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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X Motherboard Review
Ballistix Elite 16GB RAM 2x 8GB DDR4-4000 RAM Review
Borderlands 3 1080p, 1440p, 4K & Ultrawide Benchmarks - DX11 vs DX12
Borderlands 3 Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis
Chuwi AeroBook Review: Testing 5 Linux distributions
Corsair K63 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard Review
EnGenius ESR530 AC1300 Smart Mesh Router Set Review
MSI GK30 Keyboard with GM11 Mouse Combo Review
Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review
SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 5700XT Review
SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ OC Review
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review
Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review
Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro Plus Review
Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review
What Is Variable Rate Shading? A Basic Definition of Nvidia VRS
Wi-Fi 6 Is Officially Here: Certification Program Begins



ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming X Motherboard Review

It seems everyone is talking about AMD right now, but there are still a lot of people buying Intel processors, especially if you are building a machine purely for gaming. With all of these new X570 motherboards with the newest features it is kind of a bummer looking at Z390 boards that have been out for almost a year now. Well ASRock wants to help you out and has recently introduced their Z390 Phantom Gaming X motherboard. This board is loaded with features like a 14 phase VRM, integrated rear I/O shield, 2.5G LAN, WiFi 6, and a metal backplate. ASRock has also designed the board much like their new X570 boards with the bottom half of the board being a large heatsink for the M.2 slots. This board looks it might be one of the best Z390 boards that ASRock has released, let’s jump in!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Ballistix Elite 16GB RAM 2x 8GB DDR4-4000 RAM Review

We are testing the brand new Ballistix Elite memory modules on OCinside.de that have just been introduced. The brand new 16GB DDR4-4000 Ballistix Elite Gaming Memory Kit consists of two 8GB DDR4 modules which are designed for DDR4-4000 at 18-19-19-39. We tested on an AMD Ryzen 3000 and on an Intel 9th Gen system to see if this really works and if these modules can even be overclocked. Of course there is also again a thermal image as well as numerous memory benchmark results in the following Ballistix Elite 16GB DDR4 RAM review.

Read full article @ OcInside.de

Borderlands 3 1080p, 1440p, 4K & Ultrawide Benchmarks - DX11 vs DX12

Borderlands is back, and that means one thing: Borderlands benchmarking is also back! We're taking a look at graphics card performance with the help of fifteen GPUs and four resolutions. Since the performance picture between AMD and NVIDIA varies quite a bit between DX12 and DX11, we're including results for both.

Read full article @ Techgage

Borderlands 3 Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis

Borderlands 3 is the latest installment in the epic loot-and-shoot series. The graphics are greatly improved and you are free to pick between DirectX 11 or DirectX 12. We took the game for a spin using 23 of the latest graphics cards, testing 1080p, 1440p and 4K, in both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Chuwi AeroBook Review: Testing 5 Linux distributions

The Chuwi AeroBook is a snappy, Ultrabook-style system at under half the price of the MacBook Air, from which it draws clear design inspirations. TechRepublic tests how it fares running Linux.

Read full article @ TechRepublic

Corsair K63 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard Review

Today we are taking a look at a wireless mechanical keyboard from Corsair, the K63. Designed with living room gaming in mind, the K63 seeks to combine the benefits for mechanical keyboards with the convenience of wireless communication, with a battery life lengthy enough for long gaming sessions.

Read full article @ Anandtech

EnGenius ESR530 AC1300 Smart Mesh Router Set Review

Compact size, easy to setup, low power consumption and good overall performance are the reasons the ESR530 Smart Router 2-Pack by EnGenius deserves your attention.

Read full article @ NikKTech

MSI GK30 Keyboard with GM11 Mouse Combo Review

This time we'll be taking a look at the newest peripheral combo from MSI, the GK30 Vigor keyboard and the GM11 Clutch gaming mouse. With an MSRP of $69.99, this new combo is going to be great for folks who are looking for a cheaper set of gaming peripherals, but don't want to sacrifice too much in quality. With full RGB lighting and advertised 'mech-like' witches, we definitely have some of the criteria so far. I personally would love to see some new products in this space as I often build rigs for family members and friends.

Read full article @ OCC

Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD Review

Samsung's new 970 EVO Plus takes on the SSD market with new flash and speeds that reach up to 3.5 GB/s.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 5700XT Review

AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 series is finally getting the much-awaited custom variants and SAPPHIRE is finally out with its new Nitro+ lineup designed for RDNA based graphics cards. Having launched in July, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 lineup introduced very competitive prices for mainstream tier graphics cards which would go against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX lineup, now AIBs are further expanding the lineup with their non-reference variants that offer better cooling performance and higher out of box clock speeds.

The Radeon RX 5700 series uplifted AMD by bringing a modern architecture design and moving away from its GCN design. This allows AMD to bring more streamlined graphics performance in modern workloads and gaming titles. AMD was already ahead of the curve in utilizing new techs such as HBM and smaller process nodes and Navi is no exception. Aside from the new graphics architecture, AMD has also introduced GDDR6 memory and a smaller 7nm process node for their mainstream lineup which is a big update from the 14nm process on Polaris and Vega series cards.

Read full article @ Wccftech

SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ OC Review

I've been waiting for a flagship Radeon RX 5700 XT from SAPPHIRE and it's finally here, the company merely teased us with the RX 5700 XT PULSE OC, as the real deal is the new RX 5700 XT NITRO+ OC graphics card. SAPPHIRE's new flagship Radeon RX 5700 XT is one of the best looking custom Navi cards, with the company using its fresh ARGB Lighting system that you can see in the pics on this page and more so on the Detailed Look page further on in the review. There have been a few different custom Radeon RX 5700 XT through my doors over the last couple of weeks, but is SAPPHIRE's new RX 5700 XT NITRO+ OC worth it over the rest? That's something you'll have to continue to read on about, and while it falls in line with the other custom RX 5700 XT cards, SAPPHIRE does it with its own tweaks.

Read full article @ TweakTown

Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review

The best Navi-based card around? AMD made a graphics splash this summer when it released the Radeon RX 5700 and XT cards. Offering enough firepower from the Navi-based architecture to worry rival Nvidia, the only downsides to the reference cards were a bit too much noise and one-fits-all aesthetics. We reckoned, at the time, that add-in board partners would up the ante on both fronts.

Sapphire has done just that with its Pulse duo that offers enhanced cooling, lower noise, and a tad better performance than the basic card. Pulse is the entry gateway into Sapphire's enthusiast kingdom, but it's the Nitro+ and, potentially, Toxic models that really get the enthusiast excited. Just over a couple of months on from initial launch, Sapphire duly rolls out the Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+, and it's rather good, so let's explain why.

Read full article @ Hexus

Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review

Sapphire's Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ is the company's flagship Navi card. It comes with a large triple-slot, triple-fan cooler that runs quiet and cool. Adjustable RGB lighting and fan-stop is included, too. A unique addition is the ability to control the dual BIOS switch through software.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro Plus Review

There’s one thing you really have to admit to Sapphire: when it comes to cooling, hardly anybody can fool them when it comes to AMD cards. Provided you are willing to pay a certain surcharge for this service compared to their normal cards like Pulse. The Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro Plus tested today shows one thing very clearly: weight and cooler surface alone do not make a test winner. Known how and where on the other hand. But enough with the spoiler, because I don’t want to anticipate the rest unnecessarily. So please read everything well.

The card stands out due to its three fans (2x 9.5 cm, 1x 8.5 cm), which also feature different sizes and directions of rotation, but more about this later in the tear-down and cooler description. We know this fan design from older models of the MSI Lightning (e.g. R9 290X) and some Palit and Gigabyte models. But it catches the eye.

Read full article @ IgorsLAB

Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+ Review

It's Sapphire's flagship RX 5700 XT card, but just how well does it perform?

Read full article @ KitGuru

What Is Variable Rate Shading? A Basic Definition of Nvidia VRS

What does VRS mean? We explain Variable rate shading.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Wi-Fi 6 Is Officially Here: Certification Program Begins

Wi-Fi Alliance on Monday officially started its Wi-Fi 6 certification program, informally kicking off the widescale adoption of the new Wi-Fi standard. As with the groups previous certification programs, the Wi-Fi 6 certification program is focused on verifying the interoperability and feature sets of IEEE 802.11ax devices, ensuring that they work well with each other and that the devices feature all of the required performance and security capabilities of the new standard.

Wi-Fi Alliances certification comes as device manufacturers have already been shipping Wi-Fi 6 products for the last several months – essentially seeding the hardware ecosystem to get to this point. So the first task for the groups members and test labs will be to certify existing Wi-Fi 6 devices. This includes existing access points, routers, and client devices, including Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10, which has become the first smartphone to receive certification.

Read full article @ Anandtech