Review: Gigabyte BRIX GB-(BXA8G-8890) A8 5557 & R9 M275X Super SFF Desktop.

Today we review easily the smallest and possibly the cutest gaming computer that I have ever graced in my life. The Gigabyte AMD Brix Gaming, specifically the BXA8G-8890. This is practically represents the limit in smallest available form factor that can squeeze gaming grade components. Now I know this is not the only Small form HTPC based PC, there are others like the ASRock VisionX (with a Radeon R9 M270X and the older Radeon 7850M), Zotac EN760M/860M with GeForce GTX 860M and 960M, but this is basically as small as it gets and IMO the most practical of the whole lot.

This model was marketed by Cyberpower PC and I liked the dark grey scheme a LOT more than the red one by Gigabyte by Default as it will match most color themes of your room and your TV / Monitors and will not stick out the way red does.

Gigabyte is no stranger to the BRIX line. They have manufactured numerous models and types. The Brix went as small as a basic one with a i5 5200U Broadwell, to a Quad-Core i7 4770R with Hyperthreading and Iris Pro Graphics. Only 3 were contenders for gaming, this one, the 4770R (but the Iris Pro can't do too much either) and the model with a full desktop GTX 760, which proved to be a HORRIBLE idea.

First Look:

Unboxing of Cyberpower PC's rebranding of the AMD Brix reveals very simple stuff.

There was supposed to be a bag of screws for the VESA mount but I think I lost em' lol.

The Box contained the Manual, Utility Disk which really is not needed, VESA Mount, the power brick (on the right). The cable on the left is for the US wall socket. However, finding a compatible attachment for the UK, HK and Singapore's Wall socket is no problem. I happened to have tonne of cables that uses the Mickey Mouse head plugged into the Brick and have the appropriate 3 Pins for our Power Socket from all the old Laptop Chargers used for the Fujitsu Lifebook E8210.

AMD A8 5557M Quad Core Accelerated Processing Unit (2.1 - 3.1GHz Boost, 3MB Cache)
2GB DDR3 RAM (Low Voltage)
120GB SSD (Kingston V300 SSDNow)
R9 M275X / Radeon 8890M

Now synopsis was that initially prior to the Pentium G3258 Machine I built for my brother, I wanted to build a AMD system on the idea as a scrapyard wars recently as a small bedside computer with an mATX or mITX board. I was thinking along the lines of a AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition and the Radeon 5850 which is still in service in the G3258. I had been wanting an AMD system for a whole year now. But when I saw this on eBay going for so cheap, I knew I had to have it as it was within that budget I was targeting to spend for the AMD Build and this was a lot more practical too. So that said, I finally fulfilled that project a year later.

Now I purchased this as it was only at 470 USD on eBay including importing and shipping. A Fully assembled one and laptops with that GPU will be twice as expensive. I know it only had 2 gigs of RAM and one 120GB SSD but these can be swapped out either for upgrades or replacements should either part goes bad. In all honesty, this is how otherwise a MacBook Pro should have been, ease of upgrades. For that sort of money, factoring in Windows 8.1, I really can't say no to that and the form factor of it makes it awesome.

S4 vs the Brix in terms of size. 

If the size reminds you of something, the length and depth is very similar to a NUC only taller. Tiny she is, it's like a toy. As you can see, the unit in comparison to the size of my Samsung Galaxy S4 along with some things around it, including a bottle and a Brother Printer and the AOC E2250SWDN Monitor that is being driven by that, it's so Cute! Easily, one of the cutest Brick Computers in existence. But don't let it fool you. It packs some respectable hardware. And despite the size, it is real hefty and weighty. But it is still way within how we can call portable.

Size Comparisons to all my Computers I have: In terms of gaming, the BRIX is the smallest, but ranked 2nd of my
rigs that I use to game with in terms of raw GPU power.

Ports:

Small enough to be held in my hand.

The assortment of ports is good. 4 USB 3.0s (2 front, 2 back) is the ideal number. HDMI and miniDisplay are your display outputs. The latter natively supports my Apple Thunderbolt - DVI adapter out of the box.

Front: 2 USB 3.0, Headphone Jack

Back (L to R): Power Jack, HDMI, mini Display, Gigabit Ethernet
2 USB 3.0

Honestly having a VGA / DVI Port will be very nice, but mini Display-Port and HDMI seems okay I guess, since the mini Display Port fully supports the Apple Mini Display / Thunderbolt to the DVI Adapter no problem. Nonetheless, 4 USB 3.0 ports is practically the perfect number of USB 3.0s to have. Only complaint is the unsightly amounts of cables that will result. But hey, I'll pick functionality than it looking pretty anytime. Also, having an additional Audio Jack at the back for a microphone will also be nice, especially if you need to have headphones plugged in with your audio output device at the same time.

Upgrades:
Having a removable base allows some maintenance and upgrades. Taking it off requires the 4 screws to be taken off the feet before it could be removed. For me, one of the screws was awful jammed in there so I had to take the feet out before I used my pliers for the best grip and least effort to take it out. Apart from that, removal of the base gives you access to the RAM Modules, mSATA slot and the 2.5" Drive Caddy. Currently the caddy is populated with a Kingston 120GB SSD. Of course with the base out you can dust and clean the BRIX with little complaint. And because this machine really depends on as-little-as-possible dust for thermal management with such hardware in there, I recommend doing so ever so often when you have time.

First Boot:

I did run into a little snag with regards to the memory, since the memory stick I shoved in there is of the 1.5V Voltage type. The machine uses DDR3 Low Voltage 1.35V RAM, which was why it was why POST Message was complaining. But you can skip the setup prompt and I was able to proceed to boot it with all 6 Gigs of RAM in, just have to keep skipping that prompt on every boot. And I checked the EFI BIOS and it does see all 6, and so did windows. But the first thing I did was to turn the mode from Operation to Turbo Mode on the BIOS first because I heard performance can be hampered quite a lot as Op Mode will limit max Clocks to 1.8-2.1 GHz. Turning on Turbo will greatly increase the clocks to the specced speed of 3.1 and it will noticeably improve performance.

Speaking of Windows, it does boot the OS really snappy despite the Low Power of the APU but it's partly because of the Kingston SSD it has on it. Boots up fast, shuts down fast. This comes with Windows 8.1 install which is actually a good place for me to see how the OS environment feels like. I used Windows 7 and 10 TP but not Windows 8/8.1. So now at least I'm finally using the missing puzzle of all Microsoft OSes all the way since Windows 3.11. Got Start 8 App for the Start Menu (which is obvious in the screenie below).

I really appreciate that the CyberpowerPC's branding of the BRIX doesn't use nearly any bloatware at all. Drivers are of course needed online, but this way I can customize how I really want to set this thing up. Wireless speeds are abit sluggish, partly however due to where I placed it. But it does work well enough for what I use the machine for.

Storage: Kingston V300 SSDNow
120GB is tiny... just as small as my MacBook Pro. However I'm glad there's at least a decent (however aging) SSD as a nice boot drive. No system that I have right now, runs a mechanical Hard Drive as my operating drive. All 4 systems I have use SSDs as boot with others as secondary. But if I need more, that's where the upgrading features comes in. If I want to populate the mSATA Slot, I can in the future, with another 120GB. So really, in all fairness, this is really a desktop version of my Aftershock X11 but with expandable storage.

Machine Uses:
Being small and so portable allows the users to bring it along elsewhere, so long if the area has a monitor / TV to plug into. The form factor makes it a Great LAN Party machine. And in a HTPC environment, the bigger your TV and the more powerful your sound system is, the better. Just plug in your HDMI or mini Display port or adapters that you have to a compatible monitor / TV and away you go. This class of computers can also fall in the class as a STEAM Machine.

And of course if your desk or workspace is really limited this will fit just fine plonked on your desk or behind your screen.

Gaming on the BRIX:
The R9 M275X is based on the Radeon 8890M which is a heavy 200 Mhz overclock to the 8870M. There aren't any official pages of the 8890M so I assume from the Gigabyte Product page that it is the 8890M rebranded. This GPU is based on the GCN architecture but primarily based on the old Cape Verde Chip and with the same Core Config as a Radeon 7770. The Radeon 7770 and 8890M are almost near identical, with the 7770 only being 75 MHz faster than the 8890M. That said, the APU might pose as a bottleneck to the system, bringing the performance closer to the GTX 550 Ti. To me, that's good enough for many of the older titles that I often play on my MacBook Pro and it'll sure perform a lot better than the Iris 5100 that I've been playing on the last couple of months.

And it shows, Diablo III easing its way through at full maximum settings at 1920 x 1080 at a comfortable 40 FPS, and with places maintaining my VSync fps at 60. And somehow, stuttering is far less apparent here than on my GTX 970 SLI desktop though it runs at 200+ fps or 60 with VSync all the time. Path of Exile somehow uses the 8550G unless I force the switchable graphics but it still works alright though. Dota 2 is absolutely fine at full settings at full 1080p.

Below is Diablo 3 running at Full Maximum HD settings. No problem.

Which goes to say, basically MMOs, RPGs and MOBAs, the Gaming BRIX fits its bill just fine.

Metro Last Light:

Did quite a few runs within my current bedside configuration at 1440 x 900p. As long as you turn tessellation off which hits the performance hard, High Settings on 900p is possible. Already this extremely demanding benchmark brings any high end GPU to its knees, let alone a GPU specced similarly to a Radeon 7770.

720p Medium with Tessellation: Just short of 30 fps.

720p 16:9 without Tessellation - Medium

720p 16:9 without Tessellation - High

1440 x 900 in my current Bedside Monitor - Medium

1440 x 900p: High 

I did go straight to 1080p test after swapping out to my Philips 222 EL. And still playable. Seems the game is poorly optimized for the BRIX on lower resolutions as we can still play in 1080p but the frame rate isn't that much higher on 720p and 900p. Just don't know why.

3DMark Benchmarks:

I ran the full suite except FS Ultra which really is not needed since it's not meant to be a high end machine. But 3D Mark Fire Strike scores surprisingly well, to my surprise. The score of 2316 and a GPU Score of 2820 is not something to be scoffed at. This score brings it in league with a GTX 670MX and a GTX 765M, excellent. I was actually not expecting this. The scores owes a bit of gratitude by setting the BIOS to Turbo though.

A Respectable Score on Fire Strike for the GPU especially.

Fire Strike Extreme: Not bad scores really.

However, while the GPU scores extremely well for the following, here's this, the Physics. While the APU is a Quad-Core, most APUs won't come close to even Dual Core i3s and i5s. And of course, due to heat, it will thermal throttle when it's under the heavy usage scenario. For that, the APU is what really bogged down physics performance. General work is okay, but not ideal for applications that require the use of heavy physics. That said though, physics aside, the GPU performance scores are surprisingly high across all the 3DMark Benchmarks (Save FS Extreme / Ultra), especially scoring exactly the same as a Radeon 7770 for Cloud Gate and Fire Strike. (According to Notebookcheck.net)

A less intensive and more forgiving Benchmark for Mid Ranged PCs. The R9 M275X scored a respectable
over 9500 for the Graphics scored. Notebookcheck doesn't really run this particular benchmark at all. 

Cloud Gate scores. The GPU scored  really well here but is heavily bogged by the relatively weak APU
despite being a quad Core. 

Catzilla and GPU Switching:

Ran into a snag and abnormally when I first ran the test initially scoring low till I forced the Maximum Performance on CCC. The 720p test with the 8550G scored a measly 1800+. After manually dedicating full GPUs for the App, scores are a lot more acceptable. As aging as Catzilla is, it is still good for those low end GPUs. But that said, the automatic GPU switching from AMD needs to be reworked.

PassMark 3D Graphics Benchmark:

Another program that needs to Force the GPU on. The Graphics test initially scored a super low of 717, that was until I forced the BRIX to run on the maximum settings and eventually scored 2028 and places the GPU to where I expected it to be, trading blows with the GTX 550 Ti on the 3D Benchmarks. The Baseline is recorded however as the 8550G as its default GPU.

CPU Bencharks: Cinebench R15 

We're starting to see an increasing trend of the weak APU that really doesn't need much more complaints than it already has. This benchmark is more representative of how balanced your computer is and it's already obvious on how big a bottleneck the APU is.

Geekbench:
Outside of Windows, the APU is relatively a weak Processing Unit, as seen by the Geekbench results below. The single core score of 1668 was far off than the general baseline average of 2500. Multicore didn't really do so much either. Of all the scores it scores kinda bad. Even my Samsung Galaxy Note (2014) 10.1 Tablet isn't super far off despite scoring 916 and 2829 respectively.

Ranking of all my devices I got after testing Geekbench excluding my desktop that I just ran today:
1. Aftershock X11               2216                8236
2. MacBook Pro                   2810                5951
3. Gigabyte BRIX               1668               4332
4. Samsung Galaxy Note       916                2829
5. Samsung Galaxy S4          626                 1655

But then again, you can't expect to fit an Core i7 4900MQ or an FX 8350 in there for that size.

Now if you want to see how this GPU roughly performs, the VisionX 420D by ASRock is the closest PC that can replicate such results. AnandTech has compared that to the GTX 760 Brix and others in the following articles.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8527/gigabyte-brix-gaming-bxi5g760-review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8406/visionx-420d-review-asrock-continues-to-impress


Noise:
As expected in such a form factor, the fans will spin up. So it is plenty loud when exerting a full load like Fire Strike. However, to me that one was totally expected, so no surprises that it'll be noisy in Gaming Loads. All honesty, that said, I had worse. It's noticeable but not too annoying since I game on Big Speakers all the time. And if you put this in the living room, and any good sound output will definitely overpower the noise big time.

Value:
Now the System I bought from eBay cost 400 USD (500 SGD) + Shipping. Now if I factor in Windows 8.1 and the SSD at 150 USD, the entire package along with accessories and VESA Mount cost only 250 USD, that was unbelievable. For the price I really couldn't say no to it. Should be mentioned though that this is from another eBay user so it was not straight from CyberPower. But it always already freaking mint without any scratches so it is New.

Bottomline:

"Not a kid's toy" is a fitting name for it, seeing that it's cute enough to be one. For this Tiny but mighty machine packs some serious horsepower in a chassis no bigger than a triple-decker club sandwich, And it shows the absolute limit in shrinking a gaming computer. It also pretty much can do what a full desktop can offer you, with the added feasibility of bringing it to LAN parties or presentations. Of course, compromises have to be made for thermals and noise, which is to be expected and the Quad-Core A8 leaves a lot to be desired. Upgrade paths are an important welcome addition to any computer, really it's what my MacBook Pro should have been.

Gigabyte has made this BRIX combining the best of AMD, and frankly speaking the most optimal of all the BRIX Gaming they did so far. Of course, you can build better systems yourself but this is a niche product that fulfill specific roles. There's still that sense of a DIY-ness which should still please PC builders as this can be found in places online where it's being sold as a barebones unit.

Pros:

- Good GPU performance, ready for most mid-range games given its cost and size.
- Access to upgrades and maintenance.
- Super Compact and easy to place.
- Well within portability though it still carries some heft.
- Snappy SSD though tiny storage.
- Versatile Machine for almost any role a full Desktop would fill, made more flexible with its size.
- Large performance per cost and per watt.
- Excellent port selection. Enough USB 3.0s for the job.
- Little Bloatware
- Just looks So Damn Cute!!!


Cons:

- A8 APU isn't exactly strong. Presents a bottleneck.
- Unsightly amount of cables. You see more cables than you see the system LOL
- DVI / VGA connector would have been nice.
- Audio ports at the back would be nice to ensure a clean look on the front side of the Brix
- Loud Audible Fan at full blast, can also result to thermal throttling.
- RAM Upgrades require some thinking for the Low 1.35 Voltage though standard 1.5 voltage RAM will work; just that POST display will complain of incompatibility issues.
- Catalyst Control Center Auto Graphics Switching needs work.

Rating: 8.5 / 10

ZOTAC STEAM Machine Unvielled: The SN970

Zotac has revealed a new SFF Machine with a STEAM OS in it along with other systems classified as STEAM Machines. The Zotac EN760 which set a good standard as a SFF PC with a powerful and efficient GPU is set to have a bigger brother in form of the SN970. The 970 in the serial number denotes a GTX 970M in it, which has twice or more the power of the 860M in EN760. I know Dell Alienware already has one in form of the Alpha but it's specced quite the same as the EN760 with the 860M installed.

I'm definitely sure this will be bigger than the EN760 as I reckon it'll be dimensioned the same size or similar size as a console. Still, it'll be pretty nice and small enough and like many Flat desktop or Horizontal Desktop Form Factors, you could simply save space by just plopping your monitor on top. Of course you can change the orientation as you'd like.

Zotac revealed that it will have a Skylake CPU which is the successor to Broadwell. Broadwell for the Desktop if memory serves, is not available yet so it makes me wonder what difference will Broadwell be against Skylake. So I'm a bit doubtful of the CPU's capability at the moment. But the GPU is proven capable, that is definite. The Maxwell Architecture really has set some solid ground from my GTX 970 SLI experiences despite the 3.5GB controversy. So I won't be surprised at its definitive performance. With 1280 Maxwell-based CUDA Cores and 3GB of Video Memory on a 192-bit bus, it's a definite sweet spot for Home Theater gaming at 1080p with an extent to even 1440p and 4K and more than enough for current today's AAA titles at close to maximum settings. I read somewhere on Zotac that the GPU is a MXM Module based card, so I guess it's possible to bump this up down the road should you want. We'll wait for November to be absolutely sure though. But if it is confirmed that this should be the case, this will be an awesome feature to have, especially in a event should your GPU happen to fry itself somehow.

One thing I notice that this thing has a crap tonne of HDMI! Those are nice to have, so if you plan to  go NVidia Surround, you can. Each HDMI is at the 2.0 standard and supports UHD resolution at 60Hz so 4K gaming is definitely possible there, especially given the horsepower of the GTX 970M. But this also functions as a HTPC and you'll want to have the option of plugging in some add-on players to record movies and TV Shows to your SN970.

The unit is set to launch in November. And as far as it's certain, I was told by Dennis from BeyondGeek, the retailer whom I personally bought my former Zotac GTX 780 AMP Card 1.5 years ago from, a high chance that a Barebone will be released as well. Knowing Zotac, they always sell barebones for their ZBoxes. I'll gladly look out for one because I want to transfer my 8Gigs of RAM and my 2.5" Samsung 840 250GB SSD from my X11 to here. But I'd definitely take a 64GB M.2 as my boot if you ask me. Likely a definite Win-Win for Zotac.

Rumored Specs:
CPU: Skylake 6th Generation CPU
RAM: 8GB SODIM
Storage: 64GB M.2, Provision for an extra 2.5" Drive in it.
GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX 970M (MXM, Maybe upgradable in future)
I/O: 2 x USB 2.0, 4 x USB x 3.0, 4 x HDMI?! (That's a lot of HDMI!) , Audio Jacks: Mic In and Speaker/Headphone out, SD Card (always nice to have), WIFI: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
OS: Steam OS, Optional Windows OS.

By the way, has anyone thought of using Steam Machines as a Hackintosh Mac Mini?

Front I/O: Power Button, Dedicated Audio Jacks, two USB 3.0 ports and the good ol' SD Card slot.

Very nice: Dual Ethernet, Wireless Antenna, And a crapload of HDMI.
2 USB 2.0s and another pair of USB 3.0s.

Graphics Cards of 2014: My Top 5 Choice!

NVIDIA SUMMARY

Well, nVidia have been pretty damn busy with their graphics cards especially with the new Maxwell Architecture. We had a first taste with the GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti, the latter being the base for the GTX 860M. They later released their flagship GTX 980 and their 2nd Highest tiered but very good Value-for-money GTX 970. They only did 2 GTX 900 series cards this year, their GTX 700 series lineup was establishing a stable foothold already in the GPU game. These 2 cards rocked the GPU Wars by storm when they were released in September 22. Before that they launched 2 CUDA Developer cards, the Titan Black and the freaking (and still) expensive GTX Titan Z, which I wasn't surprised to say that it wasn't popular due to cost to fulfill niche operations when heavy CUDA was needed.

AMD SUMMARY

That's not to say that AMD has been quiet either. Just to battle the GTX 700 series lineup, AMD released quite a craptonne. AMD was soft launching budget cards like the R7 250X, 265. AMD unleashed the AMD R9 295X2. This was the only card whose reference cooler is based off a Liquid AIO unit. Initially it was expensive at 1500 USD but now dropping prices drastically to combat the price of 2 GTX 970s in SLI, citing power comparisons. At least now this dual GPU Card has way much better value for money than it had way before. Now in between the high end and the budget end are the R9 280 and 285. The 280 was based off the old Tahiti 7950 which is still good today despite being almost 3 years old now. The 285 is based off the new Tonga core which is sorta the AMD counterpart to Maxwell.

MY TOP 5 CHOICES OF THE NEW 2014 GPUs

5. GTX 750 Ti
Highly Power Efficient and Budget friendly.

This was initially a taste of what is to come for later part of the year. This card was extremely power efficient for how much performance it could do. Most models do not come with a PCI-E 6 Pin connector but some do have it for overclocking Headroom. Older computers with a small wattage power Supply can breathe a new lease of life without taking out that dinky little PSU. The line of GTX 750 Tis cards are pretty small in general so these are ideal in small form factor HTPC / LAN Party / Low-budget gaming builds. For their size and performance per watt, gets the Number 5 spot from me. The only drawback is the lack of SLI connectors for Multi Way Configurations, which anyway, personally, is not the aim of any budget card.

4. R9 285
AMD's First Tonga Based GPU.

This was to supplement the 280 Series of R9 GPUs. Unlike the older 280 and 280 which were based off the 7900 series Tahiti cores, this was a power optimized Tonga GPU which is AMD's counter to Maxwell, sorta. Priced at a mainstream market, this GPU fulfills the mainstream enthusiast, whose performance is in league with the 280X but at a more power optimized envelope. Sapphire makes some of the best 285s with the mITX version being the most powerful of the mITX cards that Sapphire has made. However the cheaper models aren't any slouch either. The 285 makes a good 1080p gaming and to a strong extent 1440p too however with lack of VRAM being the bottleneck. However for a gamer who wants a strong affordable GPU, the 285 is a solid choice at Number 4.

3. R9 295X2
Enthusiast Level, power-hogging Performer

The king of AMD GPUs was an upgrade from the 7990. Now this is the first reference GPU that is has a hybrid Liquid / Fan cooling system, probably inspired by the ASUS ARES 7990 Card. Now the liquid cooling is needed for the Hawaii GPUs as these get really toasty. Their crap air blowers couldn't handle the 290Xs and 290s and they throttle down very heavily when they operate at 95 degrees all the time. So the Liquid cooling addressed the problem for this card for a more consistent core clock. Initially expensive at 1500 USD. However with the prices of the newer GPUs like the 980 and especially the 970, they had to cut it dramatically, citing power hogging requirements compared to 2 GTX 970s in SLI even though they perform at the same level. They offer the same new features like Mantle from the new GCN Architecture.

2. GTX 980
Maxwell Unleashed. Power Efficiency at its finest.

Palit Super Jetstream GTX 980
Owned by Darryl Leong after
swapping out his R9 290X.

The top of the line Maxwell GM204 at least till nVidia releasing Big Maxwell, it was released at the same time along with the GTX 970. This card was set to replace the GTX 780 and doubled the performance of a GTX 680. The GTX 980 brought about new changes to the table. And like the GTX 750 Ti, it is meant to be more power efficient without compromises. TinyTomLogan tested an i7 4960X with a GTX 780 Ti on a 450W and works fine, and Guru3D places 980's power consumption just under the R9 270X, which is SO down the freaking line!!! It was measured at 171W and 280W with another 6 core CPU. So when NVidia says you need to have a 500W PSU for a 980, you don't, really.

If you want to see the extent, take Gigabyte's new 3x Waterforce which is 3 Way SLI 980s on Steroids, even at factory overclocks, the Power Consumption is lower than 2 R9 290Xes (Could be a reference model) and very slightly more than one 295X2 (which is expected for 3 GPU vs 2 GPU but still a good show.)

The GTX 980 is the first new DirectX 12 Card from nVidia and supports Dynamic Super Resolution which brings the fidelity of 4K resolution to a small 1920 x 1080. Maxwells are also known for insane overclocking including the GTX 970s so for enthusiasts, overclocking is a dream. Darryl, who was using a R9 290X in last year's Top 5 GPU roundup upgraded to this card. He could get a stable 1.5GHz Core and a Full 8GHz on the memory. Now Value for money isn't the best, but it's fair for 500+ USD. My Number 2.

My Current Configuration of Palit
Vanilla GTX 970 and MSI Armor
GTX 970 in SLI.

1. GTX 970 / GTX 970 in SLI
High End Performance for Outstanding value.

All honesty, the best value for money in the high end range, with high performance per dollar value. It's not to say that the GTX 980s have bad money value but this line up generally cost as low as 5/8s the price of the GTX 980. You do have lesser Cuda Cores and Clock Speed than the 980 but these cards' insane overclocking headroom can bring these in line with GTX 980s. Power consumption is of course low. It uses 2 6-Pin PCI-E but actually this card could EASILY make do with just 1. But extra overclocking headroom, always nice to have. Back to value, if you can afford a GTX 980, splashing a bit of extra than that can give you 2 GTX 970s! In fact, this configuration is cheaper than some of the premium single GPU cards of the last generation including the GTX 780 Ti and the R9 290X. 2 Cards in SLI are possibly one of the cheapest gateways for playable 4K Experience. So for a well-rounded High End Card(s) without breaking much of a bank, GTX 970 and 2 of them in 2-way SLI earned a solid #1 Recommendation from me.

CoolerMaster Based LAN Party / Bedside Computer Endeavor Project - FINALLY

Finally I'm getting somewhere with my baby ITX Bedside / LAN Party Build with that Pentium G3258! I just need a storage drive then I'm good to go!

CPU: Pentium G3258,

I thought the Pentium K was something of a bit of a goof but for a LAN Party build, this is the perfect CPU to have as your heart. Overclocking will be the name of the game though for it's essential for an "acceptable or even a good gaming experience - LinusTechTips" on the freaking cheap. Once you crank speeds beyond 4.5 Ghz, most of the bottlenecks posed by the dual core processor will not be obvious anymore. And at that speed in terms of gaming, it can edge remarkably close to the even bigger Quad-Core / 8 Threaded Intel CPUs and the 8-core AMD CPUs.

Cooling: Intel Stock cooler.

This will be enough to cool it down but I may intend to replace with a good low profile CPU cooling since I plan to get it up to 4.5-4.6 GHz on this thing.

Case: CoolerMaster Elite 120

Nice CoolerMaster Case that I'm getting from a friend. Now I've been a big fan of the Elite 120 rather than the 130 because of its plain and IMO Flashier design for the front side of the case then the mesh grills on the 130. The only functional difference is the front USB Layout (1 x 3.0 and 2 x 2.0 on the 120, and 2 x 3.0 and 1 x 2.0 on the 130) which wouldn't mean too much jack. And of course the case being longer than the 110, I can fit a longer GPU should I wish to upgrade.

Motherboard: MSI Z87I LGA 1150 ITX

Overclocking ready motherboard, just needs a new BIOS, this I have ordered new from eBay. ITX LGA 1150 motherboard is what I need in this build. It has WiFi, which is nice which means I don't need to sacrifice a USB Port for a WiFi Adapter. It doesn't have eSATA compared to other competing Z87 ITX boards but that's one of the things which I never use at all.

It has been voted by TomsHardware as a Smart Choice for Z87I Board Options. So the link here is the article of the MSI Z87I.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z87-motherboard-roundup,3656-14.html

The entire board is black mostly, so it'll complement the external color of the case well and most of the stuff which I stuff in will also be black.

RAM: 8GB GSkill Ripjaws RAM DDR3 1600 PC 12800

I decided not to go with Corsair Vengeance as my primary RAM after so many failures with it. Of a grand total of 6 Sticks or 24GBs that I have, Half of the entire batch failed. 1 of the RAMs though did last for 3+ years so that RAM was decidedly lucky. So I ordered a pack of 16GB of GSkill Ripjaws RED RAM, and half of it will be reserved for this build. I won't require anything faster than 1600 since the Pentium G3258 is limiting bandwidth to 1333 anyways. It should be fine however either way since I've been switching between 1333 and 1600 in my Sandy Bridge build and performance difference seems negligible if any.

GPU: PENDING: ATI Radeon 5850 / Palit GTX 970

Now I'm in a bit of a dilemma on what should I use lol. I do have an ATI Radeon 5850 in store that was supposedly dead but it works while I was diagnosing my computer for that dead RAM last month. So that could be an option. Also, I thought that having 2 GTX 970s was a little on an overkill side so I thought of using the Palit GTX 970 to match the black build internally. However, the resolution that had been planned is for a 19" Inch Monitor at 1440 x 900 as a bedside computer so even a single GTX 970 will still be overkill for this build. But, the option's there should I feel like it.

POWER SUPPLY: 650W CoolerMaster PSU

This was the old Cooler Master Power Supply that I was using in one point, made quite a bit of a grinding sound which was why I swapped that to the Corsair RM1000 in my main machine. However, this PSU for a bedside rig should work regardless.

Peripherals: CM Storm Devastator Mouse and KB Combo bought from Lazada

Budget Combo of Keyboard and Mouse. And personally I didn't care whether it was mechanical keyboard or what. And since this is a bedside computer, and I'm gonna use it when it's pitch black, I need some lighting. The mouse that will come with it will replace the Battlefield 3 Mouse from Razer since it was spassing out double clicks whenever I try to click once which is ultra annoying. This will complement the general theme of Red and Black pretty well in the system.

GTX 970 SLI Review (Follow Up): Scores and Overclocking Journey

Now, I didn't post up scores in my last post. I had to redo it after an unfortunate thing happened to my RAM. One of my Corsair Vengeance Sticks Died so I'm down to 8 Gigs. In the process I swapped the card positions around and instead of MSI being the Top Card, the Palit returned its position as the top card for Temperature Control, as I found that with the MSI at the top, the temps become quite unbearable. As soon as I took it to the bottom, the Idle Temperatures of the MSI 4GD5T Armor Edition GTX 970 dropped Drastically by 25-30 Degrees C to around 31-34 Idle. I was able to get a much more thermal consistency which lead to more consistent overclocks and increased headroom.

Now I did quite a bit of overclocking tweaking and some of the legends you see are GTX 970 OC, GTX 970 SLI OC 1 and OC2

So how I tweaked them as follows:

GTX 970 OC: +222 Core Clock, 100 Memory.
GTX 970 SLI OC 1: 180 Core Clock, 294 MHz Memory, GDDR5 is at 7.6 GHz
GTX 970 SLI OC 2: 180 Core Clock, 394 MHz Memory, GDDR5 is at 7.8 GHz. - Final Stable Overclock

7.8GHz on the GDDR5! Fully Stable. That's very nice on SLI Cards!
I did have a GTX 780 in occasional scores, just to compare how much of a performance difference I get since that card.

Configuration of my Test System:

Core i7 2600K at 4432MHz
8GB RAM at 1648 MHz
128GB OCZ Vertex 4
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green
500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue
Corsair P8P67M-Pro
Corsair H70
1000W Corsair RM1000
Fractal Design Define R3
GPU 1: Palit GTX 970 "Vanilla"
GPU 2: MSI GTX 970 4GD5T "Armor Edition"

Swapped my GPU Positions around. Now Palit is the Top Card, and MSI is the Bottom Card

SOFTWARE BENCHMARK SCORES
3D Mark Firestrike: Standard, Extreme, Ultra
Catzilla ALL Benchmark

Seeing about 50-65% increase scaling all around. Not a good proportion but you can't get everything. It does however respond extremely well once I start tweaking. I am real chuffed to get 16,000 on FS Standard after overclocking to its current speeds.  I only had tested Ultra on SLI GTX 970s as prior to installing the SLI Config, the Ultra Benchmark mode hasn't been released yet. Still the scores would suck if I were to test FireStrike Ultra on a single card so I didn't bother. The 4788 score which I did post previously came as a surprise, after the first overclock I hit, but since then even with all the tweaks I can't get to beat that score.

*Update! I hit a stable 4896 after dialling my OC Memory back a bit! It was a good score nonetheless, thought you should know!

METRO LAST LIGHT

1080 HD Maxed, No SSAA

1080 HD Maxed with SSAA

A Very demanding benchmark indeed. I was initially having problems benching Super Sampling a single Palit Card, it crashed if I applied an OC. When I did OC the SLI setup, I could launch this without a hitch, so yeah no OC Single Card results. The score gap widens as I tune my GPUs. Notice at stock, the GTX 970 already beats the already OC-ed Zotac 780 I used to have. There wasn't good scaling from stock GTX 970 to GTX 970 SLI,  Very likely due to drivers. But tweaking to OC 2 Clocks nets some noticeable performance gains, especially Minimum Framerates.

BIOSHOCK INFINITE:
Ultra DX11, DOF

I didn't have stock GTX 970 SLIs as I completely forgot about them. However, that said, adding a second card really bumps Maximum framerates through the roof. It does respond well to the hefty overclocks I added in any case.

VALLEY BENCHMARK

I did show scores on 5760 x 1080 on Valley and I did say that having that on 3 screens looks absolutely stunning. However I didn't have scores for a single card config. On 1920 x 1080p, the GTX 970 OC had been benchmarked way before. So for a more apples to apples comparison. Apologies, no stock scores!

CONCLUSION

Now Overclocking was an absolute dream, a score of 16,143 on Firestrike Standard and 22,211 on Catzilla 1080p is the sort of results that I really should have! Again, 2 GTX 970s really is a sweet configuration for its price. So if you have the time, spend 2-3 days tweaking here and there. Now the scores will be better if I had a better CPU as it's currently the bottleneck atm. 1080p overkill? Depending on the game, no. Not so much, I thought this will be overkill, but I pulled my statement.

I did try 8GHz on the Memory but it started to artifact by then. So for now I dialled my clocks a bit back to 7.6GHZ on Memory and +175MHz on the Core just to get more stability.

We're talking in total 3328 Maxwell CUDA Cores, whose shader performance is equivalent to 5293 Cuda Cores according to Game-Debate, and near 500GB/s of Memory bandwidth. The bandwidth though is not optimal, seeing that this is on a PCI-E 2.0 based board. That said, hopefully I don't have to upgrade my Video Cards for at least another 3-4 years down the road, when that happens I won't sell it but I'll delegate it to something else once the future architectures are worth diving into.

That said, one 970 is good. Two is even better for the price. A quick update when the GTX 960 was released, I made a point why the 970s are so successful at LinusTechTip's Facebook post of the GTX 960 SLI video. The 970 has been an ideal value for 1440p gaming thanks to double bus width and double memory buffer and 2 970s in SLI are the cheapest gate to playable 4K gaming at near Maximum settings. Gaming currently at 1080p is overkill but that's all I got for now.

GTX 970 SLI Build! DESKTOP UPDATES DONE! MSI GTX 970 4GD5T / 'Armor Edition' First Look, SLI Testing.

Well, Earlier this week, I have bought this card here.

MSI GTX 970 4GD5T Armor Edition

Very Simple Unboxing, but comes with the following stuff:

- GTX 970 MSI Armor 4GD5T

- DVI / VGA Adapter - Usual stuff

- Instruction Manual - A LOT of languages.

- Driver Disc with MSI Afterburner

Now again the bad thing is the lack of Molex Power adapters. Frankly speaking though, if you're powering such a rig, then you should have a decent power supply for this. 

The Good: MSI encourages you to download the latest stuff, as printed on the CD. There's MSI Afterburner, but I use EVGA Precision X16.

Now taking a look at the card, the fan propeller designs remind me a lot of the MSI GTX 680 Lightning Edition card and some of the older Twin Frozr III Edition Cards. It'll still be better than a reference blower style cooler and since the Maxwell Architecture is heavily concentrated on Efficiency and power more than Kepler GK 104 and 110, this will be fine for what it's needed.

The Good: The GPU can take the heat better than the Palit Card can, and it's pretty quiet.

The Bad: It takes a LONG while to cool down itself on SLI, so airflow is needed.

But once it cools down, the MSI Armor Edition Card idles itself at as low as 28 Degrees Celsius, impressive still.

Inputs and Outputs: 

Now from the picture below, THIS is the IDEAL I/O that should remain standard for foreseeable years to come. It has two DVI (DVI-D and DVI-I), HDMI and Display Port. These same four ports were present on my last card the Zotac GTX 780 AMP! Edition GPU. Many people still are not using mini Display Ports as their main ports for their monitor. However if you're going 4K, then you'll utilize the Display Port later.

Below the MSI Card is the I/O for the Palit Card which has a mini HDMI Port, another DVI Port that supports Analog, and 3 mini Display Ports. They left completely the bottom slot blank as a way to ventilate air.

The MSI GTX 970 MSI Armor Edition's DVIs being populated.

GTX 970 SLI TESTING:

Palit and MSI GTX 970s in SLI. Quite a weird combination.

Core i7 2600K @ 4.5 GHZ
Corsair H70
Corsair Vengeance 12 GB RAM
Corsair RM1000
ASUS P8P67M-PRO
Fractal Design Define R3
GTX 970 #1: MSI GTX 970 4GD5T Armor Edition
GTX 970 #2: Palit GTX 970 Blower Card
128 GB SSD OCZ Vertex 4, 500 GB Western Digital Caviar Blue, 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green

Now this rig is powered by this. Now I have to tell you right off the bat, I didn't experience too ideal the scaling. Now the biggest possibility is that I'm being held back by the PCI-E 2.0 Based Sandy Bridge System and motherboard, and maybe using Windows 7 rather than 8.1 which will limit the memory bandwidth. And of course the board being micro ATX, I'm cramping both cards in that limits the amount of air flow that I can get to the top card. Ideally the bottom card should be at the bottom. However, there was a reason why I put the top card as my primary driver.

