General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Build It: Mini Dream Machine

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 03:16 PM PST

Not everyone can afford to build their very own Dream Machine, so we also created a scaled-down version that's half the size, but still packs one hell of a punch

Note: This article was originally featured in the September 2013 issue of the magazine

A while back, we made the decision to use Corsair's towering 900D case for this year's Dream Machine, and we knew we wanted to complement it with a Build It article. When the 900D's little bro, the Corsair 350D, arrived in our offices a few weeks later, a plan started to form. About the same time as the case arrived, we also received Nvidia's GeForce GTX 700-series cards. With those, plus a Haswell CPU already in the Lab, the plan became fully realized: We'd just make a smaller version of the Dream Machine. The 350D wouldn't take a full-size motherboard, but we could still pack it with full-size badassery like dual Nvidia GTX 780 cards, an unlocked Intel Core i7 CPU, a primo mATX motherboard (they do exist), a jumbo radiator, and other tasty accoutrements. Our goal was to build a rig that can game to the hilt just like the Dream Machine—only scaled back so it's easier to assemble and a lot easier on your credit line.

 

Not the Size of the Boat

You're not hallucinating. We really did get a custom beige paint job for the 350D that mirrors the 900D used in our Dream Machine. It's not just some plastic shroud either, but very high-quality automotive-grade work, courtesy of Smooth Creations. The caliber of the work doesn't show up that well in these photos, but trust us, it's impressive in the flesh. Possibly even more impressive is the fact that even though it's a microATX tower, the case has a combination of features that we're used to seeing in much larger cases, like space for a 280mm radiator, removable drive cages, a 14cm intake fan, rubber grommets for cable routing, and a dust filter under the power-supply mount.

On the mobo side of things, we needed one that was just like our case—smaller than normal but able to hold a ton of hardware, so we called in Gigabyte's G1.Sniper M5. It's a microATX board, but able to handle three GPUs, liquid cooling, and plenty of storage. Since the Dream Machine is rocking GTX Titans, its bambino got the next-best thing: a pair of EVGA GTX 780 GPUs with the non-reference "ACX" coolers. We finished it off by strapping a massive 280mm NZXT Kraken X60 water cooler to the Core i7-4770K to see how much we could overclock it. Powering the whole shebang is an 800W Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold, to which we've also hooked up a 512GB OCZ Vector solid-state drive, a 2TB WD Caviar Black, and two Noctua case fans. For RAM, we went to Mushkin for a pair of 8GB "Ridgeback" sticks that are rated for 2,133MHz.

INGREDIENTS
PART Price
Case Corsair Obsidian 350D

$100
PSU Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800W $160 (street)
Mobo Gigabyte G1.Sniper M5 $210 (street)
CPU Intel Core i7-4770K $335
Cooler NZXT Kraken X60 $110 (street)
GPU 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB
w/ACX		 $1,320
RAM 2x 8GB Mushkin Ridgeback 2,133Mhz $150 (street)
SSD 512GB OCZ Vector $550 (street)
Hard Drive 2TB WD Caviar Black $135
OS Windows 8 64-bit $100
Total   $3,185

1. The Seven Seas

We recently snagged an Intel Core i5-4670K Haswell CPU, but this "mini Dream" rig called for the upgraded Core i7-4770K, which has Hyper-Threading (HT), a larger L3 cache, and slightly higher clock speeds. Games don't make much use of HT, but it's handy for encoding HD video, streaming live video from your PC, or running virtual machines. Haswell uses the new LGA1150 motherboard socket, which is incompatible with the LGA1155 CPUs used in the previous generation, but the insertion holes in the motherboard are exactly the same, so older CPU coolers will bolt right on with no problems. The Kraken X60's support ring didn't line up totally square on our motherboard, so the slightly rotated look is normal.

Click the next page to read more about how we assembled the mini Dream Machine!

2. The Engine Room

When writing down our wish list for this project's mobo, we scrawled the following: a Z87 chipset, microATX form factor, full SLI support with 8x PCIe lanes for each slot, and respectable overclocking. That made our list pretty short, and right at the top was the Gigabyte G1.Sniper M5. The Sniper series has been around for several years, and the "M" in the name designates the microATX version, since there's an ATX version, too. The Sniper series in general has built a reputation for stability, features, and high performance, and is one of the most popular boards for overclockers who like to build small, tidy rigs.

Despite its smaller dimensions, the M5 doesn't lose much in the way of features, as it still offers Creative Labs sound with isolated circuitry to reduce background noise, a headphone amp, three PCI Express slots for two-way SLI and CrossFire, power and reset buttons on the board itself (pictured), fat heatsinks, six SATA 6Gb/s ports, eight-phase voltage regulator modules, five fan headers, and four digital display outputs.

3. Stowing Away

Since our goal is maximum horsepower, we wanted a kick-ass SSD, but one that didn't appear in the DM itself. So, we went with an OCZ Vector 512GB since it's blazing fast and regularly does battle with the Samsung 840 Pro. We also went with a WD Caviar Black 2TB drive for data storage since we like its speed and long warranty.

The 350D comes with one removable two-tray drive cage at the bottom, and a three-tray SSD cage tucked underneath the 5.25-inch bays. The SSD cage is tool-free—you just slide the SSD in from behind, and it clicks into place (pictured). The area between the drive cages is empty to leave room for extra-long GPUs.

4. Double Hulls

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 is a junior version of the GTX Titan; it has two fewer SMX units, no double-precision compute, and 3GB of VRAM instead of 6GB. However, the EVGA version uses a dual-fan design instead of the stock cooler's single fan, which offers slightly better performance. Since this is a Mini Dream Machine, we put two of these cards in the system, and with a good overclock, they should get damn close to Titan-level performance.

The G1 Sniper motherboard has three PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, and it doesn't seem to care which ones you use for SLI. We went with the first slot and the third slot to provide some breathing room for the first card's intakes. The 350D's bottom drive cage is short enough to provide room for a two-slot video card in the motherboard's third PCIe slot. Finally, we added a blue SLI bridge to give the interior a little color.

Click the next page to see how it scored in our benchmarks and more!

 

 

5. An Olympic GPU

The Corsair 900D is a little over 27 inches high, a bit more than 25 inches long, and about 10 inches wide. The 350D is about 17 inches high, 17 inches long, and 8 inches wide, roughly one-third smaller overall. Despite the shrinkage, it will fit a 280mm radiator at the top, so we installed a Kraken X60. We also replaced the stock Corsair AF120L fans because we had two beige Noctua fans that mirrored the aesthetic of our custom paint job, and the Noctuas move a lot of air silently. We also added a chrome grill to the rear fan, to reinforce the retro look.

Because of its smaller dimensions and reduced weight, the 350D was easy to lift and rotate during the build. You do that a lot when routing cables around a case. Unfortunately, the motherboard tray's cable grommets are surprisingly narrow, making it a tight squeeze for the 24-pin power supply cable, but we got it to fit just barely. The radiator also blocked the grommets above the motherboard tray, which hampered our cable-routing efforts somewhat, making the interior wiring a bit more messy than we would have liked it to be.

6. Naval Power

We had to install the 280mm radiator with the tubes coming through the 5.25-inch drive cage, because going the other direction would not have left enough room to keep the rear fan, and we needed it to move some air around the CPU socket. We removed the rubber grommets that came pre-installed in the radiator's screw holes on the top of the case, because they made the X60's installation screws too short. Also, four of the eight mounting holes on top of the case allow for both 15mm and 20mm fan spacing for large radiators. We installed the fans between the radiator and the exterior of the case, in an exhaust/pull orientation. That's what NZXT recommends, and we've found that it works well in smaller cases.

We went with an 800-watt Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold in this build because it's a high-caliber unit that offers more than enough wattage and would let us overclock. We did have to install the 8-pin CPU power cable before the radiator, otherwise the hole above the motherboard would have been blocked. The PSU has a second 8-pin CPU power cable that we didn't need, and it was a little tricky to tuck it away in a microATX case.

Dream a Little Dream

This system showed us that we're finally getting to the point where we can build a machine that challenges our zero-point system without taking out a bank loan or causing blackouts in the vicinity of the office. This is in part thanks to steadily improved drivers from Nvidia, but also because the GTX 780 is a relatively affordable card given its performance. The dual-GPU GTX 690 in the zero-point is still the fastest single-GPU card available, but this system's dual GTX 780s were a lot faster in all of our tests. We didn't have any trouble staying around 60fps at 2560x1600 in benchmarks like Hitman: Absolution, the new Tomb Raider, and Heaven 4.0, even with all settings totally maxed out.

Also of interest this time around is that we saw Intel's new Haswell CPU architecture not only catch up to the Sandy Bridge-E used in the zero-point, but surpass it on occasion. However, the zero-point's Core i7-3930K is not overclocked, and we had cranked the Core i7-4770 up to 4.5GHz to get on the same playing field as a 12-core 3930K running at 3.2GHz. On the bright side, the Kraken X60 never got noticeably loud or hot, hitting just 70 C under full load at 4.5GHz.

As far as the build itself goes, we'll admit that the reduced amount of room in a microATX case introduced some challenges, especially since we were packing in a full ATX tower's worth of hardware. Despite the one-inch gap between the two GPUs, the lower card was just a couple millimeters above the power supply, which was not ideal for air intake. Power and SATA cables coming out of the SSD cage are difficult to tuck out of the way since they have literally nowhere to go, and a lot of real estate behind the mobo is taken up by the 24-pin power cable and two PCIe cables. We also had to connect the front panel, internal USB headers, and SATA cables to the motherboard before installing the lower video card, because the GTX 780 hid all of those connections.

But overall, we were pleased with the results. The 350D handled SLI and a 280mm radiator without too much trouble. If you build this system, we'd recommend a 240mm or even 120mm radiator though, just to give you room for cable routing and an optical drive if you're into that kind of thing. So yeah, it was a little tough, but this month we weren't going for the easy way out. We wanted dreamy performance.

Benchmarks

ZERO

POINT
Premiere Pro CS6 (sec) 2,000 2,280 (-12%)
 
Stitch.Efx 2.0 (sec) 831 763
 
ProShow Producer 5.0 (sec) 1,446 1,215
x264 HD 5.0 (fps) 21.1 19.6 (-12%)
Batman: Arkham City (fps) 76 138 
3DMark11 Extreme 5,847 9,568

The zero-point machine compared here consists of a 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K, 16GB of Corsair DDR3/1600 on an Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard. It has a GeForce GTX 690, a Corsair Neutron GTX SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

Note: This article originally appeared in the September issue of the magazine.

DARPA-Sponsored Website Lets Gamers Test Software

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 02:05 PM PST

VerigamesPlay online games to help improve software security

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recognizes the ubiquity of video games. The government agency's Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) program is an attempt to crowdsource formal verification—a form of testing that aims to ensure that software is bug-free and isn't vulnerable to attack or misuse—with purpose-built games. The DARPA-backed Verigames is a site created explicitly for formal verification games.

All of the games available on the site generate mathematical proofs used during the formal verification process. Potentially harmful code will be reported to software developers with "approved notification and mitigation procedures." To gamers, all of the titles should seem like ordinary online games. Graphics, story, and even leaderboards are a part of most of the games. Behind the scenes, automated processes generate new puzzles that correspond to the math problems the CSFV wants to review. 

Xylem

"We're seeing if we can take really hard math problems and map them onto interesting, attractive puzzle games that online players will solve for fun," said Drew Dean, DARPA program manager. "By leveraging players' intelligence and ingenuity on a broad scale, we hope to reduce security analysts' workloads and fundamentally improve the availability of formal verification."

Formal verification is usually a time intensive process that requires specially trained engineers who review code line-by-line for potential flaws. It's a necessity that isn't always practical. Using formal verification games to crowdsource the task means that the open source software can be rigorously tested at a far larger scale than is currently possible.

If you're 18 or over—government regulations require adult volunteers—head on over to Verigames and try your hand at some of the formal verification games. 

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Mionix Naos 7000 Gaming Mouse Uses Lift Calibration to Optimize Tracking

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 11:52 AM PST

Mionix Naos 7000 Gaming MouseThis advanced mouse waves a 32-bit ARM processor and 7000 DPI sensor

Mionix isn't a name you hear that all that often in the States, though I tend to perk up when they make an announcement. That's because I played with the company's Naos 8200 mouse a year ago and it quickly became my go-to rodent, at least until my puppy decided it would make a great chew toy. In any event, the Swedish manufacturer of gaming peripherals just another product, the Naos 7000 Gaming Mouse.

The Naos 7000 is ergonomically designed for right-handed gamers with a shape that's molded for a full palm grip with support for all five fingers. I haven't played with the Naos 7000, but if it's anything like the Naos 8200 -- and the shape looks similar from the pics -- then it's one comfy rodent.

Inside is a gaming grade optical sensor that tops out at 7000 DPI. To ensure quick responsiveness, it comes with a new lift off distance (LOD) calibration feature that when combined with Mionix's Surface Quality Analyzer Tool (S.Q.A.T.) will detect the lowest possible LOD with optimized tracking.

Other features consist of 7 programmable buttons, mechanical micro-switches, customizable LED lighting system, four layers of soft touch rubber coating for maximum grip, and a 32-bit ARM processor clocked at 32MHz to support all those fancy tracking features.

The Mionix Naos 7000 is available to pre-order today for $80; it will ship out later this month.

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MSI Details Mini ITX Gaming Motherboard and Graphics Card

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 09:46 AM PST

MSI ITX PartsFinding out what's in a picture

Just before the holiday weekend in November, MSI posted to its Facebook account a teaser shot showing off a pair of mini ITX gaming products. One was a graphics card and the other a motherboard, but beyond what you could make out in the picture, mum was the word from MSI at the time. Well, MSI is now ready to reveal the full monty. Those of you who guessed the graphics card was a mini ITX GeForce GTX 760, you're awarded 760 geek cred points.

The miniature gaming card is 30 percent shorter than reference. MSI said the challenge it faced with such a short card was to provide "great and silent cooling." The company found its solution in its new RADAX fan, which is a hybrid radial/axial fan that's supposed to combine the best of both worlds while reducing temps by as much as 30 percent.

As for the Z87I motherboard, it features five SATA 6Gbps ports, a single eSATA 6Gbps port, DisplayPort, HDMI, DL-DVI-I, a single PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, half a dozen USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, 8-channel audio, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, Intel WiDi, and Killer E2205 GbE LAN.

No word yet on when these parts will be available to purchase or for how much.

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NAND Flash Makers Reducing Production to Prevent Further Price Drops

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 08:52 AM PST

NAND Flash memoryOversupply of NAND flash memory has pushed prices down

It's tough to get a pulse on the NAND flash memory market. On one hand, you have OCZ selling off all of its assets to Toshiba and filing for bankruptcy in part because a shortage of NAND chips put the company in a tough spot. Days later, we're finding out that NAND flash chip suppliers are stuck with an oversupply of parts and plan to cut production to try and stabilize prices.

According to Digitimes, the oversupply situation is worse than suppliers expected and its causing chip prices to fall. The cost has been cut "irrationally" since the end of November, sources told the news and rumor site. As a result, prices for microSD memory cards notched double-digit declines in a single month.

Strong demand for smartphones nad tablets helped NAND flash memory prices stay high during the first half of the year, but since then, sales have declined. On top of that, there's speculation in the memory industry that Apple slashed its orders for NAND flash from its Japan-based supplier, which only exacerbated the issue.

In any event, if you spot a good deal on a NAND flash memory based product, you may want to pull the trigger.

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Finally, USB 3.1 Will Feature Reversible Connectors

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 08:19 AM PST

USBThinner, sleeker, and always right-side up

Statistics are crap when it comes to plugging in a USB peripheral. What we mean by that is, statistically speaking, you have a 50 percent chance of choosing the correct orientation as you fumble around the back of your desktop or try to plug in a USB flash drive into your notebook in the dark. Why then, does it always seem like it takes two tries to get it right? Such an annoyance will be a thing of the past when USB 3.1 arrives with USB Type-C connectors.

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced (PDF) that it was adding the Type-C connector and cable solution to the official specification. Similar to Apple's Lightning connector, the Type-C connector on USB 3.1 devices will fit either way, making it far easier to plug in.

It will also be smaller, measuring about the size of existing UBB 2.0 Micro-B connectors. By shrinking the connector, the USB 3.0 Promoter Group says it will lead to thinner and sleeker product designs.

"Intel is excited to see the development of the new thin Type-C connector as it will enable an entirely new super thin class of devices from phones to tablets, to 2-in-1s, to laptops to desktops and a multitude of other more specific usage devices," said Alex Peleg, Vice President, Platform Engineering Group. "This new industry standards-based thin connector delivering data, power and video is the only connector one will need across all devices."

The Type-C specification is due out the middle of 2014.

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AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.5 Resolves Flickering Issue, Brings Back Overdrive

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 07:37 AM PST

Radeon HD 7970Latest beta stomps out more bugs

AMD has released yet another beta version of its Catalyst 13.11 driver for Windows, the latest of which is mostly intended to fix unwanted behavior such as intermittent flickering seen on some Radeon R9 270X graphics cards. Catalyst 13.11 beta 9.5 also includes all the performance enhancements and bug fixes of every release that came before it, including up to 35 percent better performance in Batman: Arkham Origins with MSAA 8x enabled (introduced in beta 6).

The Sunnyvale chip designer didn't focus a whole lot on bumping framerates with this latest release, though the Release Notes do indicate improved frame pacing in quad CrossFireX configurations for Hitman: Absolution and Total War: Rome 2. Otherwise, here are the highlights:

  • Resolves the issue of AMD Overdrive missing in the AMD Catalyst Control Center for Radeon R9 290 Series graphics cards
  • Resolves graphics corruption seen in Starcraft

In other words, it's a minor bump, albeit one that some users will find useful. If you think you can benefit from anything being offered in this release, you can download the driver direct from AMD.

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Newegg Daily Deals: G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3-1600, Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H Mobo, and More!

Posted: 04 Dec 2013 06:04 AM PST

G.Skill Ripjawsnewegg logo

Top Deal:

If you're new to the DIY PC scene, congratulations, you got to skip right over the era of expensive parts. Need an example? In 2006, the going rate for 1GB kit (2x512MB) of performance DDR2-1066 RAM was around $250. Egads, right? This hobby is much more accessible now, as evidenced by today's top deal for an 8GB kit (2x4GB) of G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 for $50 with free shipping (normally $75). At that rate, you might as well pick up two kits. These modules come timed at 9-9-9-24 and sport custom heatspreaders.

Other Deals:

Intel Pentium G3220 Haswell 3.0GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646G3220 for $60 with free shipping (normally $70; use coupon code: [EMCWVXT23])

AMD A10 6790K 4.0GHz Socket FM2 100W Desktop Processor AD679KWOHLBOX for $110 with free shipping (normally $130; use coupon code: [EMCWVXT22])

XFX Core Edition FX-785A-ZNL4 Radeon HD 7850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card for $120 with free shipping (normally $170; additional $30 Mail-in rebate)

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard for $160 with free shipping (normally $190; use coupon code: [EMCWVXT24])
Posted by Shri Krishna

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