ASUS Republic of Gamers announces Strix GL12CX – Rebirth of a Gaming Beast

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ASUS recently had announced of their God of the Monitors and, now, ASUS gives a new overall design and performance improvement on their latest gaming beast tower, the all new STRIX GL12CX Tower PC’s. This build is specifically made for those who don’t wish to spend some of their busy schedule to look for parts and equipment’s to build their custom rig, as this tower offers everything that a gamer needs.

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According to the official website, ROG Strix GL12CX pushes the maximum capability of extreme gaming performance of the user.

Now, let’s have a look at the specifications of the Tower PC.

The tower comes with three selections of processor ranging from the i7 8700 to i9 9900K (factory-overclocked to up to 4.9GHz full octa-core) along with the five selections of GPU’s ranging from NVIDIA RTX 1060 3GB & GTX 1060 6GB to NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti 11GB. The system’s main memory comes up to 32GB DDR4 @ 2666MHz.

“Only the very best processors are chosen to power ROG Strix GL12CX. It features new 9th Generation Intel Core i9-9900K and i7-9700K CPUs that have been factory-overclocked to speeds of up to 4.9GHz and 5.0GHz (full octa-core) respectively for a serious performance boost. Strix GL12CX is great for gaming, but it’s capable of so much more.” – Source.

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In addition, the ROG Strix GL12CX features DIMM.2 Module encapsulated with the support for dual SSD’s at a time, by which further can be configured under the RAID feature, as well as with a tool-free expansion bays and an e-sports reading hot-swap SSD trays for easier upgrades in the future. If you’re worried about the heat, which might slow down the performance, do not worry as the DIMM.2 module comes with an integrated heat-sinks for each SSD. In addition, these two gentlemen act as an additional connection in order to allow for the dual NVMe® drives and RAID configurations, or one can be used for expansion while the other can be used for Intel Optane memory to accelerate a large hard-disk drive. As for the side panels, ASUS had designed it to be a transparent panel in order to fully utilize the Aura Sync Lightning Effects and for the user to fully enjoy their gaming sessions.

As for the thermal design, ROG Strix GL12CX provides robust cooling under extreme conditions. It’s equipped with an intelligent cooling system that features two highly dedicated isolated air chambers in order to further improve the heat dissipation. The intertwine HyperStream was designed in order to allow the efficiency of heat removal and better airflow into the chassis. As for the fans, there are three fans on the top and bottom of the chassis in order to maximize the airflow through the rig to minimize the heat deposit near the power supply and other sensitivity equipment’s in the chassis.

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When it comes to high quality Tower such as ROG Strix GL12CX, the offered interfaces also in the same lives in the range of the “beast” title. The front IO option comes with two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port, two USB 2.0 Type-A port, a single port for microphone / headphone in and out and a single 2-in-1 card reader SD/MMC. As for the rear IO panel, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 ports, five ports of audio jacks, a single optical SPDIF out and a single RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port.

Last but not least, the ROG GL12CX and Aura Sync-compatible peripherals can react to in-game events in compatible games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. In other word, you can actually enjoy the lightning effects when playing CoD or Black Ops 4.

I was informed that, orders can be made by early December, however, do not be sad as, you still can pre-order the rig at the selected and certified Republic of Gamers stores. As for the price, kindly decide the specifications you will be needing as to ease the pricing to be finalized in the store.

cyn’s outlook: If you already own the famous God of Monitor, ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ, this will be a good addition to your gaming experience as both of the system will work like a charm. Do note that, this rig not only specially dedicated for gamers, but the content creators as well.

 

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TIME FIBRE’S New Pricing Plans of their Fibre Broadband Plans

arunLeave a comment

Today, most of the TIME users woke up with a smiley face, as, TIME finally revamped their pricing plans, and they’re much ahead of the main fibre provider in Malaysia in terms of pricing.

2An official statement has been made by a TIME Fibre representative at their official Facebook page.

Most of the comments on the post show mixed response from the high-rise and landed properties users.

This marks the first fibre provider in Malaysia to provide solid 1 Gbps of internet connection at an affordable price.

 

 

Now, let’s have a surface look on the packages offered according to the page.

The cheapest offered a pricing plan of their fibre plans starts at RM99 for the 100 Mbps plan. The highest offered bandwidth along with its price is at RM199 for their 1 Gbps plan. Currently, all the packages offered are unlimited. By means, all the offered plans have no monthly quota.

Now, lets compare the pricing in detail. According to their official website:

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The plans offering in detail.

According to the table above, for 100 Mbps and 500 Mbps users, you’re entitled to get the basic TP-LINK Archer C1200 and for 1 Gbps users, you will receive an MU-MIMO router from D-Link DIR-882. The package offers asymmetrical speed instead of symmetrical speed previously. Currently, only high rise users, residential area users whose lives in Cyberjaya able to enjoy this fibre broadband, and, TIME promises that, they will expand their service and coverage to residential users in phase.

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The most professional open statement made by a fibre provider in Malaysia.

“You can only achieve such solid speed only if you’re using the internet via a physical connection (LAN Cable). It is not recommended to use wireless connectivity to do a speedtest as the result would be differ from the LAN test.” – Arun.

cyn’s outlook: The offered plans by TIME Fibre by far, the most affordable for most high rise users. Compared to UniFi users who are paying RM229 or RM329 for 800 Mbps, I find that, UniFi should revamp their plans as soon as possible if, they wish to grab their end user’s attention to keep on using their service. Now, there will be a healthy competition between the fibre providers in Malaysia. This will be a good news for the users as well as for their pockets. Good luck TIME Fibre.

RAZER SILA – The new Wireless AC3000 Tri Band Router in Malaysian Market

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Razer recently bangs out their fans by announcing all new gaming router under the code-name of Razer Sila AC3000 Tri Band Wireless Router, by which, marks the entry of them into the router market. Upon living up to its name, the Razer Sila delivers the fastest and reliable Wi-Fi technology to the users. In addition, it does include the mesh networking capabilities, which is a preferable option for those who may not wish to access the router via a physical connection.

According to the official website of Razer Sila, below are the official specifications of the router:

Wireless

  • Tri-Band AC3000
  • IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
    – 802.11n: up to 400 Mbps
    – 802.11ac: up to 1734 Mbps + 866 Mbps

Encryption

  • WPA / WPA2-PSK

Antenna

  • 9 x internal industrial-grade antennas

Features

  • Razer FasTrack QoS Engine
  • Multi-Channel Zero-Wait DFS
  • Tri-Band mesh support with dedicated backhaul channel
  • Multi-User MIMO & Beamforming technology
  • Intelligent active steering
  • Isolated guest network support
  • Simplified app setup via Android or iOS

Interfaces

  • 1 x Gigabit WAN port
  • 3 x Gigabit LAN ports
  • 1 x USB 2.0 port
  • 1 x USB 3.0 port

By looking at the given specification above, the router comes with 3 Gigabit LAN port with a single WAN port. This router highly recommended for UniFi 800 Mbps users and TIME 1 Gbps users. The router can cover up large houses and you need two Silas to cover up to 9 000 square feet combined.

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For gamers, this router comes with FasTrack which prioritize gaming bandwidth when your network were getting loaded with heavy connections. In addition, the FasTrack has an ability to learn about the type of application let it be games or stream over the time, and shift the bandwidth automatically according to the usage.

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Razer Sila also comes with a boon with a feature known as the Multi-Channel ZeroWait DFS technology to automatically choose the least congested bands in your residential area for your smooth internet experience.

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If you’re interested to buy the router, you can buy from the official Razer store. 

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Three selections of Power Plug were given, and it is highly advisable to select the Malaysian version. For those who already buy, do let us know how does the router performs.

[Source: Razer]

cyn’s opinion: The router feels premium for its look. I personally feel, with such specifications and price feature, I feel, it is acceptable for a such router to be in the price range. However, let’s wait for the proper review from the lucky user who bought it.

TIME Fibre finally answers UniFi’s BIP Event? 1 Gbps are on the way!

arunLeave a comment

After an open congratulation wishes to TM UniFi’s Broadband Improvement Plan had announced nearly two months ago, TIME had taken a step on “Speech is silver, silence is golden”, method, by secretly working on a suitable plan to appreciate their customers by offering a free speed upgrade secretly before the official launch date.

According to lowyat.net-san, the speed upgrade for TIME users are as follows:

  • 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps
  • 500 Mbps to 800 Mbps
  • 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps

Based on the special thread dedicated to TIME users, available on the forum lowyat.net, several TIME subscribers already received their free “silent” upgrade. However, in order to clarify news is legit, a few members of PC Gaming Community [Malaysia] private group on Facebook had confirmed that, they also received their speed upgrade up to 1 Gbps. This confirmed the hoax spreads that, TIME does answer up their loyal customer’s craving to enjoy higher internet access.

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A sample of a user received a speed upgrade from TIME.

Here is another subscriber shared his speed upgrade on PCGM private group.

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A sample of a user received a speed upgrade from TIME – Speedtest.

Following the sudden unofficial news spread among the dedicated thread, and the members of PCGM in Facebook, few users had taken the opportunity to check out their plan status, and, when they login to their account, the following message is shown.

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Notification of the plan modification.

The speed upgrade predicted to be done in the phases similar to Unifi’s turbo upgrade. It is predicted that, TIME will release an official statement on the “Home Broadband” plan speed upgrade.

It is also rumored that, TIME will take an initiative to supply a new router for 1Gbps subscribers in order to fully support the new speed.

Cyn’s Outlook:

“I personally liked the way TIME fibre way of conducting the speed upgrade silently in order to reduce the rage among the subscribers which, can cause a bad reputation for the company. It looks like TIME had done their homework to their best, reminds of me an idiom, Killing two birds with one stone“.

You’ve been turbo’ed? Wondering what kind of wireless router you should upgrade with?

arunLeave a comment

Most of the Unifi users are now enjoying their turbo upgrade already, and, TIME had taken, a silent step on upgrading the speed for their users up to 1 Gbps. However, for higher bandwidth subscribers, you might not fully enjoy the speed upgrade in terms of physical connection or wireless connection especially. Recently, few router manufacturer’s news up their official statement on their router models which supported each internet subscription package in Malaysia.

Now lets dive into the each router model from each manufactures that supports the internet subscription speed.

LIST OF WIRELESS ROUTER AVAILABLE IN MALAYSIA CURRENTLY

ASUS

30 & 100 Mbps 

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The entry level router of ASUS.

Review:

ASUS RT-N800HP [Here]

300 Mbps

2
The mid-lower end router of ASUS.

Review:

ASUS AC58U [Here]

500 Mbps

4
The mid-range router of ASUS.

Review:

ASUS AC68U [Here]

800 Mbps – 1 Gbps

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The highest end router of ASUS.

Reviews:

ASUS AC86U [Here]

ASUS GT5300 [Here]

ASUS BRT-AC828 [Here] – Business Router.

TP-LINK

30, 100 Mbps & 300 Mbps

tp3
The lower end router of TP-LINK.

500 Mbps

TP2
The mid-range router of TP-LINK.

800 Mbps – 1 Gbps

TP1
The highest end router of TP-LINK.

Reviews:

TP-LINK ARCHER C3150 [Here]

D-LINK

30, 100 Mbps & 300 Mbps

dl3
The low-end router of D-Link.

Review:

D-LINK DIR850L [Here]

500 Mbps

DL2
The mid-range router of D-Link.

Review:

D-LINK DIR878 [Here]

800 Mbps – 1 Gbps

DL1
The highest end router of D-Link.

TENDA

tenda

MESH ROUTERS

ASUS

MESH

Reviews:

ASUS LYRA TRIO [Here]

ASUS BLUE-CAVE [Here]

TP-LINK

TPDECO

D-LINK

DLMESH

The listed models here are the models that currently ruling the Malaysian market. It is highly recommended for the user’s use a dual band router instead of a single band router. Besides that, if you’re stuck with 30Mbps on your residential area by any chance, especially high rise users, perhaps, in order to save your budget, you can opt for the single band routers (although not highly recommended at the moment) listed up there especially some recommended single band routers from ASUS.

In the end, user’s can pick up their desired wireless router according to their current package subscription. Do kindly note that, the subscribed internet speed only can be enjoyed fully on a wired connection.

Cyn’s Outlook:

“Higher end router does promise an excellent experience, however, it is highly advisable to prepare a simple requirement of your internet usage and buy the wireless router according your budget and requirement.“

Internet in Malaysia

arunLeave a comment

Overview of the ISP in Malaysia

In Malaysia, we have three major ISP’s, commonly known as, unifi (Telekom Malaysia), Maxis Fiber and TIME Fiber. However, there are few other companies growing up all together with the major ISP’s, Celcom, TNB, Cyberjaya Broadband and connectme.

Let’s have a look at the current pricing of the ISP providers along with the provided packages. I’ve selected 5 ISP’s in our country to be compared.

Internet Provider In Malaysia
Major ISP (Fibre) in Malaysia.

Currently, the major dominating ISP in Malaysia are UniFi followed by Maxis when it comes to residential. However, for high rise building, TIME dominates high rise residential users. Celcom Home Fiber was recently launched after few revamp in their earlier proposed pricing range. However, some ISP’s such as Cyberjaya Broadband focuses the residents whose reside in Cyberjaya, offering up to 1Gbps of internet subscription. Despite for the pricing offered by TM, TM highly receive mixed reviews among the users, and at the same time, TM receives mostly negative reviews when it comes to their Streamyx (UniFi Broadband) lineup, however, TM recently come up to give an official statement that, UniFi Broadband users can check up their eligibility to upgrade to UniFi 100 Mbps for residential, 30 Mbps for high-rise building users, and those who are not covered with fibre in your residential area, yet, you will receive 8Mbps as your free upgrade.

In general, it is obvious that, most ISP’s in the world supplies a decent router to their end users. This results in the tons of complaint lodges at the customer service center and rages among the users. Well, not to worry as, most router’s available in Malaysian market currently supports the fiber broadband services in Malaysia.

When the turbo plan was announced by Telekom Malaysia, most router manufacturers in Malaysia come up with their official statement on the type of models of their respective brands that supports the packages range.

CYN’s Outlook:

“The price offered by other ISP’s in Malaysia except for Unifi is reasonably and highly affordable by the users. However, TM believed to revamp their pricing over the packages offered by them, and, TM also should standardize the price of their packages as well.“

EDIFIER LUNA E25HD – A Premium 2.0 Speaker for Your Desktop | REVIEW

arunLeave a comment

At a glance:

EDIFIER LUNA E25HD Bluetooth Speaker [ Buy ].

GENERAL OVERVIEW

The Luna E25HD is a 2.0 Bluetooth speaker from EDIFIER. In general, EDIFIER is known for the excellent speaker quality throughout the country as, most audiophile prefers this brand over other available brand. For music enthusiasts, the Luna E25HD was invented to deliver the high quality audio from your computer to your ears.

You can view the making of Luna E25HD [ here ].

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Three color choices were given,  black, white and red.

Pricing at the SRP of RM 759 currently according to [EDIFIER]’s official website, this speaker currently aims to high end users such as audio enthusiasts and content creator. If you’re looking for the best 2.0 Bluetooth speaker, then, make sure, Luna E25HD be in the top list of your checklist.

OVERVIEW OF THE SPEAKER

The box design looked professional and I am pretty sure they hired an experience designer to come up with such professional looked speaker along with the summary of the details related to the speaker into a single box. Good job, EDIFIER.

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The front and rear view of the box.

When I do an unboxing of the speaker, it seems, they wrapped the each of the speakers into with a nylon packaging. The speaker was well protected, for the first time, I felt a perfection “vibe” during the unboxing of the speaker. This speaker comes with a remote, each functioning as a power button, volume up and volume down button. The remote is pretty simple, but feels solid and not too heavy.

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After unwrapping everything, I put the speaker onto the table. I tried to shake the table, yet, the speaker stands still. In general, “The wider the surface area, the higher the stability is”, this speaker, comes with a minimal surface design at the bottom, yet, stable. I am pretty sure the designer of the speaker did tons of research on this, and, I agree, the designer did very well.

