Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Asus Xonar U5 5.1 USB Sound Card Review
Case Mod Friday: ASUS ROG Table & Rig
Civilization: Beyond Earth review: tested with 21 GPUs
Cooler Master Nepton 240M
Corsairs Carbide Series Air 240 revisited
COUGAR 600M Gaming Mouse Review
Habey MITX-6771: Mini-ITX Board With Quad-Core J1900 Bay Trail
HP ZBook 17 Review
iblazr External LED Flash for iOS and Android Devices Review
iPhone 6 Plus vs iPad Mini 3 Review
Lemur BlueDriver Bluetooth OBD-II Scanner Review
Origin EVO15-S Review
Raijintek Zelos Low Profile CPU Cooler
ROCCAT Apuri Active USB Hub Review
Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Review
Speedlink Gantry Portable Bluetooth Speaker Review
Thecus N4310 Review
TRENDnet WiFi Baby Cam Review
Ubisoft The Crew NVIDIA Gaming Performance Benchmarked
Windows 10 Tech Preview keylogging - Cry me a river

Asus Xonar U5 5.1 USB Sound Card Review

Asus claim their Xonar U5 will eliminate background noise from VOIP calls and deliver higher quality, more powerful sound, as well as a robust software back-end for customisation. Clearly this is not an audiophile’s amplifier, but a gamer’s one. Let us see how it holds up to our gaming tests.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Case Mod Friday: ASUS ROG Table & Rig

Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have Darrin Hommel's “ASUS ROG Table & Rig” build. Here is what he had to say about it: I made this table to go with my Rig. Everything was made by me, PSU Cover right down to the vinyl decals. So this is not only a case mod, but a desk mod too! Check it out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Civilization: Beyond Earth review: tested with 21 GPUs

Civilization: Beyond Earth, the latest instalment of Firaxis' popular Civilization franchise, was released in late October. We tested the game using 21 contemporary GPUs to determine whether it is AMD or Nvidia boards that offer the best performance for this game.

Beyond Earth is a turn-based strategy game, just like the other Civilization games. The game is set in the future. Chaos has turned the Earth into an inhospitable place, and eight factions have begun the search for a home beyond Earth. After deciding with which faction you would like to play, you will begin colonizing a planet still uninhabited by humans, taking on alien creatures and rival factions in the process.

This game, which has been developed by Firaxis, runs on the Civilization game engine. Said engine does not only run on DirectX 11, but on AMD's special Mantle API as well. Given that Civilization contains a fair amount of AI components, the Mantle version should offer substantially improved performance for systems with a slower CPU. We'll of course be analysing this later in this article.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Cooler Master Nepton 240M

I remember just over 5 years ago at CES was the first time I had ever seen a sealed water cooling system. At the time, it seemed a little crazy. How would it fit various PCs? What about maintenance? At that time the only real options were custom setups using parts designed for fish tanks. That company introduced their kit later on (Cool-It’s Domino), it had its share of problems, not to mention trying to convince people you weren’t crazy when you said you want to put water inside of their PC. Years later it feels like everyone has gotten into the market and those designs have improved year after year. Cooler Master for the last few years has been trying there hand at it. Today I have the chance to dig in check out their latest model, the Nepton 240M. They have had a few Nepton models before but this is the first 240mm model.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Corsairs Carbide Series Air 240 revisited

When we first reviewed Corsair's Carbide Series Air 240, we didn't get a full picture of the case's cooling potential. We got our hands on a Zalman Fan Mate 2 and a couple of fan splitters to see what the Air 240 is really capable of.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

COUGAR 600M Gaming Mouse Review

Just like most things related to PC systems (and not only) gaming peripherals are getting more advanced and innovative each day that goes by so currently we have numerous gaming keyboards, headsets and mice aimed at serious gamers and professionals alike that not only come with superior performance thanks to blazing fast laser, optical and LED sensors but also an abundance of features (some very useful while others not so much). Manufacturers don't stop there however so aside performance and features many models follow really strange and sometimes ergonomic design lines to separate them from the rest of the crowd. However not every gamer out there seeks to get advanced gaming peripherals and this may surprise some people but many times the reason behind that has nothing to do with the cost of such devices but rather with simplicity. A few months back COUGAR announced their gaming line from which so far we've looked at the 700M Gaming Mouse which as many of you know at the end of the day left us with a very good overall opinion. Well today we'll be taking a thorough look at its cousin the 600M Gaming Mouse.

COUGAR products are designed by COUGAR GERMANY, a professional R&D engineering team and COUGAR is part of the “HEC/COMPUCASE” Group. The unique combination of the world-famous German skills of designing the best products worldwide and HEC/s power and long-time experience to produce the best high quality products created innovative masterpieces in PSU history. The PC upgrading and DIY market is changing rapidly and is growing more and more. Professional user are asking for more than only stable and silent PSU/s, they want efficient and energy saving products without compromises in quality. COUGAR GERMANY created such products! COUGAR GERMANY combines the features of innovation and evolution to create efficient, powerful and unique products like “COUGAR POWER”. The purpose of COUGAR GERMANY is the satisfaction of the customer, reaching it by creating most valuable, advanced products. COUGAR – YOUR POWER!

Compared to the 700M the 600M gaming mouse may be much simpler but it still carries the same ADNS-9800 laser sensor by Avago featuring 8200DPI resolution, 12000fps framerate, 150IPS tracking speed and up to 30G acceleration. Similarities don't end there however since COUGAR has also equipped the 600M with durable OMRON switches (5 million clicks) for the primary buttons, 8 programmable buttons in total, an onboard 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 CPU and 512Kb of memory used for storing the 3 available profiles and a 45 degree sniper button used to slow down DPI for a more steady aim. The 600M gaming mouse also features a polling rate of 1000Hz/1ms and a 16.8 million colors LED backlit illumination system. However although the main difference between the 600M and the 700M seems to be only in design there's also something very important to note and that's the weight. So aside the 40g difference in weight these two gaming mice have (600M weighs 90g while the 700M weighs 110g) the 700M also had an adjustable weight system which could add an extra 18g to its weight. Still lighter seems to be better for most people so let's see what the 600M brings to the table.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Habey MITX-6771: Mini-ITX Board With Quad-Core J1900 Bay Trail

While Habey may not be a household name to most Linux desktop users, they are known in the embedded world and do produce Linux-friendly systems and motherboards. Habey recently engaged with Phoronix and today we are checking out our first Habey motherboard: the MITX-6771 that's a mini-ITX motherboard with Intel Bay Trail quad-core SoC.

Habey is a division of NORCO Intelligent Technology and they manufacture a range of industrial motherboards, industrial PCs, and other components for point-of-sale systems, banking, military, digital signage, and other industries. Habey was originally established in China back in the 90's. Given the company's focus on embedded computing and industrial applications, Linux support and interest comes with the territory.

Read full article @ Phoronix

HP ZBook 17 Review

HP's ZBook family of high-end mobile workstations provide desktop-like performance in a business laptop. The ZBook 17 is the largest model in the range, and can accommodate more powerful components than the smaller variants. It comes with an Intel Core i7 processor, up to 32GB of DDR3 memory and an Nvidia Quadro graphics card. It's mainly aimed at people who work in fields such as graphic design, 3D modelling and engineering, who use power-hungry visual design software such as 3DS Max, AutoCAD and the Adobe CS suite, which need both processing and graphics power. The ZBook's optional 1,920 x 1,080 DreamColor display is of particular interest then, since it's a bright and vivid colour-accurate screen that not only looks good, but ensures red, green and blue levels are a closer match to NTSC, sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces than you get with a standard laptop screen.A hefty price of £2,950 (around US$4,630 or AU$5,500) accompanies this ultra-high-end portable computer, which isn't surprising given the performance it provides, although as always, a slightly less beefy configuration cuts the price considerably.

Read full article @ Techradar

iblazr External LED Flash for iOS and Android Devices Review

The cellphone camera has come a long way, I remember when they were just these grainy fuzzy things that you could barely make out what it was a picture of, now we’ve got multiple megapixel cameras in our our phones and tablets but the problem is that the flashes in those devices aren’t exactly the best, that technology hasn’t caught up to the camera technology I guess. If you need more light there is a solution and that’s to get something like what I have for review today, the iblazr, which is an LED flash that can be used with both iOS and Android devices to put a little more light on your subject. The iblazr has four LEDs in it and can be used as a regular flash or as a constant light source like if you’re taking a video where you might need that light. Read on…

Read full article @ Technogog

iPhone 6 Plus vs iPad Mini 3 Review

We see how Apple's first phablet compares with its latest tablet. Tech companies have been blurring the lines between device categories for the past few years. Traditionally the lines have been most blurred between the tablet and laptop categories, as the arrival of Windows 8 spurred a wave of convertible 'all-in-one' devices.

However, thanks to the ongoing trend to create increasingly big screen 'phablet' handsets, the category definitions between what constitutes a smartphone and a tablet have also become blurred.

This is neatly demonstrated with the release of Apple's first phablet, the iPhone 6 Plus, which led many buyers to question whether they still needed to invest in a separate tablet.

Read full article @ V3

Lemur BlueDriver Bluetooth OBD-II Scanner Review

Like many guys, I take incredibly good care of my car. Sure, my Honda Accord is no exotic, nor is it a garage queen. It gets driven year round, whether it be a nice summer day or a snowstorm strike; just like how a car is meant to be used. But when it comes to maintenance, in addition to whatever the owner's manual tells me to do, I also claybar, polish, and apply a layer of paint sealant to the exterior body every six months. For the interior, it receives a thorough cleaning regularly every three months, which includes all leather upholstery conditioned, plastic surfaces wiped dust-free, and glass cleaned with a special microfiber cloth. The list goes on. However, late in the summer of this year, my friends and I went on a road trip. It was only a week or so after I did a full interior detail, and shortly after I came back, I discovered a large hand mark on the rear driver's side window. When I told my colleague Aaron Lai about this, who was with me on the same road trip, he immediately said, "It must be [insert girl name here]." Now, I may have driven a few other people in between, but we both blamed that girl. Why? Simply put, no guy will leave hand prints like that on the window of another guy's car like that. Jokes aside, to this day I still have not figured out who left that hand mark on my window, because there is no way for me to log and prove diagnostically car problems like this. But for every other car problem, from a "Check Engine" light being activated, to you just curious about the intake air temperature, we got something cool here at APH Networks. The Lemur BlueDriver is a Bluetooth module that plugs into your car's OBD-II port, and allows you to collect and log everything you have been curious about on your iOS or Android based smartphone via an app. Intrigued? So are we.

Read full article @ APH Networks

Origin EVO15-S Review

PC gaming is going through a mini revolution with more mini-ITX computers, like the Origin Chronos Z, to the lightweight Alienware 13 and the coming storm of Steam Machines. Now, the latest machine to join this trend is the Origin EVO15-S. This thin and light notebook marks a big departure from the bulky gaming beast such as the Origin EON17-S we're used to seeing from the PC builder. Instead, the laptop is just over half an inch thick with a new thin and light chassis designed by MSI and used to great effect in the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K.Despite the thin profile of this svelte machine, the EVO15-S is still packing an Intel Core i7 processor, one of Nvidia latest Maxwell GPUs and no less than three storage drives. That's a lot of power stuffed into one small package, but is the EVO15-S as sweet as it sounds on paper?

Read full article @ Techradar

Raijintek Zelos Low Profile CPU Cooler

Raijintek is a relatively new company, established last year in Europe they are still quite a small company. Having said that, they already have a range of air coolers, such as the TISIS, a few liquid coolers like the TRITON and a VGA cooler. They also have made a range of cases such as the AENEAS and the METIS and are looking to expand into power supplies and other products in the coming years.

We have our hands on Raijinteks Zelos today, its the smallest cooler that Raijintek with a low profile of only 44mm and has a tiny footprint of 94cm square so it will fit in the tightest of spaces. Let’s take a look at it and see what it looks like as well as see how well it performs.

The top of the box has a nice little bit about who Raijintek are and shows the spec of the cooler and also that it will fit most Intel and AMD sockets.

Read full article @ eTeknix

ROCCAT Apuri Active USB Hub Review

As if we did not already have enough to appreciate in terms of the number of quality gaming peripherals that ROCCAT has been making available to us recently, we can be thankful that this organization has also been placing focus on providing us with accessories to complement the aforementioned gaming peripherals. One of the more intriguing of these accessories, the ROCCAT Apuri Active USB Hub with Mouse Bungee, is in the Benchmark Reviews spotlight today. ROCCAT calls the Apuri the, “first component of the ROCCAT Smart Desktop Management System (SDMS) offer[ing] you the perfect combination of style of functionality right there on your desktop.” That certainly sounds like a compelling piece of gaming equipment. I invite you to read on in order to get our thoughts on this device.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Review

Samsung deserves much of the credit for ushering in today’s trend of large-screened smartphones, often referred to as "phablets." Whether you’re a fan of big smartphones or not, there is a no denying that the original Samsung Galaxy Note set the stage for the battles currently being waged in the smartphone market. If larger-screened devices like the original Galaxy Note hadn’t taken hold, Apple most likely would not have produced the iPhone 6 Plus and devices like the Google Nexus 6, Nokia Lumia 1520, and HTC One Max (among others) would probably not exist.

One of the advantages of blazing a trail like Samsung did, is that it gives you ability to better refine your designs in future iterations. The experience Samsung gained manufacturing and selling the Note and its successors has allowed the company to address customer concerns and partner feedback in a way that some other smartphone makers have not have been privy to. And the culmination of the knowledge and experience Samsung has gained has molded the product we’ll be showing you here today—the Samsung Galaxy Note 4—into one of the most desirable smartphones on the market...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

Speedlink Gantry Portable Bluetooth Speaker Review

It’s no secret that mobile phones lack impressive audio. There have been many developments in the mobile market over the years, with phones getting better bass, louder speakers and more. However, it’s still not enough to satisfy the needs of someone like myself who loves to blast out a few albums every day. My phone (a Sony Xperia Z1) sounds pretty decent, but without headphones it’s really not a great way to listen to music.

Today I’ll be taking a look at the Gantry, a mobile Bluetooth speaker with NFC support from Speedlink. It promises to offer a big performance boost for your mobile audio, while being significantly more portable that a full-size dock. It features a USB rechargeable battery and a downward firing bass speaker port for extra punch.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Thecus N4310 Review

Thecus adds more bays to its value-focussed NAS. There are many impressive network-attached storage (NAS) solutions now on the market, and plenty that come equipped with all manner of bells and whistles. Cost, however, continues to act as a barrier to mainstream adoption, and that's an obstacle Thecus is hoping to overcome with the new N4310.

Introduced as a higher-capacity alternative to the existing N2310, this four-bay addition promises "exceptional performance and easy data management at an unprecedented value."

Read full article @ Hexus

TRENDnet WiFi Baby Cam Review

Today we are going to look at the TRENDnet WiFi Baby Cam with nightvision (part number TV-IP743SIC). Gone are the days of the old walkie talkie baby monitors, now we have baby monitors with nightvision and recording capabilities that play soothing songs and can be viewed on four different devices simultaneously. Oh and did I mention that it has a microphone so that if your baby is crying you can try talking to him first through your monitor instead of having to rush in to turn on the lights and really wake him up? Let's take a closer look at the TRENDnet WiFi baby cam with nightvision that you can find on Amazon for $67.99 shipped.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Ubisoft The Crew NVIDIA Gaming Performance Benchmarked

Developed by Ivory Tower, The Crew is Ubisofts latest game and is an open but persistent environment for races that take place across the United States. We were able to get access to The Crew when it was released on December 2nd, 2014 and decided to do a little performance testing with a NVIDIA based video card. The Crew does not support AMDs Mantle, however NVIDIA has included it in their latest driver to provide support for MFAA...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Windows 10 Tech Preview keylogging - Cry me a river

Drama! I've written a wise article discussing the allegation of keylogging in Windows 10 Technical Preview, with focus on the technical and social aspects of the story, a matter of perspective, privacy related tips, and more. All your keystroke are belong to us. Enjoy.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo