Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

AAXA LED Android Pico Projector Review
AMD Kaveri: Open-Source Radeon Gallium3D vs. Catalyst 14.12 Omega Driver
AMD Radeon R7 240GB SSD Review
ASRock X99 WS-E/10G Motherboard Review: Dual 10GBase-T for Prosumers
Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 Review
Best SSDs: Holiday 2014
CM Storm Mizar Laser Gaming Mouse Review
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2800MHz DDR4 Review
Creative Sound Blaster X7 Review
Crucial DDR4-2133 16GB Kit 4x 4GB DDR4 Review
Gamdias Hermes Ultimate Keyboard Review
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming Review
Google Nexus 6 With Android Lollipop By Motorola Review
In Win D-Frame Mini Case Review
In-Win D Frame Mini PC Chassis Review
Kali Linux Review
Linx 7 Review
McAfee LiveSafe Review
MSI X99S MPower Motherboard Review
Mushkin Reactor SSD Review (1TB) – High Value High Capacity SSDs Become the Norm
Nexus 6 vs Note 4 Review
RHA T10i Review
SilverStone Raven RVZ01
Synology DiskStation DS414slim Review
Transcend SSD370 256GB SSD Review

AAXA LED Android Pico Projector Review

We have smartphones. We have smart Blu-ray players. We even have smart lightbulbs, so I suppose it’s about time that we get ourselves a smart projector too. AAXA Technologies has an increasingly large catalog of mobile and pico projectors and now they’re getting even smarter with the descriptively-named AAXA LED Android Pico Projector. It doesn’t take the smartest of rocket scientists to figure out that this pico projector comes with a bright LED light source along with some Google Android action under the hood.

Read full article @ MEGATech

AMD Kaveri: Open-Source Radeon Gallium3D vs. Catalyst 14.12 Omega Driver

Last week when running Linux benchmarks of the AMD Catalyst 14.12 Omega driver that is much improved over older versions of Catalyst on both Windows and Linux, plus running a fresh 12-way AMD vs. NVIDIA Linux GPU comparison with the newest drivers, there were many Phoronix reader requests for some new AMD APU Linux numbers from this Omega driver. In this article are the Omega benchmark results for an AMD A10-7850K APU when testing both the open and closed-source drivers.

Read full article @ Phoronix

AMD Radeon R7 240GB SSD Review

The R7 240 AMD-Branded SSD succeeds to perform really well and positions itself along with the latest Vertex 460 and Vector 150 drives from OCZ; the product succeeds to render very good write speeds and it comes in 7mm format, which makes it compatible with the latest ultrabooks. AMD has extended the warranty to 4 years and for added value we are also getting the Acronis proven drive cloning software for easy migration.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

ASRock X99 WS-E/10G Motherboard Review: Dual 10GBase-T for Prosumers

For a number of months I have been wondering when 10GBase-T would be getting some prime time in the consumer market. Aside from add-in cards, there was no onboard solution, until ASRock announced the X99 WS-E/10G. We were lucky enough to get one in for review.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 Review

We review the Be Quiet! Silent Base 800, their first ever chassis and when you have quiet in your name, it better be just that. For a first release this chassis is not bad, not bad at all! The ATX tower chassis however has very nice looks, seems to be made with quality and originality and has some nice features. A lovely chassis design, fairly tool free, good space to work in and it has very quiet airflow plus is prepped for liquid cooling. Have a peek at the product we'll review today, the Silent Base 800.

Just looking at the chassis for the first time will bring a smile to your face, albeit a plastic front awaits you with some very nice aesthetics. Depending on the color combination you choose the chassis is made with a dark interior. There are three color options available - black and orange, black and silver, or all-black (our sample).

Being an ATX tower chassis, the liquid cooling aficionados aren't left alone as radiator brackets are present as well as space for the bigger liquid cooling solutions (Front: 120/140, Rear: 120, Top: 120/140/240/280). The case has a steel base with plastic face-plates and measures 495 x 266 x 559mm. You'll get a total of seven expansion slots and an up-to 290mm long power supply slot alongside three external 5.25-inch drive bay slots and seven internal 3.5-inch bays slots (two HDD cages). The Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 features a front I/O panel with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports and two audio jacks (microphone/headphone). Motherboard wise the chassis can house ATX, Micro-ATX and mini-ITX motherboards.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Best SSDs: Holiday 2014

We published our last Best SSDs article in July and to be completely honest the core of my recommendations has remained unchanged, but there are a couple of new entries that deserve a mention. We are admittedly a bit late with this guide since its less than ten days until Christmas and most people should already be done with their gift purchases, but I wanted to wait for the Samsung SSD 850 EVO launch to ensure that our guide is up-to-date going forward.

