Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review – Quad X16 SLI/ Crossfire Gfx and 6.1GB/s Speeds
ASRock X99 WS Motherboard Review
Asus X99-A motherboard reviewed
Best Video Cards: October 2014
Corsair H1500 Review
Corsair Voyager Air 2 Mobile Wireless Storage 1 TB Review
Diamond Boost Radeon R9 270X Review
Fractal Design Core 3300
Fractal Design Core 3300 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
FreeCAD – Extensible Open Source CAx program
Gigabyte X99 SOC Force Overclocking Motherboard Review
Lenovo Horizon 2 AIO Desktop Computer Review
Microsoft Band Preview
Moto X (2nd Gen) Smartphone by Motorola Review
Research Illustrates The Damage ISP Shenanigans Can Do, It's Not Just Netflix Users Getting Shafted
Rig of the Month October 2014
SilverStone Strider Essential Gold 700W Review
The Beginners Guide to Parallels Desktop 10 for OS X
Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 With Intel HD Graphics

ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review – Quad X16 SLI/ Crossfire Gfx and 6.1GB/s Speeds

The ASRock X99 Extreme11 seems to be on par with that of the X99 chip, noting of course that much of the testing conducted here cannot be completed on any other consumer enthusiast level motherboard in the world. Right now, not only is the X99 the only to have 18 SATA ports, but also, it is also the only with 4 included SAS ports along with two M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 slots.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

ASRock X99 WS Motherboard Review

Intel’s Haswell-E or X99 platform is of course their high-end desktop platform and is made for extreme setups. Well the X99 motherboard we are taking a look at today definitely fits that description. Today we are checking out our first X99 workstation motherboard and it comes from ASRock. It is the ASRock X99 WS and it has all of the features you would want in a high-end motherboard like 4-way SLI and CrossFireX support, a powerful 12 phase power design, server-grade LAN chip support, support for ECC memory, 10 SATA ports, an Ultra M.2 slot and of course ASRock’s Super Alloy design. You can build a pretty insane system with this motherboard, let’s take a look and see how it holds up to our tests.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Asus X99-A motherboard reviewed

Rather than loading up on flashy extras and extraneous accessories, Asus' X99-A motherboard focuses on the basics. It has a sensible spec, loads of builder-friendly features, and a diverse array of powerful tweaking options. Read on to see what makes this our favorite Haswell-E motherboard to date.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Best Video Cards: October 2014

After a couple of months off due to a very busy fall product season, we’re finally back again with our monthly guide to video cards and video card industry recap. Since our last guide it has been a busy couple of months, so there’s quite a bit to cover.

The big news this fall has of course been the new video card launches from AMD and NVIDIA. While October has been a relatively quiet month, both companies kept September busy by pushing new products out the door and took others off the shelves.

AMD for their part released the first of their GCN 1.2 architecture GPUs: Tonga. Tonga serves as AMD’s replacement for the nearly 3 year old Tahiti GPU, the very first of AMD’s GPUs first launched in 2011. Tonga is an interesting – if still slightly mysterious – GPU, as we suspect we have not seen everything it and GCN 1.2 can offer. From a high level GCN 1.2 is a further refinement on the GCN architecture, bringing with it greatly improved Delta Color Compression for graphics buffers, a faster video decode block (H.264 L5.2 support), and a further optimized geometry frontend that better handles extreme tessellation factors. At the same time we suspect there are some compute/HSA improvements in the design that AMD has not disclosed and are being saved for the rumored Carrizo APU, Kaveri’s successor.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Corsair H1500 Review

Corsair recently rebranded their gaming arm and today we take a look at one of their initial headsets in our Corsair Gaming H1500 Review.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven

Corsair Voyager Air 2 Mobile Wireless Storage 1 TB Review

The portable Voyager Air 2 portable drive from Corsair is sporting wireless capabilities and also includes DLNA and Internet pass-through support. Inside it we have one 1TB 5400RPM from Toshiba and the whole system is powered by a large battery which can bring the usage time up to seven hours.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Diamond Boost Radeon R9 270X Review

Overclocking Diamond's R9 270X was about as straight forward as it gets. With a lack of voltage control the only means of improving current flow to the core was by increasing the power limit settings. By maxing this setting out at +20%, I was able to boost the core clock speed on the Pitcairn-based core to 1190MHz - a 140MHz boost in clock speed over the default 1050MHz. Having worked with a couple R9 270X cards already, I had a good idea of where the core clock speed would end up, but each and every sample is different. Sometimes you get a (pardon the pun) "Diamond" in the rough. Memory overclocking also fell into the expected range. Based on the SK Hynix GDDR5 memory ICs used, around 1600MHz is a reasonable clock speed for the memory on this card from Diamond. This card was able deliver a 200MHz increase in the GDDR5 memory speeds over the as delivered 1400MHz. The boost of the memory clock speed to 1600MHz delivers a 6400MHz data rate versus the stock 5600MHz data rate for some help when the memory is your bottleneck. Keeping the card cool is paramount to getting stable clock speeds at higher than the rated capabilities of the hardware. Bumping the fan speed up to 100% helps cool the R9 270X down enough to bring stability at the clock speeds tested.

Read full article @ OCC

Fractal Design Core 3300

The Core X3 series, Fractal Design's entry level line of cases, now includes the Core 3300 looking to deliver what the enthusiast on a budget is gunning for. Throwing itself into the hardest-fought-over case segment, it'll be interesting to see whether it manages to deliver on the core elements it needs to capture the hearts of its buyers.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Fractal Design Core 3300 Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Fractal Design have a long and trusted reputation for flawless build quality and sleek design, but their products are often priced a little too high for your average consumer. The phrase “you get what you pay for” holds true for the premium products Fractal Design produce and the extra investment for a Fractal case can certainly reap its own rewards, but some budgets only stretch so far. The new Core series from Fractal Design hopes to offer a “less is more” attitude, giving you the premium quality and design we’ve come to know and love, but matching it all with a more affordable price tag.

The core 3300 is a wide design ATX mid-tower and despite its mid-budget price tag, it comes with an extensive feature set that should satisfy casual and enthusiast users alike. You’ve got cable management solutions, room for multiple radiators, two high quality 140mm pre-installed fans, room for six hard drives on its vertical drive mounting bracket, plus two SSD stealth mounts behind the motherboard and a whole lot more!

The 3300 is a big chassis, but its extra wide design has clear benefits in terms of radiator support, with room for a 240/280mm radiator in the front and another 240mm in the top, as well as room for extra tall CPU coolers of up to 185mm, while still leaving extensive cable routing space and those extra hard drive mounts behind the motherboard.

Read full article @ eTeknix

FreeCAD – Extensible Open Source CAx program

FreeCAD is a general purpose feature-based, parametric 3D modeler for CAD, MCAD, CAx, CAE and PLM, aimed directly at mechanical engineering and product design but also fits a wider range of uses in engineering, such as architecture or other engineering specialties.

Read full article @ Ubuntu Geek

Gigabyte X99 SOC Force Overclocking Motherboard Review

Some say that overclocking is a niche market dominated by hardware enthusiasts and gamers who finally moved out of their parent's basement. Truth is overclocking is a rather large market perpetuated by mainstream hardware sales. A good example of this is any gaming centric graphics card that has been factory overclocked. It may seem outlandish but, to get more performance the manufacturer will adjust the clock speed and sell it at a price premium. Despite the higher cost these cards sell quite well and yet the same consumers cannot grasp the concept of overclocking or why having an overclocking motherboard is beneficial.

In this review we will be looking at a new motherboard from Gigabyte called the X99 SOC Force. The SOC stands for Super OverClock and is designed for hardware enthusiasts who like to tweak and tune their systems for the best performance. At Computex this year we were introduced to the new OC and Gaming motherboards and were told that many of the products shifted such that the OC boards gained some luxury features while the G1 Gaming products gained options to make them friendlier to gamers and system builders.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Lenovo Horizon 2 AIO Desktop Computer Review

The desktop computer is changing, acquiring hardware and software features first seen on mobile devices. As Microsoft works to unify the Windows experience across everything from phones to desktops, vendors work to make their desktops work more like phones, with integrated all-in-one designs, touch screens, and new user interfaces. Today Benchmark Reviews looks at Lenovo’s latest entry in this evolving category, the Horizon 2 All-In-One PC.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Microsoft Band Preview

Microsoft takes on the world. Microsoft finally announced its fitness and activity band, the Microsoft Band, on Wednesday night. The announcement caught pretty much everyone by surprise, though of course I had previously and exclusively revealed that it would launch in October, so the firm just squeaked in under their own deadline. Here's a quick overview of what to expect from this interesting device.

Read full article @ WinSupersite

Moto X (2nd Gen) Smartphone by Motorola Review

When Motorola introduced the Moto X last year, the company was owned by Google. In our hands-on review of the first-generation Moto X, we pointed out that the collaboration between Motorola and Android engineers led to an incredibly sleek device and a good user experience. Although the first-generation Moto X didn’t have quite as impressive hardware specifications as its high-end competitors at the time, the phone still performed very well. What’s more, the Moto X also included a number of unique extras, like touchless controls that worked exceptionally well.

Fast forward to today, and a lot has changed on the mobile front. Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo and closing the Fort Worth plant where the original Moto X was made. We also have a new set of heavyweight smartphones on the market. The 2014 edition of the Moto X, also known as the 2nd generation Moto X, is hoping to attract the attention of users who may be considering some of today’s high-end phones from Apple, Samsung, HTC, or LG, and it may very well succeed...

http://hothardware.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=efc4c507c2cf964fc2462caca&id=87ca8fe5ea&e=0c004f9c13]Read full article @ HotHardware.com[/url]

Research Illustrates The Damage ISP Shenanigans Can Do, It's Not Just Netflix Users Getting Shafted

We've covered the battles between ISPs and various large-scale content providers multiple times before. From deliberately throttling Netflix users to older spats that prevented Time Warner customers from watching cable channels they'd legally paid for, these kinds of disagreements are common in America these days. A new report from M-Lab, however, illustrates the degree to which these battles can impact all of an ISPs customers, including those who don't use video on demand services like Netflix.

The data speaks for itself. This is not an incidental or minor issue; for almost an entire year Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable degraded customer performance to the point that the FCC would no longer have classified these connections as "Broadband" connections at all. They do this, according to M-Lab, by simply refusing to fix the problem...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Rig of the Month October 2014

We just adore hardware. And sometimes some you guys really make a PC that really stands out. We ask you to answer a few simple questions and send in photo's of your rig. Each month we'll have a look at the entries and perhaps pick you and post your PC with photo's and everything here at Guru3D.com Here you can find out what you need to do and win a nice prize package courtesy of Corsair.

Read full article @ Guru3D

SilverStone Strider Essential Gold 700W Review

A wise investment at £70? SilverStone is a name familiar to readers as a provider of high-quality chassis first and foremost. But like any business that doesn't want to be reliant on a core product portfolio, SilverStone has increased its reach by also selling coolers, storage devices and, more recently, monitor stands.

Another go-to solution is power-supply units. SilverStone covers the entire gamut of uses from passively-cooled examples to monster supplies fit for the most esoteric of builds. The middle section between these two extremes is occupied by the Strider Essential Series.

Offered in mainstream capacities that are more than sufficient for high-end PCs housing a single graphics card, SilverStone has improved the range by offering a trio of Essential supplies - 500W, 600W and 700W - in the upgraded 80 PLUS Gold flavour. Such certification means you're looking at a minimum AC-to-DC efficiency of 88 per cent at a wide range of loads, rising to at least 92 per cent at mid load. 80 PLUS Gold supplies, in our opinion, offer the best balance between performance and cost.

Read full article @ Hexus

The Beginners Guide to Parallels Desktop 10 for OS X

Even if you are a Mac user, there’s a strong chance that you will need to use Windows applications at some point. Luckily there are great virtual machine solutions out there to help you do that easily.

And you can run more than Windows in a virtual machine — Linux runs perfectly in a VM, and is usually the best way to learn. Today we’ll be showing you how to install Windows in Parallels Desktop, but the same principles work for Linux.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.10 With Intel HD Graphics

For those curious how the latest open-source Intel Linux graphics driver is performing against Intel's newest closed-source Windows OpenGL driver, we've put Ubuntu 14.10 (including a second run with the latest Linux kernel / Mesa) against Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the newest Intel GPU driver released earlier this month.

Read full article @ Phoronix