Zak Killian
Recent posts
The year is 2013. Valve Software, whose Steam digital delivery service has just hit the ten-year mark, has decided it's time to launch a series of gaming PCs, along with a custom operating system. The project continues through 2015 and but...
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It's really important to keep things in context when you're looking at hardware benchmarks. Desktop CPUs often operate with essentially unlimited power and thermal budgets, so it's simply not fair to compare them against laptop chips that...
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The overall quality of the Windows experience is at a historic low point, due to increasing concerns over AI and feature bloat, and a long list of crippling bugs. With that in mind, many PC gamers are looking longingly at Linux, and the alternative OS is picking up steam in terms of...
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A key argument in the battle between NVIDIA's GeForce GPUs and AMD's Radeon graphics products is that NVIDIA offers superior software support. That's not necessarily true, though. AMD's made great strides in driver and software quality in...
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If you read that headline and thought, ‘Oh yeah, so what?’ then you're probably not too familiar with gaming handhelds. These devices have cooling apparatus of impressive efficiency given the extremely limited space they have to work in...
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Put your wallet away; it's another leak post, not an official announcement. However, maybe keep the billfold in arm's reach, because it's looking like it won't be long now before we see Intel's "Big Battlemage" GPU. The latest leak comes...
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This might just be the most will-they-or-won't-they GPU release story of all time. Intel's Arc Battlemage was rumored to come in two different versions as soon as we ever heard about it, but the larger "BMG-G31" chip never materialized and...
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As far as anyone outside AMD knows, Team Red's next processor releases will be the Gorgon Point family, which is a refresh of Strix Point. "Refresh" doesn't necessarily mean "rebadged," though. Sometimes refreshes can come with significant...
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We've been eagerly looking forward to the OneXFly Apex handheld because it's one of the most interesting of the announced PC gaming portables to use AMD's Ryzen AI Max processors, codenamed Strix Halo. We've been so interested in it, we've...
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Having a retro PC is awesome, because it lets you experience classic games as they were intended to be, on the original hardware. Maintaining one is a pain, though; beyond all the issues with using 25-plus-year-old hardware, you've also...
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If you're chomping at the bit for Panther Lake performance leaks, well, put that filthy thing away for a moment and come take a look. A result for a Core Ultra 7 366H has popped up in the Geekbench database, and we've taken the time to...
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Let's talk about the latest AI models, which are mostly powered by something called a "Mixture of Experts" design. Mixture of Experts (MoE) is a form of model sparsity, but we'll talk about that more in a minute. The key takeaways from...
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Infamous gaming pawn shop chain GameStop says someone just walked into its Grapevine, Texas headquarters and traded in a PSA-10 holographic Gengar, supposedly worth $33,883, and walked out with $30,494.70. In simpler terms: GameStop just...
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If you're looking at buying a new Ryzen CPU, the time is now, and we mean right now, as in literally within the next few hours. That's because AMD is expected to raise prices on its CPUs at the distributor level if it hasn't already done...
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Microsoft's big pitch for the future of Windows is that it's turning into an "agentic OS, " or a system where autonomous AI helpers don't just answer questions, but instead actually do things for you. They'll organize files, wrangle tasks...
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If you're dying for any new details at all on Rockstar's next Grand Theft Auto game, well, good news—we have some. It might not be the earth-shaking revelation that you're probably hoping for, but we can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that...
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If the price of memory's got you maudlin, don't despair, because there's still plenty of killer deals to be found on some seriously spectacular equipment. No, really! Check out these keyboard and mouse deals, and don't miss some deep...
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Valve's Steam Machine, affectionately nicknamed the "GabeCube" after Valve founder Gabe Newell and Nintendo's similarly-shaped GameCube console from the early 2000s, is launching early next year at an as-yet unannounced price. Judging by...
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Well, it's the end of 2025, and the AI crunch is making hardware prices cruise for the stratosphere. At least, SSDs are rising and RAM is through the roof. However, one category that isn't affected at all yet are gaming GPUs. They're not...
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Alienware Area-51 Gaming Laptops: As tested, $3349 (16) and $4099 These new Area-51 laptops aren't a mild refresh, but a whole new design philosophy, delivering top-shelf performance and show-stopping aesthetics. Gorgeous Exterior...
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We reported last week on some leaked details for Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake Refresh processors. As a refresh, these new chips don't seem to do much to differentiate themselves from the extant Core Ultra 200S family, but one small upgrade...
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If you feel like Windows 11 has been trending less and less stable over the last few months, you're not imagining things. Microsoft has confirmed a nasty bug in Windows 11 version 24H2 (stemming from cumulative updates starting in July...
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