Similar to what we have done before, I will be splitting the recommendations into a few different categories specified by form factor and performance. As always, the listed prices are accurate at the time of publishing, but given the dynamic nature and regional variation of SSD pricing, its impossible for us to guarantee that the prices will remain accurate. Hence this article merely lists the models that you should be looking at and the final decision should be done based on the prices at that time.

Read full article @ Anandtech

CM Storm Mizar Laser Gaming Mouse Review

Cooler Master has been developing computer components for over 20 years, and is well known in the enthusiast world for producing some great coolers. As with any company, they have been moving into different hardware markets and consistently receive high praise for their hardware. The market for manufacturing mice is tight, most people find one type and stick with it for as long as they can. Today, Cooler Master has sent us one of their latest mice, the Mizar. Like most modern gaming mice, it features on-the-fly adjustable DPI all the way up to 8200DPI with a laser sensor, macro functionality and various color schemes.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2800MHz DDR4 Review

When Intel introduced the X99 platform and Haswell-E processors earlier this year, it made the move to DDR4 memory since DDR3 had reached the maximum usable bandwidth with modules running at speeds of 2666MHz to 3000MHz. However, even with a mature process there was still a lot of binning memory ICs to build modules that would run the numbers.

With DDR4 these speeds are going to be easily attainable, although with slightly looser latencies running at a much lower voltage than even low voltage DDR3 DIMMs at 1.2v. Running looser timings will initially cause a small overall performance dip, but as the process matures we should get improved timings to go along with the higher speed bins.

What I have today is the entry kit into the DDR4 realm that we used for our X99 and Haswell reviews. The Vengeance line is the more cost-efficient performance line from Corsair, while the Dominator line up is the for the extreme user. This kit features a new all-aluminum heat shield, as well as a custom, black, eight-layer PCB that not only looks good but is designed to help the heat shield dissipate the thermal load from the modules. Available in Back, Blue, and Red, and capacities up to 64GB, Corsair has the X99 market locked up from 2133MHz all the way to 3000MHz. Since we are dealing with the Intel Extreme platform, pricing will reflect the costs associated with running at the top.

Read full article @ OCC

Creative Sound Blaster X7 Review

Despite what the lack of products on the market currently indicates, gamers actually like high-end audio just as much as they appreciate high-end visuals. Creative, the team behind the immaculate Creative EVO ZxR headphones and Creative Roar SR20 Bluetooth speaker, looks to bump up gamers' audio options with a line of premium audio products. At the top of the dogpile is the Creative Sound Blaster X7, a desktop-meets-home theater hybrid amplifier that sports a Burr-Brown PCM1794 127dB digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and supports high-resolution audio playback of up to 24-bit 192kHz. I call the X7 a hybrid because it connects via USB to a PC or Mac, runs signal from your TV using optical audio and connects easily to your phone using its built-in NFC chip and Bluetooth 4.1. And if hi-fi isn't your scene, the X7 also works as a mighty powerful, 600-ohm headphone amplifier that supports two sets of cans simultaneously. It's so serious about two-driver audio that it even comes with a detachable headphone stand.

Read full article @ Techradar

Crucial DDR4-2133 16GB Kit 4x 4GB DDR4 Review

Today, we test some brand new DDR4 memory modules here at OCinside.de, which are supplied without heat spreaders, but reasonable priced.
In this review, we have selected four Crucial 4 GB DDR4-2133 CL15 memory modules as 16 GB DDR4 Quad Channel Kit and tested on an Intel LGA 2011-3 system with ASRock X99 Extreme6 motherboard and Intel Core i7-5930K processor.
Of course the DDR4 modules have been overclocked again to the limit and we have added a DDR4 comparison chart with all previously tested DDR4 modules.

Read full article @ OcInside.de

Gamdias Hermes Ultimate Keyboard Review

Gamdias is a company that is likely not well known by many computer enthusiasts, except for perhaps some of the diehards in the crowd. Today we're looking at the flagship mechanical keyboard from Gamdias, the Hermes Ultimate. A fully backlit mechanical keyboard that caters to discerning consumers who want something unique, the Gamdias Hermes Ultimate offers some
very innovative features and software, extensive macros, full N-Key rollover, backlit illumination, sound dampeners, and onboard memory. Let's delve a bit deeper and see if the Gamdias Hermes Ultimate can stand out in a widening field of mechanical keyboards.

Read full article @ PureOverclock

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming Review

Another quality card primed for the enthusiast. After speaking with a number of graphics partners out in Taipei last month, the common consensus is that Nvidia has hit a home run with the GeForce GTX 970 GPU. Power-efficient, cool and performing on par with the Radeon R9 290X, the second-rung Maxwell arrives with a tasty £250 price tag.

There's enough scope in the GPU architecture for it to scale higher, enabling partners to differentiate their overclocked products by tinkering with the core frequency. Gigabyte sells three versions of the GTX 970 GPU - two equipped with the proven WindForce 3X cooling solution and a Mini-ITX design primed for small-form factor systems. The faster WindForce 3X model goes by the name of G1 Gaming, matching what's on offer from the GTX 980 catalogue, and similarities between the two GPUs are plain to see.

Gigabyte uses similar WindForce 3X styling for this model, but the two cards are different, with the GTX 970 version using four heatpipes compared to the 980's six. Whereas that higher-specified model uses a massive hunk of copper that's punctuated by the heatpipes, GTX 970 makes do with a cheaper aluminium insert, though Gigabyte does show attention to detail by using thermal pads for the memory and a larger heatsink for the hot-running VRMs.

Read full article @ Hexus

Google Nexus 6 With Android Lollipop By Motorola Review

Large screen smartphones, a.k.a. phablets, are expected to account for nearly 25% of all smartphone shipments this year. Given the popularity and prevalence of these large-screen devices which includes LG’s G3, Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4, and HTC’s One Max, it’s not surprising that Google is also going big with its latest flagship phone, the Nexus 6.

Even before the Nexus 6 was announced, its codename of Shamu (named after the whale at SeaWorld) pretty much gave away the fact that this flagship smartphone was going to be a large-screen device. The Nexus 6 has the largest screen we’ve seen from Google yet at 5.96-inches. This screen is also larger than Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus by 0.4 inches and by 0.2 inches versus Samsung's Galaxy Note 4...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

In Win D-Frame Mini Case Review

In Win has been known for creating some pretty crazy cases over the past few years. Cases that are not your typical mid tower and really stand out. Some of these cases include the Tou, X-Frame, H-Frame and 904. In Win’s original D-Frame was introduced a couple of years ago and it was truly unique. With the popularity of smaller systems, especially mini-ITX systems In Win is back with the D-Frame Mini, a mini-ITX version of their iconic D-Frame case. It features the same aluminum tube framework and open-air design as the original D-Frame, has room for graphics cards up to 340mm, full-size power supplies up to 220mm and even a 240mm radiator. This is one of the most unique cases we have seen all year, let’s jump in!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

In-Win D Frame Mini PC Chassis Review

In-Win manufactures a curious mix of PC cases. In the past we have seen basic (but worthy) Mini-ITX cases such as the BL641 and more recently the GR One gaming tower and GT1 (as seen in our Falcon PC review (http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/leo-waldock/falcon-elite-gt1-assassin-se-system/) ). Then we come to the In-Win Signature Products (http://www.inwin-style.com/en/goods.php?cid=114) which include the £320 D-Frame and this £249.95 D-Frame Mini. It’s an open system that is constructed from welded aluminium tubes with smoked tempered glass panels on both side. The result is a visual delight. The chassis we saw is black with red silicon bumpers. Alternatively you can have red with black bumpers or orange with blue bumpers which may sound foul but actually looks amazing.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Kali Linux Review

Sing with me, Billy Joel style, security, is such a lonely word. To make it more social, I've written this short review of Kali Linux, a Debian-based distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing, covering look & feel, security tools and programs, other applications, hardware compatibility on several laptops, general impression, and more. Enjoy.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Linx 7 Review

Meet the LinxThe term cheap is usually associated with Google's Android operating system. Until recently, Windows tablets were considered to be more expensive, but that changed earlier this year. Both Microsoft and Intel feared that ARM and Android might effectively use tablets as a Trojan horse to make both Wintel laptops and desktops redundant.It explains why the two companies chose to discount their hardware and software so significantly. Intel reportedly spent billions on marketing and support for mobile device makers while Microsoft gave away its crown jewels (Windows 8.1 and Office 365) for devices with displays smaller than nine inches.It's in that context that we're reviewing the Linx 7, a Windows-powered tablet that costs just under £80. Linx - not to be confused with Lenovo's Lynx - is not a totally new player having sent us a Commtiva Android tablet four years ago. It costs even less if you trade in a working tablet as the promotion runs until March 31, 2015.

