[Review] G. Skill Ripjaws X 8GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory Kit2 Comments By TrembledustcloseAuthor: TrembledustName: Patrick Innocent Email: patrick@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (10) on September 28, 2011
Established in 1989, G. Skill is synonymous with memory modules that deliver great performance and have very impressive overclocking capabilities. What stands out with G.Skill memory is that for modules that can overclock the way they can, the price of their memory is often lower then similar modules offered by their competitors which don’t nearly have as good overclocking potential. G.Skill’s latest memory entries – the RipJaws and Ripjaws X series – have been praised...
[Review] Corsair Vengeance 12GB 2000MHz Memory5 Comments By TrembledustcloseAuthor: TrembledustName: Patrick Innocent Email: patrick@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (10) on July 14, 2011
Corsair hit a home run in the latter half of 2010 with the release of their Vengeance 12GB 1600mhz kit. Buyers on Newegg raved about the stability of the kit, and the ability to run the Cas9-rated sticks at Cas 8. While this is something that would not impress most RAM overclockers, it did seem to put a smile on a lot of mid- to high-level PC users. Corsair seems to want to follow up their success with the recently released 12GB 2000Mhz version of the Vengeance ram with a slight difference. This...
[Blog]|Liquid Heaven| – |1090T X6 Under Liquid Nitrogen| – |6.6GHz+|3 Comments By SlappacloseAuthor: SlappaName: Matthew Sembinelli Email: matthew.sembinelli@gmail.com Site:http://slappablog.wordpress.com About: Hardware Enthusiast, and OverclockerSee Authors Posts (17) on June 11, 2011
As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.
After 2 years of research, waiting, gather...
[Review] Patriot Memory Viper Xtreme DDR3 2000MHz5 Comments By TrembledustcloseAuthor: TrembledustName: Patrick Innocent Email: patrick@techreaction.net Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (10) on June 6, 2011
Introduction:
The second generation of i7 processors have taken the PC world by storm, with many users switching over to the current P67 chipsets, and even more (yours truly included) anxiously awaiting the upcoming Z77, and Z78 chipsets.
A majority of PC enthusiasts feel the X58 platform is dead, and that it is time to move on. It’s hard to argue against that thinking, as Sandy Bridge has proven to be a faster and better-overclocking chip then its older brothers. Some companies, however,...
[Review] Crucial Ballistix DDR3-2133 (3×2GB) – DDR3 with Thermal Monitoring3 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on April 26, 2011
Introduction:
The performance memory market has continued to push the performance envelope over the last few generations of hardware, each new development ushering in more speed and better performance. But beyond speed, memory has not yielded much material to the marketing departments. We all know that the marketing departments are tasked with getting products on the market and into your hands. But other than performance, the only marketable aspects in the segment are fancy heat spreaders, ...
[Review] Kingston HyperX Grey Series 2133MHz 4GB DDR34 Comments By NeuromancercloseAuthor: NeuromancerName: Rich Smith Email: rsmith@nettronic.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (27) on March 2, 2011
Introduction:
On the test bench this week is the Kingston HyperX Genesis Special Edition Grey Series 2133MHz 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (KHX2133C9AD3X2K2/4GX). A real mouthful of a nomenclature, so in the interest of brevity, X-Files fans might appreciate this reviews short name for them “The Greys.” These sticks might not be from “out there” but they do support blistering fast speeds and are designed for use with the second generation Sandy Bridge microprocessors. Dual XMP profile...
[Review] Gigabyte P67A-UD4 – Overclocking On A Budget7 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on February 21, 2011
Introduction
Gigabyte has been on a role in the last few years with their mid-range lineup of motherboards, specifically the UD3 and UD4 series, have a huge following and are highly regarded within the community. They have earned their spot for good reason too, and the value pricing combined with top notch overclocking capabilities have been a tough act to follow. With the release of Intel’s latest platform, will the Gigabyte mid-range hold onto it’s competitive edge?
The Gig...
[Review] Gigabyte P67A-UD7 VS ASUS Maximus IV Extreme – Battle of the Titans!19 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on January 27, 2011
Introduction
If you haven’t already seen our complete Asus Maximus IV Extreme (MIVE) motherboard review, Parts ONE and TWO, you’re missing out. Part 1 covered synthetic testing with the i7 2600K CPU at 5.1GHz to give an idea of the power that this platform contains. Part 2 was a full blown comparison between X58 and Sandy Bridge, with a helping of AMD Thuban for good measure. We also awarded the MIVE the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon award for its outstanding performance.
Today, we’ll g...
[Review] Patriot G2 Series 4GB DDR3-1600 – Value DDR3 for Overclockers1 Comment By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on January 25, 2011
Introduction
For years, I have always been most drawn to value and mid range components with good overclocking potential, in order to extract high end performance, for a fraction of the cost. Having strayed into the extreme end of the spectrum, this often is no longer a viable option for me, as the high end gear is required for top overclocking scores. But for systems I build intended for daily use, I always seek high value hardware.
First to come to mind is the AMD Opteron 165 CPU that I own...
[Review] ASUS Maximus IV Extreme – Sandy Bridge VS The World (Part 2/2)14 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on January 14, 2011
Introduction – Part 1 Recap:
On January 2nd, NDA was lifted for the new “Sandy Bridge” architecture from Intel. TechREACTION was ready with a hands-on look at the new Republic of Gamers motherboard from Asus, the Maximus IV Extreme. With minimal time for testing, we were only able to bring you a portion of the review in Part 1, but we promised a follow up article to answer the remaining questions about the Maximus IV Extreme, and real world use with Sandy Bridge. Well, to...
[Blog] Corsair Graphite Series™ 600T – all internal dual loop9 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on November 28, 2010
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas...
[Review] ASUS Rampage III Formula – Less Bling, Same Sting4 Comments By NeuromancercloseAuthor: NeuromancerName: Rich Smith Email: rsmith@nettronic.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (27) on November 5, 2010
Not just another pretty face?
ASUSTeK is the most prolific motherboard manufacturer in the world. They command 40% of the motherboard market for PCs today. Their motherboards are in all manner of PCs from ASUS designed and sold PCs, as well as larger builders like HP and Dell, to the enthusiast user who purchases components individually looking for the best overall system that they can build. ASUS designs motherboards for everyone running desktop computers. Budget PC builders to enthusiast overc...
[Blog] Corsair Dominator GTX3 – Follow Up3 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on October 24, 2010
Thanks for all the feedback, those of you who have posted comments around the web concerning the Corsair Dominator review that was published yesterday. Based on the of the comments I’ve received, I wanted to write a brief follow up with a few more results.
Originally, I planned to test the memory kit subjectively with many benchmarks reflecting more real-world benefits of the high speed memory. Based on similar tests published around the net in the past, I didn’t expect to see a ...
[Review] Corsair Dominator GTX3 2400MHz – “Absurd!”3 Comments By miahallencloseAuthor: miahallenName: Jeremiah Allen Email: miahallen.ironmods@gmail.com Site:http://www.ironmods.com About: Well, I was playing with computers ever since my Dad got a Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old (1986), when I was 10 (1990) he bought a custom build 486DX33, and I was in love. Mostly back then I was just a kid playing games, but my fascination with computers had a start. Because I had no money of my own, I was stuck playing with my Dad's computers, and really couldn't "play" too much. So in 1998, the year I graduated, I spent some of my college savings to by a "computer for school", haha. It had two Voodoo2 12MB 3D accelerators in it, so you can imagine how much school work was done on it ;-) It had an AMD K6-233 that I had a really mild OC on, but my custom computer builder friend Aaron had done all the work. So I can't really take the credit there. My fascination with graphics just kept growing and growing over the years, and I was constantly in a struggle to keep my games looking as sharp and smooth as possible. OCing played a big role.
My whole world was rocked in 2004 when I was deployed to Iraq as a US Army soldier. The whole year I was there I had a cheap IBM Thinkpad R40 with a 2GHz Celeron, 1GB DDR-333 RAM, a 60GB 4200RPM HDD, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics (same technology as a 7000 series with only 16MB of memory). It started out rough as I was really into Command and Conquer Generals at the time, and the machine would only play the C&C slide show LOL. So, I downloaded PowerStrip, and OC'ed the GPU by 40%...amazingly, the game was playable!
Things changed dramatically in 2007 when I met a guy named Matt while I was stationed in Japan. He introduced me to www.ocforums.com, and the "Benchmarking Team" there. I had not had much interest in benchmarking previously, I always though of myself as more practical. But, I thought I'd play along and I joined the team. My first introduction to an actual competition was was is "The Raptor Pit", "Forum Warz 2008" in the spring of 2008. I was running a Q6600 and an 8800GTX. With air cooling I was able to bench my Q6600 at over 4GHz, and tore up the competition in my class. Overall OCF won the Forum War in 2007, Winter and Summer of 2008, and 2009...that means five in a row. I was not part of the first one in 2007, but the four since then, I have participated in. After winning the 2008 Winter and Summer Warz, Tom's Hardware Guide announced they were looking for nominations for individuals to compete in their first ever international overclocking competition, called "Overdrive". I was nominated, and chosen to compete in the North American semi-finals in Los Angeles in November 2008. I was placed on "Team IRONMODS" as they only had two guys, yet three man teams were allowed. We won the semi-finals in LA, and our prize was a trip to Paris the following month, to compete with the best in the world.
The following month, Ton, Jake, and myself flew to Paris as "Team USA" to face off against the best from Taiwan, France, Germany, and Italy. It was a very intense competition, but after two heated days of battle (16 hours of benching), we emerged the victors. Amidst our celebration, Ton and Jake officially invited me to join "Team IRONMODS" on a permanent basis, and I graciously accepted. Ton, aka "TiTON", is a world renown case moder, and is also very well known for some of the AMD overclocking he has done. Jake, aka "CPT.Planet", is a genius overclocker, and a really fun guy. The team has a great synergy when working together, we really have complementary styles.
After winning the world championship in December 2008 things were a bit quite for a couple months, then in the spring of 2009 I received an invitation to the 2nd annual Gigabyte Open Overclocking Championship "GOOC". I would compete in the North American semi-final in LA, where the winner would win a ticket to the world championship in Taipei Taiwan during CES in June 2009. The competition was tough with 14 of the best from North America gathering for a 1 on 1 competition of OCing. But once again, I completed the competition well, and rose above the others. I won 1st place and the trip to the world finals in Taipei.
My luck ran dry in Taipei where I started off with a bad motherboard, and went through 5 more during the course of the competition due to various reasons. Despite the poor finish in Taipei, I have high hopes to redeem myself next year.See Authors Posts (24) on October 23, 2010
Begin Rant:
“Absurd: the quality or condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world.”
Welcome to the absurd world of premium random access memory. Here today I have some of the latest and greatest from a company which needs no introduction as they have defined this segment for years. There are many memory vendors from whom I have purchased RAM throughout my time as a computer builder and user, but none stand out to me like Corsair. Why is that? Why is it ...
[Blog] Super Talent Speed Series DDR3-2200 Review2 Comments By BeepBeep2closeAuthor: BeepBeep2Name: Sam Conrad Email: awsomesam@earthlink.net Site: About:See Authors Posts (1) on June 30, 2010
Corporate Info:
Super Talent Technology Corporation, headquartered in San Jose, California, designs and manufactures a full range of DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 memory modules and Flash based storage solutions for Enterprise Servers, Workstations, Personal Computers and Consumer Electronics. An ISO 9001 certified company, Super Talent utilizes its state-of-the art factory and leading-edge components to produce award winning products with exceptional performance and outstanding reliability. Super Ta...
[Blog] Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC Testing0 Comments By wezcloseAuthor: wezName: Robin Lindqvist Email: coccis_wez@hotmail.com Site:http://www.techreaction.net About:See Authors Posts (4) on May 31, 2010
Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC testing
Just a quick look at a memory kit from Kingston, namely a set from their somewhat new ‘LoVo’ series. Judging by the name its a low voltage kit, so not a kit directly aimed at the enthusiast market. But word has it they might be worth a look after all!
According to their site, Kingston currently offers three versions of their ‘LoVo’ kits, 1333, 1600 and 1866 MHz. But there also seem to be an 1800 MHz kit listed at some shops, possible a replaceme...
[Review] OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Low Voltage Memory Kit2 Comments By ChewcloseAuthor: ChewName: Brian McLachlan Email: wmdieselmc26@cox.net Site:http:// About:See Authors Posts (8) on May 23, 2010
Introduction
Recently the good folks at OCZ sent us a set of budget ram to review.
Now I know most of you hardcore overclocker’s are saying “pfft…” however, with budget RAM sometimes and often many times there can be found diamond’s in the rough.
With that said, let’s see what you get.
As we can see, the packaging is simple as to be expected with a budget set of memory.
The platform we chose to test these sticks today consists of the following.
Test Setup
GI...
[Blog] 3×1GB Crucial Ballistix PC3-10600 Green LED0 Comments By 0Ro!closeAuthor: 0Ro!Name: Peter Orlovský Email: orol_sniper@centrum.sk Site: About:See Authors Posts (3) on March 21, 2010
Hello folks,
today I have to test a triple channel kit based for the X58 chipset. It´s a 3×1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC3-10600 (1333MHz) CL7-7-7-24 with 1,65V Green LED. The labeling of the kit is BL3KIT12864TG1337.
Since I down own a motherboard and processor based for X58, I will test the memory on the Intel P55 chipset.
(more…)
My upgrade: Lynnfield (1156) based rig0 Comments By saintbodhisatvacloseAuthor: saintbodhisatvaName: Dino de los Santos Email: dino.delossantos@gmail.com Site: About:See Authors Posts (1) on December 23, 2009
I remember the first time I got my very own PC, it was a gift from my sister about 5 years ago, an Intel P4 2.8Ghz northwood cpu. I canvassed for the other parts, paid ~$5 to have it assembled, and have been using the old clunker since.
Fast forward to the holidays of 2009, with so many applications that I install and use these days, the old clunker just can no longer cope. So as a gift to myself this Chrismas, I bought an i7 860, a Gigabyte motherboard, team xtreem memory and a budget A...
Established in 1989, G. Skill is synonymous with memory modules that deliver great performance and have very impressive overclocking capabilities. What stands out with G.Skill memory is that for modules that can overclock the way they can, the price of their memory is often lower then similar modules offered by their competitors which don’t nearly have as good overclocking potential. G.Skill’s latest memory entries – the RipJaws and Ripjaws X series – have been praised... 
Corsair hit a home run in the latter half of 2010 with the release of their Vengeance 12GB 1600mhz kit. Buyers on Newegg raved about the stability of the kit, and the ability to run the Cas9-rated sticks at Cas 8. While this is something that would not impress most RAM overclockers, it did seem to put a smile on a lot of mid- to high-level PC users. Corsair seems to want to follow up their success with the recently released 12GB 2000Mhz version of the Vengeance ram with a slight difference. This... 
As a benchmarker, the biggest milestone you will come across is your first plunge below -100C. Liquid Nitrogen is -196C by nature, and to utilize this exotic cooling material, you need a fantastic evaporator, or more commonly known as a pot. Much like dry ice, cooling the processor down this cold will decrease impedance that opposes electron flow. This allows for a more efficient circuit, promoting greater stability and overclocking headroom.
After 2 years of research, waiting, gather... 
Introduction:
The second generation of i7 processors have taken the PC world by storm, with many users switching over to the current P67 chipsets, and even more (yours truly included) anxiously awaiting the upcoming Z77, and Z78 chipsets.
A majority of PC enthusiasts feel the X58 platform is dead, and that it is time to move on. It’s hard to argue against that thinking, as Sandy Bridge has proven to be a faster and better-overclocking chip then its older brothers. Some companies, however,... 
Introduction:
The performance memory market has continued to push the performance envelope over the last few generations of hardware, each new development ushering in more speed and better performance. But beyond speed, memory has not yielded much material to the marketing departments. We all know that the marketing departments are tasked with getting products on the market and into your hands. But other than performance, the only marketable aspects in the segment are fancy heat spreaders, ... 
Introduction:
On the test bench this week is the Kingston HyperX Genesis Special Edition Grey Series 2133MHz 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (KHX2133C9AD3X2K2/4GX). A real mouthful of a nomenclature, so in the interest of brevity, X-Files fans might appreciate this reviews short name for them “The Greys.” These sticks might not be from “out there” but they do support blistering fast speeds and are designed for use with the second generation Sandy Bridge microprocessors. Dual XMP profile... 
Introduction
Gigabyte has been on a role in the last few years with their mid-range lineup of motherboards, specifically the UD3 and UD4 series, have a huge following and are highly regarded within the community. They have earned their spot for good reason too, and the value pricing combined with top notch overclocking capabilities have been a tough act to follow. With the release of Intel’s latest platform, will the Gigabyte mid-range hold onto it’s competitive edge?
The Gig... 
Introduction
If you haven’t already seen our complete Asus Maximus IV Extreme (MIVE) motherboard review, Parts ONE and TWO, you’re missing out. Part 1 covered synthetic testing with the i7 2600K CPU at 5.1GHz to give an idea of the power that this platform contains. Part 2 was a full blown comparison between X58 and Sandy Bridge, with a helping of AMD Thuban for good measure. We also awarded the MIVE the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon award for its outstanding performance.
Today, we’ll g... 
Introduction
For years, I have always been most drawn to value and mid range components with good overclocking potential, in order to extract high end performance, for a fraction of the cost. Having strayed into the extreme end of the spectrum, this often is no longer a viable option for me, as the high end gear is required for top overclocking scores. But for systems I build intended for daily use, I always seek high value hardware.
First to come to mind is the AMD Opteron 165 CPU that I own... 
Introduction – Part 1 Recap:
On January 2nd, NDA was lifted for the new “Sandy Bridge” architecture from Intel. TechREACTION was ready with a hands-on look at the new Republic of Gamers motherboard from Asus, the Maximus IV Extreme. With minimal time for testing, we were only able to bring you a portion of the review in Part 1, but we promised a follow up article to answer the remaining questions about the Maximus IV Extreme, and real world use with Sandy Bridge. Well, to... 
One of my co-workers is a hardcore gamer and power user. Since we’ve met, he’s become more and more interested in the hardware aspect of computing, and recently asked me to help build him a new system.
He previously had a Phenom II X4 940 based system with 4GB of memory and dual GTX 260 graphics cards. Everything was run at stock speeds as he preferred to spend his time gaming as opposed to tweaking. Although his system was no slouch, as any hardcore gamer knows; “the fas... 
Not just another pretty face?
ASUSTeK is the most prolific motherboard manufacturer in the world. They command 40% of the motherboard market for PCs today. Their motherboards are in all manner of PCs from ASUS designed and sold PCs, as well as larger builders like HP and Dell, to the enthusiast user who purchases components individually looking for the best overall system that they can build. ASUS designs motherboards for everyone running desktop computers. Budget PC builders to enthusiast overc... 
Begin Rant:
“Absurd: the quality or condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world.”
Welcome to the absurd world of premium random access memory. Here today I have some of the latest and greatest from a company which needs no introduction as they have defined this segment for years. There are many memory vendors from whom I have purchased RAM throughout my time as a computer builder and user, but none stand out to me like Corsair. Why is that? Why is it ... 
Corporate Info:
Super Talent Technology Corporation, headquartered in San Jose, California, designs and manufactures a full range of DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 memory modules and Flash based storage solutions for Enterprise Servers, Workstations, Personal Computers and Consumer Electronics. An ISO 9001 certified company, Super Talent utilizes its state-of-the art factory and leading-edge components to produce award winning products with exceptional performance and outstanding reliability. Super Ta... 
Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC testing
Just a quick look at a memory kit from Kingston, namely a set from their somewhat new ‘LoVo’ series. Judging by the name its a low voltage kit, so not a kit directly aimed at the enthusiast market. But word has it they might be worth a look after all!
According to their site, Kingston currently offers three versions of their ‘LoVo’ kits, 1333, 1600 and 1866 MHz. But there also seem to be an 1800 MHz kit listed at some shops, possible a replaceme... 
Introduction
Recently the good folks at OCZ sent us a set of budget ram to review.
Now I know most of you hardcore overclocker’s are saying “pfft…” however, with budget RAM sometimes and often many times there can be found diamond’s in the rough.
With that said, let’s see what you get.
As we can see, the packaging is simple as to be expected with a budget set of memory.
The platform we chose to test these sticks today consists of the following.
Test Setup
GI... 
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