Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

5 Goat Simulator Mods You Need To Try
Amazon Fire TV Review, A Competent Media Streamer
ASUS Z97-A Motherboard Review
be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler Review
Cooler Master HAF Stacker
Dimastech Mini Review
How to configure DNSCrypt on Windows
Kingston HyperX Fury White 2 x 4GB PC3 15000 Review
Logitech G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse Review
NZXT Phantom 240 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Plextor M6M 256GB mSATA SSD Review
Rikomagic MK802IV Review
Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatch Review
Seagate Desktop 3.5″ 4TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Review
The Solid State Drive Optimization Guide
Thermaltake Commander G41 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Tt eSPORTS Level10M Hybrid Gaming Mouse Video Review
Turtle Beach Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset
Urban Armor Gear Aero Case for Samsung Galaxy S5 Review
XFX Type 01 Bravo Case Review
Z97 & Z87 Motherboard Charts: 31 Models tested - Update ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer

5 Goat Simulator Mods You Need To Try

Goat Simulator is a game weve covered here at MakeUseOf before, and its absolute nonsense. I mean that as a compliment, because its a special kind of nonsense that we just dont see enough in the game world, with most games taking themselves way too seriously. Serious is not even a word thats in Goat Simulators vocabulary, and for that, I absolutely love it. The community around Goat Simulator is just as crazy as the developers themselves, and with the game being open to mods, even more nonsense has popped up.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Amazon Fire TV Review, A Competent Media Streamer

The ability to stream movies and other content to your TV is relatively commonplace thanks to set top boxes such as the Roku 3, Apple TV, gaming consoles that support streaming, and built-in functionality that comes with many of today’s Blu-ray players and TVs. Even so, there’s always room for additional competition, right? Amazon believes there is, and recently launched its Fire TV to prove it.

Amazon Fire TV provides access to a number of popular services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, Showtime Anytime, Pandora, tunein, YouTube, Vimeo, Crackle, and much more. You can also rent videos, view photos, stream music, and play games using the Fire TV.

However, recognizing there’s is plenty of competition from other streaming boxes, Amazon has managed to differentiate its Fire TV in a few ways...

Read full article @ HotHardware

ASUS Z97-A Motherboard Review

Intel’s 9 Series chipsets are here and with that brings a whole onslaught on new motherboards based on these chipsets. The two main chipsets in the 9 series are the Z97 and H97, which effectively replace and are upgrades to the Z87 and H87 chipsets respectively. Most of you are probably more interested in the Z97 chipset and that is what we will be covering today. We have our first Z97 motherboard in for review and it is the Z97-A from ASUS. It is their entry level board in their mainstream series with a modest price point of around $149.99. Even though this is an entry level board ASUS has still loaded it with features like SATA Express, M.2 support, their Crystal Sound 2 audio technology and a whole suite a incredible software. Let’s see if this is the board to make your entry into Intel’s Z87 chipset.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler Review

We have already seen the http://www.kitguru.net/components/cooling/luke-hill/be-quiet-dark-rock-pro-3-cpu-cooler-review/be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 stamp its authority on the high-end air cooler market. Now the company is aiming for another fight with its single tower Dark Rock 3 CPU cooler. Can a balance between cooling performance and noise make the Dark Rock 3 a worthy contender?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Cooler Master HAF Stacker

Not every case fits every person’s needs, Cooler Master recognized that and set out to make a case that people can adjust to what they need. Say for example that you want to pack your PC full of water cooling gear or an absolute ton of hard drives. The HAF Stacker can handle that and nearly anything else you might want to do. For CES this year a case modder even turned multiple stackers into a life sized monster. Today I’m going to take a look at the HAF Stacker 935 and 915F, the 935 comes with two models giving us a total of three pieces to try out different options.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Dimastech Mini Review

Dimastech Mini is one of the smaller benchtables on the market and despite its compact measurements it's compatible with E-ATX and XL-ATX motherboards. The bench test uses two levels to manage and organize all components and offers interesting solutions. The product is available on official site in differents colors, on the following pages we will analyze the Dimastech Mini Aurora (smurf) Blue.

Read full article @ ocaholic

How to configure DNSCrypt on Windows

OpenDNS launched its encrypted DNS service DNSCrypt back in 2012 and has been offering it ever since. It protects DNS look-ups made by your system by encrypting them, similar to how your Internet traffic is encrypted when you connect to https websites. The company released DNSCrypt to Github and others have started to implement the feature into third-party services.

Read full article @ gHacks

Kingston HyperX Fury White 2 x 4GB PC3 15000 Review

After giving this set of HyperX Fury modules in white a good run, I found the overclocking margin available was more than sufficient to allow these modules to play in a much deeper pool when it comes to maximum memory speeds. At 2666MHz, using timings of 12-13-13-32, these module see an overclocking boost of 800MHz. Yes, 800MHz over the rated 1866MHz! That is some pretty serious overclocking for a set of modules priced at only $79 USD. However, the required timings to do so cause performance to drop off in benchmarks at the upper range, though the reduction in performance is not really felt in day-to-day tasks.

Read full article @ OCC

Logitech G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse Review

A couple of weeks ago CCP Games the creators behind the massive EVE Online MMORPG surprised everyone by announcing their latest game prototype called Project Legion which unlike their much acclaimed DUST 514 Multiplayer First Person Shooter PS3 title is to be released solely on PC. Naturally it's going to be a while before CCP Games manages to even release a beta of the game but this announcement combined with the release of several highly anticipated upcoming titles like Watch dogs, Squadron 42/Star Citizen, Alien: Isolation, Mad Max, Evolve and Elite Frontier and it's a safe bet that countless gamers around the world are going to be gearing up for them really soon. Logitech is not only amongst the oldest companies in the PC industry but they are also without doubt amongst the top gaming peripheral manufacturers in the market currently largely thanks to both the quality of their products and their excellent after sales support. For the past week we've been testing their latest G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse around the clock and today we can finally share our thoughts and opinion about it with all of you.

Focused on innovation and quality, Logitech designs personal peripherals to help people enjoy a better experience with the digital world. We started in 1981 with mice, which (new at the time) provided a more intuitive way of interacting with a personal computer. We became the worldwide leader in computer mice, and have reinvented the mouse in dozens of ways to match the evolving needs of PC and laptop users. Since those early days, we have expanded our expertise in product design beyond the computer mouse, with a broad portfolio of interface devices that are the “last inch” between you and your computer or your console game, digital music or home-entertainment system. With products sold in almost every country in the world, Logitech’s leadership in innovation now encompasses a wide variety of personal peripherals (both cordless and corded), with special emphasis on products for PC navigation, gaming, Internet communications, digital music and home-entertainment control. For each of our product categories, we study how our customers use their digital devices, and then our designers and engineers set their sights on how we can create a better experience with those devices – richer, more comfortable, more fun, more productive, more convenient, and more delightful.

The G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse is the successor to last year’s G500s gaming mouse although you will not find that many similarities between these two models since Logitech decided to massively improve the new model. So this time over Logitech has equipped the G502 with their latest optical (IR) sensor (Delta Zero) that gives it a maximum resolution of 12.000DPI (Dots Per Inch) with 40G's of acceleration and a maximum speed of 300IPS (Inches Per Second) thus placing it right next to the fastest gaming mice in the marker as we speak. Of course i don't expect anybody to ever play a game with the mouse set at 12.000DPI but this optical sensor also offer a calibration system that analyzes the surface you are using the mouse on and makes all necessary changes to offer the best possible performance. This may not impress some of you but considering that the closest thing we've seen to that is the surface analyzer by Mionix we really think that our friends over at Logitech are stepping up their game.

Read full article @ NikKTech

NZXT Phantom 240 Mid-Tower Chassis Review

NZXT have become legends in the eyes of many PC gamers, their chassis designs are highly focused on gaming builds and often offer loads of innovative features, cool designs, great build quality and more, the only downside being that all this glorious quality comes at a price. With many of the best NZXT chassis costing in excess of £100, it can leave many of us feeling left out as not everyone is comfortable with spending that kind of cash on a PC case, which is why NZXT has created the Phantom 240.

Based around the design of the rest of the Phantom range, the P240 has been cut down a little to offer the consumer a little extra value for money. Priced at just $69.99 / £55 it is taking on the very competitive mid-budget market, typically the price bracket most people aim for before you start getting into high-end and enthusiast level products. There are virtually countless great chassis in this price range and you often find each manufacturer offers something unique, most often in terms of design, to try to tempt you into a purchase, so it will be interesting to see what NZXT have to offer for this kind of money. Even more interesting is to find out if saving some money means loosing out on some of that legendary NZXT quality.

As you can see from the specifications below, the P240 is rather well equipped; it has room for three 5.25″ drives, plenty of hard drives, lots of fan mounting positions, with room for large graphics cards and CPU coolers.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Plextor M6M 256GB mSATA SSD Review

Plextor has released a number of M6 variants on the market recently, all featuring the Marvell 88SS9188 controller. Their M6S drives are the traditional 2.5″ form factor, the M6e is PCI-e based and we’ll be having a look at the Plextor M6M drive which is of the mSATA variety. There are some significant differences between this and the M5M drive we reviewed a little less than a year ago which we’ll get into...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Rikomagic MK802IV Review

Let's do hardware: a long review of Rikomagic MK802IV micro-PC with dual-core processor, quad-core graphics and Android Jelly Bean operating system, covering specifications, peripherals, price, look & feel, first boot impressions, initial configurations, Wireless connectivity, account setup, applications, additional software installations, quality of available Android and third-party programs, multimedia capabilities - video playback, codecs, file format and subtitles support, MP3 music, storage, network sharing over Samba, DLNA & Wi-Fi Direct, games and touch support, performance, some problems, overall considerations, and more. Enjoy.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatch Review

Samsung's sequel aims to win over users with a slimmer design and a focus on fitness. WE WOULDN'T BE LYING if we said that Samsung's first smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Gear, didn't set the world alight when it was launched last August. With a chunky, heavy design, a 24-hour battery life and a £300 price, it was hardly the most desirable gadget to hit the market in 2013.

That's why Samsung didn't waste any time bringing a sequel to market and releasing the Gear 2 smartwatch earlier in April with some updated features, such as a slimmer design, a 1.63in Super AMLOED display, a 2MP camera and a focus on fitness.

Read full article @ The Inquirer

Seagate Desktop 3.5″ 4TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Review

In today’s market, there are countless storage options out there for you to choose for your current system or for a new build that you are planning and in general we find one of two main options being selected for the primary boot drive – this being either a hard drive which offers up large storage capacities, or a solid state drive that mainly offers up the speed. In the OEM sector, the operating system is typically installed on to a hard drive, whilst custom-built systems from the like of Overclockers UK and PC Specialist use either hard drives or the faster technology that a solid state drive has to offer based on the target audience and the price point.

When we look at where we can boost the performance of a system, be it a pre-built system that is already owned, or one that is in the process of being “spec’d” up, one of the key areas where performance can be gained is through the storage medium, but even in today’s market, the price per GB of storage that a SSD sees over that of a hard drive is still quite high. This premium for SSD performance can in some instances leave users with quite a dilemma; do you choose space or performance? One option that many say you should go down is to buy a SSD for the boot drive and then a secondary hard drive for the volume, but although the price of entry-level solid state products is far more affordable than it was only a year or to back, by the time you take the price of a hard drive into account, the cost is still fairly expensive for some. Naturally the other logical route that many users see is to simply go down the mechanical drive route and sacrifice performance in favour of purchase cost and the larger volumes that are on offer.

There is a third option that still seems to be pushed to one side of the market, namely the hybrid drive. This type of drive which incorporates both solid state technology along with the volume of a spinning platter has been around for a couple of years now and even though there are a good selection of products on the market, there is this unspoken hesitation that a hybrid drive is not all that good and it is better to just cut your losses and get a SSD. The matter of fact is though that as the technology has matured, the performance benefit that can be seen from a SSHD over a straight forward mechanical drive is far greater than it used to be and the result is a drive which can offer faster read speeds and in turn giving the user a notable boost in the overall system performance – particularly when booting into Windows as an example.

Read full article @ eTeknix

The Solid State Drive Optimization Guide

Solid state drives are fast replacing hard disk drives as the storage medium of choice, not only in notebooks but also in desktops where they serve as boot drives. They offer a tremendous performance advantage over hard disk drives, especially in random accesses. This is because solid state drives are not affected by the spatial locality of the data it accesses - data is accessed everywhere at the same speed.

Hard disk drives, on the other hand, perform poorly at random accesses because they requires the read/write heads to switch between different locations - an action that takes ages (in relative terms) to perform. That's why hard disk drive manufacturers come up with faster spinning drives to reduce the amount of time it takes for the read/write heads to seek from one random bit of data to another random bit of data.

Of course, this doesn't spell the end of the ubiquitous hard disk drive. In fact, the hard disk drive is expected to soldier on for the next few decades thanks to the industry's ability to continuously innovate to keep ahead of the curve. Until solid state drives can deliver the hard disk drive's ultra-low cost per MB and cavernous storage capacity, the hard disk drive is here to stay.

Read full article @ Tech ARP

Thermaltake Commander G41 Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Thankfully Thermaltake designed the Commander G41 with user flexibility in mind. The removable hard drive cages made this build happen.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Tt eSPORTS Level10M Hybrid Gaming Mouse Video Review

Today Kaeyi takes a look at the Tt eSPORTS Level10M Hybrid gaming mouse, capable of wired or wireless operation, as well as a quick look at the White Ra Limited mouse pad and Hyperion headset stand.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Turtle Beach Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset

If you find yourself jumping from rooftop to rooftop, wallrunning your way between kills and blasting away at 30ft tall metal behemoths on a regular basis you are either playing Titanfall or need to reduce your meds. Either way though, you will probably appreciate the style of Turtle Beach’s latest headset, the Titanfall Ear Force Atlas headset. It’s compatible with the Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC, with adapters, cables and connectors galore – but does it sound good? That’s what’s important and that’s what we are here to find out.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Urban Armor Gear Aero Case for Samsung Galaxy S5 Review

Protection… we are all looking for it, especially for our electronics. I was looking for something that gave me overall protection for my phone. Something that could handle a few drops and still let me wile away the time with some games and emails. But I’m also a runner, trail running is my favorite, and as with most of us, we use our phone to play music. So I began to think to myself, what if it were military tested…this protection that I seek? Because something military tested is supposed to protect and withstand rugged environments. How cool would that be? And so, I present to you Urban Armor Gear (UAG) a company that designs cases for all sorts of products that are meant to “withstand the inevitable bumps and shocks of an extreme, active lifestyle.” The folks at UAG went ahead and got their products certified MIL-STD 810G-516.6. Which is a military certification applied to equipment that can withstand tough environmental conditions. This means that this case designed for and tested on the Galaxy S5, will protect your device on the face, corner and back. Take a look at what I have here.

Read full article @ TestFreaks

XFX Type 01 Bravo Case Review

Companies often try to diversify their product lineup into other market segments, and today's review is such an attempt. XFX began as a graphics card manufacturer, later branching into motherboards, power supplies, and now cases. Today we're reviewing the Type 01 Bravo today, first ever PC case from XFX. With their enthusiast roots, XFX has created a mid-tower case targeted at gamers. Read on for our full testing and analysis.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Z97 & Z87 Motherboard Charts: 31 Models tested - Update ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer

In our comparison tables, meanwhile you find benchmark values regarding 31 recent Z97 and Z87 motherboards. Furthermore we do not comment the benchmark values. The idea and also the goal is to present to you a market overview which helps you choose the right motherboard.

Read full article @ ocaholic