As mentioned in the Overclocking the Core i5 post a while back, my graphics card was limiting higher performance outputs, especially since it had to render games in 2560×1440. I hinted at an additional post dedicated to overclocking the GPU and this is it in some ways. I did overclock the GPU, but shortly after I also replaced it with a Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080. Nevertheless, for comparison, I will include the overclocked results based on the custom graphics settings from the last post and also compare it to the 1080 using default game presets. This way you can easily compare with your own rig. I had hoped I could also include Ryzen tests, but unfortunately Corsair’s AM4 mounting kit for the watercooler is still travelling around the world. So, there’ll be another performance related article (hopefully) soon. That one will compare the overclocked i5 with the GTX 1080 to a Ryzen 1700X with the 1080. Not only in games, but also in encoding.Read More »
Category: Gaming
The Witcher 3
Released in 2015, The Witcher 3 quickly advanced to become the new high standard of action role playing games – of all times. CD Project Red, a polish studio, created a masterpiece of a video game based on the characters of novels by polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. This game eats away at your time and is an amazing ending to the great Witcher Trilogy. Such high praise cannot be given to every game – although there are some out there. In fact, I’ve written about one of them in the past, Dragon Age Origins. But, despite all the praise, there are also some things wrong with this game and I’ll address them as well. Unfortunately, it was one of the core elements that didn’t really resonate with me at all, the combat. Let’s get this out of the way so we can focus on the good parts and end on a high note, shall we?
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Overclocking Intel Core i5 6600K to 4.2 GHz
The Skylake i5 is the 6th generation Core micro-architecture that has a lot of gaming power by default, especially the K series of CPUs. But, with only 4 cores and no hyper-threading, they are just not the right fit for some scenarios, especially video encoding. So, other than buying a new CPU (and board and maybe even RAM – as intriguing as it sounds), what can you do to get more performance? Overclock it! That’s what the K stands for, right? OverKlocK.Read More »
Tomb Raider 2013
Almost everybody knows Lara Croft, even those people that don’t really play games. At least they have heard that name before, probably through the movies with Angelina Jolie. In 2013 Square Enix rebooted the whole series and created a game that is so immersive beyond just the exploring of dungeons and ruins. It depicts how the Lara Croft of old, the tough archeologist, came to be. I know the old games, I played a few, but they never really hooked me. If it had not been for a promo code that came with an AMD video card I probably wouldn’t even own Tomb Raider.Read More »
Ergonomic Workplace / Gaming Mouse & Keyboard
Until a couple of months ago my main focus on buying input devices for computers was based on performance and price. I mean, in general that is how one goes about spending money, right? Check the spec sheet and see if it’s worth it. That’s how I always buy my things. I make up my mind that I need something and then I visit my preferred retailer websites and compare the prices. At my home desktop I am a bit more demanding than at work where I simply used (past tense) what came with the computer, but ergonomics never played a role. Boy has that changed.
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Intel Haswell-E Core i7-5820K vs. Ivy Bridge Core i5-5370
This one’s been bugging me for some time, mostly because I’m an enthusiast and even more so since I started transcoding my Blu-Rays to mp4. But I’ve never pulled the trigger. The reasons are simple:
- The GPU is not fast enough.
- It’ll only be good for this one thing, transcoding.
- I reasoned myself into not needing one.
- I am a penny-pincher.
Until recently…
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Dragon Age Origins: What an Awesome Game
The last time that I’ve written about a computer game dates quite a while back. I don’t know what took me so long, but I guess I was simply busy playing the games rather than writing about them. Dragon Age Origins, however, made me feel about a game like no other did before and I just have to tell you about this.Read More »
NVIDIA GTX 970 vs. AMD HD 7870 vs. NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti
My gaming PC is about two years old now (read this and this for more information) and although I didn’t really have any serious, permanent performance issues in games, I felt that it was about time to change something.
Here’s a short review and benchmark comparison of NVIDIA’s latest GTX 970 vs. the AMD Radeon HD 7870 (quite a mouthful) that I had installed before. The latter also had to show what it can do compared to an older NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti.
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ASRock P67 Pro3 BIOS Error Code 97
Recently I wanted to install a Gigabyte Radeon HD7870 in an older PC with an ASRock P67 Pro3 Mainboard. The surprise was big when the monitor didn’t show an image and the computer didn’t boot. Instead, the mainboard’s debug panel showed the error code 97. According to the manual this means “Console Output devices connect”. Not connectED but more likely in the process of initializing the graphics card and failing while doing that.
There’s an easy fix for that. Installing the latest BIOS version (3.30, installed at the time was 2.02) resolved the issue and the computer booted without problems.
The Bumpy Road to PC 5.1 Surround Sound
When building the PC for gaming on the TV one thing I had in mind was leveraging the already existing 5.1 sound system. After the move from the TV screen back to a desktop monitor I thought my headphones would suffice for the time spent playing games. At first that assumption turned out to be true, however, not only did I use the headphones for gaming but also when watching TV shows. In the evening, after work, I wanted to enjoy the audio but had no interest in disturbing my neighbors. After a while this led to the headphones becoming quite uncomfortable for all those hours wearing them, especially during the weekend gaming session when having them on the head for several hours.
So, what does a tech-nerd do about that? Buy himself a dedicated sound system for the PC, he does!
Thoughts about SteamOS and Steam Machine
Valve just recently anounced its plans about a SteamOS based gaming machine and its own controller. As I’ve been through this experience of a gaming computer in the living room this year, I thought I might add my two cents on that.
The idea itself is compelling, sitting on the couch and gaming on the big screen is very appealing. Especially, considering that this is where the powerful sound system is connected to. This had been one of the driving forces behind my decision to try it out.
Project HTPC: Experiences
At the beginning of this year I set out to build myself a HTPC to satisfy my newly emerged want for games and also serve as media playback machine, i.e. Blu Ray, DVD and everything I have on iTunes. Accompanying the PC (yes, it was a PC not a Mac) was a Samsung 40″ TV. Following are my – then anounced and long-in-the-waiting – experiences using this combo for gaming and watching movies – and even reading comics.
Project HTPC
Motivation
Not long ago I became quite frustrated with the gaming capabilities of my iMac. It’s not that I didn’t know about the expected performance of the hardware since I bought the cheapest version by design. At that time I did not use the PC I had for what it was built for, which finally led to me selling it. However, recently I felt the urge to play some games other than Diablo 3. For one the iMac just couldn’t deliver the performance to enjoy the visuals of modern games as they were designed to be. Secondly what really frustrated me and this is also the main reason why I never really played anything other than Diablo 3 on the iMac, was the poor cooling management of that machine. I have to crank up the coolers manually (using iStat Menus 3) in order to prevent overheating. Otherwise it’ll just get very hot and reboot eventually. As one can imagine this technique only works reliably on OS X.
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The Gameslinger 