Ben Funk
Follow Ben on Twitter.
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
It doesn't matter if you're playing Call of Duty, Counterstrike, Fortnite, or StarCraft, there's usually a benefit to having the highest frame rates possible when playing games competitively. That requires a couple of things, namely a very fast PC and a 120 - 144Hz or other high-refresh rate gaming monitor. Today, we'll look at the PC components...
Read more...
Fully-assembled MiSTer FPGA DIY console It seems like it wasn't too long ago that we crowned the Raspberry Pi 4 as one of the best retro game consoles around. Indeed, the Raspberry Pi foundation's latest single-board computer still a low-cost DIY powerhouse. However, retro gamers are picky about one thing that haunts...
Read more...
Motorola seemingly has a knack for knocking out excellent mid-range Android phones like the Moto G series and the Moto Mod-capable and 5G ready Moto Z3. With more and more entrants bringing good enough performance at affordable price points, however, it's getting harder for manufacturers to differentiate. Even the underlying platforms...
Read more...
The high end 2-in-1 notebook market is pretty crowded with entrants from Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, HP, ASUS and others. As a result, it's pretty tough to make a convertible laptop that stands out from the rest. HP's doing its best, however, with its new Elite Dragonfly line of lightweight, 2-in-1 hybrid PCs. What we have on hand today...
Read more...
Microsoft Surface Pro X (left) and Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (right) - Similar But Very Different Beasts Microsoft's Surface Pro line of convertible tablets has long been one of the standards by which premium Windows hybrid convertibles are judged. The Surface Pro family has been around for years, but these latest...
Read more...
AMD has been riding high on its Zen 2 workhorses as of late, but the resurgent CPU manufacturer is hardly resting on its laurels. Processor designs tend to have long lead times, so it should be no surprise to anyone that the company has been working on its next-generation architecture for quite a while. It's not every...
Read more...
Dell's XPS 13 family is split into two main product lines; 2-in-1 convertible notebooks and traditional clamshell-style laptops. It wasn't too long ago that we looked at the latest 2-in-1 with Intel's 10th-generation Core i7-1065G7. That machine was a thin, light, flexible beauty and a great performer, thanks in no small part to its improved...
Read more...
Addlink isn't a manufacturer that sits on the tip of everybody's tongues, but the company has been in the storage business for a little over a decade. Online shops carry all sorts of flash memory products from Addlink, from micro SD cards to PCI-Express 4.0 solid state drives, and all points in between. However, just because you might not...
Read more...
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 family has long been synonymous with excellent build quality and premium features. Over the summer, we were extremely impressed with the 7th-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon's build quality, performance, and its bright 4K IPS display. This time around we're looking at the larger ThinkPad X1 Extreme...
Read more...
Over the last several years, AMD has released major new driver features and enhancements at the end of the calendar year, and as 2019 draws to a close, it is no different. The just-released Radeon Software Adrenaline 2020 Edition overhauls the driver suite's installation and interface to surface what's important, adds...
Read more...
Welcome to HotHardware's PC Component Buyer's Guide, where we help prospective system builders pick out just the right collection of components to build the rigs of their dreams -- or at least the rig which makes the best use of your budget. We've picked out the best bang for the buck in processors, graphics cards...
Read more...
When NVIDIA's GeForce RTX graphics cards first launched, there weren't many games on the market that could take advantage of Turing's new bells and whistles. Over time that's changed, however, and some of this year's biggest hits—titles like Control and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare—can take full...
Read more...
Intel had a deathgrip on high-end gaming PCs for years while AMD's processors struggled to provide enough gaming performance to be competitive in the high end enthusiast tier. The tide has recently turned, however, and this summer AMD's Ryzen 3000 series of Zen 2-based 7nm processors took the world by storm. As a result of this monumental...
Read more...
Alienware may just be the most well-known gaming desktop and notebook brand on the planet. The company's gray alien logo graces everything from proper, upgradeable desktops like the Aurora R9 to the huge desktop-replacement Area-51m notebook complete with actual desktop hardware. What we have on hand today isn't quite...
Read more...
