The most functionally full models of the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 series have become the first exponents of the ASUS Radeon RX 480 video cards line. Recently they have been joined by the pair of ASUS Dual Radeon RX 480 series versions at a more affordable price. The simplified cooling system and lower number of features justify the lower price.



ASUS DUAL-RX480-8G and ASUS DUAL-RX480-O8G models are equipped with 8 GB of GDDR5 video RAM with the effective frequency of 8000 MHz, the Super Alloy Power II element base and the 2-fan cooler featuring the Wing-Blade design. These samples have been manufactured on the automatic ASUS AUTO-Extreme Technology line, and the power subsystem uses the 8-pin connector to guarantee the stable work even under the conditions of manual overclocking. In case you decide to connect the VR-headset, the pair of HDMI-ports on the interface panel will come in handy.


The only difference between ASUS DUAL-RX480-8G and ASUS DUAL-RX480-O8G is in their clock …

The EVGA vendor presented its novelty – the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid graphics card with the brand iCX technology applied. Nine additional thermosensors near main warming components on the PC-board are responsible for the hybrid cooling system operation. The air cooler cares for the power supply, and the water cooling system chills the video memory and GPU.



The enclosed water cooling system is delivered assembled and filled. The unit features a copper-based waterblock, pipes in braided cable and a heatsink with a 120 mm fan. The power supply has eight phases for the GPU and two phases for the video memory. There is also a backup BIOS chip, and EVGA PXOC software allows monitoring thermal sensors values.


EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid is equipped with the 11 GB GDDR5X memory, operating at 11,016 MHz. The GPU base clock equals to 1,569 MHz, and boosted – to 1,683 MHz. Customers can utilize three DisplayPort 1.4 video outputs, an HDMI 2.0b and a Dual-Link DVI …

Introduction

Solid state drives of M.2 format are becoming increasingly popular. Compact dimensions, no additional wires in the system and significantly increased performance. Even this short list of advantages is enough to understand why the owners of various form factor systems have opted for high-speed M.2 PCI-E drives. Of course, if you can do it financially, because productive SSD of this format are still much more expensive than SATA-drives. Manufacturers are looking for ways to make it easier for users to move from one category to another. For example, the company Kingston recently introduced a line of M.2 NVMe drives of the initial class - Kingston A1000. Let's see what such devices are capable of, getting better acquainted with a 480 GB model.

 

Closer View

The new lineup at the start includes three models of the most popular volumes - 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB. The hardware platform of the Kingston A1000 drives includes a 4-channel Phison PS5008-E8 …