Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including HIS Radeon R9-280X IceQ X2 Turbo Review, Toshiba Set To Change SSD Landscape with Upper Tier SSDs at Rock Bottom Pricing, Cooler Master N400 & N600 Cases Review, LG G2 Review: The battle of the Android flagship handsets, and CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse Review



HIS Radeon R9-280X IceQ X2 Turbo Review @ Guru3D

In this review we look at the Radeon R9-280X IceQ X2 Turbo review from HIS. Armed with a customized PCB and their top model IceQ coolers they factory overclocked the product and will try to get you as much value for money as they can. Follow us into this review where we'll look at temperatures, noise, performance, Frame latency and we'll even give Ultra High Definition gaming a go with the hottest game titles on the globe.

Now before we begin with the new graphics cards the first thing that you guys will need to get used to is the new naming schema. AMD ended with the Radeon HD 7000 and 8000 series graphics card in 2013. Logic dictates that AMD would have continued with a series 9000. But hey now, we already have had the Radeon 9000 series many years ago (2003), oh and who doesn't remember the Radeon 9800 Pro right? As such it was time to bring in a new naming schema, a bit more in line with AMD's APUs. R9 will be high-end and R7 will be mainstream and inevitably R5 being entry level. After that you'll notice products being tagged as 250, 260X, 270X, 280X and the coolest two of them all the Radeon R9 290 and R290X, (which have yet to be released). Though almost all of these are all new model graphics cards, most of them are respin products based of the Radeon HD 7000 series with a number of improvements. The respin products will get a new PCB, cooling, clock frequencies and much like NVIDIA boost, power, voltage, fan and load limiters. In the ling run there are three products in the lineup that come with a new GPU. For example The R7 260X and then of course R9 290 / 290X will be Hawaii GPU based. The cards with new silicon come with a truckload of new features like integrated DSPs offering TrueAudio technology. The rest (270X/280X) will keep the older specs. I agree that is a little confusing, but we'll explain it all over the next pages.

Read more: HIS Radeon R9-280X IceQ X2 Turbo Review @ Guru3D

Toshiba Set To Change SSD Landscape with Upper Tier SSDs at Rock Bottom Pricing @ The SSD Review

If the fact that Toshiba is now selling retail SSDs to the consumer surprises you, it should. For some time now, the SSD industry has had its eye on Toshiba as they seemed to get caught behind the eight ball. From our perspective, the only Toshiba SSDs we had reported on were the client THNSN 128GB SATA 2 mSATA SSD found in our Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook Review, and the SandForce Driven Toshiba 6Gbps SSD that we briefly spoke of in our MBA Ivy Bridge Mid-2012 Report. For the most part, Toshiba was nowhere to be found in the consumer SSD market, at least until Q3 of this year, and their presence in client systems is still not as those in the SSD world might have predicted. Toshiba's importance in the SSD market cannot be overlooked and Wayne Eisenberg (formerly of SMART and now OCZ) provided reason in his article, Examining the SSD Industry Benefits of Owning The Fab. He spoke of the main NAND manufacturers being Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, SanDisk, Intel and
Micron, and these manufacturers having the ability to shape the SSD industry, much to the disadvantage of third party SSD manufacturers. In a nut shell, those who Own the Fab could manufacture and sell SSDs at a lower price than third party manufacturers, forcing them to realign their products in areas that are more likely to support their revenue goals. Examples of this are evident with Patriot and Corsair who have changed product direction slightly, as well as OCZ who seems to be moving more into the enterprise SSD side of things than consumer.

Read more: Toshiba Set To Change SSD Landscape with Upper Tier SSDs at Rock Bottom Pricing @ The SSD Review

Sapphire Toxic Edition R9 270X Video Card Review @ HiTech Legion

Mascots, some we love and some we absolutely hate. Some are memorable and some we tend to forget. Computer component manufacturers use mascots as well as their trademark in order to create an impression on the consumer. Basically if the mascot is memorable when you see a product on the shelf you are more prone to purchase it if it is embedded in your mind. Lately there have been quite a few mascot changes which has made it harder for a consumer to choose a product. If you ask me what the last two Sapphire Toxic Edition Mascots were I wouldn’t be able to tell you. They were simply not memorable.

Along with the launch of the new AMD based Radeon video cards, Sapphire has made a change to all their specific model mascots. I could honestly say I like the change and it seems that Sapphire has made a good decision to use a specific character set to make it memorable and also color coded each of the models. Over the last 3 or 4 years Sapphire didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason for their Toxic series, mascots and colors of boxes changed like the wind. Now Toxic finally has a color and mascot, Gold for the color and an armored avenger for the mascot who has the Toxic logo on the armor in the form of fans. A change I find quite favorable but we are not here to talk about mascots we are here to see what Sapphire has done to make the Toxic Edition R9 270X a worthwhile purchase.

Read more: Sapphire Toxic Edition R9 270X Video Card Review @ HiTech Legion

Cooler Master N400 & N600 Cases Review @ Hardware Canucks

Cooler Master’s N-series is quite unique in its approach since it strives to combine forward-looking features and understated looks with things the entry level case market sees little of: good build quality and plenty of interior space. Both the $80 N600 and $60 N400 go down this path but with a few differences in respects to design and layout. In this review, we take a quick look at both cases which take up the torch from Cooler Master’s lower-end N200 mATX chassis.

Read more: Cooler Master N400 & N600 Cases Review @ Hardware Canucks

OCZ Vertex 450 2x128GB RAID @ Bjorn3D

Looking at the model number of the OCZ Vertex 450 and you would be thinking that the product falls in the same family as the Vertex 4. However, the only thing that the Vertex 450 shares with the Vertex 4 is only the branding of Vertex.

Read more: OCZ Vertex 450 2x128GB RAID @ Bjorn3D

LG G2 Review: The battle of the Android flagship handsets @ Techspot

It’s hard to create a flagship smartphone that stands out from the crowd. When you get into a store and see the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, Sony Xperia Z, iPhone 5s, Nokia Lumia 1020, Moto X and others staring back at you, specifications and features blur together, making a decision to buy one more difficult than ever before.

What has LG done to make that purchasing decision easier? They've jam-packed nearly every feature you can imagine into the G2, from a powerful Qualcomm Snadpdragon 800 SoC and a 1080p display, to an optically stabilized camera and finely tuned software. LG has clearly thrown everything they can into this device, and on paper it looks close to a complete handset package.

Read more: LG G2 Review: The battle of the Android flagship handsets @ Techspot

CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse Review @ KitGuru

Today we are going to look at the last product in CM Storm's new range of aluminium gaming products, the Reaper mouse. This has been designed to compliment the Mech keyboard and Pulse-R headset that we have already looked at. We look forward to seeing how the Reaper compares and if it can match the quality of the Mech and Pulse-R.

Read more: CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse Review @ KitGuru

Firstlook 2013 @ Madshrimps

Firstlook is one of the largest gaming shows in the Benelux. It is a pur sang trade show for the game publishers. Already in its 6th edition and the amount of visitors is each year steadily growing. This in contradiction to other game events alike E3 and co which are attracting less and less visitors. Two days of complete mayhem for the gaming community are awaiting you, plus a prefixed maximum visitor number enables the gamers to test out and see the eagerly awaited new gaming titles for the last quarter of the year, this without having to stand in the queue for hours. A good concept which has been proven successful year after year. The hardware vendors also take full benefit of this occasion to show off their product range to the gaming crowd. ASUS NL always has a great booth at the Firstlook trade show and a little show by two nutty overclockers always attracts a crowd. Time to head off to the Jaarbeurshallen in lovely Utrecht.

Read more: Firstlook 2013 @ Madshrimps

HIS Radeon R9 280X IceQ X2 Video Card Review @ Benchmark Reviews

Since AMD announced their GPU 14 R9 series video cards, AIB partners have been tweaking and tuning their own aftermarket designs. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the HIS Radeon R9 280X iPower IceQ X2 Turbo Boost 3GB video card. As the name suggests, this particular model features the high end IceQ X2 cooler from the HIS labs and slightly faster Core and Memory speeds. I have seen the evolution of this cooler first hand and I know it to be fully capable. Two 89mm dual axial fans and five heatpipes (2 x 8mm and 3 x 6mm) ensure that your temperatures will stay well within safe limits, even during overclocking.

Read more: HIS Radeon R9 280X IceQ X2 Video Card Review @ Benchmark Reviews