Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Asus PB287Q 4K UHD 28 inch Monitor Review
Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 Review
ASUS Z97-DELUXE NFC & WLC (Intel LGA 1150)
ASUS Z97-Pro Wi-Fi ac Preview
ASUS Z97I-Plus Review
Corsair Raptor M45 Gaming Mouse Review
Cougar MX300 Gaming Case Review
D-Link DCS-825L HD Wi-Fi Baby Camera Review
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 Power Supply Review
EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse Review
Gigabyte's Z97X-UD5H motherboard reviewed
Lexar High-Performance microSDHC UHS-I 32GB (633x) Card Review
Linksys EA6900 AC1900 802.11ac Wireless Router Review
Logitech G502 Proteus Core Gaming Mouse
MSI Z97I Gaming AC Mini-ITX Motherboard Preview
Nvidia responds to AMD's GameWorks allegations
NVIDIA’s GTX TITAN Z; GK110 Squared
OnePlus One Review
Plextor M6 SSD Series: SATA, mSATA and M.2 Drives Tested
Radeon R9 290X vs. Radeon R9 270 CrossFire
SilverStone RVZ01 mini-ITX case Review
Super Talent RAIDDrive II Plus PCIe SSD Review – SSD Modules Connect Via USB 3.0 Ingenious
The Solid State Drive Optimization Guide Part 2
Une Bobine iPhone 5s Stand / Charge Cable Review
Vortex KBC Poker II Compact Mechanical Keyboard Review
Xamarin 3 review: Making cross-platform mobile development painless
Z97 & Z87 Motherboard Charts: 34 Models tested - Update ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1

Asus PB287Q 4K UHD 28 inch Monitor Review

KitGuru was one of the first websites to regularly start using an Ultra HD 4K monitor in graphics card reviews, mid 2013. We adopted the wallet sapping Asus PQ321QE and have been mighty impressed with the gorgeous IGZO display. PQ321QE prices have dropped from £3,000 to £2,400 recently, but the price is still prohibitive for a massive audience. Enter the new Asus PB287Q model offering 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms response time, on board speakers, and a 60hz refresh. At £599.99 inc vat (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-071-AS&groupid=17&catid=1895) , is this the new Ultra HD 4K screen that should make your final shortlist?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 Review

Recently there has been a debate about whether modern motherboards are able to produce audio quality that matches dedicated sound cards for gaming and listening to music. This can be largely subjective, as some users report hearing no difference whatsoever, whilst others swear by dedicated audio solutions.

For the purposes of recording and studio production, dedicated sound cards and interfaces are a necessity. This is due to the ultra-low latency on the input section of the cards, allowing users to record and produce multi-track audio without worrying about latency issues. However, for the purposes of gaming and basic sound reproduction such as listening to music and watching films, is there a tangible, perceivable difference between modern motherboard audio and dedicated sound cards?

Read full article @ PC Review

ASUS Z97-DELUXE NFC & WLC (Intel LGA 1150)

We have none other than the Z97-DELUXE (WLC & NFC), ASUS's expensive high-end Intel Z97 product, with us today. Packing everything you expect and perhaps a few things you do not, the ASUS Z97-DELUXE (WLC & NFC) has everything Intel's latest platform has to offer, all wrapped into a classy new esthetic.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

ASUS Z97-Pro Wi-Fi ac Preview

With the ASUS Z97-Pro Wi-Fi ac, ASUS have yet another interesting motherboard in it's portfolio, which is based on Intels latest Z97 chipset. We find for instance SATA Express as well as M.2 and there is even a beefed-up audio solution. Other than that ASUS have been working on the design once more and in our opinion these board appeal to a much wider audience than the previous generation.

Read full article @ ocaholic

ASUS Z97I-Plus Review

With the Z97I-Plus, ASUS has another interesting mini-ITX motherboard in its portfolio. Lying in front of us, we have a very compact and well equipped motherboard, which for example received an M.2 slot. Other than that there are quite a few software features, which is rather usual with higher-end motherboards these days. With their new Z97 mothboard ASUS have also reworked the color scheme of their classic sereis motherboards and they're now way less flashy.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Corsair Raptor M45 Gaming Mouse Review

Today we will be taking a look at the Raptor M45 gaming mouse from Corsair. The M45 is a mid-range gaming mouse from their Raptor range which looks to satisfy the needs of enthusiast gamers, especially FPS players.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com

Cougar MX300 Gaming Case Review

Cougar was founded in Germany in the year 2007; A group of computer peripheral engineers bundled forces to design PC technology with focus on human use and esthetic perfection. MadShrimps has spotted some of their enclosures and power supplies way back in 2010 at the CeBIT Messe, though with the launch of the midi-tower MX300 Gaming case we had to get a sample to see what the hype was all about. The nice looking and refined exterior design caught our eye. Nevertheless the outside is just a small portion of what a gaming case is all about. Time to unravel the secrets of the Cougar MX300...

Read full article @ Madshrimps

D-Link DCS-825L HD Wi-Fi Baby Camera Review

If the stork has recently dropped by your house with a new bundle of joy and you're a proud (and soon to be exhausted) mommy or daddy, one of the basic survival items you will need in your arsenal is a baby monitor. Hands down, this piece of technology is simply something no parent should be without...especially if this is your first child. Now that I have stressed the importance of doing your homework before purchasing a video baby monitor, how about we look at one of the latest entry's on the market, D-Link's DCS-825L HD Wi-Fi Baby Camera.

Read full article @ TechwareLabs.com

EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1 Power Supply Review

Recently, like many people, I have become interested in powering my home with solar electricity. Not only am I interested in order to save money but to make my house as green as possible. There are several key considerations for solar power to make sense, such as efficiency rating of panels and cost. Once you take a look at those two items, you can make a judgment of how cost effective the system would be for the home. These considerations may seem like some very basic things but they are common with many other product types as well.

Take, for example, computer components, the more efficient they are, the less power you have to worry about using. Plus, I think we all know that the electricity creates heat which means the cooling efficiency comes into play as well. With computers, we have an additional consideration of stability and power protection circuits. These things are key so that our systems run normally and so that we don’t fry components when something abnormal happens. A good portion of these are provided by the power supply of the system, without a good PSU the system will run oddly.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse Review

Gamers drive high-end computing: if you don’t think so, consider the renaissance of (expensive) mechanical keyboards in the last couple of years. Of course gaming mice have been common for a while, and EVGA has just thrown their hat into this very competitive ring with the EVGA Torq X10 mouse. Boasting a fully ambidextrous design, 9 programmable buttons, an 8200-DPI laser sensor, solid metal base, and a dramatic style, the Torq X10 mouse also comes in at a very competitive price, especially if you pre-order it. Benchmark Reviews connects this new mouse to our gaming machine to investigate how well it works in this article.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Gigabyte's Z97X-UD5H motherboard reviewed

Another Z97 motherboard has worked its way through our test suite. Today, we take a detailed look at Gigabyte's Z97X-UD5H, which is loaded with PCIe x16 slots, next-gen storage interfaces, and a high-definition firmware interface.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Lexar High-Performance microSDHC UHS-I 32GB (633x) Card Review

The Lexar High-Performance microSDHC UHS-I 633x 32GB card is fairly priced and offers very good read/write performances for storing multimedia content at higher data rates. Lexar is also supplying a very good accessory with it almost for free (the USB 3.0 card reader) which helps transferring data at the maximum supported speeds.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Linksys EA6900 AC1900 802.11ac Wireless Router Review

With growing adoption in laptops and portable devices, as well as desktop systems, 802.11ac WiFi continues to gain pace in the consumer market. With a theoretical transfer speed of well over a Gigabit per second, wirelessly, can the Linksys EA6900 802.11ac router prove that ultra high-speed WiFi connections are indeed becoming a reality?

Read full article @ KitGuru

Logitech G502 Proteus Core Gaming Mouse

Color me surprised when I found out that the Logitech G5 design, in use since that mouse first appeared in 2005 and based off the also legendary MX518, was being replaced by the ergonomic shape being used for the G602. Logitech has presented us with the G502 Proteus Core which brings together some familiar G500 features under a new shell. Read on to find out what has changed and what remains...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

MSI Z97I Gaming AC Mini-ITX Motherboard Preview

Just in case you missed it, small form factor machines are making a comeback. Well, resurgence actually since many hardware enthusiasts and manufacturers skipped over the small form factor in favor of “real” motherboards. For years hardware enthusiasts claimed that Mini-ITX was only good for the living room given the limited expandability and lack of good cases. As it would turn out times are changing and what once was ignored in the enthusiast community is now getting a new lease on life.

In this preview we will be looking at the MSI Z97I Gaming AC. This is a Mini-ITX based gaming motherboard built on the new Intel Z97 chipset. The new 9-series chipsets are a replacement for the existing 8-Series versions and designed for the forthcoming Devils Canyon refresh processors. As of this article the new 9-Series chipsets have been slowly making their way into the market and despite the lack of the accompanying processor you can use them with existing processors and basically replace your existing 8-series motherboard.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Nvidia responds to AMD's GameWorks allegations

Earlier today, I spoke with Cem Cebenoyan, Director of Engineering for Developer Technology at Nvidia, who offered a rebuttal to a Forbes story we covered yesterday. In that story, AMD's Robert Hallock alleged that Nvidia's GameWorks program prevents AMD from working with game developers on GPU optimizations.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

NVIDIA’s GTX TITAN Z; GK110 Squared

We first talked about NVIDIA’s TITAN Z back when it was unveiled during the GPU Technology Conference in March. Since then, additional details have been non-existent but it goes without saying that during the last two months tweaking and no small amount of core binning was needed to bring the Z to market. The original launch date was actually April 29th so we’re looking at a month’s worth of delays for fine tuning. Now it is about to hit the channels in understandably limited quantities.

Now that launch day is finally here, we finally know a bit more about the TITAN Z and its potential capabilities. First and foremost the price has remained stable at a whopping $3000 which, for those keeping track at home, is enough coin to buy you two AMD R9 295X2 cards or three TITAN Blacks. However, this isn't a simple gaming card; it has much broader reaching implications.

Another mystery was clock speeds. With an air-based cooler and an insane amount of heat being generated by two fully unlocked GK110 cores and 12GB (yes you read that right) of GDDR5, some expected frequencies to suffer. Those predictions came true since things have been dialed down…way down.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

OnePlus One Review

The Google Nexus 4, the Google Nexus 5, the Motorola Moto G, and now the OnePlus One; this 5.5-inch bolt from out of the blue (well, China) joins an exclusive list of smartphones that offer an awful lot of smartphone for not a lot of money.But having used the OnePlus One as my primary phone for several days now, I'm wondering whether it needs to be placed in a category all of its own.Here is a device that rivals the HTC One M8 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 for raw specs, but at a cost of just £229, $299 (around AU$320). That's less than half the price of those aforementioned big hitters.As such, much of my early time with the phone was spent warily turning it around in my hands, like some kind of mysterious artefact of unknown origin, not quite ready to believe what was being promised of it. There has to be some compromise here, right?Well, yes there is. In fact, there are several. But it's staggering how small they seem when weighed against that double-take-inducing price tag.

Read full article @ Techradar

Plextor M6 SSD Series: SATA, mSATA and M.2 Drives Tested

More than a decade has passed since PATA (Parallel ATA) was made redundant by SATA. Originally designed to provide a maximum throughput of 16MB/s, PATA and was eventually upgraded to 133MB/s, which may still seem like plenty when you consider today's desktop local area networks are still limited to ~100MB/s using Gigabit Ethernet.

And at the time, 133MB/s was plenty. No devices could achieve that kind of throughput for a few reasons. First, PATA used the PCI bus which was shared with many other devices, all of which were competing for bandwidth. This congestion on the host bus limited the maximum burst transfer rate and no hard drives could sustain transfer rates of above 80MB/s -- even by 2005.

Read full article @ Techspot

Radeon R9 290X vs. Radeon R9 270 CrossFire

Comparisons of two mid-range (roughly) graphics cards with one high-end VGA are almost always good for some really interesting results. Today we're having a look at what two AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics cards can do against one Radeon R9 290X. If you keep in mind, that the R9 290X is just a little more expensive than two R9 270 cards then things could be quite interesting.

Read full article @ ocaholic

SilverStone RVZ01 mini-ITX case Review

When talking about Mini-ITX formats, two things stand out in the current market. Firstly there have been a lot of manufacturers releasing products in this form factor over the last few years, secondly that a few players have been using this format for a longer time than that. On of the most widely knows brands for Mini-ITX is SilverStone. They have released a long line of Mini-ITX form factor cases, and we have tested a lot of them over the years. The latest addition to this is the Raven RVZ01, and we must admit it lives up to the SilverStone legacy.

SilverStone has been in the marlet for years releasing small form factor cases, to be used for compact desktops, thin client PC's and HTPC's. The compact desktop category is mainly used for small powerful system with a dedicated graphics card, where the thin client category normally does not have room for these add ons, maybe a low profile card at best. Some time ago SilverStone introduced the Raven RVZ01, a compact, thin case but one with room for a full size graphics card.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Super Talent RAIDDrive II Plus PCIe SSD Review – SSD Modules Connect Via USB 3.0 Ingenious

The current PCIe add-in-card storage market is separated into two general architectures. The first is ground-up, native PCIe designs, such as the Micron P320h. These devices eschew a typical SATA/SAS controller in favor of specialized flash controllers that have native PCIe interfaces. This is where the market is heading. In fact, later this year, you should start to see many more devices that are NVMe-based. But, we will save that discussion for a later time.

The second type of PCIe add-in-card storage takes more of a brute force approach. These devices typically have off-the-shelf SATA/SAS controllers and connect via a PCIe bridge. Think of a HBA/RAID card connected to a SATA SSD, but on a single card. These designs have many advantages and disadvantages. While the cost and time-to-market can be low, they are inherently limited due to the architecture.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

The Solid State Drive Optimization Guide Part 2

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

Une Bobine iPhone 5s Stand / Charge Cable Review

If you've ever owned an Apple mobile product whether its an iPod, iPhone or iPad there is one thing I’m sure you know, Apple’s supplied sync and charging cable is garbage. I can’t tell you how many I’ve gone through since first owning an iPhone. Well today we are looking at a pretty cool and heavy duty iPhone 5s sync / charging cable that also acts as a stand for your device. The Une Bobine actually started as a Kickstarter campaign as was fully funded so many people were anxious to get their hands on one. Well today we have our chance, let’s jump in!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Vortex KBC Poker II Compact Mechanical Keyboard Review

In our Vortex KBT Race II review, we hinted at another mechanical keyboard from Vortex made by the same OEM. Based in China, KBC seems to be a pretty large community site as well as an OEM for several brands such as Deck and Ducky. They have designed several of their own products, some of which are promoted and distributed by Vortex in Taiwan. Today we’re looking at the latest version of their most successful model – the Poker II.

The first thing you’ll notice is the layout. We have reviewed several different mechanical keyboard layouts so far, from full sized layouts with 104 keys, to 80% or “Tenkeyless” keyboards that do away with the NumPad, to the 75% Race II that moves the lesser used keys to a function layer. The Poker II has a “60%” layout that takes things even further by moving the arrow keys to a function layer, and removing the F-key row completely.

The result is an ultra compact keyboard that gives a pretty unique visual impact when sitting on a desk. The Poker II is tiny, but comes packed with features and is constructed very well.

Read full article @ HCW

Xamarin 3 review: Making cross-platform mobile development painless

We take a closer look at Xamarin's latest mobile platform and like what we see.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

Z97 & Z87 Motherboard Charts: 34 Models tested - Update ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1

In our comparison tables, meanwhile you find benchmark values regarding 34 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