Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

2014 Game Developers Conference
Aerocool DS Cube Computer Case Review
AMD Kaveri A10-7850K Overclocking
BlackBerry Z10 Review
Fractal Design ARC Mini R2 Chassis Review
Func MS-3 R2 Gaming Mouse and 1030 R2 Gaming Surface Review
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Video Card Review
HP Spectre 13t-h200 x2 Review
Intel Core i7-4930K SLI Gaming Performance Scaling
Intel ready to launch 4 new desktop CPUs in Mid 2014
Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB DDR3-2400 Kit Review
Microcool Banchetto K Review
MSI Shows Off New Gaming Notebooks
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X (Refresh) Video Card Review
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X TRI-X OC Review
SilverStone CP11 SATA Cable Review
Silverstone Strider Essential ST60F-ESB 600 W
WD My Cloud 2TB Personal Cloud Storage Review

2014 Game Developers Conference

At the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC14) this morning, AMD revealed full-functional working demonstrations of their AMD RapidFire Graphics API technology harnessing the power of Cloud-based streaming 3D applications. A bare-bones system with no software installed located Crysis 3 on a Cloud gaming server, and within moments the player was earning frags (actually, he was desperately trying). On the surface this concept may not sound terribly interesting, but it stands to disrupt how we obtain and play video games and graphical design software. For desktop and mobile users software no longer is downloaded or installed; games and applications are essentially a click away.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Aerocool DS Cube Computer Case Review

Taiwanese case manufacturer Aerocool is known for its affordable enclosures, however that doesn't necessarily imply the products are inferior in design nor quality. Sadly our last encounter with an Aerocool product was not that stellar. The full tower GT-S case was overpriced, especially looking at the build quality and cooling performance it delivered. This more humble looking DS cube could change our state of mind; featuring mATX and mITX compatibility, the provision to install an optical drive, being water cooling ready and even normal sized air coolers can be installed in this Dead Silence Cube. Could this DS be one of the main competitors in the HTPC or portable mini game PC market? Time to open the box to discover the Aerocool's Cube offering.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

AMD Kaveri A10-7850K Overclocking

AMD’s Kaveri K Series APUs have a wealth of untapped performance potential: out of the box they come with a modest 720MHz GPU core clock speed, yet anyone who has toyed with AMD APUs in the past knows there’s going to be a lot of overclocking headroom. Before we progress any further I’m going to make my intentions with this article clear – AMD’s Kaveri APU is about the GPU and that’s where our focus lays today. Sure you can overclock the CPU, but because the CPU and GPU are combined, overclocking the CPU reduces the thermal and power headroom of the GPU, and vice versa. Not to mention that the GPU offers the most potential for performance scaling whereas the CPU doesn’t offer anywhere near as much – so picking the CPU over the GPU will leave you with less performance than if you’d have picked the GPU. Picking only the GPU for overclocking also makes sense as the A10-7850K is primarily designed to be a gaming chip, and a chip that takes advantage of GPU acceleration, so overclocking the CPU with detriment to the GPU makes no sense at all. How does the CPU have the potential to detriment the GPU you might ask? Well it is quite simple – the CPU produces more heat and uses more power than the GPU so overclocking it is likely to lead to thermal throttling of the entire APU package. With regards to TDP/power-based throttling you can get around this by disabling AMD’s APM (Application Power Management) but you still have the heat issue to contend with. Therefore for the purposes of this article we’re going with a GPU overclock only. For those interested in overclocking the CPU you’re better off waiting for the standalone Steamroller based Athlon CPUs to hit the FM2+ socket, or going with existing FX and Athlon series AMD CPUs.

Read full article @ eTeknix

BlackBerry Z10 Review

Ever since smartphones came along, all weve been hearing about is Android and iOS. Sure, there are other players around, such as Windows Phone and BlackBerry, but we mostly dont think of them as viable options. For me, BlackBerry always seemed like a dying, irrelevant OS, until our best mobile OS poll results revealed that 53 per cent of voters preferred BlackBerry, and this got me thinking. Can a tech blogger really afford to know nothing about an entire mobile OS? Weve looked at numerous Android devices, every available iPhone, and even some Windows Phone devices such as the Nokia...

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Fractal Design ARC Mini R2 Chassis Review

Computer cases, or chassis if you will, are an interesting product in the fact that they are arguably the most diverse component available for a personal computer. Whatever your taste or flavor preference may be, there are many, many chassis to choose from. Seriously, if you build mega full tower liquid-cooled beasts, miniature sized HTPCs, mid tower gaming rigs, or perhaps an open test bench; rest assured a manufacturer out there has you covered. With so many options available, the selection process can seem a bit overwhelming at times. Here at Funky Kit we strive to help you make an informed decision based on our reviews of the products at hand.

We recently had the opportunity to review the Node 304 from Fractal Design; and we were impressed with its superb build quality, quiet acoustics, and the intelligent use of available space. You may read that review here.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Func MS-3 R2 Gaming Mouse and 1030 R2 Gaming Surface Review

Do you believe in love at first sight? Some do, some don’t, but it really is simply an explanation of the feeling when you immediately know something is right. Of course, it is far more complex in interpersonal relationships than it is with technology. There are many products where one glance and a quick look at the specs lets you know that it is exactly what you have been looking for. I felt exactly that way about the original Func MS-3. The size and shape are near ergonomic perfection, button placement makes sense and all ten are fully programmable, the macro editor is powerful and simple, and the highest quality parts were used throughout, right down to the 5670 dpi Avago sensor. Thankfully, when I got the MS-3 in my hand, it lived up to every expectation that I had. Like any other first gen piece, however, there was room for a little tweaking and refinement, and that's where the new Func MS-3 R2 comes into play.

While Func retained all of the great ergonomics of the MS-3, the R2 tweaks the working components a bit for better overall durability and further flexibility through its software. The Func MS-3 R2 now features software upgradeable firmware, a new more precise and durable scroll wheel, and Omron switches rated for 10 million clicks. The 2m braided cable has been upgraded and reinforced at the connection points for greater durability. To accompany the new MS-3 R2, Func has also released a new Surface 1030 R2 gaming surface to improve your overall desktop experience. The Surface 1030 R2 is available in two sizes (13x10” and 14x11”), and features selectable dual surfaces for textured precision or the ultra-fast gameplay of a perfectly smooth pad. The Surface 1030 R2 also features Func’s renowned cord clip, as well as non-slip backing for a solid, stable surface.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Video Card Review

Graphics cards are an interesting thing in that they can make or break your gaming performance and happen to be very confusing when it comes to buying them. It isn't that they are difficult to acquire but rather people don't understand what they are getting. Around here we often prefer the cards that give us the best performance and don’t mind if they cost a few extra bux. As a result we tend to look beyond things like power consumption or noise profiles in favor of more processing power.

As a result we figure anyone interested in this product is likely doing a custom build with a boutique builder like CyberPowerPC and is asking themselves "WTH is this card and why should I choose it?"

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

HP Spectre 13t-h200 x2 Review

The HP Spectre 13t-h200 x2 is a detachable hybrid ultrabook/tablet with an elegant design, but it doesn't compare well to ultrabook competitors.

Read full article @ TechReviewSource.com

Intel Core i7-4930K SLI Gaming Performance Scaling

In our SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds (since a lot of guys asked for this). In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Let's kick off with an Intel 4930K CPU and two ASUS GTX 780 DirectCU II graphics cards and find out what the differences are going to be like.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Intel ready to launch 4 new desktop CPUs in Mid 2014

Last Monday Intel held an online conference with all the media; to our great surprise Intel wants to reinvent the desktop, A new direction from what we were used to hear not so long ago. Desktop are far from extinct and still take almost half of the market; secondly Intel sold a record number of core i5 and i7 CPUs, so there's no reason to abandon the desktop market. In the below brief snippit, extracted from the conference call we will highlight the four new processor series the Redmond giant has planned for the desktop market. Best of all is that these are not far future based projects, but these new technologies will hit the shelves mid of 2014.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB DDR3-2400 Kit Review

What Kingston sent us for review today represents the next step up in their HyperX Predator line, the 8GB DDR3-2400 KHX24C11T2K2/8X kit. While only half the capacity of the set we reviewed last year, this kit is verified to run at the faster DDR3-2400 speed and CAS11. Memory bandwidth becomes very important for performance when shared with an iGPU such as AMD's latest Kaveri APU. Kingston also offers 8GB kits in DDR3-2666 and now DDR3-2800 speeds.

Read full article @ OCIA.net

Microcool Banchetto K Review

Banchetto K is the starting point for overclockers and those who want to expose their system. The solution from Microcool offers plenty of room to install components and you can even mount E-ATX motherboards. Banchetto K is made of polyurethane, which makes it robst and at the same time lightweight.

Read full article @ ocaholic

MSI Shows Off New Gaming Notebooks

Earlier this week KitGuru was invited to attend the launch event for MSI’s new range of gaming notebooks. Star of the show was the debutant GS60 which is the lightest and thinnest 15.6″ gaming notebook on the market.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X (Refresh) Video Card Review

“Things can only get better” to quote Howard Jones. How many times have you seen a revision to a product and the above statement failed to be true? Most of the time it’s usually to boost sales of an end of life product or fix a problem that was so minute it didn’t make any sense. No need to worry, some manufacturers actually revise their product to make them better maybe by increasing clock speeds or adding stronger memory modules. The fact is there are product out there that are actually not end of life and have been refreshed to provide something extra that you will actually benefit from. At times better does mean a bump in the price but most of the time it doesn’t affect the price at all.

Sapphire Technologies one of the premier manufacturers of AMD based Graphics cards, announced a refresh to one of their best-selling Radeon R9 series graphics cards the Vapor-X 280X on March 4th 2014. At first thought, you might think this is another refresh to boost sales but it's quite far from the fact. Sapphire's refresh of the Vapor-X 280X consists of three major changes, increased engine clock from 950MHz to 1000MHz, increased boost clock from 1070MHz to 1100MHz and the addition of Tri-X vapor chamber cooling. These changes place the R9 280X Vapor-X amongst the elite in its class for superior cooling and clock speeds and although it could be the Vapor-X is still not top of the line 280X in Sapphires repertoire.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X TRI-X OC Review

The one other true difference comes to light when overclocking. We all know one sample is not indicative of the entire line, but we see how aggressive the binning is between the Vapor-X line and the Toxic line. This sample clocked to 1160MHz on the core clock and screamed up to 1700MHz on the 3GB of Hynix memory for added bandwidth. This certainly helped performance in the 3DMark testing. Depending on the game test, Sapphire's Vapor-X R9 280X TRI-X OC matched up best with the GTX 770, usually delivering higher FPS at 5760x1080. In every game the Vapor-X R9 280X TRI-X OC delivers smooth gameplay with high settings for a truly enjoyable gaming experience at 1080p resolutions.

Read full article @ OCC

SilverStone CP11 SATA Cable Review

Fashion and style is a questionable topic, because it's based on subjective opinion most of the time. I can say I like colors like red, black, and white, so any products I obtain must match those criteria; a shiny glass desk, motherboards with a black PCB, a sixty inch HDTV, a red Nokia Lumia 920, and the list goes on. But when my friend walks up to me, he or she would most likely have a very different preference; Subaru Forrester, a white phone, you know the drill. As for Psy, Gangnam Style is the name of the game. I don't know about you, but personally speaking, Gangnam Style doesn't sound very legitimate in my books, haha. Fashion and style obviously can be applied to anything such as clothing, music, and technology. What is interesting though is if you pick any one topic, there's always some sort of trend for each. Clothes cover you up, cars get you to places, and computers help you work more efficiently. While its base function has not changed, the way the job is done has. Even as technology evolves over time, it generally still has the same purpose, albeit in a completely different manner. What we have here today at APH Networks is SilverStone's very own SATA cables: the CP11. They claim that it is the world's thinnest and most low-profile SATA cable. So what's the big deal, anyway? Well, if you're into technological style, these SATA cables would look pretty appealing, especially in a windowed chassis. It's almost as good as slapping LED lights in your case... sort of. From a practical perspective, for the mATX and ITX enthusiasts, thin SATA cables could save you quite a bit of hassle in terms of cable management in a case with little space. Would these cables be worth your while, or are they simply a stylish fashion trend? Keep reading to see what we have in store today!

Our review unit of the SilverStone CP11 came with the SilverStone ARM Two SST-ARM22SC reviewed by my colleague Jonathan Kwan a little over a month ago. It came in a uniquely shaped package from the company's American headquarters in California, USA. The brown corrugated cardboard box was a bit distorted at the top, but this is nothing to get alarmed about -- it is bent a bit to accommodate the cables we are reviewing today in addition to the monitor arm. Using UPS Standard, everything arrived in excellent condition as it traveled across the border to us here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Read full article @ APH Networks

Silverstone Strider Essential ST60F-ESB 600 W

Silverstone offers many different PSUs and has lately enriched its portfolio with several new units, including two Strider Essential ones. We will put the ST60F-ESB to the test: It, in an effort to be as affordable as possible, is 80 Plus Bronze certified and comes with nothing but native cables that have mostly been left unsleeved.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

WD My Cloud 2TB Personal Cloud Storage Review

While cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Box.net, SpiderOak, and more offer decent ways to store a few gigabytes of data for free, once a user passes that free mark, the price for storage increases significantly. Rather than pay a monthly fee, someone smart thought, why not use a user’s existing home network for storage instead? The WD MyCloud isn’t the first home network-attached storage device, but it is certainly among the easiest to set up that I’ve encountered. The MyCloud offers a unified access method – wd2go.com – to mount the storage and make it usable like a network drive no matter where in the world you are. With Time Machine-compatible backup and media playback servers, the MyCloud promises to be as useful remote as it is when you are sitting next to it. ThinkComputers takes a look at this promising cloud device and finds it not quite to be as clear skies as we’d like. Here’s the review.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org