Theoverclcoker issue 43

ISSUE 43 2018

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGA ZINE. ALWAYS. F E AT U R E

CORSAIR HS50 & ST100 VS

VOID PRO RGB WIRELESS

REVIEWED

GIGABYTE AORUS Z370 GAMING 7

BEYOND LIMITS. AORUS Z370 GAMING MOTHERBOARDS

| RGB FUSION | AMP-UP AUDIO | SMART FAN 5 | TRIPLE NVME PCIE X4 M.2 | M.2 THERMAL GUARD | | FRONT USB TYPE-C | DUALBIOS™ | ULTRA DURABLE™ ARMOR | DIGITAL FUSE USB | ANTI-SULFUR | WWW.GIGABYTE.CO.ZA | WWW.AORUS.COM

E D ’ S N O T E //

WHATEVER TITLE YOU DESIRE – It’s just an Ed’s note

W

e’re well into 2018 and here is the 1st issue of TheOverclocker magazine.

I’m unsure what this year holds but as always, we have no choice but to be excited about it, actually I’m very excited by it, with at least three new platforms for us to tinker and make very cold. Great times ahead.

For overclocking, perhaps 2018 is the year when it all returns to it’s pure form, where it is the participants doing it purely for the love and nothing more, nothing less.

While the competitive nature will never die, I do believe that at some level, early on at least, the commercial viability of overclocking in whichever form didn’t quite find it’s stride with the participants who for all intents and purposes partook in it as just an enjoyable pastime. With the changes at HWBOT, it could very well be a trying time for overclocking in some regard, but I’ve no doubt that it will come out stronger having gone through this, as challenging as it may be at present.

As it stands we essentially have one vendor (ROG) still vested in overclocking, where all others have turned their gaze towards the ever illusive “gamer”. It isn’t surprising though given that years back, when DFI and ABIT were still names, we came upon ROG and it’s been going strong since then. The last man standing if you will.

That said and as stated in previous issues. This issue there’s a very narrow focus on two to four products and that’s how it should be going forward. Waffling is a sin in some Universe I suspect and there’s no point in us writing and generating content which you could read anywhere else, quicker and in a more comfortable way (YouTube videos for example).

“This issue there’s a very narrow focus on two to four products and that’s how it should be going forward.”

In fact, I was asked why we don’t have a YouTube channel, and I the answer I gave was perhaps not satisfactory to said individual. The reality is that, we simply do not have the means to make a YouTube channel with a three-man team.

More importantly and key, we have no desire for it. It is a magazine, because it is still formatted as a magazine.

With the people I work with, it is a very personal project and has always been. Video is not what we do and perhaps will never do (this we would suck at tremendously). “Me too” isn’t a mantra to live by and besides, being in front of the camera isn’t for everyone and I in particular have no desire to be in front of any camera nor do I have the ability to do such. Limited as it, there is a form of autonomy one has over this structure and that is significantly more important to me (us) than being perpetually accountable YouTube’s everchanging algorithms for promotion/ monetization etc.

That which I love is overclocking and that hasn’t changed in over a decade. Less so, everything else that is around it. It is not a case of being enamoured with some misguided sense of nostalgia, but simply a sentiment that reflects who I am as a person and who the team I work with are as well.

There are fantastic overclocking orientated channels on YouTube and they are an invaluable source of information and entertainment for not only overclockers, but DIY enthusiast as well. If you’ve not bookmarked or subscribed to der8auer and perhaps Buildzoid’ s channel yet. I suggest you stop reading right now and do so immediately. These are great channels with useful content that I know you’ll find interesting and varied.

So, there it is, starting on 2018’s issue with some much-needed transparency and dialogue, hopefully giving you context into why I do what I do. [ The OverClocker ]

Issue 43 | 2018 The OverClocker 03

R C EO VNITEEWN T/ /S X/ X / X

3

EDITOR’S NOTE

6

GALAX GOC 2017 // SUPPLEMENT

18 FEATURE // INTEL CORE I9 7980 XE + CORE I7 8700K meet the ROG APEX DUO

28

REVIEW // GIGABYTE AORUS Z370 GAMING 7 GAME TIME // CORSAIR HS50 + ST100 VS VOID PRO RGB WIRELESS

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

Editor Neo Sibeko Art Director Chris Savides Contributors Jonathan Horne For editorial contact: neo@theoverclocker.com www.theoverclocker.com

04 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

I N T E R V I E W // G A L A X

A

S I T - D O W N

Neo: Obviously everybody knows about GALAX, they’ve heard of the brand seen some products and of course are familiar with the HOF line. There’s even people asking about the products who can’t even buy them where they are. So, there’s obviously an appeal and an appetite for the components you make. What many people do not know though, is how GALAX started or why it started, which is the more important question. When you started GALAX, what was the motivation behind adding yet another component vendor when there were so many others, what’s the story behind GALAX? Alex Lam (CEO)- Our story starts in the year 2000, when my ex-boss wanted me to help them build graphics cards in China. NVIDIA had just started to gain moment and becoming quite large at that time. There were a lot of opportunities in the graphics card market. We tried to do something different, so we focused on cooling and co-operated with Arctic Cooling which was very successful. Around 2007, I met Mad in Hong Kong and we had a chat about our dream. Mad said he could help us with overclocking. Shortly after in 2009, we held our first event in Beijing and to date have been focused on overclockers nearly ten years.

Neo: In the years that you’ve been around you’ve grown quite rapidly.

I don’t think there’s any brand that has expanded at the rate you have.

Whereas others have shrunk in the same space, you’ve grown and by all accounts an impressive feat. What do you think is the core reason for the growth and what makes people want GALAX so much?

Alex - I think it’s our passion. Our

06 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

W I T H

passion for the pursuit of performance.

GALAX has been doing really well in graphics card performance. For our Actual F series, we had perhaps four or five revisions of the PCB, before we were satisfied and considered it good.

Neo: So, you genuinely care about the product. It’s more than just selling the product, you want it to be good, it shows in the results.

Mad Tse (HOF Chief Consultant) - We are very strict about the quality of the product, specifically the HOF series.

We want to make sure the PCB is the best in the world. Some of our PCBs are quite crazy. We’ve tried with ten, twelve, fourteen layers. The cost is high compared to a regular PCB, perhaps even four times as much, but money is not a problem. We spend a lot of resources on studying techniques for PCB design, caps, MOSFETs, and everything else for the overall layout.

We don’t really mind paying that much or allocating more resources as long as the product is the best it can be for our users.

Alex - We also do a lot of research when new chips are coming. We speak with our engineers and Mad about the characteristics of the chipset, including what we can do to make it faster.

