Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

ASRock Z170 Extreme4 Review
ASUS Chromebit CS10 ChromeOS HDMI Dongle
CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler Review
Gamdias Mechanical Gaming Combo Review
Gigabyte 990FX-Gaming AM3+ Motherboard Review
OCZ Trion 150 480GB & 960GB SSD Review
Phanteks Eclipse P400S Chassis Review
SteelSeries Apex M800 Customizable Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

ASRock Z170 Extreme4 Review

Moving over to the Intel Z170 chipset will force system builders to purchase a new Intel Skylake CPU (6th Generation) and DDR4 memory. The initial cost of buying both of these products is a costly venture and therefore its understandable that many who are seeking to move to this new platform will be trying to keep the overall cost to a minimum. Today we'll be looking to ASRock and their lower-tier range as we test out the Z170 Extreme4 motherboard.

ASRock's Z170 Extreme4 is a low-cost option for those wanting to jump over to Intel Z170. This motherboard brings with it a classy design which will pair up with other hardware well and has a reasonably solid feature-set. Both of these aspects of the attributes of a motherboard only tell part of the story and thus we must test the Extreme4 in a range of benchmarks to reveal how capable this offering really is!

Read full article @ Vortez

ASUS Chromebit CS10 ChromeOS HDMI Dongle

The ASUS Chromebit CS10 is unique from other devices based on Google’s ChromeOS because unlike these Chrombooks (aka laptops) it does it from a HDMI dongle. Besides the flexibility to BYOD[isplay], the form factor’s inherent price advantage ($85/£90) also makes it a relatively cheap way to play with ChromeOS, and test its unique approach to delivering a secure, low maintenance platform. I must admit that the browser-only apps available means that it is unlikely to replace any PCs in my stable, but as a very portable web browsing and media player it could be the perfect casual consumption device, or with its support for Google Play, Netflix, YouTube, and DIY streaming apps potentially earn a place in the travel bag.

Read full article @ Missing Remote

CRYORIG H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler Review

CRYORIG sort of came out of nowhere last year! We took a look at their flagship R1 Ultimate CPU Cooler and were very impressed and their H5 Universal did not disappoint as either! Today we will be taking a look at the H5 Ultimate. The H5 Universal was made to be just that, universal so it had a very thin fan. The H5 Ultimate on the other hand is made to give you the best performancepossible so it has a very thick and large fan. Besides that the H5 Ultimate features a very large single tower design with CRYORIG’s own proprietary Hive Fin structure, four 6 mm heatpipes, and of course that great fit and finish we expect from CRYORIG. Let’s take a look at see if this cooler deserves to be called “Ultimate”.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Gamdias Mechanical Gaming Combo Review

The Hermes Lite GKB1000 mechanical gaming keyboard features Gamdias certified mechanical Red switches with Red LED’s behind every key. Lighting effects include responsive lighting, a pulsating effect, and full backlit lighting at a brightness level of low, medium, or high. The Erebos Lite GMS7300 optical gaming mouse features an Avago ADNS-3050 optical sensor with a maximum DPI of 3500. It also has Omrom switches and a forward and backward button, which can be reprogrammed to perform different functions. The LED’s on the mouse are RBG capable and can be adjusted through the downloadable Gamdias Hera software. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Gamdias Mechanical Gaming Combo GKC1001, and reveals what this mechanical gaming combo has to offer.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Gigabyte 990FX-Gaming AM3+ Motherboard Review

It seems like the AM3+ platform has been around forever, yet competitive value options on the CPU side mean that motherboard vendors are still battling for a slice of the pie with 970 and 990FX offerings. How do you make a chipset approaching its 5th birthday valid in 2016? Gigabyte takes the approach of adding valuable features such as 20Gbps M.2 PCIe NVMe connectivity, 10Gbps USB 3.1 Type-A & Type-C, and an enhanced audio solution.

Read full article @ KitGuru

OCZ Trion 150 480GB & 960GB SSD Review

When OCZ’s Trion 100 was released last July it proved to be a pretty impressive value-forward SSD series. It also happened to be a rather big deal for OCZ and end users since it combined very good performance with an affordable price, features which were backstopped by some key Toshiba technology. As we stated at that time the OCZ Trion 100 was primarily targeted at users who were migrating from HDD territory and wanted higher levels of performance without sacrificing too much capacity.

Was that original Trion 100 perfect? Not quite since a good amount of expectation management was required to understand that it wasn’t going to be a chart-topper. It wasn’t meant to be one anyways. However, we still found performance fell by the wayside in some key metrics.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Phanteks Eclipse P400S Chassis Review

When it comes to chassis' what is it that you're looking for? Is it size, customization, noise levels or price? The list can go on as to what we, as individuals, are looking for in the perfect case. Especially considering that every one has their own perfect idea of what they are looking for in a chassis. Today we are going to take a look at the Eclipse P400S from Phanteks.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

SteelSeries Apex M800 Customizable Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

Much like regular membrane keys/switches have improved over the years with some quite interesting products to show for it (Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E.7, COUGAR 450k/500k and more) it was just a matter of time before manufacturers once again took it upon themselves to improve on current mechanical switches by developing their very own. Razer started the race with their green switches (optimized tactile feedback) which feature a life span of up to 60 million actuations, have an actuation point of 1.9mm (+-0.4mm) and require 50g of actuation force. SteelSeries followed soon after that with their very own QS1 switches which offer an identical life span of up to 60 million keystrokes, have a shorter actuation point of 1.5mm and require just 45g of force. Of course Logitech couldn't stay out of the game so they also made their very own Romer-G switches which offer a higher life span of up to 70 million actuations and feature the same actuation point of 1.5mm and 45g actuation force as the QS1 by SteelSeries (Razer and SteelSeries did so in collaboration with the Chinese Kailh while Logitech did so with OMRON). We've already tested keyboards wearing both Razer Green and Logitech Romer-G mechanical switches so the time has come to also test the Apex M800 by SteelSeries featuring their QS1 mechanical switches.

SteelSeries is a gaming brand that leads the market in building peripherals with quality, innovation and purpose. The company’s passion has been the driving force behind many first-to-market innovations and technologies that continue to become the industry standard and have-to-have requirements of gamers. The global brand continues to support the growth of competitive gaming tournaments and electronic sports leagues through professional team sponsorships, partnerships and community support. The company surrounds itself with the passion and the commitment to being the best. It is with this mentality that SteelSeries chooses to partner with some of world’s most respected and recognized brands that work together to push the growth and evolution of the gaming industry into an even greater proposition.

Much like Logitech and their Romer-G mechanical switches SteelSeries also had gamers in mind when developing their QS1 ones so it comes as no surprise that both types feature the same actuation point of 1.5mm and require the same actuation force of 45g. Because of that alignment in specifications however both manufacturers market their models as the fastest mechanical gaming keyboards in the market a claim which based on these numbers isn't far off. Of course whenever we receive a new keyboard our final conclusion is decided by the feeling/feedback we get from its keys (typing speed included) followed closely by its construction quality, looks and available features. Well the M800 also scores highly in number of available features since SteelSeries has equipped it with two microprocessors, full N-Key rollover (NKRO), 6 quick-access macro keys, full anti-ghosting, swappable feet and individual RGB (16.7 million colors) backlit LED illumination for the keys with several available patterns. So let's move forward with our review and see whether or not the Apex M800 is the perfect mechanical gaming keyboard currently in the market.

Read full article @ NikKTech