Reviews 52191 Published by

Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Asus MeMO Pad 7 Review: Intel and Android for $150
ASUS Z97-DELUXE Motherboard
Braswell has DirectX 11 graphics
Crucial MX100 512GB SSD Review
Dell Precision M6800 Review
EKWB ASUS GTX 780 Ti DCII OC Full Cover Water Block Review
Enermax Liqtech 240 Review
Kingston SSDNow V310 960GB SSD Review
PC Specialist Vanquish 270X System Review
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Case Review
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Review
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 Review
Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W Power Supply Review
Synology DS414slim Review
XTracGear Ripper Mouse Pad Review



Asus MeMO Pad 7 Review: Intel and Android for $150

The small form factor tablet market has gotten pretty crowded, particularly when it comes to budget models, and while the generally fantastic Google Nexus 7 can be had for around $215 nowadays, going below that usually involves some compromises. Today, I’m checking out Asus' attempt at a low-cost Android tablet and whether it’s worth your cash.

Read full article @ Techspot

ASUS Z97-DELUXE Motherboard

The ASUS Z97-DELUXE is a mid-range socket LGA1150 motherboard based on the new Intel Z97 chipset, supporting the fourth and the forthcoming fifth generation Core i processors. It brings a high-end audio codec, 10 SATA-600 ports (allowing two SATA Express connections), 10 USB 3.0 ports, and Wi-Fi interface. Let's take a good look at it.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

Braswell has DirectX 11 graphics

Intel plans to update its entry level processor line with next generation Braswell 14nm based products soon.

Braswell replaces Bay-Trail 22nm processors that ended up branded as Celeron and Pentium and won quite a few design wins, ranging from entry level notebooks, tablets through desktops.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

Crucial MX100 512GB SSD Review

Crucial’s new MX100 is an SSD with a mission. Instead of planting yet another flag in the expensive high end category, it has been precision designed for the performance-minded side of the mainstream category with an eye towards dethroning drives like OCZ’s Vertex 460 and AData’s SP920. That may seem like a difficult goal to achieve but Crucial has a knack of hitting the ground running with precisely targeted products.

Crucial is actually in an enviable position within the SSD market. As the distribution arm of Micron, they have first-run access to a vast selection of components that fall under the IM Flash Technologies (IMFT) umbrella. While there are advantages to being tied at the hip to a powerful parent company, the MX100 is also an excellent example of how quickly technology is progressing. Recently they released the flagship M550 series which features 20nm L85 / ONFi 128GBit NAND' and the latest Marvel '89 controller. This new drive however replaces the slightly older but nonetheless popular M500 but it actually makes use of brand new 16nm 128GBit NAND modules. This has placed Crucial in the unenviable position of having to showcasing the next generation NAND in a drive that cannot directly compete with their M550. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.

Crucial has ensured no toes are stepped on by tweaking the MX100’s architecture so that while it will outperform the M500, it won’t scavenge sales from their more expensive M550 series. To this end the MX100 uses the same upgraded Marvell 89 controller as the M550 but that 16nm NAND (in its current implementation at least) can’t outperform the 20nm modules on the higher end SSD. This has been accomplished by limiting the number of interleaved channels being run in parallel.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Dell Precision M6800 Review

The Precision M6800 is Dell's biggest and most powerful business notebook, which means a high price – this £2,075 (around US$3,490, AU$3,750) machine is twice as pricey as some of its rivals. That's expensive, but Dell has packed this laptop with every feature a professional will need on the road.Every aspect of the M6800's design speaks to its business credentials. The chassis is built from aluminium and magnesium alloy, and build quality is top-notch: there's no give on any surface. Dell has also tested this machine using MIL-STD-810G protocols, so it's resistant to dust and works in extreme temperatures.It's versatile, too. There are four USB 3.0 ports, D-SUB, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, two audio jacks, an Ethernet socket and an SDXC card slot, and it's also got rarer additions: ExpressCard, eSATA and Smart Card slots, a docking station connector, a hot-swappable hard disk and a physical Wi-Fi switch.Dell has kitted this machine out with a traditional keyboard rather than a Scrabble-tile unit. It's a sensible decision, and it boasts an excellent layout, plenty of travel on each key, and a reliable, comfortable action thanks to the high quality feel and rock-solid base.It's a pleasure to use, and the trackpad is good – a tad small, but accurate and with clicky buttons. This is a work laptop, so it also has a trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard with three discrete buttons.Touches of detailLittle touches impress. The lid is held in place by an old-school clasp, there are numerous status lights, and the keyboard's backlit.

Read full article @ Techradar

EKWB ASUS GTX 780 Ti DCII OC Full Cover Water Block Review

For those who haven't heard yet from Slovenian EK Waterblock company, must have been either computer-less for the last 10 years or maybe just started to get interested in some high end Do It Your Self water cooling gear. Forget about All In One if you are looking for the best cooling performance at a low noise ratio. The only way to achieve this goal is via equipping your favorite computer parts with high end water cooling parts. EKWB has been around for 10 years now and really have diversified their products from the rest through the years. One thing all of these water cooling blocks or complete kits have in common is high performance, solid craftsmanship and all this wrapped in a sleek looking design. The graphics card and processor are usually the most cooled solutions; but EKWB also has chipset, RAM coolers and even cooling gear for CAD/CAM setups in their lineup.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Enermax Liqtech 240 Review

Enermax, famous for its quality PSU and recently, PC cases and Fans and Aicoolers, have been also making quite a push in the All-in-One water cooling market and some of its aircoolings have been quite impressive. Today, we are looking at the latest Enermax Liqtech series AIO water cooler which stands out with its impressive manufacturing quality and exceptional design. We will certainly try to find out if it has what it takes to compete in the quite crowded AIO water cooling market.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Kingston SSDNow V310 960GB SSD Review

Kingston entered the Solid-State Drive (SSD) market in 2008 and has been one of the more well known and trusted brands over the years. Last month Kingston announced a new drive in the SSDNow V300 series, the V310. The Kingston SSDNow V310 SSD is currently only offered as a 960GB drive, which just happens to be the largest capacity ever offered by Kingston. The V310 960GB drive is powered by a Phison 3108 controller (aka Phison S8), which was first introduced in 2012. Read on to see how it performs when we put it to the test!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

PC Specialist Vanquish 270X System Review

Intel’s Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition CPU release has been very exciting for the PC market, the main reason is that you can now get high-end desktop performance for the price of an entry level system. This is because the bulk of applications and games are still largely dependent on the performance of 1-2 CPU cores, so with the potential to get around 4.5-4.8GHz on both its cores the Pentium G3258 can offer Core i7 4790K-like performance in one to two threaded applications. Today we are testing PC Specialist’s Vanquish 270X system which they have configured and built especially for us! This system features a Pentium G3258 CPU overclocked to a whopping 4.7GHz and that’s paired up with a Powercolor R9 270X 2GB graphics card and 8GB of RAM. All in all this means there is more than enough grunt in this system to drive all the latest gaming titles maxed out at full 1080p or even as high as 1440p depending on the game, as well as to do a wide variety of other productivity and home tasks. What’s even more impressive is that the components used are really cost effective, so this build comes in at just £579! PC Specialist have made very sensible component choices to keep the pricing in that sweet spot zone: they’ve opted for the unlocked Pentium, AMD’s R9 270X, an SSHD, Gigabyte’s entry level Z97 gaming series motherboard and Corsair’s affordable 230T chassis houses it all.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Case Review

So what do you do when you’ve made an awesome product that people love? Well if you’re a car company you would start tweaking and changing until you’ve created a monster GT performance version, or maybe go the other way and make a pure luxury model. Well it just so happens that Phanteks has created just such a product with their Enthoo Pro. As such, it makes sense that they would have developed a better more luxurious version of the Pro at the same time. Today we will be taking a look at the Enthoo Luxe, Phantek’s fancy version of the Pro and the true heir to the throne of the Enthoo Primo.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Review

We review the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe PC chassis. This full Tower chassis however is impressive in style and originality. Not only is the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe good looking but it is oozing with nice features. A great design chassis, tool free, lots of space, nice airflow and prepped for liquid cooling. Have a peek at we'll review today, the Phanteks Enthoo luxe. Just looking at the chassis the first time will bring a smile on your face, an aluminum front awaits you with ambient LED lighting. That is just the outside though, as the inside is a fantastic in design. The chassis is made with a stealthy interior that hides the power supply, HDD, cables and even has a modular cable cover. The Enthoo Luxe's front and top aluminum panels are sandblasted to create a textured appearance. This allows for an attractive and practical solution to reduce the appearance of fingerprints on the case.

Being a Full tower chassis, the liquid cooling afficionado's aren't left alone as radiator brackets are present as well as a rear reservoir mounting location, heck there even is a universal pump bracket with vibration dampening function. The case has a steel chassis with aluminum face-plates and measures 235 mm x 560 mm x 550 mm (W x H x D). You'll get a total of eight expansion slots not one, but two power supply slots alongside three external 5.25-inch drive bay slots and and six internal 3.5-inch bays slots (two HDD cages with 3 drives each). You can also convert the HDD cages into 2.5-inch trays. The Phanteks Enthoo Luxe features a hidden front I/O panel with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports and two audio jacks (microphone/headphone). The chassis has a LED switch and a side window. Motherboards wise the chassis can house ATX, EATX, mATX, and SSI EEB motherboards.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 Review

Samsung hasn't had much success in the tablet market, but it is looking to change that with the Galaxy Tab S, which it boasts is "slimmer and lighter" than Apple's flagship tablet and has a higher-resolution display.

Design
The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is one of the thinnest and lightest tablet on the market. It measures 247x177x6.6mm - skinnier than the 7.5mm thick iPad Air - and it tips the scales at 465g. While Samsung has been keen to boast that the tablet is lighter than the iPad Air, it in fact weighs just four grams less than its competitor, with the Air starting at 469g.

Read full article @ The Inquirer

Seasonic SS-760XP2 760W Power Supply Review

How many times have you seen people head out to get hardware components to build a new PC and although they put much weight on the CPU, mainboard, RAM and graphics they don't put nearly as much weight on the PSU? Well not only have i seen that happen many times in the past but i see it even today and the worst part is that i see it from people who've build plenty of systems in the past and thus know better than that. As many of you know the very first thing i always recommend is getting a higher output model compared to the one people set out to get just to be on the safe side while the second is to at least get an 80 Plus Bronze certified model since that certification is almost always a good quality indicator of the internal components used in a PSU. Today we will be taking a look at one of the best power supply units to ever roll out from the Seasonic product line the Platinum Series SS-760XP2 760W model.

Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd was founded more than 35 years ago by engineers. Since its early beginnings the company has rigorously maintained its focus on the research, development and production of technologically advanced, high quality products. In 1981 Sea Sonic expanded into the production of PC power supplies to become one of the first manufacturers in this market. Soon after, the manufacturing of high quality and performance PC power supplies became the core identity of Sea Sonic. Sea Sonic is a truly global company. Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, we export our products from our factory in China to our offices in the USA, Europe, Japan, as well as to other parts of the world. Independent testers, reviewers and editors writing in all languages consistently rank Seasonic products among the best in terms of technology, performance and reliability. We regularly receive enthusiastic feedback from PC fans, overclockers and gamers from every corner of the globe, which further fuels our commitment to keep searching for excellence in the international arena.

The Platinum Series SS-760XP2 is an 80 Plus Platinum certified PSU that features a powerful single +12V rail rated at 63A (can reach up to 756W output), fully modular design (future-proof), two different modes for controlling the fan speed (under normal the fan will always spin according to the temperature while under hybrid mode the fan will not rotate at loads below 40%), industrial grade protections (OPP/OVP/UVP/OCP/OTP/SCP), Japanese capacitors and DC-to-DC converters. Aside the +12V rail the +3.3V and +5V outputs are rated at 25A each and can deliver up to 125W (thus making it impossible to draw the maximum current from both rails at the same time). It's been a while since we've received something by Seasonic so let’s see just how good their latest Platinum Series models really are (the 7 year warranty however is a good start).

Read full article @ Nikktech

Synology DS414slim Review

The NAS market grows day by day and all companies thrive to introduce more and more innovative products. In today’s review, we will take a good look at one of these products, the Synology DS414slim, a compact NAS with a huge feature list.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

XTracGear Ripper Mouse Pad Review

XTracGear (formerly XTracPads) is a company dedicated solemnly to manufacture the best mousing surfaces and accessories for gamers and professionals. Since 2002, they have brought along many successful products including their Ripper model, which has been a very strong contender among the big mouse pad market. This year XTracPads decided to refine many things including their name as well as many of their products. They have gladly sent Benchmark Reviews a sample of their new XTracGear Ripper mouse pad which we will evaluate to see if upholds to it’s predecessor.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews