Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

22 Common Network Jargon Terms Explained
ADATA Premier Pro SDXC UHS-1 U3 Card Review (128GB)
COUGAR MX500 Midi Tower Review
Debian Testing: FreeBSD 10.0 vs. Linux 3.14 Kernels
Grace Digital 3play Bluetooth Audio Receiver Review
Griffin Survivor Case for Samsung Galaxy S5 Reviewed
Intel Devils Canyon i7-4790K Performance Review
Intel Pentium 20th Anniversary Edition G3258 CPU Review
KingFast F8 240GB SSD Review
Mionix Nash 20 Headset Review
MSI GS60-2PE ‘Ghost Pro’ Gaming Notebook Review
Roccat Kave XTD True 5.1 PC Gaming Headset Review

22 Common Network Jargon Terms Explained

Computer networking is filled with jargon that isnt self-explanatory. Heres a quick overview of many of the terms youll see when you glance at the network status information on any device. We’re definitely simplifying things a bit here — this isn’t an in-depth look at any one term.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

ADATA Premier Pro SDXC UHS-1 U3 Card Review (128GB)

Higher quality media requires greater data rates to capture it. This means that storage requirements call for greater speed and capacity. The newest DSLRs are able to take high speed continuous bursts at 20 megapixels+ per image, resulting in 20-50MB per RAW image taken. To record 4K video, cameras typically eats up around 20-30MB/s per second minimum! With data rates like these, storage manufacturers have to release products that meet these requirements. To answer these needs, today we have one of ADATA’s solutions on the review table, the 128GB Premier Pro SDXC card.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

COUGAR MX500 Midi Tower Review

As far back as i can remember all my friends were always looking to find the weirdest looking PC case to house their brand new systems and although i once followed their lead by choosing the quite remarkable (for its time) Xaser III by Thermaltake I’ve always liked elegant models without many bells and whistles on the outside (interior space and build quality have always been the two most important things for me). For good or bad lately most manufacturers out there have been focusing mostly in the design and manufacture of strange looking towers (some for example base design on sports cars) to try and attract as many "young" people as possible and although that's understandable many times we see build quality and interior space placed last (an exception to that rule although it could have been even better is the Cosmos II). COUGAR may not be one of the oldest PC case manufacturers in the market but they have released quite a few interesting models and today on our test bench we have their brand new MX500 Midi Tower.

COUGAR products are designed by COUGAR GERMANY, a professional R&D engineering team and COUGAR is part of the “HEC/COMPUCASE” Group. The unique combination of the world-famous German skills of designing the best products worldwide and HEC/s power and long-time experience to produce the best high quality products created innovative masterpieces in PSU history. The PC upgrading and DIY market is changing rapidly and is growing more and more. Professional user are asking for more than only stable and silent PSU/s, they want efficient and energy saving products without compromises in quality. COUGAR GERMANY created such products! COUGAR GERMANY combines the features of innovation and evolution to create efficient, powerful and unique products like “COUGAR POWER”. The purpose of COUGAR GERMANY is the satisfaction of the customer, reaching it by creating most valuable, advanced products. COUGAR – YOUR POWER!

What you will appreciate or hate with the MX500 right from the start (i happen to like it quite a bit) is its design since unlike for example the Challenger or the Evolution (again by Cougar) it has a far more elegant and simple design that allows it to blend in most areas a lot easier (you can even place it right next/beneath your TV set). Features-wise the MX500 may not have something unique (a nice anti-glide surface is present at the top but that's not something important) but it does offer plenty of interior space including room for the longest graphics cards (410mm), 7 fans (or 5 fans and a dual 240/280mm radiator at the top), three 5.25" optical drive bays, 7 tool-free 3.5/2.5" drive trays (or 4x3.5" and 3x2.5") and 1 "hidden" 2.5" drive space (requires screws to secure the drive). True just by reading the specs-sheet the MX500 doesn't seem to have much other cases don't so let’s take a closer look and find out.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Debian Testing: FreeBSD 10.0 vs. Linux 3.14 Kernels

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD remains an interesting port of Debian that pairs its GNU user-land with the FreeBSD kernel. With the Debian testing code for Testing / Jessie 8.0 is the new FreeBSD 10.0 kernel. The benchmarks today at Phoronix are comparing Debian GNU/kFreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux using the latest 7.5 Wheezy release along with the latest testing code.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Grace Digital 3play Bluetooth Audio Receiver Review

I’ve reviewed Bluetooth streaming devices before, both that are used for headsets and specifically for using with speakers, they can all be used for both of course though. Anyway, the one common thing between them is that you can only use one device at a time with them but Grace Digital has come up with something different called the 3Play which allows you to connect three different devices at the same time via Bluetooth and switch between them automatically. For example you and two friends could connect your phones and you could all take turns playing music through your speakers thus allowing you to share your music. The 3Play works and it’s a unique device that I found useful and fun. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ TestFreaks

Griffin Survivor Case for Samsung Galaxy S5 Reviewed

Today on the examining table is the Survivor Samsung Galaxy S5 case by Griffin. It seems these days a lot of companies are make tough and rugged cases. Is it us as a society that is getting more clumsy without technology or is our technology able to take less of a beating than it used it. Food for through, but that is a discussion for another forum. This survivor case is an all-inclusive case that protects all sides of the phone, including a special screen protector for the screen, if you happen to be one of those clumsy people who is looking for extra protection. However if you find that I just insulted you by calling you clumsy and you are not, I would still read on and disregard my comment as this case is even for those of you who are not clumsy, but are looking for extra protection. The survivor case is living up to its name in overall protection for your S5. Take a look below…

Read full article @ TestFreaks

Intel Devils Canyon i7-4790K Performance Review

Intel’s Devil’s Canyon has been rumored, previewed and eventually delayed but Computex finally marked the full unveiling of the new i7-4790K and i5-4690K processors. Our path to this review follows a similarly contrived path that started at Intel’s shipping facility in California followed by a few days stuck in the black hole that is Canadian Customs.

The Devil’s Canyon lineup was founded upon three core principles that are cornerstones of the enthusiast community: performance, overclocking and temperatures. These CPU’s are meant to be specifically-targeted products which still use the Haswell architecture at their heart but improve in other key areas in an effort to address some of Haswell’s shortcomings. Temperatures were improved by the use of what Intel calls their Next Generation Polymer Thermal Interface Material (NGPTIM) while clock speeds are addressed by an enhanced on-die power distribution network and the improved chips’ ability to natively disperse more heat.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Intel Pentium 20th Anniversary Edition G3258 CPU Review

Intel announced earlier this year the Haswell refresh lineup together with the release of their latest mainstream chipset, the Z97. This refresh release was overshadowed by the eagerly awaited high end K SKU Devils Canyon and the low end 20th Anniversary Pentium processor; especially the latter is a very interesting product as it now sports a fully unlocked multiplier and retails at an insane low price. We have to thank the boys from Denmark Zzolio and Riska which allowed us to spend some time with their G3258 Pentium ES processor.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

KingFast F8 240GB SSD Review

Despite the fact that we are dealing with a 240GB SSD, KingFast is proposing a very low price point of $124 for the drive and for this we get 20nm Micron MLC NAND Flash, a JM667H controller which is able to provide decent read/write performances but also 256MB of DDR3 for caching purposes.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Mionix Nash 20 Headset Review

Audio is an odd business. It constantly pits the average consumer against the purist. The average consumer tends to be drawn to aural excitement and overall volume capabilities, and manufacturers will increase sensitivity and dynamic range, as well as add their own special colorization to the sound. Purists will very quickly point out that while this may be a more exciting experience….pianos just don’t sound like that naturally. Now we find more and more music coming out of the studio already enhanced, we add in the colorization and we have an experience that crosses over into outright abrasive that causes listener fatigue in mere seconds. Yet, somehow, the average consumer finds it appealing….and is willing to pay a hefty premium for it. This, of course, puts the purist in a position of typically having to pay more for equipment that doesn’t suffer from added “enhancement”.

Then you have gaming audio, which is an entire different matter. Since there is typically nothing natural being duplicated, it is all about enhancement. Then you add in the fact that the game world is supposed to be larger than life, and certainly a great deal more exciting, and we see a segment of completely overblown dynamics. More impact on everything is the formula, with exaggerated bass for explosions and exaggerated upper mids for better tracking. While this may be cool in a first person shooter, listening to the new Arcade Fire is going to be a pretty painful experience. Given that the sound in games is overemphasized to begin with, a headphone with excellent reproduction should actually play well in that arena while making music and multimedia listening a very enjoyable experience.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

MSI GS60-2PE ‘Ghost Pro’ Gaming Notebook Review

Over the last few weeks we have been bombarded with the launch of Intel’s Z97 chipset and the release of the Haswell-Refresh processors, however whilst all of this has been going on, there has been another launch that has taken place, although it seems that it was completely missed out due to the rumours and speculations surrounding Z97. This launch that I’m referring to has come from the green team over at NVIDIA. On the desktop market we are well and truly settled with the latest range of 700 series GeForce GTX graphics cards, however the notebook side of the market has taken a step forward into the next generation with the release of the 800m series of discrete mobile graphics solutions. Now before I go any further, I will answer a very quick question that has been asked over the last few days; “800 Series…? Does this mean that the desktop cards are soon going to be making a step forward as well?”

Whilst I can understand where to question is coming from, after all it makes perfectly good sense to ask this, sadly the introduction of the 800m series is not a flag to indicate that the 800 series desktop GPUs are on their way. If anything I don’t expect to hear anything about the GTX 800 series desktop cards until the end of this year or the start of next. This said though, the 800m series is still a generation up from the 700m as we would expect and along with it comes new levels of performance and more features and technology. Over the 700m series cards, the 800m chips are set to offer a performance boost of around 10% over the previous generation, along with new technologies such as battery boost, where the power drain from the GPU core is reduced, whilst keeping the frame rates over 30fps. The battery boost technology doesn’t just give us a small gain in life either, NVIDIA say that in some cases we could expect to see notebook batteries lasting up to twice as long (compared to a similar system with a 700m series GPU) and alongside the more power conscious Haswell processors, mobile gaming is becoming more of a reality and not just a dream.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Roccat Kave XTD True 5.1 PC Gaming Headset Review

The Roccat Kave XTD has been one of my most anticipated headset ever. Not only was the original Kave 5.1 headset was nothing short of incredible, but the new one promises to improve on many aspects of the previous model. I first got hands on with this headset at CES 2014 last January, and I’ve been wanting to really put it through its paces ever since. With Roccat having a rock solid reputation for making some of the best performing, feature packed and stylish gaming products the PC market has ever seen, I have very high expectations of the Kave XTD.

The Kave XTD 5.1 headset really stands out from the crowd, mostly because it is a true surround headset in a sea of headsets that offer virtual surround technology. There are barely a few great headsets out there that can do an above average job of virtual surround. To my ears, virtual surround is a tacked on software gimmick to what is still just a stereo headset. The difference between a true surround headset and a virtual one can be profound and it will be great to hear if Roccat has gotten it right with their 5.1 configuration. This is achieved by having three drivers in each ear cup, that’s two 40mm drivers and a 30mm vibrational driver. That last part is the most exciting, and well get to why very soon.

Read full article @ eTeknix