Mad - As you know perhaps five or six years ago you had to modify a card to run it under LN2, whereas now with the HOF series you don’t have to do anything to the card. It’s enhanced with a power target enabler, the phase shifter - there are two jumpers on the side near the MOSFET, thermal control at the back of the card, and so on. We tried to make a card that offers freedom, a card not only for pro overclocks but a card that regular users can use to bench at 2.6 GHz or more. That level of freedom and ability in our products is our dream.

Neo: It’s clear you’re after outright performance, but honestly speaking, it seems NVIDIA wants to control it more, lock it down if you will. How are you balancing that relationship between keeping NVIDIA happy and keeping your users happy?

Mad – It’s expertise! (laughs) Alex – Actually I told NVIDIA that the people that use this card are the overclockers and they know that.

However, every time we spoke about the extreme overclocking BIOS they hesitated to give us any information, because they are concerned about the RMAs. Later on, I took them to our event to see for themselves what it was all about and now they are a little more open minded to the idea, and things are improving.

Neo: You can’t know about every enthusiast, and there are many competing cards. You know they can go with the ASUS STRIX, you know they can go with EVGA, and so on. So why do you think they go to GALAX? Alex - Because Hall of Fame (everyone laughs) Neo: From a technological point of view you guys do spend a lot of money and a lot of time to make it simpler to get into overclocking through the testing you do.

Alex - (Interjection) Have you been to our OC Lab before?

Neo: Not yet.

Mad - He will, and then he will understand.

Neo: OK, so I’ll leave that question to be answered once I’ve seen it.

Alex - Many overclockers love to come to our OC Lab, (Because it’s like Christmas to us - Neo) Neo: As you know the market is eSports, gaming, and so forth. A lot of vendors are slowly moving away overclocking – there’s no longer an MSI MOA, ASUS stopped, in fact almost everyone stopped. That said, you guys are going more and more into the high end of extreme overclocking. In fact, you are probably the only ones left doing extreme overclocking. What do you know that the other vendors don’t know that makes you keep doing this?

If it’s a secret don’t tell me.

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I N T E R V I E W // G A L A X

Alex - No, it’s not a secret, it’s our culture. Extreme overclocking is just like a party with old friends. Every year there are a lot of old friends that join us to share their experience, to join together and talk about overclocking.

We can provide such a great platform for them. This is my passion. We can gather together so many (overclocking) masters to our party.

Mad - That’s true. That’s our thoughts and our culture, to maintain good relationships with our friends.

We want to see our friends happy. It doesn’t matter so much the resources we spend on it. As for your question, we are not simply looking at profits. We are looking ahead of others because we see overclocking as something that would give us a lot of chances to improve or enhance our products. This in turn would give us better headroom for a better market.

Alex – Actually I’ve mentioned this before, we treat overclocking

08 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

like building supercars. How many manufacturers are able to make a Ferrari or Lamborghini? It’s only those specific companies, and that’s a large part of why you love it.

Neo: So, performance is your passion more than anything else, and therefore you follow it.

Neo: This is not my question, but I have to ask this. Hall of Fame everybody knows and loves the white colour scheme. These people have asked me to ask you, will we ever have Hall of Fame peripherals in the white?

Mad - Actually we did work on some peripherals in white, but we weren’t satisfied with the resulting quality so we postponed them. We will consider it in the future.

Neo: I think this interview is more educational for me than anybody else.

Just a few more questions.

Alex - No problem (laughs)

Neo: There’s a huge trend towards eSports and gaming. How does the Hall of Fame influence your other products? Do they influence each other? Does the gaming market benefit the overclocking market or vice versa? Do you take what you learn from your overclocking products and incorporate it into your gaming products?

Alex - The overclocking cards are the top tier cards. If our HOF series are selling well, it means our midrange and low end are selling well as well.

Neo: HOF is very powerful branding for you, for all other products not even in the range. Much like AMG is for Mercedes for example?

Alex - Yes, that’s right.

Neo: when I entered earlier I heard something about motherboards and that piqued my interest. Will you take the

I N T E R V I E W // G A L A X

same approach to motherboards as you did to graphics cards, only producing the best if you do make them?

Alex - We are working hard with Intel right now, but we don’t have any history with them so it takes time, but we will try hard and I think we will.

Neo: Why was building an OC lab long ago so important for you when others such as MSI didn’t have one?

Why was it important to have an OC lab instead of building the card and sending it out to some overclockers?

Why did you have to have it inside?

Alex - It represent our company. We spend money on overclocking including the lab separate from our headquarters.

We made sure that every GALAX employee knows that overclocking is important to us. Overclocking is our mainframe if you will and we do tell overclockers about it, they can come play in our lab.

Neo: Everyone wants Hall of Fame, but it’s difficult to get because here is more demand than supply. Eventually you will be

10 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

available on all the continents?

Alex - I have a question for you instead. Do you think Hall of Fame is for all series or only the super high-end series? Do you think the Hall of Fame should include the 1070 and 1060 as well?

Neo: Personally, I think it’s right up there at the top Alex – But what is it that comes to mind? Should it be only one product right at the top or a series?

Neo: For me it’s like this: You know how BMW can have the M6, M5, M4, but they’re all M. They’re all the top of their range. If I have a 1060 HOF it’s the best 1060 there is. It’s in the same family, just smaller, like the M1, M2, M4. That’s how I see it, I don’t know if that’s how you see it, perhaps you see just one product like one McLaren P1 and then everything else.

Alex - But what do overclockers think of it? Do they think it’s just one product as the top of the top?

Neo: Right now, I believe they think it’s one product. Not one product per se, but one brand - the HOF brand. It’s difficult to get, but if you get one you have the best. If you can’t, you go with the EXOC

or something like that, but it’s always in the back of your mind that you want that Hall of Fame.

Alex - So do you think we carry on in this fashion or should we change it?

Neo: Keep what you have because it’s been working. Don’t change something that’s working phenomenally. That’s pretty much it.

Alex - Thanks for your advice.

Neo: Thank you very much. You’re actually an amazing company, more so talking to you than inside. Every time you talk to a president, director or CEO, they tell you what they think you want to hear and not necessarily the truth.

You seem very honest, and people can connect with that. You mean what you say and the company is built around that, and you have an actual separate OC lab. A whole separate place, and not just a corner somewhere. Your expansion is based on quality and not just making a mouse because everyone wants a mouse. The fact that you stopped when you saw the quality is very different than any other vendor I suppose that’s why I’m here (everyone laughs).

Mad - Thank you very much.

