Hardware

“Gamers, take notice. Rivals, take notes.” Hello hardware enthusiast. For today’s review menu we are serving 100% American made high quality memory modules from Mushkin. The exact kit on review today is the all new Redline Ridgeback 8GB Dual-Channel DDR4-2666MHz (15-15-15-35) (997192T). The world got it’s first taste of Mushkin’s …

“To ‘Upgrade Your Life’ is the idea behind GIGABYTE” Hello hardware enthusiast. We will now take a look at the the GIGABYTE GTX 950 Xtreme Gaming 2GB. As this is GIGABYTE’s flagship GTX 950 a quick glance at the feature list shows GIGABYTE has cut no corners when producing the …

The Cooler Master Jas Mini is one of those products you don’t think a lot about but if your phone is your lifeline at home or at work the Jas Mini is a product you might want to take a Look at. It’s marketed as an iphone iPad Mini accessory but …

About HAVIT “After being liberated from the shackles of machines by advancing technology, weary people finally get time to pursue their ideal life – this is what Thoreau said in his masterpiece Walden. HAVIT has realized that what we should seek is not technology itself, but a more beautiful life. …

INTRODUCTION Crucial is no rookie when it comes to the memory and SSD game, so an introduction to the company as a whole is mostly unnecessary. The introduction that does need to take place however, is the introduction of Micron’s first 16nm TLC SSDs, the BX200 line. Aimed at users …

Introduction Not too long ago ASUS decided to get into Network Attached Storage (NAS) by launching its ASUSTOR brand.  Now the NAS market is relatively well established with its group of brands, so we were a bit surprised when the ASUSTOR entered the race in 2011. This market has become …

G.Skill TridentZ DDR 4 DC 3200 MHz When it comes to computers faster bigger and badder is better and speed in computing is a factor of money and carefully selected components that keep you off the Ramen shelves at your local grocers. Processor speed has always been king in computing …

ROG MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT Introduction Hello hardware enthusiast. Today we look at one of the most impressive and awe inspiring manifestations of technology to grace the Bjorn3D lab, The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII IMPACT. The latest iteration of the Maximus IMPACT pushes the boundaries of what can be expected from a …

XFX 4GB R7 370 When it comes to computers and building our own personal computers one of the questions we need to ask ourselves what exactly are we going to be using this computer for? Now most of the time when we ask ourselves this question we answer ourselves with …

Seagate 8TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5″ HDD v5 (ST8000NM0055) We all need storage on our computers and we’ve seen 4 and 5 drive setups with cables running willy nilly through machines until it looks like a mass of electrical spaghetti bulging the motherboard side of the computer case out. Most of …

Razer Kraken Mobile It seems like most of the population is carrying a mobile device with them these days, whether it is a phone, a tablet or a laptop, and you can see the changes it’s made in society on a daily basis. People are walking down the streets sporting …

INTRODUCTION Raijintek may be a name you are not quite familiar with, and neither were we, before our recent review of their TRITON all-in-one watercooling kit. After a good first introduction, Raijintek is back with their STYX Micro-ATX case. The Raijintek STYX brings stylish looks and a nearly all aluminum …

OtterBox Note5 Cases We have the distinct pleasure today to review the new OtterBox cases for the new Samsung Note5 smart phone. We were lucky enough that OtterBox sent us the Defender, Commuter and Symmetry line of cases which make up their entire line for the new Note5. Now while …

Razer Orochi 2015 Gaming Laptop Mouse Razer has released a new Orochi, we’ve had the pleasure of having the original Orochi around the lab for years and it’s seen many business trips but we are glad to see the new model as 7 long years of good service on the …

Seagate Desktop SSHD 4TB ST4000DX001 Consumer Hybrid HD Review A SSHD is the marriage of a platter hard drive and a SSD Controller linked to the same Nand flash used in a Solid State Drive. The drive electronics are a little more sophisticated than a regular platter drive deciding what …

Water cooling used to be something only the absolute computer enthusiast would try their hands on. The idea to bring a conductive liquid inside a computer full with expensive components was not something anyone would find appealing, especially since you had to rely on your own skills when it came …

XFX R9 Fury Pro Triple Dissipation “XFX dares to go where the competition would like to, but can’t. That’s because, at XFX, we don’t just create great digital video components—we build all-out, mind-blowing, performance-crushing, competition-obliterating video cards, power supplies, and computer accessories. And, not only are they amazing, you don’t …

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 MARK 1 One bright sunny morning the design team at ASUS held a meeting, the topic being; “What can be done to make the new SABERTOOTH Z170 MARK 1 worthy of it’s name?” One employee suggested they bathe the motherboard in bright flashy colors and use sub …

Razer Diamondback 2015 Hello hardware enthusiast. We are now going to take a look at the beautiful re-imagining of the legendary Razer Diamondback.  Originally designed with the help of the greatest eSports athletes of the time period, the 2004 World Cyber Games saw the debut of the Diamondback featuring the …

Cooler Master MasterCase 5 With Freeform Modular System Cooler Master was founded in 1992 by one man working out of a rented apartment with his staff being nothing more than a secretary who handled the admin part of the business. Roger (the founder) worked at innovating, inventing building and marketing …

EVGA GTX 950 SSC ACX 2.0 EVGA serves up a beautiful GTX 950 Super SuperClock ACX 2.0 sporting 768 Shader units 32 ROPs, 2940 million transistors with 2 GB od high-speed GDDR5 running across a 128-bit bus. The EVGA GTX 950 SSC ACX 2.0 gets a factory overclock to 1190 …

Introduction ASUS was founded back in 1989 and has a long history in the computer hardware industry and their product line virtually encompasses all aspects of the computer hardware industry. Their product lines cover motherboards, graphics cards, headsets, mice, keyboards, networking, drives, tablets, notebooks, desktops, monitors and I am sure …

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME Every generation of chip-sets manufacturers carefully design and implement their Flagship offering and we wait with bated breath to see whats been put on the offering plate. The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME is the top dog Flagship simply crammed with every feature a person can think of …

Hello hardware enthusiast. Today we take a look at EVGA’s Z170 FTW. One of three motherboards available from EVGA for the new Z170 platform along with the flagship Classified board, and the M-ATX Stinger. Available now on featuring a new BIOS GUI interface, a highly efficient VRM, a CPU socket that has 1.5X …

Razer Mamba Intro & Unboxing Razer has a long tradition of revamping their products to meet the ever-changing needs of today’s gamers and the Razer Mamba is no exception to that rule. Razer actually went a little modest in naming this mouse just the “Razer Mamba” , it’s more the …

HyperX Savage 16GB Dual-Channel 3000MHz DDR4 When Skylake came out we were tantalized with the possibilities for high-speed RAM exceeding existing top end kits. Kingston was nice enough to send over a Kingston HyperX Savage 3000MHz kit for us to check out, and with 16GB of dual-channel Savage timed at …

INTRODUCTION Traditionally, OCZ has offered two lines of SSDs: the Vector for the high-end and enthusiasts users, and the ARC for the mainstream and budget market. As you may recall, OCZ was purchased by Toshiba back in 2014 and today, the release of the Trion 100 marks the first new …

INTRODUCTION Raijintek may be a name you have never heard. Don’t feel alone though, as we had not heard about this company until earlier this summer when we started to notice reviews for their products popping up here and there. Founded in 2013, Raijintek is a Taiwanese company that utilizes …

Mini-PC’s usually come with a lot of compromises due to their small size. They for example rarely are fit for any serious gaming. The Zotac Magnus EN970 though is different. It still is a small mini-PC, although not as small as some of the other Zotac mini-PC’s we have reviewed, …

INTRODUCTION Breaking into the network attached storage (NAS) industry is no easy task these days, as competition for users’ data storage is fierce. Thankfully for ASUSTOR, they entered the industry in 2011. With the NAS industry growing by leaps and bounds, the products that a company must offer to potential …

ASUS Strix GTX 950 DC2OC ASUS released the Strix GTX 950 DC2OC at an Entry / Mainstream price of $159.99 and previous to the GTX 950 NVIDIA was stuck at the $200 price point with the GTX 960. The GTX 960 $200 price point left them vulnerable to sub $200 AMD video cards covering that …

XFX R9 380 4G Double dissipation Black Edition No body in the GPU manufacturing community does a Black Edition like XFX does and when they release an XFX R9 380 4G Double Dissipation Black Edition we wanted to be first in line to grab one and get it on the …

Mushkin Atlas Vital 250GB M.2 2280 SSD The ever-growing need for hard drive speed is being met in a variety of ways, while E-Sata is taking the rear of the pack on development and Sata 6G has reached its bandwidth limit HD pioneers like Mushkin are pressing on to the …

Mushkin Striker 480GB SSD, Mush On! Mushkin has been around since 1994 and become an industry leader and recognized for its high quality performance products and their design philosophy of continual innovation and delivering product “Wow” through quality products and unparalleled customer service. In their continual drive to innovate Mushkin …

INTRODUCTION Outside of typical PC components like CPUs, motherboards, and video cards, it seems like the fastest growing segment of PC-related consumer electronics is the network attached storage (NAS) field. NAS units are often found performing the duty of their namesake; storing files that are accessible via either a LAN …

Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2016 Edition The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2016 Edition is a mechanical keyboard featuring Razers proprietary award-winning mechanical keys.  Razers put a lot of engineering into their key setup to have a tactile response on actuation and a short reset return. Normal keys take a 2.2mm ± 0.6mm …

Introduction I am sure when most users hear the name Creative Sound Blaster, they think it synonymous with computer audio perfection, because many of the top gaming boards feature Sound Blaster audio. Today we will be looking at the new Sound Blaster E5 USB DAC & headphone amplifier with Bluetooth. …

Crucial Ballistix 2400MHz 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 Review Intel dropped the initial Skylake offerings and naturally there’s a bevy of new Motherboards and Ram flooding the component pipeline faster than ever before. Crucial is always ready for a new platform and today we have a kit of Ballistix 2400MHz 16GB dual Channel …

Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2666 (16 16 16) Dual Channel Review Skylake processors landed with a thundering applause and stores are sold out of the I7 6700K and production can’t keep up with demand yet. Since it’s not Intel’s “HEDP” High End Desktop Platform it uses Dual Channel Ram. The …