Tag Archives: Review

Recently there has been a definite trend to having bigger mobile devices. Smartphone flagships are well over 5 inches in size now, and tablets are getting bigger too – just take a look at the 13.3 inch iPad Pro. It is refreshing, then, to see ARCHOS buck the trend with …

There are an extraordinary number of Z170 motherboards currently available to buy, of which a substantial proportion of these directly target the growing PC Gaming market. While it is true that Gaming motherboards tend to be more expensive than non-Gaming counterparts, due to the extra design work and features implemented …

When thinking about which SSD to buy Transcend might not be the first name that springs to mind but they have been in the Flash storage game for many years. They have a range of SSD's for both consumer and industrial market segments using a variety of controllers and NAND. The …

Corsair was the first keyboard maker in the world to hit the market with Cherry's MX RGB switches and now, they are teaming up once again with the brand new Corsair K70 RAPIDFIRE RGB keyboard featuring Cherry's all new MX Speed switches – designed to actuate faster than any other switch …

Early last year we reviewed the ECS LIVA X, and now there is an updated version – the X2. On the face of it, the LIVA X2 has changed slightly, as it is now white not black, and it has rounded, rather than square, edges. We will also look at how …

The Asus Republic Of Gamers GX700 is the world's first liquid cooled production laptop. We're only using the word ‘production' as you know there will be a modder out there saying ‘Nope, I liquid cooled mine years ago.' So, ROG GX700 is a gaming laptop with Skylake Core i7 CPU …

The introduction of the Skylake platform by Intel successfully brought DDR4 to the “mainstream” market, previously DDR4 uptake had been limited by the high entry costs of the only supported consumer platform at the time, X99. As a direct result of the larger market for DDR4 afforded by Skylake there …

Today we are taking a look at the new Plantronics RIG 500E which incorporates a dramatic modular system allowing the user to customise everything about the headset and to switch out specific components whenever desired. The Plantronics RIG 500E is the eSports model in the range but it offers plenty of …

The FiercePC Imperial Stormer is a gaming PC that squeezes a custom-built water-cooling loop and some very nifty lighting effects into a rather svelte Corsair Chassis. This enables a mighty 4.7GHz overclock for the Intel Core i7-6700K, which coupled with a GeForce GTX 970 – delivers some very good performance …

SanDisk’s X400 is the successor to the X300/X300s series and is aimed at the corporate/mainstream market segments. It can be seen as an improved combination of both previous drives as it has the 256-bit AES encryption of the S version of the X300 built in as standard. The X400 family …

NZXT has launched a Mini-ITX case called Manta that breaks the rules, defies expectations and looks pretty darned cute into the bargain. Take a look at our video and photos and you will see that all the panels on the Manta are curved. This is a novel styling trick that …

The design of MSI Vortex clearly borrows a fair amount from the latest Apple Mac Pro, however there is more to this tiny powerhouse of a PC than meets the eye. Apple packs a Xeon and dual AMD FirePro GPUs inside the Mac Pro and aims directly at the workstation …

In the world of extreme headphone hifi, the Sennheiser HD800 have earned legendary status. Since their launch seven years ago the HD800 have not only managed to hold their own against cutting edge planar phones but in relative terms they have proved somewhat of a bargain. Sennheiser have released a …

Retailing just under £110, MSI's Z170A SLI Plus is targeting Skylake users with an eye on SLI support for their graphics subsystem. With the Z170A SLI Plus motherboard's use of an Intel NIC and largely black colour scheme, MSI is aiming to perk the interest of mainstream users who may …

The Gladiator Apocalypse has a quad-core Skylake processor with a 3.2GHz Turbo Clock, 8GB of memory and a GeForce GTX 970, and costs just £750. While that’s a purely mid-range specification, it’s more than enough to enjoy PC games at high detail settings at 1080p resolution. Good news, folks. Around …

Although we spend a lot of time here extolling the virtues of mechanical keyboards and their switches, there is no denying that they are generally quite expensive. This is why sometimes you have to consider membrane designs. With Speedlink's membrane based Parthica Core, you get programmable buttons, backlighting options, macro …

While set-top streaming boxes are a fairly saturated marketplace, most of these boxes don't take aim at gamers with powerful enough hardware. However, this is not the case with the Nvidia Shield Android TV, a sleek and small streaming box powered by the Tegra X1 20nm SoC, which utilises the Maxwell …

When Phanteks first launched its Enthoo Mini XL case we were, in almost equal measure, impressed and confused. This was an enormous Micro-ATX case that offered the option of installing two systems at the same time in one PC chassis. It took a fair amount of work to build the …

Today Corsair release two new SFX power supplies – the aptly named SF450 and SF600, in 450 watt and 600 watt capacities respectively. One of the talking points with these power supplies is the adoption of large 92mm fans, breaking the SFX trend of 80mm or smaller ‘noisemakers'. This should …

At 24 inches, BenQ’s latest IPS display has the smallest diagonal screen size of any 4K screen we’ve tested so far, which normally come in 27-inch or 32-inch sizes. With a price of around £400, that also makes it a lot more affordable than its competitors and the most reasonable …

The Deepcool Genome is an ATX case supplied with a 360mm liquid cooling system that is already installed. The integrated nature of Genome speeds up the process of your PC build however that is only part of the story as the helix liquid reservoir is clearly visible at the front …

The Asus ProArt PA329Q is the company’s new flagship professional-grade display for colour-accurate graphic design work. It’s a 32-inch screen, sporting a 10-bit IPS panel with a 14-bit look-up table, resulting in an impressive 100% quoted Adobe RGB coverage. Asus is clearly single minded about capturing a vast chunk of …

Today we are looking at one of the new power supplies from leading German brand be quiet! The new Pure Power 9 range is a dual 12V rail design which has achieved 80 Plus Silver certification. The new design adopts a 120mm noise optimised fan and is modular, with high …

Dell has been producing some of the most powerful gaming laptops since well before it purchased Alienware almost exactly a decade ago. The original XPS Gen2 was one of the most potent gaming laptops in its day, and the XPS brand has been synonymous with entertainment prowess ever since. However, …

As much as the landscape of mechanical gaming keyboards is a competitive one, that does not stop Roccat from offering a wide range of keyboards for consumers. Along with the compact Ryos TKL Pro we reviewed last year, there is also the Ryos MK FX to consider. This larger variant …

The Linksys WRT1900ACS is a 3×3 802.11ac router with the brand’s signature chunky blue design along with some fairly powerful innards. A dual-core 1.6GHz processor and 512MB of memory powers a graphics-heavy interface that’s chock full of useful features to give you plenty of control over your home network. The …

Many high-end mechanical keyboards come with a full set of USB and audio passthroughs, 16.8 million-colour backlighting and a host of dedicated macro keys. But what if you just want a basic mechanical keyboard that still provides a good typing experience without breaking the bank? Enter the Tesoro Excalibur V2. …

Today we are looking at the ADATA XPG SX930, a drive focused on gamers utilizing ‘enterprise grade' MLC NAND. Past XPG-series products have performed very well but will this drive continue that legacy? Let's find out… The XPG SX930 SATA 6Gb/s SSD is specifically for gamers and apparently overclockers as well with …

At first glance you may well think the Fractal Design Define Nano S mini tower case supports a Micro-ATX motherboard but in fact it is Mini-ITX. This is a little unexpected, partly because it stands 344mm tall, but also because a quick look inside reveals a massive amount of space. …

While there has been no shortage of RGB keyboards over the last year, there has been a distinct lack of RGB keyboards with Cherry MX switches. Fortunately, it looks like that is starting to change as Cooler Master is launching two new keyboards today- the Master Keys Pro S and …