Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB SSD Review
Antec P100 Midi Tower Review
ARM lays the foundation for a data center invasion
Asus PCE-AC68 802.11ac Dual-Band PCI Express Wireless Adaptor Review
Asus Z97-A Review
ASUS Z97-A Review
AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC Review
Bayan Audio Soundbook Wireless Bluetooth Speaker Review
Core i7 4790 and ASUS Z97-A and Z97 Deluxe motherboard Reviews
EKWB R9 295X2 water block pictured in full details
Even More Insane Network Messes!
EXT4 vs. XFS vs. Btrfs HDD Benchmarks On Linux 3.15
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX Case Review
GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK Review
Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Review
Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK Black Edition Motherboard Review
Intel Core i7-3930K 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling
Intel Z79: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1, MSI Z97 Gaming 5 and ASUS Maximus VII Hero Review
Intel Z97 Motherboard Round-Up: EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte
Kubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr Review
MSI Z97 GAMING 5 (Intel LGA 1150)
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard Review
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Review
MSI Z97 GAMING 7 Review
Patriot Viper SODIMM PC3-12800 2x8GB Review
Portal on the NVIDIA SHIELD for $9.99
Seagate Desktop HDD 5TB review: first 5TB hard drive
This is Intels 9 Series chipset
Video preview: CMStorms QuickFire Rapid-i mechanical keyboard
Windows 8 April update - Wheres my menu?
Windows Phone 8.1 Tip: Pin Cortana to Your Start Screen
XMG P304 Gaming Laptop Video Review

ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB SSD Review

It'€™s been awhile since weâ€'ve had an ADATA product on our bench and today we’ll be looking at the ADATA Premiere Pro SP920 512GB SSD that is powered by the Marvell 88SS9189 controller that we'€™ve seen on a few drives now and know to be very effective. The performance numbers depend heavily on the drive capacity but the 512GB version we received is rated for 560MB/s reads and 500MB/s writes with IOPS numbers reaching 98K/88K for reads/writes. Read on to see how it performs!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Antec P100 Midi Tower Review

A few days ago a friend of mine decided to go out and purchase several hardware components to build a small HTPC to place right next to the TV set he has inside the living room. The problem was that since he's not much into mITX and mATX mainboards (neither am i to be honest) he had to find the ideal ATX compatible midi tower that would feel right at home in his living room both in terms of design/appearance and of course low noise levels. Unfortunately although the market is filled with a virtually infinite number of PC Cases there aren't that many midi towers that feature noise-absorbing coating so it did prove to be a somewhat difficult search. Antec sent us their latest and quite elegant P100 Midi Tower roughly a month ago so the moment he called asking for my opinion on the matter i knew exactly what to recommend.

Antec, Inc., is the leading global brand of high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) markets. Founded in 1986, Antec is recognized as a pioneer in these industries and has maintained its position as a worldwide market leader and international provider of efficient, quiet, and reliable products. Antec has also achieved great success in the distribution channel, meeting the demands of quality-conscious system builders, VARs and integrators. Antec’s offering of enclosures includes a large range of cases, such as its technically advanced Performance One Series, cost-effective New Solution Series and server grade cases designed for the needs of all workstation and server markets. Antec’s products also include front line power supplies such as its TruePower Quattro Series and EarthWatts, the most environmentally friendly power supplies available. PC gamers are an increasingly significant consumer of performance components, and many Antec products are geared toward the gaming demographic, like the Nine Hundred, the premier gamer enclosure. Antec also offers a computing accessories line comprised of many original products, including its patented LED Fans and Notebook Cooling solutions. Antec is headquartered in Fremont, California, with additional offices in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, as well as in Germany, China and Taiwan. The company’s products are sold in more than 40 countries throughout the world. Please visit www.antec.com for more information.

Read full article @ NikKTech

ARM lays the foundation for a data center invasion

The announcement that AMD is building a high-performance, ARM-compatible CPU core is just one more entry in a swarm of ARM-based hardware preparing to challenge Intel's supremacy in servers.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Asus PCE-AC68 802.11ac Dual-Band PCI Express Wireless Adaptor Review

Following on from my review on Asus’ top performing wireless AC router, the RT-AC68U that we looked at not too long ago, it is only worth us taking a closer look at what makes this next generation wireless adaptor tick. Unless your laptop or desktop system has built-in wireless, there is one of two main options out there for you to choose from in order to add the freedom to your system that is wireless networking. The first of these methods is to get a USB based device which is a simple device with very little setup required – literally plug it in, install the driver and you’re away. In addition a USB adaptor is compatible with both notebook and desktop systems and they are not overly expensive either. Like most things though there is a downside to going down the USB path; whilst they are able to deliver some highly respectable levels of performance, the antenna is either very small, or internal to the adaptor and therefore signal strength can be an issue.

The second main path to go down when going wireless is go with a PCI Express add-on card; obviously there is the immediate downside in that you’re not going to shoehorn one of these into your notebook system – so it’s USB only on that one I’m afraid, but for the desktop system there are a couple of perks in going down this route. The first of these is that you don’t lose another USB port on the rear or front of your case, but more importantly the antennae are bigger and on the PCE-AC68 there are three of them with a magnetic base plate on offer to maximise the signal strength and speed of your connection to the router. Sounds good huh?

Read full article @ eTeknix

Asus Z97-A Review

Intel's Z97 chipset is here. Asus goes in heavy. Getting the obvious out of the way, the 9-series Asus boards look a heck of a lot better than the overly-yellow, gaudy offerings from last year. This time around, the design is understated and rather more functional-looking.

There's not a whole lot of innovation left in ATX motherboard design. What we're really looking for are genuine differences between this and last year's board. Asus has redesigned the chipset heatsink into a low-profile, fanless model that catches the eye, replacing the square heatsink of the Z87-A.

Read full article @ Hexus

ASUS Z97-A Review

In the first of our ASUS Z97 motherboard reviews for the Intel 9 Series launch we focus our attention on the mainstream segment. For us, it’s essential to look at this category because computer hardware affordability is key for a huge number of interested parties and many system builders simply desire to step-up to this new line in a bid to gain compatibility for forthcoming Intel 5th Generation Processors.

The Z97-A may be an entry-level Z97 motherboard but it is by no means boring. Styled with ASUS’ new black/gold theme, this new motherboard has been furnished with a variety of high-end features including Crystal Audio 2, SATA Express and M.2 to name just a few. Additionally one of the major attractions with Z97-A is the price, but will a lower price-tag mean a sacrifice in performance?

Read full article @ Vortez

AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC Review

If you are in the market for a compact, yet powerful, watercooled system – but don’t want to build it yourself, then today’s review may just tickle the taste buds. The AWD Ignis Aqua 290X 250D Mini ITX PC is built around a Core i5 4670k processor – overclocked to 4ghz. Graphics are handled by the very capable AMD R9 290X, which is also supplied in a heavily overclocked state. The whole system is watercooled with XSPC kit … featuring ‘blood red’ fluid. Is it all worth the £1,499 asking price?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Bayan Audio Soundbook Wireless Bluetooth Speaker Review

I am not a fan of Bluetooth speakers primarily because sound reproduction just didn’t represent what music was supposed to sound like. For this reason, I haven’t reviewed one before today. It is definitely not for lack of opportunity as these are the most popular gadgets seen at any tech event and there are 7-8 of them floating around our office at any given time. I have never been one to write a report on hardware without merit however, so for each my communication return to the companies discussed my concerns and an offer for us to return the product. My first official review of a BT speaker occurs in this report which, in itself, says something for the Bayan Audio Soundbook BT Speaker.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Core i7 4790 and ASUS Z97-A and Z97 Deluxe motherboard Reviews

The Haswell refresh is officially here and as such today we review the all new Intel Core i7 4790 processor. Join us as we look at the performance of this CPU in a wide variety of benchmark, will it be noticeably faster then say a Core i7 4770 ? Well today we will seek & find an answer to that. As you guys know Z97 and the Intel refresh of their Haswell processors has been anything from a well-kept secret, up-to the tiniest little details have spread on the web. Today the 11th of May 2014 however is the official date for the desktop side of the launch. This month a number of things are going to happen. You'll notice the new Haswell based processors, mostly all of them merely have a small 100/200 MHz clock frequency increment for a tiny boost in performance. However you'll notice an extensive wave of H97/Z97 motherboard releases as the manufacturers are releasing some really cool stuff alright. And then roughly in the Computex timeframe you are going to see releases of the K series Core i7 and i5 processors. These will be interesting for the performance mongers amongs us, the overlocker processors. The upcoming K model processors have been developed under code-name Devil's Canyon. They have an improved heatspreader & thermal insulation material in that CPU package that is going to cool these processors much better once you pump extra volts in them. But that is for a later article, of course, as the processors announced today are all non-K models.

