Computer Power User - February 2014

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February | Vol. 14 Iss. 02

Complimentary Copy

STL CARDINALS PCTAKE ME OUT TO THE LAN

INTEL

INSIDETHE GLASS CANNON & ITS

INTEL COREI7-4960X ARE READY TO RUMBLE

ALSO: LOOK INSIDE FOR DETAILS ON THE

INTEL ELEMENTSGIVEAWAY!


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48Mad Reader Mod

STL Cardinals PC Struts Its Stuff

28CPU System Workshop

Ivy Bridge-E + Radeon R9 = Over 9,000

FEBRUARY 2014 | VOL 14 ISSUE 02

FRONTSIDE P. 3

News, product release information,

and stats from the tech industry.

HEAVY GEAR P. 12

The latest PC hardware is here:

reviews, product profiles, and

category roundups.

HARD HAT AREA P. 37

CPU s Mad Reader Mod winner,

LAN party coverage, and in-depth

looks at the latest and greatest

hardware and technology.

LOADING ZONE P. 59

Software reviews, betas, updates, and

how-tos.

DIGITAL LIVING P. 66

Games and leisure, news from

around the web, tech company

interviews, and more.

BACK DOOR P. 87

Monthly last-page interview with

people who help to shape the PC

industry.

DID YOU FIND THE HIDDENCPULOGO ON OUR COVER?

Gotcha. Here it is.

Copyright 2014 by Sandhills Publishing Company. Computer Power User is a registered trademark of Sandhills Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing in

Computer Power Useris strictly prohibited without written permission. Printed in the U.S.A. GST # 123482788RT0001 Computer Power UserUSPS 005-665 (ISSN 1093-4170) is published monthly

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Mount This Cooler To That CardWith NZXTs Kraken G10 KitNZX says you can increase the cooling performance ofyour GPU by up to 40% over stock coolers and achieveresults that mimic those from a custom liquid setup if youuse its Kraken G10 aftermarket cooling accessory. heKraken is a (near) universal mounting bracket that allowsyou to attach your liquid cooler (NZX Kraken liquidcoolers as well as most brands of liquid coolers from otherMFRs) to most graphics cards regardless of chipset ormanufacturer. Te bracket comes with a 92mm fan andzip-tie points to tuck and hide the tubing. Te KrakenG10 is available in three different colors (black, red, andwhite) and retails for $29.99. Trow one on the GPU in

your latest build and get crackin.Time To Go On A Rampage:ASUS Rampage IV Black EditionASUS blacked out its new X79 E-AX motherboard, theRepublic Of Gamers Rampage IV Black Edition, and addeda mouth-watering assortment of OC tools and accessories toappeal to enthusiasts. Te OC panel lets you ne-tune andmonitor performance in real time, and ASUS lled a newUEFI BIOS with settings and overclocking proles so you caneke the best performance out of your particular build. OCDDR3 to 2800MHz+, reset your drives back to their originalfactory settings with SSD Secure Erase, and on and on. Even

with all the new trimmings, ASUS says the Rampage IVBlack Edition is its most stable gaming motherboard yet. At$499.99 retail, it aint cheap, but it sure is gorgeous.

WATCHING THE CHIPS FALL

Here is the pricing

information for

various AMD and

Intel CPUs.

* As of Month Year

** Manufacturers

estimated price

per 1,000

CPU Released Original Price Last Months Price Online Retail Price*

AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core 6/11/2013 NA $349.99 $279.99

AMD FX-9370 Eight-Core 6/11/2013 $375 $219.99 $289.99

AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core 10/23/2012 $195 $199.99 $199.99

AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core 10/23/2012 $169 $159.99 $159.99

AMD FX-6350 Six-Core 4/30/2013 $132 $139.99 $139.99

AMD A10-6800K Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $142** $139.99 $139.99

AMD A10-6790K Quad-Core 10/28/2013 $130 $129.99 $129.99

AMD A10-6700 Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $142** $148.99 $148.99

AMD A8-6600K Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $112** $109.99 $119.99

AMD A8-6500 Quad-Core 6/4/2013 $112** $118.99 $118.99

Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition 9/3/2013 $990** $1,049.99 $1,049.99

Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition 11/12/2012 $999** $1,039.99 $1,039.99

Intel Core i7-4770K 6/2/2013 $339** $324.99 $339.99

Intel Core i7-4770 6/2/2013 $303** $309.99 $309.99

Intel Core i7-3820 2/12/2012 $305** $299.99 $299.99

Intel Core i5-4670K 6/2/2013 $242** $224.99 $239.99

Intel Core i5-4670 6/2/2013 $213** $219.99 $219.99

Intel Core i5-4570 6/2/2013 $192** $199.99 $199.99

Intel Core i5-4430 6/2/2013 $182** $189.99 $189.99

Intel Core i3-4340 9/1/2013 $149** $159.99 $159.99

CPU / February 20143


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Thermaltake Does It Up Red:ARMOR A30i Speed EditionWhen you hail from the land of Big Red (Nebraska) as wedo, you develop a warm spot in your heart for all thingsscarlet. Evidently Termaltake likes red as well, as they haveadded that color option to their line of ARMOR A30i SpeedEdition Gaming Cubes. Te A30i is a compact case builtfor LAN parties that supports micro-AX and mini-IXmotherboards. Despite its small size, this unit has room fortwo 5.25-inch and one 3.5-inch externally accessible drives,as well as two 3.5-inch and two 2.5-inch internally hiddendevices. It also can handle most oversized graphics cards (upto 350mm in length). Tere are two USB 3.0 ports and oneHD Audio port. Te case comes with two blue LED fans

(90mm intake in front and 200mm exhaust fan on top), plusthere are two additional 60mm fans in the rear.

Built To OC: The EVGA GeForce GTX780 Ti Classied KINGPIN EditionEVGA is targeting hardcore overclocking enthusiasts with itsnewest GX 780 i Classied card. Te K|NGP|N Editiontakes its name from overclocking guru Vince K|NGP|NLucido. EVGA says he and fellow OC master semenkoiN Illya co-designed the card. Lucido says the card shouldhit clockspeeds over 1.85GHz with extreme cooling, andEVGA claims the card is the nal answer in the search for

the greatest overclocking graphics card on the planet. Wereguessing youll have fun testing out those claims for yourself.

BitFenix Rocks A New Look With FloBitFenix, the computer chassis and accessory company thatspecializes in products for modders, is stepping out of its usualterritory a bit to introduce its rst personal audio product, apremium PC headset called Flo. Te company says it designedFlo to be used both at the computer and away from it, whichis why the headset comes with a removeable microphone. Just

plug in the mic when youre ready to team up with friendsand frag some bad guys, then unplug the mic and enjoy thecrisp sounds of your favorite tunes. he Flo sports 40mmneodymium drivers with a frequency response of 20hz to 20khzand sensitivity of 96db/1mW. Cables include a 1-meter straightcable with inline remote, a 1-meter mobile audio cable, anda 2-meter cable with headphone and microphone plugs forwhen youre at the PC. Te earpieces are enclosed and featureBitfenixs own trademarked SoftFeel material for comfortablelistening. Flo is available in blue, red, white, and black.

4 February 2014 / www.computerpoweruser.com


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HARDWARE MOLE

ASRock + Fatal1ty = 990FX KillerASRock recently announced a new line of motherboards called

the Killer Series that targets gamers and sports a Fatal1ty tag.Tere are two Intel boards and two AMD boards in the series;shown here is the 990FX Killer. ASRock says this mobo isthe rst in the world to include a PCIe Gen2 x2/SAA M.2socket. Te new socket is designed for Next Generation FormFactor (NGFF) SSDs and other devices. M.2 cards come invarious lengths; the socket on ASRocks 990FX Killer supports42mm, 60mm, 80mm, and 110mm. Te Killer series of mobosincludes all kinds of tweaks and features for gamers, such as theKiller E2200 Intelligent Networking Platform, which reduceslatency and improves gaming peformance by giving priorityto gaming traffic ahead of other traffic on your network.Also included is F-Stream, a suite of multipurpose softwarethat includes OC weaker, XFast RAM, Key Master (forcustomizing keyboard kill-key combos), and similar utilities.Te price of the 990FX was unannounced at press time.

LIFX Reinvents The Light BulbYouve probably seen products that let you turn yourlights on and off remotelyeven from your phonebut

do they let you wake up to increasing light or fall asleepto dimming light? Or better yet, change the color ofthe light itself? LIFX has created a Wi-Fi-enabled LEDbulb that you can manipulate from your smartphone. Avariegated color slider on a phone app lets you select thecolor you want and the app lets you control the lightsfrom afar. Change the light, change the mood. Te bulbsare now available online for $89 (hey, they last for years);see lifx.co for more info.

Now Available In White:Corsair Carbide Series Air 540Corsairs Carbide midtower cases are wide-bodied beastswith side-by-side chambers that separate componentsto improve overall airow. Te rst chamber holds themotherboard, graphics cards, and hot-swappable 3.5-inch drives; the second houses the PSU, SSDs, and5.25-inch drives. Tis arrangment provides plenty ofopen airspace for cooling. Corsair originally launchedthe Carbide series last summer in black and silver,but recently announced it was making a white versionavailable for $149.99.



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Paragon Updates Partition ManagerParagon Software has released version 14 of its Partition

Manager product in both Home and Professionaleditions. Partition Manager is well known to manyenthusiasts, as it simplifies the process of creatingpartitions and organizing, transferring, and restoring dataon drives. Version 14 is Windows 8-compatible and alsofully supports UEFI. Paragon says the software is capableof handling SSDs and AFDs of any size. New in PM14is the Paragon Virtual Hard Drive (pVHD) format, atechnology Paragon developed for backing up and storingvirtual as well as physical drives in as little as 1/4th thespace used by the original source. PM14 Home costs$39.95; PM14 Pro sells for $79.95.

Happy Days For Win8 Tablet Users:SlingPlayer For Windows 8 ArrivesUntil now, Slingbox owners could watch their favorite live orrecorded V shows anywhere, except on their new Windows8 tablets or PCs. Now Sling Media has removed thatfrustration by releasing SlingPlayer For Windows 8. If youarent familiar with Slingbox, its the company that becamea favorite of V fans everywhere by making it easy to watchwhatever you watch on your home V no matter where youare in the world. Sports fans love Slingbox because it makes itpossible to watch your favorite teams, live, even when you aretraveling. You can watch what you want, when you want, andthanks to SlingPlayer editions like this oneon whateverdevice you want, including Win8 tablets and notebooks.

Download the new release from www.slingbox.com, and after aquick install, your Windows 8 device will be ready to go.

SOFTWARE SHORTS

Fedora Breaks Bad LooseWith Version 20, Heisenbughe Fedora Project, a community of developers thatrecently celebrated its 10th anniversary working on the

free Linux-based Fedora operating system that is sponsoredby Red Hat, has released version 20 of the Fedora OS. Telatest edition, code-named Heisenbug, includes enhancedsupport for low-powered ARM processors, as well as addedsupport for clouds. If you like to tinker with free softwareor are experimenting with cloud projects or developmentfor ARM devices, download Fedora 20 at fedoraproject.org.You certainly cant beat the price!



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No Coasting On Laurels For OperaOpera has released the rst upgrade for its web browser for

the iPad. Te new and improved Coast reworks desktopbrowsing navigational tools to use motions more familiar toiPad users, such as ditching the left and right arrow buttonsPC users click to move back and forth among downloadedpages and replacing them with simple left and right screenswipes. Te interface is clean and can be easily customizedwith your own graphics. New tools make it easier for musiclovers to play and control tunes, even from the iOS lockoutscreen. Opera also tweaked the basic functionality of thebrowser to speed up web navigation and says it has madechanges to the security engine so that it does a better job ofrecognizing attacks. Coast is free at Apples app store.Attack Of The Bots, Part II:

In The Sequel, The Bots WinIncapsula, the cloud-based Internet services company, recentlyreleased an updated website traffic study that shows thatbot use is proliferating on the old Interwebs. he report,which looked at more than 1.45 billion visits over 90 daysto more than 20,000 websites, revealed that bot activity onthe Internet increased signicantly in the past year. Whilethe rst study showed that humans and bots were sharing sitevisits almostevenly (49% human traffic compared with 51%bot traffic), the most recent study showed bots now represent61.5% of all website traffic, with humans responsible for theremaining 38.5%. Incapsula attributes the bulk of the bot

increase to so-called good bots, such as agents of searchengines. Malicious bot activity levels were about the same.

SITE SEEING

SoThatsWhat Happened In 2013If youre curious what people around the world were searchingthe web for last year, or you just want a recap of major events,including a composite video of world happenings, you can getyour ll courtesy of Google Zeitgeist 2013. Te search giant

recently posted its annual end-of-year compilation of searchresults, allowing users to see who was looking for whom (orwhat) during the year. Tere are top 10 lists for all kinds oftopics, a year in review video, a pictorial composite of thetop 100 searches, and more. You can get a global perspectiveby comparing results from different countries, and if you havea lot of time on your hands and want to stroll down memorylane, you can compare the events of this year with the contentsfrom Zeitgeists past. Tanks for the memories, Google.



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Job Of The MonthStill looking for that rst real job after college? HP says it is looking for recent college grads (received

a computer science or related bachelors or masters degree in the last 12 months) for a Firmware

Engineer position in i ts San Diego ofces. Youll be part of a cross-discipline team that designs, creates,

and tests rmware for various HP systems and subsystems. This is a coding position, so you must

be able to anaylze, design, program, debug, and so on, and you need to have experience in object-

oriented design. At least some familiarity with Linux is needed, as is experience in taking projects

from requirements to design to actual implementation. Big pluses are experience and knowledge of

hardware design and the overall software development li fecycle. You need to be able to work and play

well with others, too. HP says its engineers build the future, so if you want to have an impact on the

world your kids are going to inherit, heres your chance. You can get the full scoop at hp.com.

(hp.com)

Downloading UHDMovies? Just Wait . . .If youve been debating whether to upgrade

your home network to 802.11ac, the latest

avor of Wi-, the gures at right (showing

times to download 1.5Gb with various Wi-

types) may help you make up your mind.

Networking device manufacturer d-Link

recently compiled these stats along with a

lot of other information for an infographic

on Wi- standards, history, and usage. Thegeneral trend looks promising: If the next

decade shows as much improvement as

the last one, you might just nd yourself

downloading terabit-sized les in less than

a second.

(dlink.com)

Pssssst. . . Hey Buddy, Wanna Buy A Watch?The number of wearable tech products reaching the market is surging as more companies see (or think

they see) a demand for tech that can be worn on, draped over, or otherwise attached to the humanbody. Harris Interactive polled people recently to nd out what they would like wearable tech devices

(watches, pendants, arm bands, and the like) to actually do, and discovered that people in the 18 to 36

age groupthe so-called Echo Boomerswere much more likely than the rest of the population to

identify potential benets the technology would have on their lives.

Wearable Tech Will . . . % Of All Americans % of Echo Boomers

Keep me informed 26% 33%

Make me more productive 18% 29%

Make me feel more connected 18% 27%

Make me healthier 14% 20%

(Harris Interactive)

802.11ac802.11n802.11802.11b802.11

a/g

35%Percentage of Americans 16 years old and

over who say they borrowed books (the

paper kind) from a public library in the

past year.

(PewInternet.org)

75%Percentage of online consumers in the

U.S. who say they own some type ofdigital technology fitness product. The

most popular product in this category is

the pedometer, owned by 37%.

(Consumer Electronics Association)

2024The year that the Mars One Project intends

to begin delivering colonists to the red

planet. The Project calls for unmanned

launches beginning in 2018 that will provide

a base of critical supplies, with mannedlaunches to follow every two years starting

in 2024. Volunteers for the one-way trip will

be selected from a large pool of would-be

astronautsmore than 200,000 people

have already applied to be considered for

the rst mission.

(Mars-One.com)

$13.3 billionAmount consumers are expected to spend

on digital gaming (in-game purchasesand game downloads played on phones,

consoles, tablets, or PCs) in 2014. This is

approximately 65% of the total amount

consumers are expected to spend on

gaming this year; the remaining 35% will

go toward retail games and equipment.

The forecast for the total gaming market

in 2014 is $20.5 billion.

(NewZoo.com)



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The Latest IntelChoose The 4th Generation CoreProcessor

Thats Best For You

Advertisement

3.9GHz. It also offers four cores withHyper-hreading and 10MB of IntelSmart Cache. Similar to the other IvyBridge-E models, theres support for

quad-channel memory, so its good atthings like folding, rendering, and videotranscoding. Itll do the job for buildersthat require serious CPU power.

GamerYour computer isnt for the average Joe.

Its pushing pixels and running games atthe highest resolutions. Intels Haswellprocessors provide a lot of value forgamers, and there are several excellentoptions, depending on your budget.

cores with Hyper-hreading and has12MB of Intel Smart Cache. Te baseclock speed is 3.4GHz with a 3.9GHzMax urbo, and thanks to its unlocked

multiplier, it will certainly reach fasterspeeds via overclocking. his is apowerful CPU that can easily handlegaming at the highest settings; imageand video rendering; and intensivedata-crunching tasks.

Core i7-4820K. his chip is themost affordable of the Ivy Bridge-Elineup, but that doesnt mean it isntpowerful. At stock settings, it operatesat 3.7GHz with a Max urbo of

Many of todays key computingtechnologies were introduced in

Intel processors. For instance, IntelCore processors with urbo Boost 2.0provide extra speed on demand, andmodels with Hyper-hreading arecapable of effectively doubling theirmultitasking power. In 2013, Intelintroduced its 4th Generation Coreprocessor lineup, built with intriguingfeatures that improve your overallPC experience. Whether youre anoverclocker, a gamer, a filmmaker, or acasual web surfer, theres an Intel Coreprocessor built to fit your needs.

Performance EnthusiastYou need speed, speed, and more

speed, and theres no reason you shouldcompromise on performance. Intels IvyBridge-E lineup provides several optionsthat are fast andmore importantlythat you can make faster:

Core i7-4960X. Its the current per-formance king when it comes to desktopsystems and runs on the X79 chipset.he Intel Core i7-4960X gives you six

cores with Hyper-Treading and 15MBof Intel Smart Cache. It runs at 3.6GHzwith a 4GHz Max urbo, and of coursethis Extreme Edition processor is alsooverclockable to speeds faster than 4GHz.If you need the best of the best, the Corei7-4960X is for you.

Core i7-4930K. Te unlocked IntelCore i7-4930K sells for a little morethan half of what the Core i7-4960Xwill cost you, but it still provides six


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power bill, and thanks to Intels QuickSync Video technology, the Core i5-4430 is perfect for creating and editing

3D video, as well as converting 2Dvideo files into 3D.

Core i3-4340. With a pr ice pointunder $160, the Core i3-4340 isone speedy dual-core processor withHyper-hreading. he Core i3-4340operates at 3.6GHz and includes 4MBof Intel Smart Cache. Like the restof the Haswell lineup, it supportsspanning your desktop across threedisplays. It also comes with the latestmultimedia technologies, includingIntel Quick Sync Video, Intel Inru3D echnology, and Intel Clear VideoHD technology. hose interested inbuilding a rig that can handle basicmedia creation and editing tasks willfind the Core i3-4340 a perfect (andvery affordable) fit.

Core i5-4570. his quad-coreprocessor runs at 3.2GHz with a 3.6GHzMax urbo. It also features an impressive

6MB of cachethe same amount oflightning-fast internal memory youllfind in the Core i5-4670K. he Corei5-4570 also boasts Intel HD Graphics4600, which means youd be able todo things like play mainstream videogames and edit HD videos with theintegrated GPU. Te base frequency forthe Intel HD Graphics 4600 is 350MHzwith a maximum dynamic frequencyof 1.15GHz.

Core i5-4430. Youll find the Corei5-4430 right on the corner of priceand performance. At press time, thisimpressive chip was priced at justunder $190, and provides four coresthat operate at 3.0GHz with a 3.2GHzMax urbo. Its 84W maximum DPmeans it will also be easy on your

Core i7-4770K.he Intel Core i7-4770K offers four cores with Hyper-hreading for amazing multitasking

power. It operates at a stock clock of3.5GHz and has a 3.9GHz Max urbo.he K in its name means this CPUhas an unlocked multiplier for easyoverclocking. It is incredibly fast, is anexcellent multitasker, and is also highlyefficient thanks to its 22nm architecture.Tese characteristics make it suitable forboth enthusiasts and gamers.

Core i7-4770. If youre looking forworld-class performance and flexibilityand you dont plan on overclocking,the Core i7-4770 is for you. his 4thGen Core processor gives you four coreswith Hyper-hreading, so it can runeight threads concurrently, and it runsat a 3.4GHz base clock. Like the Corei7-4770K, its designed to reach a Maxurbo of 3.9GHz and packs 8MB ofSmart Cache. Get the Core i7 speed youwant without breaking the bank.

Core i5-4670K. his chip is thefastest Core i5 model in the Haswell

lineup. It has four cores that operate ata base clock of 3.4GHz and can reach3.8GHz at Max urbo. Its a popularchoice for gaming rigs, thanks to itsunlocked multiplier and a price thatsaround $50 to $100 less than HaswellCore i7 options. he Core i5-4670Kdoesnt have Hyper-hreading andhas a little less L3 cache than its Corei7 siblings, but it is fast and highlyoverclockable, and with an 84W DP,you can build a monster gaming rig that

is also extremely energy-efficient.

General Power UserSolid performance is a must for your

PC. It should be a capable gamer andalso be adept at handling productivityand multimedia creation tasks. You dontneed extreme performance parts, butthe PC should feel responsive. Several4th Generation Core i5 and Corei3 processors are more than capable ofmeeting these needs.

Intel Processor Cores/ Threads

BaseClock

MaxTurbo

SmartCache

Core i7-4960X 6/12 3.6GHz 4GHz 15

Core i7-4930K 6/12 3.4GHz 3.9GHz 12

Core i7-4820K 4/8 3.7GHz 3.9GHz 10

Core i7-4770K 4/8 3.5GHz 3.9GHz 8

Core i7-4770 4/8 3.4GHz 3.9GHz 8

Core i5-4670K 4/4 3.4GHz 3.8GHz 6

Core i5-4570 4/4 3.2GHz 3.6GHz 6

Core i5-4430 4/4 3.0GHz 3.2GHz 6

Core i3-4340 2/4 3.6GHz n/a 4

Wondering how Intels latest processors stack up against each other? Compare all ofthe 4th Generation Intel Core processors mentioned above at a glance! This list isntcomprehensive; Intel has more 4th Generation Core options, and you can nd out about

all of them at www.intel.com.


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you can do things like leak-checkcustom watercooling loops, show off casemod demos, and maintain power to aRAMDisk without having to fully turnon the system. he OC ouch clusteralso offers +/- buttons for BCLK andCPU ratio settings to let you manuallytune these settings directly from themotherboard. A debug display is providedto help you troubleshoot issues.

GIGABYE further supports thisoverclocking flexibility by installing

impressive heatsinks on the VRM andPCH areas of the motherboard. Althoughtheyre not pictured, the GA-Z87X-UD7H we received had active fan coolingon the PCH heatsink, and there was abuilt-in waterblock complete with barbsand an active fan installed over the GA-Z87X-UD7 Hs VRM.

Haswell CPUs have 16 PCI-E lanesfor graphics subsystems, but GIGABYEuses a PLX PEX 8747 chip on the

10Gbps channels into one. Overall, thechange means that the four 10Gbpschannels become two 20Gbps channels.Both support data transfer and/ordisplay connectivity. Like the previousgeneration, video transfer and datadelivery can be concurrent, and youcan daisy-chain up to 12 devices. Onthe GA-Z87X-UD7 H, there are twoTunderbolt 2 ports. Your PC can act asa piece of the daisy chain, as well as spanyour desktop across two monitors. A third

display can be connected via HDMI.he GA-Z87X-UD7 H has anOC ouch cluster in the upper-rightcorner. Tis consists of a set of buttons,switches, and voltage measurement pointsthat give you greater control over youroverclocking settings. For instance, theresan OC Ignition button that lets theGA-Z87X-UD7 H deliver continuouspower to connected drives and systemfansbut not to the CPU. his way,

Wi th the GA-Z87X-UD7 H,GIGABYE has installed Intels

Dual hunderbolt 2 controller to allowfor transfer speeds up to 20Gbpstwice asfast as Intels first-generation hunderboltcontroller. he large data pipe is ideal forpeople with ultra-high resolution displays,because it supports the DisplayPort 1.2standard and allows video streamingto a single 4K video monitor or dualQHD monitors. he GA-Z87X-UD7 Hisnt just for video editors or Ultra HD

fanatics, though, as theres also support for4-way SLI and CrossFire. Youll also findGIGABYEs powerful CPU overclockingcapabilities. As such, the GA-Z87X-UD7H can form the base of an impressivesystem, regardless of what you intend touse it for.

Intels original Tunderbolt controlleroffered four 10Gbps channels for datatransfer. hunderbolt 2 reallocatesbandwidth by combining two of the

GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD7 TH

GA-Z87X-UD7 TH

$429.99

GIGABYTE

www.gigabyte.us



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Haswell-based gaming system. Frankly, itsan exceptional motherboard.

BYNATHANLAKE

o t e s t t h i s m o t h e r b o a r d sperformance, we installed an IntelCore i7-4770K, a GIGABYE GV-N760OC-4GD GPU, and 8GB ofADAA XPG V1.0 memory running atDDR3-1866. With this setup, our testsystem produced 28.67fps in Metro: Last

Light and 32.6fps in Aliens vs. Predatorwhen run with high quality settingsat a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. Inprocessor-intensive tests Cinebench 11.5and POV-Ray 3.7 Beta, our test systemproduced marks of 8.62 and 1647.42,respectively. Our hardware pulled downan overall score of 5210 in PCMark 8sCreative test.

Youd be hard-pressed to find a Z87motherboard that has a more expansiveset of features than the GA-Z87X-UD7

H. he inclusion of hunderbolt2 means that this motherboard is readyto deliver 4K resolutions when the timecomes to upgrade your monitor. And theadded PCI-E lanes and support for 4-wayCrossFire and SLI puts the GA-Z87X-UD7H at the top of the list of candidates for a

GA-Z87X-UD7 H topump up the total numberof lanes to 32. With the

extra bandwidth, 4-way SLIor CrossFire configurationswill be able to work atx8/x8/x8/x8 speeds. In all,there are ve PCI-E x16 slots,with three that can operateat the full x16 speed and twothat run at x8. he secondPCI-E x16 slot becomesunavailable when cards areinstalled into any of the otherPCI-E x16 slots. A 3-waygraphics setup will work atx16/x8/x8 speeds, and twoGPUs will both run at thefull x16 speed. GIGABYEalso includes a switch thatlets you manually turn on oroff each PCI-E lane on themotherboard. his feature is ideal fortroubleshooting GPUs in a custom liquid-cooling setup, because you wont need toremove a graphics card from the loop.

Other high-end features on the GA-Z87X-UD7 H include support for

32GB of memory that can be clocked upto DDR3-3000, a built-in headphoneamplier that can drive 600 ohm loads,and two Ethernet ports with teaming.We also like that GIGABYE providesan add-on module (ts into a free PCI-Ex1 slot) that supports both 802.11ac andBluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity. he802.11ac support is of particular interestbecause it supports a theoretical wirelessspeed of 867Mbps when connected toother 802.11ac devices. he dual-band

receiver is also backward-compatible with802.11a/b/g/n standards. Another coolfeature is the HyperDuo technology thatsbaked into the Marvell SE9230 controller.It allows an SSD to become the cache forthe HDD to increase storage performance,similar to Intels Rapid Storage echnology.

Benchmark Results

GIGABYTE

Z87X-UD7 TH

3DMark Professional

(Fire Strike Extreme)

3213

Graphics Score 3289

Physics Score 11454

PCMark 8

Creative Score 5210

SiSoftware Sandra

2014 Lite

Dhrystone AVX2

(GIPS)

147

Whetstone AVX

(GFLOPS)

99.91

Multi-Media Integer

AVX x32 (Mpixels/s)

423.08

Multi-Media Float

FMA3 x16 (Mpixels/s)

390.6

Multi-Media Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

226.55

Multi-Media Float/Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

297.4

Integer B/F AVX/128

(GBps)

19.3

Floating B/F AVX/128(GBps)

19.5

POV-Ray 3.7 Beta* 1647.42

Cinebench 11.5** 8.62

Games (2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

28.67fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

32.6fps

* pixels per second

** points

Specs:Form Factor: E-ATX; Max memory: 32GB (DDR3-1600; Max OC: DDR3-3000); Slots: 5 PCI-E 3.0 x16; 2 PCI-E x1; Storage: 10 6Gbps SATA; Rear I/O: 2

HDMI, 2 Thunderbolt, 6 USB 3.0, 1 PS/2, 2 Ethernet, 1 optical S/PDIF out, audio I/O; Warranty: 3 years

Test system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K; GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD; RAM: 8GB ADATA XPG V1.0 DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB Crucial

RealSSD C300; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)



14/88

from 875MHz and 928MHz. We also likethe selection of the MSI Z87I, a Mini-IXmotherboard, because it features an IntelCentrino Wireless-N 2230 chip thatprovides 802.11b/g/n, Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0,and Intel WiDi connectivity.

With such high-end hardware, effectivecooling is obviously key, and XOIC PChasnt neglected it. On the front panel,youll find two 92mm hydraulic bearing

fans (1,300rpm) that blow cool air overSSD and HDD in the drive cage. Te sidepanels have passive vents, and we saw thatthe graphics cards fans were located rightnext to the vents. Tis conguration makesit easy for the GPUs fans to pull in cool air.A mesh vent below the power supply helpskeep the PSUs internals well ventilated.

build. We were able to multitask quicklythanks to an Intel Core i7-4770K (runningat stock clock of 3.5GHz) and 16GB ofG.SKILL rident DDR3-2800. A 250GBSamsung 840 EVO SSD handled our OSand high-priority programs; theres plentyof space for several games, as well. For massstorage, XOIC PC added a 1B HGSravelstar 5K1000 hard drive; this drives2.5-inch form factor lets it reside in the

same drive cage as the SSD. ZOACsGeForce GX 780 i AMP! Edition has thegaming power necessary to tackle any AAAtitle you want to throw at it. ZOAC hasplenty of experience overclocking NVIDIAGPUs, and thats on display here: this AMP!Edition card boasts base and boost clocksof 1,006MHz 1,072MHz, respectively, up

The KILIAN from XOIC PC is aminiature powerhouse. Inside, youll

find the same types of high-end hardwarethat you could install in a midtower, butthe system is small enough to easily tote toyour next LAN party. XOIC PC built theKILIAN inside Fractal Designs NODE 304case, which can incorporate a graphics cardsup to 12.2 inches long, tower CPU coolers orclosed-loop liquid-cooling, and AX power

supplies. All of it fits into a vessel thats a mere8.3 x .9.8 x 14.7 inches (HxWxD). Evenbetter, XOIC PC painted the entire insideand outside of this KILIAN with its GeckoGreen color, and the front chassis has beenmodified with carbon fiber.

