GTX1080 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:07:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png GTX1080 | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Asus launches ROG Strix GL12 gaming desktop https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/andrzej/asus-launches-rog-strix-gl12-gaming-desktop/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/andrzej/asus-launches-rog-strix-gl12-gaming-desktop/#comments Sun, 21 Jan 2018 09:08:20 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=360735 The ROG Strix GL12 aims to offer an unconventional design for gamers who like aggressive, angular ‘slashes’ across the front of their chassis as well as a transparent side panel and integrated Aura Sync lighting. All of the lighting is customisable – from a palette of over 16 million colours – and a load of …

The post Asus launches ROG Strix GL12 gaming desktop first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
The ROG Strix GL12 aims to offer an unconventional design for gamers who like aggressive, angular ‘slashes’ across the front of their chassis as well as a transparent side panel and integrated Aura Sync lighting. All of the lighting is customisable – from a palette of over 16 million colours – and a load of cool presets are offered for those who rate convenience over customisation. The transparent side panel lets your game in wonder at the extensive RGB lighting – as well as the red-glowing ROG logo on the water block.  We wanted to know ‘How much and when'.

We recently spoke with YiTing Liu, ROG gaming marketing specialist. She was coy about the exact details, but we gathered that this is the first complete PC from ROG that has complete Aura Sync lighting integration and will be selling in the UK closer to the start of March. Early guesstimates on street pricing indicate something in the £899 (8500 and GTX1050) to £1849 (8700K and GTX1080) range – depending on the specification you choose.

  

The starting point is an 8500 processor with a GTX1050, but the model we saw came with a factory overclocked Hexa Core i7 8700K (running at 4.8GHz) and a nVidia GTX1080.

We saw it being demoed with Overwatch next to a gaming laptop and, in that environment, it was near silent.

While ASUS continues to develop and sell complete systems, we were told that they are committed to doing this very slowly – to avoid upsetting channel partners. The fact that ASUS banged in a record year for motherboard sales in 2017, leads us to believe that the ‘complete ROG systems' are having little effect on the company's components business.

Most of the models are likely to boot from an SSD, but for those that want to add in bigger ‘fast storage’, there is a front mounted SSD tray.

 

ROG are building stock right now and expect the UK to see the new Strix GL12 range in a couple of months.

KitGuru says: While hardcore KitGuru readers are likely to be building bespoke systems from scratch, there are a lot of people out there who want to play ‘AAA games with everything turned on', but who are not able/willing to build that system themselves. This is exactly the market that ROG is tackling.

The post Asus launches ROG Strix GL12 gaming desktop first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/andrzej/asus-launches-rog-strix-gl12-gaming-desktop/feed/ 4
PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X System Review https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/pc-customiser-xsplit-streamer-pro-x-system-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/pc-customiser-xsplit-streamer-pro-x-system-review/#comments Tue, 21 Mar 2017 11:13:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=325904 The PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X is a compact gaming PC that comes loaded with XSplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster to help you get busy streaming your games as quickly as possible. The £50 one year XSplit license is included as part of the package. Interesting approach, let's take a closer look. You will have …

The post PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X System Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
The PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X is a compact gaming PC that comes loaded with XSplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster to help you get busy streaming your games as quickly as possible. The £50 one year XSplit license is included as part of the package. Interesting approach, let's take a closer look.

You will have noticed the PC has a blue theme that ties in with the XSplit corporate colour and it also sports an XSplit logo on the window of the NZXT S340 case. Take a moment to watch our video and you will see the colour choice is reinforced by the blue LEDs inside the case.

‘That’s all well and good’ you may say ‘but what distinguishes a regular gaming PC from a streaming PC?’ And that my friend is a fine question that goes to the heart of the matter.

PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X Specification:

  • Asus GTX 1080 ROG Strix 8GB GDDR5X
  • Intel i7-7700K overclocked to 4.8GHz
  • Asus Z270 Maximus IX Hero motherboard
  • Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB DDR4-3000MHz Blue
  • Corsair H100 All in One CPU Water Loop
  • 250GB Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD
  • 2TB WD Blue Hard Drive
  • Corsair RM750x 750W Power Supply
  • Microsoft Windows 10 Home
  • NZXT S340 Black/Blue Case
  • 1 Year XSplit Subscription (worth £50)
  • Platinum 3 Year Collect and Return Warranty

As we all know you need a decent combination of CPU and graphics for gaming. On top of that you need extra CPU cycles to handle the video encoding that is integral to streaming, which can be a major headache. You might get away with using ten percent of your CPU at low resolution/low quality but if you want to do a proper job you need more. To stream 1080p 60fps video using 10k bit rate with a high priority CPU-based encoder you can expect to use 15-30 percent of the processor,

XSplit is aware of the situation (and we understand that version 3 of the software will improve the CPU workload) however the fact is you almost certainly need to overclock your CPU to get the best results.

PC Customiser has taken a cautious approach with the Core i7-7700K and has overclocked all cores to 4.8GHz with 1.35V core voltage. This is confirmed by the Asus BIOS splash screen reporting ‘Overclocking by 14%’.

PC Customiser tells us they aim for a speed of 5.0GHz, check for stability and then drop the speed to 4.8GHz or 4.9GHz if they feel the need, which is presumably what happened with this particular example.

The cooling package wasn’t quite what we expected as PC Customiser used a 240mm Corsair H100, rather than H100i, and as a result there is no USB connection or Link software control. Instead the fans connect directly to the motherboard and are controlled by the BIOS.

One other point caused us to pause for thought. We had been told the PC would come with a 1TB SSD however the specification was revised to a 250GB 960 EVO M.2 SSD with 2TB hard drive for bulk storage. We thought it was a nice touch they chose a WD Blue as that maintained the colour coordination of the system, or perhaps it was just a happy coincidence. In fact the supplied SSD was a 256GB Samsung SM951 SSD which offers the same function, albeit with a rather different aesthetic.

Testing


Testing proceeded exactly as we expected as the combination of Core i7 and GTX 1080 graphics are a well known quantity. It is scary to report that even this level of hardware does not allow you to play every game at 4K at maximum image quality settings, although it comes close. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a system killer at 4K but the other games played well. If you drop the resolution below 4K you can be certain your games will hum along superbly.

Cooling Performance.

Temperature testing went well, when you consider the CPU is cooled by a Corsair All In One, the graphics card is a beefy air cooled unit and the case is relatively small. Balanced against that we have four 120mm cooling fans to keep the air moving through the case and the overclocked CPU runs at a modest 4.8GHz.

Acoustics performance.
As we mention in our video, the noise levels were a touch higher than ideal. We attribute this to the two fans on Corsair cooler that were set to run at 1,350rpm in PWM mode. The two case fans in the roof and at the rear were set at 500rpm and were effectively silent.

Closing Thoughts.

PC Customiser came up with an interesting idea when it developed the XSplit Streamer Pro X as we have not previously seen a PC that is dedicated to game streaming. In practice we end up with a conventional gaming PC that combines an overclocked Core i7 CPU with a decent GTX 1080 GPU and a decent array of hardware. Gaming performance is very good and the temperatures are nice and low. The only downside here is the noise from the cooling system as we feel sure you could achieve the same results and still maintain a degree of hush.

We like the fact that PC Customiser has included a £50 XSplit license, and you might be glad to hear the blue XSplit theme can be changed, should you choose. There’s nothing wrong with the combination of blue Corsair fans and blue LED lighting but our preference is either for white or RGB. As we say, that is purely a matter of personal taste.

Overall the PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X does a solid job, plays games like a champ and gets a thumbs up from KitGuru.

Buy direct from PC Customiser for £2,105.00 inc vat HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

  • Overclocked Core i7-7700K and GTX 1080 play games at 4K very successfully.
  • Impressively low temperatures.
  • 4.8GHz CPU overclock is likely to be bullet-proof.
  • Good tidy build.
  • XSplit license is included in the package.

Cons:

  • Noise levels are higher than ideal.
  • Corsair H100 cooler doesn’t use Link control.
  • 256GB Primary SSD may prove borderline for capacity.
  • The fixed blue lighting in our sample isn’t connected to AURA.

KitGuru says: XSplit Streamer Pro X is specifically intended to stream games while you play and does a fine job.

The post PC Customiser XSplit Streamer Pro X System Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/pc-customiser-xsplit-streamer-pro-x-system-review/feed/ 1
Asus ROG G701VI Laptop Review (G-SYNC 120hz, GTX1080) https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/leo-waldock/asus-rog-g701vi-laptop-review-g-sync-120hz-gtx1080/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/leo-waldock/asus-rog-g701vi-laptop-review-g-sync-120hz-gtx1080/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2017 12:17:13 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=322062 The Asus ROG G701VI is a beast - 6820HK, 64GB DDR4, 120hz panel and a GTX 1080.

The post Asus ROG G701VI Laptop Review (G-SYNC 120hz, GTX1080) first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
When Asus sent us the specification of the new ROG G701VI laptop we had a couple of thoughts. The first was a point of trivia as the model code suffix looks like VI or Roman 6 i.e. Skylake but in fact it is Vee Eye. The second, much bigger, point is that the specification looks amazing. Asus promises ‘Desktop Performance In A Slim Package’ and they make a good point. This large 17.3-inch chassis is relatively slender and measures 32.5mm at the thinnest point and 35mm at the thicker parts, weighing in at 3.8kg. For comparison the Asus G752VT is 43mm thick and weighs 4.4kg so the Asus ROG G701VI is not significantly smaller or lighter but it looks thinner and has a svelte appearance.

We like that but are much more interested by the GTX 1080 graphics chip and a display that boasts a ‘World’s first’ as this 17.3-inch screen has a resolution of 1,920×1,080 and supports both 120Hz and G-Sync. Usually the best you can hope for is a choice of either 120Hz or G-Sync in a world where most laptops only support V-Sync technology and have a refresh rate of 60Hz.

The rest of the specification is also pretty impressive as there are a pair of Toshiba SSDs in RAID 0, 64GB of DDR4 memory and a superb selection of ports and connectors.

Asus ROG G701VI Specification:
Processor Intel Core i7 6820HK Processor
Chipset Intel CM236 Express Chipset
Memory 64GB DDR4-2,400MHz SDRAM
Display 17.3″ (16:9) LED backlit FHD (1,920×1,080) 120Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 72% NTSC
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 with 8GB VRAM
Storage Solid State Drive 512GB PCIE Gen3X4 SSD RAID 0 Support
Keyboard Illuminated Chiclet Keyboard
Card Reader Multi-format card reader
WebCam HD Web Camera
Networking Wi-Fi Integrated 802.11 AC
Bluetooth Built-in Bluetooth V4.0
Interface
1 x USB 3.1 Type C port
3 x USB 3.0 ports
1 x RJ45 LAN Jack
1 x HDMI
1 x Mini Display Port
1 x Thunderbolt port
1 x SD card reader
1x AC adapter plug
Audio Built-in Stereo W Speakers And Array Microphone
ASUS Sonic Studio
Battery 6 Cells 93 Whrs/8240mAh
Power Adaptor Output 19.5V, 16.9A, 330 W
Dimensions 429mm (W) x 309mm (D) x 33-35 mm (H)
Weight 3.8 kg with Battery
Operating System Windows 10 Home

Take a look at our video and you will see the Asus ROG G701VI is a serious piece of hardware as evidenced by the mammoth 330W power supply which has a latching mechanism that locks in the rear of the chassis. In some respects it’s a bit of a pain as connection and removal is a job that requires both hands but on the plus side you have no doubt the power will continue to flow.

Make no mistake, a combination of Core i7 and GTX 1080 requires mains power to deliver proper gaming performance. This laptop draws 40W when it is idling, however that figures increases to 265W in 3D Mark or when gaming.

As you will also see, a quick spin around the chassis reveals masses of USB 3.0 ports as well as a USB 3.1 type C and a Thunderbolt port. Fast data connection poses no problems.

Testing


Gaming performance is simply epic. The GTX 1080 GPU delivers superb frame rates, such that the minimum frame rate in Deus Ex is 53fps and the average is 69fps. In Gears of War 4 the average frame rate is 116fps and yes, that is at Ultra quality settings.

In addition to pure performance the image quality is superb. It is hard to claim we could see much improvement from the 120Hz panel compared to a regular 60Hz G-Sync panel but the fact is that we loved it. Big thumbs up. Result.

Cooling Performance.


Our photos inside the Asus ROG G701VI show a conventional cooling layout with the two coolers in the rear corners and a pair of wide, flat heatpipes that reach from one side to the other, crossing the CPU and GPU along the way. The curious thing is that the cool air is drawn in pretty much in the centre of the underside and then passes through the casing before it is exhausted to the rear. Generally the air is drawn in much closer to the heat exchangers and this layout seems as though it could be prone to getting blocked were you to rest the laptop on soft furnishings or pretty much any surface that isn’t hard and level, such as a table.

Temperatures are a little on the hot side. The CPU and GPU idle around the 40 degree mark and head north under load. We saw the CPU hit 95 degrees under synthetic stress test load and the GPU ran at 85 degrees.

Acoustics performance.
Watch our video and you will hear the Asus ROG G701VI in action. The cooling is fairly noisy even when the laptop is only working gently and it gets louder when the system is under load. It is clear that Asus has ramped up the fan curve to keep the temperatures in check and we found it all rather annoying and intrusive.

Closing Thoughts.

The Asus ROG G701VI is a mighty beast and in some respects it is over the top. We love the combination of Core i7 CPU and GTX 1080 GPU but see no need for 64GB of expensive DDR4 memory. The dual Toshiba SSDs in RAID are superb however it is easy to argue that RAID 0 is an accident that is waiting to happen.

We loved the screen. The combination of G-Sync and high refresh rate is a winner and we want to see this panel used regularly on other laptops.

On the downside the Chiclet keyboard is entirely forgettable and we are sure that gamers will plug in a proper mouse and keyboard before any gaming session.

You cannot escape the fact that this laptop is big and heavy but blimey it performs and heck, it even has decent battery life. We got around 5 hours real world battery life from the machine.

Buy from Overclockers UK for £2999.99 inc vat HERE

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

  • 120Hz display with G-Sync.
  • Massive CPU and GPU performance.
  • World class 1080p gaming.
  • USB type C and Thunderbolt ports.
  • Stylish good looks.

Cons:

  • The price is on the wrong side of £3,000.
  • The cooling is noisy.
  • Does it really need 64GB of DDR4 RAM?
  • It is big and heavy.
  • The keyboard is fairly middling.

KitGuru says: GTX 1080 graphics with 120Hz screen and G-Sync, all in one laptop.

The post Asus ROG G701VI Laptop Review (G-SYNC 120hz, GTX1080) first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/laptops/leo-waldock/asus-rog-g701vi-laptop-review-g-sync-120hz-gtx1080/feed/ 4
KitGuru Reader Awards 2016 – Your Winners Revealed! https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/featured-tech-news/andrzej/kitguru-reader-awards-2016-your-winners-revealed/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/featured-tech-news/andrzej/kitguru-reader-awards-2016-your-winners-revealed/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:30:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=312158 Each KitGuru reader has their own opinion when it comes to which graphic cards, processors, chassis etc go into making the perfect rig. With 2 million readers visiting the site every month, 340,000 enthusiasts active in the KitGuru Facebook Community and up to 400,000 of you watching the videos we produce on a constant basis …

The post KitGuru Reader Awards 2016 – Your Winners Revealed! first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
Each KitGuru reader has their own opinion when it comes to which graphic cards, processors, chassis etc go into making the perfect rig. With 2 million readers visiting the site every month, 340,000 enthusiasts active in the KitGuru Facebook Community and up to 400,000 of you watching the videos we produce on a constant basis – we know that there is a ‘wisdom of the crowd' effect working away. The KitGuru Annual Reader Awards are the perfect way to express that wisdom.

First, the process of choosing the winners is entirely controlled by you.

Methodology
On 10th October, we opened the nominations and your votes decided which products would be voted for in each category. Voting started at the beginning of November and we received thousands of scores from you over a two week period.

Winners
Those scores have now been compiled, checked and used to discover the KitGuru Reader's Awards 2016 winners. The votes were also pooled with the other members of the European Hardware Association and the EHA Community Awards will be announced in a few hours time.

JUST before we present you with the list of winners for 2016, there's the small matter of the competition we ran alongside the votes. The lucky winner of the Amazon Echo is Taylor Sparks and we'll be dispatching his prize shortly.

Now on to the winning products!

1-best-cpu

2-best-atx-mainboard

3-best-micro-atx

4-best-mini-itx

5-best-memory

6-best-gpu

7-best-amd-graphics

8-best-nvidia-graphics

9-best-monitor

10-best-gaming-monitor

 

11-best-professional-monitors

 

12-best-cpu-cooler-air

13-best-cpu-cooler-liquid

14-best-case-fans

15-best-hard-drive

16-best-ssd

17-best-nas

18-best-external-storage

19-best-atx-case

20-best-micro-atx-chase

21-best-mini-itx-case

22-best-psu

23-best-mouse

24-best-keyboard

25-best-headset

26-best-router

27-best-sound-card

28-best-speakers

29-best-vr-product

30-intel-nuc

31-best-laptop

32-best-2-in-1

33-best-gaming-notebook

35-best-smartphone

36-best-wearable

37-best-smart-home-product

38-best-overclocking-product

39-best-new-technology

40-best-product-over-all

 

KitGuru says: Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you very much for voting – really really appreciate your support and feedback. Stay tuned for the European Hardware Association Community Awards – your votes have been counted there as well!

The post KitGuru Reader Awards 2016 – Your Winners Revealed! first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/featured-tech-news/andrzej/kitguru-reader-awards-2016-your-winners-revealed/feed/ 5
Fierce PC eSports Imperial Overlord Review https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/fierce-pc-esports-imperial-overlord-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/fierce-pc-esports-imperial-overlord-review/#comments Mon, 04 Jul 2016 08:15:46 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=297699 FiercePC has rushed us its new E-Sports Imperial Overlord gaming PC that is built around a Founders Edition GTX 1080 graphics card. This is especially big news for your reviewer who hand-carried a GTX 1080 back from the Nvidia event in the USA and passed it on to our man Zardon without opening the box. So …

The post Fierce PC eSports Imperial Overlord Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
FiercePC has rushed us its new E-Sports Imperial Overlord gaming PC that is built around a Founders Edition GTX 1080 graphics card. This is especially big news for your reviewer who hand-carried a GTX 1080 back from the Nvidia event in the USA and passed it on to our man Zardon without opening the box. So yay, an actual gaming PC with GTX 1080 (original Founders Edition review HERE).

The rest of the hardware is pretty much what you would expect in any decent gaming PC – Core i7, a bunch of DDR4, Z170 chipset and a fast SSD. Broadly speaking we have seen it all before and that throws the focus on price and performance.

Well almost. The Corsair Carbide Spec Alpha chassis is an interesting choice as it is fairly small as tower cases go so this beast of a gaming PC actually looks rather understated. It would be easy to confuse it for a basic ‘yours for £499' PC right up to the point when you fire it into life.

FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Front-Low FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Front FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Front-Left-34-Open FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Front-Right-34-Open

FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Rear-Right-34-Open FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Side-Semi-Open  FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Side-Open-Reverse  FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-Side-Open-Detail

Specifications:

  • CPU Intel Core i7-6700K Quad Core CPU 4.6GHz Overclock
  • CPU cooler Corsair Hydro Series H80i v2 Liquid CPU Cooler (120mm)
  • Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000MHz
  • Motherboard Gigabyte Z170X-GAMING 7
  • Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Graphics Card
  • SSD 256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 NVMe Solid State Drive
  • Storage 1TB WD Blue HDD
  • Case Corsair Carbide Spec Alpha Gaming Case – Black/Silver
  • PSU Corsair RM650x 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply
  • OS 64-bit Windows 10 Home
  • Warranty 3 Year Protect Warranty (Return to Base 1yr Parts, 3 year labour, Carriage Free for first 30 days)

Obviously the combination of Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 with 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000MHz and an overclocked Core i7-6700K that Turbos to 4.6GHz (stock is 4.2GHz) was always going be rapid but our initial impression was that it was noisy.

Hmm, perhaps the Corsair H80i was set to spin too fast? Nope, Corsair Link was on silent and the push/pull fans at the rear of the case were indeed very quiet. The culprit was the pair of case fans at the front of the Spec Alpha that were roaring away. A quick flick of the fan speed control switch on the front of the case from fastest/loudest to slowest/quiet made a world of difference. If you are undecided about such things there is a third position in the middle that is a fair compromise.

One final word about the case fans is that they are white LED models that illuminate the inside of the case nicely. Yes we would prefer a proper RGB set-up but this cheap and effective approach works perfectly well.

With the Imperial Overlord running quietly we had a look through the component parts and found two items of note. The first is that the SSD has been upgraded from the expected Samsung 850 EVO to a Samsung SM951 which means it gains NVMe. The SSD is a chewing gum stick of M.2 goodness that sits just below the graphics card and offers sufficient capacity for your current crop of popular games.

Secondly, we noted the BIOS was rather elderly. The Gigabyte Z170X is on BIOS F5 which dates from October 2015. Since then Gigabyte has released F6 which improves M.2 compatibility, and F7 which helps XMP, along with Beta versions F8d, F8i and F8l for improved DDR compatibility from April and May 2016. We have to make it clear that we had no problems whatsoever with the Imperial Overlord however it would make us more comfortable to see the BIOS updated to F7.

FiercePC has bumped up the Turbo speed on the Core i7-6700K with a conventional overclock that increases CPU V Core 1.35V, CPU VCCSA 1.1V and DRAM to 1.35V. These are sensible, conservative figures that work well and deliver a handy ten percent more clock speed.

Testing

Fierce PC PC Mark

PC Mark 8

FiercePC 3DMark Fire Strike

3D Mark Fire Strike

FiercePC 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

3D Mark Fire Strike Ultra

Fierce PC Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes 1080Ashes 4K

Fierce PC Rise of the Tomb Raider

Fierce PC GTA V

God's teeth this thing is fast. Mind you we expected nothing less but even so it was great to see GTX 1080 in action. As you will have seen in a number of KitGuru reviews GTX 1080 hauls in 1080p and 1440p and does a very fine job in 4K. It is unquestionably the finest single graphics card that sensible money can buy and Imperial Overlord pushes it to the fore.

At first glance the Corsair RM 650x power supply may appear to have a lowly rating of a mere 650W however we noted the Imperial Overlord only draws 80W at the mains socket when idling on the desktop and 310W under full load, which is incredibly low.

Cooling Performance

Fierce PC Temps

We had no problems during regular gaming use of the Imperial Overlord, however it was a different story when we pushed the hardware to the limit with AIDA 64. We saw the overclocked Core i7 push beyond 90 degrees Celsius point where throttling kicked in. This is doubtless due to the nature of the Skylake Core i7, rather than insufficient cooling as the Corsair H80i does a perfectly sound job.

Acoustics Performance
With the case fans set to the lowest position the Imperial Overlord is very quiet indeed. While it is not truly silent, in practice it is as quiet as it needs to be and that is thanks in no small part to the GTX 1080 which is impressively quiet in Founders Edition form.

Closing Thoughts

We are deeply impressed with FiercePC Imperial Overlord, however it is hard to offer it true love or affection. It looks fairly plain and doesn't offer much in the way of innovation or novel features. Instead it boils down to the GTX 1080 and its supporting Core i7, along with a blistering SSD and a goodly amount of DDR4 memory which all work incredibly well.

The biggest problem is that Imperial Overlord has a list of parts that we total as £1590 along with a selling price of £1640 so no matter how you cut it this is a seriously expensive PC when you consider it has an All In One liquid cooler on the CPU and an air cooled graphics card.

This is not intended as a downer on FiercePC which has responded to the launch of GTX 1080 by rushing out a new PC as fast as possible. We applaud them, however companies such as EKWB have now produced water blocks for GTX 1080 so what we want is the next PC coming down the line which is a Core i7/GTX 1080 combo with custom loop cooling. Hopefully that will cost around £2000 and will run considerably cooler, although that is merely speculation on our part. Nonetheless we have our fingers crossed.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

FiercePC-Imperial-Overlord-KitGuru-Review-650-End

Buy the Fierce PC eSports Imperial Overlord direct HERE.

Pros:

  • GTX 1080 gaming power
  • Overclocked Core i7
  • Lovely and quiet
  • Low power draw
  • Small footprint
  • Very fast Samsung SSD
  • White LEDs illuminate case interior

Cons:

  • Expensive
  • We are waiting for a custom loop version of this PC
  • CPU gets hot under extreme load

KitGuru says: An impressive PC that delivers a superb gaming experience.

WORTH BUYING

The post Fierce PC eSports Imperial Overlord Review first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/fierce-pc-esports-imperial-overlord-review/feed/ 1
Doom (2016) running on Nvidia GTX1080 (Video showcase) https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/doom-2016-running-on-gtx1080-video-showcase/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/doom-2016-running-on-gtx1080-video-showcase/#comments Sun, 08 May 2016 16:58:44 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=292139 KitGuru had an invite to the Nvidia Editors Day Event last week, and the guys in green brought some of the ID software development team over to showcase Doom (2016). We managed to get a front row seat as Doom (2016) was running on a massive $100,000+ LED wall via the Vulkan API. Sadly the …

The post Doom (2016) running on Nvidia GTX1080 (Video showcase) first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
KitGuru had an invite to the Nvidia Editors Day Event last week, and the guys in green brought some of the ID software development team over to showcase Doom (2016). We managed to get a front row seat as Doom (2016) was running on a massive $100,000+ LED wall via the Vulkan API. Sadly the resolution was limited to 1080p, but the ID guys did uncap the frame rate part way through to highlight frame rate improvements from the upcoming flagship Nvidia GPU. One of the engineers Tom was playing the game as we watched it and you can just make him out bottom left in the video below. Sadly they didn't detail the system specifications – apart from the fact it was powered by the upcoming Nvidia GTX1080 GPU.

nvidia wall

Imagine having a screen this size, in your living room! Shame about the 1080p limitation, but when we get our hands on Nvidia's GTX1080 we will be sure to give it a right thrashing at Ultra HD 4K.

screenshot527screenshot528

Worth the upgrade over a GTX980 ti or Fury GPU? We will have the answers …

KitGuru says: Check back soon for our full review of this graphics card.

The post Doom (2016) running on Nvidia GTX1080 (Video showcase) first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/doom-2016-running-on-gtx1080-video-showcase/feed/ 7