Corsair had on display a lot of the usual stuff that we are all already familiar with, but it did have some new additions.

It will be selling a new DDR4 3400 kit that is a limited release via its web store, as it has done with a lot of other limited run high bin RAM sets before.  There was a Carbide 100R Silent case that looks great for those who are needing a quiet case and want to spend their money wisely, as for the features the price of $59 is a really good one.  There was also the new H110i GT liquid cooler for a CPU and a HG10 N780 Edition GPU cooling bracket in display systems showing off just how good the cooling performance was.  The HG10 looks like an ideal situation for the Nvidia GTX 770, 780, 780 Ti, Titan, and Titan Black owners who want a way to cool their cards more efficiently.

Stay tuned as we will have more on what we think about what we saw at Corsair in the coming days.

THe Carbide 100R Silent mid-tower PC chassis looks to be a real winner at the $59 price point given by Corsair

The post Take A Look At The Corsair Suite at CES 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Asus (TPE:2357) today announced the company’s new flagship graphics card with a single GPU: the GTX 980 Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix Platinum.  The custom designed card comes with a massive boost clock of 1342 MHz, and is cooled by a custom air cooler fed by 10mm heat pipes.

This is its third custom designed GTX 980, as the Poseidon and Strix OC versions have been out for a while now.  The card comes factory overclocked with a massive boost clock of 1342 MHz, although the base clock was not disclosed the memory has been left at the standard clock speed of 7 GHz.  The custom PCB has a 14 phase VRM to provide the card with stable power, and it requires two 8-pin PCI-E to power the card.  A unique feature meant for the most extreme users are the resistive traces in the PCB to keep the card warm enough to prevent frost when the card is used under LN2 (liquid nitrogen) cooling.

The cooling is taken care of by a custom air cooler with a high density fin-stack heatsink fed by 10mm thick heat pipes.  The two Asus designed fans that cool the heatsink are CoolTech hybrid fans that are designed to force air not only down but to the sides, essentially pushing air in an 180 degree arc.  The heatsink has been nicely finished in black, making the overall aesthetic much nicer.  Users will also appreciate that the card comes with a back-plate and a brace for the card which should help to prevent sagging.  Back-plates have been a noticeable addition to cards that consumers are getting more concerned about.  It not only can make the graphics cards much nicer when inside a windowed case but at times they can help with a bit of cooling if there are components on the back of the card.

The post Asus Introduces The GTX 980 ROG Matrix Platinum appeared first on VR World.

Galax has brought out its own addition to add to the growing lineup of small form factor GTX 970s.  The new GTX 970 Black Edition is only 19cm long and packs as much power as a standard sized GTX 970.

Today Galax (aka Galaxy) announced a brand new videocard in its GTX 970 lineup, the GTX 970 Black Edition.  The card is meant to be a small form factor that will be compact enough to fit in many small form factor(SSF) cases.  The card is only 19cm long and has a very nice custom cooler employing twin 80mm fans sitting atop a aluminum fins fed by three heat-pipes.  The card come factory overclocked with a base clock of 1126MHz and a boost clock of 1266MHz.  Galax decided to leave the memory alone as it is running the standard 7GHz memory clock.  The card will be available very shortly for about €320 from a variety of retailers and etailers.

The Nvidia GTX 970 is currently the “it” card of the moment as it is quite frankly the model that provides the best price to performance ratio.  The GTX 970s have been in a constant state of in-stock and out of stock from various sellers due to the popularity.  This has created a lot of frustration for consumers who are wanting to upgrade only to find that it is constantly out of stock, and it becomes a game of check the store for availability.  The fact is that these cards are so powerful and so energy efficient that to be able to build a small form factor build with one of these new cards would be just as powerful as a full sized system.  The small form factor builds are becoming increasingly popular amount enthusiast and with the Intel X99 motherboards coming out in mATX sizes users can now create powerful rigs that take only a fraction of the space as they used to while being more powerful.

The post Galax Brings Out The New GTX 970 Black Edition appeared first on VR World.

With the holidays approaching fast and the sales that come with it many people will be getting new notebooks this holiday season.  Researching what the best notebooks out there are takes time and we though we could help out by giving you our choices in five different categories of notebooks.  They are gaming, ultraportable, Chromebook, business, and Apple MacBook.  With the latest computer parts in these notebooks it will be certain that they will be able to earn there keep for quite some time.  There are many things to consider when looking for a notebook and budget is a big one.  Most of these choices are going to be in the higher end range since they perform better.

Gaming Notebook: MSI Computer GT72  Dominator Pro with GTX 980M – $2,299

This gaming notebook is the top of the line from MSI, and it does not disappoint.  Equipped with Intel i7-4710HQ, 16GB of DDR3-1600, a 128GB SSD, and a Nvidia GTX 980M 8GB, this will tear through any recent and upcoming game.  The best thing about the GT72 Dominator Pro is that MSI has taken steps to ensure that you can update the graphics down the line when new and better GPUs come out.  This means that the investment made in this computer will last a lot longer than comparable notebooks that are stuck with their graphics for the life of the product. If you are wanting some more speed from the notebook then throw in four identical M.2 SSDs inside and put them in RAID 0 for read/write speeds of up to 1600MB/s.  From experience with MSI’s SuperRAID as it is called I can attest to how massive of an improvement that speeds like this can be, it makes using the notebook just so much more enjoyable.  You can even attach three monitors to the notebook with two mini-displayport and one HDMI outputs.  The keyboard feels like no other notebook keyboard and is made by the gaming company SteelSeries. Bottom line is that if this is in your budget and you are a gamer or even a power user, I have little doubt that you will love this notebook.

Apple Notebook: 15″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pro with Retina display – $2,374.99

There is no denying it, Apple makes good notebooks and they are arguably the best notebooks for running Windows on as well.  The Retina display will allow for better multi-tasking with various windows as the resolution gives lots of screen real estate.  The Retina display will be great for those who edit photos or video as the display will reproduce colors very well. The construction of the MacBook Pro is amazing and the fit and finish are things that other companies could learn a thing or two from.  The choice with the 2.5GHz Intel i7 was made for what would be the most capable and powerful option with a reasonable price.  At Apple you can customize the MacBook Pro with up to a 1TB SSD and a 2.8GHz Intel i7.

Ultraportable Notebook: Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro – $1,382.99

The 2-in-1 Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is the latest model in the Yoga line and features an amazing watchband style hinge.  The hinge is made up of hundreds of individual pieces that allows the notebook to flex like no other and fold to use it in different positions.  The screen is a high resolution (3200×1800) IPS touchscreen that will reproduce colors very well and look much better than lower quality panels.  If needing something very light, portable, and a long battery life then this notebook should be on your list of ones to check out.  The stylish Yoga 3 Pro is one of the most stunning designs out now and is powered by the brand new Intel Core M processor.

 Chromebook – Toshiba Chromebook 2 1080p $329.99

Chromebooks are a new breed of notebook, and people are really loving them.  Chromebooks generally are affordable, light, and have long battery life making it an easy choice for those who need something portable.  The best thing about this model is likely the 1080p IPS panel that will look much better than panels that are in other models.  Powering the notebook is an Intel Celeron processor, and while not very powerful it will get the job done and sip power giving longer battery life.  The battery should be good for up to 8 hours and 45 minutes.  The audio has been fine-tuned by Skullcandy meaning that it should deliver much nicer sound than the standard Chromebook.  This will be useful if you enjoy listening to streaming music while you surf the web or do work.  The 802.11ac Wi-Fi is blazing fast and will allow you to get better coverage over other Chromebooks.

Business Notebook: Lenovo X1 Carbon – $1,619

When looking for a business notebook it is wise to choose something that is portable and light so you can easily get work done no matter where you are working.  The X1 Carbon also offers great battery life allowing up to 9 hours from a single charge.  Lenovo is the the most used PC maker for businesses and they sure do know what they are doing with its lineup that is geared for productivity.  The keyboard is surprisingly good and has back-lighting making it easier to get work done while on that red-eye to an important meeting or at home in the evening.  The integrated fingerprint reader should help simplify secure login by allowing you to simply swipe a finger over it.  When it comes to a business notebook, choosing Lenovo is a wise choice that millions have made before.

The post Top Five Notebooks of 2014 appeared first on VR World.

MSI just announced that they are making a special limited edition version of the Nvidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G, with with an all copper heatsink and heatpipes.  MSI calls it the Golden Edition and it is available in the US exclusively through Newegg.com.

MSI (TPE:2377) has released the Nvidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G Golden Edition and is available in limited quantities in the US and APAC regions. The sole retailer in the US is Newegg.com where the card is currently in stock and available for $399.99.  This means it is commanding a $50 premium over the standard 970 Gaming 4G that goes out of stock as soon as they replenish the inventory. Nvidia GTX 970 is sure the hot item in the industry this last month or so and that is rightfully so since the card is a great buy in the mid $300 range and it performs like a champion.  Not to mention that with these cards users have huge overclocking potential, making their money go farther in terms of performance.  Speaking of performance this new Golden Edition also comes with a base clock of 1165MHz and a boost clock of 1317MHz and opposed the the standard Gaming 4G’s 1140/1279.  But really with a full copper Twin Frozr V cooler this card should be able to run much higher while staying safe and cool.  The cooler is less than two slots wide and should be ideal for use in multi-card SLI setups.  To top things off the heatsink has been treated to prevent any tarnish on the beautiful finish.

This new Golden Edition follows in the footsteps of the N465GTX Twin Frozr II Golden Edition.  In 2010 MSI released a special limited release of GTX 465 GPUs with all copper heatsinks and heatpipes.  In 2010 they were a big hit and owners soon found out that they could flash them to a GTX 470.  Here in the US, MSI cards are the preferred brand for those who like to modify the cooling by replacing the thermal interface material or using a watercooling block.  The US office is pretty nice about letting people do this as long as users do not physically damage the card in any way.

The post MSI Announces The GTX 970 Gaming 4G Golden Edition appeared first on VR World.

Today was a day of good news for all Nvidia Shield Tablet owners and potential owners.  Nvidia announced today that the Lollipop 5.0 update and the new GRID gaming service are coming to the Shield Tablet in an update on November 18th.  Nvidia Also confirmed that the Green Box they teased yesterday is in fact Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode One, and Portal.

Today via the Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) blog the company let people know about the upcoming capabilities and content they have made for its Shield Tablet.  The news of the Lollipop 5.0 update that we have known for a while was confirmed to be scheduled for release on November 18th.  The update brings Android’s new material design and performance benefits.  The update will also have an update for the popular Nvidia Dabbler application that has updates in the user interface, full support for layers, and interestingly the ability to stream the app via Twitch (which the tablet already supports for games).  The blog also confirmed that Half-Life Episode One is coming to Android, and it has been optimized for the Nvidia Shield Tablet.  This game will be part of the new Green Box bundle that will be included free with the 32GB/LTE version of the Shield Tablet.  Also confirmed were new games that are optimized for the Shield Tablet.  These games are OddWorld: Stranger’s Wrath, Pure Pool, Strike Suit Zero, and Turbo Dismount.

The biggest surprise was the announcement of the long in-beta GRID gaming service.  This will harnesses state-of-the-art Nvidia GPU servers to deliver a GeForce GTX gaming experience on SHIELD devices.  The lineup already includes 20 AAA game titles including Batman: Arkham City, Borderlands 2, and Psychonauts.  The service will be adding new titles every week.  Essentially this will be like Netflix for games that users can stream right to the Shield devices to play.  But the best part is that the GRID service will be free on Shield devices (both the tablet and the portable) through June 30, 2015.  This is great that Nvidia is giving users more than 7 months of the gaming service free for owners who have already bought devices. This will help make up for the fact that the Green Box is only available with new purchases of the 32GB/LTE tablet and will possibly encourage people to buy SHIELD devices if they weren’t already planning to.

The post Christmas Comes Early For Shield Tablet Owners appeared first on VR World.

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.

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. This announcement was made in conjunction with the NDA expiry of the GTX 980 reviews, including our very own review of the GeForce GTX 980.

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:

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.

This post originally appeared on VR World, Bright Side of News*’ sister site covering the Asia Pacific

The post NZXT Kraken G10 GPU Bracket Provides A Great Cooling Solution 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.

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.

The post Digital Storm Launches Bolt II Battle Box Titan Z Special Edition appeared first on VR World.

Today at Computex 2014, Corsair released a variety of new products.

First up are the Cherry MX RGB Gaming Keyboards, the first mechanical keyboards to utilize the Cherry MX RGB switches that allow for different lighting. They’ll be available as the K70 RGB and K95 RGB.

Also launched is the M65 RGB mouse, a gaming mouse that provides three zone 16.8 million color backlighting.

The K95 RGB will have an MSRP of $189.99, the K70 RGB will be $169.99, and the M65 RGB will be $69.99.

Next up is Corsair’s new Hydro Series HG10 GPU cooling bracket. The cooling bracket will replace the reference cooler on a GPU and allow the user to hook up a Corsair Hydro Series liquid CPU cooler to the GPU. It will be available for $39.99, and will have several editions designed for specific graphics cards.

Also, Corsair showed off three new PC chassis.

The Carbide Series Air 240 is a Mini-ITX and Micro ATX chassis, which will ship in August at a list price of $89.99 to $99.99.

The Graphite Series 780T is a Full-Tower chassis, which will ship in September at a list price of $179.99 to $189.99.

The Graphite Series 380T is a Mini-ITX portable chassis, which will ship in August at a list price of $129.99.

In addition, Corsair announced the Voyager Air 2 Wireless Drive. The Voyager Air 2 wirelessly adds 1 TB of storage to Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac OS X devices. It utilizes the Voyager Air 2.0 software that adds new features such as support for simplified media browsing, cloud sync with Dropbox and Google Drive, and Airplay streaming for Apple TV. It can also be plugged into a USB 3.0 port for faster access. It will be available starting in June for $179.99.

Corsair also announced the Flash Voyager GTX USB 3.0 flash drive in 256 GB and 128 GB configurations. The Flash Voyager GTX uses SSD technologies with TRIM support for up to 450 MB/s reads and 350 MB/s writes. It will retail at $199.99 for the 256 GB version, and $119.99 for the 128 GB version.

Finally, Corsair launched the new HXi series PSU line. The HXi PSUs will be fully modular, they will have 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency, meaning they can achieve greater than 92% energy efficiency. The HXi PSUs will be available starting in August, and prices are as follows: HX750i 750 watt: $169.99, HX850i 850 watt: $189.99, and the HX1000i 1000 watt: $229.99.

The post Corsair Launches Variety of New Products at Computex 2014 appeared first on VR World.