XOIC PC filled our KILIAN withpremium components for a well-rounded

XOTIC PC KILIAN

KILIAN

$3,162 (as tested)

XOTIC PC

www.xoticpc.com



15/88

of configuration options for each build,so theres a custom KILIAN for whateveryou require.

BYNATHANLAKE

tiny titan roasted 3DMark ProfessionalsFire Strike Extreme test with an overallscore of 4915, which was highlighted bya Graphics Score of 5146. he systemsZOAC GeForce GX 780 i AMP!Edition card also showed well in our gamestests, where the KILIAN posted 48fps in

Metro: Last Light and 55.5fps in Aliensvs. Predator. Te speedy G.SKILL ridentDDR3-2800 memory delivered results of26.17GBps and 26.23GBps in SiSoftwareSandra 2013 SP6 Lites Memory Bandwidthtests, which is amazing for dual-channelmemory. Marks of 8.61 in Cinebench11.5 and 1623.09 in POV-Ray 3.7 Betaput the Intel Core i7-4770Ks chops ondisplay. Finally, the 250GB SamsungEVO 840 SSD posted solid numbers inCrystalDiskMark with a sequential read

of 503.5MBps and a sequential writeof 493.1MBps.Te consistently impressive scores in our

processor, graphics, memory, and storagebenchmarks prove that this KILIAN buildis up to challenge of most any computingtask. Its small size and attractive looksalso will make it a hit at any LAN party.Well note that XOIC PC offers plenty

XOIC PC opted to use a Corsair H80iclosed-loop cooler to chill the CPU, andthe two fans and radiator are placed on therear exhaust vent. Te cooling congurationis impressive, considering the small spaceavailable inside the KILIAN.

In terms of overall aesthetic, we really like

the KILIANs exterior. Te bright, reectiveGecko Green paint is stunning on both theoutside and inside of the case, and it matchesnicely with the black, textured carbon beralong the front chassis. At the time of thiswriting, the carbon ber wrap costs $149,and the custom paint job is another $499.XOIC PC offers 12 colors of paint tochoose from, including orch Red, MidnightBlue, Velocity Yellow, and Plum CrazyPurple. Regardless of color, painting theinside of the case transforms it into a great

showroom for the high-end components,whenever you take off the panel to let friendspeek at parts. XOIC PC added a coldcathode light that runs along the interior sideopposite the GPU. Light spills out from thebottom of the case, similar to the glowingeffect of underbody lights on a car.

We put the KILIAN through ourrigorous set of benchmarks. XOIC PCs

Benchmark Results

XOTIC PC

KILIAN

3DMark Professional


4915

Graphics Score 5146

Physics Score 11170

PCMark 8

Creative Score 4852

SiSoftware Sandra 2013

SP6 Lite

Dhrystone AVX2

(GIPS)

124.86

Whetstone iSSE3

(GFLOPS)

96.8

Multi-Media Integer

AVX2 x32 (Mpixels/s)

445.84

Multi-Media Float


400.45

Multi-Media Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

231.83


FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

304.69

Integer B/F AVX/128

(GBps)

26.17


26.23



Games (2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

48fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

55.5fps

* pixels per second

** points

Specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.5GHz; Motherboard: MSI Z87I; GPU: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780 Ti AMP! Edition; RAM: 16GB G.SKILL Trident

DDR3-2800; Storage: 250GB Samsung 840 EVO, 1TB HGST Travelstar 5K1000; PSU: Corsair CX600; OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)



16/88

Z87N-WIFI also features two BIOSROMs that function as a main andbackup. Tis redundancy makes it easy torecover from malfunctions that can corruptthe BIOS or when you accidentally createan overclock thats too demanding.

GIGABYE has also put extra effortinto protecting and improving the USBand LAN ports on the GA-Z87N-WIFI.For example, each of these ports isbuilt with a dedicated protection lter

to withstand electrostatic dischargesthat can occur during power surges orwhen plugging in devices. And withineach USB 3.0 port , GIGABYEintegrates a dedicated fuse. he ideahere is a single blown fuse wont bringdown multiple other ports. According toGIGABYE, this will help protect yourdata during transfer.

GIGABYEs board gives you a fewdisplay output options. Tere are a pairof HDMI ports, plus one DVI-I portallof which are HDCP-compliant. IntelsHD Graphics can pump out 4K videoplayback over the HDMI ports, and itcan also span video across three displays.So, if you want, you can put every displayoutput on the GA-Z87N-WIFI to work.

Small form factor builders who arealso looking to overclock will like that

GIGABYE incorporated its UltraDurable 4 Plus technology into theGA-Z87N-WIFI. his includes all solidcapacitors and low RDS(on) MOSFEs.hese offer better efficiency and lowertemperatures than traditional caps andMOSFEs, which should help reducemotherboard temperature and improveyour overclocking headroom. he GA-

Thinking of building a miniatureSteam Machine or HPC for your

entertainment center? If so, youll wantto check out the GA-Z87N-WIFI, aMini-IX motherboard from GIGABYEthat supports Intels Haswell processors.With its built-in wireless connectivity for802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and IntelWiDi (Wireless Display), this mini mobocan easily connect to the Internet andstream content to the big screen.

Gamers will like that GIGABYEincludes a PCI-E x16 slot that operates atthe full x16 speed; you can add a discretegraphics card, and the GA-Z87N-WIFIwont hold the card back in the slightest.Tis is ideal for LAN party attendees whowant to build a small, lightweight gamingrig. Now, if you only need the graphicspower that Intels Haswell chips supply,

GIGABYTE GA-Z87N-WIFI

GA-Z87N-WIFI$139.99

GIGABYTE

www.gigabyte.us



17/88

wireless connectivity. In short, its a smartlydesigned motherboard.

BYNATHANLAKE

board. he GA-Z87N-WIFI performedmuch like the other Z87-based motherboardsweve tested, which is impressive given theminiature size of the motherboard. Forexample, it produced a 3DMark ProfessionalScore of 3108 and PCMark 8 Creative Scoreof 5245. he stock-clocked Intel Core i7-4770K generated 8.53 points in Cinebench11.5 and 1621.3 pixels per second inPOV-Ray 3.7 Beta, both of which are in linewith the other Z87 boards weve tested. Teuse of a GeForce GX 760 also helped theGA-Z87N-WIFI produce respectable framerates (27.14fps in Metro: Last Light and

31.6fps in Aliens vs. Predator) in our gamebenchmarks when tested at 2,560 x 1,600using high quality settings.

With the GA-Z87N-WIFI, small formfactor builders wont need to compromiseon most component selections. We alsolike that the board has a broad range of

GIGABYEs On/Off Charge technologylets you use the GA-Z87N-WIFIs USB portsto charge a mobile device, even while thesystem is in standby or turned off. Te portsalso charge faster than conventional USBports because the On/Off Charge technologyallows more current to pass through themotherboards USB ports.

In terms of board layout, on the topof the PCB youll nd four 6Gbps SAAports, the front panel header, and the 24-pin power connector. Te two DIMM slotsare located along the right side, and thePCI-E x16 slot runs along the bottom of

the PCB. Te Intel LGA1150 socket sits inthe middle of the board, as well as the IntelCentrino Wireless-N 2230 chip.

o benchmark the GA-Z87N-WIFI,we installed an Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GBof ADAA XPG V1.0 DDR-1866, and aGIGABYE GV-N760OC-4GD onto the

Benchmark Results

GIGABYTE

GA-Z87N-WIFI

3DMark Professional


3108

Graphics Score 3210

Physics Score 10445

PCMark 8

Creative Score 5245

SiSoftware Sandra 2013

SP5 Lite

Dhrystone AVX2

(GIPS)

137.18

Whetstone iSSE3

(GFLOPS)

100.89

Multi-Media Integer

AVX x32 (Mpixels/s)

425.32

Multi-Media Float


416.32

Multi-Media Double

FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

238.1


FMA3 x8 (Mpixels/s)

315.67

Integer B/F AVX/128

(GBps)

19.1


19.1



Games (2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(16XAF)

27.14fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

31.6fps

* pixels per second

** points

Specs:Form Factor: Mini-ITX; Max memory: 16GB (DDR3-1600); Slots: 1 PCI-E 3.0 x16; Storage: 4 6Gbps SATA; Rear I/O: 2 HDMI, 1 DVI-I, 4 USB 3.0, 2 USB

2.0, 1 PS/2, 2 Ethernet, 1 S/PDIF out, audio I/O, antenna connectors (Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230); Warranty: 3 years

Test system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K; GPU: GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD; RAM: 8GB ADATA XPG V1.0 DDR3-1866; Storage: 128GB Crucial

RealSSD C300; OS: Windows 8 Enterprise (64-bit)



18/88


19/88


20/88

Thermaltake Max 5 Quadhelp dissipate the heat that any installeddrives generate. Te hot-swap trays areeasy to remove, and the trays lock inplace by closing each bay door. Belowthe bay doors, there are blue LEDs

that indicate if a particular drive isconnected. On the far right side, a redLED indicates drive activity. Youllget the best results with 6Gbps drives,but the Max 5 Quad is backward-compatible with 3Gbps and 1.5Gbpsdrives, as well.

hermaltake includes the screwsand data cables necessary to secureand connect the rack to your rig. Teinstallation process consists of slidingthe rack into a free optical drive bay

and screwing it to the optical drivecage. Next, attach the SAA data cablesto the back of the unit. he headersare labeled, so its easy to gure whichtray corresponds with a given SAAport. Ten, connect the SAA cables toyour motherboard. Finally, you need toprovide power to the rack. Termaltakedesigns the Max 5 Quad with a Molex

Hot-swap storage capabilities providea lot of benefits for power users. For

instance, lets say you have a RAID 1configuration with two hot-swap bays,and one drive fails. With a hot-swap

bay, you can quickly replace the faileddrive, and your RAID software shouldtheoretically rebuild the array. Anothergreat reason to use hot swapping is if youwant to rapidly transfer large files betweentwo PCs and need the 6Gbps SAAinterfaces high throughput. Despitethese advantages, hot-swap bays arentnecessarily the most convenient if youhave to pry off your cases side panel everytime you need access.

hermaltake wants to help. he

companys Max 5 Quad is a SAA rackthat ts into a 5.25-inch external drivebay slot and lets you install up to four2.5-inch hot-swap drives.

he Max 5 Quad is certainly con-venient, but its also cool. Passive airvents run along the top and side of therack, and Termaltake also installed asmall fan at the back of the unit to

power port, and a Molex-to-SAAadapter cable is provided if youd ratheruse a SAA plug to power the unit. oinstall a drive, pull out the tray anduse the included screws to secure it the

drive. Ten, slide the tray in and closethe bay door.

Te Max 5 Quad is a handy upgradefor storage enthusiasts who want orneed convenient access to their 2.5-inchdrives. he four-drive configurationgives you some exibility, as you coulduse drives in two bays to create a RAIDconguration, while the other two bayscould serve as removable storage fortransferring les. However you want touse the Max 5 Quad, it makes switching

drives in and out of your desktop PCeasier than ever.

BYNATHANLAKE

Max 5 Quad

$39.99

Thermaltake

www.thermaltakeusa.com

Specs:Materials: Aluminum, plastic; Drive support: 2.5-inch SATA (x4); Compatibility; 6Gbps/3Gbps/1.5Gbps SATA; Accessories; SATA data cable (4),

Molex-to-SATA power cable; Dimensions: 1.65 x 5.75 x 6.69 inches (HxWxD)



21/88

Thermaltake Max 5 Duetblue LEDs on the front of the rackwill indicate when drives are connectedto the hot-swap SAA ports. On theback of the rack, youll find a SAAdata header for each drive and a SAApower header that delivers power toboth drives.

Installing the Max 5 Duet is quick,because all youll need to do is insert

it into your cases 3.5-inch bay anduse the included screws to lock it inplace. hen, run the included SAAdata cables from your motherboardto the SAA headers on the Max 5Duet. Next, connect a SAA powerplug to the power header on the racksrear panel. hermaltake provides aSAA-to-Molex adapter if you prefer

Adding hot-swap capability to yourrig is easy with hermaltakes Max

5 Duet. his compact SAA rack isdesigned to fit into a 3.5-inch externalbay, and it has room for you to installa pair of 2.5-inch drives. he Max 5Duet doesnt require a single screwto secure each drive, which makesswitching them in and out a breeze.

he Max 5 Duet is built witha s t u r d y a l u m i n u m h o u s i n g .hermaltake also adds venti lationholes in the back to let heat dissipatefrom the instal led drives. heresa black, brushed aluminum exterioron the top and bottom of the unit,while the front has matte black plasticlatches with red door handles. wo

to power the unit via Molex. Finally,all youll need to do is insert yourSSD(s) or 2.5-inch HDD(s) and closethe front latch. o eject your drive(s),just pull on the red door handle.

If you have a free 3.5-inch bay onyour PC and need hot-swap capabilityfor two drives, the Max 5 Duet isideal. he rack is easy to install, and

hermaltake provides support for allSAA interfaces.

BYNATHANLAKE

Max 5 Duet

$29.99

Thermaltake


Specs:Materials: Aluminum, plastic; Drive support: 2.5-inch SATA (x2); SATA interface compatibility: 6Gbps/3Gbps/1.5Gbps SATA; Accessories;

SATA data cable (2), SATA -to-Molex power cable; Dimensions: 0.98 x 4.13 x 5.98 inches (HxWxD)



22/88

ENERMAX TwisterOdio 16 CP008off. he fan beneath the aluminumpanel is a 120mm unit that you cantoggle on or off using the control dialalong the left side of the unit; the dialalso lets you manually adjust the fan

speed from a low setting of 800rpm toup to 1,200rpm. As youd expect, this120mm fan needs to spin at a prettygood clip to refresh your laptop duringpeak usage, but its noise output stillonly ranges from 25 to 32dBA.

Unlike the AreoOdios speakers thatadd to the bulk of the unit, this unitsspeakers are positioned vertically oneither side of the cooler. Behind thesilver metal mesh grilles youll find apair of 40mm drivers that consume 2

watts of power and have a frequencyrange of 140Hz to 20KHz. A toggleswitch also lets you turn the speakers onor off, and youll be able to adjust thevolume using the laptop or operatingsystems native controls. o power theentire unit, plug a lone USB cable intoa spare port on the laptop and then

In our review of the ENERMAX Aero-Odio CP006, we talked about how

large laptops need supplemental coolingto perform optimally for as long as youown them. But the parts in smaller

laptops have even less room to breathewhen theyre working their hardest. Andthe dirty little secret about highly mobilelaptops is that theyre much more likelyto be pushed to their limits when youredoing fairly common tasks. Supplementalcooling, regardless of the size or mobilityof your laptop, is a good way to keep thelittle road warriors running at their peakfor a long time.

he ENERMAX wisterOdio 16 issignificantly more compact than the

Ae roOd io ; its dec k mea sure s 13.9by 10.6-inches, which is suitable forlaptops with screens measuring 16inches or less diagonally. he top ofthis cooler is composed of a piece ofbrushed aluminum with a raised plasticridge along the front edge that willprevent lighter laptops from slipping

plug the mini USB jack into the porton the left side of the wisterOdio16. o get the laptops audio source toutilize the coolers speakers, just spanthe included phono plug between the

laptops headphone port and the 3.5mmaudio port on the unit. An addedbenet of this conguration is that youcan effectively use this laptop cooler as apair of external speakers for any devicethat has a headphone port, such as anMP3 player, smartphone, or CD player.

he wisterOdio 16s compactwedge shape makes it easy to packin your favorite laptop carrying bag,so no matter where you go, yourlaptop can quickly have a continuous

supply of fresh air circulated beneathit. Laptop owners looking for morethan a way to keep their devices coolshould seriously consider ENERMAXswisterOdio 16.

BYANDREWLEIBMAN

Specs:Dimensions: 2.0 x 13.9 x 10.6 inches (HxWxD); Materials: plastic, brushed aluminum; Power: Mini-USB; Connection: phono plug; Audio: 40mm

drivers, 140Hz 20KHz, 2 watts; Fan: 120mm, 800rpm -1,400rpm, speed control dial.

TwisterOdio 16 CP008

$39.99

ENERMAX

www.enermaxusa.com



23/88

GIGABYTE Radeon R9 280X

(GV-R928XOC-3GD)GIGABYEs variant (technically the secondrevision of the firms custom Radeon R9280X) is equipped with 3GB of GDDR5, a6,000MHz memory clock, and a base/boostclock of 1GHz and 1.1GHz. Supportedtechnologies include DirectX 11.2, PCIe 3.0,OpenGL 4.3, and AMDs Mantle API. Asyou can expect, the Radeon HD 7000 Seriescards will be replaced by the R9 280X cards.

GIGABYEs Radeon R9 280X comeswith a custom cooler on it thats more thancapable of dissipating the 250 watts this cardcan potentially consume when ring on allcylinders. he WINDFORCE 3X coolerwith riangle Cool technology is capable ofdissipating up to 450 watts of thermal energy.A trio of 92mm PWM fans, three copperheatpipes that span the board, and a largevapor chamber bristling with aluminum nsare what make this possible. Tis cards PCBalso features GIGABYEs Ultra DurableVGA technology, which consists of Japanesesolid caps, a unied Driver MOSFE, ferrite

core chokes, and a 2-oz copper PCB. Whatall this means is that this Radeon R9 280X isable to run cooler, overclock better, and stopup power leakage by a signicant margin.

Although the GPU inside this graphicscard was designed and launched more thantwo years ago, it has aged quite well. Whenwe first tested the Radeon HD 7970, itscored 59.5fps and 37.3fps in the Aliens vs.

For the gamers on Santas Nice list thisyear, AMD had a red velvet sack full of

new graphics cards available from which tochoose. GIGABYE recently sent us theirlatest revision of the Radeon R9 280X,which is equipped with a powerful GCN-based GPU that floats along in the shadowof the Radeon R9 290X flagship.

Te GPU under the hood of the R9 280Xis technically a ahiti GPU, manufacturedat 28nm, just like the Radeon HD 7000series. One of the biggest changes with thiscard is its name; from this point forward, theHD is gone, and the numbering schemeswitches to an R followed by a digit thatrepresents the product category and a triple-digit number at the end of the name thatmakes it easy to determine the cards placein the performance hierarchy. As an R9 card,it is targeted at enthusiasts. Te mainstreamcards will be labeled R7, and the higher-performing cards within each line will get anX suffix where appropriate.

Te Radeon R9 290X is unquestionablythe main event for AMD, but the R9 280Xis essentially a Radeon HD 7970 GHzEdition do-over designed to hit a sweeterprice point. Both cards have the same2,048 stream processors, 128 texture units,32 ROPs, similar 1GHz core clocks, anda 384-bit-wide memory bus spanningbetween the GPU and 6Gbps GDDR5.

Predator demo at 1,920 x 1,200 and 2,560x 1,600, respectively. (Incidentally, it also hada launch price tag of $549.) In an updatedtest bed, the Radeon R9 280X with a similar(though higher-clocked) GPU delivered71.8fps and 45fps, respectively. his cardmay not have the bells and whistles of the

Radeon R9 290X, but it resets the bar for thekind of performance you can expect to getfor around $300. As we went to press, thiscard had a street price of $419.99, despitea much lower initial launch price. Once itsprice stabilizes, this card will hit a sweet spotfor enthusiast gamers.

BYANDREWLEIBMAN

Test System Specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X; GPU: GIGABYTE Radeon R9 280X (GV-R928XOC-3GD); RAM: 8GB ADATA DDR3-1600; Storage: 128GB

ADATA Premier Pro SP900 SSD; OS: Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)

Radeon R9 280X

Approx. $299.99

GIGABYTE

www.gigabyte.us

Specs & Scores

GIGABYTE

GV-R928XOC-3GD

Price ~$299.99

Core clock 1,000MHz

Boost clock 1,100MHz

Memory clock 6,000MHz

Memory interface 384-bit

Memory 3GB GDDR5

3DMark Professional


7597

Graphics Score 8211

Physics Score 14768

Unigine Heaven 4.0 (1,920 x 1,200)

Score 1062

FPS 42.1

Games (1,920 x 1,200)

Metro: Last Light

(4XAA, 16XAF, SSAO off)

51.33fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

71.8fps

(2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light

(4XAA, 16XAF, SSAO off)

35fps

Aliens vs. Predator

(4XAA, 16XAF)

45fps



24/88

Thermaltake Ultra X USB HUB With Ethernet Adapteradapter. hermaltake includes driverson a CD for WinXP and Vista. If your

device runs Mac OS X, hermaltakeprovides dr ivers for OS X 10.5and above.

Setting up and using the UltraX Ethernet adapter is fa irly stra ight -forward. Once the driver is installedand the adapter is plugged in, yourdevice should be connected to theInternet. In some cases, you may needto select the adapter (listed as the ASIXAX88772B USB 2.0 o Fast EthernetAdapter in Device Manager) as yournetwork adapter. With the USB hub,your PC should detect any peripheralyou attach to the hub, just like it wouldif the peripheral were directly connectedto your PC. If you opt to connect theUltra X Ethernet adapter to the hub, itwill take up one of the USB ports andleave the hub with three free ports.

hermaltake indicates that theEthernet adapter supports transfer

Wi red Internet connectivi ty i sobviously ideal for gaming and

file downloads, so its regrettable thatsome of todays convertible laptopsand Ultrabooks dont offer an Ethernetport. he Ultra X USB HUB withEthernet Adapter from hermaltake isdesigned to provide a wired connectionfor reliable, speedy Internet access insituations like this. he miniature hubalso offers up to four USB 2.0 portsto expand the USB connectivity onyour laptop. he Ultra Xs Ethernetadapter can be removed from the USBhub, which gives you the freedomto connect it directly to a free USBport on your PC or to the providedUSB hub.

hermaltake has engineered theUltra X to work both with Windowsand Mac operating systems. In ourtesting, Windows 7 and Windows 8automatically found drivers to supportboth the USB hub and the Ethernet

speeds of 10/100Mbps. We testedthe Ultra X Ethernet adapter using

SiSoftware Sandra 2014s Network/LAN Bandwidth benchmark, and itproduced the same network speed(56Mbps) a s the Inte l 82579VEthernet controller built into our testsystems motherboard.

he Ultra X USB HUB With Ether-net Adapter is compact enough thatit should easily fit within the pocketof your laptop or travel bag. Its dualfunctionality as a USB hub and wiredInternet connection provides you witha quick, affordable way to expand theoverall connectivity of a lightweightlaptop or Ultrabook.

BYNATHANLAKE

Ultra X USB HUB With Ethernet Adapter

$24.99

Thermaltake


Specs:Ports: Ethernet, 4 USB 2.0; Speed; 10/100Mbps; Cord length: 5.67 inches; Weight: 1.76 ounces; Body dimensions: 0.47 x 1.65 x 3 inches (HxWxD)



25/88

Bgears b-PWM 120mm/b-PWM 140mm

built-in LEDs offer a light in eachcorner. We found that the bright LEDsilluminated the nearby areas of oursystem interior. Both the 120mmand 140mm b-PWM fans feature15 blades, which have the sametranslucent color as the fans frame.

For power, the b-PWM featuresa mini 4-pin connector, and we likethat the fans power cable is nearly24 inches long. he length gave usthe freedom to route the fans powercable behind the motherboard tray,so we could hide the cable. And thecable easily reached from the cases rearexhaust to the PWM headers located at

the bottom of our motherboards PCB.Bgears also provides a 3-pin-to-Molexadapter, so you can power the fan viaa Molex connector on your PSU inthe event that you run out of free fanheaders on your motherboard. (Note

PWM (pulse-width modulation)fans make it easy for you to balance

system noise and cooling performancewithin your rig. A PWM fan will runat its slowest speed when the PC is idle,and will ramp up RPMs based on theload information provided by yourmotherboard. With the Bgears b-PWMlineup, the fans will turn as slowly as500rpm for nearly silent operation. Andan impressive amount of airflow (110cfm,according to Bgears) is generated whenthe b-PWM fans reach their maximumspeed. he b-PWM 120mm can spinas fast as 2,000rpm, while the b-PWM140mm can turn at up to 1,800rpm.

Bgears offers the b-PWM fans inthree translucent colors, two of whichcome with LEDs. You can choosebetween a blue fan with blue LEDs,a red fan with red LEDs, and a blackfan with no LED. he models with

that the fan will run at maximumspeed by default when connected viathe 3-pin-to-Molex adapter.)

At the maximum fan speed, Bgearsindicates that the b-PWM 120mm willoperate at a noise level of 37.3dBA.he larger b-PWM 140mm is slightlyquieter at 35.5dBA when run at1,800rpm. In terms of total power, theb-PWM will use 6.84 watts, while theb-PWM 140 will use 7.32 watts. Bothoperate at a rated voltage of 12V.

Bgears b-PWM fans move air wellat full speed, and we thought our testfans were extremely quiet when thePC was idle. Combine this with their

flexibility and color options, and youhave an affordable line of fans that willcomplement just about any build.

BYNATHANLAKE

Specs b-PWM 120mm: Dimensions: 120 x 1 20 x 25mm; Speed: 500-2,000rpm; Current: 0.57A; Power: 6.84W; Voltage: 12V; Airflow: 110 CFM;

Noise: 37.3dBA (at 2,000rpm)

Specs b-PWM 140mm: Dimensions: 140 x 1 40 x 25mm; Speed: 500-1,800rpm; Current: 0.61A; Power: 7.32W; Voltage: 12V; Airflow: 110 CFM;

Noise: 35.8dBA (at 1,800rpm)

b-PWM 120mm

$15.99 ($14.99 for translucent black)

Bgears

bgears.com

b-PWM 140mm

$17.99 ($16.99 for translucent black)

Bgears

bgears.com



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ENERMAX AeroOdio CP006black metal mesh surface that covers animpressively large 220mm fan. Te frameof the unit is a matte-nished plastic, anda pair of removable rubber domes coversthe two 40mm drivers on the sloping

sides of the AeroOdio. he rear of thecooler features a pair of USB 2.0 ports, aMini-USB power input, a speaker volumedial, and a fan speed dial.

Te fan in the AeroOdio has a speedrange of 620rpm to up to 720rpm. Tatsounds slow, but a 220mm fan at 600rpmwill typically be capable of moving air ataround 100cfm (cubic feet per minute),whereas a 90mm fan, like the type youlloften nd inside your laptop, will needto spin at over 2,000rpm to achieve

even half as much air movement. In ourusage, we noticed that theres almost noadditional noise from this unit. Accordingto ENERMAX, the fan generates awhisper-quiet 17 to 23.5dBA dependingon its speed setting.

If you want a little noise, however,the AeroOdios pair of 40mm drivers

When you splash out for a 17-inchlaptop, chances are good youre doing

it more for the discreet GPU, desktop-grade processor, and support for multiplestorage drives than for portability. But no

matter how meticulously engineered yourlaptop is, heat will build up, and with theaddition of any or all of the above, thatheat can very quickly make using the laptopuncomfortable and shorten the life of yourcomponents. And even if the heat doesntbecome enough to risk your components,it can reduce the dynamic clock speedheadroom that your GPU and CPU haveto work with, giving you a less-than-stellarcomputing experience. hats why its alwaysa good idea to rest your laptop on a quality

cooler whenever its going to be stationaryfor more than a few hours.

ENERMAXs latest cooler for largelaptops, the AeroOdio CP006, is built forunits with 17-inch screens. In truth, thedeck on this cooler can handle laptops aswide as 16.5 inches and as deep as 10.5inches. Te top of the cooler is a glossy

will provide it with aplomb; they havea frequency range from 150Hz to18KHz and a 2.5-watt output. A fewlaptops weve tested offer comparableor more powerful speakers, but these

will easily fill your room with rich,full-spectrum audio.

One of our favorite things about theAeroOdio is that it requires practicallyzero setup. You just plug the twostandard USB plugs into the back ofyour laptop, slot-in the mini USB pluginto the jack on the back of the unit, andthen turn on music or audio and it justworks. Teres no software to downloadand configure and you dont lose anyUSB ports in the process. You can even

still use your laptops headphone portwithout having to unplug anything. TeENERMAX AeroOdio has a lot to offerthose looking for a stylish way to extendthe life and functionality of their desktopreplacement laptops.

BYANDREWLEIBMAN

Specs:Dimensions: 2.5 x 20.8 x 12.6 inches (HxWxD); Materials: plastic, metal, rubber; Connection: USB (x2), mini USB; Audio: 40mm drivers, 150Hz

18KHz, 2.5 watts, volume dial; Fan: 220mm, 620-720rpm, speed dial.

AeroOdio CP006

$49.99

ENERMAX

www.enermaxusa.com



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A Clear & Present Danger

which just happen to be awfully simi-lar to last years flicks?

Yes, its February, the romance indus-trys favorite month for shamelesslyproting off of your affections.

But dont get it twisted. Here at CPU,were some of the most romantic peoplewe know. Te only difference is that theway to our hearts is through our PCs.See, sticks of RAM last longer than a boxof chocolates, and a new PC case will

Once again, its that magical timeof year when love is in the air.

Florists are giddy at the thought ofl ightening your wal le t by a fewJa cksons in exchange for a smal lassortment of colorful plants, and thegood people at Hallmark making akilling selling $8 rectangles of foldedcardboard. And what would thi smonth be without at least one or twodelightful new romantic comedies,

turn our heads a lot faster than bouquetof flowers. Wed gladly watch a LN2overclocking demonstration rather thansit through another 90 minutes of RachelMcAdams and Ashton Kutcher fumblingtoward Predictably Ever After. Wellhazard a guess that you feel the same way.

Tats why this is the perfect month tokick off 2014s CPU System Workshop.We found a whole bunch of hardwarethat has our pulse racing. Teres a little



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amount damage (the cannon) but are toofragile to take any punishment in return(the glass). Our Glass Cannon is a DPS(or rather, fps) machine, but its no squishy.ake our word for it: Te In Win 904 is assturdy as they come. What we really needto focus on is the Cannon half of GlassCannon. Te nished product is full of allsorts of advanced weaponry that we cantwait to tell you about.

Heavy ArtilleryBefore we delve into Glass Cannons

components, we wanted to give you a fullrundown of the In Win 904s intriguingfeatures. You know about the aluminumalloy unibody, and you know about thetempered glass side panels. he 904is as tall as it is deep (19.3 inches), andit measures 7.6 inches wide. Inside, the

904 supports AX and microAXmotherboards. With its lone 5.25-inchexternal bay located below the PSU bayand its I/O ports found on the left side, the

bit of cutting edge and little bit of brand-spanking new. All of it is awesome. Wewont blame you if you break out yourhighlighter, circle the text related to thecomponents near and dear to your ownheart, and then conspicuously place themagazine where your SO is guaranteed tosee it. In fact, we encourage it.

Love might make the world go round,but benchmark-busting PC hardware iswhat makes it fun. Cupid has modiedhis arsenal. Youll like the changes.

PC Under GlassYou dont need us to tell you that this

is one good-looking machine. Over theyears, In Win has surprised us time andagain with innovative and unique cases.We should expect it by now, but the 904managed to catch us off guard once more.

Te 904s front, top, and bottom panelsarent really panels at all. Rather, theyre hewnfrom a single slab of aluminum-magnesiumalloy and literally bent to In Wins will.Te matching back panel is secured to the904s aluminum alloy unibody with fourthumbscrews. Just as impressive, though, arethe cases side panels. Te tinted temperedglass looks stunning, and the end result issomething wed expect from a moddersworkbench, not a factory assembly line. Yethere the 904 is; a beautiful combination of

aluminum and glass.Using the 904 as our foundation, we

endeavored to outt it with componentsthat packed a punch befitting a CPUSystem Workshop machine. Ourgoal was to meet demanding gamesand challenging workloads with anoverwhelming amount of firepower.Considering the case, our rst build ofthis year is a regular glass cannon.

Glass cannon is a term thats all toofamiliar to RPG gamers. hese are thecharacter classes that dish out a crazy

904s appearance isnt the only thing thatsunique; we like that In Wins engineersdevised clever ways to keep the cases topand front panels clean by relocating theexternal bay and I/O ports elsewhere. Allof the 904s internal 2.5/3.5-inch bays areof the hot-swap variety, and there are twomore internal 2.5-inch drive mounts onthe front of the chassis. It all combines tomake a case that you wont soon forget.

Switching from aluminum to silicon, wehave another real treat. he build marksthe rst time we used the fastest desktopprocessor in the known universe, IntelsCore i7-4960X Extreme Edition. Weturned to Haswell (in the form of theCore i7-4770K) for the last two Workshopbuilds, and that CPU performed like achamp. In most benchmarks, especiallythose that are CPU-intensive, the 4960X

beats the 4770K by a country mile.Launched last September, the 4960X isIntels Ivy Bridge-E architecture in all itsglory: A lean, mean 257mm2 die results



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GPU, GIGABYE adds a beefy heatsinkwith pure copper heatpipes. Tree PWMfans are installed at precise angles in orderto maximize airflow. And like the GA-X79-UD3, GIGABYEs RADEON R9280X boasts Ultra Durable construction;on the graphics card, that means a PCBlaced with 2 ounces of copper, Japanesesolid caps, tier 1 memory, lower RDS(on)MOSFEs, and ferrite core chokes.

Although we have in-depth coverage

of the RADEON R9 280X in our HeavyGear review this month, GIGABYEdials in healthy 1GHz and 1.1GHz baseand boost clocks, respectively. We stuckwith that for the purpose of not blowingup the Glass Cannon from the inside out,but if youre the lucky winner of this rig(get thee to PDXLAN 23), GIGABYEinvites you to push those clocks higherusing its OC GURU II utility. hisgraphics card has 3GB of GDDR5clocked at 1,500MHz running on a 384-bit bus. Its hungry for frames.

in 1.86 billion transistors, six cores thatcan handle 12 threads, and 15MB of IntelSmart Cache. Without even touching thisprocessors unlocked multiplier, you get astock clock speed of 3.6GHz and a Maxurbo frequency of 4GHz. Needless to say,with six cores running at this speed, andeven more potential via overclocking, the4960X is explosive in the best possible way.

You need a way to properly unleashall that explosiveness, though; otherwise,youre sitting on a whole lot of gunpowderwithout a match to make the Glass Cannongo boom. Calling GIGABYEs GA-X79-UD3 a match, however, does it a greatdisservice. Sure, it has all of the nicetiesof the X79 platform, like quad-channelmemory support and a bundle (40) ofPCI-E lanes. Te GA-X79-UD3 also hasplenty of the trappings weve all come to

require from our motherboards. Te Corei7-4960Xs integrated memory controllermaxes out its memory speed support at1,866MHz, but this GIGABYE board ismore than happy to take your DDR3-2133and DDR3-2400 modules, as well. hemotherboard is also ready to utilize all thosePCI-E lanes, as it can support four graphicscards in either CrossFire or SLI. Trow instuff like the GA-X79-UD3s Ultra Durablepedigree, quick-charge USB ports, and lotsof USB 3.0 and 6Gbps SAA ports, and

you have a solid motherboard ready to do alot of heavy lifting.

We also turned to GIGABYE forthe Glass Cannons graphics, and here,weve packed our bags for ahitispecifically the ahiti-based GPU foundin GIGABYEs RADEON R9 280X(model GV-R928XOC-3GD). Likemany of the recent graphics cards fromGIGABYE that weve covered, this carddispenses with stock cooling in favor ofGIGABYEs own WINDFORCE cooler.Starting with a vapor chamber over the

Te ADAA crew has been in businessfor over a decade, so its safe to say theyvegot the DDR and NAND game on lock.For our memory, we used a kit of ADAAsXPG V1.0 DDR3. Our kit consisted oftwo 4GB sticks running at 1,600MHz andsolid timings of 9-9-9-24. With their blackheat spreaders in full effect, the XPG V1.0modules look good, too.

For our SSD, we relied on the ADAAPremier Pro SP900, a SandForce-based

burner. We rolled with the 128GB version,which boasts sequential reads and writes ofup to 550MBps and 520MBps, respectively.he drives 4K write performance isspectacular, too, topping out at 85,000IOPS. he Premier Pro SP900 providesenough room for our OS, vital apps, and asmall handful of our favorite games.

o cool a beast like the Core i7-4960X,you need a beast. We got one: ZalmansReserator 3 Max. Leave it to Zalmanto break the mold and give us a uniqueclosed-loop CPU cooler. In a market thats



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730W unit for the Glass Cannon. A partiallymodular power supply, the Revolution Xtperfectly t our build needs because we usedevery cable in its hardwired bundle and onlyone of the modular cables; thats how youachieve cable cleanliness. Speaking of cables,the PSUs 4+4-pin CPU cable was able toreach the corresponding connector on theGA-X79-UD3 without an extension cable.We also dig that ENERMAX went with asingle 12V rail (60A) rather than spreadingthe amperage across multiple rails.

In order to properly aim our GlassCannon and rain down havoc on ourunsuspecting opponents, GX Gaming hadthe tools we needed. For our right hand,we chose the Maurus X gaming mouse. GXGaming says the Maurus X is engineeredto dominate in either FPS or RS games,and we believe it. Te Maurus Xs four DPI

settings (800/1600/2400/4000) give gamersflexibility, and you can bind up to 30macros across the Maurus Xs six buttons.Te Scorpion UI makes setup a snap.

crowded with boring, black, rectangularradiators, the Reserator 3 Max is a breathof cold, fresh air. In fact, the cooler actuallyconsists of two radiatorsa smaller, circularinner radiator stuffed inside anothercircular radiator. Coolant winds throughthe radiators copper heatpipes, and densearrays of copper ns help soak up the heat.Finally, a 120mm PWM fan can ramp upto a cyclonic 2,200rpm to blast the heataway. Te Reserator 3 Maxs pump unit hasa pure copper waterblock, and the pumpitself keeps the coolant owing at a rate of90 liters per hour. Anything but boring, theReserator 3 Maxs blue LEDs in the pumpunit and fan shine through the In Win 904sglass side panel just enough to draw gamersto the Glass Cannon like moths to a veryexpensive, benchmark-busting ame.

ENERMAXyou might remember

them from such awesome power supplyfamilies as PLAIMAX and MAXREVOhas a new line of 80 PLUS Gold-certiedPSUs, Revolution Xt, and we grabbed the

o round out our control suite, wechose GX Gamings Manticore keyboard.Like the Maurus X, the Manticore hasplenty of macro support. A bank of eightdedicated macro keys sits to the leftof the QWERY keys, and with threeprofile keys below the Spacebar, youhave a maximum of 24 macros at yourdisposal; also like the Maurus X, you cancongure everything within the ScorpionUI. Youll nd that 20 of gamers mostcommonly used keys (WASD, SHIF,CRL, etc.) have built-in antighosting,and a relatively short key travel distanceof 3.8mm just might give you the edgeyou need when it matters most. Betweenthe Maurus X and Manticore, our handswere in good hands.

Commence The Bombardment

Putting the Glass Cannon togetherwas mostly straightforward. he InWi n 904 had cable managementcutouts where we needed them, so thisbuild ended up being as neat as it waspowerful. In Win designed the 904sremovable rear panel to accommodatemost radiators, but the Reserator 3 Maxsrad turned out to be just a little too thickto t between the 904s rear panel and itsinner chassis. Instead, we attached theReserator 3 Maxs radiator to the 904s

bottom panel fan mount. In the end,everything fit together, and the GlassCannon was All Systems Go.

Once we rolled (OK, carried) theGlass Cannon onto the eld, we openedre on our hapless suite of benchmarkswith extreme prejudice. You can seehow the Glass Cannon laid waste tothese tests in our benchmark resultsrecap. On the intervening pages, wevehighlighted a couple of the items thatmake the Glass Cannon such a high-tech weapon.



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Core i7-4960X

INTEL

integrated quad-channel memory controllernatively supports DDR3-1866, a step upfrom Sandy Bridge-E parts. heoretically,it boosts the chips maximum memory

bandwidth to 59.7GBps. Te 3970X toppedout at 51.2GBps.When we tested the 4960X in the Glass

Cannon, it downright dominated ourCPU-intensive benchmarks. It ran throughPOV-Ray 3.7 Beta at 2166 pixels persecond and crushed Cinebenchs demanding

Given the choice, everyone would like tohave the bestItalian sports cars, 80-

inch HDVs, triple-deck yachts. In terms ofperformance, you dont have to worry, becausetheres no better performance than best. Ofcourse, the best isnt a reality for everyone.

Here in the CPU System Workshop,however, we dont have to play by the rules.We wanted the best processor, so we gotthe best processor: Intels Core i7-4960XExtreme Edition CPU. Tis chip is Intels IvyBridge-E architecture at the top of its game.Te 4960X simply takes the baton from theprevious desktop champ, the Core i7-3970X,and runs with it (albeit a little faster). In

terms of speeds and feeds, the 4960X boastsa base clock of 3.6GHz and a max turbofrequency of 4GHz. Like its predecessor, the4960X has 15MB of Intel Smart Cache.

his CPU is manufactured on a 22nmlithography, as opposed to Sandy Bridge-Es32nm process, making the 4960X morepowerful and more efficient. Another crucialimprovement in efficiency is the 4960Xsdie size. Because Ivy Bridge-E isnt an 8-coreCPU with two of its cores disabled, likecertain Sandy Bridge-E SKUs, the 4960Xs

die is a svelte 257mm2

. Compared to the6-core Sandy Bridge-E die of 435mm2, youcan see that were dealing with a CPU that isequal parts lean and mean. And although wemight not consider the 4960Xs 130W DPto be stingy by todays desktop standards,the fact that Intel managed to shave off20W from the 3970Xs 150W DP is animpressive feat of engineering.

Another carryover from Sandy Bridge-E isthe 4960Xs 40 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, which giveshigh-end graphics cards all the bandwidththey need to do their jobs. he 4960Xs

multithreaded workload with a score of12.13. Fearsome results.

Did we mention that the 4960X isunlocked and ready to rock? hats what

the X means. It also means exciting,exceptional, and excellent. You know, what itfeels like to be the best.

Core i7-4960X

$1,059

Intel | www.intel.com

Socket: Intel LGA2011; Clock speed: 3.6GHz (4GHz Max Turbo); 15MB Intel Smart Cache;

Memory support: 4 channels, DDR3-1866; TDP: 130W; Cores 6, Hyper-Threading

SPECS



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904

IN WIN

almost hidden from sight, in order to preservethe unblemished front panel. It seemed likethe motherboard tray had holes right wherewe needed them for our cables, which isespecially important with this case becausethe glass side panels will put your cable job ondisplay for the whole LAN party to see.

Te rest of the 904s bays are, more thanlikely, what you want and where you wantthem. Tere are three 2.5/3.5-inch hot-swapbays in the top right corner of the chassisand two mounting plates on the front foranother pair of 2.5-inch drives. he 904s

Once you see enough cases, even expensiveenthusiast cases, they all start to look the

same. Obviously, the level of craftsmanshipand attention to detail is heads and shouldersabove the plastic boxes hiding under yourparents desk, but it can be hard to getexcited about a new high-end case whenmanufacturers dont make many departuresfrom the tried-and-true playbook. Smokegrey is the new beige.

So when we tell you that were excitedabout In Wins new 904 glass-and-aluminumcase, know that we mean it. his daringmidtower isnt something you see every day.In fact, the only unsurprising thing about

the 904 is that it was brewed up in In Winslabs. With previous cases like the XFrame,D-Frame, and H-Frame on its CV, InWin has certainly earned its reputation as amanufacturer that isnt afraid to take risks.

With the 904, the risk has paid off yetagain. Its the kind of case that commandsthe room, starting with the side panels. Notcontent with the modest, Plexi side panelwindows found on most cases (see: playbook,above), In Win simply made both side panelsentirely out of tempered glass. Teyre basically

case windows on steroids . . . with an HGHchaser. Equally impressive is the single pieceof brushed aluminum that forms the 904stop, front, and bottom panels; a matchingback panel is removable. Combined withthe glass side panels, the case is a tribute tominimalist sophistication.

he 904 is more than a pretty face,however. Its evident that In Win didnt feelthe need to conform to any sort of rulesfor building enthusiast cases, and we like theresult. For example, the 904s lone 5.25-inchbay is actually located below the PSU bay,

back panel will support most 120/140mmradiators; our Zalman Reserator 3 Max wasjust wide enough that we installed it on the904s bottom panel mount, instead.

In Wins 904 is a beautiful case that didntturn ugly once we starting building oursystem within. Maybe that enthusiast case

playbook isnt what its cracked up to be.

904

$280

In Win

www.inwin-style.com

Dimensions: 19.3 x 7.6 x 19.3 inches (HxWxD); Materials: Aluminum, glass; Motherboard

support: ATX, mATX; Bays: 1 5.25-inch external, 2 2.5-inch internal, 3 2.5/3.5-inch internal

hot-swap; Fans (optional): 1 90mm rear, 1 120/140mm bottom; Ports: 4 USB 3.0, audio I/O

SPECS



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Here Comes The Boom

After shutting down the CPU Sys-tem Workshop for a few months

last year, we were eager to shake offthe cobwebs and get back in the lab.Building beastly rigs is one of ourfavorite things to do, and the GlassCannon is a prime example of why itsso much fun.

Builds like this are extra-special,though, because it feels like theyreinfused with awesome, inside and out.he In Win 904, with its aluminumand glass, draws you in, and then thesystems hardware blows you away.

Of course, thats what you get whenyou include parts that are so top-shelfyou need a crane, or a jet pack, toreach them.

We l l start with the processor,because theres really nothing fasterthan the Core i7-4960X. Inte l schampion formerly known as IvyBridge-E puts its six cores (and 12threads) to good use; if you read ourcoverage in the November 2013 issue,then you know what sort of damage

this processor is capable of doing.he 4960X was lights-out across allbenchmarks, but we saw its poweron display in our CPU-intensivetests. Marks of 12.08 in Cinebench11.5 and 2166 pixels per second inPOV-Ray 3.7 Beta highlight this chipsexplosive potential.

GIGABYE did its share of thehard work, as well, with the factory-overclocked RADEON R9 280X weinstalled. hanks to the substantialaftermarket cooler bolted onto the



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cards silicon, this R9 280X wasrock-solid at the clocks GIGABYEdialed in. he result? Oh, just someof the highest game benchmarks forany single graphics card weve evertested. No big deal. Although oneR9 280X should be able to handlealmost any game you play, even athigh resolutions and quality settings,just imagine what two of these cardscould do in CrossFire; the GlassCannon already has some prettybig guns, but theres plenty of roomfor more.

While were on the subject of roomfor more, youll see that we settledfor a relatively modest overclock of4.2GHz. Although were performancefreaks, the Glass Cannon will soonbelong to one very lucky PDXLAN

warrior, so a CPU System Workshop

overclocking mishap cooking the GlassCannons goose was not a possibilitywe wanted to entertain. his rig doeshave all the tools one needs for a veryfearsome overclock: he Core i7-4960Xs unlocked multiplier can climbas high a s 63X, and Zalmans Reserator3 Max CPU cooler should be able tokeep the processors temperature fromrunning away.

As our fir st bui ld of 2014 is in thebooks, we think this year is off to anexcellent start. Well be packing upall this artillery and shipping it offto the Pacific Northwest. If youll bein attendance at PDXLAN, we wishyou luck in winning this weapon,and stay tuned for more CPU SystemWorkshop shenan igan s. If th e Glas sCannon is any indication, were in for

another wild year.



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Benchmark Results Glass Cannon (3.6GHz) Glass Cannon (4.2GHz)

3DMark Fire Strike 7826 7882

Graphics Score 8573 8611

Physics Score 14744 15461

Combined Test 15.45 15.48

PCMark 7 5142 5188

Productivity 4608 4732

Entertainment 5616 5694

Creativity 7410 7463

Computation 8111 8117

System Storage 4691 4726

SiSoftware Sandra 2014 Lite

Dhrystone Integer Native SSE4.2 (GIPS) 214.75 227

Whetstone Float Native AVX (GFLOPS) 159 166.67

Multi-Media Integer Native x16 AVX (Mpixels/s) 375.43 393

Multi-Media Float Native x16 AVX (Mpixels/s) 506.93 533.7

Multi-Media Double Native x8 AVX (Mpixels/s) 282.56 297.16

Multi-Media Float/Double Native (Mpixels/s) 378.46 398.24

Integer Memory B/F AVX/128 (GBps) 19.87 19.24

Float Memory B/F AVX/128 (GBps) 19.88 19.2

POV-Ray 3.7 Beta (pixels per second) 2166 2279.35

Cinebench 11.5 (points) 12.08 12.68

Games (frames per second at 2,560 x 1,600)

Metro: Last Light (4XAA, 16XAF) 35 35.67

Aliens vs. Predator (4XAA, 16XAF) 45 43.5

Test system specs:Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X; Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3;

Graphics: GIGABYTE Radeon R9 280X (GV-R928XOC-3GD); RAM: 8GB ADATA XPG V1.0 DDR3-

1600; Storage: 128GB ADATA Premier Pro SP900; PSU: ENERMAX Revolution Xt 730W; Cooler:

Zalman Reserator 3 Max; Windows 8 Pro



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State-Of-The-ArtStandardsDDR4

speed throughout the rest of thisarticle, well be using Mps, not adoubling of the clock rate in MHz, asis common practice.

he DDR3 memory in your systemtoday is likely to deliver transfer ratessomewhere between 1,066Mps and2,400Mps. For a handsome pricepremium, there are a handful o f DDR3kits currently available that race alongat speeds above 2,600Mps, even upto 3,100Mps at the top end. Voltagesgenerally vary between 1.65V at thehigher end and 1.35V for a handfulof low-voltage kits currently on the

you want to reserve your seat welli

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Transcript of Computer Power User - February 2014