Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

11 best open world games on PC today
AMD adds energy-efficient Ryzen 3 2200GE, Ryzen 5 2400GE APUs
AMD Ryzen 2 & X470 review: Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 7 2700 & 2700X + 6 X470 motherboards
Antec HCG 750W Gold Power Supply Review
ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X: World First Look!
Dead in Vinland Review - Another Flavor of Viking Greatness
Defiance 2050: The Ups and Downs of Defiance 2050's First Beta
Dream Machines DM2 Comfy Review
EchoGear's single-screen and dual-screen monitor arms reviewed
FSP Hydro PTM 650W Platinum Power Supply Review
GIGABYTE Reports Precision Boost 2 Working on X370
HyperX Pulsefire Surge Review
KDE Plasma widgets - Beltway Bandit Unlimited
KitSound Voice One Smart Speaker Review
MSI GS65 Stealth Thin Review
ONE Smart Keyboard Pro Review
OneAdaptr EVRI & Flip World Ultra-Portable Chargers Review
SuperMicro C7B360-CB-MW Intel Coffee Lake Motherboard Review
WD My Passport Wireless SSD 500GB Review
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s Hands-on Review

11 best open world games on PC today

Open world games are the gift that just keeps giving and they're increasingly popular Every game franchise iteration that came out shoehorned an explorable environment into its hyper-polished murder simulation. often they added a bit of base construction and squad management too. Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V, The Witcher III…

They joined a line-up that contains the best games around. Look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Shadow of Mordor, Batman: Arkham City, or the Far Cry series… all abandoned the traditional AAA linear level structures and emigrated to the wide uplands of the open world.

Read full article @ TechRadar

AMD adds energy-efficient Ryzen 3 2200GE, Ryzen 5 2400GE APUs

Clock tuning, and likely silicon binning, brings these APU TDPs down from 65W to 35W. A few weeks ago there were reports of Ryzen 3 2200GE and Ryzen 5 2400GE APUs on the way – as corresponding entries were found in motherboard maker compatibility lists. At the weekend these very parts arrived, quietly, as they were listed on the official AMD website. It turns out that the ‘E’ suffix stands for Efficiency.

The new AMD Ryzen 3 2200GE and Ryzen 5 2400GE APUs are, as you might guess, based upon the Ryzen 3 2200G, Ryzen 5 2400G APUs but have been tuned for efficiency. They offer slightly slower clocks, likely some silicon binning, and TDPs of 35W compared with their predecessors with 65W TDPs.

Read full article @ Hexus

AMD Ryzen 2 & X470 review: Ryzen 5 2600X, Ryzen 7 2700 & 2700X + 6 X470 motherboards

AMD's 2nd generation Ryzen processors has arrived! AMD presents Ryzen 2 (code name Pinnacle Ridge) as a major improvement, with many optimizations. We have, of course, ran some tests to find out what those improvements are. How fast are these CPUs compared to Intel? Has AMD made the right changes? We set to work with the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, AMD Ryzen 7 2700 and AMD Ryzen 5 2600X. In this review you will also read about our experiences with the first X470 motherboards.

If you have not jumped directly to the pages with benchmarks: this review is not exactly small in size, so here is a small reading guide. On the next page we will briefly look at what AMD has brought about in the past year with the introduction of its Ryzen processors. Then we take a dive into the underlying architecture, so that you can put all the improvements that the architectural optimisations, new features and last but not least the 12nm production process in the right perspective.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Antec HCG 750W Gold Power Supply Review

Today we test on OCinside.de the Antec High Current Gamer Gold Modular power supply with 750 Watt total power. The Antec HCG 750W 80PLUS Gold power supply is fully modular and offers a button with a very special function. In the review we will look at the cable management, power supply design, energy efficiency and of course the special feature. There is even again an interactive 360 degree view and thermal images of the power supply in this review.

Read full article @ OCinside.de

ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming X: World First Look!

We Knew It Was Coming It was teased only back in March now and while it feels like it has been months, it has been just over a month since the first whispers of ASRock entering the graphics card market first started.

It was teased only back in March now and while it feels like it has been months, it has been just over a month since the first whispers of ASRock entering the graphics card market first started. Fast forward to today, and we have the world's first Phantom Gaming X graphics card in the Radeon RX 580 8G OC model from ASRock. There are a bunch of firsts with ASRock's baby steps into the graphics card market, with this being first and foremost the very first time ASRock has stepped onto the graphics card market.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Dead in Vinland Review - Another Flavor of Viking Greatness

Vikings are somewhat in the fashion at the minute. Whether it’s the psychological anguish of Hellblade, the tactical mastery of The Banner Saga or the brutal combat of God of War, the Norsemen have never been more popular in video games. And with that esteem there comes the games like Dead in Vinland.

Cloaked in a veil of Viking imagery, Dead in Vinland is a turn-based survival game. As a family of four shipwrecked on a foreign shore, you must manage the collection and distribution of vital resources to keep everyone alive. Unlike other group survival games, like This War of Mine, losing a single character is a fail state and ends the campaign. While I personally prefer games that force you to live with the consequences of your decisions, there is a reason for it in Dead in Vinland.

Read full article @ Wccftech

Defiance 2050: The Ups and Downs of Defiance 2050's First Beta

Defiance 2050 isn’t a full sequel. I think a lot of people, myself included, expected it to be sort of like Destiny 2. Same sort world, lots of new content and systems changes. That’s not what Defiance 2050 is. Instead, Trion’s essentially giving the game from 2013 a new life on a new console generation, with new visuals, new progression systems, and new tech. It’s up to you, if that’s enough to start over.

For many who never got very far in Defiance’s original launch, this may be enough. But in this first closed beta, there were more than a few folks in zone and area chat that were confused. The trailer made it seem like this would be a new game, on the same engine, with new content. Like, again, Destiny 2.

Read full article @ MMORPG

Dream Machines DM2 Comfy Review

Dream Machines is a polish company with its headquarters in Warsaw, the company is focused on manufacturing gaming peripherals. The company was founded by a group of enthusiasts, with the goal of bringing on the market quality products. Dream Machines gained its popularity with the launch of their first product, the DM1 Pro.

The mouse is packaged in a two-tone cardboard box, the front of the package opens revealing the mouse. On the front side of the box there is an overview image of the mouse, on the top part there are presented the main features of the mouse while on the lower side the name of the product is printed.

Read full article @ Tech-Legend

EchoGear's single-screen and dual-screen monitor arms reviewed

Some years ago, I bought a pair of monitor arms. I'd picked up one of those IKEA Jerker desks and wanted to suspend the monitors in mid-air, like something out of a 90s or early-2000s hacker movies where the person types way too fast to navigate a 3D file interface without a mouse. I used that configuration for years, but getting everything set up just right ended up being kind of a nightmare. The arms were heavy and tough to move around. Worse, if I had to take them off for some reason, getting them back in place was a nightmare. I eventually removed them and just used the monitors' built-in stands.

When EchoGear asked whether we might look at some of its monitor arms, though, it got me curious. Has the technology behind monitor arms improved since six or seven years ago? A short visit to the EchoGear home office—located in my home base of Minneapolis, Minnesota—ended with me taking home two of the company's monitor arms to set up in my home environment and compare with my existing gear. Back then, I was working with two monitors. These days I'm running three, for reasons I can't really justify even to myself. To fit my config, EchoGear sent me home with two pieces of hardware: a gas-spring dual-arm mount plus a single-arm unit.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

FSP Hydro PTM 650W Platinum Power Supply Review

The latest Hydro PTM power supply lineup sits right in the middle of FSP’s top-tier Premium Series and currently includes three models: 750W, 650W, and 550W. FSP Group Inc. has been designing and building PC power supplies under their own brand since 2003 and they are the OEM for many other big name brands. The three standard Hydro PTM power supplies are not water-cooled as the Hydro name might imply, but the FSP Hydro PTM+ 1200W PSU is. We will be taking a detailed look at the PTM 650W Platinum model in this review.

FSP designed the Hydro PTM Series to operate cool and quiet thanks to Platinum level efficiency and a high-quality 135mm FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) fan. The units feature all modular cables and are designed to deliver tight voltage regulation with excellent AC ripple and noise suppression. All Hydro PTM Series power supplies incorporate high-grade components like all Japanese made electrolytic capacitors and come with changeable side stickers (Blue, Red, or Green) and they are backed by a 10-year warranty!

Read full article @ PC Perspective

GIGABYTE Reports Precision Boost 2 Working on X370

We have now gotten confirmation that Precision Boost 2 is working on Gigabyte's X370 AMD motherboards. PB2 = GOOD. We are working diligently to bring you more data on all of this soon as to what exactly it means to you and your cooling. You can read more of PB2 in our Ryzen 2700X review.

Read full article @ HardOCP

HyperX Pulsefire Surge Review

An eye-catching mouse with an unexpected flaw. HyperX has been on something of a hot streak of late. The Kingston subsidiary is best known for its award-winning gaming headsets but has branched out with an array of peripherals that have, for the most part, been well received. We enjoyed the firm's first multi-colour keyboard, the Alloy Elite RGB, and you won't be surprised to hear that there's now an RGB mouse to go with it in the form of the HyperX Pulsefire Surge.

Priced at £60, Pulsefire Surge doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel but offers a high-performance optical sensor in a symmetrical form factor that's particularly easy on the eye.

Read full article @ Hexus

KDE Plasma widgets - Beltway Bandit Unlimited

The concept of addons is an interesting one. At some point over the past decade or two, companies developing (successful) software realized that bundling an ever-growing code base into their products in order to meet the spiraling tower of requests from their users would result in unsustainable bloat and complexity that would not warrant the new functionality. And so, the idea of addons was born.

Addons come in many flavors – extensions, plugins, applets, scripts, and of course, widgets. A large number of popular programs have incorporated them, and when done with style, the extra functionality becomes as important as the core application itself. Examples that come to mind: Firefox, Notepad++, VLC, Blender. And then, there’s the Plasma desktop environment. Since inception, KDE has prided itself on offering complete solutions, and the last incarnation of its UI framework is no different. Which begs the question, what, how and why would anyone need Plasma widgets? We explore.

Read full article @ OCS-Mag

KitSound Voice One Smart Speaker Review

Smart Speakers are and have been one of the most popular products in the tech scene over the past couple of years. The sad thing about most of them is that they do not sound that great, especially if you want to fill a room with clear, vibrant sound. Well the award winning British audio brand KitSound wants to change that with their new Voice One Smart Speaker. This speaker features Amazon Alexa voice service, 20 Watt drivers, a stain-resistant nano coating, and a pretty great app that lets you control everything. Is this the ultimate smart speaker? Read on as we find out…

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

MSI GS65 Stealth Thin Review

MSI has joined the Coffee Lake laptop party with a brand new gaming laptop designed to take on the likes of the Razer Blade, Gigabyte Aero 15X, and Asus ROG Zephyrus. This laptop’s arrival has been hotly anticipated as it brings new internal hardware along with a full refresh of MSI's gaming line build and design.

The MSI GS65 Stealth Thin is the successor to the company's previous slim gaming laptop, the GS63, which we’ve looked at previously. The GS63 design was in use for a couple of generations and now it's been upgraded in many areas. It still uses a 15.6-inch 1080p display, but we’re now looking at slimmer bezels and an upgrade to a 144Hz refresh rate.

Read full article @ TechSpot

ONE Smart Keyboard Pro Review

The ONE Smart Keyboard Pro unlocks incredible possibilities by integrating with the iPad you already own, and AppleInsider has been using one for a while. The ONE Group has three different devices available. The ONE Light, The ONE Smart Keyboard Pro, and The ONE Piano. In this review, we tested out the pro version, which falls squarely in the middle of the pack.

The pro model has the capabilities to grow with the performer. It has a clear emphasis on beginners, but can help even more seasoned players learn new songs quicker, and even over time build skills necessary for actual performances.

Read full article @ Apple Insider

OneAdaptr EVRI & Flip World Ultra-Portable Chargers Review

I’ve always travelled hand-baggage-only (except when taking my bicycle with me), and when you carry as many gadgets as I do, that can require some efficient packing.

I usually travel with my MacBook Pro, iPad, camera & lens, drone – and sometimes a test gadget or two. Plus, of course, chargers and cables for all of the above.

The higher power output of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar means that I can use it as a charging hub, but if you’re looking for standalone chargers, as well as a way to reduce the bulk of a MacBook charger, OneAdaptr has some very neat solutions …

Read full article @ 9to5Mac

SuperMicro C7B360-CB-MW Intel Coffee Lake Motherboard Review

Couple of days ago there was premiere of lower Intel chipsets for Coffee Lake series processors … the B360. I could say that finally as all who wanted to buy new i3 processor had to spend additional money on quite expensive motherboards based on the Z370 chipset.

For all who have lower budget but still wish to use additional features of new chipsets, Supermicro designed the C7B360-CB-MW motherboard. This micro ATX motherboard handles all new Coffee Lake series processors and also offers additional features so you don’t have to spend a lot of money to have modern and fast PC.

Stay with us to check what the C7B360-CB-MW has to offer.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

WD My Passport Wireless SSD 500GB Review

WD is no stranger to storage and continues to add new pieces and companies to its portfolio. With the acquisition of SanDisk in early 2016, this opened up most of their portable solutions to a much-needed upgrade. Launching their Portable SSD last year, this year we have an update to their My Passport Wireless lineup in the form of the Wireless SSD model.

This solution uses the same enclosure and overall design with new aesthetics to set it apart from its rotating drive counterpart. Capacity options include 250 and 500GB solution along with high capacity 1 and 2TB drives as well. Connectivity is quite broad with the Wireless SSD as this solution includes 802.11ac as a wireless method of transfer as its name would suggest, along with a SD 3.0 card reader and USB 3.0. In addition to these, the WD includes a Type-C port from which you can charge mobile devices with the devices integrated 6700mah battery.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s Hands-on Review

SD 845 meets great camerasNot that long ago, China-basedphone manufacturers were considered being copycats of the well-established phone companies, mainly from California. A lot of things have changed over the last few years. 

In November 2016, Xiaomi introduced the first Mi Mix device which was a concept phone showcasing what a China-based phone company can achieve. It was an instant success as this is exactly what the market was craving for. After that, Xiaomi established itself as one of the leaders in mobile phone design and innovation. 
Fudzilla realized that Xiaomi has a different mindset and that is the company understands the market needs, even a few years before the breath-taking Mi Mix. The company that is rumored to IPO between $70 to $100 billion has to be doing something right. 

Read full article @ Fudzilla