Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

4K Gaming PC - May 2017
AMD focuses on Zen X86 this year
Corsair Glaive RGB Review
EVGA Hydro Copper GTX 1080 Waterblock
Fractal Design Focus G ATX Case Review
Fractal Design Focus G Review
G.Skills Ripjaws KM570 RGB gaming keyboard reviewed
GeForce GTX 970 & Radeon R9 390: Are They Still Game?
Intel to Make Thunderbolt Royalty-Free
MSI B350M Mortar Motherboard Review
Pushing Intel Optane Potential: RAID Performance Explored

4K Gaming PC - May 2017

After a few years in which little happened in the area of PC displays, the 4K revolution is finally taking place. Graphics cards have to render four times as many pixels to drive a 4K display, while the game textures are only getting more detailed. In short: you need real horse power to game in 4K.

A fast processor and especially a graphics card is a must. However, the rest of the configuration needs to be balanced as well. Since many gamers prefer to overclock their PC to improve performance, it is important to choose a motherboard that is suitable for this.

Having the right accessories is equally important. The goal of our 4K Gaming PC is to be able to run virtually all new PC titles on the highest settings. That means high graphics quality settings, a good frame rate, and surround sound. And let’s not forget a good gaming mouse and a decent keyboard with features to enhance your PC gaming experience. Besides that, a nice gaming monitor will also help bring your gaming experience to the next level.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

AMD focuses on Zen X86 this year

We were puzzled by the fact that Forrest Norrod SVP and general manager, Enterprise, embedded and semi-custom business group didn’t  talk about ARM based server products.
AMD had a K12 ARM based SoC that it simply stopped mentioning a while ago. Back in late 2015 we wrote a piece stating that sources close to the matter claimed that Jim Keller, a chief architect of X86 Zen architecture was not a big fan of K12. Last year, AMD said that the focus is on the Zen core and that K12 will be delayed. 

Read full article @ Fudzilla

Corsair Glaive RGB Review

The Glaive RGB is Corsair's latest gaming mouse. This particular product combines a very attractive design with good build quality and interchangeable thumb rests. Apart from that there is an optical sensor with 16'000 DPI resolution. We're actually pretty curious to find out if the Glaive RGB is able to convince us or not.

Read full article @ ocaholic

EVGA Hydro Copper GTX 1080 Waterblock

The EVGA Hydro Copper GTX 1080 is a full-cover waterblock that offers integrated lighting with no cable management needed, a six-port I/O port manifold, and an aluminum front cover for aesthetics and rigidity alike. It also aims to simplify installation by incorporating pre-installed thermal pads out of the box.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Fractal Design Focus G ATX Case Review

Fractal Design Focus G is a new family of budget cases from the Swedish hardware company. This Focus G model is an ATX design while Focus G Mini is Micro-ATX and unusually both cases are priced at US$50/GBP£48.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Fractal Design Focus G Review

Fractal Design released the Focus G series chassis. Armed with a budget price this is a silent, decent looking and compact PC chassis series. The predominantly black and chassis (optional colors) comes with enough cooling options, your average FD design and it will house up-to ATX motherboards. It has an plexi glass side panel and two LED lit fans at the front.

Read full article @ Guru3D

G.Skills Ripjaws KM570 RGB gaming keyboard reviewed

G.Skill's KM570 puts an everything-you-need, nothing-you-don't board in the company's gaming-keyboard quiver. We tried out this distilled gaming board to see whether it has what it takes to stand out in a crowded field.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

GeForce GTX 970 & Radeon R9 390: Are They Still Game?

Earlier this year we decided to dust off the venerable GTX 980 Ti along with the Radeon R9 Fury X to see how they were getting on it modern titles and what, if anything, had changed. Since then we've had loads of requests to create a similar article comparing the Radeon R9 390 and GeForce GTX 970. So that's exactly what we're doing.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Intel to Make Thunderbolt Royalty-Free

Thunderbolt is one of the most flexible data delivery mechanisms ever developed: it boasts of both enormous versatility and performance. These connectors have seen increasingly higher adoption rates due to these characteristics, but are still to trickle down towards mid-range and entry-level offerings, which would be certainly some of the products to benefit the most, allowing them to substitute numerous, costly ports for a single jack-of-all-trades connection.

Intel is looking to solve this problem by removing royalties from Thunderbolt, further increasing adoption by integrating controllers within its own processors. The first Thunderbolt 3 "Alpine Ridge" chips, introduced in the third quarter of 2015, were manufacturer's only solution to implement Thunderbolt in their products; an extra chip which added costs and complexity to designs, which ended up limiting adoption to only higher-margin products. With Thunderbolt 3 an integrated part of the processors, those issues largely evaporate, with system builders being freed of having to design accommodations for an extra chip. Intel did not specify which processors would include the controllers or when they will ship, but the company says that it is going to make the Thunderbolt 3 specification available on a non-exclusive, royalty-free basis. Intel could have played towards eliminating the royalties on Thunderbolt 3 but only supporting it on its own processors, but the company has chosen not to do that: the door will be open for AMD and other companies to bake in support for the interface on their own solutions, spurring innovation and, more importantly, driving down costs of adoption.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

MSI B350M Mortar Motherboard Review

Power optimisations and enhanced on-chip capabilities have made AMD’s new AM4 platform a tempting proposition for users who prefer the size benefits of micro-ATX. MSI offers up the £90 B350M Mortar to cater for those users with a 4+2 phase power delivery system and onboard red LED lighting.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Pushing Intel Optane Potential: RAID Performance Explored

Intel's Optane Memory NVMe SSDs may be small, but they pack a strong punch. Combining three in RAID 0 gives you enough space for a boot drive and some programs.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware