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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Akitio Thunder3 Dock Pro Review
Apple Watch Series 4 44mm Review
ASRock X399 Fatal1ty Professional Gaming Motherboard Review
Crucial BX500 240GB SSD Review
Keyboard Maintenance 101 ft. Cooler Master MasterAccessory Maintenance Kit Review
MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC AM4 Motherboard Review
Razer Phone 2 Review
Razer Phone 2 Review
Synology DiskStation DS119j 1-Bay Budget NAS Review
The Performance & Power Efficiency Of The Core i7 990X vs. Core i9 9900K



Akitio Thunder3 Dock Pro Review

Thunderbolt 3 has given way to some of the best docking solutions ever. At this moment we have the TS3 series from CalDigit, OWC alongside Startech have put out docking stations and then we have Akitio, which at this point have released Thunderbolt 3 adapters, enclosures and storage solutions. That changes today as we take a look at the latest from the Thunder3 lineup, the Dock Pro.

As far as Docking stations go, Akitio didn't skimp at all with their latest solution. The dock takes on the standard rectangle form factor although this unit has two layers to aide cooling. On the front of this solution we have USB 3.0, CFast and SD 4.0 for quick access with your memory cards and the reverse of this unit offers eSATA, USB 3.0, Thunderbolt3, DisplayPort and a RJ45 port. Further, this RJ45 port is quite special as Akitio has decided to opt in with 10GBE rather than the standard 1Gbe. The DisplayPort supports 4K60p.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Apple Watch Series 4 44mm Review

Apple's new Watch Series 4 has a larger screen, smaller bezels, and it's quite a bit faster. Though an awesome smartwatch, it's missing a key feature, so you might want to wait a year.

Read full article @ Neowin

ASRock X399 Fatal1ty Professional Gaming Motherboard Review

The ASRock Fatal1ty X399 Professional Gaming motherboard (priced around $390) performs just as well as the company's X399 Taichi, but has the added benefit of the 10Gb network controller. This board has some deficiencies from a gamer’s perspective, but would work well for a system that calls for 10Gb throughput and utilization of all the PCIe slots (something most boards can’t handle).

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Crucial BX500 240GB SSD Review

Aimed towards consumers on very tight budgets the brand new BX500 line of SSDs by Crucial relies heavily on its very affordable prices rather than performance and available features.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Keyboard Maintenance 101 ft. Cooler Master MasterAccessory Maintenance Kit Review

Considering your keyboard is one of the most used peripherals, keeping it clean is not a difficult task and with a kit like this, there is no need to hold off on doing so.

Read full article @ APH Networks

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC AM4 Motherboard Review

With the X470 Gaming M7 AC AM4 board, MSI is offering full support for the latest Ryzen 2000 series and also comes with improvements regarding PCB design. It does support the latest technologies, status LEDs are available all around the board for troubleshooting, while the excellent onboard audio implementation makes you wonder if you should really purchase a separate sound card. While it is not mandatory for desktop computers, MSI have also included a WiFi AC interface (Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 card) with dual antennas; the card also supports up to BT 4.2 for connecting other devices such as portable speakers, peripherals while the LAN connection is fully optimized for low latencies thanks to the Killer E2500 Gigabit controller. The cherry on the top represents the CORSAIR header for connecting RGB hubs, freeing up this way one extra USB 2.0 header for other applications.

Read full article @ Mad Shrimps

Razer Phone 2 Review

Smartphone makers are having an ever-harder time differentiating their products these days. High-end phones are basically all a slim slabs of metal and glass with performance, screens, and battery life that are all “good enough” for most people. And gaming, thanks in large part to a combo of esports and casual gamers on mobile devices, is one of the few bright spots of growth in an otherwise mostly stagnant or shrinking world of computing hardware.

Razer’s smartphone sequel is a welcome refresh that makes for a better overall experience. But there’s still not enough games that we actually want to play on Android, and the 120Hz screen, while brighter, still feels more novelty than necessity.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Razer Phone 2 Review

I like music. Trying to think of an appropriate way to describe the Razer Phone 2, Razer’s second attempt at the genre it kind of created (the gaming phone), I was trying to think of the song that would be most appropriate to associate with it. In the end, I settled on Steely Dan’s classic from 1972 – Do It Again. Now don’t get me wrong, Steely Dan had some… odd lyrical choices in their songs with references to second chances, infidelity and gambling in Do It Again, but what I’m talking about here is obviously the chorus line where the band break out into the bit everyone knows and can sing along with: “You go back, Jack, do it again”.

Mainly because that’s what we have in the Razer Phone 2. Razer went back, (Jack) and did it again, almost verbatim with the mark 1, so we’re definitely talking evolution rather than revolution. Nothing wrong with that of course, it’s the case with numerous handsets out there today, the Porsche 911 is evolving after 55 years and still going strong, Ferrari has moved to an evolution/revolution cycle with its cars in recent years with the likes of the F12 giving rise to the 812 and the 458 becoming the 488 as the firm attempts to amortise development costs over a longer period of time.

Read full article @ Wccftech

Synology DiskStation DS119j 1-Bay Budget NAS Review

The DS119j could best be described as a powerful entry-level device. It comes with a few limitations when compared to its bigger brothers, but it’s still packed with some powerful features.

Synology built the unit with one of Marvell’s Armada 3700 88F3720 processors. It is a 64-bit dual-core processor with a speed of 800 MHz. While that isn’t a lot if compared to desktop systems, it’s plenty for a solid NAS. The performance is also aided by the Hardware Encryption Engine. It will significantly increase the performance when you have encrypted shares set up. The CPU is coupled with 256 MB DDR3L memory which can’t be upgraded further.

Read full article @ eTeknix

The Performance & Power Efficiency Of The Core i7 990X vs. Core i9 9900K

With my initial Core i9 9900K benchmarks out there following Friday's embargo expiration, for some weekend benchmarking fun I decided to pull out the old Core i7 990X to see how it compares to the new 9900K... The Gulftown and Coffeelake processors were compared not only on raw performance but also overall power consumption and performance-per-Watt.

Read full article @ Phoronix