Marco Chiappetta
Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com
Recent posts
One of Merriam-Webster's definitions for the word obscene is "so excessive as to be offensive." By that definition, Maingear sent us an obscenely spec'd SHIFT Super Stock X79 system packed to the hilt with so much decadent hardware that even the one percenters would feel guilty owning it, right up until the moment they pushed the power button...
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Intel’s X25-M (mainstream) and X25-E (enterprise) solid state drives proved to be very popular in their respective target markets. As our testing showed back in the day, these drives offer excellent performance, and as time in the field would tell, they were quite reliable as well. On the desktop / mainstream front, Intel has since launched...
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Intel’s X25-M (mainstream) and X25-E (enterprise) solid state drives proved to be very popular in their respective target markets. As our testing showed back in the day, these drives offer excellent performance, and as time in the field would tell, they were quite reliable as well. On the desktop / mainstream front, Intel has since launched...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks webcast, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss Dell's XPS 13 Ultrabook, AMD's brand new Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 graphics cards based on the Pitcairn GPU, Samsung's oversized Galaxy Note Smartphone, Zotac's ZBOX ID80 Plus Cedar Trail-based Mini PC and we drop some hints...
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Here we are, less than three weeks removed from the launch of the Radeon HD 7700 series, and AMD is already at it again. Today we’ll be showing you the first two members of the Radeon HD 7800 series of graphics cards, the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and Radeon HD 7850. These two graphics cards are based on yet another new GPU design,...
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Here we are, less than three weeks removed from the launch of the Radeon HD 7700 series, and AMD is already at it again. Today we’ll be showing you the first two members of the Radeon HD 7800 series of graphics cards, the Radeon HD 7870 GHz and Radeon HD 7850. These two graphics cards are based on yet another new GPU design, which features...
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While many of today's better smartphones offer dual-core processors and 1GB of RAM, alongside plenty of onboard storage, one of the easiest differentiating points between smartphones today has become the screen--size, resolution, and screen technology are all considerations. Samsung is pushing the former limits of smartphone screen sizes with...
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Zotac is emerging as a major player in the mini PC market and you'll find a boatload of ZBOX units if you visit the company's website. The one we have with us today is the ZBOX ID80 Plus, one of the newer units built around Intel's recently released Atom "Cedar Trail" refresh. It comes equipped with an Intel Atom D2700 processor, 2GB of DDR3-1066...
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Intel launched its Medfield platform only six weeks ago, but the company is moving ahead with plans for additional processors based on the 32nm SoC. At Mobile World Congress today, Santa Clara announced plans for two additional system on a chip (SoC) designs to flesh out its product roadmap. The current Z2460 that we covered in January will...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks webcast, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss the latest announcements from Intel for their Near Threshold Voltage processor technology and full digital radios, AMD's new Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 mainstream GPUs, reports that Flash scaling issues could torpedo its...
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Not long ago, Motorola and Verizon Wireless brought back the popular Razr line of cell phones in the form of the all new Droid Razr. Now, the two companies are teaming up again to offer another new Razr known as the Razr Maxx. Although these two Droid Razr smartphones are alike in many ways, there are also a few key differences. The most notable...
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Thecus has launched a couple of new Network Attached Storage devices, powered by Intel’s latest Atom processors. The new Thecus N4800 and N2800 NAS boxes both sport 2.13GHz Atom processors, 2GB of DDR3 memory, HDMI outputs and USB 3.0 ports. In addition to being able to output many video files directly to a...
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AMD is launching two more Radeon HD 7000 series products today, the Radeon HD 7770 and 7750, but unlike the 7970 and 7950, these two new cards are based on a fresh GPU codenamed “Cape Verde”. Cape Verde has essentially the same feature set as the more powerful Tahiti, but is pared down to target a totally different market segment,...
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By now you should all know the drill. A big GPU manufacturer releases a new high-end GPU, based on a new or updated architecture. Then over the course of the next few months, the company continually fleshes out its product stack until a top-to-bottom line-up of new graphics cards emerges, at a wide range of price points, all based on the same...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks webcast, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss the MainGear SHIFT do-it-yourself case kit and the recently released Intel SSD 520 series solid state drive built on SandForce controller technology. The guys also discuss the used game debate and game devs locking down...
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When it comes to adding a performance-enhancing upgrade to your system, a good SSD can’t be beat, but storage capacity is an ever-growing need as well. There was a time when a 1TB drive seemed grossly (deliciously?) excessive for the average user, but these days anything less than 500GB seems woefully undersized. Even casual users who...
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As the premiere model in NEC's next generation MultiSync EA Series of desktop displays for high-performance enterprise users, the EA273WM-BK brings a big 27-inch, LED-backlit display to the workplace and is ready to impress with a completely redesigned chassis that's up to 30 percent thinner and 25 percent lighter than previous models. It...
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A few weeks back, Eaton sent over one of their enterprise-class 5PX uninterruptable power supplies for testing and evaluation. If you haven’t seen what Eaton has to offer in the power protection space, I definitely suggest taking a look. I was aware of the company before, but hadn’t had any firsthand experience with their products....
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The time has come to announce the winners our of latest giveaway! As most of you probably know, this time around, we teamed up with our friends at Gigabyte to give away a few of pieces of HOT hardware. Up for grabs, we had a Z68 series, Z68XP-UD3P motherboard, a GeForce GTX 560 N56GOC-IGI graphics card, and a Force K3 keyboard and M6900 mouse
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Intel is launching a brand new line of solid state drives today, built around SandForce’s popular SF-2200 family of storage processors. The new SSD 520 Series solid state drives, as they are known, will supplant the Marvell-based 510 series at the top of Intel’s consumer-targeted SSD lineup and be offered in capacities ranging...
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Intel is launching a brand new line of solid state drives today, built around SandForce’s popular SF-2200 family of storage processors. The new SSD 520 Series solid state drives, as they are known, will supplant the Marvell-based 510 series at the top of Intel’s consumer-targeted SSD lineup and be offered in capacities ranging...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss the Asus Transformer Prime Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” update, AMD's A8-3870K Black Edition unlocked Llano APU, Dell's Alienware X51 small form factor gaming PC, the brand new AMD Radeon HD 7950 and details our...
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