Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Acer Chromebook 14 Review: A solid blend of style, features and performance
ACPI SRAT Table - BIOS Optimization Guide
Alphacool Eisbaer 240
Alphacool Eisbaer 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler Review
Bloody B188 Light Strike Keyboard Review
Corsair's K70 RGB Rapidfire gaming keyboard reviewed
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0
GeckoLinux 421 Plasma review - It ain't no dragon
Gigabyte X99 Designare EX Motherboard Review
How to Fix a Media Creation Tool Stuck on Checking for Updates
HTC 10 Smartphone Review
Install Nvidia 367.27 Drivers in Ubuntu 16.04/15.10
LG OLED55C6P Review
Samsung SM961 SSD Review
Sony UHP-H1 Review
The Intel Compute Stick (Core m3-6Y30) Review
Thermaltake CORE P5 Open Air Mid Tower Case Review
Woman is awarded $10k following unwanted Windows 10 upgrade

Acer Chromebook 14 Review: A solid blend of style, features and performance

The Acer Chromebook 14 is a svelte machine that aims for a perfect blend of style, features and performance. It looks and feels 'premium' but unlike the Pixel, this laptop comes in at just $300, powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N3160 processor and Intel HD Graphics 400 alongside 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of flash storage.

Read full article @ TechSpot

ACPI SRAT Table - BIOS Optimization Guide

The operating system scans the ACPI SRAT at boot time and uses the information to better allocate memory and schedule software threads for maximum performance. Find out what you should set it to...

Read full article @ TechARP

Alphacool Eisbaer 240

Alphacool looks to change the way we think of all-in-one liquid CPU coolers with the Eisbaer 240. Offering expandability at closed-loop prices, it takes things a step further with its all copper design. With good specs and extra features, Alphacool may have just what it takes to sink the competition.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Alphacool Eisbaer 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Eisbaer? What!? Try pronouncing it like ‘Ice Bear’ and it’ll make a whole lot more sense! It could be written as Eisbär, to confuse native English speakers more, but thankfully it is not. It translates to ‘Polar Bear’ in German, which Germany is exactly where Alphacool is stationed. First shown off at Computex 2016, today Alphacool is taking the wraps off of the Eisbaer AIO Liquid CPU Cooler and we have one for review! Alphacool has worked with various partners in the past, such as Fractal Design, ASUS, Sapphire, and even Cooler Master, designing cooling solutions for their various needs; they’re actually quite the one-stop-shop for water cooling products for everyone. This is a pretty neat looking cooler, so let’s hope the performance is as good as the looks.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Bloody B188 Light Strike Keyboard Review

In this article, Benchmark Reviews looks at the A4Tech Bloody LED B188 Light Strike Keys Gaming Keyboard, the low-cost entrant in Bloody’s keyboard lineup. Bloody keeps the cost down by using rubber-dome switches for most of the keys, saving their pricier infrared mechanical switches for the 8 special gaming keys.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Corsair's K70 RGB Rapidfire gaming keyboard reviewed

Corsair's K70 RGB Rapidfire is the first keyboard on the market with Cherry's MX Speed switches, a new type of clicker that offers shorter travel and a higher actuation point than the wildly popular MX Red. We got these switches under our fingers to see whether they make a real difference in the heat of battle.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0

It’s been a couple of weeks since the release of Nvidia’s Founders Edition GTX 1080 and we’ve eagerly been waiting for the custom cards to hit the bench. Luckily the first one to hit our bench is the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0. Completely packed with geeky goodness the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0 is pushing a Pascal GP104 core running a base clock of 1721MHz and boost clock of 1860MHz. Thanks to the shrink from the 28nm process to the to the 16nm FinFET process Nvidia fielded a more efficient massively powerful GPU. How much more powerful you ask? Nvdia stuffed 7.2 billion transistors on a 314mm2 die for GTX 1080 on the Pascal GP 104 core. Looking back at what seems to be yesterday they stuffed 5.2 billion on a die 398mm2 for GTX 980. Doing a little spitball math that’s 2 billion more on a 84mm2 smaller die. EVGA took the GTX 1080 design and put it on steroids on it using two 8 pin power connectors and ACX 3.0 cooling. That wasn’t enough they had to double the phase power of the reference design and pop the FTW edition on the shelf with 10 power phases. The think tank was on double duty and the 1080 FTW runs a dual BIOS system and to up the bling factor put the card out with a semi industrial look backed with adjustable RGB lighting.

Lets talk geek for a bit. To reiterate the EVGA GTX 1080 FTW packs a 314mm² Die with 7.2 billion transistors on the Pascal core dubbed GP104 but how is that hardware deck stacked? The GP104 core on the EVGA GTX 1080 FTW is actually a GP104-A1 core variant with 2560 Stream Processors or single precision Cuda Cores and currently the worlds fastest consumer GPU design. (circa June 2016). The card has 160 texture units and 64 ROPS all on an un-compromised core with nothing snipped or clipped the GP 104-A1 core is fully enabled. The EVGA GTX 1080 FTW uses an unprecedented 8GB of GDDR5X from Micron and snubbed it’s nose at the fledgling HBM features on last generation AMD Video Cards. The GDDR5X memory looks to be a much higher clocked version of GDDR5 and runs at a mind-boggling effective 10000MHz. The memory is pushed through a 256-bit memory interface and reaches a sky-high 320GB/s bandwidth.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

GeckoLinux 421 Plasma review - It ain't no dragon

I've written a long, thorough review of GeckoLinux 421 Plasma 64-bit Static edition, an openSUSE-based and remastered distribution, tested on a laptop with UEFI, Secure Boot, 16 partitions, and multiple Windows and Linux installations, including look & feel, networking - Wireless and many associated problems, Bluetooth, Samba sharing and printing, multimedia playback, partitioning, package management and updates, applications, smartphone support - Windows Phone, Ubuntu Phone and iPhone, resource usage, performance, responsiveness, battery usage, suspend & resume, customization, various bugs and issues, overall value, and more. Sample freely.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

Gigabyte X99 Designare EX Motherboard Review

Motherboard evolution generally follows a natural progression that becomes more elaborate with every design. Simply put companies tend to build on previous designs by building on what works and removing what is no longer needed. A good example of this would be high-quality audio solutions. These days all the major motherboard makers have taken steps to ensure their onboard audio solutions are the best and have physically separated sections on a motherboard to prove it.

In this review I’ll be looking at the Gigabyte X99 Designare-EX. This is a new X99 motherboard that brings with it the next evolution in motherboard features massive connectivity. Typically motherboard makers take what is provided by the chipset and create a baseline of features from that. With the X99 Designare-EX I believe that Gigabyte has taken a different approach by looking at what they are trying to accomplish and then figuring out what is needed to get there.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

How to Fix a Media Creation Tool Stuck on Checking for Updates

Sometimes the fix for those nagging Windows problems are the last thing youd expect them to be. The fix for Windows 10s Media Creation Tool getting stuck is one of those times. The Media Creation Tool is meant to let you create a USB or DVD installation file, so you can install or reinstall Windows 10. Like anything, sometimes it freezes, sitting at a certain percentage saying Checking for Updates. Heres what you need to know to fix it. Its actually quite simple: you just need to restart the Windows Update process on your PC. Type Services into the Windows search...

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

HTC 10 Smartphone Review

HTC was one of the big names when it came to Android smartphones, but their last few phones did not really impress that much. HTC recently released their latest flagship Android Smartphone in the HTC 10. The HTC 10 succeeds the HTC One M9 and packs in a lot of great features like an aluminum chassis design, USB-C charging and connectivity, Android 6.0, 5.2-inch 1440 x 2560 pixel Quad HD display, 12 mega-pixel camera, and much more. Under the hood the HTC 10 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 2.2 GHz dual-core CPU and 4GB of RAM. Our friends over at Verizon sent this phone over for us to take a look at and to be honest I am an iPhone user. I have been since the original iPhone. That’s what is going to make this review interesting, an Android phone review from an iPhone user. Can an iPhone user recommend the HTC 10? Are there certain things about the HTC 10 that I like over my iPhone 6s? How does the HTC 10 stack up performance-wise against the HTC 10? We will cover all of that so let’s jump in!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Install Nvidia 367.27 Drivers in Ubuntu 16.04/15.10

Nvidia designs graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming market, as well as system on a chip units (SOCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market. Nvidia's primary GPU product line, labeled "GeForce", is in direct competition with Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) "Radeon" products. Nvidia expanded its presence in the gaming industry with its handheld SHIELD Portable, SHIELD Tablet, and SHIELD Android TV.
Since 2014, Nvidia has shifted to become a platform company focused on four markets — Gaming, Professional Visualization, Data Centers and Auto.

Read full article @ Ubuntu Geek

LG OLED55C6P Review

While there's always been a lot of excitement around OLED technology, it seems to have reached fever pitch this year, and it's easy to see why. Having already greatly improved the performance and affordability of its OLED TVs last year, LG – the only brand currently making full ranges of OLED TVs – is claiming further substantial performance boosts and key new features for its 2016 range.The first of these potential OLED dazzlers to come our way is the OLED55C6P: a 55-inch curved-screen model boasting a native Ultra HD Resolution and support for both high dynamic range (HDR) and 3D playback. DesignAs usual with an LG OLED TV, the OLED55C6P is seriously easy on the eye. The curved screen gets it off to a good aesthetic start, and the way the edges of the screen curve slightly forwards also makes it easier for jealous friends and family to notice how incredibly thin – sub 3mm – the screen is over the majority of its back side. Completing the sumptuous elegance is a really attractive metallic silver trim that runs around the screen's outer extremities. Connections are built into a protruding section of the rear, and chiefly comprise three HDMIs, three USBs and built-in Wi-Fi.

Read full article @ TechRadar

Samsung SM961 SSD Review

The SM961 is the SSD that everyone is talking about because it provides up to 3,200 MB/s of sequential performance. No more rumors, today we test the new Samsung SM961 1TB NVMe SSD from the SSI group. Is this your next SSD?

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Sony UHP-H1 Review

Design, features and performanceThe UHP-H1 is the most ambitious media player from Sony in years. It's positively brimming with advanced image processing, and it's compatible with Hi-Res Audio in all its many confusing guises. But in a year when 4K Blu-ray is finally becoming a reality, does it really make sense to buy what is essentially a souped-up 1080p Blu-ray player? Perhaps rather pointedly, Sony isn't selling the UHP-H1 specifically as a Blu-ray player. In Japan it's marketed as a 'Premium Audio and Video Player.' Indeed, with its golden Hi-Res Audio badge, this could be construed to be more high-end audio deck than movie machine. If there's a grey divide between movies and music, this machine straddles it.What's not in doubt though, is that this represents a step-change in disc player design. The company's Blu-ray electronics have always been rather good, but more often than not they've been put together like a Kinder Surprise toy. But this is different – in fact, it's beautiful.

Read full article @ TechRadar

The Intel Compute Stick (Core m3-6Y30) Review

Small and power-efficient computers in the form of NUCs and Compute Sticks are here to stay. The Compute Stick form factor is the x86 version of the popular ARM-based HDMI sticks. The first generation x86 Compute Stick came from Intel and used a Bay Trail-T SoC. At the 2016 CES, Intel introduced a Cherry Trail version, as well as two Skylake Core M-based models. Read on for our review of the STK2M3W64CC Compute Stick based on the Intel Core m3-6Y30.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Thermaltake CORE P5 Open Air Mid Tower Case Review

Every once in awhile something new comes out that changes how the PC world looks at things. Thermaltake has put a new spin on computer cases with the CORE P5 an open air mid tower case that has normal PC enthusiasts excited about making their computer look outrageous. We will be taking a closer look at the Thermaltake CORE P5

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Woman is awarded $10k following unwanted Windows 10 upgrade

She didn't initiate the upgrade and it made her business PC crash prone and unusable.

Read full article @ Hexus