Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

7 AMD X399 motherboards review: thread party
AMD provides update on Spectre and Meltdown patches
ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Intel LGA 2066 Motherboard Review
ECS Z370-LIGHTSABER LGA1151 Motherboard Review
EVGA CLC 240 Closed Loop CPU Cooler Review
Install Cacti on Ubuntu 17.10 Server
Nintendo Switch Emulator Announced
Raijintek Leto Pro RGB CPU Cooler Review
Raijintek Pallas Low Profile CPU Cooler Review
Razer Basilisk Review
Scythe Mugen 5 PCGH CPU Cooler Review
Seasonic PRIME Ultra 750W Power Supply Review
SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W Power Supply Review
The PowerColor Red Devil Vega 64 benchmarked with 30 games
Thrustmaster TS-PC review: For the racer that wants to go the extra mile

7 AMD X399 motherboards review: thread party

Even though Intel has the lead in multi-threaded benchmarks with their astronomically priced Core i9 processors, AMD offers a lot of computation power for a relatively cheap price. Which motherboard is best paired with this budget monster? We tested seven X399 motherboards (which was the majority of the available boards at the time of writing).

Back when the first dual-cores for desktop computer were released, few people could imagine how many cores a consumer processor would have at the end of 2017. With the arrival of Ryzen earlier this year, the pressure to offer four cores in the entry-level segment was increased. After that, AMD tried to make Intel's expensive Skylake-X platform obsolete with Threadripper - which apparently started as a hobby project of the developers. They had success: AMD's big competitor changed its lineup and introduced the Core i9 series. The prices of this new series remain higher than AMD's Threadripper, however you should definitely consider the latter platform if you're not dependent on performance per core and if you mainly need a large number of threads.

Video editing and rendering, possibly multiple projects at the same time, are usage cases where Threadripper can definitely prove its worth. In addition, the large amount of PCIe lanes of the processors on the TR4 socket are distinctive. Threadripper can be used if you want to have a beefy NVMe RAID setup. For example: the Ryzen Threadripper 1900X features 64 PCIe lanes, and is available for about 420 pounds, while even Intel's flagship model - the Core i9 7980XE - has to work with 44 PCIe lanes, even though it is four times (!) as expensive.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

AMD provides update on Spectre and Meltdown patches

And Nvidia has patched its drivers to mitigate for host CPU (not its GPU) and OS issues. AMD has published an update on its processor security in the wake of the Spectre and Meltdown saga. In summary it echoes Intel in that "security is our top priority and we are continually working to ensure the safety of our users as new risks arise". Discussing more timely matters, AMD says it has been working closely with OS providers to patch GPZ Variant 1 (Spectre) and OS and motherboard makers to patch GPZ Variant 2 (Spectre). For GPZ Variant 3 (Meltdown), AMD still asserts that "no mitigation is required," as its processors are not susceptible.

Read full article @ Hexus

ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Intel LGA 2066 Motherboard Review

Today we test with the ASRock X299E-ITX/ac on OCinside.de the first ITX sized motherboard for the Intel LGA 2066 socket. When you look at the mainboard layout, it quickly becomes clear that ASRock had to use every millimetre of the board to accommodate this excellent basic equipment. The Intel X299 ITX motherboard even offers room for four DDR4 SODIMM modules with quad channel support, three fast Ultra M.2 32Gb/s slots, six SATA3 ports, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth v4.0, 7.1 Purity 4 sound, USB 3.1 Gen1 and USB 3.1 Gen2 ports and much more. In addition, we tested the X299 ITX motherboard with an unique RGB water cooling from Bitspower and overclocked to the limit.

Read full article @ OCInside.de

ECS Z370-LIGHTSABER LGA1151 Motherboard Review

The Z370-LIGHTSABER motherboard from ECS is an improvement in terms of functionality and overclocking versus the previous generations; we have been able to overclock our 8600K i5 to about 4.8GHz by setting a VCore of 1.35V inside the UEFI interface, but because of the missing VDroop compensation levels, the voltage did drop quite a bit to about 1.243V at maximum load. With our G.SKILL TridentZ 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 kit, we were unable to run the pre-programmed XMP profile, so we needed to downclock a bit to about 3100MHz in order to get a fully stable, bootable system.

Read full article @ Mad Shrimps

EVGA CLC 240 Closed Loop CPU Cooler Review

EVGA, known for graphics cards and power supplies, has also entered the closed-loop liquid cooling market (for GPUs and CPUs). Its 240mm system finds its way to our test bench.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Install Cacti on Ubuntu 17.10 Server

Sponsored Link Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box.

Read full article @ Ubuntu Geek

Nintendo Switch Emulator Announced

The Nintendo Switch isn't even a year old, but an emulator is already on the way. Judging by the developer's previous work, which includes Citra, the popular 3DS emulator, "Yuzu" should make it easy for PC gamers to try out exclusives such as Super Mario Odyssey.

Read full article @ HardOCP

Raijintek Leto Pro RGB CPU Cooler Review

Raijintek was established in 2013 and within this sort time, the company has made its way to earn themselves a good reputation in the market. Their aim is to design high-end products for lifestyle, computer, and day-to-day usage. Their products are designed in Germany and manufactured in China. Their products range include Power Supplies for the PC, Cooling solutions in both categories of air and water, custom loop components, PC Chassis, fans, and accessories. Their lifestyle product line is intended for the smartphone and tablet users in the form of accessories.

Raijintek has sent us their newly released Leto Pro RGB CPU Cooler for the review. Raijintek has taken the concept of Leto to a next level where they have added a form to the functionality. The design of the Leto Pro RGB has slight changes as well as compared to the original Leto version which we reviewed early. The Raijintek Leto Pro RGB is a budget level CPU cooler which is compatible with all the major sockets out there including the AM4 out of the box. It has two 12025 PWM RGB Macula fans with O type ring LED design. Yes, that is right this cooler comes with not just one but with two RGB fans and this is not the chanting part of the story. These fans can be connected to the RGB LED lighting headers that are now being offered as a necessary part of the motherboard from all the manufacturers. We have tested the cooler on the Asus ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard and connected the fans using the supplied 2-1 RGB LED connector cable with the Aura header on the Asus motherboard. The Aura software was used to check the lighting on the fans they have worked like charm. Without any further a due, let’s dig this cooler and compare it with the Leto.

Read full article @ Enos Tech

Raijintek Pallas Low Profile CPU Cooler Review

Raijintek was established in 2013 and within this short time, the company has made its way to earn themselves a good reputation in the market. Their aim is to design high-end products for lifestyle, computer, and day-to-day usage. Their products are designed in Germany and manufactured in China. Their products range include Power Supplies for the PC, Cooling solutions in both categories of air and water, custom loop components, PC Chassis, fans, and accessories. Their lifestyle product line is intended for the smartphone and tablet users in the form of accessories.

The battle of low profile air coolers on our test bench is going on and today, we will be taking a look at the Raijintek high-end solution in this category. We have categorized the low profile air coolers in two broader categories of Compact Low Profile and Regular or Non-Compact Low Profile coolers. This helps in better understanding of the performance given the size of the cooler. The Pallas from Raijintek falls under the Non-Compact Low Profile air cooler with 68mm height inclusive of the fan. The cooler comes in two colors one in the black and the other in the red with later being termed simply as Pallas while the former is termed as Pallas Black. The fan provided with the cooler has 13mm of height and is quite slim profile while maintaining the larger surface of 140x150mm. The cooler is designed for use in HTPC or SFF builds with an emphasis on the form and the functionality.

Read full article @ Enos Tech

Razer Basilisk Review

The go-to mouse for FPS gaming? Razer has expanded its burgeoning range of gaming peripherals with a wired mouse aimed exclusively at FPS gamers. Dubbed the Basilisk and priced at £65, this here pointer promises to "take your FPS skills to the next level" by focussing on the features that matter most in first-person shooters.

Read full article @ Hexus

Scythe Mugen 5 PCGH CPU Cooler Review

By using two low-speed 120mm Kaze Flex fans in push and pull configuration the brand new Mugen 5 PCGH CPU Cooler by Scythe is not only completely inaudible but it also rivals the cooling efficiency of the original Mugen 5.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Seasonic PRIME Ultra 750W Power Supply Review

This new Seasonic PRIME Ultra 750 watt computer power supply is a revision of its previous PRIME Ultra line of PSUs. This alone makes us wonder just how much better Seasonic can actually make these power supplies, given just how great these were last time around. Let's find out if Seasonic has achieved building an even better PSU.

Read full article @ HardOCP

SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W Power Supply Review

The SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W is another well-designed and well-built power supply unit from the company. The internal design is appropriate for a smaller SFX unit, and all the components are of good quality.

Read full article @ APH Networks

The PowerColor Red Devil Vega 64 benchmarked with 30 games

The Red Devil RX Vega 64 arrived last week on loan from Tech of Tomorrow, and we have been benching it versus the RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled edition using 30 games. The Red Devil RX Vega 64 is now a large open-design triple-fan, 3-slot card that looks very similar to the Red Devil RX Vega 56.

AMD launched the reference versions of the RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 last August. Even though Vega launched on immature drivers and with power issues, Vega was able to compete in performance with the GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080. In November, NVIDIA released the GTX 1070 Ti to compete with the RX Vega 56 aftermarket versions and we are now going to compare their performance as well as compare the Red Devil Vega 64 with the Liquid Edition of the RX Vega 64.

Read full article @ BabelTechReviews

Thrustmaster TS-PC review: For the racer that wants to go the extra mile

Thrustmaster recently introduced the TS-PC Racer, an enthusiast steering wheel for PC priced at £528. That’s a hefty price tag for a steering wheel that is lacking pedals. How does it differ from its cheaper brethren and is the Thrustmaster TS-PC Racer worth its price? To find out, we’ve slotted ourselves into our simulator racing seat.

With race classes like Formula 1, WEC and IMSA gaining popularity, it’s not a big surprise that racing games are on the rise again. The past few months we’ve seen big names in racing games release the latest versions of their games. Project Cars 2, Forza Motorsport 7 and Formula 1 2017 have been very well received indeed. If you want to get the most out of games like these and make it as realistic as possible, you will be needing a steering wheel. Thrustmaster’s latest wheel, the TS-PC Racer, is placed in the high-range segment and is supposed to appeal to enthusiast gamers.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info