Ghost Recon Online

UPDATE:


The Open Beta for GRO has started. Head on over to their website and download the game. I will be playing the game tomorrow and if possible will also be streaming it on my twitch.tv channel. Happt Hunting my friends. Review of the Open Beta will also be underway soon.

END

If you haven't yet heard about Ghost Recon Online, now is the time to sit up and take notice. The game is out of Beta and is releasing very soon. In fact the site is up and displaying the option to download the game however I haven't yet been able to (I am thinking they are setting up the server so waiting for that to happen and then they will.)

So what is it about? Ghost Recon Online is a Tactical, F2P (Free to Play,) third person shooter. It is a class & squad based shooter that features weapon upgrades and player leveling. There are three classes, Assault, Specialist & Recon with each class further specializing in weaponry. Assault class can use rifles, shotguns, pistols & grenades and can use combat shield and improve armor or combat health regeneration of nearby allies and themselves. The  Recon class uses Sniper Rifles, SMGs, Pistols & Grenades and can cloak scan an area to search for enemies. The Specialist class can use Shotguns, LMGs, Pistols & Grenades while also capable of blacking out the opposing teams electronics, deploying high-energy plasma fields and providing ammo & energy to allies.

A cover system is also in place helping you shield yourself and use some advanced tactics to subdue the enemy.

Up to 16 player matches can be played. I am not entirely sure what game modes there are as I did not enter the Beta, however once the game is downloadable, I will find out and do a review of the game so look forward to it.

Also I got selected for the GFACE Beta and so far it is pretty good. While at present, the Play option is not enabled, there are a bunch of really nice and friendly people on it so it is fun getting to know them and making future teammates ready for any game we play. If you haven't yet, I would advise to go ahead and sign up for the Beta. From my perspective it will be the gaming social networking and as such of very high appeal to me. If you are on it, and read this blog, go ahead and add me and let's play some games (KarachiDevil)!

Kiyoshi Out!
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Have you heard about GFACE?

In researching and signing up for various betas, I came across GFACE (www.gface.com/) and I thought I would bring it to the attention of my readers.

GFACE is a upcoming social media publishing service. It can help you find friends to play online with. Whether you are playing casual games or "core" games, you can have a multi-player experience. GFACE starts right in your browser so all you need to do is drag-drop them into a game and away you go. It will host Warface (www.warface.com) which is Crytek's upcoming social F2P FPS (more on the game in another post though.) Because it runs in your browser, the developer team envisions that you will be able to play cross platforms and it will be hardware and OS independent. Of course I am thrilled about the idea and if and when the chance comes, will likely avail it to see what all we can do with it.

But gaming is not all GFACE does, you can also use it to discover friends, interests and to share entertainment.

You can share anything by just dragging and dropping it. As soon as you start dragging something, it will show a drop bar where you can drop it. You can also share straight from your desktop.

You can also create live sessions and broadcast it to your friends instantly. Since GFACE deploys in your browser it will stream directly and depending on your connection speed and hardware, it will scale the quality for the best possible experience.

I am really excited about this brand new venture and have signed up for the beta and hopefully I will be able to try it very soon. I also wanted to know are any of my readers already on GFACE? If so I would love to meet you in GFACE if I get the chance.

What are your thoughts on it? Let me know via comments and if possible, sign up for the beta and let's try it out together.

I have signed up for several new betas and will talk about the games soon on the blog. Please keep reading and follow if you like. Also if you have a new game in mind, feel free to let me know and I will try it out myself.

Till next time,
Kiyoshi out
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KarachiDevil's Ultimate Build

Hi everyone!

As you may or may not know, the Islamic month of Ramadan has started and it is leaving me with precious little time for my blog. I am making every effort to post regularly during this month so thank you for your patience.

Today I will be talking about my dream build. What I could build if I had all the money in the world. So without further ado, let's get on with it.

CASE:


COOLERMASTER Cosmos II (www.coolermaster.com)

Motherboards : Micro ATX, ATX, E-ATX, XL-ATX
5.25" Drive Bays : 3
3.5" Drive Bays : 13 (Two from X-dock, 11 2.5"                        converted from the 3.5" bays)
Expansion Slots : 11
Dimensions : 13.5" x 27.7" x 26.1"
Price : US$ 349.99

This amazing case can take everything you throw at it and is great for both air cooling (10 fans!) & liquid cooling. A must have.


CPU:

Intel Core i7-3960X (www.intel.com)

Core Clock : 3.3 GHz
Turbo : 3.9 GHZ
6-Core, 12-Thread
L3 Cache : 15MB
L2 Cache : 6 x 256KB
Price : US$ 1029.99

When you dream, dream big, and it doesn't get any bigger then this outrageous extreme edition cpu from Intel.








MOTHERBOARD:


ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (www.asus.com)

Max Memory : 64GB
PCI-E 3.0 x16 : 5, 1 PCI-E x1
SATA Connectors : 4 SATA II, 6 SATA III
Dimensions : 12" x 10.7"
Price : US$ 429.99

When choosing the baddest CPU around, you would be remiss if you did not get the baddest motherboard around as well. Too many things to list here so check it out at the asus website.












VIDEO CARD:


EVGA GeForce GTX 690 Signature (www.evga.com)

Interface : PCI-E 3.0 x16
Core Clock : 915 MHz
Boost Clock : 1019 MHz
CUDA Cores : 3072
Memory : 4GB 512-bit GDDR5
Ports : 1x Mini DisplayPort 3 x DVI
Power Connection : 2 x 8-Pin
Dimensions : 11" x 4.38"
Price : US$ 1049.99

The 690 is actually a dual GPU card. The fastest card ever built. EVGA also has a liquid cooled version which will require a connection to a custom liquid cooling system. The ultimate GPU for the ultimate build.



SOUND CARD:


CREATIVE Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (www.soundblaster.com/)

Priced at US$ 149.99, in my opinion the best gaming sound card you can get. Crystal clear sound which will help you detect other players before they even know you are there. Go for it!













RAM:


CORSAIR Vengeance (www.corsair.com)

Capacity : 4 x 4GB + 4 x 4GB (32GB)
Speed : 1866
Voltage : 1.5V
Timing : 9-10-9-27
CAS Latency : 9
Price : US$ 119.99 + 119.99

Why two different? Well one is Red and one is Black and if I am making a dream build, The motherboard also has red and black slots for the RAM so..... ^_^ Dream Big!

POWER SUPPLY:


CORSAIR Professional Series GOLD AX850 (www.corsair.com)

Max Power : 850W
Active PFC
PCI-E Connectors : 4 x 6+2-Pin
SATA Connectors : 12
Fully Modular
80+ Gold Certified
Price : US$ 189.99

While I am building my ultimate build, I am still loathe to put in a bigger PSU than needed. I don't know why but I always cringe at putting in a big PSU.




LIQUID COOLING:


CORSAIR H100 Extreme (www.corsair.com/)

Featuring a full 240mm radiator and two 120mm fans, this beast will cool that crazy 6-core and keep quite nice and happy. I would do a custom liquid cooling but there would be too many parts to list. So for now this will have to do.
Price : US$ 109.99





HARD DRIVES:


CORSAIR Force Series GS SSD (www.corsair.com/)

Capacity : 180GB
Interface : SATA III
Max Seq. Read : 555MB/s
Max Seq. Write : 525MB/s
Price : US$ 164.99

Corsairs newest line of SSDs, the GS Series boasts very fast performance and more stability then previous iterations.







Western Digital Caviar Black (www.wdc.com)

Capacity : 1.0TB
Interface : SATA III
RPM : 7200
Cache : 64MB
Price : US$ 109.99

A very fast, very stable hard drive choice, the caviar black series is my personal favorite when it comes to hard drives.








OPTICAL DRIVE:


ASUS BW-12B1ST (www.asus.com)

BD-R Write Speed : 12X
BD-R DL : 4X
DVD+R/-R WS : 16X
Price : US$ 89.99

One of the best Blu-Ray Burners out there, the Asus option is fast, quiet and super stable.











TOTAL:


US$ 3914.88

FINAL THOUGHTS:


Could this be even more extreme? Certainly, but this was a sample ultimate build and as you can see the cost is already close to four grand. However if you want to make a affordable LGA 2011 build, you can and I will show an example build for that as well

CASE: NZXT Phantom Full Tower                                                                       US$ 119.99

CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 Quad-Core                                                                    US$ 299.99

MB: ASRock X79 Extreme4 LGA 2011                                                               US$ 224.99

GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC                                                              US$ 459.00

RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4 x 4GB DDR3 1333                                                    US$ 89.99

PSU: CORSAIR TX750 750W 80+ Bronze                                                         US$ 109.99

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo                                                         US$ 30.99

SSD: SAMSUNG 830 Series 64GB                                                                     US$ 89.99

HDD: TOSHIBA 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s                      US$ 69.99

TOTAL:                                                                                                                US$ 1494.92

The options are endless and you can keep making it cheaper and cheaper.

I will also be posting the blog name suggestions as well for polling. Please be on the lookout for that.

Until then,
Kiyoshi Out!
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End of Nations

EDIT : I was granted entry to the beta however it required signing the NDA which effectively means I cannot review it here. Sorry guys however if any of you did sign up for the Beta and are on it, let me know and we can at least play together and have some fun.

Hi everyone!

So yesterday I stumbled upon Totalbiscuit playing the beta for an upcoming game called End of Nations (http://endofnations.com). It is made by Petroglyph (http://www.petroglyphgames.com) which was formed by ex- Westwood Studios employees after EA assimilated WS into the EA Pacific studios and shut it down. Seeing Totalbiscuit play the game, I was hooked. I immediately signed up for it and hope I get to play the Beta soon. For those who do not know about it, End of Nations is MMO RTS-esque Strategy game which can feature up to 56-player battles. To quote the website about the story :

The world is at peace — until unexpected financial collapse sweeps standing governments from control. Amid anarchy and terrorism, the United Nations restores order and takes over much of the world under their new name: the Order of Nations. Two groups, the Liberation Front and the Shadow Revolution, rise to fight to topple the Order of Nations, and each other. Chaos reigns. Fight for freedom or fight for control. This is the End of Nations™.




Now looking at some of the units, I felt that the Liberation Front have a GDI feel to them and the Shadow Revolution have a NOD feel.

The two groups are further sub divided into classes, namely

Liberation Front : 1. Patriot (Defensive Forces with focus on Long-range weaponry)
                           2. Spartan (Heavy Armor, Heavy Firepower)

Shadow Revolution : 1. Phantom (Stealth and Long-range weaponry)
                                2. Wraith (Speedy Hit&Run tactics)

Now each class has it's own commander abilities and structures that they can place on the battlefield to help their forces. The way it is designed, you can either have a balanced mix of forces so that your forces can tackle Air and Ground units, or you can specialize in one and have your fellow commanders specialize in  the other units. There are a lot of strategies you can work out and I am very excited about the game.

Below are some screen shots from the game :





What I love most is the fact that you can customize your units, abilities and superweapons to tailor to your playstyle.



The other thing that I love is that End of Nations is F2P (Free to Play.) I would love to be on the beta so I can test the game out for myself and get a feel of the game so that when it officially releases, I will be ready to  destroy people on it!

You can head on over to their website to take a look at the units and other features of the games.

If I do get beta access, I will be streaming live on my twitch.tv channel (www.twitch.tv/karachidevil) so head on over there and if you feel like it "follow" me so you can know when I livestream. I will be doing a detailed run of the game so be sure to check it out! If anyone of you reading this is on the beta or does decide to be on it, lemme know and we can play together. You can also help me do a run of this game and we can comment on it together.

Till then,
Kiyoshi Out!
Psst... Hey... Spread the word! +1, Subscribe,Tweet ^_^ Thank you for reading.

Accessory of the Week # 4

Hello everybody and welcome to this week's accessory pick.

Have you built a PC in recent times? Have you tinkered inside your computer in the past few weeks? Did you unfortunately introduce static electricity to a component by mistake thereby killing it? (It may not have happened but go along with it.) Then boy do I have just the thing for you!

Introducing.....

The Rosewill RTK-002 Anti Static Wrist Strap. If you are working in a carpeted area, or have dry hands, or have dry weather, or basically anything which can potentially create static electricity, you would do well to buy a anti static wrist wrap. It will help ensure that whatever you are working on (Installing a video card, motherboard, diffusing a time bomb etc.) you do not introduce static electricity to it. it has a long cord which will offer you the convenience of unrestricted movement ( Say when throwing the aforementioned time bomb when you realize you could not diffuse it  but heroically decide to throw it from the top of the building where you were standing with the wrist wrap clinging to a grounding pole you just happened to find on the side of the building which they built so that in the event of a lightning strike, it would hit the pole and pass harmlessly to the ground thereby not incinerating any electrical things people have in their homes so that they do not in turn sue the building owners, developers and the government  for failing to prevent a lightning hit from obliterating their newly built PC which they were using to play a Squad Deathmatch in Battlefield 3 and they were close to winning when the lightning hit took place thereby disconnecting that player from the game resulting in a squad loss, banning from the clan and then the slow drift through life which just lost it's purpose...) So yeah that.

But in all seriousness it is a very handy tool to have when you are working inside the PC or pretty much working on anything electrical and you want to make sure you do not introduce a static charge in to the circuitry.

Selling for US$ 4.99

The competition is still up and running and I any entries are welcome. The more you enter, the more I can start reviewing products and do product giveaways and the more it's a win win for everyone.

That is all for this week.
Kiyoshi Out!
Psst... Hey... Spread the word! +1, Subscribe,Tweet ^_^ Thank you for reading.

The Competition

Good Morning everyone!

Today is the start of the competition I talked about in New Directions. Here are the details for the competition.

1. Help me come up with a new name for the blog. The blog will focus on building computers, reviewing accessories, hardware and games.

2. For your submission to be valid, you will need to leave a comment on this page with your name. Alternatively you can message me @ Google+. The id is linked with my blogger account.

3. The time frame for submissions is two weeks (07/09/2012 - 07/22/2012.) Depending on how many submissions there are, I will short list the ones I feel are the best and put them up for voting. The voting time is 1 week(07/23/2012 - 07/29/2012.) At the end of the week the winner will be announced.

4. The winner will get an interview that can be conducted via mail, skype or any other way they want. Free advertising in case you have a game streaming account or YouTube account. Demographics wise this blog gets regular hits from every continent so your blog, stream, YouTube or any other web presence can get a lot of new visitors. In case you do not want advertising, I will respect that decision as well and just post my thanks for your winning submission.

The purpose of this competition is two fold. First I need a new name for this blog. Second I want more and more people to come to this blog. The reason is that I want to review actual products but I can only do that if I have enough number of unique visitors coming to this blog. If I get enough and companies start sending the products for me to review, I can hold competitions where you can actually win the product that I have reviewed. It is a win win for everybody. I love to try out new hardware and games and once I am done, you can as well and together we can help this blog grow. This blog is nothing without its awesome readers and this would be my way of thanking you for your support.

So please help me out, you can only win either way ^_^

Kiyoshi Out!
Psst... Hey... Spread the word! +1, Subscribe,Tweet ^_^ Thank you for reading.

KarachiDevil's Core-i7 Gaming Build

Hi folks!

Today I will be posting a build I have helped a friend make. He had a healthy budget for this one so I decided to suggest him the best parts his hard earned money can buy. Also on a side note I have decided on splitting my builds in to two distinct categories : The Kiyoshi Builds and the KarachiDevil builds. The Kiyoshi Builds will be more budget friendly, lower on power and meant more for varied tasks whereas the KarachiDevil builds will be the gaming builds. This way it will be easier to go directly to the build you have in mind. With that I will be renaming the Audiophile build as the Kiyoshi Audiophile build and the first Kiyoshi build as a KarachiDevil build.

In case you were wondering what KarachiDevil stands for, it is my gaming id on almost all the games I play. Okay, on wards with the build.

CASE:


CORSAIR Graphite Series 600T (http://www.corsair.com)

Supported Motherboards : Micro ATX / ATX
5.25" Drive Bays : 4
3.5" Drive Bays : 6 (built-in compatibility for SSDs)
Expansion Slots : 8
Dimensions : 23.30in x 10.40in x 20.00in
Price : US$ 159.99

The mesh side panel can accommodate up to four 120mm fans. It also has a USB 3.0 connector on the front panel ad a four-channel fan controller. Plus it look absolutely gorgeous. Also comes in white (which is my favorite.)









CPU:


Intel Core i7-3770K (http://www.intel.com)

Core Clock : 3.5GHz
Max Turbo : 3.9GHz
4-Core, 8-Threads
L3 Cache : 8MB
L2 Cache : 4 x 256KB
Price : US$ 349.99

The Third Generation Core Series draws less power than its predecessor but on the downside it may run hotter than before. Nothing a good cooler can't fix though.




MOTHERBOARD:


ASRock Z77 Extreme4 (http://www.asrock.com/)

Memory Supported :Max 32GB
PCI E 3.0 x16 : 2 ,PCI E x1 : 2 ,PCI : 2
SATA Connectors : 4xSATA 3Gb/s, 4xSATA 6Gb/s
Dimensions : 12in x 8.6in
Price : US$ 134.99

The smaller brother of the Extreme6 featured before. Good, solid option to go for.




VIDEO CARD:


EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW (http://www.evga.com)

Interface : PCI E 3.0 x16
Core Clock : 1006 MHz
Boost Clock : 1084 MHz
CUDA Cores : 1344
Memory : 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Ports : 1 HDMI, 1 DisplayPort, 2 DVI
Power Connectors : 2 x 6 Pin
Dimensions : 10in x 4.38in
Price : US$ 419.99

A solid choice for the NVIDIA enthusiast (which he is.)







SOUND CARD:


CREATIVE Sound Blaster Recon3D (http://www.creative.com)

Channels : 5.1
Sample Rate : 96KHz
SNR : 102dB
Interface : PCI Express x1
Price : US$ 99.99

I had to convince him to include the card, but once he heard the sound, all is good. Get a sound card if you can. You just will not believe the difference it makes over on-board audio.









RAM:


CORSAIR Dominator Platinum (http://www.corsair.com)

Capacity : 2 x 4GB
Speed : 1866
Voltage : 1.5V
Timing : 9-10-9-27
CAS Latency: 9
Price : US$ 84.99

With improved cooling and slick design, we were sold on this as soon as the picture was seen. Comes with an integrated light bar which can be swapped for different colors which are due to come out soon.





POWER SUPPLY:


CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX750 (http://www.corsair.com)

Max Power : 750W
Active PFC
PCI - E Connectors : 4 x 6+2-Pin
SATA Connectors : 12
Fully Modular
80+ Gold Certified
Price : US$ 169.99

I was for the TX750 that I bought but he wanted 80+ Gold so this is the one we chose. Super quite, super efficient and fully modular for a clutter free case.




LIQUID COOLING:


CORSAIR H80 Liquid CPU Cooler (http://www.corsair.com)

Radiator Dimensions : 120 x 152 x 38 mm
Fan Dimensions : 120 x 120 x 25 mm x2 fans
RPMs : 1300 (LN), 2000 (Balanced), 2500 (HP)
Air Flow : 46-92 CFM
Fan Noise : 22-39 dB
Price : US$ 104.99

Didn't have room in the budget for a custom liquid cooling option so we went for this and fans on the mesh to cool the video card. You can replace the fans with some other ones if the sound is too loud for you.




HARD DRIVES:


CORSAIR Force Series GT SSD (http://www.corsair.com)

Capactiy : 120GB
Interface : SATA III
Max. Seq. Read : Up to 555MB/s
Max. Seq. Write : Up to 515MB/s
Price : US$ 129.99

A great SSD for gaming with good reliability and awesome speeds. Install your OS on this and watch it fly! Install it for quick boots and quick loads of your favorite applications/games.






Based up on my recommendation, he had previously bought a WD Caviar Black 1TB Drive so we did not buy a storage drive. but if you want here are a few good ones you can consider.
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache US$ 119.99 (Great for games & fast access.)
HGST Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200RPM 64 MB Cache US$ 134.99
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 32MB Cache US$ 99.99 (All three are SATA III)

TOTAL:


US$ 1654.91

The total may seem a bit excessive to some but what you could do is swap out some of the parts. For example you could get a cheaper case, go for air cooling, get a bronze or silver rated power supply and got a smaller SSD or skip it all together. This kind of build will ensure great performance, future proofing as the case can hold more things and with some good cooling, very low operating temperatures.

Well that is it for this post. Be on the lookout for the competition which will start soon.

Till then,
Kiyoshi Out!
Psst... Hey... Spread the word! +1, Subscribe,Tweet ^_^ Thank you for reading. 

Accessory of the Week #3

Hi All!

As you very well know, I recently moved and the bulk of my time is going in to setting the place up and making sure all the addresses are changed. Hopefully in the next few days everything gets squared away so I have time to do other things. I had collected so much stuff over the past few years that when it came time to move, I had to get rid of a few things and think of ways to help unclutter my move.

Today I will be talking about an interesting accessory I found.

Rosewill RHRC-11002 Remote Controller

If you remember my old Audiophile post, this remote will come in very handy if you wanted to make a media PC. This Remote is Windows 7 certified and comes with a USB Infra Red dongle. You can use this remote control to play media, control the volume, send the PC to sleep as well and it can even help you operate Netflix. This will help make your life easier by letting you control the PC from the comfort of your sofa.

Price : US$ 19.99







That is it for this post. I will soon write a new post for a build I have made for a friend. Within this week I will also be starting the competition I talked about in the New Directions post. Please look out for all the updates.

Till then,
Kiyoshi Out!
Psst... Hey... Spread the word! +1, Subscribe,Tweet ^_^ Thank you for reading.

Disappearing Act II

Hi everyone!

I know it has been a while but as you may know, I recently moved and they just came by and finally my internet is up and running. So please expect a new post very soon.

Thank you everyone!
Kiyoshi Out!!