Revenant – SFF.Network

Quick Test – AMD Resizable Bar vs Nvidia Resizable Bar

Recently, Hardware Unboxed tested the effect of using resizable bar on their Z790 Intel test bench. They discovered that Gigabyte boards show substantial performance improvements in certain games over other brands, when paired with an RTX 4090. Primarily this was in Horizon Zero Dawn. Ultimately, they determined that the Gigabyte boards had resizable bar turned off whereas all other boards had it turned on. I decided to do a quick test with my more modest setup to see if I could replicate this. I used Z690 boards paired with the Intel I9-12900K, to compare a RTX 3080 to Radeon …

News

Hardware Unboxed Discovers Resizable Bar Performance Issues

Steve from Hardware unboxed, seen above pointing out the next set of companies that won’t send him samples after his videos, discovered an interesting issue when setting up his latest Z790 test system. While he was doing so, he found that the Gigabyte boards substantially outperformed other models in Horizon Zero Dawn and Spiderman Remastered. What he discovered was that Gigabyte disables resizable bar by default. All the other manufactures enabled it by default. Steve was testing with a Z790, i9-13900K, and RTX 4090. Even with a performance issue, these games were still going to outpace the …

Other

Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua OC Costs as Much as RTX 4090

Do you have $1,650 US Dollars to spend on a GPU? Neither do I. However, for those that want to pay RTX 4090 prices for an RTX 4080 you can now buy the 4-Slot Asus RTX 4080 Noctua OC. I’m not going to list this as a news post because there is absolutely no way I can keep opinion out of this overpriced owl face. Look, I like Noctua. I really do. The L9 series coolers have been my go-to for SFF cooling. Their fans are top notch. Even the huge NH-D15 is worth the money at $109 it …

Other

Tom’s Hardware Finds Up To 10% Performance Loss in Games From Windows VBS

Tom’s Hardware recently discovered that Windows Virtualization Based Security was automatically activated on their Windows 11 test platform. Thankfully, they took the time to test the performance difference with and without it on. With modern GPUs pushing more bottleneck to the CPU, it turns out that there was a pretty substantial hit to performance. In some cases, it was up to 10%. Check out their article and benchmarks by CLICKING HERE. To learn more about Windows Virtualization Based Security, CLICK HERE.

News

Digital Foundry Reviews AYANEO 2 – Faster Than SteamDeck

Digital Foundry has gotten their hands on the AYANEO 2. Powered by the Ryzen 7 6800U, the AYANEO 2 is a Windows OS SteamDeck competitor. It packs double the cores and far more graphics power than Valve’s still awesome handheld. It also has user adjustable power limits. Check out their review below.

Reviews

System76 Thelio Review

Before we begin, I want to thank System76 for their patience and extra time they provided for us to review the Thelio SFF PC. During the course of this review, I had a lifetime’s worth of events happen ranging from back-to-back natural disasters, upheavals in my career and financial situation, major medical events, and even deaths in the family. To my great regret, these events left me with little time for my passion for computer hardware, and required me to step away to get things settled. I greatly appreciate System 76’s patience, understanding, and support. The entire Small Form …

Articles

Ryzen R9 7950X3D Review Round Up – It’s good for SFF but…

Reviews are out for the Ryzen 7950X3D, and it’s actually quite interesting. For those that don’t know, the X3D version of Ryzens include a very large amount of 3D V-Cache. In this instance, it’s 128MB of level 3 cache. However, there is an important catch that anyone looking at the 7950X3D as a gaming CPU should be aware off. Only One CCD Has 3D Cache. The 7950X3D is a 16-core CPU. However, those cores are divided between two CPU clusters or dies. These are physically separate from each other, but can talk through a dedicated bus call Infinity Fabric. …

News

Cubeor Vault 2 Mini-ITX Version 1.1 Available for Order

The Cubeor Vault 2 Mini-ITX Version 1.1 case is now available for order. Coming in at 23.4L, the Vault 2 supports a full 360mm AIO, Mini-ITX motherboards, and up to 3.5 slot GPUs depending on configuration. CPU Cooler height for traditional heatsinks is up to 195mm in height, and the case supports SFX and SFX-L PSUs. Of course one can’t forget to mention the beautiful wood paneling on the front and top. Cubeor offers multiple wood color options, as well as the case in both black and white. You can check out the Vault 2 Mini-ITX at …