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!
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. 

Nvidia GeForce 6 Series

Hi everyone,

It has been a rather busy and eventful past few days. Finalizing apartments, deciding on what all to get rid off and what all to take to the new place. I wish it was easier than this!

Today I thought it the perfect opportunity to introduce to you the Nvidia GeForce 6 series Video Cards.

Every two years, Nvidia sets out to design a new GPU architecture. The last architecture released was the Fermi architecture which brought full geometry processing (which enables the use of tessellation.) It improves the realism of water, terrain and characters. Fermi also improved the GPU's performance in general computation. The drawback though was that Fermi consumed more power than desired.

The newest architecture is called Kepler. It is Nvidia's fastest GPU offering and also the most power efficient. This was achieved by a complete redesign of the streaming multiprocessor and by adding a new feature called GPU Boost that increases the clock speed dynamically. An obvious difference you will note is that previously, you needed a 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-E power connector, you now only need two 6-pin power connectors. To give you an example, the GTX 580 would draw 244 watts whereas the new GTX 680 draws 195 Watts. Also GPU Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed based on the application currently running.

The Kepler architecture also introduces two new Anti-Aliasing techniques. To learn more about Anti-Aliasing please click here. They are FXAA and TXAA.

FXAA in contrast to MSAA (Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing) picks out the edges in a frame based on contrast
detection. It then smoothes out the Aliased edges based on their gradient. This technique reduces work done by the GPU and requires no additional memory unlike MSAA.

TXAA is a new AA mode which is designed for direct integration into game engines. Used where games require the absolute best quality possible without sacrificing any performance. TXAA has two modes namely TXAA 1 and TXAA 2. TXAA 1 will offer visual quality like 8xMSAA with the performance similar to 2xMSAA. TXAA 2 will offer beyond 8xMSAA quality with 4xMSAA performance.

The games, engines and developers that are going to offer TXAA support are MechWarrior Online, Secret World, Eve Online, Borderlands 2, Unreal Engine 4, BitSquid, Slant Six Games, and Crytek (I have gathered this information from this link here.)

If you follow my blog, you know that I absolutely love to have multiple displays. My ideal was 3 monitors but now it has changed to a new setup I recently saw which has four monitors. The most exciting thing is that the new Nvidia GPUs offer more display support on a single card then before. Before it would take two Nvidia cards to support three monitors. Now you can use a single card to power four monitors.

So which cards should you consider to avail these exciting offerings? Well let's take a look at some of my favorite cards to consider.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-670)

EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW

Core Clock : 1006 Mhz
Boost Clock : 1084 Mhz
CUDA Cores : 1344
Memory : 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Dimensions : 10in x 4.38in






A must have for anyone looking for awesome power and price, The EVGA FTW offering has been overclocked to 1006 Mhz. SLi capable and selling for US $419.99.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680)

ASUS GTX680-DC2O-2GD5

Core Clock : 1019 Mhz
Boost Clock : 1084 Mhz
CUDA Cores : 1536
Memory : 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Dimensions : 11.8in x 5.1in x 2.3in






An all new DirectCU thermal design offers a 20% bigger heat dissipation area, 20% cooler and 14dB quieter performance. SLi capable and selling for US$ 529.99.

If you want water cooling go for

EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Hyrdo Copper

Core Clock : 1150 Mhz
Boost Clock : 1215 Mhz
CUDA Cores : 1536
Memory : 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Dimensions : 10in x 5.5in
Price US$ 699.99








NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-690)

Uses the power of Two Kepler GPUs. Quite simply the fastest card ever built.

EVGA GeForce GTX 690 Signature

Core Clock : 915 Mhz
Boost Clock : 1019 Mhz
CUDA Cores : 3072 (o.O)
Memory : 4GB 512-bit GDDR5
Dimensions : 11in x 4.38in







The best card you can get right now and the price to match. If you can afford this card, befriend me so I can look at it, you can look smug, and I can hate you! Just kidding (Or am I..?) Selling for US$ 1,049.99.

That is the newest offerings from Nvidia folks. Pretty soon I will be reviewing AMDs newest offerings and after that we can get down to building some outrageous builds with them.

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

KarachiDevil's Core-i5 Build

Hi Folks!

So today was my day off and after I slept for the majority of the morning, I am now awake and refreshed and wanted to post a build that I thought would be good for any games that are out right now and you should be able to play them at max settings. I will also list the prices for everything and the totals. I will be posting more builds in the near future as well as some other exciting posts that you should stay tuned for!

Today's build will be a Intel-Nvidia build. This should ensure some serious performance and room for a lot of overclocking.

CASE:


NZXT Phantom 410

The Mid-Tower brother of the Phantom, it has an adjustable interior pivot fan slot for directional air flow.

Dimensions : 20.94in x 8.46in x 20.31in.
Price : US$ 99.99










CPU:


Intel Core i5-3570K

The replacement for the phenomenal i5-2500K, it draws less power than it's predecessor and has a little bit more headroom for performance.

Stock Clock : 3.4 Ghz
Price : US$ 239.99











MOTHERBOARD:


ASRock Z77 Extreme6

Features 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots and 4 SATA III Connectors, the Extreme 6 is a very good Z77 board.

Dimensions : 12.0in x 9.6in
Price : US$ 174.99









VIDEO CARD:


EVGA GeForce GTX 560-Ti 448 Ultra Classified

The 448 Cores version of a very good card, EVGAs version is going be a very good and a very stable card to buy.

Dimensions : 10.5in x 4.68in
Core Clock : 810Mhz
Memory : 320-bit 1280MB GDDR5
3-Way SLI Capable
Price : US$ 299.99










SOUND CARD:


CREATIVE Sound Blaster Recon3D

One of my favorite gaming centered sound card, the Recon 3D has a Quad-Core Audio Processor for gaming audio and crystal-clear voice communications. It is engineered for low-power consumption.

Connector: PCI-E x1 Slot
Price : US$ 99.99















RAM:


G.SKILL Sniper Series

One of my favorite RAM. It is Intel XMP Ready.

Speed : DDR3 1866
Capacity 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Timing : 9-10-9-28
Voltage : 1.5V
Price : US$ 59.99






POWER SUPPLY:


CORSAIR TX750M

The Modular Version of my PSU, It is a great Power Supply with very quiet operation and long life. Modular helps keeps air flow open and uninterrupted.

PCI-E Connector : 4 x 6+2-Pin
SATA Connector : 8
Dimensions : 5.9in x 3.4in x 6.3in
Price : US$ 119.99








CPU COOLER:


AIR COOLING:


COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO

The next iteration of the incredibly popular and efficient Hyper 212, The EVO has four direct contact heat pipes.

Dimensions : 120mm fan, Heatsink 120mm x 80mm x 159mm
Price : $33.99









LIQUID COOLING:


CORSAIR H80 Liquid CPU Cooler

The newer i5 gives an incredible amount of heat and as such, a liquid cooler might be better for your build if you want do extreme overclocking or want your cpu to operate at very low temperatures. It includes a double-thick radiator and two 120mm fans.

Radiator Dimensions : 230mm x 152mm x 38mm
Price : US$ 104.99








HARD DRIVE:


Western Digital 1TB

THE WDC Black Edition is designed for high performance and such would be a perfect fit for your gaming computer.

Speed :  7200RPM
Interface : SATA III (6.0Gb/s)
Cache : 64MB
Price: US$ 119.99
















MONITOR:


ACER G235H Abd

A Great monitor to go with your build, it is a perfect fit with your 560Ti 448.

Max Resolution : 1920 x 1080
Response Time : 5ms
Features VESA Wall Mounting : 100mm x 100mm
Price : US$ 139.99









TOTALS:


Total with Air Cooling : US$ 1148.92 (No Monitor)
Total with Liquid Cooling : US$ 1219.92 (No Monitor)

That is one of the builds in my mind that would give you stellar performance all across the board. Of course when making your build, you can substitute parts as you desire, however this will give you a good reference to base your build upon.

That is all for now folks, as always please +1, subscribe, spread the word if you like what you read and any comments are always welcome.

Kiyoshi out.

GPU NVIDIA Lineup

I will attempt to use a single post to detail both Nvidia and AMD video cards and then tell you which card I went with. First we will take a look at Nvidia

NVIDIA


NVIDIA is an amazing company with a very impressive portfolio of products. Known primarily for their video cards, Nvidia has also delved in to the world of mobile processors with their TEGRA lineup of Dual-Core and Quad-Core mobile processors. They offer blazing fast graphics card and are always at the cutting edge of Video Card technology.

The lineup that I was most interested in at the time of my build was the Nvidia GeForce GTX 5 Series.

GTX 560

The GTX 560 is a very good card which has 336 Cuda Cores and is capable of running games in DirectX 11 at 1080p resolution and beyond. Some good choices in the range are as follows:






1. EVGA Superclocked 02G-P3-1469-KR which has a core clock of 850Mhz, 2GB of GDDR5 Memory, Max. Resolution of 2560 x 1600 and is SLI Ready. The is 8.25 inches long which is a very important thing to note because if the card is too big for your case you might no be able to fit it easily so always always try to find out what the dimensions are. Currently selling for $209.99.

2. ASUS ENGTX560 DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5
Price : $209.99
Core Clock : 925Mhz
Memory: 1GB GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimesions : 9 in x 4.4 in (L x W)

Another very good card to have. The Ram may look smaller to you but if you plan on gaming on only one monitor you should have no problems with this card. 2GB of memory will give you more stable performance on 2 monitors.

3. MSi N560GTX-M2D1 GD5
Price : $189.99
Core Clock : 810 Mhz
Memory : 1GB GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9.37 in x 4.41 in

Another very good card but the longest of the three I have mentioned. Space is always at a premium inside your case so always make sure your case can fit said card.

GTX 560 Ti

The 560Ti is an updated 560 with more Cuda Cores then 560. It has two editions the standard one has 384 Cores and a Limited Edition which has 448 Cores. The 560 has been one of the most popular cards NVIDIA has made which is why they came out with two more editions of it featuring more cores.




1. EVGA 012-P3-2078-KR
Price : $299.99
Core Clock :  810 Mhz
Memory : 1.25 GB of GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 10.5in x 4.38in

An awesome card to consider as it can keep up with and even outperform a stock GTX 570. and overclocked can perform like a GTX 580. A worthy one to consider. This is the 448 Core Limited Edition. The rest are the standard 384 Core models.

2. MSi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 2GD5/OC
Price : $269.99
Core Clock : 880Mhz
Memory : 2 GB of GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9.37 in x 4.37 in

MSi also makes some very good gpus. Their Twin Frozr line has two fans as opposed to the usual one fan which gives a better cooling option.

3. EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR
Price : $249.99
Core Clock : 850 Mhz
Memory : 1GB GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9 in x 4.38in

So it should be apparent at this point that EVGA makes some of the best NVIDIA video cards out in the market. That is why at least one card is always mentioned in my list.

4. ASUS ENGTX560 TI DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5
Price :  $239.99
Core Clock : 900Mhz
Memory : 1GB GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9in x 4.4 in

One of my favorite companies with one of my favorite cards. DC II stands for DirectCU II which is a dual fan design with three 8mm flatten copper heat pipes directly in contact with the GPU to provide a more cooler operation temperature and as a result, a longer lifespan.

GTX 570

Built to replace the GTX 480, The 570 is an impressive card with 480 CUDA Cores and capable of a maximum digital resolution of 2560x1600 (As per NVIDIA's reference card design.) Built to fill the niche between the 560 and 580.





1.  EVGA 025-P3-1579-AR

Price : $339.99
Core Clock : 732Mhz
Memory : 2.5GB 320-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9 in x 4.38in

As always a very solid design by EVGA, this card is a very strong contender and can play any game at max settings.

2. ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5

Price : $339.99
Core Clock : 742 Mhz
Memory : 1.2 GB 320-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 11.5in x 5in

One of my favorite cards with the only gripe being the size of the thing. It's pretty big! As always plan accordingly.

3. MSi N570GTX Frozr III PE/OC

Price : $329.99
Core Clock : 770Mhz
Memory : 1.2GB 320-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 9.57in x 4.53in

Another solid effort by MSi, The Frozr III has the higher core clock out of the three and size is also good.

GTX 580


NVIDIA's fastest DirectX 11 GPU with 512 Cuda Cores. The 580 is the very best 5 series card from NVIDIA and if you the money, you can not go wrong with it.





1. EVGA 03G-P3-1591-AR

Price : $659.99
Core Clock : 772 Mhz
Memory : 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 10.5in x 5.5in

The very best effort by EVGA yielded this amazing card. It is a liquid cooled card with no fans running in it and if you have the money, nothing beats it.

2. EVGA Superclocked 015-P3-1582-AR

Price : $429.99
Core Clock : 797 Mhz
Memory : 1.5GB 384-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions 10.5in x 4.38in

Another very solid card by EVGA. Get this and you will be set for a long time playing any game at the highest settings.

3. Gigabyte GV-N580UD-15I

Price $389.99
Core Clock : 795Mhz
Memory : 1.5GB 384-bit GDDR5
SLI Ready
Dimensions : 11.02in x 5.39in

This card has 3 fans for some very impressive cooling! The only gripe would be of course the size as it is hitting 11 inches. Make room for it! Overall an impressive effort by Gigabyte.

There you have it folks. Those are the cards from Nvidia which I was interested in. If you are on a budget, I would recommend the GTX 560Ti. It's popularity has not waned even a bit after the Nvidia 6 series was launched (Will talk about that in a later post.) If you have the money then I would suggest the GTX580 but all in all any of these cards should keep you happy for a while!

My next post will be about AMD Cards and of course which card I ended up going with.

Till then,
Kiyoshi out!