Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

AMD's Vulkan (Linux) Driver Will Only Work With The AMDGPU Kernel Driver
COOLER MASTER Silencio FP 120 PWM Fan Performance Edition (R4-SFNL-24PK-R1) Quiet The Beast
Facebook Notes, a suitable blogging platform?
How We Test Mechanical Keyboards
Kollea Google Cardboard Virtual Reality 3D Glasses DIY Kit Review
OVEVO Fantasy Pro Z1 LED Lamp with Bluetooth Speaker Review
Razer Leviathan Mini (RZ05-01570100-R3U1) The Leviathan Roars!
Zotac Updates ZBOX mini-PC Lineup at CES

AMD's Vulkan (Linux) Driver Will Only Work With The AMDGPU Kernel Driver

I've just received confirmation from AMD that their forthcoming Vulkan driver will only work with the AMDGPU DRM kernel driver. This means that unless this AMDGPU kernel driver is extended to support pre-VI hardware, only the very latest AMD GPUs on Linux will work with Khronos' next-generation API.

Last week I shared a bunch of new details about the AMDGPU / Radeon Linux plans for the year following a briefing with several AMD engineers. One of the follow-up questions I had was whether their Vulkan driver they developed will work with the existing Radeon DRM driver or be limited to the AMDGPU driver.

Read full article @ Phoronix

COOLER MASTER Silencio FP 120 PWM Fan Performance Edition (R4-SFNL-24PK-R1) Quiet The Beast

Tons of money have been spent on one seemingly easy thing, computer fan performance. We’ve gone from little 80mm screamers wedged against the back of aluminum and steel cases when the noise would chase a pack of Wolves off a fresh kill. Then we’d stick an all copper based heat sink on the un-lidded CPU’s and 80mm downward blowing mind numbing loud fans striving to keep our overlocked machines cool. Previous to that we actually had CPU’s that didn’t need heat sinks and fans but as computing power grows so does the number of transistors in the processors. The more transistors in a processor the more heat it generates when we compute with them.

Without all that research and different end users needs for specialty fans we wouldn’t see the thousands of fans available to do just one job, cool your computer. The crowning glory of COOLER MASTERs fan selection is the Silencio line of fans. The COOLER MASTER Silencio FP 120 PWM Fan Performance Edition is the one we’ve been waiting for and represents the cutting edge of performance with relative silence. Pushing the envelope isn’t anything new for COOLER MASTER and the whisper quiet performance of the Silencio FP 120 PWM Performance Edition is the culmination of COOLER MASTERs efforts on smart cooling.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Facebook Notes, a suitable blogging platform?

Facebook Notes is a re-imagined version of the note taking feature that Facebook launched years ago on its site. Unlike the previous version, it has been designed more like a basic blog editor than a simple note taking application that does not look or feel that different from jotting down status updates on the site.

Read full article @ gHacks

How We Test Mechanical Keyboards

We test mechanical switch keyboards using a combination of objective tests and subjective observations to help illustrate the pros and cons of each keyboard we review. Here's an overview of our methodology and how we test keyboards in our reviews.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Kollea Google Cardboard Virtual Reality 3D Glasses DIY Kit Review

Up for review today I’ve got a Google Cardboard VR Glasses kit from Kollea and this is a kit where you have to build it yourself and it’s fairly easy, took me about five minutes to do. The glasses work fine, the lenses are clear and there is a magnetic button on the side to use in the VR apps. Read on to learn more…

Read full article @ Technogog

OVEVO Fantasy Pro Z1 LED Lamp with Bluetooth Speaker Review

Before receiving the Fantasy Pro Z1 LED Lamp we were a little bit skeptic on the overall sound quality because we did have previous experience with the Razer Ferox quite some time ago and while these sounded good on high frequencies, the bass was pretty non-existent. The small speaker seems to do wonders with this model because it can deliver clear highs combined with bass at decent volume levels; we have often turned the volume to maximum levels while paired with our Meizu MX4 and on several tracks we did not spot any distortions. The software seems to bring a decent level of customization to the product by adding light effects but it does not reside for now in Play Store and we need to download it from the website after scanning a barcode from the manual.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Razer Leviathan Mini (RZ05-01570100-R3U1) The Leviathan Roars!

When it comes to Razer millions upon millions of gamers are familiar with the brand and Razer Gaming peripherals and the first choice of many dedicated gamers are Razer Peripherals. Razer is branching out and sent us the Razer Leviathan Mini to test out..The Leviathan Mini is a mobile wireless (Bluetooth with APTX) speaker with a built-in rechargeable Lithium Ion battery for the ultimate on the go speaker. The Leviathan Mini is aptly named with dimensions running (L) x 185 mm / 7” (W) x 55 mm / 2.16” (H) at a weight of 1.21 pounds the mini and it’s Razer Logo carrying bag won’t take up more than a little corner space in your go bag.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Zotac Updates ZBOX mini-PC Lineup at CES

Zotac had announcements in multiple segments at CES. Obviously, the SSD entry was the big talking point with the PCIe variant boasting good performance numbers. Zotac also had a home automation announcement, the Cozee Smart Home Kit. The lineup will have ZigBee sensors, an IP camera and a gateway.The hardware and software / apps are not final and still being worked on. Therefore, I will postpone detailed coverage of that announcement and concentrate on the updates made by Zotac in the mini-PC space in this article.

Zotac had all their mini-PC models neatly arranged out in their suite. These included models such as the Steam Machine NEN that was announced back in November and the MI551 Skylake mini-PC announced last month. The number of models made my head swim (in a good way). In order to help navigate the available models, Zotac provided the press with a table which lists various features and the models that support them. The list is reproduced in the picture below. More information about the models that launched at CES is available below the picture. Pricing for these units is not available yet.

Read full article @ Anandtech