We stopped by Gigabyte’s (TPE: 2376) suite at CES 2015 and got the low down on its latest and greatest products.

The company had a lot of nice systems featuring its products that were built by companies like Digital Storm, Origin, Cyberpower PC, and Cybertron PC.  There were many of its current offerings on display as well as some of the new ones like the company’s newest addition to the Brix lineup, the Brix S Broadwell.  The Brix S Broadwell features Broadwell CPUs that make the unit extremely power efficient. The brand new X99 SOC Champion features an OC socket for the CPU that allows the board to really push the NB/cache/uncore frequencies, thus delivering blistering memory and system performance.  The Asus Rampage V Extreme sure better watch out since this board is also  a cache/uncore/NB overclocking beast, and it only costs $300.

We will be following up with more insight into some of the products that Gigabyte had to show at CES 2015 in the coming days.  We will also have some pictures of the Extreme Overclocking event that it held as well.

Brix s Broadwell and the X99 SOC Champion

The Gigabyte GA-X99M-Gaming 5

The Gigabyte Brix lineup

An absolutely stunning custom build featuring an Enermax chassis and Gigabyte parts

14″ P34W Notebook

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After Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 980 based on the company’s latest Maxwell architecture, it was merely a matter of time until they also allowed Maxwell to trickle down into gaming laptops. This obviously brought about the announcement of today’s GTX 980M and GTX 970M mobile gaming GPUs. Do keep in mind, that Maxwell was actually first introduced in the GTX 800M series, but only in the low-end and midrange while the high-end remained Kepler-based (GTX 880M).

The added efficiency of the GTX 900 series does in fact mean that this new crop of mobile GPUs in laptops will get not only deliver significantly better performance but also better battery life. While we haven’t quite yet had a chance to test any of the new Maxwell-based GTX 900M series GPUs, but it is worth noting that the GTX 980 desktop GPU improved performance by about 100% over the previous generation and at the same time reduced power by 20%. So, when we look at these new GTX 980M and GTX 970M there are a lot of pretty amazing expectations for these new GPUs. As a result, Nvidia is slowly closing the gap between desktop and mobile GPU performance t the point where the GTX 980M is around 80% the performance of its desktop counterpart.

Nvidia has also baked in a lot of awesome mobile gaming features into the GTX 980M and GTX 970M. One of the most important features of these new GTX 900M series GPUs has to be the ability to increase gaming battery life while on battery and to not automatically throttle down the GPU to the point of being unplayable on battery. Not just that, but they also have the ability to do essentially all of the things that the desktop GPUs can do, which include the Shadowplay, Game Stream, DSR and MFAA. MFAA allows for a higher quality image at essentially no performance penalty, allowing gamers to run games at higher settings without taking the performance or battery life hits they would normally expect.

Most gamers want performance improvements, and those are coming too, just like they did in the desktop GPU. Most GTX 980M and GTX 970M laptops will see approximately 100% better performance than their Kepler-based counterparts. In mobile, this is huge because now Nvidia can implement frame rate targets to improve battery life and give you the same or better gaming experience at possibly double the battery life.

Unsurprisingly, a multitude of new laptops were announced today in conjunction with the new GTX 980M and GTX 970M GPUs. Some of the most notable vendors include ASUS, MSI, Maingear, Origin PC, Digital Storm, Gigabyte and Clevo. I would also very likely expect to see a new Razer Blade based upon these new GPUs, but nothing has been announced quite yet. They will probably save that for the 2015 Razer Blade, which may give prospective buyers of the Razer blade a reason to wait for the 2015 model.

EVO15-S-09S

Above is Origin’s EVO 15-S with the GTX 970M inside.

Origin PC Eon15-s-v3

Here you also have the Origin PC EON15-S  with the GTX 980M

MSI GT72 with GTX 980M

Above we have the MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro with the GTX 980M as well.

Last but not least is Maingear’s Nomad 17 gaming notebook.

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Digital Storm has launched the Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition –  a Bolt II small form factor system designed specifically to meet Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Battle Box grade gaming standard.

Rather than just upgrade the components in an existing system, Digital Storm redesigned the Bolt II to house the company’s new Hardline Cooling System. The custom liquid cooling components include a 240mm radiator, pump, and acrylic tubing that delivers vibrant yellow coolant to key components in the Bolt II’s tiny chassis.

“Nvidia launched the GTX Battle Box Program to allow gamers to play AAA, combat-focused games at max settings and super high resolutions. But gaming in 4K requires much more than simply upgrading components.  Our Hardline Cooling System allows gamers to unlock the Bolt II’s full potential and experience games in ways they never thought possible,” Harjit Chana, Chief Brand Officer, said in a statement.

The Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition is priced at just under $5,000. This is actually a fairly low price point considering the heavy duty and high performing components inside.  The new system features an overclocked Intel Core i7 4790K processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Z 12GB graphics card, 16GB DDR3 memory, and a 700W power supply.

The base specs are:

• Intel Core i7 4790K CPU
• 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory
• Nvidia GTX TITAN Z 12GB
• Hardline: Digital Storm Acrylic Tubing Custom Cooling System (CPU Only)
• 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
• 1TB 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda HDD
• Asus MAXIMUS VI IMPACT (Intel Z87 Chipset) (Mini-ITX) Motherboard
• 700W Digital Storm Bolt II Edition PSU
• Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer
• Microsoft Windows 8.1

It also has a base overclock from 4.0 GHz to 4.4 GHz on the CPU.

The Bolt II Battle Box can be purchased here.

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Digital Storm recently unveiled the VELOX enthusiast-level gaming PC.  The system uses a custom chassis designed to showcase components and maximize airflow. The VELOX is a mid-sized system designed to sit between the small form factor BOLT II and the huge AVENTUM II PCs.

Like the other models, the VELOX features forged steel and exotic cooling elements that are standard on Digital Storm PCs, as well as vented panels designed to maximize airflow. It uses Digital Storm’s new Hardline H2O cooling solution, as well as the company’s proprietary Hydrolux control software which includes detailed temperature graphs, thermal linked LED lighting and automated airflow optimization.

“VELOX completes our enthusiast level offering. We leveraged our experiences with AVENTUM II and BOLT II to create a unique mid-size system gamers are sure to love.”

-Harjit Chana, Chief Brand Officer

The VELOX starts at a base price of $2,108 and is available exclusively at Digital Storm’s VELOX page.

The base specs (Level 1, Good) consist of:

• Intel Core i5 4690K CPU
• 8GB 1600MHz Memory
• NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB
• 120mm CPU Liquid Cooling
• 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
• 1TB 7200RPM Storage HDD
• ASUS Z97 Chipset Motherboard
• 750W Corsair CX PSU
• DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW
• Microsoft Windows 8.1

The highest end default configuration specs (Level 4, Ultimate) consist of:

• Intel Core i7 4930K CPU
• 16GB 1866MHz Memory
• NVIDIA GTX TITAN Black 6GB
• 240mm CPU Liquid Cooling
• 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD
• 1TB 7200RPM Storage HDD
• ASUS X79 Chipset Motherboard
• 850W EVGA SuperNOVA PSU
• DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW
• Microsoft Windows 8.1

The specifications can be further customized and upgraded as is typical for Digital Storm PCs, the options can be viewed at their VELOX configuration page here.

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