Here a roundup of todays review's and articles:

21 USB 802.11ac adapters compared: 802.11ac for everyone!
All-round Deluxe PC - March 2015
Antec P380 Full-Tower Chassis Review
CH Products Pro Pedals USB Flugsimulator Pedals Review
Cougar 500k Gaming Keyboard Review
Crucial BX100 250GB SSD Review
Crucial MX200 500GB & 1TB Solid State Drive Review
Eurocom P5 Pro / Clevo P750ZM Review: True DTR
Gigabyte Brix S (GB-BXi5H-5200) Review
Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion, Budget Overclocker?
Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 iChill X3 Air Boss Ultra Review
Noctua NF-A4, NF-A8, NF-A9 Review
Noctua NH-D9L 92mm D-Type Heatsink Review
Plextor M6e Black Edition PCIe SSD Review
Seasonic Snow Silent Series 1050 W
Synology DiskStation DS115 NAS Review
Thecus W4000 4-Bay WSS 2012 R2 NAS Review
Turtle Beach Stealth 500X Xbox One Headset Review
Using RAID-5 Means the Sky is Falling

21 USB 802.11ac adapters compared: 802.11ac for everyone!

Although 802.11ac routers are commonplace these days, many laptops and desktops still do not come equipped with a wireless adapter that is compatible with this fast standard. If you want to connect wirelessly at "ac-speeds", you can do so using a USB 802.11ac adapter. We tested no less than 21 of them.

There are different options for making your laptop or desktop capable of using 802.11ac. You could replace your computer's existing adapter, and owners of a desktop could also opt to connect an adapter through a PCI Express add-in card or purchase a so-called bridge to add or upgrade Wi-Fi capabilities. We will first briefly discuss these three options, after which we'll cover the 21 different USB 802.11ac adapters that we have tested.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

All-round Deluxe PC - March 2015

The all-round Deluxe PC will last you a few years without requiring any upgrades. It is a bit more expensive, but is very complete as well. Using the internet, gaming, business applications, photo and video editing - all of these are possible on a good all-round PC, and you should never feel that you are lacking in performance for any of those activities.

This means a good processor and graphics card from the upper mid-range segment. Fast, yet affordable. You also need enough RAM and storage space, not to mention an attractive chassis and reliable power supply that can last several years. Of course you need a quality monitor, mouse and keyboard, as these are used very frequently.

This PC will cost more than the standard all-round PC, but it is also more powerful and has higher-end components. If this exceeds your budget somewhat, then you can have a look at out standard All-round PC instead.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Antec P380 Full-Tower Chassis Review

Today is a very special day indeed, as it marks the day I finally get my hands on the all-new Antec P380! I first saw this chassis at the start of the year, when we visited the Antec suite at CES 2015. I was very impressed with what I saw, but trade shows aren’t always the best place to get in close and really study a product. Antec used to be one of my favourite chassis manufacturers, I stress used to be, as they were one of the biggest players in the industry, creating some of the most popular chassis around. In recent years, Antec has seen fierce competition from the likes of Corsair, Silverstone, NZXT, Thermaltake and Coolermaster, to name but a few. The P380 is supposed to mark the triumphant return of Antec to the premium gaming chassis market, so let’s see if it’s got what it takes!

“When only the best can satisfy your needs, the P380 is the answer. Known for its minimalistic design, the Performance series focuses on delivering the perfect balance between performance and Quiet-Computing. Whether you’re designing your ultimate dream PC or, just creating a monster file server, the P380 should be the choice, without hesitation.” – Antec.com

As you can see from the specifications below, the P380 is very well equipped. It has room for a mini-ITX motherboard, right up to E-ATX motherboards with 9 expansion slots; certainly more than enough room for a high-end workstation or gaming rig. There’s 465mm of GPU clearance too, so even the biggest cards on the market should fit without any issues. There’s also a lot of fan and radiator mounting options throughout; great news for both air-cooling and water-cooling enthusiasts.

Read full article @ eTeknix

CH Products Pro Pedals USB Flugsimulator Pedals Review

One of the major controls for an aircraft is the rudder.
Not only during flight, to move left or right, but also to guide it on the ground by steering the nose wheel.
It is just the same on your home computer playing flight simulators.
It might be sufficent to map only 2 keys on the keyboard for these functions but the ambitious flight simulator pilot wishes to add more realism.
Exactly for this reason we would like to present you today the right equipment - the CH Products Pro Pedals USB Flight Simulator Pedals.

Read full article @ OcInside.de

Cougar 500k Gaming Keyboard Review

Today I will be reviewing the COUGAR 500K Gaming Keyboard. The Cougar 500k is a Membrane keyboard with N-Key Rollover or NKRO, which is one of the few, of its kind. The 500k is set up just like the 700k, the big brother, but the 700K is a mechanical keyboard and the cost is twice as much as the 500K. The price tag for a mechanical keyboard is still relatively high compared to most membrane models. Cougar has earned respect from the gaming community in both categories. I will be covering the performance and aesthetics in greater detail later in this review. Let us see if the Cougar 500k model has the bang for your buck.

