Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

ASUS ROG Strix B360-G Gaming Review: A Polarizing $100 Motherboard Design
Cooler Master MP860 RGB Dual-Sided Mouse Mat Review
Cougar PURI TKL Keyboard Review
Gigabyte X399 Aorus Xtreme Review (w/ AMD 2990WX)
MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Review
Palit GeForce RTX 2080 Gamerock Premium Review
Patriot 256 EP Micro SDX Card Review
Raijintek Iris 12 RGB Fans Review
Remove "3D Objects" and Other Shortcuts From Windows 10's File Explorer
ThunderX3 AH7 HEX Gaming Headset Review
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – M∀RS Review

ASUS ROG Strix B360-G Gaming Review: A Polarizing $100 Motherboard Design

The B360 market should be a battleground for new PC builds: it offers almost all the features needed for everyone. There is a lot of scope for motherboard manufacturers to be creative in this space, and still offer a reasonably priced product: ASUS take here is the Strix B360-G Gaming, a microATX offering that dives deep into the ROG Strix branding. For users looking to build a single-GPU gaming system, ASUS thinks they have a board you should be looking at.

In our continuing series of Coffee Lake motherboard reviews, we take another look at a B360 based offering, but this time from ASUS in the form of the B360-G Gaming. The board is one of the first MicroATX size boards we have reviewed on this platform and promises a number of competitive gaming features at a low overall price. In this case, we see additional slots for RAM taking capacity up to 64GB, as well as multiple PCIe slots for expansion, an integrated rearIO panel, upgraded audio, and gaming related styling. There are two M.2 slots, six SATA ports, and the first PCIe slot is fortified using ASUS' Safeslot. Between the full-length slots are two x1 slots for expansion purposes. Compared to the Z370-F Gaming, which was a mini-ITX motherboard, we get an increase in the size on the power delivery heatsinks, which should help dissipate the heat better than smaller implementations. The board also includes USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports as well.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Cooler Master MP860 RGB Dual-Sided Mouse Mat Review

The RGB craze isn’t dying off anytime soon, and while I’m not one for a desktop that pukes rainbows, adding a bit of colour certainly does no harm. I myself have an RGB mouse mat, albeit I keep it set to a single colour. Aesthetics are a big part of the PC market these days, and it’s easy to see the appeal. With the new Cooler Master MP860, you’re giving yourself greater customisation over the theme of your desktop. However, it comes with a couple of nice features beyond just adding lights, and we’re eager to take a closer look at what it has to offer!

Features
Two-Sided Design
Low Friction Cloth
Smooth Aluminium
RGB Edge Lighting
RGB Logo (on one side)
Sync With Other CM Hardware

Read full article @ eTeknix

Cougar PURI TKL Keyboard Review

We take a look at the Cougar PURI TKL today, a tenkeyless form factor keyboard using Cherry MX switches and white LED backlighting. Extensive onboard lighting controls and increased portability combined with a relatively low price point help make this a good value proposition today.

Cougar Gaming, or simply Cougar as shall be referred to henceforth in this review, is not a new brand to TechPowerUp editors. Indeed, we have covered many of their cases, which continue to offer something different than the status quo of the black box market today. When their representatives contacted us to see if we would be interested in checking out their keyboards, I simply had to say yes to see what they were doing in this regard. Somehow, I ended up with not one, but three Cougar keyboards at my doorstep, and today, we take a look at the first of these in the form of a tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard. Thanks again to Cougar for providing a review sample for us to examine.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Gigabyte X399 Aorus Xtreme Review (w/ AMD 2990WX)

Is this the new AMD Threadripper motherboard you need? Read our indepth analysis. When Gigabyte unveiled the X399 Aorus Xtreme motherboard we could see they were taking AMD 2nd Gen. Threadripper seriously.

