Zak Killian
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
PC enthusiasts of a certain age will recall the bad old days before DirectX, when developers who wanted to make use of advanced acceleration hardware in graphics processors had to use a vendor-specific API for it. This meant that your ATI Rage version of Mechwarrior 2 wasn't going to work on your fancy new Rendition...
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More than ten years since Grand Theft Auto V launched, we're finally starting to hear some real news about the next title in the legendary series. The trailer that released two months ago broke every record, racking up more than 93 million views in the first 24 hour and sitting now at 174 million views and 11 million...
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ADATA Legend 970 PCIe Gen 5 SSD: Currently $339 (2TB) The Competitive Overall Performance Great Game Level Loads PCIe Gen 5 Interface Low Latency, Good Responsiveness Negative Notes Audible Active Cooler Price Premium At this point in time, PCIe 5.0 SSDs have been around for while, and we've already evaluated...
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AMD slightly surprised the world when it released the Ryzen 5 5600X3D exclusively at Micro Center after the launch of the Socket AM5 platform, but it was even more unusual when, at CES this year, the company announced four more Socket AM4 CPUs. It looks like Intel isn't going to be left behind in the "releasing new...
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If you're still cranking along on something like an aged Sandy Bridge system for gaming, you don't need us to tell you that you need every extra bit of performance you can get. Well, if you're keen to install a clever hack to the UEFI firmware of your motherboard, you may be able to enable Resizable BAR ("ReBAR")...
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Every application presents a given workload, and disparate discrete GPUs are typically capable of computing and completing that workload at various performance levels. With that understanding, why not use multiple GPUs for the same application? The answer, of course, is that you can—it just depends on the specific...
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Seagate FireCuda 540: 2TB for $299 The speedy Seagate FireCuda 540 is a PCIe Gen 5 SSD with fast sequential transfers, which targets discerning gamers and content creators. Excellent Overall Performance Fast Game Level Loads Competitive Latency Latest PCIe Gen 5 Interface Requires Additional Cooling Price Premium Over...
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It's the question that the head of every AAA developer has to be (or should be) asking their staff right now: what is the deal with Palworld? This isn't an opening to a Jerry Seinfeld comedy skit, but rather a very serious question, because the game is kind of crappy and broken in a lot of ways, yet it's now the...
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If you have somehow missed this story as it has been evolving, Japanese indie hit Palworld has been tearing up the leaderboards on both Steam and Xbox platforms. As we reported on Thursday, it has over 19 million players between the two stores, and while it's available on Game Pass, the majority of the players are...
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Kioxia is one of those names that you might not see a lot if you're primarily a DIY PC gamer. Whether you realize it or not, the original inventor of flash memory (when it was known as Toshiba Memory Solutions) moves a LOT of NAND. You can find Kioxia flash memory in just about any kind of device, and now, that...
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Despite continued claims that it is done with content updates to Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red continues to update its FPS-RPG hybrid with new features and functions. The patch notes are incredibly long for a "0.01" version number update, and if you're currently playing the game, you'll probably want to look through...
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It's not as crazy as it sounds, really. Think of it from the perspective of a kid: you can get Fortnite or Minecraft on every electronic device known to man, so why not new hit game Palworld that all your favorite streamers are playing? Search it up on your phone and bam, there it is in the app store.
The thing is...
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Despite being socketed desktop processors, AMD's new Ryzen 8000G processors have a secret: they're really mobile silicon. The Ryzen 8000G family, which we just reviewed, is based on the very same Hawk Point chips that you'll find in the Ryzen 8040U and Ryzen 8040HS series mobile processors. There's no problem with...
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The next product in Ayaneo's Remake collection, which pays homage to gaming hardware of years past, has just launched. Known as the Flip, this handheld gaming PC actually comes in two forms that are fundamentally similar, yet have one big difference. They sport gorgeous 7" 120Hz LCD screens, Hall-effect inputs, and...
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There are a few key specifications that heavily influence the performance of a graphics card. GPU fillrate—the rate that it can "fill" polygons with color—is a major one. GPU compute throughput is another, and arguably more important in the modern era. However, one of the oldest specs remains one of the most...
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It's sort of a sad state of things that your smartphone is almost assuredly tracking your every action and movement, and then sending that data to nebulous remote services. Perhaps that's not surprising to, but this really shouldn't be the way things are. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in today, however. Your...
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The mental image that appears when you think of a 'desktop PC' is probably a big black box—or beige and horizontal, if you're of a certain age. Certainly there's still a massive market for DIY PCs in tower cases, but the majority of folks buying desktops these days could probably be best served by a mini-PC. For...
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Right now, AMD's mobile processors range from the lowly Ryzen 7020 series, codenamed Mendocino, all the way up to the powerful (and power-thirsty) Ryzen 7045 series, known as Dragon Range. Nestled in between, you have the Ryzen 7035 series, Rembrandt, serving mainstream customers, and then the Ryzen 7040 and 8040...
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We've thought for a while about doing a post rounding up all the current leaks and rumors about AMD's upcoming Zen 5 processors, because there's quite a bit of information out there. Well, we don't have to compile the information ourselves anymore, it turns out, because YouTuber High Yield has already done the work...
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Back in 2021 during the major worldwide silicon shortage, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced a $3.5-billion dollar investment into its facilities in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. That expansion, resulting in the reopening of the "cutting-edge factory" known as Fab 9, is now complete. In a statement to the media, Intel's EVP...
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When leakers first revealed the existence of AMD's upcoming Strix Halo processor, many people sneered at the idea. After all, it's a completely new concept, at least for consumer PCs. AMD has been making similar processors for many years, but they've always been relegated to locked-down hardware like game consoles...
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When Intel started selling hybrid processors with two disparate types of cores, its beloved-by-enthusiasts ARK database was updated with the ability to display the core counts separately, and the clock rates of each core type. Given the company's emphasis on high efficiency, Intel's "E-cores" naturally don't clock as...
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