After the success of the Hyper X Cloud Pro Gaming headset Kingston went back to the drawing board to make a product that would be a worthy successor. The question was, how do you top something that is that good? The Hyper X Cloud Pro was (and still is) an amazing headset. The sealed enclosures for the larger than normal drivers along with the tuning make them one of the best headsets you can get for the money. Kingston’s team decided that throwing in their own USB audio controller, complete with simulated surround and amp, would be a good start. We had the chance to play with a set during CES 2015 and also got one to bring home. Since then we have used them in multiple environments and with more audio sources than we can really put in a single article. So now we can tell you if the Hyper X Cloud Pro II is worthy of the name or not.

A couple of days ago we published an article on the state of AMD and what their immediate (next 18 months) looked like. In that article we looked at the state that AMD is in right now with what they have on the table…. It seems that a few readers did not like what we had to say. Oddly enough, yesterday a number of articles popped up on the internet that supported much of what we had to say including many of the time lines (14nm by Q3 2016 etc.) Let’s take a look at some of the information out there.

In the last couple of months we have talked a lot about AMD and the direction they are trying to move to. Most of what we have reported is not good news and centers on the fact that AMD’s R&D/production budget is dwindling to the point where they cannot push multiple projects at one time. They have had to consolidate their efforts to the point that they do not really have products to bring to market to make them more money. An example of this is the lack of a new GPU for the normal launch cycles. AMD does have some products in the pipeline, but these might not be enough to win them back any marketshare from Intel or NVIDIA.

So Apple has released review samples to the press in order to build up interest in their entry into the smart watch market. It is an interesting move for Apple as they have sent out their $1,000 product to a select group of reviewers just to see what they think. After reading a number of them (some I could not get all the way through) it seems that Apple might not have the magnificent product they were hoping for and even the most Apple faithful sites had a hard time spinning the deficiencies that are there.

Over the last year or so the PC Gaming market has seen an interesting re-birth. Although many developers seem to have embraced the new x86 console craze the peripheral manufacturers for the PC did not get the memo. One company that has leapt into the fray is Tesoro, so far they have dropped more than one high-end headset, keyboard and other accessories for the gamer to enhance their experience. Today we have another one of their products in the lab, the Kuven Pro 5.1 gaming headset. Let’s listen in and see how they sound.

We have talked about some of the challenges that AMD is facing due to poor sales (and bad leadership), but many of these challenges have not been as evident as what is happening in the GPU world. Although we have talked a little bit about AMD’s next generation cards from the top of the heap, we have not really looked at what is happening with the rest of the line.

Some GPU news comes today from the AMD camp where we are hearing rumors that AMD’s Radeon 390X might ship with 8GB of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Now this sounds great when you take into account the fact that HBM has some serious muscle behind it (128GBps per memory chip). AMD could technically leapfrog nVidia’s new monster the GeForce Titian X with 12GB of memory onboard. The problem is that some of the information that is floating around does not seem to add up.

AMD can be a confusing company. Over the years they have made more than a few choices that just do not seem to make sense, but we are not going to dive into that right now. Instead we are going to focus on a recent decision that seems both ill-conceived and sure to confuse AMD supporters.

CES 2015, Las Vegas NV - Palazzo
Out of all of the people we visited during CES 2015 Thermaltake’s suite was one of the most interesting. When we walked in we found three full suites packed with cases, cooling, power supplies and items aimed right at the gamers out there. I was rather impressed even before Shannon Rob came by to show everything off.

CES 2015 Las Vegas, NV Caesar’s Palace
One company that we always are sure to visit during CES is Kingston. Over the years they have had a number of interesting demos and products that are dropped on the world during CES. This year was no exception. David Leong was quick to get into the meat of the presentation and showed off the next generation of the Cloud gaming headset. This new headset features 53mm drivers and a power USB audio adapter to push 7.1 virtual surround sound.