TheOverclocker Issue 33

Issue 33 2015 rev 2.1

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. BOMAYE.

G.O.A.T

GIGABYTE X99 SOC CHAMPION

THE CHAMP IS HERE!

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER ISSUE – 33!

I

t’s taken a much longer than usual for to write this. Then again it’s taken significantly longer for us to get Issue 33 of the magazine to you. There’s are plenty reasons (or excuses depending on where you are sitting) which resulted in this but the good thing is that we are finally here for what has already been a very interesting year not only in overclocking, but gaming and just the PC industry as a whole.

As always with the first issue of every year, we are past CES and are looking forward to COMPUTEX 2014. No idea yet what we will see (certainly no Skylake), but it’s sure to be the defining trade show event of the year for all enthusiasts and power users alike.

In the more immediate future though, we’ve had, if for lack of a better word, a comical time with X99 motherboards. I’ve probably written more about the various boards than I care to recall, yet I find there’s still something to be said in general about how the platform has transformed the motherboard or at least overclocking landscape. It would be incorrect to say that this, unlike with the previous high end platform X79, is a one horse race. I may have felt that way last year when it was all new, but courtesy of some truly phenomenal motherboards or perhaps better, a phenomenal motherboard, we have at the very least a two horse race. My personal, subjective opinions aside, the cover motherboard for this issue (I hope that’s still the cover, don’t quote me on that) is an extraordinary piece of equipment. More about that in the formal editorial piece, but I must state here that this has been a surprising turn of events and if anything it should inspire other vendors to give their initial attempts a second look.

On to the overclocking scene, we’ve had the OC E-Sports site come alive by ushering in several competitions that are running as you read this. I can’t state how impressed I am to see overclocking taking on such an engaging, but highly organized approach to competitiveness. It’s a breath of fresh air and has given legs to the scene that I’m hesitant but inclined to say, the main HWBOT site could not.

Its slick, works relatively well (some teething problems initially) and allows you to drill right down to whatever competition you’re interested in. Its participants, current standings, stages and anything else one may be interested in learning about. This is probably where I

personally will be spending more of my time as it is not incumbent like its parent site for quick overviews. If you’ve not taken a look at it, do yourself a favour and you’ll come away impressed to say the very least.

To more consumer orientated issues, I’ve written to a respectable length about the issue surrounding the NVIDIA GTX 970 in another place, formally and otherwise.

It is however worth mentioning here as well. This was a topic that went viral on the enthusiast sites, and one that was explained in wonderful high level technical detail on Anandtech. Unfortunately what it all means to the end user, why it matters or doesn’t matter at all was not something that I found on many sites covering or vested in the issue.

Part of it, has to do with the sensationalism that a topic like this creates, and once it is past it’s sell by date, all swiftly move along as if nothing happened. It made me wonder what the fuss was about in the first place. Ultimately then it seems it doesn’t matter at all, as long as the GTX 970 plays all the relevant games at all the right settings, all is well in the land of the PC gamer. The “moral” or ethical argument that was presented doesn’t mean much. I had doubted if this would sway a large of portion of would be buyers away from the GPU and it turns out that it wouldn’t. After all, the GPU performs exactly the same way if not better (courtesy of driver updates) than it did when the initial reviews came out.

Be it the specifications were right or wrong. One or at least the vast majority of people do not “play” the specifications, but actual games, where nothing has changed.

On that note, here’s to another issue of TheOverclocker Magazine. I do hope you enjoy your read through. Until then, do remember that when in doubt, one should always eat a pie.

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 3

44

REGULARS 3 - Editor’s note 6 - Interview with Gnidaol 12 - OC-TV 16 - Hardware, Records and Things

FEATURES 18 – GIGABYTE GTX 900 Gaming Series

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

REVIEWS

Editor Neo Sibeko

24 – GIGABYTE X99 SOC-Champion

Art Director Chris Savides

28 – G.Skill F4 2666MHz DDR4 Kit

Contributors Dane Remendes Pieter-Jan “Massman” Plaisier Timothée Pineau

32 – MSI GTX 960 GAMING

GAME TIME 36 - Dying Light

For editorial and marketing please contact:

40 – BenQ XL2430T Gaming Monitor 44 – ASUS SICA & Whetstone

neo@theoverclocker.com

18

4 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

a good team becomes important for the scores. When a good 2D overclocker teams up with a good 3D overclocker some records can come by to say “hello”.

With Whom do you overclock with predominantly or is it a solo effort mostly?

In the past I used to overclock almost three times a week with RBUASS, and it was like that for 2 or 3 years. But since he got really busy with his job and then I started at mine we stopped being able to bench together regularly.

Lately I’ve being able to match my busy schedule with joe90br, so for the last 2 years he is the overclocker who I’ve benched with most of the time.

How often do you have overclocking sessions?

With LN2 at least once every two months and when there’s any contest that I’m allowed to take a shot at. On an enthusiast setup I do some testing sessions almost every 15 days.

Your single most memorable overclocking achievement?

The most memorable achievement for me was winning the Extreme stage of the LATAM MOA on 2010, qualifying me for my first

international live overclocking contest and my first trip abroad. That contest changed my life in terms of goals. I changed my focus from getting “boints” to competing in overclocking contests.

You’ve been working for Kingston for almost two years. How is it being on the other side at the vendor? Are you involved in the overclocking products, promotions or events at Kingston?

It’s a dream job working with something that you really love. It’s almost the same feeling as finding your soulmate. I’m involved with a lot of different things. I’m glad I was recognized by the various responsible people for this. I usually give some suggestions, guide lines and support the company in achieving its goals. I’m really happy that I can be a single link of this successful chain.

What is the best thing about working at Kingston and do you have any input when it comes to products?

The best thing about it is having a deeper understanding of the technology development process. Also being made aware of all the challenges that need to be overcome in order to have a successful product launch.

Since it is part of my job to know in depth all product lines that Kingston has, I feel really lucky working with all current and future technologies related to RAM, flash, audio and peripherals. Not just reading and listening to others talking about it but being able to provide feedback about ideas, projects and acces to prototypes.

Now that you have inside knowledge about Kingston & Hyper X products, what do you think makes them better than some other competing products?

It begins with its origin. Kingston is a private company owned by two guys that truly love technology.

They understand it and they know how it should be developed. Thanks to their efforts Kingston is one of the greatest test development companies. By developing our unique way of testing hardware, controlling the manufacturing process and setting unique quality standards, Kingston has achieved a level that makes all its products really reliable. All products are thoroughly and extensively tested before leaving the factory. When we talk about HyperX products we are talking about products that are tested to an even higher quality standard

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 7

The overclocking community should love using HyperX since the overclocking potential is real. The products are tested at higher specifications so the products are able to maintain this level of performance throughout the entire warranty period, which for memory is a lifetime.

What are your general thoughts on live competitions, especially since it looks like we will be having far more going forward?

Live competitions are where overclockers can show how they deal with unusual or unfamiliar issues. In addition, it is where we can see the OS tweaking skills being pushed to the limit in order to beat the lucky guys with the best chips of the contest.

Usually the qualifiers are the biggest challenge and the final battle is simply the place where we try and earn back what we’ve spent trying to qualify.

I’m really glad that the hardware companies are starting to better support this kind of competition. It is what motivates some of the world’s best overclockers. We love to compete, but we also love the opportunity to bench with the guys that have the same crazy passion that we do.

I hope to see overclocking recognized as a radical e-sport and

8 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

getting not just the proper support but having contests that motivate more and more overclockers to give it a try ushering more challengers into the competitions.

Which was your first live overclocking event, where was it and how did you?

My first live overclocking event was the MOA 2010, it was in Taipei. My team (MARIOACE and I) finished 13th place among the 20 teams. So I was really happy reaching a really nice spot for my first live contest. I was really nervous on that day. The time flew by. The whole day went by in what felt like just a couple of hours.

Do you still compete in the rankings personally or is that not important for your anymore. Do you even find time to be overclocking as much as before?

Unfortunately now I’m really busy, so I don’t have the time to compete in the rankings as I would like to. But even when I had the opportunity to do so, I preferred to learn about the hardware and about tweaking it with other people and their hardware instead of competing to get boints. I’m really glad to help and learn instead of just doing it by myself and for myself. It is unfortunate as well that in Brazil hardware is too expensive due to local

taxes. Add to which I didn’t have financial support to pay for the really expensive LN2 and to properly bin the hardware. Due to this the contests I enter at the moment have to earn me some Boints as well.

I won’t ask you what your favourite memory brand is, but what was the best set of memory you ever had since you started overclocking and what was it capable of doing that made you like it so much?

I had (by coincidence) a HyperX kit with Elpida chips, those chips were insane. I was able to reach 1866MHz CL5. On that time (X58, P55, AM3), when latency was more relevant than frequency this was really helpful.

Other than overclocking at a high level what are your other interests?

I like movies, motorsports, sightseeing, partying, traveling, photography, music (listening) and games (all kinds, from board games to computer games).

With so many changes happening over at the OC-eSports site and at HWBOT, Is there perhaps, anything you’d like to see changed in the overclocking community or in competitions?

The community should start using HWBot for small contests or

challenges. We still see a lot of guys creating threads on forums and facebook communities showing that they managed the best benchmark scores and so on. Those small threads usually use a screenshot instead of a link to a validated score on HWbot.

People in the community should help these guys participate in the league and have the challenges on their forums make use of valid score links.

On the competition side, the H.O.T. is doing exactly what I would change in other contests. It’s really important to give participants of the qualifying rounds a a chance to win prizes as well. They invested in their participation and it’s only fair that although they may not make it to the finals, they are recognized as participants and get a return on their investment.

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

As an overclocker I always expect 10 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

new VGA families, hoping that there will be no cold slow bug, black screens and no zombie mods required for proper voltage control, etc. I believe we that will see even better memory kits for overclocking and maybe new CPUs for the existing platforms with a better ratio of really nice chips.

For the hardware enthusiasts new generations of SSDs are coming out, so the overclocked CPUs will be able to show their power within the OS in daily operations using faster SSDs. When last did you play any game and what was it and on what platform?

Last month we had the Carnival here in Brazil, as it was a national holiday I met my friends and we played DotA2 all day and night long.

The PC platform was the one. We’ve played DotA together since 2004, so it’s our regular way of relaxing for over a decade.

Anything else you’d like to say to everyone reading this?

If you like hardware you should spend some time fine tuning your computer. Make sure the optimum power is readily available. Make it worth every penny you spent on it. If you've already fine-tuned it, why not start sharing your achievements?

Validate some scores on HWBot even if they are not top scores, those are your scores. Show them off to your friends, share them on social media and let people see what they too could do with their own computers. If you already share your results regularly chances are you’ve already had feedback from which you can draw to make your achievement even greater, right?

Exchanging experiences allows you to learn even more especially when you want to try new things. This is how the community evolves. We exchange experiences and learn together.

Figuring out how to make our computers reach their limits.

The OC Show Your overclocking talk-show In each episode of the OC Show, Pieter (Massman - HWBOT) and Tim (Xyala OverClocking-TV) cover the latest news from the overclocking community. This second season of the show introduces a new format. Now shorter, the OC Show becomes biweekly!

Here are the first three episodes of 2015:

The key topics discussed in these three episodes are: • the AOCT 2014 by Jagat Review • the HyperX H.O.T. 2015 Finals • the CES 2015 • the OC-Esports.io launch • the HWBOT World Tour 2015 • and all the new or ongoing competitions of the moment Relax, grab some pop-corn & enjoy the show.

Questions?

If you have questions, you can tune-it for the bi-weekly live Q&A session hosted on the OverClocking-TV Twitch channel.

Ask Us Live

B O R NT OG A ME GeForceGTX 980 Seri es Graphi cs Cards

 

S G N I K N

2015 Overclocking Season

A R

In every issue of The Overclocker we present you an overview of the Official World Overclocking Ranking, the HWBOT Road to Pro & the HWBOT League rankings. Thumbs up to everyone who made the hall of fame!

Official World Overclocking Ranking 250 pts

195 pts

Xtreme Addict

173 pts

Splave.ROM

dRweEz

HWBOT Road To Pro Team 5xP

Paulo.alves

Woomack

Topdog

Loud_silence

Aerotracks

Rasparthe

Johni5

HWBOT OC Leagues The current leaders starting from Elite going to Rookie are Dancop, BarboneNet, Vadimua, Zwitterion93 and The Baron.

Elite

Extreme

Enthusiast

Novice

Rookie

1

Dancop

BarboneNet

Vadimua

Zwitterion93

The Baron

2

8 Pack

Hideo

Poparamiro

Natybaby2013

Rauf

3

TeamAU

TaPaKaH

Punk Sods

George.kokovinis

Deutscher Wolf

4

Sofos1990

Mtech

Alexmx

Nvidiaforever2

Skellator

5

Smoke

Moose83

NATA 58

Manurap46

Zwitschler

2

Gumanoid

(standings as of February 26, 2015)

S

Competition Results In 2014, HWBOT hosted 96 competitions. Keeping up quickly becomes a challenge, even for the most diehard enthusiasts. Below you can find a recap from the past couple of months.

- GIGABYTE GIGABYTE Good Bye 2014 Challenge 1 Vivi

64 pts

2 fgi

50 pts

3 Alan_Alberino

42 pts

- Community AOCT 2014 - The Final Battle

Mobile Geeks 801 Tweaker Challenge

1 NolC-44

24 pts

1 Arise

10 pts

2 OC-44_

22 pts

2 Hiwa

8 pts

3 TBel OC

15 pts

3 DrDave

6 pts

- HyperX OC Takeover HyperX OC Takeover 2015 World Finals 1 Xtreme Addict

179 pts

2 Splave.ROM

142 pts

3 Uncle Fester

140 pts

- Rookie Rumble Rookie Rumble #12

Rookie Rumble AMD #9

1 daNE

136 pts

1 3DW

112 pts

2 nexus35

114 pts

2 KSenjou

106 pts

3 narutoxik

85 pts

3 DeathRabit

104 pts

Rookie Rumble #13

Rookie Rumble AMD #10

1 narutoxik

106 pts

1 Starting_Overclock

108 pts

2 narutoxik

104 pts

2 O santo BR

106 pts

3 Rauf

94 pts

3 narutoxik

100 pts

Rookie Rumble #14

Rookie Rumble AMD #11

1 JohnITRW

123 pts

1 iamdjozone

108 pts

2 energy

123 pts

2 Curtix

92 pts

3 Frankha

102 pts

3 Math316

82 pts

2

Gumanoid

HARDWARE, RECORDS and THINGS! 2.3GHZ GPU CLOCK REACHED Steponz reaches a milestone by achieving the first 2.3GHz on a high end GPU (or possibly any GPU for that matter). It’s no secret that the GTX 980 is an incredible overclocker with virtually all GPUs clocking above the 2GHz mark. However, it gets much harder after that finding the right sample and having the correct supporting hardware and skill level to pull it off. Well, we finally have it with a cracking FS Extreme score of 10,459. This done on the EVGA GTX 980 Classified, proving once again that it is the definitive GTX 980 for the highest frequencies.

There’s the K|NGP|N Edition that was recently announced which should in theory be even better, but it’s hard to see how this can be topped. Joe’s Classified may be a very unique sample, but even so, the new ultimate edition of the GTX 980 will have its work cut out for it. The good thing about it though is that if it does manage to pull through it will bring GPU overclocking closer to the next milestone which could be 2,400MHz! Whatever happens, one thing is for sure and that is the challenge has been set for both overclockers and vendors alike. Will it be MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE or GALAX to rise to the challenge?

HARDWARE & RESULT RELIABILITY We still have not been able to verify some claims made by entities (vendor, teams, individuals or a combination) on hardware that technically isn’t what is on the shelves.

Understand that that we are not talking about E/G-Power boards and the like. Those may not be something that can be purchased readily at stores, but they are accessible to the vast majority of competitive overclockers who would be able to use such hardware. What we are talking about for example is a vendor claiming a world record using specific memory that isn’t remotely close to what one may find online or at regular stores. That is, flashing a 2133MHz SPD on a set of memory that is a 3200MHz kit, then proceeding to hit 4GHz on the same set for example. Note that this isn’t a specific example (pray tell we’ve not given this ill-conceived idea to one nefarious individual) but an illustration of what may be happening. Another instance is to claim a world record using a socket that isn’t on a retail product. We all know about the overclocking sockets that are in existence for X99 boards. These are likely to show up in all future motherboards as well, even in the lesser platforms. The problem here is that a single entity may claim a record using a regular retail board, but one fitted with one of these special sockets.

In such a situation, there’s no way for the buying public to know that the achievement was not done with a retail board. This isn’t a firmware update or some software. This is a socket that short of having some really expensive equipment is impossible to install on an end user board, meaning the record is invalid. That nobody can verify it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. As such, vigilance by overclockers, and in particular media that reviews such products shall need to be exercised.

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X99 SOC CHAMPION CONTINUES TO IMPRESS Since last December, the GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion has played a significant role in helping reach class leading scores and some overclocking world records. The motherboard hasn’t been available everywhere, but vapourware or special vendor shenanigans it is not. Co-incidentally it was the same motherboard used by Steponz in his 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme top score as well. It’s also proving to be more than capable in other areas as well. If you follow the SuperPi 32M low clock challenge, you’ll that it has the leading time for the platform . Achieved by Dinos22 at 5 minutes and 55.922 seconds. Not to mention the 2D benchmark dominance by Sofos1990.

WORLD RECORD TICKER As for World Records, many of these are not new but we have been counting how many each vendor has in 3D Benchmarks. Taking only into account the GPU or better yet GPUs used for each one. Obviously just about any GPU can be modified with any one of the PWM boards that are available, resulting in plenty of power and the ability to clock the core and memory much higher. Since that option is available to every GPU vendor and overclocker, we consider this a fair representation of the component or at the very least how far each vendor is willing to go to have their claim at a real world record.

EVGA, GIGABYTE and GALAX are tied with three world records each. The EVGA results helmed by k|ngp|n himself of course, via 3DMark Fire Strike and 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme. Dancop taking the legacy 3DMark06 honours. All done with the GTX 980 Classified. GIGABYTE taking the 3DMark Vantage Performance, 3DMark05 and 3DMark11 records, all done by Team AU on the G1 Gaming cards, modified with the G-Power board.

GALAX at present owns CATZILLA in both disciplines thanks to 8 Pack and the Hall Of Fame GTX 980. ASUS claims two more as well via TeamAU and finally we have MSI leading the Unigine Heaven Heaven Preset in the capable hands of 8 Pack.

vendors and all those involved in curbing the World Record claims which had until recently gotten out of control. With the new measurements in place, we have much fewer records and the ones that do exist mean something that all can relate to. Simply put, the best performance in a particular test or series of tests. It is a vast improvement over what used to happen before and we are no longer at the mercy of record claims for obscure hardware of oddly specific hardware configurations that resulted in hundreds of possible claims of World Records.

There may still be the issue of single GPU results qualifying for world record status, with opinions divided about that, but ultimately it is probably for the best that only a single score or achievement represents a world record and nothing else.

At present it’s a three headed race and perhaps realistically a two headed race between EVGA and GALAX as these are the only two vendors making special overclocking geared GPUs at present with the MSI GTX 980 Lightning nowhere to be seen and unlikely to ever appear. In the VGA benchmarks this is where the competition is going to be fought most intensely. With the impending release of the k|ngp|n GTX 980 who knows, maybe GALAX will move to a V2 edition of their HOF card.

Lastly we do think it necessary to commend the Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 17

GIGABYTE G1 GAMING

900 SERIES MAXWELL’S FAMILY THREE Hardware Award L

ast issue, I looked at another GTX 980 graphics card.

One built specifically for competitive overclocking and commanding a high price for that.

I still believe that is the best overclocking GTX 980 on the market and a recent achievement by overclocker Steponz proved this yet again with a scorching GPU core clock speed of 2.3GHz resulting in a 3DMark FireStrike Extreme score of 10,459. That has not changed and that graphics card will likely remain unbeaten for some time.

As impressive and inspiring as that is, the 99.9% of us will never come close to even attempting that and what we look for in our graphics card is game performance above all else. Sure, we do appreciate overclocking, but for Joe Soap, that is out of reach and limits closer to what can be achieved via air cooling will be ever more relevant. As such I managed to gather three of the G1 Gaming cards from GIGABYTE’s NVIDIA 900 series GPUs. These represent the premier GPUs from the vendor and it goes without saying that they command a price premium over the WindForce 18 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

and all other editions.

In this tough market, an average aftermarket cooler will not suffice and that goes for a mediocre overclock as well. A constant balance between these two and other factors is what ultimately determines many a buying decision only secondary to price. Since no GPU here is under $200, they have to allow at the very least gaming at Full HD resolutions with all settings set to their highest levels barring anti-aliasing. Not an unfair expectation given that a current generation gaming console is $299 and the graphics are pretty impressive there. So for $200 and above on a single component, one should be able to reach the same graphical fidelity at the very least.

It is safe to say that all three GPUs are capable of this and in the case of the G1 cards, they are able to exceed this minimum requirement quite well. Before I begin with each other, I will cover some basics that are common to more than one card, specifically the Flex Display technology and the Coolers on each card.

GIGABYTE’S FLEX-DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY Normally the GTX 900 GPUs wold have three display ports (1.2), one HDMI (2.0) and a single DVI port.

True to all other G1 cards from this generation, GIGABYTE has found it fit to install an additional TMDS on their boards allowing one to use up to four displays simultaneously.

Normally this isn’t possible as the GTX 900 cards will only allow for a maximum of three, but with the G1 cards you may utilize a combination of two DVI ports, a single DisplayPort and an HDMI port. Alternatively you may use a single DVI-I, all three Display Ports or the HDMI port as well. The usage case for this configuration is limited in my opinion on lower end cards, but that it is there can’t hurt. For productivity suits and video walls this will definitely come in handy as it should allow for all (non-accessory) displays to output a 4K signal. This should allow plenty of desktop real-estate for whatever you may be using your GPU for.

AESTHETICS AND COOLING (GTX 970 | 980) The GTX 970 uses a similar cooler as the GTX 980, thus I will cover both here. Both are built around the familiar WINDFORCE design, but the 970 makes use of the 3X model cooler with some creative metal moulding that make it ever so pleasing to the eye. At least over and above the previous generation efforts, which in 2015 do look rather bland. As is the norm with the G1 cards, GIGABYTE includes a back plate much like with other competitors and it’s as appreciated here as it is on those graphics cards.

For the GTX 970, the primary selling points are the four 6mm heat pipes which make direct contact with the GPU core and anti-turbulence fan blades.

Given that both the GTX 970 and 980 have relatively low TDPs one would have thought that GIGABYTE

would use the same cooler on both cards, but the GTX 980 has an even beefier cooler, which may be the reason why it had near identical operating temperatures to the GTX 970, even though it shouldn’t in theory. The GTX 980 model uses the 600 WATT cooler as first introduced with the GTX TITAN Black GHZ edition. The cooler that was capable of taming that beast is installed on the GTX 980 and needless to say that it is truly no challenge for it to keep this GPU under control in all circumstances. This model has five 8mm heat pipes, an additional 6mm heat pipe and I believe a denser fin distribution than the WINDFORCE 3X cooler, all of which result in measurably better cooling capabilities. Both cards rarely hit the 70’C mark (in an enclosed case with the GPU operating at the overclocked settings you see represented) which is particularly low considering that a GTX 760 in the same chassis using a 3rd party

cooler reached about the same temperature under load.

The look may not be to everyone’s liking but there can be no doubting the performance. They really do deliver where it counts and if anything is to fail on the graphics card, it won’t be because of heat at all. Perhaps one of the single most impressive aspect of both card. Of course for the competitive overclockers, this won’t mean anything, but for gamers and power users, these coolers do make a difference and are worth the extra spend.

GV-N960G1 GAMING ERP: $204.99 The latest entry to the family has been met with mixed reactions. It isn’t that it is not a great GPU, but it is perhaps that the expectations were a little higher than what

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 19

eventually materialized. Given just how competent the GTX 760 was and on the opposite end the ill-received AMD Radeon R9 285. The GTX 960 was always going to have an uphill battle right from the start.

Kitted in what is essentially half a GTX 980 in all respects, the GTX 960 plays all modern games very well at 1080P as you can see in the results. With 2GiB of GDDR5 at an impressive 7GHz alongside NVIDIA’s compression algorithms.

The GTX 960 has managed to make its relatively narrow 128-bit bus and 112GB/s memory bandwidth go a lot further than it otherwise would.

With just 1024 compute cores or as NVIDIA calls them, CUDA cores, the 960 is most certainly a full GM204 core cut right down the middle.

The core is around 44% smaller as well which is also fitting given the specifications. API support is identical to that of the other 900 series GPUs, which translates in DirectX12 support and OpenGL 4.5 compliance to say the least. As far as feature support goes, you are covered for the foreseeable future.

When I looked at the cooling used on the GTX 960. I found that the PCB is actually shorter than the WINDFORCE 3X heat sink and fan combo. It actually makes the card

20 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

the longest GTX 960 on the market, so if space is tight in your case you may have to look at the other GTX 960 from GIGABYTE. Using a heat sink that is capable of dissipating 300Watts of heat from a 160Watt or so GPU is sure to offer some noteworthy cooling performance.

During the entire time while testing the card it was rare to have the fan spin up at all. This is true for other GTX 960s on the market from competing vendors, but in the case of the GIGABYTE card it was only in Unigine Heaven Xtreme preset (HWBOT version) with the card overclocked where the fans would spin. Nothing prevents you from setting your own fan speed using GIGABYTE OC GURU Software, but the card manages well on its own regulating temperatures as and when necessary. With the standard fan profile, it does ensure that boost clocks remain consistent, which is welcomed as it does boost relatively high compared to other GTX 960 cards.

Visually, this isn’t the best looking GTX 960 o the market, that honour still goes to the MSI Gaming series which is simpler in comparison but has a design that makes it look a little classier. That isn’t to say the G1 Gaming is unsightly. Rather, it is an improvement over the previous

generation cards from GIGABYTE, but has not made the bold move to a cooler that leaps out at you making you take notice. I do appreciate the back plate for a variety of reasons and it is one of the areas where GIGABYTE has one up on the competition. It doesn’t serve to cool the card by any means but does protect it from any handling mishap which may cause damage to the components. If you add the custom lighting effects to it as well, you end up with a graphics card that looks better in a windowed system, running than it does here in pictures. Keeping the graphics card well below the 66’c mark is impressive for any cooler, but doing so with overclocked settings while gaming is nothing short of superb.

For that kind of cooling capability, I would gladly suffer the longer card.

We then get to performance, what most of us care primairly about over anything else. Unfortunately I did not have a reference GTX 960 as there was no reference GTX 960 at the time. So it is rather difficult to contextualize the performance gains that the massive overclock this card ships with brings. The only thing I could do is measure it against other GPUs that are at present competing with it. In this case that would be the NVIDIA GTX 760 and the AMD

Radeon R9 285. GIGABYTE’s own GTX 760 Gaming card is currently $229 and the Radeon 285 retails at the same price. So these two GPUs should be faster than the GTX 960 as they retail for a little more. It was against these two this card was pitted and the results you can see in the graphs. By and large, the GIGABYTE GTX 960 is faster than these cards but costs a little less.

Only in Hitman: Absolution was this not true where it delivered the lowest results of all GPUs, but other than that game, is is better than the other GPUs (760 and 285). When overclocked it is even better running away from the field by a sizeable margin courtesy of the incredible 1600MHz core clock and 2025MHz memory frequency. The highest GPU core clock speed I have ever witnessed on any air cooled GPU to date For $205 this is a respectable card and well worth the purchase.

It doesn’t overwhelm compared to the GTX 760 it replaces, bringing in marginal gains mostly. However, it is newer, with at present better feature support, lower power consumption, a better cooler and more headroom for performance tuning. Thus if you were to consider a budget card, this one would probably fit the bill just fine.

GV-N970G1 GAMING ERP: $359.99 We come to the most controversial GPU of the family with GTX 970. This GPU made its debut last year and its technical merits and subsequent adjustments are well and truly documented. There’s absolutely no need to delve into all of that here and frankly. When all is said and done, it is irrelevant for the purposes of gaming or competitive overclocking. The GTX 970 is what it is. It has not changed since it was introduced and if anything has actually become better via the inevitable driver updates.

It would be too easy for me to test the GPU using “modded” Skyrim or the now synonymous Shadow of Mordor title, configure the settings in a way that would hopefully illustrate the issue that was setting forums alight not too long ago. My stance on this is simple really and that is, it doesn’t matter. The performance hasn’t changed and I don’t recall a time where end users, particularly semi knowledgeable ones making purchasing decisions based on anything else but performance, pricing, aesthetics and cooling.

There’s also no need to tackle the ethical and moral obligations of

NVIDIA when it comes to this issue.

It’s a graphics card that plays games at ridiculous settings and that’s about it. Tis not meant to save the world, cure illness or anything else.

PERFORMANCE & OVERCLOCKING Now that we’ve all those shenanigans out the way, what we find the GTX 970 from GIGABYTE is a card that when overclocked, mixes it up with the best of them. By the best of them I mean, that this model will trade performance blows with GTX 780 Ti graphics cards, which even today where available retail for more than $400.

Standard performance for the GTX 970 places it between the GTX 780 and the AMD Radeon R9 290X. That means that QHD resolutions are well within reach for it and in many titles anti-aliasing is a viable option as well. Overclocking only adds performance and allows this card to reach reference GTX 980 performance which is nothing short of amazing for $360 USD. Sure enough for that you’ll need a GPU core speed of a least 1,500MHz, but then again we are dealing with the G1 GAMING card.

Which is in some ways over Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 21

engineered in all relevant facets.

All the extra care and component selection that goes into this graphics card and the inherent overclocking headroom present on all Maxwell GPUs to date proves beneficial. Out the box this card is supposed to only boost to 1329MHz, but in reality hits clock speeds of 1369MHz under load.

This is already much higher than the reference core speed, but with the pushing of a single slider, 1500MHz will be yours. Of course there are those who wish to set this clock frequency always and as such will bake it into their cards via BIOS modification. Needless to say this voids your warranty almost immediately, however I would say you’ve little to nothing to worry about. Even with the increased clock frequencies of both the core and the memory, the GIGABYTE GTX 970 Gaming much like its lesser sibling the 960 stays very cool. When the fans do spin up, they are hardly audible but then of course that depends on the rest of your system.

As with the other GAMING cards in the 900 series, the overclock on this model is massive in comparison to the NVIDIA specification at 151MHz

22 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

higher. On such a GPU this overclock actually makes a difference in gaming performance that places this model ahead of some of the best Radeon R9 290X cards on the market as you can see in the graphs.

At the original Radeon R9 290X prices, there would have been no competition for the GTX 970, but with the current price drops on many of the cards including the SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X 290X. They certainly make it difficult for the regular GTX 970 (if there is such a thing), but this model as I stated earlier manages to pull ahead still and going a long way into justifying it’s $360 USD price tag.

2GHz mark or at worst 1800MHz. For the less adventurous 1500MHz will do just fine and if paired with memory operating at 2GHz, the performance scales as you would expect clipping at the heels of the GTX 980 (G1 model) and certainly surpassing the regular GTX 980 factory speeds. For $360 it’s hard to beat that kind of performance, despite the price drops of the competing Radeon R9 290 and 290X graphics cards.

GV-N980G1 GAMING ERP: $579.99

For the competitive overclocker, this GPU like with many GTX 970 cards will need some modifications, regarding the voltage regulators and the controller. The specific model I used for this was modified with the GIGABYTE G-POWER board and with the board in place and some quick overclocking sessions, I was able to record frequencies above 1700MHz. As a result of time constraints I was not able to push further but I do suspect much like the GTX 980, this GPU will reach the

Finally I come to the grandest of them all. The GTX 980. There’s not much to say about this GPU that you probably have no read or seen already. It is sublime in performance, power and heat output. It manages to outperform the GTX 780Ti by some margin, yet on paper it looks like the lesser of the two mostly. If you consider that it even outperforms the GTX TITAN Black Edition, suddenly the price doesn’t seem so high at all.

Short of the dual GPU solutions there isn’t a faster card and with

the factory overclock on this model, it really does go like the clappers.

Even with the narrower memory bus width, it pulls ahead at just about every setting and with 4GiB of memory as opposed to 3GiB on the GTX 780Ti, it handles the higher resolutions very well too. If you have the money for a high end GPU at present there’s no denying that the GTX 980 is the one you want.

Now the question is, do you want this model in particular. After all, we have seen the likes of the EVGA GTX 980 CLASSIFIED and all that it has brought with it for the competitive overclocker. When it comes to that level of competition, there’s no denying the fact that this is not the card for you. You can, as illustrated by those of TeamAU, use the G-Power board to reach much higher frequencies and turn in stunning results. However, not everyone is capable of installing such a card and if you’d like to be able to use your GPU for more than competitive overclocking runs, then you’re going to need a less permanent solution and that’s where the Classified comes in.

The GIGABYTE G1 GAMING in the context of being a pure gaming card as the name suggests is actually a better purchase for that

purpose. The reason simply being that it comes in at $120 less. It may be an unfair comparison to make but assuming that most users will be using these cards for gaming it does beg the question of which is the better card for normal everyday use and gaming. In that context this is the more suitable product.

Overclocking using the shipping cooler isn’t going to be set in stone and each GPU will perform differently depending on a great many factors, but suffice to say. Just like with the GTX 970, one should be able to see clock speeds north side of 1500MHz, in fact I’d wager that there isn’t a single sample that won’t be able to achieve this. If only because the real clock on this GPU when running any game is actually 1,389MHz even though GIGABYTE only states the boost clock at 1,329MHz. This may be an isolated example, thus your card could be very different with only 1,329MHz guaranteed. However, going from 1,389MHz to 1500MHz is only a slider away with the OC GURU II software (You may want to use some other utilities as well instead with a little more control). Since this card has a very high boost clock to begin with, the final clock speed which was game stable (in the chassis) and

artifact free was 1,516MHz on the core and 2,052MHz on the memory.

Not much more than what the card was clocking to anyway, but still an appreciated performance boost.

I would say though, that overclocking this card is not really worth it if only because it is already strung so high from the factory.

The synthetic benchmarks will climb accordingly, with 3DMark11, reaching well over 20,000 points, but game performance doesn’t respond that dramatically. A pity given that beefy 600WATT cooler it ships with. Price wise, it’s in the middle of the road, coming in at the same price as the STRIX from ASUS and a little more than the MSI GAMING. All in all, this is what you would expect from the GTX 980, but with the addition of one brutally efficient cooler. Given that this cooler was on a $1,000 GPU before and now it makes its way to a product costing half as much, I’d say it is some great value considering that some reference cards with the blower fan cost just as much.

Overall, a respectable card that will go the distance at FHD and QHD resolutions with some anti-aliasing to boot. $580 is a lot of money, but then again you are getting a lot of performance and cooling for it.

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 23

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

Value Award

GIGABYTE X99 SOC CHAMPION ERP: $299.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 5960X • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum DDR4 3200 C16 • EVGA GTX 780TI K|NGP|N Edition • SAMSUNG PX941 512GB • CORSAIR AX1500i • Windows 8.1

L

ast issue I looked at the GIGABYTE X99 UD7, you may read the review here. I’ll not state again my verdict on that motherboard as it's right there. Suffice to say, since I believed it to be the best GIGABYTE X99 motherboard at the time - it was only fitting to compare the X99 SOC Champion to it. Perhaps a little unfair given that the former is exclusively a power user/gaming motherboard, while the SOC Champion is geared specifically for overclocking.

That distinction works well on paper, but the reality is that 24 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

the vast majority of well-built motherboards are perfectly capable of some extreme overclocking with enough time and tuning and modifications where necessary. Features wise, you will lose out plenty when overclocking with a regular end user board, but at the very least you should not be buying any board these days that behaves erratically or unpredictably when doing any extreme overclocking.

In that regard, I had to take into consideration that for all intents and purposes the X99 SOC FORCE was actually a lesser motherboard than the UD7 and as such it is best to use the best efforts from GIGABYTE prior to this motherboard for comparison.

This allows me to see relate the progress that has been made in a straight forward manner without having to account for too many superficial differences between the two.

You will notice that the SOC is a simple motherboard.

You’ll not have read too much about it and there are certainly motherboards from GIGABYTE that garner more attention on the all relevant publications.

The X99 chipset is niche to begin with and an overclocking orientated motherboard within that small market is even more exclusive, thus it’s understandable if you’ve never come across it before.

If you’re an overclocker that spends plenty of time on the technical forums where extreme overclocking is a regular occurrence (most certainly on HWBOT) then you’re very familiar with the results that have come about all underpinned by the SOC CHAMPION. Results however, as we’ve seen are hard to contextualize

"If we measure any motherboard by the number of records it has.

Then there's no denying that the SOC CHAMPION is by far the best X99 money can buy. 10 records say as much" INTEL XTU

3DMark 11 Physics

AIDA 64 Read

AIDA 64 Write

AIDA 64 Copy

AIDA 64 Latency

Reference X99 board

2359

20092

74207

62222

74414

54,1

GIGABYTE X99 SOC CHAMPION

2385

20417

75472

62267

75583

53,5

within dedicated vendor sponsored events or sessions.

For the most part, the average user will not have access to half the resources participants at these gatherings have at their disposal. That could be in time, knowledgeable brains to pick, access to better compatible hardware, specific BIOS versions etc. There are plenty of variables that make it hard to take a single overclocking workshop with all the above and have that represent a motherboards ability to impress outside the lab. The subsequent lab results are of immense value, but don’t mean much to you when you’re in your own home scratching your head wondering how any of the scores were obtained.

This is perhaps what makes the SOC Champion so exciting to me. It is consistent in the “lab” and outside of that. The results you may have seen posted are genuinely possible within your own home, using the hardware you have at your disposal. Too often the results we come across are hand picked and tuned in a way as to make them impossible outside of strict testing environments.

With the SOC CHAMPION you will have none of that. To prove this, you should consider that many of the records broken were with F3y which is older and not as good as what you may download today on the site. For all intents and purposes, your overclocking should be even simpler now than when this BIOS was used.

Physically it is very different from its other SOC stable mates, particulalry from previous generations. The SOC Champion does away with many of the buttons we’ve come to expect right next to the 24-pin ATX connector. The new layout is devoid of ratio buttons for example. You’ll find only the regular Power, Reset and CMOS clear buttons. With that there are an additional four DIP switches and that’s it barring the voltage measuring points. Even then, these are not the socketed type so you have to hold your DMM leads in place to read each voltage.

Annoying for sure, but it highlights the simple nature of this motherboard.

It’s stripped of the luxuries and comes only with the Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 25

basics. Do not be deterred however as there’s nothing on the previous boards that I would rather have in exchange for what this motherboard can do. All the gimmicks are gone and it is for the better because, it not only simplifies the OC-Button area but I can imagine makes the motherboard cheaper to design, in turn cheaper for us.

Some reviews may not say it but for X99, Uncore and memory matter a lot.

The CHAMPION is well and truly the defining X99 motherboard precisely because of these two properties. As a trade, the standard X99 board has eight DIMMS slots but the SOC CHAMPION has only four. This isn’t a loss for the vast majority of people as hardly anyone overclocks with memory capacities over 32GiB. As with the Z97X SOC 26 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

LN2, the DIMMS slots are mounted on the motherboard in such a way as to make sealing or insulating the easier. The underside has no protrusions and whatever method you use for insulating will benefit from this slight but meaningful design decision.

With all the fuss that was made about another vendor’s custom socket that allowed significantly better Uncore and memory overclocking. One would have thought GIGABYTE would make a big deal about their own socket design, which has at least 2083 pins instead of the normal 2011. A socket alone isn’t enough to make the SOC Champion perform the way it does and there’s far more to it, but it does help immensely.

Whereas 3,500MHz Uncore was around the limit on the

boards, frequencies above 5,000MHz are possible, (of course when cooling the CPU using LN2). In my own testing using only liquid cooling, I was able to reach above 4,500MHz with relative ease.

That’s 1GHz higher than what the previous motherboards could achieve using identical cooling. In addition to that, memory overclocking on the CHAMPION is significantly improved. Where previously, frequencies of 3,000MHz and above were a hit and miss affair, 3,200MHz and higher are almost guaranteed with just about every semi descent set of memory available on the market. The combination of the much higher uncore, much improved memory compatibility, overclocking, a simpler board and a cheaper price makes this an unbeatable offering.

As often is the case there are

the usual GIGABYTE eccentricities within the BIOS, but once you get used to them you’ll be well on your way to achieving your best without wishing for more.

I am critical of the BIOS on GIGABYTE boards and remain so still. They are not up to scratch but In context of everything else, it just doesn't matter. The board is not any less valuable or incredible.

Perhaps it speaks to just how far ahead it is of the competition. The closest motherboard to this one for overclocking is $160 more, which is a lot of money. There are differences between them certainly in favour of the other cosmetically at least, but they are not $100 worth, let alone $160. Where it really counts, the SOC CHAMPION is ahead and of course readily accessible and affordable. If my enthusiasm is doubtful then look to the records.

Seek out any of the professional overclockers and ask them which X99 motherboard they would readily buy and you'll find they mostly echo my sentiments. In the same way the Rampage IV BE was unquestionably the best X79

motherboard. The SOC CHAMPION is in that position with this generation.

Competing products have significantly better UEFI GUIs and slicker presentation but this one has the minerals. For instance, even with the socket selection set to 2011, 4GHz uncore is done with virtually no tweaking of any advanced voltages. There's not any other board I've come across that is able to pull that off with such ease.

The SOC Champion is a sleeper hit, there’s nothing on the GIGABYTE page or anywhere else for that matter that would let you know just how good it is. Placed side by side with the numerous other motherboards on the market it would be easy to overlook, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t pick it up. Be it you’re into competitive overclocking at a professional or amateur level; you’ll want this motherboard.

For the gamers and power users, you’ll still want to consider it because it offers plenty for the asking price. It will allow your CPU and memory to reach performance levels few other motherboards can and that

[ The Overclocker ]

Summary There hasn’t been a more fitting name for a GIGABYTE motherboard in eons. The SOC CHAMPION is in my opinion the best bang for buck overclocking board for the platform. For the price there isn’t anything remotely close and it has transformed the X99 landscape into a two headed race at the least.

When looking at the value aspect, it is the undisputed winner and of course, a Champion of a motherboard. This is an instant buy.

Would you buy it?

Yes

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 27

Value Award

G.SKILL RIPJAWS4 2,666 C15 DDR4 Kit RRP: $229.99 | Website: www.gskill.com

Test Machine • • • • •

INTEL Core i7 5960X ASUS X99-A (1005) SAMSUNG PX941 512GB CORSAIR AX1500i Windows 8.1

I

f you look at the average price for a DDR3 16GiB 2,666MHz set today, it will set you back about $200. In fact G.SKILL’s own Trident X and RipJaws Z 16GiB kits of the same frequency will set you back $199.99 and $204.99 respectively. So it follows that the company is asking you to pay close to $30 more for the same frequency and capacity. An odd thing to request of end users and customers even if you’re

28 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

talking about the latest and greatest DDR4. If you’re one an X79 system or perhaps even one using Z79 with all your memory banks filled, there’s little to no incentive for you to fork out the additional cash to be right back to where you were before. As such, it’s impossible to evaluate the value of this kit against the previous DDR3 pricing. It just doesn’t make sense and is an unfair comparison.

However, if you’re looking at going forth and venturing into the waters that are the X99 platform, but want to do so within a reasonable budget. Then you may want to pay attention to this kit for many more reasons over and above its rated frequency and its ability to exceed it via overclocking. Price again is

very important here because you’re not dealing with an ultra-high end kit. Memory at the 3200 and higher range cost over double the price and the perpetually “out of stock” 3,300 and 3,333MHz SKUs are around $650 and $750 each. Hardly what I would consider economical or sensible for the budget machine at all.

This RipJaws kit may never reach those frequencies, but you must consider as well the following, which is not all X99 motherboards are capable of operating memory above 2,666MHz. In fact I’m aware of a good few that do not even allow you to select frequencies above 2,666MHz despite what may be on the product pages and promotional material.

If you happen to have one of these boards (you can’t know until you try a high bin set and find out) then you’re better off with 2,666MHz kits and then trying your luck at reaching higher frequencies.

At worst you’ll get what you paid for and if you’re fortunate, you’ll be able to reach frequencies much higher without having to do too much tuning to get there.

This 16GiB kit is what I would consider the minimum required frequency for DDR4 platforms, no perhaps 2,400MHz. The reason is that frequencies lower than this will not yield you much performance gains over the X79 platform at all. If you are the current owner of a 4930K, a semi decent X79 motherboard and 2,400MHz memory. Simply moving to a 5820K,

the same memory frequency and a new motherboard will yield you little to no performance gains at all.

If anything you’ll just lose out on PCI-Express lanes.

As such, if you’re going to make the move it’s best to do it with at least the vastly improved memory overclocking on the X99 platform in mind.

To that end, when I started with this RipJaws4 kit, I had little to no expectations of it. Remember as well that at the time, many of the motherboards that were made available for testing had some teething problems thus, you’ll have to look at this review as a worst case scenario when it comes to performance and frequency scaling. Right now, the same motherboards and this very

same kit will produce better performance and I’ve no doubt that the overclocking will have improved immensely as well.

Even with such limitations, right of the bat, 2,666MHZ was as easy as pie, simply loading the XMP profile, saving and restarting the system. No problems there as there shouldn’t be. That isn’t interesting though and what most of us will want to find out is how far the memory can go safely. By safely I mean at voltages set to 1.35V and no higher. You should keep in mind though that most motherboards will apply a little more voltage what you set. So even if you set 1.35V in the BIOS you’re likely to get anything from 1.36 to sometimes 1.38V. This shouldn’t destroy Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 29

"The Ripjaws 4 memory was apparently the first memory kit to reach the coveted 4GHZ mildestone on the X99 platform" your memory at all, but do be aware that voltages above 1.45V could be closer to 1.5V and could cause rapid deterioration of your memory.

Now with that out the way, I didn’t bother with 1.2V as there’s no fun to be had there, so I went straight to 1.35V and to see what this memory could do with lower timings. At 2,666MHz, CL14 was the best I could do without some serous tuning of the secondary timings.

This is simple because not all motherboards will offer these settings that are on this board. Some motherboards will offer even more, so as usual, this is a worst case scenario. The good thing about this though is that CL14 offered sizeable gains in memory bandwidth 30 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

especially for DRAM reads as measured by AIDA64. The effect on Super Pi 32M is as you would expect, shaving off almost two seconds, which is significant. Nothing wrong with that kind of performance gain at all.

Even if the memory had to stop here, I would have been satisfied, but then I tried CL14 again at the next available speed which was 2,750MHz (using the 1.25Bclk multiplier),something rather odd happened. The performance should have improved but it didn’t. In fact it got worse in Super Pi. AIDA64 showed minor gains all across as one would expect, but SuperPi behaved contrary to this, while 3DMMark11’s Physics test showed negligible gains that were well within the margin

of error.

If I had to decide, I would not bother with this frequency or at the very least this combination of hardware bares no fruit when configured in such a manner, which is a pity, especially if you have some of the flaky motherboards that just may have 2750MHz as the maximum bootable memory speed you can access.

However, not all was lost because lo and behold, while CL14 didn’t work at 3,000MHz, C15 did just fine. With the performance jumping up significantly from 2,666MHz CL14. I was truly not expecting this to be the case given that this is really some of the cheaper RAM from G.SKILL, but there it was doing 3,000MHz as if it

DRAM Read

DRAM Write

DRAM Copy

DRAM Latency

Super Pi 32M

Timings

2666MHz C15

67549

61717

64038

58,6

423,671

15-15-15-35-2T

2666MHz C14

70352

61772

65934

55

421,077

14-14-14-35-1T

2750MHz C14

70681

61958

67534

57

421,506

14-14-14-35-1T

3000MHz C15

72270

62127

70433

56,3

418,975

15-15-15-35-1T

was nothing. Needless to say SuperPi32M and 3DMark11 benefited from this and it is certainly the frequency that one will want to be running with this memory, provided your chosen kit and motherboard combination can deliver (I don’t think there’s a CPU out there with an IMC that wouldn’t be able to do this frequency).

G.SKILL has a 3000MHz C15 kit, but it is $275 and it too operates at 1.35V by default.

Which means with this set you may have just netted yourself a free upgrade to the next SKU without the cash outlay. Again this isn’t guaranteed, but again, given just how simple and quick this was I can’t fault this kit at all. It is something of a little marvel, and proves to those that doubt, fun can

still be had with overclocking even without the best hardware at your disposal.

Summary Not everyone has the resources to spend $500 or more on a set of memory and even if you do you may not want to make such a commitment on 16GiB of memory. With that said, this G.Skill RipJaws4 set is on the right side of affordability (at least where DDR4 is concerned) and it definitely has the overclocking headroom to boot. Most kits should easily make 3,000MHz and that alone makes for a great kit that is under sold perhaps. This kit is certainly worth your time and consideration.

Would you buy it?

Yes

[ The Overclocker ] Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 31

MSI GTX 960 GAMING-2G RRP: $214.99 | Website: www.msi.com

Test Machine • • • • •

INTEL Core i7 5960X GIGABYTE X99-UD7 SAMSUNG PX941 512GB CORSAIR AX1500i Windows 8.1

T

his issue I found myself testing not one but two GTX 960 GPUs. These are low to mid-range GPUs naturally and one is not to expect much from such in general. In a somewhat odd move, NVIDIA chose to add a fairly moderate GPU to the 900 series. With that there’s also a $150 difference between the 960 and the GTX 970. Logic would dictate that with such a large gap in pricing, it could be that at some point down the

32 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

line we may get a TI SKU or perhaps a GTX 965 like in the notebook series. Who knows, but right now this is the only GPU for you in the family if you budget doesn’t allows for the high end offerings.

Tehchnically, the GTX 960 is half the GTX 980 in every way.

The transistor count and die size speak to this if the specs don’t already. At less than half the price of the GTX 980, but offering performance that is above half of the GTX 980, I would say this is a fair deal.

Unfortunately though for NVIDIA there exists already the GTX 760 and the Radeon R9 285. The one offers performance relatively close to that of the GTX 960 and the other is capable of higher

performance. All which retail for around the same price.

Thus the price bracket in which the GTX 960 finds itself is packed with alternatives and it isn’t the obvious choice when looking at reference performance for all of them.

Unfortunate as this is a good little card for Full HD gaming.

If that was all there was to it though, then I’d be content in ending this review here, but fortunately for the GTX 960 reference models are few. This is a double edged sword indeed for the partners and obviously for MSI as well to some degree.

On the up side, it means the GTX 960 at least their offering is almost always faster than factory overclocked Radeon R9 285

and GTX 760 cards, but on the flip side it means it’s near impossible to sell or promote their “overclock” as great technical expertise on their side. As such, the base performance for the GTX 960 is lifted in a way to make all GTX 960s near identical in performance. Usually factory overclocks don’t do much for graphics cards, but in this case, there is literally nothing between the GTX 960s on the market.

Prior to testing, MSI issued a software update which boosted clocks in their various modes, obviously for increased performance.

This wasn’t a BIOS update but a software package which means should you not install any of the MSI bundled

software or packages on their site, you’ll have the default baked in performance of the shipping BIOS. Given that I am concerned only with repeatable and reliable, perhaps worst case results. I chose not to install the software and use the card as is. Ultimately the overclocked results represent the best game capable frequencies and performance numbers that will produce no artifacts or crashes in games. Two ends of the scale which are more than enough to show where the card lies in performance. For this graphics card it is clear that to get some much needed performance over what MSI offers you’ll need some really

aggressive overclocking, but even more than that you’ll need some extra ordinary luck. Much like the GTX 970s and 980s, the maximum overclock on air cooling is around 1500 to 1600MHz. In the case of the MSI gaming card, I could finish many benchmarks at 1586MHz but this led to some minor artifacts even though there were not visible in games.

Thus the core clock was dropped to 1576MHz which removed all problems.

Where the overclocking was particularly good, as is the standard now with just about every MSI graphics card lately, is in memory overclocking. With other GTX 960s GPUs that I was testing during the writing Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 33

"this is probably the sixth graphics card from MSI in succession that has been able to clock it's paired memory higher than competing cards."

of this review, none of them managed to reliably and safely pass then 2.1GHz mark (8.4GHz QDR), let alone have that frequency be game capable. The MSI Gaming card was more than capable and with artifacts I could finish benchmarks at a high 2.2GHz, which is simply astounding. Obviously this isn’t useful at all and in no way would you be able to game at such a memory frequency, but it does speak well for the MSI GTX 960 GAMING card. Your own mileage may vary but this is probably the sixth graphics card from MSI in succession that has been able to clock the paired memory higher than other competing cards.

Since, GTX 960 cards are 34 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

so similar, what then is MSI’s bankable advantage memory clocking withstanding? Well, one could say that this is a particularly great looking card if you care for that sort of thing. It’s near identical to the other gaming cards MSI has released recently and I’m happy to say that it still looks just as appealing even after all this time. MSI will deliver an entire speech and presentation about what makes the cooler better than the competitions, but ultimately what I care about is that it’s effective, quiet and isn’t too large. The last part depends heavily on your chosen chassis but it does fulfil all these requirements to make it an exceptional cooler in my books. It’s not

easy to get the fans spinning but when they do they are hardly audible. Even when using the overclocked settings, the fans remained quiet and the temperatures were well under control. So this is a working solution and one that I’m sure will show up in future cards as well.

As for packaged goods, there is none to speak of.

These days there’s literally nothing but the graphics card to be found inside the box. Sure you’ll find the 4-pin Molex/SATA to PCIExpress power leads and an HDMI converter, but that’s what every vendor provides as well. I’d be hard pressed to believe that anybody still looks inside the box of any graphics card nor have any

Summary

use of the items within. Not a train smash but this model is the most expensive GTX 960 on the market, at $214.99. It costs more than the GIGABYTE G1, ASUS STRIX and EVGA SUPER SC models. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but like I stated earlier, these cards perform so similarly at their shipping clocks that picking one above the other isn’t anything to do with performance, but pricing, aesthetics, cooling etc. If I could assure everyone that all the samples would be game capable at the very high memory speed of 2.1GHz then the extra spend would certainly be worth it, but as it is, it’s still a luck of the draw. It’ll be up to you

to decide if this one is worth the extra $10 over other models.

Overall, this is a competent little card. It gets the job done and in some cases will even allow playing at QHD and even UHD resolutions (I’m looking at you UE3 based games). If you’re one who isn’t concerned about Anti-aliasing and are more than content with Full HD gaming, then you’re pretty much assured some great gaming performance from this card and it’s well worth the spend. I do wonder however how far a brave individual can push this card with some sub-zero cooling and dedication.

[ The Overclocker ]

The GTX 960 is as one would expect a good budget GPU for gaming circa 2015. There isn’t a title you’ll not be able to play at FHD with all the settings turned up to the maximum save for Antialiasing. Performance isn’t a leap forward as we may have expected coming from the GTX 760, but it does consume less power, runs cooler and certainly overclocks better, MSI’s version is as good as any if not a tad on the expensive side. Still a good card if you’re on a budget and certainly a better buy at present than the outgoing GTX 760.

Would you buy it?

Would probably buy the MSI Amor-X edition instead as it is $10 less.

Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 35

Dying Light RRP: $59.99 | Website: $59.99

T

he street below is flooded with the undead. They shuffle awkwardly, letting out mournful moans as they clumsily bump into one another. None of them have spotted me yet, and they stare blindly at the ground. I almost pity them. Almost, but I know better. I can see my target in the distance: a beaten-up car parked just outside the entrance to a tunnel. My radio crackles to life, and a voice slips through warning me that night will fall soon, and I should find safety. I feel a surge of adrenaline.

I could probably get this done and be back in a safe zone in time for a supper of canned beans. I’ve done this a hundred times.

I leap off my rooftop perch, crashing down on a van parked below. Zombie heads lazily turn their gaze upwards, and when their dead eyes lock on me, a spark of life returns to them with renewed purpose. They begin shambling towards the van, their arms raised upwards, clawing at the air, reaching for me. I launch myself off the van and hit the ground running. I vault over a zombie in my path, leaving a trail of gooey, decomposing flesh sticking to my shoe, and my flaming baseball bat smashes into another walking corpse’s face, sending it flying backwards. I’m on the car in no time,

36 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

and I hurriedly pop the trunk. That’s when the car’s alarm goes off. Oh no.

Violent screams in the distance send a ripple of dread through my body.

A manhole cover bursts open, and the first Viral appears, charging at me with impossible force. I see two more in the distance, tearing through the huge group of zombies lurching towards me. I grab my prize from the trunk, and run. I’m almost ready to collapse from exhaustion when I hear another alarm, this time from my wristwatch. Night is coming. It’s going to be a long one.

Playing Dying Light, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that you’ve been here before, except there were far more sun-swept beaches and undead cabana boys last time you visited. It’s the natural evolution of Dead Island (which, in case you’re unaware, was Dying Light developer Techland’s previous zombie-bashing romp), and thankfully it’s a tighter, better polished and much more focused game than its predecessor. Dead Island was broken in many ways, but it handled the zombie apocalypse with a sort of grotesque charm that made it incredibly likeable, and playing it cooperatively proved to be immense amounts of fun.

Dying Light is set in the fictional

Turkish-inspired city of Harran, which is in a state of quarantine seeing as how the streets are filled with things that should be dead but very much aren’t. You are Kyle Crane, who infiltrates the city at the behest of Shady People with the objective of going undercover to locate a person of interest. When Crane begins to realise just how dire the situation is in Harran, how desperate the city’s survivors have become, he faces the age-old internal struggle of weighing his morals against the orders he’s given.

To be blunt, the game’s story didn’t grab me. It’s predictable, it’s shallow and even though it does have a handful of strong points that managed to pique my interest, there’s very little reason to pay it much attention.

Characterisation is weak and stereotypical, and the game’s primary antagonist follows the stale, overused villain template that’s employed by seemingly every zombie apocalypse, in that he’s so crudely diabolical that he comes dangerously close to appearing cartoonish. Obviously Dying Light isn’t the sort of game you cosy up to expecting a gripping storyline, but it would’ve been nice to see something a little more inventive.

Thankfully the game itself manages to be far more compelling. As I’ve said

before, if you’ve played Dead Island, you should have a solid idea of what to expect here. One key difference is in its parkour-inspired movement, which allows you to traverse the city at great speed, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, vaulting over walls, shimmying your way up climbable poles and sliding through openings to evade zombies.

The movement system can be a bit clumsy, occasionally failing to register your intentions and sending you plummeting right into the middle of a group of hungry zombies, but overall it offers up an impressively satisfying experience. I love the sense of verticality and the meatiness of the motion. When you’re perched high above the ground, the wind whistles past you and your character sways, arms waving to maintain balance, and I’m often more afraid of falling to my death than being surrounded by a swarm of the undead.

When it comes time to stop running and face enemies head-on, Dying Light focuses on melee combat, offering up all manner of wooden planks, police batons, cricket bats, garden scythes and more to use as you work to decrease the zombie population of Harran. The weaponry is weighty and melee skirmishes feel brutally destructive, with tons of Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 37

gratuitous gore reminding you that this is not a game for children, nor for the squeamish. There’s ranged weaponry as well, like throwing knives and various guns, but using firearms is especially dangerous because the noise they make attracts more powerful enemies, which could turn things from manageable to manic in a heartbeat.

There’s a strong exploration element to the game (the movement system complements this greatly), and the environment is filled with items and weapons to find. Often I spend more time rifling through cupboards and searching locked chests than I do killing the infected. It ties into the game’s crafting mechanics: finding blades, batteries, bits of string and other such collectables will allow you to use blueprints that you’ve found to fashion useful tools and modify your weaponry. Your favourite knife can have extra electrical damage applied to it, for example, or you can assign upgrades to weapons to make them more durable.

As you progress, you’ll unlock skills divided between three skill trees relating to agility, combat and general survival. There’s the usual sort of stuff like increasing your maximum health, but more exotic options exist, like whirlwind attacks and the ability to craft grenades that do elemental damage. It’s very much like an action RPG, and unlocking new skills to play with in this vast sandbox is one of the game’s many joys. Speaking of sandbox, there’s no shortage of stuff to do in Harran. In addition to the main quest line, many tertiary characters will offer up side missions to pursue, and these sometimes manage to be more interesting and thoughtful than some of the story missions. Naturally there’s a ton of filler content like fetch quests, but the game’s entertaining systems make even the more mundane jobs fairly engaging.

Dying Light’s basic zombie population is wonderfully convincing.

Finding yourself a safe vantage point and just watching the undead go about their business is plenty fun in its own way. They’re a clumsy bunch, and they’ll often trip over bits of environment or tumble off of rooftops in their attempts to reach you, which never stops being funny. Various traps litter the environment, like burning cars and rubbish bins covered in spikes, and kicking zombies into 38 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

these is hilariously effective. Beyond the vanilla variety, you’ll encounter a number of different zombie types, each of which present a unique challenge – like slow, enormous brutes carrying menacingly large weapons, and enemies that spit corrosive goo that quickly whittles away your health. Traversing Harran during the day can be challenging, but it’s when night falls that things get really hairy. Powerful creatures called Volatiles roam the streets, and if they spot you you’ll have to hightail it to a safe zone if you plan to avoid becoming dinner. These chase sequences are brilliantly harrowing, driven by the sort of helpless momentum you’d expect – there’s even a button to look behind you while you’re running, so you can stare death in the face as you scramble over scenery and try to

outwit your pursuers.

There’s nothing especially wrong with Dying Light. Its greatest flaw is its unoriginality, and the constant feeling that you’re playing a game made up of the combined pieces of other games.

The safe zones you’re able to capture are clearly inspired by clearing checkpoints in the Far Cry series, for instance, and the free-running system obviously smacks of Mirror’s Edge or Assassin’s Creed. It also suffers from a number of technical mishaps, even though it’s easily the most technically stable game Techland’s ever produced. Still, misfiring event triggers, enemies getting stuck in geometry and other such glitches occasionally occur. That said, there’s an awful lot to like about the broader experience. It’s many interlocking systems are intrinsically gratifying,

offering up a zombie apocalypse sandbox that’s full of stuff to see and do – and it’s especially enjoyable when played cooperatively with friends.

[ Dane Remendes ]

Would you buy it?

Yes. Dying Light doesn’t do much that’s innovative, but it nevertheless serves up a hugely entertaining zombieinfested sandbox.

The Score

8/10 Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 39

SPECS:

Size: 472x630x225 mm Panel and Scan Rate: TN 144Hz Resolution: 1920x1080 Weight: 14.99lbs (6.8Kg) Inputs: D-sub /DVI-DL/HDMI 1.4(x2) /DP1.2

GAMING GEAR AWARD

BenQ XL2430T Professional Gaming Monitor RRP: $399 | Website: http://benq.gaming.com

E

ver since I stopped gaming on a 4:3 Phillips (When Phillips was still Phillips) 17” CRT from the 90s. It’s always bothered me that we collectively went backwards in game resolution when transitioning to LCDs. More over at the time when I, amongst many others, transitioned from 1600x1200 to 1920x1080, we effectively lost image fidelity in exchange for a better aspect ratio.

That was over a decade ago. Still we find ourselves held to ransom by the never ending 1080P displays. It is only with the recent efforts by all affected vendors that 2560x1440 (QHD) and UHD (3840x2160) displays have become more prevalent.

Here’s hoping that by the end of 2015 or at the latest 2016, there will be no incentive to buy such displays

40 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

especially since even mid to low end mobile phones have the identical or higher pixel counts.

In fact as I write this review I’m pretty sure this will be amongst the last handful of reviews I do concerning a full HD panel. Fitting then that it is amongst the best you can buy. Ideally this would be an IPS panel with a 1ms GTG response time, a 144Hz scan rate with variable frame syncing technology and just about everything else you can throw at it. That would be in the perfect world, however we don’t live in such a world, but we do live in one where the BenQ XL2430T comes pretty close to that.

This is yet another 144Hz 1080P display designed almost exclusively for competitive gaming. Just about every feature

it places at your disposal is tailor made for that endeavour.

Not surprising considering the immense investment BenQ has put into competitive gaming over several years. Not only does the vendor sponsor a number of individuals and teams, but this particular model is the official ESL/ MLG monitor of 2015. Input from these competitors has been used in tailor making this monitor for their needs. This should in theory translate into a significantly better gaming experience and perhaps a competitive advantage for the rest of us who are in no way shape or form ready for such high levels of competitive gaming.

To that end the XL2430T is application specific and for the most part you’ll need to raise you game

to match it instead of it hampering your abilities in any way.

As this is a monitor that is likely to be moved around from one place to another. BenQ has added several features that facilitate or at the very least aim to make this as painless as possible. The monitor stand is robust, heavy and built to withstand some abuse. It has a handle at the top which you’ll obviously use to carry it with. The arm which the display is attached to is adjustable up or down to suit your ideal eye level.

Important given the fairly limited viewing angles of TN panels. This adjustment is also in the tilt at which you view the monitor, adjustable up or down by around 20 degrees. The monitor is also able to pivot left and right and all adjustments need no committing to memory as they are marked or pegged independently.

Thus you can always setup your monitor to the identical configuration you have at home regardless of where you may be.

The XL2430T also features a neat headphone hook on the left which can be hidden by sliding it into the rear of the monitor. On the same side you’ll find a USB 3.0 hub with two ports along with headphone output and microphone input jacks. There are no speakers on this monitor but that’s fine as it is unlikely you’re buying a professional gaming monitor for use with built-in speakers. Besides, this is an already weighty monitor and the addition of such unnecessary components would make it tip the scales further in the wrong direction without providing any meaningful gain for it.

As mentioned, the build quality of this monitor is impressive. It is made to last and pressing the buttons on the side only causes the smallest of movement. The bezels are little too big in my opinion, but

I know many people won’t mind this at all, but it is worth being aware of if at any point you plan on using these monitors in a video wall configuration. To that end the monitor can also be used in portrait mode and it will automatically switch the resolution accordingly when used in this mode (that is it will switch to 1080x1920).

As for image quality this monitor required some extensive adjustment for my particular environment before I could use it comfortably.

This will obviously depend on your gaming environment, but it is worth doing as BenQ provide plenty of tuning features for this model.

Particularly if you’ve paid this much, I do believe you should honestly spend some time getting the best out of your investment. Best of all the XL2430T allows you to save your profiles right on to the monitor and you can access them at the press of a button on the S-Swtich ARC. As with most high scan rate panels, the emphasis is on reducing motion blur and input lag, preferably doing both where possible. BenQ has a custom technology which it calls AMA that essentially has three settings (High, Premium or off). This is an option which has a remarkable effect on reducing blur (remember to disable this in your chosen game as well) but as always may introduce some input lag. For the most part I could use the AMA setting on high with no problems. Granted I don’t play games at all competitively so your may find it better to have it off entirely or turned up to premium.

Black equalizer is another much vaunted option on the XL2430T that as the name suggests helps bring light to those areas of the screen that are overly dim, allowing you to see your enemies better. The effect of this is hard to put down

into words but it does work in areas where an enemy may be, but more importantly it allows you to spot them significantly quicker than you would otherwise with your eyes needing to get used to the darker area. This setting is adjustable as well and you may configure it precisely as you need for each particular game or environment within the same game.

The best part about it all is that you can recall each setting almost instantly (the screen will turn off and on momentarily) by pressing any of the buttons from one through to three on the S-Switch provided you’ve mapped each profile or setting to the respective buttons.

You can also select any of these gamer profiles by pressing on the side of the monitor to recall them.

The configuration software that BenQ bundles with the XL2430T is pretty good as it brings all the options you have via the OSD menu into the software package and obviously this is where you’ll be configuring and saving profiles most often being that it’s much easier.

Here you may also customize the OSD to feature primarily the options you use the most. Once again BenQ has built into this monitor and the software immense flexibility for the aspiring or professional gamer.

For the regular user it may be overkill, but as far as full HD gaming monitors go, this one is without a doubt the most advanced and focused monitor I’ve come across.

If you’re looking at high end professional gaming monitors, you’ll do well to give the BenQ XL2430T some consideration. The price may be steep but you get what you pay for. This one left me impressed and certainly one I’d consider if I were looking for such a monitor. [ Iron-Synapse ] Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 41

BENCHMARKS

Tomb Raider Ultra 1080P: 43.6 3DMark Firestrike: 3527 PCMark 8 Creativity Suit: 4721 Battery test (PCMark8): 118min22sec

Value Award

ACER V 15 Nitro – Black Edition (559N) RRP: $979.99 | Website: www.acer.com

I

t is unusual for me to be writing or spending any time on a low end gaming machine let alone a notebook. After all I believe that if you are not able to purchase a decent gaming machine because of financial constraints, then it is best you look at buying a console.

Your $299 will go a lot further than anything that remotely resembles a gaming PC let alone a good one.

For notebooks the same applies if not more. Useful gaming notebooks start at $1,500 and even then, those are not particularly good. With the introduction of the GTX 965M things are improved as there are gaming capable machines that feature this GPU for less than the aforementioned price.

Unfortunately, the machine that I was tasked with reviewing does not feature any of the new NVIDIA GPUs, as the entire line is locked to the previous generation low end GTX 860M. I mention the GPU because this is the most important part of any gaming system and this applies

42 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

to notebooks as well. The 860M is only different from the 850M in that it does not have a GDDR3 option, or at least I’ve not come across one.

Thus you’re always going to get the 80GB/s memory bandwidth as result of the 5GHz memory clock over the 128-bit bus. I’ve used a gaming notebook with the 850M using GDDR3 and let me say that in no way are those game capable GPUs. I would not consider it adequate for any of today’s games at any setting resembling acceptable quality levels.

The specific model that I worked with was the Aspire V 15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-591G-559N. Now note that this is the full name of the model, how this was ever an effective name for any product in public let alone internally is mysterious. Thus for the sake of sanity I will from here on in refer to the notebook as the 559N. Reason being that everything else doesn’t matter as only the 559N has this specific configuration I tested.

Wouldn’t

it have been wonderful to have it named the ACER Aspire 559N? Simple right?

Anyway, the 559N came in at $989 making it very attractive for those on a very tight budget. Obviously with such a limited investment some sacrifices had to be made and they have been. For instance this model features a low end Core i5 4210H CPU. This is a 47W dual core (with Hyper-threading thank goodness) 2.9GHz CPU featuring 3MiB of L3 cache. Turbo speeds are up to 3.5GHz but in your gaming you’ll rarely get to that frequency especially as all games I tried on this machine are multi-threaded thus the TDP budget is spent from the moment the title is loaded. Not the mightiest of CPUs but certainly better than any Pentium or Core i3 CPU that could have been used as an alternative.

Memory is locked in at 8GiB. The unfortunate thing here is that memory is permanently fixed to this notebook and can't be upgraded. 8GiB is on the low side

SPECS:

CPU: Core i5 4210H GPU: GeForce GTX 860M (2GiB) Memory: 8GiB DDR3 1600MHz Storage: 1TB SHDD Display: 15.6" IPS FHD Size: 289.6 x 257.5 x 23.9mm Weight: 2.4Kg (5.29lbs)

but would be more palatable if it was configured in a dual-channel fashion as this CPU needs all the help it can muster. This isn’t the case,so you’re left with single channel DDR3 CL11 1600MHz memory courtesy of SAMSUNG. The hard drive is a hybrid 8GiB NAND/ 1TB 5400rpm drive from Seagate. Some may be familiar with this drive as it is on the budget side but offers surprisingly good performance. The SSHD in combination with Windows 8.1 results in speedy boot up times and is a welcome addition providing an acceptable compromise between capacity and performance. During gaming I found this drive to be a little lethargic, but once the level was loaded there wasn’t much of an issue and it performed admirably.

In essence those are the three aspects that separate this notebook from the vast majority in the family.

Everything else however is near identical save for the screen for which there is a 4K option on the more premium units. Perculiar since all the notebooks in the family are powered by the GTX 860M (some with 4GiB of GDDR5). There’s absolutely no benefit to that panel as short of Pac-man on the Steam store I doubt there’s any title that would work at native resolution with this GPU. Given just how wonderful the Full HD IPS panel is on this model, I can’t imagine an even higher pixel density will do much for you. With a sub $1000 price it’s surprising that ACER managed to fit such a competent display on the notebook and it was

a highlight for me compensating for many of the shortcomings that I had experienced. It is an absolute pleasure to work with indoors and is better than what I’ve seen on other high end unitscosting at least twice as much.

The notebook build quality as well is something that took me by surprise. The matt, rubberised plastics feel good. They are fingerprint magnets which is unfortunate but I was more than willing to live with that because it just made the notebook feel good.

Keep in mind we are talking about a $980 computer here and for that price, ACER has exceptional build quality all around. The absence of an optical drive makes this even better in my books as it shaves down on weight, lending itself to better weight distribution as well.

At 5.29lbs (2.4Kg) this is no ultrabook but it’s certainly not on the heavy side either. In fact it was only 1.1lbs (500g) heavier than the MSI GS60 Ghost I used a few issues ago.

With the 559N, the keyboard is sturdy with little to no flexing when typing even when I pressed on the keyboard quite hard. The red backlight could have done with some level of adjustment but I did appreciate it as it created just the right amount of contrast, enabling me to game or type in very low light.

Where audio quality was concerned, I was not expecting much as with most notebooks.

Headphones were my chosen method of gaming but when I had to have a shared user experience,

the 559N didn’t disappoint with four of its speakers. They were particularly loud, but lacked any overt distortion. Bass was minimal but then again I was never expecting much to begin with. At the very least they were not tinny and produced respectable mid-tones even at the highe volume. Important when watching videos and listening to music that isn’t reliant on the low frequencies. Overall, it was a surprisingly great experience.

Gaming, on the machine resulted in exactly what I had expected. For as long as detail levels were kept at a low to medium setting with no anti-aliasing. The notebook could comfortably game at the native resolution. Given that this GPU is the equivalent of the desktop GTX 750, most titles ran well and there wasn’t a single one I could not play comfortably at 35fps and higher.

For a sub $1000 machine this is impressive. The combination of the screen, performance, pricing, loud speaker system and built quality surprised me. That all this could be fit into such a budget despite some shortcomings made for an agreeable experience and certainly left a lasting impression on me regarding budget notebooks.

[ Iron-Synapse ] Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 43

Value Award

ASUS SICA Mouse and Whetstone Mouse Mat RRP: $45-$50 for both | Website: www.rog.asus.com

A

t CES this this year, ASUS showed three mice and a mouse mat of their newer gaming peripherals. The ASUS GLADIUS that I looked at last issue has been joined by the SICA. Later on in the year it looks as if ASUS will release another addition to the family, the SPARTHA. The SICA is the budget mouse of the family. At the time of writing I didn’t have retail pricing but suffice to say that together with the WHETSTONE mouse mat, the combo will set you back about $50. Not bad, at all. In fact that is really good pricing given just how much has gone into the WHESTONE and to a lesser extend the SICA. However I’ll get to the mouse mat later, but first I must admit that I was initially unmoved by the SICA until I actually used it for

44 The OverClocker Issue 33 | 2015

for a significantly longer period.

Things improved dramatically since my initial impressions, thus, I had to use it to game in two separate stints before I could make up my mind as to how I felt about it. You see, had I tested this mouse first, then the GLADIUS, it would have been a natural progression from the low end, mid-range and subsequently the high end with the SPARTHA eventually. However, I started with what is in reality a damn good mouse in the GLADIUS. As such the SICA’s job was made ever more difficult as a result. For starters this is a relatively small mouse. It isn’t as long, wide or as tall as the GLADIUS. It is, as the literature says built for the smaller hands or those who use a claw grip. I do not have small hands nor do I use a claw grip which makes

me the worst person to test this mouse. None the less there’s merit to me giving my opinion, because if I’m able to live with this mouse and game with it, then it should in theory be even better for those who have the aforementioned characteristics.

The SICA is simple mouse, with only two buttons and a scroll wheel.

That’s it. There are no side buttons and ASUS states in the FAQ that the reason for this is because side buttons could be depressed by left or right handed users by mistake during game play, thus they were not implemented. There’s merit to this argument, however I believe this has everything to do with cost as this is a budget mouse. I would pay even $15 more just to have at least a single button on either side, but once

Size: 320 x 270 (mm) Material: Hybrid silicone fabric

again this would then put the SICA in a different price bracket, where it would compete with other mice that are not in its range.

The mouse is made of plastic and even towards the rear where there is the familiar Mayan pattern, it is also plastic. Thus it doesn’t help much with grip. The mouse is also fairly light even though it does tip the scales at 117g with the chord. This is also due to the chord being longer than on other mice. Movement wise it’ll cause no fatigue and even though it is light, it just manages to escape the $10 electronics bin at your favourite computer store.

To its credit, the SICA features changeable switches, thus you may customize or upgrade them to your desire. However, I do wonder how many people buying within this budget will have the inclination or money to spare for additional switches. Regardless, it’s a feature that I’ve not seen on any other mouse at this price range and I’d rather have it than not at all.

As with the GLADIUS, the mouse uses two separate buttons that are separate from the body as well.

Again this is to ensure quicker actuation as the travel it shortened.

Given that this is a MOBA orientated mouse, I’m unsure how much of a benefit this is, but once again one would rather have this than not at all.

With a maximum DPI of 5000, 130

IPS movement tracking and up to 1KHz polling rate, the SICA ticks all the right boxes optically. It uses the same Armoury software package as the GLADIUS, but obviously much simpler in layout. With that you can still load a profile on to the mouse by simply dragging it to the left of the window pane under PROFILE 1 by default. Simple, straight forward and convenient. Again I’m impressed by the Armoury software and it remains the best software suit I’ve used to date.

What then of the WHETSTONE mouse mat? This is surprisingly the most impressive part of this combination for me. That is especially because I used it with the GLADIUS and that combination is even better than the one with the SICA. This mouse mat unlike the vast majority of foldable mats on the market is made from silicone fabric combination. The base is silicone and the surface is a water resistant fabric. It’s quite thick at 2mm, but this allows an even surface for which you glide your mouse unhindered by small dips and bumps that would be on some surfaces. Unlike the more traditional mats and as a result of the silicone used, it doesn’t have that rubber mouse mat odour that can take a while to get rid of. As the mat is also water proof there’ll be no build-up of impurities within the fibres that result in a pungent mouse mat after extensive use.

The WHETSTONE has the same Mayan inspired pattern as the mouse but you’ll not suffer in precision for it. It’s a textured surface however all the mice I tried on it glide perfectly and I’ve since changed to this mat as my primary gaming surface. It’s the only mouse mat I’ve come across that has gained my favour immediately upon first use. It also doesn’t hurt that in the context of mats it is pleasing to the eye, far more in person than in pictures or on video. As far as mouse mats are concerned this is easily the best one I’ve ever used so, I’m comfortable saying this is the best or at the very least amongst the best mats you can buy.

Overall, this combo works for a number of reasons, primarily because of price. From where I

[ Iron-Synapse] Issue 33 | 2015 The OverClocker 45

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