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Featuring 3 inch bass driver and ¾ inch silk dome tweeter in each Luna HD, the audio quality feels realistic, and, you’ll forget that you’re experiencing a high quality audio from home. Amplifiers in each speaker with professionally calibrated electronic crossover will make your room feel like you are in a theater. Last but not least, if that’s not enough, each speaker has a twin passive bass radiator amplifying the sound to its maximum level.

The Luna E25HD comes with a 3.5mm auxiliary/optical digital input, an AC jack and 6 – pin speaker connector which transmits both power and audio signals secondary Luna speaker. The only I/O you will find on the secondary Luna is a single 6-pin connector.

SPECIFICATIONS

Below are the specifications of the speaker from the official website.

  • Total Power Output: 15W x 2 (Treble) + 22W x 2 (Bass)
  • SNR: ≥85dBA
  • Frequency Response: 50Hz ~ 20 kHz (± 6dB)
  • Input Type: Bluetooth 4.0/Auxiliary/Optical
  • Input Sensitivity: 650mV ± 50mV
  • Adjustment: Touch keys, remote control
  • Bass & Mid-range Driver: 3 inch (82mm)
  • Treble Driver: 3/4 inch (19mm) silk dome
  • Voltage: 100-240V

AUDIO QUALITY

The Luna E25HD comes with DSP which stands for, Digital Signal Processing,  which, it functioned on improving the accuracy and reliability of audio output to your ear. To summarize the term, “DSP works by elucidate the levels or states of a digital signal“.

The official website states, “The incorporation of DSP and DRC minimizes distortion even at the highest volumes, producing clear, clean audio. A slim, easy to use remote control also controls volume levels and power to the speakers.“, by which, I believe, this speaker was specifically design not only for audio enthusiast which prefer barely minimum volume output, but, for high volume output listeners as well.

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Now, let’s get serious on the major agenda here, the audio quality from this speaker. The audio output from this speaker were extraordinary. There is no word to express. The bass feels solid, the clarity of the music is at the peak, suitable for my listening experience, though it doesn’t come with a bass and treble knob. Pairing with my [ASUS STRIX SOAR] sound-card, I don’t really need to adjust the equalizer on my mp3 player neither video player. For on-board sound-card users, this speaker performs well as well.

I must opt here, these are not the studio based speakers, but, despite of its size, this speaker does “boom boom” my room. If you’re watching Netflix, there is no need for you to buy a good audio speaker made specifically for movie lovers, as, this speaker performs well. I can catch out the vocal and the sound effects whenever I watch movies, especially as an anime lover, I mostly enjoy watching my favorite anime episodes through my desktop.

To use the Bluetooth feature, there is no specific button to pair, by means, your device can be directly paired with the speaker. Since it is meant to be used in your home, then, it is not a big deal.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Advantages

  • Unique Design.
  • Heavy bass for 2.0 Bluetooth Speaker
  • Excellent clarity for both on-board stock sound-card and aftermarket sound-card.
  • Come with Bluetooth, optical digital and analog auxiliary input.
  • Comes with remote control feature

Disadvantages

  • Required cable to connect to another speaker.

CONCLUSION

As a supposition of this review, this speaker outperforms my expectation towards the design and how the audio performance would be. The speaker comes with egg-like design and feels solid indicating the quality of the material used. The color choices are less, but, it is worth to pick your closest favorite color. As for my personal use, I picked a white color to match it with my black and white desktop theme.

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Last but not least, this is the best, yes, the best speaker I’ve tested so far. Paying for such price, I didn’t feel regret of choosing EDIFIER as my main audio brand of choice, and, a Luna E25HD as my speaker of choice.

cyns-choice.pngCYN’s Outlook

The speaker produces high quality bass and clarity, along with your stock sound-card, this speaker still produce solid bass and, a very big bonus for those who are using third party sound-card from manufacturer’s such as ASUS and Creative.

Definitely, this speaker worth of your pennies, if, you wish to upgrade your existing audio system of your desktop.

Therefore, I am presenting, CYN’s of Choice award to such good quality speaker made by EDIFIER.

Question:

Are you planning to buy a new speaker? If yes, what type of speaker you’re looking and what is the main purpose of usage of the speaker?