Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including Zotac ZBOX ID89 Plus Mini PC Review, XSPC Photon 270 Tube Reservoir Review, Xeon E5-2600 v2 series brings Ivy Bridge-EP to servers, workstations, First 22nm Smartphone and Unveils Quark X1000 SoC Open Architecture, and Hands-on review: IDF 2013: ThinkPad T440



Zotac ZBOX ID89 Plus Mini PC Review @ HotHardware

If you're a proponent of the desktop, don't worry, the sky isn't falling on your form factor. Yes, we've read the same reports you have, the ones pointing out how traditional PC sales are shrinking in the wake of a mobile revolution that has consumers turning to tablets and smartphones for surfing the web and logging into Facebook. There's no denying mobile is sexy right now, but when it comes to getting work done and playing games with more depth than Angry Birds, desktops haven't lost their swagger.

Desktops are evolving, however, and getting smaller and less intrusive. Zotac is a company that's been at the forefront of this evolution by offering up a constantly-expanding line of small form factor (SFF) mini PCs that have grown more powerful with each new generation. The compromise between raw performance and power efficiency lessens with each advance AMD and Intel make to their respective processor technologies.

Read more: Zotac ZBOX ID89 Plus Mini PC Review @ HotHardware

XSPC Photon 270 Tube Reservoir Review @ ThinkComputers.org

While we're certainly no stranger here at Thinkcomputers.org to XSPCs watercooling products, what were about to take a look at is something we've never seen before. Also a first for XSPC is their big entry into the wildly popular tube reservoir market with the Photon 270. Unlike traditional tube reservoirs the Photon 270 has one big twist, a light tube down the center of the reservoir. Follow along as we check it out and see if this should be the next big upgrade for your loop!

Read more: XSPC Photon 270 Tube Reservoir Review @ ThinkComputers.org

How the Cable TV is Used for Internet Access @ Hardware Secrets

The cable TV network can be used for connecting a computer or a local network to the Internet, competing directly with DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology. In this tutorial, we will teach you how this kind of connection works.

Read more: How the Cable TV is Used for Internet Access @ Hardware Secrets

Palit GTX 780 Super JetStream 3 GB @ techPowerUp

Palit's GTX 780 Super JetStream is one of the highest clocked GTX 780s on the market. In our testing its performance beats GTX Titan, yet doesn't break the bank. With a retail price of around $670 it is cheaper than any other custom-design, overclocked, GTX 780 card.

Read more: Palit GTX 780 Super JetStream 3 GB @ techPowerUp

Xeon E5-2600 v2 series brings Ivy Bridge-EP to servers, workstations @ The Tech Report

Intel has rolled out a deep lineup of Xeon processors based on next-generation Ivy Bridge-EP silicon. The server and workstation chips pack more cores, larger L3 caches, and higher core and memory clock speeds than their Sandy Bridge-based predecessors.

Read more: Xeon E5-2600 v2 series brings Ivy Bridge-EP to servers, workstations @ The Tech Report

Move over, Atom; Intel's Quark is one-fifth the size @ The Tech Report

IDF Intel CEO Brian Krzanich dropped a surprise announcement on the attendees of his opening keynote at the Intel Developer Forum today: a new family of processors from Intel, known as Quark. Quark SoCs are intended to be integrated into very small computing devices and the "Internet of things," including wearable devices and possibly smart watches.

Read more: Move over, Atom; Intel's Quark is one-fifth the size @ The Tech Report

Club 3D SenseVision MST Hub (DisplayPort Splitter) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

One company who are now giving some focus to expanding their DisplayPort range are Club 3D. Their MST hub (Multi Stream Transport) allows us to run three displays from one DisplayPort connector which opens up a wide number of options for desktop and mobile users. Today we take a look at the MST to see how easy it is to use and what it can do.

Read more: Club 3D SenseVision MST Hub (DisplayPort Splitter) Review @ HardwareHeaven.com

Antec GX 700 Mid-Tower @ PureOverclock

Antec is one of the big names in the PC case market, with award-winning cases from the “hundred” and Sonata series to their line of HTPC cases and the like. Antec just added a newcomer to their gaming case lineup in the form of the GX series. Right now, the only model is the GX 700 which we’ll be looking at today. The GX 700 offers a low price point of just $59.99 (although can be found for less) and is packed with features.

But how many features can be included for this low of a price? Let’s find out, shall we?

Read more: Antec GX 700 Mid-Tower @ PureOverclock

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full-Tower Case Review @ HiTech Legion

Fluff. For those of you who regularly read articles at HTL, you know that is what goes here and in the next paragraph. There is no product info, typically not even a mention of the product being reviewed. Just fluff that can somehow be tied to some aspect of the product that begins the third paragraph. However, there are times that a product is so loaded with features that either the product description suffers or the fluff needs to take a backseat. Since we have the Phanteks Enthoo Primo on tap, fluff loses.

While this may be their first chassis to market, Phanteks is not exactly known for subtle market entrances. Just two years ago, Phanteks released their first product, the PH-TC14PE, and it was (and is) simply the best performing air cooler on the market. Follow up coolers did not stray from this path, and now just the pre-release photos and showings of their first chassis, the Enthoo Primo, have enthusiasts everywhere expecting more of the same. The Phanteks Enthoo Primo is a very different take on a full tower chassis, with a layout unlike anything we have seen before. At every turn it is unique, and every design nuance makes perfect sense in functionality and is aimed squarely at the enthusiast. There is no doubt that Phanteks wants to begin their trek through the chassis market in exactly the same place that they begin their cooling trek, sitting at the top.

Read more: Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full-Tower Case Review @ HiTech Legion

Intel Demos 14nm Broadwell, First 22nm Smartphone and Unveils Quark X1000 SoC Open Architecture @ HotHardware

Intel's newly appointed CEO, Brian Krzanich and President Renee James kicked off this year's Intel Developers Forum with an opening keynote that laid out the company's plans for 2014 and beyond. They spoke of industry trends in general, about Intel's strategy moving forward, and how they believe they can win in the current economic and technical environments. They also revealed some bleeding edge new technology, which somewhat surprisingly, was already up and running, live on stage.

Read more: Intel Demos 14nm Broadwell, First 22nm Smartphone and Unveils Quark X1000 SoC Open Architecture @ HotHardware

Intel i7-4930K & i7-4820K Ivy Bridge-E Review @ Hardware Canucks

So here we are, about a week after the Ivy Bridge-E launch and a few hours past these new processors’ widespread availability on store shelves and one thing is obvious: while many enthusiasts are excited about the prospect of a 12-thread IVB architecture, few are willing to pay $1000 for that privilege. You see, the i7-4960X we reviewed last week is horribly expensive and offers minimal to no performance improvements over the more affordable Haswell i7-4770K in some key areas. But Intel isn’t launching just one CPU here. The i7-4930K and i7-4820K offer similar features at prices that are well within the reach of today’s cost-conscious users.

Intel’s direction with Ivy Bridge-E is particularly interesting and it has caused no small amount of controversy. While the processors themselves represent modest improvements over the outgoing Sandy Bridge-E products, they’re tied at the hip to X79, a platform which is beginning to show its age. X58 users looking for an upgrade will certainly appreciate its feature set but when placed alongside less expensive Z87 offerings, X79 lacks native USB 3.0 support, omits Intel’s SSD Caching and makes due with only two native SATA 6Gbps ports. Those are significant shortcomings in a product space than lives and dies by the features offered to end users.

Read more: Intel i7-4930K & i7-4820K Ivy Bridge-E Review @ Hardware Canucks

Turtle Beach Ear Force PX22 Headset Review @ Kitguru

Having made a name for themselves in pro gaming, Turtle Beach has released a line of Major League Gaming licensed headsets and today we are looking at the Turtle Beach Ear Force PX22 headset. With an included in-line amplifier, multi-platform compatibility and 50 mm drivers, this stereo headset retails for a relatively modest asking price of £64.97 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turtle-Beach-Amplified-Universal-Playstation/dp/B00BDS415I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375188310&sr=8-1&keywords=turtle+beach+px+22) inc vat.

Read more: Turtle Beach Ear Force PX22 Headset Review @ Kitguru

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti Detailed @ TechPowerUp

How far can you strip down a GK104? Very far. Reports from the Chinese press and the whirring rumor mill there speaks of a new mid-range graphics card SKU taking shape at NVIDIA, named GeForce GTX 750 Ti, which is being designed to succeed the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, outperform the GeForce GTX 660, and become NVIDIA's posterboy for this year's AAA shooter releases - Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Battlefield 4, when the company expects a tiny spike in GPU sales.

Based on the same G92 GK104 silicon as several other 600- and 700-series GeForce GTX products, the GTX 750 Ti will be configured a notch above the GK106-based GeForce GTX 660. To begin with, it's expected to feature 960 CUDA cores, a notch below the 1152 cores on the GeForce GTX 760. It has the same 80 TMUs as the GTX 660, but 32 ROPs and a 256-bit wide memory interface (compared to 24 ROPs and 192-bit on the GTX 660). Clock speeds are expected to be higher, too, at 1033 MHz core, 1098 MHz GPU Boost, and 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. There's no clarity on when exactly NVIDIA plans to launch the SKU, but we expect that to happen before AMD's late-September high-end extravaganza.

Read more: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti Detailed @ TechPowerUp

Hands-on review: IDF 2013: ThinkPad T440 @ Techradar

This time last year, we saw Lenovo reworking the design of its classic ThinkPad laptop. Gone were the lid locking sweater-catchers, the dedicated volume button and classic touchpad design.

Read more: Hands-on review: IDF 2013: ThinkPad T440 @ Techradar