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

The post A Peek Inside Gigabyte’s Suite at CES 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Fractal, a Swedish computer hardware company just released a new set of Kelvin liquid CPU coolers.

The new Kelvin design has many great features including an expandable loop design, a dedicated fill port, standard G 1/4″ fittings, and a high pressure pump.  The Kelvin liquid CPU coolers are available in 120mm, 240mm, and 360mm radiator versions.

If users want to even upgrade the fittings they can do that because of the usage of industry standard design.  This means that you can add into the loop a GPU block or another radiator, or even a combination.

Fractal has made sure that the pump is more than capable of handling the loop with the inclusion of a ceramic high pressure pump.  The block and pump combination has a fillport on the side for easily filling of the loop after it has been upgraded.  The mounting supports all modern CPU sockets making it easy to swap this loop to another system in the future.

The Kelvin has a full copper CPU waterblock with strategic jet improvements, and the radiator is also a full copper design.  The usage of both full copper block and radiator will help to lower the galvanic corrosion potential over time, as it can increase with using different metals in the same loop.  The Kelvin liquid CPU coolers will indeed be a good option when shopping around for closed loop systems, that are currently a majority of Asetek re-branded units.

The post Fractal Releases A Trio Of Kelvin Liquid CPU Coolers appeared first on VR World.

Swiftech H240-X all-in-one liquid cooling kit is now available to purchase.  The H240-X builds on the award winning H220-X with a dual 140mm radiator.

Quality enthusiast components like the Apogee XL are integrated into the ready to use kit

The Swiftech H240-X is now available for immediate purchase from the Swiftech store.  The H240-X is  liquid cooling that is ready to use and incorporates a dual 140mm radiator, MCP30 pump, and Swiftech’s Apogee XL waterblock.  All the components used to make the system are enthusiast grade parts and have been used in many custom water cooling setups.  The larger dual 140mm copper radiator and fans will allow for improved cooling ability while keeping noise.  Larger fans can move a comparable amount of air as smaller fans at a much lower RPM, thus reducing sound output is possible.

Key Features

For casual users:

• Kit is shipped factory pre-filled, ready for plug-and-play installation, and it is maintenance free during its warranty period.
• Both Swiftech’s powerful MCP30 pump and high-pressure Helix fans are PWM compliant devices, allowing the H240-X to be recognized and speed-controlled by the motherboard depending on CPU temperature, just like a regular cooling fan.
• The system also includes a PWM splitter allowing connection of up to 8 PWM devices which can then be controlled as one by the motherboard.
• Includes a clear and user-friendly pictorial installation guide, it could not be easier to install and setup!

For Enthusiasts:

• The system can be entirely customized thanks to easily replaceable tubing and fittings., giving you an upgrade path down the road.
• Thanks to its powerful pump, it can support additional liquid cooled components such as graphics cards and/or additional radiator(s).
• Factory fittings can now be upgraded to any G1/4 compatible aftermarket fittings (an optional adapter is needed for the pump outlet and is available here, which allows enthusiast users to upgrade their system to 1/2″ ID tubing if they wish to.

This looks to be a great solution for those who want to get a foot in the water with water cooling while being able to upgrade the system down the line.  Thanks to standardized parts this kit will be very easy to upgrade down the line, or even right off the bat. Thankfully for users who will want dual 140mm radiator over the H220-X’s dual 120mm radiator the premium is an affordable $10.  The H240-X is currently available from Swiftech in its store for $149.99, making this an affordable option for those wanting a quality system without much hassle.

The post Swiftech Releases H240-X All-In-One Liquid Cooling Kit appeared first on VR World.

Enthusiasts are on a never ending quest to find better cooling for their CPUs.  Air cooling is the norm these days, but affordable water cooling systems are becoming more affordable.  Water cooling is the next step and can provide great cooling effectiveness.  There are two ways to install a water cooling system into a computer. They are piecing together a system from individual parts, or a “closed-loop” system.  Closed loop water cooler contains the block, pump, and radiator in a sealed loop (that usually require no maintenance).  Many companies are now coming out with their own closed loop systems for enthusiasts.

Today we will look at Thermaltake’s Water 3.0 Extreme closed loop cooler and see how it preforms.  The cooler is Thermaltake’s top end closed loop system, and has a 240mm radiator.  The pump for the system is built into the water block, which can mount to multiple AMD and Intel sockets.

After seeing the pictures you will probably be thinking “I have seen this kit before”, indeed you have if you have looked into AIO water cooling kits.  Asetek is the ODM for this and many other kits and some would argue that the company has a monopoly on the AIO water cooling hardware industry.  Recently, Asetek has caused a stir in being granted another liquid cooling patent by the USPTO which may ultimately hurt consumers. Unfortunately for consumers, Asetek’s aggressive patenting and litigation hurts consumers’ ability to have choice as most kits are now Asetek based.

The kit has many variations through the various companies who sell variants of it, usually with their own fans, features, and packaging.  Many will be buying the kit for those options weighted heavily on price.  With this kit just under the $100 mark it is a definite contender for your case

Everything was well packaged and secured within the box

Mount kits for multiple sockets of Intel and AMD are included; once again it was well packaged and organized

2 PWM Fans are included with the kit. I am told that these were specifically chosen for the kit and that replacing the fans with higher speed models won’t make a big difference.

The instructions that came with the system are very easy to read and understand I do suggest that you get the latest fan control app from the Thermaltake global website, so you can be up to date.

Everything was intact with no blemishes on the system.  There is a USB cable that attaches to a USB2.0 internal header, if you want to use the fan control app with it.

The base is clean with a very flat surface, though not a mirror surface as it still had some machining visible.  Pre-applied TIM is provided on the base, though many (like me) will clean it off and use some fresh product of choice.

Installation is very straightforward and easy to do; the instructions are clear and nicely drawn out.  The Intel mount which I used was easily installed within a couple of minutes.  The 120mm fans plug into the CPU block/pump combo, which itself plugs into an internal USB 2.0 header as well as CPU fan pin-out on the motherboard.  It can then be automatically controlled via the desktop application via the USB. I suggest that if you want to use the included app to regulate your fans, set CPU fan to 100% in bios (or a curve forcing that) with fan failure alarm set.

Tt Water Software

The application for the water cooling system is very easy to use and allows you to run different profiles.  Silent, Extreme, and Custom which is best for running your own fan profile.  I learned that modifying the Silent or Extreme profiles didn’t seem to work as well as setting up custom profile.  Swapping from one profile to another doesn’t have a fast response and sometimes requires fiddling with multiple times to get it to switch. There are Notification options for the coolant temperature and Fan speed, which are good safety measures.  The main thing you get from the app over just plugging fans into headers on the motherboard are viewing coolant temperature, notifications, and fan profiles based on  CPU temps (if you have the pump plugged into the CPU header).

I stress tested my Intel Core i7 4790K Devil’s Canyon ES at 4.7GHz using OCCT against the Cooler Master TPC-812 (their highest end air cooler) and then again with this Water 3.0 Extreme.  I let it run for about 8 hours and over the times when I checked it I was getting readings that were about an average  8C cooler overall.  The sound level at full speed is very reasonable, and thankfully not too distracting.

Overall I would recommend this kit based on its ease of installation, performance, and cost.  I think that the price point is good for a dual 120mm Asetek ODM all-in-one cooler as other of the same type can go for up to $30 more.  The performance is definitely there, holding the 4790K ES solidly @ 4.7GHz while being stressed 100 %.  The only real issue that I saw with this kit was the control app can be a bit buggy, although works well aside from that.

Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme retails for $99.99 on Amazon.com right now.

The post Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme Reviewed appeared first on VR World.