Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Air Cooler Challenge – 7 Way Round-Up
AMD R9 380X 4GB Graphics Card CrossFire Review
ASUS Radeon R9 390X STRIX Gaming 8GB Review
be quiet! Silent Base 600 Case Review
Be Quiet! Silent Base 600 Review
BitFenix Nova Mid-Tower Chassis Review
How powerful does your PSU really need to be?
iDeaUSA Taco Dual Bluetooth Speaker Review
Microsoft Lumia 950 Review: A Premium Windows 10 Smartphone
NVIDIA vs. AMD Linux Performance For GRID Autosport
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 380X MYST Review
Valve says around 77,000 Steam accounts are hacked every month
XFX R9 380X DD XXX OC Review
Xtorm AL420 Waterproof Power Bank Xtreme 9000mAh Review

Air Cooler Challenge – 7 Way Round-Up

In this round-up we are looking at seven air coolers that will work with pretty much any CPU. As you will see in our photos and video the coolers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the prices also cover a spread from about £20 all the way past £70. At the high end the Deepcool Assassin II costs more than a basic liquid cooler and takes up considerably more space around the CPU socket. Go to the other extreme and the Cryorig M9 is a compact tower that will fit inside your tower case with room to spare.

Read full article @ KitGuru

AMD R9 380X 4GB Graphics Card CrossFire Review

Here at eTeknix, we strive to give the consumer the best possible advice in every aspect of technology. Today is no different and we are excited to bring you the CrossFireX review of the newly released R9 380X graphics cards.

Based on the R9 380, which was based on the R9 285, the R9 380X was designed to fit the gap that was obvious between the R9 380 and R9 390. Priced at just under £200, sales have proven strong in the first weeks and board partners have given their models the usual overclocking treatment with the average clock speed of around 1030MHz being around 50MHz higher than the ‘reference’ design.

Through our testing of both the XFX DD and Sapphire Nitro models, it was evident that performance wasn’t as high as I hoped and still left a gap to fill under the R9 390. Reviewing the Rx 200 series lineup, the R9 285 was an extremely late arrival. It was based on architecture we were familiar with, but it introduced GCN 1.2 which is the foundation of the brand new R9 Fury range. To me, this leaves a gap for an R9 385 to be introduced to the market and the next step in the graphics card race for late 2016.

Read full article @ eTeknix

ASUS Radeon R9 390X STRIX Gaming 8GB Review

The ASUS Radeon R9 390X STRIX Gaming 8GB is an extremely powerful R9 390X custom graphics card. The cooler on this particular card is amongst the most capable models available these days. Apparently, this combination sounds rather compelling, so we're interested to see what it can do in our review.

Read full article @ ocaholic

be quiet! Silent Base 600 Case Review

be quiet! is a company we primarily know for their cooling products and power supplies. Earlier this year they made they jump into cases with their flagship Silent Base 800, which we reviewed. Now they have released the Silent Base 600, which is a smaller case, but follows the same design principles as the 800. The case has a sleek design, room inside for six hard drives, long graphics cards, two included fans with a fan controller, and of course is made for silence. Will this be a case we can recommend for your next build? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Be Quiet! Silent Base 600 Review

We find ourselves recommending a lot of Be Quiet! products to gamers and enthusiasts which is why it is so nice to get my hands on their latest case design, the Silent Base 600. Not only does this model have a window option, it’s also more affordable and a little smaller.

Like the Silent Base 800 we reviewed in June, the Base 600 Is targeted at enthusiasts who desire superior sound deadening without compromising performance. Paring the be quiet! teams noise deadening expertise with a sexy black and orange windowed case sounds like a recipe for success. Let’s take a look!

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

BitFenix Nova Mid-Tower Chassis Review

BitFenix is back again, this time with their lovely Nova chassis. The Nova is BitFenix’s latest effort from the budget-friendly end of the market, promising great features at a price that is sure to leave your wallet or your bank balance happy. If you’re not trying to cram huge amounts of hard drives, multiple radiators and more into your system, then it is unlikely that you need much more than what the Nova offers and we’re eager to see just how much you get for your money here.

“Bitfenix Nova delivers style, performance, and silence at an incredibly competitive price. Whether you plan to build a basic office, home or gaming system, Novas simplistic design, aluminum badge, color options and optional window side panel mean it will blend in perfectly. Long air vents running along the sides of its front, hidden behind sleek mesh strips, provide plenty of airflow to cool the system. And as a result allowed us to keep Novas Top and Front panel completely closed to block fan-noise from escaping the enclosure, and dust from building up inside.”

Equipped with room for mini-ITX to ATX motherboards, room for a good size CPU cooler, large graphics cards, an ATX PSU and a decent amount of hard drives, the Nova is certainly a capable chassis. There’s also room for a couple of 120mm fans in the front and a 120mm in the back, although on the rear 120mm fan comes pre-installed.

Read full article @ eTeknix

How powerful does your PSU really need to be?

Every PC-building hardware enthusiast has asked themselves at some point: what capacity should power supply have for this build? Many people are tempted to buy a power supply that's more powerful than necessary, just to be sure that it'll be powerful enough, and waste valuable money in doing so. But there's no need to panic - our extensive power supply tests will help you make the right choice for your computer.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

iDeaUSA Taco Dual Bluetooth Speaker Review

Today for review I’ve got another Bluetooth speaker, well actually two that work together to make real stereo sound. They’re from a company called iDeaUSA and they’ve got a funky name, the Taco Dual, despite the name though they’re a excellent set of speakers overall and they work well. These speakers can get extra loud and they still stay clear sounding and they sound great as well with a nice balance of bass and treble. The speakers are Bluetooth 4.0
with Apt-X and they have a built-in microphone along with NFC to make pairing easier. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ Technogog

Microsoft Lumia 950 Review: A Premium Windows 10 Smartphone

The Lumia 950 and 950 XL are important products for Microsoft, but not for the reasons you may expect. Microsoft isn’t trying to set the mobile market ablaze with these two smartphones. They are not necessarily meant to be explosive sales successes that take significant market share from Android and iOS. If they were, Microsoft would have thrown huge amounts of marketing muscle and dollars behind them, launched a massive advertising campaign, and worked deals with every major wireless carrier it could. But Microsoft didn't. The Lumia 950 and 950 XL are more about laying a foundation and setting the direction and course for Windows 10 Mobile as well as Microsoft’s latest mobile strategy.

Of course, Microsoft wants to sell as many of these devices as it can, but the Lumia 950 and 950 XL are being billed as the "ultimate phones for productivity." Microsoft has targeted these phones at current fans of the platform, professionals, and road warriors that may benefit from the software and unique features available with the latest Lumias...

Read full article @ HotHardware.com

NVIDIA vs. AMD Linux Performance For GRID Autosport

n the hours since Feral Interactive released the Linux version of GRID Autosport today, I've been trying out this racing game on a variety of AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards atop Ubuntu Linux. Here are my initial results for GRID Autosport under Linux with seven different graphics cards.

In this article I'm just comparing the performance of the NVIDIA (358.16) and AMD Crimson Linux graphics drivers. In a follow-up article tomorrow I will include a few open-source RadeonSI graphics driver tests on multiple GPUs. Ubuntu 15.10 with the Linux 4.2 kernel was used as the test operating system for this racing game benchmarking.

Read full article @ Phoronix

PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 380X MYST Review

In this review we look at the the new PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 380X MYST 4GB. This graphics card will render your games even in the WHQD 2560x1440 range. And all that at a very reasonable price as well. With 4GB as standard for graphics memory you can game with decent image quality settings too. Follow us into this review where we'll look at temperatures, noise, performance and go with the latest game titles on the globe.

The Radeon R9 380X graphics cards will be made available in 4 GB versions, you will also spot both reference and slightly tweaked SKUs. The GPU used in this puppy is based on Tonga which you know from the Radeon R9 285 (these days called Antigua Pro aka Radeon R9 380). The GPU used here is Antigua XT and is a fully utilized (enabled) version of the GPU, meaning that this GPU will have more shader processors available. Made on the 28nm node from Global Foundries it features the latest architectural improvements with decent power efficiency. The GPU retains technologies of the Radeon GCN lineup such as DirectX 12, FreeSync and XDMA for CrossFire support. The GPU has 2048 shader processors running over 32 ROPs with 112 texture memory units. The initial consumer graphics card based on Antigua Pro is the Radeon R9 380 with 1792 activated stream processors, the Antigua XT for the Radeon R9 380X that we review today is the same GPU again with 32 shader clusters opened up, and that is 32x64 = 2048 active shader processors. The reference cards will have two 6-pin power PEG (PCI Express Graphics) headers to give the tweaking experience a little more room next to the 4+2 PWM phase power design. Overall a very decent card to play the latest games with whilst offering a good memory size versus good price in the 1920x1080 and even 2560x1440P monitor resolutions.

In this review we peek at a custom PCS+ model of the Radeon R9 380X, these are clocked at 1020MHz compared to the reference clock of 970 MHz. Almost all custom boards get a silent dual-fan cooler, customized PCB and that tiny factory overclock on the GPU core clock frequency with 1475 Mhz (5900 MHz effective data-rate) on this particular model from PowerColor with 4 GB GDDR5 memory. Head over to the next page where we'll start-up a photo-shoot first though.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Valve says around 77,000 Steam accounts are hacked every month

So it wants you to start to use its Steam Guard two-factor authentication system.

Read full article @ Hexus

XFX R9 380X DD XXX OC Review

When you look at the XFX DNA of the R9 380X DD XXX OC, it's clear that XFX puts together an excellent product. You get constant innovation on the cooling solutions that make up the company's Double Dissipation and Ghost 3.0 cooling systems. Splitting the shroud into two removable covers that can be removed without pulling off the heat sink assembly is an interesting development. What's even more interesting is the ability to remove the fans to clean the heat sink is genius. The 90mm fans use a clip-in mounting system that lets the user pull the fans out and clean the dust bunnies in about 30 seconds flat. That allows the cooling to operate at its best with little maintenance. If you don't have to clean the dust out, well, you are truly lucky. This one feature would be welcome thanks to the dander and dust my dog produces.

Read full article @ OCC

Xtorm AL420 Waterproof Power Bank Xtreme 9000mAh Review

Portable batteries (or power banks) may have managed to secure a place amongst the most important mobile gadgets people should with them at all times but leaving out all the available capacities which vary from just 1000-2000mAh and way up to 30-40000mAh (something that leaves plenty of room for many models to exist in the market) how many of you have really seen a powerbank which you can even go as far as to call unique? Sure some offer dual USB outputs, others offer built-in flashlights, solar panels used for recharging and there are some which even allow the end user to choose the preferred output voltage (the really high capacity ones aimed for use with laptops). These are all great but what I’ve always wanted was to use a rugged powerbank much like the rugged USB flash drives and portable drives we see all the time so when Xtorm launched the Xtreme Power Bank AL420 there was no way i could say no to testing it.

Xtorm is part of the Dutch company A-solar bv and was founded in 2008 with the idea that today more and more mobile devices come to the market, which requires a lot of power. To contribute to the environment we have searched for durable applications to provide a solution to this problem. Meanwhile we are the manufacturer in the field of innovative and practical solar and power solutions for everyday use. We bring a complete range of affordable and user-friendly consumer products on the market that simply charged from solar power and USB. The products with the brand Xtorm have a contemporary character and are of high quality.

The specifications of the Xtreme Power bank AL420 by Xtorm are nothing we haven't seen in the past (and shared by numerous power banks in the market) since under its enclosure it features a 9000mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack which can be used with mobile devices via a single 5V/2.1A USB port. What makes the Xtreme Power Bank AL420 quite special however is its IP66 certified (water and dust proof) silicone enclosure and a small built-in LED torch/flashlight. Now we have seen built-in LED flashlights in the past from some power banks (there are quite a few in the market with one) but never an IP66 rugged silicone enclosure so let's see just how it looks and feels.

Read full article @ NikKTech