Reviews 51952 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

7th Generation AMD A-Series desktop PC systems start to ship
AMD teases Zen-based Naples processor
ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura Motherboard Review
ASUSTOR AS6208T NAS Server Revieww
Best of IFA 2016
Crucial MX300 525GB and 1050GB SSD Review
EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming 3GB Review
Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB Solid State Drive Review
MIFCOM Blackbox: High-End with NVIDIA Titan X / SLI - Presentation
Plextor M8Pe 512GB M2 NVMe SSD Review
QNAP TVS-682T 6-Bay Thunderbolt NAS
SilverStone PM01 Gaming PC Case Review
Teufel Concept E 450 Digital 5.1 Sound System Review



7th Generation AMD A-Series desktop PC systems start to ship

'Bristol Ridge' APUs will be available in HP and Lenovo AM4 platform PC systems soon. AMD says that both HP and Lenovo have started to ship their first systems built around the 7th Generation AMD A-Series APUs. The OEM PCs featuring these 'Bristol Ridge' processors will benefit from the new AMD AM4 platform supporting DDR4 memory, next-gen I/O, and other qualities. A PC system based upon one of the new APUs is said to "deliver high-speed processing, smooth eSports gaming, and enhanced HD and UHD streaming".

The new range of 7th Gen chips from AMD will include a maximum of four 'Excavator' cores. Today AMD has revealed eight new processors; there are five quad-core APUs, two dual-core APUs, and one quad-core Athlon X4. Check out the chart below for individual processor details. AMD highlights that these 7th Gen processors top out at 65W, yet offer performance that could only be realised at 95-watts with the previous generation.

Read full article @ Hexus

AMD teases Zen-based Naples processor

“Leaked” onto the world wide wibble over the weekend were a series of benchmarks for the outfit’s new Zen-based Naples chips.
The platform. named 2S1451A4VIHE4_29/14_N, is a dual-socket platform that can take two of AMD's next-gen Naples CPUs. Each CPU has 32 cores and 64 threads. This will mean that in 2017 we will see AMD making 128-threaded systems running at 1.44GHz base, and a 2.9GHz boost.

Read full article @ Fudzilla

ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura Motherboard Review

Ever fancied customising your system by 3D printing unique accessories for your motherboard? The ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Aura lets you do just that, in addition to offering customisable RGB lighting.

Read full article @ KitGuru

ASUSTOR AS6208T NAS Server Revieww

Back in 2010 or so if you wanted to reproduce your media collection on your TV set the best choice was to get a hardware media player since no only they were cheaper compared to HTPCs but they also took up far less space. Nowadays however things have changed and so really demanding users no longer turn towards hardware media players since current NAS devices are far more powerful and have a far wider range of usages. For example one of my friends uses a NAS both to reproduce his media collection on his TV set but also to stream music to his home audio system and download files from the web. Other people i know use NAS devices again as media servers but also to host their pages, filter their emails from spam and record live feed from IP security cameras (something i also use our lab NAS for). 4k media content may not be widely available currently (and with 8k on the horizon i don't know if 4k will ever have a chance to shine) but quite a few NAS servers are capable of reproducing it including the 8-Bay AS6208T model by ASUSTOR which we've been using since mid-August.

Founded in 2011, ASUSTOR Inc., a subsidiary of ASUSTeK Computer Inc., is a leading innovator and provider of private cloud storage (network attached storage) and video surveillance (network video recorder) solutions. ASUSTOR is devoted to providing the world with unparalleled user experiences and the most complete set of network storage solutions possible.

The AS6208T may actually be the 2nd model to reach our lab from the AS620xT line by ASUSTOR but it doesn't share the same specifications as its smaller brother the AS6204T so this time over under the hood we find the Celeron J3160 Quad-Core CPU by Intel clocked at 1.6GHz (64Bit, 14nm, 6W TDP, 2.24GHz Burst speed, 2MB of L2 cache, AES hardware encryption, 8GB DDR3L Max) and the Cherryview integrated HD Graphics 400 graphics processor (Mesa 10.6.7) which fully supports DirectX and OpenGL 3.0 and features Intel’s Quick Sync Video, Clear Video HD and Wireless Display technologies. The AS6208T also packs a total of 4GB of SO-DIMM DDR3L RAM at 1600MHz (expandable to 8GB), eight SATA III bays (support single, JBOD and RAID 0/1/5/6/10 modes), three USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, four RJ45 Ethernet ports (support link aggregation), HDMI v1.4b port, IR receiver and an S/PDIF optical audio output. So let's move forward with our review and see what the AS6208T NAS by ASUSTOR has to offer both in terms of features and performance.

Read full article @ NikKTech

Best of IFA 2016

After several long days seeking out the best products on show at IFA's 1.6 million square foot display area, I returned home from Berlin both impressed and excited about the future of technology.

Read full article @ TechSpot

Crucial MX300 525GB and 1050GB SSD Review

The Crucial MX300 has moved out of the limited edition cycle and is now a retail, mainstream product. Armed with Micron's new 3D TLC, the highest density flash available, the series could redefine the mainstream SSD market with a new low price point.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming 3GB Review

The best card under £200? The market for graphics cards priced at £250 has been hotting up since both AMD and Nvidia released GPUs based on their latest architectures. AMD has been more eager to pinpoint the sub-£200 market with two GPUs - the Radeon RX 480 and Radeon RX 470. Specifically, if you can find one, the Sapphire RX 480 Nitro 4GB is arguably the best card south of this all-important figure.

Whilst the performance-comparable Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB is already out in the wild, the aggressive pricing of the two aforementioned Radeons puts the green team into a tight spot of sorts. It has countered by quietly enabling its cohort of partners to release the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, available for under £200.

Read full article @ Hexus

Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB Solid State Drive Review

The Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB is a decent budget SSD unfortunately eclipsed by competitors that are either faster, have better warranty, or comes with more features for literally a few more dollars.

Read full article @ APH Networks

MIFCOM Blackbox: High-End with NVIDIA Titan X / SLI - Presentation

MIFCOM is the only system integrator and NVIDIA partner for Switzerland, Germany and Austria building systems with NVIDIA's latest and greatest Titan X (Pascal) graphics card. Since we're quite into high-end gaming hardware here at ocaholic we're going to show you around those systems and we'll give you a preview on how powerful those rigs are. On top of that all MIFCOM Blackbox systems can be custom configured.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Plextor M8Pe 512GB M2 NVMe SSD Review

In this review we test the super fast Plextor M8Pe 512GB Series M.2 SSDs. These new M.2 units use the nvm express (NVME) protocol and that means storage technology at terrific speeds while remaining competitive in pricing. Will Plextor be able to deliver a unit that manages to shock and awe ?

M2 is interesting stuff, these smaller form factors storage units are evolving from being "just as fast" as a regular SSD towards double, tripling, heck... even quadrupling that performance. It comes in a different package , M.2. The M.2 interface is so much more capable as it can deal with way more bandwidth using PCI-Express lanes. As such, M.2 solutions are intended for enthusiast class motherboards. The M8Pe series M.2 SSDs are a breathtaking series of storage technology as they offer enthusiast class performance yet remain reasonable in pricing. Though prices still need to go on-line, we already spotted our tested 512GB M8Pe for 225 EURO, which would mean 44 cents per GB. Keep in mind you are looking at a product that reads well over 2GB/sec and writes over 1 GB/sec. These new M.2 units use the NVMe protocol and that means storage technology at hyper fast speeds while remaining competitive in pricing.

We test the MS+heatsink unit, the M8PeG. The 512 GB model we test today is capable of up-to 2300 MB/s for reads and 1300 MB/sec (512GB) for writes. The SSD is Plextor’s first consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD, it has been fitted with MLC Toshiba NAND (15nm). The performance numbers a good SATA3 SSD offers these days are simply excellent, but with NVMe you can triple maybe even quadruple performance, which offers serious numbers. Plextor’s new M8P series M.2 product line is powered by a Marvell 88SS1093 controller. The unit follows a smaller M.2 2280 form factor so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine. IOPS numbers are now reaching the 260K for read and 250K for writes marker (depends on volume size). At just one-tenth the weight of a traditional 2.5-inch SSD, the M.2 SSDs are ideal for users looking to upgrade their desktop or ultra-thin PCs with high-capacity, high-performance storage. You do need a modern motherboard with capable NVMe supported M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x4 connected) interface though, please do check out your motherboard manufacturer for that. But ever since Z97/Z170 chipsets have been released, the mainstream to high-end class motherboards mostly all support it very well.

Read full article @ Guru3D

QNAP TVS-682T 6-Bay Thunderbolt NAS

The TVS-682T is an incredibly high-end QNAP NAS with a fast Skylake Intel CPU and 8 GB of RAM. Its two Thunderbolt ports and two 10GBase-T ports even allow it to offer blazing fast network transfer speeds, which makes smooth 4K video transfers are a definite reality.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

SilverStone PM01 Gaming PC Case Review

Primera Series is the latest series by SilverStone which is oriented towards custom rig builders and modders.  The word Primera means “First class” in Spanish so any computer cases that are released under this line up should be taken as unique and feature rich products.  PM01 is the first case in Primera line up. 

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Teufel Concept E 450 Digital 5.1 Sound System Review

In the old days there were the 5.1 sound systems from Cambridge Soundworks that brought the surround sound to the gamers. Later Logitech published i.a. the legendary Z5500 Digital System and so not only taught the postman to fear. For the past 36 years, there is also the manufacturer Teufel (devil) who has brought this new 5.1 speaker system to the market. Whether the Teufel Concept E450 Digital 5.1 speaker set can be described justifiably as devilish and scare neighbors or has just sagging horns, we clarify in the following review.

Read full article @ OCInside.de