[ The Overclocker ]

F E A T U R E // G A L A X O V E R C L O C K I N G C A R N I V A L

THE OVERCLOCKER PRESENTS

OV ERCLOCK ING CA RNI VA L 2017

FOR T HE NIN T H Y E A R IN SUC CES SION (F IR S T ONE OU T OF CHIN A), GA L A X H A S HO S T ED A N E X T R EME OV ER CLO CK ING E V EN T C A L L ED GA L A X OV ER CLOCK ING C A R NI VA L (G O C) W HER E S OME OF T HE BES T OV ER CLOCK ER S F R OM A R OUND T HE WOR L D FAC E E ACH OT HER IN A L I V E , HE A D TO HE A D B AT T L E FOR TOP SP OT A ND A TOTA L P R I Z E P O OL OF USD $ 12,000.

O

verclocking is the art of running a computer above its rated speed. The speed rating of a processor, graphics card, or even memory is not necessarily a number cast in stone, but rather a speed which is guaranteed by the manufacturer to run flawlessly within a given power and temperature target.

That speed can normally be increased to higher levels, but the faster you run a component the hotter it gets and often requires the use of higher end air or liquid coolers. Once you get past that stage you get to the world of extreme overclocking,

12 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

where hobbyists employ dry ice (-78.5’C), liquid nitrogen (-196’C) or even liquid helium (-269’C) to further lower the temperature of these select components.

Operating components at these low temperatures has a secondary effect, which is that you can operate a GPU for example, at a higher frequency and employ higher voltages than you could using a standard air or AIO liquid cooler. As such, these extreme cooling measures are key to competitive overclocking at this level.

While Liquid Nitrogen cooling does have its disadvantages, it is

certainly not practical for day to day use, in as much as the power unit of an F1 car is not suitable for everyday use. At this level however, liquid nitrogen makes possible new levels of performance that is otherwise unattainable using every day cooling mechanisms. Competitive overclocking at GOC and such events however, isn’t about getting down to the lowest temperature possible. Care must be taken to keep temperatures within the correct range for operation for a stable system. It is this delicate balance, monitoring and dealing with frost build up, and more which the highly skilled

overclocker must contend with. Think if you will of extreme overclocking being similar to sprint races or fastest lap challenges in the auto motorsport world and sometimes even drag races.

It is this excitement and challenge pushing the limits of what is possible with PC DIY parts that has continued to inspire GALAX to host this event, nine years in succession and it looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future.

For GOC 2017, qualifying took place during the month of September, with entrants from all around the world competing in five different stages consisting of 3DMark Time Spy, 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme, SuperPI 32M, maximum memory frequency and finally GPUPI 1B.

“A S A LWAYS W I T H SUCH E V EN TS, W E S AW GA L A X SHOW OF F QUI T E A W IDE SEL EC T ION OF NE W A ND UP C OMING P R ODUC TS...”

The top twelve entrants were granted a fully paid trip to Bangkok, Thailand for the final where the event was hosted at the popular IT Mall Pantip Plaza. The final competitor list consisted of OGS (Greece), DrWeez (South Africa), bob(nz) (Australia), ikki (Japan), Phil (Greece), dogna (Japan), Alex@ro (Romania), rsannino (Italy), Bullshooter (Germany), Micka (China), ZeR0_Dan (China), and bboyjezz (Indonesia).

For those who didn’t make it into the main event, there were eight lucky draw prizes, which consisted of two GALAX GeForce GTX 1080Ti HOF OC Lab Edition graphics cards, two GALAX HOF 512GB SSDs, two GALAX HOF DDR4-4000 16GB RAM kits and two GALAX HOF RGB Black Edition Gaming Keyboards.

Other than the overclocking event, GALAX also hosted an eSports tournament called GALAX eSports Carnival, or GEC. This saw teams battling it out in Counter Strike: Global Offensive with “MiTH” walking away with first place.

As always with such events, we saw GALAX show off quite a wide selection of new and upcoming products including U.2 NVMe SSDs, PCIExpress SSDs and even an external, Thunderbolt-connected GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card.

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F E A T U R E // G A L A X O V E R C L O C K I N G C A R N I V A L

During our interview it was also revealed that GALAX would in future possibly release Hall of Fame gaming peripherals in their classic HOF white.

Thus far there’s no timeline and don’t take it as gospel, but the mere mention of it should get some discerning enthusiasts excited at the prospect.

Back un to the overclocking event, the journey for the finalists really began on the Thursday (23rd) with the twelve competitors arriving in Thailand and making their way to the centrally located Novotel Hotel. A great time for friends old and new to catch up and throughout the afternoon and evening. After all, a number of these competitors have history and friendships have formed over this addictive hobby, if you will - Sport.

Friday was a peaceful day, allowing the overclockers to recover from any jetlag they may have had from their flights. A briefing was held mid-afternoon where they were told the hardware that would be used - a Core i7-7740X processor, any X299 motherboard (everyone chose to use the ASUS Rampage VI Apex), an Antec 1300w PSU, 32 GB GLALX HOF DDR4-

14 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

4133 memory, a GALAX HOF 512 GB SSD and (perhaps most importantly and the most exciting component) a GALAX HOF GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC Lab Edition graphics card.

The GALAX HOF OC Lab Edition is a card that is engineered from the ground up to be the ultimate expression of the GTX 1080 Ti GPU, ready for competitive overclocking with liquid nitrogen out the box. This card has all limitations removed, allowing the overclockers to push the silicon to its limits without the need to worry about power or any other limitations that exist on every other GTX 1080 Ti. The power circuitry on this card has no problem providing the 750 watts or more which is sometimes drawn when frequencies approaching 2.6GHz or higher. To put that into perspective, the regular Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti is rated for a 250W TDP, so as you can see. The Hall of Fame OC LAB Edition cards allow for three times the stock TDP of the GTX 1080 Ti. This is achieved through a 12-layer PCB and a 16+3 phase VRM - two things that make it clear that the card receives

praises, not because of its aesthetic qualities, but because it proves itself where the rubber meets the road.

Saturday was the main event, which saw visitors queuing up outside the entrance well before opening time. GOC started at 10AM that morning, as the overclockers prepared and insulated their cards and motherboards for use under liquid nitrogen.

The competition would run for six hours with four different benchmarks, which could be run in any order, but with a maximum time limit of 90 minutes per benchmark. With GALAX products being used where possible, it makes sense that the four benchmarks to be used would test the overclockers’ ability to tweak them - namely the RAM and graphics card. The benchmarks to be run were Geekbench3 Multi Core, 3DMark Time Spy, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme (Where only the graphics sub score would count) and GPUPI 1B. For the uninitiated, Geekbench3 is a synthetic test which runs a series of benchmarks using real-world scenarios on the CPU, while 3DMark is a graphics-intensive benchmark that

“ S AT UR D AY WA S T HE M A IN E V E N T, W HI C H S AW V I S I TO R S QUE UIN G UP O U T S ID E T HE E N T R A N C E W E L L B E FO R E O P E NIN G T IME .” simulates high-end gaming. GPUPI 1B is essentially SuperPI for graphics cards, but it calculates PI to a billion decimal places instead of the 1 million or 32 million generally seen with SuperPI for the host processor.

Each stage of the event would see first place taking 50 points, second place 48 points, third place 46 points and so on, with each sequential position scoring two points less than the last with 12th place taking 28 points. If an overclocker could not submit a score for a round no points would be awarded.

In the event of a tie, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme would be used as the tiebreaker, with GPUPI 1B used as the secondary tiebreaker if need be.

This roundup of benchmarks tested the skill of the overclockers in multiple ways, as no two of them behaved the same way. Throughout the four tests, the CPU, RAM and graphics card would be pushed to their absolute limits, as well as the overclockers themselves.

Whereas Geekbench3 was all about the CPU at a capped and relatively easy frequency and GPUPI doesn’t rely on CPU speed at all, the 3DMark benchmarks are a completely different playing field as you have to find the maximum speed that both the CPU and graphics card can achieve under liquid nitrogen. Fortunately, only the GPU score mattered, so focus was primarily on reaching high GPU clock frequencies rather than high CPU clock frequencies.

Once the overclockers had insulated their hardware and finished prepping it was go time. On every bench there was plenty of with hardware, liquid nitrogen pots, multimeters, thermal probes and meters, thermos flasks for pouring the liquid nitrogen, hairdryers and blowtorches to warm things up if they got a bit too cold.

Judging was handled by three well known and respected members of the competitive overclocking community.

Pieter-Jan, commonly known as PJ or Massman from HWBOT, the

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F E A T U R E // G A L A X O V E R C L O C K I N G C A R N I V A L

“OVER ALL THE EVENT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS WITH ALL COMPETITORS HAVING AN AWESOME TIME IN THAIL AND AND AT GOC 2017.” international database of overclocking and benchmark score world records.

Next, we had Christian Ney, long time veteran of overclocking and respected overclocker within his own right – stickler for the rules. Finally, Mad from GALAX, a name remembered from the extreme overclocking scene several years ago and who is now part of the GALAX HOF development team.

Throughout the competition, each score was validated by all three judges before being officially confirmed and posted to the leaderboard for all to see.

From the get-go, Alex@ro put on an incredible show, pumping out brilliant results one after the other. He had a relatively smooth

16 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

experience, with others running into cold boot bug issues (where the CPU is too cold to start and has to be warmed up above a certain point which varies from CPU to CPU - this is where the hairdryers and blowtorches come in), ports on motherboards sometimes behaving erratically and more (Windows 7 for you).

Geekbench3 had a 6 GHz CPU frequency cap, but saw some very impressive scores and fierce competition. With the CPU frequency limit, this round was all about memory tuning and Alex@ro ultimately submitted the top score of 26,382 points with his RAM running at DDR44220 12-11-11-28. Second place was

claimed by dogna with 26,281 points, and DrWeez from South Africa slipped into third place with 26,168 points.

3DMark Time Spy sees the graphics card coming into the equation, and here again we see Alex@ro taking the lead with a score of 13,387 marks.

To do this, his card was running at a 2,607 MHz, 76% above its stock speed.

Second place was snapped up by ikki with 13,079 marks, and OGS with 13,019 marks.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme saw an interesting reversal of the same top three overclockers from Time Spy, and also the nearest tie for first place. OGS took the lead with 6,112 marks by running his card at 2,658 MHz, a massive 80% above its stock speed. ikki was a single point behind with 6,111, and Alex@ro took third place with 5,987 marks - this would be the only benchmark where he didn’t claim first place.

As GPUPI is a relatively quick benchmark we were able to see some massive clock speeds here. Alex@ro

took first place with a score of 8.052 seconds by running his card at 2,860 MHz, or also double its stock speed.

OGS came in second place with 8.228 seconds at 2,797 MHz, and bboyjezz came in third at 8.352 seconds with a frequency of 2,759 MHz. These scores resulted in a final standing of Alex@ro in first place with 196 points out of a possible 200, taking home $ 5,000 in prize money.

OGS came in at second place with 182 points and $ 4,000 prize money, and Phil (who hadn’t had a top three score in any of the benchmarks but showed great consistency and came in at a fairly high position with each stage) took third place with 172 points and $ 3,000 prize money.

Things didn’t end there, however, with OGS continuing on after the event with GPUPI. His efforts paid off immensely, with him ultimately taking the overall single card GPUPI 1B world record with a score of 7.731 seconds at an unbelievably high GPU frequency of 2,975 MHz - more than double the stock base speed of the reference GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. This is an incredibly impressive result and testament of the engineering behind the HOF card as taking a look at the HWBOT global leader board reveals that no other

card has exceeded 2,900 MHz. As an aside, perhaps just as impressive is the fact that during qualifying Phil took the then-world record for GPUPI 1B with a time of 7.765 seconds at an eye-wateringly fast 3,000 MHz. When it came to GOC 2017 he might not have been quite so lucky, but he still goes home with a global second place for the benchmark.

After the event concluded the overclockers had the opportunity to talk to Mad as well as other executives from GALAX, and Sunday was free for them to either join in a communal lunch or explore Bangkok. Finally, Monday saw them leaving for the airport to return to their respective homes.

Overall the event was a huge success with all competitors having an awesome time in Thailand and at GOC 2017. With the way things have been growing over the last few years we can only hope for even more from GALAX in the future - it is rumoured that next year might be hosted in Malaysia or Vietnam, although it is not yet a concrete decision. Maybe we’ll even see the introduction of their upcoming overclocking motherboard line-up including at GOC 2018 or 2019. [ The Overclocker ]

Issue 43 | 2018 The OverClocker 17

F E A T U R E // I N T E L C O R E I 9 7 9 8 0 X E & I 7 8 7 0 0 K V S . R O G A P E X F A M I LY

INTEL CORE i9 7980XE & i7 8700K VS. ROG APEX FAMILY

(RAMPAGE VI & MAXIMUS X) About three to four months ago, when the INTEL Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition was hot off the press, parading itself as (it still remains so) the most powerful desktop CPU on the market, it had an unexpected influence on retail motherboards for the X299 chipset.

I

f you’re reading this, chances are you’re aware of exactly what I’m speaking about. However, if you’re not, here is a brief breakdown of the situation at the time (or at least as I understand it).

When INTEL initially launched both the X299 chipset and the first Core i9-7900X CPU, board vendors had supposedly designed their thermal and, perhaps to some lesser extent, board power solutions based on this this 10-core part. All was well and, for the most part, the available motherboards were adequate (debatable I know, but that is a discussion for another day). Fast forward several months and INTEL announced more Core i9 CPUs and, of course, the Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition, which is the subject of this editorial.

With default operation, most (if not all) motherboards could support the new CPU. However, given that this is an unlocked multiplier part, overclocking or at the very least some form of performance tuning outsider of INTEL reference specification was inevitable. This is where things got a little dicey on the motherboard support side.

As you may know, the Core i9-7980XE is not only powerful, but it draws a copious amount of power when overclocked. Most

18 The OverClocker Issue 43 | 2018

VRM configurations could deal with the increased power draw, however the thermal solutions for these boards could not. As a result, overclocking even with AIO cooling was limited, and virtually impossible with liquid nitrogen.

Simply put, the VRM complex would heat up tremendously, causing either shutdown or drastically reduced performance. This effectively meant that the Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition CPU could not be used as intended or as desired by end users specifically overclockers.

Since then, updates to motherboard thermal solutions have been implemented – for example, some offering two 12V EPS connectors instead of one, and heatsinks with a greater surface area. As it goes in this industry, few board vendors (read none) will specifically state that their updated SKUs were released to deal with this issue. They get the silent update treatment of sorts, and it is up to the end user to find out specifically which boards were released to deal with this.

As pretty much the case virtually every generation since heaven knows when, ASUS, or rather specifically the ROG boards, seem to be the exception - at least the Rampage VI APEX is the exception in

the context of LN2 overclocking. This motherboard has come to represent the best of what the Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition is capable of under such extreme conditions. I’ll save you the rest of the read if you’re not so inclined to get into the details about my overclocking adventures with this specific CPU and the motherboard. You can literally overclock this CPU LN2 under LN2 and the Rampage VI APEX motherboard with no VRM heatsink at all. Note that this is specifically for LN2, but the power circuitry on the board is extremely capable, and even when the CPU is drawing over 800Watts the Rampage VI Apex is

able to deliver without skipping a beat. This is something that I have yet to witness on any other board, and in all honesty wouldn’t even attempt.

Would I go so far as to say this is perhaps the only motherboard one could use for the Core-i9 7980XE Extreme Edition? Not really, but look at it in the following way as given by the numbers on HWBOT here. Out of all X299 submissions (of which there were 13,219 at the time of writing), the Rampage XI APEX made up 26,93% of the total. Impressive, but not as much as when you consider that the Rampage XI APEX board has more submissions than any

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one vendor has in total. Claiming all the records on day of release is one thing, as that can literally be achieved with a single board and one special CPU. The impressive part is achieving these astronomical scores with a board that is readily available in just about every region.

It is a testament to not only the trust people have in ROG boards, but the legacy of the APEX products, and of course the Rampage series has traditionally been the go to board for HEDT motherboards and overclockers.

It may seem as if I am swooning over the motherboard (and perhaps I am), but the numbers don’t lie, and from the results I recorded I’m more than convinced of this motherboard and CPU being the winning combination of this generation.

Overclocking the Core i9-7980XE was always going to be tricky, not because of some fundamental flaw in the CPU, no - it’s simply because, as mentioned earlier, it is capable of drawing an incredible amount of power, and subsequently outputs an equally gargantuan amount of heat. To that end, one is going to need a fairly beefy cooler, and for

those like I who would overclock this with liquid nitrogen, a specially designed container which is capable of handling the load is mandatory.

There isn’t such a container commercially available, but you could consider dropping the people of Der8auer.com an e-mail to see what they have available for you.

Needless to say, any attempt to overclock the Intel Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition without first delidding the CPU is likely to end quickly and without much success.

This isn’t new information, but remains as important if not more so for such a CPU, and once again you’ll need a de-lidding tool which is also available at Der8auer.com With all that covered, the important thing as always for me is to prove that the claimed possibilities and scores are attainable by anyone with some knowhow and not just those within the ROG labs. Basically, the proof is where the rubber hits the road. While not all CPUs will behave in the same manner and certainly would not have the same limits, it’s important to realise that regardless of your skill level (or lack thereof) it’s quite hard to not deliver impressive

scores with this CPU and the motherboard.

If only overclocking for points on HWBOT or positioning even on Futuremark’s Hall of Fame, there are plenty of points and positions to be gained by simply relying on this combination of hardware. Even with my lack of tuning ability (or laziness if you prefer) I was still able to produce some worthwhile scores as you can see in the screenshots.

It has to be said that, like all things, perfection simply doesn’t exist. It is always worth pursuing, though. Any issue that you may have with the Rampage VI APEX is likely something that can be diagnosed and worked around with all the available software and literature.

For instance, losing a memory channel, getting odd performance or less than expected performance scaling are things one can remedy themselves and is not a reflection of the motherboard or the CPU. Even if it is, it’s called overclocking and these things are to be expected.

Mind you, I didn’t’ experience any of that. The CBR15 score is low purely because of my own doing and lack of any form of tuning, as one could

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have easily gained another 100 points here with anything resembling some form of competence. That said, even when you’re not trying it would be impossible not to score well with this combination of hardware.

As to what one should expect, it is the usual condensation, cold boot bug (usually around -90’c with this particular CPU) and of course a cold bug. You may lose the mount as well after a while, but again overclocking this platform outside of the expected and regular LN2 overclocking challenges was a breeze. There’s always room for improvement, but as it stands, it simply isn’t even worth it trying another combination as it’s unlikely to yield the same results. Even if it does, something tells me it’ll be a little tougher than it necessarily needs to be. I may have only one result here, but in all the benchmarks run, the Rampage VI APEX delivered. One always wants to be cautious and avoid saying overclocking is easy, but with the Rampage VI APEX, it really is. It’s an incredible board whichever way you look at it, made even more remarkable when you consider

that this was a first attempt at the platform and it turned out to be the best of the lot.

INTEL CORE I7 8700K & ROG MAXIMUS X APEX

In my version of the ideal world, or rather the ideal overclocking world, everyone would have access to the Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition and the Rampage VI APEX. However, we don’t live in such world. For the price of a single Core i9-7980XE CPU one could get a very capable Core i7-8700K, a MAXIMUS X APEX, a useful set of high bin B-die memory, a graphics card (at least at the time before mining made it near impossible to buy graphics cards) and an LN2 container for either the CPU, GPU, or even both depending on where you look.

This is the more common overclocking configuration and once again it is best served with an ROG APEX motherboard.

It has to be said that what INTEL has managed to do with the Core i7-8700K is worth celebrating.

Not only did we receive two more cores with these newer CPUs, but

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we hardly lost anything in as far as clock frequencies are concerned.

In fact, we ended up with even better memory overclocking (I’m unsure however which part is entirely responsible for this. Is it the motherboards, CPUs, or a combination?). In one fell swoop INTEL managed to make this generation of Performance desktop CPUs significantly more appealing than the previous line up, while only charging a fraction more.

As it stands today in overclocking, benchmarks as we all know break down into ones that benefit from pure CPU clock frequency and others which benefit from the sheer number of cores or threads the host CPU has. Therefore, in as much as I and others appreciate the two additional cores, they by and large remain only useful to gamers, productivity workloads and the like.

For competitive overclocking, speed is still king. Moreover, because HWBOT separates CPUs via core count, it is rather difficult to compare the Core i7-7700K to the 8700K in a direct way.

What one can compare are the clock frequencies achieved with

liquid nitrogen. What speaks to the great work that minds at INTEL delivered is the fact that the there are at least three 7.3GHz and higher frequency validations on the Core i7-8700K, while the highest Core i7-7700K frequency is 7,157MHZ. The same applies to memory frequency as well, where the highest recorded DRAM frequency with the CPU (or rather on the Z370 platform) is 2,764MHz or 5,528MT/s effectively.

No surprises that this frequency was achieved on the very board in question in this editorial - the ROG Maximus X APEX. It’s no wonder that the Core i78700K and the MAXIMUS X APEX, much like the Rampage VI APEX and the Core i9-7980XE make for ,an obvious combination and more than likely the only viable configuration for competitive overclocking at the highest levels.

As with the Rampage VI APEX, the Maximus board is at present (and for the foreseeable future) ruling the hardware rankings and submissions, making up a solid 15,2% of all submissions on HWBOT. Interestingly enough, a similar board, the Maximus X Hero, is the

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second most popular board and, of course, the ROG motherboards makes up more of the submissions than all of any other vendor’s boards combined.

Again, there’s nothing that speaks better than the numbers, and they are clear where overclocking is concerned for this platform. Do you yourself a favour and pick up the Maximus X APEX or, if you can’t, the Hero.

As with the Rampage, overclocking this motherboard is rather rudimentary, especially given that you have profiles that you simply load. Just with those alone and Turbo V you can literally get to 6GHz+ easily. In fact, that’s precisely what I did for this editorial. Wanting to find out just how simple it was to overclock the Core i7-8700K on this motherboard, I simply loaded the profile, dropped the temperature to -120’C, and lo and behold 6GHz was doable. It doesn’t get much easier than this. After this point, it would be a matter of finding the limits of the CPU by increasing the multiplier as appropriate.

Of course, there are memory profiles as well which are key to extracting any sort of competitive result from the hardware. These worked just as well as they did on the Z270 Maximus IX APEX (actually some of these could very well be identical). For interest’s sake, 4,600MT/s (2,300MHz) is doable on this motherboard even when using an AIO cooler. Stability will take a while to achieve, but for a quick validation it’s rather easy with any

sort of functional memory kit.

For liquid nitrogen overclocking though, one obviously seeks the tightest timings possible and once again C11 4133MHz ~ is doable, pretty much matching what the Z270 motherboard could do and perhaps making it a little simpler to achieve this time around.

What INTEL has managed to do with the Core i7-8700K and their “14nm++” node is remarkable, and to fully appreciate that one needs a board such as the ROG MAXIMUS X APEX. From where I stand, it’ll be difficult if not near impossible for you to find a more compelling duo - just as it is with the Rampage VI APEX and the Core i97980XE. With the overclocking component market as it is, I don’t think I’d be mistaken in saying that we effectively have a single horse race.

Fortunately, that hasn’t lowered the quality of the motherboards in any discernible way - in fact I’d wager that these two are the best INTEL platform boards ROG has produced to date.

I’m not here to tell you what to buy for your friendly or competitive overclocking, but if you were to opt for a different combination of components, I can effectively guarantee that you’d be starting at a disadvantage. No product is perfect, and neither are these two boards along with the matching CPUs. They do come dangerously close though, and as far as these two platforms are concerned, this is about as perfect as you’re likely to ever get.

[ The OverClocker ]

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TESTING CONFIGURATION INTEL Core i7 8700K CORSAIR VENGENACE LPX 4333 EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 Ti INTEL 545 240GB SSD CORSAIR AX1500i Windows 10 x64 (BIOS F5m)

VALUE AWARD

GIGABYTE AORUS Z370 GAMING 7 ERP $249.99 | WEBSITE w w w.gigaby te.com

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here’s no denying that within the PC DIY space, motherboards are simply having a hard time distinguishing themselves within the SKUs, let alone between vendors.

As the chipsets become more competent, there’s simply less for the board vendors to do that adds unique value to each product.

The positive here as you can imagine is that it makes buying a motherboard a trivial affair, but at the same time funnels our purchases into a fixed number of options.

Let’s start with what you won’t find on the GAMING 7 for instance, which is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. We take these for granted these days, but they are oddly absent on this board. A missed opportunity for sure, but consider as well that this is the only omission

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functionality wise that is missing on the Gaming 7. If you expect a longer list of “missing features “, there just isn’t one. As a result, on paper this board ticks all the right boxes except for the aforementioned lack of wireless connectivity. It basically speaks to the statement made earlier about the difficulty board vendors find themselves in when trying to distinguish boards.

Buying a motherboard these days is really easy and for as long as you’re in the right price bracket, you’re unlikely to miss anything feature and functionality wise.

That said, let me tell you what is here instead and how it all comes together or doesn’t sometimes.

The specifications are easy enough to read for yourself and as far as gaming is concerned, there’s not a

single board anywhere that could claim to be a better offering if one is being honest. That may not speak to the merits of the GAMING 7 specifically, but more of a reflection of where we find ourselves in the PC DIY landscape. For your so called “gaming” needs, it is just about as good as any board you can buy for any medium to high end SKU. There’s no board you will buy instead of this one which will magically give you better game performance or improve your individual in-game performance.

Even when one considers measured performance, the differences between motherboards realistically is near zero. Sure, synthetic tests can reveal slight tuning differences between motherboards, but these are

indiscernible while gaming. The heavy lifting these days is done by the GPU, the CPU and of course the DRAM and perhaps in that exact order.

How the GAMING 7 speaks to each of these in the reverse order is as follows. The specifications state that there’s support for DDR4 4133MT/s, however I was not able to run any of the memory I had, regardless of X.M.P rating or settings past 3866MT/s. The motherboard would either not POST or you’d lose a channel in the process. Understand this isn’t a failure of this specific motherboard, but simply that there are few if any of these four DIMM boards making using of a daisy chained structure for DRAM that could reliably operate at that frequency. The same motherboard, with two DIMMS using T-topology would fair a little better and I’ve no doubt 4000 MT/s would be possible.

Of course, there is a way in which one could operate DRAM at such a high frequency, but I’d say the odds are very slim even though that is stated as the maximum supported frequency.

For whom this board is aimed at, there was no need to state support for such frequencies and even if it did. There are no tangible benefits to this in a gaming context. In the interest of honesty, I’d say 3,733MT/s and lower are fair expectations.

Still plenty of performance there and once again it will make zero difference to your gaming experience going from 3733 to 4133 at any meaningful detail level and screen resolution.

CPU support is as you’d expect and there’s nothing surprising here.

This is true for the overclocking as well. It is hard to get exact measurements on how well the board handles voltage control under

varying conditions, but comparing this model with what I’d consider the best performance orientated Z370 board I’ve tested (APEX) revealed that maximum CPU overclocks were identical. Making direct comparisons of voltage requirements between the two boards for say 5GHz isn’t possible because, as I’ve recently learned, where you measure voltage makes a world of difference and the UEFI/BIOS is not a reliable way in the least of taking readings. Suffice to say 5GHz and a validation of 5.2GHz with a de-lidded CPU were possible so there is literally nothing to report here or moan about (this is important because any review that has an overclocking section that simply increases the CPU multiplier and CPU input voltage and reports the numbers is probably less than useless). As expected, the Gaming 7 can hang with the best of them when it comes to AIO/Air cooled

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overclocks. Whatever the capability of your CPU, you’ll not be held back by the GAMING 7 at all.

So, what of GPU support then? As usual you have the typical CrossFire and SLI multi-GPU support.

Gone are the days of plenty of PCIExpress slots for 4-way GPU setups and to reflect that the GAMING 7 simply features three full length slots. Certainly not a board for mining, but for ‘gaming’, it is more than enough. In particular for two-way VGA systems, this layout I find particularly favourable. The two primary slots for the graphics cards are spaced a healthy distance apart and the third slot is still far enough for you to use a Sound card should you choose (not that it’s

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necessary given the audio solution on this board).

The only downside here is that two of the M.2 slots will be operating directly under two hot GPUs, which is the last thing M.2 drives need. The oddity here is that there two M.2 slots that are susceptible to GPU heat and they are the ones without a heat sink.

Yet, the primary or at least the first M.2 slot just south of the CPU socket has a beefy heatsink (M.2 Thermal Guard is what GIGABYTE dubs it). You can remove the heatsink of course and install it on the 2nd slot but that will still leave the last socket with no cooling. Do watch out for this if you’re planning on making use of all three for some fast RAID action.

As with all gaming boards of late,

the GAMING 7 will allow you to disco light yourself to oblivion with the sheer number of LEDs placed throughout the board. Just about everything on the board can light up and you can customise this to your liking in the typical fashion. Definitely not my cup of tea (not on just the GAMING 7 but on every board), but should come in plenty useful for those who care for that sort of thing.

What I do care about though is the audio solution. For years on end GIGABYTE has made sure to couple their boards with some of the best if not the best audio circuity in the business (at least as far as component selection is concerned).

There’s been a small change this time in that we are no longer

dealing with an audio controller from Creative, but instead it is the software Sound BlasterX 720 layered on top of the hardware that makes it come to life.

This may seem as if GIGABYTE has gone backwards and maybe it has in some ways (depending on what it is exactly you liked about the audio properties of the previous chips), but from what I heard, you’ll not be missing anything at all. It is one of the best audio solutions you can find on this generation of motherboards and I’d even go so far as to say it is the best you can find on any Z370. What the Sound BlasterX 720 software drives is the familiar ALC1220 codec, that’s been paired with the ESS ESS9018Q2C DAC. WIMA and Nichicon capacitors and an LME49720 Op-amp. In addition to that GIGABYTE has installed a TXC oscillator for “precise time triggers to DAC’s”. Don’t brush this off as marketing speak because in some rare cases where boards use the ALC1220 without this oscillator (note, this is not to say the ALC1220 is the cause of this!), you could experience some popping and jitter. It’s not a guarantee you’ll have it but it is something I’ve experienced before and it can be rather annoying. Kudos to GIGABYTE for making sure that

the odds of this are significantly lowered, via this hardware solution.

Finally, we come to the UEFI. There’s not much to say here as it has not changed much for a number of years. The progress is easy to see, but many of the core concerns about naming conventions and presentation still plague the board.

Luckily this isn’t an overclocking board and one is unlikely to have to spend any significant amount of time here. There are also no meaningful profiles so the only thing that as a gamer one should be doing is loading the X.M.P profile, perhaps setting the CPU overclock and calling it a day. For the more advanced users, you can tweak the DRAM sub-timings and optimize the system performance further.

Again, given the context and target audience, it is an adequate UEFI despite its short comings.

Overall, the GAMING 7 does represent the premier Z370 gaming motherboard from GIGABYTE. If the price is too high for you, could consider the GAMING 5 instead, but I don’t’ believe it is that much cheaper to make a meaningful difference. You may however, consider the Z370 AORUS GAMING WIFI if only because you will have WIF support and get the Sound Core

3D processor. That’s pretty much it for the GIGABYTE AORUS Z370 GAMING 7. It’s a solid offering which ticks all the right boxes and delivers exactly what it promises, nothing more – nothing less.

[ The OverClocker ]

SUMMARY The AORUS line of boards and products are designed for and targeting gamers of all types. The Z370 GAMING 7 speaks to this in an obvious way with LEDs up to wazoo, dual GIGABIT LAN (whatever that does) and of course a great audio system. It’s unfortunate there’s no WIFI connectivity but, that isn’t anything a USB dongle can’t fix. Performance is rock solid as to be expected and the price low for a high-end board. At $250 you’d be hard pressed to find such an attractive package anywhere else, truly great value.

WOULD YOU BUY IT? YES!

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VS GAMING GEAR AWARD

CORSAIR HS50 & ST100 VS. VOID PRO RGB WIRELESS

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here are literally hundreds if not thousands gaming headsets, or cans if you prefer supposedly designed for the gamer. Just about every vendor who was ever involved in any other aspect of the PC DIY market has latched on to gaming headsets, all of them hoping to ride the explosive wave of competitive multiplayer gaming.

It may not seem like it, but we are still in the early days and some headset vendors may choose to focus on other business activities while others will

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simply disappear altogether. There are those however such as CORSAIR which keep getting better at these headsets and of course I decided to compare two of their latest offerings for this editorial.

CORSAIR has always been a highend brand and I think this is more of the case now than before. One simply has to look at how their keyboards and mice have evolved to realize that there is progress being made not only in design, but functionality and of course build quality. From seemingly just trying the gaming market to arguably

being a leader, or at the very least one of the leaders in the space.

