This past Thursday (September 18^th), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) hosted its GAME24 event from Hangar 8 at the Santa Monica Airport in Los Angeles. The event was billed as a “celebration of PC gaming”, and it certainly was. However, the main event was no secret to those in the press – the release of the new top end Maxwell GPUs: GTX 980 and GTX 970.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang soon took the stage to welcome the attendees and to present Maxwell and the new technologies that come with it.

Maxwell has a variety of improvements over the previous generation of GPU technology. Memory consumption has been drastically reduced, using approximately 25% less memory bandwidth on the games Nvidia tested with when comparing the GTX 980 to GTX 680.

Energy efficiency was also improved, with Nvidia boasting a 2x improvement in efficiency (measured in performance per watt as determined by frames per second).

Two interesting new software features are DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) and MFAA.

DSR is designed to be used with games that are already running at maximum visual settings and are still getting extremely high framerates. DSR uses the extra GPU horsepower to render the frames at 4K resolution and downscale them to the monitor’s native resolution, resulting in improved visual fidelity.

MFAA is a different type of anti-aliasing designed to provide higher levels of AA at a lower performance cost. Nvidia stated it as “4x MSAA Quality at 2x AA Performance”. That’s not entirely accurate as the number was compared to 4x MSAA on a GTX 680 vs 4x MFAA on a GTX 980. As seen in the slide below, going from 4x MSAA to 4x MFAA on a GTX 980 provides an increase of approximately 27%, going from 41 FPS to 52 FPS. Nevertheless, the improvement is still impressive.

Nvidia also significantly improved input lag time for the purpose of VR displays, making Oculus Rift a much more attractive product.

VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) is a low-cost (in terms of performance) lighting technology. The results looked very good and ran in real-time. They also demonstrated a debunking of the moon landing conspiracy using VXGI lighting effects to simulate the images of the moon landing.

At the end of the presentation, the GTX 980 was launched at an MSRP of $549 and the GTX 970 at an MSRP of $329. (Check out the GTX 980 review here)

After the presentation, there was more food and drinks, as well as a variety of stations set up to try out Nvidia’s tech.

Stations included the following: three display 4K surround, Nvidia Shield gaming stations, G-Sync enabled 4K gaming stations, and most impressively – Oculus Rift testing stations utilizing Nvidia’s new input lag-reducing tech.

The Oculus Rift one was definitely the most impressive of all the demos on display. Even those prone to motion sickness have no problem enjoying games with the headset. The experience was totally immersing and very smooth. The immersion was so complete that people around me took the opportunity to take amusing photos.

Nvidia also did a massive giveaway, giving away a total of approximately 45 products. Considering the crowd appeared to be about 300 people, the opportunities to win were quite good. Even more appealing was the fact that the giveaways consisted solely of GTX 980 and 970 GPUs, 4K monitors from ASUS and Acer, and Nvidia Shield and Shield tablets. Each attendee also received free game codes for Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew. Considering the event was open for free public registration, the event was definitely worth attending.

Prior to the start of the event there was a hands-on preview of Zotac’s new GTX 980 and 970 offerings. Both product releases here and here, so we won’t go into too much detail here, but pictures of some of the new cards are below:

This post originally appeared on Bright Side of News*, VR World’s sister site.

The post Nvidia Game24 Event: The Launch of GTX 980 and GTX 970 appeared first on VR World.

NZXT’s Kraken G10 GPU bracket is somewhat of a unique product. The only similar product appears to be Corsair’s HG10, but that has yet to hit the market despite a soft-launch back in June 2014. The Kraken G10 GPU bracket is designed to replace a GPU’s stock cooler, and allow it to be fitted with a closed-loop liquid cooling system.

The compatibility of NZXT’s solution is impressive, supporting a variety of graphics cards and liquid coolers. The current compatibility options are listed below in the specifications:

• Model Number: RL-KRG10-W1 (White), RL-KRG10-B1 (Black), RL-KRG10-R1 (Red), RL-KRG10-U1 (Blue)
• Dimensions: 177 (W) x 32.5 (H) x 110.6 (D) mm
• Fan Bearing: Sleeve
• Fan Connector: 3-Pin
• Compatibility: Nvidia : GTX 780 Ti, 780, 770, 760, Titan, 680, 670, 660Ti, 660, 580, 570, 560Ti, 560, 560SE — AMD : R9 290X*, 290*, 280X**, 280**, 270X, 270 HD7970**, 7950**, 7870, 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, 6790, 6770, 5870, 5850, 5830 — The compatibility list is based on AMD Radeon and NVIDIA’s reference board layout, screw spacing and die height only. Please check the height restriction before purchase. — *Some variation in die thickness and height may cause issues with screws being too short to install on some AMD 290-based cards. — *Do NOT force the G10 to fit if your card is too thick, contact support for a revised screw set. — ** Some variations in AMD die height may require the use of a shim.

• Compatibility: NZXT : Kraken X61, Kraken X41, Kraken X31, Kraken X60, Kraken X40 — Corsair : H105, H110, H90, H75, H55 , H50 (CW-9060006-WW only) — Antec : KUHLER H2O 920V4, KUHLER H2O 620V4, KUHLER H2O 920, KUHLER H2O 620 — Thermaltake : Water 3.0 Extreme, Water 3.0 Pro, Water 3.0 Performer, Water 2.0 Extreme, Water 2.0 Pro, Water 2.0 Performer — Zalman : LQ-320, LQ-315, LQ-310

• Fan Dimensions: 92 (W) x 92 (H) x 25 (D) mm
• Fan Input Power: 16W
• Fan Current: 18A
• Fan Speed: 1500 ± 10% R.P.M.
• Fan Voltage: 12V DC
• Warranty: 2 Years

In the box of the Kraken G10, along with the cooling bracket came a fan, a set of screws, and an instruction manual.

The Kraken G10 being reviewed today is the white version of the bracket. In addition, NZXT provided a Kraken X40 liquid cooler to pair with the G10. A big thanks to Nvidia as well for providing a GTX Titan for the purpose of this review.

Here are the specifications of the PC used for testing the G10:

• CPU – Intel i7-3820, with Corsair H100 Liquid Cooler
• GPU – Nvidia GTX Titan, with NZXT G10 Bracket with NZXT Kraken X40 Liquid Cooler
• RAM – Kingston HyperX 10th Anniversary Edition 16GB (4x4GB) 2400MHz DDR3
• Motherboard – Gigabyte X79-UD7
• PSU – Corsair AX1200i 1200W 80 Plus Platinum
• SSD – 2x 120GB Kingston HyperX SATA3 in RAID 0
• HDD – 4x 4TB Western Digital RE Enterprise in RAID 10
• Chassis – Corsair 800D
• Disk Drive – LG Black Blu-ray Burner

The installation of the bracket was a bit time consuming, but part of that was due to unfamiliarity with the product and procedure.

The process began with removing the stock cooler from the GTX Titan, which was a fairly simple operation. All that was required was unscrewing a few screws and unplugging the stock cooler’s fan.

Cleaning the thermal paste off of the GPU was fairly straightforward, the process is the same as it would be for a CPU: some rubbing alcohol or thermal paste remover and some cotton swabs do the trick. Just be sure whatever you use to remove the thermal paste is a non-abrasive material, as even tiny invisible scratches to the surface can cause damage and performance issues.

Next, the G10’s fan was screwed onto the bracket, while making sure the fan’s orientation would have it blow cool air onto the GPU.

Once that was done, the backplate was assembled and the long screws were attached to the bottom of the GPU. The tricky and time consuming part was the next step: Attaching the liquid cooler to the G10 bracket, and trying to lower the bracket onto the card while lining up the screws. This step was just a matter of getting the long screws to go through the correct adapter holes on the bracket while making sure the liquid cooler didn’t drop out of place. Having a second person for this part would have made things easier, but it can definitely be done by just one person.

Once the cooler was attached to the GPU, it was ready to be mounted in the chassis. This is the part that prospective buyers definitely need to consider, as the chassis will need space for the liquid cooler, and the liquid cooler’s hoses will have to reach whatever the desired mounting point is.

The test rig was already running a dual rad liquid cooler on the CPU – the Corsair H110. The Kraken X40 dual rad liquid cooler used for the GPU needed a place of its own. Since the PC was built into the extremely large Corsair 800D chassis, there was a lot of space, but the downside was that the Kraken X40’s hoses were only so long.

The Corsair H110 was mounted to the top of the case, so the optimal solution was determined to be to attach the Kraken X40 to the back of the chassis.

Determining where and how to mount the second liquid cooler was the second most difficult process as there was some concern as to how the hoses and cables would reach, and if anything would be blocking or be blocked by the cooler.

Thankfully, once the liquid cooler and graphics card were situated, it was smooth sailing. It was time to power up the system and see how the liquid cooled GTX Titan would perform against its previously stock-cooled self.

To benchmark the GPU, it was tested at both idle as well as full load.

To run the GPU at full load, Furmark was run at 1920×1080 with 8x MSAA.

The results are incredibly impressive. Even at idle, there’s an 18 degree Celsius difference between the water cooled and air cooled GTX Titan. At load, the difference becomes even more marked– the temperature difference is 33 degrees C, and the fan speed drops from the air-cooled GPU’s 56% to 33%. The fan speed of the liquid cooled GTX Titan at load is almost the same as the card on idle for both air and liquid cooling– 33% vs 30%.

Clearly having the graphics card on liquid cooling makes a massive difference in temperature. This allows for more overclocking and prevents throttling caused by high temperatures.

At a price of $29.99, the NZXT Kraken G10 is extremely affordable. A compatible single rad liquid cooler can be found for as low as $65 (if not lower in some cases), making this a GPU liquid cooling solution for under $100. Considering the alternative is an expensive liquid cooling solution requiring a variety of different components, the Kraken G10 provides a very attractive option.

Liquid cooling a graphics card is no longer the expensive and difficult task it used to be, and that’s thanks to the NZXT Kraken G10, which provides excellent performance at a great price.

The post NZXT Kraken G10 GPU Bracket Provides A Great Cooling Solution appeared first on VR World.

HyperX, (a division of Kingston) recently released its new series of flash drives, the HyperX Fury USB 3.0 Flash Drive line. The flash drives are designed to appeal to budget-conscious gamers and enthusiasts, while providing solid performance. This review will be taking a look at the 64 GB version of the drive (model number HXF30/64GB).

The Fury drive feels solid in the hand. It has a lanyard loop on the back to attach to a lanyard or keychain. It also has a cap, as opposed to utilizing a slider to protect the USB plug. The cap can snap onto the back of the flash drive when the drive is in use to help prevent the user from losing the cap. It is this reviewers opinion that it would be better if USB drive caps had some sort of attachment to the body of the drive, in case the cap were to accidentally fall off the top of the bottom of the drive. However, in the case of the Fury, the cap appears to attach solidly to both the USB plug as well as the back (though not quite as securely on the back).

In order to test the Fury’s performance, two benchmarks were run: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark and CrystalDiskMark. The tests were run both while the drive was plugged into a USB 3.0 port as well as a USB 2.0 port. It should also be noted that the chipset used for the benchmarks was an Intel X79 board, which does not support native USB 3.0. It is possible that speeds would be slightly better in a USB 3.0 port on a newer chipset.

First up are the CrystalDiskMark results:

The Fury managed a sequential read speed of 186.8 MB/s and a sequential write speed of 144.0 MB/s while plugged into the USB 3.0 port. Both of these numbers far exceed the expectations of the listed specifications for the drive, but it is expected that the drive will lose some speed after some usage. Also, since most typical usage of a flash drive is not simply sequential reads and writes, the speeds will be diminished in general use cases.

In the USB 2.0 port, the drive had a sequential read speed of 34.50 MB/s and a sequential write speed of 30.26 MB/s. These numbers show that the limiting factor here was clearly the USB 2.0 specification, and those are approximately the speeds a user can expect from any drive running on USB 2.0 that would otherwise have higher speeds.

Next up are the AIDA64 Disk Benchmark results:

In the USB 3.0 port, the Fury 64 GB USB drive performed admirably, putting out linear reads of approximately 177 MB/s and a random read of just under 190 MB/s. It also had an average read access time of 0.81 ms, which is quite impressive.

The Fury plugged into the USB 2.0 port again performed as expected, with linear read speeds almost exactly 33 MB/s and a random read speed of 33.5 MB/s. The average read access time also took a hit in the USB 2.0 port, coming in at 1.22 ms, a 50% increase.

The HyperX Fury USB 3.0 64 GB flash drive currently retails at a price of $49.99. Other 64 GB USB 3.0 flash drives can be purchased online for as cheap as $25, but that does not mean the Fury is not worth it. Attributes to consider other than price include durability, warranty, reliability, fit and finish, and performance. Even though Kingston itself has other 64 GB USB 3.0 flash drives available for approximately $30, those tend to have a target audience of general consumers, whereas the Fury is marketed towards gamers and enthusiasts.

The drive itself is clearly nicer and more aggressive in appearance than a typical consumer flash drive. Also, as stated earlier, the drive itself feels very well made and sturdy. It also has solid performance, far exceeding its listed specifications. However, considering there are so many options available at under the $50 price point, it makes it difficult to suggest the difference in price is worth it for the Fury 64 GB USB 3.0 drive. Time will tell as the drive gets used, and its reliability will be tested. Also, the drive will eventually start to drop in price.

Considering the drive individually, it’s a solid product with great performance and this reviewer would highly recommend it. For those wanting to save more money, they can easily find some cheaper drives that may share similar performance and specifications.

The post Kingston’s Fury USB Drive: A Solid, Robust Storage Solution appeared first on VR World.