Editor profile

Marco Chiappetta and Dave Altavilla

Recent posts

We've been talking about Intel's 4th Generation Core processor technology, codenamed Haswell, for over two years now.  If you've been hanging around these parts and are like most self-respecting geeks, you've likely been feeling the build-up of Haswell for quite some time.  Intel has disclosed lots of information on their latest... Read more...
What better way to usher in the spring season than to give away an awesome gaming rig, designed to keep you inside as long as possible? We have teamed up with our friends at EVGA, and along with a little help from the good folks at Intel and Corsair, we've put together one heck of an gaming system giveaway!... Read more...
Late last week, we posted a glimpse of what AMD had in store with their latest A-Series APUs for desktop systems. In that article, we were able to officially unveil the Virgo platform and discuss speeds and feeds, GPU performance, and power consumption characteristics. However, we weren’t able to disclose any CPU performance... Read more...
We’re still fighting our way through the insanity that is the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, but wanted to take a break to share some more juicy news with you all. We just got out of a meeting with the folks at AMD in which they showed us some current and future APU offerings, new I/O technology, and... Read more...
Notice anything different in that Radeon graphics logo kicking back off to the left here?  If not, you weren't paying attention, so forty lashes for you with a bump-mapped, specular lit, highly tesselated wet noodle.  Though AMD may have finally decided to do away with their ATI branding so many years after the acquisition, you can... Read more...
While attending a press event out in Los Angeles, California last week, to discuss the impending Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 launch, we had the chance to get an early look at some of the first, fully functional samples of AMD’s upcoming “Llano” processor, or APU (Applications Processer Unit). For... Read more...
After a short hiatus, we’re finally back again this week with a brand new video podcast to talk about some recent developments in the hardware and technology scenes. Topics in this episode include Intel’s dual-core Atom D525 and Core i7 970 netbook and desktop processors, AMD’s upcoming low-power Bobcat and high-end Bulldozer... Read more...
Solid State Storage products are obviously setting the computing market on fire as of late.  There is little question that the writing is on the wall.  Like the vacuum tube transistors of yesterday, spinning hard drives are bound to go the way of the Dodo bird.  It's only a matter of time; not if, but when.  However, the... Read more...
A few years ago and again only recently, a select few notebooks hit the scene with "switchable graphics". That is to say, these notebooks are able to manually switch between low-power integrated graphics solutions in the notebook chipset, to more powerful, and higher-performing discrete graphics processors. To enthusiasts, power users, or... Read more...
Intel just held a press conference in which the company spoke about its next-generation server processor, currently code-named Nehalem-EX. As its name suggests, the Nehalem-EX is based on the Nehalem microarchitecture which debuted with the Xeon 5500 and Core i7 series processors. The Nehalem-EX series however, will be decidedly... Read more...
It's that time again folks! In conjunction with our friends AMD we have assembled an assortment of cool prize packages, including five AMD Phenom II X3 720 processors and a complete gaming system built around one of the CPUs!   As usual, we’ll be giving away the prizes and full rig away to randomly selected... Read more...
We recently had the chance to have a conversation with John Malley, BFG Tech's Senior Director of Marketing, regarding the company's recently released Phobos line of high-end gaming systems. We asked about the current state of the Phobos product line and its unique features and service options, and John also spoke about future possibilities... Read more...
On our yearly jaunts to the Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, we meet with numerous companies and see a myriad of products--some we can, and some we can't talk about--in what is always an absolute whirlwind of a trip. This year was no exception. Although the show itself wasn't quite as big as it has been in previous years... Read more...
There's no doubt that the 3D Graphic Card business is what you'd call a proverbial "tough gig".  There was a time when discreet graphics card options were available from numerous GPU vendors, but over the years, the relentless pace of technology and fierce competition has homogenized the market down to virtually two primary... Read more...
NVIDIA is the sort of company that can and will capitalize on opportunities quickly, whether it be market or product related, or something as simple as logistics.  As such, in traditional fashion, with the huge insurgence of press and media swooping down on the never-ending sensory overload that is the city of Las Vegas and the CES show,... Read more...
The nForce 680i SLI has been at the top of NVIDIA’s chipset product stack for well over a year now, which seems like an eternity in this day and age of accelerated product cycles.  Although still a top-notch performer, and arguably the best choice for gamers looking to put together a system with multiple GPUs, the nForce 680i SLI is getting... Read more...
A couple of weeks ago at an Editor's Day event at their headquarters in Santa Clara, California, NVIDIA proclaimed that they planned to "redefine reality" with their self-branded ultimate gaming platform. The products in the spotlight throughout the event were the new nForce 680i SLI chipset, the upcoming 680a SLI, and a... Read more...
Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO, kicked off this season's IDF by coining the phrase "It's what's inside that counts", and spoke about why processing power matters again. A few years ago, he noted, PC Magazine declared that consumers couldn't use all the processing power at their disposal,... Read more...
Product refreshes in the Graphics world have tended to become rather casual, commonplace occurrences.  A little tweak here, a clock speed bump there and presto, there's a new SKU to fill the store shelves and something new to look at in the benchmarks.  Historically, refreshes or "kickers" as they... Read more...
This past year has been a tumultuous one for ATI. The Canadian graphics giant has been plagued by well-documented supply problems and have had to deal with multiple delays to their next-gen product, being developed under the code name "R520". The situation is reminiscent of NVIDIA's prior to the launch of the NV30 which later became... Read more...
When ATi announced their new CrossFire multi-GPU rendering technology months ago, it could have been viewed by many enthusiasts and the market as more of a reactionary response to NVIDIA's SLI multi-GPU technology than anything else.  When our preview showcase article was posted, hardware was still months away from being a reality and... Read more...
The personal computer industry is about to undergo a major metamorphosis, due in large part to the recent efforts of Intel and AMD. For the last few decades, mainstream desktop processor manufacturers have focused on increasing the performance of their CPUs by raising their clock speeds, augmenting the base architectures with specialized instruction... Read more...