Now initially, with the Palit Card, after fitting in my new power supply, I found I was facing some glitches in some applications, such as Metro Last Light Benchmark (especially in Super Sampling added benchmarks) while I try to benchmark, as well as freezing after idling for 20 minutes. Now as soon as I put my MSI card in as my primary card, all these problems disappear, Could be a card problem for all I know. After SLI, the Palit could still be utilized.

In the system, the MSI Card does sag quite a fair bit at the Power connector side, so if you look closely, I place a large trouser button at the bottom right edge between the two GPUs to increase a bit of air flow since it's installed so close together with the ASUS P8P67M-Pro slot layout posing a problem to allow fresh air on the top card.

That said, the performance rates has dramatically improved nonetheless. But I definitely need a Christmas gift of an Core i7 5820K and a full ATX X99 platform after spending 950 SGD on a pair of Graphics cards. Because I am really gonna need it for ProTools which is FINALLY supported on Windows.

Scores to follow later......

CALL OF DUTY: Advance Warfare

The game has received a few patches, and it does seem to work well with SLI now. With it, I was actually able to turn everything to the Maximum, and added a serious 4 times Super Sampling, it's a bit choppy, probably because the 2 cards doesn't have enough memory to utilize it. However it was still able to maintain 50-60 average.

OVERCLOCKING AND TUNING

Playing around with clocks is as always quite a bit of fun to mess with as an experienced Overclocker. EVGA PrecisionX 16 is my tool of choice. You can tweak the cards individually to get the optimal setting you want; simply by unlinking their tweaks on EVGA's precision. It's also allows to get both cards to the same clocks but I don't need that. Here's what I come up with.

 

Every Card was given a +180 to the Core and +100 to the GDDR5, 100% stable.

Before and After Adding Overclocks. Initially the Overclock was set at each card + 163 MHz on Core and 50 at clock, And
after some tweaks, this new 180 MHz Core and 100 on Memory was what it took to consistently give me this.

That said, even with 10+% on additional overclock, net me a whopping 21% score increase, which was considered incredible.

5760 x 1080 TESTING:
Heaven Benchmark 4.0

This was a heavy, I mean a VERY Heavy stress test for the GPUs even when overclocked. It was basically Extreme HD Preset at 5760 x 1080 rather than 1600 x 900 (which those GPUs can sweep this resolution without breaking a sweat). As the frame rate tanks VERY heavily, the 2nd change was turning down Anti Aliasing to 4x from 8x. The result was:

Average FPS: 42.6
Minimum FPS: 7.6
Maximum FPS: 119.7
Score: 1072

Valley Benchmark

I have to say, Valley Benchmark really does look beautiful on 5760 x 1080. The Benchmark was run at the maximum settings possible. Nothing was turned down in any way. Still, we still get pretty playable frame rates

FPS: 33.8
Score 1415
Minimum: 11.1
Maximum: 86.3

EFFICIENCY: 

May I also like to point out, despite this heavy stress test, if you can look closely at the Heaven Benchmark Photograph, that even with the increased load, it was STILL not enough to turn the PSU fan on! I tried with FurMark, Same story. Bear in mind, it takes the PSU 40% load to turn on its fan, with that said, I could safely deduce that OC 970s and an OC Core i7 2600K are pulling less than 400 Watts from the wall, which is crazy! In all honesty, I wasn't even expecting that low of a consumption on these Maxwells. Some reviews I checked, the Power Consumption calculated, match the power consumption of a SINGLE R9 290X/290. I know I said this before so many times, but I always loved to re-iterate this fact as AMD better do something with this!

PRICE to PERFORMANCE:

I know I did spend almost 950 SGD (Almost a Grand) on Graphics Cards, (Actually 600 after deducting from the sale of GTX 780). Having said that though, safe to say, the cost of a single card is very nice; the price and what you get for two is even sweeter. It's only about 100 bucks more than a standard GTX 980 and with many of the higher end models, even including the higher tiered of GTX 780 Tis and the R9 290Xes (Especially those from ASUS and Gigabyte) costing more than the 2 GTX 970s I spent for. The GTX 980 is still priced fairly, at least still better than the GTX 780 Ti, taking into consideration power and heat efficiency. And for the performance matching the Titan Z, and beats handily a 295 X2, those cost considerably more. Gotta applaud nVidia's Maxwell for this one!

CONCLUSION:

This configuration is 4K ready, even at least in surround 5760 x 1080. 1920 x 1080p is overkill unless you're running on extreme super sampling tweaks on it. I didn't really get the ideal scaling that I wanted but this will have to do and it works otherwise pretty well. The only thing that will give me the best memory bandwidth utilization is going to a more updated platform and on a full size ATX Board.

My Christmas wish - a Core i7 5820K with a good ATX X-99 based motherboard and a better cooling rad! My two cards are really cramped especially the MSI Armor GTX 970 like a can of sardines in em'!

DESKTOP UPGRADES TIME! QUICKIE!

Couple of Quick Images! Then I'll elaborate more in the near future!

You may notice a different GPU and an clunky old CPU that has been in my system for a while.

Then I bought this baby. Man I was lugging this around after class to St. Ignatius
Church. If you wanna lose weight, haul these bad boys all day, they're heavy lol.

After Tonight's Upgrades.