The new Threadripper WX models increased TDP from 180W to 250W so while it would be quite possible to install a 32-core 2990WX in a motherboard such as Gigabyte X399 Aorus Gaming 7 you wouldn’t be surprised if it struggled to supply the CPU with enough power. Gigabyte was clearly thinking along the same lines and has updated the VRMs from the 8+2 configuration used in the Gaming 7 to a 10+3 arrangement in the Xtreme. In addition to this hardware Gigabyte has put a significant emphasis on keeping the components nice and cool.

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Review

The new RTX graphics cards are here at last, and we follow up today with our second RTX 2080 series card! The rather stunning looking Gaming X Trio from MSI. With the 10-series cards, the Gaming X Trio was one of the fastest on the market. Obviously, both I and MSI are hoping to see that trend continue with the RTX 2080 I’ll be testing today.

Equipped with one of the flagship triple fan coolers, with Zero Frozr fan stop technology, as well as MSI TORX Fans 3.0. There’s a new and improved radiator under the fans too, as well as more concentrated copper heatpipes, a larger copper-nickel base plate, and a “premium thermal compound” to keep everything running smoothly. With that in mind, if that card doesn’t run cool, quiet and fast, I’ll be raising an eyebrow with the MSI hardware design team.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Palit GeForce RTX 2080 Gamerock Premium Review

We welcome Palit in our house again, this round with their latest RTX offering, the GeForce RTX 2080 8G Gamerock Premium to be precise. Known for their more value offering this graphics card does not disappoint when it comes towards cooling and acoustics, not at all. Join us for a review.

We've already covered a lot of new technology as the Turing architecture of the new GPUs offers a fundamental change in the graphics card arena as, next to your normal shading engine, NVIDIA has added RT (Raytracing) cores, as well as Tensor (AI) cores into the new GPUs, and these are active. Is Turing the start of the next 20 years of gaming graphics? Well, that all depends on the actual adoption rate in the software houses, with the guys and girls that develop games. A dozen or so RTX games are in development and a dozen or so announced titles will make use of deep learning DLSS utilizing the Tensor cores. For the new RTX series, it's mostly about Raytracing though. So welcome to a long row of RTX reviews. We start off with the reference cards and will follow with the AIB cards as, for whatever reason, NVIDIA figured it to be an okay thing for them to launch everything at once. First a quick recap of what's tested in this article, a bit of architecture and then we'll dive into real-world testing of course. Starting November 20th of the year 2018 you will see two products become available, a GeForce RTX 2070 will follow later in October. The GeForce RTX 2080 then; this graphics card series will not have the full shader count and GPU as the 2080 Ti, in fact, it even has its own GPU called the TU104. This card will get 2944 shader processors (also referred to as Stream or Cuda cores) active based on that TU104 GPU running a base clock of 1515 MHz with Boost frequencies running upwards to 1800 MHz. The TU104 chip contains six GPCs, 48 SMs, and eight 32-bit memory controllers (256-bit total). Each SM includes 64 shader processors, 256 KB register file, 96 KB L1 data cache/shared memory cache, and four texture units. The full TU104 chip contains 13.6 Billion transistors and includes 3072 shader processors, 368 Tensor Cores, and 48 RT Cores. So yes, the RTX 2080 is cut down. One x8 NVLink link is activated providing 25 GB/sec of bandwidth in each direction (50 GB/sec total bandwidth). Keep in mind that the clocks and TDPs will be different here and there, AIB partners obviously have different factory tweaked products. The GDDR6 memory will get tied to a 256-bit bus, and depending on the clock frequency, we are looking at 448 GB/sec. It is a product that will start at 699 USD for the AIB partner products, and 799 for the Founders editions. This product will have a 225 Watt TDP. Will the 2080 rip a hole on that FPS ceiling? Well, let's find out and also show you a trick or two on Raytracing and DLSS, of course.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Patriot 256 EP Micro SDX Card Review

With how big YouTube and other social media platforms have gotten in the past several years, it seems that everyone has a camera and a vlog these days. Top that with how affordable a good 4k capable camera is now, there is more and more high-quality footage being uploaded every day. However, when recording 4k footage, its not just the camera that matters. 4k footage means large files that require faster speeds than if you were recording 1080p footage. If you’re recording in 1080p, you can get away with a slower SD card that would be on the cheaper side. The more budget-oriented SD cards usually run at 80 MB/s. When recording in 4k, you need a card that runs at a minimum 95 MB/s or better. But with most all storage, the faster the speed, the more expensive drive, or in this case, the card. A card that runs 300 MB/s, with 256 GB of storage can run you 250 USD or more.

But, do you want a fast card that doesn’t cost $250 or more? This is where Patriot comes in with their all-new EP Series of SD cards. With speeds of 100 MB/s, Patriots EP Series are designed with 4k video in mind. They have plenty of speeds to handle recording and playing back 4k video and with capacities up to and including 256 GB, there is more than enough storage to handle the file sizes. But, just to make sure, we ran a 256 GB EP Series SD card through our suite of benchmarks and some real-world testing. So, what are the benefits to using Patriots EP SD cards? Let’s find out.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Raijintek Iris 12 RGB Fans Review

We are back with another RGB review! RGB accessories have really taken over this past year and one of the most popular RGB accessories has to be RGB fans. Raijintek’s first RGB fan offering, the AURAS 12 RGB did not impress us that much, but they are back with the Iris 12 RGB. These 120 mm fans feature multiple RGB LEDs in the O-type fan frame, which is diffused to create a really great look. On top of that these fans come with a 6-channel controller and remote to easily switch between the 20 different LED modes. Are these the ultimate RGB fans? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Remove "3D Objects" and Other Shortcuts From Windows 10's File Explorer

Most recently Windows 10 introduced a default "3D Objects" File Explorer shortcut which takes up space if unused. In this article we'll cover how to remove that somewhat annoying shortcut on Windows 10, and along the way see how to remove other such shortcuts (Music, Videos, others), so you can tweak and personalize as you want.

Read full article @ TechSpot

ThunderX3 AH7 HEX Gaming Headset Review

The latest addition in the growing family of RGB illuminated gaming peripherals by ThunderX3 is called the AH7 HEX Gaming Headset and it's been with us for the past week.

RGB illumination in computer and console peripherals is very common nowadays so if you happen to go into a computer store you will most likely find yourself in front of a wall or two with numerous keyboards, mice, mousepads and headsets with that particular feature. Still that's both good and bad cause in a market filled with RGB illuminated peripherals it's becoming increasingly harder for consumers to decide which ones offer the best bang for their buck. A good bet is going for a product designed and manufactured by one of the more popular and successful brands but unfortunately we're still talking about a long list of names so that doesn't really narrow things down much either. Through their ThunderX3 gaming division Aerocool has introduced a number of interesting products lately including the AH7 HEX Gaming Headset which has been with us for roughly over one week now.

ThunderX3 designs and creates gaming peripherals including gaming chairs and is a division of Aerocool Advanced Technologies Corporation based in Taipei. We aim to deliver new products for the gaming community that break new market standards and complement the eSports scene. Quality, design and technological excellence are the pillars sustaining our philosophy. Are you ready for the gaming revolution? Find out more at www.thunderx3.com

Read full article @ NikKTech

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – M∀RS Review

Originally hailed as one of the greatest mecha combat games on the PlayStation 2, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner was one of the first games I rushed out to buy a console for after playing it with friends. Back in the day, no other game had come close to matching the speed and thrill of piloting a giant robot and facing off against multiple foes at once (save for Omega Boost on the PS1). Then, for many years, it was left to linger in SD on the PS2 before an HD collection of both the first and second Zone of the Enders titles came to be released on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, including in a demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which helped this Kojima-helmed series reach a new audience. Now more than six years after the HD collection reached players’ hands, Konami has returned to the tale of Jehuty and Anubis with a full makeover, promising true 4K graphics, PSVR support, and a few other tweaks to make the PlayStation 4 release the definitive version of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner.

Read full article @ Wccftech