Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

AMD A10-7850K Kaveri Unlocked Quad Core APU Review
Antec KUHLER H2O 1250 Liquid CPU Cooling System Review
ASRock’s AM1 Kabini Motherboards Announced, including 19V DC-In Model
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum Edition Review
ASUS H87-PRO Motherboard
ASUS Radeon R9 290X Matrix Platinum Review
Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS
Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 Case Review
Crucial M550 Solid State Drive Review
Gigabyte Brix Pro GB-BXi7-4770R Mini-PC Review
LanOC V14 Recap
LEPOW MODRE Review: A Tiny Bluetooth Speaker With Big Sound
Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ Review
Rapoo Blade Series E2700 Wireless Multi-media Touchpad Keyboard Review
Thermolab Bada 2010 Review
Thief: Mantle Performance
Toshiba HG6 256GB SSD Review
XFX R9 290 Double Dissipation Review

AMD A10-7850K Kaveri Unlocked Quad Core APU Review

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a boy who didn’t have his own computer. It is quite possible that his family either could not afford it, or they were just uncomfortable with the fact that a boy would be responsible for a fairly expensive piece of technology. Yes, most families may take that for granted, since technology has become a very big part of everyday life. Less than ten years ago, most households comprised of one PC that was shared by the entire family until the technology boom erupted. With the eruption of innovations came falling prices and affordability and today most households can afford a PC for every member of the family.

The biggest innovation came when processor manufacturers, such as AMD and Intel, figured a way to integrate a CPU and GPU on the same die. By doing this, it allowed motherboard (chipsets) manufacturers to remove physical onboard graphics from their architecture, freeing up pathways which not only reduced data congestion but increased the ability of the motherboard to interact with both the CPU and GPU simultaneously. The first true CPU/GPU combo came in January of 2011 with the launch of the Intel “Sandybridge”. Shortly after, AMD launched their first APU (CPU/GPU combo) “Llano”. With “Llano", AMD brought an economical, affordable, all around platform for the masses. With its innovations, Llano proved to be a perfect platform for those who craved a PC that encompassed their desire for multimedia, social networking, light office and general purpose use. With its low power consumption, it was quite possibly the perfect HTPC. That was then and this is now, AMD has launched their fourth generation of APU, codenamed “Kaveri”. Kaveri boasts increased processor power coupled with advanced Radeon graphics but there are other technologies, such as HSA, that balance memory loads via “compute” to both the CPU and GPU.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Antec KUHLER H2O 1250 Liquid CPU Cooling System Review

Just a few years back you needed to spend a very respectable amount of money in order to take your first steps into watercooling and because of that even today serious watercooling solutions are considered to be a niche market aimed primarily at people who place cost beneath performance such as enthusiasts and overclockers. However today we have something that we didn't back then namely AIO (All-In-One) Liquid CPU Coolers that offer hassle-free installation and good performance levels at low prices making them ideal for use by regular consumers, gamers and even professionals alike. Naturally because the market for such devices is quite large many companies have released AIO models over the years one which is Antec and since they've been around since the beginning their solutions are without doubt amongst the ones at the top (largely thanks to their successful cooperation with Asetek). We have already reviewed their latest KUHLER H2O 650 and 950 AIO Liquid CPU Cooling Systems and today on our test bench we have the flagship 1250 model.

Read full article @ NikKTech

ASRock’s AM1 Kabini Motherboards Announced, including 19V DC-In Model

With the socketed version of Kabini formally announced by AMD, motherboard manufacturers are in full swing in announcing their line up to AMDs budget range.

Read full article @ Anandtech

ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum Edition Review

ASUS released the GeForce GTX 780 Ti MATRIX Platinum edition which we review. This beast of a card is amongst the most high end versions that ASUS has to offer and comes with a customized PCB, a phat dual-slot cooler and for the pro-overclockers LN2 options. Armed with dual 8-pin power connectors and a Molex connector (I kid you not) this board has a 14-phase DIGI+ VRM for the GPU with another two for the memory subsystem, covered by an impressive yet silent cooler protective is manages to impress. The Matrix will also have a nice backplate cover to protect the backside SMT components. Customized GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics cards are a hot thing these days, as they are silent, running cool and offer tremendous gaming muscle for the most heavy games. ASUS clocked this geForce GTX 780 Ti for you towards 1006 MHz on the GPU core, that means it can boost towards 1072 MHz on all of the unlocked 2880 Shader processors available. Yeah that's right, NVIDIA unlocked the GPU completely. That combined with increased core and memory clock frequencies and nice overclock potential will make this the top 699 USD flagship product to purchase. This means it is based on the GK110 revision B GPU and has an whopping 7.1 Billion transistors. That makes it a nice, one of the fastest graphics cards available on the market today.

We test the product with the hottest games like Metro: Last light, Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and many more. Just like GTX Titan, the GTX 780 Ti is based on the GK110 GPU with the distinctions that the Titan has a GK110-300 GPU and the GeForce GTX 780 a revision B GK110 GPU. Same stuff, yet with some changes. The recipe for the GTX 780 Ti is fantastic though, as the product has the full 15 Streaming clusters thus 2880 Shader Processing Units enabled. That's 240 TMUs and 48 ROPs on a 384-bit memory interface of fast GDDR5. So yeah, NVIDIA in a nutshell that is a 45 mm × 45 mm 2397-pin S-FCBGA GK110b GPU with 2880 shader/stream/CUDA processors.

Read full article @ Guru3D

ASUS H87-PRO Motherboard

We analyzed the ASUS H87-PRO, an entry-level socket LGA1150 motherboard based on Intel H87 chipset, with six SATA-600 ports, six USB 3.0 ports, and one PCI Express x16 slot. Let's see which other features this motherboard offers.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

ASUS Radeon R9 290X Matrix Platinum Review

ROG MATRIX R9 290X Platinum Edition, this is the name of ASUS latest AMD based flagship graphics card. Equipped with an armada of features, equally interesting for gamers as well as overclockers, ASUS is fighting to win gamers as well as overclockers hearts with this card. Other than that there is the very latest version of ASUS' powerful and strikingly good looking DirectCU II cooler. Overall we're really curious now to find out what this thing is capable of and what new features there are.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS

Cambridge Audio is a well-known brand in the world of HiFi. Today, we take a look at the newest addition to their extensive line-up of DACs and amplifiers. The new DacMagic XS is a matchbox-sized DAC/amp with plenty of power for normal headphones. We take it for a spin with several headphones to see how it performs.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 Case Review

Most case manufacturers out there make conventional PC cases, meaning they fit the traditional form factors and are not all that different inside. Well Corsair has changed things up a little bit with their Carbide Series Air 540, which is a cube-style case, but it actually fits a full-sized ATX motherboard and components. This case features a dual-chamber design that not only helpswith better cooling, but makes installation much easier. This case has actually been out for some time, but Corsair recently announced the white version of the case so that is what we are looking at today. Will this be the case for your next build? Read on as we find out...

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Crucial M550 Solid State Drive Review

Crucial’s C300 solid state drive introduced SSDs to the SATA-6Gb/s interface, followed by the Micron M500 SSD series which will continue in the mainstream value segment. With the Crucial M550 SSD, Micron introduces their brand’s first premium-level product series. Utilizing a new Marvell 88SS9189 controller on the Crucial M550 SSD, read speeds reach 550 MB/s while write speeds attain 500 MB/s. M550 promises 90,000 random IOPS reads, and up to 85,000 random IOPS writes. 20nm Micron 64GB and 128GB NAND flash components are used in M550, which improves overall performance and enables lower-capacity drives to perform nearly as well as the higher capacity counterparts.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Gigabyte Brix Pro GB-BXi7-4770R Mini-PC Review

For home theater PC (HTPC) “small” is another word for “compromise”. Thankfully, the amount required by our miniscule content consumption devices has decreased exponentially over the last few years. There is still a price demanded however, tiny systems require slower mobile integrated processor graphics (IPG) to drive them. We have to choose between size and performance; it is simply not possible to fit desktop capability in a five inch PC. But what if it were not? What if you could slip a 65W desktop chip inside a 2.4” x 4.3” x 4.5” chassis? Is it possible to cool it and extract desktop level performance from a physically diminutive system? Gigabyte asked exactly that, but was not content to use just any desktop CPU, instead opting for the 3.9 GHz (turbo) Intel Core i7-4770R with Iris Pro 5200 graphics - creating the $650 Brix Pro GB-BXi7-4770R. Putting so much CPU in a little box is sure to have its own set of trade-offs however, let’s find out what they are.

Read full article @ MissingRemote

LanOC V14 Recap

A week ago at the time of this writing, we were within hours of LanOC v14.0 coming to end, though things certainly showed no signs of winding down. We were right in the middle of two tournaments with plenty of spectators watching over shoulders, attendees and staff alike roaming the floor to take a final look at the case show-off entries, and our network gear receiving no reprieve from the remainder of over 130 gamers in their title of choice. Before we revisit the final wrap-up of the event, let’s start back at the beginning of LanOC v14.0, which truly started the day before.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

LEPOW MODRE Review: A Tiny Bluetooth Speaker With Big Sound

It is not often that you receive a product that comes in a cup, never mind the fact that when you power it on to give it a quick test with Coldplay – Paradise you find the audio quality to be surprising. The LEPOW MODRE is not your average Bluetooth speaker.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ Review

Over the years, PowerColor has started really delivering some high performance video cards that are not in the mold of the rest of the crowd. Just about every AMD partner has their own custom card with enhanced cooling and special power circuits. PowerColor currently is the only one to push a factory overclocked and liquid cooling equipped card out the door as the LCS cooling solution. Having looked at a few of these in the past I can say the cards' cores are highly binned to get the highest performing parts under the water blocks. Most recently the HD 7970 LCS showed great overclocking results that put many a card to shame.

The LCS cards are great, but the vast majority of users are going to look for an air cooled solution and that's where the PCS+, or Professional Cooling System, comes into its own. Over the past year I have seen PowerColor really expand its high performance air cooling solutions on cards like the Devil 13 and most recently the Devil R9 270X. By creating a quiet cooling solution that effectively discharges the thermal load from the cores, you get a cooler running card that lasts longer. On top of the cooling solution you get all the benefits of an all-digital 5+1+1 phase power circuit and PowerColor's own Gold Power Kit components.

Read full article @ OCC

Rapoo Blade Series E2700 Wireless Multi-media Touchpad Keyboard Review

Sometimes you don’t need a full sized keyboard especially with an HTPC or other smaller style computers, something wireless and compact will work just fine and it’s actually what you would want in that situation. Bluetooth is nice but not everything comes equipped with it so the next choice is regular radio frequency or RF wireless which works just as well if not better sometimes than Bluetooth. Today for review I have the 2.4Ghz wireless keyboard from Rapoo called the E2700 which is from their Blade series. The E2700 is very thin at only 5.6mm and lightweight coming in at about 186 grams but it’s a full keyboard with multi-media keys, internet keys and even a touchpad for easy navigation. I like the E2700 quite a bit, it’s well made, and it just works great, so read on to learn more…

Read full article @ TestFreaks

Thermolab Bada 2010 Review

In the past the Korean company Thermolab has been able to surprise with high quality products, which were able to compete with the best in corresponding product categories. With the Bada 2010 the company has been working on a compact tower cooler and we're rather curious to find out how well this model actually performs.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Thief: Mantle Performance

Today AMD and Square Enix release an updated driver and patch for Thief which adds support for Mantle. Here we take a quick look at some performance figures.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Toshiba HG6 256GB SSD Review

Today we look at the latest Solid State Drive product Toshiba – the HG6. The HG6 drives integrate NAND chips which are fabricated on the second generation 19nm process and they are available in capacities ranging from 60GB to 512GB. Shipping is due to start very soon and they sampled us with the 256GB model.

Read full article @ KitGuru

XFX R9 290 Double Dissipation Review

XFX’s R9 290 Double Dissipation is supposed to offer gamers a good combination of affordability and performance. While some may debate the “affordability” part of that equation due to the present mark-ups for every AMD graphics card, there’s no doubt about the gaming potential of these new Radeon GPUs.

There has been some heated debate about how the R9 290X and R9 290 react to the reference design’s rampant thermal issues since they tend to throttle core frequencies quite drastically. This leads to reduced performance under load or a bit more overhead provided the heatsink’s fan is increased to ear-splitting levels. In short, AMD’s PowerTune hates high temperatures. As a result most board partners have moved away from standard coolers and are utilizing their own designs in an effort to tame the extreme heat produced by the Hawaii core and hopefully deliver stable performance. That’s exactly what XFX has done with the Double Dissipation edition.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks