Professional Documents
Culture Documents
THE
FUTURE
FUTUR
OF VR
COMPUTEX
2016
IN THE NEW
GPU
WAR
EVERYONE WINS
STREAMING PCS
HOW TO BUILD A STREAMING
PC FOR ONLY $500!
NUC ROUNDUP
THEY MAY BE SMALL, BUT
THE NEW GENERATION
NUCS ARE SURPRISINGLY
POWERFUL
PRE-BUI T
4K GAMING PC
4K GAMING IS A REALITY,
R
BUT
AT A COST
POWER COMES A
NEW G US!
NVIDIA'S NEW
W RANGE OF
HMARKED
CARDS BENCH
D
ED
AND REVIEWE
4K GAMING
WHAT YOU REALISTICALLY
NEED FOR 60 FPS 4K
GAMING
20
Computex 2016
The latest and greatest direct from the show floor
42
12
52
56
64
Hotware
Case Modding
Streaming PC
4K Gaming
74
52
56
50
80
Industry Update
VR and 4K are where its at
VR Peripherals
Interviews
66 SSDs
82 Pre-Built PCs
54 Graphics Cards
PC PowerPlay 9
EDITORIAL
EDITOR Daniel Wilks
dwilks@nextmedia.com.au
GROUP ART DIRECTOR Malcolm Campbell
mcampbell@nextmedia.com.au
TECH EDITOR Bennett Ring
bennettr@internode.on.net
SPACE LORD Ben Mansill
bmansill@nextmedia.com.au
INTERN Lewis Vaughan
WORK EXPERIENCE Angus Renton
CONTRIBUTORS
James Cottee, Alex Mann, Terrence Jarrad, Meghann ONeill,
Theo, Morte, Nathan Lawrence, Dan Staines, Dave Kozicki,
Joab Gilroy, Katie Williams, Heidi Kemps, Patrick Stafford,
Ashley McKinnon, John Robertson, Tavish Forrest
ADVERTISING
GROUP NATIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER
TECH & GAMING
Cameron Ferris
cferris@nextmedia.com.au
(+16 2) 02 9901 6348
M: 0405 356 419
ACCOUNT MANAGER
Sean Fletcher
sfletcher@nextmedia.com.au
(+16 2) 02 9901 6367
M: 0402 585 124
ADVERTISING TRAFFIC
Alison Begg
abegg@nextmedia.com.au
02 9901 6346
PRODUCTION MANAGER Alison Begg
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Carole Jones
SUBSCRIPTIONS
www.mymagazines.com.au
TOLL FREE
Bennett GunSlingerAUS Ring
Tech Editor
Building A, Level 6
207 Pacific Highway
St Leonards, NSW 2065
Locked Bag 5555,
St Leonards, NSW 1590
COMPUTEX Hotware
Every year Computex is filled with the latest and greatest PC gear from around
the world. While everything at the worlds biggest PC trade show is exciting, many
of the products on display are iterations on the same new technology last year
it was motherboards for the new Skylake chipset, and this year the trend has
understandably been towards videocards and VR. Even with the prevailing trends
there are some products that really stand out from the crowd as being droolworthy. These are but some of the products (or ideas) that captured our attention
at Computex 2016.
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22
PCPP AT
COMPUTEX
TAIPEI 2016
BENNETT RING brings you the latest news direct from the show floor
Wed like to
thank Gigabyte
Motherboards
for sponsoring
our trip to
Computex 2016
p
y
g
Overwatch well before the competition.
If youre after something a little
meatier than the Aero 14, the new X7
DT trades mobility for power. Its slightly
thicker at 25.4mm, which is still by no
means massive. The 17 inch display is
fully G-Sync compatible, and can crank all
the way up to 120Hz. This requires some
serious horsepower though, so Aorus
has included a desktop GeForce GTX 980.
Theres even an overclockable K-series
i7 inside, while the mechanical keyboard
should make for a comfy experience.
And yes, you guessed it, its a fully RGB
keyboard, as expected. This is known as
the RGB Fusion keyboard, and features
per-key, fully customisable lighting.
Despite such meaty specifications,
the entire unit only weighs in at 2.3kg,
making it surprisingly lightweight for
such a capable gaming machine. This was
the only laptop at the show to win the
y category of
w.
w range of
ged paint
designs, which well be reviewing in an
upcoming issue of PCPP. This will be
perfect for taking into the bush for those
paint-ball planning sessions, where a
bright orange chassis is a great way to
get headshotted faster than you can
say ouch! Along with laptops, the new
K7 keyboard was shown. This has a
removable numpad which can be placed
on either side, making it perfect for both
lefties and righties.
One final feature promoted at the
Aorus booth is the inclusion of its
Hardware Live Stream Engine. Packed
into the X5 and X7 models, this is an
integrated hardware video encoder
card, delivering much higher quality
streaming video than software packages
with lower performance overhead. It
also comes with a one year sub to XSplit
Gamecaster and Broadcaster, a tasty
little inclusion for Twitchers.
1. The 14 Aero
14 sports a core i7
and a GTX 970M
2. The X7 DT
features a 17
G-Sync display and
a desktop GTX 980
3. The K7 keyboard
has a removable
numpad
PC PowerPlay 21
COMPUTEX 2016
ASROCK
s one of our favourite motherb
manufacturers, we were a little
surprised at ASRocks focus on min
this year. Having said that, its BeeB
was one of the best NUC-like PCs w
seen. This year the company launch
new DeskMini 110, which uses the
form factor the first time wed ev
of this to be honest. Using an Intel
chipset, the motherboard measures
inches by 5 inches, making it absolu
Yet it can still handle i7 CPUs, provi
maximum TDP doesnt exceed 65W
USB 3.0 ports (one Type-C) are inclu
well as HDMI and DisplayPort, mak
capable little HTPC box.
Its other focus was on two new
motherboards. The first is the X99
which is aimed at the new Broadwe
but with a focus on value for mone
a price point of US$219 itll be one
most affordable X99 boards on the
but ASRock hasnt scrimped on fea
12-phase power design compleme
triple PCIe slots, all of which are re
with steel. Dual Ultra M.2 and anot
M.2 slot deliver plenty of high spee
capacity, while dual USB 3.1 ports
Type-C and one Type-A) are also in
A slightly more expensive X99 b
the new ASRock Fatal1ty X99 Pro
at US $259. It seems to have basi
identical specs to the Taichi, apart
the inclusion of Creative Soundbla
Cinema3 Audio.
COMPUTEX 2016
1. The Bulldog
should launch
within a few months
for $2999 pre-built
2. The Lapdog is an
enclosure for a full
sized mechanical
keyboard
CORSAIR
he highlight of last years Corsair
booth was definitely the Bulldog, a
mini-PC designed to fit inside an AV rack
below your TV with ease. Sadly it still
hasnt launched yet, but Corsair did show
off version 2.0 this year, and its definitely
changed somewhat. The new version
doesnt quite have the squat, doggylooking exterior of the original, and has
grown slightly in size; apparently it no
longer fits inside a standard AV shelf,
which is a bit of a shame. Apparently
Corsair werent happy with the thermal
design of the original, so the new version
should run cooler and quieter, so were
happy to compromise on space.
We were initially informed that the
Bulldog should hit the Australian market
in the next few months for a price of
$2999, but this will be a pre-built rig
including a Gigabyte Z170 motherboard,
CPU, GPU, PSU and storage. Thats not
bad value when you consider the video
card is planned to be Nvidias brilliant
new 1080, while Intels premium I76700K will handle the CPU load. While
this is a K-series product, wed be a
little hesitant to overclock it too much
given the space premium within the
Bulldog. While Corsair recommends its
H5SF low-profile CPU cooler, the new
Bulldog can now also fit in many of the
companys All-in-One GPU coolers,
including the HG10 and H55. Corsair
is promising 4K support with this
mini-monster, but given our benchmark
results with a single GTX 1080, gamers
will have to compromise when it comes
to detail settings.
Once this product has launched,
Corsair will then release the DIY
version, which comes with case,
Gigabyte Z170 motherboard and
Corsairs very own SF600 SFX power
supply, which pumps out a healthy
600W of power, more than enough
for todays low-energy components.
At just US$399 this seems like an
absolute steal. Sadly, just before going
to print, we were informed that review
samples of the Bulldog would not be
available in the near future as planned
7
8
3. Vengeance
XMP 2.0 DDR4
has built in LEDs
4. Neutron
XTI SSDs have
capacities ranging
up to 1920MB
5. ML Pro LED
fans use magnetic
bearings to
increase speed
and reduce noise
6. The K70 Rapidfire
is excellent
(reviewed issue 252)
7. The Hydro GFX
GeForce GTX 1080
is a collaboration
between MSI
and Corsair
8. The Carbide
400C is the 400C,
only white
PC PowerPlay 25
COMPUTEX 2016
COOLER MASTER
uilding on last years Mastercase
concept, which allowed users to
modify and upgrade a single model
of Cooler Master chassis with various
optional extras, this year Cooler Master
launched a much expanded variant of
the programme. Called MasterConcept,
the aim is to allow a vast variety of
different computer users to build exactly
the right case for them. Whether its
a VR developer who needs a compact
system they can take to client demos,
to a video content creator who needs a
giant workstation packing quad graphics
cards, MasterConcept now allows users
to alter a wide variety of different cases.
The main version is the Master Case
5 series, an ATX sized case designed for
regular PC users such as gamers and
office workers. A special T version of this
comes with a two-tone paint job and
handles. Then theres the Master Case
3, a Micro ATX model aimed at those
who need smaller machines yet which
can still handle a full-sized graphics
card. Finally theres the rather massive
Master Case 7, aimed at power users
who need all the space they can get.
1. MasterConcept
is a new approach
to the Mastercase
concept
2. Master Case
5 T version
2. The Master
Case 5 in various
configurations
2. The new
MasterWatt power
supply range
COMPUTEX 2016
MSI
ne of the highlights of Computex
was MSIs 30th birthday dinner
extravaganza. Held in a giant ballroom
with around 400 guests, this formal
seated dinner was a celebration of the
companys rise from a tiny motherboard
manufacturer to one of the biggest
component makers on the planet. As
the drinks flowed, the heads of the
company toured the room to meet and
greet every guest. We didnt realise we
were hugging the founder and CEO until
a nearby MSI PR rep quietly mentioned
in our ear just who they were.
While the party was massive, we
were at Computex to see MSIs huge
new range of products, and they were
not in short supply. This company has
arguably the biggest range of gaming
notebooks on the market, and we
were overwhelmed at just how many
new models were on display. While
nearly every vendor at the show was
promoting the VR Ready message,
MSI was one of the only ones to be
officially certified by both HTC Vive
and Intel as being truly ready for the
virtual revolution, and this certification
extended to several of its laptops.
Two such laptops to feature the
power necessary to deliver the ultimate
in VR performance are the new MSI
GT83/73 Titan SLI, both absolute
behemoths that follow old-school rules
of gaming laptop design, where bigger is
better. The GT83 comes packing not one
but two GTX 980 graphics cards, giving
it more than enough grunt to power
even the most demanding upcoming VR
titles, which
feature much
more detailed
visuals than the
first generation of
games.
The next model
down is the GT73, and
MSI claims this is the
lightest SLI laptop on
the market. Rather than
the full desktop GTX 980
parts of the GT83, it instead
uses the GTX 980M GPUs, which should
still be more than enough for a smooth
90Hz VR experience. Both laptops
support up to three external displays.
Being bigger laptops, theyre not for
everybody, which is where the
new GS63 Stealth Pro might
be a better fit. Winner of
the Computex Best Choice
Golden Award 2016 (whatever
that means), its apparently the
worlds lightest gaming laptop, tipping
the scales at a meagre 1.9kg. More
importantly, its incredibly anorexic,
measuring a mere 17.7mm ultra slim
chassis. We love the new cooling
system in use, known as the Cooler
Booster Trinity. Using five heatpipes,
over dual thermal modules, it should
deliver relatively silent cooling for the
i7 6700HQ and GTX 970M graphics
within the laptop. So despite this being
a lightweight gaming laptop, its still a
top performer.
Last year MSI showed off a laptop
featuring eye tracking, and this year it
demonstrated an improved version.
The GT72 uses Tobii eye tracking,
which is apparently created by the
same company behind the TrackIR
head tracking unit that has been
popular with PC simmers for years.
It basically tracks the users eye
position, which can then be used
to manipulate the mouse cursor,
change active windows and
6
5
As one of the few makers of All-inOne gaming PCs, we were keen to check
out 2016s new models. The Gaming
27 features an I7 CPU with GTX 970M
or 980M graphics, while the Gaming 24
uses an i5 CPU with GTX 960M. Given
the relatively mid-range GPU, the choice
of a 4K panel is rather interesting.
Dozens of motherboards were
on show, and one that stood out is
4. The Backpack
PC is designed for
untethered VR
5. The Aegis desktop
has a front HDMI
port for easy VR
connection
6. The MSI X99A
Gaming Pro Carbon
sports impressive
RGB lighting
7. Aimed at
overclockers, the
Z170A Mpower
Gaming Titanium
is powerful
and elegant
8. The Seahawk GTX
is a collaboration
between MSI
and Corsair
PC PowerPlay 29
COMPUTEX 2016
1. The 509 is
big, gorgeous
and surprisingly
affordable
2. The 303 is subtle,
elegant and very
budget friendly
3. (left) D-Frame
4. The 805 Infinity
is a case and optical
illusion all in one
IN WIN
e recently reviewed In Wins
limited edition iFrame case, a
limited edition $1700 behemoth of
which only 500 pieces were being made.
It seems that these ultra-high-end
cases have been In Wins main stock
and trade until now, but theyre aiming
to change that with the introduction of
three new cases, which just happened
to be some of the most attractive that
we saw at the show.
The first of these is the new 303,
which has an incredibly elegant and
subtle design that stood out from the
blazing RGB festooned cases featured
elsewhere. The front panel is a plain
black design, with the range of IO ports
glowing a pale blue. Theres also a small
LED display for showing basic system
information, or a custom icon. However,
its the stunning tempered glass panel
on the left side that we love the most,
as it just looks so much more classic
than boring old Perspex. Removing
this is as simple as pressing a handle,
revealing the modular interior which
also just happens to be totally tool-less.
If youd rather a plain steel side instead
COMPUTEX 2016
MALTAKE
1. C1000 coolant
should last and
retain colour for
up to two years
2. The Core P3 is
a budget friendly
cousin to the
popular Core P5
3. The worlds
first fully 3D
printable case
3. Level 10 M
Advanced (reviewed
issue 253)
5
graphics card dock called
the XG Station 3. Its
not the only company
to offer these the
widespread availability of Thunderbolt 3
now delivers the necessary bandwidth
and latency to allow for these kinds of
products.
Fans of water cooling will dig the
GX800 laptop, which comes with an
external docking station that includes
water cooling, bumping up the
performance of the laptop when its
plugged in at home. ASUS claims its th
fastest gaming laptop in the world, an
looking at the size of the water
cooling dock, we dont doubt
them. The final standout product
is the new ROG G31 Edition 10, a
20 litre chassis the includes dual
GTX 1080 GPUs with a 3D vaporchamber cooling system to keep
this mini-PC nice and quiet, even
when running 4K games.
5. The Swift
PG248Q monitor
can be overclocked
to 180MHz
6. X99 Rampage
V Edition 10
7. Centurion 7.1
gaming headset
8. The proof of
concept Avalon
gaming box
9. The ROG G31
Edition 10 is a
mini PC with dual
GTX 1080s
10. The GX800
laptop features
external
watercooling
10
PC PowerPlay 35
COMPUTEX 2016
5
1
1. GB-BSi5HA-6300
should seamlessly
stream 4K
2. GB-BNi7HG4-950
is about the size of
3 stacked NUCs
3. GB-XD7B0 - a
mini PC boasting
a GTX 970
4. P57 laptop
5. P37 laptop
6. The Aero 14
features a QHD
display and 970M
GIGABYTE
ts not often a booth tour commences
at the exact same moment as a 6.1
magnitude earthquake, but thats how
this years Gigabyte tour kicked off.
Their booth is held on the 37th floor
of Taipeis 101 tower, the 4th tallest
building in the world, but thankfully its
built to handle these types of events.
It was certainly an interesting start to
a booth tour that was absolutely jam
packed with new products.
The massive booth in the 101 was
divided into several key areas laptops,
motherboards
while another
building highlighted more of their
peripherals and notebooks. Our tour
commenced with the laptop section,
an area where Gigabyte seems to have
more products than ever before. As
expected, many of these were product
updates to existing systems, though
they all seemed to have much improved
cooling systems. As readers of PCPP,
youll know that gaming laptop fan
noise is one of our biggest bug-bears, so
seeing Gigabyte focus on lowering this is
a real plus.
If youre into super-fast frame rates,
youll also appreciate the new 120Hz
panels that feature on several of the
premium models in the range, which
appear to all support NVIDIAs G-Synch.
Interestingly we didnt see a single
FreeSync-equipped laptop at the show,
very surprising given its official support
in DisplayPort 1.3a. Like every other
manufacturer at the show, Gigabyte
were very keen to show off their RGB
keyboards.
The new Aero range of notebooks
feature a Quad HD display, powered by
graphics up to and including the GTX
p
p ,
which tend to be announced four to
eight weeks after their desktop launch,
but we can expect to see Gigabyte and
Aorus laptops powered by GTX 1070M
and 1080M (were guessing those are
the product names) in the next few
months.
Next stop on the Gigabyte train was
its mini-form factor series, known
as Brix. These have had substantial
upgrades compared to previous units,
all moving to the latest 6th Gen Core
CPUs from Intel. One of our favourite
picks for a media box is the new GBBSi5HA-6300, which uses an i5 CPU.
As well as room for a standard 2.5 inch
drive, it also includes an M.2 SSD socket
for ultra-high speed storage. USB 3.1
and 3.0 are both included on most of the
new Brix range, with several featuring
a single Type C connector. Until now
many Brix units havent been able to
stream 4K video due to the use of single
channel memory, but this unit now use
dual-channel DDR4 2133MHz memory,
which should make 4K streaming
a breeze. Twin video outputs in the
form of HDMI and mini-DisplayPort
COMPUTEX 2015
7. Z170X-UD3 Ultra
8. X99 Ultra Gaming
9. The XC700 is
Gigabytes first
ever case
10. Ben Mansill in his
natural environment
11. GTX 1080
Extreme Gaming
Edition features
forward facing HDMI
connectors for easier
front connections
10
11
COMPUTEX 2016
ROCCAT
occat didnt have a whole lot to
show off that we havent seen
already, but one product did stand
out the Roccat Suora. Yep, we dont
know how to pronounce it either. At first
glance it looks like a relatively standard
entry-level product, until we noticed the
frameless design. The aluminium alloy
housing has no palm rest, and no border
around the keys. What good is that,
we hear you ask? The answer is simple
cleaning out the keys on this sucker
will be a breeze. Simply grab a can of
compressed air and spray away, and all
that dirt and dust will come flying out.
Its fully mechanical, but rather than
use Cherry MX switches it instead
comes with TTC Brown, which have
a feel very similar to Cherry MX
Brown. These are guaranteed to last
50 million keystrokes, so dont worry
about reliability. Rather than offering a
gazillion different colours, the Suoras
backlight is only available in blue,
though it can be run in eleven different
brightness levels. Six macro keys are
included, and obviously theres full anti-
FRACTAL DESIGN
ractal is one of
our favourite case
makers, so it was a
shame to see they
were only showing a
single product at this
years show, which
has already been on
the market for a while
now. The Define Nano
S is an ITX case that
is designed to have
the space inside to
host a high-end PC
with water cooling, and their small
booth was filled with custommodded versions. In fact, one
was even brought over by their
Australian distributor, who had to
bring it on as carry-on luggage.
Make no mistake, its a beautiful
case, even winning the European
Hardware Association best-ITX
case, but it would have been
nice to see something new.
Unfortunately the suite was set
2. Kiro modular
mouse with
exchangable
side panels
FSP
ritish power supply manufacturer FSP had a number of new
products to show off at Computex, ranging from eco-friendly
power storage to, inverters and new form factor power supplies.
Looking much like a wheeled suitcases (featuring a couple of big
red buttons), the Emergy line of products are efficient, fanless
power storage systems that can be charged from mains for use
off the grid.
On the power supply front, FSP has two new product lines, the
Twins Series of redundant PSUs and the Dagger SFX PSU series.
The Twins series PSUs are designed primarily for home server use
and feature two hot-swap PSUs. If the primary PSU
fails, the secondary PSU immediately takes over. The
PSU also features an onboard software solution
and several LED indicators that will detect
and identify any problems as they occur.
The Dagger line of SFX PSUs offers
two models, 500W and 600W, both of
which are 80 Plus Gold rated. Promoted
as being able to power high-end,
VR-ready compact builds, the Dagger
PSUs feature fully modular cabling. FSP
has opted for 80mm fans for cooling
rather than the quieter 92mm fans seen
in many other SFX PSUs. How much
this will affect the noise level is as yet
unknown.
1. Suora keyboard
(reviewed issue 253)
COMPUTEX 2015
OCZ
CZ only had one major new product
to show off this year, but it was a
ripper. The RD400 is one of the latest
crop of NVMe SSD drives to hit the
market, and uses a PCIe Gen3 x4 lane
to deliver earth-shattering speeds. OCZ
claims it can hit up to 2600MB/sec read
and 1600MB/sec write performance.
Its actually an M.2 SSD attached to a
PCIe board, so were guessing it can
probably be detached and used as an
M.2 drive if necessary, like Kingstons
similar product.
The product uses Toshibas 15nm
MLC NAND flash memory with an
endurance rating of up to 592TBW
(Terabytes Written). But what is even
more impressive is the companys
amazing warranty policy, which it calls
the Advanced Warranty Programme.
If a user finds their drive to be fault,
they simply need to email OCZ and
the company will send out a brand
new product no receipt necessary.
Once the user receives the new drive,
they then return the faulty drive with
the included return packaging. Best of
CRUCIAL
ather than have a booth at the
show, Crucial chose to demo its
new range of products at a relatively
quiet dinner and drinks night at a hotel.
The main message is that it is now
going to aggressively target gamers,
mainly by building products that fit
the performance needs of us high-end
users. Its now moving the Ballistix
brand into its own category, aimed
at gamers, and there were several
products carrying this name.
A series of high end DDR4 modules
were on show, but its obvious the
company sees the 2666MHz frequency
as being the most popular amongst its
target market. It will carry speeds up to
3400MHz, but a company rep claimed
this would probably make up about 1%
of all DDR4 sales for Ballistix. These
DDR4 modules will be sold across three
different levels. Sport is the base model,
Tactical is mid-range, and Elite is for,
well, the Elite.
The major new product for the
company is its new NVMe drive, the
PC PowerPlay 39
COMPUTEX 2016
ZOTAC
otacs focus this year seemed to
be mini-PCs, as it had a plethora
on display. The Zbox Magnus EN980
is arguably the smallest VR-ready PC
weve seen, only slightly larger than
an ITX motherboard. Its able to cool
the GTX 980 inside by using a custom
waterblock connected to a 120mm
radiator, an impressive feat for such a
tiny gaming machine.
As one of Nvidias biggest partners, it
was no surprise to see Zotacs version of
the GTX 1080 on display, which is called
the Amp Extreme. This massive slab of a
video card uses a huge triple slot cooler
with three fans (yep, RGB lighting and
all) along with juiced up power circuitry.
A smaller Amp edition was also on
show, which uses a two-slot cooler with
twin fans, yet still includes the improved
power circuitry.
Zotac was another company to show
off its own VR backpack PC, which
appears to be based around the Magnus
EN980. Thanks to the larger size of the
backpack, the company has been able
to remove the water cooling and stick
ALIENWARE
remium gaming PC manufacturer
Alienware had four new products
to show off at this years show, and
they were all tasty indeed. First on
the sampling plate was the new Alpha
compact desktop. Looking extremely
similar to last years model, its now
60% faster than the previous generation
thanks to the new GTX 960 GPU
included within, along with 4GB of
GDDR5 memory. Theres even an option
with AMD Radeon graphics, and is also
compatible with the new Alienware
1
with aircooling instead. Unlike other
companies, which stayed mum about
the battery life of their VR backpacks,
Zotac was happy to share details.
They think around two hours will be
the maximum lifespan, so hopefully it
comes with a removable battery. We
really dont think this trend will take
off for home users its so much more
affordable to simply install a rotating
hook in your ceiling, yet can see the
appeal for large-scale VR experiences.
1. The Magnus
EN980 backpack PC
(on that guys back)
2. The Amp Extreme
GTX 1080 certainly
looks the business
1. Alienware Alpha
and Graphics
Amplifier
2. Area 51
(exploded)
2. Aurora has come
doThe wn in size
but still fits top of
the like graphics
cards, five drives
and the latest CPUs
NVIDIA
GTX 1080
Launch
The 1080 is not an evolution, its a revolution
PC PowerPlay 43
Performance Increase
Avg FPS
49
GTX 1080
GTX Titan X
GTX 980 Ti
37
36
32%
36%
Performance Increase
Avg FPS
45
GTX 1080
GTX Titan X
GTX 980 Ti
34
34
33%
33%
Score
GTX 1080
GTX Titan X
GTX 980 Ti
Performance Increase
15334
15340
17656
15%
15%
4K
GTX 1080
GTX Titan X
GTX 980 Ti
Performance Increase
4998
4265 17%
4134 21%
PERFORMANCE
Nvidia claims that the GTX 1080 is
faster than two GTX 980 cards in SLI
mode, but we were unable to test
this as we only have one 980. It also
claims the card is designed for 4K
gaming resolutions, and that 1080p
performance is a bit of a waste. As
such we tested our card in our standard
testbench, but ran most games at
4K. We also used a couple of new
benchmarks as theyre much more
demanding than the old ones.
As you can see from the benchmark
results, the GTX 1080 is anywhere
between 15% and 36% faster than a GTX
980 Ti. And this is without overclocking,
which should add another 15% or more
to performance. We should point out
that the 15% difference was at 1080p,
backing up NVIDIAs claims that its
designed for higher resolutions. Our
results also show that a single 1080
still doesnt quite have the grunt to run
todays games at 4K with Ultra settings,
and maintain a framerate of 60fps. Still,
its an impressively fast bit of kit, though
PC PowerPlay 45
AMD RX 480
AM
Pola
Laun
AMD takes aim at the mass mark
its new range of RX400 videocards
onsidering it was held just a week
before Computex, AMDs launch of
its new 400 series of graphics cards was
a little strange to say the least. Held in
Macau, China, the company unveiled its
new mainstream Polaris architecture,
yet everything at the event was under
embargo until June 29th, well after
Computex. Why hold an event so close
to the biggest PC hardware show of the
year, and then not show it at Computex?
Whatever the reasons, AMD also
remained relatively tight-lipped on the
technical details of its new GPU design.
Thankfully it shared a little more info
its new range APUs, so lets see exactly
what the company revealed at the event.
ei
R9
the
Rat
exp
foun
prod
with
memo
the cl
across
256GB
will be t
one pac
doubling
the new p
Graphics C
Thanks
the RX 480
operate, wi
great to see
adopted the
with Display
a huge range
rates: 1080p 2
120Hz and 14
These new con
RX480 is also f
when these dis
PC PowerPlay 47
AMD RX 480
1.43 billion
PCs
Source: Gartner
Despite AMDs
insistence that its new
cards are Oculus and
HTC certified, weve
got a few concerns
regarding this claim
48 PC PowerPlay TECH SPECIAL 2016
p
y
p
performance. In the past, CPUs have
used Dynamic Voltage and Frequency
Scaling, or DFVS for short, to achieve
this. This always has a serious amount of
power overhead, to take into account the
various temps the chip may be operating
at. However, AMDs new APUs include
AVFS, or Adaptive Voltage and Frequency
Scaling. In contrast to DFVS, this uses ondie sensors to measure in real-time the
temperature and frequency of the chip,
and adjusting the voltage accordingly. Its
apparently not new technology though,
as it appeared first in the Carrizo APU.
A very cool (literally) feature for laptop
users is the new Skin Temperature
Aware Power Management system.
By embedding temperature sensors
pp y
PC components, the power components
within each APU have some variability
built into them. AMDs new system runs
voltage analysis on the APU when the
part is tested and binned, and the voltage
is then logged by the integrated power
supply monitors. When the system
then boots-up and the APU is engaged,
the same voltage analysis is run, and
a regulator then delivers the same AC
voltage as observed on the tester. The
end result is that power waste from
the usual over-voltage seen on APUs is
eliminated entirely, leading to substantial
power savings. All of these technologies
are part of AMDs 25 x 20 project, which
aims to increase performance per watt by
25x within the next five years.
at Computex,
mit Ridge. With eight
n threads, AMD is
row the gap between
nce and Intels, with
p
j t behind Skylake. Were
all hoping this will be AMDs next Athlon
success story, as the CPU wars have
been extremely stale of late.
WHERE ARE THE PRODUCTS?
Despite the introduction of AMDs
new APU, we still found it hard to find
AMD-powered laptops on the floor at
Computex. Perhaps its because these
chips are still so new that APU powered
laptops are few and far between, but
we hope AMDs new APUs give it a leg
up on Intel. A world with only one CPU
maker is not a happy place. We also
hope to see more info on AMDs new RX
400 series of cards in the near future,
but sadly samples werent available in
time for this issue.
PC PowerPlay 49
INTERVIEW
Vincent Ho
MSI Manager
Multimedia PM Division
TONKA
TOUGH
Stuart Tonks may not be a household name, but he
is arguably Australias premier modder, creating PC
builds that are both stunning and functional. We caught
up with Stuart after Computex to talk to him about
modding in Australia, what inspires his builds, what
advice he can give up and coming modders, and more.
CASE MODDING
STREAMING
Building a
Budget Streaming/
Steam PC
For a little money you can take your
PC to the loungeroom
>STEP 1
Choose your chassis
The very first decision youre going to have to
make is what kind of chassis youre going to use.
If you want your Streaming box to fit inside a
standard AV stand, youre going to need a Home
Theatre PC Case. These tend to cost around
the $100 to $200 mark, and use the Mini-ITX
standard sized motherboards. One that we find
to be a ripper is the Silverstone ML07 HTPC case,
which retails for just $85. For such a small case,
its surprising to see that it can house some of the
larger GPUs on the market, thanks to the use of a
proprietary PCI-E Riser, and theres even space for
a water cooler.
If you dont mind going for something a little
larger that can sit to the side of your TV
stand, a Mini-ITX case might do the job,
and provide a little more room. By being
larger, they also tend to be quieter, a very
important quality in this kind of machine.
Our favourite case in this category is the
Fractal Design Define S Nano. Priced
at around $110, this case has enough
>STEP 2
The CPU
Opinions vary wildly here, but we
think AMDs existing range of APUs
are perfect for this kind of machine.
They have much better integrated
graphics performance than Intels
chips, and when it comes to decoding
a video stream, you dont really need
the power of a discrete graphics card.
On the other hand, we dont want
anything too hot in our mini-PC, as
it will cause fan noise to become an
issue. As such, we recommend AMDs
mid-range APU, the AMD A10 7860K,
which retails for around $150. This
quad core chip runs at a top speed of
3.8GHz, which is more than enough
for an HTPC, but its the inclusion of
the Radeon R7 graphics that makes
this the one to watch for. With eight
GPU cores, it should easily stream
>STEP 3
SO-DIMM DDR3 is
required for NUCs
The motherboard
If youve gone for the NUC route,
you dont need to worry about a
motherboard, but the other two chassis
options will likely require the purchase
of a Mini-ITX motherboard. However,
some mini-PCs already include this for
example, Corsairs upcoming Bulldog will
include a Gigabyte Z170 board inside.
Wed recommend going with the
cheapest option you can find that has
certain features, but one core decision
is going to come down to which CPU
you use. Obviously, if youve chosen
the AMD route, youll need an AMD
compatible board, and vice versa.
A key feature to look for on these
boards is the video output obviously you want something
that is compatible with your TV. The latest spec is the HDMI
2.0 output, which delivers 4K @ 60Hz, though youre more
likely to find DisplayPort 1.2 instead, which does the same
job (1.3 is even better, as itll do 4K at 120Hz!). Ensure your
TV or AV receiver is equipped with the relevant option.
As for sound outputs, if youre using an
AV receiver, HDMI should be all you need.
However, older sound systems require
either S/PDIF or analogue connections for
each of the surround channels. Check your
TV and sound systems needs and choose
the right board for the job.
>STEP 4
(above) Fatal1ty Z170
Gaming-ITX/AC mini ITX
motherboard; (below)
The Corsair Bulldog
Memory
As mentioned earlier, dual channel
memory is an absolute must if you
want smooth 4K video playback.
Thankfully it doesnt actually
need to be that fast even DDR3
1333MHz should do the job fine.
Buy the cheapest kit you can find.
Bear in mind that if youve bought a
barebones NUC, youll also need to
buy memory, but itll need to be of
the SO-DIMM form factor, to squeeze
inside such a small little case.
PC PowerPlay 57
STREAMING
>STEP 5
Cooling and Noise
Noctuas NH-C14
is expensive but
whisper quiet
Nobody wants a mini-PC under their TV that sounds like a hairdryer every time it starts decoding an intensive video stream, but
its one of the biggest issues with these PCs. Their tiny size makes
airflow a real issue, requiring the use of small but high-speed fans
that buzz like a hive of bees whenever the PC gets busy. Thankfully,
there are several solutions to this issue.
The first is to layer the case with sound absorbent material, which
can be picked up from PC DIY shops for a few dollars a metre. Layer
each side with this material and the Decibels will drop immediately,
just be sure not to cover up any cooling vents or air inlets.
The second solution is to use a silent air-cooler on the CPU. These
tend to cost a little more than standard air coolers, but theyre
designed to dissipate heat at much lower fan speeds. Theyre also
known as low-profile coolers, as the small cases they have to fit
into mean they have to be much lower in height. One such example
is Noctuas NH-C14. It might seem relatively tall at 130mm, but it
should fit into most mini-PC cases with ease. Best of all, its whisper
quiet, but youll pay for this with a high retail price of $110.
All-in-One water coolers are also available for these small builds,
but weve found they can get rather loud when confined to such small
spaces. For the ultimate in silence, a hand-crafted water cooling loop
is the go, but this obviously increases the price and complexity of the
build exponentially.
>STEP 6
Storage
Do you want your Streaming box to double
as a media device, or are you happy to let
it stream all of its video off your local PC or
NAS device? If the latter, wed recommend
going with Ethernet connectivity if possible,
especially if youre going to be streaming
4K video. Weve found Wi-Fi to be incredibly
unreliable as more people start using it in
their homes, leading to interference, even
when the distance between our router and
streaming box was just five metres (and two
concrete walls). This was found when using
either the 802.11ac or 802.11n modes, and
dont even ask what happens to our Wi-Fi
signal when we use the microwave or other
devices on the 2.4GHz spectrum.
Given the incredibly cheap price of drives
these days, wed recommend installing
a large mechanical hard drive into your
streaming box, so that you can store all of
your media locally, negating the need for a
high-speed network to get 4K video playback
working smoothly. A 2TB Toshiba drive will
only cost $90, and provides plenty of space
for your totally legally downloaded collection
of Game of Thrones off Apple TV.
A 2TB Toshiba
drive will only set you
back around $90
>STEP 7
Power Supply
The final step in our interior
build is the power supply. If youre
lucky enough to have gone for the
small mini-tower that can fit an
ATX power supply, youre going
to save a good chunk of cash as
you can pick from a wide range
of PSUs. For a system of these
specs, we think 300W is plenty,
which you can pick up for less
than $50.
However, if youve gone for an
ultra-slim system to fit in your
AV unit, its likely youre going to
need a special SFX power supply.
These ultra-small models are
actually becoming extremely
powerful now, with models
offering up to 700W of power, but
again we think 300W is enough.
SilverStones ST30SF 300W PSU
is just $65, so its not a major price
hike up from existing ATX supplies.
SilverStones ST30SF
300W PSU can push all
the power youll need
>STEP 8
Peripherals
Ok, so youve got your beastly
streaming PC set up and good to go, but
youre going to need a couple of extra
things to make the most of it namely
PC PowerPlay 59
NUC
CRACKER
Tiny PCs can be deceptively powerful. BENNETT RING
1080p, as well
as run various lowperformance Windows apps
on their TV. BENNETT RING
SMART
BUY
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PRICE
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PC PowerPlay 61
NUC ROUNDUP
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VERDICT:
4K GAMING
4K Gaming
What you need to know
PC PowerPlay 65
4K GAMING
4K HORSEPOWER
The number of 4K notebooks weve seen
powered by GTX 970M class GPUs is absolutely
absurd, as there is no way a GPU of this
specification can deliver anything like playable
performance at 4K resolution. We should point
out that the CPU of your gaming machine has
very little to do with 4K performance its all
about the GPU. A healthy amount of system
memory will also go a long way, as storing
those huge 4K textures requires abundant
space; wed suggest nothing less than 16GB.
Where your 4K performance really comes
from is the GPU though, and there isnt a
single graphics card on the market that
can deliver 4K performance at a minimum
of 60Hz while running at Ultra detail.
Thats right theres not one card on
the market, and that includes the new
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080. Most cards
can handle 4K video playback without
much effort, but rendering 3D game
graphics at this resolution is an
entirely different issue.
If youre happy to lower your
detail settings to medium, a
couple of GTX 980s should do
the job, but because of the higher
resolution youll notice these lower detail
settings. Nope, youre going to need at least
two GTX 980 Ti cards, possibly three, to hit
playable 4K performance with a minimum
frame rate of 60Hz. Youre talking over $3000
in GPU hardware just to enable 4K, and that
doesnt include the cost of the larger power
supply, motherboard and case youre also going
to need. Thankfully this issue shouldnt exist for
much longer, as there are two solutions one
here already, and one just around the corner.
card on
ket to happily
4K gaming. Its rumoured
e a 3840 CUDA cores, a huge
increase over the existing GTX 1080,
and its also possible that it will run the
new HBM2.0 memory type.
Meanwhile, AMD has a product in the
pipeline that is currently codenamed
Vega. While its recent 400 series products
are aimed at the mainstream, Vega is
most definitely not. With an incredible
4096 stream processors, somewhere
between 15 and 18 billion transistors,
HBM2.0 memory and built on a new
14nm process, it should definitely give
the GTX 1080 Ti a run for its money when
it comes to 4K gaming. Either way, wed
recommend on holding off on building a
rig for 4K until either of these products
are released, and cant imagine the GTX
1080 Ti to be too far away
EXISTING SOLUTIONS
There are already two solutions on
the market that will deliver smooth 4K
gaming, provided youve got a system
that can do 4K at around the 40 to 45
fps mark. Both G-Sync and FreeSync
deliver smooth gaming performance at
these framerates due to the way they
synchronise the screen refresh to the
graphics cards frame output.
Unfortunately, 4K monitors with
this technology are extremely
expensive.
One such display is the ROG
SWIFT PG27AQ from Asus.
Its a 27 incher IPS panel with
4K resolution and a maximum
refresh rate of 60Hz. The pixel
response time of 4ms isnt
amazing, but the inclusion of
G-Sync means this should tie
nicely with a GTX 1080 to deliver
smooth 4K gaming. Theres
just one small problem its
incredibly expensive. At $1349
its almost twice the price of the
THE 4K FUTURE
Despite the existing issues with 4K,
theres no doubt that it will become
the standard resolution in upcoming
4K ISSUES
gaming platforms. Heck, even Sonys
So, youve decided to build a mega-rig,
new PlayStation 4K will play games at
have bought a mental new 4K display,
4K resolution, but it uses trickery to do
and want to start gaming. Hold up for a
so. Instead of rendering the games at
second there are problems associated full 4K resolution, it takes their existing
with 4K that we havent mentioned yet.
resolution and then simply upscales
The first and most obvious is that
it, which wont look anywhere near as
some games simply dont offer 4K
good as true 4K rendering.
resolution as an option. This is becoming
Theres also the benefit that 4K
less of an issue as the standard
resolution basically negates the need
becomes more popular, but often users
for anti-aliasing. When your pixels are
will need to hack config files to open up
this small, the jaggies were all used
the higher resolution. This in turn can
to disappear, which helps to lower
lead to other image quality issues.
the workload on your GPU. Were also
Then theres the problem of game
seeing the introduction finally of the
HUDs. With 4K being so rare, most
4K Blu-ray standard, which will drive
games dont have an option to
a massive uptake in 4K TV displays. If
change the size of the HUD. Weve
and when 4K projectors finally become
run several games in 4K mode and
affordable, theyll offer the ultimate in
found the interface to be almost so
bigscreen gaming, with nary a pixel to be
tiny that it was basically unreadable.
seen. Meanwhile prototype VR headsets
Thankfully more games are starting to
are already in existence that have 4K
incorporate interface-size sliders, but
screens per eye. Yep, thats a massive
its still a rarity.
8K of pixels right there, which is about
the amount necessary to remove
the visible pixel structure todays
HMDs suffer from.
Finally, as PC hardware gets
faster, well have $400 graphics
cards that can run 4K with ease. So
the future for 4K really is looking
bright, but wed caution against
rushing in now give it at least
six months to see how Nvidia and
AMDs new products shape up,
and preferably a year or two for
the crazy prices to drop.
But by then everybody
The ROG SWIFT
PG27AQ features
will be talking up 8K,
G-Sync but costs
and the whole cycle will
almost twice as much
begin anew.
as the Asus PB287Q
PC PowerPlay 67
PRE-BUILT
4K SYSTEMS
So just what does it take to buy an off-the-shelf PC that is ready to run
games at 4K, with Ultra Detail, at a minimum frame rate of 60fps. The first
answer is money, cash money, and lots of it. These mega-beasts are not
cheap. Secondly, you need a PC-builder who has the knowledge to build such
a specialised system, as it need to be uber powerful. We put the call out to a
handful of local PC builders to supply 4K-ready systems, yet only two were
able to get us these mega beasts. Lets see what these 4K ninjas can do.
4K Benchmarks
METRO LAST LIGHT
Min FPS
PLE Overt
Scorptec Battlebox
25
35
SHADOW OF MORDOR
Avg FPS
56
83
Min FPS
PLE Overt
Scorptec Battlebox
44
55
73
Avg FPS
106
Score
PLE Overt
Scorptec Battlebox
PLE Overt
Beautiful build, but wheres the SLI?
PRICE $6499
www.ple.com.au
5181
9125
VERDICT:
As the benchmarks
show, this beautifully
built machine just
doesnt have the guts to
do 4K at Ultra settings
with a minimum of 60Hz.
PC PowerPlay 69
PRE-BUILT 4K PCs
p
p
even more. Our final test, Metro Last
Light, showed a 48% improvement in
average FPS, though even the Scorptec
wasnt quite fast enough to hit 60fps
minimum we think this is more of a
loading issue at the beginning of the
benchmark though.
It might not be as fancy as the PLE
system, but considering its $1500
cheaper and between 50% and 93%
faster, there simply is no competition as
to which is the better machine for those
who want a 4K box that actually does
the job, and isnt simply gorgeous to
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PC PowerPlay 71
GALLERY
MSI a
Comp
2016
GIGABYTE
Ultra Durable Motherboards
x16 x16
Innteel USB
with
B 3.1 w
Poowe
w r Delivery
e veer
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SB 3 wi
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x16
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PCIe x16
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*Features may vary by models. *The above photos are for reference only.
INDUSTRY
State of
Industry
Its a good time to be a part of the PC
master race
>CPUS
o be frank, this is
one of the most
exciting years in PC
hardware history in
recent memory, and
its been driven by two
major product announcements. In case
you hadnt noticed, the PC gaming
industry has gone Virtual Reality crazy,
with the launch of two successful VR
kits in the form of the Oculus Rift and
HTC Vive. It turns out these are just two
of many at Computex, I discovered
there are over 100 new Head Mounted
Displays (HMDs) in development in
China. Sure, most of these will probably
suck, but theres real potential here for
some killer products to land soon.
The other major new product launches
are two new GPU architectures from
AMD and Nvidia, both driven by TSMC
finally being able to hit their 16nm/14nm
FinFET manufacturing process. Its taken
this transistor company almost half a
decade to hit this target, after years of
delays, which has held both GPU makers
back from faster, more energy efficient
designs. This goes to show that as the
manufacturing processes get smaller, the
problems associated with making smaller
transistors get exponentially larger, so
in the near future were going to have
to come up with some unique ways to
get around the issue. Heck, the FinFET
design of these new transistors was first
proposed sixteen years ago, showing
how long it takes an engineering concept
to become a reality. Without further
ado, lets take a look at the state of the
hardware industry as it stands in 2016.
Consumer Virtual
Reality is now an
actual reality
AMD look to
be seriously
re-entering the
CPU race
S
ead this, AMDs rather weird June
announce its new RX400 series
uld have passed, so we can finally
w at the recent Macau launch. In
for the company, its aiming at the
and foremost with these three new
VR-ready performance at sub US$199
contrast to Nvidias approach with
TX 1080, which will ship for around
ng 40% more performance than a
a is aiming for the hardcore users
To see AMD and Nvidia take such
proaches for the first time will be
se tactics will work best? AMD claims
he current PC gaming market has the
n VR, so is focusing on the remaining
ange. According to their stats, 84%
of the gaming market buys cards that are between
US$100 and US$300, so their sub US$200 cards
should hit the sweet spot.
Yet in the past AMD cards have usually been cheaper
than Nvidias, and still dont sell as well. Nvidia has
already announced the GeForce GTX 1070, which
has a US price of US$449, and therell inevitably be
a GTX 1060 on the way. Also, Nvidias proprietary
Simultaneous Multi-Projection technology gives it a
huge leg-up when it comes to VR performance; were
talking double the speed of an AMD card.
AMD isnt just focusing on the mid-range though,
with its Vega architecture due late this year. Using
HBM2.0 memory, it wont be limited to the 4GB of last
years Fury, and its rumoured to use around 15 billion
transistors, making it by far the most complex GPU on
the market well, until the GTX 1080 Ti launches.
Whatever happens, this year is a very interesting
one for the GPU wars; heres hoping AMD can reclaim
some of the ground its lost over the last few years. As
one vendor at Computex said to us If the new RX400
cards dont sell, AMD could well be doomed.
>MOTHERBOARDS
Affordable
X99 mobos for
Broadwell-E
seem to be
a big push
Kaby lake
motherboards
should offer
faster I/O
performance
The big focus on motherboards this year are affordable X99 boards
for the new Broadwell-E processors; at least thats what we seemed
to see at this years Computex. And the key feature on these new
boards is the widespread adoption of USB 3.0 and 3.1, not to mention
Thunderbolt 3. Its now basically impossible to find a motherboard
that doesnt have one of these ports on it. HDMI 2.0 is also going to
become a mainstream feature, ready to deliver 4K resolution at 60Hz
to all those 4K TVs that are now starting to sell so well.
Intels new 200 series chipset should land by the end of the year,
in time for its new CPUs. One key new feature will be support for
Intels 3D Xpoint memory architecture. Intel claims this will enable
solid state storage that has throughput
and write durability up to 1000 times
higher than flash memory, while latency
is ten times lower compared to NAND
SSD over NVMe.
PC PowerPlay 75
INDUSTRY
DDR4
The last major area of change in PC components this year
is DDR4. Now that its the norm with Intels 6th Gen Core
processors, prices have plummeted. Its now possible to pick
up a 16GB kit for around $80. The race is now on to increase
the speeds of these kits, and weve seen speeds of up to
4000MHz already on the market. The question is whether
or not these speeds are really necessary in a recent test
we found almost no difference in the vast majority of games
between DDR4 2400MHz and DDR4 3600MHz. Only a tiny
minority of games with memory issues, such as Fallout 4,
noticed any perceptible increase in speed. So unless youre
wanting to set some world records, or
just show off that you have the fastest
memory around, wed suggest sticking
DDR4 speeds are
steadily increasing
with DDR4 2666MHz, which seems
but 2666 MHz seems
to be the sweet spot in price at the
to be the sweet spot
moment.
PCIe 3.0
x4 or NVMe
SSDs will have
read times
of around
2600MB/s
NVME
While M.2 drives are now hitting the masses, this year should
see the adoption of the next iteration in solid state drives
NVMe. This stands for Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller
and is a total redesign of the way todays SSDs work. M.2
drives still use instruction sets designed for our old spinning
mechanical drives, but NVMe is instead optimised for todays
Flash-memory based SSDs. The improvements in speed are
incredible with read times of around 2600MB/sec, and write
times of 1600MB/sec, these are blazingly fast drives. Youll
be able to mount them in a standard PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, or use a
special NVMe plug that will ship with certain motherboards.
Conclusion
The introduction of VR has been extremely exciting, and yet
we wonder if the industry is getting a little bit too excited.
high, yet AMD
premonitions
n VR units in
of gamers in
ew years. Dont
ong, we love
ology, but we
going to take
er to hit those
mbers, and in
makers might
d by the lack of
ted.
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MA/S22016
INTERVIEW
Ryan
Psaila &
Jason Harp
Company directors at
Supremacy Gaming
ON SALE NOW
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER
THE KINGS OF PC AND TABLETOP WARGAMING COMBINE
REVIEWED
OVERWATCH
ISSUE #252
52
9 771326 564019
AT
GRAPHICS CARD
GROUP TEST
BENNETT RING has the power!
PRICE COMPARISON
$AUS
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
ASUS 20th Edition Gold GTX 980 Ti
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edt.
ASUS Strix Radeon R9 390X
Galax GeForce GTX 950 EXOC White
PowerColor R7 360
$1139
$899
$779
$540
$249
$175
GPU Benchmarks
METRO LAST LIGHT Benchmarks
SHADOW OFMORDORBenchmarks
1080p Ultra
41
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
ASUS 20th Edition Gold GTX 980 Ti 12
41
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edt.
42
ASUS Strix Radeon R9 390X
28
Galax GeForce GTX 950 EXOC White
27
PowerColor R7 360 15
Min FPS
Avg FPS
141
100
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
105
71
ASUS 20th Edition Gold GTX 980 Ti
131
81
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edt.
99
67
ASUS Strix Radeon R9 390X
43
28
Galax GeForce GTX 950 EXOC White
30
PowerColor R7 360 12
105
123
89
49
3DMARK Firestrike
161
Avg FPS
16812
12611
14717
11579
6277
3847
Score
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
ASUS 20th Edition Gold GTX 980 Ti
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edt.
ASUS Strix Radeon R9 390X
Galax GeForce GTX 950 EXOC White
PowerColor R7 360
9304
6499
7829
5829
3183
1802
Gigabyte G1 Gaming
GeForce GTX 1080
The new king of the crop
PRICE
www.gigabyte.com.au
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VERDICT:
This is an exemplary
version of Nvidias
newest chipset, the
GeForce GTX 1080,
with an excellent
factory overclock.
10
PC PowerPlay 83
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VERDICT:
SMART
BUY
w w w. p cp o w e r p l a y. co m . au
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VERDICT:
10
PC PowerPlay 85
ts very hard to
recommend a product
when a replacement series is
just around the corner, but when
it comes to the R9 390X, we think its
probably going to outdo the new RX 480,
albeit it at a slightly higher price. This is
because the R9 390X has 44 Compute
Units compared to the 480s 36, and
AMD doesnt seem to be able to manage
the same incredible frequency increases
as Nvidias new Pascal range. Were
expecting to see the RX 480 with a Core
clock speed of just 1266MHz, which has
a boost speed of 1050MHz. The RX 480
also only has memory bus of 256-bits,
compared to the ultra-wide bus of 512bits on the R9 390X. On the other hand,
the RX 480s memory will probably be
clocked faster at 8Gbps, versus 6Gbps
on the R9 390X, so the difference in
performance may not be great.
But enough crystal ball gazing
just what do you get with the Asus
Stix Radeon R9 390X? Well, as many
Asus fans will already know, the Strix
branding is the cream of the crop for
Asus, so youre getting their premo
version of the R9 390X. This is a huge
card thanks to the whopping triple
fan cooler, necessary to get rid of
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VERDICT:
t4BNFQSJDFBTB(59
t".%TOFX39XJMM
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VERDICT:
PowerColor R7 360
Patience, grasshopper.
PRICE
www.powercolor.com
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CZ 39
VERDICT:
5
PC PowerPlay 87
VR PERIPHERALS
Virtual
Insanity
The headsets are
here, but real VR still
requires more
and
Oculus
Rift have
proven
that VR
is finally a
viable concept.
Both excellent
VR kits in their own
right, theyve shown
that when done well, VR can
deliver an incredible experience,
exponentially more impressive than the
entertainment experiences of the past.
It really is that good when the game is
made right and weve only seen the
first gen of games, which are all simple
experiments to see what works. Its the
next few generations of games that will
really show off the potential of VR.
And yet, while weve got two good
kits on the market, there are a host of
VR issues that need to be solved using
different peripherals to deliver an even
more immersive experience. Were here
to touch on a few that weve seen in
the flesh, as well as a few that are in
experimental form. Its going to take
many years to solve some of these
problems, while other solutions are just
around the corner.
IMPROVED HEAD
MOUNTED DISPLAYS
While theres no denying that todays
Vive and Rift are both impressive,
theyre a long way from being perfect.
Several major issues stand out that stop
them from delivering a truly perfect
VR experience. The first, and most
obvious, is resolution. Both units deliver
a resolution of 2160 x 1200, split down
the middle to give each eye 1080 x
1200. That sounds extremely sharp for
such small displays b t th h il
magnified via the sp
both headsets. As a
easy to see the pixe
as well as the black
between each pi
The only ans
to higher reso
and there are
prototypes in
has already d
5.5 panel wi
of 3840 x 216
density of 806p
increase over the
today. Yet even that
be enough to totall
Some ocular scienti
perfectly replicate t
today, each eye will
40K screen this is
decades away at least. In the meantime
lets just be happy with the upgrade to
4K and then 8K, though we should bear
in mind the hardware requirements that
will drive with it.
A way to solve this hardware power
issue could be the use of a technology
called foveated rendering. By tracking
where the eye is looking, the game
engine only needs to render the most
detail at the centre of the screen it can
use Level of Detail tricks to lower detail
away from the center of the screen.
Another issue that todays HMDs
struggle with is faking distance.
In reality, our eyes are constantly
readjusting to different depth cues, but
when using an HMD, were stuck looking
at a screen that is at a fixed point in
space. There are various tricks that can
be used to simulate depth, but theyre
basically hacks. Binocular Disparity
gives each eyeball a slightly different
view of the world, and the brain then
processes this to give the illusion
of depth. Motion Parallax, Binocular
Occlusions and Vergence are all other
techniques that we can use to fake
depth, but theyre a far cry from the real
world. In fact, apparently they can lead
4-D Lightfield
Displays realisticly
mimic how light
bounces from objects
in the real world
OMNIDIRECTIONAL TREADMILLS
One of the key reasons people feel ill
in a Virtual Space is the lack of real
motion. While the eyes and brain can
see that the player is moving, various
human sensors dont measure any
motion. For example, one primary
system is the vestibular system,
a chamber filled with fluid in the
inner ear which acts basically like an
accelerometer. If this doesnt detect
PC PowerPlay 89
VR PERIPHERALS
VR backpacks allow
for untethered VR
with the drawbacks of
weight and battery life
VR BACKPACKS
We first saw custom VR backpacks
last year when we checked out the
brilliant Zero Latency warehousesized VR experience in Melbourne.
An empty warehouse served as the
playing space, while each player had
to wear a VR headset and carry a fake
weapon to blast through the virtual
zombie apocalypse. Over the course
of the experience, and by using clever
navigational cues, players end up
walking over a kilometre, so theres
obviously no way a tethered VR HMD
will work in such an environment.
Even when using the HTV Vive in
room-scale mode, getting tangled up
in the tether that links the headset to
the PC is a common problem, though
it does get easier as you become more
experienced with it. There is a solution
though, in the form of a wireless VR
headset, but that seems to
be a long way off given the
bandwidth requirements.
In the meantime, several
companies have created
VR backpacks, and there
were several of these
on display at Computex.
These are basically
mini-PCs mounted into a
backpack with an independent
power supply, allowing the user
Oculus Touch
controllers feel natural
despite the odd shape
PC PowerPlay 91
VR PERIPHERALS
GALLERY
COMPUTEX
CASE MOD
SHOWCASE
PC PowerPlay 95
GALLERY
PC PowerPlay 97
GALLERY