BX-Tech

Hey Everyone, There is no reason not to enter for a free chance at a Ryzen 1800X and Vega 64 complete system give away! Good luck to you all Please use this link below to enter. https://www.gamingtribe.com/ giveaway/defiance/fb_ 10214991222320649

Hey Everyone, As we all know we are currently in the great graphics card shortage 2017 due to crypto currency mining. So I decided to take this opportunity to learn more about mining devices, currencies, etc. I have also been doing a bit of bitcoin mining myself with my server and gaming PC. Mind you these are single GPU machines with low powered cards so making ~$1 a day is the best I can hope for at the moment. But the point of this article is not hardware mining but getting paid satoshi for watch quick 5 second ads a couple times a day on your smart phone. But what is satoshi you ask? "The  satoshi  is currently the smallest unit of the bitcoin currency recorded on the block chain. It is a one hundred millionth of a single bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). The unit has been named in collective homage to the original creator of Bitcoin,  Satoshi Nakamoto. -Bitcoin.it" So you are not going to get rich doing this by any means but if you are trying to accumulate some bit c...

Hey Everyone! So I know this cooler has been out for awhile and there is even an updated version. But I was looking for a bargain and wanted to see if this cooler lived up to the hype of the last few years. So first off the system this was installed into. Case: Fractal Design Mini C with window side panel PSU: EVGA 450 B Bronze rated CPU: i5-4670k overclocked to 4.0ghz GPU: RX 460 Sapphire Nitro 4GB 16GB of RAM with heat spreaders (2x team vulcan, 2x G.Skill) Motherboard: MSI-B85-E45 Case fans: 1 intake, 1 exhaust, I have to give it to Cooler Master they make sure you know what you are getting before you even open the box. The picture is accurate for assembly and color of what you can expect. It came with thermal paste and all the necessary hardware to attach it to a variety of sockets. I did not see anything for AM4 support included but I am sure you can ask customer service and they can provide another bracket.               ...

Good Morning Everyone, So first off sorry for the long intervals in between updates lately I have been going back and forth between this blog and my youtube channel and having tons of trouble with adsense. So without further delay what happened with the No name no brand cooler.  Well my initial look at the cooler was it works decently well no better than a stock cooler though despite the tower design. Its nice that it is only 90mm tall so it fit into my Corsair Air 240 which houses my Plex media server and HTPC. My main complaint is it feels cheap and its kind of fragile.  Well here is the where "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR"  Comes into the game. It was working ok for a few weeks and it would probably still be ok if I hadn't messed with it. But let me go into further detail for people just reading this post in case you haven't read my upcoming projects post from back in March.  We all know eBay and the chance to get a sweet deal, and to be honest...

Hey Everyone, Sorry for the late post on this, but for those of you who are fans of the series. April 21 to April 24 is the Dawn of War III open beta on Steam. I jumped in on Saturday morning to to see what Relic had in store for us this time. The opening cinematic was great and gave a pretty accurate picture of how quickly 3 vs 3 matches can get. Ultimately the mechanics are still the same. Its real time strategy game following the same factions from the previous game Orcs, Eldar, and Space Marines. The graphics settings are pretty in depth so you can get it working on lesser hardware. The match making was a little slow but this is to be expected in a beta and I really hope they add a human vs AI mode for practice in the full game.

Hey Everyone, So I have been seeing tons of people talking about and using mechanical keyboards and it seems like they are only getting more and more popular. But since I always like to test things out for myself without spending a ton of money I decided to pick one up for myself. I found a Blue Finger (Never heard of this brand by the way) 87 key mechanical keyboard with Blue switch equivalents for $34.99 on Amazon. I will put a link at the end of the post. First impressions: So it comes in a black box with a bunch of Chinese writing on it with an outline of a keyboard. Upon opening the box you will find a large mouse pad with the Blue Finger logo on it. The material doesn't feel too bad and it is always nice to get something for free. Going further into the box you will find the keyboard itself and a wrist rest. Being an 87 key it does not have a num pad therefore it has a very small foot print on your desk which is great if you have very limited desk space like I do. ...

Hey Everyone, My favorite part of working on this blog and my Youtube channel is the fact that I have an outlet to discuss PC parts, build choices, etc and to give people advice if they need it. I really hope this channel takes off soon and we get a community of readers and active participants who want to learn and help me learn at the same time. Thats really been my experience in the PC Gaming/PC Building community so far and I really hope that continues. The Home server Plan: As you guys know from Previous posts I am a huge fan of PLEX media server. So far I have a really basic server but it works perfectly fine for my needs and I plan to continue to evolve and upgrade this as needed. I use this PC primarily for streaming and storing my media files as thats the point of a server and my wife likes to play older games on it like Fallout New Vegas. I currently have all my content creation and video recordings on my main PC. Part of the life of a server is being on 24/7 so I have to...

Looks like someone leaked the Ryzen 5 release date. I have been excited and waiting for Ryzen for a long  time but the 5 series has been what I am the most excited about. 4 cores and 8 threads for under $200! Time will tell but I am really considering a Ryzen 5 build sometime in the later half of the year.

Hey Everyone, So since I created my blog and Youtube channel I have played with many different video editing software and I finally found one I like. As a requirement since I don't make any money from Youtube and this blog I decided to limit my testing to only Free software. After blowing though Windows Movie Maker, Filmora, and Hitfilm Express. I tried Davinci Resolve 12.5. This software has amazing color correction, video editing tools, Audio editing, multi track caching for all kinds of media. I watched a few quick tutorials and I was able to add my title page, images, several audio files and render the whole thing in 1080p @ 30fps in h.264 for Youtube. If you are new to video editing I really recommend giving this software a try. IF you have any questions about it please let me know I would be happy to help if I can. In the mean time please enjoy some GTA V Online Gameplay. **Rendering on an i3 is a slow process, this video took 18 minutes to render** https://www.bl...

Hey Everyone, **I just want to notate that I am not a reviewer or on any companies radar and did not receive any Ryzen products to actually test myself.** My opinions are based on my own knowledge and research from around the internet. So to start off, I hate how this launch is being received, it is absolute garbage. Everyone is coming off saying the Ryzen chips can't compete with a 7700k, they don't have the same IPC as the 7700k. They aren't getting astounding frame rates...... OK so some knowledge. Ryzen 7 CPUS should be treated as workstation and professional use CPUS. These are equivalents to Intel's X99 platform of professional and workstation CPUS. Big fact they don't play games any better than Ryzen 7 and they are double the price. If you go and get a Ryzen 7 1800x and a 7700k and ask them to lets say: Render large videos in 4k  Compress complex multi audio files  Video and Photo editing  3D Modeling  File compression  Running Virtual Ma...

Hey Everyone, Been awhile since I've posted anything. But today I wanted to go over the leaked Ryzen Processor price list that has been floating around the internet. Officially the only confirmed prices are the Ryzen 7 CPU's since they are officially available tomorrow! Based on the initial benchmarks I am very excited to see how the rest of AMD's line up performs. The 1800x is on par with the intel 6800k a $1000.00 CPU. I am hoping real world performance is also comparable in all categories which may cause the first Intel price drop that I can remember. I think it also might bring some competition back into the CPU market. For a long time going on 5 years now Intel has been ahead in IPC and single core performance which equals out to superior gaming and rendering performance. But with these new Ryzen chips competing with and beating some current gen Intel hardware it may be time for Intel to get serious again. Because of the lack of competition the increase in perfo...

Hey Everyone, I wanted to talk about my home server update. I have my main computer highlighted in my build earlier in the blog that I use for content creation, gaming, etc. But I also have a home server that I use primarily for file storage and my plex home media server. And I decided it was time for an upgrade. Since my demands on the server aren't extreme I have been getting by with an E2180 dual core 2.00 ghz processor and the stock heatsink. Recently I have added a bunch of 1080p movies and I got a new 4k TV so I am going to be adding some 4k  movies to my library, it was time to get something that can transcode better. Since this is a side PC I didn't want to replace everything so I kept the old LGA 775 motherboard and the reused the Acer Aspire media case it is in. Since we are talking old school 775 socket I went to ebay to shop for my upgrades and I was really surprised at the availability of components. The new CPU cooler is a no brand which you know buy at ...

Hey Everyone, I recorded some footage of the open beta playing the Kensei on the samurai team. I played a ton more matches but this was one of the first. I have to say the game is fun but the initial learning curve is a little steep. There were thing I liked and disliked about using the mouse so I ended up playing with an xbox 360 controller most of the time. The combat was fun to jump into and for the most part only had 1 or 2 toxic people I ended up playing with the whole day. But with online video games thats pretty much unavoidable with a game that drew in this much hype. The fighting was fluid and it really kept you on edge. Plus you really had to adapt and figure out where your weapon and fighting style gave you an advantage and where it hurt you. For example the Norobushi (I am positive I spelled that wrong) has a long spear and fast attacks. At the same time she has very low health and armor. If you let people get too close to you they will easily overpower your wide s...

Hey Everyone, For those of you who have been following the hype the For Honor Open Beta started today and anyone can download and try out the game all weekend before the release of the full game on Tuesday the 14th. I personally can't wait to try it out the concept is unique and what really caught my eye is the combat system of tri directional block and counter. Hopefully this will be fun to play with and wont feel like a giant game of rock, paper, scissors every time you duel an enemy but time will tell. I will try and record some game play later tonight with more thoughts. In the mean time enjoy this trailer. Thanks for reading!

Hey Everyone, A post that will lead into a server build. Below I am going to post a video of me playing Titanfall 2 (once again amazing game) while stuttering like crazy. I have played plenty of matches and had no trouble at all with my new RX 460 4GB. It wasn't until I looked  to see my Plex server was streaming in the background, while I was gaming and recording. To make a long story short its amazing how streaming will tank CPU performance but completely understandable. So I finally decided to build my dedicated Plex server from some LGA 775 parts from Ebay and an old Acer mid tower I had in my tech/cat closet. I will be posting more gameplay in the future as well as a build guide an intro to Plex Media Server. I have been running a server for quite some time and if anyone is curious or has questions please feel free to ask me I would be happy to help. Thanks for reading!

Hey Everyone! So yesterday I finally made the leap from a GTX 750 Ti to a Sapphire RX 460 4GB OC model. This card was a steal at $119.00 with a $10 mail in rebate for a 4GB graphics card. Plus AMD is really trying and pushing more and more optimized drivers for these cards all the time and they've already had a 5% performance increase since release with the new ReLive drivers. So I decided to give team Red a try. I just bought Titanfall 2 as well which is very fun and I absolutely recommend it for people who like FPS (First Person Shooters). I will be testing Direct X12 optimization and Vulkan API's when possible so please stay tuned for upcoming videos and an unboxing. Please follow to stay up to date on my latest posts. Thanks for reading

Hey Everyone, Sorry for putting the cart before the horse..or in this case the benchmarks before the build. But I have been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to sit down and work on my build guide but here it is. Motherboard: For this I went with the MSI B85M-E45. This is fit all my needs for less than $60. It comes with plenty of SATA connectors for hard drive, has extra USB 2.0 headers for AIO coolers, USB 3.0 connector if your case has front USB 3.0 ports, and a PCIe x16 3.0 lane for modern GPU's, and 4 DIMM slots for DDR3-1600 RAM up to 32GB. If SLI or Crossfire is something you are interested in this board will not support either option. CPU: My CPU of choice for my budget upgrade was an i3-4150 Haswell Dual core with hyper-threading. People tend to bash i3's for their gaming potential and no one is going to argue that 2 cores and 2 logical compare to 4 real cores. BUT that doesn't mean you cannot get good gaming performance from them and I inten...

Hey Everyone, Another post and another video. So a nice thing about EA's Origin service is they let you play a trial of certain games to see if you are interested in purchasing or not. So recently I took a 48 hour trial of Titanfall because I'm thinking of buying Titanfall 2 somewhere in the next few weeks. This was my first attempt at using Shadow Play to record gameplay and I have to say its not bad with recent updates. BUT for whatever reason it will not carry over the FPS counter in the corner which for me was very counter productive but for the average user I don't think thats an issue at all. Sorry if the length of the video is a little past the 10 minute mark, but what I am really trying to accomplish with my Youtube channel and blog is to give real world results. You see some benchmarking videos and there are nothing but graphs. That's great and all but sometimes I am ok with 40 FPS as long as I can play smoothly with no stutter. Also some of us just pl...

Hey Everyone, A post on my new set up will be coming soon. But I was really excited to start playing some games on it, so i recorded a quick video of me playing GTA V with my new hardware. This video really gave me the results I was hoping to see. Too commonly people tell you, i5 minimum for gaming, i3's wont hold up. but that's just not true. If you are willing to play some games on medium or high an i3 is plenty in a lot of circumstances. I was able to average 60 FPS in GTA V on high with an i3-4150 and a GTX 750 Ti. My settings are in the beginning of the video. If you like the video please subscribe to my youtube channel and if you like my posts please follow my blog and spread the word it would be much appreciated.

Hey Everyone, Short post today, full reviews with photos to follow soon. I have been running an i5-2400 on the old LGA 1155 socket and do not get me wrong this is still a good processor to this day. BUT I really wanted to get a motherboard that can support 4 DIMMS, USB 3.0 support, allowing my RAM to run above 1333 mhz, and access to slightly more modern processors with better single core performance. So I lucked out on craigslist and found an i3-4150 and Newegg.com was having a sale on an MSI B85 motherboard so I went for it. I have put it together and honestly you wouldn't expect much improvement coming from an i5 to an i3 even with newer architecture. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. My example: CS:GO -Not very graphic intensive -But very CPU intensive with my i5-2400 I would get frame rates between 83 and 112 FPS while playing online. with my new i3-4150 I received frame rates between 90 and 140 FPS while playing online. Maybe there is some merit to PCI ...

Hey Everyone, I know you've all seen ads all over the internet CSGO free, assassins creed, etc. Well 99% of the time as you know those aren't true but I wanted to go over a few website that can actually save you money and I have verified these work with my own money. The first one I want to go over is Instant Gaming. If you watch a lot of bench marking videos you will see affiliate links. Here is mine below: https://www.instant-gaming.com/igr/BXReap3r/ So what this does is every time you generously buy something for yourself after clicking on my link it gives me 3% in my account that I can apply towards games for this blog. (and greatly appreciated)  But aside from that you can honestly find games between 30-60% off all the time. At the time of writing this you can see Titanfall 2 (which I am hoping to pick up soon for myself) is over 60% off!  And the codes actually work, which is my point in talking about this. I bought a copy of the Sims 3 Hidden Springs...

Hey Everyone! So since I am very new to this and don't have any sponsorship's I have attached a video from someone who does. A long time Tech tuber Linus Tech Tips. I take no credit for this video or its content I am just posting it here in case you aren't subscribed. And if you aren't I really would consider it he has some good reviews. Hopefully we start hearing about pricing and a release date soon. For myself and hopefully to make this blog interesting I am going to invest in either a Ryzen or a Kabylake build. If you have a preference on what you'd like to see please leave a comment 

Hey Everyone, So just like many of you out there, not just AMD fans. We are all waiting to see if AMD is finally going to make the CPU market competitive again. Many of us saw the impressive benchmarks during the New Horizon event in mid December against the $1000 Intel CPU. But like many of you what I really wanted to see was some gaming benchmarks, specifically against both the i7-6700k and the i5-6600k. I watch a lot of tech tube reviews as I mentioned in my intro post since I am not sponsored I don't get the opportunity to review engineering samples and the latest and greatest. (Which hopefully that will change one day) But when I see here's Cinebench and geekbench and fire strike that's great and all you got a 5075. Now I am not saying there is no point to these and it can really highlight performance aspects in regards to each particular test and how the CPU performs in various tasks. As a PC builder and Gamer though I like to see some performance results and si...

Hey Everyone, I want to start this post off saying Happy New Years! Hope everyone had a good one. Today I wanted to talk about the Cryorig C7 low profile CPU cooler. I recently bought this a few weeks ago as a replacement for my Intel stock cooler. I chose to go with a low profile cooler because I am using a Corsair Air 240 as a case and it has height issues with coolers over 120mm. Which is why you typically see these with AIO (All In One for those new to cpu coolers) liquid coolers. A link to the item on Amazon will be included at the end of the post. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how efficient and quiet this little cooler is. The packaging was very well done and very compact for as much as they managed to fit into this box. It comes with thermal paste which so far haven't had any problems with. A hex driver to tighten the bolts on the included retainer plate. Necessary mounting hardware for a variety of motherboards and of course an instruction manual.  ...