In CES 2019, NVIDIA announced that they are going to add G-SYNC support to other non G-SYNC displays in the market. GeForce GPU drivers, version 417.71, are now officially released to the public to turn on the feature.
Previously, NVIDIA only allowed G-SYNC to be enabled on those monitors with G-SYNC modules installed. But now, users can have the options to switch on “G-SYNC Compatible” mode, which supports both VESA Adaptive Sync or AMD FreeSync monitors. Although there are only 12 out of 400 monitors passed NVIDIA’s certification, any monitors can still try using the feature. However, NVIDIA does not guarantee the quality and performance.
Only Pascal, Turing-based or later graphics cards will be supported, which are either GTX 10-series or GTX 20-series. The connection will need to be on DisplayPort, not HDMI. At the same time, you cannot enable G-SYNC Compatible on more than one monitor.
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Due to limited internal space in current day’s laptops and mobile devices, it is popular for users to carry around an external hard drive for data storage and backup. However, traditional hard disk drives are too slow to transfer larger files on a daily basis. That’s why something like the HyperX SAVAGE EXO external SSD comes into play.
Specifications
The SAVAGE EXO is using the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface for file transmission via the USB Type-C port. It can have sequential read and write speeds at up to 500 MB/s and 480 MB/s respectively. You can choose between 480 GB and 960 GB for capacity.
Unboxing
The SAVAGE EXO’s packaging sports the newer HyperX design, with white background and red accents around. You can see a photo of the SSD on the front, as well as the advertised read/write speeds and compatible operating systems/devices.
At the back, a tiny opening is used to show the stickers on the SSD, which contains the model number, serial number and capacity information. There is a short slogan, “SSD SPEED ON THE GO.”, in different languages.
On the sides, you get to know the SSD not only supports Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux, but also gaming consoles like Sony Playstation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One.
Apart from the SAVAGE EXO itself, there are the HyperX’s Thank You and Support cards. HyperX is kind enough to include both a USB Type-A to Type-C cable and a USB Type-C to Type-C cable. You do not have to purchase an extra cable, if your devices do not have an available USB-C port.
HyperX SAVAGE EXO External SSD
The SAVAGE EXO SSD is using a sandwich construction method, with two gunmetal aluminium plates at the top/bottom and a plastic middle frame. It is shaped like a stretched pentagon.
The overall design is simple and compact, which weights only 56 grams. Apart from the HyperX logo and the information sticker, there is nothing else on the surface of the SSD.
The USB Type-C port is located on the side, along with the activity LED. The USB-C port supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard, which has bandwidth up to 10 Gbps (around 1250 MB/s) and should be more than capable of transferring at the rated speeds.
Review
Testing Methodology
To test the performance of the solid-state drive, we use three well-established storage benchmarking software. They are CrystalDiskMark, ATTO Disk Benchmark, as well as AS SSD Benchmark.
CrystalDiskMark can measure both sequential and random 4KB read/write speeds with a queue depth of 32. ATTO Disk Benchmark can test how the drive performs across different transfer block sizes, mostly in a sequential environment. AS SSD Benchmark can provide both normal read/write speed and the IOPS performance of the drive.
We also recorded the time to transfer three files of 10 GB, 500 MB and 250 MB from a RAM disk to the SSD, which is used to simulate a real-world situation.
The SAVAGE EXO SSD had sequential read and write speeds at around 480 MB/s in CrystalDiskMark, slightly worse than the advertised speeds. In random 4K operations, the SSD could read data at 40 MB/s and write at 110 MB/s.
In AS SSD Benchmark, the SAVAGE EXO performed similarly with sequential read at 465 MB/s and write at 430 MB/s. When increasing the queue depth to 64, the random 4K read speed remained unchanged at around 37 MB/s, but write speed climbed up to 350 MB/s.
IOPS number represents how well a drive handles random input and output operations. The SAVAGE EXO scored 669 in AS SSD Benchmark. It achieved up to 90279 IOPS in random 4K write, but only has 9442 IOPS in read.
In ATTO Disk Benchmark, the read and write speeds stabilized at around 480 MB/s, once the file size grew larger to 1 MB. The highest read and write performance sits at 482 MB/s and 484 MB/s respectively.
It took 46.84 seconds to transfer the three files from the RAM disk to the SAVAGE EXO. After the buffer in RAM and internal cache were full, the speed remained at around 169 MB/s.
Comparison
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When comparing with other SATA-based SSDs we tested, the SAVAGE EXO fell a little behind in both benchmarks, especially in random 4k read opeartions. The sequential read and write speeds are about 10% slower than others. Though, the SAVAGE EXO is still way faster than a traditional hard disk drive.
Conclusion
The HyperX SAVAGE EXO SSD is solidly built and has a 3-year warranty. It is slim, compact and can be easily put into small pocket or backpack. The included USB Type-C cables should allow users to connect the drive to various types of devices, without carrying extra dongles.
It did not perform as expected as hardware with the same controller and 3D TLC NAND flash (like the FURY RGB SSD). This may be issues from the firmware and overhead of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface. However, for a data backup or gaming external drive, the SSD is certainly better than traditional HDDs and offers great performance improvement.
The SAVAGE EXO is priced at $127.99 USD (MSRP) for 480 GB. It is currently slightly more expensive than similar products in the market. The Western Digital My Passport SSD is discounted at $105.91 USD and Samsung T5 Portable SSD at around $107.99 at the time of this review. Over time, I believe the SAVAGE EXO will cost around the same price range, which would be a great option to consider.
You can purchase the SSD from your local/online resellers or the links below from Amazon and Newegg.
Thanks Kingston/HyperX for providing us the SSD for review. (Review Sample)
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Seagate is well-known for its high-capacity hard disk drives in the market. It launched the Barracuda SATA SSD for mainstream consumers earlier in 2018. Now, in CES 2019, Seagate expands the existing the lineup with the new Barrcuda and FireCuda 510 M.2 NVMe SSDs.
The Barracuda 510 is the more budget one between the two, with sequential read speed at 3400 MB/s and write at 2100 MB/s. It uses the M.2 2280 form factor and components are located only on the top side. You can choose the capacities from 256 GB and 512 GB, depending on your needs. The FireCuda 510 has a slightly faster sequential read and write speeds at 3450 MB/s and 3200 MB/s respectively. It uses double-sided PCB and hence has capacities up to 2 TB.
Both SSDs are utilizing the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and NVMe 1.3 protocol. They are using 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash from Toshiba. The rated MTBF is at 1.8 million hours and TBW from 160 TB to 2600 TB. A 5-year warranty is available for every model.
Prices for the BarraCuda/FireCuda 510 NVMe SSDs have yet to announce, but they should be released later in March 2019.
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The “RGB everything” trend has changed the design of almost every single computer component/peripheral in recent years. As a major PC gaming part manufacturer, Kingston/HyperX has introduced the Pulsefire Surge mouse (its review here), Alloy Elite RGB mechanical keyboard and more. Now, the new FURY RGB SATA SSD will be added to the existing lineup.
Specifications
The FURY RGB is using the 2.5-inch form factor. But it is slightly thicker and heavier than normal SSD at 9.5 mm and 165 grams, because of the added RGB LEDs.
The SSD is using the Marvell 88SS1074 controller and the Toshiba 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. There are three capacities to choose, including 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB. It has a rated MTBF at 1 million hours and TBW from 120 TB to 480 TB, depending on models.
Unboxing
The packaging of the FURY RGB has the clean design, with a mostly white background and sharp red accents. A photo of the SSD is shown on the front, as well as the RGB lighting and 3D NAND logos.
A small cutout at the back let users to see the stickers on the SSD, which has the model number, capacity and serial number printed.
The FURY RGB comes with a bit more accessories inside the box, in order to power and control the internal RGB LEDs. You get the usual HyperX’s Thank You card, an activation key of the Acronis True Image HD software and a quick start guide.
Not only that, an extra cable is included. On one end, there is a micro-USB connector, which is used to plug into the side of the SSD. On the other end, it has a male/female 4-pin RGB LED connector, which is either used to plug directly to a supported motherboard/controller or daisy-chain with another LED light strip. Bear in mind though, the FURY RGB is only compatible with a 12 V LED header.
HyperX FURY RGB SATA SSD
The FURY RGB SSD outer aluminium shell has a stealthy-looking gunmetal finish. A X-shaped metal painted in black is embedded in the center, with the “FURY” wordings. There are multiple cutouts on top, including the HyperX logo, which the RGB lighting can shine through them.
There is not much happening on the back. There are the aforementioned information sticker and a few screws that holds the casing together.
The SATA 3 connector at the bottom supports bandwidth up to 6 Gbps. The micro-USB port next to it is mainly used to adjust the built-in RGB lighting effects of the LEDs.
There are a thin metal layer with tiny holes in front of the LEDs, to give the lighting effect a unique dotted look/design.
Review
Testing Methodology
To test the performance of the solid-state drive, we use three well-established storage benchmarking software. They are CrystalDiskMark, ATTO Disk Benchmark, as well as AS SSD Benchmark.
CrystalDiskMark can measure both sequential and random 4KB read/write speeds with a queue depth of 32. ATTO Disk Benchmark can test how the drive performs across different transfer block sizes, mostly in a sequential environment. AS SSD Benchmark can provide both normal read/write speed and the IOPS performance of the drive.
