Zak Killian
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
Cyberpunk 2077 had one of the most disastrous game launches in history. A lesser game company might have abandoned the title and left it to rot, but CD Projekt Red has been continually crafting updates for the game and has it beaten into a pretty solid shape by this point. The upcoming expansion, Phantom Liberty, will...
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If you follow hardware news, you likely recall the discovery that Intel's 12th generation Core processors, even the ones without the "K" suffix, could be overclocked on fancy motherboards that featured an external clock generator. Well, as it happens, despite the company bragging about it initially, that was...
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One of the more peculiar statements to come out of a processor company last year was AMD's insistence that the Navi 31 GPU was "architected for 3GHz". As hardware enthusiasts will likely be aware, even the top-end Radeon RX 7900 XTX doesn't approach 3GHz most of the time. It can go well past that clock rate in some...
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Ayaneo was one of the very first vendors offering hand-held gaming PCs. The earlier models from this and other companies used lower-end and lower-cost APUs from AMD to get their foot in the door. As they've seen success, newer models have been equipped with more recent and fancier hardware, including the processors...
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Everyone that does creative work, whether it's in visual art, writing, music, film, or even chemical engineering, should be concerned about AI overtaking their jobs at some point. It's not happening right now (unless you work at CNET), but it will happen eventually. "Eventually" may not mean "soon," though, and...
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This whole Microsoft-buys-Activision deal is looking less and less likely by the week. Last week, NVIDIA and Google spoke up against the purchase, and the week before that, Microsoft had to revise its response to the FTC to remove remarks that recommended the outright destruction of the commission. Now, a new...
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DirectStorage is out! No, seriously—DirectStorage 1.1, which can drastically accelerate game asset loading time, is already released and available for developers to use. Unfortunately, there aren't actually any games that take advantage of DirectStorage yet, which is why PCGamesHardware.de had to use a synthetic demo...
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When we initially looked at the second generation of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, we came away impressed. It was a tremendous upgrade over the spatial upscaling method used by the original "1.0" version of FSR, and we recommended using it when you're severely GPU-limited and don't have alternatives...
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Following the case of Microsoft attempting to acquire Activision-Blizzard-King is like watching a stage play put on by middle-schoolers: full of drama, unscripted twists, and surprise setbacks. The latest event in this grand saga is a big one: both Google and NVIDIA have thrown their hats into the ring, providing...
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Every once in a while, a product comes along that makes you think, "why weren't we doing it this way in the first place?" It's quite possible that Corsair's rumored RMx Shift series of power supplies could be one such product. In the leaked images from 188号 (@momomo_us on Twitter), the new power supplies look like the...
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Intel's current-generation Raptor Lake CPUs are rumored to have a refresh on the way, followed by Intel's first disaggregated client CPUs, Meteor Lake. After that, Arrow Lake is purported to bring a big increase in GPU performance. We've known that Intel's next move after ARL would be "Lunar Lake", but precious little...
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AMD has released another graphics driver, but if you are not rocking an RDNA 3-based Radeon, you can go on about your day. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.1.1 is exclusively for Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards, which for now comprises just two models: the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX.
The list of...
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Disney Infinity developer Avalanche Software (in cooperation with Portkey Games) is hard at work putting the finishing touches on Hogwarts Legacy, an open-world action-roleplaying title set in the same universe as the Harry Potter books. The game doesn't bear the Boy Who Lived's name because it's set in the 1800s...
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Most of the time, when a graphics card fails, you'll either return it to the manufacturer (assuming it's inside its warranty period), sell it to someone for parts, or simply discard it. You could, however, send it to a repair shop like Germany's KrisFix. Around the world, electronics enthusiasts are starting repair...
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If you follow the competitive overclocking scene at all, you are probably familiar (at least in passing) with the name of Shamino. The legendary figure works at ASUS now, but he's still up to his old tricks. In fact, he just released the simply-named "Arc OC Tool", which fellow expert tuner Skatterbencher used to take...
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If you're reading this website, you're probably familiar with MSI Afterburner, at least by name. It's one of the most popular GPU tweaking and tuning programs, so much so that hackers are willing to spoof the MSI website to fool unsuspecting gamers. However, its future is in limbo following the revelation that the...
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Normally, on Ryzen platforms, we recommend applying new BIOS updates as soon as they're available. AMD puts continuous work into the AGESA firmware for its CPUs, and this sometimes results in major stability improvements or performance gains thanks to improved memory performance or feature support. Folks on a Ryzen 5...
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Elden Ring is a game with which you are almost assuredly familiar by now. Besides record-breaking sales and multiple Game of the Year awards, it's become the new target of the curious FromSoftware cultural phenomenon where people beat the company's notoriously-hard games with ridiculously-unsuited controllers.
The...
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This attempt by Microsoft to purchase Activision-Blizzard has been incredibly contentious. Besides challenges from the industry, the attempted acquisition has seen push-back from legislators in several places, including the EU, the UK, and here at home in the US. The FTC filed a lawsuit to block the purchase, and what...
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Like almost every other computer hardware company of note, Patriot is at CES 2023, and it brought along its latest memory and storage products. As part of its Viper Gaming lineup, Patriot is debuting new DDR5 memory in the Venom, Elite, and Xtreme lineups, with transfer rates as high as 8,000 MT/s.
We'll start from...
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We were generally fairly impressed with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX when we tested it, but a few folks who purchased the new card have been seeing red, and not just Radeon red. Specifically, we're talking about the red of a thermal alert when the card hits 110ºC after just a few minutes gaming. If you're affected, just...
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So Intel's first discrete GPUs based on the Alchemist design, known as Arc A770, Arc A750, and Arc A380, have been out for a bit. Since that launch, they've seen significant performance improvements thanks to driver updates as well as the implementation of XeSS in titles like Marvel's Spider-Man, Hitman 3, and Redout...
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