Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT Review
Best Xfce distro of 2015
Case Mod Friday: Frozen Grey
Cougar 450K Keyboard & 450M Mouse Review
Disable NVIDIA Streamer Service and other NVIDIA processes
G.Skill TridentZ 16GB DDR 4 DC 3200 MHz (16 18 18 38), The Need For Speed
How to Stop Windows 10 Update From Restarting Without Asking
Icy Dock MB971SP-B DuoSwap Reader Review
Nucharger PB13 13000mAh Power Bank Review
NZXT Hue+ Review
Oukitel K4000 review: Living on Edge
System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1055 Prosumer PC
The Best PC Games
Western Digital Black 6TB HDD Review

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT Review

Hello hardware enthusiast. Today we look at one of the most impressive and awe inspiring manifestations of technology to grace the Bjorn3D lab, The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT. The latest iteration of the Maximus IMPACT pushes the boundaries of what can be expected from a mITX motherboard. ASUS has went above and beyond to produce an mITX motherboard that can hold it’s own when facing off against much larger contenders. With the addition of onboard or vertical daughter cards ASUS has been able to produce a micro monster that doesn’t force the user to give up features in search of compact size. The MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT is also not in the business of compromising when it comes to overclocking capability either, with MicroFine Alloy Chokes, PowlRstage MOSFETs, and 10K Black Metallic Capacitors the MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT is undoubtedly without equal in the mITX scene. For years ROG has been the forefront of extreme enthusiast level hardware and the latest generation of MAXIMUS motherboards shows the techs at ASUS have every intention of continuing to provide the public with design and features that shatter expectations and preconceived notions of what the best of the best can be.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Best Xfce distro of 2015

And now we announce the best Xfce distro of 2015. Once again, an OCS-Mag article, so hop yonder. Enjoy.

Read full article @ OCS

Case Mod Friday: Frozen Grey

Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have Twister's “Frozen Grey” build. Here is what they had to say about it, "After a little break I decided to begin a new mod with the wonderful Corsair 780T, it is amazing with a nice estetic and enough spacious to host a good mod. So, let's start with the presentation of this mod and with a big thanks to Corsair, Asus and Drako.it, without them this couldn't be possible."

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Cougar 450K Keyboard & 450M Mouse Review

The 450K keyboard is all plastic, and it feels well-built for its size with little flex. It has smooth plastic on the top and bottom of the keyboard, with a brushed-plastic finish in the centre. The finish is a nice touch, as it means the keyboard avoids picking up fingerprints and smudges like the aluminium of some of its competitors.

The Cherry MX hybrid mechanical switches have three-colour backlighting and are completely sealed, which the company claims makes the keyboard waterproof. It stood up to that task in our testing, but Hardware Canucks still recommends against undersea computer usage.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Disable NVIDIA Streamer Service and other NVIDIA processes

NVIDIA Streamer Service, NVIDIA Streamer Network Service and NVIDIA Streamer User Agent are three of the many processes running on Windows machines that are powered by recent NVIDIA video cards.

NVIDIA is notorious for pushing the limits when it comes to adding new services and processes to its drivers, and if you check your process listing on your Windows PC, you may very well see more than 10 different NVIDIA processes running on it.

You can verify that easily by using Ctrl-Shift-Esc to open the Windows Task Manager and scrolling down to processes starting with the letter N.

Read full article @ gHacks

G.Skill TridentZ 16GB DDR 4 DC 3200 MHz (16 18 18 38), The Need For Speed

When it comes to computers faster bigger and badder is better and speed in computing is a factor of money and carefully selected components that keep you off the Ramen shelves at your local grocers. Processor speed has always been king in computing but if you really must have that high-end instrument of destruction giving you every edge in computing and gaming then you need cutting edge ram as well. G.Skill has been at the forefront of affordable high-end ram and along with that affordability a dominant sense of style.. The G.Skill TridentZ 3200 MHz kit we’re looking at today is timed at 16 18 18 38 and rated to run at 1.35v and is a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit at an amazing price of $138.

Now it would be super nice if all of us could afford a 3200 MHz kit rated to run at 11 11 11 but most of us aren’t going to spring the pocket shocking prices e-tailors expect for those tight timed kits. Frankly at the pace technology is running if you like to stay close to the cutting edge this years 11 11 11 timed kit that runs north of $1K is next years prized memory so in most cases we are better of taming the hardware demons and finding a kit that balances the need for speed with the need for a positive bank balance.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

How to Stop Windows 10 Update From Restarting Without Asking

Isn’t it annoying that Windows 10 automatically downloads and installs updates without notifying you? What’s worse is that it also restarts your computer at odd times to finish the update process. Let’s see how you can fix that. Go to Settings > Update & security > Windows Update > Advanced options. The Choose how updates are installed option is set to Automatic (recommended) by default. Change it to Notify to schedule restart from the dropdown menu. Going forward, once the updates have been installed, you’ll be asked to schedule a restart and you can pick a time that is convenient...

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Icy Dock MB971SP-B DuoSwap Reader Review

Today a new reader review has been published on OCinside.de. This time MisterY takes a closer look at the Icy Dock MB971SP-B DuoSwap Hot Swap frame for 2.5 and 3.5-inch SATA drives and SSDs. Multiboot systems cause some times problems, especially when installing Linux and Windows. Two separate hard drives are already useful, but unplugging and plugging is not an option. What is the most viable option for users who attach importance to multiple hard disks? Dozens external hard drives? Cremax aka Icy Dock fills that niche with their DuoSwap MP971SP-B. Using the MB971SP-B DuoSwap, you will be able to use a 2.5-inch as well as a 3.5-inch drive at the same time in a single 5.25-inch bay.

Read full article @ OcInside.de

Nucharger PB13 13000mAh Power Bank Review

Up for review today I’ve got another portable charger or USB battery pack from a company called NuVending, the product is called the NuCharger and it’s different than other batteries I’ve reviewed before as this one has a built-in Bluetooth headset, it’s a combo product that I find rather useful. The battery is 13000mAh in capacity and has two 3amp USB ports for fast charging and the Bluetooth headset even comes with an extra earbud to connect to it so you can have stereo sound on the go. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ Technogog

NZXT Hue+ Review

NZXT has updated its HUE lighting controller and while the HUE+ name may sound familiar the system has undergone a radical overhaul. Previously you had a control unit that sits in an optical drive bay with three rotary controls that adjust the behaviour of the LEDs. By contrast the HUE+ is a tiny controller that looks similar to an solid state drive and which connects to the NZXT CAM software with a USB cable. The result is is a series of LEDs that can be controlled in software to an astonishing degree.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Oukitel K4000 review: Living on Edge

This year we saw some impressive phones from the likes of Samsung, LG and others. Although these phones offer some of the best specifications on market, they each had their own distinctive shortcomings. While Samsung's devices were elegant, they lost their ability to offer expandable memory and swappable batteries. And although LG's V10 and G4 possessed the ability to expand the memory and a swap the battery, some found the design and quality lacking.

It seems that when it comes to finding the perfect phone, there will always be those that are not satisfied with what is being offered. But, this has always been the case and what isn't included in this iteration, will surely make its way into the next - hopefully.

It's been quite some time, but I have finally gotten around to reviewing the Oukitel K4000 - a device that packs all the specs you would expect, in a device that is meant to outlast and outperform the competition. So how does it fair? Let's find out!

Read full article @ Neowin

System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1055 Prosumer PC

Unhappy with last quarters builds, we completely uncapped our budgets with the goal of fixing performance shortcomings.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

The Best PC Games

The last couple of years have been a bit of a golden age for PC gaming, producing some incredible games that will be talked about and played for years. But which ones are the best of the best? In our opinion, these are the eight greatest PC games you should be playing right now.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Western Digital Black 6TB HDD Review

It may seem counter intuitive to enthusiasts who have migrated entirely over to SSDs, but standard spindle-based media isn’t on its way out the door anytime soon. Instead the main goals and design priorities of traditional hard drives have simply changed along with the changing market.

Western Digital has effectively evolved in the last few years from a company that has focused upon trying to deliver the absolute fastest drives possible (an achievement now reserved to SSDs) to one which offers a broad range of high capacity storage solutions. Lineups like the Blue and Green series have been consolidated into a “mainstream” product offering under the Blue designation that hopes to combine extreme capacities alongside affordable prices and good performance. There’s also the Red, Red Pro and RE series which cater to NAS environments and the surveillance system friendly Purples. Meanwhile, the famous Black drives continue to strive towards a combination of leading edge (for spindle-based storage) throughput and massive storage space at a slightly higher price point and without the energy-savings technologies of the Blues.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks