Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

9-Way April 2014 Linux Distribution Benchmarks
A first look at Gigabyte's next-gen Intel motherboards
Alienware 17: AMDs R9 M290X Goes Mobile
Corsair RM1000 Power Supply Review
Das Keyboard 4 Professional Review
Dell Venue 11i Pro Tablet Video Review
Enermax ETS-T40 Black Twister Review
Gigabyte Next Generation Intel Motherboards
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480 GB Review
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCI-E SSD Review
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480 GB) Review
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480GB) Review
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 480GB Review
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD Review (480GB)
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD Review
Philips Smart All-in-One S231C4AFD Review
Sentey Aphelion Gaming Mouse Review
SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset
Whats New: Intel Z97 Motherboards
XFX Radeon R7 250 Core Edition Video Card Review

9-Way April 2014 Linux Distribution Benchmarks

Building upon earlier Ubuntu 14.04 LTS benchmarks and tests of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, here's a nine-way Linux distribution comparison done from the same hardware.

Tested distributions for this Core i7 4960X EE + AMD Radeon testing were:

- Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- Oracle Linux 6.5
- Oracle Linux 7.0 Beta 1
- CentOS 6.5
- openSUSE 13.1
- Debian GNU/Linux 7.4
- Fedora 20
- RHEL 7.0 RC1

All tests were done from the same hardware with the same settings when testing all nine Linux distributions this week. All distributions were left with their default packages/configurations.

Read full article @ Phoronix

A first look at Gigabyte's next-gen Intel motherboards

Gigabyte has pulled back the curtain on its next-gen Intel motherboards. We take an early look at the highlights from four families of distinct boards.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Alienware 17: AMDs R9 M290X Goes Mobile

NVIDIA holds the lion's share of the market in mobile graphics hardware, but it's not the only competitor. When Alienware asked if we'd be interested in looking at a notebook based on AMD's top-end R9 M290X in a single-GPU configuration, we agreed. This system is based on exactly the same hardware and chassis as the Alienware 18-inch model that we reviewed last fall, but it's somewhat more modest hardware whacks a full $2000 off the price.

Unlike the massive system we reviewed last time around, this rig's performance aims at what, on a desktop, would be considered a midrange GPU with a moderately high-end CPU core..

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

Corsair RM1000 Power Supply Review

Corsair has created a good reputation for their branded PSUs, and today they are among the most popular choices for gamers and enthusiasts. The first PSU from Corsair to find its way into our new testing lab is the RM1000, an 80 Plus Gold Certified unit with a rated output of 1000W at 40°C ambient. Given the rated power output and retail price of $169.99 after rebate, the RM1000 is understandably targeted at advanced users and gamers, and very few PCs require so much power. The target audience can be quite demanding, however, and a simple 80 Plus Gold certification is not enough to entice such users, so let's see what else Corsair has up their sleeves.

The RM series PSUs are optimized for silence and there are currently six models, ranging from 450W to 1000W. That makes the RM1000 the most powerful model of the series but it also is significantly different from the less powerful models as well. In fact, it's almost entirely different. The 750W and the 850W models come from a different ODM, as they are based off of Chicony Electronics designs, while Channel Well Technologies (CWT) supplies the other four models. As such, the RM1000 and the RM450/RM550/RM650 are all based on a CWT design, yet the RM1000 we're looking at is based on a different platform than that of the lower wattage models.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Das Keyboard 4 Professional Review

Keyboards are like icebergs. You only see 20 percent of what's really going on. Typing sounds simple: touch a key to see a character pop up on the screen, but in practice there are a half-dozen forces that go into every keystroke. It's the Keyboard 4 Professional's job to make it so that each one is less physically demanding than the last.I could write about the gross technical specs of this board. Its 2mm actuation point; the miniscule 60cN of force required on every stroke. I could write, in painfully explicit detail, about debouncing times of 5ms and how you'd need inhuman reflexes to outpace the board's ability to process the data - all transmitted over USB no less. I could spend these next hundred-or-so words explaining terms like ghosting, NKRO (this keyboard supports full n-key rollover, a favorite feature of the gaming world), and key bouncing - or, I could simply tell you what an absolute joy this board is to type on.

Read full article @ Techradar

Dell Venue 11i Pro Tablet Video Review

Today Kaeyi reviews the Dell Venue 11i Pro tablet running Windows 8.1.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Enermax ETS-T40 Black Twister Review

With their ETS-T40, Enermax have a new tower-cooler in their portfolio, which catches our attention with its matte black color. Other than that this good looking cooler comes with four heatpipes, as well as a fan from Enermax too. Since we've already had the whit version of this cooler for testing, which is bundled with another fan, we're expecting rather similar results, but still we're curious to see what this black beauty can do.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Gigabyte Next Generation Intel Motherboards

Legit Reviews recently got a chance to sit down with Gigabyte to go over the 30+ motherboards that they will be releasing for an upcoming Intel chipset. We were asked not to say what that chipset will be, what the chipset features are, what the chipset logo looks like or show any retail product box shots. It isn’t a big secret what chipset Intel is launching next, but we will play by the rules and show you nearly a dozen boards that will be coming out very soon....

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

OCZ RevoDrive 350 480 GB Review

OCZ had launched the last version of their PCI-Express based RevoDrives back in 2011, three years ago. Back then the SSD maker put up to two SandForce SF-2281 controller on one PCI-Express card, which allowed for transfer speeds of more than 1000 Megabyte per second. Today the company launches the successor of this drive and it can host no less than four controllers, which have been bundled using OCZ's proprietary VCA 2.0 architecture.

Read full article @ ocaholic

OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCI-E SSD Review

OCZ’s PCI-E SSDs may not have grabbed many headlines over the years but the new RevoDrive 350 aims to change that in a big way. Under the watchful eye of Toshiba, OCZ has effectively narrowed their focus by targeting key segments rather than taking the “let’s have something for everyone” approach of yesteryear. This plan has moved the company towards a healthier business plan while Toshiba’s tutelage is rebuild consumer confidence in the OCZ brand as a whole. The RevoDrive 350 is a cornerstone of their strategy.

The RevoDrive line has a long and rather illustrious history in the PCI-E storage marketplace. When other companies were mainly concerned with wooing the enterprise consumers with high cost drives, OCZ was busy pitching the merits of PCI-E based SSDs to the workstation market and enthusiasts who simply wanted a ton of speed. To that end, the RevoDrive tended to play up features like TRIM, ease of use, lower CPU overhead and its use as a bootable drive, all things which many higher priced competitors lacked. This led to the RevoDrive making inroads within general consumer psyche without alienating their devices’ core market.

With SATA revision 3.2 and its associated SATA Express sub-spec on the horizon, there is mounting pressure on the 'classic' PCI-E SSD manufactures to beef up their product stacks. While innovation has been the driving force of the PCI-E SSD marketplace for quite some time, most of these innovations have been targeted towards boot-ability, generalized housekeeping, and improving short / long term performance. What has been missing is value. This is especially true when companies like OCZ look at what Plextor’s M6e has accomplished on the price for performance front. This certainly makes the release of the OCZ’s RevoDrive 350 rather serendipitous since it aims to bring a true high performance, high value option to consumers who don’t have a $2000 - or even $1000 - burning a hole in their pockets.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480 GB) Review

Today, Technology X has the opportunity to check out a different style of solid state drive, the OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD. Last week we played with the Samsung XP941, a slightly different form factor from the RevoDrive 350, but much the same concept in terms of performance and function. While the XP941 is designed with the smaller form factor in mind, as well as being a native PCIe SSD for your system, the RevoDrive 350 is geared towards an essential storage device for your workstation computer that requires greater and more consistent performance.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480GB) Review

OCZ's RevoDrive 350 is a PCIe based SSD which features a Virtualized Controller Architecture mixed with multiple LSI/Sandforce controllers and Toshiba NAND with advertised speeds of up to 1800MB/s.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 480GB Review

Back when OCZ released the RevoDrive 3 X2 in 2011, it was the fastest SSD for desktop users that we had seen. Using PCI Express, it eliminated the SATA bottleneck that most SSDs still face today while also offering hassle-free RAID, though it wasn't without shortcomings.

The RevoDrive 3 X2 was essentially four Vertex 3 SSDs forged together on a single PCB yet it was less than two times faster than a single Vertex 3 in our real-world tests. The same money could buy similar performance with a custom RAID0 setup using separate drives.

Now three years later, OCZ is replacing its RevoDrive 3 X2 with the RevoDrive 350, touted as being the ultimate storage solution for intensive workstation applications. The new RevoDrive has been upgraded to x8 PCIe 2.0 (from x4) and boasts read/write speeds of 1.8/1.7GBps.

Read full article @ Techspot

OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD Review (480GB)

OCZ was the first to introduce a PCIe SSD solution to the consumer with their original RevoDrive PCIe SSD way back in 2010, this updated by the RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD the following June and the RevoDrive 3x2 a few months later. There was no question that OCZ had struck gold with the RevoDrive 3x2 PCIe SSD as it was capable of performance of 1.5GB/s read and 1.25GB/s write with up to 200,000K IOPS. At a consumer price, the RevoDrive 3x2 PCIe SSD eliminated the SATA bottleneck, while providing RAID performance without the hassle, introduced OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) 2.0 technology, and provided workstation design and performance at an affordable price.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD Review

A lot has happened to OCZ and the NAND flash storage market as a whole last year, but for OCZ the sun is shining bright in the morning again, slowly starting to set with some new product. Hey everybody and welcome to another extensive review. Today we put the OCZ RevoDrive 350 to the test, a PCI Express based SSD that is going to knock you of your feet as it is incredibly fast. Let me just quickly throw some numbers at you that will get a smile on your face, so how do 1,700 ~ 1,800 MB/s maximum read and write performance sound? Yes Sir, that's the kind of performance OCZ offers to the performance aficionados in the year 2014, and exciting it surely is.

The world of Solid State storage technology is full of surprises and the development rate is exceedingly progressive. Last year it however turned from a growth market towards a steady market where only the big players have a real saying. Names like Micron (Crucial), Samsung, Intel and Toshiba (OCZ) will be the brands to keep an eye on. The development rate however has been going so fast that current component technology cannot keep up with the pace. The transition to SATA 3 (6G) was huge, but the minute SATA 3 was released (offering 6 Gbps transfers) these controllers already started reaching their maximum bandwidth with the latest generation SSDs. Starting with Z97 you'll be seeing a lot of M2 products, basically offering a 10 Gbps link directly from your chipset (PCIe) and later on in the year 10 Gbps Sata Express will become a thing of discussion.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Philips Smart All-in-One S231C4AFD Review

Smart TVs have become the norm in many UK households, but that level of web-connected possibility hasn't yet penetrated the PC monitor market, at least not without a third-party device.

Philips, who has a long history of innovation in this space, is hoping to shake things up with a 23in solution dubbed the Smart All-in-One S231C4AFD.

Priced at £350 and described by the manufacturer as "smart, connected and portable," this 23in panel is part Android tablet and part PC display. From the outside, it looks like a fairly generic monitor with a standard full-HD resolution, but it's on the inside that the Smart All-in-One sets itself apart.

Read full article @ Hexus

Sentey Aphelion Gaming Mouse Review

Everytime I go to a computer hardware B&M store to buy some component, I usually walk through the mouse/keyboard aisle even if I'm not buying any. I do so for two reasons: to keep track of new offerings in the market and to try my hands on whatever peripheral I happen to have on my wish list. When I got the review sample for the Sentey Aphelion I will be looking at today, the name seemed familiar but I couldn't place it on any mouse I've seen before. Up until now, Sentey was a name that I associated to a computer chassis or a power supply. It seems that the Florida-based company has come a long way since its 2001 inception, and a quick look at the Sentey website shows a respectable lineup of products including not only cases and power supplies, but also keyboards, mice, headsets, and gaming surfaces.

Part of the Elite Gamer Series, the Sentey Aphelion is a nice looking gaming mouse listed for $59.99 USD on the manufacturer website which places it right in the middle of its product price range. The Aphelion promises to enhance control, comfort and performance. To achieve this, Sentey equipped the Aphelion with an "Advanced 3D Two-Way Scroll Wheel", 3400 DPI capable PIXART PAW-3606 chipset, low friction PTFE feet, ergonomic side grip, 5+2 buttons, on-the-fly DPI selector and a companion software suite.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset

There are two really big trends that we’re seeing in the general world of consumer electronics. First, we’ve gotten into the habit of cutting every cable we can. You’ve got wireless mice, wireless charging, and wireless printers, as well as the ability to wirelessly stream a video from your smartphone to your HDTV. Second, we want products that are a little more universal, offering greater compatibility with some of the gear that we already have.

And approaching both of these trends is the SteelSeries H Wireless gaming headset. It’s wireless, for starters, and it’s also designed to work with just about any audio source you want to throw at it, including the PS4 and Xbox One.

Read full article @ MEGATech

Whats New: Intel Z97 Motherboards

Back in 2007 Intel established a Tick-Tock model that predicted that following a micro-architectural process technology die shrink (tick) that a new micro-architecture would be introduced (tock). They’ve kept to this processor model for seven years, but no such model exists for their board chipset architecture. Instead, every tick update and new tock architecture receives a fresh LGA (land grid array) CPU socket: Nehalem brought LGA 1366 and later LGA 1156, Sandy Bridge introduced LGA 1155 followed by LGA 2011, and Haswell delivered LGA 1150. But what’s new in 2014 with Intel Z97?

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

XFX Radeon R7 250 Core Edition Video Card Review

Let's analyze the Radeon R7 250 Core Edition (R7-250A-ZLF4) from the traditional manufacturer XFX, a low profile video card with 1 GiB of GDDR5 memory that competes with the GeForce GT 640 GPU from NVIDIA.

Read full article @ Hardware Secrets