Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Accessory Power Enhance GX-K3 Keyboard Review
Acer Predator X34 Monitor Review: G-Sync Meets Ultrawide
Asetek Gen 4 AIO Cooler Review Roundup
ASUS STRIX Soar PCIExpress 7.1 gaming sound card review
ASUS Zen AiO Pro Z240IC Review: 4K All-In-One With Guts And Glitz
Audiofly AF45 In-Ear Headphones Review
ECS Z170-CLAYMORE (Intel LGA-1151)
Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review
Intel Skylake CPUs are bending due to cooler mount pressure
Jaybird X2 Review
Key Ingredient Recipe Reader HD+ Tablet Review
Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB Review
Logitech Atlas Spectrum G410 TKL Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Logitech G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse Review
Microsoft Lumia 950 Review
PowerColor PCS+ R9 380X Myst Edition Review
Radeon Settings: Crimson Edition Performance Analysis

Accessory Power Enhance GX-K3 Keyboard Review

We are going to take an in-depth look at the GX-K3. From the moment you see this product you’ll be intrigued. The slick, predominantly black box has just enough colour and pattern to draw your gaze to the packaging’s focal point, the beautifully purple lit GX-K3.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Acer Predator X34 Monitor Review: G-Sync Meets Ultrawide

Acer's Predator X34 has a curved UQHD (3440 x 1440) AH-IPS panel and garners reasonable gaming cred with a 100Hz vertical refresh rate, G-Sync and an interesting design. Should Geforce owners be drooling or is this one a hard pass?

Read full article @ TechSpot

Asetek Gen 4 AIO Cooler Review Roundup

A short time later Asetek began dabbling with watercooling solutions and hit the market hard with their WaterChill cooling solution. WaterChill was basically a DIY style water cooling system consisting of pond pumps, 12v to 120/240v relays, custom waterblocks, awesome installation hardware and Black Ice radiators. While most of the components are sourced from independent suppliers the real IP was the waterblocks and later some custom 12v pumps.

I again reviewed many of these units and was supremely impressed with the price to performance ratio. Sure you can get better cooling by making a few tweaks but they offered coolers for the enthusiast with a variety of different radiator configurations. WaterChill really matured the retail DIY watercooling market and made it what it is today.

The WaterChill system lasted for about 4 years which coincides with the emergence of the LARGE heatpipe coolers. These coolers couldn’t surpass watercooling performance but were cheaper, easier to install and, in some cases, just as good. While DIY watercooling was still popular with hardware enthusiasts however, building one is often cost prohibitive and introduces a maintenance issue that many mainstream users are not willing to deal with.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

ASUS STRIX Soar PCIExpress 7.1 gaming sound card review

Today we look at the most affordable of the STRIX sound cards, the Soar. Although it has much the same hardware and features as its bigger brothers, it is more affordable which could be the real kicker in convincing potential buyers.

Read full article @ KitGuru

ASUS Zen AiO Pro Z240IC Review: 4K All-In-One With Guts And Glitz

It’s been quite some time since we last looked at an all-in-one PC. Although there is clearly a niche market for AiOs, the product segment has always kept a consistent rythm in all facets of computing - consumer, enterprise and SMB. These types of systems appeal to style-conscious users and businesses that need computing utility with good looks, that blends in and stays out of the way. And though many are not powerhouses, a few do catch our enthusiast eye and one of those few is the Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IC, which Asus is billing as “The pinnacle of Windows all-in-one PCs.”

That may be a stretch and certainly a bold claim, but the Zen AiO Pro also looks pretty strong on its rap sheet, with a 4K display, discrete NVIDIA graphics and Intel's new Skylake 6th generation Core Series processor. So we brought one in to kick the tires.

Read full article @ HotHardware

Audiofly AF45 In-Ear Headphones Review

Audiofly has really impressed us with their in-ear headphones. We first took a look at their high-end AF78’s then moved down to the AF56’s and now we are taking a look at the AF45’s. These sit right above Audiofly’s entry-level AF33’s, so they are two steps down from the top of the line AF78’s. Audiofly tells us that the AF45’s deliver clear, honest tones. They have well defined mids that groove with a punchy bass and blend with stunning highs that chime like a church bell. At only $35 these fit into the budget of most people, let’s see if they are for you.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

ECS Z170-CLAYMORE (Intel LGA-1151)

After skipping Intel's X99 Express platform, ECS is back to enthusiast-focused board products using Intel's Z170. The ECS Z170-CLAYMORE is a weapon built for today's gamer arsenal, carrying Realtek's latest "Dragon" LAN controller not seen on these pages before.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

Intel’s latest Skylake architecture is built on the 14nm manufacturing process and designed to replace the previous generation, Haswell Refresh CPUs. However, the Core i7-6700K is currently a poor value proposition throughout Europe and costs upwards of £350. While the Z170 motherboards are an affordable proposition, some consumers are still waiting for CPU price cuts before considering making the switch. Furthermore, the i7-6700K is priced incredibly close to the X99-based Core i7 5820K which contains 6 cores and provides enhanced performance in multi-threaded workstation tasks.

Eventually, Skylake K-series CPUs should fall to reasonable pricing around the £250 mark and increase the sales of Z170 motherboards. The latest motherboard to arrive at eTeknix headquarters is the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH which supports 3-way SLI, Turbo B-Clock Tuning IC, SATA Express, USB 3.1 Type-C and 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 capable of powering dual 4K displays at 60Hz. Gigabyte’s engineering team has developed a feature-rich motherboard which utilizes the fastest connectivity options on the market. As a result, I expect it to perform remarkably well in every benchmark.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Intel Skylake CPUs are bending due to cooler mount pressure

Skylake uses a thinner substrate than Intel's previous generation processors.

Read full article @ Hexus

Jaybird X2 Review

Competing in today's headphone market is no easy feat. That's mostly because a few household audio brands know how to hit all the right notes, making it all the more difficult for newer brands to legacy. But, somehow, Jaybird has punched its way into the conversation.Still a relatively new company, Jaybird has carved out its niche making products that are aimed at those whose activities are grounded in fitness. For those purposes, the $179 (£119, AU$244) X2 are a sweatproof, ruggedized option that earn an easy recommendation. But, there's still good news for everyone else. The X2's measures to excel on the gridiron, like hearty sound performance and above average battery life, translates fluidly into a set of wireless in-ear headphones that suits the general public just as well.

Jaybird doesn't reinvent the wheel with the design of the X2. In fact, it's awfully similar to its last effort, the BlueBuds X, albeit with a new name that cuts to the chase. These wireless in-ear headphones include all of the goodies that you'd expect for the price. But, the X2 sets itself apart with Jaybird's signature style and cleverly implemented features.

Read full article @ Techradar

Key Ingredient Recipe Reader HD+ Tablet Review

The Key Ingredient Recipe Reader Tablet that we reviewed last year was a bit of a disappointment as the tablet itself was one of the worst that we have used and we figured out that the app on the tablet was basically the same one you can download from the App store and put on any mobile device. When the folks at Key Ingredient asked us if we were interested in reviewing their new Key Ingredient Recipe Reader HD+ (product page) that they just came out with it really caught us off guard. Usually when a company gets a not so positive review they try to explain the flaws in your thoughts and then swiftly black ball you. We explained out reservations with Key Ingredient, but they were confident that the new Key Ingredient Recipe Reader HD+ tablet w/ stand would basically help redeem our faith in the company. Legit Reviews has been reviewing computer hardware for over 13 years and we certainly admire their confidence that they have a better product and that we’ll still give them a fair and honest review.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB Review

In essence the HyperX Predator PCIe is an M.2 SSD, which has been put on a PCIe adaptor card. Kingston is using a Marvell 88SS9293 controller and combines it with 19nm Toggle NAND from Toshiba. This combination should pack quite some punch and apparently we're curious to find out what this SSD can do.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Logitech Atlas Spectrum G410 TKL Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

Today is a special day here at eTeknix, as we’ve got the all-new Logitech Atlas Spectrum G410 mechanical keyboard. That in itself is pretty special, as this is a major product for Logitech, but it’s also great for us, as it’s been a long time since we’ve had a Logitech product on the site, and it’s certainly nice to have them back in the office again.

The G410 is certainly an interesting and unique product, which is not a common thing in a considerably over saturated peripherals market, where very similar products are commonplace. With a compact and lightweight design, this TKL (Ten Keys Less) keyboard is designed for gaming at home, eSports, LAN gaming and more, basically anything gaming related. Being lightweight means it’s easy to carry and that’s going to be great for gamers who like to travel with their systems to various events.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Logitech G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse Review

Logitech have a long history in the peripheral business, having created some of the most popular desktop and gaming mice around. With that in mind, we’re very happy to see their latest mouse, the G502 Proteus Core in the eTeknix office, as it comes equipped with some pretty awesome features that should make it a lot of fun to test.

The G502 Proteus comes equipped with a high-end 12,000 DPI sensor, which Logitech claim is the most accurate sensor on the market, a claim I won’t be taking lightly in our testing. An accurate sensor is obviously something we all want in our mice, be that for gaming or otherwise, how well it tracks can be the difference between catching that all important headshot or defeat.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Microsoft Lumia 950 Review

Windows 10 handset impresses on the hardware front but is let down by a paucity of third-party apps

Read full article @ The Inquirer

PowerColor PCS+ R9 380X Myst Edition Review

After putting another R9 380X through its paces, I was a little apprehensive when it came time to overclock PowerColor's PCS+ R9 380X. Those fears were soon dismissed as I started pushing up the core clock speed, as 1100MHz was an easy stretch at full stability. At 1150MHz, it would pass some basic stability tests, but was only good enough for some of the less stressful benches. While 1150MHz would have been a really decent clock speed, I had to back it down to 1126MHz to run all the benches long term. After 30 minutes of looping the Heaven 4 benchmark, 1126MHz was the applied and in use clock speed. Something nice to see is AMD is using variable clock speeds now. Memory overclocking was just as fruitful, with a final clock speed of 1601MHz or a 126MHz boost over the factory overclocked 1475MHz speed. Boosts of 106MHz on the core and 126MHz on the GDDR5 memory are nothing to sneeze at when you look at the performance increase potential this adds to the FPS bottom line. On a percentage basis, the core clock speed increase is just over 10% on the core and around 8.5% on the 4GB of memory.

Read full article @ OCC

Radeon Settings: Crimson Edition Performance Analysis

Radeon Settings: Crimson Edition sets out to put AMD back on the map with drivers and customer support, something that has let them down in the past and ridiculed on many forums and member bases. Moving from sporadic releases of non-WHQL certified drivers, the aim is to now release 6 WHQL drivers a year with interim updates, which isn’t as many as the Green team, but it’s a vast improvement from recent years and a huge step in the right direction.

Putting stability as the core of this software, four main pillars of User Experience, Features, Performance and Efficiency are what will make the bulk of the software.

Read full article @ eTeknix