Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

April 2015 peripheral staff picks
ASUS ROG Gladius Gaming Mouse Review
Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 Review
Call Of Duty Black Ops 3 Will Use Dedicated Servers
Corsair H80i GT Liquid CPU Cooler Review
COUGAR 600K Review
CyberPowerPC Factory Tour: What it takes to build a Gaming PC
Gigabyte GTX 960 OC 2 GB
Gigabyte X99-UD3P Motherboard Review – X99 On a Budget?
Grand Theft Auto V - Shadow Technologies Showdown
Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB SSD
MSI GE62 2QD (Apache) 029UK Review
New leaked AMD Zen slide
Raidmax Viper GX II Mid Tower Case Review
Rig of the Month - April 2015
Turtle Beach Peripherals Review

April 2015 peripheral staff picks

It's time for our latest roundup of recommendations for monitors, keyboards, mice, and more. We've tied it all together in our April 2015 peripheral staff picks.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

ASUS ROG Gladius Gaming Mouse Review

When you think of ASUS’s Republic of Gamers line you typically think of their motherboards and graphics cards right? Well the Republic of Gamers line is made up of much more than that and today we are going to be checking out their ROG Gladius Gaming Mouse. The Gladius features a 6400 DPI optical sensor, 2000 Hz USB polling rate support, exclusive switch socket design for customizable click resistance, separately designed left and right mouse buttons, grips on each side of the mouse and ROG lighting. The mouse is designed for use in your right hand and is made for all grip types including palm, claw, and fingertip. Is this your next gaming mouse? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 Review

Featuring a solid-feeling dockable keyboard, a robust and slim metal design and the productivity perks of Windows 8.1, the Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 is a great mobile productivity aid. However, the awkward Bluetooth 4.0-powered docking process and lack of a full-sized USB port hamper its ability to function as a full-on laptop replacement.

Pros:
Decent design, solid keyboard, moderate price tag, solid performance

Cons:
Docking process is a pain, no full-sized USB port

Read full article @ V3

Call Of Duty Black Ops 3 Will Use Dedicated Servers

In the world of PC first-person shooters; dedicated servers for matchmaking are the gold-standard, with many competitive players refusing to play a game with anything less. Unfortunately, in recent years the long-running and hugely popular Call of Duty series has departed from these standards, and as a result have strongly upset their base. In fact, their most recent iteration of the franchise Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, was shamed by PC gamers for exactly this issue.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Corsair H80i GT Liquid CPU Cooler Review

The new Corsair Hydro series H80i GT challenges this assumption with an extra thick single-width radiator and two fans for out of the box push-pull operation. In this article, Benchmark Reviews will look at the performance of the new Corsair H80i GT all-in-one cooling system and compare it to some of the competition.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

COUGAR 600K Review

Coming to the end of December 2014 we were delighted by the stylish aesthetics and the quality aluminium structure that the COUGAR 700K delivered upon. Enter the COUGAR 600K, following in the footsteps of it's older brother and filling the gap from the 500K. Given what COUGAR has produced with this keyboard it delivers a perfect balance between price, features, looks, and construction.

Holding the middle-ground within it's product line-up the 600K comes equipped with Cherry MX switches, a detachable wrist rest, LED backlighting, and an aluminium strengthened backplate. Glancing upon the 600K at first sight, the similarities between the 700k are quite understandable, it's essentially a cut-down version in both size and features.

Read full article @ Vortez

CyberPowerPC Factory Tour: What it takes to build a Gaming PC

For me building a computer is pretty mindless work and after you have done it a few thousand times the steps almost become routine. For instance every time I sit down to do a review I have to assemble a system starting with selecting the individual components, installing an OS and configuring drivers. If I’m overclocking with LN2 this process may get repeated several times depending on what is getting overclocked.

Of course, while I might be considered an expert at building a computer there are many people that like the idea of a purpose built machine but lack the skills, knowledge or desire to do the work themselves. For these select few a company like CyberPowerPC might be the answer as they can step in and do all the work for you. This past month I had a unique opportunity to visit the CyberPowerPC offices and see exactly how they build that computer you just ordered.

What I found to be most surprising during my visit is not really what they build but rather the scale of what they do it. For instance they often assemble over 100 systems a day and will send out three or more semi trailers full of systems a week. On top of that they have an onsite call center 24/7 and handle RMA issues in a special area next to the production line.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Gigabyte GTX 960 OC 2 GB

Gigabyte's GTX 960 OC retails at an affordable $199, yet offers the same performance out of the box as the bigger G1 Gaming. Even at its low price, Gigabyte didn't compromise on important things: OC potential, noise, temperatures, power consumption are all comparable to more expensive custom-design variants.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Gigabyte X99-UD3P Motherboard Review – X99 On a Budget?

In our recent review of the of the Z97X-UD3H-BK from Gigabyte, we found it to be solidly built, reliable, and a fantastic overclocking ability. So, naturally when Gigabyte approached us to do a review of their X99-UD3P, which is the entry-level member of their newly launched X99 Champion Series of motherboards, we jumped at the opportunity! The Gigabyte X99-UD3P, is not only a member of the X99 Champion Series, but also Gigabyte’s longstanding Ultra Durable series, which promises top-notch build quality and reliability. With all that said let’s get into the review!

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Grand Theft Auto V - Shadow Technologies Showdown

The technologies used in games are getting more and more advanced as more powerful hardware becomes available. It won’t be long before it is normal to be fully immersed into a game world with realistic scenery. Thankfully both AMD and NVIDIA have continued to innovate with the way rendering is handled and in particular their most recent innovations were with regards to shadows. AMD has their CHS (Contact Hardening Shadows) and NVIDIA has their PCSS (Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows), but the real question is which one looks more realistic. AMD CHS works by hardening or softening a shadows edge depending on the calculated distance from the light source, while NVIDIA PCSS works in a similar fashion with a few added filtering elements and buffering elements to prevent super dark portions of a shadow.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB SSD

When it comes to SSD shopping you have to consider your budget, speed requirements, and also your brand preference. For me personally, I have been using Kingston drives in basically all of my builds as well as all of our test benches for a few years now. This is partly because Kingston has always been great about supporting us but it is also because when I visit their offices and their US manufacturing I watched them jump through hoops testing and retesting their Memory. I realized that they take their quality very serious and for me more than anything else I can’t afford to have my SSD die. So while there have been other drives that are faster, I stuck with them. Why am I telling you this today? Well that is because today I will be taking a look at a MUCH needed new SSD in their product line called the Savage. The Savage line from HyperX isn’t new, they have a nice set of RAM under the name already but today they officially introduce the new SSD. So kick back for a few while I dig into the HyperX Savage SSD and see what it is all about.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

MSI GE62 2QD (Apache) 029UK Review

Today we take a look at the new 15.6 inch MSI GE62 2QD (Apache) laptop. Featuring a metallic chassis comprised of traditional aluminum and Mg-Li alloy MSI claim it is 44% stiffer and 23% lighter than a traditional design. The GE62 2QD features an Intel Core i7 4720HQ processor, Solid State Drive, Nvidia GTX960M graphics and wide angle panel. Is this a good buy for £1,100?

Read full article @ KitGuru

New leaked AMD Zen slide

If the leak is accurate it compares the Zen, on the right, with AMD's upcoming and last Clustered Multithreading / CMT CPU core code named Excavator.Excavator is the last of AMD's Bulldozer family of cores and it will appear with AMD's Carrizo APU, which AMD claims will be the most power efficient mainstream APU.
Zen takes a more traditional AMD CPU layout similar to Phenom. There appears to be one integer cluster in a Zen core while there are two as in the Excavator. Bulldozer had a high integer throughput at the expense of floating point performance.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

Raidmax Viper GX II Mid Tower Case Review

For over 25 years Raidmax has provided the computer community with cases designed for innovation, performance and quality. This year Raidmax announced an update to their Viper GX line, imaginatively named the Viper GX II. The new Viper GX II has been revamped for better air flow, and easier accommodation for SSDs and longer video cards.

The Viper GX II also sports a new visual theme with orange accents on the black front panels. The front of the case has been given a new look with the removal of the plastic accents over the bottom air flow input grill. This allows for a much cleaner air flow into the hard drive mounting trays. The placement of the orange accents has also been changed to give the case front a different and sinister look.

The side of the case has a small window that has what appears to be a raised honeycomb pattern on the inner side of the plastic pane. Upon a closer inspection it is not a completely geometric pattern, but changes in size to more closely resemble scales on a snake (as in "viper"). This effect is neither in the plastic nor an applique, but raised above the smoked color plastic window on the inner side giving the "scales" a 3D look.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

Rig of the Month - April 2015

Each month one winner walks away with a cool prize. This month we give away a platinum certified Corsair HX750i power supply. The power supply is rather extraordinary in performance and its Platinum 80 plus certification, the one massive 63 Amp 12-volts says it all really. Superb for mainstream to high-end and even multi-GPU solutions. Corsair also embeds their LINK technology into the PSU. That means you can monitor the PSU with the help of software, things like PSU efficiency, power usage or simply to adjust the fan RPM. The winner also recieves a fully sleeved cable kit (cables + 24 pin).

Note - This competition runs world-wide, however due to complex delivery and customs issues Russia, South America and Africa will not be shipped a prize, instead Corsair will give you a 100 USD consolidation prize as compensation. We also cannot ship to conflict zones. That said, let's do some modding !

Read full article @ Guru3D

Turtle Beach Peripherals Review

Brand new mechanical keyboard, mouse and surface from Turtle Beach...

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven