News

BenchZone's BattleField 3 Server is online!

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 19:01:00 -0700

Are you eager to kill some hardware reviewers & addicts in BattleField 3 ?
Well, here's your chance!

Our team's BattleField 3 server is up and running and waiting for you to visit us!

Search for "RnG" on Battlelog or just click on this BattleLog Server Linkyou'll find us

Daily Reviews Roundup - 12/Jun/2012

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:30:00 -0700

Roger "splmann" Tanner from OCaholic.ch published a review of the Kingston HyperX KHX2800C12D3T1K2/4GX high performance 4GB Dual Channel Memory Kit.

Marc "rewarder" Buchel from OCaholic.ch once again, reviews Toshiba's 2.5" 1TB HDD.
Is it a good performer ? Who cares! At least now you can have 1TB of data to carry with your notebook!

TechPowerUp published their review of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC.
Their sample failed to overclock ( stably ) any further than 1060MHz! ( some proof that not every review sample is cherrypicked as some people claim ).
I thought my friend's reference GTX 670 that only clocks up to 1128MHz was the worst GTX 670 out there, but this GTX 670 at TPU is on its own league... frustratingly cr@ppy GPU core
They were lucky at least memory-wise, the memory on that Gigabyte worked fine at 1925MHz ( GDDR-7700 )!

Lab501.ro reviewed the Asus ROG Desktop CG8580, a custom built gaming desktop PC by Asus.

XbitLabs.com features its own clash of the... Graphics card titans of today, having the MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning duke it out against the Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II Top.

Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z PCI-Express 3.0: Yes it works!

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:39:00 -0700

Who told you ( hmm... Asus did, and some people or reviewers ) that the little beast that goes by the name Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z, the almighty MicroATX Z68 motherboard can't operate its PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot in PCI-E v3.0 speeds ( "mode" ) ?

No, I'm not talking about the Gene-Z/GEN3 which is pretty much the very same motherboard with the only difference being the different, now PCI-Express 3.0 certified on-board switches and the "PCI-Express 3.0" sticker on the box.

Not much has been changed from PCI-Express 2.x to 3.0 electrically, that's why some chips are capable of doing things they're not supposed to do.

In this case, the Maximus IV Gene-Z is capable of running the first ( top ) PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot in PCI-Express 3.0 mode, granted that you're using an Intel "Ivy Bridge" ( Core i5 / i7 3xxx ) series CPU.

You just need to flash your motherboard with this BIOS and of course own an Intel "Ivy Bridge" CPU and a PCI-Express 3.0 graphics card such as the AMD Radeon HD 7XXX series and the nVIDIA GeForce GTX 6XX series.

Here's a screenshot ( click on the thumbnail to view the full size image ) with GPU-z and a measurements teaser from a forthcoming article, part of which is a PCI-Express 3.0 comparison on the "unofficially supported" Maximus IV Gene-Z versus the Maximus V Gene Z77 ( official PCI-Express 3.0 support ):

If you have any doubts, I will upload a video on our youtube channel as soon as I finish some more measurements

Avexir Blitz Series prototype video: awesome case mods candidate ?

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 13:13:00 -0700

Avexir demonstrated their new RAM heatsink design for the Blitz gaming & overclocking memory series at Computex recently.

It certainly looks like Avexir pays a lot of attention to the visual presentation of their memory kits not just on their performance.

In case you missed it, we reviewed the LED lit ( alternating patterns & dimming ) Core Series DDR3-1600 32GB kit a few months back.
If you thought those look good, then you've got to reconsider right after looking at the video of the Blitz series new design:

Daily Reviews Roundup - 07/Jun/2012

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:00:46 -0700

Welcome to our first Daily Reviews Roundup!

Christian Ney at OCaholic.ch presents his third driver performance analysis for the AMD Radeon HD7970 with AMD's newest driver, the Catalyst 12.6 beta.

While Marc "rewarder" Buchel reviews the HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultra Portable Notebook again at OCaholic.ch

Power_user_EX at OCfreaks.com reviews the Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3L motherboard

Andy "aruffell" Ruffell at eteknix.com reviews the Biostar TZ77XE4 Z77 motherboard

Dave "cadaveca" Rennie at techpowerup.com reviews the ECS Golden Board Z77H2-AX Z77 motherboard

Sandy Bridge vs Ivy Bridge gaming performance review!

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 23:52:57 -0700

About 2 months ago Intel released their 3rd generation of Core i5 & i7 CPUs, namely the Core i5-3570K and the Core i7-3770K featuring the "Ivy Bridge" Core architecture, an enhanced version ( in terms of performance and power efficiency ) of Intel's "Sandy Bridge" architecture.
The new processors are pretty good, they have a 3% to 17% percent performance advantage over their predecessors at the same clock frequencies, they overclock pretty good ( although lower frequency-wise than their predecessors mainly due to their heat output ), and consume less power at the same time!

A lot of people are asking on various computer forums if buying a new Core i7-3770K or a 3570K will increase their fps in their favorite games.
That's exactly what we're going to find out today with this article!

We'll compare the new Core i7-3770K with a Core i7-2600K in various games running at the same operating frequency, and in various overclocked frequencies as well ( 4.2GHz, 4.5GHz, 4.7GHz and more ) in a head to head battle of Intel's 2nd and 3rd generation CPUs from the "Core iX" family.

We'll also run more tests with the Core i7-3770K at various frequencies, including the stock frequency ( 3.5GHz ) and show you how our framerates in some of the most demanding computer games scale with the 3770K's operating frequency as we overclock it up to 4.6GHz on air cooling!

What are you waiting for ?!
Click here to read the article now!

Asus Z9PE-D8 WS review @ OCaholic.ch

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:02:04 -0700

Our friends at OCaholic.ch, Christian Ney to be precise, released the review of a Dual Socket Asus workstation motherboard for Intel's LGA2011 DP Processors, the Asus Z9PE-D8 WS ( what a weird name )
Christian installed two 8 core / 16 threads Intel Xeon E5-2690 CPUs along with 32GB of DDR3-1333 CL9 DIMMs from G.Skill and a Radeon HD 7970 graphics card and run a couple of synthetic and real-life performance tests on it.

It surely looks like a F@H beast, doesn't it ?

Click here to be forwarded to OCaholic to read the Asus Z9PE-D8 WS review now!

Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe review @ OCFreaks.com

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:47:59 -0700

Our friend Sumon Pathak at OCFreaks.com published a review of the Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe Z77 motherboard.
Included in the review is a detailed look at the new Fan Expert 2 feature which allows the user to control the fans connected to the motherboard in a "revolutionary" way ( this feature is also present on the P8Z77-V and the P8Z77-V Pro ).
Like most of Asus's "Deluxe" edition motherboards the P8Z77-V Deluxe follows suite and introduces to the consumers a handful of new features ( whether they're useful or not, it depends to you and how you plan to use your PC ).

Click here to get redirected to OCFreaks to read the Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe review now!

AMD HD 7970 CrossFire Driver Comparison @ OCaholic.ch

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:14:43 -0700

In a similar fashion to what we did in our "Driver Maturity" article, OCaholic's Christian Ney took 2 AMD Radeon HD 7970s, an Intel Core i7-2600K, 16GBs of DDR3-1600 G.Skill RipjawsZ RAM and tested the performance of the Radeon HD 7970 CrossFire in various games & benchmarks using the first official driver from the release of the HD 7970 graphics card, the Catalyst 11.12 and compared the results with the latest official driver, the Catalyst 12.4

In contrast a driver's effects on a Single graphics card's performance, the drivers can make a big difference in multi-graphics cards configurations ( CrossFire / SLI ).
Aren't you curious to see how much performance we gain using newer drivers ?

Click here to get redirected to OCaholic and read the article now!

Ivy Bridge Overclocking Guide @ OCaholic.ch

Thu, 31 May 2012 23:53:52 -0700

Starting from today and with this news post, we'll be linking you on a daily basis ( most of the time ) to selected reviews, articles & guides from other computer hardware websites, like this one, OCaholic.ch

Steven "sin0822" Bassiri wrote an overclocking guide ( normal air / water cooling & extreme dry ice / LN2 cooling ) regarding the Intel Core i5-3570K and the Core i7-3770K ( most of the things are also applicable to the non-K models ) processors.

It's a pretty good guide, suitable for everybody out there, from the overclocking beginner, to the "casual" overclocker, and also useful for experienced overclockers with limited or no experience with Intel's "Sandy Bridge" who are looking to overclock the new "Ivy Bridge" processors under subzero cooling.

Click here to read the guide from OCaholic.ch now!

nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review - Part I - 1080p published!

Sun, 27 May 2012 10:23:17 -0700

After a lot of testing, overclocking, and a few unexpected delays due to various reasons we're more than happy with the outcome thus far, finally a big chunk of our extremely long review of the nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GK104 "Kepler" Graphics Card is ready and published!

Since our testing for the GeForce GTX 680 is very thorough and extremely long ( as usual huh ? ) we decided to split the review of the new graphics card in 4 or more parts with every part focusing on a specific resolution as a main theme.

Today we're unveiling the 1080p ( 1920x1080 ) part of our GeForce GTX 680 review, featuring 27 or more games, all the synthetic benchmarks, lots of thermal & noise measurements, performance testing in stock, mildly overclocked and extremely overclocked condition, CPU Scaling tests to see if overclocking your CPU helps you achieve better framerates and a smoother gameplay in your favorite game, a short explanation and testing of the performance gains/loss from applying various options from nVIDIA's Control Panel, and more!

So, grab a cup of ice tea or your favorite energy drink and get diggin', read the nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 review now!

Adata S510 120GB SATA3 SSD Review!

Sun, 06 May 2012 13:32:00 -0700

BenchZone proudly presents to you the review of the Adata S510 120GB SATA3 SSD!

Yes, it took us a while, but we decided to take the plunge and start reviewing SSDs, starting today with the fairly cheap yet powerful (?) S510 120GB SSD from Adata.
Apart from the usual contents ( performance measurements, charts, photos ) we included a page full of tips & settings that will help you get the most out of your SSD ( any SSD, they are brand and model independent ) while keeping it as healthy as possible!

So, go ahead and read the review now by clicking on the following link:

Adata S510 120GB SATA3 SSD Review

nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Specifications & Launch!

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:17:40 -0700

Only a few days after unveiling and launching the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, another product based on the GK104 GPU Core of the "Kepler" family is going to see the light of day!

The nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 will be launched this Thursday the 10th of May with the following specifications and price tag:

GPU Core: GK104
Stream Processors: 1344
ROPs: 32
TMUs: 128
Memory BUS Width: 256BIT
Memory Capacity: 2GB
GPU Core Base Clock: 915MHz
GPU Core Base Boost Clock: 994MHz
Memory Clock: 1502MHz ( GDDR5-6008 )
2* 6pin PCI-Express power connectors
supports all the features introduced with the GeForce 300 Series drivers and the GeForce GTX 680

MSRP: $399-$429

AMD & nVIDIA drivers "maturity" test/article published!

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:55:26 -0700

We're feeling good and happy here at BenchZone today, as we have a new article to unveil to the public

Today we're going to check if the newer graphics card driver releases from AMD & nVIDIA are truly increasing the performance of their graphics cards, how much ? if at all, at what cost ?

Check out our new article now and find out, we've got plenty of games like Crysis, Metro 2033, DiRT 2, benchmarks from FutureMark's 3D Mark Series, Unigine's Heaven, etc, screenshots to compare the image quality between the two brands and between their own driver releases, and more!

Check it out now, you know you want to! Click here!

Avexir Core Series DDR3-1600 32GB Quad Channel Kit Review

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:59:27 -0800

Finally, our first review for 2012 is ready & published ( yay! )

Today we're taking a 32GB Quad Channel Memory Kit from Avexir for a spin on BenchZone's Benchmark track.
It's a mainstream DDR3-1600 memory kit with low profile aluminum heatspreaders with a unique feature:
blue flashing & dimming LEDs at the top sides, profile & center with Avexir's logo flashing in light blue in alternating sequences.

Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite energy drink, and read the review now!

http://www.benchzone.com/page.php?al=avexir_core_32GB_review

Merry Xmas & a Happy New Year!

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:13:41 -0800

Merry Xmas & our wishes for a happy, healthy and successful in every aspect New Year!!!
Have fun and take care, remember partying is nice, but our safety is #1, if you drink, do not drive.

Have fun ladies & gentlemen, see you again in a few weeks with more hardware reviews & articles!

Brand new article: PC's Gaming Performance: What really matters...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:58:57 -0800

Hello everybody,
We're happy to announce to you that we have a brand new article online for you to read today!

In this article we're focusing on what gives us ( and what does not ) higher performance in our favorite computer games.
We test various CPUs and graphics cards at various frequencies, quantities, overclock various components, try a few sound cards, and go through various scenarios and "myths" originating from various computer & gaming forums ( such as the "HyperThreading myth" and the 16x-16x SLI performance against 8x-8x slot SLI performance ).
We test if we get any higher FPS by overclocking our RAM, our Core i7 980X & Core i5-2600K CPUs, overclocking the PCI-Express BUS, overclocking the BCLK, and many more.

If you're a gamer, you REALLY NEED to read this article.

So, grab a cup of coffee or your favorite energy drink ( oh yes, you're going to need a lot of energy, you're looking at a 23 page reading :-p ) and read the article now!

AMD FX-8150 "Bulldozer" Processor Preview

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:47:54 -0700

Hello everybody!
Long time, no "see".

How are you doing ? Hope all is well over there.

We're finally back, and planning to remain active again, outputting a bunch of reviews, guides & articles each month.

Let's start November ( OMG, the winter's coming, nooooo! ) with a preview of the newest flagship processor of AMD's Bulldozer series, the FX-8150!
In this preview we'll take a look at the specifications of the new processor and its performance in various tasks on Ubuntu 11.10 x64 Linux.
We might release another preview covering some basic applications & benchmarks on Windows 7 before we release the full review ( 100's of benchmarks, lots of pages, architecture analysis, feature & future looks, etc etc ).

Apart from the text, charts and comments, you'll also be able to view 2 videos we took using the AMD FX-8150 processor, a video that was taken during our measurements, and an extreme overclocking video in which we insulate the motherboard, overclock the processor using liquid nitrogen ( LN2 ) and run various benchmarks like 3D Mark Vantage, SuperPi, wPrime, etc etc.

So, go ahead, check out our preview of the AMD FX-8150 CPU now!

FutureMark's PC Mark 7 release date

Mon, 09 May 2011 16:57:25 -0700

FutureMark Corp. the famous benchmarking software house informed us a few hours ago about the final release date of their new installment in the general PC performance evaluation benchmarks, PC Mark 7!
PC Mark 7 will be released this Thursday, May 12th and will more than likely become the PC Markers' new favorite benchmark ( think PC Mark05 ).

As you can guess from its name, it will only run under Windows 7.
The free edition will be more than enough for the average & pro benchmarker, as you'll be able to run the standard benchmark ( System Test Suite ) suite as many times as you wish, and store all your results on FutureMark's new ORB ( Online Result Browser ).
If you want to use the results saving feature, you'll have to buy the advanced version though.

Get ready to bench guys 'n' girls!!!

Forum issues fixed, database wiped, registrations open again

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:27:00 -0700

A few months ago I was notified by a reader that our forum had an issue causing an error whenever somebody tried to register.
Wise people say "Better late than never", right ?
Yesterday I wiped the forum's database and started re-installing & configuring our forums, introducing a few new interesting sections & new forum organization as well.

I'm still making changes, adding sections, getting ready to change the forum scheme & layout, add more features and add-ons, but you may register safely as of now.

Visit the new BenchZone & BenchBot forums now!

R.I.P. Cyril :-(

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:56:00 -0700

We just learned that a dear friend of ours, Cyril Pelupessy, who was a technical PR officer at MSI Europe passed away 2 days ago suffering from pneumonia for 1 month.
He was a great man, a hard working person and a great friend.

Thank you very much for the good times in Amsterdam Cyril.

We'll miss you man.

R.I.P.

MSI Win a GeForce GTX 480 contest results

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:05:00 -0700

The results, 3 lucky winners!

Ladies & gentlemen, the time has come!

We can announce the lucky winners today.

First off, let's start with the correct answers:

1. What is nVIDIA Fermi ?

b. The next generation CUDA Architecture

2. What is MSI Afterburner ?

b. An overclock utility for VGA developed by MSI and rivatuner

3. How is the high-end VGA series of MSI called ?

c. Lightning

4.
Which one of the below names is not an MSI VGA cooler ?

b. Fridge

5. What is the thickness of the MSI Superpipe ?

d. 8mm

You can hold your breath now... here comes the lucky winners list:

Out of 17.568 participants the following 3 were the luckiest:

1. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Oscar Olsson from Sweden!

2. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Asger Hansen from Denmark!

3. MSI GeForce GTX 480 goes to... Dora Christodoulou from Greece!

Congratulations to the winners and thanks everybody for participating.

The official page of the contest will be updated later on today.

http://www.msi.eu/fermi

3D Mark11 - Footage & Information mini-article

Fri, 28 May 2010 10:22:23 -0700

A few days ago FutureMark, the developer of the well-known 3D Mark series benchmarks sent us an e-mail with footage & information regarding their upcoming DirectX 11 benchmark called "3D Mark11".
If you would like to see some screenshots, a 720p tech demo video and some information regarding their upcoming benchmark read our mini-article now!

Click here to read the 3D Mark11 tech preview article now!

Kingston HyperX DDR3-2000 6GB Triple Channel Kit Review published!

Thu, 27 May 2010 19:02:00 -0700

Hello everybody,

I'm very pleased to be able to announce that I have a new review for you guys ( and girls ) to read today!
I've been working on this one for quite a few days, but things got complicated due to various reasons and breaks ( personal stuff & some business trips ) and some delayed hardware arrivals ( everything's ok now and we'll be back with another review ASAP! ) resulting in a relatively big delay.
Anyway, I guess you're looking for the product I reviewed and present to you today, so here it comes:

It's a nice and relatively affordable 6GB DDR3 triple channel memory kit from Kingston, the HyperX DDR3-2000C9 kit ( part number: hmm.. hold on... ok! KHX2000C9AD3T1FK3/6GX ).
Its specifications might seem very conservative to you, 9-10-9-x at DDR3-2000 at 1.65V. How far can these DIMMs overclock ? Will they hit anything noteworthy ? DDR3-2000 at CAS 7 ? DDR3-2300 at relatively good timings and low voltage ?

Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite drink and read the review now!

Extreme Overclocking Event 2010 by Battlenet Pefkakia

Wed, 19 May 2010 01:09:06 -0700

The past Saturday me and my benching partner Chris "Crio" Christopoulos were invited to bench on the stage at an internet cafe in Athens called "BattleNet".
I had little to no time to prepare the hardware for the event ( mostly because most of the hardware arrived at my place at the very last second, thanks for the support though Intel, Gigabyte, Antec, A-data ) so I prepared just the motherboard/CPU ( eVGA X58 SLI Classified E760 and an Intel Core i7 980X E.S., Q4EG B1 Stepping ) and the GeForce GTX 480 graphics card for LN2 ( Liquid Nitrogen ) cooling.
Unfortunately the CPU wasn't what I'd call a decent chip, so we were kinda limited to 3D Mark03 ( which is mostly VGA dependent ) and a few attempts of completing 3D Mark06 & 3D Mark Vantage at 5.4GHz-ish.

I have to finish several reviews, so there won't be an "article" covering this event ( for the time being at least ), but we do have some photos from the event to show you

Click here to view our photo album on FaceBook

Also make sure you subscribe ( "like" ) to our FaceBook page here to find out what we're working on and any events/contests taking place or coming up shortly!

Stay tuned, there's a memory review coming up shortly!