PC Components, Peripherals And Gadget Reviews And News
Dig into our deep-dive product reviews and news of PC components from processors, to motherboards, graphics cards (GPUs), sound cards, and storage, along with other gadgets and peripherals that complete the computing experience. Whether you're a DIY PC enthusiast builder or just looking to read-up on what should be inside or connected to your next pre-built PC, here's where you'll find all the nuts and bolts sorted on what makes modern computer systems tick, as well some of the best user interface devices to go with them.
Within the enthusiast scene, there exists an elite group of overclockers who push the limits of hardware to the breaking point. With the help of phase change coolers, dry ice, liquid nitrogen and even liquid helium, these enthusiasts achieve the seemingly impossible. In this world...
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AMD is using the prominence of the Computex show in Taipei to unveil a slew of new, affordable desktop processors. A few of them are based on the existing core employed within their Phenom II processor line-up, but one of them is comprised of a new piece of silicon that pays homage to the...
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Located in the heart of Texas, the city of Austin is known for many things. Nicknamed Silicon Hills, the state capital accommodates an army of tech companies including the one and only Advanced Micro Devices, better known as AMD. From May 20th to the 22nd, AMD brought in some of the...
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Finding the right chassis for a system build is like setting up the foundation before building out the design of your computer and working your craftsmanship into the intricate details of component selection and configuration. Start with a good foundation that caters to your build requirements and you're bound to have a better...
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Early last week, we spent a day or so with a number of representatives from Global Foundries, learning about the company's plans for a new fab that will be built in upstate New York. The name Global Foundries may be unfamiliar to many of you, but the company's origins may not. If you...
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AMD is launching yet another new ATI Radeon graphics card today. And in light of the current worldwide economic conditions, along with the performance and power consumption data we'll be presenting you on the proceeding pages, we suspect it's going to be a welcomed addition to the...
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Over the course of a few months in late 2007 and early-to-mid 2008, AMD unveiled their Spider platform, consisting of AMD-built desktop processors, chipsets, and graphics cards, and refreshed said platform with faster processors and graphics cards. Fast forward to today, and AMD is...
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As anyone remotely in tune with the tech sector can attest, the rivalry in the PC graphics card market between AMD / ATI and NVIDIA is as intense as ever. It used to be that one of the two companies would release a new product, only to have the other release a competing offering a few weeks, or maybe a few months later. But even in these gloomy...
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One of the ways AMD is able to test and qualify ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs, without having to design and build numerous mobile reference cards that fit in multiple notebook form factors, is to produce fully-loaded, custom reference cards that'll fit into standard PCI Express x16 slots. The...
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Placing a product in the "audiophile" category automatically opens it up for scrutiny of the highest order. The new Asus Xonar Essence STX "headphone amp card for audiophiles" is Asus' latest in a line of audio card offerings that pretty much cover the spectrum of PC audio applications. Asus now offers audio cards designed for gaming to...
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With Asus's recent Blitzkrieg of inexpensive Eee PC netbooks and nettops, it might be easy forget that Asus also manufactures a full bevy of components and peripherals from motherboards to graphics cards to networking products. Asus also makes LCD displays, ranging in size from 17-inches on up to 26-inches, which cover a wide swath of feature...
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When we think about what is perhaps the one draw-back that enthusiasts and gamers could point to with respect to an Intel chipset-based motherboard, historically, it was lack of NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU support. Though you could drop more than one AMD ATI Radeon-based graphics...
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When AMD launched their current generation of Radeon 4800 series graphics cards last summer, they propelled themselves back into the ring against NVIDIA, who had previously been dominating the performance game for a few product cycles. The Radeon 4800 series provided decidedly high-end...
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Last month, AMD launched the Phenom II X4 processor line-up, and with it ushered in the first desktop processors built using the company's 45nm process node. While the first two Phenom II processors to arrive, the 3.0GHz X4 940 and 2.8GHz 920, were clearly superior to previous Phenoms in terms...
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Though this year's CES was unusually quiet in terms of attendance, and even a few exhibitors pulling no-shows, Asus had a plethora of new high tech gadget goodness on display, true to their usual form. We stopped by the booth and spent some time on a tour with David Ray, Vivian Lien, Brian Jang and Peter Clark...
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As the holidays loom near, we're sure many of you are itching to add some hot new hardware to your wish lists. Whether you're looking to upgrade or are seeking that perfect piece of hardware for a friend or loved one, finding the right match can be daunting. Further complicating matters is the recent severe...
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ATI has spent much of the last decade producing the FireGL line of high-end workstation graphics cards, regularly challenging and often times besting competing products from Nvidia's Quadro lineup. ATI's last generation of FireGL products, which we covered heavily, were excellent all around...
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Since the RV770 GPU's initial arrival, we have seen the technology used in the GPU migrate up and down AMD's product stack. At first, the RV770 powered only the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870, but soon thereafter two RV770's were linked together to form the current flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2. Then the GPU was scaled down to bring...
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Although the ATI Radeon HD 4850 and HD 4870 were launched nearly four months ago, they are both still exciting cards and we look forward to testing each one that enters our labs. For this article, we have another "TOP" card from ASUS in the form of the EAH4870 TOP, which of course is a factory overclocked Radeon HD 4870. Like most other HD...
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AMD continues their procession of new ATI Radeons today, with a couple of new entry-level offerings targeted at users who would like to upgrade from underpowered IGPs. Like the Radeon HD 4670 that came before it, the new Radeon HD 4550 and HD 4350 being rolled out today are based on the same GPU architecture first introduced with the popular...
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We have explained in numerous articles in the past that the bulk of GPU sales are made in the form of ether IGPs (Integrated Graphics Processors) or affordable, mainstream graphics cards. As powerful and exciting as the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 or GeForce ...
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When ATI was acquired by AMD a few years ago, one product that seemed to fall off of the new corporate radar was ATI's All-In-Wonder line of Graphics/TV-Tuner hybrid cards. This was an area of the market where ATI had exclusivity, yet we haven't seen a new All-In-Wonder offering since May 2006. Rest assured however, ATI has...
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