Reviews 52118 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AOC C4008VU8 UHD Monitor Review
BIOSTAR RACING X370GTN AM4 Motherboard Review
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 140 Liquid CPU Cooler Review
Dodocool DA109 Magnetic Wireless Stereo Sports Headphone Review
Fractal Design Celsius S36
Galaxy Note 8 Hands On From Samsung Unpacked 2017 In NYC
Gigabyte B250N Phoenix WiFi review: a lot of ITX for your money
Gigabyte X299 AORUS Ultra Gaming Motherboard Review
Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy Note8: Think Big
Intel Core i3 7350K review: dual-core overclocking monster
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017, 5th Gen) Review
MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Motherboard Review
MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium AMD AM4 Motherboard Review
Project Build: Iris – Part 1
Samsung 960 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini Graphics Card Review



AOC C4008VU8 UHD Monitor Review

AOC's C4008VU8 curved display, sports a 40" VA panel with 3840x2160 resolution & an all-white chassis. High style & big size in one package for less than $800.

Most users toil away with 22” and 24” displays, but many secretly wish for a jumbo screen. Some fill that desire with an inexpensive television. It’s not too hard to find a 40” or larger Ultra HD TV at the local wholesale club for less than $1000. But going this route can have a few downsides. First off, you won’t find a consumer TV with DisplayPort. And more importantly, most sets won’t accept signals above 60Hz, even if they refresh at a higher rate. Then there are video enhancements that sometimes can’t be turned off, robbing the image of clarity and depth. We still maintain that for the best quality, only a dedicated computer monitor will do.

Read full article @ Toms Hardware

BIOSTAR RACING X370GTN AM4 Motherboard Review

With the X370GTN, BIOSTAR has succeeded to offer plenty of goodies, in a compact ITX format; due to a smaller VRM, the manufacturer does recommend CPUs with a maximum TDP of 95W, but if we do use it with a 65W SKU, we do also have some overclocking headroom. In our tests with the Ryzen 3 1300X, we have succeeded to achieve the same results as with the high-end Crosshair Hero VI from ASUS, by just setting up the multiplier and the voltage inside the UEFI interface, which is really easy to use.

Read full article @ Mad Shrimps

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 140 Liquid CPU Cooler Review

Generally speaking we PC users, hardware enthusiasts, nerds, like to have the highest performing parts we can get our hands on. If I need a new GPU, I sort results by most expensive. Upgrading to HEDT, you bet we want that i9-7900X; at least until that i9-7980XE is available. And when it comes to keeping these parts cool, once again we find ourselves reaching for that custom watercooling loop or at least a big 360 rad AIO. This pattern of excess is basically the hallmark of the hardware enthusiast and there is nothing wrong with it. On the other hand there are the occasional times where maybe all that over the top performance isn’t required or maybe there are certain limits like budget or space holding you back. Today we’re going to check out one of those products, the Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 140. While not the big gun feature item of the CM lineup, we are still quite curious to see just how this dual fan equipped 140mm AiO liquid cooler performs.

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Dodocool DA109 Magnetic Wireless Stereo Sports Headphone Review

Thanks to Dodocool, we’ll be taking a quick look at these magnetic wireless stereo sports headphones (or some people call them earphones/earbuds).

I not a real fan of bluetooth heaphones/earphones. That’s because you have to remember to charge the darn thing every time you want to use them. If you forget to charge them … then that’s it, they’re useless. I guess with such a big trend in wearables and fitness trackers, many people are getting into the habit of charging the endless about of devices every night

Read full article @ FunkyKit

Fractal Design Celsius S36

Fractal Design looks to take another stab at the expandable all-in-one liquid cooler market with the Celsius S36. Offering a 360 mm radiator and all-new features, like a built-in fan hub, it certainly has a lot to offer.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Galaxy Note 8 Hands On From Samsung Unpacked 2017 In NYC

We had the chance to spend some time at Samsung’s Unpacked 2017 event in New York City today, where the brand new Galaxy Note 8 was officially unveiled. If you missed our initial coverage of the announcement, the Galaxy Note 8 features a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display with a WQHD+ resolution (2960×1440) and many design cues borrowed from the Galaxy S8. Here’s a quick hands-on to give you a closer look at the device and how it handles...

Read full article @ HotHardware

Gigabyte B250N Phoenix WiFi review: a lot of ITX for your money

With the previous generation Intel-motherboards we were positively surprised by the Gigabyte B150N Phoenix WiFi. We had to wait for a bit, but Gigabyte released a successor with a B250-chipset. Was the original better, or is the B250N Phoenix WiFi a worthy revive of the concept for the new generation?

The B250N Phoenix WiFi builds on the success of its predecessor. Once again a lot of features, such as USB 3.1, 802.11ac-WiFi and an Intel network controller, combined on a Mini-ITX-motherboard with a friendly price tag. The most noteworthy addition is – what else could it be – rgb-lighting. For this an led strip has been added on the sides, which makes it look as if the lighting comes from under the motherboard.

You cannot only change this lighting via the software on your computer, but also remotely via a smartphone-app. This software has seven different lighting effects as well as an ‘advanced mode’ if you want to go crazy. Furthermore you can also add an extra ledstrip using the well-hidden header.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Gigabyte X299 AORUS Ultra Gaming Motherboard Review

When you are paying top dollar for parts in building a high-end desktop, the last thing you should be worrying about is whether you are compromising on some features. That is understandable when building a mainstream desktop, but on a high-end system, wanting to have everything is perfectly acceptable.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy Note8: Think Big

At the aptly named Unpacked event, this morning Samsung is taking the wraps off of their next generation phablet, the Galaxy Note8. A staple of summer handset launches, the Note has become the third pillar of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy device lineup, and for various reasons – good and bad – is perhaps the most memorable and unique member of the Galaxy family. While other Android handset vendors can give Samsung a run for their money in the smartphone space, Samsung has carved out and held on to the very distinct niche of the modern, stylus-equipped phablet.

Over the years the company has continued to refine their flagship phones and phablets, and in the last couple of years in particular this has culminated in the Galaxy Note becoming the de-facto third member of the Galaxy S family. While it shows up a few months later than its original, stylus-free counterparts, it has increasingly followed the basic design cues of the Galaxy S family, not to mention the underlying hardware platform. The Galaxy Note8, in turn, is no different. As we’ve seen in our hands-on, it’s more than just a Galaxy S8 with a stylus, but that’s certainly where Samsung started, and the single best frame of reference for understanding the device.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Intel Core i3 7350K review: dual-core overclocking monster

The Kaby Lake generation is not Intel's most innovative architecture ever, however a couple of changes in the cheaper segment make certain models much more enticing. There is now a Pentium with HyperThreading and a Core i3 with an unlocked multiplier, which we are discussing today. Is 180 pounds for a dual core processor still justifiable?

For a long time now, you'd need a special ''K'' processor in order to overclock an Intel processor freely. Normally these were only available in the i5 and i7 series - you pay an extra premium if you want to overclock, on top of the already not so low price of those processors. Intel has only broken this rule once, with the overclockable "Anniversary Edition" of a Haswell Pentium.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2017, 5th Gen) Review

An outstanding laptop missing one key feature. The premium Ultrabook market has really come of age. Today's options include exquisite machines such as the Dell XPS 13, Surface Laptop and HP Spectre x360, yet you could argue that Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the one design that stands the test of time.

Introduced way back in 2012 as the flagship of the ThinkPad line, the X1 Carbon has been refreshed on an almost annual basis in the interim years, with each new model retaining a familiar aesthetic while introducing improved performance and updated connectivity.

Read full article @ Hexus

MSI X299 Tomahawk Arctic Motherboard Review

Intel's next generation HEDT platform is here, and weirdly enough, they are offering much more affordable quad-core CPUs for it. Understandably, these do not provide as much feature as the full-blown and more expensive HEDT CPUs, but the platform itself has become something that is more accessible to most people.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium AMD AM4 Motherboard Review

Today, a new reader review is published on OCinside.de. Berserkus is testing the new MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium AMD Ryzen motherboard and has even created an unboxing video. In the following MSI X370 motherboard review, we will see how good this motherboard performs with an AMD Ryzen 1800X CPU and two Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB graphics cards.

Read full article @ OCInside.de

Project Build: Iris – Part 1

So 5-6 years ago I had a crazy custom painted build in the office and my wife came in and snatched it up. I like to tease her about it but the fact is she gets more gaming time in than I ever do so that build has been put to good use over the years. It’s had its video card upgraded a little but overall it has been extremely long in the tooth and as I was writing this is actually died on her. So a while back I started putting together plans to build something specifically for her, something more fitting than the rig she snatched up. So my base idea was something in your face, flashy, with lots of bright colors. This is just her style, always picking the crazy colors. She picked up her nickname (Koolaid) back when we were dating because her hair was never the same color. Anyhow with this project, I kind of set off with a theme best described as unicorn vomit, but she picked out the name Iris. In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. I think that sums up what I was going for with this build. Anyhow! Today I’m going to just start things off by touching on a few of the base components and then we will come back later to talk about the go fast parts and what we are going with to get those crazy colors.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Samsung 960 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review

With the quite impressive 960 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD (and their 960 PRO model obviously) Samsung has made it clear once again that they sit at the top of the high-performance solid state drive market.

Read full article @ NikKTech

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini Graphics Card Review

Thanks to Zotac, we’ll be taking a look at their GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini graphics card. It’s the world’s smallest GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, measuring just 211mm (length) x 125mm (h) x 41mm (w). It’s ideal for anyone who wants the full power of a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in a HTPC or a mini gaming system.

It comes with all the features of a full length GTX 1080 Ti, but in a smaller package and slightly lower clock speed of 1506 MHz (default is 1582 MHz). You still get the 3584 CUDA cores, 11GB of GDDR5X ram, 352-Bit memory bus and 11GHz Gbps memory bandwidth.

Read full article @ Funky Kit