Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including ADATA DashDrive HV620 2.5 1TB External Hard Drive Review, Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme CPU Cooler Review, ASUS A88X-PRO (FM2+) Motherboard Review, Cooler Master Elite 130 Review, and ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Motherboard Review



ADATA DashDrive HV620 2.5 1TB External Hard Drive Review @ eTeknix

Having the ability to transfer data from one computer to another with out the need for a network or the internet is something that was solved years ago and external hard drives as an option of expanding you’re existing storage is also nothing new. This said and looking more at mobile storage, file sizes are not getting any smaller and this does mean that flash drives soon become less of an option. Whilst flash drives are available in capacities ranging right up to 256GB, lets be honest, they’re not cheap in respect and are priced in a similar fashion to an SSD of similar capacity. This is where hard drives, whilst a slower medium, come back into play as they’re cost per GB of storage is far more reasonable.

Whilst there are a large number of 2.5″ external hard drives to chose from, most are still a little bulky in respect to the ultra slim DashDrive Elite that we are going to be looking at today from ADATA. The DashDrive Elite HE720 boasts the world’s slimmest build at 8.9mm wrapped in a 9H scratch resistant stainless steel case to protect the drive whilst on the go.

Read more: ADATA DashDrive HV620 2.5 1TB External Hard Drive Review @ eTeknix

Rollei S-50 Wi-Fi Nitro Circus Live Limited Edition Action Camera @ NikKTech

People have always liked to take impressive risks in order to feel alive and just by looking at some of the most popular extreme sports like parachuting (plane jumping), skiing, snowboarding, Cyaking, deep diving and surfing that's not really hard to figure out. However why do something so extreme if you can't keep a visual record of it not only as proof that you actually did it but also to help you improve. Up until a few years ago there was simply no easy way for people to record video while taking part in outdoor activities something which changed with the arrival of tiny cameras that could be easily mounted pretty much everywhere. We are of course talking about Action Cameras and today we will be checking out the brand new S-50 Wi-Fi Nitro Circus Live Limited Edition model by Rollei.

Read more: Rollei S-50 Wi-Fi Nitro Circus Live Limited Edition Action Camera @ NikKTech

Cooler Master JetFlo Review @ Vortez

Cooler Master is introducing a new kind of bearing to the world of computer fans: their “Fourth Generation” bearing, made of POM -- polyoxymethylene. This bearing promises smooth running and long life at a low price. Cooler Master began their innovation by replacing the bearing of an old standby, the Sickle Flow fan, and calling it the Sickle Flow X. With this first of the POM bearings introduced, Cooler Master did not change anything else about the fan. Having taken this step, Cooler Master then produced the Jetflo, an entirely new fan. This fan comes with several innovations that Cooler Master advertises, and two very important features they say little about!

Read more: Cooler Master JetFlo Review @ Vortez

a-Jays One+ Earphones Review @ TestFreaks

Up for review today I’ve got another set of earphones or earbuds, whichever you call them, but they’re from a company called a-Jays and the product is called the One+. The headphones feature an in-line one button remote with microphone but if you’re using them with an Android device you can install the free app which adds even more functionality and control to the remote. The headphones feature truly tangle free cables and they even come with five different sizes of earbud covers to make sure you get the correct fit for your ears.

Read more: a-Jays One+ Earphones Review @ TestFreaks

Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware 360

Aside from a few flaws the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme is one hell of a self-contained water cooler. It offers all the performance equal to AiO coolers with larger 280mm radiators, but it has the ability to fit into any chassis that can accommodate dual 120mm fans in one area. The cooler can also be found for as low as $59.99 right now after mail-in-rebates, making it an absolute steal.

Read more: Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware 360

Roccat Power-Grid Review @ ocaholic

Power-Grid is an application developed by Roccat that turns your smartphone into a remote control center for your PC, the tool is available for Android and iOS, fully customizable and very easy to use. At the time the application is in beta phase and Roccat has not revealed how long this testing phase will last. Let's see it together!

Read more: Roccat Power-Grid Review @ ocaholic

ASUS A88X-PRO (FM2+) Motherboard Review @ eTeknix

With AMD’s fourth generation of AMD APUs, Kaveri, just around the corner it couldn’t be a better time to look at a brand spanking new FM2+ motherboard from ASUS. Today we have the ASUS A88X PRO motherboard on the test bench and this high-end motherboard will make the perfect home for any Kaveri based system. Of course you can use Trinity or Richland APUs too as the FM2+ socket is backwards compatible with FM2 APUs, but the main reason these motherboards have been released is to cater for the new Kaveri APUs that have more CPU and GPU performance than their predecessors. The ASUS A88X-PRO has already been released in a few markets, including the USA, but in the UK we won’t see this motherboard until some point next month. Of course Kaveri will take until the the end of Q1 to hit the shelves so there’s no rush in that regard.

