Gamer Suggestion Hardware

Razer Intros Chroma Peripherals With Adjustable Color LEDs

Razer will be coming with its RGB... err, Chroma series of peripherals.

Razer announced its new Chroma feature, which is a combination of both software and hardware to customize your peripherals. The company is touting three new devices: the BlackWidow Ultimate Chroma, the DeathAdder Chroma, and the Kraken 7.1 Chroma. We don't know much about the products themselves yet, but it is safe to assume that the biggest difference from their non-Chroma counterparts will be the LED color customizability.

The mechanical BlackWidow Ultimate Chroma keyboard will have individual LEDs under each key, each of which can be lit with one of 16.8 million colors. The same is true for the mouse and the headset, although we don't know yet how many different color zones these will have. Razer did launch its product page for the BlackWidow Ultimate Chroma, though, so you can check that out already.

These peripherals will be driven by the Razer Synapse software, which will include a handful of preset patterns and effects such as spectrum cycling, breathing, waves, reactive typing. You can customize each LED individually, and an SDK will also be available later this year for developers to make their own effects. Razer Synapse also allows all your Razer Chroma peripherals will work together -- that is, the color scheme and effects you choose will sync across your devices -- so you will be indirectly rewarded for having matching gear.

The Razer Chroma hardware will hit shelves starting September 2014, although no information on pricing is available yet. Corsair has some competition for Razer's Chroma line with its RGB lineup of peripherals, which should also be coming to shelves within a similar time frame.

Digital Storm Reveals its Velox Customizable Gaming PCs

This is Digital Storm's new Velox mid-tower enthusiast gaming machine.

Digital Storm announced the Velox custom gaming PC, a system built with two main design criteria in mind -- airflow and showing off the high-end components inside -- and on those counts, it looks like the company nailed it.

The Velox PCs will be available in four starting configurations, ranging in price from $2018 to $3750. The "Good" Level One system comes with an Intel Core i5-4690K processor, 8 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz memory, an Nvidia GTX 770, a 120 GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD, a 1 TB hard drive, an Asus Z97 motherboard, and a 750 W Corsair CX series power supply. Added up, that's a very adequate mid-range gaming system.

If you have the means, you will be able to configure the systems to carry up to an Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition processor, 128 GB of DDR3 memory, more storage than you might ever need (how does two 6TB Seagate drives strike you?), and up to four GTX Titan Blacks or two GTX Titan Z graphics cards. 

Of course, the highlight of the Velox lineup is the custom-designed case. The motherboard is mounted on the left side panel instead of the usual right. We're not sure why Digital Storm opted for this, but a simple possibility is aesthetics -- it does have a certain appeal, and you'll be able to place the system on the left side of your desk and still look into the window and see all your precious components.

Another possibility is for cooling purposes, as the hottest components are mounted at the top of the enclosure. We’re not sure how big a difference it makes, but it might just help a little bit. If you choose to liquid cool your graphics cards, this will result in a gorgeous system as you’ll see the pretty side of the water blocks from above.

If you choose to leave your cards air-cooled, though, the “GEFORCE GTX” lettering on reference cards will be upside-down, and you’ll be more likely to run into problems with dust. Given this knowledge, it's apparent that Digital Storm wants you to liquid cool your components with a custom loop. The custom loops are made with EKWB and XSPC components, so you can rest assured that you’re getting quality hardware.

Digital Storm Velox Custom Gaming PC

For airflow in the case, by default the systems come with “Standard Factory Chassis Fans”. No specifications are available, which is probably for a good reason -- you can upgrade these to Corsair AF-series fans, although that will cost you $99 for all six fans. You can also opt for LED-lit Cooler Master R4 series fans, which will cost you $59 as an upgrade. All things considered though, you can be certain that this system will be adequately cooled, so that doesn’t need to be one of your concerns.

You can build a system similar to one of these Velox rigs yourself, but to make one as beautiful will cost you some time and not an insignificant bit of skill. But could you do it for less money?

The systems are available to configure and order from Digital Storm today. 

UPDATE: Digital Storm has confirmed that the upside-down system layout is for cooling purposes, as it brings the graphics cards to an area with greater airflow.

Spotted: Gigabyte's X99 SOC Force Haswell-E Motherboard

We already saw Gigabyte’s X99 Gaming G1 WiFi motherboard, and now the company is showing off its X99-SOC Force. Being an SOC motherboard, this thing is built for heavy overclocking.

There are eight total DDR4 memory slots for quad-channel memory configurations, with four positioned on either side of the LGA2011-3 socket. PCI-Express expansion is covered by four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots and three PCI-Express 1x slots, and there are six SATA3 (6Gb/s) ports along with two SATA-Express interfaces, which if unused present you with another four SATA3 (6Gb/s) ports.

As far as our eyes can tell there is a single USB 3.0 header on board, so we’re guessing that there will be eight ports on the rear I/O. Between two of the PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots there's a single M.2 interface, which is rated at 20 Gb/s – twice what you'll find on most boards. Gigabyte likely accomplished this by using four PCI-Express Gen 2.0 lanes. Also present is Gigabyte’s AMP-Up technology, which is essentially dedicated audio hardware.

With regard to overclocking, we can see a number of onboard switches next to the right DDR4 memory slots. There is no indication and we can't be sure, but given that this is an SOC-series motherboard, we expect it to also have LN2 support.

Hopefully we’ll know more around mid-September, when we expect the X99 motherboards, as well as Haswell-E processors to debut. Stay tuned for more.

The criteria for designation as Battlebox consists of 4K gaming machines that have at least GeForce GTX 780 or TITAN graphics cards in 2- and 3-Way SLI configurations. Also included are overclocked Intel Haswell i5 and i7 CPUs, advanced cooling systems, high-speed DDR3 RAM to assist with overclocking, and the latest high-speed SSDs. DigitalStorm, Maingear, Origin PC and Falcon Northwest offer Battleboxes here in North America, as well.

The GTX Titan Z cards offered in the special edition Battleboxes include 5,760 CUDA cores, a base clock of 705 MHz, a boost clock of 876 MHz, and a texture fill rate of 338 billion per second. Also included is 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM with a memory speed of 7.0 Gbps, a memory bandwidth of 672 GB/sec, and a 768-bit memory interface width (384-bit per GPU).

To give you a sense of the base specifications, the most expensive of the three, the SHIFT Battlebox, comes packed with an Intel Core i5-4590 processor (3.3 GHz / 3.7 GHz), 8 GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 RAM (2 x 4 GB), Nvidia's GeForce Titan Z with 12 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (2x Titan Z 24 GB GDDR5 in SLI is an extra $2,050), and a 750 watt EVGA SuperNOVA 80 Plus Certified PSU. Other features include a 1 TB Seagate SSHD with 8 GB of caching, a 24x DVD burner, 7.1 channel high definition surround sound, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.

The specs for the VYBE can be found here, and the F131 specs can be found here.

Acknowledging that we're primarily a DIY site, it's always interesting to see what boutique builders like Maingear are marketing to customers not interested in hand-building their own PC from scratch. A starting price of $3,499 seems a little steep, as you could probably buy a decent used car for that money. Still, there are plenty of PC gamers who will pay top dollar to have the top-of-the-line performance machine.

UPDATE: We've reached out to Maingear about the pricing. The cost of all three special editions seems a bit off given that the Titan Z typically sells for $2,999 on its own. Origin, it seems, has a similar discounted deal too on Titan Z systems.

Silverstone Builds 180-mm Deep 1500 W Power Supply

Silverstone has built the world's smallest fully-modular 1500 W ATX PSU.

Silverstone is announcing a new power supply – the ST1500-GS. This is the highest-wattage Strider Gold S power supply to date, and it is also the smallest fully-modular unit on the market with the given wattage.

The power supply is built using a single powerful 12 V rail, which is capable of delivering up to 120 A, or 1440 W of power. The 3.3 V and 5 V rails combined can push up to 150 W. Silverstone rates the PSU at 1500 W continuous, with peak power set at 1600 W. Cooling is provided by a single 135 mm fan, which makes between 18 and 34 dBA of noise. Despite not having a partially fanless mode, the fan does remain at its minimum speed until just over 50 percent load, so you'll have to work the PSU quite hard before it gets noisy.

About the size: The PSU itself is fully modular and only 180 mm deep. That might seem big, and there are certainly smaller PSUs, but at this wattage Silverstone claims that it is the shortest fully-modular unit. This is an interesting product, then, as some cases simply don't fit those 220 mm long PSUs, yet they're able to house enough hardware to draw just shy of 1500 W of power. Granted, the market for those applications is small, but it certainly exists.

Included with the power supply is a flat cable set, which will make cable routing a little neater than bulky sleeved cables will, if done right.

Pricing for the power supply is set at $346.66 (excluding taxes), with availability set for August 20.

Steam Beta Reveals Movies, TV Shows, Music On The Way

ValveSoftware made it perfectly clear that Steam would eventually be more than just a gaming platform when it revealed SteamOS last September. At the time, the company announced that it was currently in negotiations with media services "you know and love" without revealing specific details. Now it seems that the launch of movies, television shows and music on the Steam platform grows near.
SteamDB dug into the most recent build of the Steam Beta and discovered new references to five different types of media. The lines of code include "k_EAppTypeFilm = 512, // film" and "k_EAppTypeTvseries = 1024, // tvseries." There's also code for video, plugins and music. When Valve intends to launch this media on Steam and SteamOs is unknown at this point.Do we really need Valve to offer media such as TV shows and movies? There are already a large number of platforms on the Internet that offer this content including iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. Customers can also purchase movies and TV shows from services such as Walmart's Vudu, which ties into the UltraViolet disc-to-digital service.
UltraViolet is a format that allows consumers to watch their favorite TV show or movie on any device that provides playback apps. So instead of purchasing a movie on iTunes and having to watch it solely on an iOS device, customers can go to services like Vudu and purchase the movie or TV show and not only own it indefinitely, but watch it on smartphones, smart TVs, tablets and computers. Essentially, you own the rights to play the movie on the device of your choosing.
Perhaps this is the method Valve Software needs to take with its media offerings on Steam: allow customers to purchase movies and TV shows that are UltraViolet compatible. This would certainly be ideal given that Steam is still a gaming service at its roots.
Valve Software launched the Steam platform back in September 2003 as a means to update its own portfolio of games. Since then, Steam has become the largest game distribution platform to date. The company already sells soundtracks and software and provides a music player for gamers to play their own tunes stored on the hard drive.

The idea of Steam offering media other than games is actually rather exciting. When the Steam Machines finally arrive, they will be more than just gaming "consoles." They will be entertainment centers; that's what Valve Software is shooting for. Steam customers will benefit from having another choice when it comes to consuming media. However, the question is this: how will Valve pull customers away from iTunes and Google Play?

We've reached out to Valve to see if they have a possible launch window for releasing the multimedia.