Many of the leading graphics manufacturers have been working hard on developing new coolers and fan technology to reduce noise emissions as much as possible. This is never more important than when building a media center for a living room or bedroom. If you are unwilling to accept any noise at all, then why not bypass the use of fans completely and opt for a totally silent solution? Sapphire have just released their latest silent R7 250 Ultimate, a fan less design to target the high definition television audience. Is it worth the modest £70 asking price?

We have no confirmed pricing at time of article publication, however we can make some educated guesses. Current R7 250 pricing indicates 2GB models around £80 and 1GB models for a little less. The Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate ships with 1GB of GDDR5 so we would factor in the final retail cost, close to the £70 mark.

Above, an overview of the Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate. The core is modestly clocked at 800mhz and the memory 1,125mhz (4.5Gbps effective) – connected via a 128 bit memory interface. The 28nm Cape Verde core is equipped with 16 ROP’s, 32 Texture units and 512 shaders.

Today we are looking at the latest Solid State Drive from Intel, the 730. This 2.5 inch drive uses a specially qualified 3rd generation Intel controller, the same 20nm NAND flash memory that was used in the S3500, alongside an optimised firmware. Intel have overclocked the controller by 50% and the NAND bus has been tweaked by a further 20%. How does it stack up in 2014?

Intel have released the 730 in 240GB and 480GB capacities and there is quite a difference in rated write performance between the two units.

Sustained Sequential Reads / Writes
240GB: up to 550 / 270 MB/s
480GB: up to 550 / 470 MB/s

The 240GB drive is markedly slower than the larger 480GB drive, with write speeds dropping from a rated 470 MB/s to 270 MB/s. With the 2014 SSD market being so competitive, this slow write speed does stand out like a sore thumb as it is very similar to write speeds we documented with last generation SATA 2 Sandforce drives. Thankfully both drives offer the same read speeds – up to 550 MB/s … close to the bandwidth limitations of the SATA 3 interface.

730 SSD 4K IOPS performance is rated at 86,000 read and 56,000 write for the 240GB model and 89,000 read and 74,000 write for the 480GB model. Again the 240GB unit suffers a noticeable performance penalty.

The new 730 Solid State Drive is based on the Intel PC29AS21CA0 controller which is found inside the Intel DC S3500 and S3700 products. Both of these drives are designed with the server market in mind, delivering consistent write performance. The higher cost S3700 has been designed specifically to deal with extremely taxing write based workloads. It is able to deliver 10 full drive writes every day, for five years.

The 730 is based on these drives, but as a consumer model it is using 20nm ONFI flash memory. The controller has been overclocked from the 400mhz speeds in the server models, to a final clock speed of 600mhz. NAND bus speeds have also been increased from 83mhz to 100mhz.

The 730 is also protected with an impressive five year warranty – covering 70GB of data transfer each day across the time frame. If you are moving a lot of data around every day and demand the highest levels of reliability, then this is a very strong selling point.

Intel claim that the performance in RAID 0 has been optimised with almost perfect scaling. As Intel only sent us a single drive for this review today, we are sadly unable to test these claims.

Today we are taking a look at the new Asus GTX 750 Ti, the third Maxwell card we have reviewed since Nvidia launched back on February 18th. So far we have analysed the MSI GTX750 Ti OC Twin Frozr and the Palit GTX 750 Ti StormX Dual – both fantastic solutions … so we will be interested to see how the Asus solution stacks up.

The new Asus GTX 750 Ti 2GB is a modified design featuring dual fans and enhanced out of the box clock speeds.

The Asus GTX 750 Ti receives a modest core clock increase, from 1,020 mhz to 1,072 mhz. Unlike the Palit GTX 750 Ti StormX Dual the memory is left at the default speeds of 1,350mhz (5.4Gbps effective). All cards have 16 ROP’s, 53 TMU’s and 640 CUDA cores.

The Nvidia reference card is using 2GB of Hynix GDDR5 memory, but ASUS have opted for Samsung branded GDDR5.

The Maxwell SM architecture delivers improved efficiency and 35% more performance per CUDA core on shader limited workloads. Nvidia have changed the architecture with the SM scheduler architecture and algorithms having been rewritten to avoid stalling and further reducing the energy per instruction required for scheduling. Maxwell SM architecture enabled Nvidia to increase the number of SM’s to five in GM107, compared to two in GK107 – and all with only a 25% increase in die area.

Nvidia have explained that the organisation of the SM has been changed. Each SM has been partitioned into four separate processing blocks, each with their own instruction buffer, scheduler and 32 CUDA cores. GK107 Kepler could have a non power of two number of CUDA cores, with some shared. The new partitioning simplifies the design and scheduling logic which reduces computation latency and saves area and power demand.

Pairs of processing blocks share four texture filtering units and a texture cache. The L1 compute cache function is now combined with the texture cache function and shared memory is a separate unit, shared across all four blocks. Each Maxwell SM is smaller than a Kepler SM but delivers around 90% of the performance. The smaller area means that Nvidia can incorporate many more SM’s per GPU. The GM107 (v GK107) has 25 percent more texture performance, 1.7 times more CUDA cores and 2.3 greater shader performance.

Nvidia have improved Video capabilities with the latest hardware. Maxwell incorporates an improved NVENC block to deliver faster encode performance over Kepler – 6-8 times real time compared against 4 times. Nvidia report a 8-10 times faster decode rate too. Maxwell also has a new GC5 power state designed to drop the GPU power demand under light workload situations – such as when playing back video.

Very few companies have made such a positive mark on the peripherals sector as the Taiwanese based ‘Ducky’. While their name is almost comical, their keyboards are rated as some of the best that money can buy. Today we look at their latest DK 9008 Shine 3 Tuhaojin Mechanical keyboard, cast in Aluminium, with a gold finish. This features the expensive Cherry Green MX Switches.

Regular readers will know I am a devoted fan of mechanical keyboards, having owned many in the last decade, including DAS, Steelseries, Razer and in the past 24 months – Ducky. I have gathered quite a collection of Ducky keyboards – and the image above shows the Ducky Shine 3 DK-9008 Tuhaojin Gold sandwiched between two Ducky 2 keyboards I have been using in my office, and at home.

Main Features:

• Aluminium top casing.
• Dual layer PCB for extra durability.
• Detachable cable for convenience.
• Full LED back lighting.
• 2 user customizable back lighting profiles.
• Reactive lighting mode.
• UV coated keycaps.
• DIP switches for extra settings.

When we were offered a new Ducky Shine 3 it was actually one of the review products I was genuinely looking forward to testing. When they said it incorporated MX Green key switches my interest was heightened. Most of you guys will have a favourite key switch – I tend to gravitate towards Blue as they are the closest to the old IBM keyboards … although until recently I will admit I didn’t even though a company was using an MX green switch within a ‘mainstream’ keyboard.

I know the topic of mechanical switches is confusing for many of our readers, so on the next page I take a look at the range of Cherry MX Switches, including the green design.

In the last year we have seen a rising demand for smaller chassis such as the excellent Bitfenix Prodigy and Aerocool Dead Silence. With this in mind MSI are launching their MSI Nightblade – a barebones configuration to target the demanding enthusiast audience who feel that ‘smaller is better’. The barebones includes the case, an MSI Z87I gaming motherboard, a Dragon Fan and 80 Plus Gold certified Silverstone 600W power supply. MSI say that this diminutive 16 litre case can house the most powerful components available … so today we put their claims to the test.

MSI will be selling the Nightblade chassis in a barebones configuration however some of their partners such as Scan, Overclockers UK, Yoyotech, Cyberpower UK and MESH will be selling in a fully configured state. This makes sense, because while many people like to build their own system, some just don’t want to deal with the hassle, especially when working in the confines of such a small chassis.

Today we will be testing the MSI Nightblade with some of the highest specification components we can use – including an Intel Core i7 4770k, two Plextor Solid State drives in Raid 0, and an MSI R9 290X graphics card. MSI bundled their optional custom CPU cooler so we include that in the mix.

Can the case handle the heat?

Today we look at the latest Solid State Drive product Toshiba – the HG6. The HG6 drives integrate NAND chips which are fabricated on the second generation 19nm process and they are available in capacities ranging from 60GB to 512GB. Shipping is due to start very soon and they sampled us with the 256GB model.

Toshiba are aiming these new drives at a wide audience including enthusiast desktop/notebooks, workstations and for read intensive enterprise applications and server boot drives. Regular readers of KitGuru will already be aware that OCZ were recently acquired by Toshiba and the latest Vertex 460 240GB drive uses 19nm Toshiba Toggle Mode MLC NAND.

The HG6 drives are using Toshiba’s Advanced 19nm (A19nm) toggle 2.0 MLC (Multi Level Cell) NAND, which they claim delivers major advances in performance and also power efficiency over previous designs.

Toshiba rate the maximum transfer rate of these drives at 534 MB/s and 483 MB/s for sequential read and write speeds, respectively. They will be offering the drives in various form factors, including mSATA, M.2 and standard 2.5 inch. The 2.5 inch unit we have for review today is 7mm deep, ensuring it will fit perfectly inside the latest ultraportable laptops.

Toshiba claim that the drives have a reliability rating (MTTF) of up to 1,500,000 hours. HG6 SSD’s incorporate Toshiba’s Quadruple Swing By Code to improve error correction and subsequently reliability.

Even though the Nvidia Titan was never truly designed as a gamers card, the high end enthusiast audience have been buying them en masse since they released. A muted launch in February this year saw the new Nvidia GTX Titan Black hit retail shelves. Nvidia didn’t sample the new card, with the reasoning that it was not a target for the gaming audience. Nvidia partners didn’t really sample the cards either, as they were forced to adhere to the Nvidia reference cooler design.

Even though the Titan Black retails for around £800 – the wealthy enthusiast gamer has been snapping them up to play the latest Direct X 11 titles. Is the Titan Black really worth the £300 premium over some of the best GTX780 Ti’s currently available today? Does the Titan Black’s extra 3GB of GDDR5 memory really make a difference with current games at Ultra HD 4K resolutions?

Since the Nvidia Titan Black launched, we have been inundated with emails and comments from our readers on Facebook asking if we can take a look at the new hardware. Nvidia might have expected these requests to come from CUDA developers aching to analyse the double precision performance – but alas, they were all gamers.

To get the most in the latest games from either a GTX780 Ti or GTX Titan Black then we recommend you pair up with at least a 30 inch 1600p screen. This is why we have tested today at both 2560×1600 and 3840×2160 resolutions.

We have been testing at Ultra HD 4k for the last 6 months because we know the future of enthusiast level gaming will be based around a single Ultra HD 4K screen. This is exactly why you should be considering at a GTX Titan Black.

We know some our audience are still using triple screen configurations, but research in the last year has shown that most people will never consider more than one screen, due to the physical desk space required to house them all. Unless you pick up specialised monitors then the bezel on each screen can also prove distracting when gaming across a spanned image.

It is worth reiterating that the cost of an Ultra HD 4K screen will continue to drop this year and we think in 2015 that they will finally become affordable for a much wider audience. A case in point is the ASUS PQ321QE panel we use for Ultra HD 4k testing – last year this cost £2,999.99 and it has already dropped by March 2014 to £2,399.99. Thats a sizable 25 percent drop within four months.

Today we include additional tests, because hundreds of readers have asked us to include results at 1080p. It is worth pointing out that I sincerely don’t recommend you spend £800 on a graphics card to play games at 1920×1080 resolution, but the level of feedback has made us aware that a lot of our readers are feeling neglected.

Is a traditional tower PC chassis just too big for your home? Would you like to get something smaller, and quieter for your bedroom but capable enough to power the latest Direct X 11 games? Today we look at a new system from UK company BOX UK. Their Assassin Cube Gaming PC features a checklist of fantastic components – an MSI GTX770 Twin Frozr 2GB graphics card, partnered up with an Intel Core i7 4770K CPU. They are using an MSI Dragon Water Cooler and the Kitguru award winning Aerocool Dead Silence Chassis with matching fans. At £1119.99 inc vat is this a system you want to be including on your final shortlist?

The Aerocool Dead Silence Gaming Cube may be a small chassis, but it has been designed to accommodate high end hardware, including full length graphics cards. BOX have several powerful systems available in this ASSASSIN range, including less expensive Core i3 and i5 configurations with prices starting at £849.99. You can see the five configurations available over here. Today we are looking at the most expensive Core i7 model priced at £1119.99 inc vat.

BOX have overclocked the Intel Core i7 4770k to 4.2ghz.

Features

• The Latest 4th Gen i3, i5k or i7k Processors
• 2 x 4Gb Kit Kingston Hyper-X Beast 2400Mhz performance memory
• Kingston Hyper-X 120Gb SSD & 1Tb Hard Drive
• MSi Geforce GTX 770 Twin Frozr 2Gb Dedicated Graphics
• Built-in Wireless
• Aerocool Dead Silent Cube Gaming Case
• Aerocool Dead Silent 120mm Fan
• MSI Dragon Water Cooler
• Windows 8.1 64 bit

KitGuru reviewed the Intel 730 Jackson Ridge Solid State Drive back on March 6th, and there was a lot of interest in the review. Since then Intel sent us over two more 730 drives and today we supplement our original findings by adding some RAID 0 results.

As we covered in the earlier review the new 2.5 inch Solid State Drives use a specially qualified 3rd generation Intel controller, the same 20nm NAND flash memory that was used in the S3500, alongside an optimised firmware. Intel have overclocked the controller by 50% and the NAND bus has been tweaked by 20%.

Intel have released the 730 in 240GB and 480GB capacities and there is quite a difference in rated write performance between the two units.

Sustained Sequential Reads / Writes
240GB: up to 550 / 270 MB/s
480GB: up to 550 / 470 MB/s

Today we put two of the 240GB drives into a RAID 0 configuration and see how the performance scales. The 240GB is significantly slower than the 480GB version when looking at sequential write performance – down from 470 MB/s to 270 MB/s. Read speed is the same, rated at 550 MB/s.

730 SSD 4K IOPS performance is rated at 86,000 read and 56,000 write for the 240GB model and 89,000 read and 74,000 write for the 480GB model. Again the 240GB unit suffers a noticeable performance penalty.

The new 730 Solid State Drive is based on the Intel PC29AS21CA0 controller which is found inside the Intel DC S3500 and S3700 products. Both of these drives are designed with the server market in mind, delivering consistent write performance. The higher cost S3700 has been designed specifically to deal with extremely taxing write based workloads. It is able to deliver 10 full drive writes every day, for five years.

The 730 is based on these drives, but as a consumer model it is using 20nm ONFI flash memory. The controller has been overclocked from the 400mhz speeds in the server models, to a final clock speed of 600mhz. NAND bus speeds have also been increased from 83mhz to 100mhz.

The 730 is also protected with an impressive five year warranty – covering 70GB of data transfer each day across the time frame. If you are moving a lot of data around every day and demand the highest levels of reliability, then this is a very strong selling point.

Nvidia’s GTX780 Ti has been a big seller in 2014, leading the high end performance market. We have reviewed many GTX780 Ti’s since the official Nvidia release last November, but due to reader demand today we look at one of the fastest overclocked models from Gigabyte. Their Windforce OC model is clocked at a whopping 1,020mhz out of the box. How does it handle at Ultra HD 4K resolutions?

Gigabyte have fitted a special version of their triple fan Windforce cooler to the GTX780 Ti. Gigabyte name this particular cooler the WindForce 3x as it incorporates a unique ‘Triangle Cool’ methodology. The company are using three quiet PWM controlled fans, a huge ram heatsink, two 8mm heatpipes and four 6mm heatpipes.

The Gigabyte GTX780 Ti Windforce OC is clocked much higher than the reference GTX780 Ti. The GK 110 core speed has been increased from 876mhz to 1,020mhz. This is the highest clocked GTX780 Ti that has entered our labs. The GDDR5 memory is running at 1,750mhz (7Gbps effective).

Today we test hardware with a 30 inch Apple Cinema HD display (2,560×1,600) and with the ASUS PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K Monitor (3,840×2,160).

The 4K ASUS PQ321QE panel retailed last year at a whopping £2999.99 asking price, but as we predicted this has dropped in 2014 to £2,279.99 inc vat. We expect further price cuts in the coming months.

Today we test using the latest 335.23 Forceware drivers.

We review many high end gaming systems on KitGuru but what if you only have a budget of £500 and need an ‘all round workhorse’ capable of dealing with office duties and casual gaming at 720p? AMD’s Kaveri is the sensible choice when budget is a primary concern, so today we look at PCSPECIALIST’s £500 Infinity 7850K System.

At the heart of the system is the AMD A10-7850K APU, designed to deliver modest gaming capabilities without a need for an expensive discrete graphics card. The A10 7850K is currently priced around the £130 inc vat mark in the UK today.

If you need more graphics power, then the PCS Infinity is fully expandable … meaning you could add a discrete graphics card at a later date – when funds permit.

PCSpecialist have consistently scored well in our lab reviews in the last year, thanks to a combination of clever hardware component selection, excellent build quality and competitive pricing.

PC Specialist Infinity 7850K
Case PCS ALPHA TRION 7622B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU) AMD A10-7850K Quad Core APU (4.0GHz) & Radeon™ R7 Series Graphics
Motherboard Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H FM2+ (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s)
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card Integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series Graphics
Memory – 1st Hard Disk 2TB 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT – AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Power Cable 1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY – FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build – Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Price £499.00

Nvidia, ATI. Nvidia, AMD. The battle for top graphics card billing seems to have been around since time immemorial. We announce a new performance king, then another card is released and the position switches. While it may sound purely diplomatic, we genuinely feel that the last year has been very strong for both Nvidia and AMD.

Nvidia currently have the GTX780 Ti and Titan Black – two very expensive, killer boards which have appealed to the ultra high end audience. AMD have their premium R9 290 and R9 290X targeted at more aggressive price points – opening up the potential for Ultra HD 4K gaming to a wider audience.

With the recent Nvidia announce of the $3,000 Titan Z, AMD have taken the battle into the ‘dual GPU arena’ by releasing their R9 295 X2 solution, comprising a mind blowing 12.4 billion transistors.

AMD have worked behind the scenes with Asetek in the development and creation of the proprietary liquid cooling system for the R9 295 X2. We will look at this in more detail on the next page of this review, however you can see from the picture above that it is based around a 120mm radiator – similar to a Corsair Hydro H60 V2, for instance.

Regular KitGuru readers will remember my appraisal of the reference AMD R9 290/X cooler. I can condense it down into a single word: atrocious. The move by AMD to watercooling is not only welcomed, but without question – unavoidable. We already know just how hot a R9 290 core gets under load – with two R290 cores on a single PCB the toasting of marshmallows is likely possible.

We have never received a graphics card with a power supply in the box. AMD are not taking any chances and include a BeQuiet! 1000W Power Zone to ensure review publications didn’t decide to use a underspecified, unbranded Chinese power supply. We put our Fung Yung Wung 350W supply back in the cupboard.

Without delving into power demands right at the start of a review — in a nutshell AMD state that the power supply must have two 8 Pin PCIe power connectors that can each supply 28A of dedicated current. Combined power must be 50A or greater over the two 8 Pin power connectors. Realistically if you want to power one of these cards properly then a high grade 850W+ Gold or Platinum rated power supply should be in the system.

The chart above highlights that the R9 295 X2 is basically a single PCB comprising two R9 290X cores, with a combined 8GB of GDDR5 memory. It has a combined count of 5,632 stream processors, 352 texture units and 128 ROP’s.

‘Underpowered’ isn’t a word we would associate with the R9 295 X2.

We have already mentioned the Nvidia GTX Titan Z graphics card. This $3,000 monster is powered by two Nvidia GK110 graphics processors in their maximum configuration with 2880 stream processors – giving the solution 5760 compute units in total to offer whopping 8TFLOPS of single-precision compute performance. The board is equipped with 12GB of GDDR5 memory (6GB per GPU).

We don’t have an Nvidia Titan Z yet but we wanted to replicate the solution as best as possible. Today therefore are using two Nvidia GTX Titan Black cards, and will be comparing them to the R9 295 X2 in an SLi configuration.

KitGuru was one of the first technology publications to start featuring an Ultra HD 4K screen in high end video card tests last year. We have been using the wallet busting Asus PQ321QE. As the price of other 4K monitors are now finally dropping to around £700, Ultra HD 4K is going to be the future of enthusiast gaming.

We also supplement our review today with 1080p and 1600p results, because every time we omit these we end up with hundreds of complaints in our inbox. It is worth pointing out that at 1080p there is likely to be some CPU limiting today, but we try and maximise the image quality settings as much as they will allow us.

Antec’s high end power supplies have earned a good reputation over the years and today we look at the latest addition to their High Current Pro Platinum range – a powerful 1,300 watt rated model. High capacity power supplies are currently selling out everywhere, due to the expanding user base who use their system for mining. The Pro Platinum 1300W is a pure modular design and Antec are claiming a 94 percent efficiency.

Hard core miners are going to love the Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1300W. Not only does it have four powerful +12V rails, but you can use the OC Link feature to connect two HCP Platinum power supplies to operate in tandem. If you need 2,600W with 217A of power, then look no further!

Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1300W features:

• 1300W Continuous Power – Guaranteed 1300W of Continuous Power from Antec
• 80 PLUS® PLATINUM certified – Up to 94% efficient, to reduce your electricity bill
• Save Energy and Money – Reduce your electricity bill by up to 25%
• AQ7 – Antec Quality 7 year warranty and lifetime global 24/7 support
• 16-pin Socket – Industry-leading 16-pin sockets double the modular connectivity by supporting 2 different 8-pin cables per socket and allow for future connector changes
• 28(20+8)-pin MBU socket – World’s first socket for possible future MBU connectors
• 135 mm DBB Silence – Whisper-quiet high-quality double ball bearing fan with long lifetime
• Thermal Manager – An advanced low voltage fan control for optimal heat & noise management
• High Current Rails – 4 High Current +12V rails with high load capabilities ensure maximum CPU & GPU compatibility
• 100% +12V – Output for maximum CPU & GPU support
• Multi PCI-E – 10 PCI-E connectors for multiple GPU support
• OC Link™ – Allows 2 HCP Platinums to work in tandem to power the most demanding systems
• CircuitShield™ – Full suite of industrial grade protections: Over Current Protection (OCP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Under Voltage Protection (UVP), Short Circuit Protection (SCP), Over Power Protection (OPP), Over Temperature Protection (OTP), Surge & Inrush Protection (SIP), No Load Operation (NLO) & Brown-Out Protection (BOP)
• All Japanese Heavy-Duty Caps – All high-performance Japanese capacitors ensure tightest DC stability and regulation
• PhaseWave™ Design – A server-class full-bridge LLC design with a synchronous rectification based on a DC-DC topology
• Stealth Wires – All wires darkened for minimal visibility in chassis

There is no doubt that AMD gamers have been spoilt for choice this year when shopping for a new graphics card. Sapphire have been at the forefront of the new GPU revolution, thanks in no small part to their remarkable, class leading Tri-X cooling system.

Over the last week, I have been testing the new Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X and Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290. Both of these cards ship with hefty metal coolers, triple fan coolers and a ton of tasty, under the surface tweaks. Both cards are clocked higher than the reference AMD designs.

The Sapphire Vapor X R9 280X is a pure two slot solution and as shown in the image above the Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X is slightly fatter. It isn’t quite 2.5 slots thick, but it is close. Both cards ship with 4GB of fast GDDR5 memory and use the highest grade components throughout the design, especially in the power control circuitry.

The Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X ships with a core clock speed of 1,100mhz and the GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,500 mhz (6Gbps effective), connected via a 384 bit memory interface. The R9 280X has 32 ROP’s, 128 Texture units and 2,048 unified shaders.

The Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X ships with a core clock speed of 1,030mhz and the GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,400mhz (5.6Gbps effective), connected by a 512 bit memory interface. The R9 290 has 64 ROPS, 160 texture units and 2,560 unified shaders.

While overclocked Core i7 systems with dual GTX Titan Black graphics cards are the wet dream of any enthusiast user, most of us have to make do with a more modest configuration. If you are working with a limited budget of £500 then today’s review system will certainly be interesting. The FiercePC Hazer Mini Gaming PC is no slouch because it features the Kitguru award winning Nvidia GTX 750 Ti graphics card. DX11 1080p gaming at high image quality settings is a distinct possibility.

Hazer Mini Gaming PC – page listing here.

Standard Configuration:

• Bitfenix Colossus M Micro ATX Case – Black
• Corsair VS450 450W Power Supply
• Gigabyte GA-H81M-S2PV Motherboard
• Intel Core i3 4130 3.4GHz Dual Core Processor
• Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2GB Graphics Card
• Onboard 7.1 Surround Sound Audio
• 24x DVD Re-Writer
• Kingston SSDNow V300 60GB SATA3 6Gbs Solid State Drive
• 1TB SATA3 6Gbs Hard Drive
• Kingston HyperX 8GB 1600MHz Memory
• Standard 2 Year Warranty

RRP: £629.95 - £509.95.

KitGuru review a range of gaming systems every month, from penny pinching £500 builds to wallet sapping £3,000 beasts. Today we take a look at one of the latest high end systems from etailer OverclockersUK. This £4,000 monster features a watercooled, overclocked Core i7 4770k, an Asus Z87 Extreme motherboard, 16GB of fast DDR3 memory and not one, but two AMD R9 295X2 graphics cards running in Quad Crossfire. If you are in the market for a new Ultra HD 4K monitor is this the gaming system you should be shortlisting?

£4,000? Say what? Well much of the price of the “Infinity Vesuvius” system is related to the cost of the lightning quick R9 295X2 graphics cards. If you read our launch review of the R9 295X2 then you will already know just how powerful they are. Do you really need two of them when gaming at 4K? Today we aim to find out.

OverclockersUK “Infinity Vesuvius” Specifications.

• Case: Corsair Obsidian 750D Tower Case
• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K Haswell (Socket 1150) Quad Core, Eight Thread Processor Overclocked to at least 4.6GHz
• Motherboard: Asus Z87 Maximus VI Extreme (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2x8GB) at 2200MHz Dual Channel Kit
• Graphics: 2 x AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8192MB Graphics Cards in Quad Crossfire
• Cooling: Corsair H105 Closed Loop Water Cooler
• Primary Drive: Samsung 840 Evo Series 250GB Solid State Drive (Options Available)
• Secondary Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB SATA-III Hard Drive (Options Available)
• Tertiary Hard Drive: Optional
• Optical Drive: Optional
• Audio: 7.1 Channel HD Audio with SPDIF I/O
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit (Options Available)
• Power Supply: Silverstone Strider “80+ Silver” 1500W Power Supply

Without question, no one in their right mind would be buying this system to play games on a 1080p monitor. As we have said many times before, a R9 280X or single R9 290 is more than enough for playing the latest Direct X 11 titles at 1920×1080.

Pondering the “Infinity Vesuvius” for 1080p gaming is akin to buying a Ferrari to get to the local supermarket for a pint of milk.

If you want to own a system with two R9 295X2′s, then you need to get a new Ultra HD 4K monitor because even gaming at 2560×1600 will suffer from CPU limiting in specific titles. For our review today, we are using an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution. We would like to thank ASUS for their support in getting this monitor last year – KitGuru was one of the first publications to use an Ultra HD 4K monitor in high end graphics card reviews. With 4K panel price drops already hitting hard in 2014, it was nice to be at least 6 months ahead of the curve.

Make no mistake 4K gaming is the future.

It has been three years since we looked at the OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB – at the time it was the fastest SSD that the desktop audience could buy. As it connected via the PCI Express interface it wasn’t a victim of the SATA bottleneck, which is still a problem in 2014. Today we look at the latest RevoDrive 350, developed and released by Toshiba owned OCZ to deliver performance levels well in excess of anything possible from the SATA 3 interface.

OCZ have based the RevoDrive 350 on their enterprise level Z-Drive 4500 – a performance leader popular in the professional sector. The new drive also incorporates Toshiba NAND memory, an obvious move since OCZ were acquired by Toshiba a short while ago.

OCZ are releasing the RevoDrive 350 in three different storage capacities: a 240GB unit, a 480GB unit and a 960GB unit. UK pricing has yet to be confirmed however American prices are set at $530, $830 and $1,300 respectively. Using a currency converter today, the $830 RRP for the 240GB version comes in at £495. Adding 20% UK VAT to this price, brings it up to around £594. We can expect the drive to cost around £599.99 inc vat when it hits the United Kingdom. Paying a premium for technology is one of the great ‘benefits’ of living in the United Kingdom.

OCZ list the specifications of the 480GB and 960GB units as very closely matched, hitting peaks of 1,800MB/s read and 1,700 MB/s write. IOPS performance is also closely matched with random write IOPS performance rated at 140,000. That said, the 960GB unit has a higher rated 4K QD32 rated random read rating of 135,000 (versus 90,000). The smaller 240GB unit is significantly slower than either the 480GB or 960GB drive, hitting a maximum read speed of 1000MB/s and maximum write speed of 950 MB/s. Still, hardly slow.

The reason for the speed differences are due to the fact that the 240GB version only has two LSI Sandforce 2282 controllers, not four.

Have you just built a mining rig featuring four high end graphics cards or are you currently configuring a system incorporating dual AMD R9 295X2 graphics cards? Regular KitGuru readers will have seen our recent review of the Overclockers UK Infinity Vesuvius system – which could demand almost 1,200 watts at the socket. If you are building a similar system, then a 1,500 Watt power supply would be a wise investment.

Corsair say that the AX1500i Digital ATX power supply can deliver up to 125 Amps on the +12V rail with an ambient temperature of 50c. The Corsair AX1500i Digital ATX is the only power supply that KitGuru has tested which has achieved 80 Plus Titanium Certification. To achieve such a high certification, the power supply has to operate with a minimum of 90% efficiency between 10% and 100% load, and with 94%+ efficiency at 50% load.

The AX1500i incorporates second generation digital architecture so it can deliver up to 1500 watts of power. This should enable the power supply to produce very tightly controlled voltage regulation over the full range of loads.

The Corsair AX1500i features Corsair Link support – enabling the customer to real time monitor efficiency and power usage. The user can also control protection and fan speed profiles direct from the desktop. You simply connect the power supply to a USB header on the motherboard to avail of the additional options.

Corsair are also trying to ensure that noise pollution is kept to an absolute minimum. The power supply will not spin the fan at low to moderate loads. We will test this later, but Corsair claim loads up to 30% should not force the fan to spin at all. A quick check in my head measures this at around 450 watts – which if correct, is certainly impressive.

Key benefits:

• Digitally-controlled power
  State-of-the-art DSP-based power control technology providing outstanding DC voltage regulation, reliability and stability.
• 80 PLUS® Titanium Efficiency
  Full DSP-control results in energy-efficiency over 94%, resulting in lower energy bills, and less heat and noise.
• Ultra Low Noise Design
  Thanks to its high efficiency and low heat output the AX1500i is able to operate in a silent, Zero-RPM Fan Mode up to 30% of the rated wattage (450W), allowing for the possibility of silent gaming. The fan speed ramps slowly above 30% load, so even fully-loaded PCs can be powered quietly.
• Low Ripple and Noise: up to 3x better than the ATX Spec
  Low ripple and noise equals high-quality power, allowing your performance-critical components, such as high-end graphics cards, to operate reliably for longer.
• 125 Amp Single +12V Rail
  The AX1500i features a massive 125 Amp +12V rail, making it the idea PSU for ultra-high end SLI and Crossfire gaming PCs based around multi-core CPUs.
• Corsair LINK interface
  Thanks to the DSP-based design, the AX1500i can be accessed using the Corsair Link interface. This server-inspired diagnostic tool can record and monitor real-time efficiency, power usage, and adjust fan profiles. Uniquely, the AX1500i can also be configured as a multi-rail device with individual PCIe over-current protection (OCP) trip points.
• Self Test Switch
  The self test switch on the PSU confirms that all the DC output voltage rails are functioning correctly, and the fan is functional, providing a simple method of checking that the power supply is functioning correctly.
• Fully Modular Cable System
  The fully modular cable system provides total flexibility when building or upgrading your PC, since you use only the cables that you need. This reduced cable clutter also improves case airflow and cooling, and makes it much easier to build your high-end system and route cables.
• Reliable
  As with all AX PSUs, the AX1500i is built with premium components, such as high-temperature, 105°C Japanese capacitors, and is capable of continuous power delivery at a temperature rating of 50°C, ensuring maximum performance and reliability even in the most hot-running performance PCs.
• Protected
  The AX1500i features a comprehensive array of protection and safety features. This includes Over-Voltage Protection (OVP), and Over-Current Protection (OCP) on the 12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails, Over-Temperature Protection (OTP), and Short-Circuit Protection (SCP).
• The Corsair Advantage
  Corsair AXi Series PSUs are backed by a reassuring 7-year warranty and comprehensive customer support via telephone, email, forum and the Tech Support Express helpdesk.

At the beginning of April we reviewed the incredible Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1300 W. This power supply ranked as one of the best we had ever reviewed, and today we look at the more cost effective 850W model. Can the HCP 850W power supply cement Antec’s standing in the high end power supply sector?

Like its bigger brother, the 850W model is fully modular, has 80 Plus Platinum efficiency, incorporates only high grade Japanese components inside and uses a large 135mm fan for cooling.

Antec High Current Pro Platinum 850W PSU Overview:

• Platinum Efficiency – up to 94% efficient for reduced energy bills
• AQ7 – Full seven year warranty for peace of mind
• Components – All Japanese heavy duty components
• Cool and Quiet – A 135mm fan with voltage control for quiet and cool computing
• Stealth Wires – All cables are darkened for the ultimate in design aesthetics

I recently had some time to sit down with AMD’s Sasa Marinkovic -the Head of Technology Marketing, in the Client Business Unit. I have always enjoyed chatting with Sasa, he is a very intelligent, focused executive with a clear strategy for the future.

So much is happening simultaneously in the realm of personal computing that simply staying abreast of the popular labels for the latest technology trends can be just as challenging as understanding the concepts and grasping the implications.

We asked Sasa to give a quick overview of some of the major technology trends that are shaping the computing world. Here are Sasa’s top eight computing trends, ordered without regard to relative importance:

1. Cloud Computing
One of the most popular— and overused — computing terms over the past decade is “cloud computing.” Like having a “mainframe in the sky,” cloud computing has profoundly empowered users by harnessing the massive processing power of thousands of servers for their individual computing needs.

Users can now run an application, store data, or perform almost any computing task in the cloud instead of using the limited resources of their personal computer — and they can do it from anywhere in the world. Users new to the concept of cloud computing were a bit hesitant to embrace it a few years ago, but today’s cloud computing has become part of the fabric of everyday computing, and the strong foundation for the next generation of computing itself.

2. Connected Computing
Connected computing considers any object operated using a power source — even something as simple as a lightbulb — as being “connected” to the Internet of Things (IoT).

The massive amounts of data generated by billions of connected devices will make today’s “Big Data” seem small in comparison, and will be far beyond human capabilities to monitor, analyze, and control. Advances and innovations in compute performance and machine-to-machine communications will eliminate the need for humans acting as the primary creators and “routers” of information.

3. Contributing Computing
Contributing computing collectively harnesses the “contributed” compute processing power of hundreds of thousands of computer servers, or millions of connected IoT computing devices. Imagine the immense processing power if every connected desktop PC, notebook, tablet, and smartphone could share their processing capabilities.

There are already a number of applications already doing this, including Folding at Home, digital currency mining, and several others. The next-generation “Internet of Things” assumes that all connected compute devices will ultimately share data and contribute processing power — a key element of tomorrow’s supercomputing.

4. Supercomputing
Harnessing as many standalone processors together to process massive amounts of data generated by billions of connected devices may prove to be the fastest way to generate unprecedented levels of “supercomputing” processing capacity.

Vastly more powerful supercomputers are badly needed for modeling and predicting climate changes, supporting medical modeling for personalized medicine, creating new drugs in response to rapidly spreading viruses, improving efficiency in aerodynamics and industrial design, developing controlled fusion, exploring new forms of clean energy, and more.
 
5. Visual Computing
The low-resolution VGA computer monitors of two decades ago have quickly evolved into high-resolution 4K displays, with pixel densities more than doubling by packing ever-greater resolutions into ever-smaller displays. Pushing more on-screen pixels at higher frame rates requires vastly more powerful graphics processing units (GPUs).

The GPUs of a decade ago delivered about 100 GFLOPs of processing performance, but the processing performance today’s GPUs has increased exponentially (now measured in teraFLOPS) in order to maintain visual quality and smooth video playback. The role of graphics and parallel processing becomes even more important when discussing the “visual computing” applications and user experiences delivered by high-definition displays and video, gaming and videochat, and next-generation user interfaces involving virtual and augmented reality.

6. Heterogeneous Computing
A perfect example of the new breed of heterogeneous processor is an APU — an advanced processing unit combining the serial-processing capabilities of a traditional CPU with the parallel-processing capabilities of advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) on a single chip.

Working in harmony, the heterogeneous elements of an APU deliver massive compute capability to everyday computing tasks. Today’s APUs boost processing performance beyond 750 GFLOPs — a benchmark approaching supercomputing territory.
 
7. Secure Computing
The fact that computer security threats like the recent Heartbleed virus are now sporting their own custom graphic logo in news reports is a subtle indicator of today’s top-of-mind public awareness regarding computing security and safety. Building security directly into the silicon is a simple and cost-effective approach. Security technologies enabling safer online transactions and mobile payments will built into SoC products.
 
8. Ambidextrous Computing
The vast majority of notebooks, desktops, and servers available today run on x86 processor architecture. Similarly, most of today’s tablets and smartphone are running on ARM processor architectures. Both architectures have introduced innovations that create new possibilities for the technology industry.

But imagine a computing world where x86 and ARM ecosystems work together in heterogeneous computing harmony. All the technology trends mentioned above absolutely depend on a new level of close cooperation and collaboration between today’s leading hardware ecosystems. The good news: it’s already happening.

Sasa added “These major trends are driving a new era of computing, and are profoundly influencing how devices operate and cooperate, and how we control and interact with them. The Internet of Things is driving the creation of Big Data, anticipatory analytics, and deep learning.

Sleek new form factors are driving ultra-portability, and new user interfaces are moving us into the immersive world of virtual and augmented reality.

With game-changing new technologies including HSA, Mantle, GCN, PSP (platform security processor) and TrueAudio, I believe AMD is helping to lead the industry into this next era of computing — and deliver amazing and empowering new user experiences to our customers.”

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I would like to thank Sasa for taking the time to chat with us this week – Allan Campbell, Editor In Chief, Kitguru.