Intel’s been having a good run as of late and they’ve recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and what better way to mark that date than to launch your hottest product to date. Marking Intel’s 40th year in the industry is the release of the Sandy Bridge E processors aimed at high-end enthusiasts, top-end gamers and no-compromise power users. Building upon the success of the highly acclaimed Sandy Bridge processors, the new Sandy Bridge E line up is now taking on the mantle as  Intel’s flagship processor and its most powerful desktop product line. Today we have the top-end of this product line: the Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition. A six-core, Hyperthreaded computing behemoth that is designed to be THE processor for years to come. Let’s see how this processor performs and let’s make this extremely showy!

The first generation Sandy Bridge was an impressive product and something that has really been successful in the market easily taking away chunks of share from its aging Gulftown brother due to its great performance. But truth be told, the processor we have right now goes toe to toe with its predecessors, the 980X/990X Gulftowns. Right now there are 3 models (see below) of the Sandy Bridge E processor: a quad-core model and 2 six-core variants, the quad-core part being released Q1 2012.

Now as with any new release there’s always that question on which is supported. As this one is a new platform, a new motherboard is needed that sports the new X79 chipset. For this test we have a board from Intel, the DX79SI coupled with a quad-channel kit from Kingston.  So let’s get hammering and see some benches… BUT FIRST, a couple of photos!

CLOSER LOOK

PROCESSOR

The new LGA2011 socket is massive.	The new retention mechanism features a dual-lever lock which makes sure your chip is in place.
	Not really much to say about the proc… let’s let the charts do the talking for it.

MOTHERBOARD

As the northbridge gets totally scrapped in this platform, we can see a cleaner layout on this board. The noticeable skull trademark that Intel uses on its high-end boards is present in the south-bridge heatsink which is connected via heatpipe to the	Codenamed Siler, this board is basically clean to look at but closer inspection we can see that there’s a lot going on in every part of the board.
This board gives us 6 SATA ports, the blue ones are SATA 6Gbps and the 4 black ones are SATA II capable.	Down below we can some onboard power controls and a error code display and other than that some front and back panel connectivity like USB and FP audio.
Checking out the back we have 2 USB3.0 at the top row with a little switch which Intel calls the “Back2Bios” switch. I shit you not and I did not make that up, it is called the Back2Bios switch. No relations to Back2Gaming whatsoever. Just a few notches below we get plenty of USB2.0, a dual LAN ports, a Firewire port and audio ports.	The board features 8 DIMM slots for quad-channel fun. My gripe about this is that Intel decided to place the main CPU fan header on the left side of the left DIMM cluster, so you’ll be forced pass your CPU fan cable over or around your RAM.

PERFORMANCE

We’ll start off with SiSoft’s SANDRA CPU Benchmarks which includes the Dhrystone and Whetstone tests. These tests basically all run within the CPU and cache so it is really a test to show how a processor performs.

First up the Dhrystone, which is a integer and string benchmark.

In the Whetstone benchmark, which measures floating point arithmetic performance, the 3960X absolutely demolishes everything.

Now we move on towards test with SuperPI and wPrime. SuperPI is single-threaded so our results show the performance of a single core.

On wPrime we can see how the scaling of the 3960X though not clear, the larger values give us a clearer picture of how our chip handles the benchmark.

Maxon offers a nice benchmark tool called Cinebench which really stresses your entire system to render a very complex scene. The output score is completely unique to Cinebench but allows us to have a rough idea of how the CPU works with 3D rendering tasks.

Video conversion is one major requirements of user which requires heavy processing power. We used Xilisoft and conver a 150MB 1080p clip into x264 format and average out the times we get in 3 runs.

CONCLUSION

We expected the Sandy Bridge E platform to perform strongly but it completely surpassed our expectations. By no means we didn’t make a thorough nor definitive guide to this chip’s power, go ahead and check out the big boy tech sites for a full understanding of how this chip totally annihilates everything in its wake.

Being the flagship product that targets the higher-end market, the intended audience of this product will have surely prepared for this release. But anyone who’s coming from an SB platform might take a moment and rethink about WHY they should get this processor. In all honesty, we believe one should get the SB-E platform if they really need it. Heavily threaded and processor-intensive applications will happily feel at home with the new processor but the accompanying cost of a new motherboard and the new processor is going be a very pricey investment.

That said, we’re more likely going to see many people looking at the i7-3930K priced at ₱29,000 versus the ₱50,000 Extreme Edition. Even with its lower clock and cache, the performance alone in stock of the i7-3960X gives us a good idea of what can be attained with the i7-3930K. Also worth noting is that there is no cooler included with the new chips. Intel sells their standard air-cooler separately and a closed-loop liquid cooler, the RTS2011LC, for these line of processors although considering much of those who opt for this will most likely have an aftermarket cooler in mind.

We just can’t stress enough how impressed we are with the Sandy Bridge E processor we have right now. It just blows everything out of the water but that’s just a teaser because we’re sure that these chips are octo-cores (real cores) and we can’t wait to see how those babies handle.

In closing, we would like to repeat again that the SB-E platform is a platform that guarantees excellent performance but comes at a price. It’s hard to recommend this chip if you’re just going to game on a single card, but if you’re going multi-HD7970 or that new Kepler cards Team Green is cooking up, there’s nothing more reliable than the X79 powered board with an SB-E chip at the helm. If you’ve got the cash, there’s seriously no point not to recommend the new SB-E platform but if you’re on a budget, we suggest holding out a bit to see what Ivy Bridge brings to the table… but it surely won’t be beating the SB-E anytime soon in performance benchmarks.

… and no, I don’t have an SNSD video for this processor.

With the portable gaming market slowly getting more and more diversified with smartphone platforms quickly finding their spot in what used to be a Sony versus Nintendo world, the platform-specific items needed for these devices are also getting numerous. From the games themselves, the memory card where you store your data chances are it’s going to be tied to that certain system. And the same goes for the listening equipment you use on those devices. If you’re packing a PSP, DS, laptop, smartphone, a portable music player or all of those and want a listening solution to cover all of them well Razer’s got your back.

Razer’s line of all-around audio gear isn’t limited to the Orca and Electra, somewhere in their catalog you’d notice the Moray and its more packed version, the Moray+ which is what we have in our studio today for testing. Let’s see if Razer’s swiss army knife of an earphone packs a bite worthy of its predatory namesake and as usual, let’s make this showy!

Like we mentioned in the opening paragraph, the world of gadgets is now heavily diversified with the entertainment capabilities of such devices a far cry from the days of the Nintendo Gameboy and Sony Walkman. The Moray+ is Razer’s attempt at finding a medium in audio delivery for such a wide selection. Razer’s Moray+ is a pair of in-ears earphone with a bunch of included adaptors for your PC/laptop, PSP, DS, idevices or any device that supports a 3.5mm jacks which can be any smartphone or MP3 player. So let’s just cut the chat and see how this baby performs.

SPECIFICATIONS

Earphones

Microphone

PACKAGING

CLOSER LOOK

PERFORMANCE

Note: Audio is a complicated subject to rate properly and something that can’t be properly graded in numbers. We test our review sample using a variety of audio sources with varying quality and we rate them as fairly as we can.

LISTENING

To test out the music performance of our Moray+ we used a Sony NW-E002VC and all our audio files are 320Kbps MP3 CBR 44khz encoded to the player’s native OMA format. (I was seriously gonna use the Lexicon Omega on this one but that was gonna be neither fair nor relevant)

SISTAR- Shady Girl

An upbeat track with a heavy kick in the beat pulling together its nice keyboard melody. This is arguably one of Sistar’s tracks that highly showcases Hyorin’s singing and vocal skills. The song intros with the beat surging in and that first bar is what really sets the mood for the song. The Moray+ delivers a punchy bassline but feels a bit short on that oomph level I enjoy on these songs. As mentioned earlier this song features a good vocal performance and the Moray+ does as well rendering the group’s vocal prowess.

Electroboyz – Ma Boy 2

A hiphop track featuring one of my most admired singers of the new century, Hyorin of SiStar. A smooth track that flows from solid to mellow verses then to a powerful chorus and bridge. This song is hot right now. Again the Moray+ impresses with its clear mid-high range but the bass just wasn’t doing it for me so I played around with the EQ until I get the amount of deepness to it yet the kick still isn’t doing it for me.

D-Coy – Black Katipunero (ALBUM)

I decided to pop in D-Coy’s latest album tracks to complete this session and just to cover up the fact that I am a Kpop fan. Seventeen tracks of hiphop, reggae, swag and just plain ol’ good music is what we have here. Again I’m trying to get a feel for the bass here since I’m not satisfied, everything else seems perfect but the bass just seems to not be doing it for me. The Moray+ excellent upper spectrum range delivery is really impressive here that you can pick out details from the track but when it comes to that strong gut-felt kick, it just ain’t coming out.

GAMING

We start things off on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, though bundled with some decent earbuds it just doesn’t deliver that unique sound experience that Sony has been known for. So popping in the Moray+ in our Xperia Play we fire up Dead Space. I’ve been using Dead Space 2 as a benchmark for audio equipment to gauge how they handle positional audio as well as distance and layering. This time around I’m very satisfied with the Moray+’s performance with that ever present and spine-chilling silence that gets broken off by masterfully timed sounds crafted to scare the pants off of you.

After that we get on the road with Need for Speed: Shift on the Xperia Play and one just has to hear to believe it. It may not be the most realistic of Android games but the crappy engine audio just seems to sound a bit better in the Moray+. All in all, it’s just a better experience than the stock earphones.

We were also able to test the Moray+ on the DS Lite and PSP3000 and I’ll just say it straight that it performed just as well as with the previous tests. The microphone was excellent and spot on. I’m used to using the single ear headset of the DS and to scream out OBJECTION!!!! 3 to 4 times every time I had to serve Edgeworth’s face while playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney but the Moray+ was clear enough to let the DS know I was shouting OBJECTION!!! the first time around.

CONCLUSION

There’s really nothing crazy or gimmicky about the Razer Moray+. It’s a straight-up solution for gamers who prefer to travel light and want something that goes with everything. Built solidly with a minimalistic design (which is very un-Razer-like) it has a good balance of simple looks and just the right swagger. As for performance, it surely delivers excellent sounds although it comes a bit short on that kick some club-banger fans love. So how much is this gonna cost us? Right now the Moray+ comes in at US$60 and locally at ₱2800.

So you might say that’s a hefty sum. Well let’s see what we’re getting: a powerful and very capable noise isolating earphone that has great sound isolation and also very comfortable. We’re also getting a very good microphone (had it like up to my chest and I was in public transport and my friend on the other line can still hear me clearly.) Just those alone are already worth something. That is, if you’re getting the stock Moray. The Moray+ bundles a DS and PSP audio jack, a Y-cable and a nice carry pouch to cover all your portable gaming audio needs and that’s getting a lot out of one pair of earphones.

If you’re strictly looking for some quality noise-isolating earphones, you’re probably better off with some cheap SkullCandy but the Moray+ addresses a situation only a gaming brand like Razer can cover so like I said in the opening, if you have multiple gaming portables and a smartphone then this package is for you. It is indeed well worth it and there’s nothing like it in the market right now so we highly recommend the Moray+ for you. If you’re an audiophile though (or a wannabe audiophile that worships Beats by Dr. Derp) go check out other solutions.

With the advent of the Sandy Bridge-E processors and its supporting chipset the X79, it also ushers in the era of quad-channel memory kits. This also comes at a time with RAM prices at an all time low which makes it nearly a no-brainer to upgrade your current dual- or triple-channel kit. It’s 2012 baby and Back2Gaming’s stepping up and we’re starting things off with a volley of reviews to open up the new year. This week we have Kingston’s HyperX Genesis quad-channel memory kit optimized for the X79 platform and we’ll see if this part is worth being a part of the latest and greatest rigs! Let’s make this showy!

We don’t need to introduce who or what Kingston does. They’re arguably the most recognized RAM and flash drive manufacturer this part of the Pacific. To differentiate from its other product lines, Kingston has the HyperX series of products designed with gamers and enthusiasts in mind. Keeping true to this name is the HyperX Genesis line of memory kits with the Genesis being the entry level of the HyperX memory family, with the T1 and H20 on the higher end of the spectrum.

On our test bench today is the HyperX Genesis Quad-Channel DDR3-1600 CL9 memory kit, which Kingston has recently release to coincide with the Sandy Bridge-E and X79 launch along with its higher-clocked sibling having a DDR3-2133 rating.

SPECIFICATION

*Power will vary depending on the SDRAM used.

CLOSER LOOK

The Kingston HyperX Genesis doesn’t feature anything revolutionary in terms of physical attributes. A metallic blue heat-spreader jacket the modules with HyperX styling adorning the heatspreader. One thing that’s surely noticeable is the choice of green PCB. I mean, come on manufacturers, a green or brown PCB is like synonymous to budget kits. Yes, that’s probably just skin deep but swag is swag.

One side of the module features the HyperX logo styling and the other side features information about our part. Not much info is given though say the specific timings one might need thought I doubt you’d be holding your module when entering manual timings in the BIOS and these parts are XMP certified so less hassle.

TEST SETUP

We would like to thank Kingston and Intel for providing the hardware and equipment for this review.

PERFORMANCE

We put the HyperX Genesis in a couple of synthetic and application tests to get performance numbers. We compare it to the Corsair Vengeance LP quad-channel kit, clocked in at the same DDR3-1600 rating but has a tighter CL8 timing making it a nice challenge for the lower-priced HyperX Genesis. Overclocked results are also included for the HyperX Genesis. We raised our BCLK to 105.4 and kept the multiplier to default to get a final DDR3-1686 rating. Any higher and we’d either crash during boot or the system won’t boot at all. Also please bear with us as we are just expanding into memory reviews so our comparative library is close to nil and we’ll improve on it as time goes by.

We start things off with AIDA64 and the included memory benchmark which is becoming a benchmark standard for a while now.

The HyperX Genesis puts up good numbers all across the board. On stock, the Genesis is slightly topped by the Vengeance LP considering it has better specs but even that only gives it a 3.73% edge over the HyperX Genesis in terms of read performance. OC’d, the HyperX Genesis gives us better figures with a 4.08% increase in performance.

Next up is SiSoft’s Sandra’s memory throughput benchmark which measures performance by reading and writing randomly on the RAM with floating point and integer values giving us a more realistic look at how our modules perform.

What’s really impressive in this test is the scaling we get with the increased BCLK and associated system speed, we get a sweet 18% boost.

Now we got some real-world application in Handbrake. We’re going to convert episode 14 of Kamen Rider Fourze, 720p into iPhone format. We report the time it takes to finish the conversion.

Results are pretty much the same with milliseconds separating each. This could be attributed to the sheer immense power of the i7 3960X just crunching down that transcoding like snacks.

CONCLUSION

The HyperX Genesis DDR3-1600 kit is an unusual proposition considering its target market. The high-end LGA2011 market has a US$550 or US$990 processor choice and a lucrative motherboard market that starts at roughly US$200. So why get a US$90 part for your expensive rig? It’s a case to case basis. The HyperX Genesis gives us good performance figures that makes it worth having especially if you’re going for the budget LGA2011 build with a i7-3930 and an entry-level board, the savings you get from getting the HyperX Genesis is gonna be highly appreciated. Even though it has little OC headroom, we still managed to kick our i7-3960X to 4.8Ghz with little effort which makes it still a good choice.

If you’re planning on getting an LGA2011 platform and won’t be spending a fortune on it, Kingston’s HyperX Genesis quad-channel kit is worth having especially if you don’t plan on OC’ing much.

It can’t be denied that the SSD market is growing at a very fast pace which can only be attributed to the ever increasing performance benefits we see from them. That said, we see companies left and right join the party trying to vie for consumers’ attention ranging from the budget power user all the way to the high-end, no-compromise enthusiasts. Today we have the enthusiast-targeted HyperX SSD, Kingston’s top of the line offering in the SSD space. Let’s get revving and see if the HyperX delivers and as usual, let’s make this showy!

Kingston’s HyperX line represents the company’s high-end segment that targets power users, gamers and enthusiasts that want high-performance products. This line includes desktop and laptop memories for a wide variety of applications, and more recently SSDs and USB 3.0 flash drives. As part of this prestigious line, the HyperX SSD has some mean specs. We have the 120GB Upgrade Kit in our test bench today which aside from the SSD itself, includes items that makes installation of your new SSD easier. More on that later, let’s get busy with the HyperX.

PACKAGING

Our sample for today is the HyperX Upgrade Kit so we’re looking at a heftier package than the stand-alone SSD one. The kit includes the SSD itself, a 3.5″ retention bracket, a USB enclosure, a USB and SATA cable and a screwdriver and a utility CD.

CLOSER LOOK

I’m liking the overall styling and finish on the SSD right. Nothing really special but looking at other SSDs, this is really one stylish drive.
Another sweet addition in this package is this variable screwdriver with a hollow top that keeps the 2 included Phillips bits.	Included in the upgrade kit is a USB enclosure for 2.5″ SATA drives and of course SSDs. This makes it easy to clone your existing drive using the bundled imaging software.
	A bracket is included for cases that don’t have SSD brackets already. This fits into your normal 3.5″ drive slot with the SSD nestled on it.

PERFORMANCE

Test Setup

We would like to thank Kingston, Intel and Seagate for providing the hardware and equipment for this review.

Read Bandwidth

Using HD Tach’s long test option, we measure the read performance of the HyperX. This gives us a pretty good picture of how the drive will perform on a day to day basis. We don’t really bother much with the burst speed but we’ll include it for stats.

Write Test

On to write performance, we finally see a good showdown between the HyperX and Vertex on this one with only a few MB/s separating the two.

Crystal DiskMark

Crystal DiskMark is a disk benchmark suite designed to quickly evaluate drive performance. For this test we leave the number of test runs to the default settings (5).

If there’s one test that spindle-based drives hate it’s that 4K test but as our graph shows, the SSDs ace this one with our HyperX trumping the Vertex in the majority of the tests though the latter still showing its strongpoint in the small file operations.

AS SSD

Similar to Crystal DiskMark, we again see impressive figures. This round, we see the HyperX and Vertex separated by only a small margin so it’s interesting to see that we get a view of how SSDs in this range should perform. And if you’re not familiar with how SSDs perform compared to HDDs, just check out how miniscule the 4K-results on the Barracuda 3TB compared to the HyperX. The Barracuda is a flagship monster but the HyperX SSD makes it cry in terms of sheer performance.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Now we do a shootout with the HyperX and Vertex to see how each scale. Kingston advertises prominently on their packaging that their SSD can do 525/495MB per second and is rated to do maximum 555/510MB per second. We were not able to achieve these numbers in the latter tests but a few benchmark option changes and we managed to replicate them but to be more realistic we retained the original benchmarks we achieved on stock options. ATTO performs read and write operations starting from .5KB up to 8MB and then presents the user with a graph of the results.

Looking at our chart, we see that the HyperX overtakes the Vertex as file size increase and finally closes the deal at about 3/4 of the way.

CONCLUSION

Kingston’s HyperX SSD has proven itself a worthy choice in selecting an SSD. It’s got great build quality, a very stylish look and a nice package in the Upgrade Kit bundle. For performance, you’re getting a real hotrod in this drive with excellent read bandwidth and write performance which is backed by Kingston’s 3-year warranty and free 24/7 support. Coming in at US$250, it’s a hefty investment but you won’t regret having this as your main drive.

Storage used to be a one-sided affair for the desktop with spindle-based mechanical drives as the star of the show but now that SSD’s are quickly establishing themselves, its making it harder for mechanical drives to differentiate themselves from each other. One thing that SSD’s have yet to be proud of is their capacities, we’ve grown far from the day of the 40-80GB IDE hard disks with data ballooning to what it is today and demands to store these data are growing. Enter Seagate’s newest large capacity offering, the Seagate Barracuda 3TB. We’ve reviewed Seagate’s earlier 3TB offering, the Barracuda XT 3TB a while back so we’re interested to see what it’s younger and fresher brother can offer. Let’s get our drives spinning and make this showy!

As we’ve mentioned we’ve already looked at an earlier release from Seagate in the form of the Barracuda XT 3TB. Now while the Barracuda 3TB we have here doesn’t have the XT designation, don’t let it fool you, the Barracuda is a high-performance line and this new model is no exception.

The Barracuda 3TB is the first ever 1TB-per-platter 3TB drive (there are other products out there using 1TB-per-platter but only come in 1TB capacities.) So what does this mean for the you, the user? Well first off, you get better efficiency and faster access times since the large areal density means the read/write arms don’t have to move that far to access the next piece of data on the platter. Less movement means faster access which leads to better performance. So let’s get a picture of how this drive stacks up against its brother and we’ll be putting it against our simultaneous review release, the Kingston HyperX SSD 120GB.

CLOSER LOOK

Nothing really worth noting on the physical side of things. It’s your typical 3.5inch form factor hard drive. The label prominently brandishes the 3000GB capacity of this product. Really turns on those obsessed with numbers.

PERFORMANCE

Test Setup

We would like to thank Kingston, Intel and Seagate for providing the hardware and equipment for this review.

Read Bandwidth

We used HD Tach to see how the Barracuda 3TB’s read performance is.  Also note that we do 3 runs for each benchmark and average our results to give you the final numbers we have. For this one we used to long test option in HD Tach for a more accurate benchmark. As you can see from the chart above, we get a good boost in read speed compared to the XT model at about 24%. Also worth noting is how the Barracuda 3TB performs over half of what our HyperX SSD can do, so it’s quite impressive that you get 2500% more storage with 50% of the performance versus an SSD.

Write Test

Simply impressive is all I can say about the write speed of this new Barracuda model. With over 40MB/s increase in average write speed, we get a sweet 27% increase on the XT. Also worth noting is the minimum write speed of this drive coming in at around 94MB/s. In layman terms, that’s a very fast hard drive.

Crystal DiskMark

Crystal DiskMark is a hard disk benchmark suite designed to quickly evaluate drive performance. For this test we leave the number of test runs to the default settings (5).

We get to see the new Barracuda putting up good numbers even in very small file operations. Don’t get distracted with the SSD numbers, that’s what they’re good at.

AS SSD

AS-SSD is a benchmark suite targeted at solid state drives but is very capable of testing out any drive although tests will take longer to finish.

Pretty much the same picture we get from before, we have good numbers all across the board all the while using less power than its XT brethren.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

We check how the Barracuda 3TB scales with the XT using ATTO Disk Benchmark. And as we already seen before, the new model is simply superior to the former 3TB flagship.

CONCLUSION

We’re gonna be straight to the point here and ask is the new Barracuda worth the money? Initially priced at US$180, it has now gone way beyond that along with every other model out there due to the crazy, rising cost of hard drives today. So to answer our question, we really gotta stress that this drive totally demolishes the standard set by the XT model delivering increased performance and capacity that would be the benchmark for future mechanical hard drives to come.

Right now we cannot give the Barracuda 3TB a fair value rating but we can say that for a drive intended to be a new flagship model that (should have) cost better than its predecessor, it does well so in terms of performance. If you really need large storage right now there’s simply no budget route as hard disk supplies are just starting to return to normal and getting the Barracuda 3TB is simply the best option right now. Also note that Seagate and other hard disk vendors have reduced their warranty lengths so if this concerns you, do take heed.

Mechanical keyboards are slowly taking over the top spot of the keyboard game with more and more gamers’ preferring to choose a better typing experience than flare and flashy features (ehem Logitech ehem). With its recent entry in the gaming peripheral scene, its not surprising that CM Storm would want to establish itself quickly and they have done fairly well so far with their casing and mice line up. They’ve recently released their first venture into the keyboard market with the QuickFire Rapid, a compact mechanical keyboard that ditches features for feel. Does CM Storm have something worth having here or is the quickfire more of a spray and pray? Let’s see and as usual, let’s maked this showy!

CM Storm is a subsidiary of Coolermaster that focuses on the gaming scene. A while back, CM Storm was but a sub-genre of casings with the Scout and Stealth being so successful products. Coolermaster is looking to extend to this success by expanding its CM Storm franchise. We’ve recently seen one of their products, the Spawn mice, and we came out satisfied but CM Storm isn’t stopping there and their first venture into the keyboard market, they immediately go after some high-end appeal with the QuickFire Rapid: a mechanical keyboard intended for gamers.

PACKAGING

The QuickFire Rapid package includes a manual, replacement keycaps, a keypuller, a USB cable and USB-to-PS/2 adaptor. Pretty bare-bones right there but so are other mechanical keyboards.

CLOSER LOOK

At first look, the QuickFire Rapid is one very small keyboard. The layout is pretty much standard minus the number pad.	Undearneath the keyboard we have rubber feet to stop the keyboard from moving around. This is supported in turn by the heft of the keyboard itself which is pretty weighty for its size. We also see 2 adjustable feet to increase the height of our QuickFire.
One thing that struck me immediately with the detachable USB cable of the Quickfire Rapid is that its braided and of very high quality which contrasts the vanilla rubber cable of the Spawn mouse we recently reviewed. Nice touch here.	Another improvement over its other product is the gold-plating in the USB connectors. The plating is much more noticeable and has an elegant shine to it giving it that extra swagger.
Keycap replacements for the WASD and Windows keys are included as well as a key puller.	Notice how they named the space bar QuickFire. That is misleading right there because that button is usually the jump button on most FPS. Kidding aside, the layout has an upward slant which is reminiscent of the BlackWidow from Razer.
Here we can see the rise the adjustable feet gives us. It doesn’t add much height to it but gives just the right slant for those wider tables.	The bottom also gives us 3 paths for the cables to run through so the cable can go either left or right or just straight up without snaking around the bottom.

PERFORMANCE, COMFORT, FUNCTIONALITY

I’ll be very honest, I like mechanical keyboards. And so will you once you use one. One thing that’s not really to everyone’s liking is the sound they make. CM Storm offers multiple variants of the QuickFire Rapid featuring the famed Cherry MX switches and its blue, red and black offerings. The one we have here features the Cherry MX Blue switches, again similar to the BlackWidow. Do check the model code and front cover which has a sticker of which model you’re getting.

So on to performance, we have a nicely laid out keyboard here minus a number pad. Having been used to Cherry MX Blues, I can say right off the bat that the feel of the QuickFire Rapid is still the same though at close observation, the keys feels a bit heavier to press than on the BlackWidow and since the keys are uncoated has a normal feel to their texture. Barring all those, you still get a high performing typing experience that is very solid and highly responsive.

For comfort, we’ve already mentioned how good it feels to use a mechanical keyboard but the sound is just a hit or miss to everyone. The layout is very standard so it feels just like any other keyboard but with its dark gunship grey coloring and black keys it looks like any old keyboard also. It won’t win any style award with this look. Putting the Caps/Num/Scr Lock lights on the keys themselves is pretty much been adopted by laptops for a while now and though it might seem sensible most users will most likely never notice it so making them highly illuminated should’ve been skimped out in favor of more discrete lights since they kind of make you want to ask for individual key lighting. No hand rest included but that’s understandable given the QuickFire’s placement in the market.

Functionality and features though you won’t get much from the QuickFire Rapid. No macro functionality, USB and audio passthroughs, no key lights, no nothing. This is as straight and real as it gets. Such is the sad reality of mechanical keyboards. We do expect more from manufacturers in the future though. Right now, you only get media keys in the QuickFire.

CONCLUSION

So does CM Storm’s first keyboard make it a stand-out competitor or just another kid on the block?

You’re getting a solid keyboard at a fraction of the size of other offerings but considering the market that this kind of keyboard targets, rarely do you see users opting for compact and discrete. Flashy is the name of the game and looks will always count for you.

Performance and feel was straight up and no nonsense. It delivered well as a mechanical keyboard but I really gotta stress the importance of the number pad here. When Razer decided to chop off the number pad on the marauder, they had the decency to at least compress it to the navigation keys. With CM Storm, they decided to just do away with it. A mechanical keyboard isn’t all about the WASD key, its still a keyboard and is by all means will be used as one. We can understand that they had to make sacrifices to lessen the cost but at the cost of a core functionality it has become a dire flaw.

So in closing, it boils down to price. There is no news yet of how much the QuickFire is locally but we can see online prices hover around USD100. That is USD20 more than a Razer BlackWidow, a Rosewill, TtEsport Meka or a Das keyboard. Those keyboards feature full layout keys and are more established in the game. So why would you still buy the QuickFire? Well if you’re looking for a compact mechanical keyboard to carry around, you won’t get anything more compact than the QuickFire Rapid. We’re seriously convinced that the QuickFire Rapid is a good mechanical keyboard but its identity crisis of being a compact offering versus a gaming product is hurting its true purpose.

I’m definitely not out of the woods when it comes to Art School. So maybe when I graduate outta there, I can write more MMO reviews like there is no tomorrow and maybe tell you more about MMOs that are good (or used to be good).

But here we are, another MMO Game review that involves a game that i love so much, but since a couple of events in-game, I tend to be less biased about it. There are ups and downs that this game had and while some will still think of this game as great (myself included), I’m just starting to notice some of the flaws. So here we are… my college love… reviewed.

Atlantica Online

Country of Origin: South Korea

Genre: MMO Turn-based RPG

Company of Origin: NDoors

Playable Servers: NDoors, Ijji (Global, terminated) , NEXON (Only for those who have an Atlantica Account in NDoors and ijji)

Gameplay Status: Dropped

Atlantica Online is a famous Tactical MMORPG that revolves around a heavy mix of history and mythology fused with steampunk and slightly gothic elements. Like Uncharted Waters Online, Atlantica is set in a world where each country is represented with a different culture and setting. Instead of cultures, however, Atlantica’s countries have their own separate timeline.

Storywise-it’s not much. But you start the game awakened by three… angelic forms who teach you the ways of Atlantica’s gameplay.  Then you choose where to start the game from: China, Japan, or Korea. As you progress through the levels, you technically travel all over the world, from Asia to America. So far, the countries involved in the timeline manipulation belong to Europe, America, and Asia. I have yet to see an expansion pack where they cover Africa, South America, Australia, Russia and Mongolia.

One day, my unnamed pretties.

The plot goes like this: Atlantis sunk because they don’t wanna share their secrets of a very valuable element called Oriharukon that made Atlantis flourish to the world. Their greed caused the city to disappear while traces of the valuable element still exist in many regions of the world. Your quest is apparently to learn what happened to your ancestors and their civilization, why did the civilization sank, and where it is now. All while trying to kill monsters that are under the influence of the greed caused by searching for Oriharukon. Why did the world warped into many historical timelines, I don’t know~!

The gameplay goes like a turn-based RPG. Your party and the enemy party have 30 seconds each to defeat each other and keep your mercenaries and your main character (the true life line of the battle system) at bay. You can survive and defeat this endeavor by the help of your Mercenaries: a bunch of guys you hired or summon to be a part of your super team. Each with different spells and skills that can make your game easier or harder. Who can say? You can also fire your mercenaries to make room for better ones, and if you level them up before they past a certain age limit for them to roam free and help you with giving you free items and XP whenever you visit them again (I forgot, mind all fuzzy).

Hiring Mercenaries is pretty easy at first, where you can choose either of the five: a Swordsman, a Spearman, a Shaman, an Archer, and a Gunner. As you progress to the game, you can go on quests (long, hard and very repetitive) quests in order to unlock and summon the high-tier mercenaries. Other mercenaries are wanderers in search of a new master and all you have to do is to convince them that you are a good guy and recruit them then and there. You can also buy the more special mercenaries in Item Malls, but that is for later.

The Good and the Bad is next. *sniff*

THE GOOD STUFF:

1. Interesting portrayals of Historical and Literary Figures.

One thing that the game did well is to make Mercenaries, NPCs, and even villains based on real and literary figures. Exaggerated a bit, yes, but nonetheless interesting for a Fantasy themed MMORPG.

The mercenaries in the game are based on famous historical and literary figures when you level them up to greater versions of themselves. Sampling this is the Spearman, when you level up his mercenary level, he becomes Zhao Yun, Three Kingdoms General and Dynasty Warriors Poster Boy. Another sample is the Gunner, who levels up to Oichi, Oda Nobunaga’s sister. The “Gunner” was meant to be a homage to Nobunaga’s excellence in Rifle Technology during the Sengoku period.

While there are some mercenaries and NPCs based on real historical characters, we also have the ones derived from Mythological Lore; sampling this is the Exorcist mercenary which is based on the Archangel Michael of Christian lore, and we also have characters that no one knows where the heck did the name come from but it should: the Punisher mercenary’s evolved form is called “Frank Reade”, with all that I can find on the internet (Wikipedia, really) was that he was a Victorian writer for steampunk-themed cheap novels for kids, so how does this relate to a Chainsaw-wielding power-loving fat guy, we’ll never know.

Pretty much what I want in a Mercenary who can wield a chainsaw: cheap novels!

I also did not expect really that Robin Hood, the heroic name for the Archer Mercenary, and Paganini for the Minstrel Mercenary… have girl models.  But maybe that’s what makes the game more surprising.

2. East to learn, and very challenging to master.

You can point and click at will to the target of your choice, kill, kill kill. battle over.

Once again, your main character is the lifeline of the game and you have to protect her by going through your mercenaries first. Mercenaries have skills to fight enemies, stun them, or support their allies under 30 seconds and 5 mercenaries per group, where those with the highest Action Points can prove their might. Kill kill kill, loot, battle over. Onto the next party of enemies!

Drops depend on area: you can get Commodity Boxes (luck-centric boxes that can get unlockable skill books and growth vials to further your mercenary’s edge in battle), Equipment Boxes, materials to create new items, and other things. You need to take care of your party by giving them the best weapons possible when they level up (sometimes uncontrollably.)

Another example of challenging is the the existence of Shadow Dungeons, where the monsters come in THREE types of hoards instead of the usual one horde, making the monster count per battle around… 27 at maximum. Luckily, you can fulfill your quests in these hellish dungeons easy by joining in a party or using a special scroll that can make nearby enemies your temporary allies for about ten minutes. Sounds pretty interesting, right?

The diagram of a Shadow Dungeon battle without the aid  of parties and Scroll of Reinorcements (I’ll remind you that there are 5 PER group that will fight against your team when in Enemy Phase.)

Boss quests are also hard. You have at least 5 minutes to enter the boss’ room AND kill the boss. The boss is a pretty tough man, but he IS the enemy party’s lifeline, so kill him before he and his drones kill you. Uncontrollably. And it does not hurt to get special skill Scrolls (like Meteor Strike and Resurrection). It’s all on strategy. Flying monsters are buggers too. Only takes a normal range or magic attack and skills to drop them dead.

Overall, it’s easy to know the controls, but complicated enough to give you headaches when things go wrong, but it does makes the game more challenging and the quest rewards better.

3. A very wonderful community.

In the NDOORS run of Atlantica Online, we get a system where we receive lots of free goodies from the more experienced players until we reaches 30 to give our own contribution to the game to the more younger players. Also, the GMs were more friendly and just to their players, guilds were a plenty but very open to those who click to a certain guild (well, you do have to cooperate in order to keep your membership alive). The Mentor system is also a good example of good connections to other players, since Mentors give free things and XP to their students. When an event is involved, the GMS will give you free items via mail to celebrate your loyalty to the game. The community is THAT loving.

The game even celebrates your birthday by giving you special items to keep your Mercenary teams in check. I kind of enjoyed my birthday in college just grinding along with the in-game birthday cake that restores allies’ HP and MP fully!

The community was so good and so undeniably loving that MMORPG.com puts Atlantica Online as the MMO with the BEST Community.

The game is pretty much at the time a great home to many of the players. Iunno if the NEXON run of Atlantica did the same. I wonder really if they still have a good community, to be fair.

4. Other things such as:

• The Auto-run system, which is a major saving grace since you technically go all around the world.
• They celebrate your birthday, for crying out loud! 
• You can change music (by unorthodox means).
• Crafting system and Weapon/Armor upgrades is simple and easy to use.

THE BAD STUFF

1. It’s a pretty slow-paced game with a big, linear universe.

Let’s be honest. How big is the world of Atlantica? Real big and complicated enough for it to call a “relaxing game”. Aside from the battles and parties, we also invest on towns by buying and selling things in certain towns, claim and defend the towns by means of guild wars, and most importantly, make money by winning battles (against enemies or even players), finishing quests and selling things you do not need in order to make a name for yourself. Your money really goes by the millions if you work real hard on your characters.

I know people who played Atlantica and dropped it on the spot because the battle system was a bit repetitive, the monsters sometimes are mere pallete swaps and the attacks get a bit tedious, especially when you farm gold and items on a very limited stamina system at the time.

And that is the thing? If you really wanna do well in the game, you have to spend about most of the hours farming with the game and surpass the pallete swaps, the tedious attacks, and the repetitive battle system. Must be the good music.

Another thing that didn’t work well was that the quests and the setting of these quests (which hopping from Asia to Europe, then back can be a little tiring just seeing your person run free and discover where these next quests go unless you travel from town to town for a price), although fast by means of the auto-tracker (and teleporting if you got enough gold), was how long, slow and tedious the quests from a client can be. In order to level the hell out of your characters and give them free stuff is by these quests themselves, just make sure everyone in your team is still alive and kicking while you are at it.

2. The STAMINA System.

One of the major irks I personally have with this game is the Stamina System. Similar to ForumWarz’ bandwidth limitations of about 4 forum visits per day, Atlantica has a system where you only get to battle 120 times per day when you are in the lower level and about 60 per day when you reach level 50. While stamina is usually restored through party battles and the usual sitting and wait for one stamina every 10 minutes or wait until about after 6 AM their time to restore lost stamina in a snap, those who have and wanted to play this game non-stop had to buy a stamina pill which is either bought from the item mall for real cash, or buy these at a market for around one to two million gold.

Recently, Stamina system was removed from the game because of major complaints from the players (I think). Yet all I can ask is why did they even implement the stamina limit thing in the first place? Is it grind control or…?

3. Nerfing happened.

The longest rant I will put in this review. And partially the reason why I am making this review. This was meant to be in a Historical Segment of the MMO Shenanigans, yet this game among all the others got my eye the most. How did an MMO that has won “Game of the Year 2008″, lost its grip to its players? I could have named other, less noteworthy, or invisible nerfs as well, yet I am just going to tell you guys the main problems that lead to me not playing it.

First of all, they started relying more on credits in order to buy things from Item Malls. The whole “you can get great things if you lash out your real money for it” idea. But that was expected, really. The introduction of costumes, mounts, decorations, houses, and other things bought in the dreaded Item Mall became technically never visible to the common markets and the only way to get these things is to look up the world chat and see their offers, and collection points of such items can make players a little bit greedy with their specially bought things. But let’s face it, it did not stop me from playing a game where buying things from item malls won’t make you cheap in battle.

And that is just the clothes catalog! The game also has mounts and decorations that can leave holes in your in-game and RL pockets!

Second of all, there was a “Mercenary Madness” contest, where players suggest their own brand of mercenaries and the winner will officially turn their idea into a brand-new playable mercenary (I was planning to suggest a SHOGUN mercenary myself because they were short on the Spears that time. Never really finished the idea, really.) While this turned out spiffy for other Non-English servers where they got pretty good and original Thai and Indonesian Heroes and the like, we have one big screwup in ours.

First of all, the winning mercenary was meant to be Flying Magic-type mercenary. It was meant to be a Vampire Mercenary based on the book Carmilla. Instead, we got a Ground-type Music mercenary (Like Minstel, only more vampiric) where her guitar is the size of her entire body (no wonder she cannot fly). While the winner got to win the mercenary herself, she pretty much only got her. No skill books, no skill boosters that can make progresses while other mercenaries got theirs by a looted Commodity Box. Nothing. Also, it takes a LONG time to get her and her skill books for the other players by the means of fighting battles nonstop with a limited stamina and only about a small chance of getting event items in order to trade for a box that you have to get the mercenary by getting enough of the said event item. By chance.

Also, the Event of getting the Mercenary lasted for only a few weeks.

So very limited Stamina + very little chance of getting a special event item that you have to get at least a hundred of them in order to get Vampire + limited time on getting the mercenary and the skillbook= Very dissappointing Merc Madness. Right now, the Vampire Merc and its skill books are available in the Item Mall. They should have just made the entire thing a side-quest instead and make many people happy playing a mercenary especially made for Western Atlantica!

I don’t hate you, Carmilla. I just hate what they did to you.

Finally, the nail on the coffin (for me), NEXON bought the game from his baby company NDOORS. Of all companies, NEXON: The reason why Filipinos (without unorthodox server fixings) can’t play such classics as Mabinogi, Vindictus (Also known as Mabinogi Heroes, which by the looks of it is pretty dang awesome) and Dragon Nest. I never trusted Nexon then, and never did now.

Wait… we can play DN in Cherry Credits. Eh, for another time.

What NEXON did though is that all the ijji and NDoors accounts can be transferred with all your characters and items and all the hullabaloo to a new Nexon Account so that you can play your Atlantica without the problems of region blockage. Yet many people just stopped playing Atlantica due to unstable lagging, servers here and there kicking people at random, glitches that are beyond repair and yet when people started giving these complaints to NEXON they never really took as much action and love as when NDoors did it.

I actually dropped this game when NEXON started being the boss of one of my favourite games back then. Maybe it’s because I wanted to play Vindictus yet they never let me.

Since I don’t feel like doing a Final Verdict since I clearly look like I’m trying to bash the game’s update-addicted downfall, we’ll just end this review with this: Atlantica is still a good game. I just dropped it the moment things start to turn awry. Maybe it did improve after I left, and maybe the Atlantica Server there isn’t region block like I said, but I just stopped playing after this. It was just a good game that lost its greatness I guess, like a good king got corrupted when the fame went to his head.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go play Skyrim and wipe the bitterness in my mouth (I’ll just say that I enjoy this with GNR and Radio New Vegas music from Fallout). Dungeon Overlord is next in MMO Shenanigans… because it has the word “overlord” in it. Also, stay tuned for a bad romance between Arbee and Dragon Age 2!

Where’s My Water is an Android Game where you help Swampy, a very hygienic alligator who refuses to swim in the swamps with the others. As a result, they seek to sabotage Swampy’s bath by sending poisonous ooze and algae to tamper with his clean water. This game is thoroughly addicting and surprisingly, Swampy is very charming. This could easily replace Angry Birds and Cut the Rope as a forerunner in Android Physics-based gaming.

There are currently 120 game levels offered with the initial installation of the game. Promises of new levels come in future game updates. Each stage has 20 levels with the same objective, getting clean water into Swampy’s bathtub. For high scores and bonuses, collect all three rubber duckies from each level and try to discover hidden items that could go into your collection shelf.

The hidden items go into this collection shelving. Each completed shelf unlocks a bonus stage.

You can also attain achievements when you’ve complete certain requisites in the game. As you can see, I still have a lot to unlock.

Each level can be very easy or very complicated because of the traps.

Here’s how a typical game screen for each level looks like. Here’s how to get through the level. Run your fingers around the soil to create a path for the water to flow in. Ideally, you have to lead it to the last pipe that leads to Swampy’s bathtub and at the same time avoiding the traps in each level. The graphics are fairly simple but thoroughly cute. The bright colors may easily appeal to kids and adults alike.

Where’s my Water is a great Android game to pass the time but I do have to warn you though that it does get addicting. Sometimes it’s just too easy to get carried away finishing level after level through the night. Where’s my Water is available in the Android Market for PHP 43.15 or roughly $1.

ANDROID MARKET LINK

PRICE – Php 43.15

PLOT

The plot is loosely tied to the game but is assumed to be canon. Although the character appearance are minimal and features only key characters, the movie relies heavily on the Mishima family history and thus assumes the viewer has some knowledge of it. My cousin who watched with me only played Tekken 3 and doesn’t have much idea on the plot and he got completely lost in the story. Also worth mentioning is that Xiaoyu and Anna do not know each other, which is very surprising since both have probably met since Tekken 3.

It was highly dissatisfying to see Shin Kamiya killed with one back breaker from Heihachi with the plot putting him in such a high-horse as an immortal. Also adding to my disapproval is the sidetracking of Xiaoyu in the final battle when Jin, Kazuya and Heihachi came in. With Xiaoyu spending nearly the entire first hour on screen, a huge chunk of the story rode on her and it really felt bad that she gets pushed to the side when the big boys came in. Fan-service. Namco could’ve done a better job tying her in with the final battle like making her the catalyst to Jin’s final form and such. Having her in a vulnerable position was also disappointing, pointing again to her strong early screen presence.

All in all, it’s stays loyal to its game counterpart: story isn’t really its strong point. Excellent chemistry with Alisa and Xiaoyu and their onscreen performance was stellar. The rest of the cast is meh. Wrapping things up, this movie is best enjoyed with some decent knowledge of the Tekken universe and its characters lest you just want to see a high school d

rama turned into Dragon Ball Z.

ART & SOUND

I really gotta open this one up by saying ALISA IS SO DAMN FINE. That said, Namco tried to pull an Advent Children here but comes up short on texture realism. The character’s faces are highly detailed and well designed, even reflecting race properly. Total body modeling could’ve improved if Namco ditched the anime-ish joints and hair gloss though it does stay loyal to the in-game CGI. Also a highlight is Jin and Kazuya’s reimagined Devil forms both of which feature highly revamped versions of their respective Devil forms. I’ll be honest, Jin’s initial Devil form reminded me of Bahamut and Devil Kazuya’s form is kick-ass as well.

Moving on to sound, the Bluray disc comes in dual-audio with both English and Japanese VAs in action. The Japanese was spot-on but the English dub was lame citing Jin, Kazuya, Nina and Anna’s seiyuus as horrific and completely out of sync. Add to this the 2-dimensional tone that said characters tend to drop on, and it’s really a bore to hear them. Visual is truly an experience worth seeing, and if you have a capable display, the Bluray is in 3D for added flare. Audio is so-so with BGM’s just fine but voice acting (English) totally destroying the experience.

CONCLUSION

To close things off, we have a movie that definitely caters to a niche audience or at least those who are interested. The plot plays nicely with a soft image then fast-paced action the next scene and delivers nicely on this with the lead girls doing a nice job onscreen only to get knocked off by brutes for a fanservice battle with no clear winner. A visual treat to anyone who watches it and an ok audio delivery coupled with some nice BG music gives a good 90-minute or so enjoyment. Rewatch factor is a bit low with only the final battle proving anything exciting to see again.

Overall, Tekken: Blood Vengeance is a good watch but don’t expect much from the plot and if you can understand Japanese, go for the original audio. A movie that lifted Xiaoyu and Alisa to the top then shoved them aside bec

ause Jin and family shows up. Tsk tsk tsk.

Damn you Kazuya… I always idolized you and thought you were so badass… but you, stepping on Alisa. UNFORGIVABLE!

Out in 3D Bluray and DVD

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You play as a gladiator that lets you enter tournaments for some experience and money. The money you earn let’s you buy equipments for character boosts. The more levels you gain, the more combos and skills you can execute. There are 3 basic moves in this game; Slicing, Guarding and Dodging. Master your way with that and you can easily take down your opponents.

As you progress through higher tourneys, your enemies will slash the hell out of you. The game will prompt you to buy better equipment if you bit the dust. However, there will be times when you won’t have enough money and if that happens, repeating some previous tourneys will let you ease your way in earning some experience and that hard to earn cold hard cash. However, as a catch, re-entering previously accomplished tournaments won’t reap the same amount of experience and cash so you have to repeatedly re-enter those tournaments to earn.

Don’t forget to participate in Elite tournaments, the rewards are much better than regular tourneys and of course enemies are much harder to beat. Also, earning the favor of the crowds will let you gain bonuses! Mark your way through that crowd and let them shout in your behalf.

But if you have the credits, you can buy gold through real life currency that lets you buy featured equipments for a killer gladiator! That’s optional though, you can enjoy this game without that.

Android Requirements:
- 2.1 or higher (mine is 2.2 – Froyo)
- Preferably fast processor 800MHz or higher
- 75MB+ for space usage

PROS:
- A perfect time waster
- Awesome Graphics
- Simple and nice gameplay
- Remarkable moves

CONS:
- No story line
- Limited choices of equipments
- Purchasing golds for your credits

There is but one path, YOU kill em’ all! Ok, that sounds like Spartacus but what the hell!

You’re a gladiator! Download this for free in Android Market and let the innate gladiator in you live!