BFWGaming

Congratulations to the people involved in the ASUS Ultimate Overclocking Show 2009!

We all know ASUS has got to be the most reputable Mobo+VC maker in there world. They stay true to their motto which is “Rock Solid, Heart Touching”. But then does this cooler respect the motto? For example, Gigabyte has plenty of good stuff ranging from Mobos, VCs, PSUs, Casings and Water Cooling Solutions. That are their good products, their bad products are their coolers. Some of their coolers don’t work better than a stock HSF which is going to be a bad example on their company. But does ASUS tap this Gigabyte problem? Let’s find out!

Actually, this is the first cooler I have ever owned. I have touched or installed several coolers but then I don’t have a chance to own them. I have managed to find some temperature differences of those coolers and I hope I can apply most of it for comparison in here(Seriously, I won’t compare this cooler to another because I might trash its reputation). I just really hope I do good in this first ever review of a cooler

Today’s Product is the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler. Price range is around 2900 Pesos(2900/47=$61). I have looked around google for the real price yet that is the only price I have found. There’s newegg? I’m too dumb to find the cooler in newegg? Think again. The article of this cooler is a deactivated item already in there. So you won’t find the price in there. You’ll just find the pictures and some comments in there. Those comments are positive yet I do not have an idea why the product is deactivated

The eye catching part of the box of this cooler is the 1366 Socket Support. So if you’re low on budget and you are going on i7 but doesn’t want the Stock HSF, this is a good temporary Cooler since it supports 1366. In my theory, this cooler seems to be ASUS’ solution to the LGA 1366 processors. So thank ASUS for cooler so you won’t have problems anymore on looking Coolers that have 1366 support

Here’s another view of the box of the Cooler. Another great feature of the Cooler is that it has PWM Control. I don’t really know what’s the function of this thing but I’ll find out soon. So far the only thing I know about the PWM Control is that you will be able to control the Fan Speeds. Or if you don’t want to tinker around with the BIOS, there’s SMART fan where the computer automatically adjusts the Fan Speeds if the Processor gets too hot(AKA. #prochot). The fans do a great part in terms of controlling Fan Speeds which I will cover later.

Here is the cooler taken out with the extra stuff inside. It includes the fastening kits for AMD, Intel LGA 775, LGA 1366, A printed manual and a Thermal Paste. The Manual is not hard to understand, its straight forward that everything just fits like lego blocks. The fastening kits are just like the stock HSF’s method of fastening. So you won’t have problems taking it off unlike other cooler out there which requires you to take off the entire motherboard just to take off the cooler.

The Cooler has 2 92mm fans which is placed strategically to solve airflow problems. 1 of the coolers is intake while the other one is a exhaust. The box says it has a Optimal 4-way airflow design in which if it truly works, it’s cool. 2 of the 4 way airflow design is a side exhaust(not a exhaust fan) from the cooler itself. 1 is an intake and 1 is a exhaust. Speaking of the exhausts of the cooler, my intake fan is conflicting with the side exhaust of the cooler which is not good(cold air from the intake meeting hot air from the side exhaust of the cooler). So make sure you position your cooler and your fans to the correct aerodynamic flow.

As you can see, the heatpipes are not exposed instead there’s that metal plate that is the only that that will have contact with the processor. I don’t know if that metal plate is bad or not since the processor won’t have direct contact with the heatpipe. However, thermalright has the same concept of having that metal plate as the only contact between the processor and the cooler. Thermalright is known for good cooling solutions though.

Here’s the thermal paste that is included in the box. It’s just around 3-4cm long and you have to pour everything in it to make sure the paste is surely spread

By the way, Im not sure what kind of thermal paste ASUS uses here. I’ve tried searching around yet ASUS may have kept their Trade Secrets away from the public about the thermal paste. If you want to make sure that the thermal paste is reliable, better buy a aftermarket thermal paste.

Here’s the cooler installed. I never had problems installing it. As ive said ago about the manual, Everything fits just like lego blocks. I didn’t have any problems with obstacles and stuff, so installing the cooler will be a walk in the park in all human difficulty ranges. Just make sure you have more than 2 neurons in your brain.

If anyone noticed the dust in the sleeving, I apologize for such dirty thing in my rig. I haven’t done my general cleaning for 2 months already.

More pics up there after installing the cooler. Looks cool man.

Here’s the cooler and the rig with the job done. Just incase anyone doesn’t know, the fans in the cooler has blue leds. So any enthusiasts out there who are spectrumphiles(light addicts), this could be good for you. But then my computer is in a red theme, the fan leds just contradicts the color scheme. Oh well…

Finally, I have here the benchmarks and the temperatures. The test I used is the System Stability Test from Everest Ultimate Edition v5.00 with everything turned off except for the CPU stress testing. I have the graph below from Everest that compares my old stock HSF cooler temps into the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler. I did the stress testing for 5 minutes and monitored the temps in idle for 3 minutes. A timestamp is included just incase room environment is taken into consideration

As you can see, both coolers in idle perform the same. They more likely have the same temperatures. However, with the Fan control capabilities of the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler, the lesser the temperature, the slower the fan turns and the cooler performs just like a stock HSF. But when the temps get hotter, the fan control rings the bell, the faster the fan turns to cool the cooler. The faster it gets, the noisier it goes.

I don’t really notice the noise since I use headphones but then I can hardly hear the noise even if I don’t wear the headphones. So, sure thing dude.

The ASUS Triton 81 performs just like the stock HSF in idle temps. The cooler just starts to rev up if the temps go high which is good. As shown on the graphs above, you can really see the difference between the two coolers in stress test mode. The idle temps? The temperature difference is just really small. ASUS Triton 81 cools just 1 centigrade lower than the stock HSF which is disappointing. As a conclusion, The ASUS Triton 81 cools better than the normal Stock HSF.

PS: I just noticed this a while ago, when the stress test started in the stock HSF, the temps increase GRADUALLY. You will notice the small curve of the temperature increasing at the start of the test. Another example you can see is when the stress test ends, it takes few seconds to actually cool down the Stock HSF. However with the Asus Triton 81 Cooler, you can see that in any of the ends, at the start of the test the temps increase instantly but then when the test ends, the temps decrease instantly. This is a job well done for the Asus Triton 81 Cooler.

If you’re not much of a gamer guy(more like office work), I don’t recommend this cooler. Stick with the Stock HSF instead. But then if you’re a gamer guy, you can get this but I don’t recommend it. There are better coolers out there than this one for the same price. For overclockers, I don’t suggest it. I haven’t tested the cooler in overclocking environments yet I highly doubt ASUS Triton 81 can withstand the OCing environments.

As the conclusion, The cooler is big, average in performance, easy to install and average in price. But this cooler does not top the mid-range coolers. If you are interested with the cooler and wants one, good luck on finding a seller. Because newegg even had the product deactivated, or probably ASUS cancelled the product. I suggest you find a better cooler than this where you can find it easier(there are plenty lying around waiting for your money)

Thank You Fine Upgrades and ASUS for the cooler! I hope you guys get me another product to review

While checking out my daily newspaper manifesto in Fark.com, I found this one:

Man sentenced to life in jail for stabbing partner to death after she became obsessed with playing Grand Theft Auto

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165928/Man-sentenced-life-jail-stabbing-partner-death-obsessed-playing-Grand-Theft-Auto.html

A man who murdered his partner after she became obsessed with computer games was today jailed for life.

Malcolm Palmer, 62, stabbed Carol Cannom repeatedly with a lock knife and steak knife in front of their 10-year-old son, Lincoln Crown Court heard.

The court was told 46-year-old Miss Cannom had become hooked on her son’s Playstation console and would often be on it until the early hours of the morning.

Palmer, a former worker at Heathrow Airport, was ordered to serve at least 14 years in prison as he was handed a life sentence by Judge Michael Heath.

Palmer, of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, earlier admitted the murder of Miss Cannom at their home on November 19 2008.

Jailing Palmer, Judge Heath said: ‘There is no justification or excuse for what you did on November 19 of last year.

‘You are of previous good character, an industrious, devoted family man but for some time before November 19 your relationship was under some strain.

‘I can make no judgment as to why that was, although you felt certain it was because your partner became addicted to playing on a Playstation, sometimes staying up until four or five in the morning.

‘You felt rejected and unwanted as you were asked to leave the home that you shared with her.’

The judge added: ‘The other aggravating feature of the attack was that it was ferocious.

‘Their mortgage was paid and they didn’t need to work. They had a lot of time on their hands and little chance to get away from each other.

‘In the past, dad had worked a lot and mum was always outside - looking after the animals on the smallholding. They started to get on each other’s nerves, to grind each other down.

‘There were suggestions in court of mum having an internet and text affair. It just wasn’t the case. She was a lonely woman who sent a few messages. She never met anyone.

‘And playing on the Playstation a lot, which was also mentioned by the defence barrister, was just a release, a bit of escapism, neither of them were happy by that time.

‘For me this conviction is not easy. I’ve lost both my parents now. My head tells me that justice has to be done and dad deserves to go to prison, my heart just worries about him and misses him. I think about him lying in his cell, alone.’

Detective Inspector Phil Denison added that it was a ‘double tragedy’ for the couple’s 10-year-old son, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

DI Denison said: ‘The sentence quite properly reflects the seriousness of the offence and the very early guilty plea which saves further trauma for the family.

‘Not all relationships break down but inevitably some do and there are a raft of agencies out there who can help.

‘It’s important to recognise when something is happening early in a relationship and to communicate with each other rather than bottling it up.’

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Well here’s the moral lesson: All Video Gamers are not molded into violent criminals. Sometimes its nice to think that guys aside from the gaming scene are more violent.

A nice article to sip beer while making fun of Jack Thompson to be honest. Ahahahahah. Anyways, Gametrailers.com got some videos on Bioshock 2 gameplay. You guys gotta go check it out.

As a big fan of the NFS series, I am saddened to see how the NFS series got wrecked when EA developed it throughout the years. I would like to give my sentiments about it. I am actually comparing the old NFS and the newer NFS.

Well I guess the NFS series gets so much beating because EA just screws it. We know that NFS: Undercover should have been the last nail in the coffin to make sure NFS is dead. Many game reviewing groups already listed the most recent NFS as the worst game of the year ever. But then did we really know what caused it to suck? I guess yes, but what was it? I know I don’t have to write this topic but its worth going back in the drawing board.

Customizations ruined it

Customization at its infancy

Back when NFS:Underground was released, the car upgrades was a stunning feature in the NFS series. But then it got old so quick that when it was carried on to the newer NFSs, it caused it to suck. I agree upgrades like engine, rim, body, n2o resulted in freedom for users to customize their rides, nothing beats customization. But when the newer NFS series came, customizations were the same. They didn’t seem to improve, but it evolved. Evolved into a more complicated way that may not be appealing to players. I guess customizations were only appropriate on few selected NFS series, not the entire series. It over evolved and everything in customizations were overdone.

One other thing that pissed me off is their Upgrade System. Level 1 N2O? Level 2 N2O? Level 3 N2Oh wat?

Acquiring the Upgrades were also easy to get, because money was just lying around in the game. And whenever you win a game, you get big stacks that is too much for you to keep.

If we go back on the older NFS series, there were only cars which had different characteristics but were not customizable. It still rocked and I still even play ye old NFS 2, why don’t EA just go back on how the older NFS series worked? No upgrades, just plenty of balanced cars for us to choose.

Cars

Lets bring back the old FZR2000 cheats.

Cars were fine, I have no problems with them. As what I have written above, EA does not have to limit the number of cars and just put plenty of upgradeables for the users to enjoy modding with. Plenty cars will do the job. It doesn’t matter if the car is fictional or not. Fictional is fine as EA will not have to do some copyrighting stuff for the cars they will have to put in. Nonfictional is also good, nothing beats the feeling that in NFS you drive the car that you actually own in the real life. You get to crash that car in game for fun where you can’t do it in real life(why would you crash your Hummer Truck when it isn’t even insured at all?).

Game Difficulty was, well… Too easy in hard
(no image to describe AI here)

One thing I’ve noticed about the newer NFSs is that money was just like raining all over. You do not get that feeling that your money is short or lacking for you to upgrade. When you get all of the upgrades, you just noticed that you just had too much money left in your pocket and there’s nothing left to purchase.

Its not just that money was almost free but opponents and cops were really stupid. You can easily exploit their weaknesses by taking them down. Its like these drivers never learned defensive driving, just stupid driving. You’ll notice that the AI cars sometimes ram and crash into pillars even though there is no interference in the enemy ai. And even if the game is in the last lap already and you’re in 8th place, you can still catch up and win as first. There’s no sense of challenge in this game, even with plenty of newer NFS games out there, AI didn’t improve at all.

Story

Start reading a book instead.

Back on the older NFSs, they didn’t have a background story. When EA placed a story, it was a major turnoff when everything wasn’t perfectly staged. The way it was staged was not just the only downside but also how can you put a story on a Racing Game. Even if NFS:Underground was still good, it’s story was still confusing. How can a plot evolve by just racing and winning in the game? Even using actors as storytellers was not an improvement because it just won’t basically fit in the genre in the game.

Forget NFS, take Burnout Paradise as an example. It’s a game of today’s generation similar to NFS. It doesn’t have a story however it tops against NFS even if you take out Burnout’s Unique drive-and-crash driving system.

New NFSs being released almost year by year

Need for Speed: Underground (2003)
Need for Speed: Underground 2 (2004)
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
Need for Speed: Carbon (2006)
Need for Speed: ProStreet (2007)
Need for Speed: Undercover (2008)
Need for Speed World Online, Nitro and Shift (2009)

Are you now getting the pattern? The gap between each game released is only 1 year away. EA should start thinking about quality, not quantity about $$$ and their portfolios.

DRM, Securom

Do I need to expand this further?

I know EA might not read this and ignore this instead. But I hope they would stumble upon this article and start rebuilding NFS. And this ends my opinion of Need For Speed - What did EA do wrong?

This topic is also found at PurePwnage Forums under Game Reviews. Published by me (cebupwnsall otherwise known as Personal)

Edge Online’s 100 Best Games to Play Today

Credits go to the respective owners of the image above.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-100-best-games-to-play-today?page=0%2C0

First of all, I would like to thank this list for giving me an idea of few old games to play in my Crappy Lappy(Quake 3 Arena competitive gaming anyone?).

Second is, this list is full of fail.

The first time I saw the article I was like, WTF. How could you make a Top 100 list of games to play today. Any responsible game newscaster knows it is impossible to make this kind of list. You can make a top 10 Multiplayer Games to play today or even a top 10 single player list, but not a top 100. Although the top 100 list is crappy, I have to agree the games they placed in there, however I disagree on their numbering.

The Top 10 in the list is like, fail fail fail. Halo, Tetris, Super Mario and Zelda is fine. But why put Legend of Zelda in the first place? Why not CS:S? Halo 3? Left 4 Dead? TF2? COD4? Tetris? GTA IV? And why RE 4 in the top 10 list GODDAMNIT.

I have nothing against on Half-Life 2 fans as me myself is a hardcore fan of the series. But with the current situation of how slow the Half-Life 2 series has been progressing, the HL series has been losing its effect of “awesomeness” throughout the episodes. It may take a good game to make, but TBH, it’s getting annoying and I’m starting to hate Half-Life 2. I disagree about HL2 being placed in the top 10. It should have been somewhere in top 11-20.

The rest of the 20-100 places were disappointing. I do not see the reason why CSS, Starcraft, Sims 2, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3 and Team Fortress 2 has to be somewhere higher than 20-30 as they are the games that has the best replayability value.

Why is Morrowind not in the list? WC3:TFT? DotA(LOL)? Diablo 2?

Lemmings on the list? now they got a little bit of my respect.

To end this article, EDGE Online should begin to rethink their logic or study carefully their lists. They shouldn’t be hasty on publishing articles when they know it isn’t right. A Top 100 list of games to be played, even carefully studied may cause major drama on the gaming community as it is impractical and surely inaccurate. A Top 10 list will do, they just have to be careful of what games they are putting in their lists.

Hola Ubergamers!

Bowser has to buzz me so I would make this first post of mine. My bad anyways, I still haven’t posted in this blog for weeks since BFW hauled my ass here. So here’s my first post.

http://www.fragmovie.com/

Released back in 2008, I like to give my thoughts about the movie.  I first heard about the movie in Pure Pwnage forums. If you’re a Professional Gamer, Competitive Gamer or a Casual Gamer, this is a good movie for you.

The movie focuses more on the darker side of Professional Gaming where money, reputation and even lives are at stake. It would sound ridiculous when I said “lives are at stake”, but there are people who actually make Professional Gaming as a living. People who participate in these tourneys are commonly Teenagers. Teenagers who have risked their studies, teenagers who may have severed relationship with their parents and friends. Even though with these risks, they still have to be cautious of who they deal with not only how good their opponents are, but they also need to be cautious on greedy sponsors, non-paying tourneys, discriminative teams and alike. In this scene, youngsters are opted to do adult decision at their young minds. Frag documents how Professional Gaming evolved from the 80’s to the current day. From Beating highscores in arcades which rocketed into our local tv’s, up to today’s ESWC, CPL, etc… It also features notable people in gaming. People like fatal1ty, LoSt-CaUzE, Angel Munoz, Carmac and more.

Perhaps the most notable guy here is LosT-CaUzE as he was the guy who had a hard time to excel in Progaming. I remembered the part where his dad asked him to choose between College or Out(pro gaming), that would have been the toughest decision you will have to do in this scene. When he entered the progaming scene, he had to live with fatal1ty, even sell his important stuff just to join into a tourney, received racial discrimination from people, the worst of all is that his sponsor has not been “sponsoring” him at all. But then, he proved it to his dad that he is worthy in pro gaming. When he excelled in pro gaming, he did charity work in South Africa where he donated plenty of money for LAN Centers in there which has got to be the best part of being a pro gamer. Right now, Lost-CaUzE’s manager is his own father. What a brilliant idea.

PS: The Afro Samurai theme in the movie with Lost-CaUzE in it is pretty awesome.

Pro gamers in this movie also shares the downsides of being in the progaming world. Some of their(even most of them) parents are against their career in pro gaming where they are mistreated, barred from gaming or even abused. Even some of them made it through and became champions of pro gaming, their parents still don’t look up unto them.

The cruel part of being in the scene are the sponsors as they make gamers as milking cows. Incomes from gamers are not shared very well and there are contracts which interferes with the money gamers make. Tournaments, especially CPL became less trusted because of prizes not being given to winners. Because of this issue, CPL ended its operations last March 2008. Hahahaha Die Angel Munoz!

I may have not noticed fatal1ty here very well but just a few words about him. He’s rich, he’s good, he’s a sellout and he will support our fellow pro gamers around.

And oh, who would not forget Guitar Hero. Featured also is Daniel Serna, the world’s guitar hero Champ. Currently, Daniel is teaching Gene Simmons to play GH(lol). Nothing really complicated of Daniel’s life, he was like a rich kid that just wants to be a GH Champ.

After a League, there will always be an afterparty. And in an afterparty, there will be food, alcohol, girls, peeing on laptops, fucking and DRUGS. Teenagers do make up the equation on this afterparty.

Overall, for a typical gamer like me who just plays games on my freetime plus the bugging work, its just another day in the office. Just like what pro gamers do, Train, Bootcamp, Play, Win, Party Hard, its just another day in the office for them.

I might not have made this article well but that end’s my idea sharing about the Movie. It’s a really good movie if you ask me. You guys should watch it.