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
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...
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To commemorate the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., HotHardware and our friends at Intel and PCAudioLabs have teamed up to put together one heck of an exciting full-system give-away! This time around we're giving you all a chance to win an Intel Core i7-2600K-infused, custom-built rig complete with 16GB of RAM, a Gigabyte Z68-based...
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As the holiday season rapidly approaches, there’s one question that gets asked rather frequently: Have you been naughty or nice? Of course, we all know that a lot hinges on this one question. If you’ve been nice, then perhaps Santa will bring you an awesome gift; that one piece of hardware you've been jonesing for. On the other...
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It's Thanksgiving here in the US, a time of year when we all pause to reflect on how fortunate we all are. Thanksgiving is a great tradition when you stop and think about it. This holiday isn't about rushing around and buying gifts. The day after Thanksgiving certainly has become over-commercialized, but not today--11/24/2011--Thanksgiving...
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OCZ had been a strong partner of Indilinx, dating all the way back dating back to the original Vertex series of SSDs, which featured the Indilinx Barefoot controller. Due to stiff competition from Intel and SandForce, on both the price and performance fronts back then, Indilinx-based SSDs ultimately fell out of favor with enthusiasts....
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There's a line in the sand between notebooks and desktop replacements, and once you cross it, your system is no longer mobile, it's portable. The AVA Direct P180HM weighs upwards of 12 pounds, which is too heavy to toss into your bag on a whim or open up in a coffee shop and blend in inconspicuously with the other patrons. No, you carefully...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Marco, Iyaz and Dave discuss Intel's new Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition processor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs. Battlefield 3 and the advantages of PC gaming over consoles, Corsair's Force GT 240GB SSD and a firmware update for Crucial's...
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After playing through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's single-player campaign and spending some solid time with the game in multiplayer, we can attest that MW3 is the latest well-executed title in the long-running Call of Duty franchise. The game's production values are excellent, the single-player campaign is gripping and intense, and all...
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There are a myriad of nice smartphones on the market today. And since we're all for choice and options around here, we like the competition we're seeing in the mobile market. If you're a Sprint customer, you've been given the choice of a few really good 4G options this year. One of those options, the Motorola Photon 4G, has all of the specs...
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November 14th 2011 marks the release of Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E microarchitecture and its companion X79 Express chipset. Sandy Bridge-E is the ‘tock’ in Intel’s tick-tock release schedule cadence, that bridges the gap between current Sandy Bridge processors and next year’s, totally new Ivy...
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We’ve been in this business here at HotHardware for a long time now. For most of that time, we’ve heard from countless so-called "industry experts" that the PC is dead, or at the very least dying. Quite frankly, we’re sick of hearing it. The PC is far from dead. One has to look no further than Intel's most recent finanical...
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A few months back, we rounded up a half dozen SATA III solid state drives in this article. In that showdown, we had drives based on SandForceSF-2200 series and Marvell controllers represented, with both synchronous and asynchronous memory types. We ultimately found the SandForce-based drives when paired to synchronous NAND flash memory offered...
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The AIO PC form factor isn't new by any means, but it's only recently begun to make a broad market appearance across a number of manufacturers beyond Apple or HP, who were among the first to pioneer the form factor. Better touchscreen technology, combined with lower prices, has made AIO PCs both practical and affordable. The ET2410 from Asus...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Marco takes us through the component selection and build process for the grand prize of HotHardware's Labor Day Giveaway contest - a custom gaming PC decked out with the latest technologies from Intel, NVIDIA, Patriot, Gigabyte, NZXT and many...
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Not too long ago, we took an in-depth, hands-on look at the unlocked version of the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone. At the time, the phone wasn't available in the US, so we weren't able to show you a hands-on video of a US version of the phone. Now, however, the Samsung Galaxy S II is available through Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. All of...
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Battlefield 3 dropped last week, promising a strong single-player campaign, an impressive new graphics engine, and up to 64-person multiplayer mayhem on huge maps. Despite a rough few days post-launch, the game delivers much of the multiplayer goodness that it promised, with a strong emphasis on team dynamics and an experience system that...
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Zotac is one of a select few companies that have fully embraced the ultra-small form factor and home theater PC markets. Although they’re also known for producing custom, high-end graphics cards, and an array of motherboards, which include a smorgasbord or mini-ITX options, Zotac’s Zbox and Mag lines of mini PCs are quite diverse....
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Zotac is one of a select few companies that have fully embraced the ultra-small form factor and home theater PC markets. Although they’re also known for producing custom, high-end graphics cards, and an array of motherboards, which include a smorgasbord or mini-ITX options, Zotac’s Zbox and Mag lines of mini PCs are quite diverse....
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Yesterday’s announcement that LSI had entered into an agreement to acquire SandForce was interesting to say the least. The two companies have obvious synergy and should be able to leverage each other's resources to produce some powerful and innovative storage products. However, due to LSI’s strong position in the enterprise space...
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Update 10/27 - 2:30 PM: We just had a conference call and interview with LSI VP and GM, Gary Smerdon on this announcement and what it means to SandForce customers and LSI moving forward. More details are available in that coverage. News broke earlier today that LSI Corporation, maker of enterprise-class storage solutions, has entered...
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The Droid Bionic by Motorola made one of its first public appearances at CES in January. Months have passed, and though there were rumors of a summer release, the phone didn't become available through Verizon Wireless until fall. The Droid Bionic is the first smartphone from Verizon Wireless to offer 4G LTE connectivity paired with a dual-core...
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In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks, Iyaz, Marco and Dave discuss Apple's new iPhone 4S, OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid PCI Express HD/SSD, the Asus Zenbook UX21 Ultrabook, our huge round-up of Z68 motherboards, and details of our next sweepstakes where one lucky reader could win a Core i7-based, high...
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