Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition Review: Revisiting A Megatasking Beast
AMD Open-Source Driver For Vulkan AMDVLK Is Now Available
AMD Promontory 400-chipset spotted at PCI-SIG
Chillblast Fusion Vector Review
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Review
EK-Vardar EVO 120ER Fan Review
LaCie 12big Thunderbolt 3 DAS Review
Linksys LAPAC2600 AC2600 Dual Band MU-MIMMO Access Point Review
Nvidia to abandon 32-bit OS driver support from release 390
Performance Tests Show AMD Radeon RX Vega Graphics Cards Love Mining XMR Monero
Phanteks Glacier C350i Review
Topre RealForce 104UW Keyboard Review
Undervolting the AMD Radeon RX Vega: better performance at lower voltage
Viewsonic XG2730 Review

Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition Review: Revisiting A Megatasking Beast

When we looked at Dell's Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition gaming desktop earlier this year, the machine was still technically in a pre-production state. Though we took you on a preliminary guided tour of the system, we felt it premature to look at it under our full-review lens. At that point we were still doing emergency alien brain transplants on it, after all, bringing the machine we had up to production silicon specs.

Dell's Alienware team was still putting the finishing touches on system firmware and some new peripherals to accompany their latest gaming desktops. So, we are back here again today to revisit the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition, in what can now be considered its final, retail-ready incarnation.

Go ahead and try to load this thing down. We did and the Area-51 Threadripper Edition just shrugged it all off; no sweat.

Read full article @ HotHardware

AMD Open-Source Driver For Vulkan AMDVLK Is Now Available

Last week I reported on AMD finally preparing their open-source Vulkan driver that many Linux enthusiasts have been looking forward to since the Vulkan 1.0 debut nearly two years ago. As of this morning, the source-code to this official AMD Vulkan driver is now publicly available. AMD Linux fans and developers can rejoice this weekend building out this "AMDVLK" Vulkan driver and its new Platform Abstraction Layer (PAL).

Read full article @ Phoronix

AMD Promontory 400-chipset spotted at PCI-SIG

AMD 400-series motherboards are coming The refresh of the first-generation Ryzen is currently expected in the first quarter next year. Although new CPUs will certainly be compatible with 300-series motherboards, AMD is giving a chance to their partners to refresh their motherboard offering with X470, B450, A420 series. The Zen+/Ryzen 2000, also known as Pinnacle Ridge, is a 12nm upgrade of Zen1. We expect higher clock speeds and better power efficiency. Meanwhile, Zen2, which might be used for Ryzen 3000 series, is said to deliver bigger chances to Zen architecture as we approach 7nm fabrication process.

Read full article @ VideoCardz.com

Chillblast Fusion Vector Review

A high-end base unit geared for PUBG. Which is the best catalyst for new system sales; latest-generation hardware; or an enticing piece of software? The answer is probably a combination of the two, and Chillblast is looking to play on both fronts with the newly-announced Fusion Vector base unit.

Priced at £2,700 in full-blown Ultimate spec, this here machine claims to have been designed from the ground up for one of the year's most popular games, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. The proposition is quite simple; want to get in on the PUBG action with a premium rig boasting an array of modern hardware? Then you've come to the right place.

Read full article @ Hexus

Crucial MX500 1TB SSD Review

Crucial announced their new MX500 series SSD, we put the 1TB model to the test. At 25 cents per GB, these units are all about value for money. But they do not compromise on performance, no Sir. The MX500 remains very fast and very effective for the money you put down on that counter.

Read full article @ Guru3D

EK-Vardar EVO 120ER Fan Review

EKWB takes their high static pressure optimized Vardar fans and improves upon them by adding a zero RPM mode to PWM-controlled fans. The dual ball bearings also get replaced to reduce bearing noise, and at $20, these aim to be the best-performing radiator fans for PC DIY watercooling around.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

LaCie 12big Thunderbolt 3 DAS Review

With up to 2,600 MB/s on tap, LaCie's 12big raises the performance bar if you have the right workload and a high credit limit.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Linksys LAPAC2600 AC2600 Dual Band MU-MIMMO Access Point Review

Are you looking for ways to boost wireless signal either at home or at the office/work and traditional repeaters/range extenders are not good enough? If the answer is yes and an access point would fit right in then you should really consider the LAPAC2600 AC2600 Business Pro model by Linksys.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Nvidia to abandon 32-bit OS driver support from release 390

Critical 32-bit driver security fixes will continue to roll out until January 2019.

Read full article @ Hexus

Performance Tests Show AMD Radeon RX Vega Graphics Cards Love Mining XMR Monero

We’ve talked about mining Ethereum extensively here on Legit Reviews, but there are over 1,300 different coins that you can have in your crypto portfolio. One coin that is being discussed more frequently here lately in the AMD GPU mining community is Monero or XMR. Monero has a total market cap ~$5 billion USD, making it the World’s 11th most valuable cryptocurrency. Let's take a look at this coin and see what people are talking about.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Phanteks Glacier C350i Review

RGB lighting is in vogue. Phanteks therefore offers a premium RGB illuminated water cooler that combines the look of flowing water with light effects. The review includes a video of the Phanteks Glacier C350i in the OCinside YouTube channel.

Read full article @ OCinside.de

Topre RealForce 104UW Keyboard Review

We review the Topre RealForce 104UW. Topre, a contraction of its former company name “Tokyo Press Kogyo,” is a Japanese engineering company that has been making plastics and metal components since 1935. However, it also makes electronics, and the company has made a name for itself in the keyboard community for the Topre capacitive switch. These are famously used in the Happy Hacking Keyboard (HHKB) and Realforce lines of keyboards, the latter of which we’re looking at today.

The Realforce comes in tenkeyless (87U) and full-size (104U) form factors, and in white (UW) or black (UB). We have the white, fullsize version (104UW) on hand.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Undervolting the AMD Radeon RX Vega: better performance at lower voltage

Do you get better performance for free? That would be nice. We are used to getting the most of the lesser CPUs or GPUs via overclocking, but it seems that with Vega you can use undervolting instead. We put this to the test.

How is it possible that undervolting, or lowering the voltage supplied to the component, improves performance in Vega? To understand this, we need to remember how dynamic the clocking speeds of the graphics cards are these days. None of the cards, either Nvidia nor AMD ones actually run at the advertised speeds. This is the result of the so-called GPU boost where the voltage supplied to the card and the temperature of the card is what regulates the clocking frequency.

In reality, most of the Nvidia cards run at higher MHz than the advertised boost speeds. With AMD the boost speeds are the actual absolute maximum and due to this AMD have started calling the clocking frequency “peak frequency” instead.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Viewsonic XG2730 Review

With the XG2730 Viewsonic has a gaming display in its portfolio, which makes use of the 16:9 aspect ratio. Equipped with a TN panel and 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution this is a mid-range gaming monitor. Apart from that there is even support for AMD Freesync in combination with 144Hz refresh rate on board, allowing for effective elimination of any tearing effects.

Read full article @ ocaholic