The COUGAR 500K is nothing less than a full revolution in the gaming keyboard market. A fully featured gaming keyboard, loaded with  all the functionality you are ever going to need for both enthusiast and pro level gaming. All this with the COUGAR design that has already changed the way gaming peripherals are seen. A Full-NKRO Membrane Keyboard that shatters forever the limits of what this class of  keyboards was thought capable of. The 500K is the first membrane keyboard ever to be able to compete  face to face, in any kind of environment, with high end mechanical keyboards several times its price. Its Full NKRO, reliability, ultra-fast reaction speed and professional level functionality are totally state-of-the-art technology that will take you to the apex of the gaming food chain.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Crucial BX100 250GB SSD Review

SSD (Solid State Drive) prices have taken a huge dive compared to even just a couple of years ago but evidently that hasn't been enough to attract even casual users (at least not most of them) so it doesn't really come as a surprise to us that lately many manufacturers do their best to introduce even more affordable models in the market by cutting around some corners. Of course many people see this as something strange since not too long ago every single manufacturer was trying to get the performance crown but the way i see it is that priorities have changed over time so currently cost is basically their primary goal (at least for that segment of the market). Crucial recently launched the BX100 line of SSDs aimed primarily towards casual users and gamers and for the past week we've been testing the 250GB variant.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Crucial MX200 500GB & 1TB Solid State Drive Review

Crucial and its parent company Micron have been in the SSD market from just about when it started. As many of you know Micron makes much of the NAND we see in many different devices and Crucial is Micron’s consumer brand making solid state drives and other storage devices. Last year we took a look at Crucial’s MX100 drive and we were really impressed with not only its performance, but its aggressive pricing as well. Just announced at CES Crucial is back with the MX200 which Crucial says “pushes things even further” and features their new Dynamic Write Acceleration technology. Will this be the SSD to get in 2015? Read on as we find out…

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Eurocom P5 Pro / Clevo P750ZM Review: True DTR

Some people look at notebooks as a way to cut the cord and go mobile for long periods of time, but others view the portability as a mere convenience while they move from one power socket to another (e.g. from home to the office). If you’re mostly running with your notebook connected to the power grid and you need the absolute fastest processor possible, there are some interesting options.

Clevo is pretty much the go-to option these days for desktop replacements, with the ability to support full performance desktop processors (including LGA2011 options) and up to two GTX 980M graphics cards in SLI on their top models. Today we’re looking at the next step down from that, the P750ZM that supports Haswell processors up to the i7-4790K and a single GTX 980M graphics chip. We’ve already seen that the GTX 980M is quite the potent mobile GPU, but can we unlock additional performance available with a full power desktop CPU? Read on for our full review.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Gigabyte Brix S (GB-BXi5H-5200) Review

Mini PC now served in fifth-generation Intel Broadwell flavours. Gigabyte has refreshed its range of Brix mini PCs with the launch of new models outfitted with a fifth-generation Intel Core processor, codenamed Broadwell.

Based on our experiences of earlier units, as well as the similar Intel NUC, the Brix is brimming with potential as an ultra-small and energy-efficient PC for mainstream use. However, previous-generation models have typically carried two potential caveats in the form of cost and noise, so we're intrigued to find out whether or not the latest crop can alleviate such concerns.

Read full article @ Hexus

Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion, Budget Overclocker?

When you’re looking at the 2011v3 Haswell E CPU family, nothing about it is inexpensive. The entry-level CPU is about $390 and it doesn’t even feature 40 full PCI-E lanes. The lowest tier CPU has 28 PCI-E lanes and you have to go to the second tray CPU, the Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz, to get full PCI-E lanes. So for a fully functional 40 PCI-E lane CPU, we are looking at $560 smackers. Decent air cooling will set you back around hundred bucks if you want to overclock. Sixteen gigabytes of quality, high-speed DDR4 memory runs in the $300 dollar range. Just the CPU, CPU cooler and memory means that we are just short of
$1,000. If you are looking for a Champion Overclocker but don’t want to break the bank the Gigabyte X99 SOC come in at $300 when you can find it on the shelves.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 iChill X3 Air Boss Ultra Review

Today we look at the Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 iChill X3 Air Boss Ultra, one of the most ludicrously named graphics cards in history. This card ships with a monstrous cooling system which will need to perform at the top of its class if it is to justify the physical dimensions. Today we find out if the Inno3D card is delightfully delicious, or hideously horrific.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Noctua NF-A4, NF-A8, NF-A9 Review

Compared to the models that Noctua succeeded with (as mentioned in on the very front of the box), there are gains. The Flow Accelerations Channels are the real difference here and are likely the reason for the improvements. However, these improvements are not across the board. These fans use more power (still barely enough to even blink at though) and are slightly to a fair bit louder. However, they have higher RPMs, better CFM, and much better static pressure ratings. This still easily constitutes an improvement in my book and simply exemplifies the difficulties present in trying to reduce noise while improving performance.

Read full article @ OCC

Noctua NH-D9L 92mm D-Type Heatsink Review

It is safe to say that hardware enthusiasts are concerned with cooling and is one reason why there are lengthy discussions on what cooler is best. Keep in mind that “the best” cooler is a bit of a misnomer in that a cooler appropriate for overclocking might not work well if you are building a super stealthy system. Likewise, going with inexpensive coolers for the sake of replacing an OEM heatsink isn’t the right approach either as it may not be sized properly to give adequate performance.

In this review we will be looking at the Noctua NH-D9L D-Type heatsink. This is a cooler we got to see last year at Computex and were rather amazed that they would attempt a smaller heatsink given their prevalence for 140mm+ designs. The purpose here is to complement the push for smaller form factor machines and still deliver superior cooling performance with near silent operation.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Plextor M6e Black Edition PCIe SSD Review

Plextor released an update of its M.2 Express based PCI Express SSD, we review the M6e Black Edition. An M.2. SSD mounted onto a PCI Express 2.0 x4 slot could be interesting for many. Alongside an aesthetic overhaul this product will be available in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB volume sizes, all powered by a Marvell controller. Plextor developed a PCI-Express based SSD that can reach performance in the 700 to 800 MB/s range. Plextor released the M6e PCI-Express SSD in a Black Edition, this product slides into your PCI Express slot. Really, it makes use of an M.2 PCI Expess SSD. Why is that so important? Well, some of the the Z97/x99 and newer Series 9 motherboards will have that cute and tiny M.2 PCIe interface, but not all of them, and that is where this product comes into play. Small form factors add-in SSDs to the PC platform. There is an abbreviation for that, NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor). It is not just that though, SATA3 has not been among us for that long, but the SSDs evolved in a very fast manner, making SATA3 already a bottleneck for current generation SSDs. M2 PCIe links directly to your free PCIe lanes and as such, it is an interface with much more available bandwidth. See, at a cool 10 Gbps PCI-Express based M.2 has roughly 67% more bandwidth available opposed to SATA3 (6 Gbps). So that will definitely kick off a new SSD race in the upcoming months.

The M6e Black Edition is powered by the latest dual-core Marvell 88SS9183 controller chip supporting Toggle NAND flash by Toshiba. You can expect read/write speeds of up to 770/625 MB/s in sequential mode, and 105K/100K IOPS for random read/write operations.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Seasonic Snow Silent Series 1050 W

Seasonic released a special version of their Platinum offering with 1050 W capacity; it comes with a while paint job and is equipped with an FDB fan and a relaxed fan profile for less noise output, which will thrill users looking for a quiet high-performance PSU.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Synology DiskStation DS115 NAS Review

Synology’s latest single bay NAS is based on the twin-bay DS215j and uses the same processor, memory and configuration of ports and connectors. For some reason Synology has seen fit to change the colour from white to black, perhaps to disguise the heritage of the DS115 tiddler, but that strikes us as a curious move. The DS215j is a fine performer thanks to its dual core 800MHz Marvell CPU and 512MB of DDR3 memory is more than adequate for a small NAS.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Thecus W4000 4-Bay WSS 2012 R2 NAS Review

Most NAS devices we look at are based on some Linux or BSD distribution, but once in a while something different comes along. I’m excited to take a look at the new Thecus W4000 four-bay NAS server today, powered with Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials (WSS).

Thecus are the first to bring WSS 2012 R2 to NAS users as you might remember from our press coverage back in October. The use of a WSS system offers a host of benefits to SMB users, including data protection, integrated cloud services and secure remote access.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Turtle Beach Stealth 500X Xbox One Headset Review

One of the main problems with wired headsets is the wire, having it trail from your headset to your console, or even from the headset to a controller adapter can be a real pain. The wire can limit your freedom and even snag on your clothing. If you suffer from any of these issues, then there’s only one perfect solution for it; a wireless headset.

The Stealth 500X is the latest wireless headset from Turtle Beach. It has been designed to work with Xbox One without the need of a controller adapter and it’ll even work on your Mac or PC should you want to update its firmware, download extra profiles and other settings.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Using RAID-5 Means the Sky is Falling

In reality, most hard disks seldom see operating temperatures below the chill of a server room or beyond the warmth of rack space, and most disks will not commit an URE that crashes a RAID-5 rebuild. While it is agreed that better parity schemes exist, the exception is not the rule. My customer could have retained cold storage data to individual disks via removable drives, with no redundancy at all. In fact, most organizations already use a single removable disk or cloud container for their nightly backup routine. My customer choose a special backup appliance that fits three disks into a single cartridge, further protecting archived data and proving RAID-5 still has business applications.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews