Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

9-Way Intel Xeon E3 v5 Skylake Benchmarks On Ubuntu Linux
Asus ROG Swift PG348Q 34″ 3440×1440 IPS G-Sync Curved 100Hz Review
G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3600 16GB Review
Linksys WRT1900ACS AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router Review
Noctua NH-D15S D-Type Premium CPU Cooler Review
Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Case Review
Radeon R9 390X CrossFire vs. Radeon R9 FuryX
Roccat Ryos MK FX RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Scythe Fuma / Grand Kama Cross 3 review: new Scythe CPU-coolers
Synology DiskStation DS216+ Review
Water Cooling 101: Installing Your Basic Loop
Windows 10 build 14271 for PC: Everything you need to know

9-Way Intel Xeon E3 v5 Skylake Benchmarks On Ubuntu Linux

For those looking at upgrading a server or workstation to an Intel Xeon E3 v5 "Skylake" processor, here is a nine-way benchmark comparison of these processors compared to older Haswell Xeons as well as an AMD FX processor for reference. The benchmarks today were done under Ubuntu Linux and besides looking at raw performance we also have test results for the CPU thermal performance, system power consumption, performance-per-Watt, and performance-per-dollar metrics with a total of 14 AMD/Intel processors.

To date the only Skylake Xeon we had been able to test was the Intel Xeon E3 1245 v5 that I ended up buying for one of our Linux test servers. Fortunately, thanks to the kind (and Linux-interested) folks at MSI, they have lent us nine different Xeon E3 processors for testing.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Asus ROG Swift PG348Q 34″ 3440×1440 IPS G-Sync Curved 100Hz Review

The Asus ROG Swift PG348Q is the company’s first 21:9 ultra-widescreen gaming display, entering a nascent section of the displays market, but one that’s growing rapidly. It could make quite a splash though, as it has a 34-inch IPS screen and a native resolution of 3,440 x 1,440, with Nvidia G-Sync support and a maximum overclocked refresh rate of 100Hz. Not to mention a highly unusual, eye catching design.

Read full article @ KitGuru

G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3600 16GB Review

While the Skylake LGA1151 platform has proven to be exceptionally capable when it comes memory speed - as we illustrated in our Corsair DDR4-4000 review - the fact of the matter is that to achieve memory speeds over DDR4-3733 requires an above average motherboard and the willingness to significantly overvolt your processor's memory controller. Another issue is that those ultra-fast factory tested kits tend to only come in 8GB capacities, which is a little small for a high performance day-to-day system.

With this in mind, we went looking for a 16GB memory kit that wouldn't need special skills to run and that would still appeal to enthusiast users. We still wanted a kit with an aggressive performance profile, so what we lost in frequency we wanted to make up with low timings. Needless to say, since you're reading this review, we found exactly what we were looking for.

The model that we are reviewing today - the G.Skill F4-3600C16D-16GTZ - is a 16GB (2x8GB) memory kit clocked at DDR4-3600 and featuring tight 16-16-16 timings. While these timings might not seem tight to those accustomed to DDR3, they are when you consider the high memory speed. By comparison, the 16GB kits with equal timings range from DDR4-2400 to DDR4-3200. There is no other currently available product that comes even close to this G.Skill model. Furthermore, with a retail price of about $160 USD / $220 CAD, this memory kit is not inexpensive, but it doesn't carry much of a price premium over other large kits with identical speeds but worse timings. As with all G.Skill memory kits, this model is covered by the company's long-running lifetime warranty policy.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Linksys WRT1900ACS AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router Review

Up until a few years ago most people had but one smartphone which they'd use primarily to make calls so even the now "old" Wi-Fi 802.11n networking standard with its maximum data rate of 300Mbit/s (later pushed to 450 and 600Mbit/s) on the 2.4GHz band was more than enough. Today however things have changed so most of us have more than just one smartphone and a tablet not to mention several other devices which also support Wi-Fi connectivity including TV sets, media players, printers, blue-ray players, notebooks, wireless speakers, cameras, security systems, consoles and much more. To support this large number of Wi-Fi compatible devices the industry launched the 802.11ac standard a couple of years ago which basically upped the maximum data rate from 600Mbit/s to 1200Mbit/s on the 5GHz band (1300Mbit/s was also achieved shortly afterwards). Well human "ingenuity" knows no bounds and so several manufacturers decided to add a 2.4GHz right next to the 5GHz one to boost the available data rate to well over 1600Mbit/s (300Mbit/s on the 802.11n 2.4GHz band and 1300Mbit/s on the 802.11ac 5GHz band) while some models have even surpassed 3000Mbit/s with the addition of more than one 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Today with us we have the brand new WRT1900ACS Router by Linksys, a high-end model which offers a maximum combined data rate of 1900Mbit/s (concurrent 802.11n & 802.11ac signals).

The Linksys brand has pioneered wireless connectivity since its inception in 1988 with its leading innovation and engineering strategies, and best-in-class technology, design, and customer service. Linksys enables a connected lifestyle for people at home, at work and on the move, and with its award-winning products, simplifies home control, entertainment, security and Internet access through innovative features and a growing application and partner ecosystem. Linksys is part of Belkin International.

As some of you may already know (or figured out by its name and/or looks) he WRT1900ACS is actually the updated version (successor) of the highly-acclaimed and award winning WRT1900AC which we had with us last year and left us with the best possible impressions. So what did Linksys improve on their already excellent router? Well compared to the WRT1900AC which featured a 1.2GHz dual-core ARM CPU with 128MB of flash storage and 256MB of DDR3 RAM the WRT1900ACS is quite more powerful since under its hood it has a 1.6GHz dual-core ARM CPU with 128MB of flash storage and 512MB of DDR3 RAM. Everything else however remains pretty much the same since just like its predecessor the WRT1900ACS features a maximum combined data rate of 1900Mbit/s (1300Mbit/s on the 5GHz band and 600Mbit/s on the 2.4Ghz band), 4 dual-band detachable high-gain antennas (support beamforming), 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, Gigabit WAN port, eSATA/USB 2.0 port and a USB 3.0 port. With increased CPU speed and more RAM just how much better is the WRT1900ACS compared to its predecessor?

Read full article @ NikKTech

Noctua NH-D15S D-Type Premium CPU Cooler Review

Here we are again taking another in-depth look at one of the historically well-performing CPU cooler manufacturers, Noctua, and their NH-D15S D-Type Premium CPU Cooler! As you may have seen, we recently reviewed their recent C-Type CPU cooler, the NH-C14S. The NH-D15S is a larger CPU cooler than the aforementioned version, with the intention of making your CPU ice cold, let's see how this cooler performs!

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Case Review

Purchasing a chassis for your new computer components presents more of a challenge now than it used to. In the not too distant past, computers were stuck in a sea of beige. If you wanted a chassis color other than beige and base metal, you had to take measures into your own hands. Fast forward to the here and now, and you can get just about anything you want by checking the buy option online or plunking your hard earned cash down on the counter at the closest big box retailer. You have the option of a massive full size tower all the way down to chassis that are not much bigger than a Coke can. The color palette is pretty much wide open as well, with the current rage being RGB lighting and fans. Whatever you want, it is out there for you to choose. That choice usually revolves around not only the size of the components being installed, but what fits your individual style.

Along those lines, Phanteks is a company well known for putting together some unique cases that offer up something a little bit different. This chassis, the Enthoo Evolv ITX, is the mini-me version of the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv full-size chassis. It is designed for use with a system built around a Mini-ITX form factor motherboard, but still sports enough internal volume to let you put in the cooling solution of your choice; be it a full on water system, high end air, or an AIO cooler, the chassis is built with options.

As a budget-based chassis, the price point ranges from $69 to $74 depending on which of the three color choices (black, white, red) that you choose for your build. Let's take a quick look at the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX chassis to see how Phanteks shrunk down its popular Enthoo Evolv chassis.

Read full article @ OCC

Radeon R9 390X CrossFire vs. Radeon R9 FuryX

Today we're going to compare one Radeon R9 FuryX 4GB with two Radeon R9 390X 8GB. As always we're measruing the performance at 1080p, 1440p as well as 2160p (UHD) and we're expecting to see some interesting results.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Roccat Ryos MK FX RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review

Roccat are back on eTeknix once again, this time with the latest and hopefully, their greatest keyboard they’ve ever produced! The new Roccat Ryos MK FX RGB Mechanical Keyboards takes everything we know and love about the already fantastic Ryos range, and gives it a glorious RGB switch upgrade, allowing Roccat to take their already impressive lighting engine to a whole new and far more colourful level.

“The Ryos MK FX offers fully customizable, ROCCAT®-enginereed Per-Key RGB illumination in two convenient modes: preset and custom. This means you can add awesome special effects in 16.8 million colors to your keystrokes, configure your keyboard to highlight your in-game and application key bindings, your modifier keys, your system controls as well as your macro sequences and cool-downs plus much, much more.” – Roccat

Read full article @ eTeknix

Scythe Fuma / Grand Kama Cross 3 review: new Scythe CPU-coolers

Scythe released two new CPU coolers in the last few months: the Fuma and the Grand Kama Cross 3. The Fuma has two fans to improve cooling efficiency, whereas the Grand Kama Cross 3 is a top-down cooler. Time to test their performance.

The Fuma and Grand Kama Cross 3 are two totally different coolers. The Fuma has a particularly big heat sink, whereas the Grand Kama Cross 3 is a relatively big top-town cooler. The Fuma has, like the Scythe Mugen 4 PCGH, room for two fans. A difference is that where the Mugen 4 PCGH had one big heat sink, the Fuma has room for a fan between the two. When using more than one fan, each individual fan can run slower to create the same airflow. The noise will decrease, because two slow-running fans will normally produce less noise than one fast-running fan. Because of this the minimum speed of the fans is considerably lower: only 300 rpm.

The Grand Kama Cross 3 is from a very different breed: this is a top-down cooler. Smaller top-down coolers are appropriate for Mini-ITX systems, but the Grand Kama Cross 3 is much too big for that. It turns out that people in some countries, like Japan, prefer top-down coolers over 'normal' coolers, even though these 'tower-coolers' normally perform better than top-down coolers.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Synology DiskStation DS216+ Review

Today we have the DiskStation DS216+ on hand, Synology’s latest dual-core 2-bay NAS built around the Intel Celeron N3050 SoC. Key features of the DS216+ include AES-NI hardware encryption, BTRFS support, 4K UHD transcoding and of course the latest DSM 6.0 operating system...

My first review of a Synology DiskStation feels like a life time ago now, amazingly it has been 7 years since we published our DS409+ review back in 2009. Even back then Synology’s NAS devices were more than just… well a Network Attached Storage device. Applications such as Photo Station, Audio Station and Download Station for example already existed, and although they have evolved beyond recognition, we got a glimpse of where things were headed 7 years ago.

Today Synology’s DiskStation product line can’t even really be described as ‘NAS’ products anymore, rather they are full blown servers that can handle everything from Cloud based storage to 4K UHD transcoding.

Read full article @ Legion Hardware

Water Cooling 101: Installing Your Basic Loop

Welcome back to ThinkComputers Water Cooling 101! Over the past several articles we’ve been covering all the tricks and tips we’ve learned from years of building water cooled PCs. After an introduction to the art and designing our desired layout, we showed you how to pick the best parts for your needs, and finally once they arrived how to prep them for use. Finally, we are now to the point where we can do something truly exciting and actually our hands dirty; it’s install day! Today we go step by step and show you to install your very own basic water cooling loop.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Windows 10 build 14271 for PC: Everything you need to know

When Microsoft announced that new Windows 10 builds will be releasing on a faster pace, the company was serious. On February 24th, only a week after releasing build 14267, the software giant began to push Windows 10 build 14271 to the Fast ring of updates. The new build of Windows 10 is not a significant update, but the company is including some fixes to improve the functionality of the operating system. In addition to the official changes, digging a little deeper, we also see that the software giant continues to introduce small fixes that eventually will be part of the next major update, which we currently know as Redstone.

Read full article @ Windows Central