We also recorded the time to transfer three files of 10 GB, 500 MB and 250 MB from a RAM disk to the SSD, which is used to simulate a real-world situation.
The FURY RGB has advertised sequential read and write speeds of 550 MB/s and 480 MB/s. The SSD did really well in CrystalDiskMark, which reached up to 561 MB/s and 504 MB/s respectively, saturating the SATA 3 interface. For random 4K with queue depth 32, the FURY RGB could have read and write speed at 301 MB/s and 278 MB/s.
When testing in AS SSD Benchmark, the sequential performance of the FURY RGB dropped a tiny bit, at about 520 MB/s for read and 490 MB/s for write. Speeds climbed up to 309 MB/s and 319 MB/s respectively, when increasing the queue depth to 64 at 4K random operations.
IOPS number represents how well a drive handles random input and output operations. The FURY RGB scored 1063 in the test. It achieved a 79145 and 81791 IOPS in random 4K operations, which is in line with most of the SATA-based SSDs in the market.
Once the test file size increased to 16 KB, the read speeds stabilised at around 490 MB/s up to 560 MB/s, while the write speeds fluctuated between 480 MB/s and 520 MB/s.
The three files took a total of 41.28 seconds to copy from the RAM disk to the SSD. After the internal SLC cache was full, the speed decreased to around 200 MB/s.
Comparison
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In CrystalDiskMark, the FURY RGB SSD performed similar to other SATA SSDs we tested in terms of sequential read and write. It did slightly worse in random 4K operations, but is still way better than a traditional hard disk drive.
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We saw an identical picture in the AS SSD Benchmark, which the FURY RGB edged out slightly for sequential read and write speeds. Random 4K performances are similar across the board.
RGB Lighting
The RGB lighting effect is controlled via the 4-pin LED connector, which is only compatible with 12 V header. It supports most major motherboard vendors’ software, including ASUS Aura Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion and MSI Mystic Light Sync.
The RGB lighting is diffused rather evenly and the colors are vibrant. The lighting is not dim, but can be slightly brighter. The number of lighting modes and effects will vary from different software.
Conclusion
The HyperX FURY RGB SSD is a decent performer with a eye-catching design on the outside. It has similar read and write performance, when compared with other SATA-based SSDs. It could reach up to 550 MB/s in sequential read speed and 500 MB/s in write.
The added RGB lighting looks awesome in person, and contributes in making the SSD’s unique appearance. The LEDs are bright enough and the colors are vivid.
The FURY RGB comes with a 3-year warranty, which is the industry standard. The inclusion of the RGB lighting does add a price premium to the SSD. It costs $105.99 USD at the time of the review, which is 15% cheaper than the MSRP at $124.99 USD (for 480 GB). For now, the FURY RGB is only $10 USD more expensive than the non-RGB Kingston UV500. Comparing to the TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB, both have a very similar MSRP at around $120 USD, but the DELTA RGB is now on sale for around $80 USD to $90 USD (for 500 GB).
There are not many RGB SSDs in the market. Overall, if you like the design of the FURY RGB and don’t mind spending a little extra for the RGB lighting, I think you would not be disappointed by it.
You can purchase the SSD from your local/online resellers or the links below from Amazon and Newegg.
Thanks Kingston/HyperX for providing us the SSD for review. (Review Sample)
Feel free to leave comments below, if you have any opinion about this website. Share the website around if you enjoy reading it. Subscribe to our Newsletter or follow our Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
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Razer has decided to show the early prototype of the Raptor gaming monitor to the public in CES 2019. It is the first product for Razer to get in the display market. The monitor is planned to release later this year.
The Raptor monitor has a 27-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2560×1440. It is calibrated to show 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It has a refresh rate of 144 Hz and supports AMD FreeSync technology. The bezels on all sides are minimal at 2.3 mm.
For connectivity, there are one HDMI 2.0 port, one DisplayPort 1.4 port, one USB Type-C port and two USB 3.1 Type-A pass-through ports. The USB-C port is able to deliver power for low wattage devices when plugged in.
The outer-shell of the Raptor is mostly made of aluminum, just like any other Razer products. The stand offers both tilts and height adjustments. It also integrates a very unique and clean cable management channel at the back and Chroma RGB Lighting at the bottom.
According to Razer, the Raptor will cost $699.99 USD (MSRP) and should be available later in 2019 in US and Canada. You can check out Razer’s press release for more information.
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Over the past few years, the maximum networking speed remains the same at 1 Gbps for most average consumers. 5 Gbps/10 Gbps are not accessible due to the much higher service and equipment costs. Until now, you can upgrade your computers to support up to 10 Gbps over the network with the Aquantia AQtion AQN-107 NIC, at a relatively affordable price.
Unboxing
The hard cardboard box is covered with a paper sleeve outside, with information about the product. There is a specification list on the back, stating the OS compatibility and rated speeds of the NIC.
The AQN-107 card is packed neatly inside a plastic tray. A low-profile PCI bracket is included for those users using the card in a small form-factor machine. There is a Quick Start Guide, that have basic requirements and brief instructions on installing the card and its driver.
The AQN-107 card has a stealthy black printed circuit board with the full length PCI bracket installed by default. The main AQtion AQC-107 Ethernet controller is located beneath the large aluminium heatsink.
The controller is designed to support five different speeds (10 Gbps, 5 Gbps, 2.5 Gbps, 1 Gbps and 100 Mbps) over a single RJ-45 Ethernet port and conventional Category 6 or Category 5e cables.
All network traffic is transferred through the PCI Express 3.0 x4 interface. It is also backward compatible with PCIe 2.0 standard (but with less bandwidth).
The single RJ-45 Ethernet port has two integrated LED lights, which are used to indicate both power and connection/activity status. The full 10 Gigabit link speed can only be achieved by using Category 6A or higher Ethernet cables.
Review
Testing Methodology
To minimize the number of variables that will affect the benchmark results, all of our tests will be performed by two computers directly connected via Ethernet. We use the TamoSoft Throughput Test to measure the total bandwidth between the two NICs. A Windows 10 shared folder is created on RAM disks to prevent HDD’s bottlenecks. The peer-to-peer file transfer times of the three files, sized in 10 GB, 500 MB and 250 MB, will be recorded.
Performance
In TamoSoft Throughput Test, the download and upload speeds were similar at over 7100 Mb/s (around 888 MB/s), which is over 7 times faster than the theoretical throughput of a 1 Gbps connection. The round-trip time between the two AQN-107 cards is about 0.3 ms.
In a real world scenario, which one system is trying to read or write data to a shared drive/folder over a local network, the AQN-107 NICs performed very well. We achieved about 745 MB/s when copying three files, sized in 10 GB, 500 MB and 250 MB, to our RAM disk. It took only 14.75 seconds to complete. Writing the same files to the shared folder took slightly longer at 15.5 seconds, reaching speed up to 724 MB/s. The insufficient use of the bandwidth may be caused by the finicky network drive support on Windows 10.
In task manager, the throughput is capped at 6.5 Gbps with minimal CPU usage at around 13%. The AQN-107 network cards are able to process this large amount of traffic without stressing the CPU, which allows precious CPU cycles to be freed up for other programs. We believed the performance of the file transfer would further improve with some small tweaks in the settings, such as enabling jumbo frames.
Aquantia AQtion Command Center
Combined with the hardware, Aquantia also provides AQN-107 users the AQtion Command Center software, which can be used to prioritize network traffic for different applications in your system. For example, you can make your streaming services, like YouTube and Netflix, to be the top priority for smoother playback. The software gives you an overview of which applications/services are consuming most of the bandwidth.
Conclusion
The Aquantia AQtion AQN-107 10G Gaming Network Interface Card is a large step forward in pushing faster Internet/network speed for the general consumers. For now, it may not be possible or feasible to have a 10 Gbps Internet service, but the AQN-107 allows users to create a blazingly fast local network (LAN) in their homes at an affordable price. It is ideal for connection between your workstation and network-attached storage (NAS), without the need to invest in a costly 10 Gigabit network switch.
At our benchmarks, the AQN-107 performed reasonably well. It reached around 720 to 750 MB/s when transferring large size files to a shared folder in Windows 10, which is way beyond most hard disk drives (HDD) are capable of delivering.
The Aquantia AQN-107 Gaming NIC is priced at $89.99 USD (MSRP). In the market, most single-port 10 Gigabit NICs will cost you over $150 USD, which uses SFP+ port or other proprietary ports. You will have to purchase another set of cables in order to set up the connection. A more conventional and popular RJ-45 port on the AQN-107 makes it more accessible for average users. It is also cheaper than the ASUS XG-C100C NIC, which uses the same AQC-107 Ethernet controller. If you want to upgrade your network configuration from 1 Gbps, look no further than the AQN-107.
You can purchase the NIC from your local/online resellers or the links below from Amazon US.
Thanks Aquantia for providing us the NIC for review. (Review Sample)
Feel free to leave comments below, if you have any opinion about this website. Share the website around if you enjoy reading it. Subscribe to our Newsletter or follow our Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
Support this website simply by shopping in Amazon. It will give us small kickbacks, if you use the above affiliate links to make any purchases, which will help us grow.
