Gaming is no more simply about plugging in a controller to play, it’s about plugging into an entirely new realm, captivating youngsters like never before! During the pandemic, the esports industry has undergone a paradigm shift in terms of demographic engagement, appealing a lot more to younger cohorts like the Gen Z.
Catering to such gamers who look at gaming as a way of self-expression is Taiwan Excellence (TE) that has been offering uber cool, high-end and some of the most powerful gaming gadgets to enhance experiences of gamers across the world. Till date, TEGC has witnessed huge success from across India with the participation increasing from 500 gamers in its inception year to about 20,000+ gamers in its 8th edition last year depicting a growth of 4000 times.
On September 10, the stage was set at Mumbai’s Infinity Mall to kickstart the grand Taiwan Excellence Gaming Cup (TEGC) campaign in India, the first on-ground event after the pandemic. The campaign holds at its core a three-fold gaming extravaganza that includes the announcement of the 9th edition of the TEGC, the launch of TE Experience Truck and the TE Verse ─ World of Excellence.
Since years now, TEGC has been giving India’s passionate gamers the chance to experience great gaming, win big money and fulfill their dreams. This year, the Qualifiers for the games will be held online for Pan India from September 26 to November 13 while the Grand Finale will be held on-ground in Mumbai in end November.
The TE Experience Truck is a customized mobile showroom that aims to offer visitors a chance to experience some stylish, smart, and extremely intelligent technology in ICT and gaming. It will visit major events across cities including college festivals, food festivals, regional festivals, gaming events, and malls to let people catch a glimpse and first-hand experience the superb tech. It will cruise from September 10 to November 12 at prime locations across India.
Another major highlight is a customized TE Verse ─ World of Excellence that takes visitors on a virtual tour to experience a wide range of the latest products offered by brands under TE. There will also be dedicated VR setup for the TE Verse at the TE Experience truck for audience to experience the virtual tour.
This year, leading brands like AIFA, AORUS, CoolerMaster, CyberPower, D-Link, Ipevo, MSI, Optoma, Predator, Republic Of Gamers, Thermaltake, Tokuyo, XPG, Zowie and Zyxel will be showcasing their products.
The TEGC campaign comes to India at an opportune time when virtual gaming is no longer just a prerogative of young urbanites. The interest in esports is expanding beyond the metros to cover Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Speaking about this year’s edition of TEGC, Director Edison Po-yi Hsu, Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) Liaison Office in Mumbai, said, “We have had an amazing journey in India. The passion and excitement in gamers are unmatchable. esports has become an aspiration for Indian youth today. TEGC already has a huge fan base in India and we are sure our other two offerings, the TE Experience Truck and TE Verse – World of Excellence which is extremely special creations will win hearts too. With this year’s gaming cup, we look forward to breaking all our previous records of participation.”
RGB is the new cool these days if you are a ‘True Gamer’ you have to have a complete RGB setup from RGB RAM and RGB GPU to RGB mice and keyboard. Companies are also capitalizing on this so-called trend and making big bucks by having every possible hardware in RGB. It was about time for the RGB tread to finally catch the SSD market.
Here we have the HyperX fury 240 GB SSD for review
The most noteworthy thing about the HyperX Fury out of the box is its weight. The HyperX fury has a chunky metal design weighing in at about 165g, which to be honest seems really unnecessary and over the top, as SSDs don’t have any moving parts and don’t this sturdy design. Just to give it a tough look HyperX has put on extra effort over design too.
HyperX fury rocks a Micro USB port next to the regular SATA power and data connector to control the RGB goodness of the drive. The HyperXFury Comes in 240GB, 480GB and 960Gb variants all of which are rather pricey but have the recent industry-standard RGB magic and an extremely well-built design to justify it.
Kingston claims the HyperX fury SSD boasts incredible speeds of 550 MB/s read and 480MB/s write. The smooth and stunning RGB lighting makes your system look more alive. The Fury can sync up with your other RGB hardware and give an overall feeling of complete customization.
We ran some games on the SSD, which include FIFA 19 and Fortnite. We could not see any noteworthy difference in performance, it almost felt at par with the Samsung Evo SSD that we have running on the test bench, which was surprising as the benchmark tests we ran showed that the Samsung Evo should be on top.
Samsung Evo
HyperX fury
So our verdict says that the HyperX fury RGB SSD is great in terms of the RGB color and the regular everyday performance. But when it comes to write speeds, it might score a little below other SSDs plus the pricing is a bit on the higher end.
ASUS has been a dominating name when it comes to top of the line products; a range of dynamic laptops and over the top high-end ROG series. ASUS is launching their new revolutionary range of gaming laptops for the gamers out there. Comprising of celebrated titles like Strix, Zephyrus and much more.
ASUS launches new gaming laptops 2019
ROG Strix G531/ G731
The Strix G531 comes with9th gen i5-9300H or i7-9750H along with Nvidia GTX-1660 GDDR5 VRAM. The 6-core processor clocks as high as 4.5 GHz with a single core, and with12 threads to speed up heavy multitasking. A new wraparound light bar illuminates the outer edge of the chassis which speaks the ethos of the ROG brand.
The Strix G731 is just like a big brother to G531. G731 has 17″ 120Hz IPS panel unlike G531, which is having15″ 60Hz display.
ROG Strix SCAR III G531
The Strix SCAR III G531 successor of well-known SCAR II is getting quite popular. It is loaded with Intel Core i&-9750H or i9-9880H processor and RTX 2060, 2070, as well as GTX 1660,depending upon the variant.It comes with DDR4 RAM up to 32GB and 1TB storage. Depending upon the GPU it has 15.6″ 144HZ/3ms, 15.6″ 240Hz/3ms and 15.6″ 144Hz/3ms for RTX 2060, 2070 and GTX 1660 respectively.
It has keystone unlock feature for deep customization. Keystones are physical keys that can be docked to quickly load system preferences stored in your ROG ID or unlock access to an encrypted Shadow Drive hidden on your computer.
ROG Zephyrus M GU502
The Zephyrus M GU502 15-inch gaming notebook is new for this year. It features an incredibly fast 144Hz1080p display with a three milliseconds response time and super narrow bezels. In this laptop, you will find an Intel Core i7-9750H with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6GB DDR6 GPU. It comes with 16GB DDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 32GB. It maintains a slim profile and lightweight build. Zephyrus M can be charged through its USB type-c port using a portable charger or even with a mobile power bank. It has an intelligent cooling system with powerful 83-Blade fans which ensures the best experience each chassis and components. This laptop has been designed to make thin and light gaming available to everyone.
ROG Zephyrus S GX531
The Zephyrus S GX531 is the world’s slimmest gaming laptop. It features a buttery smooth 15.6″ FHD 240Hz display panel with three milliseconds response time to spoil all the gamer out there. The R/L bezels are just 6.5mm thick which gives it an amazing look. This laptop comes with Intel Core i7-9750H CPU. The fully upgraded CPU has 6 cores and 12 threads, which makes it perfect for both work and games.
To boost up its performance, even more, it consists of Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 (Max-Q). It comes with 8GB onboard + 1 x SO-DIMMDDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 24GB. The laptop is also quite lightweight at just 2.1 kilograms. It has the Active Aerodynamic (AAS) cooling system with its dual high-performance 12V anti-dust cooling fans which drive more airflow to cool the laptop. Furthermore, there are also 5 heat pipes and 4 heat sinks with vents for an increased heat dissipating performance.
ROG Zephyrus GX701
The Zephyrus GX701 has a lot to offer in performance as well as the display department. It comes with the new 17″ panel which is not only great for gaming with a 240Hz 3ms response time display, but it also gives content creators an accurately color calibrated display. The thin bezel design is offering 81% screen to body ratio. It is having a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX-2080 GPU (Max-Q) along with 16 GB DDR4 RAM which is expandable up to 32GB. With these features packed in sleek form factor, It is a treat to play games on this machine.
Like the Zephyrus S, it also comes with an Active Aerodynamic System (AAC) to cool down this machine while using. The keyboard is forward positioned like desktop style, As it lowers the temperature of the keyboard surface, it will help while gaming for hours.
ROG G703
The Asus ROG G703 is a little different than the other laptops in the line-up. At first glance, you will notice that this laptop has a beast looking design. Not only the design but this machine has over the top specs as well. It comes with 8th generation i9-9980HK overclockable CPU. Asus claims that they are able to stably overclock the CPU to 4.8GHz scale. As claimed by Asus, it the most powerful laptop for AAA titles. The GPU in this scene is the Nvidia RTX 2080 8GB DDR6. Like the CPU, the GPU is also overclocked to 1855MHz.
To support this top-notch specification, It provides a 17.3″ Anti-glare display. It is having a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time with FHD (1920 x 1080p) IPS LED display panel. The beast has 32GB DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM. In addition, 2.5-inch 2TB Firecuda SSHD as well as 3 slots of M.2PCIEX4 NVME 512 GB SSD (RAID0) slots. In conclusion, This giant has over the top specifications which will not be practical for most of the users but for those who crave for the best, you will love it for sure.
This range of high-end lineups also includes the ASUS STRIX SCAR III, ASUS ROG G531/731. Overall this lineup is going to be a no-go for the budget-friendly gamers out there. As the pricing of these products is not a viable choice for most of them. This range would be mostly upheld by the reviewers and the strong financialists in the market. All of these will be coming in the second half of July 2019.
ASUS has quite a long range of gaming laptops in the ROG series. Mostly the ROG laptops cost a bit higher but with the new TUF series laptops, they might fit into your budget. One such laptop is the ASUS TUF FX505 which is the sucessor to the FX504. So let us check out the laptop review and if it offers good performance at low price.
ASUS TUF FX505 gaming laptop review:
Design
ASUS laptops have some really tough builds and some great looks. With the TUF series in the market the design has changed a bit from the outside. The ASUS TUF FX505 has some grooves cut out at all four corners. The design is quite good considering its a gaming laptop. The chassis is made out of hard plastic and is of good quality. The keyboard base can be pressed if applied some pressure, but it doesn’t bother much while gaming. The screen has got some flex if you apply some real pressure to twist it. The laptop has brushed texture on the outside lid and inside of the laptop too. There are air vents on the right, back, and at the bottom of the laptop. The typing experience on the keyboard is just great. The WASD keys are transparent. The trackpad works in a decent manner too. The laptop weighs around 2.3 kg. As for the ports goes you have power jack, gigabit ethernet port, HDMI, USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.1, audio-microphone jack all placed on the left hand side. If you are a right-handed person then you can play games without getting issues from all the cables. On the left and right side are the speakers. Overall the build and design of FX505 laptop is good.
Display
The FX505 has a very thin bezel display on the sides. It sports a 15.6-inch Led Backlit FHD anti-glare display which comes in two refresh rates options of 60Hz & 144Hz. Getting a 144Hz display in some budget gaming laptop is a good sign. The viewing angles of the display are just great, and the color reproduction is quite good. You can adjust the brightness directly from the keyboard itself. Overall the display is pretty good for gaming, watching movies etc.
Performance
Coming to the core part of any gaming laptop – the FX505 comes in two processor variants – the i7-8750H clocked at 2.2 GHz and the i5-8300H clocked at 2.3 GHz. I got the i7 model for review. As for RAM, it comes with 8GB of DDR4 2666MHz one, and you have two slots for expansion that can go up to 32GB dual channel. For storage, you have 1 TB of SATA HDD(FireCuda) and a 256GB SATA 3.0 M.2 SSD. Decent specifications which are expandable in terms of memory. Overall this config did work great in normal use cases like heavy multi-tasking work and loading heavy software. The boot time with Windows 10 OS was short which is good. I liked the typing experience on this laptop very much due to the proper spacing and the key feedback. Talking about the graphics, one has two variant- the first one with 4 GB of NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti & the other with 6GB of NVIDIA GTX 1060. The graphics performance for gaming is kind of average I would say. Now the reason being, you can play most games smoothly at medium settings, some with good experience at ultra settings too. But there are times where FPS would really matter and you need to lower the graphics settings to achieve it. The laptop makes sound like any other gaming laptop while heavy gaming and in silent mode, you can still hear the fan a bit. The temperatures do rise while gaming, but its nothing too hot that you can’t handle. The laptop gets a bit warm from the center and prolonged use may cause some heat touching your right hand as the vent is on right-hand side too. The copper heat sink pipes are shared between the CPU & GPU. I would say, overall cooling system could have been improved. The overall gaming experience is pretty decent.
Sound & Connectivity
As you can see there are three USB ports – one 2.0 port and other two 3.1 ports. You have a port for HDMI and a highspeed ethernet port too. Normal Wifi & Bluetooth connections work in a decent manner while using gaming accessories. As for sound you have 2 speakers and the placement is something which gives decent audio output. I wouldn’t say it is loud, but decent for a normal gaming laptop.
Battery:
ASUS FX505 comes with a 3 cell 48Wh battery that will last for around 1 hr for gaming and 3.5-4 hrs for video playback when there are no background apps & keyboard backlit is off too. You can use NVIDIA settings to save battery for a longer duration. The laptop could have lasted more on battery. One common issues is drop in FPS while playing games over battery.
To sum it up, the FX505 has a great design, good display, decent gaming performance with an average battery. To get the best gaming performance for no framedrops, one might need to adjust the graphics settings accordingly. Let us know if you would go for this laptop or not in the comment section below. We would love to solve any queries or doubts regarding the review.
HyperX is a brand famous in the world of gaming for its accessories and gaming gears. They have quite a few gaming keyboards and mouse available in the market. We got our hands on HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse. We tried using the mouse in different scenarios apart from gaming too. So here is a quick review of HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse. The pros and cons of the mouse will help you decide if you should go for this mouse or not.
HyperX Pulsefire FPS Gaming Mouse Review:
We will divide the review into two major sections – the first being design, and the second will be the performance.
Design
HyperX Pulsefire FPS gaming mouse has a premium plastic body. On the left and right-hand side are rubber pads for a better grip while gaming. The rubber pads have some really great texture for good grip. The mouse is pretty large considering the width. Despite this fact, the Pulsefire FPS weighs only 95g and is a real light-weight deal which is good. It has a HyperX logo on the front-bottom with some LED glow. The mouse has a six-button design – left, right, scroll button, DPI button, & 2 side buttons. The DPI button and scroll wheel also have LED lights. The skates on the bottom are large for easy gliding of the mouse while gaming. The only issue which I felt was the improper curves on the mouse. When you try to lift the mouse, it slowly slides down. So if you are keeping the DPI lower and you need to lift the mouse again & again, then the overall grip would change and you will need to re-position. This might not happen very frequently but it might affect when the time-frame is really short. To avoid this, you might need to have a tighter grip on the mouse while things get intense. The cable of the mouse is braided with black as the base color and some red spiral design.
Performance and other features
As the name suggests Pulsefire FPS, this mouse was meant to be really precise while gaming. In the first person shooting games, you need high-precision and accuracy to aim and fire. All the precision magic happens inside the Pixart 3310 optical sensor. It works great and with medium to lower DPI, you can really move pixel by pixel with no added acceleration. There are 4 preset DPI values set at 400(white), 800(red), 1600(blue) & 3200(yellow) which can be set by pressing the DPI button indicated by the LED light. 3200 DPI is quite nice and sufficient for gaming and other needs as above that, the pointer is not really in your control. One drawback is that there is no dedicated software to configure the functions of this gaming mouse. One needs to set the functions of buttons and change other settings in the gaming menu itself. The other highlight of the mouse is the Omron switches which will really last long. They have some amazing crisp tactile feedback. Overall gaming performance for this mouse was great. I tried playing many FPS games with this and the experience was good.
To sum it up, HyperX Pulsefire FPS is a great mouse for precision and the buttons are great too. The only minor thing which could have made it better is a software support for configuration. Though you always have the DPI button to change the settings quickly. Here are some alternatives to compare – Razor DeathAdder or Puslefire core or cheaper alternative Logitech G402. Do let me know if you have any doubts in the comment section below.
Gaming as an industry has evolved in every aspect in this digital world. The overall concept and the graphics quality keeps on upgrading correlating more to real life. Online games have come a long way with the launch of very famous PUBG and other gaming genres like fantasy cricket. These online games have a social factor to it which can benefit you in many ways. Gaming is considered more of a skill-based activity wherein you need utmost concentration and dedication to progress to a different level. So let us see what are the benefits related to playing online games.
Key benefits of playing online games:
We will discuss various gaming genres that actually involves real-life involvement too which makes the overall concept of fantasy cricket more interesting. If you remember, Pokemon Go wherein you have to roam in real word to find different pokemon. One such trending gaming concept going on is fantasy cricket which you can play here. The basic funda of fantasy cricket involves creating a virtual team but of real-life players and then scoring points on how they perform in real life matches. These things benefit you in some or the other way. So let us dig into the benefits one-by-one.
Skill development:
Games which involves complex map layout requires you to remember the whole thing without which you will be lost in the game. Understanding the navigation based on the directions helps you to learn a lot of real life things too. Strategy games require you to plan the whole thing out before even attempting the action. The best thing about games is you can fail and restart but after a few tries your skills keep on improving. As explained above, fantasy gaming also involves watching and analyzing the player playing patterns and then creating a team which will perform as planned. This requires some analyzing and observational skills which can be improved by playing such types of games. Online gaming adds difficulty factor as you are playing against a person.
Concentration:
Almost all gaming genres require you to concentrate while playing. You might often see gamers too emerged in the game as they need to concentrate to make progress. The level of concentration required might keep on increasing as the level and complexity of games increases. Racing games have a really tight time frame, so even 1-2 seconds of deflection might lose you the game. Also when we consider online gaming, the other person might win because he has better concentration on the game so to win you will eventually have to increase your level of concentration.
Interaction:
Online games have a social factor as you will interact with a lot of gamers all around the globe. Good gamers generally become friends quickly as they have a common topic to share. You might create a team and eventually become friends no matter the distance. Some online gamers have meetups where they share a lot about their gaming careers and experiences. Also, people at work discuss the game levels they played together last night.
Stress release:
Gaming releases a lot of stress if you really enjoy the game you are playing. Since there are many genres of offline and online games to choose from. One can easily identify theirs and just find the joy of playing. Plus online gaming lets you interact with real people which helps to release a lot of stress. As you concentrate on playing games, eventually you forget the thing which was causing all the stress.
It is a very well established fact that online games can really help you benefit in real life. One thing to be very careful about is the addiction that you might get after playing too many games. But if you keep things in the limit, then you can really benefit from online gaming. Plus playing fantasy cricket or any other real-life gaming genre really helps you to connect and improve skills in the real world too.
ASUS has made a lot of gaming laptops till now, but the one we are reviewing today can be one of the best in terms of design. ROG series laptops are specially built for gamers keeping all the parameters in mind. Today we have ASUS ROG STRIX II GL504 gaming laptop for review. As I said, it was built considering the design aspect in mind. So let us take it for a spin and find out if its really a worthy gaming laptop or not.
ASUS ROG Strix II GL504 review
Design: 9/10
We will start with the key point of the laptop which is design. ASUS ROG STRIX II has a very compact build considering its a gaming laptop. The chassis is all made out of plastic – good quality one. This helps keep the weight of the laptop in check. There is some camel print design on the laptop which doesn’t look that impressive as compared to other designs available in ROG laptop. Some might like it, but I didn’t. The hinges are really good such that it stays at once place in any position. One can lift the screen with one hand, so the laptop has good weight on the bottom side too. On the top of the plastic lid, it has brushed metal-like finish with the glowing ROG logo. It looks pretty cool to see the ROG logo shining in the dark with all the breathing RGB led. One of the most attractive thing on the laptop is the RGB LED strip on the front edge. The keyboard is all RGB too, with see-through WASD keys. Overall the build quality and design of the laptop is great and you will have no complaints in terms of design.
Connectivity: 9/10
Most of the ports are on the left side of the laptop, giving you enough room to keep the mouse without any tangled wire issues. On the left, you have the power jack, RJ45-LAN port, mini-display port, HDMI, 2 USB 3.1, USB 3.1 type-C, and the 3.5mm audio jack. On the right-hand side is the USB 3.1, SD card reader, & Kensington lock.
Display: 9/10
When you first lift the lid, you will notice that the display has little bezels on left-right & top. On the bottom, it has a thick strip where you can again find the shiny ROG logo. To adjust the height of the bottom, they had to keep the thick bezel. The display on ASUS ROG Strix II has a 144 Hz refresh rate with 3 ms response time. It is very fast in terms of response time as you don’t want any lag in terms of gaming. Its a great full HD display on the ROG Strix II which is best suited for hardcore gamers where every frame matters.
Performance
The model of ASUS ROG Strix II that I received came with Intel i7-8750H latest processor. It had 16GB of RAM clocked at 2666 MHz. As for the storage, it had 256GB of SSD and 1 TB of SSHD. The SSD is enough to have the operating system and some games for quick loading, rest can easily go in the SSHD. The specs for processor, memory, & storage are well suited for any heavy editing or multitasking work. Coming to the key parameter which is the GPU, ROG Strix II comes with 6 GB of NVIDIA GTX 1060 GDDR5. You can play almost all the games on high settings to get decent FPS. Dual fans inside the laptop keeps the laptop all cooled down while gaming, though they may make some noise while running. The wents are on the back end, front-top and on the right side. I had no issues as I was all plugged in while playing games. So I guess fan noise doesn’t matter much while gaming, does it?
As for the in-game testing, we tested the laptop with Rise of Tomb Raider. Here are the scores that we got with the in-game benchmarking tool.
Also for heavy graphics intensive games like Witcher III we got around 60-70 FPS on an average. I disconnected the power source from the laptop and ran it on battery power to find out that FPS dropped and after a point, I could feel the lag. So keep in mind that, to get optimum performance you will have to always keep the laptop plugged in. Overall in terms of gaming, I had no complaints and the gameplay experience was great.
Sound
ASUS ROG Strix II have 2 speakers of 1W each. The speakers are not that impressive in terms of audio quality. The sharpness in the sound especially for the high notes was missing. Different audio types in a game were not played to perfection. This is one segment where the ROG Strix II could have improved.
Battery
As for normal surfing and working, the battery will last for around 3.5 hrs. This is kind of below average battery life for a normal battery. Something over 4 hrs could have been a great thing for this kind of laptop. Gaming over battery creates an issue with the gameplay as it lags and frame drops appear. So I won’t suggest playing many heavy games on battery power.
Overall the ASUS ROG Strix II laptop is good in terms of design, display, performance and somewhat in cooling too. But it still can improve in battery and sound. As for the price goes, the laptop is priced at 1.42 lakhs on Amazon. You have all the parameters laid out in front of you, so you can decide which one to weigh more and accordingly conclude. If you leave the sound & battery thing, then you can go for this stylish powerful laptop.
HyperX is a company famous for making some really great gaming gears and accessories. Their products normally are a sign of good quality. We got to play with the HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard. Which is one of the premium keyboards, with great features. As normally the prices for the gaming keyboards are higher than normal ones, we are finding out, is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying or not. I will try to keep the review simple, short and precise. It is based on my 2-3 weeks of usage over gaming and typing.
Is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying?
Design
To start with, HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard is a mechanical one. You can remove each key-cap individually with the key-cap removal tool. The keyboard is made up of all plastic except the top bar which is metal – steel and gives the keyboard some weight. The design of the keyboard looks premium with all the RGB lighting. The keys have a kind of sharp edge to give better control. You have the linear-shaped backspace and enter key. One gets a wrist rest along with the keyboard, which is really hard to miss if you don’t check the box properly. The first week I ended up playing games without wrist rest. The wrist rest has a nice texture which gives a good grip. Again in terms of the plastic and rubber used, it is quite good. The keyboard has some special keys on top left and right. On the left, you have keys for brightness level, game mode, & lighting effects. On the right are the media playback keys along with a wheel for volume control. The wheel has linear groovings to give it a grip while rotating it. The wrist rest can be snapped easily to the keyboard. Apart from RGB lights on the keys, the keyboard has a light bar above the normal keys and below the special keys. It also has a USB 2.0 port to connect the mouse or other media devices. The cable for the keyboard is long, thick braided and has 2 USB jacks to power and support data. Overall the keyboard has a very premium finish in terms of looks considering the price and the fact that it’s meant for gaming. So is HyperX Alloy Elite gaming keyboard worth buying in terms of looks? Well, I think so yes, keeping in mind the design and build of the keyboard.
Features
Normally people would think that what kind of features a keyboard can have as it is itself an accessory. Well, HyperX has gone deep into researching the gaming experience to make some of the best gears and accessories for the same. To start with, they have directly integrated the famous Cherry MX keys into the HyperX alloy elite mechanical gaming keyboard. So HyperX hasn’t gone into inventing their own tech for the keys, instead introduced an already great tech for gaming in their keyboards. We all know how Cherry MX mechanical keys do justice be it gaming or typing. So I got the Red Cherry MX keys for the HyperX alloy Elite keyboard. The red gives you the least resistance while pressing the key. As it is mechanical Cherry MX keys, the height of the keys is good, so is the travel. As there is the least resistance, one can easily press the keys without making much of a sound. The precision is good as the response from the key press is pretty fast, as it captures it before the keys hit the bottom. I tried playing some action games, some racing ones, and some fighting games too. Overall the experience to play games using this keyboards was really great. Though if you consider typing, then you might need some time to adjust to this keyboard. Also, there is no tactile feedback, so one can go for brown one to balance gaming and typing. The blue ones have the max tactile feedback which is specially meant for typing work with some real key-press noise.
The keyboard has some really great color patterns which make the whole keyboard alive. It feels like the keyboard is reacting to your keypress and breathing. Using the software you can make your own modes and feed it to the keyboard memory, so it doesn’t get reset when turned off. I just love the brightness and modes of RGB color on this keyboard. As for the keypress precision, the keys have anti-ghosting feature and N-key rollover functionality. This means that each keypress gets registered individually irrespective of the others. You also get 8 extra keys – W,A,S,D,1,2,3,4 with some solid metal mesh-like pattern. This helps gamers to quickly get hands on those keys with the touch of the finger.
The HyperX company is famous to make products which are durable, have some great quality and features. To answer the question is HyperX alloy elite gaming keyboard worth buying? So if you are looking for some really great gaming keyboard, then HyperX alloy elite RGB can really be a great choice if you compare it with near competitors. The precision is great, the design is good, and the quality too. There is no argument when Cherry MX is in picture. It’s more of like connecting with the gaming experience through the keyboard as a medium. Do let me know your views on this review.
AMD vs Intel fight is back on with AMD launching the new series of processors that gives high performance without radiating much heat. The new Ryzen series processors have a really great performance at a much cheaper price. So today we will be telling you about the best AMD Gaming editing PC build under Rs. 50000 for Q1 2019. This build is best if your budget is under Rs.50000 and since we are going all AMD you will get great performance in your budget. The prices may vary a bit depending on the dealer at your location. This build is best for both gaming and people who want to do hardcore editings like videos and stuff.
Our strategy would be to invest more in the core like processor, graphics and less in other things. We will start with the processor as it is one of the core things in a build.
Best AMD Gaming Editing PC build under Rs. 50000
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G processor
Ryzen 5 2400G
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G is an APU which means it has both CPU and GPU inside. First talking about the CPU aspect, AMD Ryzen 5 has a base clock speed of 3.6 GHz which can give a max boost of 3.9 GHz. Being AMD, it is unlocked and ready for overclocking out of the box. The base clock speed is much higher if you compare it with Intel i5 processors. It has 4 cores and 8 threads. These 4 cores can easily satisfy all the gaming needs. Due to the higher number of threads, its multi-core performance beats Intel’s equivalent processors which makes it a great processor for editing too. These extra threads will assist gamers who want to stream online. The max temperature goes up to 95 Deg Celcius and its TDP is 65W. Talking about the integrated graphics, it has one of the best ones which is the Radeon RX Vega 11 having 11 cores running at 1250 MHz. RX Vega 11 can run some games without having the need to purchases dedicated graphics which again takes it one notch higher than Intel processors. If you want you can go with Ryzen 5 2600 having 6 cores and 12 threads for a bit of higher price. Please note that you won’t require any liquid cooling with the Ryzen processors though if you want then you can always fit one.
ASUS gaming motherboards are pretty famous among gamers for high durability and good features. It has all the features what a budget gaming PC would need. It supports the AMD AM4 socket with DDR4 support. What I like about it is the anti-moisture coating and various protection measures for USB & other components. All the ports and slots are mentioned in the image below. The motherboard also has a dedicated Water pump header in case you are thinking to have a water cooled machine.
As we going all AMD today, this is one of the best deal you will get in terms of AMD graphics. The AMD Radeon RX580 is an amazing graphics card for the budget gaming editing build. The base frequency is 1257 MHz and it boosts up to 1340 MHz. In terms of ports, it has DVI-D, 2 x HDMI, 2 display ports. It can go head-on with NVIDIA GTX 1060 and close to 1070 in terms of performance. The power consumption of AMD RX580 is more, but the pricing is less if compared to NVIDIA graphics. Overall RX580 can work at decent FPS with medium settings even for high graphics demanding games. Here are the gaming benchmarks with FPS and other figures for RX 580 graphics card.
We will save some bucks and skip the fancy cabinets. ANTEC NX100 Mid tower is still a decent cabinet with transparent side panel. It weighs around 10 kg and has dimensions of 430 mm x 190 mm x 462 mm. On the front it has 1 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, power, reset, & audio/mic access. It supports ATX, Micro-ATX, & Mini-ATX motherboards. Overall it will do the job of holding our rig together.
Corsair is famous for manufacturing good power supply for the rigs. Corsair VS550 is a 550W power supply that weighs 3 kg and has 5 years warranty. Warranty is something to look for in the case of the power supply.
Not being much fancy here, we have 1 TB Western Digital internal HDD for storage. If you want to go SSD then you can always have a 128GB for the operating system. The storage factory highly depends on your needs, though the HDD would suffice in a budget gaming build, but for added speed SSD is the way to go by spending some extra. As for the RAM, we chose the basic ADATA 8GB DDR4 RAM. Again for the RAM, you can have two sticks of 8GB each in dual channel configuration for faster access. To stick to the budget we suggested only 1 8GB RAM which is enough for gaming, but you can always upgrade depending on your usage.
So this was the best AMD Gaming Editing PC build under Rs. 50000 for 2019 start with some amazing performance. It can run almost all the modern games at medium settings with good frame rates. Also the due to better multi-core performance its good for hardcode editing too. So you don’t need to shell out much to experience good gaming with AMD configuration. It would have been difficult to achieve the same performance at the same price point with Intel taking charge. Though AMD has its own cons like high power consumption, though it wins the race by keeping the price low. So break the myth and go AMD if you want to do gaming on a budget. Do let us know if you liked our build and are going for it through the comments section below. You can always suggest us some alternatives and we will include them in our future builds.
ASUS is one of the leading companies when it comes to gaming machines. They have some of the best hardware packed inside them. Though the price might be higher if you compare it with an assembled gaming PC, but they provide the same thing in a portable laptop. One such device ASUS TUF gaming series FX504 laptop was reviewed by us. We played various games, did some work, and even carried it to work. This is an ASUS TUF FX504 full review after using it for 2 weeks.
ASUS TUF FX504 full review:
Design – 9.5/10
As the series name suggest TUF, it really has a good build. The laptop casing is built from plastic with some grey grid design. On the lid, it has some protruding corners that converge at the center ASUS logo. The laptop overall has a matte finish with some cleanly cut grills. Surprising a gaming laptop weighs the same as a normal laptop that’s 2.3 kg. So you can carry this with you and make the gaming portable. ASUS TUF FX504 comes with a red led backlit keyboard. Clearly, red is the way to go for gamers! What I like is, ASUS has though much about the keyboard and the ports while making the laptop. All the ports like USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.1, HDMI, audio jack, RJ45, and power jack are placed on the left. When you first see it, you will feel odd seeing this type of port placement. But it does makes sense to avoid all the wire clutters on the right side which is the play area for the mouse. Talking about the keyboard, the keys are well spaced and arranged like a desktop keyboard. I have enjoyed typing on the keyboard of FX504 with sheer satisfaction. What amazes me is the key actuation point which is kept at midway, so one doesn’t need to always press the key to the bottom while typing. Also for those who want to enjoy the key travel, you still can press it till the bottom overstroke point. This generally happens while you are too much engrossed while playing games and end up killing your enemies by showing force on the keys. The spacebar has greater width on the left side to perfectly accommodate the thumb in WASD gaming mode. There is a dedicated numpad which is used for work and sometimes while gaming. Also the trackpad has the Windows 10 precision drivers for gestures to work properly and it does the job well. I love it when the gaming companies make the products by keeping every small gaming detail in mind.
Display – 9/10
ASUS FX504 comes with the LED backlit full HD 120 Hz display that means it is capable of displaying 120 frames per second. Normal displays have a 60 Hz refresh rate. Now while playing movies it might not make much difference, but for a gamer higher FPS means much better and smooth gameplay. Games can have a higher refresh rate then normal videos. So only if your FPS goes above 60, you would be able to enjoy this advance display. It also has anti-glare feature which avoids external light and provides a crystal clear view. The viewing angles on this laptop are good, thought the vertical viewing could have been improved. In low brightness you will have to adjust the display if you are playing a game that has lot of dark scenes. It has a 130% sRGB color gamut which gives better contrast to the display. You can also switch between normal, vivid, and eye care mode for the display.
Performance – 8.5/10
ASUS TUF FX504 has two variants one with i7-8750H and other with i5-8300H. The one which I received had an i7-8750H hexa core CPU with Intel HM370 Express Chipset. It has 8GB of DDR4 2666MHz RAM which can be expanded using extra SO-DIMM socket upt to 32GB. As for storage, the laptop has a 1TB 5400 RPM FireCuda SSHD which is a bit different from HDD. It has a flash memory which stores frequently accessed files without accessing the HDD resulting in better performance, less power consumption, and quieter hardware. SSHD is a very good alternative to the traditional HDD. Also the ASUS TUF FX504 packs 128 GB of SSD, so the operating system works in the best way it can. The boot time is very less on this gaming laptop. Overall the performance is good on the ASUS TUF FX504. We will talk about the cooling separately. Here are some of the results from the bench marking software.
Coming to the graphics, ASUS TUF FX504 comes with three variants 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, 4GB GTX 1050TI, or 6GB GDDR3 GTX 1060. The one that I got was the 4GB GTX 1050TI. It worked quite well and I was able to play games like Crysis 3, call of duty world war II, NFS Payback etc. The gameplay was smooth and the smart placement of fan did manage to keep the keyboard cool. Overall the 1050TI packed in a laptop did perform well for the figures.
Cooling – 8/10
ASUS has this patented Anti-Dust cooling(ADC) system which prevents dust particles to get accumulated in the vents. This keeps the cooling efficient and increases the lifespan of the system. Here you have a manual control over the fan to keep it silent, balanced or just switch it to overboost mode while gaming. It has two fans one situated directly below the WASD keys to keep the system cool while gaming. With intense graphics game and overboost mode, the fan makes 50-55 dB of noise which is quite audible. The temperature can go high even with the cooling system when the graphics is put to test under a lot of stress. It might be as there are only two copper pipes out of which one is common for CPU and the GPU. Overall in most of the scenarios the cooling system on this laptop does help in keeping the gameplay smooth.
Sound and Connectivity – 9/10
ASUS TUF FX504 has two speakers very well placed on the left and right edge of the laptop. As the speaker placement is on the sides, they are not obstructed by the surface below or your hands. It has the DTS Headphone:X tech that supports 7.1 surround sound experience. I would say, that the audio through speaker on this laptop is surely amazing. I had to turn down the volume while shooting some guns as it was feeling quite realistic with all that rounds firing.
As mentioned before, the ports on this laptop are kept only on the left hand side to keep the play area for mouse clutter free. It has 1 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0, 1 HDMI, 1 audio-microphone combined jack, 1 RJ45 port, and lastly the power jack. Using these ports the laptop can cater the gaming needs. As for the connectivity ASUS FX504 has 802.11AC WAVE 2 which is about 12 times faster than the conventional 802.11 b/g/n.
Battery – 8.5/10
The battery of ASUS FX504 can last for approx 4-5 hrs while normal work/movie or 2-2.5 hrs for gaming. It has a 3 cell 48 Wh battery with a charger giving output of 19V 6.3A.
Pricing
ASUS FX504 is available on Amazon, Flipkart i5 GTX 1050, i5 GTX 1050 Ti, and i7 GTX 1050 Ti. The price for them starts at around 60,000 INR and goes up to 78,000 INR for the highest variant.
Verdict
At this price, ASUS FX504 has some balanced feature and if one wishes to buy a gaming laptop can go for this model. The build is tough, performance is good until you don’t mind the fan sound, highly portable, display is good for gaming, impressive keyboard with some great sound. Do let me know your views about ASUS TUF FX504 gaming laptop and if you have any doubts, do mention them in the comment section below.
