Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

25-Way NVIDIA/AMD Linux Graphics Comparison For Vulkan-Powered Thrones Of Britannia
ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 Motherboard Review
Intel's 28-core HEDT CPU Demo Was Dishonest About Clock Speeds
MSI Vigor GK80 Mechanical Keyboard Review
VIVO Adjustable Under-Desk Slider PC Mount Review
What's Thermal Throttling and How to Prevent It
XSPC RayStorm Pro X4 Photon AX360 WaterCooling Kit Review

25-Way NVIDIA/AMD Linux Graphics Comparison For Vulkan-Powered Thrones Of Britannia

This week Mac/Linux game porting company released the Linux port of A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA, just two months after this game was released for Windows. With the Linux port of this strategy game the Vulkan API is being used for graphics rendering, which makes it interesting for benchmarking. Here is our extensive look at the performance of this major Linux game port when testing twenty-five different AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards to see how this game is performing on Ubuntu Linux.

Read full article @ Phoronix

ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 Motherboard Review

In today’s review, we will present ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9 motherboard so a perfect base for a high-end computer for the most demanding gamers and not only. Even though all motherboards based on the X299 chipset are high-end then not all are as well equipped as the Professional Gaming i9. If you want to know what I’m talking about then please stay with us.

As usual, we will start with specifications and features.

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Intel's 28-core HEDT CPU Demo Was Dishonest About Clock Speeds

Intel is frantically putting together a new HEDT (high-end desktop) platform positioned above its current LGA2066 (X299) platform, built around its Purkey enterprise platform, and a variant of the LGA3647 socket (this chip + your X299 motherboard is no bueno). This socket is needed to wire out the 28-core Skylake XCC (extreme core count) silicon, which has a six-channel DDR4 memory interface. The company put up a live demo at the teaser of this unnamed processor, where it was running at 5.00 GHz, which led many to believe that the processor runs at that speed out of the box, at least at its maximum Turbo Boost state, if not nominal clock. Intel admitted to "Tom's Hardware," that it "forgot" to mention to the crowds that the chip was overclocked.

Overclocking the 28-core chip was no small effort. It took an extreme cooling method, specifically a refrigerated heat-exchanger, coupled with a custom motherboard (we suspect GIGABYTE-sourced), to keep the processor bench-stable at 5.00 GHz. Intel's defense to Tom's Hardware was that "in the excitement of the moment," its on-stage presenter "forgot" to use the word "overclocked." Gregory Bryant, SVP client-computing at Intel not only omitted "overclocked" from his presentation, but made sure to stress on "5 GHz," as if it were part of the chip's specifications

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

MSI Vigor GK80 Mechanical Keyboard Review

The MSI Vigor GK80 is a solid RGB backlit mechanical keyboard with a few tricks up its sleeve to make it a unique entry in today's saturated gaming peripherals market.

Although APH Networks has worked with over 140 manufacturers since 2005, it is always exciting for us to review a product from a brand that has never appeared on our website. Do not get me wrong; we appreciate everyone who has continued sending us products for evaluation to this day after all these years despite our unwavering commitment to impartial reviews that can sometimes be quite brutal. Recently, my colleague Aaron Lai shared with me how excited he was to be the first editor to publish a Sennheiser headphone review here a few months back, as well as the opportunity he had in covering a LG smartphone a couple of years ago. To share in his excitement, today I will mark history to say I will be the first one at APH Networks to cover a product from one of the most respected companies in the technology world: MSI. I am not sure why we have not reviewed anything from them in the last thirteen years even though we have extensively covered products from ASUS and Gigabyte. But why bother about the past when we can look ahead into the future? The Vigor GK80 is one of MSI's latest entries into the ever-expanding gaming peripherals market. Equipped with genuine Cherry MX switches, Mystic Light-powered RGB backlighting, and a metal wrist rest with a hidden keycap storage, is this a mechanical keyboard of the times with a few extra tricks up its sleeve? Read on to find out!

Read full article @ APH Networks

VIVO Adjustable Under-Desk Slider PC Mount Review

The Adjustable Under-Desk Slider PC Mount installs under your computer desk and frees up some space that otherwise would be occupied by your PC. After installing the Slider Mount under your desk, your PC is free to slide in, out, and rotate a full 360°. If your application is more of the wall-mounted variety, then there are mounting holes for just that purpose, too.

Read full article @ OCC

What's Thermal Throttling and How to Prevent It

Heat is an inevitable byproduct of work. It’s generated when you start a car’s engine, go for a brisk walk or anything else that generates friction. Heat is also prevalent in electronics where it can be more difficult to manage and can be detrimental to their continued operation. When it comes to graphics cards there are many ways to manage heat, from passive cooling, to fans and even water. But when these solutions aren’t working, your GPU has one more way to beat the heat: thermal throttling.

When your GPU takes on a heavy workload, such as gaming, it generates a load of heat. When your cooling solution can no longer dissipate heat fast enough to keep temperatures within a safe range, your graphics card starts to dump performance to shed heat. The core and memory frequencies begin to drop—along with your framerates—until temperatures drop to a safe operating range. All modern GPUs have this feature in place to protect the electronic components from damage. Unmanaged, thermal throttling can have a big impact on performance. And, while thermal throttling itself doesn’t cause any damage, the underlying cause of throttling, heat, can cause damage and shorten the lifespan of your video card.

Read full article @ TechSpot

XSPC RayStorm Pro X4 Photon AX360 WaterCooling Kit Review

Summer is by far the worst season for PC users due to the rather above-normal temperatures and as a matter of fact while i type these lines the CPU of my system has hit 45 degrees Celsius at a virtually idle state (to be completely fair however the AC is turned off and the fans are set at 50% speed). So because we are well aware that during this season many gamers, enthusiasts and even professionals are out in the market looking for the best possible cooling solutions every summer we do our best to deliver reviews of some of the latest water cooling kits (custom loops) to get released. XSPC is one of the oldest water cooling component manufacturers in the world and so today we're taking a look at one of their latest products the RayStorm Pro X4 Photon AX360 WaterCooling Kit.

As gaming and overclocking enthusiasts, we started XSPC over 14 years ago with the vision of offering world-class cooling products that don’t sacrifice reliability or quiet operation in the pursuit of ultimate cooling performance. Today, our product range has expanded to include everything you need to build the ultimate liquid cooling system, from water blocks, radiators and reservoirs to fixtures and fittings. Every component we create at XSPC is engineered to the highest standards with the highest quality materials, and delivers market-leading performance without sacrificing reliability. As XSPC continues to grow, we remain totally focused on our original values and vision - creating water cooling components with superior performance and reliability.

Read full article @ NikKTech