By Nathan Kirsch @ Legit Reviews

If you ware looking for an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card to purchase you will quickly find that there are 21 different models widely available from NVIDIA’s board partners in North America. Gigabyte alone has five different models to pick from as you have Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition for those that are looking for the NVIDIA reference design and then four custom cards. The custom cards include the Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC model for Small Form Factor (SFF) builders, a GTX 1070 WindForce OC model as the entry level card, a GTX 1070 G1 Gaming aimed at gamers and then the GeForce GTX 1070 Extreme Gaming for those that are concerned with overclocking or what the highest clock speeds possible. Most gamers aren’t going to pay a premium for the Founders Edition by NVIDIA and while we love the Mini ITX form factor the full sized cards are still the most popular cards sold. That leaves three full sized Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 models that gamers will be interested in picking.

The model that we’ll be looking at today is the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming as it is aimed at gamers and at just $429 it costs less than the Founders Edition model and looks to have some great features.

Read The Review Here

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• GIGABYTE Adds New Models to GeForce GTX 1060 Line
• SAPPHIRE Announces its New NITRO+ Radeon RX 480 Graphics Card
• Patriot Memory Expands Viper 4 and Viper Elite DDR4 to Include 3733MHz
• Sapphire Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 Pictured
• Kingston Digital Launches UV400 Series SSD
• Crucial Expands the MX300 Line of SSDs with 275GB, 525GB, and 1TB Variants
• Western Digital Announces World First 64 Layer 3D NAND Technology
• MSI Intros Radeon RX 480 GAMING X 4G/8G Graphics Cards
• MSI Launches B150M & H110M Grenade Motherboards

Last night during the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Activision and Infinity Ward announced that Terminal is back!

The fan-favourite multiplayer map from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been reimagined in one of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s breathtaking new environments. Fans who pre-order any edition of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will receive the Terminal Bonus Map, which is now a shuttle port on the Moon and, staying true to the original, accommodates for new gameplay and visually raises the bar.

Additionally, the team debuted brand new gameplay trailer from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, showcasing footage from the single-player campaign.

For more information, check out: www.callofduty.com

Source: TechPowerUp!

In a show of shock and awe, NVIDIA today announced its flagship graphics card based on the “Pascal” architecture, the GeForce GTX TITAN X Pascal. Market availability of the card is scheduled for August 2, 2016, priced at US $1,199. Based on the 16 nm “GP102″ silicon, this graphics card is endowed with 3,584 CUDA cores spread across 56 streaming multiprocessors, 224 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and a 384-bit GDDR5X memory interface, holding 12 GB of memory.

The core is clocked at 1417 MHz, with 1531 MHz GPU Boost, and 10 Gbps memory, churning out 480 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The card draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, the GPU’s TDP is rated at 250W. NVIDIA claims that the GTX TITAN X Pascal is up to 60 percent faster than the GTX TITAN X (Maxwell), and up to 3 times faster than the original GeForce GTX TITAN.

Watch a intro trailer and get more information at the NVIDIA TITAN X product page.

“The Reaper’s Due” Expansion Announced for CK2; Gamebook Available Now

Little remains of those settlements where the Black Death has passed through. Hasty burials make a mockery of the sacraments and set a feast for the crows. Once prosperous provinces have been laid waste, and the lord of the land hides away – secluded in his hilltop fortress, hoping the plague will pass him by. Wiser princes took precautions, and didn’t waste the revenues from more prosperous years.

But, in time, all must pay The Reaper’s Due.

The Reaper’s Due is the newest expansion for Crusader Kings II, the best-selling medieval strategy simulator from Paradox Development Studio. This expansion highlights the historic importance of epidemics and disease in the Middle Ages, especially the Black Death – an outbreak of the bubonic plague that may have killed a third of the population of Europe.

The Reaper’s Due introduces many new systems and features to what is already the richest medieval tapestry in gaming:

• Epidemics Boosted: As diseases may spread from province to province along trade and sea lanes, they lower your manpower and sap your wealth
• Hospitals and Royal Physicians: Prevent the outbreak of disease in your kingdom, and make sure your courtiers have access to the latest in Dark Ages Medical Science
• Prosperity and Royal Focus: Well managed provinces in peaceful kingdoms will pay huge dividends in gold and levies
• Seclusion: Shield yourself from the diseases tearing your kingdom apart, even if it means ignoring the plight of your people
• New Event Chains: Is the new epidemic the End of Days? Is there someone else to blame for these horrors? Are there supernatural origins or solutions to the world’s problems?

Watch the Crusader Kings II: The Reaper’s Due – Announcement Trailer here.

To help you pass the time until release, Paradox is happy to announce the release of a Crusader Kings II gamebook. Crusader Kings: Chronicles is a mobile interactive adventure from M. Harold Page set in the tumult of the Black Death as it ravages England. Read more about the game book here.

For more information on Crusader Kings II, click here.

In Strategic Command you take command of the Axis or the Allies as a whole, without being limited to a single nation. This forces the player to think globally, in order to make the best use of all the resources and to plan successful strategies.

Knowing the strengths and the weaknesses of each faction is crucial to achieve victory!

Take a closer look at this infographic, featuring an interesting comparison of the evolution of the opposing forces in 1939 (the beginning) and in 1943 (the turning point). Divided in four main branches – Military, Research, Economy, Logistics – you’ll find tons of precious information and data!

Get more information about Strategic Command WWII: War in Europe from its official product page! The game is releasing this fall!

Winter War, the latest DLC for the highly praised Order of Battle: World War II, is now OUT for PC and Mac!

Never before have the Winter War and the Continuation War been recreated in such detail. Developer studio The Artistocrats brings these under represented conflicts to your screens.

With a radically different terrain and tactics, gameplay has been greatly altered. Employ ski troops to outmaneuver the enemy on snowy fields! Cross frozen lakes to catch the enemy unaware! Launch ambushes in deep forests! Use mud and frost to slow down the enemy advance then lure them into huge pockets, cutting them off from supply routes, then eliminate them and capture their vehicles!

Take command of the Finnish army and resist the red tide as the Soviet Union assaults you in the Winter War, then take the initiative and launch an offensive to regain lost ground in the Continuation War.

A new campaign with 13 new scenarios, 90 new units, a whole new environment: Winter War revolutionizes the Order of Battle formula. Will you be up to the task?

Grab Winter War now!

And if you’re interested in Winter War, don’t miss tonight’s Twitch live stream on our Twitch Channel at CEST 8 PM / UTC 6 PM / EDT 2 PM!

Remember: you can try the first scenario for free by installing Order of Battle: World War II and launching the Winter War campaign! Give it a try, it’s free!

By Brian Nyhuis @ Legit Reviews

There sure aren’t a whole lot of options on the market for WQHD (2560 x 1440) 144 Hz monitors, and even less options when you’re looking for an IPS display panel. Heck, you don’t have a lot of options for WQHD 144 Hz TN panels, either, especially when looking for 27-inches or larger. Today we’re going to take a look at the Acer Predator XB1 (XB271HU), which is a 27-inch WQHD panel capable of a 144 Hz refresh rate, or 165 Hz when overclocked, and 4ms gray-to-gray pixel response times, featuring NVIDIA G-SYNC technology. Some other features include 100% sRGB color gamut, a brightness of 350 nits, and built-in 2 watt stereo speakers. This monitor has been available since November 2015, but has been well received by gamers.

Read The Review Here

By Parm Mann @ HEXUS

While fans of the RX 480 patiently await a Nitro, or indeed any other custom-cooled alternative, Nvidia’s army of partners has already unleashed a tidal wave of diverse GTX 1060s. All the big names are lining up to send their cards in for review – heck, we may even have to turn some away at this rate – and though retail volume remains something of a question mark during launch week, there’s no shortage of non-reference designs. First on the HEXUS test bench is the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X.

Read The Review Here

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD on 19th July, released a WHQL-signed version of Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.2 drivers. The company first released the RSCE 16.7.2 as a Beta on the 12th of July. The change-log of the new 16.7.2 WHQL drivers don’t say exactly what is different between the 16.7.2 Beta and the 16.7.2 WHQL; so we guess it’s just 16.7.2 with WHQL certification.

You can download the Radeon Software Crimson Edition version 16.7.2 WHQL drivers here.