Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AMD's FreeSync; A Long-Term Review
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Review
be quiet! Shadow Rock LP CPU Cooler Review
CyberPowerPC Syber Vapor I Review
Dell Venue 8 7840 Tablet Review
Eurocom P5 Pro Review, Taking Devil's Canyon Mobile @ HotHardware.com
In Win 707 Tower Case Review
Intel NUC5i7RYH w/ i7-5557U Review
Liztek HDDT1BSB USB 3.0 Hard Drive Dock Review
Microsoft Lumia 640 XL review: Windows Phone goes extra-large
MSI GT80 Titan Review
NCASE M1
SilverStone Tundra TD02-E CPU Cooler Review
Synology DiskStation DS415+ NAS Review
System Guide: May 2015 Edition
Toshiba TransMemory-EX II 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review
Ultimate SSD Showdown: 14 consumer-grade drives compared
Windows 8.1 - still a dead duck or worth the move for 4K?

AMD's FreeSync; A Long-Term Review

For the three weeks or so, I've been living in a vacuum. Our lab only received our AMD FreeSync monitor relatively late (on the day of launch actually) and since then I’ve been avoiding reading anyone else’s opinions about the technology, its benefits and potential drawbacks. Simply put, I needed to formulate an unbiased opinion based upon my game-time experiences rather than looking at FreeSync based upon technological expectations.

Unlike many of our other reviews you’ll be seeing my personal, somewhat biased opinions along with the usual litany of raw performance testing and a bit of technical jargon. Yes it’s different but the only way to truly experience and understand the benefits of technologies like FreeSync is from a first-hand perspective. This took a bit longer than I would have liked (the BenQ XL2730Z now has over 175 hours of use on it) but in the end I believe this will result in a somewhat unique perspective.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Review

The best that German engineering has to offer. German manufacturer be quiet! has been a big name in the PSU market for a number of years. Immaculately presented supplies with high-performance credentials have won over enthusiasts but the business is a fickle one - many new entrants jump on the back of established designs and dilute the market. Want a PSU? 20 companies will sell you one.

Leading power-supply designs of 2015 offer incremental improvements over their predecessors - a touch more efficiency here, better cabling there - and a good case in point is the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11, released today in 850W, 1,000W and 1,200W capacities and touting 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency.

Read full article @ Hexus

be quiet! Shadow Rock LP CPU Cooler Review

be quiet! is a German company, founded in 2002, who manufacturers power supplies, CPU coolers, PC cases, and case fans. If you’ve never heard of them, there’s a chance that you’ve been living under a rock! Delivering premium products, be quiet!’s main target is the PC enthusiast – AKA: You. They have been awarded nine times in a row as “Manufacturer of the Year” in the power supply category, five-time consecutive winner for fans, and also a top 3 CPU cooler brand for more than three years in a row. That should tell you that be quiet! strives for success and people really love their products. It has been a while since we’ve had the opportunity to review a be quiet! product, so today we’re going to take a look at a recent CPU cooler release, the Shadow Rock LP – LP standing for Low Profile.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

CyberPowerPC Syber Vapor I Review

When I first heard about the Steam OS from Valve, I was quite skeptical about the whole concept. To me it seemed more of a waste of good hardware more than anything else. Looking at the actual big picture (pun intended) of PC gaming and computer usage in general, it's not a secret that Windows OS still reigns king. However, Valve managed to sell the idea to most major system manufacturers and so the "Steam Machines" were born, at least on paper. These Linux OS based gaming systems were supposed to launch last summer, however due to a long wait on the design of the actual Steam controller, everything was delayed and there are still no products on the market at time of writing.

It may come as no surprise then that many of Valve's partners eventually decided to push the readily available hardware to the market featuring Windows OS instead. If I was a manufacturer with ready to ship systems and a good opportunity to sell it, I would do exactly what CyberPowerPC did with its SYBER VAPOR line of products featured in today's review. Meaning: install Windows 8.1, bundle a great accessories package, and market the lot as the ideal companion for a HD TV. Steam still plays a major part in this transition since its Big Picture mode provides an optimal interface when displayed on large TV screens. Keeping in mind that the vast majority of PC gamers still use Windows, this seems to me like a good way to make the best out of a form factor intended to be part of the living room in the first place.

In this review I will be looking at the VAPOR I variant of the SYBER lineup. Built around the Intel Core i3-4160 processor and the ASRock H81M-ITX/WiFi Mini-ITX motherboard, the system at hand is geared toward 1080p gaming and include the NVIDIA Maxwell-based MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti. It also offers a sleek case design and great connectivity features. Let's take a look at the latest PC "gaming console" from CyberPowerPC and see if it has enough power to earn a permanent spot in the living room entertainment ecosystem.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

Dell Venue 8 7840 Tablet Review

Dell is not a name many people would associate with quality tablets. Rather, most would associate the company with mass-produced office PCs, or at best the expensive Alienware brand. However, Dell have recently expanded into other areas, with tablets being one of them. The Venue 8 7840 is certainly a premium product, costing £330. Is it a quality device, however? We take a look and see if it's worth buying.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Eurocom P5 Pro Review, Taking Devil's Canyon Mobile @ HotHardware.com

As popular as thin and light notebooks have become, there is a place in market for the hulking, desktop replacement machines targeted at power hungry users--like gamers. Sometimes you’re willing to give up a little portability so you can bring a real powerhouse to the next LAN party.

The Eurocom P5 Pro, which is the latest desktop replacement machine to come from the Canadian PC maker, has the kinds of components, features, and expandability that make these systems worth their bulk. But Eurocom also managed to slim the P5 Pro down compared to previous models, making it one of the slimmest, lightest desktop replacement mobile gaming machines we’ve reviewed...

Read full article @ "=?utf-8?Q?HotHardware.com?="

In Win 707 Tower Case Review

InWin has generated a lot of excitement since their appearance at Computex 2014. Their showing an innovative mix of case designs had Dennis raving about their innovative stretching of case design boundaries. We had a chance to review the no holds barred S-Frame design back in July but today we will take a look at their latest gaming case, the 707 Gaming Edition.

Radical design elements are great when budget is not an issue but most builds focus on practical design decisions. The 707 Gaming Edition is more than a gaming case it’s a full sized tower designed with the enthusiast in mind. Does it hit the mark? Let’s take a closer look!

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Intel NUC5i7RYH w/ i7-5557U Review

I don’t know if you feel the same way as I do, but I really dislike DRM in any form. Recently I experienced a DRM situation that was even more bothersome than normal. This particular device was not able to login to a support application because the cable company did not support using the service through it, though they did with similar devices. Just another reason why having an HTPC is sometime the easiest thing to deal with since all of the streaming service seem to support them. Thankfully we no longer need to have a large computer near our TV like we used since there are several solutions available for mini pcs. One in particular is the Intel NUC, including an i7 version the NUC5i7RYH. This includes the i7-5557U processor based on the “Broadwell” architecture, which is clocked at 3.1GHz with a turbo to 3.4GHz, but best of all it sports the Intel Iris graphics 6100 on die. With this architecture the NUC is able to offer low power consumption while packing a punch in processing power. The NUC kit includes an Intel Gigabit LAN, 2x2 Dual-Band 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.2, and four USB 3.0 ports. The system supports M.2 PCIe drives, a 2.5” hard drive, and up to 16GB of DDR3 1333/1600MHz memory.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Liztek HDDT1BSB USB 3.0 Hard Drive Dock Review

Up for review today I have another UBS 3.0 hard drive dock from Liztek called the HDDT1BSB which is a top loading dock which is very similar to many on the market today. I’ve tested it with the same drives as the one I just reviewed and I found the performance to be almost exactly the same. Using the USB 3.0 connection you can expect very similar results to an SATA interface, which means you’ll have decent transfer speeds which in turn means less time spent transferring data. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ Technogog

Microsoft Lumia 640 XL review: Windows Phone goes extra-large

It's not the biggest Windows Phone ever, but with a 5.7-inch HD display, the Lumia 640 XL is still pretty huge. But is the affordable handset as good as it looks, or is big not better after all?

Read full article @ Neowin

MSI GT80 Titan Review

This has been an incredible year for gaming laptops, with Nvidia's latest Maxwell graphics cards and two new gaming laptop-desktop hybrids – the MSI GS30 Shadow and Alienware 17. But perhaps the craziest addition of this year has been the MSI GT80 Titan, a larger than life, 18.4-inch gaming rig with its own built-in mechanical keyboard.That's not a giant typo, either. This gaming laptop comes packing a full-size mechanical keyboard that clicks and clacks with each keystroke. The GT80 goes above and beyond to give gamers a desktop experience in a notebook, with an Intel Core i7 processor and two Nvidia GTX 980M graphics cards in SLI. However, weighing in at nearly 10 pounds and measuring roughly two-inches thick, this laptop is seriously pushing the limits of what you can call portable.

This is definitely one laptop that stands out from the crowd. For starters, MSI's Titan is a beast of a gaming laptop that eclipses even the massive Asus ROG G751JY. If the GT80's large footprint wasn't enough to attract attention, the design of this laptop just screams gamer from end to end.Whether it's the various dragon insignias on the back of the screen lid and laptop interior, or the red backlighting that consumes the keyboard, the Titan looks unmistakably like a gaming machine. In this case, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. With a machine like this, you want everyone in the room – or on the convention floor – to know you mean business with a portable rig that can even outperform some miniature gaming PCs.

Read full article @ Techradar

NCASE M1

The NCASE M1 is one of the best cases we ever reviewed. It aims to utilize every cubic inch of space within its belly, which makes it of extremely compact size. Able to swallow a 240 mm radiator and long GPU even so, the M1 is a near damn perfect implementation of a shoebox-sized gaming rig.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

SilverStone Tundra TD02-E CPU Cooler Review

Spring signals the fore-coming of summer, but to Benchmark Reviews, it also means time for some cooler reviews. The first manufacturer in our 2015 list is SilverStone. Last week, we reviewed the SilverStone TD03-E, a 120mm all-in-one CPU cooler which served as an update to the already aging TD03. Today we take a look at it’s bigger brother, the SilverStone Tundra TD02-E, an astonishingly stylish 240 mm all-in-one CPU cooler.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Synology DiskStation DS415+ NAS Review

Synology has amazed us again with one of their latest NAS server releases, the DS415+, which is built around the Intel Rangeley platform which incorporates the Atom C2538 SoC (4C/4T Silvermont Cores @ 2.4GHz) which is paired with 2GB of DDR3 RAM.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

System Guide: May 2015 Edition

Ready to build a new PC? The latest edition of our System Guide features our picks for everything you'll need to put together a shiny new system.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

Toshiba TransMemory-EX II 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

What's the very first thing you look for when out to get a brand new USB flash drive? Judging by what our friends and families choose as expected most people put price and capacity above everything else while others care about design, build quality (materials used) and performance. For casual consumers performance may not be the most crucial aspect/feature of a USB flash drive (understandable really) but for it is for professionals and enthusiasts so for the past 2 years or so we've seen numerous USB 3.0 compatible models offering impressive read/write numbers. Toshiba was amongst the first manufacturers to release a USB 3.0 compatible drive many years ago but they never really focused in performance, at least not as much as other manufacturers did. Things have now changed however and so today with us we have their latest high-end model the TransMemory-EX II 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Ultimate SSD Showdown: 14 consumer-grade drives compared

SSD technology grew stale after saturating the SATA 6Gb/s bus, bringing mostly minor improvements and making up for it with price cuts. With new PCIe and M.2 drives presenting an alternative for users seeking maximum performance it's time for a roundup. We'll cover a total of fourteen consumer-grade SSDs that use either the SATA, PCI Express or M.2 interface. As always, we'll be looking at price vs. performance to see where each product stands.

Read full article @ Techspot

Windows 8.1 - still a dead duck or worth the move for 4K?

Windows 10 retail is almost upon us and today we wanted to take another look at Windows 8.1 – as it stands this year. Based on our polls a substantial percentage of KitGuru readers didn’t move to Microsoft’s latest operating system … but is it time for a look now if you just bought a 4K screen? It is worth bearing in mind that Microsoft will offer a FREE UPGRADE to Windows 10 for qualified new or existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year. So the question remains, should you install Windows 8.1 now and get the free upgrade to 10 when it becomes more stable later this year?

Read full article @ KitGuru