Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AMD Radeon Polaris Architecture
AMD RTG Reveals Next-Gen Polaris GPU Architecture, Designed For FinFET
AMD sets a new course for Radeons with its Polaris architecture
ASRock FM2A78M-HD+ & FM2A78M-ITX+ Review
Build log: we put together a muscular Breadbox
Building Our Latest Z170 Test Bench - Skylake & 64GB of DDR4 Memory!
Corsair Carbide 400Q Review
Corsair Carbide Quiet Series 400Q Review
Corsair Carbide Series 400Q Review
EK Predator 240 Review
Gelid Antarctica Heatsink Review
JBL Flip 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker Review
Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa - A wilted flower
Mainstream VR Has Arrived: We Take Samsung's Gear VR For A Ride
MSI GS40 6QF Phantom – Battlefront Testing
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Video Card Roundup
Reeven Justice RC-1204 Review
Super Flower Leadex Titanium 1000W PSU Review
The AMD Polaris GPU Architecture Preview
The Best AiO CPU Coolers of 2015
Xeon Skylake overclocking might happen soon
XTracGear Drone XL Landing Pad Review

AMD Radeon Polaris Architecture

The AMD Radeon Technologies Group is responsible for everything that is related to Radeon graphics cards and APUs. In this January 2016 update we can talk a little more about the new upcoming Radeon architecture which is dubbed, Polaris.

Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor, and the 50th brightest star in the night sky. It is very close to the north celestial pole, Polaris is the North Star.

An embargo has lifted and as little information as it really is, today we talk about the architecture behind the Radeon GPU series that will launch in (likely) Q2 of 2016. There has been a lot of talk and gossip in regard to what fab node and process AMD will produce their new GPUs on. Will it be 14nm or 16nm ? To date that is still not 100% confirmed, it looks though that AMD will be using a combo of foundries for their 2016 chips. TSMC seems unlikely, yet Global Foundries is the first name that normally come to mind. Partly-confirmed now is that not the just GloFo, yet Samsung will be fabbing next years Arctic Islands family of GPUs alongside Global Foundries. Since it's Samsung this will be a 14nm FinFET fab, opposed to Nvidia who will be using 16nm for their Pascal architecture at TSMC.

Read full article @ Guru3D

AMD RTG Reveals Next-Gen Polaris GPU Architecture, Designed For FinFET

A few weeks back, we attended a summit hosted by AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group. A number of new initiatives and technologies were disclosed at the event, including AMD’s plans to support FreeSync over HDMI and other new display technologies, and the company’s GPUOpen initiative, which is meant to give developers of games, heterogeneous computing applications, and HPC applications deeper access to the GPU and GPU resources through new open-source tools.

Today, as we prepare for the craziness of the Consumer Electronics Show, we can reveal the final major disclosure from the summit – details of the AMD Radeon Technologies Group’s next-generation GPU architecture, code-named Polaris...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

AMD sets a new course for Radeons with its Polaris architecture

AMD will release new Radeons built on its next-gen Polaris architecture in mid-2016. We got an early look at this new architecture and AMD's plans for building these chips with FinFETs last month at the company's Radeon Technologies Group tech summit.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

ASRock FM2A78M-HD+ & FM2A78M-ITX+ Review

Today, we have a pair of AMD FM2+ boards from ASRock on the test bench: the FM2A78M-HD+ and the FM2A78M-ITX+.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Build log: we put together a muscular Breadbox

Our Editor-in-Chief has always had a soft spot for Mini-ITX systems with big performance, and Gigabyte, OCZ, EVGA, G.Skill, and Logitech were happy to help him build a Breadbox system with some high-octane parts. Here's how he put it all together.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Building Our Latest Z170 Test Bench - Skylake & 64GB of DDR4 Memory!

Boxing week sales are just tailing off, and just getting underway is the Consumer Electronic Show 2016 (http://technologyx.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=3636b1a87a&e=312ec141fb) from Las Vegas, Nevada (stay tuned for full coverage!). Throughout the holidays, some of you may have gotten brand new games to play, while others may have received some cash that is now burning a hole in their pocket. One recommendation we can make is obviously to upgrade your gaming rig. Today we are putting together and testing our latest Z170 test bench!

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Corsair Carbide 400Q Review

Corsair Carbide 400Q is the junior sibling of the Carbide 600C we saw quite recently. The Q suffix stands for Quiet and C for Clear (i.e. it has a windowed panel) and both Carbide 400 and 600 come in Q and C variants. Unboxing the 400Q reveals a case that looks understated. It lacks the visual wow factor of the enormous window we saw in the 600C and would presumably get with the 400C. It makes life easier if we put Carbide 600 to one side as that design uses an unconventional upside-down layout and is also very wide. By contrast the Carbide 400 is a slimline ATX tower that is only 215mm wide. Pulling off the side panels reveals the noise deadening material that has been added to qualify for the Quiet name tag and it should be a quick job to remove the power supply cover and front panel and lay the case bare.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Corsair Carbide Quiet Series 400Q Review

The latest in the Carbide series of PC cases from Corsair would be the 400Q and 400C. The C model comes with a see through side panel while the Q model is aimed at silence. It is exactly that silent model we'll place under the microscope in this review. The new model is aimed at a more audiophile tense segment as it has sound dampening materials all over the place. These chassis remain to be good looking but really are feature rich products. Keywords here would be an proper design chassis, tool free, decent space, nice airflow and a chassis that is even ready for for liquid cooling. Have a peek at we'll review today, the Corsair Carbide Quiet 400Q. Admittedly what Corsair has been doing with the Carbide series works out well for them, affordable quality chassis that remain good looking and offer to be a feature rich product. Keywords here would be: okay design, tool free, lots of space, nice airflow and prepped for liquid cooling.

The latest in the Carbide series of PC cases from Corsair would is the 400 series released in the Window with C for Clear and the Q version, for Quiet.

The Carbide Series are the somewhat compact products. Open the easy-access side panel and you’ll discover a builder-friendly design with three tool-free optical drive bays and tool-free hard drive bays with extended 2.5” SSD compatibility. There’s room for extra-long graphics cards and, as with all Corsair cases, the 400 Series includes an innovative cable-routing system that keeps wires and cables out of sight, and out of the airflow path, for a cleaner look.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Corsair Carbide Series 400Q Review

With CES 2016 starting this week it was only a matter of time before announcements from the Corsair camp flew in. Corsair are no stranger to product development, over the last 18 months they’ve unveiled a multitude of computer cases which dip into different markets, appearing with varying price-tags and appealing to a variety of different users. Earlier today, Corsair announced their new Carbide Series 400Q.

400Q is Corsair’s new mid-tower chassis which is tailored to low-noise. Those who prefer an elegant enclosure which supresses noise will be attracted to this new case since Corsair has closed off all the panels and furnished them with noise-reduction material. Inside, 400Q is jam-packed with interesting and innovative features which we’ll be exploring today in plenty of detail.

Read full article @ Vortez

EK Predator 240 Review

With their Predator 240 EK Water Blocks have a pre-assembled watercooling unit in their portfolio, which is entirely based on custom parts from their extensive line-up. This makes the Predator 240 powerful and at the same time easily expandable. At this point we're very curious to find out how this watercooler performs and wheter it's a convincing product or not.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Gelid Antarctica Heatsink Review

The Gelid Antarctica heatsink features a nice narrow footprint which measures 141x74mm with the 140mm fan installed. The slim profile should make the Antarctica cooler more compatible with a larger range of motherboards.

Read full article @ FrostyTech

JBL Flip 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker Review

JBL, a unit of Harman International Industries, Incorporated, designs and builds audio equipment for consumers, the entertainment industry and the automotive industry. JBL takes its decades of experience making speakers and other equipment for concert halls and other public venues, and uses it to create audio equipment for consumers around the world. You can enjoy a movie, ball game or concert as part of a huge crowd or in your home - but either way, you can catch all of the sounds with superb clarity through JBL components.

As you might have guessed the Flip 3 portable Bluetooth speaker is actually the 3rd product to carry that name by JBL and although i never had the chance to use the original model i did use the Flip 2 for a couple months. So compared to the Flip 2 the Flip 3 (both models are splash proof) is improved in several areas so this time over it offers Bluetooth v4.1 connectivity (Bluetooth v3.0 version was used in the Flip 2), 3000mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery which gives it up to 10 hours of playback time (vs the 2000mAh one found in the Flip 2 and the up to 5 hours of playback) and two 40mm drivers (same size as the ones in the Flip 2) which feature a total power output of 8W each (2 x 6W in the Flip 2) with a frequency response of 85Hz-20KHz (the ones used in the Flip 2 had 100Hz-20KHz) and a signal to noise ratio of 80dB (identical to the Flip 2). The Flip 3 also has two external bass radiators (the Flip 2 had none) and features the connect technology by JBL which allows the user to connect it with several other Flip 3 portable speakers (also not found in the Flip 2), NFC (near field communications) and a state of the art microphone (speakerphone feature).

Read full article @ NikKTech

Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa - A wilted flower

You will hate me for this article. But it must be done. A short, utterly negative review of Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa 64-bit edition, briefly tested on a laptop with UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT, culminating in total network failure over several live session attempts, inability to copy files from Samba shares or print to Samba, decent multimedia playback - HD video, MP3 and associated bugs, several other observations, and more. I will revisit Rosa, but today is a bad, bad day.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Mainstream VR Has Arrived: We Take Samsung's Gear VR For A Ride

Samsung's Gear VR is the first VR headset to get mainstream attention. It has the potential to fuel the early days of consumer-grade VR, but is it really worth your money and attention?

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

MSI GS40 6QF Phantom – Battlefront Testing

When we looked at MSI’s GS40 6QF Phantom a few weeks ago we were impressed at just how much gaming power it was able to squeeze into a 1.6kg chassis. It managed to make the grueling Grand Theft Auto V and Tomb Raider both playable at the maximum possible quality settings afforded by its 3GB NVIDIA GTX970M graphics. However, we wanted to try it out with a brand new, highly popular game that’s also very topical – Star Wars Battlefront. (review HERE (http://www.kitguru.net/laptops/james-morris/msi-gs40-6qe-phantom-review/) )

Read full article @ KitGuru

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti Video Card Roundup

It’s hard to believe that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB video card came out ago six months to the week, however, the card is still dominating on the performance front and more time than not it outperforms AMD’s flagship Radeon R9 Fury X 4GB video card. Over the past six months both AMD and NVIDIA have released a ton of drivers and a handful of great gaming titles came out during the holiday season. We thought it would be a great idea to start off the new year by looking at several GeForce GTX 980 Ti video cards in a small roundup with the latest drivers. We also wanted to include benchmark numbers on hot new game titles like Fallout 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Reeven Justice RC-1204 Review

Two years ago, OCC reviewed the Hans RC-1205 and the Justice RC-1204, so when a couple of Reeven coolers with the same model numbers had arrived at my door, I thought that maybe there had been a mistake. But the boxes looked different, so something has changed, but what? While it is not unusual for a manufacturer to update a product to either freshen it up aesthetically or make some improvements, these changes are usually accompanied with something flashy like "new and improved" or "Version 2.0" on the box. That is not the case with these coolers, as there is no indication of a previous model. I made a quick visit to the website and saw that there is also an RC-1205(n) version, which has exposed copper heat pipes and that is the model I reviewed last year. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, has changed. This review covers the Justice RC-1204, as the Hans RC-1205 was covered in a previous review. The Justice is a bit larger than the Hans, so we will see how the larger size of the Justice affects the performance.

If you haven't heard of Reeven, it is somewhat of a newcomer to the computer component world, having formed in 2009. Since my initial review last year, Reeven has added several coolers, three cases, one new fan, and two fan controllers to its lineup - so things at Reeven seem to be busy. From the Reeven website: "REEVEN is a newly established international manufacturer of PC related products. REEVEN's product lines includes the best quality of advanced CPU coolers, Cooling Fans, Power Supply Units, PC Cases and many other items. the target of our products will be a wide range of audience under our philosophy 'Professional Quality Gears', for products that will withstand the highest demand."

Read full article @ OCC

Super Flower Leadex Titanium 1000W PSU Review

Super Flower was one of the first companies to release an 80 Plus Titanium-rated PSU. Following the ultra-high-capacity SF-1600F14H unit, the company released two more Titanium PSUs, one of which we're evaluating today.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

The AMD Polaris GPU Architecture Preview

In the last quarter of 2015, AMD and their Radeon Technologies Group did something we’ve rarely seen in the secretive world of tech companies. They sat down members of the press, gave us an iron-clad NDA and started talking about their plans for the next year. While that’s what typically happens behind closed doors, AMD added in a refreshingly new twist: we wouldn’t have to wait until a product’s official launch to actually talk about what was being discussed. Instead, there were preset times throughout 2015 and 2016 were we could publish information well in advance and give our readers a glimpse at some exciting elements coming down the pipeline. One of the key take-aways from those meetings was details about AMD’s upcoming GPU architecture, code named Polaris.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

The Best AiO CPU Coolers of 2015

Of all the myriad ways to cool a PC perhaps none is more elegant than the all in one liquid cooler. The AiO traces it’s lineage back to the elite world of PC water cooling where money and time are thrown haphazardly at a project in an attempt to perfect this science and art. Each of these self contained units are an elegant, fully sealed solution using the thermal properties of water to draw heat away from the processor. But of course like all things, not all AiOs are created equal and the past year of 2015 has been no exception. And so as this year draws to a close and we begin to plan excitedly for 2016, join us as we pick out the very Best AiO Coolers of 2015 reviewed here at ThinkComputers.org.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Xeon Skylake overclocking might happen soon

Users will soon be able to overclock Intel's Skylake-based Xeon processors on a selection of ASRock motherboards, sources have revealed to TechSpot. Intel normally prevents Xeons from being overclocked, but ASRock has managed to overcome these restrictions through software tricks in their motherboard's BIOS.

Read full article @ Techspot

XTracGear Drone XL Landing Pad Review

If you have ever read my biography on APH Networks, you would have known I worked at Lockheed Martin CDL Systems Ltd. Looking at CDL's website, you would also know I worked primarily on developing software for unmanned aerial vehicles. I can say I have a great amount of gratitude and respect for those people who work there, especially my team who helped me. However, one thing I was disappointed with was the fact I never actually saw any of the test flights using our software in person. I would have hoped we would be allowed to do a small flight around our workplace, especially since there was quite an open area there, but we did not have this opportunity. In fact, I have only once flown a radio control vehicle, and this was back in grade six. I went to Hong Kong that year, and my parents allowed me to buy some things back. Upon browsing a few toy stores, I found a radio controlled helicopter. The packaging, however, was huge, and we had to check it in when we brought it back to Canada. Upon opening it, the helicopter seemed to work at first, but it was terribly hard to control. It ended up destroying itself when it flew into a wall, despite our pointless attempts of wrangling the helicopter to stability. Thus when XTracGear sent us the Drone XL landing pad, I was a bit confused and apprehensive. The confusion came from the fact XTracGear is primarily a mousing surface and PC accessories manufacturer, so this seemed to be a new territory for them. I was also apprehensive because I was afraid I would crash another radio controlled air vehicle. Thankfully, XTracGear has said this landing pad should make UAVs easier to land by creating a more consistent surface. Is this the case, or will my aerial dreams end in another crash? Hopefully we have a happy ending, so let us see what XTracGear has for us today.

Read full article @ APH Networks