TheOverclocker issue 28

Issue 28 2014 rev 2. 2

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. FOREVER. Cover Feature

Full Steam Ahead Endless posibilities A future unrealized Reviewed

ASUS MAXIMUS VI Impact Reviewed

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 Interview

Q&A with Jacson Schenckel Lifestyle

ROCCAT Kone Pure and Raivo Mouse Mat

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME! N

ot too long ago, I found myself thinking just how far overclocking has come in the last ten years or so.

I, late comer to the scene, discovered competitive LN2/DICE overclocking just before HWBOT was up and running, look back at those days with rose tinted glasses. As always, I take to the internet and search for old overclocking results, hardware and just about anything related to the scene from those days. As the reality of the time sets in and I look at the plethora of motherboards, CPU models and graphics cards. I realize just how difficult overclocking was at and appreciate how far we have come. I’m not saying it’s easy right now, far from it. However, consider the quality of the average piece of equipment 10 years ago. What we would consider less than acceptable at present was at some point the best there was.

Take for example the MSI K8N Platinum.

This was one of the better socket 939 boards, but that was provided you purchased the right one from a specific region or at least that’s what the theory was anyway.

There are countless other boards, graphics cards and other components which were just like this. CPU binning was always part of the game, but was for the most part, far less prevalent. This probably had nothing to do with the CPUs as such, but the motherboards played such an important role simply because they were, by today’s standards, far from what we would consider competent.

Lots of hoping, wishing, crossing fingers, general unease and stress was the order of the day. Let’s not forget how prone hardware was to failure as well.

Since that time, this industry has come a long way. It is very easy to look back at the time as the golden era (also very dependent on when you started overclocking) but in reality it likely wasn’t. It was a time of discovery you may say, but that’s not true either because if you only learned of overclocking a year ago, the present is likely a great period of discovery for you. Say what you will and even with the very obvious ills of some hardware, we have made progress.

In some areas more so than others, but

overall, the quality and functionality that a $200 board commands was unimaginable even a short five years ago. Prices have gone up disproportionately to inflation perhaps, but then again overclocking has been pushed almost exclusively to the high end where this was bound to happen. The same financial investment you make at present, nets you fewer components than before, but what it does get you is a better experience.

With a fair level of certainty, you know that the Z87X-OC for example at the above mentioned $200 will allow you to reach the limits of your particular CPU. Indeed boards were cheaper than this many moons ago, but relative to the time, $200 gets you a lot more now than ever before. Overclocking is not easier but it is made significantly simpler. Perhaps even to the point where a complete novice can get up and running on at least Dry Ice within a week from exposure to their first sub-zero degree session.

The amount of information on the net has increased exponentially and thus simplified the process tremendously.

We should also take the time to appreciate just how much of an influence we as a community of hobbyists have had on PC hardware. I can’t imagine anything within the personal computing landscape that has not been influenced by overclockers at some level. There may be significantly fewer overclockers than there are gamers but the influence that we have had (be it vendors will admit this publicly or not is another issue entirely) is nothing to snivel at. In fact we should at some level be proud of what we achieved as we were once ignored and discouraged, but today are encouraged, even financially incentivized to take part in overclocking.

So in closing, things may not be the utopia that we all envision, but for the most part we have made huge strides. Overclockers and vendors alike are better off now than before.

To overclockers from all over the globe and to you too hardware vendors, I say, let’s go forth and keep pushing, for our finest hour is yet to come!

[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 3

30

REGULARS 3 - Editor’s note

FEATURES 12 – Overclocking at CES 2014 16 – Cover feature 38 – Soap Box The Overclocker is published by OCL-Media (cc).

REVIEWS 22 – GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 24 – ASUS MAXIMUS VI Impact 26 – CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 32GB 2,666 Kit 28 – GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290X OC 30 – MSI GTX 780Ti Gaming 32 – ASUS ROG POSEIDON

LIFESTYLE

Editor Neo Sibeko Art Director Chris Savides Marketing & Sales Jayda Wu Contributors Dane Remendes Pieter-Jan “Massman” Plaisier For editorial and marketing please contact:

40 - WD Black 4TB FZEX 42 – ROCCAT Kone Pure and Raivo Mouse Mat 44 – Might & Magic X: Legacy

jayda@theoverclocker.com or neo@theoverclocker.com

46 – Guacamelee! Gold Edition

22 4 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

46

QA

Jacson “Schenckel bro(s)” Schenckel Country Name and City: Brazil, São Paulo What language(s) do you speak?

I speak Brazilian Portuguese and a little bit of English.

Your nickname “Schenckel bros”, how did that come about and what does it mean if anything?

My brother (Cleiton) and I opened an Hwbot account at the same time, but since we needed more hardware to submit results to the league. We thought it better to compete using one account, and in addition prevent hardware sharing issues (lol).

When did you start overclocking seriously or rather competitively for points? Is overclocking solely for competitive purposes or do you take part in it for “fun” mainly?

I started learning about overclocking in 2005, when I had an FX5200 that I could not play games with using good graphics quality. So I started looking for overclocking information to help improve the performance of my hardware. In 2009 I met rbuass (Ronaldo Buassali) at an event where there were lessons about extreme overclocking. So since then I have never stopped. Now it is part of my life.

Which is your favourite benchmark if any and what is your least favourite and why ?

My favourite benchmarks are the 3D Benchmarks for sure. I prefer the 3D benchmarks because they require more skill and the system needs to be completely prepared. I also like 2D benchmarks, but not as passionately because they depend mostly on binning CPUs. 6 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

Recently you and Rbuass broke the Catzilla benchmark world record. Tell us a little bit about that and why you chose to go after that one and not the usual Futuremark 3D records.

We broke the 3DMark11 World Record last year at Campus Party 2013. So we choose something new to show at this year's Campus Party.

It’s a very nice benchmark and people really liked it.

Who are your biggest rivals or competition in the overclocking scene?

I don't consider other overclockers as rivals. I do my best to get the best scores and really don't mind who the competitors are. My biggest challenge is learning more and obtaining better results. It doesn’t matter who the other competitors are.

Between NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards, which ones do you prefer to overclock or does it make no difference for you?

It depends because few months ago, HD7970 was the best choice, but now I prefer to bench the GTX Titan and GTX 780Ti. At the very least I can see the benchmark screen (no blind benchmark sessions lol) Overclocking Campus is big in Brazil. Why do you think there is so much interest in overclocking in your country?

I believe that overclocking is interesting worldwide. However, in Brazil people are very open to new things. We have a lot of participation in social media, technology web sites and forums that help to spread overclocking and the events.

What is the most supportive memory vendor for you and overclocking?

Corsair because rbuass, my friend and overclocking partner, works for Corsair. Today I am proud to be working with Corsair at overclocking events.

How feasible is it for you to get access to LN2 where you live and how much is it?

LN2 in my country is really expensive (4.5 USD/Lts). I can't afford to buy too much so perhaps one or two single card sessions/ month. I am lucky though to live near rbuass, so we can have several sessions together where I can learn and have much fun.

How expensive is hardware in Brazil and are overclockers there receiving some kind of support from the vendors?

Brazil is the single country with more fees and duties than any other I know off. So the hardware in Brazil is really expensive. Few people have support from vendors. Most of the Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 7

support from vendors is for reviews.

Sometimes I receive some PC Parts, since I am also a reviewer myself.

How often do you have overclocking sessions in a month?

One or Two times alone but most sessions I have with rbuass in his lab. Then, we can bench once or twice a week.

What are you currently overclocking?

GTX Titan, GTX 780Ti, 4930K, Dominator Platinum 2666 and ASUS X79 boards for 3D benchmarks (3DMark11, Vantage, Catzilla, Fire Strike) Any hardware you’re looking forward to buy in 2014?

I don't know if I will be able to afford it, but I am looking forward to the new DDR4 platform, Haswell-E and other stuff.

What is your favourite graphics card and platform to date?

X79 and GTX 780Ti, because it is the most powerful platform for 3D.

8 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

What is your single greatest or most memorable overclocking achievement?

Every good score is memorable to me, but if I have to choose one, it would be the 3DMark11 score in the Brazilian Team Overclocking Championship in 2012. With the card chosen for the event, I had to perform intense voltmods on the card and I managed excellent scores.

Subsequently I won and was the champion of the competition.

Are you currently participating in the HWBOT Pro OC Cup and if so, how is it going for you and your team?

No. I participate in the Extreme League, because I don’t have complete support from vendors and I cannot afford to invest in the Pro Cup. In my personal opinion, it's nice to be able to run the tests that I want, instead of having to run certain tests for the Pro Cup. I don't mind the Pro Cup benchmarks, like memory clock or even having to buy an AMD CPU to run. I think Pro Cup is nice, but it’s more convenient for me to keep myself in the extreme league, where I

hold the #1 spot in Latin America and where I can also help my team.

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

I think that the community is nice and going in the right direction. Every day we notice that overclocking is growing and even more people, nice people are joining.

What do you do outside of overclocking that you spend as much time on as you do overclocking?

I am brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighter and really like martial arts.

Do you have any advice for upcoming competitive overclockers trying LN2 for the first time?

10 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

Start as fast as possible and don't waste any more time (lol). After you bench LN2, your bench sessions will never be the same again.

Any other insights you would like to share with the community regarding overclocking, hardware or anything related?

I would just like to thank the people who taught me and encouraged me to practice this art, which I love so much. Also I’d like to say it’s a great pleasure to have made so many friends in the overclocking community, both in Brazil and in many countries.

Best wishes from Brazil. [ The Overclocker ]

Overclocking At

Traditionally, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas marks the beginning of the year for the technology industry. It was no different this year and the tradeshow managed once more to catch the attention of all tech enthusiasts. Tech savvy or not, CES has people talking. This year the show was much more focused on all-things-connected and making your life increasingly smart. It comes to a point where PC components play a smart role at the show. Besides a few refreshes and upgrades from vendors such as Lenovo, HP or Asus, there wasn’t much that was new to talk about.

L

uckily things were a bit different for overclocking, as it wasn’t so quiet for us at CES. There were three major events that took place: the Kingston HyperX OC Takeover World Finals (“HOT”), an overclocking gathering at the GIGABYTE suite and a “bench house” dedicated to overclocking.

THE KINGSTON HYPERX OC TAKEOVER WORLD FINALS.

With this competition, Kingston made a mark in the world of overclocking. The HyperX team did an amazing job organizing the event. Following Corsair’s example set at the Computex 2013 tradeshow, Kingston is the second memory manufacturer to host a live overclocking competition. The HyperX event was different, but in a positive sense. They leveraged the in-house expertise of Marmott and Gnidaol and open qualifiers for the event.

12 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

The qualification phase of the competition was run by HWBOT who inspired 33 overclockers to compete. The competition featured three stages: Intel XTU, SuperPI 32M and memory clock validation.

The top five online qualifiers received a ticket to fly out to Las Vegas and compete in the World Finals. The five finalists were: Xtreme Addict (Poland), Vivi (South Africa), Dfordog (China), L0ud_ sil3nc3 and Splave (United States).

At the World Finals in Vegas, Xtreme Addict once more demonstrated why he seemingly always makes his way to the live finals. You may recall him finishing second at the ASUS AOOC competition, as well as finishing third at the MSI MOA finals last year. Congratulations to Xtreme Addict, what an impressive feat!

Kingston clearly showed interest and respect for the overclocking community. Not only did they do

qualifiers, but the prize money was generous as well. The winner of the competition went home with the cash prize of $5,000 USD! That’s the highest amount ever awarded to a winner of an overclocking competition (remember: most competitions feature teams of two).

It’s fairly obvious that Kingston’s main goal was to promote their high-end memory SKUs, particularly to go up against the offerings of G.Skill and Corsair. The two kits used for the competition were a DDR3-2933 Hynix MFRbased module and a DDR3-2666 Samsung based kit. After this competition, we’re sure Kingston had won over the hearts of many power users in the community.

Looking at the data provided by HWBOT, we see that Kingston has indeed seen in an increase of usage since their online qualification event in Q2 2013, and is coming close to the usage rates of Corsair.

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 13

In addition to all this positive news, Kingston has already hinted at holding even more live overclocking events in the future. If all that is true, then "boy-oh-boy", overclockers are going to adore Kingston!

MEANWHILE OVER AT THE GIGABYTE SUITE …

GIGABYTE organized a small overclocking gathering under the supervision of Dinos22 and Hicookie.

Inviting overclockers from all around the United States to come and join the event, GIGABYTE arranged a bunch of overclocking hardware together with G.Skill, Enermax, and Intel. The goal: break a couple of world records. In the end, that is exactly what happened. Vivi and Steponz broke a combined total of three world records featuring the GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force motherboard, a reference GIGABYTE 14 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

Radeon R9 290X graphics card, the Core i7 4770K, an Enermax MaxRevo PSU and of course the inevitable G.Skill TridentX memory kit.

Steponz from the United States first broke the Unigine Heaven DX11 record with a score of 8710.91pts (DX11).

Later Vivi hit two others: 56429 marks in 3DMark06 and 14.03pts score on Cinebench R11.5.

THE BENCH HOUSE

The bench house was an initiative made possible by L0ud_sil3nc3. The idea was simple: rent a house, ship in liquid nitrogen, bring your hardware and overclock until you pass out. A bunch of overclockers checked in and benched at the house, including K|ngp|n, MikeCDM, Splave, Fugger, Vivi, Xtreme Addict, Mikeguava, and of course L0ud_sil3nc3 himself.

The overclockers’ main focus were the newly ‘bointed (= awarded points at HWBOT) benchmarks: Cinebench R15, HWBOT Prime and UCBench 2011. Numerous records were set in

various classes and global categories, also including a PCMark05 record!

In addition to all the hardware sweetness brought by the overclockers, K|ngp|n brought a couple of GeForce GTX 780 Kingpin Edition graphics cards. Overclockers took the specially designed card for a spin and produced some interesting numbers. The card is designed by K|ngp|n and TiN, and according to the Bench House Boys, this card is pretty much the prime choice for GTX 780 Ti overclocking.

THAT WAS CES 2014

As you can see, CES 2014 was in fact pretty busy for the overclocking community. We look forward to seeing the events at CeBIT and Computex later this year. If it’s anything like last year’s Computex, it’ll be amazing without a doubt! [ Massman ]

Full Steam ahead I

n issue 23 of TheOverclocker, I wrote about this hardware industry’s ills and all kinds of things that were rather frustrating to witness. I promised myself to write a follow up to that but never really got around to it and now almost a year later, I’m finally getting my thoughts together. I was finally inspired by the recent launches of “Steam boxes”.

What follows here isn’t really about the Steam Box per say, but it does help highlight what it is that I have been witnessing and just how underutilized this seemingly small and insignificant platform is. It’s an opportunity for vendors to fix their previous misfortunes, break into new markets and most important to them, cushion those ever diminishing bottom lines (save for a handful of vendors who are doing well already).

It is perhaps my misunderstanding, but it stands to say that, the boom in gaming over the last ten years or perhaps from then the Xbox 360 launched was due to casual gamers.

From 2006 up until the present, we have seen numerous records broken in consolidated sales revenues, titles sold and as well, profits lost in gaming franchises. For the most part however, gaming has been growing at a phenomenal rate. So much so that it is not unusual for triple-A titles to generate more money than massive Hollywood block busters.

A great example would be GTA V as we witnessed it reach the Billion dollar mark in a mere 72 hours. This is before the PC launch and possible PS4 and Xbox One launch (yes I know it was said it will not make its way to these two consoles but who knows?).

Clearly gaming is a big deal and it has become so, mostly because it is

16 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

more accessible than before. You may ask yourself where I’m going with all of this, but it’s obvious. The simpler it is for people to get into gaming, the more likely they are to engage in it. Mobile gaming is another classic example of this phenomenon. It is huge and by no means worth ignoring.

Companies such as Gameloft have made fortunes churning out title after title for high end mobile devices.

You can see this in the numbers, as mobile device penetration grows, so do their profits. It isn’t because everyone suddenly discovered the joys of gaming, a frontier lost to them all along. No, it is because it was made significantly more accessible and appealing. Simply download it from an application store and play it right on the device you use for calling, texting, watching videos, taking photos, navigating and all kinds of things.

Gaming became part of the smart phone experience. From rudimentary games to high quality 3D games, they are all available on mobile devices. All of these titles consumed daily at ridiculous rates by end users. Gaming is part of our modern pop/urban culture, it is everywhere.

Yet, for the PC vendors, the people who provide the hardware on which PC gamers play. Some behave as if this is still the mid-nineties at best. For the most part they have gone backwards.

At least in the nineties it was very evident to everyone that my $200 graphics card investment was worth at the very least a demo CD and one complete game. After all, I would not spend that much on a graphics card if I had no intention of playing games on it. So the question is what happened?

Why is it now, you can spend in excess of $1,000 USD for a card and receive

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 17

nothing with it other than promises of superior electronic components that will outlast your heirs for the next five generations?

How is that relevant at all, in fact why would you even sell that as a vendor? The PC platform is very expensive to game on. The arguments for gaming on the PC have to be that much stronger, so much more compelling and far more provocative.

Yet we find ourselves dealing with an industry that relies solely on gimmicks and cheap lamentable marketing ploys in an attempt to part you and your money. It’s simple really.

Look at a billboard for the Porsche 911 Turbo, or even more accessible*, the Mercedes Benz S class luxury vehicles. It is necessarily more provocative than the billboard that has a Dacia Sandero on it. If you expect an individual to pay ten times more for a car, then at least make it so your marketing campaigns are somewhat more convincing. We know the product is better in every single way, but you know what? We do not make purchasing decisions based on reason and objectivity alone. A large part of it has to do with the irrational and emotional side of ourselves. That which inspires us and we aspire to be has everything to do with what we buy, how much we spend on it and our expectations of it.

To say that a Dancia Sandero drives on the same roads as an S65 thus, it offers the same functionality is to miss the point entirely. The point of the S65 is not only to get you from point A to point B; it is how it makes you feel when inside it. Be it you’re driving it, or as often the case with such vehicles, you are being driven. You are in that car, not because it’s a mode of transport but how it makes you feel.

What does this have to do with gaming and the hardware industry you may ask? Well, the answer is effectively, everything. We who buy hardware components, games, consoles and peripherals also happen to buy cars. If we make emotional purchases when it comes to cars, phones and other things, why would we not do the same when it comes to our PCs and what goes inside them?

At the very least we would behave similarly but appropriately to the size of the investment we are dealing with. For many, building a powerful $2,500 machine satisfies the same desire. As such, it is appalling that you can spend $1000 on a 18 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

graphics card and get nothing else with it other than the card and a box.

Consider that for the same $1,000 you can buy a PS4, an XboxOne, a yearly subscription to each service and a game for each platform. When you have spent that $1,000 you come home with something to show for it.

With PC’s you spend this much and the highlight of the experience is loading up a game which was already running at 70fps and watching it tick along at 89fps. You may say that’s an ill thought out purchase, but for the most part, all computer upgrades at that price fall into this category. If you are spending a thousand dollars on a graphics card, chances are your previous purchase was similarly priced, thus your gains are most likely small increments more than anything else. This is not an ideal situation obviously. It is however the nature of the DIY market as most times you’ll not be able to benefit immediately if at all from your purchase. But, do you know what?

available. More than that, these games were only available while the game coupon stocks were around. If they ran out, you were out of luck.

One must admit however, that things are getting better as there are a number of motherboards that are shipping today that include games with them and that is a good thing.

A motherboard isn’t something that probably fits best with what is essentially a visual experience.

(Hardly anyone experiences low frame rates and resorts to upgrading their motherboard as a solution). However it is appreciated, because if one is able to buy a board for more than $300, chances are they have a graphics card of equivalent cost or more.

All the above is perhaps common sense to all who work in the marketing departments of these companies. One can’t imagine a situation where these questions and some kind of analysis regarding these issues have not come about. As such, the insistence of these vendors to carry on in this

“ Often we are left asking ourselves, where are the tech demos that used to come on DVD’s, actually where are the copies of COD, Crysis 3 or some other game? ” The exact same applies to cars, gadgets or anything else for that matter that we may spend an excessive amount of money on.

Often we are left asking ourselves, where are the tech demos that used to come on DVD’s, actually where are the copies of COD, Crysis 3 or some other game? AMD tried to address this with the never settle bundle but that didn’t always work especially in some regions where titles just weren’t

fashion is probably due to teams and individuals within the companies that do not understand end users. Most likely it is sales and/or engineering teams leading product development and marketing strategies instead of the marketing teams leading them.

Crudely articulated, it would be the equivalent of having accountants and assembly line workers selling products directly to the public. No sensible person would imagine this

“ This is a perfect opportunity for vendors to make their own steam boxes and for the first time sell complete products and not just components.” being anything short of nonsensical.

Yet, judging from the strategies we have seen in this industry, this is exactly what is happening.

All this brings us right back to the steam boxes that have been popping up all over the show as mentioned earlier in this editorial.

This is a perfect opportunity for vendors to make their own steam boxes and for the first time sell complete products and not just components. Mind you there are some real administrative, logistic and resource issues to deal with before this can be considered. However, it is worth remembering that many of these vendors manufacture several different computer components.

Along with this they make complete products in the form of notebooks and/or all-in-one PCs. In light of this, making a Steam Box wouldn’t be as challenging as it may seem at first. The biggest change required would be a change in thinking and not

necessarily the practicality of making such a product.

Consider for instance that recently we’ve seen several vendors promoting barebones PC systems. Those are not appealing in the least for most gamers or enthusiasts but they do make it very clear. Hardware vendors have the capacity to manufacture steam boxes.

The only reason they do not is because it’s a model they are waiting for some other company to prove first before they all start making them.

The current boxes we have are tragic to say the least. Many are massive, bulky and are just PCs with a label that says Steam Box. As I understood it, a Steam Box is that which is meant to sit next to your console (if not, it should be). Ideally it should be as easy to use and look appropriate for the living room where you may have your other consoles and home entertainment equipment.

A Steam Box built around the Corsair 900D will not work at all. You may as Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 19

well place a horse in the living room with a computer on it and call it a Steam Box. A Steam Box should be powerful enough to play all games on Steam at 1080p with no AA for example. If you read the “GTX 750 Ti Mini ITX” guide over at www.geforce.com it is a great example of how this can be achieved at around $530 USD. Cheap PCs is not what this is about however, so if you have glanced over at that guide and proceed to roughly double the allocated budget to $1,000. Then one suddenly has the leg room to add a controller, an Operating System if need be, a slightly better processor, an optical drive and a slightly faster version of the graphics card. All these changes would still result in a machine that is less than $1,000 or at the very most a hair over this figure.

The experience there in visuals would still surpass those of the consoles it is placed next to. If only because this time, all the games are rendered at Full HD, whereas on either console many games are

upscaled from their native lower resolution. This isn’t quantum theory at all. It is doable and should be done but for some reason it has been left to system integrators to do, which have thus far missed the point entirely.

Built by vendors, this would be a far more streamlined and consistent experience. It would also inspire true innovation, working within the confines of a single, relatively small chassis. The vendor that could provide a system the size of the XBoxOne with a graphics card that can provide GTX TITAN or R9 290X performance for instance would not need to justify the price premium on their part.

Providing such a system but keeping it sufficiently cool and quiet would provide a host of challenges which is great because it means there are far more ways to differentiate the various offerings. As a result, the focus would further move away from cost, but the gaming experience on these machines.

In such an environment, those 100% Japanese Solid capacitors start to

“Technology has advanced in a way as to blur these lines and we are no longer in these silos of purchasing paradigms.”

20 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

mean something. It is then, where the Killer network chip and all kinds of other things that were sold on desktop boards become part of something more meaningful. The quality of the parts would assure the end user that they need not worry about the product lifespan.

This would in no way prove to be detrimental to component sales for the desktop because the same people who are buying $400 motherboards, $1,000 graphics cards and K SKU CPUs would not vanish into thin air.

They would remain and continue to do so along with the overclockers, if not possibly increase their number dramatically. The ability to benchmark your “console” like system and compare it to others is addictive. Not everyone would care about this but to some people this would be what gets them into overclocking. Much like it was gaming that gave rise to many competitive overclockers today. The inability to overclock these Steam Boxes (they should not overclock at all or minimally given the RMA issues that would arise etc) would make a great segway into the more expensive components. The implications for this could be far reaching as well, affecting every part of this industry and breathing much needed life into a stale environment where all the news seems to be doom and gloom.

Steam Boxes as a whole and how they have thus far been handled only highlights an ailment already present in the market. When SSD’s were the newest and best thing ever, almost all vendors were selling them. That market dried up quickly, with all competitors offering similar if not identical products. With so called gaming peripherals it became

the exact same thing. How is it that every company is vying for the same people with identical products that can hardly be distinguished from one another? Yet with the steam box we have seen no takers. One of the few spaces where they can differentiate themselves in easily marketable ways, we see no pioneering.

When all is said and done, it is for the entire industry to realize that consumers have changed in many ways. Where we were once able to hold independent and perhaps inconsistent (at least in behavior) sentiments about what we purchased.

Technology has advanced in a way as to blur these lines and we are no longer in these silos of purchasing paradigms. Moreover the gamer, or gamers are no longer the pubescent kids huddled around a computer in the study or sitting on the floor blowing air into dusty cartridges. Those days, as fondly as remembered as they are, have long gone. Gaming, computing and all manner of digital interaction and entertainment is pervasive in our lives. There are certain expectations, that we have as consumers and those expectations are informed by the world we live in today. There is a distinction between a society that is more technologically inclined and one that is better informed about electronics. It is for this very reason that selling specifications is next to meaningless for many products.

Marveling at the specifications is left only to those who have always appreciated such detail. The vast majority of people do not. Their appreciation is at face value, shallow, but in truth deeply rooted in what they think about themselves and in many ways how others perceive them.

In the selling of anything really, an awareness of this must be exercised and how this is exercised is in how a company communicates to its end users, via its marketing campaigns and its products. This has been known in many industries for decades on end. It is however, still a new concept for hardware vendors apparently.

Despite the many successes which prove this, the powers that be at these companies seem to be resistant to this awareness. Too many of the vendors are happy to trade users, instead of building a bigger pool of people to sell their products to. Many hardware vendors are in business purely because the environment allowed it before. If they were in any other industry, perhaps two if any of these companies would exist today.

However, that they are in an industry that is so forgiving makes their misgivings about people even more lamentable.

As always though, it is good to be hopeful as there are some vendors that may not know what it is they are doing wrong, but are at the very least aware that something is amiss, despite the sales numbers suggesting otherwise (for the lucky ones). All we can do is wait and see how it all turns out this year going forward. There is massive potential in steam boxes and in a general adjustment to how gamers, and overclockers are viewed. There are a great many ideas and ways to go about creating true engagement with end users that yields profits for vendors and great experiences for end users. The best of this industry is yet to come, it needs only a shift in ideology and great things will happen for all involved. [ The Overclcoker ] Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 21

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

Value Award

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 RRP: $175.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4770K • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10 • Corsair Force LS 240GB • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1

W

e’ve always been fans of the G1 boards from GIGABYTE here at TheOverclocker. Perhaps not the early attempts but certainly with this current generation as they have almost perfected what it is that makes for a great gaming board. You need only read out review of the G1.Sniper 5 and all the praises we had for it to see just how well made these G1 boards have become of late.

The Sniper Z87 then, may seem like a redundant board at first. After all, we have the Sniper 5 and if you want a cheaper board, perhaps look

22 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

to the ultra-durable series or the micro-ATX M5. The thing is though, much like with the Z87X-OC, GIGABYTE may have possibly negated the need for their other G1 boards with this one. What the Sniper Z87 offers is more than what the Z5S has for example. Then again that board is cheaper, but consider that the M5 is more expensive and its features list is near identical to the Sniper Z87s.

Let’s face it, most people don’t use multi-GPU rendering technology for their gaming and the ones that do, usually limit it to two cards.

Thus, while we are able to appreciate a board that can do 4-way graphics, there are very few cases where this is a viable or recommended option for gaming purposes. As such the support for regular SLI and Crossfire on the Z87 is perfect and it eliminates the need for any 3rd party switching chip which will rob you of performance.

This is an important point

because it is in practical terms the only real feature that the Z87 does not have that the bigger and grander Sniper 5 board has. Yes you won’t get the thunderbolt support, the wifi and Bluetooth card as well but you have to ask yourself if these features are worth double the price. Mind you the Sniper 5 is a great board, and you can read our review over here, however the Z87 is an even better board if only because you get the best onboard audio solution money can buy along with the Atheros gaming NIC. Say what you will but these are the two pillars which seem to define gaming motherboards lately and the Sniper Z87 has both of them.

On to the BIOS then, this is the same one found on the Sniper 5 and much like with that board we tend to rely on the older legacy BIOS for tuning. Not that there is anything wrong with the new interface, far from it.

It’s because the older one is just easier to navigate with

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

Motherboard

Cinebench 11.5

GIGABYTE G1 Sniper Z87

10,11

3DMark11

Super Pi 8M

Aida 64 Copy

Aida 64 Latency

14102

1.25.892

35753

42

1.25.993

33728

42

1.26.206

32753

32

Physics: 12790 GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force

10,15

13899 Physics: 12690

INTEL DZ87KLT-75K

10,05

the keyboard. With a few keystrokes you can be up and running with you memory scorching along at 2,800MHz inside of a minute. It is worth noting however that the UEFI has improved with each update and it is as refined as we have ever seen on a GIGABYTE board.

Where performance is concerned you’re pretty much going to be sitting between the Z87X-OC and the Sniper 5 for instance. It’s pretty hard to say but overall it’s an efficient board that delivers predictable and consistent performance.

With each benchmark we had better performance than we did with the original Sniper 5 board, but that could be because of several reason including new drivers and firmware. Short of that you should not be expecting any miracles here; it’s as efficient as any other high end Z87 board you can buy on the market.

Overclocking is another place where we find no short comings with this board. It will easily max out your CPU on air cooling, liquid cooling and dry ice. Liquid Nitrogen could prove to be a little tricky

12793

because there is no LN2 mode of sorts for example but it’s not something that cannot be resolved with some careful planning and cooling strategy.

So for the weekend LN2 warrior this just may do the trick as well. At the very least it will not be worse than the ultra-durable boards.

In closing we can’t fault this board on anything really. Some may lament the absence of Wi-Fi dongles and the like, but you must consider that you are only paying $175 for a board where the audio solution alone takes up a sizeable chunk of that price. If there ever was a pure gaming motherboard it would have to be the G1 Sniper Z87. There are no half measures here, everything it does, it does exceptionally well and what you’re ultimately paying for is quality over and above anything else. If you were planning on building a powerful gaming machine, this may not seem like a logical place to start but it is. The price may seem too low, but don’t let it fool you. We keep drawing parallels to the Z87XOC and we will continue to.

Much like that board nullifies every other overclocking Z87

board on the market save for the Rampage VI Extreme; the Sniper Z87 does the same.

This time however, unlike with the Z87X-OC, even for double the price you can’t really claim to have bought a better motherboard. The G1 Sniper Z87 is by far our favourite gaming motherboard to date and rightfully deserves our editor’s choice award.

Summary The GIGABYTE G1 Sniper Z87 is a distilled version of all the vendor’s gaming boards. It has everything that make the G1 boards great but comes in at a significantly lower price. For all intents and purposes, this is the best G1 board you can buy right now. Much like the Z87X-OC, this board is unprecedented in terms of features vs pricing. A must have for sure.

Would you buy it?

Yes

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 23

Hardware Award

OC Hero Award

ASUS MAXIMUS VI Impact RRP: $219.99 | Website: www.asus.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4770K • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2x4GB DDR 2666MHZ C10 • ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 • Corsair LS 240GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 332.21) • BIOS 1301

I

n issue 25 of the magazine we looked at the MAXIMUS VI Extreme, if you didn’t see that review you may read it here.

In that issue you’ll notice that we had nothing but high praises for the motherboard. Typical of ASUS, they had produced a sublime motherboard that for all intents and purposes became the de-facto standard by which all Z87 motherboards would be measured.

This time, we look at yet another motherboard from the ROG team in the Maximus series. This time, it is the

24 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

diminutive MAXIMUS VI IMPACT and let it be said, this is one very capable board. From a technical point of view, this in fact is the best mini-ITX board that’s ever been produced. The features that are on this board are simply uncanny for this form factor.

Before we sing this boards praises however it is important that we highlight to you what we believe is the ideal usage scenario for boards of this size.

That is, HTPCs and perhaps those building tiny gaming rigs that may serve as steam machines of sorts. That applies to the form factor in general though, but perhaps not in particular to this board.

See, the issue with the IMPACT is not that it’s lacking in anyway, to the contrary this board is wasted when placed in a HTPC. In a small form factor gaming PC it makes, sense, but it’s near $220 USD price makes it rather pointless. So then you have a situation where the board is perhaps too expensive in one context and in another, it is wasted for something that will

serve essentially as a fancy media server.

To that end, we are still trying to figure out exactly where this motherboard should find itself.

Perhaps an A88X based board of similar design with some of the features removed would serve the purposes of a steam box perfectly. However there is no such Crosshair board and thus, this is the leading ASUS ROG mini-ITX offering.

All of the above aside, the IMPACT is still by far the most impressive mini-ITX board you will come across (that is until the next one). The features list would be remarkable on a regular motherboard but to have ASUS pull this off on a mini-ITX board is truly impressive. There simply isn’t anything that we could possibly think of that you may need on the regular sized board or at least the Gene, that isn’t available here in some form or another.

To name but a few features this board has, you receive OC-Panel support, POST LED, Mem Ok, Direct Key, Clr CMOS, Power/

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

Motherboard

INTEL DZ87KLT-75K

Cinebench 11.5

3DMark11

10,05

12793

Super Pi 8M

Aida 64 Copy

Aida 64 Latency

1.26.206

32753

32

1.25.691

35743

38

1.25.847

32805

39,9

Physics: 12724 ASUS Maximus VI IMPACT

10,15

ASRock Z87 OC Fomula

10,08

13986 Physics: 12891

14024 Physics: 12948

Reset buttons and LN2 mode.

There are E-ATX board that don’t have all of these. If you turn to the BIOS you’ll find all the familiar extreme tuning options as well, which we’ve grown to be very fond off. It’s as if they took the Maximus VI Formula and shrunk it down to produce the IMPACT. The Formula board specifically because the Impact actually has a better audio solution than what you find on the Maximus VI Extreme. This is courtesy of the ROG SupremeFX audio riser card. It has all the bells and whistles that you could think of including a cool audio pass through capability. Simply put, this allows you to plug a device into the front of your PC and have it played through the speakers. The PC doesn’t need to be on for this to happen as the audio signal is directed passively through to the speakers.

For connectivity you’ll also get the standard Bluetooth 4.0+ Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac adapter and mSATA support via the mPCIe Combo II module. This is in addition to the Intel Gigabit LAN port of course.

Where power delivery is concerned, the Impact has you covered there as well as it uses the same components found on

the MVIE and Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition board.

Mainly the 10K Nichicon-GT caps and 60A BlackWing chokes in an 8+2 PWM configuration. There’s no need to doubt how far this configuration will allow your CPU to clock, as once again it is superior to what many standard ATX boards on the market offer.

The limits will solely be your chosen CPU sample but as far as power delivery is concerned it is just about as good as you’re ever going to get especially on a mini-ITX board.

Finally, we must make a special mention of the layout of the board. Unlike other miniITX boards, the CPU socket is centrally located. This is great for the larger coolers as it prevents them from hitting a number of components, mainly the graphics card. Speaking about the graphics card, the CPU socket location actually helps keep the CPU cooler than other boards because it is not right up against the back of the graphics card. Usually with other mini-ITX board, the CPU socket is located just behind the PCIe slot. Not only does it complicate cooler mounting, but even when you do manage to fit one on there, its job is made that much harder by

heat coming off the back of the graphics card PCB. It’s the simple but numerous design decisions that ultimately garners the IMPACT our highest praises. Yes it is expensive and there’s no getting around that.

However, as we said about the Rampage IV Black Edition, you will always pay top dollar for the best products and this is by far the best min-ITX motherboard you can buy today. The Maximus VI Impact is a truly remarkable motherboard.

[The Overclocker]

Summary Technically the Maximus VI IMPACT is a marvel.

There isn’t anything to fault it on and for all intents and purposes is a shrunken Maximus VI Formula. You’ll not find a better mini-ITX board anywhere today, but perhaps you may find a more cost effective one.

Would you buy it?

Only if we had to have an ultimate mini-ITX overclocking board, then yes.

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 25

CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 32GB 2,666MHz C12 Kit RRP: $599.99 | Website: www.corsair.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4960X • ASUS Maximus VI Extreme (4802) • ASUS ROG Poseidon • Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 334.67)

T

here are many weird and wonderful things that can be said about INTEL’s Haswell CPUs, this is especially true for competitive overclockers. Despite the revolutionary manufacturing process and the FIVR, the clock speeds are by and large lower than those on Ivy-Bridge CPUs and of course even lower than those of CPUs based on SandyBridge processors.(Air only!)

This was particularly true at the beginning of the product lifespan, but as usual, clock speeds have improved since then. That aside, what has

26 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

always been impressive about Haswell CPUs is the IMC which is by far the best one or the most capable in INTEL’s history.

Suddenly everyone fortunate or unfortunate enough (depending on your needs) to own Hynix MFR memory kit was reaching speeds in excess of 4GHz. Single channel or otherwise, that is a very impressive showing for the IMC and obviously the memory ICs as well. So as many of you remember, for the longest time it was memory frequency record, after record courtesy of this combination.

With a shortage of other memory ICs it was inevitable that these would be the ones chosen going forward, not only by CORSAIR but other memory vendors as well. All of which leads us to this set here.

You will recall that in issue 26 we took a look at the 2x8GB C11 kit of the same frequency.

Initially we had low expectations but upon testing we found the kit to perform admirably and overclock very well indeed. In retrospect, that kit was even

better than we gave it credit for at the time, because since then we have been able to reach even higher clock speeds and improve performance as well. If you didn’t get to read that review you can read it here.

This kit in contrast has double the capacity. Here we have lots of memory for a very fair price (especially in this climate). It may only be C12 but you are getting lots of memory and it is 2,666MHz. You may be thinking this memory uses the same chips as the set mentioned earlier. If so, the results would be fairly predictable.

Unfortunately, this kit uses Hynix MFR ICs instead. Before you write it off however, it is double sided; thus it does not suffer the tragic performance associated with single sided DIMMs. This should come as a relief to many especially those who seek out real world performance and are less interested in just performing validation runs at the highest possible frequency. After all, why buy a 32GB kit if that’s all

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

Memory

AIDA 64 Read

AIDA 64 Write

AIDA 64 Copy

AIDA 64 Latency

SuperPi 8M

Frequency

Timings

CORSAIR DOMINATOR PLATINUM 2666C10

25303

24938

28805

28,7

1.24.110

2400

8-10-10-21-1N

26416

25149

29918

28,2

1.23.937

2600

9-11-11-28-1N

26818

25244

30188

27,9

1.23.828

2666

9-12-12-28-1N

27032

25347

30823

27,8

1.23.688

2800

10-12-12-31-1N

27438

25510

30386

27,9

N/A

2933

11-13-13-35-1N

25149

37724

29631

40,6

1.26.237

2400

9-11-10-28-1N

27271

40831

32148

40,3

1.26.268

2600

10-12-11-31-1N

27929

41522

32851

40,2

1.25.691

2666

10-12-12-31-1N

28914

35251

31245

38,8

1.25.769

2800

11-13-13-35-1N

30161

30902

29903

38,9

1.26.003

2933

11-14-13-31-2N

30735

31557

30232

40,3

1.25.706

3000

12-14-14-35-2N

34993

37573

34790

43,3

1.26.564

2400

10-11-11-31-1T

39050

40435

37542

45,4

1.26.814

2600

12-13-13-35-2T

30820

24141

26487

44

1.27.361

2666

12-13-13-35-2T

33998

43638

38005

44,7

1.29.513

2800

12-14-14-35-2T

CORSAIR VENGEANCE PRO 2666 C11 2x8GB

CORSAIR VENGEANCE PRO 2666 C12 4x8GB

you intend to do with it?

We would have loved to tell you that the performance of this set closely matched that of our previous Vengeance Pro memory, but that would be untrue. What we ended up with is memory which will need you to tune it before you can get decent performance from it. Simply loading the XMP profile will give you the desired 2,666MHz but the numbers will be quite poor. With such memory densities you should expect some slightly lower performance (Command rate drops to 2N for example) but in this particular case and as you can see in the benchmarks, the memory was underwhelming.

Tried as we may have, we just couldn’t get it to perform as expected and in fact the standard 2,666MHz test scores are the lowest.

We then took to decreasing the speed and tightening the timings and it is then we started recording numbers we were expecting. At 2400MHz, the only frequency we were able to set 1N , the memory performed admirably and as you can tell efficiency was quite high. If you

are noting anything odd about the results compared to the last Vengeance Pro kit, it is because we used an updated version of AIDA 64 for this review which yields higher results than the previous one.

When we moved on to 2,600MHz, we had to give up on the 1N command rate and use the DRAM’s specified timings.

However this was the memory’s sweet spot where we recorded the best results with our setup.

We tried this on both the Z87 and X79 platforms and found that the 2,600MHz setting was indeed the right setting for this memory. Anything higher required too great a sacrifice in the secondary and tertiary timings which led to dramatic drop offs in performance.

In reality you’re looking at a 2,600MHz set here. Sure it says 2,666MHz on the box and in the SPD, but you’re going to want to set this up at 2,600MHz to get maximum performance. It’s not a set designed for memory frequency records, thus you should not expect it to do such.

Should you be in need of lots of memory though and are willing to spend some time tweaking

this set, there are worse ways to spend $600. As far as we are concerned, if you can’t find the C11 kits (which is most likely the case as they were sold out when we checked) then this kit may be a valid alternative provided you need the capacity more than you do sheer frequency or performance. [ The Overclocker ]

Summary The Corsair C12 32GB C12 2,666 Kit is perhaps better suited for memory intensive applications than it is for overclocking.

By current memory pricing standards, it is competitively priced and gets the job done.

For those who need performance above everything else, do consider some other Corsair kits before settling on this one.

Would you buy it?

Only if performance needs are secondary to capacity.

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 27

GIGABYTE GV-R929XOC-4GD RRP: $899.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4960X • ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (4802) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 4x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (Catalyst 13.12WHQL)

L

ast issue we looked at two reference R9 900 series graphics cards.

The 290X was directly from AMD and the other was a run off the mill PowerColor R9 290 we bought to compare the two.

Prior to testing those cards, we had read that there was some discrepancy between retail cards and the ones AMD was issuing to media for testing.

Since we didn’t have other cards on hand to compare, we assumed this was just an anomaly that perhaps affected

28 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

very specific cards. At the very least it would be something that could be resolved with driver/ BIOS updates. That was three months ago and all should be settled right?

Well, in testing this offering from GIGABYTE we found something very peculiar. As you would expect, the GIGABYTE card we have here is faster than the reference AMD R9 290X. That’s not a surprise at all, given that it is clocked higher (even though it’s a marginal overclock). However when both cards were clocked to the same frequency, the reference card was faster. With a little more core speed on the GIGBYTE card, we found that the reference card was still faster. Time and time again we tested but the results remained the same. The reason for this eluded us and continues to do so, but we do feel it’s important to mention this before we delve further into what we think about the GIGABYTE model.

With that said, everyone has been waiting for the non-

reference R9 290X cards. Even if performance was unaltered, the uninspired cooler that AMD used for the 290X and the 290 left a lot to be desired thus, most users, us included, were eager to find out what the GPUs could achieve with a more competent solution. Even if they did not reach higher frequencies, the lower load temperatures and decreased noise levels would always be appreciated. All this brings us to the GIGABYTE R9 290X. This model does not come packaged with Battlefield 4 and you simply receive the card as is. Though disappointing, it is typical of graphics cards these days, so we are not singling out GIGABYTE here for the noneexistent software package. (Do note that if you buy the “GA” models, they will ship with the game) So then what truly makes the GABYTE R9 290X OC edition different is that it uses the highly effective WindForce 3X cooler. This is the same one found on the GTX 780 Ti GHz edition which we reviewed in a

All results were obtained at 4625MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Graphics Card

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

3DMark11

3DMark Vantage

Catzilla: 1080p

HWBOT Heaven Extreme

GIGABYTE GV-N78TGHZ3GD

11617

5941

16834

54177

15690

3639,79

Graphics: 12908

Graphics: 6133

Graphics: 17285

GPU Score: 55619

Hardware: 15775

10753

5459

16242

51324

11970

Graphics: 12195

Graphics: 5723

Graphics: 16725

GPU Score: 51784

Hardware: 11985

10066

5064

15095

49417

10870

Graphics: 11216

Graphics: 5236

Graphics: 15222

GPU: 49026

Hardware: 10890

9867

4935

14837

48990

10700

Graphics: 10959

Graphics: 5079

Graphics: 14803

GPU Score: 48432

Hardware: 10723

GIGABYTE GV-R929XOC4GD OC 1150MHz / 6.1GHz Memory GIGABYTE GV-R929XOC4GD

Reference AMD Radeon R9 290X

previous issue. It was effective at cooling the GTX 780 Ti and it is equally adept here, keeping the heat the GPU produces under control. For instance our maximum load temperatures fell by an incredible 20’C from 94 to 74 degrees at the highest.

This is obviously a dramatic reduction in temperatures. In addition to that, the WinForce 3X cooler is significantly quieter which was the other sticking point regarding the R9 29OX. GIGABYTE’s cooler eliminates these short comings and as a result we end up with one fine graphics card.

It is unfortunate that short of that, the card pretty much uses a reference PCB and components. It features the same ELPIDA GDDR5 memory clocked in at 5GHz. As a result the memory doesn’t overclock well in comparison to what one would expect from Samsung or Hynix DRAM. On this card we were able to get 1525MHz which is not bad at all given that some cards do not even make the 1500MHz mark. Where the core was concerned we had mixed results depending on the benchmark, thus we settled on a slightly lower core than you would expect at 1150MHz. With this clock speed we were able to

loop our entire benchmark suit repeatedly with no rendering anomalies and thus this was the clock speed we chose as our maximum stable frequency.

Adding GPU voltage via the OC Guru II hardware didn’t yield better results.

Having said that, the combination of the memory clock and GPU frequency made a sizeable change in performance as it increased scores on average by 8 to 10%.

This is not going to break any overclocking records, but it was enough to make tangible gains in synthetic benchmarks and in games of course. Given that the 290X handles every single title available with ease at virtually all possible settings, there’s little to no incentive to overclock this graphics card.

For the most part we are fairly satisfied with the card that GIGABYTE has produced.

We’ve no reason to doubt the craftsmanship and it remains high as always. For those who need to take this card to much higher GPU frequencies, do consider the E-Power board from a competing vendor as they will allow this card to reach new heights in performance which ultimately is what you want.

Overall this is a more than

3469,333

3172,879

3105,931

competent card from GIGABYTE. The only issue here is that all Radeon R9 290X cards are ridiculously expensive courtesy to the digital mining craze. Thus, you’re looking at a card here that costs more than the GTX 780 Ti GHz but is just not as fast in any title. Still, if you’re able to swallow the $900 price tag, the GIGABYTE card would serve you well in every game there is today and for years to come. [ The Overclocker ]

Summary GIGABYTE’s R9 290X may be exactly what we have been waiting for concerning this GPU. With the noisy cooler AMD provided on the original cards, this is as refined a version as you are going to get currently.

Sure there are more exotic looking cards from other vendors but with all pricing equal, this model is as good as any at the very least

Would you buy it?

Yes

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 29

MSI GTX 780Ti Gaming RRP: $709.99 | Website: www.msi.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4960X • ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (4802) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 4x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD • Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 331.93)

W

e are all well and truly familiar with the GTX 780Ti by now. It’s been with us for the better part of four month and is currently the fastest GPU money can buy, at least for gaming and for the most part overclocking as well.

This however is, as the name of the card suggests, a SKU from MSI strictly made for the gamers. How this is in any way gaming orientated as opposed to the regular card is puzzling.

It features the wonderful Twin Fror IV cooler and MSI’s Miltary Class-III components along with 30 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

a factory overclock. However, isn’t that what the regular cards from MSI offer as well? This is perhaps because, other than the reference GTX 780Ti, MSI does not have any other 780Ti. Sure we’ve seen the lightening teased over in Europe by two prolific overclockers, but word on the wire is that these are not going to be in mass production or even worse will likely not see the light of day.

Thus, as it stands this is MSI’s best offering, perhaps even their only offering of the GTX 780 Ti as the reference model doesn’t truly count.

As mentioned above, there are three parts to the gaming card which distinguish it from the normal model or at the very least from other 780Ti cards on the market. The Twin Frozr Cooler keeps getting better with each generation and now in its fourth iteration it is able to dissipate heat very effectively and quietly. The latter being the most impressive part as it’s hardly audible even during load.

Second and probably most

relevant is the overclock that the card ships with. There are three modes which MSI defines using their inspiringly named MSI Gaming App. By default and in the BIOS, the card ships with a base clock of 980MHz and a boost clock of 1084MHz. The boost clock in reality is higher but at the very least these are the clock speeds and subsequent performance levels you should expect. There is another OC mode as well which you can select for the card which takes the clock seed up a notch, but once again it’s not something you cannot do yourself with Afterburner. It is also very interesting that MSI chose not to ship the card with the clocks set to the OC mode. In our testing there was no audible difference in noise levels between the three modes at all, but the OC mode obviously yielded the best results.

We did our own testing and found that the GPU clock limits were typical of other GTX 780Ti cards we’ve seen. For the most

All results were obtained at 4625MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Graphics Card

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

3DMark11

3DMark Vantage

Catzilla: 1080p

HWBOT Heaven Extreme

MSI GTX 780Ti Gaming OC

12311

6202

17334

56570

16098

3814,136

1302MHz GPU/ 8GHz Memory

Graphics: 13901

Graphics: 6421

Graphics: 17890

GPU Score: 57644

Hardware: 16202

MSI GTX 780Ti Gaming

11147

5561

16124

52705

15156

Graphics: 12324

Graphics: 5716

Graphics: 16310

GPU: 53547

Hardware: 15196

AMD Radeon R9 290X OC

11051

5578

16188

51576

12595

1125MHz GPU /6GHz Memory

Graphics: 12435

Graphics: 5788

Graphics: 16587

GPU Score: 52189

Hardware: 12147

AMD Radeon R9 290X

3533,168

3502,696

9867

4935

14837

48990

10700

Graphics: 10959

Graphics: 5079

Graphics: 14803

GPU Score: 48432

Hardware: 10723

part your maximum GPU clock frequency is going to be around 1,300MHz and that is exactly what we found with this card. No matter the GPU voltage, we were limited to around 1301MHz. As for the memory, for the second time in a row we have an MSI card (barring the lightning) that has exceptional memory overclocking. This card uses the same Hynix 7GHz GDDR5 chips found on other 780 Ti cards, but for some reason we were able to see the other side of 2GHz with the memory. In fact the highest frequency we recorded was 2,085MHz which was good enough for a 3DMark Extreme test run. Since bandwidth isn’t the limiting factor though for the 780Ti especially with the GPU clock speed left at the default 980MHz, we didn’t notice a dramatic improvement in scores or in in-game fps results. This would be different however when gaming on a 4K screen where bandwidth would weigh in heavily on the performance.

To reach the right combination of GPU frequency and memory frequency, as you may have suspected we had to decrease

both. In the end it turns out 2GHz was the most stable and artifact free frequency we could run. As for the GPU we were relegated to 1267MHz (real frequency) which is not bad at all, all things considered.

With the current pricing and especially against the R9 290X, the 780Ti has never been more appealing. It is not only much faster than the R9 290X, it runs cooler, consumes less power and when overclocked further distances itself from the competition. Sure it’s useless for coin mining, but these are gaming cards and for their intention they offer the best performance you can currently get from a single GPU solution.

We would have loved to see some kind of game featured with this card, on the website MSI stipulates or suggests that you my receive a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag with this graphics card, but that is only in very specific areas or with select retailers. Our card did not ship with any game. We do feel the game should be mandatory across all regions especially since this is the “GAMING” card,

3105,931

but even without it, this is a solid offering from MSI. For just $10 above the reference card’s selling price this is a worthwhile investment and one you should add to your list of potential 780Ti cards to buy. [ The Overclocker ]

Summary The MSI GTX 780 Ti is much like MSI’s other gaming cards. It’s essentially a cost effective non reference card. You get a better cooler, a factory overclock and better electronic components.

Not much in the way of features but it does make an already great product even better. This one is strictly for the gamers who want performance and reliability at a palatable price.

Would you buy it?

Yes

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 31

ASUS ROG POSEIDON

Hardware Award

RRP: TBA | Website: rog.asus.com

Test Machine • INTEL Core i7 4960X • ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (4802) • CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 4x4GB DDR 2666MHZ CL10 • Corsair Force LS 240GB SSD Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W • Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (FW 334.67)

W

ith every generation of graphics processors (at least in recent history), the ROG team had made a special graphics card using one or two of these GPUs. This is over and above their DCII versions which are competent cards in their own right. For those seeking something a little extra though, perhaps even a little special, ROG has produced various incarnations of the Mars, Matrix and Ares graphics cards.

The Poseidon that we have here is an extension of this family of 32 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

cards featuring the latest NVIDIA GPU (barring the GPU as used on the ROG MARS 760) in the form of the GK110 or better known as the GTX 780 GPU. It is an interesting time to release this card given that we presently have the GTX 780 Ti which represents the best gaming performance available today.

Moreover, as far as competitive overclocking is concerned, this is also the fastest GPU money can buy. Thus, we have to say we would like to see a 780 Ti version of the ROG Poseidon more than anything else really.

There is perhaps some sensibility in the 780, because it’s very apparent that this product is intended for gaming over and above everything else. A seemingly vacuous statement, but we have to consider several things with the ROG Poseidon before we scrutinize it as we would say for instance a MATRIX card or a competing vendors offering.

The standard GTX 780 has a respectable cooler and it’s no surprise that it has

garnered some favorable reviews on various websites and publications. Aftermarket coolers and the ones provided by vendors on their custom built offerings are obviously better, but the reference cooler is very useable. The ROG Poseidon goes beyond all of this however.

This card aims to not only offer superior air cooling, but make liquid cooling a viable option for those who find the prospect of liquid cooling daunting. At the very least it simplifies the process by shipping with a partial coverage water block.

What is then left for the end user, is simply attaching the appropriate piping, a pump and a radiator.

Instead of buying the card with the only a water block, thus liquid cooling being your only option. You get to use your brand new graphics card immediately and when you’re ready to upgrade or bought all your components for your liquid cooling setup, you simply add the card to the loop. There’s no need to dismantle anything and

All results were obtained at 4625MHz on an un-optimized Windows7 64-bit. These are our results, yours may vary so only use these as a guideline for a similarly configured system.

Graphics Card

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme

3DMark11

3DMark Vantage

Catzilla: 1080p

HWBOT Heaven Extreme

30( PoseidoO 0$

10796

5443

15510

52908

13740

3289,688

1257MHz / 6.8GHz Memory

Graphics: 11868

Graphics: 5559

Graphics: 15673

GPU Score: 52357

Hardware: 13740

Reference AMD Radeon R9 290X

9867

4935

14837

48990

10700

Graphics: 10959

Graphics: 5079

Graphics: 14803

GPU Score: 48432

Hardware: 10723

9542

4789

14087

48910

12663

Graphics: 10343

Graphics: 4864

Graphics: 13886

GPU Score: 48401

Hardware: 12379

30( PoseidoO

it makes the job significantly quicker, simpler and safer.

Adding a water block to a graphics card is easy for most overclockers and people reading this, but do consider that for many gamers, even those with years of experience with hardware, this can be a daunting task. Should installation be executed incorrectly, it will render your $600 or more investment into nothing but a paper weight. Indeed this solution isn’t going to perform as well as a full coverage water block, but it will offer better cooling than any air cooler around. Feeling adventurous, you can chill your radiator for even better performance for those overclocking sessions where you want to push a little bit more. Electronically the ROG Poseidon is sound, there’s no questioning the proficiency of the ROG team when it comes to such.

The card is solid, can handle all kinds of loads and even under the hands of a competitive overclocker, it will go the distance with the right mods applied. At the very least, it is just as good as the regular* DCII version of the GTX 780.

At the time of writing we didn’t

have any LN2 results, but our own overclocking fared well.

Mind you we’ve seen higher clock speeds from other GTX 780 cards especially in the memory overclocking department.

However we already knew that the ELPIDA GDDR5 memory as used here and on other cards does not clock well at all. As such when we were limited to 1700MHz (SDR) we were not surprised. Suffice to say, the core did much better and we were able to get a very stable 1240MHz with very little adjustment to the VDDC. As you can see from the benchmarks, at this speed it is faster than the Radeon 290X which makes it faster than the GTX TITAN as well.

From a gaming perspective, you can’t really find fault in that as it’ll play all current and future games very well. Should you need a little more power, perhaps you can consider using the liquid cooling option which may allow you to hold slightly higher GPU clocks perhaps in excess of 1280MHz if not higher.

Obviously this will depend on the specific card you get, but needless to say you will most likely benefit when going from air to liquid cooling. For

3105,931

2990,56

a gaming graphics card, the ROG Poseidon is more than capable. It offers two kinds of cooling, is built to last and has respectable performance. If you were going to water cool a GTX 780, the ROG Poseidon is the most obvious place to start.

Price withstanding this is one of the better graphics card on the market.

[The Overclocker]

Summary The ROG Poseidon is a special card in many ways. It may not be the fastest GTX 780 and it doesn’t come with a great package by any stretch of the imagination, but it is very well made. The convenience you get in the hybrid cooler makes up for its other short comings and as such this card is definitely worth considering for a high end gaming machine.

Would you buy it?

For the right price, yes

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 33

TECH, GADGETS, MOVIES, LIFESTYLE. ALL IN ONE MAGAZINE! www.issuu.com/splicedmagazine

DON’T MISS OUR EPIC 12 PAGE GAME OF THRONES SPECIAL!

SplicedMagazine

@splicedmag

www.splicedmagazine.com

Daily hardware and technology news!

The OC Show Your Overclocking talk-show

now possible to embed videos in the magazine. He suggested to In the second episode, we look embed an OCTV video in each back at the live competitions of magazine. The response from Galaxy and Kingston, review the OCTV was very positive, and overclocking activities at CES quickly the idea rose to do a bi2014, talk about the Country Cup monthly chit-chat talk about 2014 and the Rookie Rumble Cup, overclocking related topics. and finish off with an interesting In each episode, Pieter (Massman video of attempting 6.6 GHz with - HWBOT) and Tim (Xyala - OCTV) 1.7V on air cooling. cover things that happened in the overclocking community. This Discuss this episode: includes upcoming events, new url.hwbot.org/tosdiscuss hardware releases, interesting overclocking records, benchmark The OC Show Concept discussions, and maybe even a tiny bit of industry gossip. "This is As The Overclocker moved to a long overdue" says Tim, "but now new publishing platform, Neo (editor-in-chief) informed us it is that OCTV and HWBOT are both

In This Episode

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

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

Why TheOverclocker?

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

soap box

n i t i d i a s I ! n i a g a … r e k c o l c r e The Ov , because of this page ession. rt a p is th g writin ining s should stop y just introducing a wh e. You’re just n ll o a d ti n e e b d to it’s ess it’s suppose ation and complain w o h t o n s That’ serv hed make an ob e ever watc supposed to ould in real life. If you’r what w tly about it as I rks” you’ll know exac up with a o e W k r a w ve t s, jus “Whate Be like Bori ke that. Doing it this t. u o b a g in I’m talk n ep just li sult you, the nd go to sle complaint a ing you I’m about to in the list for this tell this is way, is like . Either way, by the way; there o s o d to g this proceedin r planned rful things in se are neve month. The eird and not so wonde complain about to yw are so man you can find something t . a re th e h y w tr s ry u ind eve om virtually every day fr

I

ut ONE any more b 1. NUMBER ry few (actually there m t it) things which p There are ve I take liberties so acce g they are the n yi re a e s h r w o d is n is ve th every s a g n all of them n a yi c o n w n o x,y,z. H are as a f ould o r re tu c eak and I sh nufa leading ma know its marketing sp is invalid if I nt be leading? you know the stateme t u b expect it, as well. can write it

ship games that RIGHTS 2. NAMING ing anything if it has no lay the same

p m It’s not a ga simply because I can board as a can K is N is A h G T amed with it. diculously n for instance. ri a n o s e gam ard lly useful bo on an actua

38 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

3. BUT IS IT ART?

I know I went on about this last time and it’s in the editorial piece of this issue, but come on. Am I the only one who believes there should be a competitive benchmark that uses a Game engine that is in use commercially? I don’t know maybe UE3 based, CryEngine or Frostbite? At the very least it would help avoid the visual tragedy that was Vantage.

4. SUPER VIP

Overclockers should have the option of buying unlocked cards for an appropriate additional fee.

Realistically, there’s no reason why vendors cannot add $50 to $100 to the price of a card for you to receive one that isn’t locked and in need of special software achieve the results the vendor uses to sell it to you. It is pointless to set a record for instance using a Lightning, Classifed, HOF or Toxic card that differs from what the end user is able to buy. I know you as the vendor believe your product is special, but I need it to be special in my hands out here in the wild and not only in your labs.

5. THIS IS WHY YOU ARE SUCKING!

This is very specific to motherboard vendors who make high-end or overclocking motherboards (which is every vendor really). If the competition has a feature that is genuinely useful to your end users, do by all means try and have a similar feature if not the exact same one. To say that it’s not how you do things when you’re competing for the end users financial commitment is myopic. That’s saying you don’t want to make what end users want, but you’d rather make what pleases you. If that is the case, you should consider buying up all your motherboards.

6. FALSE DEDUCTION

There’s no such thing as a CPU killing benchmark. A benchmark that places 100% load on a CPU does not mean it’s killing the CPU, it’s the settings you need to apply to your overclocked CPU that cause it to fail.

If said benchmark was a CPU killer, it would lead to CPU failure at default settings. However that doesn’t happen does it?

7. INSUFFICIENT DATA

This applies more to “gamers” than overclockers, but it’s nonsensical to say that you’ll not buy an AMD or NVIDIA GPU based graphics card because you’ve had one or several fail before. It could be because you’re buying a particular vendor’s graphics cards which may be prone to failure or you could just be unlucky.

8. SPECIAL BUS

Once again specific to gamers, it’s preposterous to say a keyboard and mouse offer the best input methods for playing games. There are a great many game genres and not all of them land themselves well to a keyboard and mouse. The only reason the keyboard and mouse combo may seem most natural is simply because most people’s first introduction to a PC included at least one of these peripherals. There’s nothing magical about a keyboard and a mouse combo that makes it inherently superior to using a game controller.

I’ll stop there for now and resume this whining fest next issue. This is now a regular feature, so get used to disagreeing with me (or agreeing) but it’s unlikely to stop showing up anytime soon unless there are financial repercussions for it. In which case it’ll be gone and in fact it may even be removed from previous issues. (The power of digital publishing right?) See you all sometime in April (assuming this magazine comes out on time)

Issue 28| 2014 The OverClocker 39

WD Black 4TB FZEX

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARD

RRP: $258.99 | Website: www.wdc.com

I

t’s been a while since I tested a magnetic hard drive. In fact it’s been years since I even gave a second thought to such storage. In my mind and I suppose for many others as well, these drives have been relegated to pure mass storage where their performance is of little to no concern. The SSDs is where the performance is and there’s no turning back of course.

Recently though I found myself wanting to consolidate all of my media onto a single drive as it was stored all over the place on different drives of varying capacities.

Moreover since one of the drives that stored my media also happened to have my games on it, I took it upon myself to look for a solution that could give me all this functionality and that obviously meant looking at a drive such as this.

As I’ve always been fascinated or at least far more interested in WD’s Black series drives than any others, it stands that this is where I would look first. Previously I had used the older 1TB FAEX model and found it to be every bit as good as I had read it was elsewhere at the time. Suffice to say this drive is still in use in an old external drive enclosure. Not

40 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

for its performance of course but it does speak about its reliability as it’s been years since I bought that drive.

The 4TB WD Black here is actually the 2nd generation 4TB drive that has come from WD. The previous FAEX model has been replaced with this one which offers better performance and reliability.

WD states that the additional performance comes from a series of technologies including an upgraded dual-core processor and better data access algorithms. Be that as it may, when I tested the drive and compared it to the previous model I did find that there have been indeed some improvements across the board in performance.

Hard to imagine that a processor can increase drive performance this dramatically but it turns out it has as I recorded sustained data read and write performance of 191 and 190Mb/s respectively. These are absolutely fantastic numbers for magnetic storage because they actually make the FZEX drive just as fast as the WD Velociraptor 600GB. This is an older model but consider just how fast that drive was in relation to others in its heyday

and how much it cost. Now however, I can get similar performance for significantly less and about six times the formatted capacity. If that isn’t a good deal I’m not sure what is.

I ran the usual test suit and recorded 4K read and write performance, IOPS results and the like. As expected the Velociraptor is faster in some of these tests, if only because of the high 10K rpm platter speed. I must say though, if you’re looking for ultimate performance and given the price of the 1TB Velociraptor you may as well look at SSDs. For gaming and the like this drive is more than fast enough. In fact, moving some games off the SSD to this drive showed no obvious increases in load time for instance. There was no drive thrashing and certainly no effect on system speed even with the swap file located on this drive. With all that said, it’s pretty hard to not be impressed by the WD 4TB Black FZEX. Not only is it the fastest magnetic mass storage I’ve tested but it certainly is the most cost effective when it comes to bang for your buck. This one is highly recommended. [ The Overclocker ]

6 7 5 8 GAMING GEAR AWARD

ROCCAT Kone Pure Optical & Raivo Mouse Mat RRP: $58.99 (Mouse) | $29.99 (Mat) | Website: www.roccat.org

I

t’s not often that I am impressed by gaming peripherals lately, especially since there are so many options with just about every vendor offering their own brand of gaming mice and mouse mats. ROCCAT though is a vendor has always been about gaming peripherals. The studio didn’t jump on the bandwagon to cushion diminishing revenues coming from other markets. They have always been about gaming and the results speak for themselves.

Not everyone will be a fan of their products but their build quality and attention to detail is impeccable.

From the packaging to the actual product, you get your monies worth and these two products illustrate that very well. What follows are just some of the things I wanted to highlight about

42 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

this particular combination. Obviously they are not sold as a set but I tested them together and I must say they do make for a perfect set. All marketing nonsense aside, this is one great setup and one that I believe to be amongst the best money can buy at present.

1

This has to be one of the smoothest mouse surfaces available today. Certainly a lot smoother than any other mouse mat I’ve used before. The mouse feels as if it’ll glide a little further than it should, but this isn’t the case. If you stop, there is no additional travel and there’s minimal resistance to boot.

The surface is indeed crafted with precision. This alone helps justify the high price.

2

Not too much of a fan of this angular design, but it is more of an indifference than a complaint.

The mouse mat is big enough that this should never be a factor in your gaming be it you like the shape or not.

Visually it is striking but because of that it doesn’t sit flush against a wall for instance. Once again this is hardly an issue to be concerned with.

3

The rear of this mouse mat grips like a hot jelly bean on a tarred road. Easy to remove but at no point did I experience any shifting at all. I use wooden table but the no-slip back clung to it better than any other mouse mat I have used thus far.

2

1

4

4

This support plate actually comes in much handier than you would initially think. It looks more intrusive than it is. In reality it helps gives form to the mouse and there’s no warping that can occur or at the very least it doesn’t seem like it will.

5

This is one of the most comfortable mouse designs I’ve come across. It fits snuggly in the hand and allows you to rest your palm completely as it supports all of it. The base of your hand can tend to drag but that is the case with many other gaming mice. This one is amongst the better ones however.

The fit is just right.

3

6

On the fly DPI settings are the standard affair these days and a must have. This mouse will not go to 8,000 DPI like the other “Pure” laser mice but I do believe that is more academic than practical. Even with those models I have never felt the need to have the mouse sensitivity dialed that high and for the most part 4,000 is already overkill. That it’s an optical mouse means it works on a lot more surfaces as well. Obviously not an issue when paired with the Raivo for example, but for those who will not have a dedicated gaming mouse mat, you’ll appreciate the optical sensor as opposed to the laser one. The polling rate for this mouse is adequately high at 1000 Hz. From my time spent gaming with this mouse, there’s no

functional difference between this optical version and the laser variants.

7

576Kb of memory is used to store all your macros. Again overkill, but appreciated especially if you have radically different button assignments between your games.

This will probably be more appealing to the professional or competitive gamers, but then again, this is a professional gamer’s mouse for the most part.

8

The ROCCAT symbol lights up and the colour is customizable through the software. For all intents and purposes you can have any colour you desire as there’s more than 16 million available at your disposal.

Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 43

Might & Magic X: Legacy RRP: $24.99 (PC) | Website: http://might-and-magic.ubi.com

A

s a member of the venerable Might & Magic franchise (not to be confused with series spin-offs like Heroes of Might & Magic, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and all the other games that have been slapped with the Might & Magic moniker), Legacy is an apt subtitle for this tenth entry in the tile-based role-playing series. It’s a throwback to the old ways of PC adventuring, before BioWare, Black Isle, Interplay and their ilk changed our expectation of role-playing games. It’s perhaps a response to the extraordinary popularity of similarly classic-inspired indie darling Legend of Grimrock, a way to milk gamer nostalgia for maximum reward. And once you’ve gotten past the game’s shaky beginnings, you’ll clearly see just how much love the developers 44 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

have for the type of classic games that influenced it.

However, before you get to Legacy’s soft, chewy, delicious centre, you’ve got to deal with its tough, repellent outer shell, which may be enough to cause even die-hard old-school fans to just turn around and go home, giving up on their dreams of reliving gaming’s past. Even with all the might of publisher Ubisoft to back it up, Legacy is very obviously a title on a strict budget. Its presentation suffers for it, with tired, unattractive visuals that, while workable, don’t exactly do much to help the game’s already awful initial impressions. Similarly, the party of four characters that you guide through this fantasy world insists on spouting inane, repetitive dialogue at every opportunity to alert you to surrounding events, and their

gag-laden speech does little but serve to quietly drive you mad.

What’s more, the game’s starting area is frustratingly boring and incredibly restrictive on the player.

Populated mostly by useless NPCs who don’t do much except pummel you with mundane world lore, this stage of the game is where I expect that most players will lose interest – and it’s unfortunate, because once you’ve completed a few starter quests, gotten a feel for your characters’ abilities, and seen the world open up a bit to allow for further exploration, Legacy really becomes quite gripping. Movement is tile-based, which can take some getting used to compared to the real-time movement systems of more contemporary RPGs. Later in the game, moving your party of

adventurers requires careful tactical choices and an active effort to avoid alerting throngs of enemies with careless movement.

When you do alert enemies, combat is incredibly stressful.

Most encounters are close ones, with your party barely scraping by with enough health and mana left over to keep them upright. It’s rewarding though, slowly levelling up and learning your roster of skills and abilities, and using each character’s strengths (and a progressively powerful collection of gear) to overcome increasingly powerful nasties. Your party can be constructed from a selection of four races, each with three classes available to them. If you’d rather just dive straight into it, the game does provide a pre-built party. Those

who’ve played and loved Legend of Grimrock and are wondering how this compares, Legacy is less of a puzzle-laden, elaborate dungeon crawl (even though it’s got its fair share of dungeons), and more about exploration and slowly expanding the boundaries of its open, dangerous world.

I do think that, given its obvious niche nature, it must be said that Might & Magic X: Legacy isn’t for everyone, and hopefully this review makes it clear whether or not you’ll soak up any enjoyment from it. It lacks the flash and cinematic excitement of modern RPG design, but its thoughtful, tactical gameplay and impressively retro design is a love letter to Might & Magic’s esteemed heritage. [ Dane Remendes ]

Would you buy it?

If I was in the mood for a bit of old-school RPG shenanigans, then I’d definitely buy it.

The Score

7/10 Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 45

Guacamelee! Gold Edition RRP: $14.99 (PC) | Website: http://guacamelee.com

E

l Presidente’s daughter has been kidnapped by the evil skeleton lord Carlos Caraca, and it’s up to you, Juan Aguacate, to get her back safe and sound. A simple agave farmer turned luchador in training, you must master your numerous skills and abilities, and slowly nurture your power until you’re ready to face your bony nemesis and rescue the woman you secretly love.

In case you can’t tell from that plot outline and the screenshots dotting these virtual pages, Guacamelee! is firmly fixated on Mexican folklore.

The Mexican cheeriness it exudes is brilliantly distinctive, the game’s music and visuals transforming it into something fascinating and unique. It’s got a charming sense of humour, and its upbeat cartoon stylings, plethora 46 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014

of silly characters and insistence on never taking itself too seriously will elicit plenty of chuckles as you journey through Juan’s world. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Guacamelee! is an absolute joy.

Beyond its alluring exterior you’ll find excellently addictive gameplay to match. It starts off as a pretty basic 2D platformer, with Juan having access to a few rudimentary movements (jumps, rolls and the like) and attacks as the game slowly shows you the ropes. Later, the game begins to flex its Metroidvania muscles, layering new abilities on top of one another as you progress. These abilities often make you more effective in combat, but they sometimes double as traversal powers that make it possible to reach new areas of the game’s

freely traversable world.

When you’re not in combat, much of the fun lies in platforming challenges that often require superquick reflexes and pinpoint timing – particularly in the late game, when you gain the ability to switch between the worlds of the living and the dead, each potentially exposing bits of environment that don’t exist in the other. Combat is satisfying, relying heavily on stringing together melee attacks to maximum effect, and while your basic attacks are always useful, your special luchador moves will be indispensable when the game starts throwing wave after wave of progressively tougher enemies at you.

Things get even more tricky when you’re expected to switch between the living and dead worlds because

enemies exist solely in one or the other, but can attack you in both.

I’d definitely recommend playing it with a controller, as it does require a bit of finger gymnastics to get the most out of Juan’s abilities. Brilliantly, the game also features drop-in, drop out co-op, so Juan can be joined at any time by an ally named Tostada, who’s controlled by a second player.

As you progress in the game, Juan and Tostada can be upgraded using cash gathered from defeated foes, and new costumes can be bought that’ll alter your capabilities when worn. This Gold Edition of the game also features Steam Workshop support, so people can create and share ridiculous new costumes.

There’s really a lot to love about Guacamelee!. It’s the type of

game that’s endless fun to play, a charming Mexican-flavoured romp that’s a pleasure to look at and is driven by clever design. It’s highly recommended. [ Dane Remendes ] Would you buy it?

It’s an utterly captivating mix of clever platforming and satisfying action, so yes, I would totally buy it.

The Score

9/10 Issue 28 | 2014 The OverClocker 47

rev 2.2 THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. SERIOUSLY.

Issue 28 2014 rev 2.1

THE WORLD’S BEST OVERCLOCKING ONLINE MAGAZINE. FOREVER. Cover Feature

Full Steam Ahead THE CONCEPT OF A STEAM BOX

Reviewed

ASUS MAXIMUS VI Impact Reviewed

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 Interview

Jacson “Schenckel bros” Schenckel Lifestyle

ROCCAT Kone Pure and Raivo Mouse Mat

FIND US ON