As with all things peripherals and gaming, the vast majority of vendors choose to focus on the numbers and cater for as much of the PC gaming public as possible. Since the dedicated sound card has fallen out of favor; USB gaming headsets are the order of the day and these will continue to become more abundant in future. These headsets have a built-in audio processor and are a true plug and play replacement for whatever audio

controller you may have on your motherboard.

Such is the case with the CORSAIR VOID PRO RGB Wireless. A mouthful, but also a premium headset that continues the legacy of the original CORSAIR Vengeance 2000 from years ago.

Slow and steady progress has seen this headset improve in many ways and today we have what is easily CORSAIR’s best effort to date.

On the opposite end of that and for the price sensitive buyer, CORSAIR recently released the HS50 which comes in at a much lower price and lacks any sort of USB connectivity (and of course audio processing).

It is a more traditional option making use of the standard three strip stereo mini-jack for both the microphone and stereo output. This setup allows you to use the headset with your smart device, motherboard audio and of course a dedicated sound card should you so happen to have one.

Personally, I’m still partial to this option primarily because I already have a dedicated sound card for my gaming and general PC usage on at least one machine. Moreover, motherboard audio solutions and of course the electronics used within USB headsets are simply not able to match the audio fidelity and acoustics that a dedicated sound card is able to deliver right now.

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time where there is no meaningful difference between dedicated audio solutions and what is on offer with USB headsets. It’s simply a matter of when, rather than if.

That aside, the HS50 and the VOID PRO RGB Wireless are two sets of cans that clearly serve two different buyers.

These two are separated, to me at least, by price. The HS50 is a mere $49.90 while the VOID PRO RGB Wireless sells for a healthy $99.99.

That’s literally double the price of the HS50 cans. It’s no surprise then that there’s functionality present on the VOID PRO RGB which accounts for this price difference.

For instance, tonally to me, these are identical and I suspect they use the very same 50mm neodymium drivers. The specifications as detailed

by CORSAIR suggests as much.

Briefly that’s a 20 to 20KHz response range and 32k Ohms impedance.

Nothing unexpected here and in line with a host of other competing products from other vendors.

Those numbers however don't tell you much about the characteristics of the audio. I could be wrong and there may very well be tonal differences between the two, but they are difficult to perceive. If there were to be genuine differences, I would chalk them up to the input audio source for each where the HS50 is using an external audio processor while the VOID PRO RGB is using its built-in audio processor. In the interest of having as objective a comparison as possible, I did not use any motherboard or sound card output, but opted instead for the

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CORSAIR ST100 headphone stand for use with the HS50.

The ST100 is a simple piece of equipment; RGB lights on a wide square base and of course an illuminated CORSAIR logo for those who fancy that sort of thing. These LEDs can be configured within CUE as you’d imagine and matched with the rest of your CORSAIR peripherals. The ST100 also serves as a USB 3.0 hub with two USB 3.0 ports. Most important for this comparison though is that it contains audio processing circuitry allowing you to use the ST100 as an output device. I cannot be sure of the following, but I do suspect that he audio controller used within the VOID PRO RGB Wireless is identical to the one used within the ST100. Don’t quote me on that, but these sound identical

and from a business perspective I don’t think it would make much sense to use a difference controller.

Before I move on to the actual comparison between these setups, note that I very much like the idea of the ST100. Not only because a headset stand is just useful, but as mentioned earlier it serves a USB hub. When using the CORSAIR ONE especially which only has a single USB 3.0 port on the front; the ST100’s hub is much appreciated.

It’s inexpensive at $59.99 considering the value it has for anyone using the CORSAIR ONE for example. Where it could be improved perhaps is if it were to be a wireless charger as well. The flat base is perfect for this and it is realestate that isn’t being utilized for much of anything. With this single addition it would be even better.

The comparison these two (VOID PRO RGB Wireless vs. HS50 + ST100 combination) is quite interesting in that you get several common features for a similar price. Going with the VOID PRO RGB gives you wireless freedom and that is perhaps worth the $10 saved against the ST100 and HS50 (This combination is $110 USD). At the same time, having that USB connectivity and a stand for your cans is possibly worth it for the $10 premium. On CORSAIR’s site, the ST100 and the VOID PRO RGB Wireless are presented as often purchased together and I do see the value in that as a headphone stand is always welcome, but I do feel the stronger pairing is with the HS50. As always, options are great and you will decide what best suits your needs.

Even though the VOID PRO RGB Wireless features official Dolby Headphone® surround for immersive 7.1, it turns out that the ST100’s controller (once again leading one to believe these make use of the same electronics) also supports virtual 7.1 over stereo.

The performance or effectiveness of each implementation varies, even though I’d like to believe that the official Dolby Headphone® for the VOID PRO RGB is better. In the games I tested with - they are near identical in immersing you in the game world (provided it’s designed well in the first place).

So, the question would be, is there anything I find disagreeable about the sets?

Well, in my experience - CORSAIR is best at making high end products. The low-end offerings have improved vastly and the HS50 is testament to that. It is because of this that I find the limited use time of the HS50 unfortunate. It’s short because the headset causes discomfort on the ears and temples after an hour or so. It’s all down to the pressure it applies on your head. I’m not sure if it’s the same force as on the VOID PRO RGB, but even if it is, the ear cups there are both thicker and softer, which alleviates some of that direct pressure. I do have a big head so that may be to blame, but even with that, it is something I noticed wasn’t an issue with the VOID PRO RGB Wireless.

As for the VOID PRO RGB, my main issue is that it will force you to do without your fancy sound card should you have invested in one. Sound cards are not a thing anymore by any measure, but imagine you own a motherboard with a pretty advanced audio solution such as those found on high end ASUS (SupremeFX Hi-Fi module on Rampage V Extreme for example) or some GIGABYTE boards.

You’ll effectively have to sacrifice that audio fidelity for the VOID PRO RGB Wireless. Perhaps there may be a solution to this in future, where a USB dongle could turn that analogue stereo signal from your board into a Bluetooth signal. Plausible, but an elaborate solution which may have undesired effects on pricing to be worth it at this point from CORSAIR’s perspective – who knows. Other than that, the inability to use the headset with your mobile device (solved with the same dongle) is also something that could be looked at in future that would add more versatility to the headset.

So, there you have it, you could essentially spend a similar amount of money and come out with similar if not an identical audio experience. How easy it is to live with either will be for you to figure out. Forgo all wire clutter and gain complete freedom of movement with the VOID PRO RGB Wireless, or - stick with the HS50 and ST100 for USB connectivity, a headphone stand and of course the ability to use your high-end sound card and smart device. I’m not here to tell you which way to go as both are equally valid options (not forgetting the CORSAIR “suggested” ST100 and VOID PRO RGB Wireless combination).

Whatever you decide, you’re unlikely to be disappointed with the outcome. [ TheOverClocker ]

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