Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

All-round Deluxe PC August 2014
Amazon Fire Phone Review, A Dynamic Perspective
bequiet! Shadow Rock Slim Heatsink Review
Corsair Graphite 730T Chassis Review
Digital Storm Bolt II Small Form Factor PC Review
Gigabyte J1900N-D3V Review
Intel Haswell Core i7-4790K vs. i7-4770K Comparison
Intel Haswell-E and X99 Chipset Preview
LEPA G1600 MA EU 1600W PSU Review
MSI GS70 Stealth Pro Review: Gaming Without the Extra Weight and Bulk
Patriot Stellar Boost XT 64GB USB 3.0 OTG Flash Drive Review
Plextor M6 Pro SSD Review
SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD Review
Streacom FC08 Evo Review

All-round Deluxe PC August 2014

The all-round Deluxe PC will last you a few years without requiring any upgrades. It is a bit more expensive, but is very complete as well. Using the internet, gaming, business applications, photo and video editing - all of these are possible on a good all-round PC, and you should never feel that you are lacking in performance for any of those activities.

This means a good processor and graphics card from the upper mid-range segment. Fast, yet affordable. You also need enough RAM and storage space, not to mention an attractive chassis and reliable power supply that can last several years. Of course you need a quality monitor, mouse and keyboard, as these are used very frequently.

This PC will cost more than the standard all-round PC, but it is also more powerful and has higher-end components. If this exceeds your budget somewhat, then you can have a look at out standard All-round PC instead.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Amazon Fire Phone Review, A Dynamic Perspective

Bold. That’s the word that comes to mind when we consider Amazon’s Fire Phone. In a world where precious little has happened in the smartphone space over the past few years, at least in terms of groundbreaking innovation, Amazon’s entrance provides all the spark you need to sit up and pay attention.

So what’s Amazon, predominantly an online e-tailer, doing jumping into this Lion's den of a market space? The Fire Phone is the company’s first foray into the cutthroat world of handsets, but it’s far from its first rodeo in mobile hardware. The company has seen terrific success in the e-reader world with its famed Kindle line, and it has even garnered mainstream respect with its well-priced Kindle Fire tablets. Smartphones, however, are different. The lines in the sand have been drawn, and the new Fire Phone runs a forked version of Android that looks and feels almost nothing like the version you’d see on any other flagship Android phone.

Despite consumers barking for differentiation, the masses continue to buy new iPhones and Galaxy phones to replace older versions of the same families. Is Amazon’s Fire Phone different enough to break the cycle? Let’s find out in the pages ahead...

Read full article @ HotHardware

bequiet! Shadow Rock Slim Heatsink Review

It is not uncommon for companies to have two product lines that essentially do the same thing. Of course there are always differences like the Ethernet controller on a motherboard or the cooler on an overclocked video card. However, under all that you have something that relates to something else that company offers. bequiet!, the German based cooling and power supply manufacturer, is no exception and offers two basic styles to their heatsinks, the Dark Rock and the Shadow Rock.

In this review we will be looking at bequiet! Shadow Rock Slim. This is a medium performance cooling solution based on the Shadow Rock design principles. The focus is to provide the same great cooling performance and just make it less expensive. You get the same bequiet! design but you’ll have to settle for a few sacrifices when it comes to style and cooling capacity.

The Shadow Rock Slim is a tower style heatsink following many of the traditional tower design ideals including push pull fan configurations, smaller profile and good heat capacity. This may come as a surprise but, the Shadow Rock Slim is actually quite small when compared to the other bequiet! coolers we have reviewed.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Corsair Graphite 730T Chassis Review

Hello again readers! Today we have one of Corsair's newest cases out of the Graphite series, the Graphite 730T. This case is the smaller brother of the Graphite 760T, the only difference is that the left side panel (which is shown here as a fully black panel) and on the 760T it is a full windowed one. As a hardware enthusiast, I do prefer the 760T because of the windowed side panel but it still remains an awesome case.

When I built my first computer I was hesitating between the Corsair Obsidian 650D and the Graphite 600T, the latter of which now houses my computer. I am still really happy with my purchase of this case; and although the front fan filter broke off and my mic and audio ports had some issues, Corsair's support service just sent me the replacement parts at no cost to me and I never had to send anything back. That is besides the fact; they make awesome and good looking products, which is why I love Corsair.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Digital Storm Bolt II Small Form Factor PC Review

With the desktop PC market showing signs of faded interest over the past several years, Digital Storm is here to help spark interest to those who are gamers at heart. While at CES 2014, Digital Storm showed us their latest custom PC creation, the Bolt II. This hand crafted beauty is designed and built in the United States, which is a rare thing to find in manufacturing these days. The Bolt II was designed to be a Steam Machine or HTPC, but you absolutely aren’t forced to use it as such. Digital Storm meant for this small form factor PC to be extremely powerful, should you choose to pick out all of the high end goodness. The basic Level 1 system comes with an i5 4590, 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 760, whereas the Level 4 starts off with a 4790k, 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 780 Ti. With that said, you have a ton of customization below, in-between, and even above these specs. Read on to see how the Digital Storm Bolt II performs when we put it to the test.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Gigabyte J1900N-D3V Review

The Gigabyte J1900N-D3V is more than a simple motherboard as it replaces the usual chipset and CPU socket with an Intel Celeron J1900 SoC (System on Chip). Add some RAM, storage and a power source and you have the basis for a compact PC which is pretty good going for a price tag around the £65 mark. Other important points are that J1900N-D3V uses the Mini-ITX form factor and the Celeron chip is passively cooled which means that your new PC will be both small and quiet.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Intel Haswell Core i7-4790K vs. i7-4770K Comparison

Intel released the Intel Core i7-4790K, which created quite the stir with Intel Core i7-4770K owners. Does the Intel Core i7-4790K outperform the Intel Core i7-4770K in every way or does it fall a little flat? If you already own a 4770K, is the upgrade worth it?

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Intel Haswell-E and X99 Chipset Preview

Intel’s 4th Generation Core i7 HEDT (high-end desktop) processors codenamed “Haswell-E” along with the accompanying X99 chipset will be launched at the end of this week. With this launch we will see a whole slew of new motherboards and since this will be the first consumer platform to support DDR4 we will see many new DDR4 modules as well. Today we will be going over what we know about the upcoming processors, X99 chipset, new motherboards and DDR4 memory. If you are interested in the upcoming HEDT platform then this article should give you all of the information that you need.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

LEPA G1600 MA EU 1600W PSU Review

Today we are looking at a high end power supply rated to deliver 1600 watts of power. The LEPA G1600 has been a successful high end product for parent company Enermax – so much so that they have not updated it since the original release in 2012. Available for around £250 inc vat, is this a power supply you should be considering for a new ultra high end system build?

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI GS70 Stealth Pro Review: Gaming Without the Extra Weight and Bulk

Most gaming notebooks have a certain stigma attached to them. While some of the better systems available are more than capable of running the latest graphically demanding PC games out there, they're often hulking beasts that can easily tip the scales at over 12 pounds. That's been changing, however, and the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro on our hands today is another example of powerful gaming laptops steering towards slimmer form factors.

Read full article @ Techspot

Patriot Stellar Boost XT 64GB USB 3.0 OTG Flash Drive Review

Patriot Memory is a well-known flash drive manufacturer. In their offerings we can find various series from the lightning fast Supersonic through to the Lifestyle, Xporter and Mobility lines. Today's review will be based on the Stellar Boost XT USB 3.0 flash drive which is a great example of a mobile product. The drive is equipped with not only a standard size USB port, but also a micro USB which can be used with any smart phones or other mobile devices.

If you wish to know more about this small yet powerful storage device, please stay with us and check out contents of this review.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Plextor M6 Pro SSD Review

The Plextor M6 Pro SSD replaces the M5 series at the top end of their product range and today we have one to review.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven

SanDisk Extreme PRO 480GB SSD Review

One could argue that any SSD will seem like a big step up in performance over a HDD, and I cannot disagree with that fact. There are, however, a few more features that bring the Extreme PRO upwards in the rankings, despite its semi-premium price compared to bottom-barrel value SSDs. First, and probably most importantly, the entire Extreme PRO line is offered up with a 10-year warranty. That in and of itself is enough to make it stand out among the rest of the SSD market. Coupled with the nCache technology for extremely consistent and fast speeds regardless of workload, and you've got a winning combination.

Read full article @ OCC

Streacom FC08 Evo Review

With the FC08 Evo, Streacom has a case in its portfolio which allows for completely passive cooled HTPCs or office PCs. Apart from that you can even assemble quite powerful rigs, since the cooling should be capable of removing up to 95 Watt of heat. At this point we're really curious to see what this case is like using.

Read full article @ ocaholic