Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AmazonBasics Xbox One Headset Review
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X vs. Intel Core i5 8600K: the best gaming CPU in the year 2018
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2 vs. Intel Skylake-X: Battle of the High-End CPUs
Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ Review
Best Memory 2018: Fast, Cheap and RGB
Cooler Master ML360R RGB AIO CPU Cooler Review
Corsair K70 MK.2 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Review
CORSAIR STRAFE RGB MK.2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Dell XPS 15 Laptop Review
Etymotic ER3XR Review
Fnatic miniSTREAK Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Gigabyte UD Pro 512GB Review
Intel SGX Breached by New Speculative Execution Exploit
Kingston UV500/480G SSD Review
Nanoleaf Rhythm Edition Light Panels Review
Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 Review
OneCast for iOS Review
Phantom Doctrine Review
Raijintek Orcus 240 AIO Cooler Review
Searching for the right poolside portable speaker
SteelSeries Rival 600 Gaming Mouse Review

AmazonBasics Xbox One Headset Review

This Xbox One gaming headset from Amazon provides great entry-level audio for cheap.

For Xbox One accessories, the growing "AmazonBasics" line is among the best when on a budget. Backed by one of the world's largest retailers, the range strips products down to basics, while still maintaining a benchmark for quality and features. Amazon generally delivers on this claim, through its controllers, chargers, and more for the platform.

Read full article @ Windows Central

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X vs. Intel Core i5 8600K: the best gaming CPU in the year 2018

AMD has released their second generation Ryzen processors and Intel has upgraded its Core i5 line to six cores. Which one should you go for in 2018, if you want the best gaming performance? Hardware.info has the answer!

Enough commotion in the processor market lately. Last year AMD fought back with Ryzen and Intel gave its mainstream processors more cores for the first time since the Core 2 Quad (from 2006!). Meanwhile, Ryzen 2 has been on the market for a while, where most of the teething troubles of the first generation are gone. In addition, Intel completed its Coffee Lake lineup a month or two ago.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2 vs. Intel Skylake-X: Battle of the High-End CPUs

It's one of the greatest questions of our time: AMD or Intel? Today, that rivalry has entered a new stage of Cinebench taunting as AMD's 2000-series Threadripper processors, commonly known as Threadripper 2, come to market to compete against Intel's Skylake-X series.

The high end desktop (HEDT) segment is the land of stupid-high prices, with the $1,999 Core i9-7980XE capping the top of Intel's line and the $1,7999 Ryzen Threadripper 2 2990WX serving as AMD's halo product. These chips straddle the line between professional workstation-class products, like Intel's Xeon W line, and the upper end of the desktop PC stack. For prosumers and creators, like the streamers and video producers of the world, this class of processor is worth the premium.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ Review

In the realm of gaming monitors, the long awaited Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ is something truly special. This is the first G-Sync HDR monitor on the market, sporting top-of-the-line specs like a 4K, 144Hz IPS panel with 1000 nits of peak brightness and 384-zone backlighting. It’s basically the highest end monitor you can get right now, with proper support for HDR and never before seen refresh rate capabilities at this resolution.

It’s also the most expensive monitor you can get right now outside of high-end professional monitors, and certainly the most expensive gaming-class monitor, at $2,000. This makes it roughly twice as expensive as the next most expensive gaming monitor, so you’d really want it to tick every possible box and last for many, many years without needing an upgrade.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Best Memory 2018: Fast, Cheap and RGB

Whether you’re building a new system or upgrading an older PC, the best RAM kit for your money depends on the platform you pick and the software you plan to run. The easy part comes from nearly universal adoption of DDR4 a few years ago. DDR3’s last gasp in the desktop world was Intel’s 6th-generation Core (Skylake) series and AMD’s Socket AM3+ and FM2+ interfaces. The move to AMD’s AM4 and Intel’s Kaby Lake platforms made DDR4-2133 compatible with nearly every recent motherboard (though you may occasionally find a DDR3 board hanging around in a bargain bin).

The hard part is understanding when faster RAM matters. If you’re running an Intel-based PC with an add-in graphics card, most programs won’t respond in a meaningful way to faster or slower system memory. A few will scale upward with data rate to the highest possible speeds, including some games and programs like the file compression program 7-Zip.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Cooler Master ML360R RGB AIO CPU Cooler Review

If it is Frag Harder Disco Lights you want, then Cooler Master ML360R RGB All-In-One CPU liquid cooler has that in spades. RGB is nice and all, but how does this AIO do where the rubber meets the road? We strap the ML360R RGB to our highly over-volted and overclocked Ryzen 7 processor and find out.

Read full article @ HardOCP

Corsair K70 MK.2 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Review

What is the main reason to spend money on a “gaming” mechanical keyboard vs a regular keyboard? With membrane based gaming keyboards, your purchase depends mainly on features that you can only utilize during gameplay. But with a gaming mechanical keyboard, your priorities in performance to value are more broad. You’re looking for a long life keyswitch that offers tactile feel and a comfortable typing experience as well. This is what we should all look for in a gaming mechanical keyboard, does the K70 MK.2 live up to these expectations? We’ll find out in this article for Benchmark Reviews.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

CORSAIR STRAFE RGB MK.2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

It may not be as elegant as the K70 RGB MK.2 but the brand new STRAFE RGB MK.2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard again by CORSAIR could be a far more interesting solution for people looking for a quieter typing experience without sacrificing quality and features in the process.

What are your priorities when out to get a brand new gaming keyboard? Is it the brand name and type/brand of its mechanical switches at the top of that list or do you care most about single/RGB lighting? Perhaps you are after extra features like dedicated media and macro keys or do you just want a high quality keyboard which will last for many years to come? The truth of the matter is that nowadays there's so much variety when it comes to keyboards which results in people having a hard time picking the ideal one for their needs. Just visit any forum on the internet (or even Reddit) and chances are you will immediately come across several threads about which keyboard to get or which keyboard is the best for gamers and/or professionals etc. CORSAIR has been among the leading gaming peripheral manufacturers in the world for quite some time now and after testing their latest MK70 RGB MK.2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard we also got our hands on the brand new STRAFE RGB MK.2 model.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Dell XPS 15 Laptop Review

The Dell XPS 15 is a powerful, well-built machine with long-lasting battery life and a vibrant 4K display option. Power. Class. Endurance. The Dell XPS 15 ($999.99 to start, $1,499.99 and $1,999.99 as tested) offers them all. Dell’s premium mainstream notebook is a reliable, solid choice with its attractive design, vivid display options and long-lasting battery life. Toss in an 8th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q GPU, and you get really solid performance for creative professionals and those who want power in their portable notebook. But if you rely on the built-in webcam, everyone will have a great look at your nostrils.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Etymotic ER3XR Review

Etymotic's ER3-series in-ears aim to bring their ER4 design into a lower price category. Priced at $179, the ER3s are nearly half the price of the ER4-series in-ears, and their specification sheets show that they are not far off. We take a good look at the new in-ears to see how they fare against their bigger brethren.

Etymotic was one of the first companies to produce a really great-sounding in-ear with the ER4S. That was over 20 years ago and now, they have released a new "baby" ER4 dubbed the ER3. Last year, we had the pleasure of reviewing the new ER4XR and ER4SR which both lived up to their name and then some. The ER3 is Etymotic's attempt at creating an ER4-type in-ear at a lower price. Where the new ER4 models retail for around $349, the new ER3 models will retail for just $179.

Since Etymotic has never been much for lowering their quality standards in terms of sound, they had to look elsewhere. The ER3 ships with a smaller bundle which depending on your ears and needs might go by totally unnoticed. In order to get ER4 tech down in price, some of the less essential things have clearly either been omitted or had their acceptance criteria reduced.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Fnatic miniSTREAK Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

Our only foray into Fnatic keyboards up until today has been with the RUSH G1 Silent keyboard. In that designs, we saw a typical keyboard design with sharp corners, a two-piece plastic frame, and while there were some standalone features other keyboards may not offer when compared against the masses of other options, it is hard to separate the RUSH from all of the others. The reason we bring all of this up is that with the newest keyboard to hit the desk for testing, that oversized chunkiness has been tossed out the door in favor of a sleeker, lighter, and more portable solution.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Gigabyte UD Pro 512GB Review

Gigabyte is known for its top-quality Ultra Durable motherboards, graphics cards, and recently its premium AORUS gaming brand, but just like other companies, the company is hungry to expand. With the help of Phison, the company developed a new line of UD PRO SATA SSDs in 256GB and 512GB capacities. The UD PRO is another entry-level option to choose from, but our testing of the 512GB capacity revealed that while it delivers better performance than a hard drive, it’s not as good as similarly-priced SATA SSDs and lacks many of the add-on features that are common with value drives.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Intel SGX Breached by New Speculative Execution Exploit

With the release of Spectre and Meltdown, the floodgates have opened. Since the reveal of the two speculative exploits last year, more bugs have come out of the woodwork. One recent release was a variant of Spectre targettable over networks. Today, we have a new bug that hits Intel right in the jaw. Dubbed Foreshadow by researchers, the new exploit targets the supposedly secure SGX function on Intel CPUs.

SGX or Software Guard eXtensions is a new feature Intel introduced with Skylake and Kaby Lake. SGX allows the creation of Trusted Execution Environments or TEEs. These TTEs are created using SGX to create a secure enclave. Due to this secure enclave, blocks of memory or code is supposed to be protected from everything. Furthermore, this includes protection from a hostile kernel, hypervisor or operating system. Foreshadow circumvents this and ploughs right on through into the secure enclave. This feature is great for cloud virtual machines because it protects against hostile hosts and neighbours.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Kingston UV500/480G SSD Review

Prices on Solid State Drives are dropping very quickly and with this drastic change in the industry it is time to think of replacing your junky 'ol spinning drives. It’s no secret that SSDs are going to give you a boost in read and write speeds and also faster access to your files. So what are you still waiting for?

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Nanoleaf Rhythm Edition Light Panels Review

With or without the Rhythm module, Nanoleaf's Light Panels are probably the best HomeKit-enabled wall lights on the market, assuming you like their style and can spend enough to do them justice.

Yes, you're correct: the Light Panels have been around for a while, and even the Rhythm Edition has been out for several months. But having reviewed the LIFX Beam and Tile, and even the Nanoleaf Remote, we realized we hadn't actually covered the Light Panels, despite being pretty popular.

Read full article @ Apple Insider

Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 Review

Noctua’s Threadripper-ready NH-U14S TR4-SP3 offers up big cooler performance in a slim, silent design.

Like its smaller sibling, the NH-U12S TR4-SP3, the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 provides whisper-quiet cooling with big league thermal performance – the kind of overclocked Threadripper performance that sneaks into quality 360 all-in-one cooling performance. Armed with six nickel-plated copper heatpipes and a NF-A15 140mm PWM fan, the AMD-friendly NH-U14S TR4-SP3 is a silent thermal assassin. For Threadripper air cooling, this cooler checks all the boxes for enthusiasts and overclockers alike.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

OneCast for iOS Review

OneCast brings an excellent Xbox One feature to users on iOS.

A great feature of the Xbox One is the ability to stream your gameplay to Windows 10 devices on the same network as your Windows 10 device. OneCast brings that same functionality to iOS, bringing game streaming to your iPhone and iPad.

Read full article @ Windows Central

Phantom Doctrine Review

The Cold War is a perfect setting for video games, thanks to the intrigue brought by the underground conflict between intelligence agencies, proxy wars and so on. While most video games released so far focused mostly on the open war scenarios of the era, few have allowed players to take part in the conflict between intelligence agencies. If you ever dreamed of being a CIA or KGB operative during those turbulent times, you definitely need to take a look at Phantom Doctrine: very few games have managed to get as close as possible to being a spy simulator.

Phantom Doctrine is set at the peak of the Cold War. Players will take on the role of the leader of The Cabal, a secret organization which is charged to prevent a global conspiracy to break out in the open. Players have the opportunity to choose the background of their main character between CIA and KGB, with a third one available after completing the game once, slightly changing the opening sequences of the game, but this doesn’t influence their main task, which is to recruit secret agents with varying backgrounds from all over the world.

Read full article @ Wccftech

Raijintek Orcus 240 AIO Cooler Review

Right off the bat of my review of the Leto Pro RGB, I also received Raijintek's new Orcus 240 AIO cooler. Ok, for the sake of simplicity, and my hands, it's 'Orcus' from here on. This new cooler from Raijintek is, on the surface, your fairly typical 240mm AIO liquid cooler. However, it brings a couple of fairly neat tricks to the party, that I will discuss in greater depth later.

Right away, I need to make a very clear differentiation between the two products. The Orcus 240 'Core Edition' comprises of the AIO itself, some extra coolant, mounting hardware, and that is it. The 'Regular' Edition comprises of all of the above, but also includes 2x RGB PWM fans, an 8 port hub, and remote control (for various ways of controlling the cooler's light show). I believe this is the first that I have seen this approach taken by an AIO product, and it's an interesting concept that appears to cater to two different markets (if you forget about the RGB for a minute).

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Searching for the right poolside portable speaker

So this summer I found myself in an interesting position, up until now my wife and I haven’t had any need for portable Bluetooth speakers, but this year we bought a new house with a pool and have spent as much time as we can out in the pool enjoying the tiny window that Ohio offers for good weather. Well, our Razer Leviathan Mini did the job at first but quickly developed a rattle prompting me to look for a new speaker. What I found was that I really didn’t know what I needed feature wise or how a lot of them compare for audio quality and loudness. So I reached out to both the LanOC social media pages (Facebook and Twitter, join us!) as well as my own Facebook as well and asked what everyone was using. There were a few that were mentioned a lot or came highly recommended, I reached out to a few companies and here we are. Ultimate Ears, a subsidiary of Logitech sent two speakers, Creative sent one, and Braven sent one as well. There were others but remember Ohio summers are so short I had to get out testing and not wait any longer. So I’ve been testing these portable speakers and today I want to dive into their features and how each of them performed.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

SteelSeries Rival 600 Gaming Mouse Review

Assuming you can run your chosen game acceptably, one of the first hardware upgrades you should look into should actually be a proper gaming mouse. Whether you're just getting into PC gaming or simply starting to take it more seriously, a good mouse will make the biggest change in your ability to interact with the titles you want to play. It doesn't have to be fancy; six or seven buttons and a top-class sensor are all you need. If you want to get fancy, though, there are options like SteelSeries' Rival 600.

Read full article @ The Tech Report