Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

Anidees AI-4 M-ATX Silenced Chassis Review
Enermax DreamBass AeroOdio CP006 Cooling Pad Review
Forza 5 running on PC with DX12
Func MS-3 Revision 2 w/F-Series 10 L Review
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Windforce Review
How to set up a new Firefox Sync server
Kingston Technology E50 Enterprise 240GB SSD Reviewed
MSI R9 290X LIGHTNING Review
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Video Card Roundup
OCZ Vector 150 240GB SATA III 2.5" SSD Review
Slow SSD Transition and The Consumer Mindset
Speedlink Xeox Pro Analogue Wireless PlayStation 3 & PC Gamepad Review
Three New Tweaks I Like In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
XBMC / Media Player PC March 2014

Anidees AI-4 M-ATX Silenced Chassis Review

Small chassis are all the rage recently, with many system builders flexing their desire to build a compact gaming rig that still packs a might punch. With so many new cases on the market in the smaller leagues such as the BitFenix Prodigy series, Coolermaster Elite 130, Antec ISK-600 and almost countless other options, it can be hard to know which is the right chassis for your own build. Sure you may all think of the big names such as Corsair, NZXT, Antec, Thermaltake, etc. when you’re picking your parts, but today we though we would bring you a chassis from a name that may not be so familiar, a break from the norm if you will.

Anidees have been on the market for years now in Europe, but they’ve not had much attention here in the UK or even in the US yet. We’ve seen their products before and were thoroughly impressed with their build quality and sleek design, so hopefully we’ll see something similar today in the compact design of the AI6BS Midi Tower. With support for large graphics cards, three pre-installed fans, plentiful sound dampening material on the interior, dust filters, USB 3.0 support, aluminium finishings and more, there is no doubt that this is targeted at the premium end of the market. The packed specification list is impressive for a chassis of this size, but at around £90 shipped, you get what you pay for.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Enermax DreamBass AeroOdio CP006 Cooling Pad Review

It's nearly springtime in the US and that means we are one step closer to that very special time of the year known as summer! Most people adore summer, and not just those who go to the beach and play Meatloaf's "I'd do anything for love, but not that" for hours on end. Others may enjoy barbecues, swimming, or drinking a cold beverage of your choice outside with friends until late in the evening. The anticipation is practically palpable, but every year we must remember that summer is also the prime time for a computer's arch enemy to strike. I am, of course, speaking about heat.

Over the winter we become complacent, getting beautiful frame rates and such low temperatures on our GPU; I usually don't even need to use a heater to keep my single bedroom apartment warm while my two desktop systems are running. As the winter thaw begins and we enter the transition to summer, it begins. Slowly but surely, your computer gets louder and louder, like a freight train rumbling towards you. The comfortable eight person LAN parties you went to in January now make you and your seven friends feel like you are trapped in the swamps of Louisiana. Worse than that is the fate of your laptop in the summer. What used to be a quiet, nubile laptop has turned into what sounds like a banshee as it desperately vacuums up air in an attempt to stay cool. It’s almost like your laptop has a fever, and the only prescription is a cooling pad.

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Forza 5 running on PC with DX12

At GDC Microsoft in conjunction with Turn 10 Studios showed a demo featuring Forza 5 that was converted to run on a DirectX 12 powered PC. While we all know that DirectX 12 is Microsoft’s attempt to update its API to deliver console like graphics with those types of abilities.

In a demo Chris Tector from Turn 10 Studios show a demo of Forza 5 that had been ported or updated if you will to take advantage of the DirectX 12 technology to run on the PC. According to Microsoft, the technology that is powering the Xbox One is now available to developers in DirectX 12, so it should be easy to port Xbox One titles to the PCs using the DirectX 12 API.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

Func MS-3 Revision 2 w/F-Series 10 L Review

Inspirational quotes are a dime a dozen nowadays. For every person who claims to have their lives turned around by some seemingly deep thought written by a person they probably do not even remember, there are probably dozens more who have read the same thing, and their lives were no different than it was before they came across it. The way I see it, what changes a person's life is not by purely by some eloquent words printed on a piece of paper. Instead, it is a unique chemical reaction that happens between the reader and the word in the right place and the right time. As the old saying goes, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again" -- my question to you today is, if one perseveres and never gives up, does it mean the person will be guaranteed successful in the end? From my experience, it is not always about how many times you try; it is whether you are moving in the right direction or not. If at first you don't succeed, and you try again in the right direction, success will wait for you in the end. If at first you don't succeed, and you are not going in the right direction, you will never be successful. Of course, one could argue what the definition of success is. Was Windows XP successful? Of course. Should Microsoft have just sat around since 2001 and do absolutely nothing? Well, no. So to append to that proverb I have quoted earlier, I would say, "Even if at first you are successful, try, try, try again until you become even more successful." Today, we will take a look at the Func MS-3 Revision 2 laser mouse. It was successful at first, but the company did not stop there. With improved mechanical left and right click switches, reinforced cord, and better scroll wheel construction, how well does it step up? Well, I got one on my desk right now. Let us check it out.

Read full article @ APH Networks

Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Windforce Review

Today we're specifically looking at the Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Windforce, a budget-oriented card that comes with a factory overclock out of the box and a cooler design that promises very low temperatures, while looking to trounce AMD's R7 260X not only in performance, but also power efficiency. Let's take a closer look and get it on the bench to see if real world tests can fulfill Nvidia's aspirations.

Read full article @ PureOverclock

How to set up a new Firefox Sync server

If you are using the Firefox web browser you know that you can sync various information so that they become available on all devices that you use. Sync works out of the box with Mozilla servers, but you can set up your own custom Firefox Sync server as well to use it instead.

Read full article @ gHacks

Kingston Technology E50 Enterprise 240GB SSD Reviewed

There are two markets utilizing SSDs; regular and enterprise consumers. Desktop users expect SSDs to last at least the same, if not longer, than platter based drives. On the other hand, when it comes to wear leveling, reliability, and performance, enterprise pros expect more including a certain level of security. For these reasons, enterprise solid state drives tend to cost a lot more than consumer ones because of the enhanced reliability. However, given that this market segment can be a cut throat business, and not every business can afford to spend top dollar, more affordable proven enterprise SSDs are highly coveted.

While Kingston’s E100 (Enterprise) SSDs have the high end consumers covered, their more affordable E50 series helps bring costs down considerably. The E50, which we’ll be checking out today, offers many enterprise level features including integrated AES 256 bit encryption. In a collaborative effort with my good colleagues at Puget Systems, we tested some Kingston E50 240GB SSDs on a capable LSI SAS controller to see how they perform.

Read full article @ Futurelooks

MSI R9 290X LIGHTNING Review

We were less than complimentary when we first reviewed AMD's 290X so when MSI asked us to take a look at their lightning example we were less than enthusiastic. The problem with the AMD R9 290X was not the performance as it was clearly an astonishingly fast graphic card. The noise the reference cooler makes, due in part to the searing temperatures it needs to exhaust (95c!), gave us little option but to be honest and frank when giving our appraisal which was, for the most part a recommendation, to give a lot of thought to what you want out of a GPU. IF performance is above all else then the R9 290X will satisfy that need but if you also want a well rounded product, capable of extreme performance in all aspects, not just FPS production then you may want to look elsewhere . You see, a noisy card we can forgive, A hot card we can also accept but when a graphics card creates as much noise and heat as the reference design it is hardly surprising many would give it a wide berth when there is such stiff competition which runs both faster, cooler and quieter. Fast forward to today and we have in front of us one very special product which may give the AMD R9 290X some redemption.

Read full article @ Vortez

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Video Card Roundup

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti is hands down one the most powerful video cards on the market that money can buy. The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is powered by the fully enabled GK110 ‘Kepler’ GPU that features 2880 CUDA cores. The NVIDIA GTX780 Ti reference card runs at 875MHz core (928MHz boost) and has 3GB of GDDR5 memory running on a 384-bit bus at 1750MHz (7000MHz effective), but there are a number of add-in-board (AIB) partners that have released cards with factory overclocks and custom cooling solutions. If you are looking to improve your graphics performance you might be ready to move up to a GeForce GTX 780 Ti, but which one? There are more than a dozen NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards on the market in North America and many might have a hard time between picking one to purchase. We take three GTX 780 Ti cards and put them to the test on our 4K display!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

OCZ Vector 150 240GB SATA III 2.5" SSD Review

The latest Vector 150 SSD from OCZ is equipped with the 19nm Toggle MLC NAND from Toshiba, provides IO consistency after very long usage periods and is rated for no less than 50GB/day, which is more than twice compared to the previous models like the Vector (25nm MLC) or the Vertex 450 (20nm MLC).

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Slow SSD Transition and The Consumer Mindset

Last week I posted the comment on a social site that stated, “If you are a friend of mine and still use a hard drive, I am embarrassed for you”. This drew criticism that I truly never expected, much from friends who responded through private thoughts back to me, some that I would never print. I was definitely taken aback that so many followed my social thoughts, but more importantly, I guess I was more concerned with the number of people close to me still using a hard drive. Many of these same people spend several hours a day on a computer.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Speedlink Xeox Pro Analogue Wireless PlayStation 3 & PC Gamepad Review

It was only a few weeks ago that we brought you a review of Speedlinks affordable PlayStation 3 controller the Strike FX-6, I loved that budget controller so much that after over a month after testing it, I’m still using it for all of my PlayStation 3 gaming, especially since it’s trigger are exponentially better than the official PlayStation ones.

Speedlink have a solid history of creating third-party peripherals and the Strike FX-6 was proof that they could do it well. The product I have with me today is for the PlayStation 3 and would have been included in our Strike FX-6 review had I read the box and realised this is not an Xbox controller, no matter how much it looks like one! It is in fact every bit a PlayStation 3 controller, but its design is focused to look like an Xbox controller, just swapping the b for an e to become the Xeox.

With official controllers still costing in the region of £35 from most major retailers, you have good reason to shop around for a lower cost controller and with a price tag of just £16.99 + 3.91 shipping from Overclockers UK the Xeox is a very tempting option for both PlayStation 3 users and PC gamers alike. The question is, is it any good? Well if its performance and quality are at least on par with the last Speedlink controller I reviewed, the simple answer is certainly yes. So let’s get right to it and take a closer look at what the Xeox has to offer.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Three New Tweaks I Like In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

In my usage of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its late development state on my new main production system, the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA, there's three new system setting additions to Unity in this newest Long-Term Support release that I've found to be really useful and welcomed...

Read full article @ Phoronix

XBMC / Media Player PC March 2014

If you want a full featured HTPC including TV capabilities, have a look at our Home Theater PC buying guide. However, if you just want a solution to for living room playback of films, photos and music from a network location, there are better and more affordable options.

Our XBMC / Media Player Buying Guide is a good option if you want to use the XBMC media software. Combining this configuration with XBMC results in a more versatile product than any stand alone media player, while costing not a lot more.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info