Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Aerocool P7C1 Project 7 Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Chassis Review
ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura Review
Gears of War 4 DX12 PC VGA Graphics Performance Review
MSI GT83VR 6RF Titan SLI GTX 1080 Laptop Review
MSI Vortex G65VR 6RE GTX 1070 SLI Gaming PC Review
Nerdytec Couchmaster Cycon Review
Riotoro CR1080 Full ATX Mini Tower Case Review
Smartphone Charts: 16 models tested - Sony Xperia X Compact

Aerocool P7C1 Project 7 Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Chassis Review

There’s a huge demand for unique and premium looking chassis in the system building market these days, but more often than not, these chassis often come with a hefty price tag that leaves many consumers out of the running to purchase them. Aerocool realised this and have created their new Project 7 product range, which features all the unique design we’ve come to expect from an Aerocool chassis, fitted out with funky multicolour LED lighting effects and a huge tempered glass side panel window to show off your new hardware, and it does it for a very reasonable price.

Futuristic and modern design.
Intelligent PWM fan control board included.
7 LED lighting colors & 4 LED Lighting mode selection.
Large acrylic side window for clear viewing of chassis interior.
19-29mm of space for cable routing.
Supports either 360mm or 280mm water cooling system on front panel.
Supports either 240mm or 280mm water cooling system on top panel.
Support max. high-end graphic cards up to 375mm.
Supports max. CPU cooler height of 165mm.
Supports max. PSU length of 200mm.
SD & microSD card reader included.
Removable PSU and front dust filter for easy cleaning.
Pre-drilled holes for cable management to reduce cable mess.
PSU cover design.

Equipped with 9-colour LED lighting in the front panel, as well as a magnetic LED strip, getting the right look for your build has never been easier. There will also be two models of this chassis hitting the market, one in black, the other in white; we have the while model in the eTeknix office today.

Read full article @ eTeknix

ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura Review

If you're lookin for an ASUS motherboard suitable for a gaming rig and you're on a tight budget, then you'll most likely find the Z170 Pro Gaming Aura. On the following pages we're going to look into whether ASUS is capable of standing up to it's promise of offering a well-priced gaming motherboard.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Gears of War 4 DX12 PC VGA Graphics Performance Review

In this article we'll examine Gears of War 4 in our usual geeky fashion. We'll test the game on the PC platform relative towards graphics card performance with the latest AMD/NVIDIA graphics card drivers. Multiple graphics cards are being tested and bench-marked with the latest cards such as the GeForce GTX 10 series included as well as Radeon RX series 400 cards. With the newest graphics cards and technologies we'll try and see how well this DirectX 12 title performs. Gears of War 4 actually is a pretty nice game, known from Microsoft and now makes its way to PC. Nvidia was all over the title and as such it's been optimized for PC quite well with corresponding graphics quality.

You are going to need a modern PC to run it as this is a proper DirectX 12 title. This shows with the recommended CPU requirement being a Core i7-4690 or AMD FX-8350. The system memory requirement for top level Gears of War 4 graphics is going to be at least 4GB paired with a graphics card in the order of a GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 380 with at least 4GB VRAM graphics card. Starting at that level you should be able to run Gears of War 4 at around 1080p with 40 FPS on high graphics setting. But we'll look at ULTRA quality settings, of course as we are all PC gamers right ?

Read full article @ Guru3D

MSI GT83VR 6RF Titan SLI GTX 1080 Laptop Review

From the moment Nvidia announced its new GTX 10-series graphics chips we only had one question ‘When will we see the new MSI Titan?’. Well, the answer is ‘now’. The previous GT80S 6QF Titan was a gaming monster that packed dual GTX 980 GPUs in SLI along with a Core i7, a mechanical keyboard and a huge 18.4-inch screen. The price was also huge at £3,999, but damn it was an amazing experience. Titan set a new benchmark for, well, everything.

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI Vortex G65VR 6RE GTX 1070 SLI Gaming PC Review

The typical PC form factor has progressively evolved over time due to the advent of die shrinks and other efficiency savings which make compact systems a viable purchase. Unless you’re opting for a build with multiple graphics cards, it’s possible to construct an extremely powerful machine in a sleek and slimline chassis. Saying that, full tower cases provide better airflow due to the larger surface area and tiny ITX cube cases tend to be reserved for low-end HTPC usage scenarios. Despite the higher thermal loads, consumers appear to be embracing smaller hardware and enjoy the concept of downsizing their PC. This market trend has inspired manufacturers to draft innovative, interesting designs which could potentially change the way we perceive systems with exceptional gaming credentials.

During CES this year, MSI unveiled the Vortex which employs a really unusual cylindrical shape and embedded RGB lighting. The original model accommodated either two GTX 960 or GTX 980 MXM cards in an SLI configuration and a remarkable cooling solution given the space constraints. Honestly, I was astounded by MSI’s ingenuity and if you’d like to learn more, please remember to visit the Vortex G65 6QF’s review. Since the original unit’s release, NVIDIA has revolutionised the notion of mobile graphics solutions and narrowed the gap between discrete versions and MXM boards. Subsequently, Pascal systems are able to offer monumental performance improvements while being highly efficient thanks to the 16nm FinFET manufacturing process. Of course, NVIDIA’s architecture doesn’t solve the issues in certain games with lacklustre SLI support and this can be perceived as a flaw of the Vortex.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Nerdytec Couchmaster Cycon Review

There is no doubt that PC gaming is still all about the mouse and keyboard. While there has definitely been a big push towards gaming in the living room, as proven by Steam with their Steam Machines and Steam Controllers, such concepts are still a long way off from being as ubiquitous as the tried-and-trusted keyboard and mouse combination. Rather than trying to fight that, Nerdytec have launched the Couchmaster Cycon in an attempt to make using the keyboard and mouse from your sofa as comfortable as possible.

Read full article @ Kitguru

Riotoro CR1080 Full ATX Mini Tower Case Review

Riotoro wants to prove that when it comes to cases, bigger isn’t necessarily better. How does the CR20180 compare to a larger case with similar layout?

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Smartphone Charts: 16 models tested - Sony Xperia X Compact

In these charts we publish benchmark results of all the different smartphones we get our hands on. So far we've tested 11 different smartphones in several different benchmarks. Apart from benchmarks results we also created a brief list with specs and on the last page there is an overview with live pricing.

Read full article @ ocaholic