Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Asus' ROG Swift PG278Q G-Sync monitor reviewed
AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable Capture Device Review
Deepcool MaelStrom 240 Review
Genius F-1000 Arcade Stick for PC/PS3 Review
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT Motherboard Review
Graphics Card Overclocking Guide Featuring The AMD Gigabyte R9 270
HIS Radeon R9-290X Hybrid ICEQ Review
Kingston SSDNow V310 SSD Review (960GB)
Kingston V310 960GB SSD Review
Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC 3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router Review
PNY GTX 780 & GTX 780 Ti Customized OC Review
Price Is the Only Weapon Chromebooks Have Against Windows
Roccat Kave XTD 5.1 Digital Headset Review
Roccat Kone Pure and Roccat Sense 2mm Camo Charge Review
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Review
Seasonic X Series XM2 1250 W
Zotacs Zbox ID92 mini-PC reviewed

Asus' ROG Swift PG278Q G-Sync monitor reviewed

The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q is the first G-Sync monitor to make its way into Damage Labs, and we've been bathed in the glory of the eye candy it produces. Read on to see what all the fuss is about.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable Capture Device Review

It is popular nowadays to capture your console or PC gameplay and share it with your friends or subscribers. The Live Gamer Portable is a video capture device from AVerMedia, which can capture up to Full HD (1080p) videos with or without a computer, from a video game console or a PC. It is clear from the name of the device that it is aimed at gamers who want to capture and save their gameplay, or even stream it on the web. Let's see our thoughts about this product.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

Deepcool MaelStrom 240 Review

With the Maelstrom 240 Deepcool has an all-in-one watercooler in its portfolio, that comes with the a rather slim radiator and apparenlty two 120 millimeter fans. At a first look the design is looking good while you get a black radiator and a fan with red fan blades. Overall we're curious to see wether this cooler is able to cause some damage or not.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Genius F-1000 Arcade Stick for PC/PS3 Review

Before the advent of online gaming and even before home gaming systems delivered cutting edge graphics to the living room, multiplayer was largely the domain of the video arcade. For the cost of a quarter or two, gamers can go head to head against strangers or friends on arcade machines and find out who is the better player. Unfortunately, the video arcade business is virtually dead these days with only a handful of establishments remaining in North America when they used to number in the thousands. It even feels weird to think that a lot of people under 20 years old probably do not even know what a video arcade is considering how popular they used to be.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming GT Motherboard Review

When you first look at this motherboard you think to yourself is this really a Gigabyte Gaming Motherboard? Yes, Gigabyte has ditched the neon green and black design and has opted to change their gaming line to a red and black design, which is common for gaming motherboards these days. Don’t let the color change fool you this motherboard is packed with features. First and foremost for gamers this motherboard is capable of 4-way multiple graphics card configuration thanks to the PLX PEX8747 chip, it has Killer E2200 networking platform for no-lag gaming, and AMP-UP audio technology for the best game sound. If that is not enough you also have SATA Express, gold-plated display and audio ports, and Gigabyte’s Ultra Durable design so you know this board is built with quality components. Let’s jump in!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Graphics Card Overclocking Guide Featuring The AMD Gigabyte R9 270

Here at eTeknix we serve a wide range of readers: from casual to hardcore PC users as well as gamers, overclockers and more. As a result our readers have differing levels of technical knowledge about a range of different things: today we are covering the field of graphics card overclocking. This article is aimed at a specific set of people, those who have little or minimal knowledge about graphics card overclocking, but we hope that even more experienced overclockers may be able to pick up a few tips or tricks from this article.

To the seasoned PC enthusiast graphics card overclocking is a self-explanatory term but for the casual PC user it may be an alien term, so what does it actually mean? In its simplest form it is about increasing the clock speed (which is measured in frequency) at which your graphics card operates. By default all graphics will ship with two different clock speeds: a clock speed for the graphics card’s core (or engine) and a clock speed for the memory that the graphics card uses.These default clock speeds are referred to as stock speeds. The process of overclocking entails trying to raise any combination of those clock speeds above their stock level, whether that means the core clock, the memory clock or both. Hence the term overclocking is formed from the presumption that you will be clocking your graphics card over its stock levels.

That is of course a very basic explanation so we will bring more details in as we progress through this guide.

Read full article @ eTeknix

HIS Radeon R9-290X Hybrid ICEQ Review

In this review we will benchmark and test the HIS Radeon R9-290X Hybrid IceQ edition. The card uses liquid cooling for the GPU that runs towards a 120mm radiator. The 2816 counting Shader processors based Hawaii chip is paired with a nice 4 GB GDDR5 memory running along a 512-bit memory interface.

The HIS Radeon R9-290X Hybrid IceQ edition will be factory tweaked for you at a very fast clock frequency of 1100 MHz. Ut doesn't stop there though, as the clocks on the GDDR5 memory are set at a 6 Gbps effective data-rate (reference is 5 Gbps). Hmmm, did I just catch your attention? Yeah I figured that much. Let's go and check her out, shall we? So what does a Hawaii GPU bring to graphics cards? Oh, what about 6 Billion transistors on a 438 mm2 Die, 512-bit Memory bus with 4 GB - 6.0 Gbps GDDR5 memory, Ultra HD ready, 5.6 TFLOPS of compute performance? Not bad for keywords, eh? AMD also has been focusing strongly at gaming in Ultra High Definition (UHD), so this will be a focus in our review as well. Will we be able to play the hottest games at that whopping 8.2 Mpixels at a 3840x2160 resolution @ 60 Hz. This Lucifer amongst graphics cards is one of the more high end versions that ASUS has to offer and comes with a customized PCB, a phat dual-slot cooler and for the pro-overclockers: LN2 options. Armed with dual 8-pin power connectors and a Molex connector this board has an impressive yet silent cooler that manages to impress. The card will also have a nice backplate cover to protect the backside SMT soldered components. HIS clocked this 290X towards 1100 Hz on the GPU boost core. That combined with increased core and memory clock frequencies and nice overclock potential will make this the top 599 USD flagship product to purchase.

On the card itself there still is a small fan that blows air over the VRM area and other components. As a result this card will remain under 80 Degrees C at full load, and does so whilst being factory clocked to a nice 1100 MHz. Under SKU code H290XQH4GD the product will be released with 4 GB of graphics memory. The memory is running default at 6 Gbps. The card comes with DVI, DP and HDMi connectors and will be available starting next week. As you can see from our photo's, the cooler is based on the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid VGA cooler. HIS applied two 8-pin PCIe power connectors to the PCB. But let's say hello to the HIS R9-290X Hybrid. This is the 4GB model. Have a peek at the product we test today and then head on-wards into to review.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Kingston SSDNow V310 SSD Review (960GB)

A few weeks back, we published our announcement of Kingstons newest v310 SSD, which features just shy of 1 TB of storage. It was not greeted with open arms. To explain the controversy we were met with from the moment we published this story, the 1TB V310 had a MSRP of $928.00, and random 4K read speeds are stated as (up to) 27,000 IOPS, with random 4K write speeds of (up to) 10,500 IOPS. If you are looking for the slickest and fastest drive on the market today, you can stop reading here. There are other drives available that can achieve higher throughput and at, unfortunately, a lower cost. As we do for every SSD, we requested a review sample nonetheless, and were shocked to find one in the mail just a few days before the Flash memory Summit.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Kingston V310 960GB SSD Review

If you are one of those users who demands a massive primary drive in a system then today’s review will be of interest. We look at the new Kingston V310 Solid State drive, which ships in a whopping 960GB capacity. The big question which we answer today – does it compare well against market leaders such as the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC 3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router Review

Netgear has released their latest flagship wireless router, the Nighthawk X6 R8000 which is an Tri-Band 802.11ac.The Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router, also known as the R8000, is the market’s first tri-band Wi-Fi router and features six high-performance antennas working over three concurrent network bands, one 2.4Ghz and two 5.0GHz for combined speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps (or 1300+1300+600Mbps). Read on to see how it performs!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

PNY GTX 780 & GTX 780 Ti Customized OC Review

After years of being satisfied with championing NVIDIA’s Quadro, PNY is on a mission to enhance their positioning within the gaming GPU market. While cards like the XLR8 series have gone a long way towards legitimizing their current stance, they’re looking beyond being just an afterthought for enthusiasts. The new Customized Series is meant as a large step towards providing the market with something unique while still adhering to PNY’s fundamental principles of excellent customer support and rigorous product testing.

So what makes the Customized all that different? From a specifications standpoint (more on this below) not all that much but where these cards depart from the ordinary is their design. They’re more streamlined and boast a backplate, both of which are elements some buyers are looking for when they put together a build with a large case window. Most importantly, they have a new internal heatsink design and are more affordable than PNY’s highest-end SKU; the Ultimate OC.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Price Is the Only Weapon Chromebooks Have Against Windows

There's a $350 laptop you can buy that was described in the following way in a recent review:

Design: Cheap, net-book like design. Entire thing is made of plastic. Palm rest that flexes when you grip it. [2.8 pounds so] weighty compared to the competition. Slightly thicker too.

Display: Poor-quality display. 1,366 x 768 screen [where if you] dip the screen too far forward, everything very quickly becomes washed out.

Keyboard: Underlying panel will bend a bit if you type vigorously enough. If you hit them too gently, you're likely to suffer some missed key presses. The keyboard probably won't recognize every single keystroke.

Performance: The performance gains here aren't so huge.

Battery: 7 hours and 53 minutes of continuous video playback.

Software: Cannot, in good faith, recommend [the OS] to everyone. There will be people...who need the flexibility to install whatever apps they want.

What would you rate this device? Keep that number in mind.

Read full article @ Techspot

Roccat Kave XTD 5.1 Digital Headset Review

According to the head-honchos at Roccat, the company’s mission is to take the most successful surround sound gaming headset ever and rebuild it from the ground up – adding in a world of innovation. We will be grilling this headset to see if it is worth the additional ~£90 on top of the original Kave we reviewed back in 2011. Will the Roccat Kave XTD 5.1 leave ‘No Sound Unheard’? Let’s take a look.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Roccat Kone Pure and Roccat Sense 2mm Camo Charge Review

While gaming as a whole covers a broad spectrum of genres and styles, there is one common theme that exists throughout a large percentage of titles: that human beings love playing at war. Which is perhaps why Roccat went for this camouflage green colour scheme for its latest edition of the Roccat Kone Pure, combining a relatively modest 5,000 DPI optical sensor with its usual high-end background software for customising your mousing experience.

With such a range of gaming rodents for sale how does this one stand out among its Roccat contemporaries? Let’s see if we can find out.

Read full article @ Kitguru

Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Review

The Radeon R9 290 has been introduced quite a while back and thanks to Sapphire we're finally having a look at the reference model. As you might already know, the card comes with a blower type cooler and clocked at 947 MHz on the GPU and 5'000 MHz for the memory. Overall we're curious to see what kind of damage this card can do.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Seasonic X Series XM2 1250 W

Along with their Platinum units, Seasonic also revamped their Gold-certified line-up, and the fresh X-1050 and X-1250 now get to add "XM2" to their model numbers. In this review, we will evaluate the X-1250 -- its promise is to deliver high efficiency and top performance at an honest price.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Zotacs Zbox ID92 mini-PC reviewed

In recent months, we've reviewed two Gigabyte mini-PCs with Haswell inside. In light of those experiences, we figured we'd take a look at one of Zotac's newest Zbox systems: a 7.4" x 7.4" x 2" machine with a 35W Haswell processor, room for dual storage devices, and generous connectivity.

Read full article @ The Tech Report