Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Acer Predator G1-710-70001 Gaming Desktop Review
AMD Ryzen – What We Learned At CES 2017
Arctic Accelero Hybrid III-140 GPU Cooler Review
CES 2017: GIGABYTE’s Thunderbolt 3 to 8x USB 3 Dock
Comparing Team Communication Apps: What Do You Get for Free?
iKBC F87 & F108 Mechanical Keyboards Review
MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon Motherboard Review
SoundPEATS Q11 Sport Bluetooth Headphones Review
Speedlink Ultor Mechanical Keyboard Review
The Case Mods and Builds of CES 2017
Tired of Windows? Switching to Linux Will Be Easy If You Know This

Acer Predator G1-710-70001 Gaming Desktop Review

The Predator G1-710-70001 is a VR-ready gaming PC with an Intel Core i7-6700, 32GB of DDR4, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card under the hood. Time to see if Acer's SFF offering is the predator or the prey against similarly-priced custom PCs.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

AMD Ryzen – What We Learned At CES 2017

In the days leading up to CES2017 we found ourselves most excited to see what AMD would be showing off with Ryzen CPU series. The anticipation for the new processor series for AMD is growing every day thanks to the marketing machine over at AMD continually showing it performing better than an Intel Core i7-6900K processor that costs over $1000. The thought of AMD releasing a processor that can compete with Skylake-E at any level a year ago, would have caused laughter in the room. Now, it looks like AMD has something that appears to come close to those levels of performance in applications like Blender and Handbrake...

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Arctic Accelero Hybrid III-140 GPU Cooler Review

Many graphics card manufacturers now sell ‘hybrid’ cards – cards which make use of a closed loop cooler as well as a traditional blower-style fan. Rather than shelling out the extra cash for one of those cards, however, Arctic think you should buy their Accelero Hybrid III-140 kit. It is designed to offer the same hybrid experience, but can cater to a much wider array of graphics cards.

Read full article @ KitGuru

CES 2017: GIGABYTE’s Thunderbolt 3 to 8x USB 3 Dock

In some ways, Thunderbolt 3 is opening up a new world of connectivity. Having 40 Gbps of bandwidth to play with, along with a number of key mobile devices turning to it as their only source of connectivity, will in some form or another drive the hub and peripheral market beyond what TB1 and TB2 did. That being said, the market is still a bit slow: products are announced, but are region limited or produced in small quantities while the rest of the market develops the functionality to use it. So when we see a good trinket, it can be exciting if it reaches retail.

So enter a GIGABYTE dock that takes Thunderbolt 3 and splits the PCIe lanes between eight USB 3 ports, four using Type-A and four using Type-C. I must confess that I didn’t confirm if these were USB 3.0 ports at 5 Gbps or USB 3.1 at 10 Gbps, which if it was using the latter I would suspect employs a PLX switch and a set of ASMedia ASM1142 controllers to provide the functionality, but would also mean that a user could not pummel the maximum data rate of each port when all were in use. If I were to be cynical, this could just be a single controller and a hub, which would make the unit very disappointing.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Comparing Team Communication Apps: What Do You Get for Free?

Team communication and messaging is one area where we've seen a ton of action lately, with apps such as Slack becoming the ultimate tool for workgroup collaboration. Make your business and workgroup more efficient with a communication solution that doesn't cost a dime.

Read full article @ TechSpot

iKBC F87 & F108 Mechanical Keyboards Review

iKBC are a Taiwanese company who are working with SeaSonic to bring their keyboards to market. Today we are looking at their F87 and F108 keyboards – the only difference between the two is that the F87 is 80% sized while the F108 is a full size board. As such, both feature Cherry MX switches, per-key RGB lighting and double-shot PBT keycaps to deliver a premium-grade experience.

Read full article @ KitGuru

MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon Motherboard Review

MSI’s Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon is the company’s take on a mid-range motherboard with features that will appeal to gamers. Noteworthy inclusions are a comprehensive set of RGB LEDs spread across the board, a design which caters for dual-GPU gamers, and the company’s smart M.2 Shield cooling plate.

Read full article @ KitGuru

SoundPEATS Q11 Sport Bluetooth Headphones Review

Whenever i either get on my treadmill to run a few miles (unfortunately not so often nowadays) or when I’m on foot going someplace there's but one device that always complements my smartphone a good pair of wireless earphones/headphones. As expected i almost always pick a pair that features ear hooks and thus is not going to fall easily (there are some however that are quite secure even without ear hooks) and to date all the people i know who go running, hiking or even lifting weights at the gym do the same exact thing (i even know some women who are into yoga and pole dancing who use such earphones). Now there are many Bluetooth earphones in the market that feature ear hooks but not nearly enough that combine good build quality with acceptable build quality and crisp/accurate audio. SoundPEATS may not be one of the well-known and established manufacturers but they have a good number of earphones, headsets and speakers in the market so since i was curious to see how their products performed today I’ll be testing their Q11 Sport Bluetooth Headphones.

Founded in December 2010 and registered its own brand “SoundPEATS”, SoundPEATS Audio. is mainly engaged in designing, researching and developing acoustic products. As a professional design and production company, we are mainly engaged in acoustic products, such as middle and high-end music earphones, wireless earphones, water speaker, sound boxes, Bluetooth and so on. When our brand "SoundPEATS" expands at a great speed, we also establish long-term cooperative relations with some companies who produce world famous brand of headsets. Our company has been growing steadily, and maintained the growth rate of 1.5 to 2 times although the global economic environment deteriorated.

The Q11 Sport Bluetooth Headphones are rated IPX Level 4 (splash/sweat-proof) and feature Bluetooth v4.1 connectivity (up to 33 feet/10 meters range) with EDR (enhanced data rate), multiuse technology (supports up to two simultaneously connected devices), CVC 6.0 noise cancellation technology, CSR aptX codec support (high-fidelity audio), rechargeable lithium-polymer battery pack (up to 5 hours of audio playback and 180 hours standby), in-line controller and a built-in microphone. What makes the Q11 ideal for use by people at the gym or on the go however (aside its IPX4 certification which is very important since I’ve had expensive wireless earphones fail when i was sweating on the treadmill) is its flexible ear hooks which make it nearly impossible for them to fall off. SoundPEATS doesn't state the size of the drivers used nor their specifications but after taking a closer look we feel they used 8mm ones.

Read full article @ Nikktech

Speedlink Ultor Mechanical Keyboard Review

While many peripheral makers are currently chasing down the RGB trend, there is still plenty of room in the market for a standard mechanical keyboard. Today, we are taking a look at the Speedlink Ultor, a mechanical keyboard offering up red switches, macro support and more, all wrapped up in a frameless, 10-keyless design.

Read full article @ KitGuru

The Case Mods and Builds of CES 2017

CES is always a great place to find amazing PC Mods and Builds. CES is a place for many companies to showcase their new products and what better way to get attention to those products than to have them inside of a great mod or build. PC Modding has never been bigger and many companies actually commission modders to create builds for CES. It was awesome to see so many mods and incredible builds at CES this year. So without further ado here is our gallery for the mods and builds of CES 2017!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Tired of Windows? Switching to Linux Will Be Easy If You Know This

Linux sounds intimidating, but its essentially just another operating system. When you buy a pre-built PC, it arrives with an operating system pre-installed, usually Windows or Mac. But Linux distros such as Ubuntu are just as capable as Windows. The process of installing Linux is rather simple. But actually using Linux is a bit different. There are many incentives for migrating from Windows to Linux. For instance, Linux variants often use less RAM or offer a lightweight environment. Overall, theres simply more choice. If youre tired of Windows, switching to Linux will be pretty easy if you know these things.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf