Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

First AMD Polaris Radeon RX 480 Unveil Targets Mainstream VR Experiences At $199
Intel Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K & 6950X Review
Intel Core i7-6950X Processor Review
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G Review
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Overclocking Review
Razer BlackWidow X Chroma Gaming Keyboard (RZ03-01760100-R3U1)
Techman SSD XC100 Series NVMe SSD Review (3.2TB)

First AMD Polaris Radeon RX 480 Unveil Targets Mainstream VR Experiences At $199

It’s not quite time to disclose AMD’s full line-up of Polaris-based GPUs, but today AMD is ready to talk a bit about its upcoming Radeon RX 480, which targets the sub-$200 “sweet spot” of the GPU market. The Radeon RX 480’s specifications read like a more expensive product, however, and according to AMD the card is targeting not only gamers, but enabling virtual reality (VR) experiences for the masses as well.

Read full article @ HotHardware

Intel Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K & 6950X Review

Intel’s High End Desktop (HEDT) platform has long been the last bastion of the enthusiast in Intel’s lineup. Dominating performance, flexible overclocking, and more cores than you can shake a stick at have drawn a stark contrast between it and mainstream or performance-class platform, a status quo which came into effect in 2011 when Sandybridge vastly simplified overclocking on a mainstream CPU. Haswell-E’s launch in 2014 solidified that stranglehold on the enthusiast as the first generation to support DDR4 and as many as eight physical CPU cores and sixteen threads. Broadwell-E, launched today at Computex2016, takes new steps to feature yet more cores, and sees the debut of a new price bracket for the flagship Extreme Edition CPU.

Broadwell-E is the follow-up to Haswell-E, and forms the basis of the latest generation of HEDT systems. Developmentally classed as a ‘tick’ in Intel’s nomenclature, the CPU makes use of the 14nm process node rather than 22nm seen on Haswell-E and Ivybridge-E. In common with other ‘tick’ developments Broadwell-E has key architectural similarities to Haswell-E, rather than amounting to a substantial change in underlying CPU design. Expectations therefore are tempered by realism, although it’s hoped that the die shrink will be enough to offer something new to consumers.

Read full article @ Vortez

Intel Core i7-6950X Processor Review

Intel Broadwell-E processors are finally here and sadly before I even started to type this review most of the details have been leaked out around the web this month and some have already made it up on eBay. It's getting harder to keep a secret these days and it certainly impacts traffic on sites like Legit Reviews that just so happens to play by the rules. While we are bummed by leaks, we are still excited that Intel is launching new enthusiast desktop processors today! Read on to see how it performs compared to over 12 other processors and when overclocked!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G Review

When the GeForce GTX 1080 launched two weeks ago, it caught us a bit by surprise, the actual reference review took down this site for a couple of minutes as our load-balanced front-end servers could not handle the near 2500% increase in traffic. Crazy stuff, and that is testimony to the fact that you guys have been waiting very long on the new graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia. It's for good reason, the graphics card industry, or the GPU industry has been on hold, waiting for a smaller GPU fabrication process to become viable. Last generation GPUs were based on a 28 nm fabrication, an intermediate move to 20 nm was supposed to be the answer for today’s GPUs, but it was a problematic technology. Aside from some smaller ASICs the 20 nm node has been a fail. Therefore the industry had to wait until an ever newer and smaller fabrication process was available in order to shrink the die which allows for less voltage usage in the chips, less transistor gate leakage and, obviously, more transistors in a GPU. The answer was to be found in the recent 14/15/16 nm fabrication processors and processes with the now all too familiar FinFET + VLSI technology (basically wings on a transistor). Intel has been using it for a while, and now both Nvidia and AMD are moving towards such nodes as well. Nvidia is the first to announce their new products based on a TSMC 16 nm process fab by introducing Pascal GPU architecture, named after the mathematician much like Kepler, Maxwell and Fermi. That stage has now passed, the GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 have been announced with the 1080 slowly becoming available in stores as we speak, the 1070 cards you'll start to see selling by next week (June 10th 2016). Both cards are equally impressive in it's product positioning, though I do feel the 1070 will be the more attractive product due to it's price level, the 1080 cards really is what everybody want (but perhaps can't afford). The good news though is that the board partner cards will sell for less opposed to the Nvidia reference / Founder edition cars. Obviously the higher-end all customized SKUs will likely level with that founders edition card price level again, but I am pretty certain you'd rather spend your money on a fully customized AIB card that is already factory tweaked a bit opposed the the reference one.

In this AIB review we look at the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G fitted with a Pascal GP104 based GPU. A product series that is to replace the GeForce GTX 980. It's all custom with 10 power phases, has a nice dark aesthetic feel and comes with the all new TwinFrozr VI model cooler, that is marketed as a cooler with Balls of Steel. Seriously I am not making that up, it literally was in the press release and actually refers towards the Double Ball Bearings that the fans use -- made out of steel.

Read full article @ Guru3D

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Overclocking Review

The best possible core clock speed/memory speed I was able to wring from this GPU was a solid 2050MHz to 2063MHz under load at the maximum reported temperatures. If I could keep the core temperature another 10 °C cooler, the card will run at 2126MHz all day long. Overclocking would not be used if it did not have an added benefit. With stock speeds on the GTX 1070 Founders Edition offering GTX Titan X performance for a fraction of the cost, you can do even better than Titan X performance in many games. Overclocking the GTX Titan X does even up the field, but it's amazing that for a potential AIB card price of $379, you cannot go wrong. Launching June 10, the GTX 1070 Founders Edition will be available for $449. Much like the GTX 1080, the GTX 1070 has got style, runs cool and quiet, and is tough to beat at the current pricing.

Read full article @ OCC

Razer BlackWidow X Chroma Gaming Keyboard (RZ03-01760100-R3U1)

Has Razer got another gaming hit on their hands with the new BlackWidow X Chroma which features all Razer Green Mechanical switches, Chroma LED back lighting with 16.8 million colors, and is a slightly cut down model of the BlackWidow Chroma? The BlackWidow Chroma comes with USB and audio pass through as well as dedicated macro key capabilities, while the new BlackWidow X Chroma didn’t get the audio and USB pass through and no dedicated macro keys; those three features are the main differences between the BlackWidow Chroma and BlackWidow X Chroma.

Being a slightly stripped down model of the BlackWidow Chroma allows Razer to introduce the BlackWidow X Chroma at a slightly lower price point and appeal to a wider consumer base. We’ve used BlackWidow keyboards since their inception and never used the audio pass through (except in testing) but found the USB pass through handy, but used it rarely because front USB is prominent on most computer chassis. It’s really a matter of personal preference; save a few bucks and get the BlackWidow X Chroma or grab the BlackWidow Chroma.

The BlackWidow X we received has the Razer Green switch mechanical keys with an activation point of 50g, which is a bit high and the continual key pounding of gaming might produce some hand and finger fatigue. While on the key subject, the click response of the BlackWidow X is quite loud and probably won’t be received well in rooms with other people around or while trying to watch TV. We recorded clicking sounds as high as 60dBA setting at a desktop with the sound recorder at ear level (18 inches). Gaming can get loud but using headphones in a communal space in a home with the BlackWidow X clicking away your spouse might usher you to another room. The activation point of the BlackWidow X is 1.9mm compared to a Cherry switch which is 2.2mm, but in actual use we couldn’t really tell any difference in activation distance or time. The larger keys on a keyboard usually need a stabilizer mechanism and in this case Costar stabilizers are installed under the larger keys which we found to be extremely stable, but again a little loud.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Techman SSD XC100 Series NVMe SSD Review (3.2TB)

High capacity and high-performance SSDs are starting to pop up every which way in the enterprise segment and competition is getting heated. Thanks to PMC with their latest Flashtec NVMe controllers, third party SSD vendors are able to develop these high capacity, high performance devices faster than ever with features catered to their target buyers. Techman SSD, a new company, is one of the latest SSD manufacturers to jump in the game and has decided to go big or go home by utilizing PMC's 16-channel Flashtec NVMe controller for their XC100 SSD.

Reading through their marketing material it seems like they understand exactly what the enterprise segment demands. Designed and built for cloud high speed computing, big data analysis, financial/academic research, OLTP, and IoT applications, the XC100 comes in capacities up to 3.2TB and can deliver impressive sequential speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and random 4KB speeds of up to 750K IOPS. Although this is impressive in its own right, it isn't all about jaw dropping specification numbers alone, Techman stresses the importance of performance consistency, data integrity, and security as well.

Read full article @ The SSD Review