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Category: Audio
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Published: Thursday, 23 March 2023 12:40
Every time I see a TikTok or YouTube video where I see someone interviewing people using a phone as a microphone I die a little inside. There are a lot of different microphone options out there and Anker under their AnkerWork brand is jumping into the mix with their new M650 Wireless Microphone. The M650 is a pair of wireless microphones with a few mounting options paired up with a receiver that can be hooked up to your mobile phone or a DSLR or can be used remotely to store recordings. The design is focused on content creators or businesses who are recording content that want a simple way to get quality audio, today I’m going to take a closer look and see what all the M650’s have going on and how they perform.
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Category: Smart Home
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Published: Monday, 20 March 2023 16:41
The eufy security brand from Anker has had a range of indoor and outdoor camera options including multiple that we have taken a look at. Up until now though each has been an improvement on products that we have seen from other companies like the Floodlight Pro 2 having a pan and tilt camera, the Video Doorbell Dual having a second camera to keep an eye on packages, and most recently the Video Smart Lock which combines a smart lock, doorbell, and video camera. Their latest camera though is a little different. The S100 Wired Wall Light Cam takes what they have been doing with the floodlight cameras and does the same thing with another outside light. In some situations, it is nice to have your camera visible as a deterrent, but other times something more discrete is better for the job and that’s where the S100 fits in with it being a camera in an outside wall sconce. So today I’m going to check it out, install it, and then see how it performs.
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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Thursday, 16 March 2023 09:02
With Nvidia’s latest generation of cards all having the new 12VHPWR connection (at least with the Founders Editions), it didn’t take long for power supply companies to follow suit with Intel’s new ATX 3.0 standard which adds the new cable into the mix. This also means that we are seeing a lot of new power supplies hitting the market as most companies have been adding ATX 3.0 into their product stack and be quiet is no different. Their first generation of ATX 3.0 power supplies is the Dark Power 13 lineup and they have sent their 850-watt model over. Today I’m going to check out what features they have included, be quiet power supplies have been quality units for a long time now and I’m excited to see what they have done to put their spin on things with the Dark Power 13 so let’s dive in.
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Category: Audio
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Published: Tuesday, 14 March 2023 17:21
This month I’m celebrating my 15 anniversary of doing reviews and in that time I’ve covered a lot of amazing products. But when you have access to a wide variety of hardware what you use day to day changes up often, but there is one product that I have been using for 8 years now. Sound blaster’s X7 DAC and amp paired up with a set of bookshelf speakers and a powered sub. Not only do I use the X7 with my speakers but also for my wired headphones as well. So when I saw Sound Blaster launched the X5 which is an external dual DAC along with a headphone amp I had to check it out. So today I’m going to see what the new X5 has to offer and put it to the test to see how it performs.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Thursday, 09 March 2023 11:44
The AMD RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX launches this past December were exciting. AMDs latest generation of cards showed that the giant cards that Nvidia had recently launched weren’t the only option with the upcoming generation and they had impressive performance as well. Sadly I didn’t get to see Sapphire's take on the new generation of cards but that changes today. They sent over the Sapphire RX 7900 XT Pulse and today I’m going to dive in and see what it has going on and then put it through our test suite to see how it performs. I’m especially curious to see how it compares to AMDs reference design as well as the RTX 4070 Ti and we can take a second look now and see how the 7900 XT fits in the market now that things have had time to settle down post-launch. So let’s dive in!
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Tuesday, 07 March 2023 23:28
Just last week in the middle of the night we had a train derailment about a block up the road from my house which took out the power for a day. While I had a few lights I could run, I let all of my UPS’s run down not knowing it would be a long outage. I ended up being not prepared at all to keep my mobile devices charged up. I ran my phone down not being able to sleep watching videos so in the morning without power I couldn’t charge it. I was able to charge it in the car as well as my drone which even with three batteries was also completely dead. But it left me wondering what I could do differently. The typical USB battery backup is nice but I’m the worst at keeping them plugged in. I came across an option from Anker that I thought might help me though, their 733 Power Bank (GaNPrime PowerCore 65W). It is essentially a three-port 65-watt USB adapter but with a battery built in as well and the idea for me at least is that I would keep it plugged in using it as a charger and have something fully charged and ready to go if the power goes out. Today I’m going to check it out and see if it will fit the bill, so let's dive in!
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Category: Other
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Published: Thursday, 02 March 2023 15:33
When it comes to mobile computing there is a wide variety of the types of devices that you can go with but one thing that is consistent with them is that adding additional desktop real estate can be complicated. Unlike with a desktop PC where you can buy whatever monitor you would like and add as many as you want as well. Doing that with your laptop is like buying an anchor. Either you will only be able to use it when docked at that location or you are transporting a large monitor which short of LANs isn’t something that I would do. Thankfully there are portable monitor options and like with desktop monitors they have been improving. Today I’m going to check out the 16B1P3300 from Philips which is a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display with HDR support to see if it fits the bill to pair up with my 13-inch Razer Blade Stealth 13.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Monday, 27 February 2023 14:04
AMDs 7000 Series CPU launches brought along with it the new AM5 socket which now uses an LGA socket style as well as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 as well. For CPUs they have a variety of options and their performance has been impressive. The one exception to that is looking at gaming performance when compared to AMDs own Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU which was the first desktop processor to have a stacked 3D L3 cache. This was a late addition to the 5000 series of CPUs and offered staggering performance in cache-limited situations, especially gaming. Well for the 7000 series they have announced three 3D CPUs, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D. The two Ryzen 9 CPUs are launching tomorrow February 28th and they did send over the 7950X3D for testing so today I’m going to see how it performs.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 23 February 2023 15:41
When it comes to external or portable storage there is just about any option you may be able to think of available. But because they are external, the enclosure takes up a lot of extra space and you are limited to the connection option that it comes with originally. SanDisk recently introduced a new lineup to their professional lineup that they call Pro-Blade and with that, they have M. 2-based SSDs in compact mags and then multiple dock options depending on how you are planning to use it. I’ve been looking for external backup options for our main server and these stood out as a good option paired up with the Pro-Blade Transport and today I’m going to put them to the test to see how they perform.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Thursday, 09 February 2023 09:56
With the launch of Intel’s new 13-gen CPUs, they did also introduce a few new 700 series chipsets with the flagship Z790 chipset being the only one available at the time of launch. Like with the 600 series chipsets, Intel has left the memory to be flexible with motherboard manufacturers having the choice to go with DDR4 or DDR5 which means there are a LOT of options available and one of those is the MSI MPG Z790 Edge WiFi DDR4 which falls into the middle of the pack for MSI’s lineup overall but is their highest end DDR4 motherboard with a unique silver theme for its cooling. Today I’m going to check out more of what the Z790 Edge DDR4 has to offer, so let’s dive in.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:13
Lexar has continued to expand their SSD lineup including the addition of their Lexar NM800 Pro which is available with and without a compact heatsink. The NM800 Pro sports an NNOGRIT 1G5236CAA controller which gives it PCIe Gen 4 capabilities and Lexar has it listed with read speeds up to 7450 MB/s and 6500 MB/s for its write speeds, at least on the 2TB model. This lines up well with other Gen 4 SSDs. Lexar is a long-respected brand and they gave their Pro-branded SSD a five-year warranty so I’m excited to put their new drive to the test and see how it performs. Today I will take a closer look to see what secrets it has to offer then we can run it through our test suite to see how it performs to find out if this is the drive to consider next time you are shopping for a new SSD.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 26 January 2023 16:22
It feels like most of the time there are the same names over and over again but every once in a while someone new does jump into the mix. The brand Fantom Drives isn’t new to the industry, they and their parent company Micronet Technology have been around since 1988 but even after all of that time today is the first time that we have had a Fantom Drives product come into the office. Today I’m going to check out the Fantom Drives Venom8, a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD. I’m going to take a closer look at the drive to see what it is all about then put it through our test suite, so let’s dive in and see how it performs!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Monday, 23 January 2023 12:49
I’m late to the party on this one but late this last fall Kingston expanded their DDR4 lineup of their gaming sub-brand FURY with a special edition to their FURY Beast DDR4 which features a bright white heat spreader and RGB lighting, both of which are now staples in what my niece calls the “streamer” style PC build. While DDR5 is growing in popularity with Intel and AMD's latest CPUs both supporting it. There are still people who are opting to go with DDR4 with Intel builds and older AMD chipsets which are still a much better value. So today I’m going to check out what the FURY Beast DDR4 RGB Special Edition is all about with their 3600 MHz 32GB kit.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:44
At CES this year AMD announced a few things in their CPU lineup including their upcoming 7000 series 3D CPUs and they also introduced three new non-X CPUs for their previously launched 7000 series of CPUs. The CPUs are the Ryzen 9 7900, the Ryzen 7 7700, and the Ryzen 5 7600. All three share a lot including core and thread counts to their similarly named X brothers but all three have lowered TDP wattages down to 65 watts which is to offer options for people not looking for something as extreme as the initially launched CPUs and for small form factor builds which are a lot more limited in cooling. If you have been around here in the past I love small form factor builds, especially builds focused on LAN use and this was an exciting announcement on that front. I’m a little late to the party on testing them but just received all three CPUs and today we are going to check them out and see how they compare so let’s dive in!
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Category: Audio
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Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 11:25
With some companies, it feels like they are just constantly pumping out new products but then you have other companies who focus on a smaller niche and take their time with upcoming products. Antlion Audio without a doubt falls into that second category. Antlion Audio reached out about a product they were testing back at the start of the pandemic and they had already been working on it for a long time to have prototypes but they sent one over just to get some feedback on. While spring of 2020 feels like its only been a year, a REALLY long year its been a lot longer than that and in that time they have been battling to get things perfect in their eyes and today is finally the day that they are introducing their new product which they call Kimura. Kimura is a new microphone setup combined with an in-ear monitor. They aren’t the first to do it, but as they did with the ModMic they are hoping to show what can really be done. So today I’m going to check out the Kimura Duo which comes with two in-ear monitors and we are going to see what they are all about and then put them to the test so let’s dive in!
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Category: Smart Home
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Published: Thursday, 12 January 2023 08:53
The popularity of video doorbells has taken off over the last few years but long before that people have been upgrading their locks. Starting with older programable locks with codes which have now moved on to full smart locks that can be controlled by codes, your smartphone, and even by fingerprints. What if you combined those two together? That is what eufy Security did with their latest security product, the Video Smart Lock. They took their previous smart lock which had a touch screen and a fingerprint sensor and integrated one of their 2k resolution cameras into it and a doorbell button. Together they eliminate the need for two different products at your front door. I’ve been putting it to the test so today we will take a closer look at it and then go over how it has been working. Let’s get into it!
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Category: Networking
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Published: Tuesday, 10 January 2023 13:31
If you haven’t been paying close attention to WiFi standards over the last few years the change in naming might be confusing. Especially having WiFi AC switching to WiFi 5. The part where things get even more confusing though is when we have WiFi 6 and then later WiFi 6E. Officially both fall under the 802.11ax standard but the E designation adds the 6 GHz band alongside 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz which have been used in the past. I’ve taken a look at multiple WiFi 6 products but with 6E I have had devices that support it but no access point to check it out yet. Well, EnGenius has finally brought out their ECW336 WiFi 6E access point and today I’m going to check out what sets it apart from their WiFi 6 models so let’s dive in and check it out.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 14:26
In addition to the Asus card that Nvidia sent over for the RTX 4070 Ti launch, MSI also sent over their flagship RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. Their Suprim lineup always goes way over the top on cooling performance and the X means that this is also an overclocked card. So today I’m going to check out the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X to see if MSI is still keeping the Suprim styling as a clean opulent model which focuses on better build quality and performance. Without a Founders Edition for the new RTX 4070 Ti that leaves a big opening for anyone like me who may not want the crazy “gamer” styling that most cards have and the styling and build quality that the Founders Editon cards have. Will this be the best option when shopping for an RTX 4070 Ti? I’m going to check out what sets it apart and then put it through our test suite to find out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 09:00
Well here we are in the new year and with it being CES time there are lots of new tech announcements and Nvidia has pulled the cover off of their latest 4000 Series GPU the RTX 4070 Ti and this is a case of what is old is new again as those of you who have been paying attention may recognize this as the unlaunched RTX 4080 12GB. After fixing that mistake and renaming the card we finally have the chance to check out Nvidia’s planned step below the RTX 4080. This is great timing as well, this is the first card launched after AMD’s 7900 XT and 7900 XTX and the 4070 Ti looks positioned to compete with the 7900 XT. The new cards don’t have a Founders Edition sadly but Nvidia along with Asus has sent over the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC that I’m going to check out so let’s learn a little more about the RTX 4070 Ti and then check out what Asus’s card is all about.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 23 December 2022 19:30
The Logitech launched the G502 back in 2014 which at the time was a complete departure from the “Logitech” styling and quickly became their edgy styling for years. While most of the Logitech mice have moved back to a smoother style, the G502 was so iconic that its design has stuck around with Logitech updating it every few years to the latest hardware and adding a Lightspeed model back in 2019 as well. So when they announced an updated G502 lineup it wasn’t a complete surprise, but with it being a full lineup, not just one or two mice that was a surprise. The new lineup has the G502 X product name and includes a basic G502 X which is the wired version, the G502 X Lightspeed which is wireless, and the G502 X Plus which is wireless as well but has Lightsync RGB lighting as well. All three are now available in black or white as well which is a big change. The G502 X Plus is the model that Logitech sent over for us to check out and is what I have been testing for a few weeks now so let’s dive into the new design.
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