Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

64 3.5 inch hard drive round-up: storage wars?
AMD Processor Security Updates
Asus Prime Z370-A ATX Motherboard Review
AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate Desktop Review
be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review
be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review
be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 4 Review
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review
Buying advice: Gaming PC ITX - Updated
Dell Latitude 7390 2-In-1 Review
HP Envy x2 Review
Huawei Matebook X Pro Review
Intel H370 and B360 Motherboard Review
Kolink Rocket Review - Better than DAN Cases A4-SFX?
MSI B360M MORTAR (Intel B360) Motherboard Review
MSI Vigor GK80 Mechanical Keyboard Review
Promise Technology Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB NAS Server Review
SteelSeries Arctis 3 Bluetooth Gaming Headset Review
Wall mounting a Middle Atlantic DWR/CWR server cabinet
WinUAE Amiga emulator v4.0.0 beta released

64 3.5 inch hard drive round-up: storage wars?

For storage of lots of data, a hard drive is the best option for the time being, especially now that SSD prices are rising rather than falling. Luckily there is still enough innovation in the hard disk field. Time for a new comparative test with no less than 64 hard disks from Seagate, Toshiba and WD.

A PC without an SSD for the operating system and daily software cannot be used in 2017. SSD prices fell steadily for years, but due to increasing demand and insufficient production capacity, this trend was at least temporarily halted this year. This means that for the time being, the hard-disk-less PC will remain a dream for most of us, and everyone without endlessly deep pockets will have to move to magnetic storage to store really large amounts of data.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

AMD Processor Security Updates

Today, AMD is providing updates regarding our recommended mitigations for Google Project Zero (GPZ) Variant 2 (Spectre) for Microsoft Windows users. These mitigations require a combination of processor microcode updates from our OEM and motherboard partners, as well as running the current and fully up-to-date version of Windows. For Linux users, AMD recommended mitigations for GPZ Variant 2 were made available to our Linux partners and have been released to distribution earlier this year.

As a reminder, GPZ Variant 1 (Spectre) mitigation is provided through operating system updates that were made available previously by AMD ecosystem partners. GPZ Variant 3 (Meltdown) does not apply to AMD because of our processor design.

Read full article @ HardOCP

Asus Prime Z370-A ATX Motherboard Review

One of the problems value-seeking builders constantly face is knowing where to stop.

Do you really need the overclocking capability of a Z-series chipset, or will a cheaper board do? Isn’t it cheaper to choose a mid-priced CPU (such as the Core i3-8350K) and overclock it, than to pair a higher-model CPU with a cheaper locked board? And once you figure out that the overclocked mid-priced processor is your own better option, would it be better to buy a new graphics card at today’s inflated prices, or carry over a pair of cards from your previous machine? Now that you need a reasonable price and SLI capability, you’re starting to figure out where the board we praised so highly, for doing so well, so cheaply, falls short. Then Asus gives you a nudge and says, “Psst, hey bud...got an extra twenty?”

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

AVADirect Battle Box Ultimate Desktop Review

Traditionally, custom-PC makers send us their most pumped-up configurations based on Intel silicon. AVADirect, in a pleasant change of pace, sent us one of its Battle Box-branded custom desktop PCs with an AMD bent. Our test unit had an AMD Ryzen 7 1700X processor, 16GB of memory, and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti under the hood.

Can the Battle Box deliver on its promise of ultimate frame rates and performance at the most demanding settings? We’ll find out as we take a look at our first AMD Ryzen-based custom gaming PC.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review

We test and review the be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler. Armed with totally black looks and a very silent fan, the new Dark Rock 4 might be able to impress you. It offers 200 Watts of cooling power, enough for most processors and a bit of overclocking, it, however, remains ridiculously silent.

There really aren't any bad performing coolers being produced anymore. For every segment and budget, you can find something you need. The market stabilized and within the entire range and scope of heatpipe based coolers, there's a certain comfort zone with a corresponding product available. As a result, most of the coolers available on the market are all adequate at the very least. There are always exceptions to this, there's a handful of manufacturers out there that offer the really interesting stuff, the kit and gear that really stand out from the cooling crowd, the hardware you and me crave and need so badly... that is in the enthusiast domain of gaming hardware. And that's where we need to make a stop at Be Quiet! as they often tick all the right boxes. Actually, be quiet! launches two products in the Dark Rock 4 series, we'll split these into two reviews as both deserve their own content. The two models are the Dark Rock Pro 4 and Pro editions, successors to the Dark Rock Pro 3 processor cooler, both of them keeping most of its silence and performance features compared to the model 3 versions.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Review

The Dark Rock 4 is a single-tower CPU cooler featuring 6 copper heatpipes, many ceramic-coated aluminium fins and a 135mm Silent Wings fan, in the hope of achieving near-silent operation while keeping temperatures in check.

Weighing in at 920g, including the fan, and measuring 159mm x 136mm x 96mm, it’s certainly not on the smaller side and will require a decent sized chassis for height clearance.

Read full article @ Vortez

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review

High-end air cooling doesn't come much better than this. Our buying advice for a high-end CPU cooler is usually pretty straight forward. Those wanting to take the liquid route can choose from numerous all-in-one solutions that have plenty in common, while those who prefer an air cooler should probably choose a Noctua.

That's the general line of thinking, but there is a caveat in that Noctua's beige-and-brown colour scheme isn't for everyone, so where do you turn if you need an ultra-high-end air cooler that performs admirably while also looking the part? The answer, it seems, is the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4.

Read full article @ Hexus

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review

be quiet! looks to recapture the high-end air-cooling crown with the new and improved Dark Rock Pro 4. It is a dual-fan, dual-tower design that will certainly turn a few heads. However, it won't be due to noise. Silent and powerful, this new challenger looks to dethrone Noctua's NH-D15.

be quiet! is a top-tier manufacturer of a tremendous number of PC products. Recently, they have stormed on to the case market, but have long been favourites in regards to power supplies, fans, and coolers. They are not a brand that just pads shelves with products as many of their offerings have won numerous awards from reviewers and readers alike. You could say that be quiet! has earned its popularity by following through on its mantra of "no compromise silence and performance." Considered on par with Noctua in regards to quality and performance, it's not hard to guess that their latest products will once again be quite impressive.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 4 Review

We review another be quiet! Dark Rock series cooler, this is the PRO 4 CPU Cooler.

There really aren't any bad performing coolers being produced anymore. For every segment and budget, you can find something you need. The market stabilized and within the entire range and scope of heatpipe based coolers, there's a certain comfort zone with a corresponding product available. As a result, most of the coolers available on the market are all adequate at the very least. There are always exceptions to this, there's a handful of manufacturers out there that offer the really interesting stuff, the kit and gear that really stand out from the cooling crowd, the hardware you and me crave and need so badly... that is in the enthusiast domain of gaming hardware. And that's where we need to make a stop at Be Quiet! as they often tick all the right boxes. Actually, be quiet! launches two products in the Dark Rock 4 series, we'll split these into two reviews as both deserve their own content. The two models are the Dark Rock Pro 4 and Pro editions, successors to the Dark Rock Pro 3 processor cooler, both of them keeping most of its silence and performance features compared to the model 3 versions.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Review

The Dark Rock Pro 4 offers the user up to 250W of heat dissipation via a twin-tower design; that's more than enough to deal with any current consumer CPU, even with a sizeable overclock. That heat is extracted via 7 copper heat pipes, transferring it to the ceramic coated, black fins on either tower. There's also a pair of be quiet!'s Silent Wings fans to ensure airflow is aplenty - a 120mm on the front and a 135mm inside.

be quiet! claim to have reduced noise even further since their last Dark Rock Pro 3. They’ve managed this using fluid dynamic bearings with 6-pole motors, advanced wave-countered blades and a decoupled fan mounting system, with rubber pads to reduce vibrations to a minimum.

Read full article @ Vortez

Buying advice: Gaming PC ITX - Updated

This buying advice is all about selecting the right components for your new gaming rig. What we've done is we have put together several configurations for different gaming resolutions and we also included links to Geizhals.at with prices, that are being updated automatically.

Gaming PC Full-HD (1920x1080) Low

Intel
Motherboard: Intel Core i3-8100
Processor: MSI H310I Pro
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB DDR4-2666 CL16
Graphics card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC 4GB
Power Supply: Seasonic Focus Gold 450W
Hard drive: Western Digital WD Blue 1TB
SSD: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 250GB
Case: Thermaltake Suppressor F1

AMD
Motherboard: AMD Ryzen 3 1200
Processor: ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB DDR4-2666 CL16
Graphics card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4GB
Power Supply: Seasonic Focus Gold 450W
Hard drive: Western Digital WD Blue 1TB
SSD: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 250GB
Case: Thermaltake Suppressor F1

Read full article @ ocaholic

Dell Latitude 7390 2-In-1 Review

Dell has been hard at work updating its notebooks with Intel’s latest 8th Gen Core processors, and we’ve already seen the fruits of their labor in the premium XPS 13. It’s now time for the business-oriented Latitude notebooks to get a taste of Kaby Lake R, so here today we have the Latitude 7390 2-in-1 on the test bench, ready to be put through its paces...

Read full article @ HotHardware

HP Envy x2 Review

A couple of weeks ago we published a full breakdown of Windows on ARM performance, looking at how the Snapdragon 835 SoC fares when running native UWP applications from the Windows Store, and standard x86 programs via emulation.

Today we’ll looking more closely at the first Snapdragon 835 device running Windows: the HP Envy x2. Having now used this tablet for a few weeks, there’s a lot of things HP did well to make this a hardware experience to rival the Microsoft Surface. And then on the other hand, they were probably a bit let down by the performance of x86 emulation on ARM processors.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Huawei Matebook X Pro Review

Huawei’s strategic choices make this new laptop much better than the original. Last year's Matebook X pushed Huawei further into the PC market than it ever had been before. While it had a design that allowed it to masquerade as a trendy ultrabook, it demanded quite a few compromises from users. Its sub-par battery life and too-little memory, among other shortcomings, made the Matebook X less attractive than its shiny exterior suggested.

Huawei zeroed-in on the shortcomings of the Matebook X with its successor: the new Matebook X Pro. On paper, the new laptop appears leaps and bounds better than the original: an 8th-gen CPU, a 3K touchscreen, an estimated 15-hour battery life, and even a discrete graphics card.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

Intel H370 and B360 Motherboard Review

The CPU market has seen a resurgence since the last year. We got to see AMD’s Ryzen and Intel’s Coffee Lake families which brought attention back to the CPU space after being overly shadowed by the GPU market. Yes, I get it, GPUs are awesome but it isn’t like CPU aren’t as much important as the products that feature GPUs, it’s just that CPUs have been way too boring since we first got Sandy Bridge. Even pre-Bulldozer era was great for the CPU industry where we got to see frequent clashes between the two rivals (Intel and AMD) generation after generation.

This action quickly faded after Bulldozer disappointment and Intel caught a grip of the CPU market for several generations. However, Intel’s dominance in this industry and AMD’s failures meant that the industry would eventually slow down, making Intel clumsy, knowing that had control over the desktop market and we then go to see several generations of refreshed upon refreshes. Even new architectures like Haswell or Skylake didn’t look like much of a leap as was seen with Sandy Bridge or first generation Core processors.

Read full article @ Wccftech

Kolink Rocket Review - Better than DAN Cases A4-SFX?

Today we'll be exploring a new Mini-ITX computer case; Kolink Rocket. This tiny enclosure has a volume which amounts to a mere 9.6 litres and yet it can house a wide-selection of high-performance kit. More notably, graphics cards up to 310mm in length.

Read full article @ Vortez

MSI B360M MORTAR (Intel B360) Motherboard Review

Introduction Today we have our first B360 chipset motherboard review for you. MSI's B360M Mortar is designed for those who don't need the fancy features of the H370 or even Z370 chipsets, and would rather save some money.

There are a few differences between the H370 and B360 chipset, and you get fewer USB 3.0 ports and PCI-E lanes. However, you still get the USB 3.1 and the other new features. Let's take a look at the MSI B360M Mortar.

Read full article @ TweakTown

MSI Vigor GK80 Mechanical Keyboard Review

When it comes to gaming keyboards, there are a few things I tend to look for. Is it well built? Does the design and layout make sense? Does it feature onboard controls for things like macros and lighting? How about software? Is the board bringing anything unique to the table? All of these things separate out a run of the mill keyboard from something truly good - and when you’re asking more than $150, your keyboard needs to be good.

Which is pretty much where I land with the MSI Vigor GK80. It’s a good keyboard - not amazing, but good, and even better if you have an MSI motherboard or GPU. What we have here is a fairly standard per-key RGB mech that lets you do almost exactly what you would expect it to with almost exactly the features you would expect it to have. It does have a couple of unique tricks up its sleeve, though, so let’s take a closer look.

Read full article @ MMORPG

Promise Technology Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB NAS Server Review

Ss we've already pointed out numerous times in reviews posted both 2016 and 2017 several studies project that by the year 2020 most households (at least in both the USA and EU) will have at least one NAS (network attached storage) device installed. This may sound as bit extreme to some people (especially the ones who are not aware of the benefits of owning one) but NAS devices have risen a lot in popularity in the last 2 years (sales numbers clearly show this) not only between professionals but also home users. Because however most NAS models in the market by manufacturers like QNAP, ASUSTOR, Thecus and Synology require a good level of knowledge to setup and use others like Promise Technology do their best to cater to the needs of casual consumers and after testing their Apollo Cloud 4TB NAS today with us we have their latest Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB model.

Promise Technology is a recognized global leader with 30 years of experience in the storage industry. Promise creates innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of the IoT, Cloud, IT, Rich Media and Surveillance markets. From personal cloud appliances to scalable enterprise IT Infrastructure, blazingly fast post-production tools, video security solutions, and hyperconverged systems, Promise adapts its products to meet the real-world challenges customers face every day. Promise’s highly experienced sales and engineering teams are strategically located throughout the Americas, EMEA, and JAPAC regions to provide unparalleled services and support to its customers around the globe. For more information, visit: www.promise.com.

Read full article @ NikKTech

SteelSeries Arctis 3 Bluetooth Gaming Headset Review

The sound quality is similar to the Arctis 5 and 7, mainly because these come with the same drivers and did not distort even at higher volume levels; the bass levels can be fully customized, while the 7.1 effect is nice to have in movies, but also in games. The solution SteelSeries is offering to the customer in this case is similar to the Razer Surround Personalized 7.1 Gaming Audio Software, and after you do activate the code on your SS account, you will be able to utilize the effects on any other set of headphones. Thanks to its rated 28-hour battery life, Arctis 3 Bluetooth can become your all-day listening companion, without the need of switching with other models; depending on the connectivity options of your audio source, you only need to switch cables and off you go!

Read full article @ Mad Shrimps

Wall mounting a Middle Atlantic DWR/CWR server cabinet

I recently started a project to try to use the space in our utility, er… server room better. A big part of this was getting a wall mounted rack that I could use for our server and the network equipment that also lives in the space. After a lot of research, and some help from my friend Adam who knows a lot more about this sort of thing than I do, I ended up with a Middle Atlantic DWR-12-32. Part of the complexity is that I needed something that would fit a large server chassis (3U/26” deep) which narrows the pool, as well as raising the complexity of the installation because of the necessary weight considerations. Since I was not able to find a great guide on how to mount a heavy cabinet on the wall, this is my attempt to document the process. Most of this will be applicable for any rack you select, but obviously some of it will be specific to the DWR/CWR lineup.

Read full article @ MissingRemote

WinUAE Amiga emulator v4.0.0 beta released

With a "huge graphics subsystem rewrite" for multi-virtual monitors, and "lagless V-Sync". If you were once an Amiga user and moved over to the PC in the 90s you are probably well aware of UAE, or more likely the Windows specific WinUAE. UAE was first released back in 1995 and the last stable release of WinUAE was shared with the community on 4th March, version 3.6.1. With such a long history, a major numerical version increment is big news and earlier this week WinUAE developer Toni Willen released WinUAE 4.0.0 beta. There are indeed a lot of important changes delivered to this capable emulator.

Read full article @ Hexus