Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including MSI Invades Mini ITX Gaming, Toshiba PX02SMF020 200GB SAS SSD, Actiontec WCB3000NK01 Wireless and Ethernet Over Coax Adapter Kit Review, Dynatron G199 1U Xeon Server Heatsink Review, and AMD Kaveri A10 7850K APU Overclocked IGP Gaming & OpenCL Performance



MSI Invades Mini ITX Gaming @ LanOC Reviews

As someone who tries to make it out to as many LAN events as possible, small but powerful LAN rigs have been saving my back for years. Even though to some the LAN scene has been shrinking, the industry has really started to take notice of the small LAN rigs recently. We have seen smaller console like builds from boutique builders and Valves recent interest in steam boxes has gotten everyone in a frenzy as well. Because of that, I was happy to see MSI dive into the Mini ITX gaming market with their new GTX 760 Gaming ITX video card and the ZZ87I Gaming AC motherboard. Given our previous experience with similar products, MSI sent over the motherboard and video card combo to see what we thought about the two. Let’s see what they are all about.

Read more: MSI Invades Mini ITX Gaming @ LanOC Reviews

Samsung UN46F8000BF Review @ TechReviewSource.com

The Samsung UNF8000 series of LED backlit HDTVs offer solid performance and loads of features in a beautiful streamlined cabinet, but its black levels are mediocre and its ports are awkwardly placed.

Read more: Samsung UN46F8000BF Review @ TechReviewSource.com

Raidmax Agusta Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

While most of the case makers out there have gone for the more sleek and subtle design for their cases, Raidmax is always a company we can count on for some pretty extreme case designs. Today we are talking a look a look at their Agusta case. This case has a sort of transformer-like design to it, which looks awesome. On top of that it has a dual chamber design with the 3.5-inch / 2.5-inch drive trays on the bottom of the case. This not only makes room for watercooling inside the main compartment of the case but keeps the heat generated by your hard drives in a separate compartment. Other features include USB 3.0 support, six included fans and tool-less installation systems. Read on as we take a look

Read more: Raidmax Agusta Case Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Feenix Nascita Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp

Feenix is a new brand in the high-end gaming gear scene. Today, we will be taking a look at the Nascita gaming mouse featuring the well-performing Avago ADNS-9800 sensor and some pretty interesting features.

Read more: Feenix Nascita Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp

Toshiba PX02SMF020 200GB SAS SSD @ NikKTech

Just like with most computer hardware components compared to just 2 years ago continuous price drops have finally rendered SATA SSDs (Solid State Drives) almost as mainstream as HDDs allowing more and more system manufacturers to integrate them into their systems regardless of target audience. Certainly SSDs are still at a huge disadvantage in terms of price/capacity compared to regular mechanical HDDs but on one hand most consumers don't really have very large capacity needs while on the other you can always use the SSD just for OS (Operating System) needs and have everything else on a second or even on a third drive. However things are not the same for professionals and especially enterprise clients since both performance and storage capacity are crucial with cost following far behind. Thus far we've only focused in testing SAS HDD models manufactured by the leading companies in the field but since SSD prices have dropped quite a bit (both consumer and enterprise models) we decided to also start on SAS SSD reviews and what better way to do that than with the latest release by Toshiba, the PX02SMF020 200GB SAS 6Gb/s SSD.

Read more: Toshiba PX02SMF020 200GB SAS SSD @ NikKTech

CM Storm MECH Mechanical Keyboard Review @ Benchmark Reviews

If you haven't heard, yet, mechanical keyboards are making a comeback in a big way. Nearly every peripheral manufacturer out there has line of them. But why are we going back to mechanical keyboards, which were popular in the early days of computing and then fell out of style? Should you consider investing a mechanical keyboard? They are typically more expensive than what we might consider a normal, or common keyboard. In this article, Benchmark Reviews takes a look at one of Cooler Master's CHERRY MX Brown Switch mechanical keyboards, the CM Storm MECH.

Read more: CM Storm MECH Mechanical Keyboard Review @ Benchmark Reviews

Actiontec WCB3000NK01 Wireless and Ethernet Over Coax Adapter Kit Review @ Bigbruin.com

Wireless networking has made its way in to most homes, and provides a quick and easy way to get the majority of your devices connected to the network / Internet. While the throughput of Wi-Fi is just fine for many applications, there are just some things that are better handled by a hard wired connection. High definition multimedia is a prime candidate for a hard wired connection, especially if multiple streams are present simultaneously, as it offers much higher throughput to greatly reduce the potential for image degradation, dropped frames, or other issues that may occur with a wireless connection.

The main problem with getting all of your devices online via a hard wired connection is that most homes, especially those more than just a few years old, do not have wiring run to each room to provide a typical RJ45 network port. What most homes do have though, is coaxial wiring for cable television. There are "ethernet over coax adapters" that can connect to your existing network and transmit data over your home's coaxial cable wiring to another adapter that will then convert it back for use by your more remotely located networked devices. In the case of the item to be reviewed, the Actiontec WCB3000NK01, it will not only provide a pair of RJ45 wired connections at the other end of your coaxial cable run, but it also provides a dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHZ) wireless extender.

Read more: Actiontec WCB3000NK01 Wireless and Ethernet Over Coax Adapter Kit Review @ Bigbruin.com

Epic Gear DeziMator Review @ ocaholic

Epic Gear DeziMator is a mechanical gaming keyboard with a extraordinary design. The peripheral is very solid and 70 percent of the board is made of aluminium. In addition we find macro keys, multimedia FN buttons and a red LED backlight. The features and the introduction seem very good, we are quite curious to see it in action.

Read more: Epic Gear DeziMator Review @ ocaholic

MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System Review @ KitGuru

If you want a new small form factor system then today's review will be of particular interest. We are taking a look at the latest MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system, built inside the tiny Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Case. It may be small, but this is not a system of compromise, as it ships with an overclocked Core i7 4770k, 240GB SSD, 16GB of DDR3 memory and a high end AMD R9 290 graphics card. Is it worth the £1,199.00 asking price (http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTCONFIGPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=1158185) ?

Read more: MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System Review @ KitGuru

Dynatron G199 1U Xeon Server Heatsink Review @ FrostyTech

On the heatsink test bench today is a 1U server heatsink for Intel LGA1366 Xeon processors. The Dynatron G199 1U server heatsink is built from a skived copper slab measuring 88x90mm in size and 12mm thick. The remaining 17mm in permissible 1U heatsink height is taken up by the 70mm aluminum squirrel cage fan and aluminum fan shroud.

Read more: Dynatron G199 1U Xeon Server Heatsink Review @ FrostyTech

Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Is Still Sour For Some GPUs @ Phoronix

Nouveau, the reverse-engineered open-source NVIDIA Linux graphics driver that's been in development now for the better part of a decade, is working brilliantly for some NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards while for other NVIDIA GPUs the experience is a sloppy mess. Using the Linux 3.13 kernel and Mesa 10.1-devel Gallium3D driver code installed on top of Ubuntu 13.10, here's what the experience is like when trying a number of GeForce graphics cards with this latest open-source driver code.

As part of a lot of new Linux benchmarks coming, I had mentioned in other Linux GPU driver testing articles this week that the aim was to have a new massive open-source Linux graphics card comparison out on Friday, today. That article has been delayed until this weekend as the Nouveau experience with Linux 3.13 and Mesa 10.1-devel (using the Oibaf PPA and mainline kernel PPA) from Ubuntu 13.10 x86_64 was more rough than anticipated. The testing process has been drawn out due to having to watch closely for Nouveau driver problems like system hangs and rendering problems. In this article are some Nouveau driver notes about my testing of many different graphics cards on this latest Linux 3.13 + Mesa 10.1-devel code. All of the Nouveau and Radeon Gallium3D performance results will hopefully be complete on Saturday.

Read more: Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Is Still Sour For Some GPUs @ Phoronix

Patriot Viper 3 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit Review @ eTeknix

Patriot are recognised as one of the industry giants in the production of DRAM kits for desktop PCs. Today we have with us a 16GB desktop DDR3 RAM kit from Patriot which runs with a rated frequency of PC3-19200, or 2400MHz. The memory kit we have forms part of their Viper 3 series and comes with a blue heat spreader and a lifetime warranty. With XMP certification and a really high frequency this kit is mainly aimed at Ivy Bridge, Ivy Bridge-E and Haswell systems but Piledriver and Richland systems should also work fine providing you manually dial in the frequency and timings of the XMP profile. Generally speaking 2400MHz isn’t likely to run on Llano, Bulldozer, Sandy Bridge, Sandy Bridge-E or older platforms. 2400MHz is rapidly becoming the new standard for enthusiast class memory kits along with 2133MHz. The drop in price of 2400MHz kits, even with quite volatile DRAM prices more broadly, has been quite impressive to watch.

Read more: Patriot Viper 3 16GB 2400MHz Memory Kit Review @ eTeknix

Corsair AX1200i Modular Digital Power Supply Review @ eTeknix

When it comes to “uber” high-end and high-wattage power supplies there is one name that stands out from the crowd and is widely recognised – the Corsair Ax1200i. Today we have managed to get our hands on this somewhat revolutionary power supply to bring you a review. The Corsair AX1200i isn’t redefining the wheel but what it is doing is changing the way power is typically delivered. The Corsair AX1200i is one of few power supplies to take advantage of a digital power delivery method or what Corsair are calling “Hybrid Digital Control Architecture”. In short this means the AX1200i uses a server grade Digital Signal Processor (DSP) combined with a power train architecture. The AX1200i as a result can make on the fly adjustments to control and monitor voltage and stability in real time. The DSP also allows for automatically DC output compensation to hold stable power, prevent droop and minimise ripple & noise in the power outputs.

Read more: Corsair AX1200i Modular Digital Power Supply Review @ eTeknix

AMD Kaveri A10 7850K APU Overclocked IGP Gaming & OpenCL Performance @ HCW

Earlier this week, we looked at how overclocking Kaveri’s CPU to 4.7 GHz affected performance in various CPU-only (or mostly) tests as well as gaming with a dedicated graphics card. The goal of that type of overclock was to find out exactly how the CPU portion of Kaveri scales as clock speed is increased, and was not necessarily intended to be buying decision guide. After all, if you want pure CPU performance and don’t care about the IGP, we found that you are probably better off spending your money on something other than an APU. Rather than assume “everyone knows” this as a fact, we were able to get actual performance figures to back up these opinions.

We also noted in our original Kaveri review that we could easily overclock the IGP to 1020 MHz with a NB voltage of 1.2v.

Read more: AMD Kaveri A10 7850K APU Overclocked IGP Gaming & OpenCL Performance @ HCW