December 11, 2014
Featured Tech News, Power Supplies
We aren't messing around today. Up for analysis is the latest flagship power supply from enthusiast favourite EVGA. Their new SuperNova 1600 P2 Power supply is a monster product designed for power crazy SLI and Crossfire systems. It is 80 Plus Platinum certified, fully modular, and incorporates the highest grade …
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December 10, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
Sharp eyed readers will see a strong similarity between this Asus A88X-Gamer motherboard and the MSI A88X-G45 Gaming that we recently reviewed. Fair point. Both motherboards use an AMD A88X chipset to support Socket FM2+ and there is a distinct theme of red and black in the styling. Asus tells …
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December 8, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, PC
We first saw the ASRock M8 Z87 small form factor barebones in the second half of 2013 when it was reviewed by my colleague Luke Hill. This latest Z97 version is a relatively minor refresh with an update to Intel's latest Haswell compatible Z97 chipset. The SFX power supply has …
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December 5, 2014
Featured Tech News, Soundcard
When it comes to upgrading your PC it is usually pretty easy to understand the benefits associated by spending more money. A new CPU and motherboard will give you extra overclocking potential and a snappier system. A new graphics card will give you better gaming performance and a new SSD …
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December 4, 2014
Featured Tech News, Keyboards
Today we are going to look at a mechanical gaming keyboard from a company called Tesoro, the Durandal G1NL. Tesoro are looking to compete with the more established players in the market such as Corsair and Razer who are very popular among the gaming audience. We are excited to see what …
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December 3, 2014
Featured Announcement, Power Supplies
EVGA have earned a fantastic reputation over the years for their selected range of motherboards and graphics cards. Today we look at one of their high end power supplies – the SuperNova 1200 P2. This is a creation with OEM partner, Super Flower. The EVGA SuperNova 1200 P2 supply is …
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December 2, 2014
NAS
Synology's latest two-bay NAS is the DS215j. This model looks very similar to the DS214 and shares almost all of the features, except for the loss of one USB 3.0 port (you get one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0) and a reduction in processor speed. The DS214 uses a …
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December 1, 2014
Featured Announcement, Headphones
Today we are going to look at the latest set of Bluetooth headphones from Arctic – the P614 BT. This headset seeks to break new ground for Arctic, moving the brand into the fiercely competitive premium end of the market. Can they compete? We recently tested another Arctic model which …
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November 30, 2014
Featured Tech News, PC
Falcon Computers supplies this Elite-GT1 Assassin SE as a bare tower priced at £999 inc VAT. If you choose you can also buy peripherals such as mouse, keyboard and screen from Falcon but anyone looking for a gaming upgrade will probably already own those peripherals. Besides, £999 has a nice …
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November 28, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Graphics
Today we take a look at the new modified, custom card created in a partnership with Overclockers UK called the GALAX GeForce GTX 970 OC Silent ‘Infinity Black Edition'. Gibbo at Overclockers has created another custom card built with a nickel plated heatsink and the I/O plate is also nickel …
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November 27, 2014
Featured Tech News, Keyboards
We have seen a sudden influx of RGB based products over the last few months. Corsair has launched a new line of peripherals, Razer swiftly followed suit with its Chroma lineup and now Logitech is jumping in with the Orion Spark G910 Mechanical Keyboard. Main features of this new keyboard include …
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November 27, 2014
Featured Announcement, SSD Drives
Everybody loves speed, and there's no easier way to enhance the snappiness of general usage tasks than by using a solid state drive. But the primary storage interface – SATA 6Gbps – saw its speed limit reached by fast SSD's more than two years ago. If you wanted higher performance, …
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November 26, 2014
Accessories
Today we are going to take a look at one of Arctic's latest mobile accessories, the Power Bank 4000. We have looked at a number of Arctic's mobile accessories over the last few years and have been generally very impressed with the level of quality and value for money that …
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November 25, 2014
Mouse
Today we are looking at the latest gaming mouse from FUNC, the MS-2. With a street price that's expected to level out around £43, it is almost £15 cheaper than its big brother, the MS-3, which launched 18 months ago. This is a mid-sized gaming mouse and according to Func, has …
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November 24, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Graphics
We have been impressed with the wide cross section of GTX970's and GTX980's we have reviewed since Nvidia's official launch. It was interesting to note on launch day that Nvidia didn't sample a reference GTX970, instead relying on partners to supply custom cooled overclocked solutions. Nvidia's distinctive reference cooler has …
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November 24, 2014
Cases, Featured Announcement
Fractal Design has given the Refine R4 a makeover and the result is the Refine R5. If you judge a book by its cover the R5 may not impress you as it looks pretty much identical to the R4 but once you get inside the case you'll find it is …
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November 21, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Routers
We have reviewed many of the latest high performance 802.11AC capable routers in recent months. ASUS recently sent us not one, but two of their RT-AC87U routers to test performance in single and bridge mode. Bridge Mode allows a second RT AC87U to be utilised as a ‘receiver' – theoretically …
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November 21, 2014
Featured Tech News, Mouse
ASUS may be best known for their motherboards but they have a diverse portfolio including graphics cards, cases, peripherals alongside a new range of ‘wearables'. The technology giant has various product ranges – such as the Strix series, aimed at the enthusiast user and designed to supplement the Republic Of …
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November 19, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, SSD Drives
With the price of large capacity Solid State Drives dropping throughout 2014, we felt it was a good time to take a look at the 512GB version of the ADATA SP610. This drive is equipped with the excellent Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller and has dropped in price to around the …
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November 18, 2014
Cases, Featured Tech News
German cooling company be quiet! has taken the bold step of creating its first PC case, the Silent Base 800. The company name and the model name both effectively promise this new case will be very quiet indeed, and that is something we fully appreciate – but of course we …
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November 17, 2014
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
With the highest possible compute performance that consumers can purchase, Intel's Haswell-E processors and the X99 chipset make a viable combination for users with demanding workloads. If the price, features, and performance are right, there's nothing stopping a semi-professional buying a consumer-grade motherboard to house their LGA2011-3 CPU and DDR4 memory. Bearing that in mind, …
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November 14, 2014
Software & Gaming
Ubisoft has announced that it will be changing its review policies following the controversial 12 hour post-release embargo placed on all Assassin's Creed: Unity reviews. Earlier this week, several review outlets made it widely known that potential buyers wouldn't be seeing reviews straight away due to what could only be …
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November 14, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Mouse
Peripheral makers love to stand out from the crowd. That often means adding any number of features to their latest peripheral just to catch your eye, be it new colour schemes, lighting options, adjustable weights or anything else they can think of. That is all well and good, but what if …
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November 12, 2014
Cases, Featured Tech News
Today we are going to take a look at another new case from Aerocool, the Xpredator Cube. Like the Strike-X Cube that we reviewed recently, the Xpredator Cube is a micro-ATX model which is targeted at those users looking to build a compact gaming system, with room for powerful components. We …
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November 11, 2014
Featured Announcement, Graphics
Today we take a look at the custom Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming – the latest in a line of reviews featuring Nvidia's new game changing Maxwell architecture. The Gigabyte G1 Gaming card ships with a custom cooler and ‘out of the box' clock enhancements. How does it stack up against …
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November 10, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
While the Haswell-E CPUs and X99-based motherboards of Intel's newest HEDT platform put a considerable dent in the pocket of any enthusiast, there are ways to lighten the cost burden. We recently reviewed the six-core 5820K and found it to be an excellent choice for users who value compute performance …
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November 7, 2014
Featured Tech Reviews, Mouse
Corsair products tend to be pretty popular among gamers, whether it be RAM, AIO units, power supplies or gaming peripherals. We recently witnessed the launch of ‘Corsair Gaming' the company's new brand for mice, keyboards and headsets, promising fancy RGB lighting. We have already taken a look at the brand new K70 …
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November 6, 2014
Featured Announcement, Graphics
Today we finally get the chance to look at Sapphire's R9 290X Vapor X 8GB graphics card. Prices of Ultra HD 4k screens may have dropped in price recently – but sadly this is only part of the overall cost. Driving smooth frames at 3,840×2,160 places a very intense demand …
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November 5, 2014
Cases, Cooling, Featured Tech Reviews
The NZXT S340 is a mid-tower case that employs a sleek design with styling that makes it almost look as though it is shrunk-wrap around your ATX motherboard. It is available in either black or white. The front panel is shiny painted steel with no optical drive bay to cause …
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November 3, 2014
Cases, Featured Tech News
Today we are going to take a look at one of the latest cases from Aerocool, the Strike-X Cube. This is one of the latest models in their range and is directed at those users looking to build a powerful system within a compact case. It offers support for a …
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