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Here a roundup of the latest reviews and articles:

Audioengine B2 Bluetooth Speaker Review
BioShock Infinite Is The Latest Game Showing Why Linux Gamers Choose NVIDIA
Case Mod Friday: ASUS STRIX
CM Storm Alcor Optical Gaming Mouse Review
In Win 707 Full-Tower Chassis Review
Kingston Technologies Data Traveler microDuo 3
Microsoft has workarounds for some Windows 10 build 10041 issues
MSI 970 GAMING Motherboard Review
Mushkin Striker 480GB
Patriot Ignite 480GB SSD Review
Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage 500GB Portable Hard Drive Review
Sharkoon Shark Zone M20 Gaming Mouse Review
Toshiba MG04ACA400A 4TB Enterprise HDD Review
Vibox Defcon 2 Review



Audioengine B2 Bluetooth Speaker Review

I do not remember a whole lot of things my teachers have said when I was in elementary school. However, if there was one thing that stuck in my head for many years, it would have been something my Grade 6 teacher discussed in class. "Another teacher caught a student reading a novel behind their math textbook during math class, and gave him a zero," he explained. "If I were him, I would give him an 'A'. After all, he is reading!" When I first heard this, I knew something was wrong with this statement. However, I could not explain why I so vehemently disagreed with him until almost a decade later. Reading a novel is not wrong. However, reading a novel when you are supposed to be learning about math is wrong. Clearly, my teacher failed to understand just because you think you are doing the right thing, does not necessarily imply it is always the right time (I mean, try doing that at work, haha). A little under a year ago, I took a look at the Audioengine A2+ powered desktop speakers. To make a long story short, I remarked that "the Audioengine A2+ simply rocks in sound quality." Now, if you have been following APH Networks for quite a while, you will know a comment like this regarding audio products do not appear often on this website. Being as logical as Audioengine should be, they recently released a new product called the B2. The Audioengine B2 is essentially a pair of Audioengine A2+ rotated sideways, duct taped together at the base, plus a Bluetooth chip to make it a set of wireless speakers. If the A2+ was really that awesome, then will it make the B2 automatically just as awesome, or will it be the right hardware with the wrong application, like reading a novel in math class? We took one in to find out.

Read full article @ APH Networks

BioShock Infinite Is The Latest Game Showing Why Linux Gamers Choose NVIDIA

This week's release of BioShock Infinite for Linux reinforces the common recommendation by Linux game developers that those seeking the best support and performance should use the proprietary NVIDIA graphics driver. Here's an initial look at the BioShock Infinite performance on Ubuntu between AMD and NVIDIA graphics.

With the BioShock Infinite Linux benchmark for this game powered by Unreal Engine 3 that's been out for years on Windows but finally ported to Linux via the controversial eON wrapper technology, I posted some benchmarks yesterday with AMD Catalyst Gaming Performance For BioShock Infinite On Linux. Those AMD results found that the BioShock Infinite Linux port was rather CPU bottle-necked with Catalyst for most of the newer AMD Radeon GCN-era graphics cards.

Read full article @ Phoronix

Case Mod Friday: ASUS STRIX

ASUS’s Strix brand has been around for about a year now and MathMilitaryModding has done a great scratch build showcasing the brand! The build features a completely scratch-built case of aluminum panels and even a custom acrylic bottom that has two SSD mounts and a watercooling channel. This is the first build that we have seen to use rigid carbon fiber tubing in the custom loop. Great detail all around!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

CM Storm Alcor Optical Gaming Mouse Review

The Alcor has proven to be a very popular mouse in recent months, when it launched alongside the Mizar we opted to put the Mizar to the test, so it only seemed right that we should follow-up with its brother, the Alcor, for our latest review. Both the mice are named after stars, hence the space-themed promotional video below; pretty cool.

The Alcor offers all the usual features you would expect from a mid-budget gaming mouse. It’s got on the fly DPI adjustments, an ergonomic design for right-handed use, a 4000 DPI Avago 3090 optical sensor and customizable LED lighting; not bad for a mouse that only costs around £30 from most major retailers.

The Alcor comes hard-wired with a gold-plated USB cable, nothing fancy, but it’ll certainly do the job.

Read full article @ eTeknix

In Win 707 Full-Tower Chassis Review

In Win has won a lot of love from the PC community in recent years, mostly due to the way In Win has continued to innovate the boutique chassis market. Sure their designs have been incredible, just look at their current line up with our reviews of the Tou, S-Frame, H-Frame, H-Frame Mini, D-Frame Mini, 901 and 904! Unfortunately, many of the fancy products that In Win produce come bundled with a lofty price tag; their latest products, the 703 and the 707, aim to address that.

The 703 is essentially a re-imagining of their popular GT1 chassis. While many of the features remain the same, the chassis has been given a stunning makeover, bringing it more in line, at least in terms of design, with their flagship models, while maintaining a consumer-friendly price point.

As you can see from the specifications, the 703 is reasonably well equipped, with room for a super long graphics card, tall tower coolers and plenty of storage.


Read full article @ eTeknix

Kingston Technologies Data Traveler microDuo 3

With the plethora of different storage devices out in the market today to choose from for us to connect from one electronic device to another electronic device makes trying to choose one that fits the bill for us quiet difficult, as well as confusing. Especially, when we start adding the multitude of different connectors that each and every device has differs. Meaning, that our computers utilizes a USB blade style connector while our phones/tablets uses a micro-USB blade style connector (or if you are Apple something completely different). Not to forget the different speed ratings of each of these storage devices will have adds even more confusion to our over whelmed minds on trying to figure out what will work and what wont work for us. We here at Bjorn3D.com going to be looking at a storage device that will fit the bill quite nicely, and it has quite a bit of storage space to give us the greater flexibility we need.

Read full article @ Bjorn3D

Microsoft has workarounds for some Windows 10 build 10041 issues

If you are having problems installing or using the recently launched 10041 build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, you might want to check some workarounds Microsoft has posted to see if they solve your problems.

Read full article @ Windows Central

MSI 970 GAMING Motherboard Review

Trying to play catch up with the latest and greatest will cost you a pretty penny. The average enthusiast tries to acquire the best technologies for cheap; the same goes for gamers since most everyone wants to save money. If your budget is a little over $200 USD for a motherboard and CPU, finding the right combination could be a challenge … Read more.

Read full article @ Modders-Inc

Mushkin Striker 480GB

This year at CES Mushkin introduced their upcoming lane of SSDs called the Striker. Up until now, most of their SSDs have been in the Chronos product line. A change in name along with performance improvements are welcomed. The Striker series of SSDs run a quad core 8 channel Phison controller with Micron's 16nm 128Gbit MLC NAND. In the case of our sample, it has an impressive 480GBs of storage. They suggest that the drive will have read speeds up to 565MB/sec and write speeds up to 550MB/sec so today I am going to put it through our benchmark suite and find out if that is really the case. Before then though I am also going to dig inside and see what is inside as well. Enjoy!

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Patriot Ignite 480GB SSD Review

Patriot. A name I haven’t heard in quite some time. Years ago we reviewed a steady stream of their products, then they seemed to vanish from view to focus solely on mobile accessories. While the recent shift back may only be a cautious toe in the water today we look at their latest Solid State Drive, dubbed the ‘Ignite’. On a side note, the company have ditched the Sandforce controller, opting for a Phison controller.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage 500GB Portable Hard Drive Review

Over the past several years, many companies have come out with wireless storage options for the ever growing mobile community; Seagate released the Wireless Plus a couple of years ago. At CES 2015, they announced the Seagate Wireless, a mobile storage drive that is designed to stream music, video, photos and other files to mobile devices without wires. Connecting through your devices Wi-Fi, it is compatible with Android, iOS and Windows devices using the Seagate Mobile App. The Seagate Wireless has a built-in battery that provides up to 6 hours of streaming to three devices at a time. Read on to see how the Seagate Wireless performs.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Sharkoon Shark Zone M20 Gaming Mouse Review

We look at quite a lot of gaming mice here at KitGuru, many of them sitting over the £50 mark. But what if you only have £25 to spend? Today we are taking a look at the Shark Zone M20 Gaming Mouse from Sharkoon, it boasts many of the same features found on high-end mice, could this be a hidden gem in the saturated peripherals market? Lets find out...

Read full article @ KitGuru

Toshiba MG04ACA400A 4TB Enterprise HDD Review

The new MG04ACA series from Toshiba is composed from drives which are meant for enterprise, mission-critical applications, while sporting higher transfer rates and capacities. The tested sample comes with 128MB of cache and comes in two versions, depending on the applications it is needed for: with 512 sector emulation or strictly with 4K sector. Make sure to choose wisely which drive is for you and your setups in order to bypass any incompatibilities which may arise.

Read full article @ Madshrimps

Vibox Defcon 2 Review

A £630 entry point into the world of PC gaming. We see our fair share of enthusiast hardware here at HEXUS HQ, but we'll be the first to admit that the bulk of sales take place much further down the ladder. Take the GeForce GTX 960 as an example; said GPU wasn't met with much fanfare from performance aficionados, but it remains an important part in the grand scheme of PC gaming.

It's up to system integrators, we feel, to realise the GTX 960's mid-range potential by cooking-up affordable builds that offer full-HD gaming credentials without breaking the bank. Cyberpower missed the mark with the £800 Infinity Hercules Pro, so we're intrigued to see if Vibox can hit the nail on the head with the Defcon 2, priced at a more agreeable £630.

Read full article @ Hexus