In case you haven’t already know, the Viper Gaming sub-brand is under Patriot, a brand that is primarily known for their memory products. With Viper Gaming, they are also bringing in gaming peripherals as well.
At Computex 2019, we attended their seminar and with that, we managed to get a glimpse of the future – starting off with their brand new – as in really new to the point that it still does not have a name yet – the M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD.
This new PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD is – as the name suggests – utilizing the latest PCIe specifications and is using 4 lanes. Currently, these SSDs are not available in the market yet, and the first ever motherboards that will be able to take advantage of this new protocol is the AMD Ryzen’s X570 chipset.
Currently, Viper Gaming is expecting speeds of up to 4,800MB/s sequential read or 750k IOPS for random read, and at 4,000MB/s sequential write or 700k IOPS for random write. However, since this product is yet to be finalized, there might be changes and even further enhancement to allow even faster speeds.
It was also highlighted to us that a Phison E16 controller is used for this NVMe PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD. This SSD will be available from 500GB to 2TB.
Then comes Patriot’s EVLVR external SSD. This is an external SSD that is powered by Thunderbolt 3 technology, allowing direct PCIe Gen 3 x4 connection to the system. The Patriot EVLVR is a lightweight SSD encased in an aluminium housing to provide some cooling since these high-performance SSDs can get hot.
The Patriot EVLVR is listed to have a sequential read speed of 1,600MB/s and a sequential write speed of 1,000MB/s. It is actually available in the market now for the price of $202.99 for the 512GB version and $272.99 for 1TB.
One interesting product that caught my attention right away is the upcoming Viper V380 gaming headset. It is a 7.1 gaming headset that is connected directly to the PC via USB. What’s interesting is that there is no in-line control or a 3.5mm audio jack, so there is zero compatibility with your PS4, Xbox, or Switch.
This allows direct digital audio to be passed to the headphone and the DAC is built into the headset itself, hence the sound quality will be consistent with all PCs used.
It comes with a rare rectangular shaped earcup with a large and thick padding as well. Though it does look like there are grills on the side, they are actually just for show. This Viper V380 headset is a closed-back headphone.
On the right earcup, there is a microphone mute button, a volume slider, and also a button to toggle the RGB. I’m personally more interested on how the headphone will sound when compared to other detachable headsets
There are also two more gaming mice that are coming under the Viper brand as well, particularly the V550 and V551.
The Viper V551 on the left and V550 on the right.The V550 is an ambidextrous mouse with a pretty low profile, which is pretty good for claw and fingertip grippers. It is using a Pixart 3325 sensor and has a total of 9 buttons, 8 of them are programmable.
As for the V511, this is a right-handed only mouse that has a pretty high profile. This one uses a Pixart 3327 sensor with 8 buttons, 7 of them are programmable.
There is also another full-sized keyboard that uses Kailh’s box switches. This is the Viper V765, and its main advantages are dust- and water-resistance. You can spill drinks on the keyboard and still expected it to work. A few particular highlights of the keyboard is the volume wheel and also dedicated multimedia keys.
The wrist rest is also attached magnetically onto the keyboard.
