Tech News
-
Feniks Essence Speakers Review @ Hardware Canucks
I have done a few sound system reviews over the years and have come to the conclusion that the only way to get good sound is to spend the money and experiment because you'll never get it right on the first try.
Why do you suppose most gamers have 3+ pairs of headphones sitting in a box next to their PC.
Our reviewers are sometimes spoiled, and it's not just because they get to review cool hardware. While nice audio equipment is usually last on the list for most gamers looking for an upgrade, Dmitry doesn't need to worry. His ears are usually enveloped in the Sennheiser HD800s, which retail for $1,000 or more and are considered some of the best headphones in the world. Can his coddled ears be blown away by the Feniks Essence speaker set, which aims to be one of the best in world?
Rumor is you can get them via Kickstarter which will eventually become a Massdrop with a huge cult following.
-
Asylum Review Block: Cases and Coolers
It has been awhile since I've done a proper review block, this time rounding up some of the latest Computer Cases and Coolers to hit the Hardware Asylum Inbox.
Cases
- Fractal Design Core 500 Case Review @ ThinkComputers
- Corsair Carbide SPEC-ALPHA Review @ Vortez
- Thermaltake Core W100 Super Tower Chassis Review @ [H]
- Zalman Z9 Neo White review
Coolers
- AMD FX-8350 plus Wraith-Cooler im Test
- Thermaltake Pacific RL240 Water Cooling Kit Review @ [H]Of course more reviews to come, that is assuming you are brave enough to build a computer from scratch.
-
Palit Super Jetstream GTX 980 Ti Review @ Hardware Slave
Is it just me or does the cooler on this card look like it was inspired by the coolers MSI uses on the Gaming and Lighting video cards?
Yes, I thought so too.
Hardwareslave, like most of the older websites started out of the desire to make amazing rigs, better than anyone else, with the best components in chassis that looked amazing. Of course we are also pro gamers and will dominate everyone with our gaming rigs and our superior skills (cough cough).
I'm not sure how "Pro Gaming" fits with a 980 Ti review but, I'm not going to judge
-
Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 Z170 mITX Motherboard Review @ APH Networks
The MiniITX platform has really gotten exceptionally good over the past sever years and stands as one of the only motherboards that will come with more high-end features than the full sized version.
The Gigabyte GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 may be a baby-board in its size, but it definitely is capable of punching above its weight class.
I'm not sure a boxing reference is good for a motherboard but if you are looking to build "any" system don't discredit these small form factor versions.
-
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 @ techPowerUp
32GB of 2400Mhz DDR4 Crucial memory. Makes me feel all funny inside just thinking about it.
With a flurry (pun intended) of white products on store shelves now, one thing that has been sorely missing are white memory sticks. However, Crucial is here to save the esthetics of your white build with their Ballistix Sport 32 GB kit clad in white heatspreaders and a white PCB! Not only do they look good, their huge capacity means you'll nearly never run out of memory!
Seriously though these modules feature all white heat spreaders, some graphics and respectable CL16 ratings at 1.2v. One thing is for certain they may not be "omg melt my spec sheet fast" but with 32GB you will be hard pressed to run out of memory.
Well, unless you are using Firefox and vist a site using way to many "bad" flash ads.
-
Gigabyte X170 Extreme ECC and Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 review @ Guru3D
One of the items Gigabyte was showing off at CES was their new Extreme ECC line of gaming motherboards. These boards are following their military theme complete with digital desert camo and all of the high-end accessories like Killer Nic and the Gigabyte audio solution. In fact if you saw these boards in passing you would think they are a regular Skylake enabled gaming motherboard.
But you would be mistaken, kinda.
This new motherboard line is using the self named X170 chipset or, as it should be called, the Intel C236. Yes a server chipset to support the Xeon line of Skylake processors.
Join us in a test on the all new Gigabyte X170 Extreme ECC motherboard. We arm it with an Intel Xeon E3-1230 v5 and ECC memory. Though the chipset and processor used are intended for the server platform this motherboard was made all consumer grade with all whistles and bells. It is SLI/Crossfire capable.
So what are the benefits?
Overclocking? Uhh No, Xeons don't clock cept via BCLK.
High core count? Uhh maybe but all of the documentation claims E3-12xx V5 processor so that might be all it supports and those are only 4c/8t.
Lower Cost? Uhh maybe? $280 USD for a E3-1230v5 vs $320 for a Core i7 6700 (non-K)The board looks cool though.
-
Thermaltake Pacific RL240 Watercooling Kit Review @ TechwareLabs
We have talked about the new Thermaltake Premium Online Store where you can buy Thermaltake branded Pacific Watercooling components and one of the most popular and least expensive options is the RL240 Watercooling Kit.
The kit comes with everything you need to cool a single CPU with the ability to add additional items later.
Heat is the enemy, and extreme performance requires serious cooling power. The Thermaltake Pacific RL240 Watercooling kit is purpose built and brings quality and excellent design to enthusiasts everywhere.
There are many kits on the market, but today we get to test one of the best we have gotten our hands on. Thermaltakes Pacific RL240 is the icing on the cake, the real deal in water cooled kits. This Limited Edition kit comes with a 240mm dual-fan radiator, a PT40 D5 w/Silent Kit reservoir/pump combo, W1 CPU waterblock, 2 Luna Red 12-LED fans, and more. The RL240 is not for the water cooling newbie, though it could be installed, we recommend you have some experience or have someone to help you who has had experience. Directions are light and minimalist as you would expect with a custom kit of this caliber. Thermaltake includes some necessary tools you will need that they have custom created for their kit. Let's talk about what you get.I'm still working on my review of their hardline systems which will eventually be spread out over the course of an entire article series.
-
Datamancer Oaken 60% Keyboard Case @ LanOC Reviews
What a cute keyboard case! It's all elegant wood with straps to hold everything together.
For the last year to year and a half I’ve been running a tiny 60% keyboard with my LAN rigs to help cut down on how much I carry to and from events and also to open up more space on the small table space you get at events. Its worked so well that I wanted to swap my wife’s keyboard to a 60% as well. To prevent damage to the keyboard in transport I tossed around the idea of getting a sleeve to put it in but then I came across the Oaken 60% keyboard case from Datamancer. The case replaces the case on my wife’s Poker 2 with a custom machined wooden case and it has a matching second half that encloses the entire keyboard for transport. After taking it to a few events over the past few months I wanted to talk a little about the case and its pros and cons. So check it out.
Based on the size the case will only fit certain keyboards making it a fairly niche product but as they say. Niche means custom and custom means awesome.
Wait, nobody says that but it sure sounded good.
-
AMD A10-7890K, A10-7860K, and Athlon X4 880K @ LanOC Reviews
I can just smell the FM2+ in the air.
Seems like a good thing right?
About two months ago AMD did a large product line refresh that focused around the newly introduced Wraith Cooler, at the time we took a look at the cooler. Then closer to our LAN event they sent out samples for some of the other CPUs and APUs introduced. In their FM2+ mainstream line they refreshed the Kaveri APUs as well as an Athlon X4 CPU. Well with our LAN event keeping my schedule tied up I’m just now finally getting a chance to see what the new A10-7860K sample and Athlon X4 880K that they sent out a that time. Then on top of that just last week the A10-7890K came in to round things out. So today I’m going to run through AMDs FM2+ refresh and see how they perform. I’m especially interested I the Athlon X4 880K to find out if it’s a worthwhile budget replacement for someone considering an AM3+ build.
I cringe every time someone comes to me asking to look over their build and in the middle is an FM2+ based motherboard. Not only is it slow but, not much cheaper than a low end Intel with more power.
Of course with that being said I'm rather excited to see what new processors AMD has for the 990FX motherboard refresh, whenever that might be.
-
DX11 vs DX12 AMD CPU Scaling and Gaming Framerate @ [H]
This seems like a good thing to know. I'll be adding DX12 to the video card testing suite just as soon as I get a new video card to test.
#nstuff
One thing that has been on our minds about the new DX12 API is its ability to distribute workloads better on the CPU side. Now that we finally have a couple of new DX12 games that have been released to test, we spend a bit of time getting to bottom of what DX12 might be able to do for you. And a couple sentences on Async Compute.
There are quite a few games that support DX12 so it will be interesting to see if they really do run better on Win10 than on WIn7.
