Image Source: Pexels

Companies

Despite the multitude of gaming hardware companies, one of the most prominent rivalries is largely agreed to exist between Nvidia and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc.). Nvidia was founded 34 years ago, in 1993, by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The company has partnered with numerous others over the years – such as SGS-Thompson in 1994 and TSMC in 1998 – as well as made many acquisitions (including Graphics Pioneer 3DFX and Media Q) – in order to deliver products at the cutting edge of the industry market. They were named America’s fastest growing company in 2002, while 2007 saw Nvidia being proclaimed by Forbes as company of the year. It was in 1999, however, that the company invented its first GPU, named the “GeForce 256”. In recent years, although Nvidia has begun to delve into the newest technological markets, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the company still persist in making new models of graphics processing units.

Nvidia’s competitor AMD, on the other hand, was first established in 1969, with Jerry Sanders becoming the first president and CEO. The company started by making logic chips, then RAM chips in 1975, in 1985 was listed for the first time in the Fortune 500, then in 2006 merged with ATI Technologies. By 2016 we can see just how far the company has evolved, with their popular new CPU releases, acquisition of software company HiAlgo Inc. and development of a graphics card designed especially with VR users in mind.

Image Source: Pexels

Products

Each of these companies has, among their wide array of GPUs, some that are the most optimal for gaming computers.

The versions within the 10th GeForce series from Nvidia range massively in price, memory size, power, and just about every other key aspect that you can think of. While the GTX 1050 possesses CUDA cores at 640, memory size of 2GB, power of 75W and recommended PSU of 300W, the newest model, the GTX 1080 Ti has CUDA cores of 3584, memory size of 11GB, power of 250W and PSU of 600W. The newest model is based on the company’s Pascal architecture and is their flagship gaming GPU, with next-gen GDDR5X memory and 11 GB frame buffer. The price difference makes the earlier model, the GTX 1050, more affordable than the GTX 1080 Ti, the former coming in at upwards of $120.58, whereas the latter totals at $909.79.

Furthermore, professional eSports players have been known to use Nvidia’s graphics cards in their gaming PCs: an earlier model introduced by Nvidia in 2013, the GTX 780 Ti, was used by Team SoloMid’s sponsors, Origin PC. Additionally, teams competing in The International have, for the last four years, used Nvidia GPUs – this year, the GTX 1080 was the graphics processor of choice. It is no wonder, then, that there is speculation that one of Nvidia’s newest GPUs may be used by teams at the Epicenter tournament for video game CS:GO. With CS:GO betting sites predicting odds of 31/20 in the first half and 9/20 in the second between NRG vs Optic, Epicenter looks to be host to an interesting series of battles, concluding in October 2017, and the perfect opportunity for pro players who have not had the chance yet to test out a new GTX GPUs.

Meanwhile, AMD is pitching their Radeon RX 480 graphics card on the basis of its enhancement of VR graphics, and is their first model that is based on the company’s 14nm FinFET Polaris architecture. AMD pledges low-latency gaming and incorporates gating and clocking technologies. The graphics card boasts 150 board power, boost clock speeds of 1266 MHz and base clock speeds of 1120 MHz.

Nvidia’s GTX graphics card series may often be a little more expensive than AMD’s cards, yet many feel that the investment is worth it, in part for the fact that Nvidia’s cards naturally support their graphical technologies like Nvidia “HairWorks” (such as that used in The Witcher 3 on Geralt) and “Physx”.

Why Might You Need a New Graphics Card?

Graphics cards may age more rapidly than the other components within PCs, such as motherboards, cases, RAM and hard drive docks. Therefore, it may be the case that it is just the graphics card that requires replacement. Alternatively, graphics cards will also need to be purchased along with all the others if attempting to build an entire PC from scratch. In this scenario, there is far more freedom to almost build the PC around the graphics card if you so wish, instead of having to carefully ensure that the graphics card corresponds to specifications of the other components.

The post The Best Gaming Graphics Cards: Rivalries and Recommendations appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Logitech announces a new addition to their lineup with a humongous 12000 DPI sensor with an edgy name to match it.
The G502 PROTEUS CORE is the successor to G500s which is only a year old now.

