General Gaming Article

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• Newegg Daily Deals: PNY XLR8 16GB DDR3-1866, LG 27-inch LCD, and More!
• Computex 2015 Day 2: Be Quiet Speaks Up About Cases and Cooling [Video]
• Computex 2015 Day 2: Keeping It Real with Rosewill [Video]
• Best Kodi (XBMC) Add-ons
• Computex 2015 Day 2: Taking a Closer Look at Corsair's Bulldog PC and More [Video]
• Maximum PC Buying Guides
• Computex 2015 Day 2: Seagate Sheds Light on Complexity of Rating SSD Performance [Video]
• Computex 2015 Day 2: Patriot Talks DDR4 RAM, Gaming Peripherals, and SSDs [Video]
• Microsoft Xbox Joins the PC Gaming Show
• AMD Officially Unveils Its Carrizo APU

Newegg Daily Deals: PNY XLR8 16GB DDR3-1866, LG 27-inch LCD, and More! Posted: 03 Jun 2015 12:22 PM PDT Top Deal: Maybe a 128GB kit of DDR4 memory isn't in the cards (or your budget). Hey, that's okay. With new Broadwell-H chips having just been announced along with plenty of existing CPU options out there, building a system with DDR3 RAM is far from egregious. Need a nudge? Then check out today's top deal for a 16GB kit of PNY XLR8 DDR3-1866 RAM for $90 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: [EMCATAN35]). This kit is timed at 10-11-11-28 and sports a pretty sleek look. Other Deals: LG 27MP33HQ Black 27-inch 5ms HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor for $170 with $1 shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCATAN43]) Acer G7 Series G247HL Black 24-inch LCD Monitor for $120 with $1 shipping (normally $140 - use coupon code: [EMCATAN42]) Mushkin Enhanced Atom 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $8 with $1 shipping (normally $9 - use coupon code: [EMCATAN53]) Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Red Portable External Hard Drive for $80 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [EMCATAN49])

Computex 2015 Day 2: Be Quiet Speaks Up About Cases and Cooling [Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2015 12:03 PM PDT Gear aimed at quiet computing Be Quiet isn't one of the bigger brands in the U.S., though if you've ever attempted to build a silent or low noise PC, you might have come across the company's products. Formed 15 years ago, Be Quiet answered the call in Germany for quiet gear, and that's been a focus ever since. While visiting with Be Quiet, we saw the company's upcoming Silent Base 600 case, a smaller and less expensive version of the Silent Base 800 that was introduced about a year and a half ago. It will have two side panel options -- one with a side fan and one with an extra thick window to help reduce noise. Look for the Silent Base 600 to be available in about three months for $99. Be Quiet also showed us a new fan design that it sort of stumbled upon while playing around. After discovering that it offers more air pressure than its previous design, Be Quiet decided to run with the product as the Silent Wing 3. Over time, Be Quiet will incorporate the new fan design into its other products, like cases and power supplies.

Computex 2015 Day 2: Keeping It Real with Rosewill [Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2015 11:41 AM PDT Cases and keyboards and headsets, oh my! Rosewill has been Newegg's house brand for over a decade now, though for the past couple of years, the company's been focusing on making a name for itself as a budget friendly manufacturer of gaming products. Sometimes that strategy can equate to boring products, though Rosewill has some interesting gear on tap for 2015. The company has a new line of gaming headsets it plans to release later this year. They're called the Mark Series and will consist of high (Mark 54), mid (Mark 48), and low (Mid 44) level tier options. The high end Mark 54 will sport 3D surround sound with two drivers in each earcup. On the power supply front, Rosewill has upgraded its gaming line of PSUs and is getting ready to release the Tokamak series, its first line of 80 Plus Titanium PSU. They'll range between 1200W to 1500W and will be fully modular. We also took at a look at several cases, including the Gungnir, which is meant to resemble the weapon Thor's father used.

Best Kodi (XBMC) Add-ons Posted: 03 Jun 2015 11:00 AM PDT The name may be different, but the add-on support is still the same XBMC has a new name: Kodi. The official change happened last fall, but it's more of an attempt to get away from XBMC's former name-Xbox Media Center-than a reinvention of what's undoubtedly one of the most beloved open-source media players. To celebrate the final release of Kodi 14.2 Helix, we've scoured the official add-on repository to bring you a list of the best Kodi add-ons. As a bit of a disclaimer: Be careful with any apps that ask you to sign into your various media-YouTube, Twitch, etc.-accounts directly. Most of the add-ons we've listed below let you authenticate your account through established methods, but some only accept a username and password. Add-ons aren't guaranteed by Kodi-even if they're on the official Kodi repository-so be wary of anything that looks at all questionable. YouTube There's no easier way to kick back on your couch and watch the No BS podcast. We'd be remiss if we didn't kick off our list with an add-on that connects Kodi to YouTube and bromix's YouTube add-on does just that, and it's available in Kodi's main add-on repository. It's not the easiest way to find and browse videos, but the add-on does give you couch-side access to all of your subscriptions, playlists, and the usual-Popular Right Now, Live, etc.-YouTube categories. TwitchTV Sometimes a Let's Play and a cold drink is all you need to relax on a Saturday night. Another one of our favorite video add-ons is StateOfTheArt and ccaspers' TwitchTV add-on, which, much like the YouTube app, lets you watch Twitch streams from the comfort of your couch. It's a surprisingly usable way of watching streams and seemed to run perfectly fine on our test setup. Look no further if you're a gamer, eSports fan, or just someone who likes to kill time watching other people play games. Dbmc (Dropbox) Get access to all of your Dropbox media files. Dropbox users rejoice! Thanks to the work of Joost Kop, all of the media files you upload to Dropbox are accessible through the Dbmc (Dropbox add-on). Start up the app and you'll have instant access to your Dropbox folder with all of the music, photos, and videos contained within. This is a great way to get access to your networked content for family get-togethers, parties, or any event where you're trying to share content. SoundCloud The SoundCloud add-on even incorporates a visualizer. SoundCloud isn't our first destination for music, but the Kodi add-on by bromix is one of our favorite add-ons because it's so perfectly suited for Kodi. The app is supremely usable and features a visualizer that incorporates the SoundCloud logo for something to look at while listening to indie jams and remixes. Pandora Aside from the gaudy gloss, it's a functional Pandora client. There's really not all that much to say about the Pandora add-on by rivy. If anything, access to Pandora just makes us wish that there was a Spotify client that worked for us. Then again, Pandora is one of the most popular music-streaming solutions and for good reason: It works. The app gives you quick access to all of your stations, the thumb up and thumb down function, as well as the usual playback controls. The UI is a bit dated, but it displays the album artwork along with all the pertinent information about the currently playing song. Did we miss any essential add-ons? Let us know in the comments below!

Computex 2015 Day 2: Taking a Closer Look at Corsair's Bulldog PC and More [Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2015 10:17 AM PDT It's all about gaming Corsair always seems to have gamers in mind, so we're not surprised that it brought several gaming-related products with it to Computex. One of them is the company's forthcoming Bulldog system, a DIY PC console kit. When we first heard about the Bulldog earlier this week, we speculated it would be built around an Intel platform. We were right. While the specific motherboard hasn't yet been selected, Corsair said the Bulldog will be built around Intel's upcoming Skylake platform. If that holds true, that means your existing DDR3 RAM won't transfer to the system -- you'll need to buy DDR4 memory. It's essentially a barebones system. In addition to RAM, you'll add your own graphics card, processor, and storage. Or you can wait and see what kind of pre-built configurations pop up. Corsair also showed us its Lapdog, an accessory that would pair nicely with the Bulldog. It's a living room keyboard with an integrated K65 RGB plank (or you can pick one up sans keyboard if you already own a K65 RGB) and foam underside for comfort. On the right is a large mouse pad area. Unfortunately, it's not a wireless design, though it does have a cable storage area to help reduce some of the clutter. While on the topic of keyboards, here's a look at Corsair's red LED Strafe mechanical plank: Moving on from peripherals, Corsair gave us a look at is new Obsidian 750D Airflow Edition. The overall case design itself isn't new, though the Airflow Edition brings a new front panel that's perforated with a dust filter. Two fans sit behind it and suck cool air into the chassis, adding more airflow than the original Obsidian 750D was capable of. If you already own the Obsidian 750D, Corsair said it will sell the new front panel as a standalone product as well. Lastly, Corsair showed us its new RMi series of digital power supplies. Check 'em out:

Maximum PC Buying Guides Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:47 AM PDT All of our in-depth buying guides in one place "Maximum" means different things to different people, but here, it means we only show you the best hardware. From graphics cards, to air and liquid coolers, to SSDs, we cover the most important aspects of the PC. We've put together a list of all of our top picks for each category below, and explain why we recommend each part. And to make it even better, we break down categories into different price points. Want to know what the best budget motherboard is? We tell you. How about the best mid-range CPU cooler? We have that covered, too. If you want it all figured out for you though, look through our Build a PC section, where we feature guides for the gamer on a budget, the midrange build, and the high-end configuration. We keep those guides updated quarterly as new hardware comes out. The Best CPUs You'll need the best CPU you can get to be able to do all your computing chores, this includes both work and gaming. From budget to high end, we give you three options for the best CPUs available right now. The Best Graphics Cards Any PC worth its place in your home has a good graphics card, and we give you our take on the three best graphics card choices on the market right now, for every price range. Both AMD and NVIDIA are covered. The Best SSDs and Hard Drives If you need capacity, get a hard drive (HDD). If you need performance, get an SSD. We take a look at the best SSDs and hard drives available, so you can walk away knowing your PC is serving up bits and bytes at optimum performance. The Best Motherboards Motherboards these days come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and there's an ocean of them to choose from. Don't bother. We pick out the three best motherboards for your dollar. The Best CPU Coolers (Air and Liquid) We give our votes for the three best CPU coolers on the market in both air and liquid form. For those who are seeking to eke out extra performance from overclocking, do not miss out on our picks. The Best Monitors Never skimp on a good display for your PC, since your eyes will stare it for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. We take a look at the best monitors for both work and play.

Computex 2015 Day 2: Seagate Sheds Light on Complexity of Rating SSD Performance [Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:36 AM PDT Fast storage for everyone One of our more interesting visits at Computex from a geek knowledge perspective was with Seagate. Sure, the company brought along a whole bunch of solid state storage products to showcase, and while it's nice to drool over the speeds and specs, understanding how things are measured can get pretty interesting. Seagate talked about the difficulty in coming up with a hard upper limit for SSD performance on PCI Express. Figuring it out can be pretty complex -- the generation and number of channels can give you a theoretical maximum, but in terms of a real world limit, you also have to account for how the architecture internally takes advantage of those assets. The bottom line is, there's more to performance than what the spec sheet says. That gets even trickier when you factor in the difficulty of performing accurate benchmarks. As Seagate explains it, looking at just read and write speeds won't give you the full picture. In a real world environment, the OS could be doing things in the background that affect performance. It's an interesting discussion and definitely worth a few minutes of your time. Check it out:

Computex 2015 Day 2: Patriot Talks DDR4 RAM, Gaming Peripherals, and SSDs [Video] Posted: 03 Jun 2015 09:00 AM PDT Expanding into peripherals Make no mistake, Patriot has power users in mind with its new product releases, several of which it brought to Computex. That includes new high capacity RAM options -- namely, 64GB and even 128GB kits of Viper 4 DDR4 RAM sporting 14-16-16-31 timings and running at 2400MHz. Such high capacities are going to be overkill for most users, though RAM isn't the only thing Patriot had on display. Patriot is making a concerted effort to become a player in the gaming peripheral market. Towards that end, we also caught a glimpse of Patriot's new V760 Viper keyboard. It's a mechanical plank with 16.8 million LED color options. It also has a removable magnetic palm rest, a dozen multimedia keys, six programmable macro keys, and anti-ghosting support. Also under the Viper line are a pair of mice, the V560 and V530. The V560 is a higher end rodent with an "extreme precision laser lens" that goes up to 8200 dpi. It's a weighted mouse with ceramic foot pads for easy gliding on various surfaces. The V530 is more of a mid-range offering with an optical lens and up to 5000 dpi. Interestingly, Patriot views it as "an entry-level choice with advanced features for someone looking for a reliable backup." You know, in case your primary rodent gives up the ghost or gets chewed up by the dog (it happens, trust us). Rounding out the Viper line of peripherals and accessories is a new headset, the V360. It offers 7.1 virtual surround sound along with an ergonomic ear cup design. Moving on from there, Patriot showed off several storage products. One thing Patriot told us is that 60GB SSDs are largely being phased out in favor of bigger capacities. Check out what else Patriot had to say in the video below:

Microsoft Xbox Joins the PC Gaming Show Posted: 03 Jun 2015 08:00 AM PDT Xbox team decides to join the PC Gaming Show Microsoft today announced that its Xbox team will be participating in PC Gamer's new PC Gaming Show. In a move that might surprise many PC gamers, Microsoft indicated that its intent is to demonstrate the power of Windows 10 and how the new OS will make both your PC and Xbox One play nicely together. Windows 10's release will bring several new features but Microsoft is keen on showing of Xbox Live for Windows 10 and the new Xbox app. Gamers on both platforms will be able to communicate with each other, and the Xbox app will allow Xbox One games to be streamed onto a Windows 10 desktop. Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, will be at the show talking about Windows 10 and how it fits into the PC gaming sphere. "With Windows 10, we're bringing the best of Xbox with the best of Windows gaming, including Xbox Live and the new Xbox app, Game DVR for nearly every game, and DirectX 12 for better gaming graphics and performance," said Spencer. Indeed DirectX 12 is on the radar for essentially every PC gamer, as the new API will allow lower-level access to hardware, yielding higher performance while reducing overhead. According to the MSDN Blog for DirectX 12, gamers can expect to see DX12 titles start appearing toward the holiday season of 2015. The PC Gaming show will take place around E3, which is predominantly console, on June 16, 2015 at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. We all know this is good, because the PC platform needs a show of its own.

AMD Officially Unveils Its Carrizo APU Posted: 02 Jun 2015 06:00 PM PDT APU promises better gaming performance and battery life at an affordable price While many PC enthusiasts are undoubtedly excited about AMD's new Fiji graphics card, the company is also hard at work pushing the limits of its accelerated processing units, and today officially unveiled its sixth-generation APUs, codenamed Carrizo. Carrizo promises better battery life and faster gaming performance. Leading the charge is the company's new flagship APU, the 15-watt A10-8700P. It's a DX12-compatible APU that AMD says beats a PC with a mobile i3 processor coupled with Nvidia Geforce GT 740 graphics in popular gaming applications such as DOTA 2, StarCraft II, and CS:GO. AMD Business Units CTO Joe Macri and AMD Product Manager Scott Stankard talk Carrizo. In terms of specs, it's running on a 28nm process, has four CPU cores, eight GPU cores, and two channels of DDR3 memory. It also meets the Heterogeneous System Architecture spec, to take advantage of programs that support HSA compute. It also supports AMD's TrueAudio. While we love the surround sound tech, it is admittedly a little less exciting to hear considering the limited library of games that actually support it. Carrizo is optimized for a low (15-watt) TDP. With Carrizo, AMD's primary goal is pushing performance per watt, which the company says it really had to be aggressive with considering the flagship A10-8700P is running on a low-powered 15-watt part. It says it was able to get away with this largely in part by doubling the L1 data cache, without seeing any negative impact to latency. AMD was also able to reduce power consumption by 2x through better clock gating. The end result is more performance than AMD's previous 35-watt Kaveri APU, at less than half the TDP. Despite being a low-powered APU, AMD is boasting a 2x graphics performance advantage over Intel's i7 integrated graphics solution ,and is pushing the notion that gaming really is possible at 15 watts. AMD also claims that its performance-per-watt tactics have also allowed it to increase battery life by 2x, particularly as it pertains to video-watching battery life. Oxide Games' Dan Baker talks advantages of Carrizo and DX12. While you might roll your eyes at the thought of an APU, AMD's internal data suggest that the $400–700 notebook range is the most popular, one that yields 63 million customers every year. While Carrizzo may not be a performance rocketship across the board, AMD is designing the APU to handle the majority of popular tasks, whether it be gaming, 4K video viewing, or providing all-day battery life, reasonably well. Carrizo promises better battery life. Carrizo notebooks will begin to ship to retail outlets today. Correction: The name of the 15-watt Carrizo APU is A10-8700P, not the A10-7870K as originally reported.

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