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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

7 Password Mistakes That Will Likely Get You Hacked
Antec Kuhler H20 H1200 Pro & H600 Pro AIO Water Cooler Review
ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser Review: Affordable, Unlocked, Great Camera
Fractal Design Define Nano S Review
G.Skill Ripjaws SR910 Real 7.1 Gaming Headset Review
Micron M600 512GB SSD Review
MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Review
OCZ Releases Trion 150 SSD
OCZ Trion 150 240GB and 480GB SSD Review
OCZ TRION 150 SSD (240GB) Review
Patriot Viper 4 DDR4 3200MHz 16GB (2x8GB) Dual Channel Memory Kit Review
PNY CS1311 SSD Review (480GB) - An Easy HDD to SSD Upgrade
Zalman ZM-M600R Review
Zotac NEN SN970 Steam Machine Review



7 Password Mistakes That Will Likely Get You Hacked

Youve heard it all before and youre probably sick of it. Password safety is an oft-drilled topic that easily enters one ear and oozes out the other, but we cant emphasize this enough: settling for a weak password is like leaving all of your doors unlocked. Just because youve never been robbed before doesnt mean its safe to leave your doors unlocked, does it? It only takes one unforeseen incident to lose everything and the same holds true for your email accounts, bank accounts, and whatever other accounts you hold dear.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

Antec Kuhler H20 H1200 Pro & H600 Pro AIO Water Cooler Review

Antec is one of the biggest names in the PC component market, with many years of experience in creating chassis, cooler, power supplies and more. With Antec having created so many products over the years, it’s more than likely you’ve owned a few of their components over the years, so it’s great to see them continue to push the limits. Antec has been a little behind in the cooling market recently, as their last range of Kuhler H20 products didn’t exactly capture the imaginations of the market, but their latest versions, the H1200 Pro and the H600 Pro look set to change that.

Read full article @ eTeknix

ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser Review: Affordable, Unlocked, Great Camera

When ASUS released the ZenFone 2 Laser, the company’s goal was to offer a premium smartphone experience with strong camera performance at an affordable price. On the surface the ZenFone 2 Laser has many of the key features of a premium phone, including an octa-core SoC with Adreno graphics, dual active SIM capabilities, a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera, and a removable battery.

Given that many flagship Android phones sell for $599 and up for an unlocked version, ASUS’s price of $249 for the high-end 32GB model of the ZenFone 2 Laser is very reasonable. If you want to save some cash, ASUS is also offering this phone with 16GB of storage for $199...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Fractal Design Define Nano S Review

The increasing popularity of mini-ITX cases has led to a somewhat downsizing trend by manufacturers. And we mean that in the most literal sense - many companies are now releasing smaller mITX versions of their full-size line instead of redesigning from the ground up for the smaller board size. The Fractal Design Define Nano S is one such case, a miniaturized version of the Define S. Let's take a look at how this small case measures up.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

G.Skill Ripjaws SR910 Real 7.1 Gaming Headset Review

G.Skill has really come out of the gates swinging with their RipJaws line of gaming peripherals. Today we will be looking at their premier gaming headphones, the G.Skill Ripjaws SR910 Real 7.1 Gaming Headset.

The G.Skill Ripjaws SR910 Real 7.1 Gaming Headset features 10 discrete neodymium drivers and a dual-mic noise cancellation ENC microphone. Both are welcome sights in a crowded market full of surround sound headphones. Traditionally the use of multiple drivers at a competitive price point means compromise. Let’s find out if the G.Skill Ripjaws SR910 Real 7.1 Gaming Headset should be in your short list!

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Micron M600 512GB SSD Review

With the M600 and M510DC lines of solid state drives (SSDs) Micron has successfully managed to cover both demanding consumers and professionals/enterprise users.

Read full article @ NikKTech

MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Review

The X99A Godlike Gaming is MSI's latest and greatest X99 based motherboard. It comes with numerous features such as for example an RGB backlight and a nice looking cover plate. Appartenly we're rather curious to find out how this monster performs.

Read full article @ ocaholic

OCZ Releases Trion 150 SSD

As previewed at CES, OCZ has released an update to their budget-oriented Trion 100 SATA SSD. The Trion 150 switches from parent company Toshibas A19nm TLC to their 15nm TLC, the densest planar NAND on the market. The transition to 15nm NAND has been slow for Toshiba and SanDisk, and the release of the Trion 150 signals that the 15nm TLC is finally ready to compete in the most cost-sensitive market segment. This is also probably the end of the road for Toshibas planar NAND and the Trion 150 will probably be the cheapest drive from Toshiba or OCZ until their 3D NAND ships, unless they introduce a drive with a DRAM-less controller.

The specifications for the Trion 150 are otherwise unchanged from the Trion 100, but the press releases have mentioned some improvements in sustained performance. Supporting the 15nm NAND required at least some firmware tweaks and its possible that some performance optimizations were introduced as well. Its also possible that the Trion 150 adopts more overprovisioning or larger SLC-mode caches.

Read full article @ Anandtech

OCZ Trion 150 240GB and 480GB SSD Review

Back at launch in July 2015 we reviewed the OCZ Trion 100 SSD’s. These were the first OCZ drives to feature a Toshiba controller and A19 TLC NAND flash. Today we look at the latest iteration of the Trion series, dubbed the ‘Trion 150’. The Trion 150 feature 15nm Toshiba Triple Level Cell TLC NAND and are available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. OCZ told us that pricing will fall in line with the older Trion 100 drives in the budget sector of the market.

Read full article @ KitGuru

OCZ TRION 150 SSD (240GB) Review

OCZ updated their Trion series SSDs towards Trion 150, at launch they will out four models. In a saturated and dense market, budget is trivial. The new Trion 150 series are all about value. It is an SSD series that is 100% Toshiba proprietary, that includes the controller and NAND flash memory. To make the product more cost effective the TRION series comes with the latest iteration of 15nm Toshiba TLC NAND flash memory. Value for money wise you will receive a an SSD series that is fast enough, it won't break your wallet and comes with a great after-sales warranty program.

Yes, in a storage world dominated by the big guns like Micron and Samsung margins are getting smaller and smaller. OCZ needed to address that to get the price per gigabyte down and offer a competitive solution that is fast, will be excellent in any PC and obviously a product that can compete with the Samsung 850 EVO in both price and performance. To do so OCZ is offering the Trion series SSD, an in-house Toshiba controller steers all new A19 15nm TLC based NAND flash memory from Toshiba to drive their SSDs to a bargain level. Now, writes in certain scenarios will will be hurt in performance with TLC, that is a fact... but as long as you do not write gigabytes continously over and over, and thus use Trion in a PC or Laptop for normal usage, then you are looking at an SSD performing in the 550 MB/sec range. Not bad at 30 cents per GB eh?

So the Trion 150 series is obviously SATA 6Gb/s based and comes with read performance of up-to 550MB/s and a peak write performance of 520MB/s with IOPS 4K read/Write: 90k/43k. These SSDs are rated at 60TB TB written during the 3-year warranty period. Peak power we think is a little on the high side at 4.8W (operation) but is good at 0.83W (idle). At €270 you can now even pick a 960GB model, a volume size that is growing rapidly in popularity. That's next to 120, 240 and 480 GB versions of course. Endurance is another factor alongside reliability. In today's review for example we'll look at the product and see how fast it remains even after thrashing the SSD with over 3TB host writes written. The Trion 150 series isn't shy with writing either, this SSD series is rated at 60TB written for three years for the 240GB model that we test. The Trion series is receiving a ShieldPlus warranty (we'll explain what that entails in the conclusion). The end result is an SSD that is fast and competitive in terms of pricing. The series also offers 4K random access throughput of up to 90,000 IOPS (read) (depending on volume size). But with TLC, writes will be lower in the 25K to 65K IOPS range depending on volume size, that is the trade-off really.

Read full article @ Guru3D

Patriot Viper 4 DDR4 3200MHz 16GB (2x8GB) Dual Channel Memory Kit Review

DDR4 memory kits are steadily superseding DDR3 DIMMs due to competitive pricing and the advent of Intel’s LGA1151 chipset which supports speeds in excess of 3200MHz. Furthermore, DDR4 modules require less voltage to remain stable despite the typical increase in memory bandwidth. Recently, professional overclocker Shamino set an astounding world record and overclocked the G.Skill Ripjaws 4 to 4255MHz using a mere 1.3 volts. Clearly, this is an extreme case and the majority of DDR4 kits available to consumers range between 2400MHz and 4000MHz. Plus, the performance difference in gaming tasks primarily revolves around your system’s graphics card, and CPU. Nevertheless, it’s still important to select high-quality DIMMs to keep your PC perfectly stable and compliment the other components.

The Patriot Viper series is synonymous for offering excellent memory speeds at an affordable price point. Here’s a brief description of the product directly from the manufacturer:

“Patriot Memory’s Viper 4 Series memory modules are designed with true performance in mind. Built for the latest Intel® Skylake processor utilizing the 100 series platform, the Viper 4 series provides the best performance and stability for the most demanding computer environments.

The Viper 4 series utilizes a custom designed high performance heat shield for superior heat dissipation to ensure rock solid performance even when using the most taxing applications. Built from the highest quality Build of Materials, Patriot Memory’s Viper 4 Series memory modules are hand tested and validated for system compatibility.

Available in dual kits, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB kits, Patriot Memory’s Viper 4 Series will be offered at speeds from 2400MHz up to 3600MHz and XMP 2.0 ready. Hand tested for quality assurance the Viper 4 series is backed by a lifetime warranty.”

Read full article @ eTeknix

PNY CS1311 SSD Review (480GB) - An Easy HDD to SSD Upgrade

Today we are looking at the simpler consumer drive the PNY CS1311 SSD, designed to make upgrading from the lagging HDD a breeze. As PNY explains, this drive is an excellent option for replacing a hard drive, a secondary drive for photo and video storage and as a boot drive. Let's dig in!

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Zalman ZM-M600R Review

Zalman have been a long standing brand that is known by PC enthusiasts for their cooling products and have moved into various other areas, and while they have undergone some hardship as company, they are still with us today. The ZM-M600R mouse comes as part of a new line of products from Zalman and while doesn't aim to set the world on fire, it does look like a safe, yet solid addition to the market.

The outside design looks relatively neutral, and has no side buttons. This is something which will likely be the deciding factor for people choosing this mouse as some may prefer to have no side buttons, others can't live without them. The shape is said to be designed for the comfort of all grip types (Palm, Claw, Finger tip) and has been given finishing touches of an auto changing RGB LED lighting for the logo, while the mouse wheel LED is used as a DPI indicator.


Read full article @ Vortez

Zotac NEN SN970 Steam Machine Review

Ever since Valve announced SteamOS and Steam Machines there have been two Steam Machines that were shown the most. They were the Alienware Steam Machine and Zotac’s NEN SN970. Not that long ago we took a look at the Alienware unit, and now we have the NEN SN970 to review. This unit is part of Zotac’s extremely popular ZBOX line of mini PCs. Under the hood you have an Intel Core i5-6400T processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, 8GB of memory, and a 1TB 2.5“ SATA hard drive. Like all Steam Machine’s the NEN SN970 will ship with SteamOS pre-installed and an official Steam Controller. This will bring gaming into the living room and you’ll have the massive Steam library of games to choose from, which has more games than either of the two major consoles. Let’s get to gaming and see what the NEN SN970 is all about!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org