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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Gears of War 4 is the best exclusive on Xbox One so far
Asustor AS6204T 4-bay NAS Review
CEATIC 2016: Sharp Showcases 27-inch 8K 120Hz IGZO Monitor with HDR, also 1000 PPI for VR
Cooler Master MasterFan 120mm Triple Fan Roundup
Cryorig A40 and A40 Ultimate AIO Hybrid Coolers Review
EpicGear Defiant Keyboard and Assassin Case Bundle Review
FIFA 17 review: The Champion once again
Hands-On With The ASUS ZenBook 3 And ZenWatch 3 And More
Replacement Galaxy Note7 fire causes aircraft evacuation
Smartphone Charts: 11 models tested



Gears of War 4 is the best exclusive on Xbox One so far

The Coalition is preparing to unveil their first explosive offering to the world: Gears of War 4.

Gears of War 4 takes place 25 years after the events of Gears of War 3, kick-starting an all-new saga. However, the game represents much, much more than that.

Microsoft purchased the Gears of War IP from Epic Games back in 2014, as the Unreal Engine developer began winding down its AAA game development ambitions. Microsoft repurposed the Vancouver-based Black Tusk Studios to oversee the franchise. Many developers from the original Gears of War team, including executive producer Rod Fergusson, jumped ship to join the new studio.

Read full article @ Windows Central

Asustor AS6204T 4-bay NAS Review

We recently reviewed the AS6104T four-bay NAS from Asustor and now we’ve had a chance to get to grips with it’s more powerful sibling, the AS6204T which uses a quad-core Intel Braswell processor in place of the dual-core CPU of the AS6104T.

Read full article @ KitGuru

CEATIC 2016: Sharp Showcases 27-inch 8K 120Hz IGZO Monitor with HDR, also 1000 PPI for VR

While we’re not CEATIC, a Japanese technology show, news has come via PC Watch regarding a new publicly announced milestone in monitor production. For any journalist that has attended either IFA, Computex, CES or MWC over the past year, it would be hard going to miss one of the super large (80-inch plus) 8K monitors doing the rounds. While highly impressive in their own right, current 8K displays on show typically have a low pixel-per-inch value in order to achieve a good panel off the production line. So despite the fact we can get 4K panels on smartphones (Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is 4K in 5.5-inch, or 806 PPI), expanding the size at that pixel density is difficult with panel yields. Also, moving 8K down to a monitor size has been hidden at the panel companies internal research divisions until now.

So this is where the Sharp monitor on display at CEATIC gets interesting. The IGZO display is down at 27-inches, marking a 326 PPI, just hitting at the door of large FHD smartphone displays. The panel is also listed at 1000 nit brightness. But to double down on specifications, the stand listed the display as supporting 120 Hz while in 8K mode, and also supporting High Dynamic Range, or HDR. This requires a large amount of data to be pumped into the display, and as a result a photograph of the rear shows eight separate DisplayPort cables being used in order to give the display the data it needs. 8K120 with HDR is no easy task, suggesting 7680x4320 at 10 bits per color channel (so 30-bit for RGB) at 120 times a second would suggest needing 120 gigabits per second of bandwidth at a minimum (or 15 GB/sec). Thats even before you discuss overhead, which will push that higher.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Cooler Master MasterFan 120mm Triple Fan Roundup

A fan is a very basic device that is designed to do one thing, move air from one location to another. In the computer world we use them to facilitate heat transfer from a “heat source” to the atmosphere which can be anything from the heatsink on your CPU to keeping the inside of your case cool. For most people a fan is a fan and yet companies build them to specialize in certain tasks. Sometimes these features are nothing more than a name while others can actually impact performance.

In this review I’ll be looking at three new fans from Cooler Master called the MasterFan Pro. This fan series is comprised of three fan types which will in turn satisfy all of the major cooling segments of the market.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

Cryorig A40 and A40 Ultimate AIO Hybrid Coolers Review

Earlier this year, Legit Reviews had the opportunity to spend some time evaluating the performance of the newly released A80 Hybrid CPU Cooler from CryoRig and came away very impressed. This was CryoRig’s first attempt at an AIO cooler and with some help with their OEM, Asetek, they hit a home run. Since Legit Reviews has evaluated what should be the best performer in the lineup in the A80 and came away thoroughly impressed, we wanted to see how the units with the smaller A40 and A40 Ultimate models compared.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

EpicGear Defiant Keyboard and Assassin Case Bundle Review

EpicGear is a new company to us here at ThinkComputers. You can guess by their name that they make gaming products. They make a wide variety of gaming keyboards, headsets, mice, and other accessories. Today we will be taking a look at one one of their more interesting bundles, which gives you their Defiant Gaming Keyboard and MMS Switch 24-pack all inside a carrying case, which they call the Assassin. The keyboard is a full mechanical keyboard with Epic Gear’s own MMS switches, full backlighting, and much more. The MMS Switch 24-pack allows us to try out new switches and mix and match switches on the keyboard itself. Let’s jump in and see if this is the bundle you are going to want to get for your next LAN party!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

FIFA 17 review: The Champion once again

FIFA's biggest update in years will keep it at the top.

Some things in life happen like clockwork. One of those is a yearly update from EA for its leading franchise, FIFA. Sometimes the updates are little more than a fresh lick of paint on last year's game, but for FIFA 17 EA has gone much further than that.

This is a big update to the franchise and it's one that will definitely cement its place at the top of the sporting pile and better justify its enormous sales numbers.

Read full article @ Windows Central

Hands-On With The ASUS ZenBook 3 And ZenWatch 3 And More

We're capping off our Zenvolution coverage today with an overview of the ZenBook 3 and the ZenWatch 3. We were able to go "hands-on" with both devices and they're pretty impressive pieces of hardware. The ZenBook 3 is now decked out with Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors; in this case, the Core i7-7500U and i5-7200U. Weighing in at just 2 pounds with a thin 11.9mm profile, this is ASUS’s thinnest ZenBook to date...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Replacement Galaxy Note7 fire causes aircraft evacuation

"Thick grey-green angry smoke" poured out of the powered down Samsung smartphone. The last time we reported on the Samsung Galaxy Note7 fire-risk issue was a month ago today. At that time we learnt that the recall of the smartphones so far sold was going to cost Samsung about US$900 million. At the same time we first heard Samsung's official explanation of why the batteries in the new flagship Note models were the cause of the potential fire/explosion danger. Samsung had begun its worldwide recall just a few days earlier.

On Tuesday (this Tuesday 4th October) the first new Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones started to reach stores in the US. ZDNet reported that Verizon and Sprint customers could buy 'safe' new Galaxy Note7 phones, with T-Mobile starting to stock the device just a day later. Furthermore, those who had sent-in their potentially dangerous Note7 as part of Samsung's replacement program should have all already received a replacement.

Read full article @ Hexus

Smartphone Charts: 11 models tested

In these charts we publish benchmark results of all the different smartphones we get our hands on. So far we've tested 11 different smartphones in several different benchmarks. Apart from benchmarks results we also created a brief list with specs and on the last page there is an overview with live pricing.

Read full article @ ocaholic