Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

39 CPU coolers review: what is the best choice?
AORUS Thunder K7 Keyboard Review
ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer Motherboard
ASRock X99 OC Formula Motherboard Review
Asus GTX 750 Ti Strix OC Edition
Biostar A68N-5000 Mini ITX Motherboard Review
Dell XPS 18 Portable All-in-One Review: Haswell Reloaded
Giada D2308U Mini-PC Review
HiFiMAN HE-560 Release Version
Motorola Moto 360 review
MSI X99S XPower AC Motherboard Review
MSI X99S Xpower AC – Taking Haswell E performance to the next level
MyDigitalSSD BP4e mSATA SSD Review (512 GB)
Netgear ReadyNAS 716 Review
Raijintek Morpheus GPU Cooler Review
Samsung Galaxy Alpha Review: Samsungs most beautiful phone yet
Seasonic PLATINUM-1050 Power Supply Review
Sony Xperia Z3 review: a classy flagship with great battery life
XTracGear Ripper XXL (2014) Mousing Surface Review

39 CPU coolers review: what is the best choice?

A CPU cooler can be very cheap, very expensive and can even cost you up to 100 euros. For this article we tested 39 current CPU coolers and try to find out which one has the best cooling, is the quietest or ideally which one excels at both.

Every processor you can currently buy comes bundled with a standard cooler, but normally these are not the best at keeping your temperatures down and definitely not the quietest models on the market. A boxed cooler is designed to keep your processor at an acceptable temperature under normal use and on the standard settings. If you are looking to overclock your CPU it is best to invest in a better form of cooling, the same goes if you wish to keep you PC as silent as possible.

The last time we tested a large amount of CPU coolers was around 18 months ago, and in the meantime most manufacturers have introduced newer models. For this test we chose 39 different coolers that are currently available, varying in price between €22 and almost € 100. We have tested all models on cooling capacity and on noise levels, and have calculated a efficiency score based on the results. This score will indicate if a model can combine decent cooling performance with low noise levels.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

AORUS Thunder K7 Keyboard Review

I’m going to make a confession of bias right off the bat before I continue further with this review: I absolutely love mechanical keyboards. They’re a breed of hardware that signal an old school vibe where you could really hammer on the keys without fear of breaking something.

So it should be no surprise that we’ve seen mechanical keyboards become all the rage in the market. Even that $80 membrane keyboard is arguably obsolete and overpriced for what you get in terms of function and value; once you use a mechanical keyboard, you’ll wonder how you survived without one. Investing a bit of extra money in a great keyboard is well worth the payoff, and the days of the cheap plastic boards may soon become a distant memory.

Read full article @ PureOverclock

ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer Motherboard

The ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer is a mid-range microATX motherboard for the new Intel high-end "Haswell-E" processors, based on the new LGA2011-v3 socket. It includes two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, ten SATA-600 ports, six USB 3.0 ports, and high-end audio and Ethernet controllers. Let's take a good look at this board.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

ASRock X99 OC Formula Motherboard Review

In case you missed our recent review of the Core i7 5960X, Intel’s first consumer eight-core CPU is an all-round powerhouse with strong overclocking potential to boot. So what better way to analyse ASRock’s X99 OC Formula motherboard than by pushing our 5960X as far as we can take it?

ASRock’s Z87 OC Formula (http://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/luke-hill/asrock-z87-oc-formula-motherboard-review/) was one of the best LGA1150 motherboards that we ever tested, but can the LGA2011-3 X99 OC Formula live up to the success of its sibling?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Asus GTX 750 Ti Strix OC Edition

Even now that the GTX 750 Ti isn’t the only Maxwell cards on the market, I still find them an interesting GPU. Some of you may remember from our launch coverage of the GTX 750 Ti that it packed a punch without ever needing an extra power connection. Well that was the reference design; many of the other models on the market sadly required a 6-pin power connection for their overclocked models. Well Asus sent over their Strix OC Edition of the GTX 750 Ti and low and behold, it has the same low power requirements as the reference design. Today I’m going to put it through our test suite and see what a little overclock does for the Maxwell powered GTX 750 Ti.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Biostar A68N-5000 Mini ITX Motherboard Review

Recently, we have seen many high-end platforms that are often really expensive. Not all users need the highest performing computers for daily activities. For all of the users who need only standard performance but do not want to give up the additional features, Biostar has prepared the small but powerful, A68N-5000 motherboard.

The A68N-5000 includes a built-in quad core AMD A4-5000 APU, which works at 1500MHz. At first glance, it does not look special, but we could be wrong. Let us move deeper into our review to check what we can expect from a Biostar A68N-5000.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Dell XPS 18 Portable All-in-One Review: Haswell Reloaded

Welcome to the era of dual-mode devices, where the mantra "bigger is better" rules the day. Need an example? Take smartphones -- Samsung's been serving up large size handsets for the past several years, some of which are so big that it warranted creating a brand new category. Even Apple jumped on the big device bandwagon with the recent launch of its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models.

Do you know what you end up with if you take that same mantra and apply it to PCs? You get "Dell's XPS 18 Portable All-in-One Desktop with Touch," a hybrid system that turns a giant sized Windows 8.1 tablet into a full blown desktop PC, and the result is brilliant...

http://hothardware.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=efc4c507c2cf964fc2462caca&id=2498edef4d&e=0c004f9c13]Read full article @ HotHardware.com[/url]

Giada D2308U Mini-PC Review

The D2308U is a little PC monster from Giada, incorporating at its core one the Intel i7 4500U processor, 8GB of DDR3L SODIMM and, the main point of attraction, a fully-fledged Nvidia GeForce 750 with 2GB of GDDR5. As storage, the manufacturer has chosen to include on HGST 1TB 5400RPM which can be replaced with a speedier mechanical drive or a SSD, while on the back side we have one unused mSATA 6Gbps port for even more storage expansion possibilities.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

HiFiMAN HE-560 Release Version

HiFiMAN's highly anticipated release version of the HE-560 gets put on the spot. It features a lot of changes that improve the sound quality; however, the beautiful teak cups are now gone in favor of more durable plastic cups.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Motorola Moto 360 review

It has been six months since Motorola teased the world with its Moto 360. For the past two weeks I have been using the device and while it might not be the perfect smartwatch, it is a great timepiece.

Read full article @ Neowin

MSI X99S XPower AC Motherboard Review

Ever since Haswell-E processors launched a short while ago, we have been testing the most luxurious Intel X99 motherboards. Face it, what candy is to kids, this platform is for enthusiast PC gamers. As expensive as this upgrade is, we all like it, love it and if possible would buy it. The motherboard manufacturers know this, and as such they developed some X99 motherboards that are almost ridiculous in design.

This year with the X99 releases the motherboard manufacturers went berserk, and MSI is offering among the best looking and feature rich motherboards I have seen ever. The Gaming series was just gorgeous, but there is that flagship motherboard series, the XPower. And that's what we'll be testing today as we review the MSI X99S XPower AC motherboard, the most high-end and quite frankly gorgeous looking X99 motherboards available on the X99 market. MSI took the X99 chipset and then started adding, adding and adding features. This results in a motherboard that has SLI/Crossfire support, AC WIFI, heaps of SATA3 connectors, M.2., SATA Express, intense overclock features, a very nice audio solution and yeah, so much more. Join us in the MSI X99S XPower AC review, a product that is bound to please the enthusiast PC gamer.

The Intel Core i7-5960X and other Haswell-E chips have been released on the market September 2014 and based on a new socket LGA2011-V3 infrastructure and DDR4 quad channel memory. The new Haswell-E series being released feature three models, two 6-core and one 8 core processor series intended for the most high-end desktops anno 2014. For Intel it is the first 8 core desktop CPU for consumers. However Intel has been offering 8 and even 12 core processors in their Xeon server line for quite some time now to the business channel. With the new Haswell-E processor comes a new chipset and slightly revised processor socket. Intel still uses Socket 2011, but it's a revision 3 socket, meaning that the older Socket 2011 will not work on the new X99 chipset motherboards. That of course goes both ways, you cannot use Haswell-E on say an X79 motherboard. Interesting is a first introduction towards DDR4 memory. The new memory allows for lower voltage memory modules, this memory defaults towards 2133 MHz at 1.2 Volts. However the memory controller is quad-channel compatible. As a result with overclocked memory at roughly 3 GHz, you can reach 70 maybe 80 GB/sec on your memory bandwidth, which are insane numbers. In this article we'll have a chat about a X99 motherboard in terms of the chipset and then will throw a decent photo-shoot and a benchmark suite at the products and get an indication what performance is like with the Intel Core i7-5960X and X99 Platform.

Read full article @ Guru3D

MSI X99S Xpower AC – Taking Haswell E performance to the next level

MSI has made motherboards and Graphics offerings for some time now and has recently extended its reach into the Notebook and all kinds of other accessory devices. Today we get the awesome opportunity to follow up the powerful and feature packed X99S Gaming 9 with the X99S XPOWER board which is on the other end of the extreme spectrum built for overclockers while the Gaming 9 was more targeted directly at the extreme side of the gaming market.

MSI has made a pretty strong showing in the extreme overclocking and performance segment with its XPOWER series of boards and coinciding lightning and other model cards.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

MyDigitalSSD BP4e mSATA SSD Review (512 GB)

When we think of solid state drives today, two things comes to mind: how fast can it go and how much is going to cost me. Typically these two go hand in hand, the more speed you want the more it’s going to cost you. But what happens when you don’t want to fork out the big bucks for a quick drive? Welcome to ECO drives by MyDigitalSSD, where not only are you getting decent data transfer speeds, but at a very fair price and a super small form factor.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Netgear ReadyNAS 716 Review

Billed by Netgear as the world's fastest desktop NAS, the six-bay ReadyNAS 716 is deserving of this accolade by virtue of a quad-core Intel Ivy Bridge Xeon E3 processor and 16GB of RAM. But that's far from all as, in addition to a pair of Gigabit ports, you also get two 10GbE interfaces as standard. All of which puts the latest ReadyNAS on a par with a mid-range server in terms of specification.It also attracts a similar price tag, starting at £1,666 ex VAT (around $2,800, AU$3,000) without any disks which is well beyond the budget of most small businesses. It could, however, be justified by larger SMEs looking for fast, enterprise-class storage in a desktop format.Quietly does itThe ReadyNAS 716 certainly looks the part, housed in the same large desktop chassis as other six-bay Netgear appliances with a built-in power supply. Plus, just like the ReadyNAS 515, it has a door over the storage compartment that features a touch-sensitive LED display. Blue status LEDs for the disks complete the futuristic look and with just one very large fan and a smaller one in the PSU it's eerily quiet in operation.Carriers to take 3.5-inch or smaller 2.5-inch SATA disks are included and these simply slide into a vertical stack of six slots behind the front door. A small catch on each carrier prevents accidental removal but there are no physical locks, either on the carriers or the door.The review system came pre-populated with six 100GB Intel SSDs – to bolster the world's fastest desktop NAS claims – but, in practice, most buyers will opt for magnetic disks to maximise capacity. We found the ReadyNAS 716 bundled with a full set of six 4TB WD RED disks selling online for £2,609 ex VAT (around $4,330, AU$4,630).

Read full article @ Techradar

Raijintek Morpheus GPU Cooler Review

Raijintek are still fairly new to the consumer market, but over the last couple of years they’ve come back again and again with products that offer award-winning performance at wallet friendly prices. Following the success of their CPU coolers, Raijintek are now moving into the world of graphics card cooling, starting with the Morpheus GPU cooler which we are reviewing today.

The new cooler is compatible with many of today’s latest cards ranging from the Nvidia GeForce GTX 650Ti right up to the Nvidia Geforce GTX 780Ti, not forgetting of course the AMD ranges where it’ll find a comfortable home with everything from the older 78xx range, the R9 270 range and the high-end R9 290 range. It’s those higher models such as the 780 Ti and the 290X that are of particular interest, as these are high performance cards with very demanding cooling requirements; that should be some indication of how capable the Morpheus should be.

Today I’ll be putting it through its paces on the Sapphire R9 270X Toxic, I’ve chosen this card due to it featuring one of the best coolers in its class and it represents the level of performance your average high-end consumer is likely to purchase.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Samsung Galaxy Alpha Review: Samsungs most beautiful phone yet

When a company names one of their products after the first letter of the Greek alphabet, it means business. Take Samsung's Galaxy Alpha: The name alone exudes confidence.

Read full article @ Engadget

Seasonic PLATINUM-1050 Power Supply Review

In the power supply realm, when consumers think of quiet and efficient power supplies one of the first companies that comes to mind is Seasonic and today we have our 19th look at a Seasonic branded unit. This review covers a new entrant in the Platinum-Series of power supplies for Seasonic, the PLATINUM-1050 (SS-1050XP3 Active PFC F3).

Seasonic is one of the older companies producing consumer power supplies having been founded in 1975 and entering the PC power supply production market in 1980. During that more than 30 years as a company Seasonic has cultivated lines of power supplies that are today some of the standard bearers for efficiency and quiet computing. This focus, and its reputation for quality, has lead to an explosion in production as Seasonic can be found providing OEM services on various model lines for Antec, XFX, Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, and of course under its own Seasonic brand.

Read full article @ HardOCP

Sony Xperia Z3 review: a classy flagship with great battery life

When you're trying to compete in the phone-making game, there are certain challenges. On the one hand, you want to dazzle customers with innovative features.

Read full article @ Engadget

XTracGear Ripper XXL (2014) Mousing Surface Review

It is important to understand not all correct answers are useful answers, if given in the wrong context. For example, last month, I was driving one of my friends home. On the way back, my radar detector signaled an alert. "What is that?" she asked. "Well," I explained. "This is a radar detector. Basically, a radar detector is a superheterodyne receiver, which receives radio signals at a high frequency, and uses a local oscillator to do frequency mixing in order for it to produce a fixed intermediate signal for easier digital signal processing." I then went on for about five more minutes, talking about how radar works, the difference between X band, K band, and Ka band, as well as their corresponding signal propagation characteristics. At the end of my explanation, she looked at me and asked, "So, what does it actually do?" to which I replied, "Basically, it detects police." As you can see here, while I gave a correct answer practically good enough for most upper year Electrical Engineering classes, the context of which I gave it in rendered it almost completely useless. Back in 2006, I reviewed the XTracPads Ripper XXL, a super large mousepad sized at 914mm by 457mm. At first, like my friend I was driving home, I thought it gave the correct answer to a question nobody really asked, making it more ridiculous than useful. Over the years, with new desks and new configurations, I have found its context, quickly propelling it to be one of my favorite mousepads of all time. In 2011, I reviewed the revised XTracPads Ripper XXL, which featured anti-fray edges and a new surface coating. Today, we will take a look at the 2014 version of the same product. According to XTracGear, their latest version is "100% refreshed". With the context nicely defined, will it continue to be both the correct answer and useful answer in the world of surfaces? With the third revision sitting in our labs for the last two months, it is now time to present our findings.

Read full article @ APH Networks