Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AMD Athlon X4 845 CPU Review
AMD has Zen ready for demo
Best Smartwatches of 2016: Best for iOS/Android users, fitness-centric and luxury pick
Broadwell-E: Intel Core i7-6950X, 6900K, 6850K & 6800K Review
CPU Cooler Comparison 2016 Part 2
G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200 MHz 32 GB (2x 16 GB)
Intel Announces Xeon E3-1500 v5: Iris Pro and eDRAM for Streaming Video
Intel boosts the high-end desktop with its Broadwell-E CPUs
Intel Broadwell-E i7-6950X & i7-6900K Review
Intel Core i7 6950X Broadwell-E (10-core) CPU Review
Intel Core I7 6950X Extreme Edition Broadwell-E CPU Review
Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition 10-Core CPU Review: Broadwell-E Arrives
Intel i7-6900K Review
Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake CPUs coming later this year
LG 34UC98 34-inch Curved FreeSync Monitor Review
MicroSD memory cards review: 48 models compared
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
NVIDIA GTX 1070 Review - The Revolution Continues
SilverStone Strider Titanium Series 800W SST-ST80F-TI Power Supply Unit Review
Silverstone Tundra TD02-E CPU Cooler Review: An Affordable, Quieter 240mm AIO Option
The Intel Broadwell-E Review: Core i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7-6800K Tested

AMD Athlon X4 845 CPU Review

Earlier this February, AMD presented a press update for Q1 2016 highlighting the new processors, thermal solutions, motherboards, etc. to their desktop lineup. The first slide (seen below) shows these updates starting with 3 new processors -- two new APUs (A10-7860K, A6-7470k) and the Athlon X4 845 CPU.

On the second side you will note that the Athlon X4 845 CPU uses “Evacuator” Cores with a base frequency of 3.5 GHz and a Turbo mode clock of 3.8 GHZ, but the PCI Express 3.0 support is limited to x8. Then on the third slide we learn more about some features of the ‘Evacuator” core: its improved caches, better branch prediction, new instruction support and support for modern standby low power modes (for longer battery life).

Referring back to the first slide, one of the items listed is the new AMD thermal solutions for the A10, A8 and Athlon X4 processor lineups. Note that the thermal solution shown in the slide is the Wraith cooler, and is not part of the new Athlon X4 845 CPU (at the time of the original printing it only came with the FX 8370). The 845 CPU comes with one of two new "near-silent" 95W thermal solutions, distinguished by a red-colored 70mm fan.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

AMD has Zen ready for demo

Big hopeMultiple independence sources have confirmed that AMD has Zen x86 prototype chips ready for demonstration, and they might even be displayed tomorrow during the Computex 2016 press conference here in Taiwan.

The Zen processor will officially come at later date, toward the later part of the year at the earliest, and it should be competitive.AMD was always communicating that the company should launch the Zen processor before the end of 2016, but of course, this is the best case scenario.We have heard that Zen performance should be competitive with Intel's high-end desktop (HEDT) Broadwell-E lineup, but it is not clear exactly how good the processors are going to be. AMD won’t share much about the performance of these parts, since it still has Bristol Ridge, a mainstream part that is already live at the company’s website and marketed as a 7th generation APU series.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

Best Smartwatches of 2016: Best for iOS/Android users, fitness-centric and luxury pick

Smartwatches are not a 'must-buy' for most people at current prices and with their current capabilities, but if you are set on getting one, there are a handful of things to consider such as compatibility and key features. Here are our picks in four distinct categories: best for iPhone users, best for Android users, best fitness-centric smartwatch and our luxury pick.

Read full article @ Techspot

Broadwell-E: Intel Core i7-6950X, 6900K, 6850K & 6800K Review

Is Broadwell more attractive to enthusiasts without graphics and up to 10 Hyper-Threaded cores? We test against two previous generations, plus Skylake to find out.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

CPU Cooler Comparison 2016 Part 2

Recently we have published a CPU CPU cooler comparison with many coolers. Today, there is an overview with selected coolers from Arctic, Cooler Master, Cryorig, Enermax, Intel, Scythe and Thermaltake, tested on an Intel Core i5 system in the second part of the cooler chart. So you can easily find the right air cooler or AIO water cooler for your AMD PC or Intel PC and get a quick comparison of the cooler test results.

Read full article @ OCInside.de

G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200 MHz 32 GB (2x 16 GB)

With memory capacities soaring, G.Skill sent us a huge 32 GB kit out of their Ripjaws V line-up, ready to be mated with Intel's Skylake processors. This two-stick kit from G.Skill is not only huge in capacity at it is also very fast at 3200 MHz.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Intel Announces Xeon E3-1500 v5: Iris Pro and eDRAM for Streaming Video

The rise of video stream services, especially live services, has accelerated the need for dynamic and on-the-fly conversion of video content and the infrastructure to do so. Moving from HD to FHD and 4K as well as 360-degree video requires a lot of immediate compute power in order to keep up with the event being filmed, as well as keeping enough quality in tow to maintain the user experience. Traditionally there are three ways to do this: raw CPU horsepower, FPGAs, custom fixed-function ASICs, or GPUs. In line with this, Intel is releasing their new E3-1500 v5 series of processors with a primary focus on Intel Quick Sync. These are Skylake based CPUs, using four cores with hyperthreading, but are backed with Iris Pro graphics with the 72 execution units available and a redesigned embedded DRAM to accelerate computation over the previous generation.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Intel boosts the high-end desktop with its Broadwell-E CPUs

Intel's Broadwell-E desktop CPUs offer more cores at the top end of the lineup, process and architectural improvements, and a clever new method of boosting single-threaded performance. Join us as we take a look at the highlights of the company's biggest, baddest high-end desktop CPUs yet.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Intel Broadwell-E i7-6950X & i7-6900K Review

Intel’s high end desktop platform has been stagnant since Haswell-E launched in August of 2014 and while nearly 2 years may seem like an eternity for industry watchers, the new Broadwell-E processors are seeking to make up for lost time. From a company whose next moves are typically telegraphed well ahead of time, it is sometimes hard to generate any type of excitement around these launches but this time there’s certainly a few elements that will cause even the most jaded of folks to sit up and take notice. It all starts with the first 10-core, 20-thread chip available to desktop users: the positively insane i7-6950X.

Ah Broadwell-E….where do I start describing what Intel’s transitional microarchitecture has been through to get to this point? Due to a set of unforeseen and likely pretty darn serious mishaps its initial desktop lineup never got past an infantile state before being replaced with the Skylake platform. Haswell’s erstwhile 14nm LGA1150 desktop replacement has soldiered on in relative obscurity with a pair of SKU’s: the i7-5775C and i5-5675C. To this day they represent Intel’s proving ground for high level Iris Pro graphics rolled into a compact and pretty efficient desktop package. Their stillborn capabilities also offer a tantalizing look into what Team Blue could accomplish if they were sincerely interested in torpedoing AMD’s APU lineup.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Intel Core i7 6950X Broadwell-E (10-core) CPU Review

Intel’s decision to skim over “Broadwell” CPUs on the mainstream LGA 115x platform meant that prior to today, the High End Desktop Platform (HEDT) was 2-generations behind the mainstream, and in need of a revamp.

The latest architecture from Intel, “Skylake”, has been with us since August 2015 on the mainstream platform but HEDT users have had to “make do” with Haswell-E since August 2014. Today Intel reduces the architectural gap back to 1 generation with Broadwell-E.

Read full article @ Kitguru

Intel Core I7 6950X Extreme Edition Broadwell-E CPU Review

While you have a bit of financial pain moving to the latest and greatest Extreme Edition processors, you are guaranteed a specific performance window for doing so. In my testing, I found there were very few scenarios where the Core i7 6950X did not exceed the performance of the previous generation Haswell-E Core i7 5960X. In just about every test, the additional core count and Turbo Boost speeds helped out performance. From rendering tasks to gaming, the Core i7 6950X does a great job leveraging the core count of the processor. Where the largest performance gaps were found were in the single threaded applications where the lower base core clock is to blame. That all can be fixed with some overclocking of the core and ring bus. Overclocking does indeed add another layer of performance to the equation with by core overclocking the ability to modulate the amount of core clock speed you can bring to the party for heavy AVX based loads. That's just another layer to peel back and explore in our Core i7 6950X overclocking article coming soon.

Read full article @ OCC

Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition 10-Core CPU Review: Broadwell-E Arrives

It was all the way back in August of 2014 that Intel officially launched its Haswell-E based Core i7 series processors and its companion X99 chipset. At the time of its release, Haswell-E’s top of the line, 8-core Core i7-5960X was easily the most powerful processor for multi-threaded workloads on desktop systems, though its somewhat lower frequencies allowed higher-clocked mainstream Core i7 series processors to pull ahead in single or lightly-threaded tasks.

For roughly 21 months, the Core i7-5960X has remained Intel’s flagship Extreme Edition processor. Of course, we had more than a hunch a successor was in the works, and got to show you some enterprise-class Broadwell-E based processors in the interim. In addition, Intel has since released its mainstream Skylake-based Core series processors as well, but a true successor to the Extreme Edition remained relegated to the rumor mill – and Intel’s performance labs – until now. Today, Intel is taking the wraps off of an entire family of Broadwell-E based Core i7 series processors, led by the new flagship, Core i7-6950X...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Intel i7-6900K Review

It’s that time again… the NDA has expired on a new range of Intel products and this time it’s the high-end of the CPU market which is getting some love. For everyone who loves their X99 systems on socket 2011-3 Intel is releasing the refresh for Haswell-E, Broadwell-E. With unlocked CPUs, loads of cores and a nice clock speed bump or two, they should be of interest to all enthusiast users. Today in our Intel Core i7-6900K Review we take a look at one of those new high-end products and see how it fares against the best of the last generation, the i7-5960X.

Read full article @ Hardwareheaven

Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake CPUs coming later this year

At its Computex 2016 keynote, Intel announced that its 7th generation Kaby Lake processors will be available to consumers by the end of the year. Mass production of the processors will commence on the 14nm node starting next month.

Read full article @ Windows Central

LG 34UC98 34-inch Curved FreeSync Monitor Review

Today we're checking out LG's latest curved gaming monitor: the 34UC98. It's an IPS screen with 3440x1440 pixels, FreeSync, a 75Hz max refresh rate and MaxxAudio-tuned speakers.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

MicroSD memory cards review: 48 models compared

If you don't have sufficient storage space on your smartphone, you'll usually be able to upgrade it with a MicroSD memory card. However the differences between microSD cards are not always as clear as they should be. In order to shed some light on this matter we're testing 48 microSD modules with a capacity between 32 and 200 GB and support for the UHS-I bus in this review.

MicroSD cards are impressive because you can store a huge amount of data on such a tiny card: the model with largest capacity in this test has a capacity of a whopping 200 GB and models a storage capacity with 512 GB have already been shown off. However since the cards are so small, which makes installing and uninstalling them quite tedious, we consider them a semi-permanent storage expansion for a device that doesn't come with a lot of storage space by default. The amount of such devices is increasing every day due to the rise of mobile devices.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070

Just two short weeks ago we got our first taste of what Nvidia’s upcoming GeForce 10 series has to offer, as we were finally able to reveal the GeForce GTX 1080 benchmarks. Touted as a replacement for the GTX 980, the 1080 proved to be a considerable upgrade, offering around 60% more performance without the trade-off of increased power consumption...

The improved efficiency is what impressed us the most, as the 1080 delivered a performance per watt ratio previously unseen. Of course dropping down to the 16nm FinFET process was expected to deliver greater efficiency, but even so we weren’t expecting such huge improvements coupled with such a massive performance increase.

Read full article @ Legion Hardware

NVIDIA GTX 1070 Review - The Revolution Continues

How long has it been since you upgraded your system or a single component? One year, two, three? Actually latest studies show most mainstream users upgrade every four years. Seem like a long time? Yes and no, since PC desktop technology and applications haven’t been evolving at a rapid rate due to the advent of mobile computing. Even though we are only part way through 2016, many interesting new technologies and applications have emerged that are desktop related. Of course we are talking about gaming but what else is there after email, Facebook and streaming videos?

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

SilverStone Strider Titanium Series 800W SST-ST80F-TI Power Supply Unit Review

If you're a gamer or an enthusiast then you know that the hottest PC hardware right now is the brand new GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 graphics cards by NVIDIA not only because of their new technologies and performance levels but also because of their incredibly low power requirements. Still even though graphics card power requirements seem to decrease as time goes by that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to invest on a high performance and quality power supply unit. Now it did take a bit longer than we were expecting for the top-of-the-line 80 Plus Titanium Certified power supply units to make their debut in the market but right now there are quite a few of them available and one of them is the brand new Strider Titanium Series 800W SST-ST80F-TI model by SilverStone.

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.

Instead of releasing yet another full sized power supply unit (180mm long) SilverStone decided to "invest" on a smaller form factor model with the Strider Titanium Series 800W SST-ST80F-TI model (just 150mm long). Of course that doesn't mean this line has anything to be jealous of from full sized PSUs since aside its 80 Plus Titanium efficiency certification and full modular design it also features a peak output of 850W, single powerful +12V rail (66A) capable of delivering up to 93% of the units peak output (792W), 120mm fan, flat modular cables for increased airflow inside the case and an assortment of electrical protections including OCP (Over Current Protection), OPP (Over Power Protection), OVP (Over Voltage Protection), SCP (Short Circuit Protection), UVP (Under Voltage Protection) and OTP (Over Temperature Protection). So on paper the Strider Titanium Series seems to be the ideal PSU for use in small PC cases but just how well does it perform?

Read full article @ NikKTech

Silverstone Tundra TD02-E CPU Cooler Review: An Affordable, Quieter 240mm AIO Option

Silverstone Technologies has made quite a career making cooling solutions for the PC DIY market. Their solutions are also quite often a unique alternative with out-of-the-box oriented ideas and far from having a "me too" design philosophy. With the all-in-one liquid cooling solution's popularity, Silverstone also has thrown their hat in the ring with alternatives from the typical Asetek OEM.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

The Intel Broadwell-E Review: Core i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7-6800K Tested

What would you do with more CPU cores? This is a question I see posted from an Intel employee on a yearly basis, and it actually is a difficult question to answer depending on your computing background. A gamer might not need more than four or six, and a number of workstation use cases are now GPU accelerated. Anyone never in a pure compute situation might not need more than four or six cores. So what: virtual machines, complex encoding, or non-linear functional compute? How many cores are too many? Intel has recently released the Broadwell-based Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors, running up to 22 cores, and the smaller silicon die used for the 10-core parts has today filtered down to the prosumer and high-end desktop (HEDT) markets in four different parts. We managed to source all four for this review.

Read full article @ Anandtech