Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

Areca ARC-8050T3 Thunderbolt 3 DAS Review
Cooler Master MasterAir MA610P Review
Cooler Master: MasterBox Q300L Review
Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Sound Card Review
Crucial MX500 1TB And 500GB SSD Review
DJI Mavic Air Hands-on Review
Four days with the Samsung Galaxy S9
Intel X58 (Core i7 920 & i7 980X) versus AMD Ryzen & Intel Coffee Lake: worth upgrading?
Into the Breach review: Chess meets Starship Troopers in brilliant, bite-sized battles
Modders Get "Coffee Lake" Chips to Work Stable on Intel 100/200-series Chipsets
NOCTUA NH-L12S CPU Cooler Review
Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 Review
Promise Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB Review
Sennheiser GSP 301 & 303 Headset Review @ KitGuru

Areca ARC-8050T3 Thunderbolt 3 DAS Review

There are only a few ultra-high capacity products in the Thunderbolt storage market. LaCie is a big name in this space, but Areca is known for superior performance.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Cooler Master MasterAir MA610P Review

After recently testing the MA410P from Cooler Master, today have reviewed the MA610P, which once again puts it on top with 6 instead of 4 heatpipes and push / pull fan assembly. In this Cooler Master MasterAir review there is also a new video and another video with all RGB effects at our OCinside YouTube channel.

Read full article @ OCinside.de

Cooler Master: MasterBox Q300L Review

When building a media pc there is really only one thing that comes to mind, the size. What I seek in the media pc case is the style and ability to freely adjust and use components. Apparently Cooler Master and I have the same understanding. Introducing the all new MasterBox Q300L. MasterBox Q300L is a Mini Tower type of a case which easily supports Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX motherboards and offers great cooling options. This case is very modular when it comes to customization. Users also have options to have the case upright or being on its side. Either way cooling this case would be a breeze, literally. From our previous experience with MasterBox cases by Cooler Master, I expect nothing less than spectacular quality and options from MasterBox Q300L.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Sound Card Review

The AE-5 is Creative's first discrete soundcard of the Sound BlasterX gaming series operates with a dynamic range of 122dB, and features the ESS SABRE32 DAC to deliver high quality 32-bit filtering for low noise and distortion. It can support up to 5.1 surround speaker systems, and features a custom bi-amplified headphone amp (Xamp) that supports up to 600ohm headsets; for added measure there is also a TOSLINK optical output. Also, for sake of convenience the AE-5 has a front panel audio connector.

Read full article @ Vortez

Crucial MX500 1TB And 500GB SSD Review

The Crucial MX500 SSD series is the company’s latest version of their main SSD lineup announced late last year, and finally released early this year. The new MX500 features Micron’s 2nd generation 64-layer 3D TLC NAND, capable of sequential read/write speeds of up to 560MB/s and 510MB/s respectively; or random read/write speeds of up to 95,000 IOPS and 90,000 IOPS respectively. It is available in capacities up to 2TB and in 2.5-inch SATA and M.2 Type 2280 form factors (for 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities). Today we’re going to check out and review the Crucial MX500 1TB and 500GB SSD capacities. We have seen the performance of their budget-friendly BX300 SSD series, and we got better and faster read/write speeds with it versus their previous MX300 series. Let’s see if the new MX500 SSD is faster and better compared to its predecessors and competition. Continue reading our Crucial MX500 SSD review below and find out more.

Read full article @ The PC Enthusiast

DJI Mavic Air Hands-on Review

Thanks to DJI, we’ll be taking a quick look at their latest consumer drone – the Mavic Air. This ultraportable drone is compact, light-weight, foldable and offers 4K recording at 30fps. In terms of placement, it sits somewhere between the slightly larger Mavic Pro and the smaller DJI Spark.

Last year, DJI was kind enough to loan us the Mavic Pro and the Spark to review. Both were excellent drones. Personally, I prefer the smaller Spark for selfies and vlogging (1080p max), while my senior editor, Wing preferred the larger Mavic Pro for more scenic and aerial shots (native 4K).

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Four days with the Samsung Galaxy S9

It’s now a few days since we unboxed what could be one of the biggest phones of 2018, and we’re now getting to grips with the new handset and the features it offers.

If you’ve not been keeping up so far, let’s have a quick recap of the Samsung Galaxy S9. Design-wise, things are almost identical to the Galaxy S8, but it’s under the hood that things are a little different.

There’s far more power than last year, AR Emojis created from a single snap of your face to be used on social media, and an all-powerful camera that’s supposed to be excellent at low-light and slow motion video.

Read full article @ TechRadar

Intel X58 (Core i7 920 & i7 980X) versus AMD Ryzen & Intel Coffee Lake: worth upgrading?

Some Hardware.Info readers are probably still on Intel's X58 platform, with e.g. a Core i7 920/980X. Last year's competition on the processor market was fierce. Is an upgrade to Ryzen or Coffee Lake worth it, or should you stick with a Bloomfield or Gulftown processor?

The video card is usually the most popular PC component to upgrade. With all these high-res monitors and increasingly beautiful games, this part is subject to higher demands at a rapid pace. After two or three years a new video card means a serious upgrade in graphics capabilities, while the rest of your system can often last for a few years.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Into the Breach review: Chess meets Starship Troopers in brilliant, bite-sized battles

The Rusting Hulks—not exactly the most inspiring name for humanity’s saviors. And yet that sad group of orange-colored mechs finally got the deed done. It was around 4 a.m. We’d battled our way across two islands full of giant bugs, entered their volcanic lair, and were on the verge of killing off the Vek leader, a moth probably fifty feet long. Doing so would secure the bomb we’d warped in here, saving the Earth.I knew what I had to do. With my jet already on fire, I fired a missile at the Vek, enfolding it in smoke. Blinded, the Vek halted its attack and slowly succumbed to the dark cloud. The threat was over.

Read full article @ PC World

Modders Get "Coffee Lake" Chips to Work Stable on Intel 100/200-series Chipsets

One of the greatest complaints enthusiasts had with Intel's 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" processors and their companion 300-series chipsets is their lack of compatibility with older 200-series and 100-series chipset motherboards, despite sharing an identical LGA1151 socket. Tinfoil hatters attributed this to Intel's synthetic platform-gating to ensure people buy new motherboards every two CPU generations; while Intel itself maintained that "Coffee Lake" chips have special electrical requirements that come with the increased core-counts, without explaining how that shouldn't exempt quad-core SKUs such as the Core i3-8100 and the i3-8350K from functioning on older platforms.

It turns out that "Coffee Lake" is pin-compatible with older LGA1151 motherboards based on 200-series and 100-series chipsets after all, as modders got some of these chips to work on the older platforms. Intel is using software to prevent Coffee Lake from working on older motherboards. This software comes in the form of the CPU's microcode, the iGPU's UEFI GOP driver, and certain Management Engine bootstraps on the side of the motherboard BIOS that lets it recognize the new chips. With the safe transplanting of these pieces of software, Overclock.net modders rootuser123, LittleHill, dsanke, elisw, Mov AX, and 0xDEAD; succeeding in not only getting the chips to work on older platforms, but also found ways to iron out several stability and compatibility issues. They've published a guide at this page.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

NOCTUA NH-L12S CPU Cooler Review

I love C-Type CPU air coolers because of a used Thermaltake Big Typhoon during the end of socket 939 days. Due to the platform jump towards AM3+ and TtBT’s incompatible mounting kit, I purchased a Noctua NH-U12P-SE2 CPU cooler. Years have passed and after I’ve started Hardware BBQ, eventually I got my hands on another C-type CPU cooler- the Noctua NH-C14S which I use regularly. While I prefer using the NH-U12S, NH-U14S and the NH-D15 to show the motherboard’s layout compatibility, NH-C14S is a good performer and a great CPU cooler to look at. Unlike CPU tower coolers, it made a good impression and also was a solid performer, but a limitation of mounting a single fan.

Read full article @ Hardware BBQ

Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 Review

Noctua is a company specialized in designing and producing of high end coolers and fans for PC type systems. The company was founded in 2005 by Rascom Computerdistribution and Taiwanese company Kolink International. Today Noctua is present in more than 30 countries, being one of the most known manufacturers of cooling solutions.

Read full article @ Tech-Legend

Promise Apollo Cloud 2 Duo 8TB Review

Promise launched their Apollo Cloud solution back in April of 2017, and we were lucky enough to have a unit sent over for review. I walked away from that article giving the Apollo Cloud an 89% and our Best Value award, due to its easy to use features and low entry cost.

Promise is now back with a refresh of the Apollo Cloud line, the new version dubbed Cloud 2 Duo fits perfectly as this is the first in the Apollo Cloud line to offer redundancy with two drives. With this, the enclosure has received a refresh as well, slightly wider to accommodate the second drive although maintaining that subtle curved exterior. Promise has stayed with the white exterior on the Cloud 2 Duo, adding touches of black top and bottom along with a little branding, but it's not overdone keeping the marketing machine in check.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Sennheiser GSP 301 & 303 Headset Review @ KitGuru

As an update to its GSP 300 series, Sennheiser has launched the GSP 301 and the GSP 303 – the latter being a special Need for Speed edition headset. Other than the visual revamp, however, both headsets share the same core design as the original GSP 300. For £89.99, can they do enough to stand out in a crowded market, or are the devices just too basic to be worth buying?

Read full article @ =?utf-8?Q?KitGuru?=