Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

ASUS USB 3.1 Type-A Card Review
ECS LIVA X Mini PC Review
Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion Overclocking Motherboard Review
Hands-On With Lenovo's 2015 ThinkPad X1 Carbon @ HotHardware.com
Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan X 12GB
PowerColor R9 285 2GB Turbo Duo Review: It Takes Two to Tonga
SilverStone Strider Gold 1500W Power Supply Unit Review
Synology DS1815+

ASUS USB 3.1 Type-A Card Review

It took some time to get here, but devices supporting the USB 3.1 standard are finally coming to market. Besides the obvious new logo and SUPERSPEED+ name change, the USB 3.1 standard doubles the transfer rate of USB 3.0 and the encoding overhead has been greatly reduced by doubling the block size. ASUS is bundling many of their latest board revisions with the USB 3.1 Type-A add-in cards and we got our hands on a discrete USB 3.1 card to try out!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

ECS LIVA X Mini PC Review

The ECS LIVA X surprised me with its small size and completely silent operation. I was able to surf the internet and do work on it very quickly. I enjoyed using it and experienced no problems with browsing the internet, using Office applications, or watching streaming videos on Netflix. Amazon Prime would occasionally lag a little – usually when the HUD would pop up. Boot up and shut down times were very fast – at most 17 seconds to boot. Having the USB ports on the front was very convenient, as was the wireless connectivity options. The LIVA X did run fairly cool, being barely warm to the touch after running all day in a room balanced at 19 °C.

Read full article @ OCC

Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion Overclocking Motherboard Review

During Computex 2014 Gigabyte was showing a very limited edition Z97X SOC motherboard called the SOC LN2. This motherboard was specially designed for LN2 overclocking and had no provisions for aircooling due to the unique memory location. This sort of “bench only” motherboard design is something that Gigabyte has been working on for the past few years and almost have it perfected.

Before the launch of the Intel X99 chipset Gigabyte was showing several of their X99 designs and one of them that kept coming up in the news was the X99 SOC LN2. The idea behind this board was to provide a bench style overclocker borrowing many of the design ideas developed on the Z97X SOC LN2.

In this review we will be looking at the flagship product in the exciting X99 Champion Series re-launch the Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion. This is a second generation X99 Super Overclock motherboard that follows in the footsteps of the original X99 SOC Force and appears to be based on the early X99 SOC LN2 design. For those who followed our Consumer Electronics Show coverage this is also the motherboard everyone used during the OC Gathering and even during the HyperX HOT Overclocking competition.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Hands-On With Lenovo's 2015 ThinkPad X1 Carbon @ HotHardware.com

The ThinkPad name has a storied history in the notebook sector. Originally developed under the helm of IBM, and passed on to Lenovo roughly a decade ago, ThinkPad notebooks are still considering some of the best in the business. Lenovo’s latest 2015 edition of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is no exception; the 13-inch class notebook is a strong performer and boasts excellent battery life thanks to its new Intel Broadwell processor architecture.

With a base price of $1,299, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon carries with it a bit of a premium compared to other machines in its class, but it was still enough to earn our HotHardware “Recommended” label...

Read full article @ "=?utf-8?Q?HotHardware.com?="

Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan X 12GB

Nvidia have had huge success with their Maxwell architecture. The GTX980 has not only held the performance crown since the launch but sales figures have helped Nvidia reap in record revenue. As we know, technology development never stands still, and today we look at the new (single GPU) flagship model, the Titan X. This is Maxwell architecture in full flight and is set to pose a serious challenge for AMD to overcome in the coming months.

Read full article @ KitGuru

PowerColor R9 285 2GB Turbo Duo Review: It Takes Two to Tonga

The battle for video card supremacy is an ongoing conflict that rages all year. Prices change constantly, affected by several factors including even non-gaming related activities (such as crypto-currency mining). Performance updates are constant as well, not just in terms of seasonal hardware changes but driver efficiencies for the same video card provides framerate increase and additional features once in … Read more.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

SilverStone Strider Gold 1500W Power Supply Unit Review

A few days ago NVIDIA released the fastest single GPU graphics card in the market called the TITAN X a real beast featuring a massive 12GB's of onboard VRAM memory, 3072 CUDA cores, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, 384-bit wide memory interface and a TDP of 250W. Luckily although a few years back such performance would be far more power hungry today even 4 of these beasts would require a total output of roughly 1000W. Of course although these power requirements are indeed very low for such cards we need not forget the rest of the system components so adding those as well means that you'd certainly need around 1500W to be on the safe side. Unfortunately the market is not really filled with 1500W (1.5KW) power supply units but if you can afford to get 4 ultra-high end graphics cards then you shouldn't have a problem finding a suitable one and the Strider Gold model by SilverStone which we have here with us today could be the right one for the job.

Founded in 2003, SilverStone is an established leader in its field, with an elite team of engineers; we started our quest of providing products that create inspirations. We have since expanded the lines of products as well as types of products we produce, giving our customers a wide selection of choices. With distribution centers in different areas of the globe, SilverStone products can be seen all over the world, not just for computer users but also for home entertainment use. Providing leisure with integration of advanced technologies that is functional and making them enjoyable to use. Here at SilverStone Technology, we continue to pride ourselves in providing the highest level of standards in designing and manufacturing computer enclosures, power supplies, and accessories. Our pursuit for the first class aesthetic appeal is relentless; our teams of devoted engineers are constantly searching for the best technologies that suit end-users with different needs and will make our products as technologically sound as they are beautiful.

1500W is plenty of juice so SilverStone has given the ST1500-GS two +12V rails each rated for 70A which can output up to 1440W and two minor rails (3.3V and 5V) which are rated for 25A each with a combined maximum output of 150W. According to SilverStone the ST1500-GS can also deliver all of its 1600W (peak) output at up to 40 degrees Celsius, features a low-noise 135mm intake fan, comes ready with flat modular cables and packs several industrial grade electrical protections such as OCP (Over current protection), OPP (Over power protection), OVP (Over voltage protection), OTP (Over Temperature Protection), UVP (Under voltage protection), SCP (Short circuit protection) and no load operation. So since I’m certain everyone feels the same let's see how this beast performs.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Synology DS1815+

Synology definitely put up a strong showing in the SMB category with the DS1815+ that can support up to 18 HDDs if paired with two optional DX513 expansion units. Today, we will put it to the test to figure out how it fares against the competition.

Read full article @ techPowerUp