20 of the Worst PC Setups – August 2014

I’m sure at some point you had a bad PC setup. Maybe moving into a new place, waiting for a new desk to arrive or you just ran out of room. I can remember my horrible PC setups from when I was living at the dorms in college. If you have ever ventured over to the Shitty Battlestations sub-reddit you will find a lot of horrible PC setups. We will are going to pick 20 each month and feature them as 20 of the Worst PC setups for that month. Here are some of the bad ones from August!

Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 Water Cooler Review

The company Antec is mainly known for their high-performance power supplies.
Antec recently published this AIO water cooling, which is remarkable for its design.
Can the cooling performance satisfy and are all other results of the Antec H2O 1250 Liquid CPU cooler optimally solved ?
We will see in this Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 review and even listen to sound examples.

ASUS STRIX GTX 750 Ti OC Edition Video Card Reviewed

At COMPUTEX 2014, Futurelooks had a chance to check out a new series of hardware and peripherals called STRIX. Unlike ROG, which is geared towards hardcore enthusiasts and overclockers, STRIX is more for the mainstream gamer looking for great performance, factory overclocks, low noise, as well as exceptional stability. The ASUS STRIX GTX 750 Ti OC Edition video card is not only factory overclocked, but ASUS says it can run perfectly silent when the GPU isn’t doing a lot of work, but still runs virtually silent when you are gaming.

Running an overclocked card without a fan? Are you nuts? We put it to the test.

BT Smart Home Cam 100 Review

Once upon a time, protecting your home with security cameras was a pipe dream for the paranoid. It was not just seen as unnecessary, but impractical, ungodly expensive and even if you did set up a network, where would you store the low quality recorded footage? Today, with the advent of minuscule, HD cameras and high-speed web connectivity it is both practical and affordable. That is why companies such as BT are getting in on the action … with a wireless home monitoring system – the BT Smart Home Cam 100.

Recording at 720P and featuring motion sensing and night vision technologies, this is a very versatile little interior camera, with a smart appearance. Is it worth it and does it deliver on its promises? Today we find out.

Dune HD Connect Universal Media Player Review

Three to four years ago i used to review standalone hardware media players by a long list of manufacturers all the time but since most modern TVs now come with such media players built-in (well the majority may not be as good as standalone ones but for most consumers they are just fine) that specific segment of the market isn't as "exciting" as it once was (several manufacturers have also ceased operations). Luckily there are still manufacturers out there that spend large amounts of money for the research and development of standalone media players aimed primarily at more demanding consumers who are just not satisfied with current built-in solutions. Dune HD is without doubt one of the most popular media player manufacturers around (if not the most popular) and today we will be taking a look at their latest addition in their product line the Dune HD Connect Universal Media Player.

Dune HD is a global leader in high definition media players and connected boxes for consumers and operators. Over the past five years Dune HD has received more awards than any other company in the category for universal media players. Dune HD products support a wide number of digital formats, from Internet-based digital streaming and download to disc-based formats such as 3D, Blu-ray and DVD, along with supporting IPTV, VOD and OTT. Designed by world-class engineers, Dune HD media players are enjoyed by more than half a million consumers in more than 60 countries. Learn more at www.dune-hd.com.

Thanks to the brand new SMP8674 processor (mainstream yet high-performance model) by our friends over at Sigma Designs and a total of 512MB DDR3 RAM the Dune HD Connect is not only capable of up-scaling SD content to high quality Full HD 1080p but it can also reproduce even the highest (3D included) bitrate media files (MKV/MPEG-TS/MPEG-PS/M2TS/VOB/AVI/MOV/MP4/QT/ASF/WMV/DVD-ISO/VIDEO_TS - up to well over 50MBit/s according to Dune HD) and at pretty much every possible/supported frame rate (23.976/24/50/60) via HDMI v1.3. Hardware specifications however are not what makes the Dune HD Connect special, it's size is since we are talking about the smallest media player currently in the market (slightly larger compared to a normal USB flash drive) that offers an Ethernet port, built-in WiFi and a microSD card reader. Unlike however other similar solutions the Connect Universal Media Player comes wearing the same GUI (graphical user interface) we've seen with every previous solution by Dune HD and although that means slightly "inferior" customization capabilities (always compared to regular android models) still as you will see later on it offers everything you may ever need and offers something android doesn't, completely lag-free navigation.

Fake Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 cards sold by German retailers

What you get is a GeForce GT 440 with modified video BIOS information.

GPU Charts 2014: 58 Graphics Cards

In our charts you find benchmark values of 58 DX11 graphics cards. Furthermore we do not comment the benchmark values. The idea and also the goal is to present to you a market overview which helps you choose the right graphics card.

MSI X99S GAMING 7 (Intel LGA 2011-3)

Another new Intel debut is upon us, and you just can't miss it if you use multiple monitors and videocards. Today, we take our first look at Intel's X99 Express platform with MSI's X99S GAMING 7 to show us what's in store. Including SATA Express, M.2, DDR4, and support for Intel's new Haswell-E CPUs, the MSI X99S GAMING 7 might just be what you're looking for.

MSI Z97 XPOWER AC Review

At $379, the Z97 XPOWER AC is at the top of MSI's Z97 overclocking product stack and rightly deserves its place there. The feature set of this board compares favorably with the ROG offerings from ASUS in terms of functionality and just raw potential. Sure you can get one of MSI's other Overclocking or Gaming series boards, but you lose some of the features this board has to offer to save the coin. For the balls-out overclocker, this board can do it all.

Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate Review

With the release of a new generation of graphics cards there can be so much fan-fare and attention paid to the higher end offerings that lower end models get overlooked. System enthusiasts and hardcore gamers rarely even think of the models that can’t crank out maximum FPS or look awesome in a huge water cooled system. Some may be surprised to know there are GPUs for everyday people and entry level gaming. Shocking isn’t it? The vast majority of GPUs are of the integrated type, sold within the CPU/APU. Research has shown 50% of these IGP (Integrated Graphics Processors) go unused in favor of more robust discrete solutions. That is what we will be looking into today, a discrete solution that can offer more graphical prowess than any integrated solution. Its other defining characteristic is that it can do this in total silence. We are referring to the Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate silent GPU.