 and in general of a slightly lower quality. The difference in audio quality is negligible at least with the average set of gaming cans. You’ll need something in the premium range to appreciate the difference as they both use EMI shielding and PCB isolation. MSI goes the extra mile by providing you with a special USB port that can deliver a constant 5V

which supposedly helps when using dedicated USB powered DACs. How useful that is on a gaming board is debatable but it doesn’t hurt that it’s there.

As for the sound quality differences, there really isn’t any to be honest. RightMark Audio Analyser also rates them the same, as when we listened to the two motherboards in how they delivered audio, they were near identical. The only difference that came about is through the use of Sound Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 27

Blaster Cinema 2 software which isn’t available on the ASRock board. The software enhancements helped in several scenarios where the audio on both motherboards was not inspiring, by making it livelier and giving the illusion of more clarity. So at the end of it all, the audio solutions are the same, but the nod we will give to the MSI board if only because of the software and marginally better execution.

BOARD LAYOUT & FEATURES

This was a straight forward one for us to call. The MSI board simply had more for us than the Fala1ty. We have come to expect a Power, Reset, ClrCMos and POST LED on every motherboard we deal with, especially at this price.

28 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

If you consider that cheaper boards have these as well. We aren’t sure why ASRock didn’t include these basics on the Fatal1ty. The Gaming 7 also gives you V-Check points which may not be necessary on a gaming product, but it doesn’t hurt to have them either.

Especially if you ever decide you do want to do some fairly serious overclocking.

ASRock does have one feature in its arsenal that no other board has and that is the HDD Saver function which in essence powers down your drives completely when not in use and by extension can help secure your data from unauthorized excess.

Not a pivotal function by any means but one that is unique to ASRock and we must complement them on it when

so many boards are near identical these days.

Expansion is another area where the GAMING 7 trades blows with the Fatal1ty. The MSI offering has more PCIExpress 1X slots and eight SATA ports instead of six.

To counter that however, the ASRock board supports M.2 drives that are up to 110mm in size and it has six fan headers instead of five. Once again it’ll be up to you to decide what you need from either motherboard.

Aesthetics will always be subjective but the MSI board does look wonderful in its deep red and black scheme.

Actually these boards have come to be amongst the best looking in the business and in comparison the Fatal1ty falls just short of the mark.

Motherboard

AIDA 64 Read

AIDA 64 Write

AIDA 64 Copy

AIDA 64 Latency

3DMark Firestrike

SuperPi 8M

CineBench R15

Resident Evil 6 Benchmark

ASRock Z97X KILLER

39518

41726

38216

41,2

11057 Graphics: 13526

1.25.672

706

17057

MSI Z97 GAMING 7

27679

33570

29469

42,7

11145 Graphics: 13660

1.26.523

702

20315

"Aesthetics will always be subjective but the MSI board does look wonderful in its deep red and black scheme"

PERFORMANCE

Here’s the tricky part of the testing between these two. In the BIOS, we have no choice but to chalk this up to a win for the Fatal1ty even if the difference between the two is mostly academic. It’s not that the Gaming 7 BIOS is lacking, it isn’t but navigating the ASRock Fatal1ty BIOS screens is so quick and simple, it just makes it that much easier to get to everything. Presentation wise, they are about equal but if we could only live with a single UEFI interface it would have to be what ASRock has on this motherboard.

After we had configured our system and ran all the benchmarks it was very clear that the ASRock board was fast. Very fast in fact, with a Super Pi time that was

bordering on just impossible.

Even after we had spent some time tuning the memory on the Gaming 7 we could not run 1T command with this particular memory and BIOS. Over and above that however, we used another Z87 board for reference and the ASRock Fatal1ty was faster in Super Pi. We had a very strange situation with the Fatal1ty where we couldn’t get the motherboard to operate at the full PCI-Express 3.0 16X link speed, so the 3D benchmarks were obviously lower than they should have been. However this is clearly a BIOS issue and it is most certainly resolved by now.

We still had to show the results we obtained, but we have no doubt that between these two as to which is faster. So for sheer

performance, the Fatal1ty is the one to have.

CONSLUSION When looking at these two, it’s fairly obvious to us which one we would go for. The Gaming 7 is just an overall better product, even though it costs more. The ASRock motherboard is faster, but it’s missing some basic things that we have long since learned to take for granted.

Still, if that $30 is making a difference for you, then you’re definitely better off choosing the Fatal1ty board. If it was up to us though and we wanted to choose between the two for the purposes of gaming and a little overclocking perhaps, we would go for the MSI Z97 Gaming 7.

[ TheOverclocker ]

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 29

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

OC Hero Award

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC-FORCE RRP: $209.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4790K • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10 • Intel 730 480GB SSD • Corsair AX1500i PSU • Windows 7 64-bit SP1

30 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

H

ow does any vendor improve on an already impressive overclocking motherboard?

Make it even better at overclocking is the answer.

Sounds asinine but it’s true.

The Z87X-OC was a fantastic board and to improve upon that was always going to require something special.

Given that the Z87 and the Z97 chipset are basically the same, how would one go about making a compelling case for buying a Z97X-SOC Force when the previous

generation board was so good?

Well how about improving memory overclocking amongst other things?

When we say memory overclocking we mean, improve it dramatically. So much more impressive is the Z97X-SOC Force at this that it shuts the door on every other motherboard there is on the market.

This was made vividly clear during the duration of COMPUTEX 2014, where this board took the

show at all the overclocking events.

Not forgetting as well that prior to COMPUTEX; Team AU had taken a swath of overclocking records using this very same SOC-Force. If that isn’t a testament to the brilliance and sheer dominance of the product, nothing else will be.

Before we continue to swoon over it however, it is important that we highlight how equaly impressive the selling price of the motherboard is.

In the day where overclocking products can command prices upwards of $500, to see a board retailing for $210 is alarming. The previous Z87X-OC was $199, but that board didn’t have a Killer 2200 NIC nor did it have the kind of audio solution that is found here. Those two things alone are worth more than the $10 price hike; however we do believe that many would pay substantially more for the Z97X-SOC FORCE just for the increased overclocking headroom it allows.

As always, if you have a lemon of a CPU there’s really not anything any motherboard can do about it. You can go through tons of BIOSs and spend hours on it which will net you 50MHz at most between a mediocre and an incredible motherboard. You’re simply out of luck with a sad CPU, much like the 4790K we used to test this motherboard with. With that said, it doesn’t mean the party should end prematurely, because you can still have a lot of fun with this Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 31

motherboard and a poor CPU sample, especially if you’re into memory overclocking or trying to increase your efficiency for Super Pi, 3DMark11, Vantage and the likes. You’ll appreciate just how flexible this motherboard is when it comes to memory tuning.

At the time of writing, there wasn’t a memory tuning tool that we could find, however you could use the GIGABYTE Memory tweaker to view all your settings and tune them in the BIOS. A painstakingly long process, but one that is worth it when you see just how efficient this motherboard can be when you spend even a little bit of time with it.

Once again we are mentioning the updated GIGABYTE UEFI, which 32 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

continues to impress us, not only because of how far removed it is from the old tear inducing 3D BIOS, but by its own merits as it makes for a pleasant interface to tune within. We are however, still bound to the legacy interface if only because once you’re used to it, it’s incredibly quick to navigate so we suspect, many of you in your own LN2 cooled sessions will revert to the “Classic” interface.

Memory profiles have always been something we’ve found appealing on other motherboards and certainly on the GIGABYTE boards as well, however as mentioned earlier, you’re less likely to rely on these on this motherboard because it just clocks so well.

We tested with Samsung

IC memory and PSC. Given that PSC apparently doesn’t work so well with this motherboard, we were able to get some pretty good performance out of it; in fact we were able to get incredible performance out of it, tuning it right down to where it would run circles around our Samsung memory at 2,666 and most certainly 2400MHz. Mind you, you can tune any set of IC’s to the same remarkable efficacy as well, but the PSC tuning stood out for us because it is not a strong point for this motherboard and others in the family.

If you’re looking for some overclocking advice on this motherboard be sure to check out Sin’s overclocking guide over here. It is as detailed as

"So impressive is the Z97X-SOC Force at overclocking memory, it shuts the door on all other motherboards there on the market."

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

Motherboard

CineBench R15

3DMark11

Z97X-SOC FORCE (PSC)

944

16355 Graphics: 17985

1.24.739

38789

41654

36805

38,7

Z97X-SOC FORCE (F6)

931

16199 Graphics: 17980

1.25.551

32409

41865

34858

39,2

MSI Z97 Mpower Max AC

937

16191 Graphics: 18058

1.25.660

27629

33535

29881

39,8

GIGABYTE Z87X-OC (F9)

933

16179 Graphics: 18027

1.26.175

32410

41839

34893

39,1

he always writes them. That is a must read especially if you’re coming from another vendors motherboard, as it’ll save you some time and allow you to get straight into your overclocking.

As much as we admire this motherboard, as with all things it isn’t perfect.

There is an issue that is not related to performance or overclocking but just spacing.

The first PCI-Express slot, where you would ideally have your graphics card installed is particularly close to the DIMM sockets. That in itself isn’t an issue, but should you wish to mount a RAM cooler (like the CORSAIR Dominator AIRFLOW); it will make contact with the back of the graphics card. Thus, some care should be taken

Super Pi 8M

Aida64 Read

Aida64 Write

if your graphic card’s PCB has some components there.

It is easily remedied though by inserting a small bit of tape or anything really that would prevent these two from making contact.

In closing, this is yet another impressive board from GIGABYTE. Easily the most inspired showing of any motherboard to date for any platform the company has ever produced. The numbers speak for themselves and we are particularly enticed by the selling price and performance it offers. This one is a must have. If any of what we’ve said doesn’t compel you, perhaps the 4560MHz (real!) memory frequency it’s achieved amongst other records will. In short, it’s brilliant!

Aida 64 Copy

Aida 64 Latency

Summary GIGABYTE was at the cusp of greatness with the Z87X-OC, with the new Z97 line up they have achieved it and can lay claim to the best overclocking Z97 series on the market. Be it in live competition or in your private overclocking room, the Z97X-SOC Force is not going to let you down. It’s a pure overlocker’s board at a ridiculously low price.

Would you buy it?

Yes, without question!

[ TheOverclocker ]

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 33

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

CORSAIR AX1500i PSU RRP: $449.99 | Website: www.corsair.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4790K • GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force (F6) • INTEL 730 480GB SSD • Windows 7 64-bit SP1

I

t’s not normal that you’ll find a PSU review in TheOverclocker. In fact we make it a policy not to test PCUs simply because the equipment required to thoroughly test one is ridiculously expensive and it only serves that purpose and nothing else.

Fortunately though, PSUs within the overclocking community gain popularity through a very organic manner where a single or a group of highly respected overclockers find themselves using a specific PSU repeatedly to achieve very high scores and or perhaps even world records.

It is something that is rarely discussed other than in passing where a PSU either lives up to the overclocker’s expectations

34 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

or fails during a live competition and thus is never used ever outside of that competition.

If you think to last year, the PSU of choice for the vast majority of prevalent or highly visible overclockers was the CORSAIR AX1200i. An amazing PSU by all standards and easily one that could claim to have been the best in the business, that was before the AX1500i.

Prior to that, many used the Cooler Master M2 1500, another noteworthy PSU and before that, several others including the ANTEC HCP 1200. These are but some of the units that have gained popularity based on their performance and obviously the build quality. Be it you were running 4-way SLI or just building a very powerful gaming machine, these were the PSUs to have. The only difference was how many of them you needed for your chosen activity.

One of if not the most respected PSU review sites on the web is JonnyGuru and we like many others turn to this website for detailed and

informative PSU reviews. It is the quintessential and definitive PSU review website for power users and enthusiast and as such we will refer you to that review of the AX1500i for the test data and results. No review can do the AX1500i as much justice as that one. So if you don’t do anything else, at the very least READ THIS REVIEW! Our experience with the AX1500i then was an interesting one to say the least. Many PSUs promise the world and more, but very few deliver. It is often the case that when a vendor releases a new unit, many will want to know who the actual manufacturer of the unit is. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter especially if it’s built to specification. In the case of the AX1500i, it is built

by Flextronics, perhaps not as synonymous with enthusiasts as Super Flower or Seasonic, but that says nothing about the quality of the PSU. In fact there has yet to be an enthusiast grade PSU from either of those manufacturers

“Of particular interest to us is just how quiet and resilient this PSU is to any shenanigans that may happen while it powers our test machine.” which is capable of matching the AX1500i. That aside, the praise should truly be given to CORSAIR and its engineers for having designed such a solid unit that has according to the tests surpassed every other enthusiast class PSU before.

Even more staggering is that this unit provides the rated 1500W from a 110VAC, where others would stipulate that this is only possible from a 220VAC. Do keep in mind however that if you’re in a region where your wall socket only provides 100V, you’ll be capped at a maximum power draw of 1,300Watts instead. It’s a little down but it’s still plenty of juice to draw from indeed and if you need more, well then go ahead and get a second unit. Just for the sake of illustrating how much power you can draw from this PSU, its single 125A 12V+ rail is rated to provided up to 1,500W. Not only is that unmatched by any other PSU we know of, we simply had no idea that was even possible to begin with.

You should truly be familiar with the TITANIUM rating this unit has, but what blew us away was to see that this PSU is over 90% efficient when delivering over 1,600W of power. That’s right, delivering more than its rated output, it still manages to meet and exceed the Titanium standard. This standard stipulates amongst many things that a PSU should maintain a 90% efficacy level at 100% load.

The AX1500i managed to do with a 1622W load and you can read about it here.

At the time of writing, only a couple of PSUs were officially Titanium rated according to the 80Plus standards organisation and the AX1500i is one of them. The other is a 600Watt unit; clearly the beast is in a class of its own.

Of particular interest to us is just how quiet and resilient this PSU is to any shenanigans that may happen while it powers our test machine. During a more recent testing session, in particular during a 3DMark FireStrike Extreme run, we experienced a sever power surge where everything turned off briefly, from lights, to refrigerators and the likes. If it was plugged into a wall, it went off. Everything suffered from this apart from the machine that was plugged into the AX1500i. It kept chugging along without skipping a beat.

The only effect this surge had on the unit was causing the fan to spin up again for a moment.

Other than that, the benchmark finished as it should and our hardware was saved from any damage, including the PSU itself. That hold up time, is real and not just in a strict lab environment.

Further elaborating on the fan, it turns out that it will not spin up unless it is deemed necessary by the various sensors within the unit. In our own testing, with a Core i7 4960X and a 4790K, both overclocked and each powering a GTX 780Ti, the fan was never in use at all.

We just couldn’t load it enough to warrant this until we added more GPUs to the system. Short of that, there was no overclock on either the GPU or CPU we could attain using air cooling that would stress the PSU enough. So as far as noise levels are concerned, the AX1500i is as good as it gets. Obviously under some extreme loads it would become very loud, but we can’t comment on those loads because we did not subject the PSU to such.

What of the CORSAIR Link software then, well we’ve never been fans of this software. It

isn’t as accurate as we would like and this is easily verified with a decent DMM, however it does give you a general idea of how the PSU is performing, which is obviously better than nothing at all. From here you can also control OCP which is necessary for those running the Radeon 295X2 or perhaps even multiple TITAN-Z cards. You can disable OCP all together which would help in your extreme overclocking as well, especially in a multi-GPU configuration should it be necessary.

There’s generally nothing to dislike about this PSU, it may not be cheap, but then again there isn’t anything out there that is better. The best in anything is always (or at least usually) going to cost more than the competition’s offerings and the CORSAIR AX1500i is no different. It simply runs away from the competition, placing itself far ahead of anything else really. As such, you want to buy a quality PSU with a crazy 7 year warranty and enough power to light up a small village, the AX1500i is what you need. You can’t go wrong with this one even if you tried. It’s a definite must have item from us.

[ TheOverclocker ]

Performance references (CLICK to go to the performance data) • JonnyGuru • PCPerspective

Would you buy it?

Yes, without question

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 35

EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition RRP: $859.99 | Website: www.evga.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4790K • GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force (F6) • Transcend AxeRAM 2400MHz CL9 • INTEL 730 480GB SSD • Corsair AX1500i PSU • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 337.81 WHQL)

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

OC Hero Award 36 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

W

e as an overclocking community have struggled for years on end to get the motherboards we wanted, the memory we required and just about everything else that we would consider to be part of our arsenal. We’ve pretty much managed to find success in all spheres, except when it comes to graphics cards. This is not to say that we don’t have the likes of the Lightning, Matrix, HOF or Classified cards. We have had these for several years, but each one, for some reason or another required additional investments which are not obvious to the buyer. In fact while all these products were admirable pieces of engineering, the end result

didn’t always warrant the additional spend.

Finally with the EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N (that’s an extraordinarily long name), we have a graphics card that can truly claim to have the graphics card that competitive overclockers have been requesting for what seems to be an eternity.

Here we will not go into what makes this an amazing piece of engineering, we take it for granted that it’s built to the highest standards (after all this is the work of TiN and K|NGP|IN, so we can’t fault its electrics) and the results thus far prove this. It is worth keeping in mind though that we are talking about results when cooled via liquid nitrogen,

not air coolers. There’s very little difference if any at all between the GTX 780Ti graphics cards when using air cooling. The thermal limitations are far too low to allow the differences in the various cards on the market to show.

The tendency by casual or amateur overclockers is to think that there’s

somehow some magic that gets designed into any one graphics card that will allow you a good 50, 100 or even 150MHz more than what a reference GTX 780Ti can achieve, by virtue of having custom designed PCBs, coolers and all related changes by the vendor. This isn’t so because each GPU will vary in its quality and

clock limitations. Some will be golden with a very high ASIC quality; some may be from a poor batch. There is simply no way to know how a specific GPU will behave when overclocked.

So with a card like this, it may seem unfriendly to casual overclockers, but we implore you to give it a second thought. Essentially Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 37

what EVGA has done here, more specifically K|NGP|N and TiN, is provide you with the best possible power delivery, through superior design, including an unparalleled and beefed up PWM along with a hefty cooler. If you thought the “regular” Classified was special, this goes far beyond and ensures that regardless of the GPU that happens to be on your particular board, its potential is maximized.

At the end of the day that’s all any vendor can offer the end users really. Should you have the funds, you may have to bin these GPUs as well just like you would CPUs or anything else to find the best one.

This particular sample we tested was game stable at 1,332MHz with no VDDC adjustments at all. A slightly above average overclock for 38 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

the core we might add. Where the memory was concerned we ran all our tests without any artifacts at 1950MHz. This is a fairly respectable overclock using the standard cooler by any measurement.

Yes there are samples that go higher and a particular one we heard about that will achieve 1,400MHz at the standard shipping voltage.

A true golden sample that is probably capable of taking all the world records when cooled with LN2. However that should not stop you from having fun with your very own KPC card, regardless of how well it overclocks on air cooling. The true value of such a graphics card is what it will do with some extreme cooling and perhaps even water cooling.

If you ever wanted to get into extreme overclocking, this is probably the card to

start with. Sure enough $850 USD may seem like a lot to invest into a graphics cards, but consider that with this one you’ll literarily need nothing else but the Precision software to get started. You may find the 1.21V VDDC low (on our card it was actually 1.19V), but you can easily find the Classified tool on the internet along with the extreme overclocking BIOS (You can grab both of them HERE) which will allow you to increase the voltage to 1.35V and relieve some of your power limits. As always please keep in mind that neither of these tools or BIOS’s are endorsed nor supported by EVGA. Should you destroy your card using either, that’ll be the end of your card and it will not be covered by the warranty).

If that is not enough, do consider the EVBOT which

"the EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition is an incredible graphics card that we have no qualms in awarding our highest praise"

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: 1440p

EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N (OC)

12483 Graphics: 14588

6325 Graphics: 6714

17185 Graphics: 19451

51870 GPU Score: 61640

11130 Hardware: 10749

EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N

11674 Graphics: 13581

5887 Graphics: 6217

16370 Graphics: 18019

49859 GPU Score: 57965

10118 Hardware: 9776

NVIDIA GTX TITAN Black Edition

9668 Graphics: 10896

4822 Graphics: 5010

13857 Graphics: 14335

45626 GPU Score: 50911

8436 Hardware: 8180

1332/1950

will allow you to set VDDC, PWM switching speed, OCP, FBVDD and FBOCP at your discretion over and above these limits.

Should you not have access to EVBOT you can still have tons of fun however, using four switches at the rear of the card. These are covered and are not obvious at first look. They are very useful however as they will allow you to disable both GPU and memory power protection mechanisms, allowing you further overclocking headroom where you’re not cooling limited. In addition to these you’ll also find two more switches which, when engaged allow you to add a total of 50mV to your VDDC. So if you need that little extra once you’ve hit that 1.35V limit of the classified tool you can turn to these DIP switches for some additional

voltage which is particularly useful in curbing Vdroop as well under load.

What is going to matter more than anything else at the end of the day is how much you’re willing to put into this graphics card, which isn’t much actually. If you’re not quite ready for LN2 yet, do consider water cooling at the very least with this card.

The EK-FC780 GTX Classy from EKWB fits this card perfectly and together with the tools mentioned above, you’re very likely to see speeds above 1,400MHz. Be it you go this route or straight to LN2, the EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition is an incredible graphics card that we have no qualms in awarding our highest praises to. There simply isn’t a better GTX 780 Ti on the market for overclocking. Go get it!

Summary There is a great many GTX 780Ti GPUs on the market, and each one with enough cooling and a beefed up PWM, the right BIOS and software will get you to those stratospheric speeds, however no other card gives you all that out the box like this card. You want to “bench” GTX 780 Ti as simply and easily as possible? Then buy this one, it won’t get any simpler than this.

The K|NGP|N Edition is to our knowledge the best extreme overclocking GTX 780Ti there’s ever been.

Would you buy it?

Without a doubt!

[ TheOverclocker ] Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 39

GV-NTITANBLKGHZ-6GD-B 6144MB / 384 bit GDDR5

World's Best 600W Air Cooling System

NEW WINDFORCE 3X 600W cooling system Powered by NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK GPU BASE : 1006MHz / BOOST:1111 MHz

THE BEST IN THE

FROZEN BIZ!

H

ere’s a new page for all you good people. Ever wanted to know what we think is the absolute best in the business for your overclocking rig(s)? Well we’ve compiled a list which we will update where appropriate. Things such as displays, peripherals and the like are not important here, but just the basics. Your mainboard, graphics adapter, memory, storage, cooling solutions and power supply. Now there are many other options available but with just the components below you should be ready to bench very well and need nothing else.

MOTHERBOARD

GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Family: The Z87-OC was brilliant upon introduction, never before has $200 netted you so much in a motherboard. The Z97X-SOC/Force is even better, because it has even more, but costs even less at $190 42 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

USD, it’s mind boggling. Let’s not forget the numerous records broken on this motherboard in the last month or so. As it stands, there just isn’t a better Z97 motherboard on the market.

ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition: Has there ever been a finer or more impressive motherboard? This is an obvious one, a simple and easy choice for us.

GRAPHICS

EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Classified K|NGP|N Edition: Yes that’s an incredibly long name for a graphics card, but we simply call it the KPC card. Yes there are others which can achieve similar clock speeds, but many of them require things not available for anyone and everyone to use (special privileges and the like).

This one you buy it, slap a pot on it, download the freely available tools and Bob’s your uncle!

MEMORY

G.SKILL TridentX F3 2666 C11 KIT: We would have liked to pick out a particular kit, but the truth is those fantastic C10 kits are gone (So if you have them hold on to them) and thus we are left with dozens of 11-13-1335 kits from several vendors. Pick your poison and make the most out of them.

STORAGE

OCZ Vector 150 SSD: It’s incredibly fast; it’s reliable and is surprisingly cheap. This one is pretty simple.

WD 4TB FZEX: Another easy choice to make, if you want magnetic storage. This is pretty much the fastest drive you can buy barring the Velociraptor and Hybrid drives.

COOLING

8ECC Fusion rev 3.1: Rarely have we seen such, if ever more

professionally packaged and presented CPU pots before. The craftsmanship is stunning and the performance speaks for itself under the hands of the man behind the pots himself. Once again CPU pots have everything to do with your style and kind of overclocking as the performance is generally going to be the same. Pick your poison, ours is the Fusion.

K|NGP|N Cooling Tek 9(s): There’s no need to go further here, we naturally lean towards the Tek-9 Slim rev 7.0 for multi-GPU action or the Tek-9 Fat 6.0. Many other pots exist which are probably as good, but these have proved themselves time and time again.

CORSAIR H Series: Short of custom water loops, they don’t get much better than these. Pick whichever one for your quick and dirty testing before you go cold. Personal

favorite is the H105, even simpler to install. Binning CPUs under “air cooling” is made incredibly simple by the mounting mechanism. It’s purely because of convenience here, and not necessarily performance we pick the CORSAIR Hydro series coolers.

POWER

CORSAIR AX1500i: There hasn’t been a finer PSU. This is the one to buy, that’s all there is to it!

BENCH TABLE

DimasTech Test Table Easy V3.0: From Mini-ITX to XL-ATX, all boards are supported. Makes like a lot simpler than using flimsy make shit test beds. This is the one to own or any of the other DimasTech tables if you prefer.

[ TheOverclocker ] Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 43

S G N I K N

A view from the community

A R

  The 2014 overclocking season is in full throttle with plenty of competitions and overclocking action. In the Leagues we see OCUKPro leading the Pro OC standings, Vivi still leading in the OC League and Poparamiro on top of the Enthusiast League.

Team Pro OC EU jumps to second place in Pro OC after merging Team Germany and The Overclocking Knights. In the OC League there are three new faces with dhenzjhen, barboneNet and Amateurs. Vadimua is working his way up in the Enthusiast League jumping from place 8 to 4.

Pro OC

1

OCUKPro

2

Team Pro OC EU

3

Overclockers league

Enthusiasts league

602 pts

1

Vivi

2130.20 pts

1

poparamiro

966.70 pts

554 pts

2

zzolio

1603.80 pts

2

zupernico

727.80 pts

KRONOS PRO OC

510 pts

3

Moose83

1562.40 pts

3

Doug2507

703.10 pts

4

NP2Korea Pro OC

415 pts

4

mtech

1541.40 pts

4

vadimua

702.50 pts

5

Hardware.Info Pro OC

414 pts

5

Hideo

1508.90 pts

5

Punk Sods

670.60 pts

6

KPC Pro OC #2

409 pts

6

BarboneNet

1486.80 pts

6

alexmx

651.90 pts

7

United Overclockers

361 pts

7

SniperOZ

1432.80 pts

7

Berchorange

651.40 pts

8

Overclockers Pro OC

243 pts

8

michel90

1410.60 pts

8

Faster

627.00 pts

9

Ph_Team Hungary

237 pts

9

Amateurs

1360.80 pts

9

helkis

603.30 pts

231 pts

10 l0ud_sil3nc3

1306.90 pts

10 Dhemon

10 Team Poland

602.00 pts

(standings as of june 24, 2014)

Competition Winners G.SKILL OC World Cup 2014 Qualifier

G.SKILL OC World Cup 2014 Live Qualifier

1 Splave.ROM

58 pts

1 Splave.ROM

30 pts

2 8 Pack

53 pts

2 8 Pack

27 pts

3 Hero

48 pts

3 Xtreme Addict

23 pts

G.SKILL OC World Cup 2014 Final

Intel OC Challenge Computex 2014

1 Splave.ROM

5 pts

1 IOCC | ASUS

7,650 pts

2 8 Pack

3 pts

2 IOCC | MSI

6,800 pts

3 IOCC | GIGABYTE

5,800 pts

HyperX OC Takeover (HOT) Computex 2014

April's Final Team Cup Warm-up

1 HOT | GIGABYTE

3,750 pts

1 HwBox Hellas O/C Team

111 pts

2 HOT | TeamAU

3,250 pts

2 classicplatforms.com

88 pts

3 HOT | Team China

1,500 pts

3 HwOverdrive OC team Italy

63 pts

Rookie Rumble Cup AMD Edition

Rookie Rumble Cup #4

1 Nadia

128 pts

1 Paulie_AU

94 pts

2 northsys

103 pts

2 Nifir

89 pts

3 Waza88

103 pts

3 scracy

80 pts

Rookie Rumble AMD #2

Rookie Rumble #5

1 harrynowl

141 pts

2 northsys

92 pts

3 rizky90

91 pts

32

1 kjburto

101 pts

2 Paulie_AU

90 pts

3 jab383

89 pts

S

The OC Show Your Overclocking talk-show

In This Episode

The OC Show Concept

In the fourth episode of The OC Show, we look back at all the overclocking activities of Computex 2014. We focus on the competitions of Intel, HyperX and G.SKILL and share our thoughts on the HWBOT OC Anniversary Gathering post-Computex event.

We also cover Intel's new Devil's Canyon and Pentium Anniversary Edition and contemplate on what next year will bring for overclocking.

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 bimonthly chit-chat talk about overclocking related topics.

Discuss this episode:

url.hwbot.org/tosdiscuss

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

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Wolfenstein: The New Order RRP: $59.99 (PC) | Website: www.wolfenstein.com

H

ow’d you like a brief history lesson? If you answered no, I apologise in advance because you’re about to get one anyway.

Wolfenstein wasn’t always a firstperson shooter. The series began its life as a World War II-era topdown stealth game with the original Castle Wolfenstein, released by Muse Software in 1981. Although crude by today’s standards, its stealth-oriented gameplay was impressively innovative at the time, and it successfully spawned a sequel (Beyond Castle Wofenstein) three years later.

More than a decade after the original game’s launch, id Software took the concept and reimagined it as something else

48 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

entirely, releasing Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 to widespread critical acclaim and immense commercial success.

It traded subtlety and stealth for brutal, fast-paced action in threedimensional environments. Today its considered the grandfather of the FPS genre, establishing genre conventions that would become the basis for what the gaming world expected of shooters. With a legacy like that, it’s easy to understand why Wolfenstein: The New Order needed to be something special. And while I really enjoyed Raven Software’s Wolfenstein reboot from 2009, this debut title from MachineGames is a wholly different beast.

On the surface you’ll find a big, dumb shooter, but there’s

an undercurrent of remarkable intelligence beneath its crass veneer. It’s cunningly self-aware, and it immediately reminded me of the criminally underappreciated Bulletstorm, which has me worried that it’ll share a similarly cruel commercial fate as that title. And that’d just be an absolute travesty, because Wolfenstein: The New Order is an excellent game.

The overarching premise is this: at the start of the game, the Allies launch a last-ditch effort on the compound of General Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse.

Fans will recognise Deathshead from Wolfenstein’s past, so it’s no surprise that returning hero William “B.J.” Blazkowicz is included in the assault force. It’s quickly made apparent that the Nazis have gotten their hands on vastly superior technology that makes short work of most of the Allied forces, but B.J. and company persevere regardless.

At least until Bad Stuff inevitably happens, and B.J. is left trapped in a coma for more than ten years. Fast forward to the ‘60s, and he awakens to find an alternate history where the Nazis used overwhelmingly powerful technology to win World War II and cover every corner of the globe in cheerful swastikas.

The most surprising aspect of this new Wolfenstein is its story. I was fully expecting some juvenile, mostly useless excuse for a narrative, serving as nothing more than a feeble enabler for unbridled mayhem. And while the narrative Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 49

is inherently silly, it’s strangely thoughtful and brilliantly written as well. The flow of it is captivating, and there’s unexpectedly excellent characterisation on display, particularly for B.J., who up until now hasn’t been much more than a one-dimensional, Nazi-culling cipher. Sure, there’ll doubtless be those who’ll pick apart the more emotional aspects of the storyline as being forced and trite, but I thoroughly appreciated it, possibly because I didn’t expect anything as well-rounded as this.

Even if the story were as mindlessly vapid as I’d imagined it’d be, the FPS action (which is what most people are here for anyway) would still make The New Order an intensely satisfying experience. Most of your weaponry is grounded in reality, so expect an arsenal mostly comprised of things like assault rifles and pistols.

Everything feels solid and weighty, lending the guns a hefty punch.

Your death-dealing tools can be dual-wielded as well if you can find duplicates, and there are very few weapons in gaming as ferocious as The New Order’s dual-wielded shotguns. Combat feels wonderfully fluid, with many of the larger, more open skirmish zones offering a multitude of options as to how to

50 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

approach them. There’s a variety of enemies to keep you on your toes, from run-of-the-mill Nazi grunts to dogs that are effectively tanks with teeth.

Stealth is an option in missions too, thanks to simple but effective stealth mechanics that let you clear areas quietly using your knife and silenced pistol. You’re also able to approach each engagement more tactically using a basic cover system that lets you lean around obstacles.

The way you choose to play will gradually unlock perks that’ll further augment your play style; choosing to adopt stealthier methods will let you move faster while crouched, for example, or allow you to regain a small portion of health when killing enemies silently. There’s a definite clash of old-school sensibility with more contemporary mechanics, and it works really well. You’re able to carry more than two weapons, for instance, and your health can be temporarily overcharged for a brief boost.

As you progress, you’ll eventually discover a laser cutter that’s used to cut chunks out of certain destructible scenery, and later doubles as a weapon. It’s mostly used for very, very light puzzle solving, and I couldn’t help wondering why it wasn’t used in more clever puzzle designs. That

said, I’m pretty sure adding in more substantial puzzle elements might’ve peeved those looking for a more straightforward shooter, so it’s probably for the best. Fantastic level design keeps things plenty interesting anyway, and each level is packed with secrets to uncover and collectibles to hoard.

It all looks and sounds great too, and id’s Tech 5 engine really is a lovely thing. It’s a pity it’s locked to Bethesda titles, because I’d love to see what people could do with it, were it opened up to more developers. There’s an incredible sense of detail and more than a few awe-inspiring moments in the game.

I’ve battled to find anything worth complaining about in Wolfenstein: The New Order. It feels so purposefully put together, like such a well-executed design that any flaws it may have are so easy to ignore, especially when you’re as predisposed towards loving

anything bearing the Wolfenstein name as I am. It’s a remarkably smart shooter, one that knows exactly where it comes from and what it wants to be. It takes itself seriously, but it’s also clearly aware of how ridiculous it actually is. I love it, and you should be playing it right now. You know you want to.

[ Dane Remendes ]

Would you buy it?

I’d buy it several times.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is my favourite game of the year so far.

The Score

9.3/10 Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 51

BENCHMARKS Catzilla 1.3 1080p: 4469 3DMark Firestrike: 2842 PCMark 8 Creativity Suit: 4329 Battery test (PCMark8): 112min44sec

GAMING GEAR AWARD

MSI GS60 GHOST Gaming Notebook RRP: $2,199 | Website: www.msi.com

L

ast issue I looked at the GT70 Dominator Gaming notebook from MSI. If you didn’t read that review you can check it out here. This issue, I had the pleasure of putting the GS60 Ghost through its paces. The Ghost is certainly the lesser of the two notebooks in many ways, but one that I would take over the GT70 in a heartbeat.

I’ll get to why that is, but first let me run you through the specifications of the model I had and why that can get a little tricky when reviewing such a notebook.

The price that I received here is an average estimated selling price.

That isn’t an issue as that’s normal but the problem is depending on the specification; this price can be $500 lower. So the value proposition of the GS60 is hard to quantify. It could either be too expensive or just priced correctly, you can’t really know until you check out the specific unit you may be thinking of buying.

52 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

It’s possibly the worst thing about this particular notebook I have come across. You can never tell what you’re going to pay for it and as such can’t even budget for it. If I did do any kind of numeric scoring I would probably take off points for that alone.

So be advised that this price is for the highest end “nonPro” model, with 2x128GB mSATA drives in RAID 0, 1TB secondary storage drive, Intel Core i7 4710 and the NVIDIA GTX 860M graphics card with 2GB of RAM. As usual with Gaming notebooks, solid state storage is highly desirable, especially compared to just how slow regular 2.5” mechanical drives are on these. If for some reason you end up with a version that only has a mechanical drive, I would suggest you invest in a standard 2.5” SSD as they tend to be cheaper than the equivalent sized mSATA drive and for the most part have

better performance. That aside, this specific model had MSI’s Super RAID 2 configuration which is essentially just two drives in RAID 0 as opposed to Super RAID 3, which - as you guessed - is three drives in RAID. The synthetic numbers do show a difference, but in everyday usage there’ll be no difference at all.

CPU performance has never been a concern of mine on gaming notebooks, and I think it’s not an issue these days unless you’re looking at a desktop replacement machine or a workstation class portable. Other than that it’s really a search for the most power efficient model available within reason so you can get maximum battery life from it. In this case, MSI went with the 4710MQ CPU which is identical to the 4700MQ apart from the fact that it comes in at a 100MHz higher CPU clock, for both nominal and turbo frequencies. The TDP however is the same at 47W. Thus the CPU part is

taken care of and the performance is there for every game there is on the market and there is going to be for years to come.

The graphics card is where all the magic will happen for this notebook. As I’ve stated before the GeForce 700 series of mobile GPUs was lacking especially compared to the 800 series. The performance from the mainstream GTX760 and 765M just wasn’t there and even in their SLI guise (think AORUS X7) they were great when the game supported SLI but downright disappointing in single GPU mode.

This is not the case with the GTX 860M, because for such a little GPU it sure packs a punch. This particular model is the Kepler based edition which has many more CUDA cores, than the Maxwell version. However, do not be fooled into thinking that it thus offers the best performance. This is not true as the Maxwell architecture is more efficient and thus in the tests it actually comes out slightly ahead of the Kepler version despite the latter housing nearly 45% more cores (640 vs 1152). NVIDIA will tell you there’s no performance difference between the two but there is, even if it is slight.

Regardless of the differences between these two GPUs, what is clear is that they offer game capable performance at FHD with medium to high graphics settings,

obviously depending on the game.

Along with that you get the new Battery Boost feature which further allows you to extend battery life by targeting a specific frame rate, in games. Used in conjunction with GeForce Experience, it makes the entire gaming experience simple and easy to tune for your needs and game type.

Build quality is where I must commend MSI with the GS60 Ghost. I tested the smaller 15” version which has an aluminium finish around the keyboard. It feels great and solid, giving the GS60 a premium feel that is absent in the GT70 and many other notebooks on the market. It’s a small thing but it goes a long way into justifying the price tag on this system. If that isn’t enough, you’ll get the usual SteelSeries keyboard and Engine that’s fully customizable, the GameCaster subscription, Sound Blaster Cinema 2 software and DynAudio speakers. It’s all housed in a sensible and thin profile just 19.9mm. It’s truly wonderful to hold and as far as I’m concerned is by far the sleekest and most aesthetically pleasing MSI notebook I’ve ever come across. In comparison to other brands, the closest notebook I can think to this one is the RAZER Blade, which has the advantage of a 3K display. (The GS60 Ghost-Pro also has a 3K display as well).

It’s lightweight, thin profile and fairly good battery life makes this

the most desirable MSI notebook I’ve ever used. It’s not in the performance where I find most of the value but in how it all comes together and its presentation. MSI has found a very good formula with their notebooks and it comes together no better than here with the GS60 Ghost. The gaming performance is there and the value added features are plentiful. The headphone amplifier is a small but useful addition and for the most part there isn’t anything else I can think of that is missing here.

For those with the capacity to spend this much on a notebook but want something that doesn’t scream “Gamer”, this is the one to get. I regret slightly giving the previous notebook the Editor’s choice as the GS60 deserves it even more so than the GT70. This one is my favourite MSI notebook to date and in this configuration it is definitely worth the price. Gaming with style on the go doesn’t get much better than this.

[ Iron-Synapse ]

SPECS CPU: Intel Core i7 4710 GPU: NVIDIA GTX860M 2GB HDD: 2x 128GB M.2 SSDs Weight: 1.96kg (4.32lbs) Size: 390 x 266 x 19.9mm

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 53

Value Award

Bit-Fenix Flo RRP: $59.99 | Website: XXX CJUGFOJY DPN

L

et’s face it, $60 isn’t a lot when it comes to headphones. You can easily spend over $1,000 on a variety of cans and even for a set of gaming cans, you'd find units that retail for anything up to $400. So in comparison, the BitFenix Flo set is very affordable and bordering on cheap. That doesn’t means however that it isn’t a good set to game with. I was pleasantly surprised at just how capable the Flo headphones were at handling a variety of music types and games.

The sound quality punches above its weight division and for that I will award full marks for. Even better than its gaming credentials however is how well it works with portable players and mobile devices.

This is particularly important 54 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

because while I do appreciate that this headset works in both contexts, it’s more important for me that I can take these cans outside with me. For my gaming needs there are headphones that I find more appealing than the Flo’s but then again that set costs a lot more, but more than anything it is much larger, heavier and certainly not for use outside of the home.

The difference with the Flo is that for those mobile gaming sessions on a notebook, they work perfectly, delivering respectable amounts of bass and clarity within the midrange. The high frequencies aren’t that strong but then again this isn’t too much of an issue when gaming, especially when playing racing or FPS games.

You may be wondering how these feel while around the head? Well I found them to be sufficiently comfortable. I had suspected them to be very tight but they turned out to be just right if not a little on the relaxed side. There’s isn’t much in terms of noise isolation which I didn’t mind considering that you may be using these outside in a public space. Around your ears the audio doesn’t leak and you’ll not be disturbing people around with what you’re listening to unless it’s at a ridiculously high volume level.

Aesthetics then is where the Flo left me in two minds. On the one hand I do appreciate the relatively slim profile of the ear cups and the matte finish does look great. This is especially true for the white and

black units which not only look the best photographed but in the flesh as well. They may seem a little too big to be walking around with but the really do look good and nothing about them suggests that they are for gaming as well. This is probably the biggest draw card for me when it comes to this headset.

At the same time I do feel that BitFenix could have been a little more daring with their design. In this day and age where headphones serve as a fashion accessories as much as their primary function, visuals are ever more important. The size adjustments bars are a little too big and they distract from the otherwise clean look of the cans. The cable is the standard black cable, but the ends are brushed aluminium, a

neat little touch but one that would have been even better if the cable matched the individual colour of the headset. The Black cable breaks the “flow” if you will.

Overall, this is a solid set of that I use for a variety of devices including those quick gaming sessions.

For a first attempt, Bit-Fenix has done really well here, avoiding the pitfalls that many first time gaming headphones vendors make. BitFenix has managed to walk a fine line between aesthetics, functionality and pricing. For $60 you could do a lot worse and are unlikely to do much better than these, so if you’re in the market do consider the BitFenix Flo.

Specs Weight: 200g Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20 KHz Drivers: 40mm Neodymium Sensitivity: 96db/1mW

[ Iron-Synapse ]

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 55

1

GAMING GEAR AWARD

3

2

4

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

Razer Sabertooth Gaming Controller RRP: $79.99 | Website: www.razerzone.com

I

t’s always going to be difficult improving on an already great product. In this case I’m not talking about the Sabertooth’s predecessor the Razer Onza, but the regular XBOX 360 Controller. As far as I am concerned this is easily one of the best designed game controllers ever. What Razer set out to do was a difficult task but they pulled it off and subsequently we have what is the Razer Sabertooth and I’m not sure if it gets better than this at all.

The question then isn’t how this controller is different from the Microsoft offering but how it’s better.

Below you’ll find a quick breakdown of the difference between the two.

1

Face buttons: As you can see in the picture, the four standard face buttons are colour coded in the standard way. However these light up (they can also be turned off). There really isn’t any benefit to this because chances are you’re familiar with the button layout, but in case you’re not this is convenient for those low light or night gaming sessions. At the very least these make an already attractive controller look even better. How they feel is one of the standout aspects of the Sabertooth. The travel is short, but they do have a distinct actuation 56 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014

force to them. There’s no ambiguity as to whether you’ve pressed the button or not. They are not as mushy as the original XBOX 360 controller buttons and thus you can actually press them significantly quicker. The click noise may be annoying to some but I found this to not be an issue and even if it was. It’s very little to ask for this kind of button press superiority over the original controller.

2

The D-Pad on the updated 360 controller was a vast improvement, but once again the Sabertooth is even better. It may take some getting used to as you need to be a lot more precise with your input, but once you get used to it there’ll be no going back to any other controller. This is particularly important for fighting games where you’ll need to input Z movements, quarter circles and charge moves. The precision in which you’ll be inputting this will increase dramatically as you get more familiar with the D-Pad. Initially I was not moved by it but found that I was more consistent with combos, super moves and just about any other complicated input pattern from the D-Pad which I was not as masterful at executing. For the fighting game fans, this possibly one of the biggest advantages to owning this controller

3

Analogue or Thumb sticks if you prefer are also improved. This is a tricky bit because despite how similar (identical as far as I’m concerned) the sticks are, they do have a slightly smaller range of motion, however the sensitivity by default is increased. That alone meant that while my movements were reduced, I was more precise in any number of games where I made use of them. A great example is how one was able to shave a few hundredths of a second and on some tracks a full second in F1 2013 due to this controller. There was no need to adjust the sensitivity at all, even though that is one of the biggest selling points of the Sabertooth. They feel firmer, with finer controller and a lot sturdier than what is available on the native controllers. If that isn’t enough for you though, as mentioned earlier, you can adjust the sensitivity of each of the sticks along both axes from 0 to 10. Once you’ve done that you can save this as a profile along with your other button mappings. Imagine if you will a situation where you’re using your iron or reflex sights with a weapon, then need finer control when using a sniping weapon. At this point one could change to the secondary profile, so finer control. Regardless of what you use the sensitivity controls

6

5

for they are at the very least an appreciated and useful feature of the Sabertooth

4

At the base of the unit you’ll find a small OLED screen which is what you will use for programming the controller. As it has no software, you’re going to have to get familiar with this and this is possibly the only downside of the entire experience as it can be very tricky figuring out how to navigate, program and save profiles.

Once you have figured it out though, you’ll find you can adjust analogue stick sensitivity, program the multifunction buttons, use the test mode to diagnose the controller and naturally save your profiles, allowing you to switch between them instantly. There are only two profiles you can select however which is unfortunate as four would make a huge difference. It may not be as many as I would need, but even two have transformed the way that I play when using this controller.

5

The Sabertooth has six programmable buttons, with two located to the inside and in-between the bumper and trigger buttons. The other four are actually two rockers which may be clicked forward and backwards, so in

essence it’s really just two rockers.

The great thing about these is that they are removable when you don’t’ need them. Razer provides covers for these locations should you not want to use them. All these buttons are hugely appreciated, but their benefit is somewhat limited because they can only map to pre-existing standard XBOX 360 controller buttons. That is, you can’t for instance map X and A to any one of these additional buttons.

You can have either of the six be a duplicate button instead, so you have for instance you’re a button located somewhere else as well so it’s easier to reach or for whatever reason you may want that. Moreover your regular buttons still work as they always have. So the programmability of these additional buttons is severely limited to the point where it’s not worth bothering with unless you’re playing a game where the traditional button location/layout is really an issue.

6

Removable cable is highly appreciated on the Sabertooth.

Not that I’ve ever had an issue with the original controller’s cable, but it does make it easier to take with you in the carry case and will prevent any potential damage that may occur. A nice touch for sure and one that adds

to the overall build quality or at the least the perception of quality from the controller.

Once again, this is an amazing controller, it’s not going to revolutionize the way you play games, but it will certainly improve or at least help you hone your skills further. After having used this one for about a month I find it near impossible to go back to the old heavy XBOX 360 controller.

Not only is the Saberetooth lighter, offering better precision, speed and flexibility, it is also a lot lighter as well. It may be a tad smaller than the standard unit but it’s still larger than the Playstation controller. Other than a couple of issues or rather underutilized opportunities this is about as perfect as you’re going to get at present. This one is a definite must have and definitely worth the price. [ Iron-Synapse ]

Specs Size: 110 x 154 x 57 mm Weight: 288g Interface: USB.20 Buttons: 10

Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 57

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