Graphics Cards, PC Monitors And Computer Audio Reviews And News
The sights and sounds of the modern computing experience are driven by key user interface technologies like graphics cards, display monitors and various audio solutions. Here you'll find reviews and news on the latest in cutting-technologies for GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), LED and LCD computer display monitors, sound cards, PC and wireless speaker systems and more.
The recent release of the GeForce 8800 series means two good things for those in NVIDIA's camp: for benchmark junkies there's a new set of cards to put through their paces. And for those with less lofty goals, it means that that the prices for the existing crop of...
Read more...
Today's high-end flagship video cards may cost an arm and a leg, but that segment of the market is not where the real money is. The big money is made in the low-end and mid-range (or mainstream) segments of the market. It's simple really: most people shopping for a video card have budgeted $100-250, while relatively few have $400+...
Read more...
When we first took a look at the Gigabyte GA-SN-SLI Quad Royal motherboard a few months back, we gave it solid praise, yet lamented on what we thought was an exciting opportunity. The board was capable of supporting up to four individual PCI-e based graphic cards, but the Quad Royal was only able to support two GeForce cards running in...
Read more...
Not long ago, when we reviewed MSI's GeForce 7600 GT, the closest ATI-based competitor available was the Radeon X1600 Pro. It was far from an apples-to-apples comparison from a technical standpoint, however. While both models sported the same number of Pixel and Vertex Shaders and had similar prices, the X1600 Pro's...
Read more...
A couple of weeks ago at an Editor's Day event at their headquarters in Santa Clara, California, NVIDIA proclaimed that they planned to "redefine reality" with their self-branded ultimate gaming platform. The products in the spotlight throughout the event were the new nForce...
Read more...
About two weeks ago, ATI launched the Radeon X1950 Pro, a new mainstream graphics card with a host of new features. This graphics card was equipped with a single-slot cooler, a relatively low-power GPU that was manufactured on TSMC's 80nm fabrication process, and in a first for...
Read more...
It's been only seven short weeks since ATI officially unveiled four additions to the X1K family of products, and here we are again with yet another new Radeon poised to shake-up the mid-range segment of the market. The new Radeon X1950 Pro is based on the GPU formerly codenamed RV570...
Read more...
The enthusiast gaming notebook has become an extremely viable and desirable alternative to today's desktop systems, which in-part explains why the mobile segment is one of the fastest growing in the PC industry. The latest crop of high performance notebooks are an engineering marvel of sorts, as they come dangerously close to...
Read more...
NVIDIA created a ton of buzz in the gaming community when it first introduced SLI. That buzz quickly gave way to a huge success, and the buzz and success really haven't diminished since. In fact, the birth of Quad SLI has only reinvigorated the buzz. Quad SLI is currently possible thanks to NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GX2 video card....
Read more...
Last week NVIDIA officially launched the $199 GeForce 7900 GS, and jointly announced the $299 GeForce 7950 GT. In our coverage of the GeForce 7900 GS, we were able to reveal the 7950 GT's specifications and features, but were asked to reserve posting any benchmark results until the cards were made available. Well, here we are only...
Read more...
Over the course of the last few months, the vast majority of news coming through the doors of NVIDIA has been in regards to enthusiast-class products such as the GeForce 7950 GX2 GPU and nForce 570 chipset. However, today the company is launching two new GPUs aimed squarely at the more...
Read more...
Although there has obviously been a lot going on behind the scenes at ATI these last few months, i.e. the proposed AMD merger, the company has remained relatively quiet. The last major graphics card launch was for the Radeon X1900...
Read more...
In recent months, we've seen a major step forward in the image quality of TV Tuner cards on the PC. As we recently saw with our review of NVIDIA's DualTV, an analog signal can now be cleaned up nicely with finely tuned comb filters and other technologies to bring...
Read more...
Selecting the right video card when you're on a budget can be difficult. The major deciding factor for many gamers out there is price. As mouthwatering as it is to think about getting a top-notch SLI or CrossFire setup, it's a luxury that most simply cannot afford. Fear not though, as both Nvidia and ATI have some quality entry-level...
Read more...
For almost a year now, NVIDIA has been teasing enthusiasts with their Quad-SLI technology. It was back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show that we got our first glimpse of a Quad-SLI based system, the Dell XP 600 Renegade. That first Quad-SLI implementation consisted of four GeForce 7800 GTX GPUs, each coupled to 512MB of...
Read more...
We've evaluated a myriad of Asus-built products over the years here at HotHardware.com, including countless motherboards, graphics cards, notebooks, and optical drives. But to date, we have only taken a look at one of the company's LCD monitors, the PM17TU. There is a good reason for this, however, as Asus has only been selling...
Read more...
Despite the recent trend of using dual and sometimes even quad graphics card configurations, the true benchmark of total gaming performance is how a single graphics card performs. Over the course of the last few years, the industry has witnessed an epic battle between ATI and...
Read more...
It can be tough for a company to decide how and where to market a video card in today's demanding retail environment. Price something too high and only a brave few might purchase the card; price it too low and it could be dismissed as a low-end or budget card by some consumers, regardless of its value proposition. These issues can...
Read more...
Rumors have been circulating for weeks, but yesterday the two companies involved made it official. AMD and ATI announced that the two companies planned to merge in a deal worth approximately $5.4 billion dollars. The quote below from the initial press release...
Read more...
As of late, due to reported issues with overheating and graphic anomalies with overclocked GeForce cards, many gamers are starting to think twice before purchasing factory overclocked cards. Some hesitation before buying the highest overclocked card makes sense, but XFX along with the other companies affected by this problem are...
Read more...
The never ending see-saw battle between NVIDIA and ATi has resulted in quicker card releases to the market. Whereas such events were met with much anticipation and speculation from the online community, the onslaught of new releases with their various "flavors" have also perhaps confused the average prospective buyer somewhat in...
Read more...
The fastest single graphics card in the world. This is the goal that NVIDIA was shooting for when they conjured up the GeForce 7950 GX2. Some might argue that a GeForce 7950 GX2, however, with its double stacked dual GPU powered PCB design, is anything but a single graphics card. We'd remind you that it does drop into...
Read more...
