Reviews 52123 Published by

Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

BeQuiet! Silent Base 600 Case Review
Gladiator Computers APOCALYPSE Gaming PC Review
Intel Core i7-6700K vs. i5-6600K Stock and OC - CPU Gaming Performance
Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU Cooler Review
Samsung Portable SSD T3 2TB Review
Sapphire Nitro OC R9 Fury Graphics Card Review
Supermicro C7Z170-SQ Motherboard Review
Swiftech H220 X2
Thermaltake Suppressor F1 Mini ITX Case Unboxing Video
Tt eSPORTS Ventus X Laser Gaming Mouse Review



BeQuiet! Silent Base 600 Case Review

When building a silent system, we often prioritize the enclosure. But while a top-notch noise-dampening case is nice, it's only one part of the equation when building a quiet computer. You also need to choose the right components for internal cooling in order to get satisfactory acoustic results. Today we're looking at the be quiet! Silent Base 600 as well as some of the company's cooling products to see what the latest in quiet technology can do.


The Silent Base 600 retails at $119 for the windowed version and $109 for the version with a solid panel. That's a competitive price point, and this case seems aimed at the Define R5. The Silent Base 600 is the smaller sibling to the Silent Base 800, which our reviewer had some problems with. We'll see if be quiet! has addressed his concerns about the challenges of assembly.

We like the design of the case, which comes in three different accent colours—orange, black and silver—that outline the intake vents on both sides of the front panel, the edges of the side window and throughout the inside. Even the power button on our orange system glows with an orange LED, although there is simple white illumination for the other two colors. The top I/O has a four USB ports, centered audio jacks, and a reset switch built into the HDD activity LED.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

Gladiator Computers APOCALYPSE Gaming PC Review

Aria is one of the leading technology retailers in the UK and stocks a huge range of components from luxury 21:9 3440×1440 monitors to extremely affordable pre-assembled gaming PCs. Their custom PC range falls under the GLADIATOR brand and aims to provide an enthralling gaming experience while offering superb customer satisfaction. Clearly, any system is a considered purchase, and it’s vital to have your initial investment backed by a comprehensive warranty. Thankfully, Gladiator supports their builds with a 4-year labour and 1-year parts guarantee. This level of service is often a key selling point for consumers without any hardware experience and feel overwhelmed by the almost endless combination of component choices.

Today, we’re taking a look at the GLADIATOR APOCALYPSE which targets a very reasonable price of £749.99. I’d describe this as a mid-range system and caters to someone with expectations of a fluid framerate at 1920×1080. Around the £800 mark, it’s essential to prioritize the graphics card and make concessions on the CPU without it becoming a bottleneck. This is because the majority of modern game engines are GPU bound, and the benefits from enhanced CPU performance is fairly minimal in comparison. NVIDIA’s GTX 970 is currently the most popular graphics card among Steam users, and for good reasons. For example, the GPU offers a fantastic price to performance ratio and remains exceptionally cool under extreme load. As a result, I’m pleased to see this particular graphics card in the GLADIATOR APOCALYPSE and expect it to perform superbly on a 1080P display.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Intel Core i7-6700K vs. i5-6600K Stock and OC - CPU Gaming Performance

In this article we're going to compare the Core i7-6700K to the Core i5-6600K regarding gaming performance. Both processors are tested at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz and we're going to hit them with quite a few games as well as theoretical gaming benchmarks.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU Cooler Review

With the recent news of Skylake CPU's being pushed up to 7 GHz, one can only begin to think of ways to overclock their CPU and take performance to the next level. Any easy way to do so is by swiping out your old CPU cooler for a new one. Without going to the extremes of custom liquid cooling and LN2 testing, one could easily swap in an all-in-one liquid cooler or a air cooler. Today we have the preiveldge of testing the Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU cooler, while adding an additional Noctua NF-A14 PWN fan for additional performance, let's see how it performs!

Read full article @ TechnologyX

Samsung Portable SSD T3 2TB Review

Samsung’s mighty fast and compact Portable SSD T1 that was launched last year has been improved and had it’s capacity increased! Samsung unveiled the Portable SSD T3 at CES 2016 and we’ve patiently waited for a review sample to show up that we could take a look at ourselves. The new and improved portable Solid-State Drive (SSD) features an aluminum enclosure, USB-C connector, the latest Samsung 3D NAND and speeds of up to 450 MB/s. If you were a fan of the original Samsung Portable SSD you should like the Portable SSD T3 even more!

The Samsung Portable SSD T3 measures in slightly larger than the original as it measures in at 74mm x 58mm x 10.5mm in size and weighs in at just 51 grams! The drive has chunked up a bit since last year, but it’s still relatively small considering you can get it in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities. The 2TB capacity is a brand new size for the Portable SSD T3 and should appeal to those that need to carry around large amounts of data with them. The pricing and model numbers for the four capacities are listed below.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Sapphire Nitro OC R9 Fury Graphics Card Review

The initial unveiling of AMD’s Fury X was eagerly anticipated due to the advent of high bandwidth memory, and potential to revolutionize the size to performance ratio of modern graphics cards. This new form of stackable video RAM provided a glimpse into the future and departure from the current GDDR5 standard. Although, this isn’t going to happen overnight as production costs and sourcing HBM on a mass scale has to be taken into consideration. On another note, JEDEC recently announced GDD5X with memory speeds up to 14 Gbps which helps to enhance non-HBM GPUs while catering to the lower-mid range market. The Fury X and Fury utilizes the first iteration of high bandwidth memory which features a maximum capacity of 4GB.

There’s some discussion regarding the effect of this limitation at high resolutions but I personally haven’t seen it cause a noticeable bottleneck. If anything, the Fury range is capable of outperforming the 980 Ti during 4K benchmarks while it tends to linger behind at lower resolutions. AMD’s flagship opts for a closed-loop liquid cooler to reduce temperatures and minimize operating noise. In theory, you can argue this level of cooling prowess was required to tame the GPU’s core. However, there are some air-cooled variants which allow us to directly compare between each form of heat dissipation.

Read full article @ eTeknix

Supermicro C7Z170-SQ Motherboard Review

Perched precariously at £210, the Supermicro C7Z170-SQ looks to be the motherboard that has been thrown unprepared into a market saturated by RGB lights and features that would make NASA technicians quiver at first sight. However, it’s not all about additional utilities, sometimes a great performing unit only needs top quality components derived from servers and that’s what Supermicro is betting on with this addition to the line up.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Swiftech H220 X2

While Swiftech launched their all-new Prestige AIOs, they have not forgotten the more value-oriented market either. Enter the H220 X2, which offers enthusiast quality water-cooling at a more attractive price. Having exceptional performance and expandability, it is definitely an attractive option.

Read full article @ techPowerUp

Thermaltake Suppressor F1 Mini ITX Case Unboxing Video

Today, we have published a new unboxing video of the Thermaltake Suppressor F1 Mini-ITX case in German with English subtitles on OCinside.de. The detailed Thermaltake Suppressor F1 case review is published soon as well.

Read full article @ OcInside

Tt eSPORTS Ventus X Laser Gaming Mouse Review

The Ventus X by Tt eSPORTS is a budget-friendly laser gaming mouse aimed towards people who are looking for a ergonomically shaped model with excellent grip and good accuracy.

Read full article @ NikKTech