Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Amazon Prime Shipping: A Cost Analysis
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X Overclocking
ASRock B450M Pro4 Motherboard Review
Asus ROG Rapture, Blue Cave, and Lyra Trio Wireless Routers Review
Asus ZenBook Pro 15 Laptop Review
Blackmagic external GPU review: A very Apple graphics solution
Cherry KC 1068 Keyboard Review
Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4-4000 16GB Memory Review
GeForce RTX Q&A: Juicy Turing Details Explained With NVIDIA's Tom Petersen
Guru3D Rig of the Month - August 2018
Intel Xeon vs. AMD EPYC Performance Cost Of Spectre / Meltdown / Foreshadow Mitigations
Maingear F131 2018 Review
RGB Free PC Build Guide - 2018
Spectre and Meltdown in Hardware: Intel Clarifies Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake
Swiftpoint Z Mouse Review
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Review

Amazon Prime Shipping: A Cost Analysis

Amazon pioneered the idea of expedited shipping of online purchases with the launch of Amazon Prime in 2005. The buying club offered customers free two-day shipping on eligible purchases in exchange for a flat annual fee of $79. The program seemed unsustainable at first but over time, Amazon has proven its worth exponentially.

Read full article @ TechSpot

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X Overclocking

We have spent a lot of time understanding the new Threadripper 2950X and how it overclocks. We have put it through the paces using a chiller system, water cooling, and air cooling. We show you what Precision Boost Overdrive and what Precision Boost 2 can push the processor to in terms of stable performance as well as manual overclocking.

The 2990WX (32C/64T) is already for sale below its MSRP of $1799, carrying a street price of $1749.99 with Prime Shipping. The 2950X (16C/32T) has not been released yet, but is scheduled for retail availability today (August 31st) and carries and MSRP of $899. Before we get into overclocking, we would suggest giving our Threadripper install video a look before you start to install your new CPU. It is not rocket science, but it is likely that you have not used anything like it before.

Read full article @ HardOCP

ASRock B450M Pro4 Motherboard Review

With the ASRock B450M Pro4 we test an inexpensive Micro ATX motherboard for the new AMD Ryzen 2000 CPU series. We have tested and overclocked this AMD AM4 uATX motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G processor with integrated GPU and with an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU. Since the ASRock B450M Pro4 is backwards compatible to the first AMD Ryzen 1000 CPU series, we have also tested it with the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X CPU in comparison to the AMD X370 and B350. We have compared the AMD Ryzen 2000 test results to the previous AMD Ryzen 1000 series as well. Let us see, which features the ASRock B450M Pro4 motherboard has to offer and how high the AMD processors were overclocked. It is not only a motherboard test, but also a test of the AMD Ryzen 5 2400G, AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and AMD Ryzen 7 1800X AMD AM4 CPUs. Furthermore we dared an experiment with the new Arctic Alpine AM4 passive CPU cooler and wish you as always a good time on OCinside.de!

Read full article @ OCInside.de

Asus ROG Rapture, Blue Cave, and Lyra Trio Wireless Routers Review

Phew! After eight months of hosting my sister-in-law's family, it's hard to believe they are moving out of our basement and into their new home this week. When dealing with a home invasion of such magnitude, I think most people would find a coping mechanism of some kind. It turned out that mine was chronicling the adventure in the form of a three-way router review. In all seriousness, it's been great to have so much family so close by, but having that many people under one roof did put a lot of pressure on our already-a-bit-more-taxed-than-average home network.After the first few weeks, it became exceedingly apparent that my trusty Asus RT-AC66U , purchased in late 2013, wasn't cut out for the new demands we'd placed upon it. I did the best I could to keep it in the game.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Asus ZenBook Pro 15 Laptop Review

The Asus ZenBook Pro 15 is a strong performer with a beautiful design, but while the ScreenPad is innovative, it’s not fully baked and contributes to short battery life. The ZenBook Pro 15 is opulent. The laptop, ($2,299 as tested, $1,799 to start) is a lavish machine, both on the outside with its good looks and on the inside with its Intel Core i9 CPU. It’s so extra that it’s got a second display under its touchpad. But that ScreenPad, while interesting, could use more time in the oven, and the laptop’s poor battery life means it’s not as portable as it should be.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Blackmagic external GPU review: A very Apple graphics solution

It's quiet, it's cool, and it's not upgradeable. Is the eGPU the future of Mac graphics? Apple wants you to think so, and, for the first time, it has worked with an outside firm (Blackmagic Design) to produce a sanctioned eGPU solution for the Mac. Simply titled the Blackmagic Design eGPU, it's available for $699 exclusively through the Apple Store.

It includes a Radeon Pro 580 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, four USB-3 ports, and one HDMI 2.0 port—and it's only compatible with Macs with Thunderbolt 3 ports. When Apple first mentioned this product, it claimed that it's easier to set up, quieter, and smaller than most existing external GPU enclosures.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

Cherry KC 1068 Keyboard Review

Cherry, famous among PC enthusiasts for their mechanical switches, greets us today with a membrane keyboard. The KC 1068 is a specialized keyboard designed for testing environments where IP68 dust and spill resistance is critical, and goes about it with good support for various regions globally.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4-4000 16GB Memory Review

While we have seen just about every incarnation of RAM from Corsair, it appears they are not yet finished with optional kits to spend your money on. We have had everything from the ordinary Dominator Series kits, through the Vengeance line, and even seem some specialized kits that were limited...

Read full article @ TweakTown

GeForce RTX Q&A: Juicy Turing Details Explained With NVIDIA's Tom Petersen

Yesterday afternoon, we had the pleasure of chatting with Tom Petersen (TAP), NVIDIA's Director of Technical Marketing and Distinguished Engineer. Given that NVIDIA's next-generation graphics cards are on everyone's mind these days, it should come as no surprise that we went straight into exploring the Turing architecture that underpins the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti. We peppered Tom with questions on what to expect from Turing's various new technologies like Ray Tracing, Tensor cores, DLSS, and the expected performance lift over NVIDIA's previous gen GeForce GTX 10 products...

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Guru3D Rig of the Month - August 2018

We just adore PC related hardware & think you do too. And sometimes you guys really make a PC that really stands out. We ask you to answer a few simple questions and send in photos of your rig. Each month we'll have a look at the entries and perhaps pick you and post your PC with photos and everything here at Guru3D.com. Here you can find out what you need to do and win a nice prize courtesy of Corsair.

Each month one winner walks away with a cool prize. This month we give away a K70 LUX with red lighting. All keys are mechanical, in our case making use of Cherry Red MX switches. The idea behind mechanical switches is that they give a key press a more perceptible feel than the standard rubber membrane used in cheaper keyboards. Gamers seem to prefer mechy's very much over dome based keys and ever since the past year or two mechanical keyboards have been on the rise. The keyboard registers ALL keys pressed at once, as such this is a full key rollover. With virtually unlimited customization directly integrated into Corsair's legendary construction, the LUX line of gaming keyboards is the key to breaking through the competition. Express yourself with programmable advanced lighting control and large font keycaps, and transform your gameplay with on-the-fly macro programming. Loaded into a rugged aluminum body, Corsair LUX keyboards provide the ultimate experience for every situation.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Intel Xeon vs. AMD EPYC Performance Cost Of Spectre / Meltdown / Foreshadow Mitigations

One of the most frequent test requests recently has been to look at the overall performance cost of Meltdown/Spectre mitigations on the latest Linux kernel and now with L1TF/Foreshadow work tossed into the mix. With the Linux 4.19 kernel that just kicked off development this month has been continued churn in the Spectre/Meltdown space, just not for x86_64 but also for POWER/s390/ARM where applicable. For getting an overall look at the performance impact of these mitigation techniques I tested three Intel Xeon systems and two AMD EPYC systems as well as a virtual machine on each side for seeing how the default Linux 4.19 kernel performance -- with relevant mitigations applied -- to that of an unmitigated kernel.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Maingear F131 2018 Review

The Maingear F131 is an elegant, custom-designed PC with an excellent custom cooling solution. The Maingear F131 is for the discerning PC enthusiast looking for the absolute best performance and aesthetic value from a hand-built custom PC. Our fully decked-out review model takes both of these notions to the absolute limit, with an 18-core (36-thread) Intel Core i9-7980XE processor and dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI. It’s liquid cooled by the company’s custom-designed Apex cooling system, complete with hand-crafted hard-line custom metal tubing and the Apex dual-pump reservoir. At $9,231, most can only dream of owning such an elegant and powerful gaming rig, but if you can afford it there’s simply no substitute for Maingear’s impeccable craftsmanship and the bleeding-edge overclocked performance crammed inside the all-new F131.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

RGB Free PC Build Guide - 2018

In this guide, we're on a quest to provide a full system specification for anyone who prefers to side-step the current RGB mania. At Vortez, we're fully engaged with RGB lighting and we actually quite like it, but we also appreciate that it may not be everyone's 'cup of tea'. So, if you would rather opt for a subdued, discreet configuration - then you've come to the right place.

Read full article @ Vortez

Spectre and Meltdown in Hardware: Intel Clarifies Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake

With the launch of Intel’s latest 8th Generation Core mobile processors, the 15W Whiskey Lake U-series and the 5W Amber Lake Y-series, questions were left on the table as to the state of the Spectre and Meltdown mitigations. Intel had, previously in the year, promised that there would be hardware fixes for some of these issues in consumer hardware by the end of the year. Nothing was mentioned in our WHL/AML briefing, so we caught up with Intel to find out the situation.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Swiftpoint Z Mouse Review

The Swiftpoint Z aims to be the last word in gaming mice. Born of a highly successful Kickstarter at the end of 2016, this premium-grade desk rodent has a spec list that ticks every single box on the sheet, and many more besides. We’re not just talking about a button for every MMO hotkey, but also a gyroscope and accelerometer so that it can take the place of a flight stick.

With the sheer number of dedicated buttons and up to 80 mappable combinations, the team at Swiftpoint are calling the Z ‘the best MMO Mouse for World of Warcraft’. That’s a bold claim, so we decided it was time to take a closer look at this recent entrant in the peripherals market. Would it meet the needs of the average MMO gamer, and could it be flexible enough to be used as a daily driver?

Read full article @ MMORPG

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Review

Battle for Azeroth if World of Warcraft's 7th expansion. It's been nearly a decade and a half since we all first walked through the gates of Ironforge or Orgrimmar, and it the big question is: does WoW still have that magic? It's an argument as old as the game itself at this point, but if the 3.4 million first day sales are any indication, the answer may be yes. This is our World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth review.

Read full article @ MMORPG