Our Gear up for the Metro with Gigabyte competition had an amazing response, with 100 entries all vying for the prize. Sadly now, we’ve had to pick two (and only two!) entries, and our judges have made the gruelling decision of which two to pick.

The winners below will each be receiving their very own brand new Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 and a brand-new Aivia Osmium mechanical gaming keyboard (with Cherry Brown MX switches).

But this isn’t just any edition of the GTX 660! This is the limited Metro edition, which also comes with a free copy of the game. Excellent.

Enough delays! Our winners are:

rapid101

The Weeper

Although the cart was retrieved there were no sign of the bodies and no known tunnel exits where the creature may have entered from.

Khups

With advances to gene technologies in the early 21st century, and an anticipated space race for the colonisation of the first alien planet, open access research allowed scientists to cultivate resilient forms of man, capable of flourishing in the extreme conditions of space.

The constellation of abilities they possessed drove some into exile, while forcing others to decide between hiding amidst normal humanity or whether to exploit their abilities to forge a better life. Amidst their secrecy, it is clear they are collecting technology and those who can understand it. They appear to be building something. But what?

Both entries captured the essence of the terror of the Metro very well, and the judges imagination at the same time. But! There were heaps of fantastic entries, and we can’t go by without mentioning some of them here.

Highly commended

darkstormSW

The Hundread

It has unmatchable strength and speed, and the only thing those unlucky enough to cross its path will remember is the unbearable stench and the screams of its victims before being torn apart.

hilltop2bit

The little devil ( AKA: дьявол Litte )

Watch out for the ” little devil “………………………..

muckguppy

It’s easy to feel desensitized, to feel like nothing is real anymore.

I have no mouth and I must dream.

MrPope

Fear. Dread. Trepidation. As bone-chilling as the meanings of these words are, there is truly no word in the English language capable of capturing the fear of that which one cannot see.
Seryy Tuman, they call it in Russian. Simply meaning “Grey Mist”.

The flashlight may help you see through the darkness. But there is nothing to help you see through the Mist…

meji

When the spears of fire rained from the heavens over 20 years ago it was only the faithful of a precursive Fourth Reich that smiled. Standing tall, astride their war machines of old, they continued to smile as hell washed over them.

Coordinated, relentless and nearing the Metro, contact is imminent.

Congratulations to our winners!

Please keep an eye on your forum PMs as I’ll shortly be asking for your details so you can claim your prizes. Thanks!

Gigabyte, makers of all things gaming, have decided to celebrate the launch of Metro: Last Light by offering the games.on.net readers the chance to gear up and take on the unforgiving underground of the Russian metro.

That’s right: win this competition, and you walk away with a brand new Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660… and a brand-new Aivia Osmium mechanical gaming keyboard (with Cherry Brown MX switches). With these babies attached to your rig, you’ll have everything you need to crush the mutants into submission.

But wait! There’s more!

These are the special Metro: Last Light editions of the GTX 660 — so you’ll score yourself a free copy of the game as well! Very nice.

There are two prize packs to win, and each one contains the card (with copy of the game) and keyboard — so don’t delay!

Wondering how good Metro: Last Light looks on PC? Why not check out our detailed, nine-minute long video review and see for yourself!

Holy crap! How can I enter?

Good question! To enter this competition, all you need to do is in 150 words or less, describe one of the mutated creatures now living in the radioactive Russian underground. It can’t be an existing Metro enemy, it has to be something you made up. It can be as serious or zany as you like: the two most creative entries as selected by our judges will walk away with the prize.

Leave your entry as a comment on this article below. Remember! 150 words or less. This competition is also open to Australian residents only.

What else do I need to know?

This competition runs from now until 11:59 PM Adelaide time on Sunday 26 May. It is governed by the terms and conditions on this page.

Our massive Gigabyte Blowout Competition is now over, and what a competition it was! With nearly 170 entries, including some amazing cakes and illustrations, it was harder than ever before to pick the winners. But winners had to be picked, and so here we present to you the best of the best, including some very wonderful honourable mentions.

Thanks to everybody who entered for helping to make this such an amazing competition! My one regret is that we didn’t have 170 graphics cards to give away.

Winners, please check your forum PM’s very shortly for details on how to claim your prizes!

Drawing Category

WINNER: Nizbort

Honourable Mention: Eggheart

Honourable Mention: spaztik

Honourable Mention: rymick

Special mention also to WhiteRAZOR, whose excellent long-form entry couldn’t quite fit on this page!

Writing Category

WINNER: pportmann

My best ever piece of hardware was exactly that: hardware. A ¾ inch zinc plated hex nut. What does this have to do with gaming? Well, many years ago, FPS games didn’t have the option of auto-run like you whippersnappers have now, so we used to weight the shift key down with a sizeable hex nut so we’d always be running. So many memories playing Doom using the chainsaw to take out the other players across coax cable spread from room to room. Unfortunately, I no longer possess the nut, but even today, we still recall the good old days of how something so simple made a great game better… I guess you could say we all put our nuts on the line back then.

Honourable Mention: meji

My Radeon 9700 Pro, on opening it boomed “SWEAR FEALTY!” I thrust the box to the sky and intoned “Sure!” Nestled into his AGP throne he roared; “MOAR POWA!”, a hungry and savagely beautiful silicon beast.

That Lord of Gaming was nestled back into his box, now at peace, and was safely stored away. There he rests, in death still the Messiah of Gaming.

Honourable Mention: exe3

Failin’ on live, I felt I wasn’t burnin’ rubber.
Everyone’s staring as I cross the line-a last-a.
I need a machine to make me go a whole lot fasta.
Need to go a lot more fasta.
I’m a Logi man.
Not Fanatec their pricings high.
A Logi man.
The Thrustmaster ain’t worth my time.
A Logi man.
Logitech
G-27
You’re all mad cause my wheel is awesome!
Jelly mad. HEY! You’re jelly mad. HEY!
You’re all mad cause my wheel is awesome!
Jelly mad. HEY! You’re jelly mad. HEY!
You can race me but it always ends the same.
OP Racing Wheel
O-O-O-O-OP
Painful I know.
Losing to me I know.
Not long ago it was me in last place I know.
Painful I know.
The tides have turned I know.
Maybe maybe it’s time for my skill to show.
You know what i’m saying?
O-O-O-O-OP
OP Racing Wheel

Honourable Mention: stage

The finest piece of hardware I ever had the pleasure to own was my Logitech MX-1000 Wireless Laser Mouse. This bulky high-tech marvel beautifully fit my oafish oversized hand. It served me well through FPSs and MMOs, enduring millions of clicks; when the left mouse button wore out, I salvaged a replacement switch rather than even consider replacing the mouse, for by this time the MX-1000 was venerable indeed and no longer sold. The comfortable coating was long since worn off, plastic beneath worn smooth from years of service, and the aluminium badge on the rear had been dissolved in half by my sweat before falling off. Sadly, when the middle mouse button was worn out I could not find a replacement, and had to retire my right hand tool of choice. The mouse I use now is technically far superior, yet I can’t help but miss that magnificent mouse.

Baking Category

WINNER: Tyderian

Honourable Mention: Makena

Honourable Mention: WhiteKnight210

Honourable Mention: rbrook

Please join me in giving our winners and all our honourable mentions a big round of applause!

This competition is now over! Click here to see the winners!

Thanks to the excellent folks at Gigabyte, we’ve got ourselves a bunch of fantastic hardware to give away — and we want to give it away to you. We’ve got three prize packs up for grabs, each of which contains a brand-spanking-new Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 Windforce Series as well as an Aivia Osmium Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (check out our review right here).

Oh wow, I need this. How do I enter?!

There are three different categories in this competition. You may only enter this competition once so make sure you pick the category you want to enter.

Please be aware this competition is open to Australian residents only.

1. Writing

In 150 words or less, tell us about the best piece of hardware you’ve ever owned. Graphics card, mouse, dodgy old yellow monitor, it doesn’t matter — why do you love it, what makes it special to you, and do you still have it lying around? The best entry will win the prize for this category.

2. Drawing

If words aren’t your thing, you can draw us a picture. The picture must show what you would look like and how you would feel if you were to win this category: draw yourself screaming in excitement for example, or perhaps triumphantly riding a unicorn. It’s up to you.

The drawing must be done in MS Paint (or the equivalent Mac/Linux program) and must feature the games.on.net logo drawn somewhere on it (to prove you didn’t just steal the picture). Upload the drawing to an image host (such as imgur) and leave it in the comments – the best drawing will win the prize for this category! You may only submit one drawing.

3. Baking

Bake a cake for us! To prove you really made it and didn’t just steal a photo from the internet, the cake must have the games.on.net logo on it somewhere. Take a photo of yourself with the cake, upload it to an image host (such as imgur) and leave it in the comments. The most impressive cake will take home the prize in this category. You may submit up to three (3) photos of your cake in order to show it off from various angles.

There will be one winner in each category, and three winners in total. Each winner takes home a prize pack with both the card and the keyboard in it!

Your entry must be submitted as a comment on this article, using the following format:

CATEGORY: Writing / Drawing / Baking (use only the one you’re entering in)

ENTRY: Your entry here (words or a picture)

How long do I have?

The competition is open from now until 11:59 PM ACDT (Adelaide time) on Tuesday 22nd January. Winners will be chosen and announced before the end of that week.

Terms and Conditions

This competition is governed by the terms and conditions listed on this page.

Good luck!

Using your mobile at a gas station can cause the pump to explode into flames. Increasing the amount of memory on a video card from 2GB to 4GB will increase game performance. Blue whales are the largest living things on Earth. Which of these three facts is actually true? The answer will probably surprise you – they’re all bollocks. Mobiles have never caused a fire at a petrol station, the largest living thing on the planet is technically a mushroom colony in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest, and doubling your VRAM from 2GB to 4GB has absolutely no impact on performance… for 99.99% of users.

The vast majority of today’s video cards have enough memory that size isn’t an issue, with mid-range cards equipped with 1024MB while premium jobbies are decked out with 2048MB. Sure, running at 16x antialiasing with 2650 x 1600 resolution will hit the 1024MB limit of a GTX 650 Ti, but the GPU doesn’t have the horsepower to process that kind of quality anyway. Cards that do have the grunt to churn out such cracking graphics, like the GTX 680, have the full 2048MB of memory, and that amount is plenty even when running at such stupidly high settings. Sadly most gamers don’t realise this; they simply see a big number on the box and thinks it means they’ll get a squillion frames per second in Battlefield 3.

The more-memory-myth

This myth is perpetuated by AMD in particular, endowing its products with copious amounts of memory well over the upper end used by games of the period. Currently AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 ships with a whopping 3GB of GDDR5, yet PC developers aim for a video memory amount of between 1024MB and 2048MB, depending on the card. I can only conclude AMD does so because gamers believe it makes for a better experience, resulting in more sales.

This same company often trots out the myth that folks packing triple monitors need the extra video memory due to the higher demands of running at 5760 x 1080. In theory it makes sense – the larger the image, the more memory needed for textures. Antialiasing also gulps up memory like a Tour De France rider in a steroid factory. However, in reality the memory bandwidth – that is, the speed at which the memory can be accessed – is much more important than how much of it there is. Less memory running at faster speeds will generally beat more memory running at lower speeds. There’s a reason that a 2GB GTX 680 generally beats the 3GB Radeon HD 7970, even while running triple screens.

Let’s put it to the test

But what about a video card like Gigabyte’s new GV-N680OC-4GD, which uses the powerful GTX 680 GPU to drive a whopping 4096MB of memory? How does this compare to other GTX 680 cards packing 2GB, but otherwise identical? The memory bandwidth on both versions is identical, with an effective memory frequency of 6008MHz running over a 256-bit memory bus. Does doubling the memory have any impact on game performance?

We ran one of the most demanding games currently available to find out. Battlefield 3 is known for using as much memory as it can get its battle-fatigued mitts on, so we ran it at three resolutions including triple 1920 x 1080 screens, and also compared it with an NVIDIA GTX 680 reference card overclocked to the same speed as the Gigabyte card. An AMD Radeon 7970 was thrown in to see whether its 3GB of memory would help.

As you can see, the extra memory made absolutely no difference. In fact, the 2GB version was 1 frame per second faster at 1080p, but this is within the limits of variance. Buying a 4GB card to play today’s games just doesn’t make sense.

We ran one more test, just to double check the results, and this time left the Radeon HD 7970 out so you could focus on 2GB versus 4GB. Dirt 3 uses DirectX 11 effects to create one of the best looking racers around, and serious drivers often race with three monitors to get that “in-cockpit” sensation. Will a 4GB card help them out?

Once again it’s plain to see that doubling the VRAM has had no impact at all.

And yet, we’re about to toss everything we just said out of the window. Buying a video card with more memory can be a good idea, but only if you’re buying with an eye on future gaming performance. It’s inevitable that in the next few years 2048MB will become the bare minimum acceptable for gaming, with the preferred amount leaping to 3072MB. If you’re buying your card today with the idea that it’ll last you another three or four years, it’s wise to buy a model with more memory to meet those future demands. However, if you’re like me and silly enough to upgrade every year or two, the added memory isn’t worth it unless it costs exactly the same as a card with less memory.

So the doubling of memory on the Gigabyte GV-N680OC-4GD doesn’t make much difference in today’s games, but what about the rest of the card? Being based on NVIDIA’s GTX 680 GPU we know that it’ll perform basically identically to every other GTX 680 on the market; this is the fastest single GPU product currently available. Gigabyte has given the card a very slight factory overclock, increasing the GPU core speed to 1071MHz, which is about the same as competing cards from Zotac and ASUS. Where it differs is the use of a triple fan Windforce cooler. It might not look like much, but those three fans are remarkably efficient at moving heat away from the GPU. We ran FurMark to test the fan noise under load, and were blown away at the 46dB rating, which makes this one of the quietest GTX 680′s on the market.

With street prices hovering around $650, the GV-N680OC-4GD costs around $100 more than Gigabyte’s 2GB GTX 680 products. Whether or not you want to pay the extra amount totally and utterly depends on how long you think you’ll be using the product. If you plan on upgrading to next year’s GTX 780 when it comes out, stick with the 2GB version and spend the $100 you’ll save on another SSD. However, if you’re holding off for several generations until the GTX 980 releases, the extra memory will come in handy. By 2015, when Battlefield 6 requires more video memory than that found in an entire 2012 PC, the 4GB of onboard memory will probably come in mighty handy.

Good:

• Great for future-proofing if you upgrade infrequently
• Overclocked to 1071MHz
• Whisper-quiet at 46dB, one of the quietest GTX 680′s on the market

Bad:

• Essentially zero performance improvement over stock 2GB version of the same card under current gaming conditions

Two weeks ago, we ran a competition to give away a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti — a card that we noted for its “excellent performance while remaining whisper quiet”, while providing “solid value for money”. Needless to say, a lot of you were after the card, and sorting through over 300 excellent entries was one hell of a task. But only one could be the winner, and now it’s time to introduce them to the world…

The winner is: doublefrost

I boot up my computer and it groans with the ancient, earthy tones of a restful old man. I fire up a new game and my fans bellow out a deep, rich groan for all to hear. Summer is coming, and this old man is ill-prepared.

My ageing friend prods at the still-burning coals of half-remembered frame rates and past glories, half-heartedly trying to stir some life from the ashes.

I plead with him to spend some time with me. I beg and cajole him with flattery until I concede defeat, and leave flushed by the futility of arguing and sitting too close to the fire.

I remember the endless enthusiasm and freshness of young hardware: putting out air that is warm and smooth; frames that are buttery and rich; and sounds that are comforting and quiet.

Summer is coming, and this old man is ready to rest.

doublefrost’s lovely imagery and sad story of his grandfatherly computer means he’ll be going home with the Windforce 2X cooled Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti, with 2048MB of GDDR5 memory and 192-bit memory interface. Thanks again to Gigabyte for providing this excellent prize!

It was difficult to pick a winner out of all the fantastic entries, and thanks so much to everybody who stopped by to have a go. Here’s some of the runners-up!

nit3hunt3r:

Every day I invest hours into farming my workplace for those elusive iLvl63 rare items. I smash the keyboards, shake the monitors, shred the documents, and punch the co-workers, but all I get is some useless AUD for my time spent at work.

Three years ago I had a rare encounter with a visiting Manager from another company. I put on my best Magic Find Suit, co-op-ed with 3 other workmates and proceeded to beat him up. It was a tough fight but we emerged victorious and an iLvl58 GeForce GTX 560Ti dropped for me. I haven’t been able to get a decent item since.

That feeling when you finally get a green +100 to your 560Ti? I figured I’d have a better chance here than continually farming my life.

Brad:

“Is that a jet?” a child asks its mother, “no dear. We better get inside, hurry now.” exclaims the woman. Humming so fierce, violent, depressing, children flee the gusty streets, cower home, and hide under the bed. Father battens the doors, for the storm is coming. I don’t recall the first storm, they say “it be four years this eve”. It seems every week father repairs and refortifies the front of the house.

No one dares step outside once the wind picks up, for the echoing harrow of the “beep” heeds the final warning, those left in the open, knocked to the ground from the deafening “beep” are whisked away into a vortex never to return. I fear this is the last storm as elder Bios reported in communion the impending end, critical temps, ancient artefacts which obstruct his display. Any moment blue fog will drown us…”

Windows has stopped responding…”

manbot:

The case is grimy black. The front panel long gone, as is the side, torn off to accommodate a box fan when Fallout 3 turned the GPU to molten steel.

A thin layer of dust covers everything, kicked up by the fan and circulated. Numerous cables sprawl in all directions – as though this computer was grown, like a tangled and noxious weed.

The monitor side buttons have long since disappeared, an old teaspoon the only relic that can command the cranky BenQ monitor to begrudgingly adjust it’s settings. It’s HDMI port perished years ago in an unfortunate incident bitterly recalled as “stupid Wednesday”.

What horrible will could keep this undead black monolith going? A gamer, grizzled and filthy, tweaking .INI and driver to coax precious frames from the rumbling heap. Digital alchemist. Uber nerd. Mechanomancer.

He holds aloft the glowing blue Geforce GTX 660 Ti and whispers.

“Live”.

skuzzie:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in graphical excellence.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the size of their graphics card but by how they use them.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be explored, every hill and mountain shall be flattened, the rough places will be made rougher, the radiance of the graphics shall be revealed, and all flesh shall be rendered in all its glory.

I have a dream today.

That this graphics card will carry me on to gaming splendor!

Thanks again to everybody who entered! We’ll be putting up more competitions very soon, so stay tuned.

You may remember that last month we did a thorough hardware review of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti? And that we described its “excellent performance while remaining whisper quiet” and called it “solid value for money”? Well, now we’re putting our money where your mouth is, so to speak — and giving one away.

How do I enter?!

Much like most of our contests here at games.on.net, it couldn’t be simpler! All you need to do is leave a comment on this article explaining, in 150 words or less, why you desperately need to upgrade your computer with this card more than anybody else. Maybe your computer is currently wheezing and coughing up blood, or just belching smoke every time you fire up something more demanding than Solitaire.

With the end-of-year release-avalanche fast approaching, you’re going to need all the graphical power you can get. Now’s your chance to tell us why it should be you.

How long do I have?

You have two weeks! The competition is open from now until 11:59 PM ACST on Tuesday, 25 September 2012.

Terms and Conditions

This competition is governed by the Terms and Conditions on this page — please be sure to read them before entering, and best of luck!

Along with their Aivia Osmium keyboard, Gigabyte recently sent us an Aivia Krypton mouse for review, but unlike the rough-and-ready metal construction of the Osmium, the Krypton nestles comfortably into the palm of your hand and won’t really hold up if you need to cave in a skull with it. Boasting an 8200 dpi sensor, a dual chassis design and the same five onboard profiles as the Osmium, the Krypton look like a solid investment. But how does it rack up?

Specifications

• Interface: USB
• Tracking system: Advanced Gaming Laser Sensor
• Resolution: 8200dpi
• FPS(Frame rate per second): 12000 frames/second
• Maximum acceleration: 30g
• Maximum speed: 150 inches/ second
• Switch Life: 10 million times
• Onboard memory: 32KB GHOST™ Macro Engine
• Certificate: CE / FCC / BSMI / KCC
• Color: Black
• Cable Length: 1.8m nylon braided / Gold-plated USB connector
• Dimension: (L)128.0*(W)67.0*(H)41.5 mm
• Weight: 110g ~149g adjustable
• Accessory: Weight Adjustment Case (includes 10 weights) / Metal Weight Removal Device / interchangeable Mouse Chassis (Speed+Control) / Spare Teflon Feet Pads
• Supported OS: Windows XP/ Vista/ Windows 7

Construction

It’s hard to find fault with the Krypton’s design. Although the sharply angular back may look uncomfortable, the material is actually smooth and rounded, and grips well to the skin. The sides of the mouse are ridged and rubbery, making it easy to rest the thumb there when not clicking the side buttons. The mouse wheel is built in a similar fashion, being substantially thicker and chunkier than many other scroll wheels on the market, and grips to your finger quite well for effortless (and almost completely silent!) scrolling.

Unfortunately the wonderfully grippy scroll wheel also creates what is my main gripe with the Krypton – and that’s that middle-clicking is unnecessarily hard. You need to exert a lot of pressure to trigger a middle-click, and although that’s simply frustrating when trying to open new tabs during one of my endless Wikipedia spirals, it verges on infuriating in the middle of a game. Just something to watch out for, unless you have an extraordinarily well developed middle finger somehow.

Broadly speaking the Krypton’s build will favour users who prefer a claw grip rather than a palm grip. The profile-switching button is in such a place as to make it easy to accidentally hit for palm grip users, and the mouse’s overall smallish construction means that it will simply not fit as snugly into the hand.

Sensor-wise, the Krypton comes with a superb 8200 dpi sensor in the form of the recently-released Avago ADNS-9800, and tracking is superb with zero lift-off problems to speak of.

Aesthetically the Krypton mimics its Osmium counterpart — you can have any colour you want, as long as it’s blue. While the profile button will glow a different colour depending on which profile you have selected, the main LED’s powering the mouse are always blue, and quite an intense one at that. The brightness of the LED underneath the scroll wheel can be adjusted in Gigabyte’s GHOST software, but the other LED’s are not adjustable.

Configuration

The Krypton’s dual chassis design means you can hot-swap between two different base plates, one with teflon feet for control, and one with ceramic feet for speed. I honestly found little difference between the two except when fine control was required; trying to use the sniper in a round of MVM when the ceramic feet are tracking every tiny shake of your hand is somewhat difficult, and I ended up swapping back to the teflon feet. In any case, it’s a nice option to have, and it’s not the only piece of customisation available to the Krypton either — with Gigabyte also providing 39 grams worth of weights for you to pop in and out.

Impressively, the Krypton’s weight-placement system is built of a series of slots that allow you to spread the weight around in the manner you desire, even should you wish to unbalance it or push the center of gravity to the side. It’s a slick approach and something that many people will make good use of, although I found the native weight of the Krypton to be more than sufficient.

Sinisters will enjoy the Krypton’s flexibility: the mouse is built in a symmetrical fashion, and holding down both of the profile buttons at once instantly swaps the mouse from right to left-handed mode or back again. DPI can be adjusted on the fly as well via the switch just behind the scroll wheel, which clicks up and down through four different DPI settings. The actual DPI of each setting can be specified directly in the GHOST software required to power the mouse, so there’s no need to have them actually represent increasing levels of tracking — but that’s probably the most intuitive way of doing it.

For frequent LAN’ers or people who often share mice, the onboard memory means that the Krypton is great news. Although you can only alter profiles via the GHOST engine, all macros, settings and profiles are stored on board and don’t require being re-calibrated when moving between computers. This makes the mouse substantially more competent than me, who forgets what I am doing every time I stand up.

Conclusion

Unlike Gigabyte’s Osmium keyboard, the Krypton has slid into the Australian market on ceramic feet and hit a reasonable price point, comparable to most of Razer’s recent range and only slightly more than SteelSeries’ top-line offerings while boasting a hands-down superior sensor and impressive levels of customisation. If Gigabyte continue to produce top-quality mice like this, they’ll quickly build a name for themselves amongst more than just motherboard and video card enthusiasts.

Good:

• Superb tracking, no lift-off
• Great ergonomics
• Grippy rubber sides for sweaty gaming
• Customisable hot-swappable base plates, weights, the works
• Reasonable AU RRP

Bad:

• Scroll wheel requires frustrating amount of pressure for middle-click
• Favours claw-grippers slightly over palm-grippers
• Braided cord is quite stiff and can take a few days to break in

The Gigabyte Aivia Krypton retails for around $89 AUD.

While Gigabyte generally make a living selling the sort of gaming hardware that fits inside your computer, they’re also known for their peripherals as well – and they recently sent over an Aivia Osmium mechanical keyboard, which showed up at our offices carried by a team of six burly men. Grunting and sweating under the weight, they heaved it onto the floor where it crashed to the carpet, sending Tyrannosaurus Rex-like ripples across the surface of my nearby cup of tea.

Here’s what I’m getting at: the Osmium is hefty. Weighing in at 1.5 kilograms, the Osmium is only slightly lighter than the same amount of actual osmium ore would be if you somehow managed to get enough of it together in one place¹, although a good deal cheaper². It’s impressively solid, and should resist even the most infuriated attempts to snap it over your knee after a frustrating string of in-game losses – or double as a handy bludgeoning weapon in the case of a LAN party where your opponents are within arms reach. Four rubber feet underneath lock it firmly to the desk though, which may make grabbing it during a brawl a difficult prospect.

Construction and ergonomics

What it offers in durability, it somewhat lacks in ergonomics: although the Osmium has a full-sized wrist-support (detachable, naturally) its design is very conservative and offers a stock-standard keyboard layout with only slight differences from the norm. There’s almost no room on the sides of the keyboard if you like to rest your hands there, and the left-hand keys such as tab, caps lock and shift are a smidgen smaller than I’d perhaps prefer, resulting in an experience that I found ever-so-slightly cramped — but I have enormous trogolodyte hands, so your mileage may vary on this. Regardless, the Osmium is a strongly-built keyboard which responds briskly to the touch and feels pleasantly tactile to use.

On the top right of the Osmium is a panel with the word “Aivia” on it, which glows a different colour depending on which profile you’ve got active. The Osmium supports five different profiles, marked by preset colours — blue, green, red, purple/pink and aqua — and this panel serves as a button which you can tap to quickly cycle between profiles. Changing profiles doesn’t affect the colour of the backlight, unfortunately, with blue being the colour of the day regardless of what profile you have active.

Keys, wheels and clicks

Two control wheels sit at the top left of the keyboard: the left to adjust the backlight illumination (from ‘barely there’ to ‘distressingly bright’), and the right to control volume. Both can also be clicked inward, to kill the lights or mute the volume respectively, and they’re pleasantly easy to use. Just to the left of these wheels are the five macro keys labelled G1 – G5 — combined with the ability of the Osmium to hold five separate profiles, and you’ve actually got a total of 25 possible macro keys (more on that later). The F1 – F5 keys double as media controls in the absence of dedicated media keys.

With 2mm of travel-to-actuation on each key and only 45g of pressure required the Osmium responds fast, and offered no ghosting issues to speak of during my week-and-a-half of testing. Gigabyte claims the Osmium can take up to 64 individual keypresses at once, but as I recently lost my squad of trained octopii to Toby in a drunken bet, I wasn’t able to test this claim. I was however able to test a full ten simultaneous key presses, with no issues. Key presses are powered by Cherry MX red switches, feeling solid and weighty and — most importantly for a mechanical keyboard — eliciting a lovely clack-clack sound. Included in the box is a key remover and four spare keys.

A surplus of features

The Osmium offers a bewildering array of features, seemingly designed to serve as both a gaming keyboard and a desktop hub. On the right hand side you’ll find not only headphone and microphone jacks, but a high-speed USB 3.0 port as well, because — well, just because, really. As such the keyboard itself is connected via an impressively thick braided cord, which splits into USB 2.0, 3.0 and headphone/mic connectors. Strictly speaking you only need the USB 2.0 connection to run it, but it’s a nice option to have. A USB 2.0 port sits on the top right of the keyboard as well, giving you a hefty range of ways to connect more devices.

The other piece of kit you’ll need is the Gigabyte GHOST software (seen above), which manages the macros on the keyboard as well as the profile settings. Unfortunately the GHOST software is somewhat unintuitive and suffers from some poor English, but once you’re inside it you can use it to customise the behaviour of any of the five profiles, as well as what each of the G1 – G5 keys does when each profile is activated. You can also wipe the keyboard’s on-board memory from inside the GHOST interface as well, and enable or disable specific profiles (making it easy to switch between just two profiles, for example). Finally, if you hate the ‘breathing’ effect of the lights on the Aivia logo, that can be disabled as well.

Conclusion

Retailing at around the $159 mark, the Osmium comes in at the top end of the mechanical keyboard price range, substantially more expensive than the Razer BlackWidow’s $100 price point but only just a touch more costly than a Corsair or CoolerMaster Storm.

For the price, you certainly get a lot of features – but are they features you really need? The real meat of a gaming keyboard is not measured by its ability to run high-speed USB 3.0 devices off a side hub, but in its responsiveness, customisation, and durability under pressure. The Osmium performs excellently in all these areas but comes bundled with a bunch of features that, in all likelihood, you don’t really need. If Gigabyte removed this extra hub-like functionality and dropped the price by $30 – $40, there’d be no question about recommending it — but as it is, this is a keyboard for the luxury-spender only.

Good:

• Dense, solid construction
• Snappy response time
• Impressive anti-ghosting
• On-the-fly profile switching
• USB 3.0 port, audio connectors, bacon, egg, the works

Bad:

• Slightly cramped design
• GHOST engine is a bit clunky to use
• At $159, you’re paying for features you probably won’t use

¹: I haven’t researched this analogy at all. Don’t hurt me, scientists!
²: At $13 per gram, this would make an Osmium keyboard worth $19,500 if it was made out of pure osmium ore. I don’t know this is relevant to the review.

It’s not often that I get to say this, but it’s never been a better time to be a PC gamer. Today’s console dinosaurs have both feet in the silicon grave, leaving the PC to reclaim its place as the enthusiast gamer’s platform of choice. These aren’t merely the claims of a PC gamer desperately trying to justify a maxed-out credit card to his disapproving spouse; even EA recently acknowledged that the PC was the second biggest platform over the last financial quarter, not to mention the fastest growing.

It’s not just about the popularity of PC games though; we’re also spoilt for choice when it comes to hardware. The latest round in the ongoing NVIDIA versus AMD slug-fest has been closer than ever, with both companies trading blows over each successive GPU release. AMD delivered an opening haymaker with the powerful Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 back in December 2011, delivering oodles of performance at the cost of watt-guzzling energy needs. It took a few months for NVIDIA to get back on its feet with a technically perfect uppercut in the Kepler-based GTX 680 and 670 products, exceeding AMD’s performance while also delivering products that didn’t need a fusion reactor for power. AMD’s response? Slashing and burning prices, making the choice of which high-end card to buy harder than ever.

This brings us to today’s magical moment, the release of a new product that could not have existed without such close competition between the two GPU giants. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is NVIDIA’s offering to those who demand the impossible – high performance at mainstream prices. Once again NVIDIA has wheeled out the impressive Kepler design to do the polygon pushing, but unlike the previous GeForce GTX 560 Ti it hasn’t taken a silicon sledgehammer to the card’s ankles. As you’ll see, the GTX 660 Ti has barely been touched by the engineer’s laser scalpel.

Kepler – the nitty gritty

At the heart of the GTX 660 Ti is the Kepler architecture. First announced in 2010, this design was largely a result of the PC industry’s new love affair with mobility. While core gamers crave the desktop behemoths that make up a tiny percentage of NVIDIA’s business, laptops are far bigger slice of the pie.

NVIDIA’s prior GPU design, Fermi, was a gas-guzzling brick that doubled as a cosy foot heater during the winter months, making it a laptop-melting monster. The new GPU design needed to be as comfortable ripping up Battlefield 3 in a desktop as it was in a laptop. Accordingly, NVIDIA’s biggest goal for Kepler was to improve performance per watt — and the company used a variety of means to arrive at its new eco-friendly destination.

First and foremost was the move to a smaller manufacturing process; smaller transistors need less power to operate and also pump out less heat in the process. Fermi’s transistors were built on a 40 nanometre process, while Kepler adopted a smaller 28 nanometre process. Take a peek inside the Radeon 7970’s GPU and you’ll find the same 28nm process at work, yet AMD’s latest cards pump out exorbitant levels of heat by comparison. Obviously something else helped drop NVIDIA’s electricity bills, and that’s where Kepler’s CUDA cores come into play.

Most of the transistors inside Kepler are grouped into units called CUDA cores, and they’re the worker bees in this silicon hive. To lower each CUDA core’s energy consumption, Kepler runs them at the same speed as the graphics clock, whereas Fermi ran them at twice the speed of the graphics clock — but there’s an obvious problem with this approach. Half the speed usually equals half the performance, so NVIDIA came up with a brute-force solution. Where the GTX 580 Fermi had just 512 CUDA cores, the Kepler found in the GTX 680 has a whopping 1536 CUDA cores. These are in turn grouped into eight Streaming Multiprocessor (SMX) units, each comprised of 192 CUDA cores.

All of these SMX units need to be fed data from the graphics card’s on-board memory, and NVIDIA also whipped Kepler’s memory bandwidth into shape. It doubled the total theoretical memory bandwidth of Fermi by using a 256-bit wide bus while also running the memory at a whopping 6GHz memory clock. This gave the GTX 680 a rather impressive 192.3GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which it shared with the GTX 670.

These are just three of the major improvements to Kepler over Fermi, but there are many other smaller improvements too numerous to mention here. The end result was a product that could out-perform AMD’s best, all while using considerably less energy to get the job done. As desktop gamers with a permanent lifeline to the electricity grid, power improvements might not sound too exciting, unless you’ve had to live with a high-end PC that sounds like a hive of wasps every time your GTX 580 kicks into sixth gear. The Kepler purring at the heart of the GTX 680 delivers blistering performance, with whisper-quiet cooler noise as an added bonus.

Pruning time

When it came time to release the cheaper GTX 670, the solution was simple; cut a single SMX out of the 680’s loop. This also gave NVIDIA a way to use chips that had minor flaws in one SMX unit, something that happens surprisingly frequently when you’re building a postage stamp out of more than three billion transistors. The GPU frequency was also dropped slightly, yet the memory bandwidth remained identical. Now, most techies expected NVIDIA to do exactly the same thing with the GTX 660 Ti, disabling one more SMX unit to deliver a product one more rung down the performance ladder from the GTX 670. If the race between AMD and NVIDIA wasn’t so close, it’s quite likely that the GTX 660 Ti would only have had six SMX units, comprised of a total of 1152 CUDA cores.

The good news is that this isn’t the case.

NVIDIA hasn’t touched the number of CUDA cores within the GTX 660 Ti when compared to the GTX 670 – they’re both built using 7 SMX units, for a total of 1344 CUDA Cores. Even better news is that the GTX 660 Ti GPU runs at the exact same speed as the GTX 670, with a base speed of 915MHz. Thanks to NVIDIA’s new GPU Boost technology, when the GPU detects it has thermal headroom to spare the GTX 660 Ti even boosts to the exact same speed as the GTX 670, up to 980MHz. By now you’re probably wondering just what the hell NVIDIA has done to justify selling the GTX 660 Ti for $100 less than the GTX 670?

Instead of touching the number of CUDA cores, NVIDIA has lowered memory bandwidth. While the GTX 680 and 670 use 256-bit memory buses, the GTX 660 Ti drops this to a 192-bit memory bus. However, NVIDIA has kept the same 6GHz memory frequency, theoretically dropping memory bandwidth by just 25%. This should only be a concern for those running stupidly high resolutions or anti-aliasing.

Unfortunately this has been achieved by dropping one of the four ROP partitions that usually make up the 256-bit memory bus. Without getting too technical, the original four-way ROP design plays nicely with the 2GB of on-board memory usually found on GTX 660 Ti cards, but a 192-bit bus is usually associated with either 1.5GB or 3GB of memory. The former is too little for the 660 Ti to be competitive, while the latter is too expensive at this price point (though 3GB GTX 660 Ti products will be possible). Instead NVIDIA is using proprietary technology to force the ill-fitting memory to be friends with the three ROP partitions, technology which it is keeping secret for the time being.

We’re left with a card that is almost identical to the GTX 670, with slightly less memory bandwidth and a recommended retail price $100 cheaper. As you’ll see though, RRPs don’t mean a whole lot in the real world, and the price pressure on every other product has left the GTX 660 Ti in a rather sticky situation. Let’s see why.

To the testbench

We’d like to thank Gigabyte for supplying our review sample in the form of the new Gigabyte GTX 660Ti Windforce 2X. As seen with the release of the GTX 670, most GTX 660 Ti cards will ship pre-overclocked with a faster base and boost frequency, and the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti is no exception. Base frequency has been given a healthy shot in the arm, increasing to 1032MHz, while Boost speed has also increased, up to 1111MHz. As the name suggests Gigabyte has employed its unique Windforce 2X cooler on this card, while output duties are handled by dual DVI ports and a single DisplayPort and HDMI port. Gigabyte has set a recommended retail price of $399 for this card, but retailers are currently selling it for anywhere between $398 and $450 at the time of writing.

When compared to AMD’s offerings, today’s price puts it somewhere between the price of an AMD Radeon HD 7950 and 7970, the former of which has just received a healthy 15% performance increase courtesy of a new AMD BIOS. It’s also dangerously close in price to the cheapest GTX 670s on the market.

To ensure the testbench wasn’t the limiting factor in the benchmarks, I tested the cards on a machine out of the price range of mere mortals. At its heart is Intel’s rather zippy and ridiculously expensive i7 3960X CPU, mounted in an Intel DX79SI motherboard with 8GB of DDR3-1800. Continuing the Intel theme was the use of a 520 series SSD, while all audio was disabled for testing. Given that this card is aiming at users with 1920 x 1080 displays, all tests were run at this resolution. Ultra detail was selected for every benchmark, and I used the in-game benchmarks for both DiRT 3 and Shogun 2. Battlefield 3 doesn’t include an automatic benchmark, so instead I recorded the minimum and average FPS of the opening 60 seconds of the Operation: Swordbreaker mission with FRAPS.

So, how did the card perform? As expected, 3DMark 11 performance was extremely respectable, almost matching the more expensive Radeon HD 7970. DiRT 3 sadly wasn’t nearly as impressive, with the 660 Ti left eating the dust of the 7970 but proving an even match for the more affordable Radeon HD 7950. Battlefield 3 performance also saw the 660 Ti keeping pace with the 7950, albeit with a better minimum frame rate. The final test of Shogun 2 saw the GTX 660 Ti record a healthy lead over its more expensive brethren, which caused more than a few raised eyebrows. After pinging my local NVIDIA rep, it turns out that this is caused by a performance fix incorporated into the review drivers for the GTX 660 Ti, which should soon make their way into NVIDIA’s WHQL drivers.

The final test used a sound meter to test fan noise while each card was under extreme load, and the Gigabyte card came out in the middle of the pack. Amazingly, Gigabyte’s cooler managed to stay at the exact same volume during my overclocking tests, where I reached a maximum stable GPU core speed of 1250MHz and memory frequency of 7GHz. At these speeds it’s safe to expect another 10% boost in performance, if not a little more.

To buy, or not to buy

There’s no denying that ordinarily the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti would be a very capable product for the price. But these are no ordinary times, with the fierce competition between AMD and NVIDIA causing video card prices to plummet. At the time of writing, the cheapest GTX 670 in Australia is selling for just $399, while the most affordable Radeon HD 7970 is only $50 more, both prices that the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti is currently selling for. At these prices both offer noticeably better performance than the GTX 660 Ti, so they obviously get our nod of approval.

Thankfully the shine will start to wear off the GTX 660 Ti’s launch in a month or two, and street prices should drop to around the $350 price point. But even then it’s going to be hard to swallow a 20% performance drop for a mere $50 saving, so Gigabyte is going to have to figure out how to drop the prices even more. As we’ve seen in the past with the GTX 670 versus the GTX 680, NVIDIA (and Gigabyte’s) greatest competition isn’t even AMD – it’s itself.

Good:

• Excellent performance while remaining whisper quiet
• Decent overclocker
• Solid value for money

Bad:

• Outshone by the GTX 670 and Radeon 7970
• Retailers aren’t sticking to the RRP

Gigabyte releases Corrective BIOS Update for GTX 670 OC Windforce 3X

Which, coincidentally, happens to the card humming away in the computer I’m using to write this. I haven’t experienced any problems personally, but anybody who has been having trouble with theirs – stability issues mostly, according to Gigabyte – should grab this update BIOS and see if it helps. It won’t change your clock speed, but be sure to grab the right one as there’s two versions available. Users on TechPowerUp recommend using the VGA@BIOS tool to learn which version you need. Download the updated BIOS from this page.

Light up your computer with LED strip lighting, because, well, why not

Forget to buy LED fans when you put your computer together? Can’t be bothered going out and buying them? You’re in luck: Antec have just released a USB-powered LED strip lighting product that adheres to various surfaces and, well, lights up. Your choice of red and blue lights that “”increase picture quality and image contrast” and “allow longer and more enjoyable gaming by reducing eye fatigue” await you, as well as what Antec describe as a “convenient on/off switch”. Technology.

Windows 8 dumps ‘Metro’ name, RTM to arrive August 15

Enterprise customers, industry partners, and – well, a whole lot of people in fact – will get access to the RTM version of Windows 8 come August 15. While general launch is still on track for October 26, today’s new tidbit comes courtesy of The Verge, who reveal that The Metro Group, a German retail giant, have forced Microsoft to drop the ‘Metro’ codename for the UI. It’s not known what Microsoft will replace it with, but I’m sure there’s more than a few internet users who’d like them to replace the interface altogether. Amirite, guys? Amirite?

Pictures of MSI GTX 660 in 3-way SLI surface

MSI’s upcoming GeForce GTX 660 Ti HAWK 3 GB graphics card has been spotted on the internet configured in a 3-way SLI setup. The card looks similar to their 670, but MSI have doubled the memory amount to 3GB and clocked the card at 1020 MHz GPU core, 1098 MHz GPU Boost, and 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. The three card setup is also apparently being driven by a yet-unannounced GeForce 304.87 beta driver, and cooled by MSI’s Twin Frozr solution. More details and some benchmarks over at Videocardz.

Apple continues to carefully scrub all traces of Google from iOS

The ongoing cold war between Apple and Google continues, with Apple’s new strategy in iOS 6 being to just get rid of all traces of Google from their products. Google Maps is going, to be replaced with Apple Maps (??), and the YouTube app is going completely. Google has already removed the word ‘Google’ from the search field in Safari, so this is essentially just the next step in a kind-of-stupid but also kind-of-funny tit-for-tat battle. Naturally, Google will be providing a Google Maps and YouTube app over the App Store for iOS customers who actually want the things they’ve been using since the OS launched. Apple is blaming the YouTube app’s removal on an expired license, but considering they could have just, you know, renewed the license, it’s pretty clear where things stand. Via DailyTech.

Samsung produced 132-page report on superiority of iPhone, ordered staff to duplicate functions

The case of Samsung v. Apple rolls on in the courtrooms of America, with Samsung suffering a blow this week after they were forced to submit a document as evidence that shows the company going over the iPhone with a fine-toothed comb and noting down exactly where it is a superior product and directing its staff to copy features. The document, which can be read in its entirety at Scribd, examines nearly every aspect of Apple’s UI design and has made it hard for Samsung to rebut accusations from Apple that they “slavishly copied” them. Earlier this week however Samsung were able to tender very early-stage designs for a phone that predate Apple’s own iPhone design, winning back some ground in the actual physical-design stakes. Clearly, however, the company thought that Apple’s UI was one to replicate. More details at All Things D.