There's no denying that the Motorola DROID is receiving a lot of hype. Not only is this phone a big deal for Motorola, who has struggled to produce widely successful handsets since the famous RAZR flip phone, but the DROID is also the first handset that will be released as part of a partnership between Google and Verizon. Combine this with the fact... Read More
We're seeing more and more CULV notebooks hit the market these days. The growing sector of Consumer Ultra Low Voltage machines attempts to bridge the gap between lower cost netbooks and full-size notebooks, offering a more powerful chip than the ubiquitous Atom options we see in netbooks, but one that consumes less power than the mainstream Core 2 Duo... Read More
August marked the launch of AMD's current flagship desktop processor, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. Today, we have a fresh revision of this CPU that brings some new features to the table. Unfortunately, these new aspects do not improve stock performance of the 3.4GHz quad-core chip. Instead, they tweak it in other areas that many enthusiasts care... Read More
Whenever I build a system, I always build it with one eye towards the future. I like to think that I’ll upgrade the system over time. Maybe I’ll swap in a new CPU, maybe a new graphics card, upgrade the RAM, etc. But these days, it’s not so easy.I can’t remember a time when the upgrade picture has been so confusing. Just think of the situation as it... Read More
Although the Core i7 and X58 combo is a proven performance leader, there are still plenty of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPUs out there in the wild. The Core 2 is still a very capable processor with many models costing less than half the price the cheapest Core i7 processor, the Core i7 920. Thus, systems based around the P45 chipset are still a viable... Read More
Computer hardware enthusiasts are a unique group. Its true that some enthusiasts may spend hours, days, or weeks tweaking their BIOS and other settings to achieve optimal performance, while others might spend an entire evening painstakingly routing wires for proper cable management. Fortunate ones find themselves eagerly awaiting product launches in... Read More
In all of our recent solid state disk (SSD) coverage that featured one of Intel's X25-M drives, a common, underlying performance trend consistently emerged. The Intel drives were always amongst the top performers in read performance, and were unquestionably the best with regard to random writes. However, in sequential write performance Intel X25-M SSDs... Read More
Network-attached storage (NAS) devices come in all shapes and sizes; some even come without hard drives--with the intention that the users will add the drives themselves. There is even a relatively new category of NAS devices that don't have any internal drives at all, and instead use USB-attached drives as their storage source. These NAS devices are... Read More
This week may be as big a week in the company's history as Microsoft has ever had. We know, that's a pretty bold statement, but there's a lot of evidence to back that up. Microsoft has been drowning in negative press and negative vibes for most of Vista's life; it has tried for years to spit-shine the image of its "Wow!-inducing" operating system, and... Read More
With the current price war going on between Intel and AMD at the lower-end of the market, consumers are left with more affordable options than ever before. One can argue that there has never been a better time to build a computer or upgrade an aging system, especially with the cost of relatively high-performing hardware reaching attainable levels. And... Read More