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
It has been another great year for us here at HotHardware.com, thanks in no small part to all of you--our awesome readers! As 2011 draws to a close, we want to take another chance to thank you all yet again for being a part of our extended families and making this a great place to work (and play!). Happy New Year! If you’re going...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss AMD's hot new Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, HotHardware's Liquid Cooler Line-up with products from Intel, Corsair, and MainGear, the Lenovo IdeaPad U400 Notebook, and...
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Last month, SiSoftware released the 2012 edition of Sandra, the popular system analysis and benchmarking program. We recently sat down with Adrian Silasi, the creator and chief developer of Sandra, to discuss how he got started, how Sandra distinguishes itself in a crowded marketplace, and whether we'll see the utility popping up on other...
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I tend to shy away from doing full-blown power supply reviews. Without using specialized (and expensive) equipment with which to precisely control load and environmental / operating temperatures and monitor output stability and noise, it is difficult to draw any solid conclusions regarding one PSU’s capabilities and performance over...
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Fans of Google's Android platform are proving to be a patient lot. It hasn't been easy pulling for Android in the tablet space, which for a period of time was limited to a few overpriced and underwhelming Gingerbread slates. Things began to change when Honeycomb came out, the first version of Android designed specifically for tablets, but...
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If you've been paying attention to Android smartphones lately, you know there's one device that people have been talking about and eagerly anticipating for a few months now. That phone is the Galaxy Nexus. The reason this phone is so hot is because it is the first smartphone in the US to run Android 4.0, better known perhaps as Ice Cream Sandwich....
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We have been hearing about AMD’s “Southern Island” family of graphics processors for quite some time. Even during briefings for the Northern Island series of products which ultimately became the Radeon HD 6000 series, news about Southern Islands was already trickling out. Rumors about these parts have been rampant for...
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Just in time for the Holiday Season, we’ve teamed up with our friends at NVIDIA for an absolutely awesome giveaway. Starting tomorrow (December 13) and continuing on through Tuesday of next week (December 20), we’re giving away an NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered tablet a day! In case you didn’t know, NVIDIA offers Tegra-based...
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Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of the top hits of 2009... The best news about Batman: Arkham City is that it's a sequel that lives up to and even surpasses the original. AC's virtual world is roughly 5x larger than the environments of Arkham Asylum, but much smaller than a full-scale implementation of Gotham would've been. Arkham City is a...
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We're back again to roll out two more lucky winners for our Tablet's of The Season Sweepstakes with NVIDIA! We know you probably can't stand the excitement of witnessing all this Tegra 2 goodness being spread about like holiday cheer but we're going to keep the adrenalin flowing regardless. It's fun playing Santa, especially since...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Dave, Marco and Iyaz discuss Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus tablet, HotHardware's PC Component Holiday Gift Guide, Dell's slick XPS 14z Notebook, we discuss Tablet Gaming Today and a Look At the Future, and give some details regarding our MSI/NVIDIA Gear-Up...
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Over the last few years, we've seen an increasing number of liquid coolers positioned as high-end alternatives to traditional heatsink+fan combinations. This has been particularly true in the boutique market, where a number of manufacturers now offer liquid coolers in one form or another. The kits we're looking at today are a far cry from...
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Samsung continues to unload with both barrels on the tablet market, releasing one product after another. Consumers can choose from 7-inch, 8.9-inch, and 10.1-inch sizes; WiFi-only or carrier-specific versions, including models for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint; and a couple of different storage options too. (Who knows, by the time...
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As all of you probably know, we had two contests overlap for a little while yesterday, while our “MSI and NVIDIA Gear Up With HotHardware” and “Tablets of the Season” giveaways both going on. Well, we’ve picked the winners for the MSI and NVIDIA Giveaway and have our first of five winners in the Tablet Giveaway...
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The folks at Thecus have just unveiled their latest low-power Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, the N4100 EVO. This new N4100 looks just like previous iterations of this 4-bay NAS, and sports Thecus’ useful LCD and front panel buttons (among many other features), but this latest device is powered by a new, lower-power dual-core...
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One giveaway ends and another begins! We’ve teamed up with our friends at MSI and NVIDIA to give away a couple of pieces of HOT hardware. Up for grabs this time around, we have an MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning graphics card and an MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) or Z68A-GD65 (G3) motherboard, both featuring PCI-E 3.0 support, up for grabs...
The Grand
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Whether it's for yourself or someone else, consider this your go-to guide for picking out the perfect notebook PC. We're all about spreading the holiday cheer, and if it means sifting through dozens or even hundreds of laptops to find the best ones, then so be it. This is what we do, and we'd much rather you spend your time this holiday season...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime with NVIDIA's Tegra 3 SoC, OCZ's Octane Series SATA III Solid State Drive, Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and how not to get burned, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition graphics...
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To commemorate the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., HotHardware and our friends at Intel and PCAudioLabs teamed up to put together one heck of an exciting full-system give-away! This time around we gave you all a chance to win an Intel Core i7-2600K-infused, custom-built rig complete with 16GB of RAM, a Gigabyte Z68-based motherboard,...
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Just in time for the holiday buying season, NVIDIA is at the ready with a brand new graphics card. Sort of. Today, NVIDIA is announcing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Some of you may be thinking, “Hey! GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards use the GF114 GPU which offers a maximum of 384 cores!” And you’d be right. This new GeForce...
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Just in time for the holiday buying season, NVIDIA is at the ready with a brand new graphics card. Sort of. Today, NVIDIA is announcing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Some of you may be thinking, “Hey! GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards use the GF114 GPU which offers a maximum of 384 cores!” And you’d be right. This new...
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Seagate’s first Momentus XT hybrid drive arrived about a year and a half ago. The original drive featured a 500GB hard drive paired to 4GB of SLC NAND flash and a SATA 3.0 interface. At the time of its release, the original Momentus XT turned out to be a rather compelling product. Its price was relatively low and Seagate’s adaptive...
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