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In the past couple year, ITX market became more and more popular. Many MB makers launched related products. Some of my friends choose ITX due to space concern. For small room or preferring small PC, ITX is the best option for you. The ITX Case I share today is CORSAIR high texture Obsidian Series. Obsidian Series majority is ATX full-tower chassis. It’s simple, texture and scalability. Recently, it also has Micro ATX350D and Mini ITX250D. For who requires high performance and small size, these two are just perfect. Let’s look at CORSAIR Obsidian Series 250D box first. It’s thicker carton with detail features. Corrugated paper with less painting is more environment saving. From here, CORSAIR Obsidian Series 250D will be named as 250D. The size is 351x 277 x 290mm, and weight is 4.42 kg. The major material is steel and aluminum front panel. There are some parts using plastic. Front panel has one 5.25” for DVD or BD-ROM. Right side has 2 front USB3.0 and headset, mic jacks. The 5 white round dots on both sides can open bottom panel. Left side has Power and HDD/SSD LED. Bottom round button is Reset. The light LED is light white. It won’t impact your vision at dark site during the night. Front panel is black anodized brushed aluminum fascia and a brushed aluminum fascia with the company logo imprinted on it. It’s not anti-fingerprint, but still acceptable. If the white CORSAIR logo is nameplate, the texture will be better. Top panel is partial transparent window design. Users can see through it. No matter water cooling, air cooling, MB orRAM, if it’s Luminous, the visual effect is better. Left side It has large openings with integrated fan filters. It enhances air flow, also lower dust. Right side It also has large openings with integrated fan filters. Back Side Top can add two 8csm fans. Right side can install high end VGA panel. Center is Mini-ITX MB IO panel. Lower-left is 2.5” and 3.5” storage trays. Lower-right is Power Supply. It supports max 18cm high watt ATX PSU. Uninstall 3 side panels Left side can install two 12cm fans. It bundles with one CORSAIR AF120L silent fan. If you are using CORSAIR water cooling system, you can install H55, H60 or H100i for better air flow. Inner top side Front is 5.25” bay. It’s convenient but also makes ITX Case bigger. Back is for Mini-ITX MB. Below is Power Supply. Front is for PSU cables.

Iometer 5 minutes - 100% Write / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second => 86380.81 5minutes - 100% Write / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second => 86356.60 5minutes - 100% Read / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second => 96403.27 5minutes - 100% Read / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second => 97599.02 You can see the Random Read / Write 4KB in IOMETER 2008 are really high. The key is after 20 mins repeating test, there is no decline as SanForce controller. Marvell 88SS9187 controller performance wont decline. Its standard technology for current high end SSD. Comparing to former Extreme II, Extreme PRO performance doesnt improve much. However, using same Marvell Controller and own latest NAND Flash, official specs show power consumption is 30% lower. In such low power consumption, the Extreme PRO performance is really outstanding. Second part is NoteBook test. I use DELL New!Alienware 17. As high end Gaming Notebook in the market, the performance and hardward specs are all top level. AlienFX lighting is DELL New!Alienware body surrounding many LEDs. The shell is coating aluminumand soft touch rubberized finish. Its magnesium-alloy frame for better quality, texture and durability. Its 17.3 antiglare FHD monitor. The speaker is the best I have ever used in Notebook. It supports one mSATA and two 2.5 SATA3. I change to Sandisk Extreme PRO SSD. Sandisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD install at SATA3 port as system drive. OS installs Windows7 Ultimate 64bit, all drivers and Intel Smart Response Technology. AS SSD Benchmark - 1095 Seq Read - 512.79 MB/s Write - 485.38 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 362.11 MB/s Write - 283.22 MB/s ATTO DISK Benchmark over 128KB can reach max Read 560.5 Mb/s and Write 526.3 MB/s CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 547.8 MB/s Write - 512.5 MB/s Comparing to Desktop PC numbers, most benchmark in Notebook is similar. It means even Sandisk Extreme PRO SSD set as system drive, the performance is still good. Of course, DELL New!Alienware SATA3 optimization is high, also enhance Extreme PRO scores. BootRacer Boot Result => 14.142 seconds In BootRacer, it needs only 14.142 seconds. The speed is really fast. Of course, if you only install drivers without any software, the booting time will be less than 12 seconds. However, I think this kind of test is no reference value. Complete installation is more close to reality using environment. If I change to Windows 8.1, the booting time will be faster. But its not popular yet. After consideration, I still use Windows 7 as OS. Recently many Z97 MB supports M.2(N.G.F.F.) spec up to 1000MB/s bandwidth. Some high end M.2 SSD can reach more than 700 MB/s bandwidth. Most is 500MB/s. Also, MB only support one M.2 SSD, the price and RAID application still far away to be mainstream. SATA is main specs for years. If you want to upgrade your system performance, SATA3 SSD is first choice. Now, SSD is also divided into parity and high performance. SanDisk Extreme PRO strength in SSD market is Random4K Read/Write can reach 100K/90K IOPS. SequentialRead/Write can be up to 550/515~520 MB/s. Its almost the best SSD specs in the market now. SanDisk performance tuning is outstanding to make 240/480/960GB have same performance. Extreme PRO provides 10 years conditional warranty. Its also the longest in the market. After service cost is high, of course it impacts the product price segment. As cost/performance, SAMSUNG 840PRO should be the opposing force, next is Intel 730 Series. If you want to pick high end SATA3 SSD, for max performance and warranty, Extreme PRO is a good option. Its windwithme review test about SanDisk latest Extreme PRO SSD. It will also post in my blog WIND3C, Any comments are welcome.

64K - Write - Average 443.9 MB/s Access Time 0.026ms 8MB - Write - Average 490.1 MB/s Access Time 0.036ms 64K - Write - Average 429.7 MB/s Access Time 0.027ms 8MB - Write - Average 486.9 MB/s Access Time 0.038ms SanDisk Extreme PRO is excellent in HD Tune Pro Write. The seeking time is around 0.026~0.038ms. The key is writing curve starting above 400 MB/s. I used to test some high end SSD. The 64K Writetransmission speed is significant upand down, or average speed below 200 MB/s. SanDisk Extreme PRO is close to 430 MB/s during test. File Benchmark Sequential 4KB randon Read - 97383 IOPS / Write - 86810 IOPS ATTO DISK Benchmark over 128KB starts to reach max Read 560.5 Mb/s and Write 526.3 MB/s Sequential 4KB randon Read - 97403 IOPS / Write - 85818 IOPS ATTO DISK Benchmark over 64KB starts to reach max Read523.7 Mb/sand Write 526.3 MB/s ATTO DISK Benchmark over 64K starts to reach max Read /Write 500 MB/s. The 0.5~2K data transfer rate is even better. It leads Intel 730 Series 480GB a lot. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 547.8 MB/s Write - 514.3 MB/s <All 0xFF, 0Fill> Read - 550.9 MB/s Write - 516.8 MB/s <All 0x00, 1Fill> Read - 548.0 MB/s Write - 514.3 MB/s Seq Read - 548.3 MB/s Write - 515.4 MB/s <All 0xFF, 0Fill> Read - 548.0 MB/s Write - 514.9MB/s <All 0x00, 1Fill> Read - 548.8 MB/s Write - 515.2 MB/s CrystalDiskMark random test and 2 sequential mode speed are the same. This is one of the main advantage of Marvell Controller. Seq performance is close to official specs. 4K QD32 Write and Read are top level of current SATA3 SSD. AS SSD Benchmark - 1118 Seq Read - 526.51 MB/s Write - 494.30 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 357.62 MB/s Write - 247.29 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark - 1175 Seq Read - 525.94 MB/s Write - 492.08 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 367.33 MB/s Write - 292.44 MB/s Current top level SATA3 SSD can reach more than 1100 in AS SSD Benchmark. 4K-64Thrd Read can reach 357~367MB/s. This is new key factor for SSD performance. Compression Benchmark is also consisntent. Seq Read is 525MB/s and Seq Write is 494MB/s. PCMark Vantage - HDD Score : 78950 SSD Benchmark TOTAL => 5127.39 PCMark Vantage - HDD Score : 78162 SSD Benchmark TOTAL => 5093.71 It?s a pity that PCMark Vantage HDD doesn?t reach 81000, which official claim. The performance gap is around 2.6~3.5%. It?s still acceptable. I also upgrade G1.Sniper Z97 BIOS to F6. F6 is marked improving SSD performance. In the past, GIGABYTE MBSSD performance is lower. It might be MB tuning issue. I hope GIGABYTE can enhance BIOS to complete the SSD performance.

Users’ impression of SanDisk mostly is memory card brand. Actually, they have been working for high speed SSD for long time. The main product line is Extreme series. Two years ago, I have test the first generation SanDisk Extreme 240GB. Last year, they unveil Extreme II and this year is Extreme PRO during Computex. It’s the product this review. SanDisk Extreme PRO has 3 capacities. There are 240, 480 and 960GB. This review will test 240 and 480GB. As SSD using experience, SandForce240GB performance is higher than 480GB a little. Recently, more products use Marvell controller. Some 480GB performance is higher than 240GB official spec. The key difference of Extreme PRO and other SSD is it has the same performance for 3 capacities. First of all, let’s check the appearance of SanDisk Extreme PRO SSD. It’s same design pattern with own memory card. Black as main tone with red linear . 240GB product code is SDSSDXPS-240G-G25. It’s 2.5”. The height is 7mm. Sequential Read / Write up to 550/520 MB/s. Random Read / Write up to 100K / 90K IOPS. The numbers are based on CrystalDiskMark. Official specs make SanDisk Extreme PRO as best SATA3 SSD performance in current market. 480GB product code is SDSSDXPS-480G-G25 Sequential Read / Write up to 550/515 MB/s Random Read / Write up to 100K / 90K IOPS. Tested by CrystalDiskMark. 480GB and 240GB main difference is Sequential Write from 520 MB/s to 515 MB/s. Durability is Terabyte Written>80 TBW for 3 models. Extreme PRO provides 10 years conditional warranty. Internet shows 10 years warranty for remarked regions. I would like to remind you, the warranty will be void if SSD warranty sticker broken. Please don’t try it. SanDisk Extreme PRO series uses Marvell 88SS9187 controller. It is self-owned SanDisk latest 1Ynm, eX2 ABL MLC, oggle Flash. NAND Flash IC is very special. Currently, Marvell 88SS9187 mostly build with Toshiba NAND Flash. DRAM Cache in 240GB is 512MB and 480/960GB is 1GB. The detail performance will show you in following result. First platform is Intel DeskTop, using GIGABYTE latest G1.Sniper Z97. It builds in Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201 LAN controller and Creative Sound Core 3D audio processor. As G1.Sniper Z97 design and components, the C/P is quite good in Gaming MB market. GIGABYTE G1 series has big change since Z97/H97 chipset. The design moves to popular black and red. Logo changes to robot eye which is better than the past. Audio is the key feature. It owns AMP-UP Audio technology and market only swappable OP-AMP chip design. Intel Z97 is Intel latest mid-high end chipset. It’s popular in the market now. Usually, Intel chipset IOtransmission is better. Since Z87, it supports 6 native SATA3 ports. I believe it’s good for SATA3 SSD and RAID performance. System Configuration CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K MB: GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z97 DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT DDR3 2800 4GX2 VGA: SAPPHIRE Raden HD 6970 CrossFire HD: SanDisk Extreme PRO 240-480GB POWER: ANTEC TRUEPOWER Classic 850W Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit System setting Intel Core i5-4690K OC 4.5GHz CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT enable XMP as DDR3 2800. Single SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB or 480GB at SATA3 port Non-OS drive without data installs in Intel Z97 platform. Each software has two pictures. The above one is 240GB and below one is 480GB. HD Tune Pro 5.50 Black Size is the special one. The default is 64K on the left and 8MB on the right. 64K - Read - Average 436.7 MB/s Access Time 0.036ms 8MB - Read - Average 527.4 MB/s Access Time 0.036ms 64K - Read - Average 473.8 MB/s Access Time 0.024ms 8MB - Read - Average 528.7 MB/s Access Time 0.036ms

CINEBENCH R15 CPU => 679 cb CPU(Single Core) => 176 cb FRYRENDER Running Time => 5m 28s x264 FHD Benchmark => 25.6 PCMARK7 - 5208 These are 4690K stable performance capabilities of Intel code-named Devil's Canyon in the air-cooled ultra frequency. Using mid-level tower-type cooler, and ultra frequency to 4.5GHz can pass by the above various heavyweight test software. If using a high-order air-cooled or water-cooled radiator, you will have the opportunity to achieve more stable ultra frequency environment 4.6GHz If for the only limit to pursue the case, that is, into the desktop stroll, ultra frequency to 4.7Ghz or more is not a problem. Intel Core i5-4690K ultra frequency ability should be even better than the majority of 4670K, but still have to follow the constitution and the radiator. DRAM Bandwidth Test ADIA64 Memory Read - 34232 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 31461 MB/s DDR3 bandwidth performance and ultra frequency ability is still the architectural advantages of this generation Intel Haswell. The last generation Ivy Bridge architecture enables stable operation of only about 2666 to about 2400. With the Haswell Refresh platform, you can also have high bandwidth like the last generation. DDR3 ultra frequency ability with physique if strong enough, you have a great opportunity to overclock to 2800 to 3000. Meanwhile pulse bandwidth DDR3 LGA 1155 platform is also much higher than about 13 to 27%. Whether Haswell or Haswell Refresh is better in DDR3 table, if you want to pursue higher clock or bandwidth performance, you may have to wait until next year a new platform for the next generation DDR4 Temperature performance (temperature about 30 degrees) 4670K operates IntelBurn Test to allow CPU to full speed operation time - 75 to 86 4790K operates IntelBurn Test to allow CPU to full speed operation time - 68~76 Rumored on the Internet earlier the new codes in Devil's Canyon CPU cooling material aspects have made changes These two 4670K and 4690K above full test pattern appears telling the truth. 4690K 4670K minimum temperature lower than 7 degrees, the maximum temperature is low. About 10 degrees For those who prefer a lower temperature or extreme overclocking users, it will be profitable. BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE Advantages 1 price a little higher than the entry Z97, , specifications of materials are close to the other brands of Z97 MB on the market 2 In addition to audio capacitors, all are using solid capacitors, with built-in Power / Reset buttons and debug LED lights 3 With good visual sense of the new UEFI interface, boot and set are very quick. 4 With built-in audio using better nonpolarized capacitors, headset also has exclusive Amplifier 5 major power reached 10, most of only 4 to 6 powered in this price Z97 design 6.Dual GbE network chip, supports Teaming technology, and the highest network bandwidth is up to 2G Disadvantages 1 At present, Taiwan has not yet BIOSTAR sales channels 2 built-in audio hole is better to use gold-plated material 3 If we can support SLI technology, that will contribute to the effectiveness of Gaming Environment Performance ratio ★★★★★★★★ ☆☆ 80/100 Material than ★★★★★★★★ ☆☆ 82/100 Specifications than ★★★★★★★★ ☆☆ 82/100 Appearance than ★★★★★★★★ ☆☆ 83/100 Cost ★★★★★★★★★ ☆ 86/100 We experienced one of Intel's two Devil's Canyon CPU which is Core i5-4690K. It has a satisfactory performance in temperature, and then in the future we will use more higher-level radiator to test the limit for the higher Devil's This time for Canyon, Intel also introduced the new product Logo, it looks nice and with very distinctive features. I think consumers should be very interested. with Intel 20 anniversary's Pentium G3258 CPU with no locked frequency. I remember in 2010, I madel air-cooled ultra frequency of the Core i5-661 2C4T to 5G I hope Inte Pentium G3258 will have better performance in windwithme's ulta frequency tests in the future ! BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE's price in the United States is about 125 dollars, converted into NT about 3700 yuan. And WE is the abbreviation for Wonderful Enhanced, which looks pretty good in one-sided meaning But if changing it into the abbreviation WWE World League, I think consumers will be even more impressive. In this price and specifications, Hi-Fi Z97WE really quite values, and performance and materials are all above average But it is better that another version of the Z97 version can be launched using gold-plated audio jack, to support Samrt Ear 3D software. And it can support dual SLI technology, or equipped with ALC 1150 sound chip, to reduce 5-phase power and supply network with a single chip.. . The price can be reduce in less 150 US dollars, That will be good. And it also provides another affordable choices with high specifications. Finally, i still hope to launch Gaming MB BIOSTAR for market competition like other MB brands This review is also in my blog. WIND3C, any comments are welcome.

Archiving and leaving the page The top is the BIOS setup options, the central is for selecting the hardware boot option, and the below is for the user to set the archive feature. BIOSTAUEFI BIOS offers a wealth of options which are quite sufficient for the general setting or energy adjustment efficiency. There are no built-in features with too many fancy, and no high-resolution pictures or large files of BIOS Figures. For BIOSTAR UEFI BIOS, the response at boot set speed is very quickly, which can be considered as one of the advantages. These are to set up the 4690K with adjustment multiple frequency and voltage ultra frequency, making CPU and DDR3 set for 4500 / 2800MHz. For software, there are SmartSpeedLAN, appearing to be with the use of dual network chip. Four automatic modes such as games, streaming, and browser are available. Click into the applicationon on the left to monitor the program status opened in use currently. On the advanced page you can enter the desired network speed, which is limited by the maximum download or upload function. On the below there are also two functions to accelerate the reaction time and without delay of TCP, providind the use of closing or opening. Smart EAR GUI Hi-Fi Zone Sound chip and associated capacitance are with gold lines around them, making the separatio of digital / analog, which can reduce EMI Nosie. Non-Polarized Electrolysis Electric audio capacitors Metal oxide resistors of metal-oxide film resistors, and then equipped with front headphone to expand audio chip, using a lot of sound-level design. Just above Sound Chip, a metal shield printed with BIOSTAR Logo will glow red when in the power. The devices for the actual listening equipped with entry for USHER S-520 stereo amplifier with Mic. LF - drums still acceptable, bass do not go too heavy feeling If the details more clear, it is better. IF - In songs or videos, vocal performance is clear, and a solid sense of sound is also quite good presentation. HF - some music and sound details have a good ductility, and not too sharp condition occurs. With Z97WE main materials used in Hi-Fi, sound quality is even better than the normal built-in Realtek sound chip of MB. Perhaps many people feel Realtek audio performance is moderate, but the sound quality performance in the acquired materials and design also take up a very important part. Unfortunately, this did not haze supports like before by Creative THX software or Samrt Ear 3D software Otherwise, the sound field or low-frequency performance will further improve, and games or movies will have a significant environmental benefit. Testing platform CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K MB: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator Platinum CMD16GX3M4A2800C11 VGA: SAPPHIRE Raden HD 6970 CrossFire SSD: Intel 730 Series 480GB POWER: ANTEC High Current Pro 850W Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 OS: Windows 8.1 64bit CPU 100 X 45 => 4523MHz 1.230V DDR3 2814 CL11 14-14-35 2T 1.650V Nuclearus Multi Core => 29222 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 29.97/14387 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 425599 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 7.65 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.96 pts

The left upper of Motherboard Both sides of the CPU power has strengthened passive cooling module Z97WE is designed for 10 phase power , the top is for the power input for 8PIN IO 1 X PS / 2 keyboard 1 X D-Sub / DVI-D / HDMI 2 X USB 2.0 (Black) 4 X USB 3.0 (blue) 2 X RJ-45 network hole 6 X Audio sound jack The heat sink shape and design of Z97WE in Z97 chipset are quite nice For M.2 new specifications with a lot of exposure in the next generation Z97 of the board area, its advantage is the maximum bandwidth can reach up to 1000 MB / s. PCI-Express M.2 is also much higher than SATA3's current maximum bandwidth of 600 MB / s. M.2's drawback is that the price will be relatively high, which will take up PCI-E bandwidth, and if there is only one device, Raid can not be done. As for in the future what position for M.2 SSD to play in the market, let the consumer to make a decision! Two kinds of language available in English and Simplified Chinese can be switched, and in the figure are many hardware Advanced Options pages. CPU adjustment efficiency for the home page Fix the multiplier on 45 4690K, which is 4500M Then close the CPU C stats energy-saving technology, and the below is the built-in GPU's clock and Options. DDR3 uses CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 2800C11. After opening XMP technology, you can easily achieve a stable high-performance DDR3 2800. The lower half of the page is for more advanced DRAM Options. Voltage page The CPU Apaptive Voltage Target designated as 1.23V. After providing stable voltage 4.5GHz, CPU voltage becomes 1.248V on the left to display. The bottom of the voltage page is for DRAM voltage because of opening XMP automatic ultra frequency technology DDR3 is automatically set in 2800 CL11, DRAM voltage of 1.65V, and the left detected as 1.668V.

Earlier this year, Intel released a new generation of high-level platform, using the same pin LGA 1150 chipset name to raise to nine series, and the highest level Z97 is as the current each MB brand's main product. The CPU followed Haswell Refresh version of the chipset launched by Haswell architecture and the CPU looks like seemingly small change, which may be doing to prepare for the second half of Haswell-E. Otherwise Extreme positioning of LGA 2011 CPU will be slower one generation than higher-level LGA 1150 structure, with the feeling of a little strange when matching, but also to indirectly make LGA 2011 market more narrow. The MB new R & D is very slowly, and it is expected that the future platform for Intel dual consumption can catch the latest architecture, allowing the Intel Extreme platform more competitive. Back to one of these dual protagonists in this test is BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE which carton packaging is changed to black, red and yellow color-based, and flagship Hi-Fi design is quite conspicuous. Personal recommendations are further to reduce the number of board carton volume, and you can increase exquisite sense and can also reduce some freight. For another protagonist Intel Core i5-4690K in the architecture of code-named Devil's Canyon Haswell Refresh, with K behind the code for the highest level version of Core i5, it has the adjustment function of the multiplier. 4690K total clock is 3.5GHz, to support Turbo Boost Technology, up to 3.90GHz performance. Physical 4 Cores is four threads, referred 4C4T, and built-in HD Graphics 4600 GPU which is as 22nm process as Ivy Bridge, with the power higher than 88W, and 6MB of total L3 Cache. The Overview of the Back The left for the Haswell Refresh architecture Core i5-4690K The right for the Haswell architecture Core i5-4670K In addition, different Revision can be seen from the back, and the cooling material has been changed according to information on the Internet, The following will do detailed testing, so users can better understand the performance of Devil's Canyon. Not as in the past with black and blue color, this back Hi-Fi Z97WE two color instead of black and yellow Size is 30.5cm x 24.4cm, general ATX common specifications Most PCI-E and DDR3 DIMM sockets using yellow appearance Mosfet area with Z97 chipset cooling module is the use of golden yellow, it seems the overall appearance is good Included in the English manual, driver software CD, IO tailgate, black SATA cables and Hi-Fi Description Paper The left bottom of Motherboard 2 X PCI-E X16 3.0, the highest support for AMD CrossFireX technology, bandwidth of X8 + X8 2 X PCI-E X1 2.0 2 X PCI Dual-network chip is Realtek RTL8111G, supporting dual network Teaming Technology Sound chip is Realtek ALC892, up to 8-channel Blu-ray Audio, equipped BIOSTAR Hi-Fi technology The right bottom of motherboard 6 X Black SATA, Z97 chipset provided, SATA3 specifications The above can be mixed build RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10, the highest performance decided in accordance with SATA devices The right upper of Motherboard 4 X DIMM DDR3, supporting DDR3 1066 ~ 1600/1866 ~ 2800 (OC) DDR3 capacity can support up to 32GB, supporting Extreme Memory Profile technology The left Black is for the front USB 3.0, and the below is 24-PIN power input

Power consumption tests With Windows desktop idle mode - 12W CPU full loading with LinX - 77W Running FurMarkXtreme Burning Mode, make NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M full loading - 112W The power setup in control panel set to balanced, the idle more power is really low with only 12W. i7-4700HQ with full loading only used of 77W power consumption, it improved a lot compare with previous version of Core i7 architecture. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M graphics was Kepler core architecture, same process as last generation graphics, so the power consumption did not improve, but 112W is acceptable with a higher 150W adaptor, also the 3D performance improved a lot as well. Battery life for video playback, it left 10% after 2 hours and 28 minutes. Its not a really good presents, might because of the slim type design and dual fan thermal solution. It will be better if its over 4 hours. Sound effect with Sound Blaster Cinema 2 It comes with 5 functions for better surround and sound stage, each audio scenario setup also comes with 5 different functions to enable as well. Below are the setups. We could enable human vocal setup with songs. GS70 speakers still co-brand with Dynaudio, the high-end speakers brand from Denmark. Below is the sound experience, its more about independent personal feeling, compared with notebooks built in speakers. When adjust the volume to maxima its loud, dont need to think about if the volume is small or not. High Frequency - No overload noise, detail is good above average. Mid Frequency - Very clear sound stage, and rich sound detail with voice. Low Frequency - Its better than expected, not strong but very clear. I tried more than 10 Ultrabooksbefore, the sound quality always was weakness and worse than traditional notebooks, might because of the real slim design space limitation. When first time saw GS70 also worry about the sound quality will get big gap compared with previous review on GT70. But after listening the sound quality is really amazing, especially it presents really good on mid-high level frequency to over my expected. Maybe subwoofer and overall sound was still weaker than GT70, but GS70 already breakthrough the limitation and make the sound quality as good as possible, this is really hard and took lots of efforts in the back. Summary on GS702PE Stealth Pro Pros: 1.Gaming notebook with Ultrabook concept is not easy, 3 side with metallic design and very high quality material and design looks. 2.Internet comes with Killer Gaming LAN,Audio Boost with AMP supports better headset sound quality with gold jack. 3.3 mSATASSDs become Super RAID 2 with 1 2.5 1TB HDD make this platform very fast and good storage capacity with balance. 4.With Full HD matted monitor, its good quality and comfortable for eyes for long time watching. 5.Designed with SteelSeries slim type keyboards, SteelSeries Engine software could manage KLM and macro keys with 4 layer keyboard is really useful. 6.Cooler Boost 2 dual cooling design, this makes the slim notebook with good thermal quality. 7.2 channel audio with 4 speakers with 1 subwoofer did brings better sound quality and better sound stage. 8.Matrix Display supports 3 monitors output, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort all supports 4K output. Cons: 1.The single plate touch pad sometimes will zoom or enlarge, its not convenient. 2.Accessories comes with a gaming mouse, got the compatibility issue with right side USB port. 3.User is not able to switch battery themselves, and the battery life still have some room to improve. 4.GS70sacrificedthe upgrade or DIY possibility compared with GT70. Performance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 88/100 Materials ★★★★★★★★★☆ 89/100 Specifications ★★★★★★★★★☆ 90/100 ID Design ★★★★★★★★★☆ 92/100 Cost/Value ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 75/100 GS series comes with 2 types with different size, GS70 comes with 17.3 monitor, and GS60 comes with 15.6 monitor, and GS70 got 2 version, higher version with NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M is 2PE Stealth Pro, lower version withGTX860M is 2PC Stealth. And Super RAID 2 supports 1~3 mSATASSDs for optional models. MSI GS70 is a gaming notebook designed with high quality ID and better performance, its different with traditional Gaming notebook design, more close to the concept of Ultrabook with slim and lighter design. For the users who need to bring notebook out often or business trip but still need high gaming performance, its really better choice. But every product comes with advantage and weakness, GS70 is less expansion and upgrade possibility, its the most advantage from GT70. In the end personally prefer more about the slim design and stylish ID of GS series, its very good advantage on high end gaming notebook market. If you are interested with high level Gaming Notebook, this article from windwithme should be good reference for you. If you are interested in MSI GS70, I believe you could know lots of detail in this article about GS70. At last, I attached the color correction file with Spyder kit, share to the GS70 users. This article also post on my personal blog, welcome to take a look and encourage it. windwithme - MSI GS702PE Stealth Pro This review is also in my blog. WIND3C, any comments are welcome.

GS702PE Stealth Pro comes with 2 type of Graphics. One is the HD4600 Graphics built in Intel Core i7-4700HQ. The other one is NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M3GBGDDR5. We saw lots of GS70 information of GS702PE with GTX870M since April, MSI is really fast on the graphics refresh this time. 3DMark11 =>P7024 3DMARK => 4171 / 16351 / 108705 Heaven Benchmark 4.0 DX11 1920 X 1080 => FPS 42.5 Monster Hunter => 11081 Metro Last Light The NVIDIA GeForce GTX870M got higher improvement than previous version of GTX770M. GTX870M is 33.6% faster on 3DMark11, the 3 iteams is 21.3% / 5% / 64.9% improvement. Heaven Benchmark 4.0 also got 18.4% faster then. GTX870M is more than enough to play most of heavy loading 3D games, its really smooth on Full HD resolution. There were only seldom games critical on GPU force demands, that might let gamers not to set to the highest detail to play games smoother. On the 3D gaming fileld, MSI GS702PE Stealth Pro already got outstanding 3D performance Temperature presents (ambient 25 degree C ) System Idle - 36~41 Full CPU loading with LinX - 84~89. GS70 designed with now thermal technology of Cooler Boost 2, the mechanical design also totally different from GT or GE series. It separately designed of CPU cooling and GPU cooling, with better heat pipes and thermal modules, with better air flow input and exhaust design. So the higher interior temperature problem did not happened on GS70 with this slim metallic design, and it even presents better than previous GE or GT series. This is the outstanding presents on GS70 thermal solution, and hope the new GT series could use this kinds of design. SteelSeries Engine SSE application Its good software for programmable with Macro keys, it supported over 85% more of the keyboard keys, support Keypress macro, Text macro, Launch program key and Disable keys. KLM keyboard backlit management, could set keyboard lights with 3 zones, that change colors easily. FN plus number keys 1~4 could switch the Layer 1~4 keyboards, not only change the backlit colors but also set different Macro keys users preset on different layers. SteelSeries keyboard backlit effects The anti-ghost keys could make input faster and smoother, move the Windows button to right side could prevent the touch when user are playing games. The power button light also means something, it will be white light when use UMA HD4600 graphics, and with orange light when use GTX870M graphics.

Setup the mouse function page. System performance tests CrystalMark2004R3 => 338137 Nuclearus Multi Core => 22867 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 25.45/12214 CINEBENCH 11.5 OpenGL => 51.04 fps CPU => 6.89 pts CPU (Single Core) => 1.47 pts CINEBENCHR15 CPU => 634 cb CPU(Single Core) => 132 cb PCMARK7 - 6268 For the notebooks, with slim architecture with limited space, the thermal capability is very critical part design. In before we saw Ultrabook or slim type notebooks, usually designed with Core i7but 2C4T low voltage U version. But GS70 comes with slim design and powerful Intel Core i74700HQ, we could believe the thermal design did enhanced a lot. Intel Core i7-4700HQ is high performance in notebook CPU field, it comes with 4C/8T architecture with TurboBoost. In many benchmarks above, for single core or multi cores performance scores, Core i7-7400HQ is capable to working great with many heavy loading calculations. It got high scores on system performance as well, this also because ofGS70 built in with SSDs and GTX870Menthusiast graphics. GS70 designed with new generation Super RAID 2, supports 3 SSD by RAID 0 combinations. GS702PE Stealth Pro built in 3 mSATA3SSDRAID0 architecture to become Drive C: for system usage, Drive D: is a SATA2 interface 1TB HDD at 7200rpm for data storage, this design combined with faster access performance and better storage capacities. The type of SSD is TOSHIBA THNSNJ128GMCU, HDD is HGSTHTS721010A9E630, Drive C: is 384GB capacities for system storage. ATTO Disk Benchmark over 16k tests could up to 1635MB/s reading speed, and 1290MB/s writing speed. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 1509 MB/s Write - 989 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark - 1928 Seq Read - 1504.78 MB/s Write - 1097.97 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 661.81 MB/s Write - 538.09 MB/s BootRacer Time to Logon 4 seconds Time to Desktop 17 seconds Boot Result 21.687 seconds In recent 2 years, TOSHIBA SSDs often brings high performance and stable images for end users. The price range is a bit higher in the market, but GS70 built in with this good SSD will brings faster storage performance. The SSDs is really good performance on reading, writing and 4K-64Thrd access, really reduced the time for open up programs. With lots of software in the tray icons, the boot up time to OS is about 22 seconds, this is quick. D: drive is data storage at 1TB capacity, a 2.5 HDD with 7200rpm. ATTO DISK Benchmark over 8k tests could reach to 133.5MB/s. the writing is 132.6MB/s. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 132.6 MB/s Write - 127.6 MB/s This 1TB7200rpm HDD is good performance as well as a big capacity storage. Although HDD could get highest score about 130MB/s from top, but to the lowest speed will be lower, and SSD is much faster on 4K access and seek time over 100x, so its still the best solution to use SSDs for drive C:.

7 type of signal light on the down left side, will have white light when works. The touch pad got bigger size, right side it the black label by Intel Core i7. GS70 also used the sound by Dynaudio speakers design, its 2 channel but 4 speakers to make the sound with higher level. The speakers is in the hinge parts, very special design. The holes on the top of keyboard is for airflow in, its not for speakers. The 17.3 inch non-touch matte panel with Full HD 1920x1080 resolution. Used better TN panel, the brightness and contrast is about 20% better than regular TN panel, the viewing angle close to 85 degree, so its similar as IPS panel quality, but not so vivid as IPS panels color style. WebCam with fixed lens by Full HD 1920x1080 resolution and 30FPS recording. The screen angle could open up to 130 degree. Right side of the notebook From left to right, its CPU exhaust holes, Kensington lock, AC in, SDHC/XC reader, USB3.0x2 GS70 comes with many stand pads in the bottom, the 3 pad on the top side supports the GS70 stands higher with better heat spread capability, the big piece of the dark cotton pad could prevent heat to have direct contact with users. Headphone-out\Line in\Line out Right side of notebook From left to right, GPU exhaust holes, RJ45 LAN port, HDMI, Mini DisplayPortx2, USB3.0x2, Headphone Out, Line in, Line out. MSI GS702PE Stealth Pro built in Intel Haswell platform. CPU is Intel Core i7-4700HQ, 100x24=>2.4GHz, L36MB, Quad Core with HT technology, 22nm process, TurboBoost could overclock up to 3.4GHz, chipset is HM87. Used the latest Windows 8.1 OS With MSI style DRAGON GAMING CENTER software Could see the real time Hardware status. Could apply many applications for quick launch. Gamecaster is the unique Live Stream software for MSI only, supports up to 1080p recording or live streaming upload to twitch channel. Enable the Gamecaster for recording or live streaming will only reduce 2~3 in game FPS rate, its light loading.

Recent years, MSI really focus on Gaming market of their Notebook product line, MSI Gaming series notebook already launched 5 type of products, the GT series comes with Top Level performance and gaming features, the Ultra-thin but powerful gaming notebook is GS series, the only pure AMD platform gaming notebook is GX series, good cost/performance value of GE series, and entry gaming of GP series. MSI offered more different level of Gaming product line for more consumers to choose. This time I want to share MSI latest mechanical design product, it belongs to Ultra-thin style GS series. High-end Gaming Notebook always gives people feel its heavy on both performance and weight, but thats because of Highest CPU and Graphics makes these notebook needs higher thermal solution capability, so the size always bigger and much heavier. This time MSI brought high level Gaming hardware into Ultra-thin style become GSseries, that brings different choice to the gaming notebook market. First we take a look on GS70 box design, its real different from GT and GE series box design. Used gift box case style with black cover, the gaming feeling red line across the box, that gives fine works quality. Inside the box the GS70 and accessories placement is good, use cotton cover and foam rubber to enhance the protection. Obviously we could see the foam rubber inside the top case to protect GS70 as well. The gray color type of GS70 notebook backpack comes with different style compared with GT/GE series backpack. This backpack looks more simple style, metallic material is more high quality, and comes with 1 more interior bag for easier to carry and protection. GS702PE Stealth Pro notebook The dimension of GS70 is 418.5x287x21.8mm, weight is around 2.66Kg, Intel ruled the Ultrabook should be under 21mm, GS70 17.3 notebook only got 21.8mm, the weight is 46% lighter than GT70 which is around 3.9Kg, these 2 points are the biggest advantage of GS70 dimensions. A side and whole cover comes with matte black color, the black will change to metallic gray with lights, and with a little purple under sunshine. The shield used Mg-Al metallic design,its 50% lighter and 10% more solid. The Logo design looks better than before, with a dragon tattoo inside the red shield, come out white light when power on. D side bottom design The 2 parts of exhaust holes for airflow out designed for CPU anGPU cooling, the holes aside the sticker designed with subwoofer. Accessories The Driver DVD, Quick manual, product feature intro, optical gaming mouse and 2 years warranty license. Slim type adaptor made by Delta, its stable good quality traditional brand. Supports up to 150W power, 25mm thin. GS70 built in battery is non-changeable, the spec. is 5400mAh60Wh. C side is the most touched place with keyboard, the size is same as other 17 notebooks, did not make it bigger because of the slim type design, the square measure is similar as Alienware 17. SteelSeries slim type full color gaming keyboard got new features, will introduce this later.

Back View There are also 4 soft pads on corner to fix the keyboard on table. There are 2 stands on upper side. Below is fixed holes for wrist rest. Soft touch and detachable wrist rest enhance the comfort. For hours use, you can relief the wrist fatigue. K95 Side View after Installing Wrist Rest For users have more table space, K95 design and quality can offer you a high standard experience. CORSIR K95 Gaming Software Playback Options Delay Options Advanced Options You can find the latest CORSAIRK95 Firmware in official website. The latest is 1.3. After taking out the key, you can see German Cherry MX Red Switch. Above transparent dot is LED light. Enable LED, it light White which really improve the quality and identification. K95 design position is different with K65. It?s for heave gaming users. If you don?t mind the space and play game hours, you need more function keys and comfortable feels. Or you need good quality keyboard and larger size, K95 is an outstanding pick for you. K95 still gets some room to improve. Like left side 18 macro keys can be separatedfor more efficient space use. Above USB ports can upgrade to USB3.0 for faster speed. Basically, K95 focus on Gaming, so the total score is very high. There are 2 CORSAIRdifferent sizes Gaming Red Switch share. They are both frameless and aluminumchassis. It?s big different with my Cherry keyboard?s simple look. Even though K65 and K95 are positioning for high-end market, comparing to same price segment products, CORSAIR Vengeance look, materials, design and features are surely leading. I really pay attention to keyboard, mouse, monitor and speakers. These parts are not about performance but human touch. It impacts personal feel, comfort and fatigue. Of course Cherry MX Switch price is higher than most rubber dome keyboards. If you consider the durability, and human fatigue, this is worth to invest. Nowadays, many vendors use Cherry MX Switch. I believe users can easier to find your favorite one in your budget. This review is also in my blog. WIND3C, any comments are welcome.

H87 chipset provides 4SATA3 ports, supporting RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. Comparing to most H61 ITX for entry market, Haswell platform has more options. H87N-WIFI is mid-end market in ITX pricing. The C/P value is good in both materials and specs. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 MB: GIGABYTE H87N-WIFI DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT DDR3 2400 8GX2 VGA: Intel HD Graphics 4400 HDD: Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD POWER: ANTEC TRUEPOWER Classic 550W Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 Keyboard: CORSAIR Vengeance K65 / Vengeance K95 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit CORSAIR Vengeance K65 feedback is clear. The sound is not as loud as Green, but a little louder than Brown. The life cycle is 50 million clicks, that?s the main reason I change to Cherry MX Brown.. K65 is design and quality is good. Cherry MX Red is durable, tactile feedback and less fatigue. Vengeance K65 design is frameless, compact, easy to carry and removable USB cable. It is suitable for small table space or small PC users, like MATX or Mini-ITX system. If you need to carry your keyboard very often, the compact K65 and removable USB cable is very convenient. The other model is CORSAIR most high-end Gaming keyboard, Vengeance K95. It looks similar to previous Vengeance K90. It should be revision. The dimension is 502 x 166mm and the weight is 1.34kg. It?s quite heavy when you hold it. Center and right side is Black anodized brushed aluminum chassismakes better quality and looks. K95 only this area keys are matted surface plastic. G1~G18 are macro keys. Combining with M1~M3, you can have 54 customize definitions. It is 100% anti-ghosting with full key rollover on USB. You can press 20 keys at the same time without ghosting. Every key has diode to avoid current reflux. Center View K95 bundle White LED. The light reflectsdirectly on black aluminum back board. It is all Cherry MX Red Switch. The long pond is satellite switch. K95 key is different material with K65, the touch feeling is softer. Right-side View Large size keyboard with number keys and more function keys on above side. Key-by-key customizable backlighting, you can press any of M1~M3 for 3 seconds, then you can set the key lights. MR combines with M1~M3, you can set up G1~G18 macro keys. From leftmost is LED light switch, luminance button, Window key and lock key. From right most is 6 multimedia keys, play/pause, stop, next, forward, mute and volume wheel. Upper left is BIOS Switch, 4 steps. The response time is 1, 2, 4 and 8 ms. Next is USB Port for USB drives and devices. K65USB cable is very thick already. K95 is 3 times thicker than it. There are 2 USB connectors. Normally, you just need to plug the major one. If you plug USB devices in it, you may need to plug 2 connectors for more power.

Windwithme have shared two Cherry mechanical keyboards in 2008. I am irrevocably committed to mechanical keyboard. I have been using Cherry G80-1865 for 6 years. I am very satisfied with Cherry MX Brown Switchdurability and tactile bump. Cherry MX Switch has Green, Brown, Black, White and Red, the most popular one. One is Gaming gears become more popular, and the other is Red switch has more advantages. Comparing to the keyboard market years ago, mechanical keyboard brands are more and more. Price range is also enlarged due to competition, not only for high end market now. For mechanical keyboard fans, more options are good. This article is about USA CORSAIR two keyboards, different segment and size. They are all Vengeance series, and both use Cherry MX Red Switch. Let?s start with Vengeance K65 package. Back side has product features, hot keys and function keys. Lower-left logo shows CORSAIR provides 2 years warranty. Inside the box Vengeance K65, manual, warranty card and 1.5M USB cable Front View Frameless design looks simple and easy to clean dust. 80%87 keys design will remove number keys on right hand side to make keyboard smaller. N-key Rollovermakes sure every keystroke translates into accurate gameplay or even when multiple keys are pressed. Gunmetal gray anodized aluminum chassis make professional-grade look and feel. K65 focus on small PC or table size users. Back View 4 corners all have soft pad to fix the keyboard on table. There are 2 stands on upper side for users to adjust. Detachable, braided cloth USB cable with cable management in the center. It is durable and easy to stow, plus the K65 has cable routing to keep the cable locked in. Left side is USB cabling hole. Right side is BIOS Switch, 4 steps. No. 1 is 1000Hz, 2 is 500Hz, 3 is 250Hz and 4 is 125Hz. The response time is 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 ms. You can adjust USB response time by different mainboards. Sometimes, this is important. Side View The dimension is 350 x 165 x 30 mm and weight is 900g. The upper side is higher. If it is not enough, you can use stand to adjust it. Right Side View Lower right side has 4 grey direction keys. Left side, AWSD grey keys are the same function for left handers. Rightmost is Win Key and middle is 4 media keys. It is play/pause, stop, next, forward, mute, and volume keys. Black and Grey printings are laser etch. It enhances the font printing durability. Test platform use Mini-iTX to fit K65 user environment. MB is GIGABYTE H87N-WIFI. There are more and more ITX products in past couple years. GIGABYTE also launched several ITX MB. This is more high-end version. It builds in Intel WiFi and BT4.0 PCIe card. It is dual LAN design, both Atheros and Intel GbE LAN, for more networking applications.

OC at running LinX to full speed CPU - 58~68 4960X temperature is also good. In the same environment, temperature is much lower than Ivy Bridge4770K. CPU temperature is one of the LGA 2011 advantages. It?s same structure but different design. The possible reason is LGA 2011 CPU without GPU and CPU dimension is bigger. X79 and C606 both support 2 native SATA3 ports. I use CORSAIR NEUTRON 256GB to test the performance. NEUTRON has 2 types. More high-end one is NEUTRON GTX, outlook is red. In the picture, the blue version is NEUTRON 256GB. Thickness is 7mm. It?s 2.5? and 256GB capacity. 4K Max Random is 83k IOPS. ATTO Disk Benchmark can reach 540/450 MB/s. Neutron uses Link_A_Media LM87800 Controller with ONFI NAND Flash. AS SSD Benchmark - 1061 Seq Read - 509.01 MB/s Write - 431.96 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 354.93 MB/s Write - 291.37 MB/s ATTO DISK Benchmark Over 64KB test, the max read is 544.1 Mb/s and max write is 452.3 MB/s. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 510.8 MB/s Write - 445.3 MB/s Neutron performance is also good. Only 10% lower than Neutron GTX. By the way, LGA 2011 provides two SATA3 ports, you can use RAID 0 SSD to enhance the performance. Other SATA2 or NS devices, you can use HDD to store data. It should be enough for most application. If you need more than three SATA3 SSDs, you can choose LGA 1150 for more ports. However, LGA 1150 has no dual PCI-E X16 bandwidth, and 6C12T CPU. Every platform has its pros and cons. After IntelLGA 2011 platform launched 2 years, they refresh the 3 new CPUs. Original Sandy Bridge-ECPU enhance to Ivy Bridge-E. The entry i7-3820 also upgrade to i7-4820K as unlock version. It makes better C/P. Ivy Bridge-E in manufacturing, temperature, power consumption and DDR3 OC bandwidth are all improved. Quad channel DDR3 bandwidth, dual PCI-E X16 bandwidth and C606 supports Server CPU also create more advantages. The fly in the ointment is only 2 native SATA3 ports. Hopefully, next generation will solve this issue. LGA 2011 platform is the top of pyramid. It?s for few high budget users. The life cycle is 3 years which is longer than annual update LGA 1155 or LGA 1150. Ivy Bridge-E offers the upgrade option for current LGA 2011 users. It also provides better multitasking performance. If you are doing graphics design, file converting or video editing, of course higher budget, this is the platform for you. It?swindwithme guide and share about Intel Ivy Bridge-E structure. The paper is also published on my Blog WIND3C, 3C fans are welcome to visit and give advice or comments:)

FRYRENDER Running Time => 3m 07s x264 FHD Benchmark => 36.6 i7-4960X is a true most powerful multitasking CPU in Intel. The default performance is already high. Even the latest Haswell i7-4770K OC to 4.5GHz, the performance is still 13% lower than 4960X default setup. Comparing to default and OC to 4.3GHz multitasking performance, the improvement is around 17~20%. Unfortunately, C606 OC capability is not as good as X79. If you use X79, it can be OC to 4.5~4.6GHz. Power Consumption Test This is another key point. I use ANTEC High Current Pro 850W,80Plus Platinum, the power efficiency is 94%. 12V divides into 4 routes. Each route can support 40A. The total power supply is 850W. High Current Pro 850W Platinum certificate Power Supply has official 7 years warranty. Power Consumption Test Default at OS desktop without running any software, and enable C1E power saving technology - 77W. OC at OS desktop without running any software, and disable C1E power saving technology - 117W Default at running LinX to full speed CPU - 181W OC at running LinX to full speed CPU - 250W Comparing to former i7-3960X power consumption data, i7-4960X is a bit lower. 4960X is with Raden HD 6970 CrossFire, but 3960X is with single Nvidia GTX 560Ti. Especially after OC, 4.3GHz 4960X doesn?t like 4.5GHz 3960X to reach more than 300W. Of course Platinum Power Supply is also helpful. However, the main reason is Ivy Bridge-E move to 22nm. Temperature (Room is 18˚C) Default at OS desktop - 23~30 OC at OS desktop - 23~30 OC and default temperatures are similar. It?s a great performance. Default at running LinX to full speed CPU - 45~52

DDR3 2399.6 CL11 13-13-31 2T ADIA64 Memory Read - 57695 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 52604 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 15457 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory seems doesn?t support quad channel. The bandwidth is even lower than dual channel. I hope it can patch to support quad channel soon. The other two software can test the quad channel bandwidth. Even though Haswell bandwidth will be 20% higher than Ivy Bridge at the same clock, Ivy Bridge-E quad channel DDR3 1333 bandwidth is higher than Haswell DDR3 2400. Ivy Bridge-EDDR3 2400 is 61~67% higher than Haswell DDR3 2400. You can see if you need more DDR3 capacity or high bandwidth, LGA 2011 is your best option. CPU and System Performance PerformanceTest 8.0 => 4738.9 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 40.08/19236 PerformanceTest 8.0 => 5126.3 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 48.00/23041 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 366200 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 422626 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 11.03 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.64 pts CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 13.00 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.83 pts CINEBENCH R15 CPU => 978 cb CPU(Single Core) => 139 cb CINEBENCH R15 CPU => 1143 cb CPU(Single Core) => 151 cb FRYRENDER Running Time => 3m 40s x264 FHD Benchmark => 31.3

