Category Archives: NT IT Reviews

MSI Z370 SLI PLUS Review: High-End Gaming Use

Motherboard reviews, NT IT Reviews

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This is a review of the MSI Z370 SLI PLUS motherboard for high-end gaming use. A review by AnAndTech is what spurred my interest in the MSI Z370 SLI Plus. On Newegg, you can find this motherboard for $149.99. The  motherboard’s purpose is to fully utilize the Intel® Coffee Lake 6 core processors, ready to deliver world class performance when gaming (MSI). The MSI Z370 SLI PLUS is 12.0″ by 9.6″ with a form factor of ATX.
The MSI Z370 SLI PLUS motherboard is made by Micro-Star International, a Taiwanese multinational information technology corporation. MSI’s current global success can be credited to their computer motherboards, which made their company popular when it was established in the late 1980s (Wikipedia).
    Specifications:
  • Supports 8th Generation Intel Core Processors, and Intel Pentium and Celeron Processors for Socket LGA1151, *Not backward compatible with older generation of LGA 1151 CPUs
  • Four DDR4 slots that can support a maximum of 64GB
  • Native motherboard speed of 2667 MHz
  • Video (supported by CPU with graphics)
  • Supports NVIDIA 2-Way SLI & AMD 3-Way Crossfire
  • Integrated Audio (Realtek ALC1220, 7.1 channels)
  • Integrated LAN (Intel l219-V)
  • 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x16
  • 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
  • 6 x SATA III ports (6Gb/s)
  • 2 x M.2 slots, can reach speeds up to 32GB/s
  • 8 USB Ports

The MSI Z370 SLI PLUS is a great motherboard for gaming; in the game Fire Strike, overclocked, the MSI motherboard hit a high score of 23902, winning first place. The two Steel Armor PCle 3.0 x16 slots ensure that the motherboard will be able to physically support the high-end graphics cards needed for a gaming PC. Not only can you use this MSI Z370 for gaming, but you can also personalize it. With the click of a mouse, you can change the variety of color schemes to one of your liking adding a flare of colors to your gaming rig. Overall, the MSI Z370 SLI Plus is an excellent choice for a quality gaming motherboard at a price that will not empty your savings.
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.

AnAndTech <https://www.anandtech.com/show/11860/z370-motherboards-asus-asrock-    ecs-evga-biostar-msi-gigabyte/28>.                                                                                                     eTeknix <https://www.eteknix.com/msi-z370-sli-plus-motherboard-review/>.                       MSI <https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z370-SLI-PLUS.html>.                                             Newegg <https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144111>.    Steel Armor <https://www.eteknix.com/msi-z370-sli-plus-motherboard-review/2/>.                Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Star_International>.
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Can you remove the swap file?

NT IT Reviews, Tech Administration

<![CDATA[As we migrated to a 1:1 environment at our school I knew from experience that the only way to do it well was with all SSDs in our laptops.  My experiences have told me that users rarely put away laptops  correctly.  This leads to many problems with windows loads, ruined drives, and a lot of headache.  SSDs are a great way to save yourself a lot of headaches, as well as making your users very happy.    We had an one issue, the original laptops only had 2Gb of RAM and we were seeing SSDs last only 3 years as the use of the swap files overused the SSDs with countless writes.
This year we decided to upgrade the RAM to 4Gb and take away the swap file.  The increased RAM would theoretically reduce the need for the swap file while also eliminating thousands of possible swap file writes.  The idea could possible increase SSD lifetime many fold.

Our research on the subject always warned against removing the swap file.  But all the warnings (on a myriad of websites) seemed to be repeating the same concerns, with no actual testing.  So we decided to take the leap.
Tested systems.

  1. Dell E6500 Latitude laptops with 4Gb of RAM, 64Gb SSDs, Windows 10 LTSB (32 bit,) Office 2016, and a variety of other programs .
  2. Dell E6520  Latitude laptops with 8Gb of RAM, 128Gb SSDs, Windows 10 LTSB (64 bit,) Office 2016, and a variety of other programs .

We started with a couple dozen systems and asked students to complete a google form and let us know How things were going.  2 months in and we are up to 100+ laptops with the swap file removed.
So far our students have reported 0 system hangups and 0 blue screens.  These were the two common reasons most people said it was a bad idea.  Only time will tell if this actually extends the life of our SSDs, but to those out there saying it doesn’t work, I think your should try it before you actually advise against it.]]>

Reliable Graphics card for 659.99

Video Card Reviews

<![CDATA[With the market of graphics cards growing immensely and can be a hard choice on that perfect graphics card for the best quality. with a budget of $659.99 for a quality graphics card that can provide the gaming you need for your PC.
The MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING  graphics card is a excellent place to start with the budget chosen. The GTX 970 porvides more than what is paid for. With the programs that comes with the graphics card, and the extrodinary specifications that gives clear and smooth gaming frames, Guaranteed.

To eliminate some confusion for the specs, the GTX 970 is provided a Easy setup program to adjust settings of the graphics with ease. With a button push away to overclock or change gamma and saturation setting with more setting to customize your visual experience. The GTX 970 comes in three graphics processsing setting which changes the GPU speeds. It comes in: Silent mode, Gaming Mode, and Overclocked mode.
Interface -PCI Express 3.0 x16
Core Clock
1140 MHz (OC Mode)
1114 MHz (Gaming Mode)
1051 MHz (Silent Mode)
Boost Clock
1279 MHz (OC Mode)
1253 MHz (Gaming Mode)
1178 MHz (Silent Mode)
CUDA Cores – 1664
Effective Memory Clock – 7010 MHz
Memory Size – 4GB
Memory Interface – 256-Bit
Memory Type – GDDR5
The 970 GTX runs on Quad SLI Capabilities,  and has two cooling fans installed into the graphics card, the program with the purchase of the graphics card which can change the speed of the coiling dependent of the output of the graphics card.
 
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The Best Graphics Card For You!!

Video Card Reviews

<![CDATA[If you're looking for a great video card, while trying to save money, then this card is the one for you! The MSI GeForce GT 730 is the best graphics card for your games, while also keeping the price low!

SPECS!
This video card has a GeForce GT 730 GPU and has a core clock speed of 700MHz. The memory clock speed of 1000MHz with a memory size of 4GB and will work with DDR3 memory. The card will also consume 49 watts of power. The Interface is a PCI Express 2.0 x 16. The card supports DirectX 12 and OpenGL v4.4 . It has 1 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB, and 1 x DL-DVI-I ports on the back. The maximum resolution is 2560 x 1600 and it also comes with a fan as a cooling system.
The price of the card is only $79.99, and for the price, this video card would be a great choice for gamer’s who want to start out, but not spend a fortune on a high end video card.
Works Cited:
“DisplayPort to D-Sub: The Full Range of LCD Monitor Video Input Interfaces | EIZO.” DisplayPort to D-Sub: The Full Range of LCD Monitor Video Input Interfaces | EIZO. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Klein, Matt. “What Is Direct X 12 and Why Is It Important?” How-To Geek. How-To Geek, 30 June 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
“MSI GeForce GT 730 DirectX 12 N730-4GD3V2 4GB 128-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 X16 HDCP Ready ATX Video Card.” Newegg.com- Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, HDTVs, Digital Cameras and More! N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
“OpenGL.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
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The BEST Radeon Video Card for Under $250

Video Card Reviews

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SAPPHIRE NITRO Radeon R9 Fury

 
The Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9 Fury utilizes a 1050MHz Radeon R9 Fury GPU, which runs 4GB of 4096-Bit HBM (High Bandwidth Ram). The performance of this memory surpasses GDDR5 in bandwidth with more than 3x the performance per watt of GDDR5, requiring only 375 watts overall. Its revolutionary stacked configuration has 94% less PCB surface area than GDDR5.
This video card comes with 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort, and 1x Dual-Link DVI-D. It also uses the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot to connect your motherboard.
This video card boasts three fans, ensuring your video card stays cool during use. These fans utilize two-ball bearings designed to keep the fans quiet, make them last longer, and keep out dust. These fans also have a high-efficiency blade design.
The video card also supports Intelligent Fan Control, which takes things like environment temperature and GPU workload into consideration, to ensure the fans are working efficient as well as keeping them as quiet as possible.
This video card is VR ready and can support multiple monitors. With multiple monitors, gaming becomes more immersive and your work becomes more productive (up to an average of 42% according to one study). This video card also supports CrossFire which allows two or more discreet graphics cards to work together to give you the ultimate gaming experience.
The Radeon R9 Fury supports OpenGL® 4.5 and DirectX®12 while also having Shader Model 5.0, ensuring it will be compatible with the newest games.
The Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9 Fury currently costs $329.99 on Newegg, but including a sale and $20 rebate card, it comes to $249.99.
 
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Mushkin SSD 1Tb Drive Review.

Hard Drive Reviews

<![CDATA[Mushkin is a competitor in memory and SSD drives, as both of the two mostly are similar. Mushkin was founded in 1994 in Denver, Colorado, In the United States. Mushkin produces Memory modules, or RAM, Solid state drives, power supplies and other small quantities of components to computers, but usually source Memory and SSD.
IMG_0023
The motherboard that will use the Mushkin SDD drive is the ASUS TUF SABERTOOTH Z170 MARK 1, which it is compatible for 6Gb/s  and has 8 Sata ports, in which the SSD provided from Mushkin is compatible to this motherboard.

I have received a Mushkin SSD 1TB Drive which has a storage  of 1TB. The Mushkin SSD also is a MLC meaning that it doubles on writes on each cell. Usually, MLC is better on terms of life span than a TLC and it is more common and cheaper than a SLC meaning that it will have a long lifespan, and countless amounts of rewrites to the SSD. The max sequential read up to 560 MBps while the max sequential write up to 460 MBps which is fast read and write speeds for a 1TB drive. The IOP’s for Write is around IOPS to 289.0625 Mbps and for the reading of IOPS is 296.875 Mbps. The MTBF of in other terms the average time until the drive fails is on average 1,500,000 hours. With the warranty of only a year, one year to have parts and labor with the ability to turn it back for a new one. The amount of features spans to temperature sensors and that of MLC Flash for a reliable SSD The price of the Mushkin 1Tb SSD is 249.99. Mushkin I would say has done a fair job on the product today, and seems reliable for a 1TB drive

Works Cited

“Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 2.5″ 1TB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDEC1TB.” Newegg.com- Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, HDTVs, Digital Cameras and More! N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. <https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226855&ignorebbr=1>.

Cook, Robert. “SSD Throughput, Latency and IOPS Explained – Learning To Run With Flash.” The SSD Review. N.p., 16 Oct. 2016. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. <http://www.thessdreview.com/featured/ssd-throughput-latency-iopsexplained>.

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SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series

Hard Drive Reviews

<![CDATA[Today I am reviewing a SSD (Solid State Drive) made by Samsung. Samsung is a multinational conglomerate founded and based in Seoul, South Korea. Started as a trading company in 1938, it is today widely known for its innovation in technology.
samsung-logo-191-1
A 250 GB SSD was requested for a gaming motherboard. The motherboard provided was
A1PyTpQOZRL._SX425_the ASUS ROG Crosshair V Formula-Z, which has eight 6Gb/s SATA ports, six of which support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 solutions.

This SSD’s specs, attached below, are great.

  • 256 GB
  • Average Latency
    .8510
  • Read: 540 MB/s
    Write: 520 MB/s
  • SSD III (6 Gb/s)
  • Buffer 3 GB
  • IOPS and IOPS conversion to Mbps
    25,000 MBps Read
    22,500 MBps      WritePicture1
  • MLC
  • MTBF: 1,500,000 hours
  • Limited Warranty period (parts): 3 years
    Limited Warranty period (labor): 3 years
  • $309.99

 
Works Cited
“Corporate Profile – About Samsung – Samsung.” Samsung. Samsung, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. <http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/corporateprofile/>.
“SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 2.5″ 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7PD256BW.” Newegg.com- Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, HDTVs, Digital Cameras and More!Newegg Inc., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. <https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAADF3ZD3050&cm_re=ssd-_-20-147-193-_-Produc>.
Shaman, Josh. “Samsung 840 EVO SSD Review.” StorageReview.com – Storage Reviews. Storage Reviews, 19 July 2013. Web. 01 Mar. 2017. <http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_840_evo_ssd_review>.]]>

Toshiba P300 Review!!!

Hard Drive Reviews

<![CDATA[Toshiba was founded in 1875, the headquarters is located in, Minato City, Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba makes a gross income of over $68 billion a year, with over 204,000 employees. Toshiba also operates with a global network with more than 740 companies.
The type of motherboard we are wanting to get a Hard Drive for, is a business motherboard, from Gigabyte. It has two 3Gbs SATA connectors and six 6Gbs SATA connectors. I was asked to present a 1-2TB SATA Hard Drive.
TOSHIBA P300 Internal Hard Drive

  • Capacity: 2TB
  • RPM: 7200
  • Latency: 4.17mls
  • Buffer: 64MB
  • MTBF: 1,500,000
  • Warranty: Limited 2yr parts, and labor.
  • Cost: $74.99

This Hard Drive is amazing for it’s price. It is difficult to find a Hard Drive with the capacity of this, at such a low price. I a22-149-632-02m actually using this one to build my computer, just because it is so cost efficient. It’s RPM is really good also, and I would recommend this for any computer, that you wanted to have a good 2TB Hard Drive.
 
 
 
Work Cited
Newegg.com. “Toshiba.” Hard Drives. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
Toshiba. “Toshiba Leading Innovation.” About Toshiba. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
 
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Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Hard Drive Review!

Hard Drive Reviews

<![CDATA[Seagate Technology is an American data storage company formerly incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology. Since 2010, they are incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operation headquarters in Cupertino, California. (wikipedia.com)
The motherboard that this hard drive will be working with is the MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard. The motherboard has 10 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports and can support up to RAID 0/1/5/10 modes.
This hard drive haBarraCuda2TB-larges 2TB of storage with transfer rates up to 140 MB/s and the drive also has 64MB of cache. The rotational speed is 5400 RPM and the read/write speeds are 150 MB/s. The form factor of this drive is a 3.5in and has a 2 year warranty of parts and labor. There are obviously pros and cons for this drive, but the Pros overpowers the cons by far. Also, the price is fairly low with a price of $69.97 and is a very good drive in my opinion for the price.
 
 
 
 
Works Cited:
“Barracuda 2TB Hard Drive.” NewEgg. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2017.
“Barracuda 2TB Hard Drive.” (n.d.): n. pag. Seagate. Web. 7 Mar. 2017.
“Seagate Technology.” Userbenchmark. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2017.
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Intel i5-6500 – This is a review.

CPU reviews

<![CDATA[19-117-563-01
The CPU is the mind of the computer and is a necessity of a functioning computer. Some might consider the CPU the most important part of a PC as it is needed to do most of the thinking of all components of the computer. I have looked over a CPU of the i5 that can go into a Intel grade ASUS motherboard for gaming.
Intel is a Processor manufacturer company and is widely known, as they are mostly LGA based CPU products today. Thy have provided us with the i5-6500 Intel core processor.
the socket type of the CPU is to be a 1151, and is a available as a LGA CPU due to it being a Intel grade processor. The bus speed of the CPU is 3.2Ghz, as of the motherboard’s ram is close to this number to remove any excessive amount of bottleneck. In which this is a fairly well off CPU and it is well close to the RAM amount of the gamer Motherboard.
The CPU is hyper threaded into 4 threads. The cache amount of L2 is 4x256KB and L3 is around 6MB. The motherboard can support DDR3 and DDR4 for a wide expansive choice in quality.
overall, the CPU meets its standards and gets to a close fit for a working gaming machine, as of it does it even better. with the CPU running at 3.2 GHz as close to what the motherboard runs at the bottleneck is smaller than average and will run smoother.  the CPU can also support up to 64GB of memory, a fair amount for a well off gamer PC.
This CPU is Hyper threaded into 4 threads, this can conclude that the CPU is actually a “Dual-Core” which isn’t that big of a deal, but I can be accounted for. It also sits at a 65W Thermal cooling, so It’s not that beefy. but it can still provide much of what you need.
Intel has once again priced it over with a 209.99 fee at the moment and if you have the cash, I’d say this would be a better choice, but it also remains that there are also other CPU processors out there for a cheaper price that could have similar out comes, but this is a gamer PC, and if the money is on the table. I would take this CPU.
Works Cited
Intel. “Data Center Solutions, IOT, and PC Innovation.” Intel. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.
Newegg. “Intel Core I5-6500 6MB Skylake Quad-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I56500 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530.” Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, and More – Newegg.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017
Wikipidia Contributers. “Intel.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2017. ]]>