Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

20 of the Worst PC Setups - January 2015
5 Ways Windows 8.1 Can Make You More Productive
Cougar 600K Mechanical Keyboard Review
Crucial M550 512GB CT512M550SSD3 mSATA SSD Review
ECS Liva X Mini PC Review
ErgoDox Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard Kit
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 WindForce 2X OC Review
Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming 2 GB
Intel's $150 HDMI Stick Turns Any TV Into a Windows Desktop
KaOS 2014.12 review - Chaos and anarchy
Luxa2 EnerG Slim 10,000mAh Power Bank Review
MSI 970 Gaming Review
Noctua NH-U9S CPU Cooler Review
NZXT DOKO Review
Reeven Hans RC-1205 Heatsink Review
Round-Up: GeForce GTX 980 and 970 Cards From MSI, EVGA, and Zotac Reviewed
SteelSeries Siberia V3 Prism Review
Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 500X Headset Review

20 of the Worst PC Setups - January 2015

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 January!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

5 Ways Windows 8.1 Can Make You More Productive

Who would ever want to buy a new computer and be forced to start using Windows 8? Well, this guy right here for one. The truth is, ever since Windows 8 came out, I abhorred the thought of buying a new computer and having to use Windows 8. Every review I ever saw of it displayed these atrocious looking modern windows with big square blocks meant for tablet users. I was a happy Windows 7 user, and intended to keep it that way. Then, my laptop died.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Cougar 600K Mechanical Keyboard Review

Here at Benchmark Reviews we have seen a lot of Cougar products come through as of late. Today we are proud to review something a little different, the Cougar 600K mechanical keyboard featuring Cherry MX Blue switches. There are quite a few things that make this keyboard unique and set it apart from it’s previous flagship keyboard, the Cougar 700K. The feature set alone from the 600K create a special synergy for typing purists that not only puts it in a class of its own, but definitely needs further examination.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Crucial M550 512GB CT512M550SSD3 mSATA SSD Review

After the recent review of the Crucial M550 M.2 and the Crucial M550 2.5-inch SSD we test the third possible type of the Crucial M550 SSD today - the Crucial M550 mSATA SSD with 512 GB and the part number CT512M550SSD3.
This new review will show if the tiny mSATA SSD can keep up with the excellent test results of the SATA SSD and the M.2 SSD.

Read full article @ OcInside.de

ECS Liva X Mini PC Review

ECS has updated its Liva Mini PC and the new version is named Liva X. Its a small box that is powered by a Celeron N2808 dual core System on Chip that is capable of running either Windows or Linux.

Read full article @ KitGuru

ErgoDox Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard Kit

So over the past few years I have been lucky enough to cover nearly every new and interesting mechanical keyboard I could find. This includes various models with RGB backlighting, unique switches, and even an ergonomic model. That said there have still been a few mechanical keyboards that I haven’t been able to get my hands on, mostly because they are a little less mainstream. Well last last year I had the chance to talk with a fairly new group buy website called Massdrop, some of you may have heard of it. Massdrop really caught my eye because they do group buys on enthusiasts focused products. It just so happened there mechanical keyboard buyer has seen our coverage in the past and was excited to work with us. I don’t think there is a more fitting product to cover than the ErgoDox Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard Kit. This is what helped establish Massdrop and it is also one of the most unique keyboards you can get.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 WindForce 2X OC Review

We review another Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 cards, located under SKU code GV-N960WFOC-2GD this round it is the dual-fan WindForce 2X edition that we put to the test. This product is slightly cheaper and has a smaller factory overclock opposed to the G1 gaming version, however it remains among the most silent of all the cards we tested. The WindForce 2X based cooler is doing a proper job and the card is among the best overclockers as well.

So, it's Nvidia who is releasing the GeForce GTX 960 based products. The GM206 GPU empowering the card has been a topic of much discussion over the past few months, and let's face it... everybody expected this GPU to be based on the GPU being used in the GTX 970 and 980. Then there were delays, and the product got pushed backwards to even after Christmas. Yes, somebody made the decision that the GTX 960 should be a cheaper fab product opposed to using the more expensive GM204 that you know from the GTX 970/980. Nvidia now bakes the GM206 for the GTX 960 series, the product has been castrated and stripped of everything that is sexy with the GTX 970/980. You'll see the memory cut down to 2 GB of memory on these puppies, that memory runs on a 128-bit wide bus, the shader processors have been halved to 1024 Shader/Stream/Cuda cores.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming 2 GB

With 3x DP, 2x DVI and 1x HDMI, Gigabyte's GTX 960 G1 Gaming features the most complete output configuration. The card is also overclocked out of the box, and a powerful triple-fan thermal solution keeps it cool, yet it stays very quiet in gaming and will stop the fans completely in idle and light load.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Intel's $150 HDMI Stick Turns Any TV Into a Windows Desktop

Got an HDMI port handy? Sure, you could plug in a Chromecast, Fire TV Stick or Roku Streaming Stick to get your Netflix fix. Or you could pay $150 to get a full Windows 8.1 PC in the same form factor.

This is the Intel Compute Stick, a humble HDMI dongle that houses a full desktop computer experience. It's not a particularly powerful one—you get a quad-core 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of solid state storage—but it does have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and both a full-size USB port and a microSD card slot for expandability. As long as you're not gaming and find yourself a decent couch controller, you could probably do quite a bit from this tiny PC! Here's the spec sheet.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

KaOS 2014.12 review - Chaos and anarchy

I've written a long, thorough review of KaOS 2014.12 64-bit KDE edition, an Arch-inspired distribution, tested in a quad-boot setup on a laptop with Intel graphics and SSD, covering live session, supposedly failed installation due to a bootloader error, and post install use, including look & feel, network connectivity - Wireless (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Samba sharing, no printing, multimedia playback - MP3 and Flash, installation wizard, partitioning and associated errors, applications, package management, missing software, desktop effects, resource usage, stability, suspend & resume, customization, other considerations, and more.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Luxa2 EnerG Slim 10,000mAh Power Bank Review

The Luxa2 EnerG Silm 10,000mAh Power Bank is a great gadget with a solid construction and build. These power banks are often hard to review in such a short amount of time. While working on other reviews, I was able to travel with it and use it daily to grasp the feel of everyday use. While this is more of an extreme for some, it's hard to predict what the average user will use it for. I am on my phone half the day and found times where I was away from a power outlet for 12 hours while at my day job. That being said, Luxa2 does a great job of providing devices that fills the gap between unwanted downtime. I was able to charge my phone and other devices in just the same amount of time from a outlet, and while it was in my pocket! Combine that with a half life of 1,000 cycles, this power bank will outlive it's warranty as it's simply not possible to get that many charges out of it, even if used everyday. Many brands I've come across provided very limited warranties, leaving you to wonder if it will hold a charge the next day.

Read full article @ OCC

MSI 970 Gaming Review

An up-to-date £80 gaming motherboard for the AM3+ platform. AMD's AM3+ socket and associated chipsets have been on the market since 2011, which is a long time in the fast-moving world of desktop PC technology. The age of AM3+ poses a challenge for consumers looking to get the best value for money in their next build. AMD's CPUs may be hitting the right notes on price to performance but the rather dated selection of AM3+ motherboards are less compelling, pushing a lot of consumers towards Intel's newer Z97 platform that's flooded with choice.

MSI is looking to change that with its 970 Gaming motherboard which revitalises a stagnant AM3+ motherboard market. As its name suggests, the 970 Gaming makes use of AMD's 970 chipset, which is not quite as high-spec as the 990X or 990FX chipsets, granted, but the choice of the lower-end chipset does allow MSI to hit an aggressive price point of £80 here in the UK. From a feature perspective the MSI 970 Gaming is as good as more expensive Z97 equivalents such as the MSI Z97 Gaming 3 and Gaming 5.

Read full article @ Hexus

Noctua NH-U9S CPU Cooler Review

You probably have heard the saying "good things come in small packages" before. I have heard this a lot, as they generally say this to make shorter people feel better. However, I can say it can be very true. In the winter of 2010, I was going to have my wisdom teeth extracted. When my sister had nothing to do for the weeks following she lost her wisdom teeth, I realized I should find something to occupy my time with. Thus, I decided to learn an instrument. This was not the first instrument I had picked up, as I knew how to play the electric bass and the trombone already, but I was determined to expand my musical experience. I had tried guitar in the past, and to actually pick it up would be easy, considering I already had two lying around the house. However, with my smaller fingers, barring and playing chords like B or F is difficult, so I chose the ukulele. Even though there are still barred chords, the nylon strings are much easier on the fingers. The smaller number of strings also make it easy to pick up quickly. The day of the surgery, I was excited, but not for the tooth extraction, but rather for the instrument to come afterwards. Looking back on the time, I am more than glad I chose the ukulele. The instrument, like many things, has its positives and negatives. For one, it is much more travel-friendly, especially with its smaller size in comparison to the guitar. The ukulele may not get as loud, or sound as full or rich as an acoustic guitar due to its smaller size, but it definitely works well for playing on your own. As for an overall package, it still delivers on the enjoyment level, despite its relatively tiny figure. If we look at today's Noctua NH-U9S, you can wonder if it too can deliver on the performance, while remaining small. There are larger and better options for CPU cooling, especially if you have the space. But with size being a limitation in smaller builds, users are pushed towards these options. So can it perform, and how does it compete with last week's cute cooler of the Noctua NH-D9L? Hopefully all of these questions will be answered in the review!

Read full article @ APH Networks

NZXT DOKO Review

NZXT are known for their passion within the computer chassis and cooling markets and have thus far had a rather successful journey. Not content to sit idly by, it may surprise some that NZXT has recently moved into a new territory – streaming.

Just a few weeks ago NZXT announced DOKO -- their new streaming device which allows users to gain access to multiple computers on the same network – enjoying such activities as browsing the internet, watching movies and playing games, all in the comfort of the living room.

So let’s not waste another minute and dive straight into looking at this innovative and funky new device.

Read full article @ Vortez

Reeven Hans RC-1205 Heatsink Review

In this review Frostytech will be testing the Reeven Hans (RC-1205) heatsink, a 151mm tall tower cooler built around the usual mix of heatpipes, aluminum fins and a weighty copper base. Reeven a relatively new Taiwanese thermal solutions brand, though judging by the box art and company address, it appears to be mainstream-geared Scythe Co. Ltd. off-shoot. Reeven ship the Hans RC-1205 heatsink with a single 120mm PWM fan that operates at 1500-300RPM, shifting between 17CFM - 82CFM according to the manufacturer specs.

Read full article @ FrostyTech

Round-Up: GeForce GTX 980 and 970 Cards From MSI, EVGA, and Zotac Reviewed

In all of its iterations, NVIDIA's new Maxwell GPU has proven to be a good performing, power-efficient architecture. But it’s at the high-end of the market where some of the most exciting products reside. Typically, when NVIDIA launches a new high-end GPU, cards based on the company’s reference design trickle out first, and then board partners follow up with custom solutions packing unique cooling hardware, higher clocks, and sometimes additional features. With the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980, NVIDIA’s board partners were ready with custom solutions very quickly and they’ve only been refined over time, as NVIDIA has tweaked their drivers and board partners massage specs, fan profiles, and the like.

Today we want to show you three custom GeForce cards, from enthusiast favorites EVGA, MSI, and Zotac. Two of the cards are GTX 980s—the MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G and the Zotac GeForce GTX 980 AMP! Omgea, the third is a GTX 970 from EVGA, or more specifically, the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW with ACX 2.0.

Read full article @ HotHardware

SteelSeries Siberia V3 Prism Review

The Siberia V3 is arguably one of the most refined gaming headsets in existence, impressing us with its lightweight comfort and good sound quality. Of course, there is also need to deliver the V3 with a USB solution, to which some will rejoice as it enters as part of the 'Prism' range, which has LED illumination that is customisable with 16.8 million colours and supported by the SteelSeries Engine 3.

Comparatively, the £105-£120 price tag is quite lofty for the Prism, £20-35 over the V3 itself. This sets the Siberia V3 Prism in its own class, one which becomes a statement of luxury and desire.

Read full article @ Vortez

Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 500X Headset Review

The recently released Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 500X is the first fully wireless headset released on the Xbox One. DTS 7.1 surround, 15 hours of battery life and more - but does it sound good?

Read full article @ Neowin