NZXT has updated its HUE lighting controller and while the HUE+ name may sound familiar the system has undergone a radical overhaul. Previously you had a control unit that sits in an optical drive bay with three rotary controls that adjust the behaviour of the LEDs. By contrast the HUE+ …
Read More »Fractal Design Core 500 Review
There are two distinctly different ways to approach the Mini-ITX Fractal Design Core 500. The first is to pack out the drive bays with a ton of storage (optical drive, three hard drives and three SSD) to effectively convert your tiny PC into a server or NAS. The second approach …
Read More »NZXT H440 New Edition Review
NZXT has updated its enthusiast H440 case. This new version goes by the unimaginative name ‘H440 New Edition' however the list of changes from the original H440 is very encouraging: All black matte colour, Scratch resistant paintwork, Tinted black window (with optional no window version), Increased height & depth with …
Read More »Aerocool Aero 800 Case Review
Aerocool has a history of delivering budget cases but the Aero-800 is far and away the cheapest case we have seen to date. It's a steel chassis with blue painted finish on the top and side panels – the window is smoked and the finishing touches are a plastic front …
Read More »Air Cooler Challenge – 7 Way Round-Up
In this round-up we are looking at seven air coolers that will work with pretty much any CPU. As you will see in our photos and video the coolers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the prices also cover a spread from about £20 all the way …
Read More »Corsair Carbide 600C Review
Corsair Carbide 600C (Clear) or Q (Quiet) adopts a novel design that effectively turns your PC ‘upside down'. The easiest way to understand what Corsair has done is to look at our photos and watch the video where you will see the motherboard mounts on the ‘wrong' side of the …
Read More »Vibox Element X Blue System Review
In a world awash with PCs powered by Intel Core i3, i5 and i7, Vibox has come up with an inexpensive alternative that uses an AMD CPU. We cannot recall the last time we tested an AMD PC so we are very interested to see what the company create for …
Read More »EKWB EK-XLC Predator 240 All In One Watercooler Review
You might be surprised by the news that EKWB has entered the All In One liquid cooling market with the Predator 240 and Predator 360 systems. After all, EKWB (Edvard Konig Water Blocks) is a specialist liquid cooling company that sells components for custom cooling loops, rather than full systems, …
Read More »PC Specialist Nox Review
PC Specialist has announced a gaming PC with the shortest name we have ever heard. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present ‘Nox'. There is always a danger that a review of a PC can turn into a list of components and Nox falls under that heading as PC Specialist has selected …
Read More »Asus ROG G20AJ Review
Asus aims to pull off a neat trick with the Republic Of Gamers G20AJ. They have taken a desktop Core i7 CPU and a desktop GTX 970 graphics card and crammed the two of them into a tiny 12.5-litre chassis that appears to be a similar size as a Sony …
Read More »Asus ROG G752VT Exclusive hands-on preview
Asus is rolling out the big guns with its new Republic Of Gamers G752 gaming laptop and KitGuru has an exclusive preview to show you the hardware in action. The headline features are Intel Skylake Core i7, Nvidia Maxwell graphics and a Full HD 17.3-inch IPS screen with G-Sync technology, …
Read More »QNAP TS-453 Pro Review
At first glance the QNAP TS-453 Pro has little in common with the TS-453mini we recently reviewed, however they share a fair amount of hardware. In particular both NAS are powered by a Celeron J1900 processor that is paired with 2GB or 8GB of DDR3L memory, and naturally they both …
Read More »DinoPC Primal GT5 System Review
DinoPC has burst out of the starting gate with a new gaming PC called Primal GT5 that packs in the latest hardware, however the emphasis is on value for money rather than out-and-out performance. The heart of the system is an overclocked Skylake CPU which is backed up by a …
Read More »With Intel at Shoreditch Studios, London
KitGuru were invited to spend some time with Intel on 21st October at Shoreditch Studios, London. Intel used a photographic studio in a converted railway arch in Shoreditch to display a show case of new laptops from a selection of its partners. KitGuru saw models from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, …
Read More »Gigabyte P55W V4-CF1 Gaming Laptop
Gigabyte has loaded the P55W v4 with a stack of quality hardware that should appeal to gamers who want decent performance without blowing a fortune. The CPU is Intel Broadwell Core i7-5700HW allied to 8GB of DDR3L and the graphics chip is Nvidia GTX 970M. The 15.6-inch screen is a …
Read More »NZXT S340 Special Edition Review
Listen up American readers as we tell you about the NZXT S340 Razer Special Edition. Brits and Europeans will instead have to accept the somewhat obscure ‘NZXT S340 Special Edition' naming, which is apparently something to do with licensing rights to the Razer name. Yes, we didn't leave ‘Razer' out …
Read More »MSI GS40 6QE Phantom (Exclusive Preview)
The starting point for this preview of the MSI GS40 6QE Phantom is a little background reading. KitGuru recently reviewed the 15.6-inch GS60 which has a great deal in common with this 14-inch GS40. Both laptops use the same Core i7-6700HQ CPU and Nvidia GTX 970M graphics and both are …
Read More »Gamerstorm Captain 240 Review
Deepcool is trying something different with its range of GamerStorm Captain All in One liquid coolers. The sizes are conventional (120mm, 240mm and 360mm) however the styling is quite distinct from the usual Asetek hardware we see employed by the likes of Corsair, NZXT and Thermaltake. According to Deepcool the …
Read More »be quiet! Silent Base 600 (Windowed) Review
be quiet! began its foray into the case market with the high end Silent Base 800 and now it is tackling the mid-range with the Silent Base 600. The 600 uses an ATX form factor, just like the 800, and launches in two versions. There is a regular model with …
Read More »PowerNAS CMA 8TB Review
PowerNAS has used a novel approach during the development of the CMA (it stands for Converged Media Appliance). To their way of thinking this Windows 8.1 PC can act as a replacement for three separate pieces of hardware and bring together the home PC, media centre PC and NAS Server …
Read More »Synology DiskStation DS715 Review
Synology's DiskStation DS715 borrows an interesting feature from the DS1515 that we recently reviewed. Look on the rear panel of this dual bay NAS and you will see that in addition to the dual Gigabit Ethernet and two USB 3.0 ports you also get an eSATA connector. This port can …
Read More »ASRock N3000 BeeBox Review
ASRock Beebox is a small form factor PC with a volume of a mere 0.6 litres that is powered by an Intel Braswell processor. We're looking at an N3000 which runs on a dual core CPU with passive cooling and this makes the Beebox name seem a bit silly as …
Read More »SilverStone FTZ01B Review
You can think of the SilverStone FTZ01 as a member of the Fortress Series Z with a B suffix for Black or S for Silver. FTZ01 is described as a ‘premium slim form factor case with superior thermodynamics and construction' and while these claims are correct they tell only part …
Read More »PowerNAS Business Mini Review
If you are a fan of model names that describe a product in a fair amount of detail then the PowerNAS Business Mini will be right up your street. PowerNAS offers three families of NAS and this model is loaded with Windows Server 2012 R2 for the business market. It …
Read More »Amkov AMK5000S 1080p Sports Action Camera Review
You can spend a small fortune on an action cam or you score this Amkov AMK5000S for £70 in the UK. Indeed Gearbest, the company that sent us the AMK5000S, sells the cam for US$70 which is even cheaper. That's pretty amazing when you consider the package includes a waterproof …
Read More »Cooler Master MasterCase 5 & Pro 5 Review
At KitGuru we have covered MasterCase 5 from the time it appeared at Computex and again during our recent visit to the Cooler Master European HQ. It has been a long few months and now it is time to get away from words about concepts and instead dish up a …
Read More »DinoPC Raptor Watercooled System Review
The Raptor is a watercooled gaming system from DinoPC that combines an unlocked Haswell-E Core i7 with dual GTX 980Ti graphics cards. That's an overclocked CPU with an extra Gigahertz of grunt and two overclocked graphics cards, each running at 1220MHz instead of the usual 1000MHz. Speed is very much …
Read More »QNAP TS-453mini NAS Review
It may not be immediately apparent that the QNAP TS-453mini is a NAS that accommodates up to four 3.5-inch hard drives. Its tiny footprint (200mmx151mm) requires the bare minimum of shelf space, however that isn't the natural environment for this particular NAS. Take a look on the rear and you'll …
Read More »KitGuru visit Cooler Master HQ in Eindhoven
Cooler Master held a Press briefing at their European HQ in Eindhoven. In part they wanted to show off their new building but mainly they wanted to talk some more about their ‘Master' concept. In the past Eindhoven was a Philips town but these days their manufacturing is subcontracted which …
Read More »Lenovo ThinkPad YOGA 15 Laptop review
Lenovo offers its YOGA 15 Ultrabook in a number of different versions (we count at least five SKUs) however the fundamentals remain the same. This convertible laptop is built around a magnesium-alloy frame and boasts a heavy-duty Dragontrail display with a Full HD resolution IPS touch screen panel. The most …
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