Even though high D{I doenst actually mean the sensor quality is good(and also most of the gamers play with very low DPI settings)Logitech claims the sensor has “zero acceleration, zero smoothing or filtering, and zero pixel rounding.”

Although not much cannot be said without getting an hands on with mouse here are some specs  look at till the time the mouse is actually available.

The post Logitech announces G502 gaming mouse with 12,000 DPI sensor appeared first on OCFreaks!.

AMD today announced the AMD Rewards program powered by Raptr, giving AMD Radeon™ graphics and AMD APU-based PC gamers the chance to redeem points earned within the AMD Gaming Evolved application for prizes.

“We are thankful for the millions of gamers that support the AMD Radeon™ brand by using the AMD Gaming Evolved application Powered by Raptr,” said Darren McPhee, director, Graphics Marketing, AMD. “The AMD Rewards program is our way of thanking our loyal customers and giving back to the community that has given so much to us.”

The AMD Gaming Evolved App helps gamers get the best experience every time they play by recommending optimal game settings tailored to their rig; keeping their drivers up to date; and through a diverse set of in-game tools like chat, web-browsing, live-streaming, and through the new AMD Rewards loyalty program. Players can earn points by using the app to play their favorite games, optimize setting for those games, or engage with the community. Those points can be redeemed for AMD Rewards in the Raptr store.

At launch, gamers will be able to redeem points for prizes, such as: Sapphire Technology Radeon R9 Series graphics cards, and tons of free games, ASTRO gaming headsets, GameFly subscriptions, GUNNAR gaming eyewear, discounts and more. AMD Rewards Program is an extension to the broader Raptr Rewards program, which has already given out millions of dollars’ worth of rewards.

“We see AMD Rewards as a natural extension of what Raptr Rewards does for gamers,” Dennis Fong, Raptr’s CEO, explained. “It’s really great to be able to reward players for all the time and effort they’ve invested in playing games.”

To see a list of the prizes and learn more about participating in the Raptr AMD Rewards program, visit www.raptr.com/amd.

Supporting Resources

• Download the AMD Gaming Evolved Powered by Raptr application
• Watch our AMD Rewards walkthrough video on YouTube
• Read our blog: The Raptr AMD Rewards loyalty program is here!
• Become a fan of AMD Gaming on Facebook
• Engage with us on Twitter @AMDRadeon
• Engage with us on Twitter @AMDAPU
• Become a fan of AMD on Facebook

The post AMD Launches Rewards Program for Gaming Evolved App appeared first on OCFreaks!.

AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta drivers with support for Mantle is now available on AMD website.
This update brings support for mantle on all supported Radeon graphics cards (for now the R7 260X,R9 290,R9 290X).
Download it from here

• AMD Catalyst™ 14.1 Beta

The feature highlights if anyone is interested.

Support for the following new AMD Desktop APU (Accelerated Processors) products:

• AMD A10-7850K
• AMD A10-7700K

Mantle Beta driver

• AMD’s Mantle is a groundbreaking graphics API that promises to transform the world of game development to help bring better, faster games to the PC
• Performance gain of up to 45%(versus the DirectX version) for Battlefield 4 on the R9 290 Series
• Performance gain of up to 200% (versus the DirectX version) for Star Swarm on the R9 290 Series

• AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta must be used in conjunction with versions of these applications that support Mantle
• It is expected that these applications will have future updates to support additional AMD Mantle features

• AMD Mantle Beta driver is currently supported on:
  • AMD Radeon™ R9 Series GPUs
  • AMD Radeon™ R7 Series GPUs
  • AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series GPUs
  • AMD Radeon™ HD 8000 Series GPUs
  • AMD A10-7000 Series and AMD A8-7000 Series APUs
• ​​​​​For additional details please see the AMD Mantle Technology FAQ on amd.com​

• Enhanced AMD CrossFire frame pacing – Support for 4K panel and Eyefinity non-XDMA CrossFire solutions (including the AMD Radeon R9 280, 270 Series, 7900 Series,  7800 Series) and Dual Graphics configurations​
  • ​​​Frame pacing ensures that frames rendered across multiple GPUs in an AMD CrossFire configuration will be displayed at an even and regular pace
  • Supported on 4K panels and Eyefinity configurations
  • Supported on AMD Dual Graphics configurations
  • Supported on DirectX® 10 and DirectX 11 applications​​​

Resolved issue highlights of AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta​​

• Resolves ground texture flickering seen in Total War: Rome 2 with high settings (and below) set in game
• Resolves flickering texture corruption when playing Call of Duty: Ghosts (multi-player) in the space station level

Read more here

The post AMD Catalyst™ 14.1 Beta Driver now avaliable. appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Io-Interactive just released some info about the upcoming hitman game in an open letter to all.
Here’s what it says

Dear Hitman fans,

We wanted to share this open letter with all of you out there eagerly awaiting more news about what’s happening next in the franchise.

At Io-Interactive right now, we are building the next AAA Hitman game for PC and next-gen consoles. It has our total focus and we wanted to take a moment to tell you a few things about it.

In the next game you will experience a globetrotting Agent 47 at the prime of his career – the apex predator stalking his prey across the world, with the support of his long-term handler Diana Burnwood and the whole of the ICA.

The game concentrates on the core Hitman fantasy of using a wide range of tools to take out a diverse group of targets across expansive, exotic locations around the world. We are building this game on the backbone of the Glacier 2 engine, using the best parts and what we have learnt through Hitman: Absolution and drawing inspiration from past titles like Contracts and Blood Money to fulfil the core Hitman fantasy. That means we’re packing in an extreme level of detail on the largest levels we have ever built for a Hitman game. We’ve adopted an open, non-linear level design approach to the game, ensuring the game will play out across huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels. Our aim is to create living, breathing and believable levels which will allow gamers to play around with the AI to create those unique moments every fan of the Hitman franchise loves.

Contracts Mode is back – you will be able to create and build challenges by experimenting with the large levels and possibilities within them. And of course, you can share them with the world and challenge your friends or foes to complete your hits. Your rules, your Contracts.

You will also be glad to hear that we have removed 47’s magic pockets. We believe that’s all we need to say about that subject.

As we get further into 2014, we will reveal more and get into much closer contact with all of you. There are so many things we have planned and we are extremely excited for the future of Hitman.

Thank you all for your dedication. We will share much, much more in the coming months.

The Io-Interactive Team

Summing up here what we know :

• it’s going to be based on Glacier 2 engine like the last one.
• open, non-linear level design
• Contracts Mode is back

The level design in the last Hitman game was both awesome and taxing on the system, lets hope the next one can continue the legacy.

The post Next hitman game info released by the devolopers appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction
Hello again guys! Today we will be looking at Cooler Master’s CM Storm Trooper gaming oriented cabinet. It is a solid full tower cabinet with a built-in fan controller. This cabinet looks great and has a ton of features in it which will be discussed later. But by looks this cabinet seems like a dream cabinet for a gamer.

Features:

• The first full tower chassis with two 90 degree rotatable 4-in-3 HDD modules
• The first with an easy-to-carry handle, and hidden tool box for storing private goods
• Removable dust filters on bottom and top intakes
• A built in fan controller for cool and quiet operation
• Supports up to 12 hard-drives for future upgrades
• Convenient external 2.5” HDD/SSD X-dock
• Supports high-end hardware, XL-ATX Mainboards and Quad SLI/CF with dual slot VGAs

Specifications
Lets go through the specs first :

Product Showcase:

The CM Storm Trooper in all its glory.

Front:

The CM Storm Trooper has a honeycomb structure i.e each and every removable optical bays have mesh on it for maximum air to get in as an intake or u can set it as an exhaust as well. The CM Storm logo with the caption looks amazing at the bottom side. You can even put an SSD in the X-DOCK and all you have to do is connect the molex power to it from inside of the case and hook a sata cable running it to your motherboard sata port.

When the rig is running the top CM Storm logo on the power on button looks awesome. The 120mm led fans on the front intake looks great. These fans do a great job in terms of airflow. They blow air to the graphics cards. You could even put one more fan as front intake above these two unless you are using any optical bay of the top three.

Back:

It is pretty much the same like the other cases. We have a 140mm fan at the back as an exhaust. You could even put a 120mm fan coz they have provided holes to do so. There are 9 pci-e expansion slots. On the right hand side of expansion slots you could see the Storm guard which secures your peripherals inside the case like GPUs. The PSU is obviously bottom mounted. The holes with rubber grommets are there for routing your tubing if you have your water cooling radiator outside the case.

Top:

Mostly the top of this case looks like a car. The right hand side has the inclined front panel. The middle section is actually a metal handle which is attached to the metal main chassis and is coated with rubber which don’t hurt your hand while carrying the case. There is a TROOPER caption to its left which looks cool. Other area to the sides of TROOPER caption is kept open to let maximum air to pass. Not again coming to the left hand side there is a mesh area.

Left:

The left had side of the case has a removable side panel having big mesh area where you could even put 2X120mm fans to blow fresh air inside the case onto the GPUs.

Right:

The right hand side of the case has a removable side panel having mesh area on the left hand side so as to let the air pass through the hard drive cages over the hard drives itself if you have set the fan orientation sideways.

Cabinet interiors:

The hollow part in the mid section helps to install most of the coolers’ custom back plate on the motherboard without actually taking out the motherboard. The rubber grommets help in cable routing. To the right hand side we have the hard drive cages.

We have a 140mm fan as a rear exhaust. PSU mount at the bottom. Storm Guard for securing the peripherals and 9 pci-e expansion slots.

At the top we have the molex connection and sata connection ports for the X-DOCK where we can put an SSD. The hard drive cages are removable just in case you want a 360mm radiator for water cooling in there. You could also see a small SSD cage at the bottom.

From this angle you could see the cable management features like the rubber grommets, zip tie clips where you could tie a bunch of cables.

Front removable bays:

All of the front optical bays are removable. You could see 2X120mm fans set for intake. You could also remove the top optical bays and chuck in a pump-reservoir combo dual bay for water cooling or you could add an extra fan in there.

Top dust filter:

As you could see there is a dust filter at the top on the 200mm fan which is set as an exhaust.

Removable hidden box:

The front CM Storm logo plate on the front does come out. Behind the CM Storm logo on the front bottom side there is a box where you could keep things which you need like some cable ties, screws etc. It can be completely removed if you don’t want it in there.

Front panel & fan controller connections:

Let us start from the left. E-SATA, USB .0, HD Audio/AC’97, USB 2.0 headers.

The front panel headers power, reset switch, HDD LED.

These are the 3-pin dc power input for the dc fans which are connected to the fan controller at the top.

The molex connector is the provide power to the fan controller. The other 3 actually supplies the power to the fan LEDs which could be turned on or off as required by the button at the top of the case in the front panel section.

Components inside the case:

The Corsair AX-1200 is the PSU which is in there. The CPU cooler is the Cooler Master V8 GTS. The motherboard used is the ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z running an AMD FX-8150 processor. The GPU is the XFX Radeon HD 5970 which is very long as compared to this generation single core GPUs. So this case can fit really long GPUs.

Cable management:

I am not that good at cable management but tried to do something which is not so bad. the cable management in this case is awesome. You could pretty much route the cable wherever you want as per your wish.

Angled view:

Overall this case looks really very nice and is really build for the gamers.

CM Storm logo with beautiful LED fan:

The LED fans look great and does a good job on cooling as well.

Fan controller section:

Right at the top is the power on switch. Below that we have the – & + keys to decrease the fan speeds. The middle button is to turn the LEDs on or off. Other than that we have reset switch, E-SATA, a pair of USB 3.0 & USB 2.0, headphone and microphone jack with power and HDD LEDs.

In the dark the CM Storm Logo and the surrounding LED lighting is awesome. It gives the feel of a gaming rig.

Wanna drive this baby ? Go for it I say !

Conclusion

A complete package in terms of build quality, air flow, flexibility, water cooling options, cable management and compatibility with respect to graphics card length, motherboards of various form factors upto XL-ATX and dimensions of CPU coolers. This cabinet comes in an different edition CM Storm Trooper Window which has a window on the side panel to show off their rig. I have tested my Noctua NH-D14 and Cooler Master V8 GTS which gave better thermal results than that off Corsair 600T. This means that the airflow within the cabinet is very good.

Pros:

• Solid build quality
• Very good airflow
• Affordable with ton of features and flexible
• Good for custom water-cooling

Cons:

• Instead of thumb screws could have provided clip arrangement for opening and closing the side panel.

Video Review:

Here’s the video version of this review :

The post Cooler Master Storm Trooper Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Roccat came up with a few variant of the Kone pure earlier this year like the Kone Pure Color edition and the Kone Pure Optical.

However there was a special edition of Roccat Color lineup which was announced but never made available to the public.
Roccat finally made the ever illusive Phantom White version available to public.
Not much to say about this, just take a look at the technical specification while we wait for the price.

•  Pro-Aim Laser Sensor R3 with up to 8200dpi
• 1000Hz polling rate
• 1ms response time
• 12000fps, 10.8megapixel
• 30G acceleration
• 3.8m/s (150ips)
• 16-bit data channel
• 1-5mm Lift off distance
• Tracking & Distance Control Unit
• 72MHz Turbo Core V2 32-bit Arm based MCU
• 576kB onboard memory
• Zero angle snapping/prediction
• 1.8m braided USB cable

We will update the post as soon as we get the pricing info.

Source: Press release

The post Roccat announces avaliabality of Roccat Kone Pure Phantom White version appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction

It seems like in recent times not many good economical gaming mice have entered the market with something fresh and exciting on the table apart from the MX518 refresh aka G400 !

It seems CM decided to change that and so I present to you one of the most promising and VFM gaming mice , the CM Storm Recon “White Edition” (Long story we’ll talk about it later 😉 )

There is a twist here though, CM Storm Recon is only available in Black/gunmetal grey color, while we have got our hands on the upcoming white edition which was earlier to be a assassins creed limited edition mouse !

Spec sheet wise this mouse does impress but let’s hold our judgments till we take the mouse for a ride , Lately CM seems to be stepping up their game so let’s find out if this mouse really holds its own against its competitors like Razor DA and G400!

The post CM Storm RECON Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Hey guys… hows it going out there? Since its the time of steam summer sales i thought i would attempt one more mouse review for you all/

This time its the Roccat Kone Pure Color edition mouse which according to my sister looks like giant candy(you be the judge,am in no mood to fight with her!).

The mouse will be available in four different colors

• Hellfire Red
• Inferno Orange
• Polar Blue
• Phantom White

Please note the Phantom white version is not available yet…

Now basically what we have here is a high DPI mouse at a Sub 6k range with a few style add-on in a sightly smaller package than the original Kone(9-10 % smaller to be exact)…but there’s more to it..read on to know…

The post Roccat Kone Pure Color edition Mouse review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction

Hack and Slash is the only genre in which PC is deprived of quality games. Consoles have some excellent hack and slash titles like God of war, bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden , Heavenly swords, Onimusha etc. But when it comes to PC the only worth mentioning title till date is – Devil May Cry (and Darksiders too but still for me DMC3 > Darksiders). Though the 1st 2 games of the title were also console exclusive and the third title was a bad port still many PC gamers have loved and enjoyed the game as well as being in the boots of the protag DANTE and are playing it till date (me being one of them). DMC3 was very messy on a controller and keyboard controls weren’t great either but still many gamers loving it is the proof enough for a good game. DMC4 was a mild disappointment for many but still much better on PC with a full and proper controller support.

Then after 2 years of the release of DMC4 came the announcement of Devil May Cry aka DmC. The promo thus released on E3 didnt only irk many of the old and hardcore fans but also earned Ninja Theory lot of hatred from the lifelong fans of the series. Facing all of that the 1st thing Ninja Theory did was to change the face model of the new Dante and release interviews which talked about how this game was nt a sequel but more of a prequel/origin game. Undoubtedly Ninja Theory & DmC was surrounded with loads of critcism throughout the year since the day the new game’s trailer was released to the day the game released and somewhat even after that. No doubts its the most controversial and yet 1st major game release of the year 2013 on PC. The game released for consoles on 15th of January and as a common practice now 10 days later for the PC.

Now before i begin the review i would just like to share that i am a HUGE fan of the series and the protag DANTE and in the following review i wont only elaborate about the new game but also compare it to the older games of the franchise.

The post Devil May Cry Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.