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Here a roundup of todays review's and articles:

Android 5.0 Lollipop Tested: Performance and Battery Life
be quiet! Pure Rock Review
Crucial BX100 1TB SSD Review
Crucial MX200 SSD Review (500GB/1TB)
EVGA TORQ X5 USB Gaming Mouse Review
Galaxy Note Edge Review
How to reduce PHP-FPM (php5-fpm) RAM usage by about 50%
Kingston HyperX Cloud II Gaming Headset Review
Kingston MobileLite G4 USB 3.0 Card Reader Review
Mini-ITX Game PC - February 2015
NZXT DOKO PC Streaming Device Review
Review: Plextor M6e Black Edition (256GB)
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290x 8GB Tri-X Video Card Review
SuperFlower Leadex Platinum ’8 Pack Edition’ 2000W Review



Android 5.0 Lollipop Tested: Performance and Battery Life

We test Android 5.0 Lollipop using the Moto X, Moto G, LG G3 and Galaxy S5 smartphones. We explore how updates to the core architecture in Android 5.0 have improved performance and battery life on existing handsets.

Read full article @ Techspot

be quiet! Pure Rock Review

Performance was on par with similar size coolers. The Pure Rock is a nice jump beyond OEM cooling, but still a sizeable notch below the much larger (and signifcantly more expensive) dual tower coolers with 140mm fans. However, it did prove that it can stand up to a fair amount of heat when the load is cranked up. For daily use in a mild gaming or multimedia rig, this cooler will be right at home. If you really overclock and frequently load your system, be quiet! certainly has a variety of larger, higher capacity coolers from which to choose.

Read full article @ OCC

Crucial BX100 1TB SSD Review

Crucial’s BX100 may be one of this year’s most eagerly anticipated drives and that shouldn’t come as a surprise given the amazing abilities of its bigger brother, the MX200. Both drives were announced at CES but the BX100 was arguably the more popular of the two. Perhaps this was due to it being a brand new value-oriented drive series from an extremely well respected company or maybe the interest came from it offering some impressive performance numbers despite a very affordable price point. Regardless of the whys, what we have on the test bench today is the BX100 1TB, an SSD that could very well represent a significant step towards the demise of spindle-based alternatives.

The BX100 represents a fairly significant departure for Crucial. Unlike the MX100, MC200 and M5xx-series, it eschews the usual Marvell controller design and instead uses Silicon Motion’s 2246EN. Throughout 2015 we’ll likely see this controller become the de-facto standard for entry-level since it combines fairly robust performance metrics via a 4-channel layout with the capability for advanced encryption via AES 128/256 and TCG OPAL standards. Add in an average power draw of just 60mV and an advanced global wear leveling algorithm for enhanced endurance and it isn’t hard to see why we’ll be seeing a lot of this thing.

Crucial’s adaptation is running 16nm MLC 128GBit NAND which shouldn’t be a surprise but what will likely draw most people in is the BX100’s price. With an MSRP of $400 for the 1TB model (or a mere 40 cents per GB), there’s a lot to be excited about here.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Crucial MX200 SSD Review (500GB/1TB)

The Crucial MX200 is yet another in the many steps that Crucial has taken on over the past few generations, their SSD lines building slowly upon the last since their first release so long ago. Replacing their M4, the M500 introduced a plethora of new features such as hardware encryption, data path protection, and power loss protection. The higher performing M550 built upon the M500 by introducing a newer controller and had faster performance. And when released just last summer, the MX100 built upon the M500 series design and introduced 128Gbit 16nm NAND to take our Top Value award with ease.

Considering this, the MX100 isn’t really a successor to the M500 family, but rather, it is a lower tiered product directed towards the value oriented buyer. This is evident when simply looking at the capacities it is offered in, 128GB-512GB. Doing away with the 120GB capacity range and expanding it from 250GB up to 1TB, the MX200 fills the void the MX100 left. Not only have they changed the capacity range, this time around they are doing something a bit different by introducing Dynamic Write Acceleration, to which this also comes with a slightly higher price tag.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

EVGA TORQ X5 USB Gaming Mouse Review

EVGA continues their expansion into the peripherals market with the introduction of their TORQ peripherals line; today, we have the new EVGA Torq X5 Gaming Mouse to review. Benchmark Reviews has previously looked at the EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse and we liked it enough to give it our highest rating. The new X5 Gaming Mouse sacrifices a few features for a lower price point, but how does it perform? Let’s find out.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Galaxy Note Edge Review

A top-end phablet with an innovative curved screen

Read full article @ V3

How to reduce PHP-FPM (php5-fpm) RAM usage by about 50%

PHP-FPM is the FastCGI Process Manager for PHP. On Unix-like operating systems, including Linux and BSD distributions, PHP-FPM is enabled by installing the php5-fpm (Linux) or php56-fpm (FreeBSD 10.1) package. The problem with PHP-FPM is that the default configuration and that promoted by numerous blogs chews up too much resources RAM and CPU.

Read full article @ LinuxBSDos.com

Kingston HyperX Cloud II Gaming Headset Review

That faint sound of a branch being broken or the rustle of leaves from a footstep behind you alerts you to the enemy sneaking up to your position; the audio and music you have enjoyed and relied on for years has greater meaning than ever as products nowadays promise newfound clarity. If you're looking to get better sound out of your preferred audio source (be it onboard, sound card, or speakers), you might want to know that Kingston has upgraded their HyperX Cloud Pro gaming headset with the new HyperX Cloud II version.

The newly available HyperX Cloud II pro gaming headset features a USB sound card "control box" with controls for both headset and microphone volume (as well as a mute slider on the side). By incorporating virtual 7.1 sound into the USB control box of the Cloud II, you can better judge the distance, depth and direction of audio during your gaming, movie or music experiences. Being hardware based, this is an easy click on/off option on the USB Control Box that needs no driver.

The digitally optimized, noise-cancelling microphone of the HyperX Cloud II will automatically compensate for increased gaming noise from background or TeamSpeak interference. The hi-fi capability of the Cloud II is delivered through 53mm drivers for superior sound quality, with clear low to high tones and a rich base from the USB control box sound card.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

Kingston MobileLite G4 USB 3.0 Card Reader Review

Are you looking for a new USB 3.0 card reader for your SD and microSD memory cards? The Kingston MobileLite G4 is newest portable memory card ready by Kingston Digital and might be just what you are looking for. The Kingston MobileLite G4 ( FCR-MLG2 ) is versatile device as it has both SD and microSD memory card slots. This means that it can read SD, SDHC, SDXC and microSD/SDHC/SDXC cards and it even supports the latest card speeds, UHS-I and UHS-II.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Mini-ITX Game PC - February 2015

The Mini-ITX Game PC is a desktop computer that is small enough to be portable, but has better performance than a gaming notebook.

Please note: the PC Buyer’s Guide is compiled based on independent component tests performed by Hardware.Info. If no new, superior products are released that should replace one or more of the components, then the component(s) will remain the same as the previous month.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

NZXT DOKO PC Streaming Device Review

NZXT is a company that we typically know for their PC cases and cooling devices. They have made a great name for themselves in these markets. Well at CES this year they announced a new product that brings them to a brand new market. The product is called DOKO and it is a PC streaming device. PC streaming and streaming services have become extremely popular over the past few years. It seems everyone is coming out with a streaming box or device. We know NZXT puts great quality into their cases so we hope they can bring that to the DOKO. The DOKO is also strictly a streaming device, you cannot load apps on it or does not come with pre-loaded apps. The DOKO does have some very unique features and we think that is what sets it apart from other streaming devices out there. Will this device become a staple in our home theater setup? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Review: Plextor M6e Black Edition (256GB)

Straddling the worlds of M.2 and PCIe. Storage company Plextor has experimented with producing solid-state drives (SSD) using various form factors. SATA remains the overriding favourite even though it's limited in terms of interface speed, but Plextor has also released drives using the M.2 and PCIe form factors.

But rather than wait for the industry to shift to these faster standards, particularly PCIe, Plextor made the move to use both M.2 and PCIe concurrently by packaging an M.2 drive with a PCIe card that fits into the standard expansion slots on a modern motherboard.

This hybrid approach leads to the M6e drive mating a Marvell 88SS9183 controller with Toshiba NAND connecting to the system either via the bare M.2 drive or via AHCI-compliant PCIe through the use of an adapter card. The drive supports a maximum speed of PCIe 2.0 x2, or 8Gbit/s, so having a faster connection to the system, via PCIe, is of no immediate benefit, and the real-world transfer ceiling is likely to be closer to 6.4Gbit/s (800MB/s).

Read full article @ Hexus

Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290x 8GB Tri-X Video Card Review

Sapphire has long been AMD's leading partner in the GPU arena. With the growing popularity of 1440, 2K and 4K gaming, manufacturers have been taking "liberties" with the GPUs such as factory overclocks, higher power delivery, and more memory (VRAM). The Sapphire Vapor-X 290x is slightly different from other 290x's as it houses 8 gigabytes of RAM vs. 4 Gigabytes … Read more.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

SuperFlower Leadex Platinum ’8 Pack Edition’ 2000W Review

‘Holy Moly’. This is the PG version of the first words I said when we were offered the new 2000 watt Superflower power supply for analysis. Renowned and highly respected UK overclocker Ian ’8Pack’ Parry partnered up with SuperFlower for the creation of this new monster unit. The ’8 Pack Edition’ is a fully modular design, 80 Plus Platinum certified and ships with enough cables to choke Godzilla.

Read full article @ KitGuru