Thursday, 1 September 2016

Extreme Budget Full Setup Gaming PC Build (September)

Its been long since I made a post and that is mainly because I don't have time. So from now I would be making lesser posts than usual. 

I said a month back that I would be doing an extreme budget rig build and to fulfill my promise I have this today. Now this PC won't be super powerful with 4K 60fps Capability neither would it able to run 1080p 60fps on everything but it will run everything quite well. 
I would include Flipkart and Amazon Links for all parts in Yellow and Blue Color respectively, there would be just one link if it is not available on said website. Buy the parts from wherever you find convenient. The list of all parts compiled with prices is given at the end. The hypothetical BENCHMARKS are also at the end. So without wasting any time let's get started.

So for the CPU we have something which you guys would debate about a lot but it is the way to go for a budget this tight. We have the AMD FX 6300. Now I know this is a last generation CPU but until Zen CPUs release we have nothing to compete it in this Budget. And also, AMD is the way to go for all extreme budget builds in this price segment.
CPU- AMD FX-6300 
Links: 

For the cooler we have nothing fancy but the Stock. With a budget this tight getting a cooler is actually overspending when you can easily upgrade down the line.
Cooler- Stock

For the Motherboard we have the Asus M5A78L-M-USB3. I was actually surprised to see a budget Motherboard this beautiful. Black PCBs and accents of blue look amazing along with all the utility like USB 3.0. This is what gave me an idea for the color scheme.
Motherboard-  Asus M5A78L-M-USB3
Links:

Following the motherboard we have the next part that goes into it. The RAM. For that we have the beautiful and fast sticks from Kingston HyperX Fury. These are Blue in color and go very well with the accents on the motherboard. Now I had initially thought that we would be going for the ugly green DIMMs without heat spreaders but something this beautiful at a price this cheap really blew me away. We have just 1 stick of 8 gig RAM but mind you that is 1866mhz yes you heard right 1866mhz.
RAM- Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1866mhz
Links:

Now we have the heart of every Gaming PC. Yes, the GPU. This was a very difficult choice as the RX 460 and GTX 950 both were very tough competitors. 
RX 460 from AMD performs exceptionally well in DX 12 and Vulkan titles and has higher memory of 4 GB useful with higher quality textures.
GTX 950 from NVIDIA has a faster GPU and performs great in DX 11 titles which is basically 85% of current games.
This was an extremely difficult competition. But considering the higher memory and that more and more titles would start coming withbe DX 12 support I chose RX 460.
 The availability of RX 460 is currently very low in India but I am pretty sure more variants would start shipping soon. Currently we just have one from Sapphire.
GPU- Sapphire Radeon Nitro RX 460 

Next up we have the power supply. Being on a tight budget doesn't mean that we can risk frying all our beloved hardware by using cheap PSUs. We often ignore the fact that it is a component directly connected to all our hardware, a bad PSU can make your life bad. But that doesn't also mean that we can spend more money on a Corsair AX1200i than our entire PC. So we have, the pocket friendly Cooler Master CM 350. Now with the rated TDP of 95W on CPU and 75W on GPU I don't expect this thing to take anything over 250W so that extra 100W should be enough for headroom.
PSU- Cooler Master CM 350

Storage on something this budget friendly has to be cheap but what is the use of building a gaming PC when you can't store your games properly for that we have the best bang for your buck 500 GB Hard Drive from Seagate. Don't expect an SSD at this price point.
HDD- Seagate Pipeline HD 500GB

For the case we have the Zebronics Bricks. I know its nothing fancy but surely has it's perks. Firstly it is full black and gray which makes it color neutral. Secondly, it comes pre-installed with 2 80mm Fans which is nice and lastly it is very cheap for the space it offers. One thing to add is that it comes with a 450W PSU. Take it out as it is not very good quality and fit in the CM 350.
Case- Zebronics Bricks ZEB-912G

With the PC done let's come to the peripherals.

Starting things off we have the Monitor. For this I chose the 21.5" Beautiful Monitor from BenQ. It has an HDMI input, built-in speakers, audio out and a 6ms Response time. With all these feature in no other monitor at this price it was a clear winner.
Monitor- BenQ GW2255HM 21.5" 1080p 6ms

Next up we have the Mouse and keyboard. Now don't expect Cherry MX Speed Switches and 1000DPI Mice at this price point so for the keyboard and mouse we have the cheap and surprisingly amazing combo from Logitech. I have personally used this and can confidently say that this combo is amazing. The mouse offers amazing tracking for the price and the keyboard has a decent build quality.
K&M- Logitech MK120 Mouse and Keyboard Combo

Ending today's post we have the headset. Now this isn't mandatory as we have a inbuilt speakers in our monitor but since the title says 'FULL SETUP' I am including this also, when you play those multiplayer games it becomes really important to communicate, using a mic can actually improve your performance. Not to mention when you don't want to disturb anyone while you fire those guns in Counter Strike and roam through the streets of Los Santos with music turned high in GTA V.
Headset. For that we have the Logitech H151. With its small on-the-ear design it is really comfortable to wear. It is very light weight and won't hurt after long sessions of gaming. The mic can be flipped up while not in use.
Headset- Logitech H151 Headset 

This sums up the whole setup.

Parts (Prices in INR)-

CPU- AMD FX 6300 (8,249)
Motherboard- Asus M5A78L-M-USB3 (4,990)
RAM- Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1866mhz (2,799)
GPU- Sapphire Radeon Nitro RX 460 (13,785)
PSU- Cooler Master CM 350 (2,290)
HDD- Seagate Pipeline HD 500GB (2,700)
Case- Zebronics Bricks ZEB-912G (2,700)
Monitor- BenQ GW2255HM 21.5" 1080p 6ms (7,790)
K&M- Logitech MK120 Mouse and Keyboard Combo (897)
Headset- Logitech H151 Headset (910)

Total- Rupees 47,110

Note- The prices are exclusive of shipping charges and may vary from time to time.


This PC is capable of running most current games at 1080p. Some very hardware intensive titles may run at Medium Graphic Settings at lower resolutions. 
This PC is capable of running CS GO, Overwatch, DOTA 2, League of Legends, Smite at 1080p High-Ultra at 60fps.
GTA V, Black OPS 3, Battlefield 4, Witcher 3 etc at Medium Settings 1080p at around 45fps or more.


Hope you guys liked this build. Do comment and let me know. +1 this, share this on Social Media and Subscribe to this blog. If you have any questions leave it in the comments below or Send me an email through the Contact THB Tool.
Stay tuned to The Hardware Bomb for more PC Builds, Tech News, Tips, Tutorials and More.


~APex
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Thursday, 21 July 2016

KickAss Torrents Shutdown. Founder Arrested.

I haven't made any posts lately and that is mainly because I didn't get time. But, worry not because I am back with another hot post for today. Sorry if You guys were expecting a 1060 Post, I will cover that in detail after 1st August when we have comparisons of Aftermarket 1060 and 480 Cards.

So coming back to the topic, as the title suggests KickAss Torrents the leading Torrent Website has been shut down and it'd domains have been seized and the alleged founder Artem Vaulin has been Arrested in Poland. As of now  no domain, (including the proxy ones) seems to be working.

Now how this was busted is rather hilarious. Vaulin the Mastermind behind the largest illegal torrenting operation hid in plain sites. Just like every other regular Joe he used Facebook and Apple (WTF) email.
After billions of DMCA complaints Feds started investigation which led them to KickAss Torrents Facebook page. When Facebook was presented with a Warrant it took them no time to give them the tirm@me.com which email registered to the KAT Page.
With the email address they went to apple the owners of me.com who again took no time to give them the IP of the user of the email which was recorded in the iTunes purchases made from that account.
With the IP in hand tracing the BitCoin account to where all the money from KAT Ads came was a no brainer for feds.
Now with solid evidence the Physical Location of the IP was traced and BOOM goes the $1 Billion Dollar Business.

Artem Vaulin, a 30 year old Ukranian was arrested from his residence in Poland on 21 July 2016. He may face upto 20 years in jail and $1 Billion Fine (WTF he ain't Bill Gates). The Authorities in various countries have been informed to take down the domains.

On their defense, KAT is saying that they just host and provide links to .torrent data and they are not the ones responsible for any Copyrighted material being distributed. Which is technically right.

Now in my opinion even if Artem Vaulin is punished and jailed or even hanged (who knows?) the Torrenting won't stop. KAT will come back with different domains, owners and content, just like Yify Torrents Shut down and YTS.ag came. If not, other websites will rise and something like this wouldn't stop.

Before ending this, I would like to give all of you a tip. Don't ever, ever use Facebook and (goddamn) Apple mail when you are running world's largest Piracy Ring. DeepWeb is for people like you.

This is pretty much it guys. I will keep you posted with KAT news as it happens. You can also check out more about the KAT Bust in the links below.
Also, I have amazing stuff planned, RX 470 and RX 460 News, GTX 1060 Benchmarks vs RX 480, GTX 1050 and other awesome Tech stuff. So stay tuned for that and More. Share the Blog with your friends, follow the blog or comment down below what kind of content you want.

Links-
http://goo.gl/662xX3
http://goo.gl/hEjJjC
http://goo.gl/qGLqeb

~APex



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Friday, 8 July 2016

GTX 1060 Global Pricing and More.

More GTX 1060 news came in today and Spoiler Alert all of them are good except for one.

Starting off with the BAD news is what I forgot to mention in yesterday's posts. There will be NO SLI support on the 1060. Yes you heard it right NO SLI on your 1060. This is mostly because 1060 SLI will make a 1080 worthless. 1060 SLI at ~$500 will make a 1080 worthless at $600 and NVIDIA wouldn't want to that. Interesting to see would be what NVIDIA will do with the 1050 card.

Next piece of news is the Global Pricing announce. The Prices in the US were $249 MSRP and $299 Founders Edition. Now since the prices are not just dependent on the exchange rates the MSRP across different countries had to be announced. So here it is:
Britain- GBP 239
France- EUR 279
Germany- EUR 279
India- INR 22,999
UAE - AED 1,100
Switzerland - CHF 274
Sweden- SEK 2,899
South Africa- ZAR 4,699
Russia- RON 18,999
Serbia- RSD 34,999
Czech Republic- CZK 7,599
Denmark- DKK 2,199
Hungary- HUF 92,399
Norway- NOK 2,799
Poland- PLN 1,279
Romania- RON 1,279
Turkey- TRY 1,030
A thing to note is that these prices are Inclusive of all Taxes but this is just the MSRP, aftermarket cards will sell for more than this only some cards with blower style fans from board partners (like Turbo Edition from ASUS if I am not wrong) will sell at this price. The Founders Edition will be available only in US, UK, France and Germany.
I can't judge the pricing across the globe but sure I can judge Indian pricing. I must say that the 1060 is priced quite modestly. More performance than the 970 (they say 980 but I don't believe) at 23K is amazing.

Now lets's start with the GOOD news. The NDA of the 1060 lifts 14th July so that is when you expect all the real confirmed Benchmarks to start coming. The Benches should come out between 8AM to 2PM GMT so convert this to your local time and mark your clocks.

The next piece of GOOD news and that too a very good one is that I was wrong. I was wrong on saying that Aftermarket Cooling will ship 1 month later because Aftermarket cooling ships the same day as the Launch, that is the 19th of July. This is like the best decision of a hardware company I have seen lately.
Now this decision is mainly due to RX 480 Aftermarket coolers shipping in mid-July that is when 1060 is getting released. To take over the market right away and not let AMD even step in it, NVIDIA took this step. Now, this might affect the Founders Edition sales but all 1060 sales will benefit the same Pocket in the end and that is NVIDIA's (I am looking at you Jen-Hsun Huang).

Comment down below what you think off all this. Will you be buying 1060 on release? Share this Blog and post with your friends and family.
This week was full of 1060 news and so will be the next. Stay tuned to The Hardware Bomb for more 1060 news, PC Builds and more amazing Tech Updates.
Thank you guys for joining in. See you again with next post.

~APex
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Thursday, 7 July 2016

GTX 1060 Specs.

NVIDIA Released their Mid-Level Card the GTX 1060 today (07-07-2016) to compete against AMDs Radeon RX 480. I know I already made a post on this but this one has specs whereas the other one was just Reveal News.

The Card is priced at $249 MSRP and $299 for the Founder's Edition (bullshit) card.
It features a Pascal GP106 Processor fabricated with 16nm FinFET technology. With it's 1280 CUDA Cores it offers a Base clock of 1506 mHz and a Boost clock of 1709 mHz. It offers 4.4 Teraflops of Max raw Compute Perfomance.
It features a 6 Gigabyte GDDR5 VRAM ( Sorry, no X here) on a 192 bit Bus and a Memory clock of 2000 mHz with the maximum memory bandwidth of 192 GB/s.
All with a TDP of mere 120 Watts.
A thing to note that all these specs are of the GP106 chip, aftermarket Cards will feature higher clocks.

The Card is supposed to be released on 19th of July so stay tuned for Benchmarks. Also, check out the other blog posts on the 1060 for more details and pictures.

All specs of the 1060 with the side-by-side comparison to RX 480:

Thank you guys for reading. Stay tuned for more 1060 updates, PC Builds and more Tech News and stuff.

~APex
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Unveiled. Priced at $249.

Nvidia just unveiled their Mid Range GTX 1060 card to compete with the (overhyped) AMD Radeon RX 480. Leaked benchmarks and Revealed specs suggest it performs better than its competition.

The Card is priced at $249 MSRP and $299 Founders Edition (Oh God! Not that Founders Edition bullshit again NVIDIA, please). AMD is going to burn with that pricing.
Check out the specs and pictures down BELOW.

The card is supposed to be released on 19th of July and that means the Good Cards (aftermarket cards) come in mid August (Yay!)


The funny part is that AMD overhyped their GPU for Promotion whereas NVIDIA didn't even create a hype for its promotion. This is quite similar to companies like Lamborghini having no ads whereas companies like Hyundai and Toyota having multiple ads.

What the reality is? We will know on 19th. But I know 1060 > 480 and NVIDIA > AMD *grabs popcorn*




~APex

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GTX 1060 vs RX 480 Solved. TechTalk

There has been a lot of debate going on about the GTX 1060 and its comparison to the Radeon RX 480. Its time to settle this with History and Stats.
I know I have covered this topic in a build before but it was too brief, to make it more clear let's do it again separately with more detail.

The 1060 is supposed to launch by the end of July 2016, priced at (starting from) $250, have 2 variants 3GB and 6GB, perform near to a 980 and have a TDP of 120W. There is more stuff involved but that wouldn't be too helpful in the comparison so we won't take that into account

Lets begin with the history lesson, shall we? Assume 'N' as any generation on Nvidia Side and 'A' as any generation on AMD side, an N60 card from NVIDIA has always outperformed A80 card from AMD. GTX 760 performed better than Radeon 280, GTX 960 performed better than Radeon 380. This puts the any N60 ahead of any A80 as per history. Also, an N60 card from newer Gen has always outperformed an N70 card from last Gen.

Power efficiency is another thing is which puts Nvidia ahead of AMD. From GPU History we know that an N60 card has been about 20% more efficient on average. The 760 was a whopping 25% more efficient than a 770. The 960 was about 18% more efficient than the 970 (we are just talking Watts here no performance). The 1070 has a TDP of 150W now from the GPU history we know that 1060 will be more efficient than that. If we take the efficiency to even 15-17% that too puts the 1060 at 125 Watts. 125 Watts of 1060 is a whopping 25% more efficient than the 170 watts the RX 480 takes (even when it is rated at 150W) with its power issues. We won't talk about power efficiency on AMD side because Nvidia never had competition with that.

This is just 2 Generations of GPUs mentioned here but even when we go further back, we will see a similar trend.

Now, we know that the RX 480 performs lesser than the GTX 970, the history suggests that 1060 would be faster than 970 which puts 1060 above the 480 in terms of performance. Similar is the case with power efficiency.

The history somewhat confirms the leaks, which say that 1060 performs near about 980 (over 970 as told in GPU History Para 1) and has a rated TDP of 120W (LESSER than whats told in GPU History Para 2).

Now the issue is Reference Coolers which suck at performing hence nobody likes to buy them but are sort of an early access hence people buy them, the solution to this is Aftermarket coolers. Aftermarket coolers usually ship out 1 month (maximum) after the release of a card. If GTX 1060 releases by the end of this month Aftermarket coolers come in by the end of August. If the card is released tomorrow that is 8th of July (which some leaks suggest) the aftermarket solutions come in the first week of August which makes the GOOD 1060 just 1 or 2 weeks behind the GOOD 480 cards.

If you are planning a build with 480 right now, drop it. The wait for 1060 would be worth be it 1 month or just 1 week.

There you have it. GTX1060 vs RX480 resolved.
Stay tuned for PC Builds, TechTalks and more.

~APex
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Red-Black Mid Range PC (Request). GPU History TechTalk.

I got a request on the blog for a Red-Black Themed Gaming PC by a guy named Daniel (Ill address him as Dan). Dan has a budget of $1000 max but prefer the PC to be $700-$800. So, let's begin with the build

Starting off the build we have the pocket friendly CPU, i5 6500. This is a great CPU for the price with an amazing power. A surprisingly low TDP of 65W makes it highly efficient and helps it stay cool. All these features made its choice unquestionable.
CPU- Intel Core i5 6500

Like every other budget build I will do on this channel, this Build too has the same CPU cooler; Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. A "180W" Max TDP at just $20 is mind blowing. With the best price/performance ratio and amazing feedback from the users Hyper 212 EVO was a no brainer choice.
Cooler- Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Getting a budget LGA 1151 Motherboard wouldn't have been difficult but keeping up with the theme made it sort of difficult. But MSI came to rescue with their beautiful Red and Black B150 Gaming M3 motherboard. Since we have a non-K CPU a Z170 board isn't required and hence we saved about 10-15 bucks with a more affordable chipset.
Motherboard- MSI B150 Gaming M3

Keeping up with the gorgeous Red and Black Theme we have an equally gorgeous Red pair of RAM sticks from G.Skill. Excelling in both performance and aesthetics, this choice too was made simple with the 2X8 GB kit being the most popular DDR4 kit on PCPartPicker.
RAM- G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 2400mhz 8GB (x2)

Selecting the right storage is always easy even for newbies. Get the cheapest one you can find for your required capacity. Here we have the Hitachi 2 TB HDD and an SSD from PNY. Now, Hitachi was a choice of price but PNY was more a choice of its aesthetics with its beautiful black and red color scheme.
HDD- Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 7200 RPM 3.5"
SSD- PNY CS1311 240 GB 2.5"

The GPU was a difficult choice. Currently RX 480 has issues of its own with high power draw from PCIe slot, thermal issues and no overclocking potential with the AMD Stock Cooler. The card is great but not enough to get it over the GTX 1060, leaked benchmarks of the 1060 suggest it outperforms the RX 480, moreover, matches (or is near to) GTX 980 performance. Even if we consider the benchmarks wrong just like the RX 480 benches were still History of GPUs tells us to get the 1060 over 480.

Now, lets have a history lesson, shall we? An N60 card from NVIDIA has always outperformed A80 card from AMD. GTX 760 performed better than Radeon 280, GTX 960 performed better than Radeon 380. Also, an N60 card from newer Gen has always outperformed an N70 card from last Gen.

Power efficiency is another thing is which puts Nvidia ahead of AMD. From GPU History we know that an N60 card has been about 20% more efficient on average. The 760 was a whopping 25% more efficient than a 770. The 960 was about 18% more efficient than the 970 (we are just talking Watts here no performance). The 1070 has a TDP of 150W now from the GPU history we know that 1060 will be more efficient than that. If we take the efficiency to even 15-17% that too puts the 1060 at 125 Watts. 125 Watts of 1060 is a whopping 25% more efficient than the 170 watts the RX 480 takes (even when it is rated at 150W) with its power issues.

The history somewhat confirms the leaks, which say that 1060 performs near about 980 (over 970 as told in GPU History Para 1) and has a rated TDP of 120W (lesser than whats told in GPU History Para 2). If History repeats itself with this gen too then, a 1060 would perform better and be more power efficient than the RX 480.

Now back to the build, the 1060 is supposed to be released by the end of this month (July 2016), and be priced at around $250. There would be 2 versions 3GB and 6GB it is unknown which one will be priced at $250 but it is anticipated that it will be the 3GB one. The Aftermarket solutions will start shipping by the end of August (max). At this point it will be more beneficial to wait for a 1060 unless you are in a real hurry. For that instance, go with an RX 480. So in this build, I have added a GTX 1060 with an estimate price of $300. To match with the build the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming is chosen as it has a red and black shroud (Twin Frozr VI cooler).
GPU- MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming Edition


The case is an interesting choice. It is unknown to many but Deepcool makes an amazing and beautiful budget case called Kendomen. To match with the theme I had previously thought of the Corsair Spec-02 case but the Deepcool Kendomen TI stole the spot when it came across my eyes. This case comes with 5 pre-installed fans, 2 of which are LED. A thing to note that the PC Part Picker listing did not have the TI version of the Deepcool Kendomen (TI is the newer version with added Radiator support) so I selected the regular one but the TI is available on amazon.com. If Dan prefers he can go with the Corsair Spec-02 case instead.
Case- Deepcool Kendomen TI Red

The power required for this build was a mere 350W but I added a more powerful PSU anyway. A thing to note is that PSUs of higher wattage don't consume more power than their lower wattage counterparts. So adding a slightly more powerful PSU won't harm anything in anyway. Power consumption will always be equal to power requirement no matter what PSU you get. A 1200W power supply will consume power equal to a 500W PSU on a PC that requires 450W power.
PSU- Corsair CXM 550W 

This sums up the build at under $900.

A few notes for Dan-
If you want the PC right away go for RX 480 but if you can wait (or my TechTalk changed your mind) wait for the 1060 as the iGPU (GPU in the processor) can run games like CS GO, Rocket League, LoL etc at decent settings and FPS. If you currently have a GPU then build this right away and use the old GPU in this PC for 2 months until you get the 1060. If you have any other concerns, comment down below or e-mail me.

Thank you all for reading. What do you think about this build? Comment down below. Share this post and the Blog with your friends. See you guys next time with more awesome builds and other content.

Parts-
CPU- Intel Core i5 6500
Cooler- Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard- MSI B150 Gaming M3
RAM- G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 2400mhz 8GB (x2)
HDD- Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 2TB 7200 RPM 3.5"
SSD- PNY CS1311 240 GB 2.5"
GPU- MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming Edition
Case- Deepcool Kendomen TI Red
PSU- Corsair CXM 550W 


~APex



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