Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Corsair Carbide Spec-Omega Mid-Tower Case Review
Crucial MX500 500 GB Review
Gigabyte Z370N WIFI Review
GTX 1070 Ti Overclocking Guide
HyperX Cloud Revolver Gunmetal Review
Intel plans to leverage iGPUs for virus scanning duties
Intel's NUC8i7HVK "Hades Canyon" gaming PC reviewed
Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic Review
NZXT Kraken X72 Review
Samsung Galaxy S9+ Review
SilverStone Redline RL07 Computer Case Review
Ubuntu 18.04 Beta - The good, the bad and mostly ugly
WD My Cloud Pro PR4100 40TB Review
WD Purple microSD Cards For 4K Surveillance Revealed

Corsair Carbide Spec-Omega Mid-Tower Case Review

At CES 2018 Corsair once again presented a range of updated and new products geared at expanding their product line with new and innovative ideas. While we are still in the half of 2018, Corsair has already launched several new computer cases, Obsidian 500D, Carbide 275R and the Spec-Omega. Today, we will be taking a look at the Spec-Omega (specifically the White model with part number CC-9011119-WW), a Mid-Tower ATX case, that features a Tempered Glass side panel, built-in LED lighting on the front panel, and an angular design for a unique look.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Crucial MX500 500 GB Review

Crucial's MX500 SSD was released in December of last year and is the first TLC drive that offers convincing performance that's similar to what MLC drives offer. Our initial review was of the 1 TB variant. Today, we take a look at the 500 GB version.

Just like its bigger 1 TB brother, the Crucial MX500 500 GB uses an SMI controller instead of the Marvell chips we saw on earlier MX-Series drives. It also uses Micron's own 64-layer 3D TLC NAND chips, which is a first for the company. While TLC chips provide cheaper cost per Gigabyte over more traditional MLC NAND, they also come with lower write performance. In order to work around that, Crucial designates a small, variably sized amount of memory as SLC cache, which writes a single bit to each TLC cell instead of three. While much faster, such a setup is basically a speed vs. size tradeoff. According to Crucial, the SLC cache is variably sized to provide the best performance.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Gigabyte Z370N WIFI Review

Every enthusiast loves building their own PCs. I’m sure most of our readers have their own, custom built PC. Most of which are either mid or full-tower PCs. However, over the last few years, there has been a surge of small form-factor builds and components to the market. Whether it’s due to the rising popularity of LAN parties, or just to save some space on their desk, many people are opting for MATX and ITX form factor builds these days. But, doesn’t cutting down the size of your motherboard cut features and even performance from your system? If you ask Gigabyte, they say no. I’ve always been a fan of their Z series ITX motherboards going back to the Z97N WIFI. The latest in this line-up is the Z370N WIFI. This board comes packed with all the features you’d expect from a Z series motherboard including dual M.2 slots with SATA and PCIe Gen 3 X4 support, USB 3.1 Type-C, RGB Fusion, and Smart Fans 5 to name a few. But you can pack all the features into a motherboard you want, it all comes down to performance. So, we put the Z370N WIFI through our suite of intensive benchmarks. Let’s see how it did.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

GTX 1070 Ti Overclocking Guide

After you have mastered the basics of overclocking, there are a few tricks left to try for squeezing every last megahertz from that video card. As explained at the beginning of this guide, NVIDIA has provided the ability to break the traditional linear voltage to clocked speed ratio and allows for a non-linear approach. When you move the core clock slider with any overclocking software, it is automatically creating a voltage curve to reflect those settings. If you want to manually fine-tune those settings or create your own non-linear curve the option is available. Although not all the overclocking software provides the options to use a custom curve profile, both MSI and EVGA do include it.

Read full article @ OCC

HyperX Cloud Revolver Gunmetal Review

Kingston has released another studio-grade HyperX Cloud Revolver Headset, the Cloud Revolver Gunmetal. On the surface, one would think the only difference is the color. However, during the review I’ve discovered some other slight differences that change the dynamics of this headset. In this article for Benchmark Reviews, I’m going to be putting the Cloud Revolver Gunmetal Headset through it’s paces, and compare it directly to it’s predecessor, the original HyperX Cloud Revolver Headset.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Intel plans to leverage iGPUs for virus scanning duties

Early tests show CPU utilisation drops from around 20 to as little as 2 per cent. The RSA 2018 security conference kicked off yesterday and will run until Friday, so there may be greater than the usual volume of info-sec related news this week. Intel had some ideas to share under the umbrella of Intel Threat Detection Technology (Intel TDT), a set of silicon-level capabilities that will help the ecosystem detect new classes of threats. Furthermore, it outlined Intel Security Essentials, a framework that standardizes the built-in security features across Intel processors.

Read full article @ Hexus

Intel's NUC8i7HVK "Hades Canyon" gaming PC reviewed

Back at CES this year, one could say that Hades finished freezing over when Intel revealed the full details of its first products with its own CPUs and Radeon graphics on board. As a brief refresher, eighth-gen Core G-series parts join quad-core Kaby Lake CPUs with a Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics processor and 4 GB of HBM2 RAM, all on one package. Intel added another dash of silicon exotica to G-series CPUs by using one of its Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridges (EMIBs) to snug that HBM2 RAM right up against the Radeon RX Vega M GPU itself.

Intel touted a few design wins for Kaby-G processors at CES, but the most interesting among them was its own Hades Canyon NUC, also known as the NUC8i7HVK. This tiny gaming system displaces just 1.2 L, but it houses the most powerful G-series CPU so far: the Core i7-8809G. With a 100-W package power rating to share between a four-core, eight-thread CPU and Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics, plus fully-unlocked CPU, graphics, and memory multipliers, the i7-8809G is easily the most tantalizing implementation of this unholy union for enthusiasts.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic Review

The Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic is not simply an updated version of the existing PC-O11. It is a unique beast of its own that essentially only shares its timeless looks with the current variants. Thanks to the input of German pro-overclocker der8auer the PC-O11 Dynamic aims to offer loads of radiator support, while allowing for an uncompromising choice of high-end hardware.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

NZXT Kraken X72 Review

NZXT just super-sized their Kraken series liquid coolers, meet the x72 for cases with 280 mm radiator mounts. This new cooler is compatible with CAM software. This allows you to program, customize and monitor this all-in-one liquid cooling solution for your processor. Armed with three 120mm PWM fans and a nice radiator to go with it, the performance is really good, next to being extremely silent, NZXT probably has got the best-LED lighting system implementation in the industry as well.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Samsung Galaxy S9+ Review

In the Android world, there is no bigger event than Samsung's yearly launch of their latest Galaxy S devices. It is also one of the earliest on the year cycle with the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ arriving at MWC in late February. Both devices present iterative updates for 2018, with upgrades on most fronts along with some neat feature additions as well as more gimmicky ones.

Read full article @ TechSpot

SilverStone Redline RL07 Computer Case Review

The SilverStone Redline RL07 features a stylish design combined with an adequate feature set.

Gamers mainly have three ways to enjoy games: Consoles, computers, and mobile devices. Game consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox are machines that only run their dedicated software. It is not likely one can use gaming consoles for any productivity work, unless they were to do some major modding. Computers, however, are much useful in a sense they can be used them for both recreational and productivity activities. On the other hand, a mobile device such as cell phone is even more portable and it too can be used in gaming and non-gaming use cases. It seems one should at least have a computer and a phone. Ideally, both the computer and the phone are powerful enough to run some games, so the user can play games anywhere. However, if you are a poor student like me, owning a high-end gaming computer and a nice gaming phone is a luxury. It would be nice if one device can be both a phone and a computer. Some endeavors from Razer and the Project Linda do exactly this by combining a laptop-like case with their phone. I believe the price for both of the phone and the case combined is less than buying a gaming laptop and a flagship phone. Thus, it seems there is no point for gaming laptops anymore, since it is foreseeable the phone will cannibalize this market. However, the opposite transformation is not possible. If you think a phone is not powerful enough for games, then building a gaming desktop computer would still be a good choice. At least the fun of building your own system should not be taken away, right? For today’s review unit, the SilverStone Redline RL07 is ready for you if you want to build a gaming desktop. Let us read on and find out if it is a good choice!

Read full article @ APH Networks

Ubuntu 18.04 Beta - The good, the bad and mostly ugly

Blue Monday. Dedoimedo sadly approves of this short and extremely negative preview of Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver beta release, focusing on some new features and numerous problems and regressions, covering encryption, online accounts, Livepatch, software management inconsistencies, broken Samba, broken UI, slow performance, and more. We're not going to have a fun distro season, it seems.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

WD My Cloud Pro PR4100 40TB Review

The My Cloud lineup from WD has evolved over the years, starting with personal storage in the My Cloud home and Mirror to the power user platform in My Cloud Expert EX2 and EX4100. The highest end of this portfolio includes two models, the PR2100 and PR4100 with each having several capacity options.

Turn-Key platforms are gaining popularity for both home and small businesses as the potential cost savings of building your own has dwindled over the years thanks to new technology. The My Cloud platform looks to emphasize this by offering a range of capacity options within each model allowing consumers to buy in to the platform at a low-cost relative to their budget.

Read full article @ TweakTown

WD Purple microSD Cards For 4K Surveillance Revealed

Optimized for 24/7 surveillance video capture, the new WD Purple microSD cards support a continuous surveillance workload. They can capture and preserve video in a variety of high-definition and next-generation formats, including 4K Ultra HD video.

The rugged and humidity-resistant design of the new WD Purple microSD cards enable video capture in a wide range of environmental conditions, including outdoors in snowy winters and indoors in hot and humid factory settings.

Read full article @ TechARP