Cool stuff we're working on - February, 2018

We got knocked off-schedule with CES this year, but the show was a resounding success for our group. We're already in planning stages for Computex, and will be in attendance as we have been for the past two years.

Anyway, right now is largely the season when we plan travel for the first half of the year. Aside from that, there's the usual tax work, convention travel, and overhaul of methodology. It's about the longest busy period of the year for us, despite no major launches.

The lack of major launches is good, though: We are rebuilding our GPU testing methodology and data presentation (hence the recent release of our benchmark duration video), which will refocus our metrics on time, rather than just framerate. This is, after all, where framerate is derived. We're also improving our note-taking on bench platforms and working on new automation scripting (which we initialized for the FFXV benchmarks), so that'll be a major move forward.

In the meantime, I've still got fan testing and air cooler testing that need to be done. We also have the direct die frame that needs testing, along with a couple of other small items we ordered for review. Once we're past FFXV -- and that story is expanding actively -- we'll be able to revisit the cooling products. Patrick has been running some large-size fan tests this week, including a revisit of the Noctua & Cooler Master 200mm fans, which we'll test in addition to the SilverStone 180mm fan. SilverStone was very confident in the performance of the 180mm unit and, given its performance in the old Raven 02 that we loved, we figured we'd validate that confidence. Not much supports a 180mm fan, but it's still worth a test, if for no other reason than something different to work on.

As for modmats, those have begun shipping. We sold out of our entire first order, and we're now on back-order while we wait for the factory to make more. I've learned a lot about quality assurance and working with factories in the past weeks, and I'm excited to apply this new knowledge to our product reviews. It gives a refreshing perspective on just how hard it is to get something made properly -- especially if you don't own the factory. The new round of modmats should start shipping sometime (vaguely) in March.

Lots more to  do, but for now, that's your update! Join us on Discord if you haven't already -- you can connect your account via the Patreon account page.

- Steve