Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including Intel NUC KIT D54250WYKH Review, GIGABYTE GTX 780 GHz Edition Review, Oculus Rift's 'Crystal Cove' prototype tickles our rods and cones, AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7 Graphics Comparison, and iPhone 5S vs Nexus 5 vs Galaxy S4 head-to-head review



Intel NUC KIT D54250WYKH Review @ Legit Reviews

In our September 2013 review of the Intel NUC Kit D54250WYK we told you that Intel was coming up with a version that had an enclosure that was large enough to fit a 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD. In October 2013 we were able to get our hands on some early images of Intel NUC KIT D54250WYKH, which is the sku for the taller chassis that comes with the wiring to install a 2.5-inch notebook drive into the NUC for extra storage. Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show we were handed the Intel NUC KIT D54250WYKH, so after waiting patiently for five months we finally have a unit in our possession! Read on to see what the changes are!

Read more: Intel NUC KIT D54250WYKH Review @ Legit Reviews

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review @ HiTech Legion

I just finished binge watching “Dexter”. All eight seasons in a few weeks. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and was equally surprised that I had never thought to watch before. After all, it seems that everything I watch seems to involve characters suffering from PTSD somehow. The one thing that did start to irk me was how much they played up his attempt to balance being a serial killer with having a normal life. I mean, seriously, it’s kind of a given that those aspects are going to be at odds, there was no need to keep mentioning it. In addition, the fact of the matter was that he was doing a pretty good job of compartmentalizing the two until it kept getting thrown in his face.

Read more: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler Review @ HiTech Legion

Sapphire Radeon R7 260X OC Review @ TechwareLabs.com

If you haven't been following AMD lately with their recent branding and product nomenclature changes at the end of last year, than you might not be aware that the bevy of products released recently are nothing more than existing products simply renamed and pricing adjusted. With that said, today we will be looking at the Sapphire Radeon R7 260X OC, which is essentially a renamed Radeon HD 7790 with TrueAudio support enabled, and higher GPU clock rate. Is there enough here to get excited with the new naming over? Let's find out.

Read more: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X OC Review @ TechwareLabs.com

GIGABYTE GTX 780 GHz Edition Review @ Vortez

We last took a look at the NVIDIA GTX 780 when GIGABYTE sent us their OC (Overclock) version. Today's sample looks strikingly similar save for one key factor, this version has a much higher factory overclock. As the name suggests, this GTX 780 is pre-overclocked not only to 1GHz but a full 20MHz past that mark resulting in a GPU Boost 2.0 speed of 1071MHz! This makes the 'GHz Edition' the fastest NVIDIA GTX780 mass produced.

Speed is nothing without cooling and as you would expect, GIGABYTE have seen fit to include not only their amazing Windforce 3x heatsink but also a very swish backplate.

Read more: GIGABYTE GTX 780 GHz Edition Review @ Vortez

ARCTIC P402 BT Bluetooth Headset Review @ FunkyKit

I have been fond of music ever since I was a youngling. As long as the music had a melody and a good rhythm, I was entertained. I even remember when I received my first portable cassette player and headphone set; wherever I went, my music went with me. The only problem were the cables. No matter how hard I tried to prevent damage to them it seemed that it was inevitable that they break at some point.

Thankfully, technology as a whole is moving toward a more wireless solution. In my humble opinion, this is fantastic and makes much more sense for many devices. Take our tablets and smart phones for example; Bluetooth connectivity has increased our enjoyment of these devices. Most Bluetooth headsets nowadays offer great battery life, range, comfort, and durablity. These headsets are popular for many reasons mainly to free up our hands to do other things while still enjoying our media or carrying on a conversation using our smartphone.
 
Today we will be taking a look at the P402 BT Bluetooth Headset from ARCTIC, who is well known in the world of computer component cooling products; and recently having delved into accessories and more. In an increasingly growing market it will be interesting to see the value and quality that ARCTIC brings to us with the P402 BT.

Read more: ARCTIC P402 BT Bluetooth Headset Review @ FunkyKit

ASUS P9X79-E WS Motherboard @ PureOverclock

Today, we are going to take a look at a board from ASUS that has given the X79 chipset a revision which will push the limits and take full use on Ivy-B E. This is the new ASUS P9X79-E WS motherboard. What does WS stand for? Well this is designed to be a workstation motherboard for those serious video encoders or server and workload crunching. Of course, it makes for a great enthusiast's motherboard too. While this P9X79-E WS (workstation) motherboard is not as mainstream as some of the newer Z87 chipset based boards, ASUS has put together some unique touches to offer better performance and features. Let's dive in a talk more about what this X79 chipset based board can do.

Read more: ASUS P9X79-E WS Motherboard @ PureOverclock

Oculus Rift's 'Crystal Cove' prototype tickles our rods and cones @ The Tech Report

The absolute highlight of last year's CES was getting a first look at an Oculus Rift prototype. Strapping on a Rift for the first time is a mind-blowing experience. It will change your view of what's possible in gaming in the next 5-10 years.

Naturally, then, when it came time to plan for CES 2014, I made sure to schedule some time with the folks at Oculus to see what they—and especially new Oculus CTO John Carmack—have been doing.

Read more: Oculus Rift's 'Crystal Cove' prototype tickles our rods and cones @ The Tech Report

AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7 Graphics Comparison @ Phoronix

The latest benchmarks of the AMD A10-7850K APU to share on Phoronix and to complement yesterday's Windows vs. Linux OpenGL comparison are benchmarks of the APU's Radeon R7 Graphics compared to numerous AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.

For this day-after-launch benchmarking of AMD's Kaveri on Linux is an OpenGL comparison atop Ubuntu of the Radeon R7 graphics and then using the new APU and pairing it with several different graphics cards. The AMD Radeon graphics cards used for this first comparison were the HD 6450, HD 6770, HD 6870, and HD 7850. On the NVIDIA side was the GeForce GT 240, GT 520, and GTX 550 Ti graphics cards. The comparison was limited to the modern low-end and mid-range graphics cards that I have available on hand.

Read more: AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7 Graphics Comparison @ Phoronix

Zalman LQ315 Liquid Cooling System Review @ Frostytech

Zalman released three water coolers in the hand of PC enthusiasts earlier this year, in this review Frostytech is testing out the LQ315 model - the middle child as it were. The LQ315 ships fully assembled, plumbed and filled with a coolant. It installs onto Intel socket LGA115x/1366/2011 and AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 processors. It uses a 120mm wide aluminum heat exchanger equipped with a single 120mm PWM fan that operates at 2000-900RPM. The pump/waterblock is built around a novel micro-skived copper base plate that is connected to the heat exchanger via a 30cm length of flexible rubber tubing.

Read more: Zalman LQ315 Liquid Cooling System Review @ Frostytech

ASUS Xonar U7 Echelon Edition Review @ Kitguru

Last year ASUS enjoyed both public and critical success with their Xonar U7 USB sound card. For the enthusiast user demanding higher grade sound quality, adding an external DAC can be a good investment. Driving an expensive audiophile grade pair of headphones from the basic sound chip on a motherboard can also lead to less than optimal results. Asus have addressed this as the Xonar U7 incorporates a dedicated headphone amplifier. Priced at only £80 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-90YB00BB-M0UC00-XONAR-U7-ECHELON/dp/B00HASV12Q) , it won't break the bank either.

Read more: ASUS Xonar U7 Echelon Edition Review @ Kitguru

Dell Venue 8 Pro and Venue 8 Do Windows and Android @ HotHardware.com

Dell has something for everyone with its Venue 8 tablets, which come in both Android and Windows 8.1 flavors. The Venue 8 is the Android-based model, while the Venue 8 Pro runs the full version of Windows 8.1. Dell isn't the first to put Windows 8.1 in an 8-inch form factor, but the field is still relatively new and small, so the Venue 8 Pro has been getting a fair share of attention. We checked out both models to see how they compare to each other and their competition...

Read more: Dell Venue 8 Pro and Venue 8 Do Windows and Android @ HotHardware.com

Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X @ LanOC Reviews

Although all of the R9 270X’s and R9 280X’s that we have covered have been extremely exciting, especially the Toxic cards, to date we hadn’t had a chance to take a look at the newest cards from AMD. Today we finally have that chance. Sapphire sent over their R9 290 Tri-X for us to put through our tests. The Toxic cards have dominated in our other reviews so I am extremely interested in how well the 290 Tri-X will perform with it sharing a very similar cooling design. With high expectations, let’s jump into it and let the numbers do the talking.

Read more: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X @ LanOC Reviews

MSI Z87 MPower Max Review @ ocaholic

With the Z87 MPower Max, MSI has a rather interesting motherboard in its portfolio, since there are features relevant for overclockers as well as gamers. For overclockers there is for example a 20 phase power design and gamers will love the beefed-up audio as well as the Killer network chip.

Read more: MSI Z87 MPower Max Review @ ocaholic

TP-Link TL-WR1043ND v2 review: excellent follow-up @ Hardware.Info

When we reviewed the first generation TL-WR1043ND back in 2010 we gave it a Silver Award. It would become one of the most popular TP-Link routers, perhaps even the most popular one. It was very affordable and packed a lot of power, including gigabit network ports, and you could install dd-wrt and other open source firmware on it.  It made the TL-WR1043ND very popular among the real router enthusiasts who enjoy managing every single aspect of their home network.

Read more: TP-Link TL-WR1043ND v2 review: excellent follow-up @ Hardware.Info

Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 Motherboard Review @ KitGuru

Today we are going to take a look at the Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 motherboard, aimed at those looking to build an AMD APU based system with a limited budget. This particular motherboard is a bit of a departure from the usual high end product we are used to receiving from Gigabyte and we are interested to see how it overclocks, especially when factoring in the companies excellent reputation.

Read more: Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 Motherboard Review @ KitGuru

XMG C703 Laptop Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

Enter XMG and their C703 which is the focus of our review today. We will be putting it through a selection of synthetic and real world tests including Call of Duty Ghosts and Assassins Creed 4.

Read more: XMG C703 Laptop Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition X79 Review @ Guru3D

ASUS recently released an update to their Rampage IV series motherboards with a black edition. It's big, fast, black and has tweaking written all over it. The board is just gorgeous and totally pimped out with an OC dock and even stuff like Wireless AC. Today we review the product armed with a Core i7 4960X (Ivy Bridge-E) processor onto this seriously high-end LGA2011 infrastructure. Can we overclock it? Yes we can! The motherboard is of course powered by the X79 chipset, which received a new boost once Ivy Bridge-E was released. We will test the Rampage IV Black Edition with an Intel Core i7-4960X (Ivy Bridge-E) which is an update to the true high-end six-core processor series aimed at consumers. A processor that is now smaller, based on 22nm technology that comes with most of the bells and whistles we have learned to like and love of the initial Ivy Bridge processor generation.

The Rampage IV Black Edition is an E-ATX form factor motherboard based on the Intel LGA 2011 Core i7 infrastructure (Ivy Bridge-E) processors. Armed with eight DIMM sockets it can hold a nice 64GB of DRAM (DDR3 2800MHz+, overclocked) and it supports up to 4-way graphics card (multi-GPU) setups.

The Rampage IV Black Edition is a whole new product, so do not compare it with the previous model really.

Read more: ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition X79 Review @ Guru3D

iPhone 5S vs Nexus 5 vs Galaxy S4 head-to-head review @ V3

We compare the three heavy hitters in the smartphone market     

The question of which smartphone to buy is a tricky one. This is because, thanks to fragmentation in the market, pretty much every single vendor has something unique to offer consumers.

This phenomenon remains true in the current market that's dominated by Apple, Samsung and Google, with their respective iPhone 5S, Galaxy S4 and Nexus 5 flagship smartphones having their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Read more: iPhone 5S vs Nexus 5 vs Galaxy S4 head-to-head review @ V3

Sony Smartwatch 2 Review @ The Inquirer

Sony's wearable sequal fends off competition from Samsung's Galaxy Gear     

Read more: Sony Smartwatch 2 Review @ The Inquirer