Read full article @ Techradar

McAfee LiveSafe Review

If you're going to surf the web, you need to make sure your system is protected. After experiencing figurative spontaneous combustion of your hard drive thanks to malware, I'm sure most of us understand the pain of a vulnerable computer. We decided to put McAfee LiveSafe ($79.99, £50, AU$90) to the test of defending our devices from digital attack. Let's start with arguably the best feature - LiveSafe lets you install the security suite on every PC, Mac and mobile device you have. This is a breath of fresh air from previous solutions that have provided a collection of separate security products. Instead, LiveSafe offers consistent protection across all of your devices. Installation was a cinch - you simply use your product key to download and install the program on as many computer, tablets, and phones as you like. And there's no limit! LiveSafe is compatible with a variety of platforms, including Mac, PCs, and Android, Blackberry and iOS devices. Unfortunately, it's still not available for Windows Phones (weirdly enough) or Chromebooks, but this will likely change in the not-so distant future as the market shifts.Interface and protectionIn terms of interface and usability, the experience is pretty seamless and no-frills. We tested the solution on Mac OS and the design is uninspired (unusual for Mac applications) and somewhat dated.

Read full article @ Techradar

MSI X99S MPower Motherboard Review

Forming the more competitively-priced option in MSI’s LGA 2011-3 OC Series motherboard range, the X99S MPower aims to balance the requirements of overclockers, gamers, and enthusiasts at a sub-£190 price tag. Can the features, overclocking functionality, and likeable yellow and black colour scheme attract overclocking users to MSI’s aggressively-priced X99S MPower?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Mushkin Reactor SSD Review (1TB) – High Value High Capacity SSDs Become the Norm

It has been quite a while since Mushkin has released a new SSD product. Our last Mushkin product review was in 2013 where we ripped apart their Scorpion Deluxe PCIe SSD which utilizes multiple SandForce controller based SSDs on a single PCIe card. Mushkin has been utilizing SandForce controllers in the majority of their SSD product line for the past few years. Mushkin has decided it is time for a bit of a change.

Today we are reporting on Mushkin's latest 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD, the Reactor. This time around, Mushkin has decided to follow suit, as many others have already, and turn to Silicon Motion for a new controller. It is a great change as it has finally enabled them to expand the capacity range of their 2.5" SSD product line to 1TB!

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Nexus 6 vs Note 4 Review

We pit the Google and Samsung Galaxy Android phablets head to head

Read full article @ The Inquirer

RHA T10i Review

The more I review headphones, the more I realise that I've come to rely on more than one pair.Mood, you see, is as important to me as anything when I'm listening to music. Sometimes I want the audiophile experience.To hear what was recorded, and nothing more, with no hint of colour from the headphones. Sometimes, though, I want to have my noggin rocked by insane bass. The RHA T10i's claim to offer both, thanks to the use of tuning filters.As well as having tuning filters, the T10i's, which cost £149.95 (US$199.95, about AU$283), are made from injection moulded metal, with over-ear hooks, a set up that RHA claim offers effective noise isolation. They also come with interchangeable ear buds. It's fairly easy to make a pair of headphones that are good at one thing or another. It's obviously impossible to make a pair that can offer audiophile performance, while also giving amazing bass. But there is a narrow line where headphones can have just enough bass to serve as funtime cans, and still have the definition and clarity I sometimes lust after.

Read full article @ Techradar

SilverStone Raven RVZ01

Silverstone aims to dominate the Steam-powered HTPC/Gaming arena with the Raven RVZ01 as it may hold a large GPU of up to 330 mm in size - all while aiming for the golden middle between performance, cooling, and expandability. With a sub-100 USD price tag, the chassis may just be what you need if you are out to build a cool-looking but small gaming power house.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Synology DiskStation DS414slim Review

A compact, low-cost NAS device that boasts many capabilities offered by larger appliances. The DiskStation DS414slim is a small but capable NAS appliance that could serve a small workgroup, or work well at home thanks to its size and low price

Pros:
Compact enclosure; fits up to 8TB of storage; runs the same platform as full-size Synology devices

Cons:
Only fits 2.5in Sata drives; documentation could be improved

Read full article @ V3

Transcend SSD370 256GB SSD Review

It seems like no matter what you are purchasing there are always many various levels of quality, prices, and performance. I know I personally get stuck desiring the top of the line everything and my spouse gets a little upset about this since we end up spending extra money at times. Sometimes I know she is right when it comes to some things and it normally comes down to balancing what I can spend versus what I desire. I am sure that this is a common problem for many people and sometimes we need to take the advice of others to get something that is the right fit for the job.

I find that this is even more important in the world of computers, because many times the items are expensive and non-returnable. This is an area that I often end up giving advice to friends and family about and the first question I tend to ask is what are you planning on doing with the equipment. From that answer, I make suggestions on what would work best for them. In the case of SSDs, though, it is just a matter of finding the right performance versus price. Thankfully, many manufacturers are making mainstream drives that are affordable for everyone and have some decent performance numbers.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion