Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

20 Questions: an Interview with OCZ Storage Solutions
AMD surprise: pin-compatible ARM and x86 CPUs
ARM's Race: An Attack Plan For Servers and Mobile
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Preview
Asus Essence STX II 7.1 Sound Card / Headphone Amplifier Review
ASUS Z97-DELUXE Motherboard Performance Review
Corsair Raptor K50 Gaming Keyboard Review
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX Case Review
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro-ATX Case Review
Garmin Vivofit Review
GeForce GTX 780 vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 (GV-N750OC-1GI) Video Card Review
HP Pavilion 11t-n000 x360 Review
Microlab T1 wireless headset Review
Microsoft Office For Android vs. Google Docs: Which Is Better?
Nvidia Shield Portable Games Console Review
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid-Tower Case Review
Red Faction 13 Years-Later Reviewed
Silverstone Raven RVZ01
Tego Audio Cera Bluetooth Speaker Review
The Workstation and Server CPU Comparison Guide

20 Questions: an Interview with OCZ Storage Solutions

Many of you know that OCZ Technology has been in rough weather last year, that's up-to the point where the company needed to file a chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the purpose to be taken over by Toshiba. The SSD market is fierce and competitive, if you are your own NAND flash manufacturer then you can sell your products cheap. If you sell NAND flash to a party like OCZ, then OCZ pays a premium price, making it hard for them to actually offer a price competitive solution.

Toshiba need channel integration of Enterprise and Consumer level product, OCZ has all that intellectual properly, channel access yet needed access to cheap NAND. And the combination as such can be golden.

In this Interview we'll talk to Tobias Brinkmann Vice President, Global Marketing to see what has happened over the past few months, and how it affects consumers and clients.

Read full article @ Guru3D

AMD surprise: pin-compatible ARM and x86 CPUs

When AMD revealed an ambidextrous processor roadmap based on both x86 and ARM cores last Fall, it saved one surprise for today: theyll be pin compatible! As part of its roadmap update today, AMD announced that it has licensed 64-bit ARM architecture for use in developing custom high-performance cores for high-growth markets

Read full article @ LinuxGizmos.com

ARM's Race: An Attack Plan For Servers and Mobile

It has been nearly a year since we visited ARM in Cambridge, UK, and the company recently held another tech day -- this time in Austin, Texas. During the three-day session, ARM covered a wide range of topics, with a primary focus on server ecosystems and next-generation mobile hardware.

The company started off with an in-depth exploration of its CCN-508 interconnect, but also taked about "Project Moonshot," an initiative to build a dense server product around ARM and x86 cores. Partners like HP, Canonical, and Red Hat were also on hand to take software and servers. And ARM also noted that 2014 will be the year that Android starts to seriously make an effort in 64-bit eveolution. Benchmark data was offered too...

ARM's Race: An Attack Plan For Servers and Mobile

http://hothardware.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=efc4c507c2cf964fc2462caca&id=d2bd843b16&e=0c004f9c13]Read full article @ HotHardware.com[/url]

ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Preview

With the Extreme 6, ASRock usually has a well equipped motherboard in its portfolio, which comes with a plethora of features. In case of the Z97 version the manufacturer seems to make no exception and especially the variety of connectors for storage media is interesting. With this motherboard ASRock introduces an Ultra M.2 slots that offers no less than 32 Gigabit of bandwidth.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Asus Essence STX II 7.1 Sound Card / Headphone Amplifier Review

If you use your rig to listen to music then there is a good chance you won’t be happy with the onboard sound from the motherboard. ASUS have released the STX II and STX II 7.1 to build on the huge success they experienced from the earlier Essence STX solution. Today we review their follow up sound card and headphone amplifier – the Essence STX II 7.1 Sound card.

Read full article @ KitGuru

ASUS Z97-DELUXE Motherboard Performance Review

With Intel being the sole supplier of chipsets for their processors, all motherboards with the same CPU and supporting chipset will provide pretty much the same performance at stock settings. Vendors strive to distinguish their products with additional features, which can be as disparate as a clever new BIOS or entirely new hardware capabilities grafted on via custom or third-party silicon. From a performance perspective, ASUS has historically added value with enhancements to standard interfaces, such as their accelerated USB 3.0, and hardware and software features that make overclocking easier, even for the novice. With the Z97-DELUXE they’ve even added entirely new high speed interfaces: M.2 and SATA Express. If you’re looking for a future-proof board for your next rig, this could be it.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Corsair Raptor K50 Gaming Keyboard Review

In August of 2012 Corsair bought out Raptor Gaming which was a pretty successful gaming accessories company over in Europe. With this Corsair was able to help promote their gaming products in Europe and also bring the Raptor Gaming products to the USA. Now that the Raptor products have been brought across the pond, we are able to get some a taste of the popular gaming products that are big in Europe. Today we are going to be taking a look at the Corsair Raptor K50 keyboard which features fully customizable LED backlighting of your keyboard and more. Lets see if we can make the true colors of the Corsair Raptor K50 glow.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX Case Review

Fractal Design's Node 804 launches today. With space for multiple liquid cooling radiators, the largest of graphics cards and even extended length PSUs we will throw an overclocked (liquid cooled) i7 build complete with 295X2 and Corsairs AX1500i at the Node 804 to see if it can cope.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Fractal Design Node 804 Micro-ATX Case Review

Fractal Design is a Swedish company that focuses on designing computer hardware that keeps with the Scandinavian minimalist viewpoint. Currently, there are four case lines that focus on different aspects of the minimalist view. The Node series, is focused on home entertainment, designing the cases to be small and to look great in any environment. The most recent case is the Node 804, it accepts both Micro ATX and Mini-ITX motherboards, to keep it small though, Fractal Design has gone to a cube layout that separates the power supply and hard drives from the motherboard and GPU.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Garmin Vivofit Review

Unlike TomTom, Garmin had the idea of creating its own serious running watch quite some time ago. The first Forerunner surfaced all the way back in 2003, but it's taken until now to come up with a product fit for this brave new age of the 'casual' fitness fan.It might be a pure Garmin product, but the Vivofit doesn't take advantage of the company's GPS in the way of the Forerunner. Instead it flaunts itself as a glorified pedometer with enough of its own unique features to keep you moving throughout the day - and all for just £99/$130 (around AU$140).In its look, the Vivofit takes a little bit from here and a little something from there. The shape of the band and its choice of clasp is best compared to the Fitbit Force/Flex, but its use of a single button for cycling through displays is more akin to the Nike FuelBand SE.

Read full article @ Techradar

GeForce GTX 780 vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire

Comparisons of two mid-range (roughly) graphics cards with one high-end VGA are almost always good for some really interesting results. Today we're having a look at what two AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics cards can do against one NVIDIA GTX 780. The two R9 280X cards are quite a bit cheaper and we're really curious to find out which setup is going to be quicker.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 (GV-N750OC-1GI) Video Card Review

We tested the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 (model GV-N750OC-1GI), a mainstream video card that uses a GPU based on the new Maxwell architecture from NVIDIA and has 1 GiB of GDDR5 memory, coming with a small factory overclock. Let's see how good it performs.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets

HP Pavilion 11t-n000 x360 Review

The HP Pavilion x360 is a convertible hybrid laptop that flips its touch screen around to act like a slate tablet. It has an entry-level price, making it a good system for the Windows 8 novice.

Read full article @ TechReviewSource.com

Microlab T1 wireless headset Review

Microlab is a relatively small company in the audio world but that isn’t stopping it from delivering decent quality speaker systems. Previously we have had a look at the Solo 6C (http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/announcements/zardon/microlab-solo-6c-speakers-review-big-sound-for-a-small-price/) as well as the FC360 2.1 speaker systems (http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/highlights/simon-telford/microlab-fc360-2-1-speakers-review/) and were impressed by both. Can Microlab deliver similar sound quality in a headset however? Today we are going to find out, with our review of the Microlab T1 Wireless Bluetooth Headset.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Microsoft Office For Android vs. Google Docs: Which Is Better?

Microsoft, who has been trailing in the recent mobile arms race for a while, has been taking major steps to make up the gap recently, garnering attention for the  introduction of Cortana (a Siri / Google Now competitor) and the launch of Office for iPad, which we covered in detail. One move that might have slipped under the radar, however, is Microsoft making Office for Android free late last month. Prior to the change, Office for Android required an Office 365 Subscription (which, while free to students, is still a barrier for a lot of people), Microsoft’s cloud service for Office documents.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Nvidia Shield Portable Games Console Review

The Nvidia Shield, a Tegra 4 powered Android gaming device, has been on the market for a while now, but a recent price drop and a rapidly increasing range of features thanks to a few firmware updates caught my attention. With the price now at a very reasonable £150-200 (depending on where you look) it’s a strong contender for the money in your wallet vs other portable gaming options.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been a big fan of mobile gaming, sure I’ve had a little tinker on a few apps from time to time, especially on long journeys, but there are just too many cons that outweigh the pros of gaming on devices such as smartphones. Devices often get quite hot while gaming, battery life take a big hit, ergonomics of touch screen devices isn’t ideal for gaming, touch screen controls aren’t always suitable for gaming and cost of the device its self can also be quite high. Then of course you have the world of hand-held games consoles such as the 3DS and PlayStation Vita which offer strong competition to the mobile market, but don’t have the same level of market penetration as the big smart phone manufacturers do.

Nvidia is a big player in the gaming world, and that is hardly a surprise given that they produce many of the most popular graphics solutions on the market and have done for some time. Nvidia also dominates a large portion of the mobile market thanks to their Tegra hardware, which is a SoC (System-on-chip) product that powers many of today’s top smartphone and tablet devices, it’s even at the heart of the latest Tesla electric cars and more importantly it also powers the Nvidia Shield android gaming device which we are taking a look at today.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid-Tower Case Review

During this review we are going to be looking at a new case, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro. You could consider the Pro to be the smaller brother to the Primo. Hopefully we can find many of the features that made the Primo so popular, in the Pro.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Red Faction 13 Years-Later Reviewed

After thirteen years, how does Red Faction stand up? I would say it stands up well as an experience, but this is not exactly a game you are going to be dying to play. It is fun, enjoyable, and well designed, so definitely play it if you have it. There are certainly some modern games that are less enjoyable than this, but that is the limit of its staying power. Red Faction is still a quality game, and that will always stand the test of time, but its age is showing. The artifacting of the graphics, the limited resolution options, and the short playtime all hurt it some, but if you are looking for a classic game that did gameplay right, this may be exactly what you are looking for.

Read full article @ OCC

Silverstone Raven RVZ01

Silverstone has been involved in the Mini-ITX gaming market for a long time now. Not only have they had a wide variety of case options, but they have also provided short cabled power supplies and more recently they have been the only manufacture with a good SFX power supply for small form factor gaming. On top of all of this, they have been known to really change things up with unique case designs. Their most recent Raven design would have to be considered unique as well. With a look that reminds me of modern day consoles, I suspect that the Raven RVZ01 could be the perfect case for a Steambox build. Let’s see if that is the case.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Tego Audio Cera Bluetooth Speaker Review

Up for review today I have the Cera wireless Bluetooth speaker from Tego Audio. This little speaker is orb shaped and it has what Tego calls an expanding sound chamber that provides omnidirectional sound so it doesn’t matter where you put it the sound is the same. The Cera features multimedia touch controls right on the top which light up blue when powered on. The Cera surprised me by just how good it sounded, especially since it only has one speaker inside of it, the sound is clear and loud. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ TestFreaks

The Workstation and Server CPU Comparison Guide

There are so many workstation and server CPU models that it has become quite impossible to keep up with the different models or even remember their specifications! Therefore, we decided to compile this guide to provide an easy reference for those who are interested in comparing the specifications of the various workstation and server CPUs in the market, as well as those already obsolescent or obsolete.

Currently covering 777 workstation and server CPUs, this comprehensive comparison will allow you to easily compare up to 20 different specifications for each and every CPU. We hope it will prove to be a useful reference. We will keep this guide updated regularly so do check back for the latest updates!

To make it easy to compare the specifications, we split it up into three sections for your convenience. Just click on Split List to access them. However, if you prefer to compare all the CPUs for each company in a single table, we also have a single list which can be accessed by clicking on Full List. Just click on the company and the type of list you prefer.

Read full article @ TechARP