HyperX Launches Pulsefire FPS Gaming Mouse in India, Winner of RedDot Design Award 2017
HyperX Pulsefire FPS Delivers Accurate, Reliable Performance and Rounds out HyperX Gaming Portfolio

Mumbai, India–October 04, 2017 –HyperX®, a division of Kingston® Technology, today launched itsHyperXTM Pulsefire FPSGaming Mouse in India at an MRP of INR 3,999. Featuring PixArt 3310 sensor for accurate tracking, Omron switches for fast response times, and 20M click reliability per switch, HyperX’s first gaming mouse is designed to meet the needs of professional and aspiring competitive FPS gamers looking for a precise and consistent gaming mouse. With inputs from top engineers and professional gamers, Pulsefire FPS is the winner of the prestigious 2017 RED DOT AWARDfor design quality and craftsmanship. Starting today, this new HyperX gaming accessory is now exclusively available for a month on Amazon.in and thereafter will be available on major Indian online and retails stores.

“HyperX is a great partner for over five years and we are very happy to now game with the new Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse.” said Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev, NAVI CSGO team member.“The Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse meets our performance needs and has a comfortable design for hours of practice and tournament gaming.”

For serious players, Pulsefire FPS is built with an ergonomic and lightweight design for either palm grip or claw grip action. PulsefireFPS also provides four DPI presets from 400 – 3200 DPI, all available at the touch of a button. Optimal weight distribution and light weight at 95g for rapid movements. Non-slip side grips help secure the mouse securely in your hand. HyperX Pulsefire FPS features Omron switches and six durable, ultra-responsive buttons that give crisp, tactile feedback on every click. HyperX included a flexible braided cable and large mouse skates for effective smooth glide.

“HyperX is excited to offer our first gaming mouse. After extensive testing, our lab developed Pulsefire FPS to deliver the features gamers want at an incredible price point.” said HyperX. “Gamers are looking for HyperX quality and performance for all of their accessory needs, and now with the Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse, HyperX now offers all the required components for the best competitive gaming setup.”

About HyperX
HyperX is the high-performance product division of Kingston Technology encompassing high-speed DDR4 and DDR3 memory, SSDs, USB Flash drives, and gaming accessories. Targeted at gamers, overclockers and enthusiasts, HyperX is known throughout the world for quality, performance and innovation. HyperX is committed to eSports as it sponsors over 30 teams globally and is the main sponsor of Intel Extreme Masters. HyperX can be found at many shows including China Joy, PAX, DreamHack,and ESL One.For more information, please visit the HyperX home page.

HyperX can be found on:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/HyperxIndia and
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/hyperx

About HyperX
HyperX® is a division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the world’s largest independent memory manufacturer. Established in 2002, HyperX is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, USA. For more information, please visit www.hyperxgaming.com
Kingston, the Kingston logo and HyperX are registered trademarks of Kingston Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. All other marks may be the property of their respective titleholders.

Two New HyperX Gaming Keyboards Deliver Enhanced Performance and Tactile Responsiveness to PC Gamers and eSports Pros 

 
Mumbai, India – October 04, 2017 – HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology, today, launched two new additions to its award winning lineup of gaming keyboards used by eSports athletes worldwide – the Alloy Elite and Alloy FPS Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboards. HyperX delivers enhanced performance gamers expect with all the components needed for the competitive gaming setup, including Cherry MX Mechanical switches, lighting effects, 100 percent anti-ghosting, and solid-steel frames. The MRPs of Alloy Elite and Alloy Pro are set at INR 11,000 and INR 7,499 respectively. Both these new gaming keyboards are now exclusively available on Amazon.in for a month and thereafter will be available on major Indian online and retails stores.
Further raising the bar for personalization and comfort, HyperX reveals the new Alloy Elite Keyboard with Cherry MX Mechanical switches, detachable palm rest and custom lighting features. For TKL keyboard fans and hardcore gamers, the new Alloy FPS Pro designed in HyperX labs will be a perfect match. Customization options for both keyboards can be accessed without the assistance of software as HyperX ensures that gamers connect and play immediately, Featuring an all-new design, the Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard includes HyperX red LED backlighting, an 18 LED light bar with luminous lighting along with custom modes, and 6 preset LED effects. Alloy Elite is built with a solid steel frame for durability, offering dedicated media buttons, and a large volume wheel along with quick access buttons for brightness, lighting effects, and game mode. Alloy Elite also includes a USB 2.0 pass through, titanium colored and textured WASD keys, and full N-Key rollover functionalities.

The new HyperX Alloy FPS Mechanical Pro Gaming Keyboard is geared toward users seeking a tenkeyless gaming keyboard option and enables dedicated FPS players to take their gaming to a professional level with its space-saving layout that maximizes desktop space for mouse movement. Designed for professional eSports teams and avid followers that prefer compact size, Alloy FPS Pro is the ideal keyboard for gaming on the go. 
“HyperX Mechanical Gaming Keyboards have given me a true competitive advantage from day one. The build quality and features give our team the consistency needed to game at our best each and every time we load in,” said Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, CSGO team leader, SK Gaming. “Every keypress on our HyperX Mechanical Gaming Keyboards deliver the perfect amount of tension and release to keep out fingers firing off rapid actions. HyperX keyboards have that extra level of comfort, style and convenience to take our gaming performance the next level.”

HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Features and Specifications:
 
Switch: CHERRY MX
Type: Mechanical
Backlight: Single color, Red
Light Effects: 6 LED modes and 4 brightness levels
Connection Type: USB 2.0 (2 USB connectors)
USB 2.0 Pass-Through: Yes
Polling rate: 1000Hz
Anti-ghosting: 100% anti-ghosting
Key Rollover: N-key mode
Media Control: Yes
Game Mode: Yes
OS Compatibility: Windows® 10, 8.1, 8.7
Cable Type: Attached, braided
Cable Length: 1.8m
Dimensions: 444.00mm x 226.8mm x 36.30mm
Weight (keyboard and cable): 1467g


HyperX Alloy FPS Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Features and Specifications:
 
Switch: CHERRY MX
Type: Mechanical
Backlight: Single color, Red
Light effects: 6 LED modes and 5 brightness levels
Connection type: USB 2.0 (1 USB connector)
Polling rate: 1000Hz
Anti-ghosting: 100% anti-ghosting
Key Rollover: N-key mode
Media control: Yes
Game Mode: Yes
OS compatibility: Windows® 10, 8.1, 8, 7
Cable: Detachable, braided
Length: 1.8m
Dimensions: Width: 359.00mm x Depth: 130.00mm x Height: 34.50mm
Weight (Keyboard and cable): 900g
Warranty: 2 years Limited Warranty

About HyperX
HyperX is the high-performance product division of Kingston Technology encompassing high-speed DDR4 and DDR3 memory, SSDs, USB Flash drives, and gaming accessories. Targeted at gamers, overclockers and enthusiasts, HyperX is known throughout the world for quality, performance and innovation. HyperX is committed to eSports as it sponsors over 30 teams globally and is the main sponsor of Intel Extreme Masters. HyperX can be found at many shows including China Joy, PAX, DreamHack, and ESL One. For more information, please visit the HyperX home page.

HyperX can be found on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hyperxindia 
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/hyperx

About HyperX
HyperX® is a division of Kingston Technology, the world’s largest independent memory manufacturer. Established in 2002, HyperX is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, USA. For more information, please visit www.hyperxgaming.com
Kingston, the Kingston logo and HyperX are registered trademarks of Kingston Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. All other marks may be the property of their respective titleholders.

ROG sets the benchmark for PC gamers and enthusiasts with the new ROG Maximus X and ROG Strix Z370 series that offer leading-edge performance and design.

KEY POINTS  

• ROG Maximus X Series features the category leading Maximus X Hero, Maximus X Code, Maximus X Apex and Maximus X Formula motherboards.
• ROG Strix Z370 series features a wide range of form factors and designs with the ROG Strix Z370-E Gaming, ROG Strix Z370-F Gaming, ROG Strix Z370-H Gaming, ROG Srrix Z370-G Gaming and ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming. 
• Maximus X Apex sets 8th Generation Core i7-8700K all-core clock frequency record at 7.3GHz and DDR4 memory frequency record at 5529.2MHz.

Mumbai, India, 5th September, 2017 — The new Intel® 8th Generation Core™ processors are the best desktop CPUs for gaming on the market. With up to six cores and 12 threads, these Coffee Lake chips also have huge potential for enthusiasts and power users who do more with their PCs. Their exceptional performance, unmatched versatility, and considerable overclocking potential are a natural fit for Republic of Gamers (ROG), so we’ve developed a diverse collection of Z370 gaming motherboards for a range of priorities and budgets. 

Our latest lineup reinforces ROG’s role as both a breeding ground for innovative features and a proving ground where we test the absolute limits of performance. It includes standouts like the Maximus X Apex, a hardcore gaming and overclocking board designed to break performance records; the Maximus X Hero, which blends leading performance with premium extras; the Maximus X Code that redefines the performance essentials for gamers and enthusiasts and the Maximus X Formula, which is brimming with cutting-edge features fit for showcase PCs. 
While the Maximus series covers the higher end of the spectrum, the ROG Strix family opens the Republic of Gamers to a wider audience. It provides everything you need in a gaming motherboard but excludes some of our more indulgent extras to hit affordable price points. Full-sized ATX options include closely matched contenders for the sweet spot, the ROG Strix Z370-E and ROG Strix Z370-F Gaming, and an unexpected retro revival, the ROG Strix Z370-H Gaming. Smaller form factors are served by the mATX ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming and Mini-ITX ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming.
Defined by gamers, powered by innovation, discover the all-new ROG Z370 lineup at ASUS ROG.

Setting the benchmark for records
Lots of motherboard makers claim the best performance, but we’ve got the results to prove it. Much of the credit goes to the Apex, an overclocking savant purpose-built for taking new CPUs to the ragged edge at sub-zero temperatures. Apex boards were introduced earlier this year with the Maximus IX series, and they’ve already claimed multiple world records and top scores with Intel’s Z270 and X299 platforms. Now, our internal overclocking team has continued that streak with the new Maximus X Apex, setting the highest 8th Generation Core i7-8700K frequency record by reaching 7.3GHz on all 6-cores and 12-threads.  In addition, the highest DDR4 memory frequency record with a top speed of 5529.2MHz.  For the complete story on Z370 overclocking please visit our article at ASUS ROG.

AVAILABILITY & PRICING
ASUS Z370 Chipset motherboardswill be available from 5th October in India. Please contact your local ASUS representative for further information.  For a detailed look at all ASUS Z370 boards, including models from the Prime and TUF Gaming families in addition to ROG, see the Coffee Lake motherboard guide at our ASUS Edge Up website.


About ASUS
ASUS is one of Fortune magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies, and is dedicated to creating products for today and tomorrow’s smart life. Our comprehensive portfolio includes Zenbo, ZenFone, ZenBook and a range of IT devices and components, along with AR, VR and IoT. ASUS employs more than 17,000 people worldwide and over 5,500 world-class R&D talents. Driven by innovation and committed to quality, the company won 4,385 awards and earned approximately US$13.3 billion of revenue in 2016.

G.SKILL Releases New Extreme DDR4 Specifications for the 8th Gen Intel® Core™ Processor and Z370 Platform

Taipei, Taiwan (5 October 2017) – G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world’s leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to announce new Trident Z and Trident Z RGB specifications for latest 8th Gen Intel® Core™ processors

built on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture and Z370 chipset motherboards, manufactured with ultra-high performance Samsung B-die DDR4 ICs.

Fastest 32GB (4x8GB) RGB Memory on the Market
 
With every new platform launch, G.SKILL aims to maximize performance with higher memory specifications. This time paired with the new 8th Gen Intel® Core™ processors and Z370 chipset, the Trident Z RGB memory is pushed to a blistering DDR4-4000MHz CL18-19-19-39 32GB (4x8GB) at 1.35V. The image below shows the new RGB kit stress tested on the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X HERO (WI-FI AC) motherboard and an Intel® Core™ i5-8600K processor.
King of DDR4 Frequency

In addition to the new RGB memory specification, G.SKILL is also releasing an ultra-fast Trident Z memory kit for pure performance seekers. The new kit runs at DDR4-4600MHz CL19-25-25-45 16GB (2x8GB) at 1.5V. The following screenshot shows the memory kit under validation test on ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X APEX motherboard and an Intel® Core™ i5-8600K processor.
Best of Both Worlds: DDR4-4200Mhz 32GB (4x8GB)

Perfect for users with light workstations and content creation PCs, without the need to sacrifice memory frequency or capacity, G.SKILL releases a new DDR4-4200MHz CL19-21-21-41 32GB (4x8GB) at 1.4V memory kit. Below is a screenshot of the memory kit running on an ASUS ROG Maximus X Formula motherboard and Intel® Core™ i5-8600K processor.
List of Specifications for 8th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors
Availability

These high end Trident Z and Trident Z RGB memory kits will be available via G.SKILL authorized distribution partners in November 2017.
About G.SKILL

Established in 1989 by PC hardware enthusiasts, G.SKILL specializes in high performance memory, SSD products, and gaming peripherals designed for PC gamers and enthusiasts around the world. Combining technical innovation and rock solid quality through our in-house testing lab and talented R&D team, G.SKILL continues to create record-breaking memory for each generation of hardware and hold the no. 1 brand title in overclocking memory.

This case won't break your piggy bank.

Cooler Master has added another mid-tower chassis to its lineup, one that features multi-zone RGB lighting, an acrylic side panel, and some decent cooling options, including support for liquid coolers. In fact, this is one of the more affordable cases for users who plan to liquid cool their PCs.

The new MasterBox MB600L comes three different color trims—red, black, and sliver—and with or without an optical drive bay. Regardless of those options, each version has a brushed front panel, and room enough for up to a 280mm radiator installed up front (up to 50mm thickness, without a fan) if opting for an optical drive, or up to 360mm without an optical drive installed.

For air cooling, the options are somewhat limited—the MB600L accommodates up to two 120mm or 140mm fans in the front (up to three 120mm without an ODD) and a single 120mm fan in the back, the latter of which Cooler Master includes.

Drive options are pretty sparse as well. There is dedicated SSD mount, along with two more bays that can be used for either 3.5-inch HDDs or 2.5-inch HDDs (or one of each).

While the MB600L doesn't look especially roomy, it supports "even the largest, widest cards," up to 400mm long. CPU coolers up to 160mm high, and the bottom chamber supports power supplies up to 180mm deep.

We did not find any online retailers carrying this case at the time of this writing, though according to TechReport, it should be available today for $50.

Now with a quad-core CPU

Razer's thin and light Blade Stealth laptop now comes with a bit more power for multitasking and multi-threaded workloads, as it's been upgraded with an 8th generation Core i7-8550U mobile processor based on Intel's newest Coffee Lake architecture. The Core i7-8550U is a 4-core/12-thread chip clocked at 1.8GHz to 4GHz, with 8MB of cache and a 25W TDP.

This is an upgrade over the 7th generation dual-core processor options (Core i7-7200U and Core i7-7500U) that previously resided inside the Stealth Blade. In addition to a bit more performance, Razer is touting improved battery life, which it now rates at up to 10 hours. That's 2 hours more than before, at least on paper.

"Our engineers have done something truly remarkable with the new Blade Stealth by significantly increasing power while extending battery life," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "The new Blade Stealth is the most well-rounded Windows laptop out there, and it can be further supercharged with the help of the new Razer Core V2."

The quad-core model is available now for $1,699 in a 13.3-inch form factor with a 4K IGZO touchscreen display. It also features 16GB of LPDDR3-2133 memory and a 512GB NVMe SSD wrapped in the same aluminum housing as before.

Also as before, the Blade Stealth does not come with a discrete GPU, instead relying on integrated graphics—Intel HD 620, in this instance. Razer sells an external graphics enclosure that you can pair with the Blade Stealth, which it also updated.

The Core V2, as Min-Liang Tan references, now comes with dual Thunderbolt 3 controllers that separate those speedy lanes for graphics and other devices. It also has four USB 3.0 ports and a GbE LAN port.

A 500W power supply sits on the inside. Razer said it redesigned the interior to support an expanded range of taller graphics cards, including Nvidia's 10 series and AMD's 500 series, along with some Nvidia Quadro cards. There is no mention of Radeon RX Vega being supported at this time.

The Core V2 costs $499 and will be available "soon" in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany.

This is the smallest GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in the world.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is certainly big in performance, but it doesn't have to be big in size. Zotac just proved as much with the introduction of its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm Mini (ZT-P18010H-30P), a pint-sized card for liquid cooled builds where space is at a premium.

This is a smaller version of Zotac's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm (ZT-P10810E-30P), although that card has a 16+2 power phase design that is conducive to overclocking. The factory clockspeeds are the same though—both have a 1,506MHz base clock and 1,620MHz boost clock, up from Nvidia's reference 1,480MHz base and 1,582MHz boost clocks.

The miniature card measures just 212mm (8.35 inches) long and 164mm (6.46 inches) high, qualifying as the world's smallest GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, as Zotac is stoked to point out.

In addition to being small, the card is also liquid cooled, once you plug it into your liquid cooling setup. It sports a full-cover waterblock with a nickel-plated copper base that makes direct contact with the GPU, and uses standard G 1/4-inch fittings, making it compatible with a wide range of third-party liquid cooling solutions. It also comes with a pair of barbs supporting 10mm ID tubing.

The see-through acrylic design gives added incentive to use colored coolant. It also features white LED lighting

Zotac didn't say when this card will be available or for how much. As a point of reference, the full-size versions sells for $820.

Corsair Neutron XTi SSD - A game changer or just another flash in the pan!?

A Corsair SSD! Yes you heard that right, the high end PC peripheral and memory manufacturer is back in the SSD market. With the Corsair Neutron XTi Corsair has made a come back to the SSD division where it went quite a few years back and no one heard form them ever since their Neutron series SSDs which got a mixed reaction from consumers even though the reviewers and critics loved them.
Today thanks to Corsair India I have with me the Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB SSD on the table for review. Coming in capacities ranging from 240GB to 960GB these SSDs are not at all meant for the basic user nor are an entry level storage device instead these are high end SSDs aimed to cater to content producers, developers and even professional gamers and streamers.

Using the much tried and trusted Phison S10 controller paired with the Toshiba 15nm Toggle Mode NAND the Neutron XTI 480GB is priced in at $180 or Rs 12,700 in India which pits it against some of the veterans in the field. Rated in at 560MB/s read and 540MB/s write speeds the drive comes with Corsair's classic 5 years warranty and IOPS rating of 100K/90K which is indeed very promising.

Packing and Closer Look

Corsair has brought the Neutron XTi in an entirely new color scheme inside their trusted packing style. The drive comes in  a black and grey slim box which has the product image and name neatly enlisted along with the read/write speeds and IOPS ratings. Some key features such as the quad channel controller is also printed at the bottom side.

At the back the main highlights are the 5 years warranty logo and a sleek peek through windows where you can see the warranty label placed inside the box for reading and illustrative purposes.


Open the box and you will find the drive securely packed inside a transparent clam-shell packing which is good enough to protect everything inside. Inside the shell you find the Corsair Neutron XTi SSD, a stick on riser bracket along with a warranty leaflet with all the terms and conditions regarding the 5 years warranty that the drive comes with.


While most manufacturers are going with color schemes such as grey, black, metallic silver etc Corsair opted to go with sporty red for their Neutron XTi SSDs which is somewhat quite attractive and apt for this category of drives. It illustrates the speedy nature of the drive while imparting a sporty feel to the whole outlook which is a welcome move.
While the front has the shiny sticker with the product name and bran logo the back side is quite plain and simple with the drive capacity and serial number neatly enlisted. The whole casing is of aluminum and is a screw less design which doesn't mean you open up the SSD for fun as that would void your warranty!

Open the outer casing and we find a half size PCB resting inside, half size PCBs are more common these days over the full sized ones due to close interleaving of the ICs at the cost of higher temperatures in a few.


The PCB on one side houses the DRAM and four memory ICs while on the opposite side houses the Phison S10 controller along with another DRAM chip and four memory ICs. Making it a SSD with dual DRAM chips and eight memory ICs paired with a quad-core eight channel controller which is an optimum arrangement.


Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB SSD is powered by Phision's PS3110-S10-X quad-core 8-channel controller which is highly reputed for its solid and reliable performance. Interestingly, which also happens to be the catch for this SSD, the Phison S10 controller is paired with double the amount of DRAM that is specified by Phison or is used by any other manufacturer who mostly go with 1MB DRAM cache to 1GB of NAND Memory. Corsair has used two 256MB DDR3 1600Mhz DRAM chips from NANYA making a total of 512MB of DRAM cache for the Neutron XTi to work upon, this theoretically should result in very high performance both in short as well in the long run.

Eight Toshiba 15nm MLC NAND chips provide the Neutron XTi with its 480GB of capacity with each IC being 64GB in capacity. Overall this is a very impressive arrangement from Corsair with good choice of controller and a non conventional DRAM size which sets my hopes quite high for this drive.

Test Setup and Benchmarks

For reviewing the Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB SSD our testbench was as follows -

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @3.6Ghz
Motherboard: Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero
RAM:GALAX HOF 32GB 3600Mhz
Cooler: Stock AMD Wraith RGB Air Cooler
Graphics Card: MSI R9 380 Gaming 4G
Storage:Kingston A400 256GB
Secondary Storage: Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i 860W
Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

The drive was easy to fit in and installed without a problem. Following our usual SSD testing methods we formatted the drive and put it as a secondary drive with our main SSD loaded with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. The entire test suite was run twice to obtain the best possible reading, each session performed after a fresh system restart. Out of the 480GB promised only 447GB on this drive is usable so around 7% of the total space is reserved for memory buffer.

TRIM Check

Since this is a very new SSD for us so it called for some new testing suits aswell, one such tool is TrimCheck which verifies if TRIM function on the drive is working perfectly or not.

This shows that the TRIM function is perfectly working on the Neutron XTi.

Crystal Disk Info V7.0.5

Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, to the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.

Crystal Disk Info shows us that a bunch of useful SMART attributes are presented to the end user. Total reads and writes as well as NAND writes are shown. The firmware version we are testing with today is version SAFC02.3 with the drive working at optimum temperatures even during summers.

ATTO Disk

ATTO Disk Benchmark measures transfer rates across specific lengths for any storage system. ATTO uses RAW data, I set my transfer size from 0.5 to 8192kb. This is generally the most reliable benchmarks for today's SSDs.

We clearly see that the Corsair Neutron XTi delivers the exact read ans write speeds that the company claims also its noticeable that its performance is at par or even better than lower capacity drives and definitely way ahead of a similar 480GB SSD. The large DRAM sure seems to make a difference here.

CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful.

Yet again we see similar results over here where the Neutron XTi is blazing ahead of the lot. Also with 31.38MB/s and 76.83MB/s of read and write speeds in the 4K segment the drive proves it point for being suitable for 4K video editing and allied works.

Anvil Storage Utility

The next test is Anvil Storage Utilities, which is a really great piece of software. The SSD benchmark gives you scores for both read and write as well as a combined score.


By now its quite clear that the Corsair Neutron XTi is living up to its claim and is ahead of most of the drives.

AS SSD

The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are performed without using the operating system caches. In Sequential tests, the program measures the time it takes to read and write a 1 GB file respectively.


With an overall score of over 1000 points the Neutron XTi surly is a great drive and we can see that it does perform very well showing loss only in a few areas which are acceptable considering it a synthetic benchmark and the real life comparison won't yield much difference.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition v5.80

AIDA64 is one of the best tools out there to check the system stability, error diagnostics and even to validate overclocking.
It has a set of suites for almost every hardware out there including SSD/HDD. So we started of with AIDA64 disk suites.



As we can see that the drive is hitting the advertised speeds and is extremely consistent in read and write activities. This is a very good indications since most drives including the UV400 tend to fluctuate a lot in the Linear and Random Read tests indicating towards a more solid and consistent performance by the Corsair Neutron XTi.

HD Tune Pro

HD Tune Pro is one of the most popular hard drive software suites available. It has many different benchmarks and tests built into it. Our first test is the read benchmark, which tests the average read speed and access time of the drive.
It was necessary to use it even after so many tests just to give all of you a graph of how constant the speed is on this SSD as many SSDs tend to fluctuate on the read/write speed which ultimately gives you unstable performance.

The picture is quite different here for the Neutron XTi which falls behind almost every drive in the category except for the older Kingston UV400. The double DRAM seems to of no help here as the drive struggles to deliver expected results when it is almost full or mild workload is applied. The story might be different when heavy workload is applied since the Phison S10 has proven to perform over there but for mild workloads the drive sure is struggling.

PCMark 8 Professional Edition

PCMark 8 Storage Test unlike PCMark Vantage scores and records the SSD performance through a set of application execution and related tasks such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office and even through games like Battlefield 3.

The scores are quite respectable and significantly more than the Corsair Neutron XTi both in terms of overall score and storage bandwidth.

My Verdict

Corsair is back in the game and by what we've seen the Neutron XTi do we can easily say that its there for good now. The Neutron XTi is downright one of the most innovative SSDs we've come across in a while both cosmetically aswell as technically.
The choice of the wise and old Phison S10 controller and pairing it with double the DRAM has been a great judgment by Corsair as not only does it show that with more DRAM we can extract some more juice from the S10 but also by doing so Corsair just elevated a budget or mainstream controller such as the Phison S10 into the enthusiast territory. I'm pleased that instead of the 3D MLC NAND we see 2D MLC NAND from Toshiba since 3D NAND couldn't really hold up to its claims and only added up to the price.
The bright red color is also a welcome move and might attract more gamers and system builder who are looking for something more catchy for their all tempered glass builds by using chassis like Corsair's own 570X gaming cases.
While everything sound and looks impressive the few down sides are pretty obvious by now, the drive is a great performer and can even match the Samsung 850 Pro in some cases but definitely not outmatch it which would've been fine if the Neutron XTi hadn't been priced almost identical to the Samsung storage juggernaut! Also in mild workloads the drive tends to falter in speeds and performance but in heavy workloads the drive is blistering fast so potential buyers should go for it only according to their choice of work.
Pros - 

• Excellent performance
• Catchy looks
• Innovative technology
• 5 Years Warranty

Cons -

• A bit expensive 
• Not suitable for mild workloads

I give it a 7.5/10 earning our Silver Award!

INNO3D GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is here in India and is ready to Break Away From Darkness

Mumbai, Oct 26, 2017 – INNO3D®, a leading manufacturer of high-end graphics hardware components and various innovations, presents the new family of INNO3D gaming graphics cards GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. The full range will exist of TWIN X2, JET edition and the flagshipmodels iChiLL X3 and X4 series.
Designed on NVIDIA's Pascal™ architecture, INNO3D GeForce® GTX 1070TiiChiLL X3 and X4 achieve insane frame rates at crazy monitor settings, setting new standards on tomorrow’s high-end games and breakthrough the latest VR applications.

Similar to the GeForce GTX 1080Ti series, the new GeForce GTX 1070 Ti family is equipped with the renowned iChiLL cooling solution temperaturesand noise levels are kept at a minimum. The Herculez Armor back-plate protects the cards from outer damages as well and puts it way at the top of Ultra High End graphics cards in the world.

“The newInno3d GeForce GTX1070 Ti graphics card is a brutal weapon for every gamer who is in to take on the world.” commented Ken Wong, product specialist at INNO3D. “We have looked very closely at the ways to improve cooling and optimize performance and endurance which made us able to use the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cooling solutions on this family as well.”

Abacus Peripherals the National Distributor is all geared up to bring the beast and will make it available PAN India through their 22 branches.

Know More about Nvidia Inno3D Geforce GTX 1070Ti:-
http://www.inno3d.com/news_detail.php?refid=402

About INNO3D®
INNO3D® is highly committed to bring jaw-dropping computer hardware products to you. Without settling for compromise you can expect us to sync all resources to focus on bringing the biggest bang for the smallest buck to our customers. As a strong team and close friends we sometimes walk the fine line of what is possible, aimed to cross boundaries and achieve that where others stay behind. We are 'Brutal by Nature' in everything we do and are 201% committed for you to have the best gaming experience in the world.

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These coolers will light up your system.

Cooler Master launched a couple of new air coolers today, the MasterAir MA610P and MA410P, both of which feature "aggressive RGB lighting." What exactly does Cooler Master mean by that?

The company is referring to how RGB lighting is implemented on these coolers. Specifically, both coolers are compatible with the top RGB motherboards to sync lighting with other hardware. They also come with their own wired RGB controllers with a mode switch button to cycle through six lighting modes, a color switch button, and a brightness button to select from five different brightness levels.

More important than the light show is the cooling potential, and in that regard, both coolers make direct contact with the CPU to whisk heat away through heatpipes—there are six of them on the MA610P and four of them on the MA410P.

The larger MA610P (little brother to the MasterAir Maker 8) comes with two 120mm MasterFan Air Balance fans out of the box that install in a push-pull configuration. The idea is to draw cold air from one side of the heatsink and then pull hot air out of the other side.

Only one fan comes packaged with the MA410P, though it supports a second fan in the same push-pull configuration as the MA610P.

Cooler Master says the MA610P (£65, which converts to $86) and MA410P (£40, which converts to $53) will be available within the next 2-3 weeks.

Bold and Beautiful - CORSAIR Launches New Carbide Series
SPEC-04 Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Gaming Case

BENGALURU, India - October 27, 2017

CORSAIR®, a world leader in enthusiast memory, PC components and high-performance gaming hardware, today announced the launch of Carbide Series SPEC-04 Tempered Glass mid-tower gaming case. The case combines an angular, hard-edged exterior style with the sophistication of a full tempered glass side panel and excellent cooling potential.

"Being a leader in gaming hardware manufacturing, we at Corsair always work closely with our customers, partners and invest in R&D to understand different needs of customers and markets. We believe that being in sync with the demands of our customers through innovative products, premium materials and unique industrial design is the key to success. Our previous cases 570X RGB, 460X RGB & the recently launched Spec 04 were a stupendous success for Corsair in India for the very same reason," said M A Mannan, Country Manager at Corsair India. "SPEC-04 TG's all-steel construction and tempered glass panel guarantees an elegant appearance and a crisp view of your system. I am quite sure this case will stand apart from its competitors with modern and futuristic styling."

The sleek, tempered glass window shows off the roomy interior, which fits up to five 120mm fans and can accommodate massive storage configurations for simple and easy builds. The side mounted front IO panel and USB 3.0 port put all your connections within easy reach, while dedicated cable routing cutouts and tie downs, and built-in dust filters, combine for a system build that's as bold as the SPEC-04's design.

Pricing, Availability & Warranty
CORSAIR Carbide Series SPEC-04 tempered glass comes with the MRP of Rs 7999/- and is readily available from October 27, 2017 with Abacus Peripherals carrying a warranty of 2 years.

Tech Specifications:  
About Corsair
Founded in 1994, Corsair supplies high performance products purchased primarily by PC gaming enthusiasts who build their own PCs or buy pre-assembled customized systems. The company's award-winning products include DDR3 memory upgrades, mobile storage drives, power supply units, solid-state drives, PC speakers, gaming headsets, gaming keyboards, laser gaming mice, system monitoring and control devices, PC cooling products, and computer cases. To know more please visit www.corsair.com

Game-themed GPUs are rare these days, often shipping with redesigned boxart and no real changes to the GPU itself, making ASUS' reveal of an Assassin's Creed: Origins themed GPU a very rare occurrence, offering an aesthetic that combined the Eye of ROG with an assortment of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to create a unique external aesthetic.

Performance-wise this GPU offers the same base/boost clock speeds as the company's existing GTX ROG Strix 1080 Ti, which means that this new GPU will not receive a performance uplift when compared to ASUS' existing models, though the GPU's external aesthetic alone will be able to sway some people towards this copper-colored model.
ASUS has only created 500 of these Assassin's Creed Inspired GPUs, making it a collector's item. This GPU will also ship with a free copy of Assassin's Creed Origins, though the pricing of this new GPU model has not been revealed yet.   Functionally this GPU should not offer any performance differences when compared to a standard ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti, which means that the appeal of this card comes from its unique design and its exclusive/limited edition design.
News source - OC3D

The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC is here, will it race ahead of the competition or suffer from an overheated engine!?

The wait is finally over and the much awaited response from Intel to the rising threat from AMD's Ryzen is finally here in form of the Coffee Lake CPUs from Intel. The Coffee Lake lineup is not only Intel's counter attack to AMD Ryzen in the mainstream segment but is also the first time when Intel has pushed its mainstream processors beyond the quad-core mark technically giving consumers hexa-core CPU in the same price point which earlier had only quad-core CPUs to offer!
As always with a new platform we need new motherboards and so is the case with Coffee Lake which works upon the new Z370 PCH which is the direct successor to the Z170 and Z270 chipsets which hosted the Sky Lake and Kaby Lake CPUs respectively. Unlike previous generations so far we only know about Z370 PCH motherboards that would support the new processors and there is no word upon any lower or budget PCH based boards.
Thanks to MSI India today we have with us the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Motherboard for review making it our first experience with the new platform & since its the Pro Carbon series our expectations are already a bit high due to the solid reputation that this series motherboards have build over the past few years across various platforms!

Technically the Z370 PCH and the Z270 PCH are identical in every way including the PCIe lane distribution between the various devices and slots allotted from the CPU and PCH side. The CPU provides 16 PCIe lanes while rest is taken care by the PCH itself. Priced in at $200 or Rs 19,500 in India the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC comes with a similar layout which we'll be discussing later on and is also loaded with certain peculiar features such as dual M.2 slots, six SATA III ports, provision for 3D printed parts and a Bluetooth-WiFi support via an adapter!

What's in the Box!?  

MSI has a different color scheme for each of its motherboard range and the same goes for the Carbon series motherboards that pretty much like its previous generations is, well mostly black with hues of colors signifying its RGB nature.
The front doesn't have much to divulge in terms of feature set nor has an image of the motherboard instead the entire real estate is occupied by a dark and mystical image of the IO cover so bye bye to the god old sports car!


The back unlike the front is printed to the brim with features! A detailed marked diagram of the motherboard is printed in one corner highlighting all the physical features and on the right we see features such as the Mystic LED, Turbo U.2, USB 3.1 briefly explained.
Open the box and you'll find the motherboard in an anti-static bag resting on top of the bottom compartment that houses all the accessories.

On the accessories front the Z370 Pro Carbon AC is quite humble yet provides all the accessories needed to get one started. We have a WiFi Antenna installation guide, User’s manual, Cable labels, Driver and utility DVD, Quick installation guide, Registration insert, SLI HB Bridge, USB 2.0 header extension cable, I/O Shield, Two SATA cables, WiFi/Bluetooth PCIe card, 2 x WiFi Antennae, Screw for PCIe card, Rainbow RGB LED Extension cable 80cm, Corsair HD RGB LED cable 50cm and Y-splitter RGB LED Extension cable 80cm.

Closer Look and Features

MSI went low key with this one over here aswell. Simply placing the motherboard out of the box shows the stark reality that the motherboard is indeed different from what the usual trend is going on in the motherboard market today.

The Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon is one of the few motherboards out there that shout elegance from every corner! Its a full matte black product with highlights of carbon fiber vinyl on the I/O shield, PCH while certain areas are highlighted by white plastic cover accentuated by metal strips and underlying LEDs that can be used as per one's own whims.

The motherboard at the back is clear with nothing special going on and has the various brand and licensing logos printed near the bottom half.

Looking at the CPU socket area we realize that it is extremely clean and specious with ample space to accommodate big air coolers aswell. The first M.2 slot is located right below the socket which has two advantages, the first PCIe slot is shifted downwards which gives more space and cooling room for air coolers and one doesn't have to worry about the stock cooler sucking in hot air generated by the hot backplate of graphics cards also the M.2 port is in an open area which keeps it cooler when compared to the ones located between the PCIe slots or below the PCH.

DIMM slots on the reinforced by metal shields that not only work as an EMI shielding to the RAM sticks to ensure hindrance free performance but also imparts tensile strength to the slots in case one uses tall or heavy Memory kits like my Kingston HyperX Predator.
These support a maximum of 64GB DDR4 memory kit working at a maximum frequency of 4000Mhz+. Also the mounting mechanism is changed and both the locking brackets need to be opened prior to DRAM installation.

The socket on the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon is a LGA1151 socket which though has the same number of pins as the previous generation Kaby Lake and Sky Lake CPUs this isn't backward compatible since the pin layout is different to support the new hexa core processors so a you need to buy a new Z370 motherboard for a Coffee Lake CPU. Good thing is that all the existing coolers in the market would fit on this new socket without any issues or the need of a new bracket etc

Turn your gaze towards the PCIe area and we see three PCIe 3.0x16 slots and three PCIex1 slots for devices of a bygone era! Two M.2 slots is also provided that we'll discuss later on.
Two of the three full sized PCIe slots are armored to support large and heavy graphics card. If you are using a Coffee Lake CPU then the configuration would be as follows for SLI configurations:
Single Card: 16x/0/0/
Dual SLI: 8x/8x/0/
Tri SLI: 8x/8x/4x/
The PCIe Slots have three LED embedded at the bottom and lit up red when the slot is populated by a graphics card. They turn up white when the graphics card installed is using less than 16xPCIe lane.
A notable fact over here is that in ATX board like this you tend to find seven PCIe slots in total with four full length and three PCIex1 but in the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro there are only six eliminating the top most slot. By doing this MSI cleverly managed to shift the DIMM slots down by half an inch which in-turn cleared out some space in the CPU area and above it giving one the flexibility to choose from a range of beefy CPU air cooler without any compatibility issue.

For the I/O panel we have one PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, one HDMI port, one USB Type C with 3.1 Gen 2 support, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and four USB 3.1 Type-A ports port. A couple of USB 3.0/2.0 ports along with one RJ-45 port & one optical S/PDIF Out connector is provided. Audio jacks are five in number for a 5.1 channel surround sound experience.
The two USB ports above the HDMI port are VR Boost enabled which we'll discuss later on.
WiFi and Bluetooth functions are provided via an add-in card on this motherboard and not embedded in the main PCB. The prime reason for doing so is cost cutting since MSI Z370 Pro Carbon Motherboard comes in two variants one being the AC and another a non AC model that are both identical in everything both technically and aesthetically but the add in WiFi Bluetooth card is missing from the non AC model which makes it easier for MSI to sell two models.

On the left side of the board we have the Audio Boost 4 technology powered by a Realtek ALC 1220 5-channel CODEC which is an upgrade to the ALC 1150 used previously by most of the manufacturers and protect by an LED illuminated isolation strip to prevent any static distortion. This arrangement is solidified with gold plated Chemi-con capacitors and three Texas Instruments  OP1562 op-amps to power headphones and provide a surround sound experience.


Along the bottom of the motherboard are two of the six SATA III ports strangely isolated from the other four loacted on the right side near the PCH which could make cable management tricky.


The CPU is powered by an 10-phase Military Class-5 power delivery system controlled by a NIKOS PK832BA PWM controller and constituted of 10-years rated Titanium Choke and Black Caps. This is not an all digital power delivery system but a reliable one for sure.

VCore and VccGT phasea are handled by a uP9508Q 3+2 phase PWM controller on this motherboard which is a good configuration and I expect to see some impressive and stable overclocking results delivered by the Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon.

Fan speed, I/O activity and even temperatures of various components on the motherboard are managed and channeled via the Nuvoton’s NCT6795D chip.

Four ASMedia ASM1480 multiplexers are responsible for routing the PCIe lanes between the two silver x16 slots.

An Intel i©14 EAR48U82 chip is responsible for the LAN functions on the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC.

Some of the USB 3.0 and 3.1 USB ports on the board are controlled by the Asmedia ASM314 chip to shed load from the CPU.

BIOS and Bundled Software

BIOS

UEFI BIOS is getting more and more common with each manufacturer opting for it due to its simple and flexible interface along with the option to navigate via a mouse rather than a keyboard exclusive BIOS. MSI is no different and has offered not one but two versions of BIOS, EZ and Advanced versions, with the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon so as to suit every customer's needs.
On boot up by default you'll be greeted with a more comprehensive and detailed EZ BIOS screen. This is a crammed up screen that has the details about all the components installed on the board along with options laid out neatly under clear tabs on the left side. If you want to change fan speeds, maybe boot devices, or use its automated overclocking function or XMP, you can do so quickly and easily.

This is a much preferred version for the beginners and though it comes with a Game Boost Knob on the top left its useless since the Gaming Pro Carbon doesn't support this feature. I personally loved the "Memory Try It!" feature which comes with pre-sets to overclock your memory on the fly & are quite useful for everyone.
On pressing the F7 key you'll be teleported into the Advanced BIOS version or the traditional MSI UEFI BIOS version. This is a version that all the over clockers will love since the settings are broadly laid out with tab heading like Over Clocking Settings itself. A plethora of features are there out of which I'm showing you a selective few.

Bundled Software 

This is the era when manufacturers provide customers with not just a motherboard and utility softwares that act more like blotwares if nothing else. Gigabyte App center is already what I've reviewed a lot of time & it has never failed to impress but MSI is no less rather  a bit more refined in their approach.
The heart of the software set is the MSI command set which gives you general features and information regarding the CPU, GPU, Fan Speed, IGP and the Game Boost knob...again!

Also one beautiful graphical window is there that provides you with temperature readings of each component & even tell you where they are located on the board.

MSI Mystic LED is the new suite that we see in the X299 platform and it replaces the MSI Gaming App for controlling the LED lighting on the motherboard & other components. It lets you control the patterns and color in which you want the motherboard to glow but lacks customization options since you cannot assign colors to the PCH heatsink and VRM heatsink individually moreover the layout needs a bit more refinement which I expect MSI to fix in their new update for the suite.

Benchmarks and Overclocking

Putting all the components together and booting up into Windows was a breeze with the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon. Everything worked properly and installed swiftly without any issue. The motherboard looks elegant and all black when off or when the LEDs are turned down ensuring no hindrance with the glow and appearance of the motherboard LEDs whatsoever.
For the benchmarks we used the following test setup configuration --


CPU: Intel Core i5 8600K
Motherboard: MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
RAM:Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Cooler:Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti G1 Gaming OC
Storage: Corsair Neutron GTX 480 480GB
Secondary Storage: ADATA XPG SX8000 256GB M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 700
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GPU Driver: ForceWare 375.70
BIOS: A.00

We booted into Windows easily with the i5 8600K at 4.2Ghz boost on the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon and all benchmarks completed successfully without any hiccups. Sadly the motherboard couldn't support the HyperX Predator at 3000Mhz which is one of two rated XMP profiles that this memory kit comes with even after flashing to the latest BIOS from the MSI website and I had to settle down with 2666Mhz. This is a common issue with new platforms and should resolve with the upcoming BIOS but as of now we'll have to do with 2666Mhz.
For overclocking we managed a satisfactory 5Ghz stable at 1.28v but as the temperatures were well within the safe range and so were the VCore voltages I went ahead and achieved a stable 5.1Ghz with 1.29v and the system help stable across all the benchmarks which is nothing short of impressive.

AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a great tool to bench your CPU and RAM in terms of their read-write-copy abilities. Our i5 8600K showed an impressive score along with the HyperX Predator kit.

AIDA64 GPGPU

The reason for including this benchmark was to simply observe the AES and Hash Test which is a determent of how easily your CPU or GPU can crunch complex calculations and higher score is always regarded better.

7-zip

7zip is a compression and decompression program that utilizes the processing power of the CPU alone. It is a synthetic benchmark that gives results very close to real life scores.

Cinebench R15 and Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench uses Maxon's Cinema 4D engine to render a photo-realistic scene of some shiny balls and weird things (we miss the motorbike). The scene is highly complex, with reflections, ambient occlusion and procedural shaders so it gives a CPU a tough workout.
As Cinema 4D is a real-world application - used on films such as Spider-Man and Star Wars - Cinebench can be viewed as a real-world benchmark.

wPrime v2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions.

SuperPi Mod 1.5

SuperPi is a simple program that utilizes the processing power and memory speed of the system to calculate the value of Pi upto 1 Million or 32 Million decimal point depending upon what you choose. The time is calculated in minutes and seconds, we'll take them both in seconds, so lower the score faster is your computer.

3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy

Fire Strike by 3D Mark is a test suit that plays a cinematic scene to determine the FPS, GPU temperature and CPU temperature scaling everything via a cumulative score. It is a great tool to benchmark your GPU since the render is GPU dependent.

PCMark 10

The latest offering from PCMark is the PCMark 10 and unlike its predecessor the new suite evaluates the entire system performance through just one long test, though you can always opt for the quicker and smaller ones, but the test for modern offices and home is the perfect replica of what one professional would do in their daily lives.
The performance is evaluated through basic tests like video conferencing and web browsing to complex tasks such as graphic and video editing or even rendering through POV Ray!

Crysis 3

I can't start gaming benchmarks without running my all time favorites Crysis 3 but its a game that no system loves! The CryEngine 3 behind this scenic beauty can bring down any system to its knees and I mean any system. I set everything to Ultra at 1920x1080 resolution with MSAA 4X and motion blur high.

Battlefield 1

The latest installation to the Battlefield franchise and mind it the grandest one of them all aswell, Battlefield 1 is a prequel to the infamous Battlefield 1942 placing the players right in the middle of World War 1. Based on the latest Frostbite Engine by EA-DICE, Battlefield 1 takes advantage of DirectX 12 with asynchronous compute to weave together richly detailed worlds. It is heavily taxing on current-generation hardware, and you're handsomely rewarded for investing more into your graphics setup. Settings are at Ultra preset with full HD resolution.

DOOM

Finally we've introduced this much awaited titled to our benchmarks! Developed by ID Software Doom or popularly written as DOOM is a reboot of the older Doom series. Its fast and scary with more than enough variety of guns that you can ever imagine or even use!
Its OpenGL and quality is set to Ultra.

My Verdict 

Intel Coffee Lake isn't exactly the refreshing morning cafe that you'd expect it to be.....there I said it straight! Its great thing that you can now buy a 6 core CPU for lesser price and probably not have to shell out extra bucks just for the X299 platform since a quad core wouldn't cut through your work load. But and its a big but, the only good CPUs are in form of the unlocked processors such as the i5 8600K that we tested today as the locked versions have nothing great to offer considering their architecture is still the same and you don't get much for buying a whole new motherboard and CPU but just two extra cores! People looking to upgrade from a Skylake platform might see Coffee Lake as a lucrative option but Kaby Lake users shouldn't probably look in this direction at all.
On the other hand motherboard manufacturers like MSI have done a splendid job when it came to designing the motherboard. The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon is a breath of fresh air and its worth mentioning that MSI has been constantly changing and evolving their Pro Carbon lineup as per time and user feedback. The Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon has an entirely new design which is infact a refined version of the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon which is a beautiful motherboard in its own rights.
MSI cleverly ditched the redundant SATA express and U.2 connector to implement dual M.2 connectors along with fully functional tri PCIe slot configuration with a bunch of USB 3.1 ports all working at the same time thanks to the brilliant use of the 24 PCIe lanes that the Z370 PCH has to offer. On the down side the motherboard does lack some vital on board buttons such as BIOS reset button. Also the LEDs are a bit clumsy to control and the Mystic Lights software needs some tweaking from MSI's end to make the whole motherboard a bit more appealing.
The LEDs are yet again meticulously implemented by MSI on a pure black board and nifty features such as Memory Try it! in the BIOS are a welcome move. For a motherboard that costs around Rs. 19000 in India its steal deal for almost anyone out there.
Pros -

• Elegant Looks
• Handles overclocking well
• Solid build quality
• Aptly Priced
• RGB implementation is subtle and effective 
• Has WiFi and Bluetooth

Cons -

• Lacks some vital onboard buttons
• Bundled Software such as Mystic Light needs refinement

I give it a 8/10 earning our Gold Award!

A couple of new peripherals for MOBA and MMO gamers.

Razer recently launched its first smartphone, a high-end Android device with a 120Hz display and 8GB of RAM, but it's not about to ditch its bread and butter—gaming peripherals. Lest there be any doubt, the company today announced a new Naga Trinity mouse and Tartarus V2 gaming keyboard.

Both products are customizable and suitable for a variety of game genres, though Razer highlights MOBA and MMO gamers as the target audience. Starting with the Tartarus V2, it is an ergonomic keypad with 32 fully programmable keys—that's seven more than its predecessor.

The Tartarus V2 is based on Razer's mecha-membrane design that attempts to leverage the soft cushioned touch of a membrane rubber dome with the tactile click of a mechanical switch. Each key is actuated at mid-height for an instantaneous response, Razer says.

On the side is an eight-way directional thumbpad that can be used for movement to add more commands, along with an three-way scroll wheel. Everything is programmable, and users can configure a second set of commands through Razer's Hypershift mode.

The Razer Tartarus V2 will be available in the fourth quarter for $80 (€90).

The Naga Trinity is the ninth iteration of Razer's Naga line. It is a modular rodent with three interchangeable side plates—users can select from the original 12-button thumb grid from the Razer Naga Chroma, the seven-button thumb wheel of the Razer Naga Hex V2, or a new two-button configuration for a minimalistic feel.

This latest version sports an improved 5G optical sensor capable of a true 16,000 dpi and 450 IPS. The mouse also has a 1,000Hz ultrapolling rate, a tilt-click scroll wheel, and Razer Chroma lighting support.

Like the new keypad, the Razer Naga Trinity will be available in the fourth quarter, for $100 (€120).

He has decided to extend his sabbatical…indefinitely.

Earlier this fall, AMD's Raja Koduri announced he was taking a sabbatical, with intentions to return in December. Now, as reported by Hexus, he has chosen to extend his leave permanently. The leave began in September, following the launch of Vega and in an apparent desire for some downtime and relaxation with his family. We can only guess at the huge amount of pressure Raja has been under during his latest tenure at AMD, and time away from it all has given him time for reflection, the result of which is his decision to leave AMD.

Here's the full letter obtained by Hexus:

'To my AMD family,

Forty is a significant number in history.  It is a number representing transition, testing and change. I have just spent forty days away from the office going through such a transition. It was an important time with my family, and it also offered me a rare space for reflection. During this time I have come to the extremely difficult conclusion that it is time for me to leave RTG and AMD.

I have no question in my mind that RTG, and AMD, are marching firmly in the right direction as high-performance computing becomes ever-more-important in every aspect of our lives.  I believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing with Vega, Navi and beyond, and I am incredibly proud of how far we have come and where we are going. The whole industry has stood up and taken notice of what we are doing. As I think about how computing will evolve, I feel more and more that I want to pursue my passion beyond hardware and explore driving broader solutions.

I want to thank Lisa and the AET for enabling me to pursue my passion during the last four years at AMD, and especially the last two years with RTG. Lisa has my utmost respect for exhibiting the courage to enable me with RTG, for believing in me and for going out of her way to support me.  I would also like to call out Mark Papermaster who brought me into AMD, for his huge passion for technology and for his relentless support through many difficult phases.  And of course, I want to thank each and every one of my direct staff and my indirect staff who have worked so hard with me to build what we have now got.  I am very proud of the strong leaders we have and I'm fully confident that they can execute on the compelling roadmap ahead.

I will continue to be an ardent fan and user of AMD technologies for both personal and professional use.

As I mentioned, leaving AMD and RTG has been an extremely difficult decision for me.  But I felt it is the right one for me personally at this point.  Time will tell.  I will be following with great interest the progress you will make over the next several years.

On a final note, I have asked a lot of you in the last two years.  You've always delivered.  You've made me successful both personally and professionally, for which I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  I have these final requests from you as I leave:

. Stay focused on the roadmap!
. Deliver on your commitments!
. Continue the culture of Passion, Persistence and Play!
. Make AMD proud!
. Make me proud!

Yours,
Raja
What does this mean for AMD and RTG going forward? Lisa Su will assume interim responsibility for RTG, pending a permanent replacement. Given the RTG didn't even exist until two years ago, and it was formed under the leadership of Raja, finding a suitable person to fill Raja's large shoes could take some time. AMD has said it will continue ahead with the current roadmap and plans, with the intent to continue to grow its graphics division. And as part of those plans, we have the recent Intel announcement of integrating AMD graphics technology onto an upcoming CPU.

This isn't the first time Raja has stepped away from AMD, and he has announced no concrete plans as yet. But wherever he ends up, we wish him the best. Raja is an incredibly smart and passionate individual, with a deep knowledge of technology and the tech industry. His loss will certainly be felt by AMD, and we're equally certain he will pop up somewhere new in the coming months.

Choose a side you must!

Like a Jedi mind trick, Nvidia today told us what new collector's edition Titan Xp cards we have been waiting for, after teasing us with a short video last week. It turns out we wanted Star Wars-themed cards.

There are two to choose from—a green glowing card for users who choose to align with the Light Side, and a red glowing card for the Dark Side. Both cards have special graphics to go along with fancy lighting.


"The Jedi Order GPU simulates the wear and tear and battle-worn finish of many items used by the Rebel Alliance, resulting from its diecast aluminum cover being subjected to an extensive, corrosive salt spray. Conversely, the Galactic Empire GPU’s finish features simple, clean lines, emulating the high-end, orderly nature of the resource-rich Empire," Nvidia explains.

Other than their appearance, the collector's edition cards are the same as the vanilla Titan Xp with 3,840 CUDA cores running at 1.6GHz, and 12GB of GDDR5X memory running at 11.4Gbps.

Nvidia designed the collector's edition cards with several windowed areas to showcase some of the internals and lighting. It was shooting for a lightsaber look. As such, these cards are best suited for cases with side panels, that allow for mounting them on their side, such as with a riser cable.

The timing here is not random—Nvidia's themed cards will be available on November 17, the same day that Star Wars Battlefront 2 is released. There is also a new Stars Wars movie headed for the silver screen next month. Starting tomorrow, GeForce Experience users can preorder either card for $1,200. Each card comes with a collectable electroformed metal badge containing the insignia of whichever alliance you chose.

A small and portable eGPU solution

External graphics enclosures can give your laptop a major bump in graphics performance, but most of them are bulky. That is not the case with Sonnet's new eGFX Breakaway Puck. It's a small box that is roughly the size the of a mini PC (like the NUC) so you can game on the road.

That is a major advantage over most existing external enclosures. With solutions like Gigabyte's Gaming Box, the idea is that you buy an ultrabook and play games at home, while still having the portability of a thin and light laptop when work takes you on the road. But with the Breakaway Puck, you can take the added graphics performance with you. In some cases, you can even leave your power brick at home.

"When GPU acceleration is needed on the road, users can conveniently pack an eGFX Breakaway Puck along with a notebook in a backpack or computer bag. The Puck connects to a computer with a single Thunderbolt 3 cable and, for added convenience, also provides 45W of Power Delivery to power and charge the computer, enabling many users to leave their computer’s power brick behind," Sonnet explains.

The Breakaway Puck measures 6 inches wide by 5.1 inches deep, and is just 2 inches tall. It has a Thunderbolt 3 port, three DisplayPort connectors, and a single HDMI port, with support for up to four 4K displays in multimonitor mode.

There are two versions. One is equipped with a Radeon RX 560 GPU (GPU-RX560-TB3) and costs $449, and other has a Radeon RX 570 GPU (GPU-RX570-TB3), priced at $599. An optional VESA mounting bracket runs $59.

Both models are available now.

The new Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming is here but is it TUF enough to be the budget king?

The wait is finally over and the much awaited response from Intel to the rising threat from AMD's Ryzen is finally here in form of the Coffee Lake CPUs from Intel. The Coffee Lake lineup is not only Intel's counter attack to AMD Ryzen in the mainstream segment but is also the first time when Intel has pushed its mainstream processors beyond the quad-core mark technically giving consumers hexa-core CPU in the same price point which earlier had only quad-core CPUs to offer!
As always with a new platform we need new motherboards and so is the case with Coffee Lake which works upon the new Z370 PCH which is the direct successor to the Z170 and Z270 chipsets which hosted the Sky Lake and Kaby Lake CPUs respectively. Unlike previous generations so far we only know about Z370 PCH motherboards that would support the new processors and there is no word upon any lower or budget PCH based boards.
Thanks to Asus India today we have their very latest and very interesting motherboard on the table for review, we have the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming Motherboard. Since this comes from the TUF series of motherboards our expectations from the board are really high in certain sections and so would be found out later on in the review.

Technically the Z370 PCH and the Z270 PCH are identical in every way including the PCIe lane distribution between the various devices and slots allotted from the CPU and PCH side. The CPU provides 16 PCIe lanes while rest is taken care by the PCH itself. Priced in at $160 or Rs 15,500 in India the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming Motherboard comes with a similar layout which we'll be discussing later on and is also loaded with certain peculiar features such as dual M.2 slots, six SATA III ports, ASUS OptimMem, Fan Xpert 4, TUF Components, TUF Protection and a whooping 5 years warranty.

What's in the Box!?

Coming in a sleek cardboard box with a black and yellow color theme which is a different from what we are used to seeing from the previous generation TUF series motherboards. It is a nicely designed box with the product name boldly printed in the center and the TUF Gaming logo on the top left hand corner along with all the features and logos printed at the bottom end.

I personally love the new TUF Gaming logo that this motherboard carries with a winged shield symbolizing some sort of a futuristic military special task force unit which we are used to seeing in games like Gears of War, CoD Ghosts etc giving this motherboard the new 'Gaming' feel rather than the durability feel that we are generally used to.

Coming back to the packing, the back of the box we have a colored and real life picture of the motherboard itself in the center and is surrounded by a specification chart stating out all the technical features on the board along with a few key features with their respective illustrations etc.
Open the box and you'll find the motherboard in an anti-static bag resting on top of the bottom compartment that houses all the accessories.

On the accessories front the TUF Pro Gaming provides you with the bare basics and nothing fancy, just enough to get you all started which is not bad at all from my point of view. We have User's manual, I/O Shield, 2 x SATA 6Gb/s cables, 1 x M.2 Screw Package, 1 x CPU installation tool, 1 x Supporting DVD, 1 x TUF Gaming Sticker, 1 x SLI HB BRIDGE(2-WAY-M), 1 x Q-Connector and 1 x TUF Certification card.

Closer Look and Features

From the very first look itself of the TUF Z370 Pro Gaming you would realize that this one is different from the other TUF motherboards from Asus. Asus has ditched the whole thermal armor protection over here and made it into a much more simpler looking board which looms great in its own right no doubt.

Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming is an all black motherboard with trims of yellow all over the PCB and even on the IO cover. It is a full ATX motherboard which relies upon basic and solid looks to catch the eye rather than putting up a light show using RGB, yes the motherboard has no RGB onboard whatsoever!
Also even though its a ATX size board we see that it has extensions over on the right side for designs, isolation strips etc to give it a edge in terms of design and also that much needed raw approach suitable for the TUF series.  The mounting holes are however matching the ATX standards so one won't have any issues mounting it inside a chassis.

At the back the motherboard is plain and simple but the whole military style stencil work is all over the place making it a great board for cutom builds where even the motherboard back is visible. Its a non noticeable design work but still can make a huge difference in some cases.

Looking at the CPU socket area we realize that it is extremely clean and specious with ample space to accommodate big air coolers aswell. The first M.2 slot is located right below the socket which has two advantages, the first PCIe slot is shifted downwards which gives more space and cooling room for air coolers and one doesn't have to worry about the stock cooler sucking in hot air generated by the hot backplate of graphics cards also the M.2 port is in an open area which keeps it cooler when compared to the ones located between the PCIe slots or below the PCH.

DIMM slots onthe TUF Pro Gaming are non reinforced but I don't really think its necessary here as the plain plastic black/grey color scheme gels in better with the whole styling of the board.
These support a maximum of 64GB DDR4 memory kit working at a maximum frequency of 4000Mhz+. Also the mounting mechanism is changed and both the locking brackets need to be opened prior to DRAM installation.

The socket on the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming is a LGA1151 socket which though has the same number of pins as the previous generation Kaby Lake and Sky Lake CPUs this isn't backward compatible since the pin layout is different to support the new hexa core processors so a you need to buy a new Z370 motherboard for a Coffee Lake CPU. Good thing is that all the existing coolers in the market would fit on this new socket without any issues or the need of a new bracket etc

Turn your gaze towards the PCIe area and we see three PCIe 3.0x16 slots and three PCIex1 slots for devices of a bygone era! Two M.2 slots is also provided that we'll discuss later on.
The top one out of the three full sized PCIe slots is armored to support large and heavy graphics card. If you are using a Coffee Lake CPU then the configuration would be as follows for SLI configurations:
Single Card: 16x/0/0/
Dual SLI: 8x/8x/0/
Tri SLI: 8x/8x/4x/
The PCIe Slots have three LED embedded at the bottom and lit up red when the slot is populated by a graphics card. They turn up white when the graphics card installed is using less than 16xPCIe lane.
A notable fact over here is that in ATX board like this you tend to find seven PCIe slots in total with four full length and three PCIex1 but in the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming there are only six eliminating the top most slot. By doing this Asus cleverly managed to shift the DIMM slots down by half an inch which in-turn cleared out some space in the CPU area and above it giving one the flexibility to choose from a range of beefy CPU air cooler without any compatibility issue.

For the I/O panel we have one PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, one HDMI port, one DVI-D port, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and four USB 3.1 Type-A ports port. A couple of USB 3.0/2.0 ports along with one RJ-45 port & one optical S/PDIF Out connector is provided. Audio jacks are five in number for a 5.1 channel surround sound experience.

For audio, ASUS is using the Realtek ALC887 5-channel codec solidified with gold plated Chemi-con capacitors rather than the ALC1220 codec solution found on the other boards, likely due to pricing. The ALC887 has a peculiar advnatge over the ALC1220 which is of powering headphones where the former is much better on its own without any added support. Since the TUF Pro Gaming aims at gamers who generally prefer headphones over speakers the choice of the ALC887 wouldn't really hurt the audio experience.


Along the bottom of the motherboard are two of the six SATA III ports strangely isolated from the other four located on the right side near the PCH which could make cable management tricky or even simpler in some cases depending upon the choice of your chassis.

Right next to the 24-pin ATX power connector upon the extended section of the motherboard there are LED lights for diagnosis in case of a boot failure, thesea re namely as Boot, VGA, CPU and DRAM. These are extremely helpful for easy diagnosis and I like that Asus has provided these on the TUF Pro Gaming.


For the power delivery system Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming relies upon a six phase power supply arrangement with four dedicated for the CPU and two for the graphics core.
VCore and VccGT phasea are handled by a Digi + ASP1400BT PWM controller on this motherboard which is a good configuration and I expect to see some impressive and stable overclocking results delivered by the Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon.

Fan speed, I/O activity and even temperatures of various components on the motherboard are managed and channeled via the Nuvoton’s NCT6795D chip.

Four ASMedia ASM1480 multiplexers are responsible for routing the PCIe lanes between the two silver x16 slots.

An Intel I219-V gigabit network chip is responsible for the LAN functions on the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming.

TUF LANGuard is a military-grade innovation that integrates advanced signal-coupling technology and premium surface-mounted capacitors to improve throughput, protecting the motherboard from lightning strikes and static electricity.

Some of the USB 3.0 and 3.1 USB ports on the board are controlled by the Asmedia ASM314 chip to shed load from the CPU.

BIOS

The graphics interface of the BIOS has undergone minor visual changes in terms of animation, and has ceased to be camouflage color. The structure of all the menus has remained the same.
By default, the simplified mode (EZ Mode) is loaded, which greets us with the start screen, which shows basic information about the connected devices - memory, SATA drives, fans, processor, as well as processor temperature and voltage, fan speed and system operation mode.


By pressing the QFan Control button (or the F6 button), a graph of the settings of the three fans and the PBO is displayed.
By pressing the F11 button, a menu is displayed for overclocking the system based on the components, cooling and the scenario for using the system.

Let's switch to advanced mode. The Main section contains basic information about the system.
In the additional menu My Favorites, you can add any parameters at your discretion for faster access to them.







The Ai Tweaker contains all the settings for overclocking the system. Settings are quite a lot and for "home" dispersal "under water" they are quite enough.
Since the new processors have very good overclocking potential, a new button "Load 5 GHz profile" appeared in the BIOS interface. I tried it and everything would be alright, but it exposes 1.4V, which is too much for such a frequency.
In a separate subsection there are memory timings.
The subsection Digi + VRM contains the parameters of the processor's power subsystem.
Additional CPU parameters can be found in the Internal CPU Power Management.
In the subsection of DRAM Ref Voltage Control, we can change additional voltages of RAM.
The Advanced section contains settings for other components of the motherboard.
In the Monitor section, you can view the temperatures of the main components of the system, as well as the fan speeds and adjust them.
In the subsection Q-Fan Configuration, there is information about the fan speed. These parameters are configurable.
The system boot parameters are collected in the Boot section.
Overall the BIOS on the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming is aesthetically pleasing and extremely functional offering more than enough control over the various sections of the motherboard and is suitable for almost anyone out there to use and understand.

Benchmarks and Overclocking 

Putting all the components together and booting up into Windows was a breeze with the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming. Everything worked properly and installed swiftly without any issue. Even though there is no RGB on this motherboard it looks beautiful and catchy with its simplistic looks and edgy design making it suitable for most of the build out there.
For the benchmarks we used the following test setup configuration --

CPU: Intel Core i5 8600K
Motherboard: Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming
RAM:Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
Graphics Card:Gigabyte GTX 1050Ti G1 Gaming OC
Storage:Corsair Neutron GTX 480 480GB
Secondary Storage:ADATA XPG SX8000 256GB M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 700
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GPU Driver: ForceWare 375.70
BIOS: 0505

We booted into Windows easily with the i5 8600K at 4.2Ghz boost on the Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming and all benchmarks completed successfully without any hiccups. Sadly the motherboard couldn't support the HyperX Predator at 3000Mhz which is one of two rated XMP profiles that this memory kit comes with at the default BIOS it came with out of the box but after flashing it to the latest BIOS available on the website everything worked smoothly and we had the memory stable at 3000Mhz.
For overclocking we managed a satisfactory 5Ghz stable at 1.28v but as the temperatures were well within the safe range and so were the VCore voltages I went ahead and achieved a stable 5.1Ghz with 1.29v and the system help stable across all the benchmarks which is nothing short of impressive.

AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a great tool to bench your CPU and RAM in terms of their read-write-copy abilities. Our i5 8600K showed an impressive score along with the HyperX Predator kit.

AIDA64 GPGPU

The reason for including this benchmark was to simply observe the AES and Hash Test which is a determent of how easily your CPU or GPU can crunch complex calculations and higher score is always regarded better.

7-zip

7zip is a compression and decompression program that utilizes the processing power of the CPU alone. It is a synthetic benchmark that gives results very close to real life scores.

Cinebench R15 and Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench uses Maxon's Cinema 4D engine to render a photo-realistic scene of some shiny balls and weird things (we miss the motorbike). The scene is highly complex, with reflections, ambient occlusion and procedural shaders so it gives a CPU a tough workout.
As Cinema 4D is a real-world application - used on films such as Spider-Man and Star Wars - Cinebench can be viewed as a real-world benchmark.

wPrime v2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions.

SuperPi Mod 1.5

SuperPi is a simple program that utilizes the processing power and memory speed of the system to calculate the value of Pi upto 1 Million or 32 Million decimal point depending upon what you choose. The time is calculated in minutes and seconds, we'll take them both in seconds, so lower the score faster is your computer.

3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy

Fire Strike by 3D Mark is a test suit that plays a cinematic scene to determine the FPS, GPU temperature and CPU temperature scaling everything via a cumulative score. It is a great tool to benchmark your GPU since the render is GPU dependent.

PCMark 10

The latest offering from PCMark is the PCMark 10 and unlike its predecessor the new suite evaluates the entire system performance through just one long test, though you can always opt for the quicker and smaller ones, but the test for modern offices and home is the perfect replica of what one professional would do in their daily lives.
The performance is evaluated through basic tests like video conferencing and web browsing to complex tasks such as graphic and video editing or even rendering through POV Ray!

Crysis 3

I can't start gaming benchmarks without running my all time favorites Crysis 3 but its a game that no system loves! The CryEngine 3 behind this scenic beauty can bring down any system to its knees and I mean any system. I set everything to Ultra at 1920x1080 resolution with MSAA 4X and motion blur high.

Battlefield 1

The latest installation to the Battlefield franchise and mind it the grandest one of them all aswell, Battlefield 1 is a prequel to the infamous Battlefield 1942 placing the players right in the middle of World War 1. Based on the latest Frostbite Engine by EA-DICE, Battlefield 1 takes advantage of DirectX 12 with asynchronous compute to weave together richly detailed worlds. It is heavily taxing on current-generation hardware, and you're handsomely rewarded for investing more into your graphics setup. Settings are at Ultra preset with full HD resolution.

DOOM

Finally we've introduced this much awaited titled to our benchmarks! Developed by ID Software Doom or popularly written as DOOM is a reboot of the older Doom series. Its fast and scary with more than enough variety of guns that you can ever imagine or even use!
Its OpenGL and quality is set to Ultra.

My Verdict

Asus TUF Z370 Pro Gaming is like a fresh breeze of air that very well has the potential to bring back the good old days when it was all about raw performance and no bling. Being a TUF series motherboard the choice of components is solid and reliable but its the over all appeal of the Z370 Pro Gaming that catches the eye. By ditching a few extras such as the premium thermal armor Asus managed to bring the TUF series to the masses in form of the very subtle TUF Z370 Pro Gaming making reliable and solid performance accessible to everyone even those who are on a strict budget for their new gaming or professional work build.
The choice of connectivity and storage options is perfect and I can't really find anything to complain about that. BIOS has undergone a minor tweak but its all desirable, smooth and comprehensive yet simple enough for everyone to understand. I personally love the color scheme and attention to details on this board which makes it stand out of the crowd without the use of fancy lights and illuminations.
However this cosmetic advantage very well might be a disadvantage for a few if you like RGB lighting in your system as the motherboard doesn't even come with an on-board LED connector to facilitate the connection of a RGB LED strip, if you like RGB then you'll be better off with the Asus TUF Z370 Plus Gaming which offers all of this with RGB lights and connectivity.
Pros -

• Distinctive Looks
• 5 Years Warranty
• Aptly priced
• Handles Overclocking well
• Solid build quality
• Good choice of components

Cons -

• No RGB Support (Subjective)

I give it a 9/10 earning our Gold Award!
 

For now, the speed crown belongs to Corsair

Seeing Corsair and G.Skill pump out increasingly faster memory kits brings us back to the old days, when high frequencies mattered more than they do now. While the landscape has changed, the race is still on to deliver the fastest memory, and right now Corsair is winning in the 32GB category with its new Vengeance kit.

"Typically, the fastest DDR4 memory kits are limited to low-capacity kits, but with this kit Corsair has combined ultra-high frequency, with high capacity, validating in MemTest at an effective frequency of 4,333MHz, a record for this configuration," Corsair says.

Corsair's new 32GB DDR4-4333 Vengeance LPX memory kit (MCK32GX4M4K4333C19) consists of four 8GB modules with hand-sorted and "extensively binned" Samsung B-die memory chips. Timings are a bit aggressive for this frequency at 19-26-26-46, at 1.5V. The kit is XMP 2.0 compliant, so there shouldn't be any tinkering in the BIOS to get Corsair's memory to run as advertised, depending on the motherboard.

Select overclockers and enthusiasts will get first dibs when this memory is made available next month, and will undoubtedly be used in record overclocking attempts. Corsair did not say how it much it will cost. As a point of reference, its Vengeance LPX 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-4133 memory kit sells for $470 on Newegg.

The Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC is here, will it deliver or is just another card with a mouthful for a name!?

The Pascal architecture from Nvidia has been a total juggernaut burning every competition and record to cinders especially with it main stream and high end cards that keep on getting better and better with new models rolling out with time. Last we heard from Nvidia in the Pascal architecture was in form of the Titan X Pascal which well is a Titan in graphical performance but eight months since its release Nvidia brought out the GTX 1080 Ti the successor to the GTX 1080 dethroning the latter as the new flagship gaming oriented card.
Thanks to Asus India today we have with us our very first GTX 1080 Ti for review on the table and this is nothing but the very best the segment has to offer, we have with us the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Edition for review.

Priced in at $800 or Rs 79,600 in India the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Edition comes with an all new cooler design and is equipped with 3584 CUDA Cores, 224 Texture Units, a 352-bit memory controller and 11 GB of  GDDR5X memory. The card is based on the same Pascal 16nm FinFet architecture & has the same GP102 GPU as the TITAN X Pascal, but the GTX 1080 Ti is slightly reconfigured and also features a GB less of that ultra fast GDDR5X memory.
The card is clocked in at 1569Mhz out of the box and 1595Mhz using the OC Mode while the memory is at 1376Mhz and 1389Mhz in the OC Mode, this gives the GTX 1080 Ti OC edition  a massive 484GB/s of bandwidth which is enough to handle any title in the market at 4K resolution, finally!

What's in the Box?

Asus brings the ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti in a big-heavy cardboard box which is mainly black in color with hints of green on the sides. The STRIX and ROG logo along with the graphics card image occupy most of the real estate on the packing while the Aura and VR ready logos are printed clearly at the bottom and the very top right side.

On the back side the box boasts about the 3 years warranty that the card comes with along with various technical and physical features that then GTZ 1080 Ti comes loaded with such as the patented fan blade design, two times more contact area for the cooler, Aura sync etc.


Inside the outer cover you will find a big black box with the STRIX logo printed right in the center. Open this and you get a small envelop nestled inside a foam cavity under which the GTX 1080 Ti rests in a thick foam block wrapped in an anti static plastic bag.

On the accessories front the box included the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Graphics Card along with the driver DVD, user manual, ROG velcro cable ties and a power cable Y-splitter. All in all the packaging is to the point and protective enough to keep this beefy card safe and secure during transit.

Take a Closer Look

The GTX 1080 Ti from Asus is an elegant looking card with an all black matte finish and a triple fan design which looks old but is infact an all new cooler design to keep this card cool even under extreme loads.

The unit weights at 1.3Kg and measures in at 29.8x13.4x5.25 cm making it one of the longest and thickest cars you can find on the market today. Infact the card occupies two and a half expansion slots so keep this in mind before buying this card as it can pose an issue for ITX users going for a compact build.

At the back the backplate is smooth and decorated with abstract designs all over the surface and the Asus and STRIX logo near the top end. We also find the ROG eye logo at one corner which is RGB LED lit and imparts the signature ROG look to this GTX 1080 Ti from Asus.

The Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC will offer five display connectors; you'll spot two 1.2 certified Display Ports, two HDMI 2.0b connectors and a DVI port. The dual HDMI arrangement is done with VR in mind.
This sort of arrangement enables 4K displays at 120Hz, 5K displays at 60Hz, and 8K displays at 60Hz (using two cables) making the GTX 1080 Ti the best in class for UHD gaming, recording and streaming purposes.

The ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti uses a triple fan cooling solution with new IP5X dust resistant patented fan design for better-reliable cooling and air flow experience. There are six heatpipes embedded inside the thick aluminum heatsink with a nickle plated copper base that makes 40% more contact with the GPU surface for more efficient cooling with lower noise levels. these fans don't spin at upto 55°C and after that they start spinning in an ordered fashion with the right one spinning first followed by the center fan and then the last left fan when the temperature reached above 60°C to eliminate unnecessary noise. It is also sounds and looks kind of cool to me so a few extra brownie points for this kind of implementation.


At the bottom side the entire graphics card is clean with no heatpipe or anything protruding outside of the huge plastic shroud but just the PCIe connector at one end. While at the top we can see ssupport for power connectors and SLI connectors, yes you can even SLI this monster if you have the need and money well more of money than need I'd say!
The rear houses the LED strip header, as well as two extra fan headers that will spin attached chassis fans at the graphics card fan RPM. Fan headers are fine but having LED strip header on a graphics card is kind of odd as not only motherboards offer that in plenty these days but also if you connect one to these heads routing them across the chassis would be a headache if at all possible.

To power the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC we have two 8-pin PCIe power connectors on top which make it cable of withdrawing a massive 375W on paper which is quite a lot over the 250W that is there on the reference model. You can expect a nice overclocking headroom with this much power just in case you are into overclocking or need to overclock this card at all.

Benchmarks and Overclocking

Installing the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC was easy and it powered up like a breeze once we booted up the system.
GPUZ reported the correct frequencies with 1569Mhz on the clock and 1376Mhz on the memory.
For benchmarking the graphics card our new test bench was as follows -

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @3.6Ghz
Motherboard: Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero
RAM:GALAX HOF 32GB 3600Mhz
Cooler: Stock AMD Wraith RGB Air Cooler
Graphics Card: Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Edition
Storage: Kingston A400 256GB
Secondary Storage:Corsair Neutron XTi 480GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX860i 860W
Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Overclocking the STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC was a simple process and using the Asus GPU Tweak II or any other utility yielded the same results. The highest frequency with respect to performance gains that we could obtain on our sample was 1669Mhz on the clock and 1586Mhz on the memory, anything above this either gave poor results, white dots or even system freeze. Overclocking is dependent largely upon your sample so your results would largely depend upon your card. Overclocking wise its a great yield with 6.3% increase on the clock and 15.2% on the memory, I'm sure more is possible but I couldn't take it any further due to the limited time that I got with this card but nonetheless I'm happy with what I've got here.

AIDA64 Extreme edition GPGPU

The AIDA64 GPGPU test not only calculates the read, write and copy speed of the graphics card and processor but is also very useful in observing the SHA-1 Hash and AES-256 score. These are indications of how well the GPU can handle number crunching or real life image or video rendering. Higher score shows a better card.

3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy

Fire Strike and Time Spy by 3D Mark is a test suit that plays a cinematic scene to determine the FPS, GPU temperature and CPU temperature scaling everything via a cumulative score. It is a great tool to benchmark your GPU since the render is mostly GPU & memory dependent.

Battlefield 1

The latest installation to the Battlefield franchise and mind it the grandest one of them all aswell, Battlefield 1 is a prequel to the infamous Battlefield 1942 placing the players right in the middle of World War 1. Based on the latest Frostbite Engine by EA-DICE, Battlefield 1 takes advantage of DirectX 12 with asynchronous compute to weave together richly detailed worlds. It is heavily taxing on current-generation hardware, and you're handsomely rewarded for investing more into your graphics setup. Settings are at Ultra preset with full HD resolution.

Ashes of the Singularity 

The latest installation to the Battlefield franchise and mind it the grandest one of them all aswell, Battlefield 1 is a prequel to the infamous Battlefield 1942 placing the players right in the middle of World War 1. Based on the latest Frostbite Engine by EA-DICE, Battlefield 1 takes advantage of DirectX 12 with asynchronous compute to weave together richly detailed worlds. It is heavily taxing on current-generation hardware, and you're handsomely rewarded for investing more into your graphics setup. Settings are at Ultra preset with full HD resolution.Developed by Oxide Games & running on the Nitrous Game Engine Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium.
We've used the in-built benchmarking tool and the result is shown in an average of all the graphical tests conducted over various locations and topographies of the game. DX12 API, Quality set to Extreme, 4xMSAA and everything else to high.

Prey 

After releasing the excellent Dishonored 2 France-based Arkane Studios hits it out of the park again with Prey, a first-person shooter published by Bethesda Softworks as a reboot from 11 years ago.
Unveiled at E3 2016, Prey uses the CryEngine graphics engine and audio from Audiokinetic's Wave Works Interactive Sound Engine (Wwise). It is exclusively DX11 based so no DX12 or Vulkan testing is possible.

Rise of The Tomb Raider

The latest installation of Lara Croft in the spectacular Rise of the Tomb Raider 2016 with stunning graphics and rich location makes it a great game to benchmark with while enjoying in the due course! We used DX12 and settings were at Ultimate on full HD resolution.

Call of Duty: WWII

Call of Duty: WWII is a first-person shooter video game developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. Not only is it a a gamer's delight but a graphics card nightmare when all the settings are cranked up offering real life graphics and optimized gameplay.

GTA V

Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. If you like open world adventure then this is something that you don't wanna miss with great graphics, catchy story line and unlimited potential for mods that keep coming in and out every now and then on the web. Our settings are as follows with very high quality, 16xAF, 2xMSAA and FXAA enabled.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is an action-adventure first-person shooter video game developed by Machine Games and published by Bethesda Softworks. Not only doe it put you in the shoes of a futuristic armored suit, yey suits are back, but also gives you the ability to mow down everyone with all guns blazing! The game is well optimized but beats down upon the graphics card at all settings cranked up resulting in high power draw and heat generation.

The Evil Within 2

The Evil Within 2 is a third-person survival horror video game developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Softworks for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. I personally love playing this game these days in dark room specifically, your preferences might be otherwise. Great gameplay and a well optimized graphical engine make sit a treat for the gamer aswell as for their graphics cad.

Noise & Temperature 

The fans on the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Edition don't spin till the card hits 55°C or more. We recorded the maximum temperature in Celsius that our card hit during extensive gaming & sound was measured in decibels from a distance of 3 feet. This was performed for both stock and overclocked speeds.

My Verdict 

The GTX 1080 Ti from Nvidia in itself is a winner no doubt with little to no cons but the Asus ROG STRIX GTX 1080 Ti OC Edition takes it a notch further with its plethora of technical and physical features. Talking about aesthetics the card is absolutely beautiful & elegant with its all black shroud and immaculate implementation of RGB LEDs which is neither too less nor is a Christmas tree! This makes it suitable for almost all builds where you wan tto show off your card using a riser cable or just simply put it fans down and flaunt the huge ROG eye logo at the back.
Asus has done a great job by changing the DirectCU cooler and using the new one as it surely does what its meant to do that is keeping the card cool even under extensive loads without generating unnecessary noises provided you have a good air flow in your case since the GTX 1080 Tis generate a lot of heat under load. Its raw gaming performance is unmatched especially in the UHD domain from what I've heard and seen in other reviews, sadly I couldn't test it on such high resolutions.
Overclocking wise the card is not a slouch either and yields some impressive results with minor tweaks. This is all thanks to the 10+2 phase power delivery system that it uses along with the dual 8-pin power connectors which give it enough headroom to do so.
Pros - 

• Looks great
• Exceptional performance 
• Overclocks well
• Runs cool under load
• Quiet cooling solution

Cons - 

• A bit expensive

I give it a 9/10 earning our Gold Award!