Archive for the ‘Tests and Reviews’ Category

Buying Games Cheaper With Bitcoin (BTC) from G2A

4, May 2017

We have already purchased games using Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment method from Steam as the popular service has been accepting purchases made with the crypto currency for more than a year already. Steam however is not the only place where you can pay for games with Bitcoin, there are others also accepting crypto currency payments and you can even get a better deal. One such example is the G2A Game Store where you can purchase game keys for a better price, including games from Steam, but not limited (they added BTC support even before Steam). The idea here is that the website does not directly sell you games, but connects you to users selling them online and only acts as an intermediary processing the payments and helping resolve any issues if there are such.

There are many different payments methods supported by the G2A Store and Bitcoin (BTC) is only one of them. You can also pay directly with a Credit Card, PayPal as well as many others. We are however most interested in Bitcoin and the payments using the crypto currency are being processed by BitPay as a payment processor (the same one as on Steam). The checkout process is quick and easy, though you might still need to wait a bit for the confirmation of the transaction (especially wit lower fee) on the Bitcoin blockchain. Regular confirmation should just take a couple of minutes, but it can take more if the blocks are currently full and recently the number of transactions has increased and the waiting queue for transactions is bigger.

If you like the game deals available on G2A we do recommend that you activate the G2A Shield service as it can help you get even better deals and if there are some trouble with your purchases it helps you resolve them faster and easier. We are especially fond the deals like 1 Random Steam Premium CD-Key deals starting at a little over $1 USD or the 10 Random Steam CD-KEY deals for a bit over $2 USD, though there are many other interesting deals and offers available. Do note that these random game deals depend on your luck and while you may get a very sweet deal, you may also get not so great selection of games as well… then again you can also give away the keys for games that you don’t want or need.

– For more information and to get some sweet game deals on G2A paying with Bitcoin (BTC)…

Crypto Mining With Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition

24, Apr 2017

As promised last week after the official announcement we are starting a series of reviews of the new AMD Radeon RX 5×0 series of GPUs and the first card to go through is the Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition. This is one of the top models of RX 580 from Sapphire that comes with higher factory clocks compared to most other RX 580 GPUs and some nice additional extras such as spare fans. Compared to the last year’s Sapphire RX 480 NITRO+ the new RX 580 counterparts do come with higher clocks and improved cooling solution… and a bit higher price as well. The new RX 580 cards that are more like the last year’s RX 480 from Sapphire are now called PULSE and not NITRO and hopefully we are going to soon have a PULSE card to check out, but for now let us see what the NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition has to offer…

SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 8 GB Limited Edition:
– 2304 stream Processors
– 14 nm FinFET, 4th generation Graphics Core Next (GCN)
– 1450 MHz GPU Boost Clock
– 8192 MB GDDR5 Memory, 256 bit Memory Bus, 2000 MHz Memory Clock
– Display Outputs: 1x DL-DVI-D, 2x HDMI 2.0b, 2x DisplayPort 1.4
– All-new Dual-X 95 mm fans, two ball bearing
– Power connectors: 1x 6-pin PCI-E, 1x 8-pin PCI-E
– Power consumption: 225W
– Dual UEFI BIOS

The new larger cooler is a welcome improvement as are the the additional spare fans included in the package of the RX 580 NITRO+ LE GPUs, though the non Limited Edition RX 580 and the RX 570 NITRO+ also come with the same new cooler. Other notable difference however is the additional power connector found on the NITRO+ RX 5×0 series, they all feature a single 6-pin and a single 8-pin PCI-E power connectors. The extra power connector is needed due to the higher clocks and increased power consumption, however it can be a problem for miners willing to connect 6 of these cards with a single power supply. So do have that in mind as well as the fact that the PULSE series are with a single and not dual PCI-E power connectors.

Here is how things look according to GPU-Z for the GPU specs. The GPU clock is running perfectly fine at 1450 MHz and allows for some extra overclock to about 1500 MHz, though not much higher than that. The higher GPU clock comes with increased operating voltage of about 1.1750V and that also results in increased power usage, up to over 140W GPU only Power Draw according to GPU-Z. The video memory is running at 2000 MHz and we kind of expected to see Samsung GDDR5 memory used here, after all this is a more expensive top model from Sapphire of the new RX 580 and is also a Limited Edition one. Unfortunately Sapphire has opted to go for Hynix memory for this series and as a result you can expect not the best performance in memory intensive mining algorithms such as Ethash used by Ethereum or Equihash used by Zcash.

Now off to the benchmarks with some popular algorithms used by the most profitable to mine crypto currencies at the moment. Starting with Ethereum (ETH) mining using the latest Claymore Dual ETH miner version 9.2 and we are getting just about 22.5 MHS from the Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition. This is with the stock settings, no memory modifications and is definitely a disappointing result, though considering that the memory used was Hynix at 2000 MHz it seems that the default memory timings are pretty relaxed in order to keep the hgiher operating frequency. Again going for Samsung memory on this Limited Edition model is a must do thing in our opinion, so we are wondering why Sapphire didn’t do just that…

We can see similar not so great result for mining ZEC using the latest Claymore ZCash AMD GPU Miner 12.4, but this is to be expected since the Equihash algorithm is also more memory intensive. The average hashrate we are getting for ZCash (ZEC) mining with this video card is about 296 H/s. The reason for the lower hashrate than what we have seen from some lower clocked RX 480 GPUs is again most likely the Hynix memory, but also the new driver that AMD has released with support for the RX 500 series might be responsible for the not so good mining hashrates and the official AMD Radeon Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.3 driver for the RX 500 series is a WHQL one and may not be the best performing one for crypto currency mining.

Some more benchmark results at stock settings:
– Decred (DCR): 1.220 GHS
– CryptoNight (XMR): 600 H/s
– LBRY (LBC): 0.165 GHS
– Pascal (PASC): 0.830 GHS
– X11Ghost (SIB): 8.2 MHS

As far as optimizations go, you can play around with the memory straps and get better results. Furthermore reducing the GPU frequency from the default high value will also allow you to lower the voltage and achieve significantly lower power usage, especially if optimizing for ETH, though ZEC should also be fine with a bit higher voltage. Some people also report that the RX 580 LE card can run just fine on a single 8-pin PCI-E power, though should you try that make sure you have optimized the frequency and voltages of the GPU first in order to avoid overloading the power line…

As a conclusion we can say that the Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition video cards although seemingly attractive for miners have been clearly designed for gamers and they will do pretty good for gaming with the higher operating clocks. Miners may also like the larger cooler and the extra fans in the package, but the two power connectors and the increased power usage is not something that is so great. At stock settings the RX 580 LE is a bit disappointing in terms of performance, though with some tweaking you can probably get better performance and low power usage. Then again you should be able to achieve the same result with a cheaper RX 580 or even RX 570 after you tweak the memory straps, reduce the clock speeds and operating voltages. So out of the box this is good for gamers, with some tweaking it can still become a miner friendly video card, though you should be careful what you do but the higher price of this particular model may make it not as attractive for miners as for example the GPUs from Sapphire’s PULSE series.

– More information about Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition…

You Can Now Support Us Through the Brave Browser’s Brave Payments

25, Mar 2017

A while ago we have introduced the Brave Payments Feature Powered by Bitcoin as a means for users to support their favorite websites by using the Brave browser and tipping them with Bitcoin. Now it is time to go through the Publisher side of things, guiding you through the steps required from website owners to claim any funds their users have sent them. This is an alternative way for users to support the websites they follow and like with their ads blocked by the Brave browser, because after all ads are usually the main revenue stream for most websites that do not sell products or services, but instead provide information.

Lets get started with what you need to go through in order to start using Brave Payments for your own website and be able to get supported by your readers through Bitcoin tips. You need to start by opening the Brave Publishers Dashboard to initiate the signup process and versification of your ownership of the website you want to register. Just click on the Start Verification button to initiate the website ownership confirmation process…

The first step is to enter your website URL and your contact details, after submitting that information you will receive an email to the address you have entered with a confirmation link. You need to click on that link in order to confirm you are the owner of the email address that you have entered in the contact information form.

The next step is to confirm your actual ownership of the website you are registering in the Publisher program of Brave, there are two options here – wait a couple of days to be contacted by a Brave Publisher Partner to complete the process or add a DNS record to the domain of the website in order to automatically complete the verification process in a couple of minutes. The second option is preferred if you have access to the DNS records of your domain and can add an extra TXT record to finish the confirmation process, otherwise you will just have to wait to be contacted.

Finishing the website ownership confirmation will show you if you actually have some fund pending that users may already sent your way and it also requires you to go through some more additional steps like entering your Bitcoin address where any funds you receive will be transferred on a monthly basis.

After entering your Bitcoin address you will also need to Declare IRS tax status by filling in the respective electronic tax form and submitting the information to Brave depending if you are US or Non-US based individual or a company.

That is it you are ready to get supported with Bitcoin tips by your readers if they are using the Brave browser’s Brave Payments feature of your high risk merchant processing and you should now focus on better content than thinking about getting advertisers. Also if you still haven’t tied the Brave browser now is probably a great time to – download it and give it a try, the browser is available for Windows, Linux and Mac as well as Android and iOS mobile platforms.

– If you want to download and try the free Brave Browser…


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