So what is being released today processors wise ? Well, basically the entire existing Core processor lineup will receive small incremental clock frequency increases. These are as big as say 100 to 200 MHz. Other then that it is the very same Haswell processor that you might already have inside your system. On the desktop side you will see a new non-K flagship CPU, the 3.6 GHz Core i7-4790, this is the processor being tested today in this article. But also some low power variations of it (the 65 W TPD 4790S and the 45 W 4790T are being released). There are a dozen new Core i5 processors as well. As you guys know Haswell is a hint faster over the last generation (Ivy Bridge), not heaps though. Intel is facing the same problem that AMD stumbled into with their FX series processors. Injecting more and more transistors into a 22nm die will further complicate things. Next to that, the PC market has been changing and Intel is adapting to that. We see much smaller form factor computers including everything from a HTPC, to a small desktop PC to the latest tablets and upcoming detachable solutions. And as such, Intel's focus was to design an architecture that on the desktop side would make it the fastest four-core processors, yet also needed to be more energy efficient and offer a faster graphics solution for their mobile and tablet segment. That compromise my friends, is Haswell. Slowly but steadily processors get more and more features embedded; processor, graphics, chipset features, memory controllers and now also voltage regulation. As such it is safe to state that with Haswell, desktop processors really are SoC (system on a chip) parts as well. Haswell is a family of processors that use a 22nm FinFET process, opposed to Ivy Bridge which might have been the first family of 22nm products, but really was a die shrink of the 32nm Sandy Bridge, and not so much a new revolutionary design. For the desktop platform there will be one line that describes Haswell best, the Haswell architecture will be a small step forward in performance, a big step in IGP performance and a (positive) step down in power consumption, all are good things.

Read full article @ Guru3D

EKWB R9 295X2 water block pictured in full details

Today we got some beautiful and exclusive pictures of the upcoming EK-FC R9295X2 water block which is fresh under the hammer from EK Water Blocks.


Soon to be launch, the new EK-FC R9-295X2 is based on a full cover design, which means it will not only cover the cooling of both Hawaii XT GPUs but also deal with temperatures produced by memory and the hefty VRM part on the Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU flagship.

As you can see from those pictures below, the EK-FC R9-295X2 will be available in a couple of visually different SKUs.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Even More Insane Network Messes!

Back in March we found some of the crazies network messes ever and since that time we’ve had quite a few submissions of really bad network messes. While most system administrators like a nice and clean cabled cabinet of servers, it does not always work out that way. So we have compiled another post of some of the most insane network messes ever! Enjoy!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

EXT4 vs. XFS vs. Btrfs HDD Benchmarks On Linux 3.15

After earlier in the week delivering solid-state drive file-system benchmarks in comparing the Linux 3.15 FS performance to Linux 3.14 stable, now it's time to do a Linux 3.14 vs. 3.14 file-system performance comparison with a traditional hard drive. The file-systems being benchmarked here are EXT4, XFS, and Btrfs.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX Case Review

Enter Fractal Design’s Node 804. While it isn’t an exact scaled-down replica of cases like the Carbide Air 540 or HAF XB, it still uses a cube/split chamber layout – this time in a micro-ATX size. With dimensions of 344 x 307 x 389 mm or 13.5 x 12.1 x 15.3 inches (WHD), the Node 804 is just a bit wider than a BitFenix Prodigy and almost exactly a third larger than the Node 304 (in the height and width dimensions – depth differs by only 15mm). The Node family is designed with a focus on Home Entertainment; with the vast array of fan, radiator and storage combinations that are possible the Node 804 could easily take on any number of roles. Benchmark Reviews has received the Node 804 for some testing, so let’s take a look at the newest member of Fractal Design’s Node family.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK Review

The G1 Series has been GIGABYTE’s gaming line for numerous generations but has been accustomed to the loud and exuberant luminous green but things are about to change with the new Intel 9 Series motherboards. Just like many of the other Intel partners, GIGABYTE are using the Z97 inauguration to freshen up the product line. But GIGABYTE hasn’t just changed the theme of their gaming motherboards, they have also been insistent on including a number of noteworthy features.

The Z97X-Gaming G1-WIFI-BK Black Edition is a premium motherboard designed primarily for gamers. One such feature which diversifies this offering is the integration of the PLX 8747 chip which paves the way for greater bandwidth over the four PCI express slots which accommodate 4-way SLI/CrossfireX. Being a “Black Edition” motherboard, also means higher grade components throughout and so this new Z97 motherboard is packed with innovation, creativity and performance – are you excited? Cause we sure are!

Read full article @ Vortez

Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Review

Gigabyte's overclocker-friendly Z97 motherboard goes under the spotlight. The arrival of Intel's Z97 chipset has manufacturers clamouring to get boards ready for launch. All the usual suspects are on board, and Gigabyte, as you might imagine, has a complete roster of Z97 solutions, ranging from the Mini-ITX Z97N-Gaming 5 to the overclocker-orientated ATX Z97X-SOC Force.

The Taiwanese firm will, it seems, have a Z97 board for everyone, but it's the mid-to-high-end Z97X-UD5H that may be the most appealing to budding enthusiasts looking to put together an Intel Haswell-based rig.

Read full article @ Hexus

Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK Black Edition Motherboard Review

Intel’s Z97 chipset has arrived, bringing with it a handful of new features, including native support for PCIe-based storage. Motherboard manufacturers have been busy working on their boards based on the 9-series chipset. As of May 11th, the LGA 1150 socket motherboards with Z97 and H97 chipsets are available to purchase.

We analyse Gigabyte’s upper-mid range Z97X-UD5H-BK Black Edition motherboard to see what features it and the Z97 chipset bring to the table.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Intel Core i7-3930K 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling

In our 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate 3-way SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds. In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference 3-way SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz. Let's kick off with an Intel 3930K CPU and three ASUS GTX 780 DirectCU II graphics cards and find out what the differences are going to be like.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Intel Z79: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1, MSI Z97 Gaming 5 and ASUS Maximus VII Hero Review

So for some time now we have known that the next generation Intel chipset was on the way and today it properly launches under the Z97 branding. We have three boards to run through our performance tests today, all with completely different approaches to Z97 and they are Gigabytes Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK, the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 and the Maximus VII Hero from ASUS.

Read full article @ Hardware Heaven

Intel Z97 Motherboard Round-Up: EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte

Although Intel isn’t quite ready to take the wraps off of its updated Haswell-based processors (codenamed Devil’s Canyon) or its next-gen Broadwell-based processors, the company is at the ready with a brand new chipset that ups the ante in terms of features and overall performance. Intel’s 9-series chipset isn’t quite as extensive as previous families (there are just two options at this time), but the new capabilities it brings to the table will be welcomed by everyone from hardcore overclockers to IT types and business users.

We tested a quintet of Z97 based motherboards from MSI, EVGA, and Gigabyte, using Intel’s current flagship Haswell-based processor, the Core i7-4770K. The Z97 Express chipset was designed to be a modern companion to Intel’s high-end Haswell-based desktop processors, that adds more high speed SATA ports and M.2 / SATA Express SSD support, but it is also ready for next-gen Broadwell-based processors...

http://hothardware.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=efc4c507c2cf964fc2462caca&id=a9853f6ef6&e=0c004f9c13]Read full article @ HotHardware.com[/url]

Kubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr Review

The spring hunting season continues with a review of Kubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr 64-bit Long Term Release (LTS) edition with KDE desktop, tested and installed in a dual-boot configuration with another Linux distribution on a laptop with Nvidia graphics, covering live session, install and use, including look & feel, Wireless (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth, Samba sharing, partitions setup, installation & slideshow, account and home directory reuse, applications, package management & updates, Nvidia drivers setup, multimedia playback - Flash and MP3, system stability, suspend & resume, resource usage, problems like no Steam in the official repository, some application errors, broken printing over Samba, broken desktop effects, no webcam utility, and more. Have fun.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

MSI Z97 GAMING 5 (Intel LGA 1150)

Fresh on the market in just the past few days is Intel's Z97, and I get to take my first look at MSI's new Z97 GAMING 5, built from the ground up for gamers looking for great features at a great price. Featuring a new esthetic design as well as a host of new features.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard Review

MSI received great critical and public acclaim with its Gaming range of motherboards, based on Intel’s 8-series chipsets. Aiming to repeat that success with Intel’s new 9-series chipsets, we analyse MSI’s Z97 Gaming 5 motherboard to see if it can set off where its predecessors left.

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Review

Word on the grapevine is that Intel will roll out its Haswell Refresh processors at the start of June 2014, putting the chips in full view at the annual Computex trade show in Taiwan. The new parts, codenamed Devil's Canyon, will be clocked slightly higher than their current-generation equivalents, but the key ingredient for overclockers is the promise of an improved thermal interface material that should help eke out every last drop of performance.

Intel claims the chips are "re-engineered for enhanced performance and overclocking," but while we await the Haswell Refresh goodness, we have a new chipset to whet our appetite in the interim . It's dubbed Z97, and takes the place of outgoing Z87 as the go-to solution for enthusiasts building a high-performance Intel PC.

We've already spoken about some of the available enhancements - namely M.2 and SATA Express - now let's see how well MSI can put it all together in one of the company's launch-day boards, the Z97 Gaming 5.

Read full article @ Hexus

MSI Z97 GAMING 7 Review

In recent years MSI have dedicated time and resources to the GAMING line, which encompasses a wide range of PC components designed and optimised specifically for gamers. GAMING components complement each other aesthetically and feature-wise, and are often built to the same high quality and performance requirements; a system decked out in MSI GAMING hardware will be easy on the eye and offer killer frame-rates.

The Z97 GAMING 7 sits in the mid-upper tier for the range, surpassed only by the Z97 GAMING 9 before MSI transitions to their premium OC range. Despite this it is priced below £140 whilst still being chock full of propriety features in addition to those present as standard on Intel's Z97 chipset. Featuring high speed M.2 storage support, Killer NIC and propriety AudioBoost 2 technology, it is unsurprisingly expected to be a worthy débutante in the Z97 launch.

Read full article @ Vortez

Patriot Viper SODIMM PC3-12800 2x8GB Review

A story is told of a person who survived a bear attack with a .380 handgun. Basically, a man was hiking through the woods with his girlfriend. As they traveled down the path, a bear attacked them. The guy, acting cleverly and decisively, quickly pulled out the firearm. He then shot his girlfriend in the leg, and escaped out of the woods, completely unharmed. Another story goes along the line of two engineering students discussing how one got such a nice bike. "I was walking outside yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, 'Take anything you want!'" The second engineering student nodded in approval. "Yeah, the clothes would not have fit anyway." Both of these stories tell us that sometimes, we can miss the point so badly, it actually makes sense... for a completely different reason. In a similar way, back in the days, heatspreaders were used on performance desktop RAM to cool integrated circuit chips (Actually, we can all agree it is mainly marketing, but nevertheless, it still kind of does its job). Soon, companies like Kingston found out it was actually a great idea to slap them on their HyperX for laptops. Later on, people complained the extra thickness caused compatibility issues with some systems, so Kingston and G.Skill resorted to using stickers, like the Ripjaws SODIMM we have reviewed last year. Basically, we went from nothing to having real aluminum heatsinks, and now we down to stickers that carries only the aesthetics offered by heatsinks, but without the (negligible) cooling advantages it offers. Are we completely out of it? Patriot does not think so. Equipped with ultra thin aluminum heatspreaders, we took on a set of Viper SODIMM PC3-12800 2x8GB to see if you can really make sense of both worlds.

Read full article @ APH Networks

Portal on the NVIDIA SHIELD for $9.99

When Valve brought Portal out in 2007 it revolutionized what one expected from first-person puzzle-based video games. The game offers challenging puzzles to players that are based on physics and reality. Why are we talking about Portal today? Valve will be releasing Portal for Android devices on May 12th for $9.99 on Google Play. It turns out that most of the development work was done by NVIDIA as they wanted to bring big name game titles like Portal and Half-Life 2 out for NVIDIA SHIELD owners...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Seagate Desktop HDD 5TB review: first 5TB hard drive

Seagate's Desktop HDD 5TB, which is also known as the ST5000DX000, is the first hard drive with a storage capacity of 5TB to hit the market. At the time of writing, this drive is not yet being sold separately, but it is available as part of a NAS from subsidiary LaCie. We removed the drive from the LaCie 5big NAS and ran our standard test suite on the disk.

It took long enough, but a new milestone in hard drive capacity has finally been reached. Back in May 2012, we tested the first 4TB drive...

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

This is Intels 9 Series chipset

A new wave of Intel motherboards is upon us. Here's what you need to know about the 9 Series chipset on which they're based

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Video preview: CMStorms QuickFire Rapid-i mechanical keyboard

CMStorm's new QuickFire Rapid-i keyboard is all about the light show—in addition to being a darn fine mechanical keyboard—which is why we're bringing you our impressions on video. Have a look.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Windows 8 April update - Wheres my menu?

Here's a short article about the April 2014 Windows 8.1 update, the changes, the anticipated Start Menu return, and more. Why now, a month later? Why not. You get the news on your news sites, and you get your fine rants on Dedoimedo. Ergo, read.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Windows Phone 8.1 Tip: Pin Cortana to Your Start Screen

I've been holding off on discussing Cortana too much before I learn the ins and outs of this incredible new feature in Windows Phone 8.1, but here's one tip that will benefit even the Cortana newbie: You should pin Cortana to your Start screen because it behaves differently when you do so.

Read full article @ WinSupersite

XMG P304 Gaming Laptop Video Review

Today we have a 13.3" gaming laptop up for review by Kaeyi, the P304 features the NVIDIA GTX 860M graphics chip and Core i7 processor, watch the video below.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com