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Here a roundu of the latest reviews and articles:

BitFenix AEGIS Review
BitFenix Recon Fan Controller Review
CM Storm Sirus-C Gaming Headset
Cooler Master Silencio 652S Mid Tower Chassis Review
Crucial BX100 1TB Solid State Drive Review
Get Your Old Rig Gaming Ready on a Tight Budget
How Open-Source Allowed Valve To Implement VULKAN Much Faster On The Source 2 Engine
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA & M.2
The Eve T1 - A Windows Tablet from Finland
XMG A505 Gaming Laptop Review
XSPC X20 420 Single Bayres/Pump Combo



BitFenix AEGIS Review

BitFenix has built a solid reputation with their current portfolio of computer cases and today, hope to add to their success. AEGIS was release back in February and seeks to provide system builders with an exciting and innovative chassis.

AEGIS is a M-ATX computer case which arrives in a selection of exciting colours. This case promises to offer flexibility by accommodating large CPU coolers, big graphics cards and numerous fans/radiators for those wanting to enhance the cooling potential.
Read full article @ Vortez

BitFenix Recon Fan Controller Review

Prior to this review, I have never understood what the word "recon" meant, even though I come across this word on many occasions like video games. After I some research, I found out "recon" is the shortened form of the word reconnaissance. The word originates from the late Middle French Era to the early Modern French Era of today. Like many modern English words, there are various meanings and variation to the word "reconnaissance", and their definitions depend on the context and usage of the word. Mainly, it has three different uses: The two least common uses of the word comes from the geological field and surveying in civil engineering. In geology and civil engineering, "reconnaissance" means detailed surveying or examining of geological areas or regions. However, the most common use of the word recon is in the military setting. In this context, the word "recon" is the search for useful information in the field while considering many factors and examining in detail, especially the ground. When I was given the opportunity to review the BitFenix Recon, some questions immediately popped into my head. Although BitFenix and their products are no strangers to us, I had questions that needed answers. First off, what does a fan controller have to do with giving information? Secondly, to add on to the first question, what kind of information will it give us here at APH Networks? If you also have the same questions, read on to find out the answers!

Read full article @ APH Networks

CM Storm Sirus-C Gaming Headset

CM Storm's newest do-it-all headset is put to the test. The Sirus-C is compatible with all major console systems and features its own in-line USB sound card. The design is like previous Sirus headsets on the outside, but it now uses a dual-driver setup on the inside.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Cooler Master Silencio 652S Mid Tower Chassis Review

Computer chassis are one of the few very subjective pieces of a computer system. What one person likes another may not. With that being said, today I have the pleasure of taking a look at the Cooler Master Silencio 652S. As they say, silence is golden so Cooler Master has put some effort into insulating the Silencio 652S. Each of the panels have a sound dampening material pair with it to kill the sound. Read on to see how this case handles our system build!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Crucial BX100 1TB Solid State Drive Review

Not that long ago we took a look at Crucial’s MX200 solid state drive, which is set to be their high-performance drive for 2015. They also sent us over their new BX100 solid state drive. This drive is their cost-effective solution that is aggressively priced and Crucial hopes it will get solid state drives in the hands of more people. How aggressively priced is it? Well the 1TB drive that we are taking a look at today is selling at my favorite online retailer for $374.99, which makes it only $0.37 per GB. The BX100 is powered by the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller and features Micron 16nm synchronous MLC NAND. The 1TB version features sequential read and write speeds of 535 MB/s and 450 MB/s respectively. Let’s take a closer look…

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Get Your Old Rig Gaming Ready on a Tight Budget

Have you been looking at the latest graphics cards, then looking at your own PC and thinking you’ve got a gutless gaming rig? I know the feeling, the new cards can be very tempting, at least until you check your bank balance and remember you’re not rich. High-end hardware is great, but do you really need a $1000 Titan X to enjoy your favourite games? Nope. If you’re thinking that your current system is a little outdated, that you need to upgrade the whole thing to be able to enjoy the latest games, you’re wrong and I’m going to prove it.

Now I will admit, if you have a good bit of money saved up to replace your entire rig, go for it, it’ll be awesome. However, if your budget is limited and your system needs a new lease of life, we’re going to see how much improvement you can get for a modest investment of just £300 (approx $440 US)!

Read full article @ eTeknix

How Open-Source Allowed Valve To Implement VULKAN Much Faster On The Source 2 Engine

While Linux users tend to prefer open-source hardware drivers out of philosophical beliefs or just making an easier out-of-the-box Linux experience, Valve and other early Vulkan stakeholders have yet another reason to appreciate open-source drivers as having an open-source driver allowed them to jump-start porting of the Source 2 Engine over to the new graphics API much faster and easier than if they were relying on a closed-source Vulkan driver. Here's the story that LunarG has exclusively shared with Phoronix about their process of bringing up Vulkan with open-source code.

Valve developers part of their Linux cabal have previously talked of how it's nice having the open-source Intel/Radeon Mesa/Gallium3D drivers when porting games/engines to Linux as they're able to analyze the OpenGL driver code when debugging an issue or trying to workaround a performance shortcoming. In the early days, Valve also allowed Intel's open-source driver developers access to the code-bases of some of their games so they could look at what the Source renderer is doing, etc, in order to optimize the open-source driver performance. Open-source wins and makes the development process easier on both sides of the table when not having to deal with binary blobs in the equation. With the bringing up of Vulkan over the past few months, open-source was the champion once again.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Samsung 850 EVO mSATA & M.2

There were many factors that prevented early SSDs from being a viable replacement to platter drives, MTBF, speed, capacity and of course cost being the most prominent. Since that time we have seen an explosion of manufacturers, capacities, NAND technology advancements and a historic plummet in pricing. Now we're looking at the latest in the small form mSATA and M.2 SSDs from Samsung, the 850 EVO versions.

Read full article @ PureOverclock

The Eve T1 - A Windows Tablet from Finland

The prices on small tablets have continued to drop since Microsoft began offering Windows licenses on screen nine inches or smaller.

That has resulted in quite a few offerings in that range but it also means some compromises are made in hardware configurations to get the balance of value and functionality correct.

Sometimes that works and at other times it crashes and burns.  In a majority of the cases there are pros and cons about these devices and the Eve T1 falls squarely in the middle of that range.

Read full article @ WinSupersite

XMG A505 Gaming Laptop Review

Recently XMG refreshed their midrange gaming laptop range with the introduction of the A505. Featuring an ultra fast SSD, i7 CPU and NVIDIAs latest GTX 960M, we test it in our XMG A505 Review.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven

XSPC X20 420 Single Bayres/Pump Combo

With advances in pump, radiator, reservoir and fitting designs, things have gotten to the point where almost anyone can create and install a custom cooling solution specific to their system. XSPC is one of the handful of pioneering companies that made custom liquid cooling so commonplace today. The new X20 420 Single and Twin pump BayRes may save on space and and your hard earned money.

Read full article @ PureOverclock