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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

Asetek 510LC, 550LC, 570LX & 591LX Liquid CPU Coolers Review
BenQ XL2730Z (FreeSync) Review
Corsair Gaming Sabre Optical RGB Mouse Review
Corsair Hydro H110i GT CPU Cooler Review
Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT AIO Liquid Cooler Review
Entry-level PC - April 2015
How to Install Hardware Drivers on Linux
How to run Ubuntu Snappy Core on Raspberry Pi 2
LG G Flex 2 Review: Top-notch hardware, same curved gimmick-ness
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA SSD Review (120GB/1TB)
Samsung SM951 PCIe SSD Now Available
Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA Review
Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB SATA III HDD Review
Toshiba TransMemory EX II (128GB) Flash Drive reviewed



Asetek 510LC, 550LC, 570LX & 591LX Liquid CPU Coolers Review

For almost two decades now Asetek has been building cooling products that help increase CPU speed and performance. The Danish company specializes in liquid cooling solutions for everything from data centers to your home gaming rig. You may not realize it, but you might know them very well from the excellent AIO coolers that are sold to other companies to be rebranded. Today we are going to take a look at four of their AIO coolers, the 510LC, 550LC, 570LX, and the 591LX. All four coolers under the Asetek brand are all used in pre-built machines by companies like CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

BenQ XL2730Z (FreeSync) Review

BenQ take a stab at a high end AMD FreeSync compatible display... Last month AMD launched a new technology, FreeSync, which is designed to enhance the visual experience for gamers by solving long standing issues. Today we take a look at one of the first screens to support this technology in our BenQ XL2730Z review.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven

Corsair Gaming Sabre Optical RGB Mouse Review

Solid performance and fancy lighting for under £40. Any observant follower of the PC gaming market will have noticed the trend towards equipping peripherals with RGB lighting. The convergence of many gaming products in terms of performance means the extra customisability provided by RGB lighting makes for an interesting differentiator.

Corsair has been a leading light for RGB innovation. Back at CES 2014 the company revealed its prototype Vengeance K70 RGB keyboard, which finally made it to retail in September 2014. The pioneering use of Cherry MX RGB switches represented the first time a mechanical switch had a baked-in LED. Such an implementation allowed Corsair to circumvent previous reliability issues of LED keyboards by shielding the LED from ESD inside the switch, rather than exposing it on the main PCB.

Read full article @ Hexus

Corsair Hydro H110i GT CPU Cooler Review

When it was launched more than two years ago, Corsair’s original Hydro series H110 met the needs of a relatively narrow but expanding subset of users. Alongside the H90, its design focused on installation into cases that utilized 140mm fan mounts. The end result was a lineup that offered good performance and an installation process that was novice-friendly, though its target clientele were those who cared about extremely quiet acoustics. Since then the AIO market hasn’t changed all that much but the competition has heated up so Corsair is now launching the next generation of 140mm-compatible water cooling units. The first out of the gate is the Hydro Series H110i GT.

While fairly conservative in their approach to AIO design Corsair’s lineup has always featured models for nearly any scenario - and budget. Thanks to its massive radiator, excellent waterblock, and moderate fans the older H110 could still outperform many dual 120mm radiator based designs but its gearing towards low noise tended to stymie performance in some respects. As a result, newer models have been able to surpass it. For example, NZXT’s Kraken X60 and X61, Cooler Master’s Nepton 280L, and even the smaller, 240mm SilverStone Tundra TD02 were all able to compete against or even beat Corsair’s flagship. That’s about to change since the H110i GT is meant to retake the performance crown without sacrificing in other key areas.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT AIO Liquid Cooler Review

At CES 2015, Corsair announced that in the first quarter of 2015, they were updating their AIO liquid coolers with a higher efficiency radiator, and a new design. The Corsair Hydro H80i GT is Corsair’s smalled AIO liquid cooler and can be found online under part number CW-9060017-WW for $99.99 with free shipping. It features two 120mm fans, a 49mm thick radiator, Corsair Link compatibility, fabric mesh covered tubes, lower cost and a five year warranty from Corsair. If a larger AIO liquid cooler is preferred, Corsair also updated their 240mm system with the H100i GTX, it costs a little more at $119.99 with free shipping. Today, we will be focusing on the Corsair Hydro Series H80i GT, recently Legit Reviews took a look at the H100i GTX.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Entry-level PC - April 2015

Our guidelines for the Entry-level PC category are as follows. The entire computer system, excluding OS, should not exceed £420. Its primary, but not only, function is to provide a smooth and enjoyable online experience. This means that the cheapest processors won’t be enough, as modern web pages and internet applications do demand some processing power.

Additionally, the system has to be able to efficiently perform internet-related tasks. This includes basic photo editing (cropping and resizing to upload or send a photo) and extracting compressed files. At the same time the necessary background programmes need to be active, such as a virus scanner, a firewall, and anti-spyware software. The computer also needs to be able to efficiently run word processing software and administrative programmes.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

How to Install Hardware Drivers on Linux

Windows needs manufacturer-provided hardware drivers before your hardware will work. Linux and other operating systems also need hardware drivers before hardware will work but hardware drivers are handled differently on Linux.

Read full article @ Howtogeek

How to run Ubuntu Snappy Core on Raspberry Pi 2

The Internet of Things (IoT) is upon us. In a couple of years some of us might ask ourselves how we ever survived without it, just like we question our past without cellphones today. Canonical is a contender in this fast growing, but still wide open market. The company wants to claim their stakes in IoT just as they already did for the cloud. At the end of January, the company launched a small operating system that goes by the name of Ubuntu Snappy Core which is based on Ubuntu Core.

Snappy, the new component in the mix, represents a package format that is derived from DEB, is a frontend to update the system that lends its idea from atomic upgrades used in CoreOS, Red Hat's Atomic and elsewhere. As soon as the Raspberry Pi 2 was marketed, Canonical released Snappy Core for that plattform. The first edition of the Raspberry Pi was not able to run Ubuntu because Ubuntu's ARM images use the ARMv7 architecture, while the first Raspberry Pis were based on ARMv6. That has changed now, and Canonical, by releasing a RPI2-Image of Snappy Core, took the opportunity to make clear that Snappy was meant for the cloud and especially for IoT.

Read full article @ Xmodulo

LG G Flex 2 Review: Top-notch hardware, same curved gimmick-ness

While similar in shape to the original, the G Flex 2 features a much more reasonable 5.5-inch display while maintaining the same flexibility to bend in certain circumstances. On the inside, LG is packing in all the latest and greatest hardware, including a Snapdragon 810 SoC, 1080p display and a 13MP camera module with laser-assisted autofocus and optical image stabilization. It's is still a niche flagship, but the question remains, is the curved G Flex 2 worth it?

Read full article @ Techspot

Samsung 850 EVO mSATA SSD Review (120GB/1TB)

Back in December, Samsung launched the 850 EVO series of SSDs in the standard 2.5” form factor. Along with the 850 PRO, these were the first SSDs to utilize Samsung's new 32-layer 3D V-NAND technology. When combined with Samsung's TurboWrite technology, the 850 EVO's can attain some amazing data transfer speeds. Samsung is now expanding its lineup of 850 EVO form factors to include M.2 and mSATA versions. We just recently published a review of the M.2 version, and today we have on hand both 120GB and 1TB models of the mSATA 850 EVO to give a testing bench test drive.

Read full article @ The SSD Review

Samsung SM951 PCIe SSD Now Available

We reviewed Samsungs SM951 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD a little over a month ago and it ended up being clearly the fastest client-level SSD, beating its predecessor XP941 by a large margin. Our initial review sample was pulled from a Lenovo laptop as it was the only way to get early access to the drive, but RamCity just received its first batch last week and the drive is now available for purchase.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA Review

Powered by their own 32-layer 3D V-NAND technology, the Samsung SSD 850 EVO replaces the 840 EVO solid state drive and delivers up to twice the density and write speed of traditional 20nm planar NAND flash components. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the 250GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA drive against the fastest solid state drives available.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB SATA III HDD Review

Toshiba is one of the most well-established names in the electronics industry, and has been in business for over 135 years, with over 40 years experience in the storage industry. Toshiba has achieved many innovations over the years – they produced the world’s first mass-market laptop computer, as well as the world’s first wireless laptop computer and the world’s thinnest widescreen 12.1” laptop. Toshiba spends billions of dollars per year on research and development, and has earned over 27,000 patents in the last 30 years. They have been producing both client and enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs) for quite a number of years now, and continue to produce HDD’s of ever-larger capacity.

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Toshiba TransMemory EX II (128GB) Flash Drive reviewed

High capacity USB drives have become commonplace years ago, but although some memory outfits are peddling huge drives, up to 1TB, most consumers are still going for cheap 32GB and 64GB units. Toshiba is aiming at such users with its latest flash drive series, named TransMemory EX II.
However this series is oriented toward users who need fast access times and high transfer speeds. Toshiba claims the drives can deliver speeds up to 205 MB/s write and 222 MB/s read. The TransMemory EX II series is available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities. The 64GB version is priced at €50 (MSRP $129.99), and the 128GB version at €105 (MSRP $199.99). The 32GB capacity drive is priced at €30, but it has slower write times compared to the rest of the series. All three drives ship with a five-year warranty.
The drive can be partitioned using EX II Pad Locker encryption software, which you can run under Windows. You will find the software installation file on the drive. It is a nice piece of software that gives you the option of creating private and public partitions on one drive, something business users are likely to appreciate.
The build quality is very good and we like the design, although some may say it is not keeping up with the latest design trends; it doesn’t look as flashy as some flash drives. Business users will appreciate the conservative design.

Read full article @ Fudzilla