Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

6-Way Desktop Comparison On Linux Mint 17
AMD Radeon R9 290 On Ubuntu 14.04 With Catalyst Can Beat Windows 8.1
H.265 a.k.a. HEVC: Videocodec of the future
How to manage ip addresses and subnets with phpIPAM
Intel D54250WYKH Haswell NUC Kit with 2.5" Drive Slot Mini-Review
LarKooler SkyWater 330 DYI Kit Review
Preview of GhostBSD 4.0
Tt eSPORTS Poseidon (Brown) Keyboard Review

6-Way Desktop Comparison On Linux Mint 17

There's been many requests to run some new OpenGL and 2D performance benchmarks under different Linux desktop environments. With the imminent release of Linux Mint 17 and it shipping the latest version of the increasingly-popular Cinnamon Desktop Environment, here's a six-way desktop performance comparison using Intel graphics on Linux Mint 17.

Read full article @ Phoronix

AMD Radeon R9 290 On Ubuntu 14.04 With Catalyst Can Beat Windows 8.1

The latest Linux graphics testing under the microscope at Phoronix is comparing the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS vs. Windows 8.1 performance with all available updates. Results from Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD hardware is coming up next week while today is a bit of a preview of the AMD numbers when using a Radeon R9 290 "Hawaii" graphics card. While the open-source AMD Hawaii support remains broken, with the Catalyst 14.4 driver on each operating system, the Linux Catalyst driver with the R9 290 graphics card can outperform Windows 8.1 Pro with some OpenGL games and benchmarks.

Data from many AMD Radeon graphics cards between Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 8.1 will be posted in the next article, with this article just looking at the high-end Radeon R9 290 GPU given that it's been problematic under Linux in the past but with Catalyst 14.4 things seem to be a bit better. With the latest drivers a fresh round of direct testing against NVIDIA's proprietary Linux driver with their high-end GPUs will be needed to see if NVIDIA is still whipping AMD on Linux gaming performance in the high-end space, but at least between Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 with Catalyst 14.4 on each, Linux has some advantages with OpenGL.

Read full article @ Phoronix

H.265 a.k.a. HEVC: Videocodec of the future

The H.265 standard, also known as the HEVC video codec, was finalized in April of 2013. H.265 is to become the technology that makes the breakthrough of video at 4K resolution possible. So, how does H.265 work exactly, and when can we expect support from various kinds of devices? We had a look.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

How to manage ip addresses and subnets with phpIPAM

A typical network/system admin is responsible for managing one or more subnets within the network under control. For example, when a LAN segment is assigned a /24 subnet, a total of 254 IP addresses can be used for different purposes.

Read full article @ Xmodulo

Intel D54250WYKH Haswell NUC Kit with 2.5" Drive Slot Mini-Review

The Intel NUC category has been an interesting product line to analyze, as it provides us with insights into where the traditional casual / home use desktop market might end up. This year, we have already reviewed two different NUC systems, the Intel D54250WYK and the Logic Supply Core ML320. Today, we take a look at the D54250WYKH, which is fundamentally the same as the D54250WYK, except for the presence of a 2.5" drive slot. Given that we have already looked at the performance of the platform in great detail, this mini-review will provide us an opportunity to comment on the chassis redesign for the new requirement as well as the effect of different types of storage / memory on benchmark numbers.

Read full article @ Anandtech

LarKooler SkyWater 330 DYI Kit Review

LarKooler was established in 2009 to manufacture cost-effective PC cooling solutions. MadShrimps reviewed their first entry in to the DYI in the end of 2009; while it was not the most high end or best performing kit out there, the total picture was right on track with LarKooler's main objective: provide good cooling performance at an amazing bang for buck ratio. Since a few years AIO units took over a big part in the cooling business, with the most successful being the Corsair Hydro series. Ease of installation is their main trademark, however as most of these are closed loop, there is no option to integrate extra components in the cooling loop. The latter is the strong point of the DIY kits besides being versatile to add extra components they also provide awesome cooling performance at a low noise ratio. The SkyWater 330 kit today is one of those ready to build kits, however price wise it retails at a similar price as the high end 240/280 AIOs. Million dollar question can it beat those in raw performance figures ?

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Preview of GhostBSD 4.0

GhostBSD is a desktop distribution that’s based on FreeBSD. The core developers are from Canada, so I think it ok to call it a Canadian distribution. The only article I’ve written about this distribution was a review of GhostBSD 2.5 back in February 2012 (see GhostBSD 2.5 review). I wasn’t impressed.

But that was then, this is now. The third alpha of what will become GhostBSD 4.0 was released a few days ago. To see how far the distribution has come since the 2.5 edition, I downloaded and installed it from a DVD image in a virtual environment. I’m still not terribly impressed, though I realize the this is only a third alpha release. The following screenshots were taken from that test installation.

Read full article @ LinuxBSDos.com

Tt eSPORTS Poseidon (Brown) Keyboard Review

Durability is one of the key decisions for most of my purchases, specifically with my electronics and home purchases. I am going through the process of trying to narrow down my search for roofing materials and I have to say it is a fairly complicated process. Not only do you have aesthetics to deal with but you have all the different warranty levels, brands, and, of course, who is going to install the materials. On one hand, I can install it myself easily and I know the work will be right, or I can hire a contractor and the work will be done faster and have a warranty on the labor.

Mechanical products are another item that typically will have a point where they fail. The simplest designs are often some of the best, as far as how long they last. Look at appliances for the home, they all have electronics in them now and are expensive to repair. Twenty years ago, there were no electronics in them and they could usually be fixed with simple parts. How about keyboards for computers though, a lot has changed with how we look at them and mechanical keyboards are much more durable than the membrane style. I know I had an old IBM keyboard and you couldn’t break it. Membrane keyboards then became popular, and now we are back to more sophisticated mechanical designs.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion