Reviews 51914 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Adata SP550 SSD Review
Asus Transformer Book T100HA Review
Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2 Review
CRYORIG C7
Cryorig H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler Review
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Extreme Gaming WaterForce Review
HP Spectre x2 Review
HyperX Predator 240GB M.2 PCIe SSD Review
HyperX Savage USB 3.1 Flash Drive Review
iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker Review
SilverStone ML08 Mini-ITX Slim Case Review
Star Wars Battlefront: Graphics & CPU Benchmarks
Water Cooling 101: Designing Your Loop and Choosing Your Parts



Adata SP550 SSD Review

Adata's SP550 is the first SSD to hit our lab with Silicon Motion's new SM2256 controller paired with SK Hynix NAND. But does it compete with Samsung's prolific 850 EVO?

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

Asus Transformer Book T100HA Review

Less than £230 for a touchscreen, convertible Windows 10 PC. Windows PCs are under siege. At the top end of the price spectrum it's Apple who continues to be a thorn in Microsoft's side, but for many consumers the more relevant battle is being fought in the low-end space, where tablets and cheap-and-cheerful Chromebooks threaten to eat into Windows' market share.

It's an area of the market that will be fiercely contested in the months ahead and Microsoft's army of partners won't be lacking in ammunition. Low-cost Windows devices are going to be prominent in most stores this Christmas, and one of more high-profile options is the Asus Transformer Book T100HA, in for review today.

Read full article @ Hexus

Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2 Review

It probably didn't happen this way, but I like to think the Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2, the sequel to the Sound Blaster Roar SR20 that blew me away in 2014, was conceived from a dare. The challenge? Put everything from the Sound Blaster Roar – the five drivers, 6,000mAh battery, the SD card slot and a built-in microphone – into a chassis 80% of the size. Oh, and do that without degrading sound quality, dropping a feature or radically increasing the price.

Read full article @ Techradar

CRYORIG C7

CRYORIG offers something unique with the C7. It features a fit-anywhere compact design that should be right at home in many a small form-factor system. The only real question is if it's too niche to be noticed.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Cryorig H5 Ultimate CPU Cooler Review

Review of the Cryorig H5 Ultimate CPU cooler. Today we want to present a cooler of a very young company. It is the H5 Ultimate from the company Cryorig. Just 2 years on the market, Cryorig prides itself to start something new, something big, and want to distance them from the competition. Easy installation and top performance are the slogans of their products. Whether the H5 Ultimate from Cryorig can convince us, we now find out on OCinside.de. In addition, you can listen to fan sound at the end of this review.

Read full article @ OCInside

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti Extreme Gaming WaterForce Review

In this review we test the GeForce GTX 980 Ti with the longest name evah! The new GeForce GTX 980 Ti Extreme Gaming WaterForce GPU review from Gigabyte. This product impresses by design as it comes in an all custom design with liquid cooling in the form of a WaterForce All-In-One closed loop water cooling system. The result is a card that offers excellent game rendering performance at silent noise levels. Armed with a back-plate and nice looks, this Extreme Gaming WaterForce comes factory overclocked pretty intense as well. Arm that with the sweetness that is the the GTX 980 Ti GPU with its 6 GB graphics memory and you will quickly realize, this product lives an excellent global gaming domination.

The GPU that resides under the hood is the big Maxwell, and oh man it's a freak of nature with that kind of game rendering powah! You'd expect a product with "980" in it to have a similar slightly tweaked GPU, but no Sir. Nvidia shifted a thing or two around, the 980 Ti is based on the BIG Maxwell GPU, the same GPU that is powering the Titan X. Obviously the product has been trimmed down a tiny bit, but trust us when we say there's plenty of performance to be found. This product comes with a luxurious six gigabytes of graphics memory and with these specs, the GTX 980 Ti should be fetching a lot of interest for the true gamers among us. The GPU empowering the GeForce 980 Ti is big, this one has a massive transistor count; it is a slightly revised GM200 A1 GPU that currently feeds the Titan X its horsepower. So yes, a slightly different iteration of the GM200. The card has five display outputs: three DisplayPorts, HDMI and DVI-I. Where the GTX 980 has 4 GB, this product has a nice 6 GB frame buffer, and close to a third more shader processors when compared to the GeForce 980, accumulating up-to 2816 of them playing the binary game in a GPU that has a whopping 8 Billion transistors (GeForce GTX 980 has 5 Billion). The card looks pretty identical to previous models with subtle changes here and there and with that familiar cooler shroud. Memory wise NVIDIA equipped its GeForce GTX 980 Ti with 7 Gbps memory. Combined with GPU Boost 2.0 you will see this product is advertised in the 1,076 MHz range on its dynamic clock for the reference products. The reference base clock for 980 Ti is 1 GHz. It's not that the card can't go any higher, but it is done to keep the product in line power consumption wise. With a 250W TDP, we are not complaining at all, no Sir. For the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, monitor outputs include DVI, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort, this will vary a little with board partner products, based on their own design and cooling. With a card like the GeForce GTX 980 Ti you will be able to play the hottest games including the Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto V at that whopping Ultra HD 8.2 Mpixels at a 3840x2160 resolution with a single card, in fact we are going to check that out in this review.

Read full article @ Guru3D

HP Spectre x2 Review

With the Surface Pro 4 re-establishing Microsoft as the best Windows tablet maker, you can't find a slate that's not trying to emulate its design and success. From the Lenovo Miix 700 to the Dell XPS 12 and even the iPad Pro, everyone is getting into the pro-level tablet game with their own detachable device.The Spectre x2 is HP's entry in the ever-expanding tablet-laptop hybrid category. While there's a striking resemblance between it and the Surface Pro 4, the Spectre x2 carves an identity of its own with a thinner body, fanless Intel Core M processors and a premium design. Coming at a more affordable $799 (£799, AU$1,699) price point with a keyboard included, this 12-inch slate undercuts Microsoft's flagship tablet. But make no mistake: HP's 2-in-1 is a compelling device in its own right.

Read full article @ Techradar

HyperX Predator 240GB M.2 PCIe SSD Review

Storage is one of the big mysteries of a modern computer system. Some users incorrectly call it memory, others call a drive and even few think adding a larger one will increase performance. Truth is storage dynamics have changed so much over the years from rotational interfaces to solid state it is no wonder people are confused.

In this review it is time to get back into storage and first up is the HyperX Predator M.2 240GB PCI Express SSD. Readers of this site will know that we tend to focus on high-end enthusiast hardware namely motherboards, video cards, memory and cooling. Storage wasn’t expressly excluded from that formula but, when it comes to LN2 oveclocking your choice in storage system really doesn’t really matter. As a result it wasn’t much of a concern.

With the advent of X99 and Z170 you will see resurgence in storage importance starting with M.2 leading towards NVMe, SATA Express and other PCI Express based storage connections. While SATA devices will remain inexpensive the real power and speed comes from direct PCI Express connections between storage and the CPU.

Read full article @ Hardware Asylum

HyperX Savage USB 3.1 Flash Drive Review

The first USB Flash Drive that I ever reviewed on Legit Reviews was the 16MB DiskOnKey Pro made by a company called M-Systems. M-Systems was later acquired by SanDisk, which was just acquired this year by Western Digital. The 16MB DiskOnKey Pro was available for $19.99, was marketed as being able to hold 11 floppy disks worth of data and was powered by a 32-bit ARM7 CPU. The fact that it has a processor inside was important back then as it was the first portable USB storage drive that was driverless and was able to run additional applications like automatic boot features and automatic logon. Those were the first time those features were seen on a USB Flash Drive and since then millions of USB Flash drives have been produced and it’s not a common device that most people have had the pleasure of using. The 16MB DiskOnKey Pro used the USB 1.1 host interface and was capable of up to 12 MBits/sec or 1.5 MB/s of performance.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker Review

If you’re anything like us, you most likely haven’t gotten all of your Christmas shopping done yet, (or perhaps not even started it yet). Fortunately, for people like us, there is still ample time to search for that great tech savvy gift that will light up someone’s holiday season. Coincidentally enough, the iClever Bluetooth Wireless Speaker is definitely one such device that fits the bill. Small and compact enough to perfectly fit in a stocking yet powerful and robust enough to stand alone under the Christmas tree, this Bluetooth speaker is certainly one gift you won’t want to pass up.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

SilverStone ML08 Mini-ITX Slim Case Review

Hot on the heels of Benchmark Review’s look at the Fortress FTZ01, SilverStone sent over their latest iteration of the mini-ITX “Z” chassis. Based off of the Raven RVZ02, today we have a chance to look at the Milo version: the ML08B-H. Following the same internal layout the Milo ML08 squeezes the same component clearances into an even slimmer chassis with some new tricks. New tool-less drive trays, a more accessible interior and two completely thermally isolated compartments identify this HTPC-oriented “Z2” case. Follow along as we take a closer look at the SilverStone ML08.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Star Wars Battlefront: Graphics & CPU Benchmarks

Star Wars Battlefront is a truly gorgeous video game and arguably the best we've seen this year. Considering how exceptional the visuals are, the game's GPU demands aren't that exceptional. For example, at 1080p you can enjoy the game in all of its glory with nothing more than a $200 graphics card, the Radeon R9 380 or GeForce GTX 960.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Water Cooling 101: Designing Your Loop and Choosing Your Parts

Welcome to Water Cooling 101 Episode 2! If you’re here we are going assume that you have more than just a passing interest in water cooling and are looking to get wet yourself. During this two stage article we will cover a couple of the most important aspects of water cooling. The first part will cover designing your loop. While we understand you must be excited to get going on building, you must first take your time and carefully decide how you want your loop to connect and flow. After we’ve decided on our loop design we will go over some of the most popular parts and components for bringing your dream system to life. Let’s get started!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org