League of Angels II, GTArcade's upcoming fantasy MMORPG, is shaping up to take the genre by storm. Under development for 2 years with team of veteran game developers, League of Angels II is ready to show the world that The Angels have Transcended.
Yulhulgangho is an ARPG web game co-developed by Mgame and Yourentech based on the popular online game Yulgang. While retaining its original features, Yulhulgangho originally creates brand new cloak systems, beast systems, martial arts, and Qigong, making it more enjoyable and worthy of collecting
Legacy Quest, the next epic mobile action RPG from Nexon, will soon be thrilling hack n' slash RPG fans as the game is headed to iOS and Android devices
37Games today, February 24th, updates its Browser-based Myth-inspired MMOARPG Guardians of Divinity to version 1.1, increasing the level cap to 450, adding new content such as new quests and a challenging new Solo Dungeon Ordeal
Perfect World announced that free-to-play action MMORPG Neverwinter will launch its latest expansion The Maze Engine in PC on March 15,2016 and Xbox One at a later date.
Does Final Fantasy XIV provide enough PvP related activities for players? The MMOPRG instalment of the Final Fantasy universe has been doing well since the total revision of the game,but PvP aspects are not as entertaining and functional as one would expect them to be.
Leveling in Blade & Soul is really a fast and smooth process and you will find yourself hitting max level in just a few days. That is if you are an enthusiastic leveler who watches the cutscenes and does a few instances, PvP and crafting now and then
The Sorceress is a functioning combination of melee and ranged skills that really do well in conveying a sort of darker world that is behind the class.
Fundamentally speaking, online shooters are all about PvP. You either battle each other on smaller maps or hunt around in huge, open world games, but should they really focus on PvE content at all?
Players can choose from four available classes (medic, infantry, sniper and engineer) in this fast pace beautiful looking urban warfare game. Focusing on team based battles with multiple maps and modes, as well as extensive co-op campaigns, there's a lot to love about Warface, but for now we're going to focus on the things that […]
The Warlock class will become available in Blade & Soul on March 2 with the Unchained update. NCSOFT is dedicating this week to previewing the Warlock and the publisher has released a new gameplay video showcasing the skills. The Warlock is Blade & Soul's second dedicated ranged class with great power but considerable fragility. Many […]
On Sunday, Samsung launched two new smartphones along with Gear 360, a camera that can capture video and stills in a full 360 degrees. With that, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise visit on the stage after Samsung presented attendees with a VR experience using Gear VR. He talked about how social networking VR will arrive sooner than everyone thinks, and that VR is the future of Facebook.
"VR is the next platform, where anyone can create and experience anything they want," Zuckerberg told the audience. "Pretty soon, we're going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes as if you're just right there in person."
Facebook acquired Oculus VR back in March 2014 for $2 billion, and is set to release the Oculus Rift headset to consumers by the end of March 2016, for $600. The device requires a tethered PC with at least an Intel i5-4590 CPU, 8GB of RAM, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 GPU, an HDMI 1.3 video output, three USB 3.0 ports, and a USB 2.0 port.
Facebook teamed up with Samsung last year to help produce the Samsung Gear VR, a virtual reality headset that costs $100. The device requires one of six "Galaxy" smartphones that slips into the headset, thus it only consists of the optical lens, two sensors, and a microUSB connector. The two Facebook-backed headsets offer vastly different VR experiences, but both promise total immersion.
Facebook introduced support for viewing 360 degree videos to Android and the web in September 2015, followed by iOS in November. Facebook users can view these videos by tapping and dragging a finger on the screen, or by donning Samsung's Gear VR headset. Content providers include ABC News, Nickelodeon, Frontline, FOX, and more.
Zuckerberg claims that there are currently 20,000 360-degree videos circulating on the social network. "We've only just started to explore what's possible with video and VR," he said. "It's still really early."
Zuckerberg applauded the work on VR over the last decade, but noted that it's only been within the last few years that technology has allowed for "good quality" VR on networks and hardware. However, there's still work that needs to be done.
"One day soon, all of us will have the power to broadcast live," he told the audience. "To do that, we're going to have to solve a lot of really complex engineering problems."
Zuckerberg said in his presentation that "hundreds" of new titles will be filling up the Oculus VR store in 2016, including the popular block-building game Minecraft. He also said that "millions" of consumers will likely buy Samsung's Gear VR headset this year.
In a blog posted on Facebook, the company says that it recently gathered a group of engineers to create a social VR team that will develop new social VR applications. This team will work with Oculus VR and other Facebook teams, and investigate ways to connect and share using the technology of today, and the long-term possibilities of the VR platform as it evolves.
"As we continue to make big breakthroughs in the technology behind VR, we're also investing in efforts to explore immersive new VR experiences that will help people connect and share," Facebook says. "We've already helped people connect in a wide variety of ways on mobile devices—ranging from Facebook and Instagram to Messenger and WhatsApp—and now we want to apply that same approach to the new medium of VR. In the future, VR will enable even more types of connection—like the ability for friends who live in different parts of the world to spend time together and feel like they're really there with each other."
As Zuckerberg suggests, Facebook's work in VR is in its early stages, and the company admits that it still faces challenges in both hardware and software that need to be solved. But Facebook says it's encouraged by its progress to date, and according to Zuckerberg, will remain committed to the VR platform for the long term.
Apple admitted on Monday that it has the capabilities to create a tool to unlock the FBI's confiscated iPhone, but chooses not to, believing that such a tool would be too dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. The only way to keep customers safe, according to Apple, is to never create it in the first place. The company can't guarantee that the government can keep the controversial tool under lock and key.
Apple made this revelation in a FAQ posted on Monday regarding its current stance in relation to the FBI. However, the government "only" wants Apple's help in bypassing the security feature that will wipe the device after 10 failed attempts at the passcode. After that, the FBI plans to use brute force to gain access to the iPhone's encrypted contents. The FBI has made it clear over the last several days that it doesn't want Apple to create a backdoor in the highly secure iOS platform.
As reported last week, the iPhone was used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple now claims that law enforcement agencies from around the country have lined up to have "hundreds" of iPhone devices unlocked should the FBI win its case regarding the San Bernardino iPhone. Apple has never unlocked an iPhone for law enforcement in the past, and says it can no longer use the data extraction process on iPhones using iOS 8.0 and later.
"We feel strongly that if we were to do what the government has asked of us—to create a backdoor to our products—not only is it unlawful, but it puts the vast majority of good and law abiding citizens, who rely on iPhone to protect their most personal and important data, at risk." Apple states.
The FAQ claims that the FBI wants Apple to create an entirely new operating system for their use. This platform would lack specific security features and include means for attacking iPhone encryption by entering a passcode electronically. Thus, the brute force method could be used, allowing a machine to input "thousands or millions" of combinations quicker than any human can input manually. Again, as it stands now, entering the passcode incorrectly 10 times wipes the device.
"The order would set a legal precedent that would expand the powers of the government and we simply don't know where that would lead us," Apple adds. "Should the government be allowed to order us to create other capabilities for surveillance purposes, such as recording conversations or location tracking? This would set a very dangerous precedent."
Apple says it has provided everything it can within the law and within its power to help the FBI in this case. One suggestion offered to the FBI was for the government to connect the iPhone to a previously joined network so that they can back up the phone and grab the information they're currently trying to retrieve. Unfortunately, that will no longer work, as the FBI changed the password associated with the iPhone's Apple ID in an attempt to gain access. That means it can no longer be accessed by Apple Cloud services.
Apple's FAQ suggests that the FBI drop its demands that fall under the All Writs Act and form a commission or a panel of experts to argue over the possibilities such a tool would create, and how it would affect national security, law enforcement, and consumers' right to privacy.
"This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the email to employees on Monday. "At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people, and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone's civil liberties."
FBI Director James Comey reiterated on Sunday that his agency wants to guess the terrorist's passcode "without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly." The FBI says it has no intention of unleashing a master key or breaking the encryption of every iPhone.
"Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists. Maybe it doesn't. But we can't look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don't follow this lead," he said.
Valve Software released on Monday the SteamVR Performance Test, a downloadable two-minute sequence from the company's Aperture Robot Repair VR demo. Valve says this test will determine if your computer is capable of running VR content at 90 frames per second, and if VR content can crank up the visual goodness to the recommended level on your current hardware.
