Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Assassin's Creed Unity Review
Azza Z Mini ITX Gaming Case Review
BitFenix Pandora Micro-ATX Slim Case Review
Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Performance and PhysX Review
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review: tested with 21 GPUs
DimasTech Mini V1 Test Bench: Purpose Driven
Holiday Guides 2014: AMD Motherboards
iPhone 6 Plus vs Galaxy S5 Review
Kingston Class 10 UHS-I SDXC 256GB and MicroSD 128GB Review
Microsoft Arc Keyboard Review
OCZ Vector 150 SSD On Linux
Seasonic X Series XM2 1050 W
The Crew Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance
Tt eSPORTS BAHAMUT External Sound Card Review

Assassin's Creed Unity Review

Many people would guess that I am a fan of the Assassin's Creed franchise, and they would be correct, last year I reviewed every PC title in the series in the lead up to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. With some exceptions, I have consistently enjoyed this franchise, so when Assassin's Creed Unity was announced I naturally wanted to play and review it.

Part of the premise of the Assassin's Creed franchise is that you are experiencing the lives of someone's ancestors by accessing genetic memories using the Animus. In Unity you play as Arno Dorian in the Animus, as French Assassin, alive during the French Revolution. Unlike the previous games, you never exit the Animus, though like Black Flag, the out-of-Animus character has no real name. Arno's life is not a very happy one as his father is murdered when he is young, and then his adoptive father is murdered in front of him. Then he learns about the Assassins and Templars, that his father was an Assassin, his adoptive father was a Templar Grandmaster, and his adoptive sister and love interest, Élise, is also a Templar. Then, to make matters worse for this fictional character, the game released in a rather rough state.

Read full article @ OCC

Azza Z Mini ITX Gaming Case Review

Over the past year we have talked frequently about the trend towards smaller high powered system builds. Today’s Azza Z case is a perfect example. The Azza Z offers a slim case design that caters to gamers, home theater and Steam box builds without requiring proprietary parts. Often called small form factor or SFF cases these cases can prove to be both difficult and satisfying to build as an enthusiast.

The Azza Z may look familiar. We last saw the Z in our review of the CyberPowerPC Zeus Mini System back in March. We liked the Z based system so much we were happy to revisit the Azza based case as a standalone review.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

BitFenix Pandora Micro-ATX Slim Case Review

It looks like BitFenix are at it again. Fresh off the manufacturing line, Benchmark Reviews has received something a bit different from the company known for cases like the Colossus, Shinobi and Prodigy. As their first case with aluminum panels the slim micro-ATX Pandora brings a sense of style that is a significant departure from some of their recent enclosures. Available in black or silver, with or without a window, and in Core or ICON versions (which contain a 2.4″ LCD display in the front panel) fans of the micro-ATX form factor will have quite a few possibilities to choose from. For those that are looking for something a little more elegant without sacrificing a large footprint, the Pandora may be just the thing. Are there any compromises made to keep this case slim? Let’s dig in and take a look.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Performance and PhysX Review

Handsome Jack is back for another round in the Borderlands series. We are not talking about Borderlands 3 here though, this is Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. This time the landscape you will be traversing is the moon of Pandora (Elpis). Similar to Earth’s moon Pandora’s moon is a low oxygen and gravity environment, this brings some new game play features into play like maintaining oxygen levels. However, it wouldn’t be Borderlands without some other twist, the O2 kit that you wear actually allows you to double jump and do a gravity slam on your opponents (otherwise known as a butt slam).

Having played through Borderlands 2 and all the DLC certainly made it easy to jump into the game play of Borderlands TPS. However, the weirdest thing to wrap my mind around is that Handsome Jack is not the bad guy in this episode. In fact you fight alongside him as your ally. There are four new characters, Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha, and Claptrap. If you have played borderlands and Borderlands 2 then you are probably familiar with these names. The funniest one from what I was playing was playing as Claptrap, though as usually he is annoying.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review: tested with 21 GPUs

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the eleventh instalment of the successful Call of Duty series, was released in early November. We tested the game using 21 contemporary GPUs to determine whether it is AMD or Nvidia boards that offer the best performance for this game.

Advanced Warfare is the eleventh game in the Call of Duty series, but it's actually the first one that's been developed by the studio called Sledgehammer Games. While we did spot some cosmetic changes (such as the lack of a classic "HUD"), at its core, the game remains an old-fashioned first person shooter featuring an extensive arsenal, a series of story-driven missions, and a multiplayer component. This time around, the story (featuring famous actor Kevin Spacey as the evil genius) is set around the middle of the 21st century, allowing for a number of interesting gameplay innovations. For example, you are able to use an exoskeleton that boosts your jumping ability, grenades that allow you to gather information, and more futuristic weaponry.

Additionally, the game offers two new multiplayer modes, Uplink and Momentum. The first mode has you establish a satellite connection in a way that is somewhat reminiscent of a game of basketball. Not something you'd expect from a serious shooter. The Momentum mode does appeal to one's imagination, as it is an innovative twist on the good old capture the flag concept, featuring five distinct flags and a dynamic game of offensive and defence.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

DimasTech Mini V1 Test Bench: Purpose Driven

Test benches are unassuming pieces of hardware; their function is straightforward and their purpose is apparent. Because of their simplicity however, it is easy to overlook the value of how well one is designed. It is easy to think that all test benches are the same but just like enclosures, an organized work area is essential and flexibility is important. …

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Holiday Guides 2014: AMD Motherboards

For socketed desktop systems, AMD is currently maintaining three significantly different processor lines. To add to the confusion, one is super low power (Kabini/AM1), one hasnt been updated since 2011 (AM3+), and the newest platform focuses most in integrated graphics and OpenCL rather than pure throughput (Kaveri/FM2+).

Due to this segmentation, while motherboard manufacturers have products in each market, the range ends up either quite old (AM3+) or lower cost (Kabini and Kaveri), leaving manufactures little room to differentiate. But ultimately, this is AMDs strategy: providing the lower cost systems and focusing on integrated graphics. While there is something to be said in transferring over GPU knowledge into integrated graphics, one might wonder why in terms of cannibalizing low end discrete card sales.

Nevertheless, we have reviewed each of the main chipsets on offer and can provide some recommendations. Many if these recommendations hold over from our last AMD guide.

Read full article @ Anandtech

iPhone 6 Plus vs Galaxy S5 Review

An in-depth look at how Samsung's Android flagship compares with Apple's first phablet

Read full article @ The Inquirer

Kingston Class 10 UHS-I SDXC 256GB and MicroSD 128GB Review

Have you ever run out of memory on your camera, smartphone or tablet at a critical moment or had to delete something you didn't want to in order to free up space? Running our of storage space is pretty common these days and with most cameras being able to capture full 1080P HD or video or possibly 4k UHD video it is becoming obvious that our need for larger Flash memory cards is only going to continue growing. Kingston Digital is a trusted name in the memory card business and just last month they announced that they were doubling the capacities on both their Class 10 UHS-I microSD and Class 10 UHS-I SDHC/SDXC cards. This means you can get a Kingston microSD card in capacities of up to 128GB and an SDXC card with a capacity of up to 256GB! Legit Reviews got our hands on the Kingston 128GB Class 10 UHS-I microSD card along with the Kingston 256GB Class 10 UHS-I SDXC card and put them to the test!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Microsoft Arc Keyboard Review

Keyboards are a funny breed of device when it comes to reviews because so much of it comes down to personal preference. No matter which one you get, it is going to put the letters up on the screen. The deciding factor comes down to look and feel and how comfortable it is for the individual user to type on.

Read full article @ Windows Central

OCZ Vector 150 SSD On Linux

The latest solid-state drive being tested at Phoronix is the 120GB OCZ Vector 150. This solid-state drive is quite affordable but has been reviewed favorably by Windows users, so we figured we'd see how well it works when adding it to one of the constantly-running Linux benchmark systems.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Seasonic X Series XM2 1050 W

We had the chance to evaluate many Seasonic products within the last couple months. Today, we will take a look at their 1050 W Gold-certified X series unit. Like its big brother, the X-1250 XM2 we tested recently, we expect it to perform incredibly well.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

The Crew Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance

While it may seem antiquated in this day and age of modern operating systems, the command line remains the most flexible and powerful way to perform tasks in Linux. In this follow up article to our command line series we go a bit deeper to discuss file metadata, permissions, timestamps, some new tools like tee, Vim, and more.

Read full article @ Techspot

Tt eSPORTS BAHAMUT External Sound Card Review

Sound is important, not only to gamers, but to everyone. Having a PC with a bad sound card can not only make a difference in gaming, but the ability to enjoy music, watch movies and more. Today we are taking a look a pretty handy USB External Sound Card from Tt eSPORTS. The BAHAMUT features 5.1 virtual surround sound, 8/16-bit DAC channels, support for 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz sampling, 3.5 mm output connectors and it looks pretty badass sitting on your desk. Let’s take a look!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org