Reviews 51951 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Alienware 18 limited edition gaming laptop launched
Case Mod Friday: Man of Steel
Cooler Master MasterCase 5 & Pro 5 Review
EVGA GeForce GTX 950 FTW Edition Video Card Review
Lexar Professional 2000x SDXC UHS-II Card Review (64GB)
Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela - Tight as a tiger
MOBA Gaming Performance - Is The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Worth It
Rapoo VPRO V800 Review
Silicon Power Xpower PC3-19200 2x8GB DDR3 RAM Review
TechPowerUp $800 Build Guide
Toshiba Kira (2015) Review



Alienware 18 limited edition gaming laptop launched

Blends 18.4-inch display with OCed Core i7 CPU and choice of dual GTX 970M / 980M GPUs. As you might work out from the numerical suffix, the Alienware 18 is an 18-inch laptop. The display panel is 18.4-inches in diagonal, to be exact. On each and every model available to order Dell uses an 18.4-inch WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display. No higher res panels are available, despite the SLI-propelled graphical grunt on tap in these systems.

Looking at what processing power you can get in this laptop, Dell offers a choice of CPUs from the overclocked up to 3.7GHz w/ Intel TurboBoost Intel Core i7-4710MQ processor with 4-cores and 6MB Cache, for the cheaper three models, up to the 4.4GHz w/ Intel TurboBoost Intel Core i7-4940MX processor equipped in the top model.

Read full article @ Hexus

Case Mod Friday: Man of Steel

Welcome to another Case Mod Friday showcase! This week we have MegaSkot's “Man of Steel” build. Here is what he had to say about it, "Here are some basic ideas: 1. Home made huge external radiator - wall panel type. 2. Custom built case made of stainless steel and plexiglass in shape of Superman logo (yellow and red liquid will go through the "S" logo)

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Cooler Master MasterCase 5 & Pro 5 Review

At KitGuru we have covered MasterCase 5 from the time it appeared at Computex and again during our recent visit to the Cooler Master European HQ. It has been a long few months and now it is time to get away from words about concepts and instead dish up a review of the finished PC case shortly before it hits the shelves of your local retailer.

Read full article @ KitGuru

EVGA GeForce GTX 950 FTW Edition Video Card Review

can remember the days gone by when I was budget gamer. Not so much for the reason of cash flow but more for the fact that my monitor wasn’t good enough to play at higher resolutions. Back then just about every 8 months to a year new LCD monitors were launched with increased resolutions. My first LCD monitors resolution was 1024 x 768 within one year the newest monitors were supporting resolutions of 1680 x 1050 but they were expensive and I couldn’t justify the upgrade due to the fact my monitor was only one year old. Needless to say by the time I actually upgraded to a 1080p monitor they had been out for a year. (I am speaking of my personal rig not my test rig)

Read full article @ HiTech Legion

Lexar Professional 2000x SDXC UHS-II Card Review (64GB)

A little over a year ago we were able to take a close look at a new breed of SD cards thanks to SanDisk releasing the world’s first UHS-II SD card (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=4e8845c49a&e=312ec141fb) , the SanDisk Extreme Pro. The standard was so new, besides the Fujifilm XT-1, no other camera even supported the form factor at the time. In September Lexar finally released a product to compete against it, but not only did it compete, it took the crown as the fastest SD card in the market. Today, we get to put the Lexar Professional 2000x SDXC UHS-II (http://thessdreview.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3d9b6193ffd32dd60e84fc74b&id=7a490e0578&e=312ec141fb) through its paces and see how it performs.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela - Tight as a tiger

I have no witty puns this time. Only a long, detailed and enthusiastic review of Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela 64-bit edition with Cinnamon desktop, covering live session, installation in a seven-boot setup with Windows 8/10 and Linux on a laptop with UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT, and post-install use, including look & feel, visual improvements, networking - Wireless, Samba printing and sharing, multimedia - Flash, MP3, HD video, partitioning & slideshow, software management & updates, applications, hardware compatibility, smartphone supprort - Android, Windows Phone, Ubuntu Phone, and iPhone, resource usage, responsiveness, stability, suspend & resume, customization, and more. Enjoy.

Read full article @ Dedoimedo

MOBA Gaming Performance - Is The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 Worth It

I actually don’t like the MOBA abbreviation because it describes too little of a class of overwhelmingly complex games. I have had a bit of a head start dealing with that complexity having played DotA longer than the MOBA abbreviation and even the company that forced that term into existence. Way back then, Defense of the Ancients was a custom game mode, a mod, for WarCraft III. The first match I ever played was in 2006 on DotA Allstars. I picked Nevermore the Shadow Fiend. It went very badly.

I continued to occasionally play DotA, though more frequently played tower defense games on WarCraft III Battle.net and a certain free-to-play 2D side-scrolling Korean MMORPG. It wasn’t until I got into the Heroes of Newerth closed beta in March 2010 that I began to play MOBA games almost exclusively. HoN as it was frequently called was being developed as a standalone clone of DotA while improving upon the limitations of the WarCraft III engine. The game brought features now taken for granted for any other standalone MOBA title such as dedicated host servers, matchmaking, punishments for intentional disconnections, and modern graphics. For a while, it looked like Heroes of Newerth and its indie developer studio S2 Games had a future. Heroes of Newerth was officially launched in May 2010 for $30 and unsurprisingly, a substantial number of players left as the free beta period ended. What came next was even more unfortunate for S2 Games. Competition and bad decision making would only make the bleeding worse.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Rapoo VPRO V800 Review

Today, we have published a review of the latest Rapoo VPRO V800 gaming keyboard with backlight. We have recently tested the Rapoo E6700 Bluetooth keyboard. Now Rapoo offers the new V800 Gaming Keyboard from the VPRO series to beat the competition. Whether and how the Rapoo V800 Backlit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard differs from others, we will work out for you in the following review.

Read full article @ OcInside

Silicon Power Xpower PC3-19200 2x8GB DDR3 RAM Review

The Bible in Ecclesiastes 1 says, "'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.' What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever." With the Intel Skylake motherboards and latest DDR4 RAM beginning to make an appearance in our labs here at APH Networks, I have finally come to the realization -- after a year of Haswell-E being on the market -- the days of DDR3 is finally behind us. Being an avid computer enthusiast since my elementary school days, I have witnessed the rise and fall of the original SDRAM, followed by the first DDR, DDR2, and now, DDR3 memory. As generations come and generation go, I still remember my first DDR3 RAM review back in 2007. It was the OCZ Platinum PC3-12800 Enhanced Bandwidth 2x1GB, a brilliant pair of memory in its time that will knock a whopping $500 off your bank account. Over the years, I have reviewed many more sets from pretty much every major manufacturer. Fast forward to today, in a time where OCZ is owned by Toshiba and does not even make computer memory anymore, I sit here, almost eight years after I wrote my first DDR3 RAM review, with Silicon Power's Xpower PC3-19200 2x8GB dual channel kit that retails for about $140 at press time in front of me. After a moment of silence to remember all our wonderful memory we had with DDR3 RAM in the last eight years -- no pun intended -- let us move ahead and see what the company has in store for us in what is most likely the last DDR3 review ever here at APH Networks.

Read full article @ APH Networks

TechPowerUp $800 Build Guide

In our latest entry to the Builder's Digest series, we put together something that can game at $800, complete with a monitor and peripherals.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Toshiba Kira (2015) Review

Toshiba's Kira series of Ultrabooks (sometimes called the Kirabook, to our bemusement) have demonstrated since their first 2013 model, that they can do ultra-slim, smart-looking powerful laptops well enough. Yet they've rarely stood out.That's not because the Kiras have been mediocre - far from it - but that the crowd of competitors is huge and includes some real beauties. For example, last year's model had to face off against the MacBook Pro Retina, the Dell XPS 13, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro, the Asus UX301, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and the Fujitsu Lifebook U904.

Read full article @ Techradar