Reviews 51944 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

ASUSTOR AS4002T Network Attached Storage Review
Edifier R1280DB 2.0 Speaker Review
Fnatic Asphalt & Focus 2 Mouse Mat Review
Holy Stone F181 Explorer Drone Review
i-Rocks Pilot K70E Capacitive Gaming Keyboard Review
Logitech G513 Review
Master & Dynamic MW07 Review
Motorola Moto Z3 Review
MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio Review
MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti DUKE Review
Noblechairs Footrest Review
Noctua Chromax Accessories Review
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Graphics Card Review
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Review
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Shows Very Strong Compute Performance Potential
Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3200MHz Kit Review
Star Control: Origins Review



ASUSTOR AS4002T Network Attached Storage Review

The ASUSTOR AS4002T is a very reasonably priced NAS that comes with a speedy 10GbE network adapter. A few weeks ago, I was eating lunch with a friend and his friend who is from Vancouver. After eating a rather large bowl of pho, I came to the sudden realization of my friend's friend -- who is a young Caucasian guy -- and his rather excellent chopstick skills. "You do not understand," he explained. "I am from Vancouver. Everyone from Vancouver knows how to use chopsticks. You get laughed at and get called a white boy if you asked for forks and spoons. You get tired of it eventually, you know?" Now that I think about it, having lived in Canada for so many years, it is normal to go to an Asian restaurant with people of all different backgrounds and simply expect them to use chopsticks. In fact, I have already long forgotten some people actually do not know how to use chopsticks until last week when I was hanging out with an Egyptian friend who is new to this country. As people change to adapt to culture, companies also change to adapt to changing consumer needs. In the past, I have reviewed the ASUSTOR AS3202T, AS3102T, and AS1002T, all of which has an attractive chassis design but lacks hot swappable drive bays. After repeatedly complaining about this inconvenient design choice in all of my reviews, the company is back today with the AS4002T. Not only does it have hot swappable drive bays behind a slick looking magnetically attached front door, it also features a built-in 10Gbps port along with two gigabit Ethernet ports to push the limits of network throughput. Will this be the dual bay NAS to buy in 2018? Read on to find out!

Read full article @ APH Networks

Edifier R1280DB 2.0 Speaker Review

Looking for a new 2.0 speaker system that won't break the bank? The Edifier R1280DB are a powered 2.0 speaker set that are aimed primarily at computer users but could also be used for boosting the audio on a TV or, if combined with something like a Chromecast Audio dongle, they could even serve as your main Hi-Fi speakers. Their large wood-effect enclosures certainly give off more of a Hi-Fi speaker vibe than a desktop speaker one but with dimensions of 146 x 241 x 178mm they are still small enough to fit on most desks.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Fnatic Asphalt & Focus 2 Mouse Mat Review

When it comes to competitive gaming, having the right mouse mat is just as important as having the right mouse and keyboard. Because Fnatic is an eSports company, they supply gaming peripherals and accessories to take on some of the most competitive electronic sports tournaments. The company has sent us two of their mouse mats: the Asphalt and the Focus 2 M. Both of these feature a cloth top with a non-slip grip, and share the same size at 380 x 290 x 3 mm. As for the Focus 2, it does come in different sizes, which ranges from the smaller M size to a large desk size mat. Benchmark Reviews will take a look at these mouse mats and compare the two together.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Holy Stone F181 Explorer Drone Review

Today's review of the Holy Stone F181 Explorer Drone will go over everything in-depth of my experiences with this drone and provide real footage from its 720p HD onboard video camera along with still capture photos. Read on to see if this drone is worth it...

Read full article @ ModSynergy.com

i-Rocks Pilot K70E Capacitive Gaming Keyboard Review

We have reviewed many keyboards here in AnandTech, both electronic (membrane) and mechanical. In today's market, most cost-effective keyboards are based on membrane designs, while more advanced keyboards are using mechanical switches that are either made by Cherry or, usually, are a "cloned" version of their products. Recently however we had something relatively rare shipped for testing in our labs - the i-Rocks Pilot K70E, a keyboard with unique capacitive switches.

Capacitive switches are not something unique to this keyboard. As a matter of fact, the current top-of-the-line capacitive keyboard switches were introduced by Topre several years ago. The problem with Topre-based products is that their prices are excessive, placing them well outside what the mainstream market can afford.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Logitech G513 Review

Back in July of this year, we reviewed the Logitech G513 with the tactile and linear Romer-G switches, this time around we'll be taking a look at the GX Blue variant. This version shares an identical feature set to the Romer based keyboards with the only difference being the mechanical GX switch instead of the Romer-Gs.

Read full article @ Vortez

Master & Dynamic MW07 Review

As youd expect of an Apple-focused tech writer, I do have one or two pieces of Apple kit. The current tally comprises my 15-inch MacBook Pro, Apple Thunderbolt Display, 11-inch MacBook Air (only really kept as an emergency backup these days), 10.5-inch iPad Pro, iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 4 (as of later today) and three HomePods.
But theres one Apple product I dismissed as soon as I tried it: AirPods. Thats not to say I hate them. I love the idea of something that portable. I adore the pairing system. The battery-life is great.

Read full article @ 9to5Mac

Motorola Moto Z3 Review

Motorola is currently on its third-generation of Moto Z smartphones and the 2018 flagship is the new Moto Z3. The Moto Z3 still supports the growing family of Moto Mod accessories, and early next year it will be available with the 5G Moto Mod, making it one of the first smartphones on the market with 5G capabilities...

Read full article @ HotHardware

MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio Review

Over the years, the general trend for new GPU launches, especially GPUs from new graphics architecture is to launch only with the "reference" graphics card designs, developed by AMD or NVIDIA. While the idea of a "reference" design has changed over the years, with the introduction of NVIDIAs Founders Edition cards, and different special edition designs at launch from AMD like we saw with Vega 56 and Vega 64, generally there arent any custom designs from partners available at launch. However with the launch of NVIDIAs Turing architecture, in the form of the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti, weve been presented with an embarrassment of riches in the form of plenty of custom cooler and custom PCB designs found from Add-in Board (AIB) Manufacturers.

Read full article @ PC Perspective

MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti DUKE Review

We're now a couple of days away from the official RTX launch, where the RTX 2080 might be the lesser popular product, we do feel that the 2080 Ti series will be the leading product in sales. We now review our second MSI GeForce GX 2080 Ti card, and (if you are willing to spend the cash) this might be the one to get to be totally honest. Meet the DUKE, it's slim, as fast as the TRIO, roughly in the same area cooling and acoustics wise, but it is really, really good you guys. You'll probably notice me being more positive than normal, as this card actually is really sweet.

We've already covered a lot of new technology as the Turing architecture of the new GPUs offers a fundament change in the graphics card arena as next to your normal shading engine, NVIDIA has added RT (Raytracing) cores, as well as Tensor (AI), cores onto the new GPUs, and these are active. Is Turing is the start of the next 20 years of gaming graphics? Well, that all depends on the actual adoption rate in the software houses, they guys and girls that develop games and a dozen or so RTX games are in development and a dozen or so announced titles will make use of deep learning DLSS running utilizing the Tensor cores. For the new RTX series, it's mostly about Raytracing though. So welcome to a long row of RTX reviews. We start off with the reference cards and will follow with the AIB cards as for whatever reason NVIDIA figured it to be an okay thing for them to launch everything at once. First a quick recap of what's tested in this article, a bit of architecture and then we'll dive into real-world testing of course. You better grab a drink as these reference articles are prone to be lengthy with all the information we are covering.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Noblechairs Footrest Review

noblechairs have received ample awards and merits from the reviewers all over the internet, praised for their comfort, ergonomics and appearance, but until now, we were all using toolboxes and piles of pillows to rest our feet on during those long Fortnite sessions. Well today that's no more, with the noblechairs Footrest.

Read full article @ Vortez

Noctua Chromax Accessories Review

Have you always liked Noctua CPU Coolers but you couldn't bring yourself to like their color combination/theme? The Chromax line of accessories by Noctua could be the solution to that (alas a somewhat expensive solution).

Read full article @ NikKTech

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Graphics Card Review

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti has already proven itself the fastest single graphics card around by far for 4K gaming, but the $1200 price tag on the Founders Edition card we tested—and even higher prices for partner cards at this juncture—mean all but the one percent of the one percent are going to be looking at cheaper Turing options.

Read full article @ The Tech Report

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Review

We've been honoured in having a chance to put NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 graphics cards to the test! These beefy cards feature the brand spanking new Turing architecture GPUs, which promise nothing less than to usher PC gaming graphics to a whole new level. Check out what the latest fuss is about in our hands-on look at the new Founder's Edition cards!

At the heart of the NVIDIA RTX video cards is the shiny new Turing GPU architecture. What differentiates the Turing GPU from the previous generations is the fact that it brings real-time ray tracing and AI to gaming for the first time. This is done through three major innovations that were implemented in this new architecture... Simply put, consumer grade video cards just got a whole lot more interesting, with potential applications that will change gaming and PC graphics as we know them today.

Read full article @ Neoseeker

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Shows Very Strong Compute Performance Potential

Besides the new GeForce RTX 2080 series being attractive for developers wanting to make use of new technologies like RTX/ray-tracing, mesh shaders, and DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), CUDA and OpenCL benchmarking so far on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is yielding impressive performance -- even outside of the obvious AI / deep learning potential workloads with the Turing tensor cores. Here are some benchmarks looking at the OpenCL/CUDA performance on the high-end Maxwell, Pascal, and Turing cards as well as an AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 for reference. System power consumption, performance-per-Watt, and performance-per-dollar metrics also round out this latest Ubuntu Linux GPU compute comparison.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3200MHz Kit Review

Even if Patriot Memory has arrived a little bit late to the table with their Viper RGB series, these do not disappoint and come with a unique appearance; depending on your system setup appearance and the desired XMP 2.0 speeds, you can choose to go either with black or white heatsinks, while the RGB 5-segment setup will surely bring a lot of eye candy to your machine. The product does feature compatibility in terms of RGB lighting with the most-known motherboard brands and for the others we do have the ability to use Patriot’s own software, supplied on the website.

Read full article @ Mad Shrimps

Star Control: Origins Review

The Star Control series has mostly faded from public memory, a two-decade gap between games will do that, but there’s a good chance you’re familiar with some of its offspring. Strands of Star Control DNA can be found in a number of modern spacefaring adventures, particularly Mass Effect, and now the series is returning to (hopefully) influence a new generation of starry-eyed successors.

Star Control: Origins is a full reboot of the franchise, featuring a huge handcrafted galaxy to explore and all the sassy space snark you can handle. Unfortunately, the game also comes with some controversy attached – Star Control: Origins publisher Stardock Entertainment thought they purchased the property from Atari back in 2013, but the series’ original creators dispute the legitimacy of the sale and have announced their own successor, entitled Ghosts of the Precursors. Accusations and lawsuits have flown back and forth, and the whole thing remains a bit of a debacle. But hey, I’m a game reviewer, not a judge, so we’ll be setting aside the legal wranglings and evaluating Star Control: Origins on its own merits. Is the game an interstellar smash or lost in space? Let’s find out…

Read full article @ Wccftech