My parts for my new rig have been confirmed all have arrived. And the new system will be undergoing quite a number of tests and overclocking. And this will be the first for anything in terms of:
- First Water Cooling System
- First Computer I built from the ground up
We'll start with the individual Components: and the Value I paid for the rig that's just a couple bucks below 1,000 dollars, as a result of purchases and sales of my current and former parts.
CASE: Fractal Design Define R3 - Pearl Black - FOC
Old Case I've offloaded from a Friend, and it's still a fairly high end ATX Mid Tower case. It's a case meant for silencing. He only had one ModuVent, those attachable panels that reduce the sound signatures at the fan mounts. As to where the rest of em' are, I have no idea. However, everything else, including additional Case Fan screws are there. There was a lot of room inside when I built it and getting the rig built inside the case was no issue.
CASE COOLING: 120 x 2 Fractal White Fans, 1 140mm Thermalright X-Silent
The white fans came with the case, and there are 2 of them in there. And I finally have a use for the Thermalright X-Silent after the NZXT 140mm fan Andrew provided started to produce a lot of clicking noise, either from Dead bearings or who knows what. So the X-Silent 140 is in there, and the fan is actually VERY quiet.
OPTICAL DRIVE: LG DVD BURNER - FROM OLD RIG.
Andrew did throw in another DVD Burner with the case and Motherboard. However it didn't have a front bezel. It didn't occur to me to switch it for the other one till after the installation. And the switch took me 10 minutes. Got that up and running, no problem at all. The Drive without the Bezel still works no problem, but looks ugly when I opened the door of the case so it went to the old rig instead.
CPU: Core i7 2600K (3.4GHz, 8MB Cache - Unlocked and unleashed) - $270
Old technology, yeah I know. But is it good? Hell yes it is. When the Sandy Bridge Overclocking CPUs arrived nearly 3 years ago, they were a game changer as far as performance goes. The K Designation implies that they are ready to be overclocked provided you have the right board. Even the Core i5 2500K was great, and when overclocked heavily the gaming performance can still push past stock i7 3770(K) and i7 4770(K). With that in mind, the i5s were and still are always a great choice today in Haswells. But you owe much of this performance to the Sandy Bridge Architecture. The i7 is needed for that extra bit of power. And currently it's being run at 4.4GHz without problems.
CPU COOLING:
Corsair H70 (120mm Square Radiator at 50mm Thick with 120mm Fans) - $80
Thick 120mm Radiator, biggest 120mm in the Corsair Hydro Series. Perfect for my needs because the case doesn't have support for 140mm Rads at the exhaust and I plan to keep the noise down. Reason I'm going Water Cooling is because of one: The RAM, and two: Overclocking. The Corsair Vengeance RAM is a big problem because of the tall Heatsinks and since I'm gonna overclock the baby, I'll want something that will give me impressive performance. I would have gone with the Thermalright Silver Arrow or the Noctuas but it'll be way too big especially the tower height to the Define R3. The H70 however is a good space saving alternative, and makes the interior look much cleaner. The H70 I bought however didn't come with 2 fans, just one. No worries, I got a tonne of 120mm fans and with Blue LED which lights up the interior bright with Blue. Great for this scheme.
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P8P67 PRO M Motherboard - $60.
Old Tech I know. However, This came with the case and Andrew threw in a lot more for $60 than just the case and Motherboard. The P67 technology was good and is still good despite its age. It's an mATX board, but you can still overclock it. And for a board like this, the features are still pretty extensive.
MEMORY: CORSAIR VENGEANCE 16GB AT 1600MHZ RAM (2 PAIRS: 1 BLACK PAIR, 1 BLUE PAIR) - $75
8GB was salvaged from my Old Rig and leaving 8GB back there is still fast enough for the old rig as long you don't fill up the hard drive with too much things. However, knowing I would like 16GB in there, I bought a different colour pair for the blue-black general colour scheme. RAM timings are the same so the RAMs run with no issues.
GRAPHICS CORE: ZOTAC GEFORCE GTX 780 AMP! EDITION - $738 - $350 from sale of GTX 680 = $388
The only thing I bought new. The Zotac GeForce GTX 780 AMP! is not bottlenecked by a Core i7 processor that is 3 Generations old. A lot more so after overclocking the CPU. The GPU is extremely powerful with the potent GK 110 Core.
For the article of the GTX 780 I bought from BeyondGeek, see this article.
http://paulstechinsights.blogspot.sg/2013/11/zotac-amp-edition-nvidia-geforce-gtx.html
STORAGE: OCZ VERTEX 4 128GB (FROM OLD RIG),
500 GB WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR BLUE: $50
500 GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS: FOC FROM OLD LAPTOP
2TB WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR GREEN $60
Great Proven speeds and adequate space for some stuff make the OCZ Vertex 4 my primary boot drive. Rest of the storage is pretty damn extensive, more than enough for games and movies. I mean seriously, what is it like to have a total of 3 freaking Terabytes of Hard Disc Space? Bloody awesome. The Laptop Drive isn't wiped because of the Data that I'd like to keep. So to get access to old data from my Laptop that died earlier, I use it as another bit of storage. That said all my SATA ports are already almost used.
EXPANSION: 4-USB 3.0 PCI-E HUB - $15
Since my casing needs a USB 3.0, I decided to add 4 more USB 3.0 ports via PCI-E and Molex. Now with 6 USB 3.0 ports, 2 on the motherboard and 4 on the card, should have more than enough USB 3.0 Connectivity.
WIRELESS: TP-LINK MICRO USB ADAPTER - $15
Small Baby Sized Router but has proven pretty good. Small size makes it a bit fiddly to install and the older TP-Link Drivers and Utility Software on the mini disc don't detect this Adapter till I downloaded the latest definitions of the driver. After I got that settled, The Utilities picked up the device automatically and was up and running. I decided to pop that in front of the case for easier reception. It occupied 1 of the only 2 USB 2.0 ports at the top of the case. No worries However, because I'm getting a PCI-E front USB 3.0 Hub which I need anyway.
POWER SUPPLY: CORSAIR HX-1000 1000W 80+ CERTIFIED - FROM OLD RIG.
Rugged, high-cap, looks tough and lasted a good while, and SLI / Crossfire Ready. Semi Modular but those cords are quickly taken up anyways. The old Flagship PSU when it first launched is longer than a standard PSU, but fits in both my old and other rig no problems. I just have to unscrew out the bottom filter in order to fit, no issues otherwise. A former Heavy Weight and if tested now, should lie somewhere between an 80+ Bronze and 80+ Silver. It's not the best now, but still respectable despite its age. And noise levels are still pretty nice when loaded. It's actually internally 2 500W Power supplies using 2 Transformers cramped to a single unit, just FYI. And the Blue Accented Stickers are great for this Black - White Theme Build. And it has been validated to be Haswell ready so if I want to upgrade to that, this can still be used.
Saturday 7 December 2013
Friday 15 November 2013
One of my Insights: Computer Brains?
Now I found this topic up on TomsHardware Forums that really is a great question worth Answering. A Hard Drive is the brains of the Computer? Which Component is it exactly, that acts as the brains of a Computer?
Now if you say the CPU or Processor, that's the right answer in General assumption. People generally say that the CPU will normally be the brains of the computer. Since it'll be the one that processes Data upon receiving an instruction Data. Now in my perspective, the brains of a Computer stems well beyond than just the CPU. It gets a lot more complicated than that.
Now picture a typical human brain. Now what does it do? The typical functions of a Human Brain are basically
1) Processing Instruction
2) Receives Instruction
3) Stores Data and Information
Sounds familiar and sounds like typical functions of computer components? Basically a Computer in a nutshell does that, in a electric format. And many of the components Work in tendem to make it function in a way that will match what a human brain does.
The Basic Components toward a Computer are:
CPU,
RAM,
Motherboard
and storage.
Now Let's start with the CPU:
Central Processing Unit - The rate of processing data and carries out its instructions. The Higher the clock speeds, the faster it'll go. And having More CPU Cores will allow multitasking to carry out more tasks at the same time.
The Memory: The Memory will receive Information and holding on to the data before you can quickly access or process it.
Storage: Storage can mean either your Hard Drive or Solid State, but each has the very same use; pure storing. Storage in a computer sense will Archive and preserve your information that you want. The Storage becomes your internal library for all the data to be retrieved just like mind acting to remember past good memories. If your storage Dies then in a way your PC will basically face Amnesia, because you don't have any data archived in the drive.
Motherboard: Basically everything that connects the components together like the Nervous system of the computer so all the other components can work together. If it dies, your PC is basically Dead till replacing of the Mobo. The motherboard however in General is the mother brain of the Computer that controls everything. If it dies, your Computer is basically brain dead.
So in all, the Computer itself is actually all-in-one combined brain. The rest of the parts are just bling stuff. So just a bit of my insights today!
Now if you say the CPU or Processor, that's the right answer in General assumption. People generally say that the CPU will normally be the brains of the computer. Since it'll be the one that processes Data upon receiving an instruction Data. Now in my perspective, the brains of a Computer stems well beyond than just the CPU. It gets a lot more complicated than that.
Now picture a typical human brain. Now what does it do? The typical functions of a Human Brain are basically
1) Processing Instruction
2) Receives Instruction
3) Stores Data and Information
Sounds familiar and sounds like typical functions of computer components? Basically a Computer in a nutshell does that, in a electric format. And many of the components Work in tendem to make it function in a way that will match what a human brain does.
The Basic Components toward a Computer are:
CPU,
RAM,
Motherboard
and storage.
Now Let's start with the CPU:
Central Processing Unit - The rate of processing data and carries out its instructions. The Higher the clock speeds, the faster it'll go. And having More CPU Cores will allow multitasking to carry out more tasks at the same time.
The Memory: The Memory will receive Information and holding on to the data before you can quickly access or process it.
Storage: Storage can mean either your Hard Drive or Solid State, but each has the very same use; pure storing. Storage in a computer sense will Archive and preserve your information that you want. The Storage becomes your internal library for all the data to be retrieved just like mind acting to remember past good memories. If your storage Dies then in a way your PC will basically face Amnesia, because you don't have any data archived in the drive.
Motherboard: Basically everything that connects the components together like the Nervous system of the computer so all the other components can work together. If it dies, your PC is basically Dead till replacing of the Mobo. The motherboard however in General is the mother brain of the Computer that controls everything. If it dies, your Computer is basically brain dead.
So in all, the Computer itself is actually all-in-one combined brain. The rest of the parts are just bling stuff. So just a bit of my insights today!
Thursday 14 November 2013
ZOTAC nVidia GeForce GTX 780 AMP! Edition Video Card Review
A few more posts before this and I said that I was currently involved in a small mass order involving a bunch of nVidia GeForce GTX 780s. Now these are not your run-off-the-mill GTX 780 Video Cards, these are really beefed up GTX 780s with some serious muscle. Now few major Websites have ever reviewed the ZOTAC AMP! Edition GTX 780s and I'll do the honors this time.
STORY BEHIND THE PURCHASE
Well, when I first bought my Custom Build in 2011, it had undergone a tonne of graphics card switching. Initially I had a GTX 550 Ti but I noticed some tearing issues when it comes to more demanding games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3. Although it proved quiet and cooled well, it wasn't powerful enough to sustain games down the road, even at 1680 x 1050.
Then I bought 2 AMD Radeon 6970s in Crossfire. The first I bought was from Sapphire, Dual Fan one It was quiet but the open air shroud potentially could bring in too much hot heat from the inside of the computer chassis. The addition of the Gigabyte Reference one although pretty quiet, was still real hot. And 2 cards as you may expect, is a freaking power whore so It drew in a lot of power. Then I ditched those and reverted to a single card config in the form of a GTX 680. Performed well as a reference card though I took quite a performance hit compared to the 6970s. Although the GK104 is still a better chip, the memory bus is still the same.
October 2013: AMD released the Hawaii R9 290X. I thought it was good price at the time of release. But being hot and noisy put me off somewhat. But then fate intervened that nVidia Slashed the price of the GTX 780 and the 770 in view of that and the upcoming 780 Ti. So when a friend at VR-Zone started retailing Zotac GTX 780 and 770 Reference and AMP Edition Cards, I decided to just jump in. For one, it was at that time like nearly 80 SG bucks cheaper than the 290X, heavily overclocked to perform just as well, cooler and quieter. I mean seriously, what more would you want.
Now as I started using the card and started to overclocking it, it also became clear that it made no sense to go for the more expensive 780 Ti card, because I don't need it. When I overclock it, I can get performance gains of a stock 780 Ti, as you can see in the benchmarks I did. The 3GB GDDR5 384-bit interface performed a lot better than the 2GB 256-bit GTX 680 which suffered at higher resolutions due to memory bottlenecks. So I was able to get my performance of the 6970 in Crossfire back again, or maybe better, and I still have the juice required for running my games in 3 screens.
SPECS:
Now let's compare spec-wise.
REFERENCE GTX 780 / ZOTAC AMP! EDITION GTX 780
GPU CORE CLOCKS: 863 MHz / 1006 MHz - Difference of 143 MHz
CPU BOOST CLOCK: 900 MHz / 1059 MHz - Difference of 159 MHz
Boost Increase: 37 MHz / 53 MHz
MEMORY CLOCKS: 6008 MHz / 6208 MHz - Difference of 200 MHz GDDR5
COOLING: Reference Blower / 2 x 75mm and 1 x 85mm Fans.
SIMILARITIES:
Core: GK 110 Kepler
Memory Bit-rate: 384-bit
Memory: 3GB / 3072MB GDDR5
As you can probably tell, the speed differences between the 2 cards are impressive. And in a way, you could essentially dub the Zotac Card as a GTX 780 GHz Edition. And if the price of the GPU to is slashed to what is essentially less than even a Reference GTX 780 in the USA, could it be the card of choice? We'll find out.
IN THE BOX
You don't really get a lot but most of the things that are required are included in the box. You'll receive the following in the bundle:
- ZOTAC'S Very own GTX 780 AMP! GHz Edition Card.
- Installation Manual
- User Manual
- DVI to VGA Adapter - Nice to have but shouldn't be used with a card of this caliber
- Driver and Utilities Disc - Best to download the latest nVidia Drivers from GeForce.com and the Utilities from Zotac.
- Case Sticker - Pretty big one too
- Dual Molex to 6 Pin
- Dual 6 Pin to 8 Pin
The look of the Case Sticker, pasted on the front door of the Fractal Design Define R3. And yes, it's quite big.
Now we'll gonna compare between my last card the GTX 680 and see how much better it performs.
LOOKS AND DESIGN
In terms of looks, just gaze at these babies. Although they don't really match many colour schemes because of the orange fans, they do strike out actually looking pretty awesome themselves.
Something that most non-reference cooler doesn't have what the Reference card has, are the pulsing LEDs, The ZOTAC Logo replaces that. You can't really see it until you add some lights to the case. PCB is black which is good, and complements other colors pretty well if you're card is oriented typically horizontally. I'm not particular about color schemes though. For me I strongly believe that as long as its functional, design is not much of a concern, my case didn't have a side panel window to show the goods anyway.
INSTALLATION AND SETUP
Installation of the card is standard like most PCI-E Graphics Card. Just plug in the card to the slot, plug in the power cables, screw back the thumbscrews to the GPU Bracket and it's done. It's slightly longer than a reference GTX 680, but not by much. What I did find however that if you're using an old Motherboard like my ASUS P8P67M-Pro, I had to update the motherboard BIOS from 3602 to 3701 in order for the computer to boot the GPU properly. Otherwise when you install the card, the system will skip post and will have a blank screen for 2 minutes before starting up Windows because it can't pick up your GPU properly. OS will detect the card but the system posting won't. Strangely though, when I used my even older 1502 BIOS on the ATX version of this board on my 2nd rig, the GTX 780 booted right up on Post the way it should.
COOLING FEATURES AND TEMPERATURES:
Even though the Gigabyte Windforce edition is more efficient (Being able to perform cooler and even maintain a less than 2-slot profile; even the Gigabyte WF 780 Ti has that), its solution of 3 Cooling Fans (2 7.5cm and 1 8.5cm) is not to be underestimated. In fact all these non-reference coolers perform very close, Direct CU II, Gigabyte Windforce, Gainward, Even Zotac.
A much faster running card than the GTX 680, still cooler and quieter. And because of this beefy cooling, GPU Boost 2.0 can allow for more overclocking headroom than a reference card. Hexus reviewed and managed core boost clocks nearly 30% faster at stock than a Reference Card at stock speed and still has enough room for more. A Max overclock of 1.2 GHz can be achieved which is impressive. However because of an open shroud, it's best to have real good air flow to expel the heat out of the chassis. Temperatures even when heavily overclocked remained acceptable, at an impressive 76 with it overclocked despite I tweaking the Temperature threshold to 95 Degrees Celsius / Centigrade or whatever floats your boat. This is evident with the Furmark tests. Whacking a household fan blowing straight to the open side will turn down the temperatures even further.
With it idling, the card is cool to the touch at 36 degrees. Anything below 40 when idling is already pretty nice.
OVERCLOCKING:
The Zotac AMP!, already quite heavily overclocked still had a bit more to offer. With it tweaked an extra 150 MHz to the Core Clock and 100 MHz to the Memory Clock in 3D Mark, I discovered a noticeable boost in performance which helped a lot in Fire Strike. Even at these overclocks, typical gaming loads lie somewhere from 76 degrees and nowhere does it hit the 95 degree thermal threshold with GPU Boost 2.0. Now compared with the piss poor cooler of the R9 290X and the Cheaper 290, these hair dryers hardly have any headroom for overclocking. It has been proven though, that overclocking will be more stable with help from Water cooling or aftermarket cooling like Arctic's Accelero Extreme III and the Hybrid, but guess what, what AMD can, nVidia's Cards can do it too.
FYI, the ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! Edition has an ASIC Value of 88.9% which is considered high. Your numbers may vary. Some may be a bit better, some may be a little bit worse. Now I'd did this initial setting via EVGA Precision X but MSI Afterburner which I did subsequently is a lot easier to monitor. But whichever floats your boat, works either way.
The following pictures show some of the performance numbers and some tweaks I made to the card. I think the results speak for themselves.
3D Mark: Fire Strike Extreme Score
My Current Configuration is enough to do better than a GTX Titan as well as a Haswell based i7 4770K and the Extreme Score edges a bit in its favor when pitted against a GTX 780 Ti and an R9 290X. So if you're short on cash, you don't need to spend tonnes of money on the GTX 780 Ti. Just grab a non-reference 780 which is cheaper than either option and overclock to your hearts content and this combination can do better than OC3D's Machine. For gaming, the CPU doesn't matter all that much unless it's a old gen i5 upgrade to a new Gen i7.
OVERCLOCKING STABILISING:
I did ran Furmark and discovered that the 150 MHz Overclock was starting to produce a few artifacts even though I was nowhere near the threshold. So I dialled back to 120 MHz and no change to Memory Clocks. Yea it's only a 30 MHz difference which doesn't hit FPS anyhow. In fact for some odd reason, Fire Strike score increased ever so slightly by a mere 10 points, perhaps stable?
So yeah, this one is currently my overclock set on my GPU.
Now here's the Burn in results after 15 minutes:
COMPARISON WITH BASE ZOTAC AND STOCK GTX 780s.
(3D Mark 11, Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light)
Now what I have done is to use 3D Mark 11 and 2 of possibly the most GPU taxing games that are available: Metro: Last Light and Company of Heroes 2. Even just at standard HD, activating all the bells and whistles for these titles will still tax this GPU heavily, and a lot more so than Battlefield 4. Running BF4 on Ultra 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 is no problem on a stock so there isn't a reason for a need to bench it. Also, I set my GPU clocks to replicate the following:
i) Stock GTX 780 (OC)
Core Clock = 901 MHz
Boost 954 = MHz
Practical Max Boost = 980 MHz
Memory = 6008 MHz
Now it would be a better apples to apples comparison if I use a reference card but I don't have one available. So I tune my card to simulate this. However the ZOTAC AMP was already so high in Factory OC that downclocking to stock GTX 780 speeds couldn't be reached. So I underclocked my card as low as I can which is still 38 MHz OC on a stock GTX 780 at 863 MHz. This extra wouldn't mean much and this OC on a stock card is child's play anyway. Memory Clocks were cut to reference Speeds. So let's call this a Stock 780 OC.
ii) Base ZOTAC AMP
Core Clock = 1006 MHz
Boost = 1059 MHz
Practical Boost = 1097 MHz
Memory Clock = 6208 MHz
The speeds that came with the card. Already quite heavily Overclocked from the get go with 143 MHz more than reference.
iii) My Current OC
Core Clock = 1126 MHz
Boost = 1179 MHz
Practical Boost = 1215 MHz
Even with the card pushed like this, it could still maintain a 1.2 GHz on 3D Mark 11. And it shows that the card still have overclocking headroom. This is already 30% Core speed above the reference at 863 which is quite a lot.
3D Mark 2011:
Now let's compare scores here - Blue is the P-Score and Red is the Graphics Score that affected that.
The Base Zotac AMP already impressive, pounces a Stock 780 with 10% for Graphics and 7% for Combined P-Score. With that serious overclocking however, the gap widens further to 13% and graphics score by a .1% under 20% over a stock OC GTX 780. The difference is a lot more if we compare an actual stock card at stock speeds and boosts and an OC AMP! Card.
Metro: Last Light
This game has its own benchmark and I set it up like so:
This is basically as high as it can go, with Tessellation, SSAA and Advanced PhysX on
Turning off SSAA will net these graphs:
Company of Heroes 2
Another extremely demanding title that will render High-End Notebook GPUs completely unplayable even at the Lowest Settings. And like Metro, COH 2 has its own Benchmark.
However, being the Enthusiast that I am, I crank up everything again. And even for an RTS game which rarely have titles that heavily puts high end systems to its knees, this game demands a lot more than even the most powerful notebook GPU available; the GTX 780M at max settings. Ideally you would like to have a Dual GPU setup if you want to play this game at higher resolutions. But I found that a single GTX 780 will still suffice at maximum settings on standard HD as you can see by the chart.
Sorry for the typo, the Zotac OC's Average is 44.29. The boost of about 9.4% for a Base AMP and a 16.9% when OCed over a stock card is expected. The difference is quite noticeable even 17% can matter a lot more than just the smoothness, but also the responsiveness that you'll want to possibly enjoy the most out of. Even though GeForce Experience recommends turning down Anti Aliasing down to medium, having just played the entire campaign with everything maxed out without a hitch tells that this card is ready to take on maximum details for all these super intensive games.
NOISE:
Another area where the AMP Edition really shines. Even at 80% Fan Speeds, with the fans spinning at 2700 rpm, the noise remains surprisingly low, it's a bit more noticeable at maximum fan speeds, but not annoying. In my case I always have those household fans where it just sits on the floor and its noise alone downright overpowers the sound of the 3 fans in the GPU. So if I feel like it, I can crank it to 100%. Compare that with the R9 290X. Pretty obvious isn't it? Now the Furmark Picture you see above you was set with Fans at maxed out. And if my sensitive ears can live with it, so can yours and that pretty much tells you about the noise. Very honestly speaking this is the very first card which I'm really happy to max fans out anytime. The last non-reference coolers were the GTX 550 Ti and the Sapphire 6970. Now The GTX 550 Ti was really cool running and pretty silent but wasn't exactly a high end card at the time, not by a long shot. And the Radeon 6970 was a heat nightmare when it first came out.
PRICE TO PERFORMANCE RATIO:
From a hefty pricing cut from 649 USD to 499 USD, cheaper than the R9 290X, nVidia has made the correct decision. However none of the shops are cutting prices yet till they sell off their old stock. In my case, the Zotac AMP! bought at a mass order was at 739 SGD, 80 bucks cheaper than the hot noisy Jet Engine of the R9 290X, and a whopping 340 cheaper than the 5-10% faster MSI Lightning GTX 780. It is still not so much for the meek of wallet but not as bad now. It does come with Splinter Cell Compilation rather than the newer official nVidia Bundle of games which is sadly region restricted to the USA. However, you still get a pretty good set. And better yet, the ZOTAC AMP is priced even less than half of the slightly slower Titans at 1599 a pop so pump 2 in SLI to make the Titans Seriously embarrassing.
THE BREAKDOWN:
What Zotac here has basically done is creating the fastest GTX 780 in the market while running cool and quiet. Its heavy factory overclock to 780 GHz Levels and decent headroom can edge itself on par with the GTX 780 Ti and outpaces the R9 290X and without the noise and heat output. And with further tweaking, the card's potential can soar up to 20% better in Frame Rate Performance than a stock GTX 780. Sure, may not be as par as the Gigabyte Windforce Coolers but more than decent enough. Other than that, the ZOTAC And in light of the recent price cuts, it could be a great time to snag GTX 780s off the shelves.
What's Good
- Overclocking Headroom
- Performance (Very close to a GTX 780 Ti, almost 20% boost over a stock 780)
- Cooling and Acoustics
- Though expensive, the Value for Money greatly increased with the price cuts.
What we'd like to see
- More things to include with the GPU like a Poster or something
- More substancial Game Bundles
What we don't like
- Lacks the pulsing LEDs that the reference 780 and 780 Tis have.
- Somewhat dull looks.
Overall: An Editors' Choice
STORY BEHIND THE PURCHASE
Well, when I first bought my Custom Build in 2011, it had undergone a tonne of graphics card switching. Initially I had a GTX 550 Ti but I noticed some tearing issues when it comes to more demanding games like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3. Although it proved quiet and cooled well, it wasn't powerful enough to sustain games down the road, even at 1680 x 1050.
Then I bought 2 AMD Radeon 6970s in Crossfire. The first I bought was from Sapphire, Dual Fan one It was quiet but the open air shroud potentially could bring in too much hot heat from the inside of the computer chassis. The addition of the Gigabyte Reference one although pretty quiet, was still real hot. And 2 cards as you may expect, is a freaking power whore so It drew in a lot of power. Then I ditched those and reverted to a single card config in the form of a GTX 680. Performed well as a reference card though I took quite a performance hit compared to the 6970s. Although the GK104 is still a better chip, the memory bus is still the same.
October 2013: AMD released the Hawaii R9 290X. I thought it was good price at the time of release. But being hot and noisy put me off somewhat. But then fate intervened that nVidia Slashed the price of the GTX 780 and the 770 in view of that and the upcoming 780 Ti. So when a friend at VR-Zone started retailing Zotac GTX 780 and 770 Reference and AMP Edition Cards, I decided to just jump in. For one, it was at that time like nearly 80 SG bucks cheaper than the 290X, heavily overclocked to perform just as well, cooler and quieter. I mean seriously, what more would you want.
Now as I started using the card and started to overclocking it, it also became clear that it made no sense to go for the more expensive 780 Ti card, because I don't need it. When I overclock it, I can get performance gains of a stock 780 Ti, as you can see in the benchmarks I did. The 3GB GDDR5 384-bit interface performed a lot better than the 2GB 256-bit GTX 680 which suffered at higher resolutions due to memory bottlenecks. So I was able to get my performance of the 6970 in Crossfire back again, or maybe better, and I still have the juice required for running my games in 3 screens.
SPECS:
Now let's compare spec-wise.
REFERENCE GTX 780 / ZOTAC AMP! EDITION GTX 780
GPU CORE CLOCKS: 863 MHz / 1006 MHz - Difference of 143 MHz
CPU BOOST CLOCK: 900 MHz / 1059 MHz - Difference of 159 MHz
Boost Increase: 37 MHz / 53 MHz
MEMORY CLOCKS: 6008 MHz / 6208 MHz - Difference of 200 MHz GDDR5
COOLING: Reference Blower / 2 x 75mm and 1 x 85mm Fans.
SIMILARITIES:
Core: GK 110 Kepler
Memory Bit-rate: 384-bit
Memory: 3GB / 3072MB GDDR5
As you can probably tell, the speed differences between the 2 cards are impressive. And in a way, you could essentially dub the Zotac Card as a GTX 780 GHz Edition. And if the price of the GPU to is slashed to what is essentially less than even a Reference GTX 780 in the USA, could it be the card of choice? We'll find out.
IN THE BOX
You don't really get a lot but most of the things that are required are included in the box. You'll receive the following in the bundle:
- ZOTAC'S Very own GTX 780 AMP! GHz Edition Card.
- Installation Manual
- User Manual
- DVI to VGA Adapter - Nice to have but shouldn't be used with a card of this caliber
- Driver and Utilities Disc - Best to download the latest nVidia Drivers from GeForce.com and the Utilities from Zotac.
- Case Sticker - Pretty big one too
- Dual Molex to 6 Pin
- Dual 6 Pin to 8 Pin
 |
| Zotac GTX 780 AMP! Unboxed, along with the card that was replaced, the GTX 680 from PNY. |
The look of the Case Sticker, pasted on the front door of the Fractal Design Define R3. And yes, it's quite big.
Now we'll gonna compare between my last card the GTX 680 and see how much better it performs.
LOOKS AND DESIGN
In terms of looks, just gaze at these babies. Although they don't really match many colour schemes because of the orange fans, they do strike out actually looking pretty awesome themselves.
Something that most non-reference cooler doesn't have what the Reference card has, are the pulsing LEDs, The ZOTAC Logo replaces that. You can't really see it until you add some lights to the case. PCB is black which is good, and complements other colors pretty well if you're card is oriented typically horizontally. I'm not particular about color schemes though. For me I strongly believe that as long as its functional, design is not much of a concern, my case didn't have a side panel window to show the goods anyway.
INSTALLATION AND SETUP
Installation of the card is standard like most PCI-E Graphics Card. Just plug in the card to the slot, plug in the power cables, screw back the thumbscrews to the GPU Bracket and it's done. It's slightly longer than a reference GTX 680, but not by much. What I did find however that if you're using an old Motherboard like my ASUS P8P67M-Pro, I had to update the motherboard BIOS from 3602 to 3701 in order for the computer to boot the GPU properly. Otherwise when you install the card, the system will skip post and will have a blank screen for 2 minutes before starting up Windows because it can't pick up your GPU properly. OS will detect the card but the system posting won't. Strangely though, when I used my even older 1502 BIOS on the ATX version of this board on my 2nd rig, the GTX 780 booted right up on Post the way it should.
COOLING FEATURES AND TEMPERATURES:
Even though the Gigabyte Windforce edition is more efficient (Being able to perform cooler and even maintain a less than 2-slot profile; even the Gigabyte WF 780 Ti has that), its solution of 3 Cooling Fans (2 7.5cm and 1 8.5cm) is not to be underestimated. In fact all these non-reference coolers perform very close, Direct CU II, Gigabyte Windforce, Gainward, Even Zotac.
A much faster running card than the GTX 680, still cooler and quieter. And because of this beefy cooling, GPU Boost 2.0 can allow for more overclocking headroom than a reference card. Hexus reviewed and managed core boost clocks nearly 30% faster at stock than a Reference Card at stock speed and still has enough room for more. A Max overclock of 1.2 GHz can be achieved which is impressive. However because of an open shroud, it's best to have real good air flow to expel the heat out of the chassis. Temperatures even when heavily overclocked remained acceptable, at an impressive 76 with it overclocked despite I tweaking the Temperature threshold to 95 Degrees Celsius / Centigrade or whatever floats your boat. This is evident with the Furmark tests. Whacking a household fan blowing straight to the open side will turn down the temperatures even further.
With it idling, the card is cool to the touch at 36 degrees. Anything below 40 when idling is already pretty nice.
OVERCLOCKING:
The Zotac AMP!, already quite heavily overclocked still had a bit more to offer. With it tweaked an extra 150 MHz to the Core Clock and 100 MHz to the Memory Clock in 3D Mark, I discovered a noticeable boost in performance which helped a lot in Fire Strike. Even at these overclocks, typical gaming loads lie somewhere from 76 degrees and nowhere does it hit the 95 degree thermal threshold with GPU Boost 2.0. Now compared with the piss poor cooler of the R9 290X and the Cheaper 290, these hair dryers hardly have any headroom for overclocking. It has been proven though, that overclocking will be more stable with help from Water cooling or aftermarket cooling like Arctic's Accelero Extreme III and the Hybrid, but guess what, what AMD can, nVidia's Cards can do it too.
FYI, the ZOTAC GTX 780 AMP! Edition has an ASIC Value of 88.9% which is considered high. Your numbers may vary. Some may be a bit better, some may be a little bit worse. Now I'd did this initial setting via EVGA Precision X but MSI Afterburner which I did subsequently is a lot easier to monitor. But whichever floats your boat, works either way.
The following pictures show some of the performance numbers and some tweaks I made to the card. I think the results speak for themselves.
3D Mark: Fire Strike Extreme Score
 |
| 5139: Zotac AMP! GTX 780 with a Coe i7 2600K at 4.5 GHz, compared to 5013 from Overclock3D: GTX 780 Ti on a i7 3960X at 4.6GHz, |
My Current Configuration is enough to do better than a GTX Titan as well as a Haswell based i7 4770K and the Extreme Score edges a bit in its favor when pitted against a GTX 780 Ti and an R9 290X. So if you're short on cash, you don't need to spend tonnes of money on the GTX 780 Ti. Just grab a non-reference 780 which is cheaper than either option and overclock to your hearts content and this combination can do better than OC3D's Machine. For gaming, the CPU doesn't matter all that much unless it's a old gen i5 upgrade to a new Gen i7.
OVERCLOCKING STABILISING:
I did ran Furmark and discovered that the 150 MHz Overclock was starting to produce a few artifacts even though I was nowhere near the threshold. So I dialled back to 120 MHz and no change to Memory Clocks. Yea it's only a 30 MHz difference which doesn't hit FPS anyhow. In fact for some odd reason, Fire Strike score increased ever so slightly by a mere 10 points, perhaps stable?
So yeah, this one is currently my overclock set on my GPU.
Now here's the Burn in results after 15 minutes:
COMPARISON WITH BASE ZOTAC AND STOCK GTX 780s.
(3D Mark 11, Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light)
Now what I have done is to use 3D Mark 11 and 2 of possibly the most GPU taxing games that are available: Metro: Last Light and Company of Heroes 2. Even just at standard HD, activating all the bells and whistles for these titles will still tax this GPU heavily, and a lot more so than Battlefield 4. Running BF4 on Ultra 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 is no problem on a stock so there isn't a reason for a need to bench it. Also, I set my GPU clocks to replicate the following:
i) Stock GTX 780 (OC)
Core Clock = 901 MHz
Boost 954 = MHz
Practical Max Boost = 980 MHz
Memory = 6008 MHz
Now it would be a better apples to apples comparison if I use a reference card but I don't have one available. So I tune my card to simulate this. However the ZOTAC AMP was already so high in Factory OC that downclocking to stock GTX 780 speeds couldn't be reached. So I underclocked my card as low as I can which is still 38 MHz OC on a stock GTX 780 at 863 MHz. This extra wouldn't mean much and this OC on a stock card is child's play anyway. Memory Clocks were cut to reference Speeds. So let's call this a Stock 780 OC.
ii) Base ZOTAC AMP
Core Clock = 1006 MHz
Boost = 1059 MHz
Practical Boost = 1097 MHz
Memory Clock = 6208 MHz
The speeds that came with the card. Already quite heavily Overclocked from the get go with 143 MHz more than reference.
iii) My Current OC
Core Clock = 1126 MHz
Boost = 1179 MHz
Practical Boost = 1215 MHz
Even with the card pushed like this, it could still maintain a 1.2 GHz on 3D Mark 11. And it shows that the card still have overclocking headroom. This is already 30% Core speed above the reference at 863 which is quite a lot.
3D Mark 2011:
Now let's compare scores here - Blue is the P-Score and Red is the Graphics Score that affected that.
The Base Zotac AMP already impressive, pounces a Stock 780 with 10% for Graphics and 7% for Combined P-Score. With that serious overclocking however, the gap widens further to 13% and graphics score by a .1% under 20% over a stock OC GTX 780. The difference is a lot more if we compare an actual stock card at stock speeds and boosts and an OC AMP! Card.
Metro: Last Light
This game has its own benchmark and I set it up like so:
This is basically as high as it can go, with Tessellation, SSAA and Advanced PhysX on
I'm not emphasizing the Minimum and Max Frame rate because fluctuations between them are typical in Metro: Last Light. So more to the Average which is well within margin of error. Having a stock GTX 780 with a bit of an overclock should have no problems turning everything up at 1920 x 1080 though you'll probably want to turn of SSAA since the visuals won't be noticeable. A base Zotac AMP! Edition will run about 8.6% better. But an OC Zotac AMP! Edition Card will have a good 18.3% lead over a stock card on Average. 41.27 FPS when OC-ed beats out OC 3D's OC GTX 780 Ti. I'm not sure whether it's a different benchmark or not.
Turning off SSAA will net these graphs:
Even without SSAA, the game's graphics didn't really change much. You'll get a lot smoother visuals, with frame rates boosted consistently by 49-50% across all 3 tests again. So if you want smoother playing experience but without sacrificing hardly any quality, just turn off SSAA. The difference in % of frame rate between the ZOTAC AMP OC and a Reference OC is still within expected 18~%.
Company of Heroes 2
Another extremely demanding title that will render High-End Notebook GPUs completely unplayable even at the Lowest Settings. And like Metro, COH 2 has its own Benchmark.
However, being the Enthusiast that I am, I crank up everything again. And even for an RTS game which rarely have titles that heavily puts high end systems to its knees, this game demands a lot more than even the most powerful notebook GPU available; the GTX 780M at max settings. Ideally you would like to have a Dual GPU setup if you want to play this game at higher resolutions. But I found that a single GTX 780 will still suffice at maximum settings on standard HD as you can see by the chart.
NOISE:
Another area where the AMP Edition really shines. Even at 80% Fan Speeds, with the fans spinning at 2700 rpm, the noise remains surprisingly low, it's a bit more noticeable at maximum fan speeds, but not annoying. In my case I always have those household fans where it just sits on the floor and its noise alone downright overpowers the sound of the 3 fans in the GPU. So if I feel like it, I can crank it to 100%. Compare that with the R9 290X. Pretty obvious isn't it? Now the Furmark Picture you see above you was set with Fans at maxed out. And if my sensitive ears can live with it, so can yours and that pretty much tells you about the noise. Very honestly speaking this is the very first card which I'm really happy to max fans out anytime. The last non-reference coolers were the GTX 550 Ti and the Sapphire 6970. Now The GTX 550 Ti was really cool running and pretty silent but wasn't exactly a high end card at the time, not by a long shot. And the Radeon 6970 was a heat nightmare when it first came out.
PRICE TO PERFORMANCE RATIO:
From a hefty pricing cut from 649 USD to 499 USD, cheaper than the R9 290X, nVidia has made the correct decision. However none of the shops are cutting prices yet till they sell off their old stock. In my case, the Zotac AMP! bought at a mass order was at 739 SGD, 80 bucks cheaper than the hot noisy Jet Engine of the R9 290X, and a whopping 340 cheaper than the 5-10% faster MSI Lightning GTX 780. It is still not so much for the meek of wallet but not as bad now. It does come with Splinter Cell Compilation rather than the newer official nVidia Bundle of games which is sadly region restricted to the USA. However, you still get a pretty good set. And better yet, the ZOTAC AMP is priced even less than half of the slightly slower Titans at 1599 a pop so pump 2 in SLI to make the Titans Seriously embarrassing.
THE BREAKDOWN:
What Zotac here has basically done is creating the fastest GTX 780 in the market while running cool and quiet. Its heavy factory overclock to 780 GHz Levels and decent headroom can edge itself on par with the GTX 780 Ti and outpaces the R9 290X and without the noise and heat output. And with further tweaking, the card's potential can soar up to 20% better in Frame Rate Performance than a stock GTX 780. Sure, may not be as par as the Gigabyte Windforce Coolers but more than decent enough. Other than that, the ZOTAC And in light of the recent price cuts, it could be a great time to snag GTX 780s off the shelves.
What's Good
- Overclocking Headroom
- Performance (Very close to a GTX 780 Ti, almost 20% boost over a stock 780)
- Cooling and Acoustics
- Though expensive, the Value for Money greatly increased with the price cuts.
What we'd like to see
- More things to include with the GPU like a Poster or something
- More substancial Game Bundles
What we don't like
- Lacks the pulsing LEDs that the reference 780 and 780 Tis have.
- Somewhat dull looks.
Overall: An Editors' Choice
Friday 1 November 2013
nVidia Shadowplay: First thoughts and Impressions.
Now this week, I've been bringing you my footage and gameplay / walkthrough of Battlefield 4. You might have noticed that my last couple of videos recorded in-game. Other than the compression to further save space with Camtasia Studio, my videos have been recorded Manually with nVidia Shadowplay.
NOW WHAT IS NVIDIA SHADOWPLAY?
It's basically a new recording utility / tool / software / whichever term that floats your boat that nVidia recently developed. Upon updating of GeForce Experience to 1.7, Shadowplay will automatically be installed as an add-on, free of charge. It's required to have current Kepler GPUs from the GTX 650 and better in order to work.
Now how I configured Shadowplay is that I make it feel like I'm using FRAPS so set it to Manual mode. Like FRAPS, recording is equally easy. Took a few tries to get used to it so Now I grasped it in Manual Mode no problems.
So if you want to check these 2 Battlefield 4 videos (Missions: Singapore and Kunlun Mountains), you can check it out.)
Personally, the quality difference is subjective but performance loss isn't as heavy as FRAPS which is nice. Also a big welcome sight compared to FRAPS is you're now able to control the quality either for maximum detail or save space, something that FRAPS can't do and records AVI Videos uncompressed. Even at max quality, 10 minutes of full HD footage in Shadowplay is way less than 5 minutes of FRAPS. 1.1GB of 10 minutes compared to 4 freaking Gigabytes of 5 minute videos. Although FRAPS has an option of recording Full Scale Videos but shrink it to half of the length and breadth Resolutions, the really bad jagged edges will be apparent.
This will surely kick FRAPS in the nuts if they found that.
NOW WHAT IS NVIDIA SHADOWPLAY?
It's basically a new recording utility / tool / software / whichever term that floats your boat that nVidia recently developed. Upon updating of GeForce Experience to 1.7, Shadowplay will automatically be installed as an add-on, free of charge. It's required to have current Kepler GPUs from the GTX 650 and better in order to work.
Now how I configured Shadowplay is that I make it feel like I'm using FRAPS so set it to Manual mode. Like FRAPS, recording is equally easy. Took a few tries to get used to it so Now I grasped it in Manual Mode no problems.
So if you want to check these 2 Battlefield 4 videos (Missions: Singapore and Kunlun Mountains), you can check it out.)
Personally, the quality difference is subjective but performance loss isn't as heavy as FRAPS which is nice. Also a big welcome sight compared to FRAPS is you're now able to control the quality either for maximum detail or save space, something that FRAPS can't do and records AVI Videos uncompressed. Even at max quality, 10 minutes of full HD footage in Shadowplay is way less than 5 minutes of FRAPS. 1.1GB of 10 minutes compared to 4 freaking Gigabytes of 5 minute videos. Although FRAPS has an option of recording Full Scale Videos but shrink it to half of the length and breadth Resolutions, the really bad jagged edges will be apparent.
This will surely kick FRAPS in the nuts if they found that.
Tuesday 29 October 2013
Battlefield 4: Walkthrough, Gameplay / Benchmark Series.
Heya, I told ya that I'm gonna be benchmarking the game! So Next few posts including this morning's High End Testing will be part of what I call benchmarking for Playable settings. Been doing a lot of tweaks here and there. And getting all this set up isn't easy at all.
Now here's my 3 testing stations.
Benchmarking this game will be a pain but it'll give you a rough idea what you'll expect for all my tests. How this testing methodology is that the series doubles as a Walkthrough Series.
RIG ONE:
'My Pride and Joy, my very first DIY computer'
Core i7 2600K OC 4.4 GHz,
16GB RAM Corsair Vengeance
Corsair H70
128GB SSD (OCZ Vertex 4)
1000W Corsair HX 1000
ASUS P8P67M PRO
Fractal Design Define R3
Testing Methodology: Mission 1 Operation Baku, at 1920 x 1080
Graphical Settings:
1920 x 1080, Maximum Possible settings.
All pretty high end stuff. GTX 680, Overclocked i7 2600K, 16GB RAM, what more you want. However, In the future, I'll do a testing for a GTX 780, which is the ZOTAC AMP! Edition with the revised Price Cuts. Now the ZOTAC AMP!'s incarnation compared to the reference GTX 780 is totally different. It carries the highest factory clocks of all GTX 780s available in the market. And having it price cut is just so nice right now. So currently I'm involved in this Limited Mass Order. As to SGD pricing, I can't break out the cost. But it's a tiny bit cheaper than the Reference GTX 780 at stock after price cuts.
Video of the testing: Operation Baku, Full Mission Playthrough
RIG TWO: Aftershock X11 - Laptop Seated on the Floor
'World's Smallest Gaming Laptop in existance'
Core i7 3630QM
8GB RAM
2GB DDR3 nVidia GeForce GT 650M / 2GB DDR3 GT 640 OC Desktop
Testing Methodology: Mission 2 Operation Shanghai, at 1366 x 768.
331.65 Driver
Graphical Settings
1366 x 768
Anti Aliasing Off, Post AA Off, Ambient Occlusion: Off
Everything else save Post Processing (Medium) and Texture Quality (Ultra) set at High.
Also known as another brand of Elric Phares' Ultraportable Laptop. The smallest laptop in the world with pretty beefy graphics that matches the GTX 560M. Can the smallest gaming laptop in the world play BF4? Yes it does, and at pretty decent Graphics Settings at that. You'll be happy that since the release, the performance on this game is WAY better now than back in BETA.
RIG THREE: My First decent Gaming PC, middle of the screen
'This rig has seen so many modifications'
Core i5 2500K
8GB RAM
1GB ATI Radeon 5850
Testing Methodology: Third Mission at 1680 x 1050 and 1440 x 900.
Beta Driver
The Rig that I first bought will probably lie in the middle in terms of performance. However bear in mind it does have the least video memory. Pushing to 1080p will be a bit too much even if it's operating on a 256-bit bus. However 1680 x 1050 and 1440 x 900 is still pretty darn decent. So nothing to complain at all if you tune your graphical settings to somewhere between Ultra and High at these Resolutions.
Now here's my 3 testing stations.
 |
| My 3 Testing Stations: Laptop - Aftershock X11 / Clevo W110ER, Medium End Core i5 2500K with Radeon 5850, Main rig at desk with i7 2600K and GTX 680 There's a random Compaq Presario there on the floor. I was on the middle of restoring it for my brother's office. |
Benchmarking this game will be a pain but it'll give you a rough idea what you'll expect for all my tests. How this testing methodology is that the series doubles as a Walkthrough Series.
RIG ONE:
'My Pride and Joy, my very first DIY computer'
Core i7 2600K OC 4.4 GHz,
16GB RAM Corsair Vengeance
Corsair H70
128GB SSD (OCZ Vertex 4)
1000W Corsair HX 1000
ASUS P8P67M PRO
Fractal Design Define R3
Testing Methodology: Mission 1 Operation Baku, at 1920 x 1080
Graphical Settings:
1920 x 1080, Maximum Possible settings.
All pretty high end stuff. GTX 680, Overclocked i7 2600K, 16GB RAM, what more you want. However, In the future, I'll do a testing for a GTX 780, which is the ZOTAC AMP! Edition with the revised Price Cuts. Now the ZOTAC AMP!'s incarnation compared to the reference GTX 780 is totally different. It carries the highest factory clocks of all GTX 780s available in the market. And having it price cut is just so nice right now. So currently I'm involved in this Limited Mass Order. As to SGD pricing, I can't break out the cost. But it's a tiny bit cheaper than the Reference GTX 780 at stock after price cuts.
Video of the testing: Operation Baku, Full Mission Playthrough
RIG TWO: Aftershock X11 - Laptop Seated on the Floor
'World's Smallest Gaming Laptop in existance'
Core i7 3630QM
8GB RAM
2GB DDR3 nVidia GeForce GT 650M / 2GB DDR3 GT 640 OC Desktop
Testing Methodology: Mission 2 Operation Shanghai, at 1366 x 768.
331.65 Driver
Graphical Settings
1366 x 768
Anti Aliasing Off, Post AA Off, Ambient Occlusion: Off
Everything else save Post Processing (Medium) and Texture Quality (Ultra) set at High.
Also known as another brand of Elric Phares' Ultraportable Laptop. The smallest laptop in the world with pretty beefy graphics that matches the GTX 560M. Can the smallest gaming laptop in the world play BF4? Yes it does, and at pretty decent Graphics Settings at that. You'll be happy that since the release, the performance on this game is WAY better now than back in BETA.
RIG THREE: My First decent Gaming PC, middle of the screen
'This rig has seen so many modifications'
Core i5 2500K
8GB RAM
1GB ATI Radeon 5850
Testing Methodology: Third Mission at 1680 x 1050 and 1440 x 900.
Beta Driver
The Rig that I first bought will probably lie in the middle in terms of performance. However bear in mind it does have the least video memory. Pushing to 1080p will be a bit too much even if it's operating on a 256-bit bus. However 1680 x 1050 and 1440 x 900 is still pretty darn decent. So nothing to complain at all if you tune your graphical settings to somewhere between Ultra and High at these Resolutions.
Battlefield 4: Benchmarking - High End, GTX 680
After months of waiting, Battlefield 4 has officially been released!
Next few days, I'll be bringing a series of videos which simultaneously benchmarks various Computer configurations as well as going through the game.
First off is the first mission: Operation Baku, where I take my GTX 680 through its paces. If you want to see the full specs. See the video directly on YouTube.
Next few days, I'll be bringing a series of videos which simultaneously benchmarks various Computer configurations as well as going through the game.
First off is the first mission: Operation Baku, where I take my GTX 680 through its paces. If you want to see the full specs. See the video directly on YouTube.
GPU WARZ: nVidia Cutting Prices for High End GTX 780 and 770! Bundles galore!
Hey there Tech Fans and Tech junkies! This article may be of no surprise since the R9 290X was released. The R9 290X came out with a great performing chip at a competitive pricing of US$549, SGD 818. It came outperforming stock nVidia GeForce GTX 780s and trading blows with the Double Priced Titan.
In direct response to the new GPU, nVidia has prepped and readied itself for the upcoming fights.
For one, the GTX 780 Ti's release is just around the corner. This one is pretty much a full unlock of the GTX Titan and the GTX 780, boasting the most cores among any single GPU that is available right now on the market. But this is when things get really nice for nVidia.
The GeForce GTX 780 has its prices slashed by up to a third to just shy of USD 500 which is 50 cheaper than the R9 290X. Now this will be of great news as the GTX 780 is now solidly priced that runs cooler and perhaps more reliably due to less heat and noise emitted than the R9 290X. The heat and the noise that sounds like a Jet Engine from the R9 290X are the key reasons why I'm holding it back in favour of the GTX 780. Even if you crank the clocks of the GTX 780, it'll still run cooler. Also, aftermarket versions are readily available so it'll be on par in pricing but with higher overclocking headroom / performance as a R9 290X.
Moving down the line is the GK 104 based 770 which also revised pricing of US$70 from 399 to 329. Now that's also solid considering it performs noticably better than the slightly cheaper Radeon 7970 GHz Edition and the Rebadged R9 280X.
Things get way crazier as The next bit will further please new purchases of the GTX 780, 770, 760 and 660. Also thrown into the cards are some really major games for free which in reality pushes the actual price of the individual GPUs after this pricing even lower.
For the GTX 760 and the GTX 680, 670 and 660, buying these GPUs will come bundled with Assassin's Creed IV and Splinter Cell Blacklist. And new buyers of the GTX 780 and the GTX 770 will also receive Batman Arkham Origins in addition to the bundle. With about 150 USD worth of Games thrown in for free, reality check will price the GTX 780 at an impressive 350 USD and the GTX 770 at a princely mere 180. Those who plan to get the nVidia Shield can get it for cheaper bundled with their cards too. Also the new GeForce experience releases Shadowplay, a free video ingame recording / capture utility that records up to 20 minutes of footage at a time without hurting performance much which is extremely reasonable being free and all.
At this point it's just so nice for newer nVidia users. The options are there now. I sense GPU wars coming up, especially with the upcoming release of the 780 Ti next week. And what makes Titan Users cry at this point, is that it's rumoured that the 780 Ti will perform on par or maybe more than the GeForce Titan and for $300 less. nVidia has been on the ball with this and especially drivers for Battlefield 4. More on that in another posting.
In direct response to the new GPU, nVidia has prepped and readied itself for the upcoming fights.
For one, the GTX 780 Ti's release is just around the corner. This one is pretty much a full unlock of the GTX Titan and the GTX 780, boasting the most cores among any single GPU that is available right now on the market. But this is when things get really nice for nVidia.
The GeForce GTX 780 has its prices slashed by up to a third to just shy of USD 500 which is 50 cheaper than the R9 290X. Now this will be of great news as the GTX 780 is now solidly priced that runs cooler and perhaps more reliably due to less heat and noise emitted than the R9 290X. The heat and the noise that sounds like a Jet Engine from the R9 290X are the key reasons why I'm holding it back in favour of the GTX 780. Even if you crank the clocks of the GTX 780, it'll still run cooler. Also, aftermarket versions are readily available so it'll be on par in pricing but with higher overclocking headroom / performance as a R9 290X.
Moving down the line is the GK 104 based 770 which also revised pricing of US$70 from 399 to 329. Now that's also solid considering it performs noticably better than the slightly cheaper Radeon 7970 GHz Edition and the Rebadged R9 280X.
Things get way crazier as The next bit will further please new purchases of the GTX 780, 770, 760 and 660. Also thrown into the cards are some really major games for free which in reality pushes the actual price of the individual GPUs after this pricing even lower.
For the GTX 760 and the GTX 680, 670 and 660, buying these GPUs will come bundled with Assassin's Creed IV and Splinter Cell Blacklist. And new buyers of the GTX 780 and the GTX 770 will also receive Batman Arkham Origins in addition to the bundle. With about 150 USD worth of Games thrown in for free, reality check will price the GTX 780 at an impressive 350 USD and the GTX 770 at a princely mere 180. Those who plan to get the nVidia Shield can get it for cheaper bundled with their cards too. Also the new GeForce experience releases Shadowplay, a free video ingame recording / capture utility that records up to 20 minutes of footage at a time without hurting performance much which is extremely reasonable being free and all.
At this point it's just so nice for newer nVidia users. The options are there now. I sense GPU wars coming up, especially with the upcoming release of the 780 Ti next week. And what makes Titan Users cry at this point, is that it's rumoured that the 780 Ti will perform on par or maybe more than the GeForce Titan and for $300 less. nVidia has been on the ball with this and especially drivers for Battlefield 4. More on that in another posting.
Tuesday 1 October 2013
My New Tech Blog! - About my Mouse and Mousepads: And what I use it for.
Welcome to the new revised Tech Blog by yours truly, Paul Anthony. This will be a permanent feature following most of my Migration stuff. Most of my other posts will be migrated here from my older IT blog channel since I want to integrated pretty much everything in this GMail.
Now apart from my Music, I love my Gadgets. Now first topic of the day is one of the few major components that is essential to our needs in the IT environment. The mouse.
The mouse is pretty much staple for my general use. IMO My preference is a minimalist palm design and a smooth shape that fits comfortably to my palm when I glide around the place.
So far I've owned or at least used these, and I have one more mouse on the way from Mass Luminosity:
Some HP Optical Mouse
Razer Imperator Battlefield 3 2012 Mouse
Armaggeddon Aquila-X1 Mouse.
CM Storm Recon (Mass Luminosity Edition, Coming soon)
And I own the following Mousepads:
Armaggeddon Black and Green Mousepad (Came with the Aquila-X1)
SteelSeries QcK MINI Black
SteelSeries QcK MINI Asus / Diablo III Scheme
CM Storm Assassins Creed Mousepad
Save the HP Optical Mouse, the other couple of mice have 1 thing in common: a DPI adjusting switch to suit my pointing speed. Most gaming mice have it. But even in the office in Ministry of Manpower, I use the X1 as my work mouse. I'll explain why later. Do note, all these pads I use are all REALLY good pads and it's kinda hard to tell especially since my 2 SteelSeries Pads are both the same cloth material. But different desk and pad surfaces can however change the characteristics and accuracy of your mouse usage.
MOUSE TYPES
Now people in my workplace know that I use my own mouse and pad as my work mouse. I often generally favor favor using mice with my pads. I normally prefer an after market mouse rather than the ones that come with an entry level system for cheap or free. And when you glide it on a pad or desk, you can instantly tell a good mouse from a cheap old rubbish just by the gliding alone.
MACRO BUTTONS, DO YOU NEED IT?
Macros in gaming can potentially make a huge difference in creating shortcuts so you can rely less of your keyboard. However I find it too used to using a keyboard and my general mouse the X1 even though it has DPI adjusting buttons, it doesn't have any additional Macro Buttons. Moreover, if you use an after-market mouse like I do in an office environment, then the extra buttons are pretty much redundant. The big factor in the mouse is the surfaces.
BIG MOUSEPADS AND LARGE SURFACES? DO YOU NEED IT?
In reality, since mainstream mouse users have quite a small desk like mine at home, you don't really need it. At most if you have a super long a big mousepads, then you can fit your mouse AND your keyboard. However I imagine you gliding a mouse over a huge area of a jumbo pad end to end; that's pretty much overkill and unpractical in a normal scenario.
ADVISE WHEN YOU USE A MOUSE
1: Depending on which hand you use a mouse (Typically it's right; Even many lefties use their Mouse with the Right hand), keep any hand wear to a minimal. Avoid wearing large and heavy watches and bracelets and other items on your wrist where the weight can seriously slow you down. Even if you're just doing general work, wearing any of these will get in the way on your surface. Rings are fine but again not those big ones where it can affect your grip.
2: Keep your surface area (and your mouse) clean of mess. Any dust acculumation on your surface can affect the gliding performance of the padded feet of the mouse. And if you're still using the old mouse with a ball in its base, make sure you clean the internal rollers every now and again.
BATTLEFIELD 4 BETA: BENCHMARKING PREVIEW
Hey there all. Everybody's anticipating the launch of Battlefield 4. So I'm not sure whether NDA has allowed to post any benchmarks of Battlefield 4 yet. However what I'll do is my own benchmarking because when the requirements first came out, especially for the high Spec setting, it irks me a bit somehow. AMD's graphics will seem to work better since AMD and Frostbite worked together on the graphics Engine.
But then again though, nVidia just released the Beta 331.40 Driver just for this game.
OK. The basic system requirements are as follows:
Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit)
Intel Core 2 Duo or Athlon
4GB RAM
30GB Hard Disk Space
nVidia GeForce 8800GT or a ATI Radeon 3870 with 512 MB VRAM
DirectX 10 SoundCard
Broadband for Multiplayer
Now the Higher Recommended Specs irk me slightly which is why I want to do some benchmarking.
What it requires is:
Quad Core Intel CPU or Hex Core AMD CPU
8GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 660 or 7870 with 3GB of VRAM
Everything else is the same
The only thing which irked me is the 3GB requirement of Video Memory, which I don't deem really needed unless you're benchmarking in super high resolutions which I'm not. I'm just going standard HD Resolutions of 1920 x 1080 which I know and have tested and concluded in many various games that doesn't really require 3GB of Video Memory. Look, standard Geforce GTX 660s and up cards carry 2GB of RAM. My GTX 680 which I hope to replace with a GTX 780 also has 2 Gigs. So I'm gonna check whether 2GB RAM is deemed playable on a GTX 680 as well as you know, standard benchmarking with different class of systems.
Now this time I've 2 rigs as shown below.
For the Laptop I'll be testing in the native resolution of 1366 x 768 and then in Full HD. Whereas for the desktop I've a couple of GPUs to play around with. I'll test in 1680 x 1050 and Full HD. I'll just keep tweaking settings here and there to see what settings I need to keep the game playable.
AFTERSHOCK X11
Core i7 3630QM
8GB RAM
2GB DDR3 nVidia GeForce GT 650M.
DESKTOP
Core i5 2500K (which will be upgraded to Core i7 2600k soon)
16GB RAM
1GB ATI Radeon 5850
2GB PNY nVidia GeForce GTX 680
Now, I won't release any figures just yet but I'll show you what settings you need to maintain a minimum 30 FPS within a heavily Multiplayer game as well as some game play footage of generally me getting owned lol.
But then again though, nVidia just released the Beta 331.40 Driver just for this game.
OK. The basic system requirements are as follows:
Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit)
Intel Core 2 Duo or Athlon
4GB RAM
30GB Hard Disk Space
nVidia GeForce 8800GT or a ATI Radeon 3870 with 512 MB VRAM
DirectX 10 SoundCard
Broadband for Multiplayer
Now the Higher Recommended Specs irk me slightly which is why I want to do some benchmarking.
What it requires is:
Quad Core Intel CPU or Hex Core AMD CPU
8GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 660 or 7870 with 3GB of VRAM
Everything else is the same
The only thing which irked me is the 3GB requirement of Video Memory, which I don't deem really needed unless you're benchmarking in super high resolutions which I'm not. I'm just going standard HD Resolutions of 1920 x 1080 which I know and have tested and concluded in many various games that doesn't really require 3GB of Video Memory. Look, standard Geforce GTX 660s and up cards carry 2GB of RAM. My GTX 680 which I hope to replace with a GTX 780 also has 2 Gigs. So I'm gonna check whether 2GB RAM is deemed playable on a GTX 680 as well as you know, standard benchmarking with different class of systems.
Now this time I've 2 rigs as shown below.
For the Laptop I'll be testing in the native resolution of 1366 x 768 and then in Full HD. Whereas for the desktop I've a couple of GPUs to play around with. I'll test in 1680 x 1050 and Full HD. I'll just keep tweaking settings here and there to see what settings I need to keep the game playable.
AFTERSHOCK X11
Core i7 3630QM
8GB RAM
2GB DDR3 nVidia GeForce GT 650M.
DESKTOP
Core i5 2500K (which will be upgraded to Core i7 2600k soon)
16GB RAM
1GB ATI Radeon 5850
2GB PNY nVidia GeForce GTX 680
Now, I won't release any figures just yet but I'll show you what settings you need to maintain a minimum 30 FPS within a heavily Multiplayer game as well as some game play footage of generally me getting owned lol.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)