Intel launched LGA 2011Extreme platform at the end of 2011. It?s different position as annual renewed LGA 1155 or LGA 1150. LGA 2011 CPU refresh cycle is longer and having simple product line. CPU usually has 3 models. Mostly is using X79 chipset. LGA 2011 launched three Core i7 CPU,Sandy Briidge-E, in the beginning. After almost 2 years, Ivy Bridge-E was revealed last Sep. The socket is LGA 2011. Pre-owned X79 users just need to update the BIOS. Sandy Briidge-E has 3 CPUs. Entry is Core i7-4820K,3.7~3.9GHz / 4C8T / L3 Cache 10MB. Mid end is Core i7-4930K,3.4~3.9GHz / 6C12T / L3 Cache 12MB High end is Core i7-4960X,3.6~4GHz / 6C12T / L3 Cache 15MB Even 4820is also Ksku. It should be able to adjust multiplier. 4820K is better than former i7-3820 at unlock geature. Sandy Briidge-E is 22nm and Max TDP is 130W. LGA 2011 doesn?t build in GPU, so the temperature and heat control should be better. Below is Intel Core i7-4960X, the dimension is much bigger than LGA 1155. 4960X back side is almost the same as 4930K. Main difference is 4960XL3 Cache is 15MB. MB is GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi, the only Intel C606MB so far. It?s E-ATX, 30.5cm x 26.4cm. Basically normal size ATX Case can support it. C606 is Server chipset. The CPU support is much better but OC capability will be weaker than X79. X79S-UP5-WiFi supports 8DIMM DDR3, and max capacity is 64GB. It supports 2SATA3 and 8SAS devices. It?s good for more HDDs or RAID. Unless you are using 3 SATA3 SSD, otherwise 8 SAS ports still provide a better expandability. After all, HDD still cannot break through SATA2 bandwidth. System Configuration CPU: Intel Core i7-4960X MB: GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi DRAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE PRO DDR3 2400 8GX4 VGA: SAPPHIRE Raden HD 6970 CrossFire SSD: CORSAIR NEUTRON 256GB POWER: ANTEC High Current Pro 850W Cooler: Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 OS: Windows8.1 64bit As i7-4960X test figure will divide into two. Picture A is default, enable C1E mode. CPU max clock is 3.6~4.0GHz, and DDR3 1333 CL9 9-9-24 1T. Picture B is OC, disable C1E mode. CPU clock is 4.3GHz, and DDR3 2399.6 CL11 13-13-31 2T. LGA 2011 is the only quad channel supported platform. It?s a great advantage for DDR3 bandwidth. DDR3 is CORSAIR CMY32GX3M4A2400C11R, Vengeance Pro series. 8GB X 4 support LGA 1155/1150 dual channel and LAG 2011 quad channel. I will also show you the quad channel and dual channel bandwidth performance. The clock is DDR3 2400. If it?s LGA 1155Ivy Bridge, the max can be over DDR3 2800. This LGA 2011 also supports Ivy Bridge-E structure, I think DDR3 2600 is also piossible, DRAM Performance DDR3 1333 CL9 9-9-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 38589 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 33647 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 13312 MB/s

CINEBENCH R15 CPU => 903 cb CPU(Single Core) => 171 cb FRYRENDER Running Time => 3m 54s x264 FHD Benchmark => 29.8 PCMARK7 - 7378 SNIPER5 OC is above average. Intel Core i7-4770K can OC and run at 4.5GHz. Windows 8.1 cannot find system performance index. It?s a pity. Comparing in several popular benchmark software, the scores are pretty god. DRAM Performance Test Using CORSAIR Dominator Platinum DDR3 2400 8GX2 2400 CL10 12-12-31 2T ADIA64 Memory Read - 34749 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 28938 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 29556 MB/s Using CORSAIR Dominator Platinum DDR3 2800 4GX4 2800 CL10 12-12-31 2T ADIA64 Memory Read - 33232 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 31286 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 32187 MB/s As former other high end Z87 MB test, DDR3 2400 bandwidth is very good already. Sometimes it can reach almost DDR3 2800, however SNIPER5 has some gaps. This is what GIGABYTE need to improve in DDR3 bandwidth performance. SNIPER5 in DDR3 frequency OC is very good. It?s above standard. Temperature Performance(Room temperature 19~22 degree C) Enter to System Desktop - 32~40 CPU Full Speed by running LinX - 73~81 No matter CPU standby or full speed, the temperature is the best Z87 platform I have ever used. Maybe it?s the cold weather to make standby mode better. However, the max temperature is around 83 when the room temperature was 25~28. If you install in chassis, the temperature will increase 3~5 depending on chassis design. GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER5 Pros 1.G1-Killer thermal module add first ever active fan and water cooling headers 2.Creative Sound Core 3D chip with Japanese audio caps and switchable OP AMP 3.Latest Killer E2201 NPU and Intel LAN 4.Exclusive BT4.0 / Wi ? Fi card to enhance connection capability to mobile devices. 5.Front panel has USB 3.0, OC keys and headset amplifier. 6.Support max 4-Way AMD CrossFireX / nVIDIA SLI 7.Phase in FHD UEFI BIOS. It also provides old and new look BIOS interfaces. Cons 1.DDR3 bandwidth can be better. 2.Make built-in audio or LAN be expansion card to release more application space. 3.Skull can be more cute design. Performance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 90/100 Components ★★★★★★★★★☆ 92/100 Specification ★★★★★★★★★☆ 92/100 Appearance ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 83/100 C/P Value ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 75/100 G1.SNIPER5 has obviously improvement to former GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER. First of all, the thermal module adds active fan and water cooling headers. It creates more expansion capability in thermal solution for high end users. Creative latest Sound Core3D audio chip with better green LED audio to make better noise isolation. Additional swappable OP AMP design improves the personal audio quality needs. Atheros Killer E2201 ad Intel dual LAN enhance the network stability. G1.SNIPER5 brings the higher specs for Gaming MB market. Besides higher hardware specs, the OC ability is also very good. If the DRAM bandwidth can be improved, it can be an excellent OC board as well. Recently, GIGABYTE just launched G1.Sniper Z87, almost half price. G1.SNPIER Z87 can be a good option for users have budget concern or higher C/P value. Windwithme next review will be Notebook Rveiw which is rare to see in the market. It?s Gaming laptop, DELL Alienware 17.I hope this alien can have good performance as well!! The paper is also published on my Blog WIND3C, 3C fans are welcome to visit and give advice or comments:)

Switchable OP-AMP design usually is in high end audio card. This is the first ever design in MB built-in audio. In picture, there is GIGABYTE GP-OP AMP upgrade kit, with three different audio amplifiers. Audio application still support THX as the past. After enable SBX PRO STUDIO, the sound effect does improve a lot. You can sense more space. The con is the intermediate frequency definition become worse. It?s more suitable for movie or gaming. Creative Sound Core 3D supports the technology below. SBX Pro Studio、Scout Mode、EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0、Creative ALchemy、VoiceFX. Also, it supports SBX surrounding processing. It has more advantage in creating sound effect in movies and games. I am using USHER S-520 and DIY amplifier. The default Burr-Brown - OPA2134 is changed to Analog Devices - AD827JNZ. GIGABYTE website says the sound is more rendering, greater sound field, high and low frequency scale is better and suitable for Symphony. Low Frequency ? drum and base are good. Subwoofer is strong enough. It will be better if the detail can be more clear. Intermediate Frequency ? vocal definition in songs and movies has no distortion. Sound thickness is also good. High Frequency ? some music and sound detail scalability is very good. There is no sharp spike. In changing OP-AMP, you can feel around 20% difference. It?s still depending on audio chipset and caps. SNIPER5 design really satisfies critical audio lovers. You can make it by your own requirement. Since it?s Gaming platform, let me share Oblanc NC2-U.F.O. It?s physical 5.1 channels and there are 4 drivers in each side for bass, front, surrounding and center This is very unique design. Right side also has in-line microphone with call control and tangle-free cord. Controller has many buttons, volume, bass, front, surrounding, center and mic. It?s adjustable and special earcups for extreme comfort. Application Interface. There is no Windows 8 driver but still can install. It supports 8 channels in Windows 7. In Windows 8.1, you only can see 6 channels. Features and layout are slightly different. The beginning was not so good. I just realized there is software to adjust. If you want to listen the music or better midband, you can set to headset or 2CH mode. If you need better surrounding, as watching movie or playing game, you can set as 6CH. Oblanc NC2-U.F.O will have better quality if you set the right channel numbers. It?s quite good quality gaming headset I used to use. Of course, the price is in high end segment. LAN chip is Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201, Killer Network Manager Window 8.1 drive makes interface like APP. You can see all the network software traffic. It also builds in an easy network speed test. I am using 60/15M for this test. It?s hard to figure out Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201 features in general use. You need to play online game long enough to test the connection quality. You also can prioritize the network connection sort. Intel Core i7-4770K OC Performance CPU 100 X 45 => 4500MHz 1.280V DDR3 2400 CL10 12-12-31 2T 1.650V Hyper PI 32M X8 => 11m 14.523s CPUMARK 99 => 782 Nuclearus Multi Core => 33167 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 35.88/17223

IO 1 X PS2 KB/Mouse 2 X USB 2.0 2 X HDMI 1 X DisplayPort 6 X USB 3.0 2 X RJ-45 LAN 1 X S/PDIF optical and coaxial outputs 5 X gold plated audio jacks Thermal module adds one active silent fan. I don?t hear much noise when using. If you have more concern about thermal solution, it also equips water cooling head for expansion. There are nine 4-PIN fan connectors. You can see more heart touch improvement in thermal solution. New UEFI DualBIOS interface, called Dashboard mode. The resolution is 1920 X 1080. Above column is voltage, fan speed and temperature graphs. Left side is CPU and DRAM status. Right side is system status showing other voltage and fan status. You can see most hardware status and parameters. DRAM Page Enable DDR3 XMP mode and multiplier is 24.00. More detail DRAM Page You can fine tune DRAM by yours characteristic to have higher bandwidth. CPU Voltage Page There are nine CPU related voltage for adjusting. It provides more options for enthusiasts. I am using air cooling, so I only set main CPU Vcore at 1.280V. Three are seven languages. Right side is date in calendar mode. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K MB: GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER5 DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator Platinum CMD16GX3M2A2400C10 VGA: Intel HD Graphics 4600 / SPARKLE GTX570 HDD: Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD Raid0 POWER: CORSAIR AX1200i Cooler: Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 OS: Windows8.1 64bit Audio chip updates from pervious SNIPER3 Creative CA0132 to Sound Core 3D. I used to check some data about Creative new chipset. Sound Core 3D is quad-core design. The transistors design and spec support are much better than elder one. However, I still believe no listen no truth. If built-in audio with general solid caps, the sound quality will be dry or hard. Green Nichicon Muse ES Acoustic Series and Yellow Nichicon MW are audio caps. It also builds in gaming headset amplifier to drive 600Ω loading and make better audio output.

GIGABYTE has OC and Gaming series in their high end segment. For most users, Gaming series is more practical. Besides high end audio and LAN chips, it also has average above OC ability. As this reason, there are more and more Gaming products in the market. Gaming series is still G1 product line. There are 2 models in the beginning. High end is G1.SNIPER 5 and mid end is G1.SNIPER M5. M5 is M-ATX design. Recently, I saw they launched a new G1.SNIPER Z87. It?s a par value ATX model. The imaginary enemy should be ASUS ROG HERO. G1.SNIPER5is high end MB, so the components and accessories are richer than general boards. The box is similar to past high end MB. Dimension is quite big. G1.SNIPER5 G1-Killer is the 4th generation. It?s named 5 that maybe it?s the pronunciation reason. Jungle war is the main image. The match colors are black and green. It?s E-ATX, 30.5cm X 26.4cm. The general ATX case all can fit it. G1 belongs to Gaming series. It supports multi VGA, high end LAN chip and audio chip. Product manual, software installation guide, driver CD, IO panel and 3~4Way SLI bridge. OP-AMP audio amplifier clips and LM4562NA OP-AMP chip. 3.5? front control panel, GC-WB300D, BT4.0/WiFi card and antenna. SATA bracket, 2Way SLI/CrossFireX bridge, SATA cables Lower-Left 4 X PCI-E X16 support max 4-Way AMD CrossFireX / nVIDIA SLI technology. Bandwidth operates as X16 + X8 + X16 + X8 or X8 + X8 + X8 + X8 3 X PCI-E X1 LAN chips are Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201 and Intel GbE LAN. It built-in Creative Sound Core 3D chip supports 5.1 channels and High Definition Audio technology. Lower-Right 6 X Black SATA are provided byZ87 and support SATA3. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. 4 X Gray SATA are provided by Marvell 88SE9230 and support SATA3. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10. 2 X 128Mbit flash, Dual BIOS, 1X front USB 3.0. Upper Right 4 X DIMM DDR3 support 1333/1600/1800~3000(OC). DDR3 max capacity is 32GB. It supports Extreme Memory Profile technology. Next is 24-PIN power connector and Debug LED. Red is Power button, Blue is Reset and Black is Clear CMOS. There are 8 spots for measuring hardware voltage. It?s digital PWM design. There are total 18 phases, 16 phases for CPU, and 2 phases for DDR. The thermal module is upgrade version from former SNIPER. The design is more streamlined and bigger.

Besides GE60 built in 15.6" FHD resolution panel, user could still output separated screen on 2 more high resolution monitors for multi tasks works, for example, use left side monitor for internet searching, right side to watch favor movies, and use GE60 monitor to play games or office works. This feature is really convenience. Battery life present After 1 hour HD video playback, battery life still over 65%, the overall battery life is over 3 hours, With this high performance hard ware, the battery life is good ehough. Conclusion of MSI GE60 2OE Pros: 1. Cover style is good as a gaming notebook, red sport line make it looks speedy. 2. Used Killer Gaming LAN, enhanced audio boost with AMP and gold flash jack. 3. Dual mSATA3 SSD as Raid0 plus 750GB HDD makes real fast system and good capacities on data. 4. With 1920x1080 Full HD matted panel, it's comfortable for gaming or high quality video/movies. 5. Keyboard by Steelseries with blue backlit, Cooler Boost for higher thermal performance. 6 Matrix Display technology, HDMI supports up to 4Kx2K resolution, we could see that 2560x1440 is good when testing. Cons: 1. The touch pad for Windows 8 was floating, it takes time to used to it. 2.Intel Haswall platform comes with higher temperature, recommend to add on more pipeline to reduce the heat faster. 3. The glare A side cover looks good, but easy to scratch when using. Performance Rated:★★★★★★★★★☆ 89/100 Material Rated: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 87/100 Specification Rated:★★★★★★★★★☆ 88/100 ID Design Rated: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 83/100 Cost/Value Rated: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 80/100 The latest version of MSI GE60 with Haswall paltform comes with better CPU performance. The most improved part is HD4600 3D perfornamce, 3D tests comes 2x faster than last generation UMA graphics. But the higher temperature on new platform, it's a challenge for all the PC and NB brands to design their thermal solution. The thermal design of GE60 is better than many notebooks, so the full loading temperature is still acceptable. This year MSI offered more type of gaming notebooks, also improve the features and material design a lot. Especially for the thermal module, better sound quality, Killer LAN, Steelseries keyboard and FHD matted panels is better for gaming market. Since the price range of GE60 only belongs to middle level market, but the performance is about 80% compare to GT series, so the Cost/Value rate is higher. MSI GE60 comes with different segment and spec., this time we took higher level one to make benchmarks. It will be cheaper if there is no SSD inside, just depends on user's consideration to choose. Many consumer notebooks at same price range is only workable for Gaming, the GE60 maybe is a little bit higher price, but compare to other brands of this level, this still comes with better C/P rate. MSI also launched 14 inch gaming GE40 and ultra gaming GS70 slim gaming notebook, that will brings more choice for different gamers or users. The paper is also published on my Blog WIND3C, 3C fans are welcome to visit and give advice or comments:)