According to the hardware specifications, Valve recommends Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 as the operating system of choice, powered by an Intel i5-4590 or better CPU, or an AMD FX 8350 or better CPU. On the GPU front, Valve recommends a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or better, or an AMD Radeon R9 290 or better. Rounding out the specs is a minimum 4GB RAM.
"For machines that are not VR Ready, the tool can help determine whether capabilities are bound by Graphics Card, CPU, or both," Valve says.
Once downloaded and installed, the (nearly) 5GB SteamVR Performance Test loads up in a window and provides a two-lens sequence yanked from Portal 2. After that, the test will display the results, listing Not Ready components in red, Capable components in yellow, and Ready components in green. The results will also show the average fidelity, the number of frames tested, the number of frames that fall below 90 fps, and the number of frames that are CPU-bound.
We ran the test on an older laptop running Windows 10 just for kicks. While the AMD A8-4500M APU was presented as a capable four-core processor, the AMD Radeon HD 7640G was in the red, proving that this laptop will never be VR Ready. The test suggests updating the GPU (which won't happen), the GPU's drivers, closing performance-heavy applications, and then running the test again. Sure thing.
Take note that this test is free, and doesn't require the user to own a VR headset. However, you'll need to have a Steam account and the client installed in order to use it. The test is designed specifically for the HTC Vive, but presumably can be used with other similar VR headsets.
"The test employs a technique called dynamic fidelity, which automatically adjusts image quality as required to avoid dropped frames that can break the sense of presence critical to VR experiences," says AMD's corporate VP of technology and VR Roy Taylor. CPU and GPU hardware is then assigned one of three categories (VR Recommended, VR Capable, or VR Not Ready) based on the average fidelity level attained.
Taylor adds that AMD's Radeon R9 390 and Fury series of products (such as the R9 Nano) are "Recommended for VR" thanks to a collaboration between AMD, Valve, and other "technology partners," along with the LiquidVR initiative. The demo actually includes AMD's Affinity multi-GPU feature, which uses one GPU to render frames for the left eye and one GPU to render for the right eye. To enable this support (which isn't fully finished as of this writing), use "-multigpu" as a launch option (without the quotes).
Valve's tool arrives just days after HTC revealed the final retail price of Vive, which will cost a meaty $800. The company said that for a limited time, the HTC Vive consumer edition will ship with two "VR experiences" to get customers started, including Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs and Fantastic Contraption by Northway Games. Pre-orders will begin on February 29 while the full commercial availability will start in early April 2016.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told Bloomberg on Tuesday that he was "disappointed" about reports stating that he backed the FBI in its current battle with Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. That's not his view on the situation, he said, but added that placing the right safeguards into cases where the government is acting on behalf of the American public would be "valuable."
When asked about his opinion on the FBI vs. Apple case, he said that the courts would ultimately make the decision, and that Apple would abide by that decision. However, in the meantime, now would be a great opportunity for discussion, although the issues will be decided in Congress, such as the Patriot Act and how that will be used.
"You don't want to just take the minute after a terrorist event and swing in that direction nor in general do you want to completely swing away from government access when you get some abuse being revealed. You want to strike that balance that the United States leads and set an example," he said.
His disappointment stems from an interview with the Financial Times that says he backs the FBI's iPhone request. He told the news agency that the FBI isn't looking for Apple to create some "general thing" like a master key or a back door to iOS, but is seeking to gain access to information for "a particular case." The FBI has said this over the past week even though Apple CEO Tim Cook stresses that the government wants a special operating system void of specific security features to access the shooter's phone.
"It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records," he told the Financial Times. "Let's say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said, 'Don't make me cut this ribbon because you'll make me cut it many times'."
Gates told the Financial Times that there needs to be rules set in place for when the government wants to access information during terror threat investigations, and other scenarios. He wants to see a debate take place so that safeguards are established that will enable countries to decide whether the local government can or cannot have access to information.
The iPhone in question was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in last December's attack. As reported over the last week, the phone is in the FBI's possession, and will wipe the stored data if the passcode is entered incorrectly ten times. The FBI wants to bypass this security feature and use brute force to gain access to the phone's contents. Apple refuses to create a tool that will enable this procedure.
On Monday, Apple admitted in a FAQ that it could create a tool for the FBI, but chooses not to because the company feels that the requested software would be too dangerous. "The only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn't abused and doesn't fall into the wrong hands is to never create it," Apple states.
Security firm founder John McAfee recently said in an exclusive interview with Maximum PC that the FBI doesn't have the capacity to hack the controversial iPhone, stating that the government is illiterate in cybersecurity because the technology departments are out of date and not keeping up with changing technology. The government also is said to be opposed to hiring people who can actually help them: hackers.
McAfee also pointed out that Russia and China not only have the tools to hack the iPhone, but to cripple the American economy. "With the push of a button, the Chinese can terminate our electrical production and put us permanently without power," he said. "This is a known fact in the hacking community. We are so far behind that it's incomprehensible that we still call ourselves a world power."
Friends don't let friends use generic power supplies in their PCs. It's just not worth the risk, especially since high-end PSUs don't have to cost a fortune. Case in point is today's top deal for a Corsair HX750i 750W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply for $130 with free shipping (normally $170; additional $30 Mail-in rebate). For a C-note (after rebate), you get a name brand PSU with 80 Plus Platinum certification. It's also fully modular and supports Corsair's Link dashboard.
Nvidia updated its Shield tablet to Android 6.0 Marshmallow earlier in the month, and now it's doing the same for its Shield Android TV device via an over-the-air (OTA) roll out, the company announced this week.
Marshmallow alone brings several enhancements to Shield Android TV, though the update also includes some other feature upgrades. They include:
Upgradable storage and home screen customization
Quick access to the power menu on the homescreen by long pressing the "Back" button
Seamless switching between surround sound and headset audio in Netflix app
Wireless support for SHIELD controller when charging via USB, including headset audio and voice search
Improved color support for YUV 4:2:0 video playback
Option to set 1080p 60Hz resolution on Ultra HD TVs
Option to set RGB Full Range via Settings > HDMI > Dynamic Range
Improved support for Denon receivers and CEC volume control for more audio receivers
In addition to all that, Nvidia is rolling out fully conformant Vulkan drivers to its Shield Android TV platform. That makes it the first Android consumer platform to ship with support for the Vulkan API, which gives developers low-level access to CPU and GPU resources.
Slowly but surely, Google continues to expand its 1Gbps fiber Internet service to more areas around the country, including locations on virtually both sides of the coasts and several in between. Next up is Huntsville, Alabama, Google announced in a blog post.
In most cases, rolling out Google Fiber means building the infrastructure from the ground up. But in Huntsville, Google is getting a major assist from the local municipality, Huntsville Utilities, which is building out a fiber network of its own. Google Fiber will use part of that network infrastructure.
"To date, we've built the majority of our Google Fiber networks from scratch. But over the past five years, we've repeatedly seen that every city is unique. So in order to bring Fiber to more people, we've taken different approaches in different places," Google said.
To give some examples, Google purchased an existing fiber network in Provo, Utah, and in Atlanta, Georgia, Google's both constructing its own network and tapping into existing fiber to bring its Google Fiber service to apartment buildings.
Huntsville holds a lot of appeal for Google. For one, Huntsville Utilities is already committed to building a fiber network. Beyond that, the so-called "Rocket City" has the highest concentration of engineers in the country, Google said. Huntsville also ranks as one of the best places in the country for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) workers.
Once Huntsville Utilities is finished building out its fiber network, Google (and any other company) can tap into it to offer high-speed Internet service to the city. As for when it will happen, Google said it's too early to tell—this is all in the approval stage at the moment.
Google Fiber is currently deployed in four cities. There are plans to expand Google Fiber into half a dozen other locations, with another 11 places identified as potential spots.
Does anyone remember Aureal 3D? Back in the late 90's, Aureal brought true HRTFs (head related transfer functions) to desktop PC gaming. It was the first time you heard true 3D-posotional audio from 2 speakers. Then they were bought out by Creative Labs and the A3D API was essentially killed.
Up. Down. Left. Right. Front. Back. Everywhere. And with precision.
If you've been longing for true, 3D positional audio based on science, consider the technology reborn.
The crazy thing is not only does it work, it works tremendously well. Ossic's claim to fame is its automatic calibration technology, which reads the measurements of your ears and head dimensions and features. From there, custom HRTF functions are produced for you and you only. Sounds are matched to your ears.
The effect is nothing short of amazing.
I tried a VR demo using HTC's Vive headset and a prototype of the Ossic X. In the demo, you're in a room that looks like you were transported to some place in Lord of the Rings. Creatures, objects, environments and other elements were part of the room. With the Ossic X headphones on, I could pin-point with exacting precision where things were happening. This isn't just virtualized audio--the headphones were using my head's custom HRTFs to make my brain behave as if I was in a real space.
The most impressive moment? I heard a sudden creeping noise coming from above me from behind. I turned around, looked up, and a moment later, a beastly creature broke through the wooden ceiling.
Ossic VR doing actual physics modeling.
The prototype I tried was early, and I spent most of the time with Ossic's team to talk techs and how things are modeled and mapped. There's no doubt I'll return back to the company's lab to give myself a second audition.
The final design. The prototype I tried had PCB boards on it.
I already have a VR headset on the way. Now I'm just waiting for Ossic to ship its headphones. More to come when I get my hands on a prototype.
When we looked to start building this quarter's Budget Gamer system, we wanted to build something that was nice to look at, while maintaining the performance we saw in the fall. We think we pulled off a quaint little build that is easy on the eyes, and light on the wallet.
With a target price range of $800 to $850, the Budget Gamer is a rig that doesn't boast massive specs of the type we regularly see here at Maximum PC. Instead, the Budget Gamer aims to be a relatively powerful box that will conquer games at 1080p.
Keeping the price at or below $800 means you make compromises. We generally steer clear of unlocked CPUs and Z-chipset boards and keep memory clocks on the low end. Here's what we put together for this winter's build:
All prices listed reflect in-cart price at time of procurement. Prices include instant rebates, and exclude taxes, shipping, and mail-in rebates. Prices are subject to fluctuation and change.
As you can see from the part sheet, the build is roughly the same as last season's Budget Gamer build. We left the CPU and GPU the same, but went with a different motherboard and a more compact case. The new choice in mobo had its consequences, both intended and unintended. What we were able to do was keep the price really close to $800, the lower bound of our target range.
Hello, mobo
Lately, when we've set off to build "budget" rigs, we've opted for mini-ITX form factors a lot. First off, the budget-minded approach means that Crossfire and SLI is usually not in the equation. On top of that, going with a locked CPU can save you a lot of money. (Jumping from an i7-6700 to an i7-6700K costs an extra $70.) Thus, it makes little sense to invest into a Z-class chipset. We went with an H170 chipset for this build, just as we did in the fall, though there re a few differences (besides manufacturer) to note.
First off, this motherboard has onboard Wi-Fi. The ASRock board we chose in our last build omitted Wi-Fi from its list of features. We thought this was an oversight and decided to find a model that you could place anywhere in your house. The H170I Pro AC offers 802.11ac wireless connectivity. That connectivity comes from an Intel 8260 chip, which is supported by Linux kernel version 4.1 and later.
This gutshot of the build shows how everything fits together, sans the 2.5-inch SSD and PSU.
The second thing this board has is an M.2 slot. We wanted to find a board that supported M.2, since we prefer to not run two extra cables if we don't have to. At first, we paired the board with an M.2 250GB Samsung 850 Evo, but were met with a system that couldn't see any storage. Try as we might, we couldn't get the mobo to see the M.2 drive. As it turns out, the M.2 support is limited to the PCIe bus, and doesn't offer SATA-mode support. This struck us as odd, since most boards that offer M.2 support SATA as a fallback mode for people who don't have PCIe or NVMe SSDs. This holds especially true because the product specs don't necessarily imply that SATA isn't supported, only that PCIe 3.0 is. Seeing as PCIe-mode M.2 SSDs are more expensive than their M.2 SATA counterparts, a simple substitution wasn't really in the cards at this price point. Alas, we had dig up a 2.5-inch 850 Evo to get the system installed and working. So if there's one gotcha with this mobo, it's the M.2 support.
An itsy-bitsy classy chassis
The other big change we made was in the case. In a fit of design-inspired insanity, we looked for the smallest, most unobtrusive case that we could fit an ATX power supply in. We found it with the Lian Li PC-Q01A.
This case is made of aluminum and reminds us of Apple's styling choices in the past few years. Clean lines without a lot of mumbo-jumbo to distract from it make this case look more like a classy accent piece that will feel at home in any room. That said, this case is small and devoid of all but the most basic features.
Cases don't get much more claustrophobic than this.
To say that the space inside this case is tight would be an understatement. It's not particularly hard to build into, but when you finally go to mount your PSU, the case seems to shrink. The PC-Q01A doesn't come with a case fan, so we ordered a blue SilenX fan so we could get some sort of airflow inside. The case has just one fan mounting point at the bottom, so we positioned the fan to pull in cool air to help keep the CPU and GPU in check under load. The blue LED casts a subtle glow under the case and out of the slits that flank the sides that looks great in the dark.
We do wish that there was some sort of dust screen at the bottom, however. The lack of dust-proofing means that you'll be busting out that can o' air more often than you otherwise would. On the upside, the PC is small enough that it should take all of 10 seconds to clean the thing.
So, how does this little rig perform? Let's take a look at our benchmarks.
The benchmarks
For 1080p gaming, we feel that the i5-6500 and the GTX 960 is a great combination. The quad-core i5 is plenty for most games, and the 4GB 960 offers enough power to play most games at 1080p with reasonably high settings. On the flip side, the GTX 960 simply isn't ideal for gaming above 1080p.
As you can see, the GTX 960 just chokes when it comes to 4K. With a relatively paltry score of 1746, 4K gaming is clearly out of reach for this GPU. We also saw confirmation of this when we tested Tomb Raider and Shadow of Mordor.
While 4K is way out of reach for this rig, 1440p gaming is within closer grasp if settings are turned down low enough. When we tested Batman: Arkham City at 1440p, the Budget Gamer still managed an average of 45 frames per second. (That's with all settings except PhysX cranked up, by the way.) That's well shy of the golden goal of 60fps, but well above the 30fps minimum to be playable. In fact, if you're gaming on a 30Hz monitor with V-Sync on, the GPU will happily keep up with the 30fps quota.
While this rig is built with 1080p gaming in mind, we also ran the PC through our array of CPU-specific tests. The three tests put a CPU through its paces in both single- and multi-threaded modes. The first two tests, Stitch 2.3 and ProShow Producer 5, rely more heavily upon single-threaded performance. (Both tests do have sections that can take advantage of multiple threads, but they won't let 6-core and 8-core designs really hit their stride.)
The X264 benchmark, on the other hand, punishes all the cores and threads available to the CPU, which usually means that he who has the most cores wins. In this contest, the Dream machine's overclocked i7-5960X Haswell-E reigns supreme with its eight cores and multi-threading (totaling 16 logical cores). Meanwhile, the comparatively humble i5-6500 has just four physical cores and no Hyper-Threading.
As you can see, this build is right on par with the other Budget Gamer builds from the past. That's to be expected, since nearly all of them have used quad-core i5s. The interesting thing to note is the near-identical performance between the Fall/Winter builds and the Summer build. In the summer of 2015, we built the Budget Gamer with a Haswell i5-4590. The modern Budget Gamer builds have gone with the newer Skylake i5-6500s. The lack of a huge performance delta suggests that if you can still find Haswell parts on the cheap, there isn't a big reason to go with Skylake at this performance level. Of course, Haswell and LGA-1150 boards will meet their end of life before Skylake will, so going with Skylake will provide you with a longer serviceable lifetime.
It's also important to note that the newer 100-series motherboards support USB 3.1, and many offer USB Type-C connectors on their rear I/O panels. But we have yet to see a case with prominent Type-C connectors up front where they matter.
While there isn't a lot of performance delta over this build's predecessor, we did invest in more features and a prettier shell. If you're looking at this build, but are willing to spend a little more, we'd recommend going with a Samsung SM951 or 950 Pro if you really want to take advantage of the onboard M.2 slot. However, if you want more bang for your buck, we'd keep the 2.5-inch SSD and use that extra $100 towards the purchase of an Asus GTX 970 DCMOC. Upgrading to that GPU would make this little rig Oculus-ready, and offer a small and pretty VR machine.
