Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

35-Way NVIDIA/AMD Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver Comparison
A Guide To Building Your Own NAS System For Under $220
Be Quiet! PurePower 600w Power Supply Review
CM Storm QuickFire Rapid-i Keyboard Review
Cooler Master HAF XB Evo Review
Corsair Raptor M45 Gaming Mouse Review
Crucial MX100 SSD Review (256/512 GB)
Devil's Canyon: Intel Core i7-4790K Overclocking and Review
GAMDIAS HERMES GKB2010 Black Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK LGA 1150 Review
Hands-on review: Samsung Galaxy Tab S
Hands-On With Samsungs HOT Galaxy Tab S, 10-inch Super AMOLED Display at 2560X1600
Huawei Ascend Mate 2 Review: Incredible Battery Life & Value
Intel Core i7-4790 (Haswell Refresh)
Intel Z97 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI
iRocks Rock Series K10 Gaming Keyboard Review
Is DRM A Threat To Computer Security?
Jabra Solemate Max Portable Wireless Speaker Review
Moto E Review
MSI R9 280 Gaming v PNY GTX760 XLR8
MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Review
RAIDMAX Scorpio V Review
Samsungs Galaxy Tab S 10.5 & 8.4: Hands On with Samsungs 6.6mm Thin Tablets

35-Way NVIDIA/AMD Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver Comparison

Last week with Phoronix turning ten years old I celebrated by testing 65 different GPUs with the open-source Linux graphics drivers from Intel, AMD, and Nouveau. I also followed-up with power efficiency and thermal benchmarks from all of the graphics cards that played nicely on the latest open-source drivers. Today I'm following up with the next round of testing by checking out the proprietary NVIDIA and AMD Catalyst graphics drivers under Linux with 35 different graphics cards.

After carrying out all of the PCI Express graphics cards at my disposal for last week's open-source tests, I then immediately turned to testing all of the supported GPUs by the proprietary AMD and NVIDIA graphics drivers. Today's comparison is still large (35 graphics cards) but smaller than the earlier comparison because the latest mainline drivers don't support the diverse selection of Radeon and GeForce GPUs going back as many years as the open-source drivers. NVIDIA does maintain multiple legacy drivers that work well with updated Linux distributions, but for the Radeon HD 4000 series and older hardware, AMD doesn't really maintain their legacy Catalyst Linux driver for new Linux kernel and X.Org Server releases. As a result, just the latest mainline AMD Catalyst and NVIDIA driver releases were testing, which gives us support for the GeForce 8 series and newer and on the AMD side is the Radeon HD 5000 series and newer.

Read full article @ Phoronix

A Guide To Building Your Own NAS System For Under $220

There may be a lot of people like myself who have missed the “NAS bandwagon” and have made do with other fragmented storage solutions up until now: multiple storage drives on different devices (laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones) with the gap being bridged between those multiple devices through space restricted cloud storage (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive) or portable storage (flash drives, external hard drives, SD cards). However, there has to be an easier way to unify all your storage needs – and that’s what today is all about. Like many of our readers I am a technology enthusiast – I like to get hands on with things and do it myself rather than just buying pre-built solutions that often hold a significant price premium. Therefore, what better way than to get involved with the NAS (Network Attached Storage) craze than to build your own! Your own centralised cloud storage, fileserver, storage server, media centre or whatever else you want to do with it – how cool is that? And despite what people may tell you, or even what your own preconceptions are, building a NAS has never been easier. There’s a wealth of affordable hardware out there and more importantly an abundance of free software to help you configure your own NAS setup.

The aim of this guide is quite a simple one – to take you through my personal experiences with building a 6-Bay capable NAS within a strict budget of $220 using FreeNAS. Why $220? Well I wanted to build a 2 disk NAS box capable of streaming media and storing all of my files for the lowest cost possible, but I also want the scope to be able upgrade to 4-6 drives in the future. A quick search on somewhere like Newegg will show you that 4-Bay diskless NAS systems start from $300 and range all the way up to $700, so I wanted to better those NAS systems and do it at a lower cost. I am only a home user (like most of you will be) so I really do not need loads of advanced enterprise features and technologies – I just need a reasonably fast NAS server capable of meeting my storage and media needs. Enter today’s build which I believe meets all of those criteria at a hair under $220. This build was an interesting one as we independently chose all the parts for our NAS guide that we wanted to use and then went to the companies to see if they were interested in sponsoring our build guide. A few weeks of planning later and here we are – so a huge thank you goes out to AMD, ASRock, Kingston Technology, SilverStone Technology and Western Digital for providing the parts to our NAS build guide. At just $220 this diskless NAS has the potential to scale up to six hard drives and offers a variety of RAID configurations as well as support for on-chip transcoding. So without any further ado let’s introduce all the details of our $220 NAS system, we will start by analysing the parts we chose: how much they cost and why we chose them.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Be Quiet! PurePower 600w Power Supply Review

BeQuite! Is a German company that specializes in silent power supplies and maximum cooling solutions for PCs. They have been manufacture of the year multiple times and are the #1 company leading in Power Supplies. BeQuiet! Has finally decided to share they silent and cooling solutions with us and we are extremely excited to be one of the first to review this amazing power supply.

Read full article @ TechwareLabs

CM Storm QuickFire Rapid-i Keyboard Review

The CM Storm QuickFire Rapid-i ten-key keyless form factor is an asset for gamers as the shorter length allows for a more natural arm placement compared to a 104 keyboard layout when it comes to mouse control.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Cooler Master HAF XB Evo Review

HAF XB EVO is the new cube-case from Cooler Master of the High Air Flow series. Like the previous model introduced over a year ago, the components are placed on two different levels and is compatible with ATX motherboards. HAF XB EVO can be described as a cross between a LAN Box and a bench test table.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Corsair Raptor M45 Gaming Mouse Review

Corsair is one of the best-known brands in the business, countless gamers flock to them for the latest power supplies, chassis, water coolers, memory products and more. They’ve built a sock solid reputation with the gaming and system building communities thanks to their high-end performance and build quality. The same can be said for their peripheral ranges, which cover gaming mice, headsets, keyboards (both mechanical and membrane) and no doubt a few other little gadgets for the desktop. We’ve reviewed a few Corsair peripherals over the years and time and time again they’ve impressed us with their features, quality and performance, so I’m hoping for a similar performance from the Corsair Raptor M45 gaming mouse.

“Corsair Raptor M45 is designed for gaming performance. A powerful gaming-tuned 5,000 DPI optical sensor, fast response time, extra-large PTFE glide pads, and a high-mass scroll wheel put you in command. You can customize it to your play style with the adjustable weight system, and seven programmable buttons put macros and other critical gaming functions just a click away. Instant DPI switching lets you toggle between high sensor resolution for fast motion, and low resolution for super-accurate aiming. And since serious gamers play for hours at a time, the M45 has a comfortable right-handed design with textured and soft-touch surfaces.” – Corsair.com

The M45 is focused on gaming, so Corsair has put in a bunch of extra features such as a customisable weighting system, programmable buttons, DPI adjustments and a whole lot more that should appeal to gamers. More exciting than the feature set is the price tag, because Corsair is cramming all these features into the M45 for just under £40.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Crucial MX100 SSD Review (256/512 GB)

Crucial has been making reliable cost effective mainstream SSDs for years now. Each new product release striving for better performance, reliability, and value. The recent release of the M550 built upon their M500, offering even better performance, but at a higher price point per GB. Because of this, Crucial needed to release a more modern lower budget drive.

They had already separated their product line of SSDs in the 2012 with their V4, offering a more budget friendly SSD. However, it turned out to be a bad move. To make the V4 cheaper they skimped out on the controller and used an unstable and slow Phison controller and firmware. This lead to users having windows freezing issues and real world performance was almost similar to HDDs besides boot times.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Devil's Canyon: Intel Core i7-4790K Overclocking and Review

Intel has been slowly releasing information about its Devil’s Canyon processors for a few months now. If you’ve been on top of the processor scene, you probably know that Devil’s Canyon is the codename for a new revision of Intel’s 4th Gen Core processors, based on the Haswell microarchitecture, that features a high performance polymer thermal interface material (TIM) and updated packaging materials, in addition to an array of additional capacitors to smooth power delivery to the core.

