PC Building guide! Hint: Not The Verge Way!

INTRODUCTION

Having seen the "guide" from The Verge on YouTube (not going to link it for your own safety) I decided to make my own mini written guide so you can avoid some bad practices and/or make sure you fit everything as well as possible. Now I am aware that even my techniques can still be improved a lot and to be fair there is always something new to learn so while my way might not be the best way, it is a basic safe way to build your PC properly. This guide is meant to help those that have a basic ideea of what each part is and for those that usually take way too long to assemble it and end up with all the messy cables. Also I am not going to go into detail to what is wrong in the video from The Verge as there are already popular YouTubers that covered it. You can check Science Studio's video or Bitwit's video to see what was wrong with that.

Required stuff 

- 1x Philips #1 screwdriver (or CR VPH1 screw head) for small screws (like m.2 ssd screw)

- 1x Philips #2 screwdriver (or CR VPH2 screw head) for all the screws

- Isopropyl Alcohol (good for CPU cleaning, more details below)

- Thermal Compound (optional, if you want to make sure you put something better than what the cooling comes with)

- Paper Towels (prefferably some higher quality ones since they're very good for cleaning thermal compound)

- [Optional] [Recommended] Even though I have my ways it's good to get an anti-static bracelet.

From left to right: Isopropyl Alcohol, Thermal Compound, long and slim Philips #2 screwdriver for harder to reach screws, Multi-head screwdriver with CR-VPH1 and CR-VPH2 heads and some random paper towels.

Actual Guide 

[TIP] Always plan your case air intake to be on the front and below and the air exhaust on the back and on the top as hot air rises. (Science bit, when you heat air or any gas for that matter it expands making it less dense than the air around and thus it rises).

1. Get all your screws and screwdriver handy, Sort them for each part.

2. Take your computer case, take off the side panels and remove every drive bay/holder and removable parts from it. Leave it bare bones only to have where to put your motherboard . You will add what you need from them later on as you assemble it.

3.a. If you went with air cooling for the CPU then you can already install your front fan(fans). They don't usually make installing other parts more difficult.

3.b [Situational] If you go the All-In-One way for the CPU and you want to install it to the front then don't do it! You will do it later.

4. Check case manual and see where you would need stand-offs, depending on your motherboard size then screw them in.

5. Insert I/O shield in the back, you will hate yourself later if you forget about it and install the motherboard(or everything)

stand-offs, I/O shield and front fans installed. Kinda bare bones eh?

6. Ignore the case for now and put the motherboard on it's box(best way to keep it until you install it inside the case.

7. Insert the CPU into it's slot on the motherboard according to manufacturer's instruction. If you handle an AMD CPU be very careful not to bend the pins since they're on the cpu and quite exposed.

8. [Situational] If you have an m.2 SSD you should install it now.

9. Insert the ram memory into the slots. Normally, if you have 4 slots, to enable the memory to work in dual-channel mode you have to insert them either into slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. Yet it's always best to check motherboard manual as it might be different.

Motherboard ready! Cpu, m.2 ssd and the memory sticks are all where they should be!

10. Time to get the motherboard into the case. Double check that the standoffs fit correctly and the I/O shield is inserted. after you fit it and make sure it's also aligned with the I/O Shield, start screwing it into place.

11. Connect all the case front panel stuff on the motherboard. Also, if you installed your front fans, you can also connect them to your motherboard. [Highly recommended] make sure you nicely route your cables through the back of the case as we want to avoid cluttering the visible area.

not that empty anymore eh?

12. [Situational]  Modular power supply. If you power supply is modular, attach all the necessary cables to the brick now. You need power cables for the motherboard, S-ATA Drives, GPU, Sound Card(if you have one), S-ATA for AIO(if applicable), etc.

13. Insert your power supply brick into the case and screw it in the back. If you got space for it to draw air from underneath make sure you place it with the fan on it, it's helpful in keeping it on it's own airflow. The downside is that it might draw more dust, especially if placed on the ground.

14. Route all your cables from the PSU now.

15. Install the 4/8 pin connector for the cpu on the top of the motherboard and the other cable on the side of the motherboard.

16. [Situational] Add rear fan or 120mm/140mm All In One cooling radiator.

17. Add required number of s-ata cables from the motherboard and route them to the back.

18. Insert the disk drives into their slots. That can range from case to case, having internal HDD racks that can be Installed, screwing SSDs on the case, irremovable drive bays etc. Of course if in doubt check case manual to see where's what.

19. Connect s-ata cables to the drives. Also connect the power s-ata cables to them.

Drives are fitted into place.

20. [Situational] Screw the AIO radiator on the case now if you have one and are planning to screw it on top or front. 

21.a. [Situational] If you prefer to use your own thermal compound(like me) clean your cooler of it's thermal paste and your cpu with isopropyl alcohol, let them dry then add just a small pea sized drop of the compound in the center of the cpu and do NOT spread it!

[TIP] even if it's the first application, always clean your cpu with isopropyl alcohol first just to make sure you remove any grease or dust.

How to apply thermal compound. I dropped a wee bit more than intended but it's okay!

21.b Now screw either your cooler or your AIO head over the CPU. If it has 4 screws in a square then always screw them bit by bit in an X pattern so it will spread the thermal compound evenly.

Almost done!

22. Now pretty much all you should have left by now is the GPU and other PCI-E cards. check motherboard manual and see which slot is a PCI-E x16 slot as that is where you will install your GPU.

23. Remove the necessary back plates that align with the x16 slot where the gpu will be installed and install the GPU. then connect the necessary power supply cables from the back. 

24.[SITUATIONAL][HELPFUL] check the picture below on how to use two screws(tip learned from Jayz2Cents) to fix your gpu to prevent the gpu from wobbling. quite helpful when you got a big gpu!

Two small screws fitted in above the gpu "legs" that get inside the back of the case.

25. [SITUATIONAL] Install the remaining pci-e cards but make sure you leave the gpu enough room to breathe.

26. Now if you followed each step carefully everything should be in working order like in the picture below and all that will be left is to put back the side panels and connect everything to your PC.

Ready to go!

Consoles in 2018. Why would you BUY any of them?

INTRODUCTION

Owning one of each for a while now I decided to talk a bit about each one of them and why are they worth considering. For Playstation and Xbox I will be referring to the newer versions, a.k.a. the slim ones and the pro ones.

NINTENDO SWITCH

Docked Nintendo Switch. Source: Evan-Amos

We'll start with the newest one, the Nintendo Switch, which launched with positive reviews and strong sales. It is also the most interesting of the three as instead of going for high performance to compete with the Playstation 4 Pro and the soon to be launched Xbox One X they went with portability. It is kind of unique since you have a dock to put the console in when you want to play on your TV at 1080p (or 900p in case of some games) and at 720p when in portable mode, on it's own display. It doesn't sound that impressive,  and it seems even worse when you take into account the fact that it features the Tegra X1 SoC, designated for mobile. But despite all this, Nintendo made it work and it allows you to play AAA titles. The games can be bough digitally and downloaded or purchase them as Nintendo proprietary Game Cards. Of course the console, sadly, comes with only 32GB of internal storage but you can always extend it with an MicroSD card up to 2TB.

Worth considering for:

• Portability (you can take it with you and play AAA games on the bus,train,plane,etc)
• Unique console concept (there are some people with reasons like this)
• Nintendo Games (you got Super Mario Odyssey, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and other Nintendo exclusives that would be enough to make some buy the console)
• Portable Skyrim (if you really love TES:Skyrim and absolutely want to have it on all possible platforms, but don't forget to also buy an Alexa then)

Not worth considering for:

• High-end gaming ( If you want 4k gaming, ultra sharp textures and what-not this is not the console for you, as it's mere 512 GFlops (FP32) are less than half of what the base ps4 and xbox one can)
• Portable Multimedia ( While Hulu launched an app in USA and Inkypen worldwide, you don't have have access, at least for now, to YouTube,Netflix, Amazon Prime,etc so you will still need your phone and/or tablet for that)
• Included Controller in docked mode (The included controller is far from comfortable when using the console in docked mode and you'll have to fork out some cash to buy the Switch Pro Controller which actually is great but the extra cost might make some avoid buying it)

PLAYSTATION 4

PS4 Slim and Pro side by side.

The best-selling console of this generation, most of you probably already have it. Since it's launch in 2013, it received 2 newer versions. The Playstation 4 Slim which is a slightly improved version of the original with the biggest change being that it's 40% smaller. The other newer version is the Playstation 4 Pro which is geared towards high-end console gaming. It's apu is overclocked to 2.1Ghz, has 1GB DDR3 added for non-gaming tasks, has an AMD Polaris based GPU capable of 4.2Teraflops and a 256bit memory BUS and promises 4k gaming. Games marketed as PS4 Pro Enhanced will feature either improved graphics quality, higher resolution, HDR support or all 3 of them. You can also subscribe to the PS Now service which is a streaming service like Netflix but for playstation games. Of course PS Now is also available for PC but if you own the console you'll have a DualShock controller for PS Now.

Worth considering for:

• Exclusives (if you love God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne and other Sony exclusives or you just want plenty of exclusive games to justify buying the console then it's a must buy, even if you own a PC)
• Cool yet elegant looks (Some might actually pick a console for looks, but who am I to judge? The console looks good, the controller looks good and will attract plenty)
• Easy to use UI (the UI is very straight forward and easy to use, although it is a bit weak in the features department, probably for it's own sake)
• Lower end model ( in terms of performance the PS4 Slim is noticeably better than the Xbox One S for FullHD gaming)
• PS VR (There aren't many Virtual Reality games yet but the PS VR is a good budget alternative to the more expensive oculus rift and htc vive available for PC)

Not worth considering for:

• PS4 Pro size (while the PS4 Slim is super ok and will easily fit everywhere, the Pro is way bigger and might be an issue for some)
• Best High-End gaming ( if you plan to play on 4k and want the games to look the best, you might be better off with an Xbox One X or even better off with a PC, assuming you would pay extra for PC parts)
• DualShock Controller ( while not as bad as the base switch controller and good-looking, the DualShock is quite uncomfortable. It actually looks really but if you have the chance to play with the Switch Pro or xbox one controllers, you might just hate the DS. It's handles are very slim, having the analog joysticks both placed in the middle might affect coordination a bit and ,at least in my case, you will hit your thumbs into one another a lot)
• 4K Blu-Ray (none of the PS4 consoles include a 4k Blu-Ray player, for those that also want them to be multimedia players)

XBOX ONE

Xbox One X(black) and Xbox one S(white)

And last but not least, the Xbox One, called by some the useless box, a flop,etc. The console was heavily criticized at launch due to being quite bulky, performing worse than the PS4, being overpriced due to having the kinect included and initially adopting the pc way of buying games (you buy the disk with a code, activate the code and it's yours, you can't trade it anymore). Microsoft have worked since then trying to improve the console and nowadays it's actually a platform one might buy. As was the case with Sony, Microsoft also released two updated console versions. The first one was the Xbox One S, which was an improvement over the original one both in performance(albeit small) and being 40% smaller (did they agree with Sony to make them both 40% smaller?) while also including HDR and a 4k Blu-ray player. The second version, released a bit later in 2017, is the Xbox One X, which is a 4k oriented version having a revised APU clocked at 2.3Ghz, a 6TFlops AMD Polaris based gpu and 12GB of GDDR5 with a 384 bit memory BUS, while being just a bit bigger than the Xbox One S. Also they recently introduced something kind of weird for a console, and that is 120Hz/120fps support).

Worth considering for:

• Best High-End Gaming console (the Xbox One X is the most powerful console out there, albeit you can still buy a PC if you want the best 4k gaming experience or the most fps on a high-end monitor)
• Xbox GamePass (similar to PS Now, it's a service but you actually download games locally so your experience won't be affected by your internet quality)
• Xbox PlayAnywhere (while this is seen as a downside for some as they say you won't have to get a xbox one if you have a pc, it's actually a good move, it unifies playerbase, it allows you to get a "living room pc" in form of an Xbox instead of actually investing in a second PC and the games are still exclusive to the console platform if you only play on console and the PC players of the same game can't trade the game after purchasing it, but the downside is, from pc you'll have to deal with Windows Store which is kinda bad)
• Xbox Backwards Compatibility (older Xbox and Xbox360 games are continually made compatible on the newer platform, so you can buy them digitally if you missed them before or insert your old disks and play the games on the Xbox One)
• Best Multimedia Pick (if you like to use your console as a multimedia device as well, especially for 4k content as you can play 4k Blu-ray disks)
• Controller (While the light box button can be annoying at times, it's no doubt Microsoft have taken the X360 controller and only improved it, it's simply made to fit in your hands and feel good and practical, a sign that confirms the fact they spent over $100 million in it's development, even though they somehow missed the fact that the light might annoy some)

Not worth considering for:

• Exclusives (Even if the games launched are still console exclusives, the list so far is way smaller than what the competition has. While the store is in no way empty and has lots of games you can pick from, Microsoft still have a way to go in terms of exclusive games, and if you have a PC and only want to buy a console for exclusives then the Xbox One might be good only to play the older games you might have missed)
• UI (even though it's quite feature heavy and the o.s. is literally windows 10, the UI tends to be quite clunky and heavy for some, it's ok once you get used to it but it's the worst of the 3)
• Overall Playerbase (having only sold ~40million consoles compared to 82 Million PS4s, you might have trouble finding a bigger team for CoD or other multiplayer games, also there is a big chance your friends might already be on PS4)

Conclusion

Well every one of them is worth buying, assuming the considerations meet your requirements. Now in 2018 all 3 platforms are strong, healthy, still delivering great games and fun to use. It was obvious each have their flaws but in the end all that matters is to pick the one that will provide you the most fun. Or all, because why not?

It's big but is it efficient? Corsair H150i Pro RGB Review

Introduction

The Corsair H150i Pro RGB All-in-One cooler is their first attempt at an AIO with a 360mm radiator and priced at around 175Eur (depending on the store), it might be a bit on the expensive side for some people. So enough chit-chat, let's get on with the product!

Presentation

Quite basically and neatly packed

The H150i Pro is an AIO with a 360mm radiator, the 6th and latest generation Asetek pump ( Gamer Nexus have made a video presenting the changes and opening up the pump here ), 3 ML120 fans, more flexibile tubes(having previously owned the h100i v2 and the h100i v1 this is a big plus for me) and as standard for Corsair for a while now, a 5 year warranty.

Specifications

Cold Plate Material: Copper

Radiator Material: Aluminium

Radiator Dimensions: 396mm x 120mm x 27mm

Fan dimensions: 120mm x 120mm x 25mm

Max Fan speed: 1600rpm

Max Airflow: 47.3 CFM

Noise level: 25 dBA

Fan Static Pressure: 1.78mm-H2O

Socket support: Intel 115x, Intel 2011/2066, AMD AM4/AM3/AM2 

And all the contents of the box

The cooler comes out of the box with the Intel mount installed and thermal paste pre-applied. the head unit comes with 3 non-detachable cables, more specifically a SATA power connector, a 3-pin connector for the motherboard and a 3-head 4-pin connector for the fans. and on the other side it comes with a Micro-USB slot, which together with the included USB 2.0 to Micro-USB cable is used to connect the pump to the motherboard and implicitly to the Corsair LINK program.

It comes with 24 long screws so you can mount the radiator in a push/pull configuration, though you need to purchase the other 3 fans, 12 short screws allowing you to mount it directly to the case and 24 washers which are to be used with the screws. Also included are 4 nuts to secure the head to an Intel socket, 2 screws to secure to AMD sockets, four standoffs for the LGA2100/2066 sockets, 4 standoffs for the other Intel sockets, the AMD mounting bracket and the universal Intel back plate.

Fans fitted, only 14 screws to go(AMD socket screws included)

And it nicely fits inside the 750D, was honestly expecting it to look bad but I am impressed

Testing Methodology

As with every cooler that will be tested from now on, this will always be applied:

- Cooler Master MasterGel Maker thermal paste will be applied as a pea sized drop;

- In case it's an AIO cooler it will be mounted up-top in a push configuration;

- Fan/pump settings will always be set on standard, mostly to mimic the average usage of the system and average user;

- The tests will be on idle, 3 dungeon runs of World of Warcraft, 3 consecutive benchmarks of Thrones of Britannia, 3 consecutive tests of Assassin's Creed Origins and 30minutes of Prime95 small ftt stress test;

- there will be 2 sets of tests. One set performed on stock clocks and settings of the Ryzen 5 1600x and the other set on the cpu overclocked to 3.9Ghz and at 1.4V;

- 2 AF140L fans will be mounted in the front and 1 in the back of the Corsair 750D;

- the back fan will always run at full speed while the front ones will both run at half-speed(to keep the air pressure balanced if not a bit negative);

- Ryzen Master will be used to measure temperature;

- due to different room temperatures, the values will be posted as degrees Celsius above room temperature;

- the thermostat that monitors room temperature will always be 1.5m away from the computer;

- the charts will be updated as I review more and more coolers.

The way light comes out of it is quite pleasant.

Performance

With the testing methodology detailed above it's time to post the results. Remember that the temps in the charts are Celsius above room temperature.

As you can notice in the charts above the H150i Pro RGB can be quite cool but (and here you have to take my word for it) the overall temperature performance versus my old h100i v2 is quite small averaging only on 4-5 degrees cooler than it, but also take into consideration that the stock fans of the h100i v2 are pushing more air than those of the h150i but are way noisier.

Euro per degree

Taking the DEEPCOOL Gammaxx 300R as a base reference for the h150i and any other future coolers I will make an euro per degree chart using the following formula: the average price on amazon.de of the reviewed product minus the price the the base cooler (Gammaxx 300R fixed at 25eur) and  divided by the average temperature(above room temperature) of all tests of the base product minus those of the reviewed product. Also every failed test(where the pc shuts down due to overheating) will be evaluated at 95C-room temp since that is the max temp of the 1600X.

So the H150i Pro RGB has an average temperature 10.15 lower than the 300R and you pay 14.77 Euros more for each degree. Now I find that a bit steep but I like PC as I like my beer. Cool.

Conclusion

The Cooler performs quite well, it is pretty much silent and really cools down a cpu. But at 175Euros for a 360mm AIO it's quite a hard sell. Yes the fans are suprisingly quiet but you can get a h100i v2 which is much cheaper and will only be on average 3-4 degrees hotter. Otherwise I'd honestly recommend on buying the Corsair H150i Pro RGB only if you really want a decent and silent cooling or if you want great results and don't mind paying extra. It still is way cheaper than a custom solution and it doesn't come with the difficulty of mounting a custom loop.

Budget cooler... but is it decent? DEEPCOOL Gammaxx 300R Review

Introduction

My old All-in-One cooler died and I had to RMA it. Having the Ryzen 5 1600x I had no other cooler to use until the RMA is solved. So looking for a budget temporary replacement I found the Gammaxx 300R for around 28 Eur, looked decent so I went ahead and purchased it.

Cooler from the front

Cooler from the side

Stock thermal paste is pre-applied in a nice pattern

Presentation

The Gammaxx 300R is a cooler with 3 copper heat pipes, comes with a 120mm custom semi-transparent fan mounted on it, universal Intel and AMD clips, a manual and pre-applied thermal paste. The installation of the AMD clips was very easy although requiring a bit of force when mounting it on the motherboard. The only real flaw I found is that you can't actually mount aftermarket 120 mm on the radiator, mostly due to the clips it comes with and the fan that the actual radiator is 110 x 75 x 52 mm.

The build quality is as expected for the prize range

Below I will list the specs, a few pictures of the product, a few tests to see the thermal performance of it. Of course since, hopefully, I will also review other cooling solutions I will use the Cooler Master MasterGel Maker Nano thermal paste with a rice sized dot placed in the middle of the CPU.

Specifications:

Size:           121 x 77 x 135.5 mm

Fan size:           120 x 120 x 25 mm

Fan Speed:        900 - 1600 RPM

Max. Air Flow: 40 CFM

Supported sockets: Intel LGA1366/1156/1155/1151/1150/775 
                                AMD AM4/FM2/FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2/K8

The Manual and the Intel Fittings

Cooler mounted. Actually looks nicer than expected

The Red LEDs look good, can't complain about lack of RGB at just 28 Eur

 Performance

 So I decided to measure the average temps using Ryzen Master Application and I took measurements for Idle, the average of 3 World of Warcraft dungeon runs which I chose since it has an average resource consumption in line with the most played games, Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia since it's one of the more cpu heavy strategy games around, Assassin's Creed Origins Benchmark as it's quite CPU heavy and I consider it to be a good representation of how resource heavy an AAA title can be and last but not least Prime95 since it really can stress a CPU.

Below I will add the chart on how it behaved both on stock clocks and an O.C. at 3.9Ghz and 1.4V.

As you can from above we get some decent temperatures, nothing too bad but nothing too good. It doesn't produce unbearable heat but it isn't the most efficient cooler I've seen either. When overclocking the CPU to 3.9Ghz it can get quite warm with Assassin's Creed Origins ending up to around 75 degrees. When trying to run Prime95 it shuts down in about 2 minutes each time going way over 90 degrees. So far I've kept gaming with the CPU overclocked and except for prime 95 I haven't encountered any overheating issues.

Conclusion

The DEEPCOOL Gammaxx 300R is clearly a budget cooler, very cheap at around 25 Eur (depending on the store and country) and while it doesn't provide great cooling or enough overcloocking headroom it is totally worth it's value if you need a cooler and don't want to spend too much on one for a entry level or mid-range CPU. Would I buy it if I were to make a build from scratch and had to keep a tight budget? Yes I would.

ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080TI Unboxing & Benchmarking (part 2)

So as promised I'm back with the benchmarks(a bit late mind you). So first things first. All benchmarks were run on a clean install and running all ye basic apps you expect to find at a user(drivers, HW specific software, AntiVirus and steam/uplay(depending on the game). My idea was to simulate not a synthetic clean performance but that of a normal user.

Ok so moving on let me give you some short info on how the benchmarking was done. All games were run at 4k with maximum details with AA off. at 1440p and 1080p AA was on. The only exception to the rule is Deus Ex Mankind Divided which for some reason with AA on even at 1080p had some very low frames. And since we're looking towards the future, where a game had DX12 as an option the tests were done in DX12. All tests were run 3 times and I made an average of them. So off with the talk and on with the charts!

Due to the nature of the game and DRM at 1440p and 1080p the cpu was bottlenecking the game.

I ran the "Through Mud and Blood" mission right until the post-artillery barrage cutscene. I find it quite stable and full of effects to stress test the game.

This game keeps being a GPU killer.(at 4k for some reason I've mistaken avg with max)

Ran the Nurburgring map with worst weather effects and maximum number of cars. 2 laps for each test.

Notice a drop in performance at lower resolutions due to activating the AA

An average of all the map tests the game benchmarks

Another GPU killer

Not a very successful game but good enough for a RTS Benchmark.

So overall the performance is decent and well if you game at 4k it's not really worth investing in a more expensive CPU since the GPU will be the bottleneck. But if you want 1440p 120hz or 1080p 144hz then a better CPU is worth it. oh well, overall in my opinion the 1080ti is not really a 4k card as it can't maintain a straight 60fps at max details. But that's just my opinion. So I hope you find this benchmark useful and as always I await your opinions! Cheers!

Edit: Why would reviewing it be useful? Well most likely with the new volta/ampere launching in the near future there will be more and more 1080Ti's filling the second hand market and some might jump for them since usually they get way cheaper. Or some might still buy them now as they're still very solid(supposedly you find one for a decent price).

ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080TI Unboxing & Benchmarking (part 1)

 Intro

Well I was absent for a while, as my old card died and now my replacement finally arrived. So in this part I will write a bit about the card and present some unboxing photos. In the second part I will benchmark the card on my build and we'll see the scores it gets with the latest driver at the moment of writing (390.77) at 1080p,1440p and 2160p(4k).

So now, a bit of info about the card.

Specs:

Core clock: 1518MHz (O.C. mode), 1493MHz (Gaming mode)
Boost Clock: 1632MHz (O.C. mode), 1607MHz (Gaming mode)
CUDA Cores: 3584
Memory Clock: 11100MHz(O.C. mode), 11010MHz(Gaming mode) 
Memory Bus: 352-bit
Power Connectors: 2x8pin
Dimensions: 29.8cm x 13.4cm x5.25cm or 11.73 " x 5.28 " x 2.07 "

ASUS marketing on their design/cooling system

Unboxing, ports and installation

The accessories included in the box are relatively bare-minimum. You get a power cable, a CD, a Quick Guide and 2x ROG Velcro Hook & Loop.

The Unboxing:

 

Front of the box

Back of the Box

The smaller box inside the box

Opening the smaller box. Nice foam and a little package.

Opening the small package we find a Quick Guide and a CD

Top foam layer removed, rest of accesories and GPU revealed

The Power Cable and the 2 ROG Velcro Hook & Loops

The card finally revealed.The small strips above and under fans are RGB.

 The ports: 2xHDMI 2.0b, 2x DisplayPort 1.4 and 1x DVI-D. Any 4 of them can be used at once for multi-display setups

Visible side of the card. Republic of Gamers logo is RGB.

On this side of the card we have 2x PWM fan headers and an extra LED Strip header.

The backplate, as any backplate is 99.9% just for aestethics, it looks nice and we also have an RGB ROG logo here.

A little thing I learned from JayzTwoCents to  make the card less wobbly/saggy. Link

And the card is finally in the case! Yes, I'm one of those that use 2 different power cables for the card.

 

So that is all for today, coming soon in the second part, you will see some benchmarks with the latest driver, a good opportunity to see how it evolved since the early reviews done on the card on launch and how well it plays with a Ryzen CPU.

EDIT: Link to part 2