Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 Closed Loop Water Cooler Review
Asus Maximus VII Impact
ASUS RAMPAGE V Extreme – The Extreme Enthusiasts X99 Board From ASUS Is Here
Buying Guide: 10 best iPhone camera and photo editing apps
Corsair Obsidian 250D
Fractal Design Define R5 Mid-Tower Case Review
Fractal Design Define R5 Review
G.SKILL Phoenix Blade 480GB PCIe SSD Review
Gaming on the Grid with Nvidias Shield Tablet
How to Restore Oracle Database using RMAN (with Examples)
Lenovo Y70 Touch Laptop Review: A decent all-rounder with a tragic performance bottleneck
Moto 360 smartwatch review
MSI 970 Gaming motherboard Review
Netrunner Rolling 2014.04 - This time, we need the goats
NZXT H440 Razer Edition Case Review
OcUK GeForce GTX 970 NVIDIA 970 Cooler Edition Review
OWC Thunderbay 4 mini Thunderbolt 2 Enclosure Review
PC-BSD 10.1 Review
Synology Diskstation DS115J 1-Bay NAS Review

Antec Kuhler H2O 1250 Closed Loop Water Cooler Review

In early October, a few of my friends, including Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kwan took a road trip up to our neighboring city of Edmonton, Alberta. While Calgary and Edmonton does have a bit of a rivalry, there are good and bad aspects of each city (But obviously Calgary has a much higher pro-to-con ratio in comparison to Edmonton). During our visit to the capital of Alberta, we went to West Edmonton Mall, and found a store sign that read "New fit slim boyfriend - Your favorite boyfriend fit just got better". Now, being the mature and grown-up people we were, Jonathan and I decided to cover up the words "fit". We got our chuckles out of it, and everyone else looked at us as if we were half our age. For all we know, this could be the actual intention of the store -- to bring up a comparison between your jeans and your boyfriend. However, I think this brings up a different point. Covering or hiding a single word allowed us to change the meaning of the phrasing. Furthermore, if you were to only see our altered slogan, you probably would not expect this to be written for jeans, but rather for a person. Thus when Antec released the Kuhler H2O 1250, a cooler said to have maximum and "best-in-class performance in a quick, easy-to-install package", I really had to question if this was all true. For one, this is what we are looking for in a CPU cooler generally, but is that what Antec is actually giving us? Or are there actually some words hidden words? Let us read on to find out!

Read full article @ APH Networks

Asus Maximus VII Impact

When it comes to Mini-ITX motherboards people are going to have a wide range of feature requirements. For some, as long as it supports their CPU and it has a x16 PCIe slot they are good to go. Others want to have a lot of the features they would find in their full sized builds including wireless AC, different storage connection options, and even upgraded audio. Personally I have been on both sides. When I’m building a budget Mini-ITX build I can skip out on the features but when I’m building a crazy LAN rig like the build we put in the In Win D-Frame Mini only the best will do. Asus continues to impress me with their drive to pack anything and everything into their Impact boards. Well today I’m going to take a look at the latest one, the Maximus VII Impact. This is officially the second Impact board, based on the Z97 chipset. Is this the perfect LAN rig motherboard? Let’s find out.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

ASUS RAMPAGE V Extreme – The Extreme Enthusiasts X99 Board From ASUS Is Here

X99 has been around a bit now and the next board to hit our bench is what we have here today and it is no joke as it is the Rampage V Extreme or what many hold as the benchmark for every other board in regards to top performance. This kind of legacy has been earned over years of having boards at the top rung of performance and at the bleeding edge of new features. Now lets hop in and see if the new Rampage V Extreme holds true to its lineage.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Buying Guide: 10 best iPhone camera and photo editing apps

The latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have the best cameras yet from Apple. Despite going with an 8MP sensor for three years now, the Cupertino company gave its latest set of handsets faster phase-detect autofocus and even optical image stabilization on the larger phablet. Similarly iOS 8 brings a host of improvements to the default camera app, with new timelapse tool and ability to shoot slow motion movies - plus all the OS level editing tools. While Apple's prepacked imaging tools are great and all. The iPhoneography only truly sings when with a collection of apps to expand the capabilities of smartphone photography. With this in mind we've rounded up the 10 best camera apps letting you pull off all sorts of new tricks including toy box images, camera shake free videos and fixing lens distortion.

Read full article @ Techradar

Corsair Obsidian 250D

We have reviewed most Obsidian cases in the past - with a few exceptions. One being the the tiny but capable 250D, the smallest chassis in this family of enclosures. This review of the Corsair Obsidian 250D will show whether Corsair managed to shrink its size to the smallest possible denominator without compromising on any of the aspects that make Obsidian enclosures so very appealing.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Fractal Design Define R5 Mid-Tower Case Review

Fractal Design is probably best know for it’s Define series chassis lineup, cases designed for high performance while keeping a low noise level and budget price tag. The current version, the Define R4, was much praised for its customization options, cooling performance, and noise control. However, at the beginning of last year NZXT released their H440 chassis, a case that was called the “Define R4 Killer,” because of it’s enhanced cooling options, quiet operation, and stunning looks. But now Fractal Design have given their answer to the H440, and it’s a big one – the Define R5.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Fractal Design Define R5 Review

The successor to the popular Define R4 is here. Is it any good? Two years after the introduction of its hugely popular Define R4, Fractal Design is ready to unveil an eagerly anticipated successor, the Define R5.

The latest addition to the Define Series is headed to retail stores this December priced at £83 (or £90 for a windowed version), and if its predecessors are anything to do by, the R5 should be a quiet, well-rounded chassis that doesn't break the bank.

Read full article @ Hexus

G.SKILL Phoenix Blade 480GB PCIe SSD Review

Based out of Taiwan and founded in 1989, G.SKILL is best known for their memory products and over the years they’ve sprinkled in some other related products as well. Though they haven’t been very prominent in the SSD market – especially as of late, G.SKILL has remained in the game with yet another Phoenix drive release. They’ve been using the ‘Phoenix’ appellation on their SSD product names for quite some time and to the best of my memory, the last one we tested was the Phoenix Pro way back in 2010. That particular drive featured the (pre-LSI owned) SandForce SF-1222 controller and operated on a SATA II interface. Now that newly minted SATA II SSDs are a thing of the past and SATA III drives are routinely hitting bandwidth thresholds, we’re seeing more and more PCIe based drives emerge which have plenty of ceiling left to grow. G.SKILL has surprisingly joined the growing PCIe crowd with the Phoenix Blade. The name is likely a reference to the drive’s shape, long and thin, and the fact that it carves up data with ease. This time around, they have a on board RAID 0 setup (à la OCZ RevoDrive 350) with four LSI SandForce SF-2281 controllers working in concert to pump out crazy performance like 2000MB/s reads/writes and IOPS of up to 90,000 reads and 245,000 writes. The PCI Express 2.0 x8 slot provides plenty of headroom to let the drive max out without being a bottleneck.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Gaming on the Grid with Nvidias Shield Tablet

A preview of Nvidia's Grid Game Streaming service is free on Shield devices until next summer. We've spent some time with it on the Shield Tablet to see how well PC games play in Nvidia's cloud.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

How to Restore Oracle Database using RMAN (with Examples)

As a Linux sysadmin, you might recover a system from backup, which may include Oracle Database. So, it is essential for all admins to understand how to restore oracle database from backup. Typically, DBAs will use Oracle RMAN utility to take a hot backup of the database.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

Lenovo Y70 Touch Laptop Review: A decent all-rounder with a tragic performance bottleneck

Lenovo's Y70 Touch isn't a wild departure from the laptop designs you're used to seeing. In fact, it mostly looks like an average notebook, only sleeker and slightly more aggressive than most. It boasts a 17.3-inch 1920x1080 multi-touch display, Lenovo's largest touchscreen laptop to date, and it's built for gaming, video editing, and to be an all-around work horse for the modern era with a Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 860M GPU.

Read full article @ Techspot

Moto 360 smartwatch review

Android Wear device impresses. PERHAPS THE MOST eagerly awaited wearable outside the Apple Watch, the Motorola Moto 360 was the first Android Wear device to be announced, but the last to make it to market.

Since then rival LG has launched its second Android Wear smartwatch. But with cool looks and some neat extras, the Moto 360 seems to have been worth the wait.

Read full article @ The Inquirer

MSI 970 Gaming motherboard Review

There have been a lot of Intel reviews lately, but if you are on a budget and want an 8-core processor for under 200 USD to combine with an attractive motherboard, then we think we may have found the answer. Join us as we review the MSI 970 Gaming, an affordable but high-end motherboard that has incredible good looks and a decent feature-set. We will pop an AMD FX 8370E processor onto it today. And hey, gaming at FullHD will be good even with the latest graphics cards. You can read a full review right here at Guru3D of course. The motherboard is based on the series 9 chipset from AMD, you all know the 990FX/980G but there is a cheaper 970 revision as well. It is slightly cut down overall, but still offers tremendous value for money. In fact the motherboard as tested today will cost you 90 USD and we spotted it for a similar 90 EURO in the EU as well.

Actually the AMD Series 9 Chipset is a set of chipsets developed by AMD that now originates from the year 2011 already. The chipset series uses the same silicon as AMD's previous 8-Series chipset however it's targeted at the socket AM3+ platform, including the Bulldozer line, while the 800 series is targeted at the socket AM3 platform. In support of AM3+ CPUs, AMD has validated the 9-Series chipset for use with HyperTransport 3.1 (up to 6.4GT/s). They also worked with NVIDIA to bring SLI support to this chipset series. The 970 chipset carries the codename RX980 and has one physical PCIe 2.0 ×16 slot, one PCIe 2.0 ×4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 ×1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 2.0 for A-Link Express III solely in the Northbridge HyperTransport 3.0 up to 2400 MHz and PCI Express 2.0. It has a 13.6 Watt TDP for the combined chipset SB950/SB920. Processor wise you can mount AMD FX/ Phenom II/ Athlon II and Sempron processors that are compatible with socket AM3+.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Netrunner Rolling 2014.04 - This time, we need the goats

I've written a long and rather negative review of Netrunner Rolling 2014.09 64-bit edition, a distribution based on Arch Linux and Manjaro, with the KDE desktop environment, covering live use, installation in a quad-boot setup on a laptop with Intel graphics, network and two SSD, plus post-install use, including look & feel, Wireless, Bluetooth, Samba, multimedia - MP3 and Flash, manual partitioning, applications, package management, system settings, system resources, and many problems like inability to format partitions and insufficient sanity checks in the installation wizard, broken updates, no Samba printing, no desktop effects, high memory usage, sluggish browser performance, and more. Plus a song. What? Yes, you have to take a look.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

NZXT H440 Razer Edition Case Review

Computer cases of today are so much better and smarter than they were back when we first started modding and building computers of our own, but some of these new cases come along and stands out in the middle of the crowd and silently screams "look at me". One of those cases is the NZXT H440-Designed by Razer (CA-H440W-RA). Basically the Razer engineering team along with the already winning NZXT team got together and took what was already one of the most popular computer enthusiast cases around, the NZXT H440 and together they both collaborated to make it an even more superior gaming oriented NZXT H440 computer case.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

OcUK GeForce GTX 970 NVIDIA 970 Cooler Edition Review

We have been impressed with the wide cross section of GTX970′s and GTX980′s we have reviewed since Nvidia’s official launch. It was interesting to note on launch day that Nvidia didn’t sample a reference GTX970, instead relying on partners to supply custom cooled overclocked solutions. Nvidia’s distinctive reference cooler has a devoted, loyal user base … who were royally miffed that a GTX970 reference card was not available. Andrew ‘Gibbo’ Gibson in Overclockers UK was keen to resolve the problem and he worked hard to create an ‘improved’ reference design – a worldwide exclusive.

Read full article @ KitGuru

OWC Thunderbay 4 mini Thunderbolt 2 Enclosure Review

Today, we are in a space where media professionals require faster systems with more storage capacity, but for many who enjoy more compact systems, this just isn’t possible. The OWC ThunderBay 4 mini seems to tackle just that. At 7.6″ long (pencil length) 4.6″ high and 3.6″ wide, the ThunderBay 4 mini weighs only 2.4 lbs, yet is capable of storage up to 8TB (4TB SSD) and speeds just under 1.4GB/s when utilizing flash media. The ThunderBay 4 mini provides a smaller footprint for working on media such as 4K files than has ever been seen before, and Thunderbolt 2 makes sure that work is capable of being completed in a quick and efficient manner.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

PC-BSD 10.1 Review

The last PC-BSD release I reviewed was the 9.1 edition, and that was back in December 2012 (see PC-BSD 9.1 preview). Thats almost two years ago, But thats because Ive been very disappointed with subsequent releases after that, so I never bothered to write another review, though I was each testing each release privately.

Read full article @ LinuxBSDos.com

Synology Diskstation DS115J 1-Bay NAS Review

When we’re talking network attached storage in our own homes, it isn’t everyone that needs a large server with 4, 6 or 8 bays. Sometimes one bay is enough, if the features and functions still match. We’re also seeing a hard drive size that keeps growing with 6 TB consumer drives and 8 TB enterprise drives already available and the 10 TB drives aren’t far in the future. This might be a smart route to take for people who get into the NAS area now and need both a new device and drives for it, but also for those who just want to cut down on the running costs.

Today I’m taking a look at a device for just this situation, the brand new Synology DS115J Disk Station. A compact, lightweight and energy-efficient NAS that is perfect for the budget-conscious home users looking for a simple, yet feature-rich NAS server. You can easily back up documents, monitor live surveillance feeds, build a personal cloud to share files with friends and family or just use it as a media location.

The performance doesn’t need to suffer when thinking in these directions and Synology shows that fact with this device. It promises speeds of up to 103 MB/s when reading; that is a 28% increase compared to its predecessor. This is achieved by using a CPU with built-in Floating-Point Unit (FPU), the Marvell Armada 370 that runs at 800 MHz. The NAS has 256 MB DDR3 ram which should be sufficient for a 1-bay device like this. Of course the device has been tested to support the newest 6 TB NAS drives and it should work just fine with any other 3½ inch SATA drive as well. It also supports 2½ inch drives, but that requires an optional Disk Adapter.

Read full article @ eTeknix