The Devil’s Canyon details Intel had strategically released up until a few days ago was all high-level information and lacked specifics about particular model numbers, pricing, and performance. On June 3, however, Intel made all of the juicy details public and a soon thereafter we got our hands on the company’s current flagship Devil’s Canyon based processor, the Core i7-4790K. And today, we can finally give you the full scoop...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

GAMDIAS HERMES GKB2010 Black Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

If you have’t heard of GAMDIAS Technology, that’s understandable, since they were only founded in Taiwan in 2012. With a motto of Gaming Art in Motion, GAMDIAS seeks to “Re-define the electronic sports landscape for gamers worldwide.” The GAMDIAS HERMES Ultimate Black Mechanical Gaming keyboard is their bid to do so for gaming keyboards, and fitted with Cherry MX Black switches, a 32-bit ARM processor, 512KB of memory, 13 macro keys, external USB and audio pass-through ports, adjustable keyboard lighting, and the most complex macro software I’ve ever seen, it may live up to their boast. Benchmark Reviews takes a look at one of the most powerful and capable keyboards you can buy: GAMDIAS HERMES GKB2010.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK LGA 1150 Review

GIGABYTE has come to market with a great execution of concept that is shrouded by me-too branding. The Ultra Durable BLACK EDITION motherboards are tested to work before you purchase, and not only that, these motherboards are load tested to work for a full week before you ever open the box.

The G1 GAMING series has been around in some form for awhile now. Previously the G1 Gaming series had distinguished itself in a world of red and black, blacked out, and even black and gold color schemes with a green and black color scheme often clad in a ridiculous "gun motif" or ammunition styled heat sinks. We’ve seen stuff like that from MSI and others, but GIGABYTE actually did it best. Love it or hate it, GIGABYTE had a personality of its own in the G1 series.

Today things have changed. GIGABYTE now emulates the ASUS’ Republic of Gamers motherboards with a black and red color scheme and even an eyeball logo that looks like a straight knock off of one of ASUS’ motherboards. To go a bit further, GIGABYTE has adopted the "Black Edition" brand. While ASUS reserved the Black Edition moniker for only its very best motherboards (using the name only twice so far) GIGABYTE will seemingly apply the name to several motherboards as there are currently at least three of these so far according to the GIGABYTE website.

Read full article @ HardOCP

Hands-on review: Samsung Galaxy Tab S

The new Galaxy Tab S is something of a conundrum: on the one hand, it represents a big shift from Samsung, one that promises to finally give it something that can be considered a rival to the iPad, on the other, an over-reliance of familiarity.The Galaxy Tab S range packs one major advantage over the competition: one of the best screens on the market to be plugged into a tablet. At 8.4- and 10.5-inch it uses Samsung's Super AMOLED technology make colours hyper-vibrant, contrast really deep and rich and the resolution, at 2560 x 1600, is pin sharp at all screen sizes.

Read full article @ Techradar

Hands-On With Samsungs HOT Galaxy Tab S, 10-inch Super AMOLED Display at 2560X1600

Samsung unveiled its latest flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S, at an event in New York City, and the new device is thin, lightweight, and sports a killer Super AMOLED display. Samsung boasts that the Tab S’s 2560x1600 display has a 73% better color reproduction rate than conventional LCD displays and can match colors up to 94% of “nature’s true palette” with deeper blacks and a 100,000:1 contrast ratio...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Huawei Ascend Mate 2 Review: Incredible Battery Life & Value

The commoditization of the smartphone segment has been predicted for more than a while now. It's almost obvious in a way though, especially when one looks at the progression of the PC industry. It was once effectively impossible to buy a good PC that cost less than a thousand dollars. Similarly, it was once effectively impossible to buy a good smartphone that cost less than 500 dollars. While Google, Motorola, and small Chinese OEMs have been bringing high-end specs to a price point around 350-450 dollars, the relative marketshare compared to OEMs like Samsung and Apple has been miniscule.

While there's some level of choice for high-spec, high-value smartphones at the ~5" display size segment, the same is far from true for phablets. The Galaxy Note line is generally considered to be the only phablet worth looking at, and there really isn't such thing as a "midrange phablet". The closest thing to a midrange phablet is the Galaxy Mega. The one experience I had with a Galaxy Mega 6.3 was anything but positive, especially when it was priced at around 400 dollars off contract or more. The value simply wasn't there.

Huawei seems to have noticed this, and in response to this unfulfilled niche, they've introduced the Huawei Ascend Mate 2. In the US, this phone is renamed to the Ascend Mate2 4G to indicate the different SoC and LTE modem, but the experience is largely the same. Huawei hopes to use this launch as their way to break into the unlocked device market in the US, and also as a way to build brand recognition in the US. This is definitely a big problem for Huawei, especially because in the US they've effectively been relegated to ODM status. The only Huawei devices that I can name off the top of my head are the MyTouch phones sold by T-Mobile, and those aren't advertised as Huawei phones at all.

So, the real question now is whether the Ascend Mate2 is any good. To find out, read on for the full review.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Intel Core i7-4790 (Haswell Refresh)

Although not the unlocked chip most of us are waiting for, the Intel Core i7-4790 is the new kid on the block, sporting a fancy 4.0 GHz boost clock right out of the box. I put it through the paces to see what's what only to come to the same conclusions as most other sites. But here's my take on the Intel Core i7-4790 anyway.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Intel Z97 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI

Today we are going to take a look at a handful of different motherboards from four different manufacturers. Each of the four motherboards is based on the Intel Z97 chipset with some of the latest and greatest bells and whistles. We have the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H, BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE, ASUS Z97-Pro Wi-Fi ac, and last but by no means least is the MSI Z97 Gaming 7...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

iRocks Rock Series K10 Gaming Keyboard Review

Gaming mice are great at stealing all the glory, they’re often packed with high-end features and functions that put regular desktop mice to shame. Of course all is not lost for the humble desktop mouse, for not everyone needs 19 buttons, 1000 macros and ultra high DPI laser sensors, many people just want a mouse that looks great, feel nice to use and performs reliably. Enter the i-rocks Spirit Cocoon, a fairly standard looking mouse if I ever saw one, apart from the fact that it is finished in a chrome effect of course, and while it is for all intents and purposes a regular mouse, it does have a trick up its sleeve, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

If I’m honest I’d never even heard of i-rocks before, this mouse landed on my desk as a bit of a surprise and it also came with a fair amount of enthusiasm from i-rocks that there was more here than meets the eye. Naturally I had to investigate what could be so interesting about this mouse, and while I suspected it was the chrome plating it’s really got more to do with got some very funky lighting effects that will leave you in a trance.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Is DRM A Threat To Computer Security?

DRM is harmful to our security. At best, its a necessary evil and its arguably not necessary and isnt worth the trade-off. Heres how DRM and the laws that protect it make our computers less secure and criminalize telling us about the problems. DRM Can Open Security Holes Digital Rights Management (DRM) itself can be insecure. DRM is implemented with software, and this software needs deep permissions into the operating system so it can stop normal operating system functions. The Sony BMG CD copy protection rootkit first released in 2005 is a perfect storm of DRM security..

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Jabra Solemate Max Portable Wireless Speaker Review

I spend the larger part of last Sunday at a beach roughly 90km away and to my surprise after one hour of me being there i noticed several people (not many but way more than last year or the year before) carrying portable Bluetooth speakers with them which they seemed to put to good use later on (not very loud models but enough to sufficiently cover a small area). Weirdly enough however most of those speakers were not rugged so I’m still having a hard time figuring out why one would risk damaging a speaker just by bringing it to the rather "harsh" conditions of the beach. Normally i wouldn't be thinking about something like that for so long since it's not really important but it so happened that at the same time i was also testing the latest flagship rugged portable wireless speaker by Jabra the Solemate Max so i guess that a small comparison was inevitable.

GN Netcom, led by the Jabra brand, continues to build on its standing as one of the world’s leading and fastest growing suppliers of hands-free communications solutions. With approximately 875 employees and sales offices around the world, GN Netcom develops manufactures and markets a broad range of wireless headsets for mobile users and both wireless and corded headsets for contact center and office-based users. GN Netcom’s business activities also include its original equipment manufacturing (OEM) business to a wide range of global customers including mobile phone, PC and PDA manufacturers.

As revealed by its name (and size of course) the Solemate Max is the larger brother of the original Solemate and Solemate Mini portable wireless speakers which we've tested in the past so right from that start we knew that Jabra would had probably fitted it with the most features. Well it seems we were right on the spot and so the Solemate Max features Bluetooth version 3.0 (10m/33ft wireless range), supports the usual A2DP (v1.2), hands free (v1.5) and headset (v1.2) profiles, makes use of the SCO/eSCO/Sniff modes, holds data for up to 8 connections with compatible devices (2 simultaneous ones) and thanks to an 1530mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery it can offer up to 14 hours of music playback (depends on the volume levels). Features however is not what separates the Solemate Max from the other two models of the line what does is the things that Jabra has squeezed into its very large body and those are nothing less than two 3inch long-stroke mid-woofers and two 3/4inch silk-dome neo magnet tweeters at the front while the rear is taken by a single (and quite large) 235mm X 92mm passive bass radiator. Are these enough to throw a small party? We'll do our best to try and answer that one for you in the following pages.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Moto E Review

THE MOTOROLA MOTO E is a dirt-cheap Android 4.4.2 Kitkat smartphone that Motorola hopes will lure those looking for an affordable device away from the Nokia Lumia 630.

The Moto E is even cheaper than the Moto G, which likely is Motorola's most popular smartphone in recent years. The Moto E is around £40 cheaper than its predecessor and that can be seen in the handset's downgraded screen and unimpressive camera.

Read full article @ The Inquirer

MSI R9 280 Gaming v PNY GTX760 XLR8

We all love to play games! It is likely your dream graphics card will be either a GTX 780 Ti or R9 290X. Not fast enough for you? – then how about AMD’s R9 295X2 or Nvidia’s Titan Z? Be prepared to dig deep into your bank account at £1,100 and £2,300 respectively … yes, it really is enough to make grown men cry. Back in the real world – and if recent correspondence with our readers is anything to go by then many of you wanted to see which hardware offers a better gaming experience under the £200 ‘sweetspot’ – an R9 280 or a GTX760. So with this in mind we went shopping online.

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Review

MSI's Z97 Gaming 7 is a full-featured motherboard targeted at the computer gamer, as the name suggests, and is built with the features that matter most to the target market. As a high performance motherboard, it is fully capable of maxing out your installed hardware, especially when you take the time to tune it specifically for your combination of parts. As far as overclocking was concerned, my best performing Core i7 4770K is a Prime-stable 4.66GHz chip no mater what. Every once in a blue moon, it chooses to run at 4.7GHz, but for the most part 4.6GHz is where it's at. The Gaming 7 was easily able to get my chip to that level without much in the way of trouble. Setting up my memory was as simple as applying the XMP profile. Sure the sub timings can be tweaked and tuned to get a bit better performance from the memory, but for the most part you will not see it in benchmarks.

Read full article @ OCC

RAIDMAX Scorpio V Review

Raidmax has been designing computer case solutions since 1988, providing innovative and quality products for enthusiast. The manufactuer has updated one of their oldest case lineups, the Scorpio. This design debuted in 2003, and now Raidmax has introduced the Scorpio V. So, let’s take a few minutes and see what the latest Scorpio offers.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

Samsungs Galaxy Tab S 10.5 & 8.4: Hands On with Samsungs 6.6mm Thin Tablets

I remember sitting in a briefing with Samsung last year when the company first started talking about translating its success in the Android smartphone space into the tablet market. Samsung has done well in the Android tablet space but it’s safe to say that the company is better known for its phones. This year Samsung hopes to change all of that and is putting its most valued mobile sub-brand (or letter) to work in tablets. Later this month (globally) and starting next month in the US, Samsung will begin selling its Galaxy Tab S line of premium tablets.

From the very beginning you can tell things are different with the Tab S. The Galaxy Tab S will be available in two different sizes, both with a 16:10 aspect ratio: 10.5” and 8.4”. Each size comes in two different colors: dazzling white and titanium bronze.

Read full article @ Anandtech