ASRock H97M Pro4 Motherboard

Today's sample uses the very robust H97 chipset, and was $75 on Newegg when
this review was prepared, but is now at $70. The ASRock H97M Pro4 is a micro-ATX
board with 4+1 power phases and the ability to overclock the unlocked Pentium
G3258. Let's take a look at it but first, a little vindication: I achieved very poor
overclocking results in prior testing, so I bought another G3258 to see if the budget
boards I'm testing are the issue, or if I had simply lost the silicon lottery, which was
my suspicion. The board about to be exposed could not overclock the original chip
over 4.0GHz stable either, but the new chip was fairly happy at 4.2GHz on the
board-selected 1.28V, just getting a little warm in some tests. That warmth
discouraged me from going for an even higher overclock, but a tweaker, using a
better cooler, may zoom right on past my efforts. Worth noting is that I couldn't find
a spot on or near the VRMs registering as high as 37C on my IR thermometer during
my tests.
This board, like many in this segment, comes with minimal accessories. You get the
board, manual, driver CD, I/O shield and a couple of SATA 6Gb/s cables. Another one
or two would be nice, but their omission is unlikely to inconvenience the average
builder. [
In general, I like the layout of this board. The CR2032 battery is readily accessible,
as are all ports and headers, which tend to be around the edges with a couple of
exceptions. I like that the SATA 6Gb/s ports are the right-angle type, as this prevents
any of them from being blocked by expansion cards. If you use cables with clips on
them, they will all face up, so you will need to remove a top cable to get to the one
below it. Even if you install a long graphics card, it will just miss the USB3.0 header.
However, it will prevent the RAM latches from opening on that side; you'll need to
remove a long graphics card first before adding or removing RAM. There are four
DIMM slots, with latches on both ends. The front-panel audio connector is in the
center of the board rather than an edge, so you may not have an easy way to hide
that cable. The same is true for the three-pin CHA_FAN2 header. The CLRMOS1
header (including a jumper block) is between that and the battery, and is easy to
reach. The 8-pin CPU power cable is near the right edge, and there is nothing

directly between it and the edge of the board, leaving a straight shot to any cablemanagement opening. All capacitors are solid, and chokes are the more efficient
ferrite core. The front-panel header is in the usual place on the bottom left, and
there is a speaker header there as well so you can hear any BIOS error beeps. There
are no LEDs on the board, including +5VSB or diagnostic indicators.

MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G

Review

Back in January, Nvidia launched the GTX 960. When it was first announced, many
people criticized the small 128-bit memory bus, and 2GB of GDDR5, complaining
that these specs wont deliver the performance needed for todays games. Weve
already tested three versions of GTX 960 and have proven it is a very capable GPU
for FHD gaming, but each one offers a somewhat different set of features and
benefits. Some are overclocked. Some have larger heatsinks than others. Some
have a single 6-pin power connector, others have 8-pins. Some are tailored to be
more silent than anything else. MSI has opted to combine all four of those benefits
into a single option to try and stick out among the competition.
The MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G is built on a custom PCB with a factoryoverclocked GM206 GPU under MSI's latest thermal solution, the Twin Frozr V, to
keep it cool and quiet. As of this writing, you can find the card on Newegg for $215.
MSI has been using its Twin Frozr coolers for a number of years now. Each
generation, the company tries to improve the solution's performance, while lowering
noise output. Currently on the fifth version, Twin Frozr V is said to be smaller and
quieter, armed with stronger fans than the previous version.
A few key components make up the cooling solution. MSI installs 10.1cm Torx fans
onto the Twin Frozr V. Using a combination of two different fan blades, the company
claims to be able to move air more efficiently. Each blade alternates between
standard fan blades designed to push air downwards and dispersion blades
designed to maximize air flow.

The fans use the companys Zero Frozr technology, which was introduced in 2008.
Most Maxwell-based GPUs now have the same kind of capability. The fans can be
stopped completely in idle and low-load situations to keep noise levels down. In
addition, MSI adds the ability for its firmware to control the fans independently. In
low-heat situations, its possible for only one fan to be spinning rather than both (or
neither, for that matter).

ASUS Xonar Audio Card

This sound card focuses on a precision clock to tune and minimize the audio jitter.
The result is very detailed music and a lively sound image that provides an excellent
audio experience. This sound card has some of the best components and the finest
design which delivers a top audio experience with a 124 dB SNR rating. The built in
headphone amp offers up to 600 ohms impedance.

Overclocking Retail Intel Core i75960X CPUs

Intels Broadwell architecture was introduced in early June as the fifth-gen Core
processor family (if you missed our coverage, check out Broadwell: Intel Core i75775C And i5-5675C Review). Skylake, the sixth-gen design, is expected soon. But if
youre a power user running really well-threaded applications, then both of those
mainstream platforms remain secondary to Haswell-Ethe beefiest incarnation of
Intels fourth-gen architecture.
To be sure, Haswell-E remains the enthusiast's top choice almost a year after its
introduction. Theres the fact that you find it in six- and eight-core configurations, of
course. Huge 15 and 20MB last-level caches are also great for performance. A quadchannel DDR4 memory controller serves up unprecedented bandwidth. And,
depending on the model, you get 28 or 40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity. Oh, and
dont forget that all three modelsthe Core i7-5820K, -5930K and -5960Xsport
unlocked multipliers for overclocking.
As a matter of personal preference, I tend not to spend a bunch of time overclocking
when a CPU is first introduced. Theres the fact that the samples typically come
directly from Intel or AMD, motherboard BIOSes arent particularly mature and, well,
its just a long loop of trial and error ahead of time-sensitive launch coverage. But
during a recent conversation with the folks at Intel, the subject of Haswell-E and
overclocking was brought up. I realized that Toms Hardware hasnt done much with
Intels highest-end platform since last August, and I had an idea for an experiment.

Windows 10

Windows 10 is an entirely new version of the veteran Windows operating system a

version that is make-or-break for Microsoft.
Even though Windows 8.1 did improve things, there's no escaping that with
Windows 8, Microsoft was hugely complacent, buoyed by the success of Windows 7.
It drastically misunderstood its users with a fundamentally changed user interface
which didn't make any logical sense and was hard to learn. It failed us. It failed
itself.
Thankfully 2015 Microsoft is pretty different to 2012 Microsoft. The key
management of the corporation has changed. It has woken up to the fact that
people can choose other operating systems. It's keen on making stuff for OS X,
Linux, iOS and Android. As you'll hear, it's allowing apps from other platforms to be
easily ported to Windows, too.
Microsoft believes the future of Windows is as a platform for all. Like Android, the
strength of Windows is in the thousands of companies that develop for it (see the
section about Universal apps for more on the relationship with developers) and use
it in their products.
That's why Windows 10 is no longer just an operating system for 32 and 64-bit PCs.
It will also run on the ARM platform for smaller tablets and smartphones. Windows
10 is going to run on phones it's the new version of Windows Phone, but it's not
that clear whether Microsoft will brand new Windows Phones as 'Windows 10' or not.
If you know what Windows RT was, then don't worry, because it's nothing like that.
Universal apps will run not only on PCs, but on Windows 10 phones, Windows 10 for
IoT devices and Xbox as well.
Like Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 before it, Windows 10 is part of the Windows NT
family.

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Submitted By: Anna Gabrielle S.

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Submitted To: Ms. Patricia Marie
Pasardoza