Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AMD ensures day one Linux support with the Radeon VII
be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 120mm/140mm System Fan Review
Bulldozer Core-Count Debate Comes Back to Haunt AMD
Cooler Master MasterAir MA620P CPU Cooler Review
ECS Liva Q2 Review
EKWB-Supremacy Classic RGB - Nickel and Plexi Waterblock Review
EVGA Nu Audio Sound Card Review
GIGABYTE Z390 Designare Review
Intel SSD DC P4510 8TB Review
Resident Evil 2 Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus (250GB, 1TB) NVMe SSD Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500-GB SSD Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2. (1TB) SSD Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus Review

AMD ensures day one Linux support with the Radeon VII

AMD has assured fans that its upcoming Radeon VII GPU will support Linux from day one.

Read full article @ KitGuru

be quiet! Shadow Wings 2 120mm/140mm System Fan Review

We have encountered many cooling brands over the years, but in terms of ‘be quiet!’ their main brand focus has often been quite straight forward. As their name would suggest, above all over factors, they place an exceptionally high emphasis on their cooling and fan technology to design a product that runs as near to silent as possible.

In fairness, it isn’t an idle claim either as in the past we have often found their fan technology to be amongst the best out there for low-noise levels.

With the release of the Shadow Wings 2 series of fans, however, be quiet! looks to take this a step further providing a range of fan options (120mm-140mm at different speeds) all while keeping noise levels to a minimum. Although these fans are primarily designed as ‘system/chassis’ fans, they can, of course, be applied to other parts of your system (such as your AIO radiator) presuming you have the same sizes.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Bulldozer Core-Count Debate Comes Back to Haunt AMD

AMD in 2012 launched the FX-8150, the "world's first 8-core desktop processor," or so it says on the literal tin. AMD achieved its core-count of 8 with an unconventional CPU core design. Its 8 cores are arranged in four sets of two cores each, called "modules." Each core has its own independent integer unit and L1 data cache, while the two cores share a majority of their components - the core's front-end, a branch-predictor, a 2 MB L2 cache, but most importantly, an FPU. There was much debate across tech forums on what constitutes a CPU core.

Multiprocessor-aware operating systems had to be tweaked on how to properly address a "Bulldozer" processor. Their schedulers would initially treat "Bulldozer" core as a fully independent CPU (as conventional logic would dictate), until AMD noticed multi-threaded application performance bottlenecks. Eventually, Windows and various *nix kernels received updates to their schedulers to treat each module as a core, and each core as an SMT unit (a logical processor). The FX-8150 is a 4-core/8-thread processor in the eyes of Windows 10, for example. These updates improved the processors' performance but not before consumers started noticing that their operating systems weren't reporting the correct core-count. In 2015, a class-action lawsuit was filed against AMD for false marketing of FX-series processors. The wheels of that lawsuit are finally moving, after a 12-member Jury is set up to examine what constitutes a CPU core, and whether an AMD FX-8000 or FX-9000 series processor can qualify as an 8-core chip.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Cooler Master MasterAir MA620P CPU Cooler Review

The last time we took a look at a CPU cooler from Cooler Master it looked pretty awesome, but the performance was a little lacking. Today we have a pretty beefy cooler from the company that boasts dual fans, dual heatsink towers, and six large copper heatpipes. Is this the Cooler Master air cooler you want for those overclocks and intense gaming sessions? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

ECS Liva Q2 Review

A small PC primed for the masses. We often review high-end PC systems geared toward the enthusiast. Rarely costing less than £1,000, oftentimes much more, their appeal is limited to gamers and serious content creators.

Those working in the majority of offices or needing a computer for simple everyday tasks don't need anything nearly as powerful. A basic, cheaper PC will suffice, and to that end companies such as ECS have championed small-form-factor computers that excel in value.

A case in point is the Liva Q2, described as a 'pocket-size mini PC with endless possibilities.' Let's take a peek.

Read full article @ Hexus

EKWB-Supremacy Classic RGB - Nickel and Plexi Waterblock Review

EKWB's Supremacy CPU blocks have been a favorite of may water cooling enthusiasts and overclockers. With the launch of the Quantum line of products, EKWB also launched their Classic Line. The Classic line retains a familiar look of EK blocks of the past with minor aesthetic updates.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

EVGA Nu Audio Sound Card Review

Why is EVGA diving into the world of sound cards? Well, if you knew about Andrew Han, the EVGA CEO, you would be asking why they havent done MORE sound cards. Hes a true audio enthusiast, an audiophile of the highest calibre if there ever was one.

Read full article @ eTeknix

GIGABYTE Z390 Designare Review

For this season's Intel Z390 chipset the Designare doubles down on Thunderbolt 3 - bringing in two USB-C ports on the Rear IO, as well as a plethora of other features including DisplayPort 1.4 Input. Another significant inclusion is CPU attached PCI Express, which allows SSD add-in cards to completely bypass the chipset controller and utilise greater throughput directly from the CPU.

Read full article @ Vortez

Intel SSD DC P4510 8TB Review

Intel rate the endurance of the 8TB drive at up to 13.88PBW and back the drive with a 5 year warranty.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Resident Evil 2 Review

Resident Evil 7 kind of snuck up on survival horror fans. Many of us feared Resident Evil had permanently lost its mojo following a string of disappointing entries, but Capcom proved there was blood left in the horror franchise’s veins with their gutsy sequel.

Read full article @ Wccftech

Samsung 970 EVO Plus (250GB, 1TB) NVMe SSD Review

Samsung is updating its mainstream NVMe SSD with a new generation of 3D NAND that brings improved performance and power efficiency. The new Samsung 970 EVO Plus keeps the same controller as last years 970 EVO, but the upgrade to 96-layer 3D TLC NAND is important enough to deserve the new product name. In our review, weve been testing the 250GB and 1TB NVMe M.2 models.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500-GB SSD Review

Not long ago, you might have heard me grumbling about the aggressive onslaught of QLC drives and pining for the reassuring embrace of TLC NAND. Samsung must have been listening in, because today the company is launching a new, PCIe, TLC V-NAND SSD. Feast your eyes on the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB. 

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2. (1TB) SSD Review

Samsung outs a new TURBO edition of the M.2. EVO drives, AS IF they were not fast enough, they improved writes allowing R/W up to 3500/3300 MB/s thanks to the latest 3bit written NAND and a new Phoenix controller.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD Review

Samsung today is launching a new member of its consumer-targeted family of NVMe SSDs, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus. Thanks to the upgrade from 64-layer to 96-layer V-NAND, this new drive promises significantly better write performance, a slight bump to overall responsiveness, and improved efficiency all in the same single-sided package at capacities up to 2TB.

This new drive, a mid-cycle refresh that keeps the well-regarded 970-series on the market, looks impressive on paper. But do those soaring advertised IOPS and insane write speeds hold up in reality? Check out our initial review of the Samsung 970 EVO Plus.

Read full article @ PC Perspective

Samsung 970 EVO Plus Review

This new drive promises slightly improved read speeds but drastically better write speeds across all capacities. We reviewed the 250GB 970 EVO which offered read and write speeds of 3400MB/s and 1500MB/s respectively, the EVO Plus improves on that with 3500MB/s and 2300MB/s at the same capacity.

Read full article @ Vortez

Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review

Gav returns from the dead to review the brand new Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB SSD. It's NVMe which means it's really fast and it looks to make V-Nand SSDs much more competitive with a global fall in SSD prices.

Read full article @ Play3r

Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review

On paper, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus is the fastest consumer SSD shipping today. By the end of this review, we will both be convinced the new EVO Plus is the first true workstation-class 3-bit per cell SSD to hit the market.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus Review

Although its SSD 970 EVO and 970 Pro solid state drives are widely considered to be some of the best currently available for the PC, Samsung is at the ready with a brand new series of drives dubbed the SSD 970 EVO Plus. As its name suggests, the Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus is similar to the original EVOs, but these new drives leverage Samsung’s latest TLC NAND flash memory. The firmware on these SSDs has been further optimized to increase performance as well, but they leverage the same controller and have similar amounts of DRAM on-board...

Read full article @ HotHardware