Read more: ASUS A88X-PRO (FM2+) Motherboard Review @ eTeknix

Cooler Master Elite 130 Review @ Benchmark Reviews

I've reviewed a lot of Cooler Master cases over the years for Benchmark Reviews, and one thing that impresses me about the company is that they never stop innovating or refining. One has only to track the evolution of the Cosmos series of cases to see this writ large (very large, in the case of the Cosmos II), but what keeps my attention is the way they'll roll smaller, incremental improvements into an existing case line. Today's example: the Cooler Master Elite 130 mini-ITX computer case.

Read more: Cooler Master Elite 130 Review @ Benchmark Reviews

Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H Review @ HCW

If you’ve been reading HCW over the years, you know how often we have praised Gigabyte’s Intel motherboards in their “Ultra Durable” range. While their entry level boards are what they are, the mid-range ones have been fantastic for us just about every time. They seem to get just the right combination of high end, durable components with just enough extra features to make them more useful than other products.

Today we’ll find out of they continue that trend into the Intel 8 series, with our Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H review.

Read more: Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H Review @ HCW

Intel Releases A Boatload Of Haswell Documentation @ Phoronix

As an extra holiday present for Linux and open-source fans, Intel has quietly released a large batch of new programming documentation that covers their latest-generation Haswell graphics cores. The new "programmer's reference manuals" cover the 2013 Haswell HD Graphics, Iris Graphics, and Iris Pro Graphics. This massive batch of documentation is spread across twelve volumes and does document their hardware registers.

Intel's Haswell documentation is nearly 5,000 pages of new technical specifications and programming documentation and covers everything from mode-setting to the 3D engine to GPGPU to performance counters and video acceleration -- with the latter items being not something we've always seen by hardware companies when they've tried to be open about their drivers and documentation.

Read more: Intel Releases A Boatload Of Haswell Documentation @ Phoronix

Icy Dock MB290SPB EZ-FIT Lite and MB343SP EZ-Fit Trio Hard drive & SSD Bracket Review @ HiTech Legion

Icy Dock has delivered many products designed to make the most out of given storage space, and the new Flex-Fit Trio and EZ-Fit Lite do exactly that. Both the Flex-Fit Trio (MB343SP) and EZ-Fit Lite (MB290SP-B) are designed to mount multiple smaller drives in the space of one standard larger drive. In the case of the Flex-Fit Trio, one 3.5" and two 2.5" drives can be mounted into the space of a single 5.25" optical drive. In addition, the Flex-Fit Trio can use the aforementioned 3.5" drive space for internal drives or for 3.5" drives such as floppies
or card readers with full access from the front. The EZ-Fit Lite has mounting for two 2.5" drives which can be mounted into a single 3.5" drive bay. In addition, using both together gives you the option of mounting a total of four 2.5" drives into a single 5.25" optical bay.

Read more: Icy Dock MB290SPB EZ-FIT Lite and MB343SP EZ-Fit Trio Hard drive & SSD Bracket Review @ HiTech Legion

ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Motherboard Review @ OCC

Overclocking with the ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 was relatively straightforward. I followed the usual method of disabling any power-saving options, locked in frequencies manually, and set about my way cranking up the speed. To make things move more quickly, after setting the basics in the BIOS, I fired up ASUS AI Suite to start iterating on my settings. After a few rounds through setting and testing I was sitting fat and happy at a very much thermally limited 4715 MHz at 1.43 volts. Any lower on the voltage would yield a failure on core #5 (which was the first one to fail in every single test) and any higher on either the voltage or clocks pushed the CPU into thermal throttling after a few minutes of Prime95. The final settings ended up being 200x23.5, 1.43 volts vcore, and 1.225 volts to the memory controller. All of my testing was done with the H100i cranked up to the unbearable maximum of its two 120mm screamers, but there just wasn't any more headroom to keep it cool under load; the 8350 is not a cool chip when cranked this high. The last 15 MHz came from the board slightly overclocking the FSB even though I locked it in at 200 MHz.

Read more: ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Motherboard Review @ OCC

Samsung 840 EVO mSATA SSD Review @ The SSD Review

There is no doubt in anyones mind that 2014 will be the year of the M.2/NGFF SSD, however, Samsung is about to release an SSD that is guaranteed to rock the SSD community like few others have. This SSD is the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB mSATA SSD and it, not only is the one and only mSATA SSD capable of 1TB storage available in the world, but also, Samsung has priced this SSD at only $10 higher than it's sister 1TB notebook form factor SSD. To say that there are more than a few mSATA SSD storage based notebook owners that have been waiting for some time for exactly this type of capacity is an understatement; Lenovo Thinkpad sales surpassed the 60 million mark some time ago.

Read more: Samsung 840 EVO mSATA SSD Review @ The SSD Review