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.
It's been nigh on nine months since Jeff Kampman from Intel's Graphics Technical Marketing team raised the question: does AMD's 3D V-Cache actually help that much if you're not running a top-end graphics card? Well, we've been busy and haven't had time until just recently to get the testing done, but now we have and...
Read more...
When you hear "super-sampling", you have a certain expectation. Super-sampling is the oldest form of anti-aliasing, and it essentially amounts to just raising the render resolution. That's the type of anti-aliasing that early GeForce and Radeon cards used, as well as the last 3dfx Voodoo boards.
NVIDIA's DLSS...
Read more...
DFI PCSF51 Industrial Pi: $580 (As Tested) + $28 Passive Heatsink The DFI PCSF51 is an 'Industrial Pi', powered by and AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 processor for intensive and demanding edge applications. Compact SBC with x86 Ryzen CPU and Radeon Vega GPU Runs silently with the larger passive cooling option Highly...
Read more...
Drop+ Lord of the Rings mechanical TKL keyboard - Starting MSRP: $169 This keyboard may cause LOTR fans to drool, but it costs nearly double the product it is based upon. LOTR Designs (Dwarvish or Elvish) TKL Form Factor Non-Captive USB-C Cable N-key Rollover Extended Left Shift Key Dye-sub...
Read more...
The humble webcam has seen a surge to prominence fueled by the rise of web conferencing and remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few short years ago, a webcam could be buried away below the display of a laptop and few users would complain or even notice. With those days behind us, consumers and professionals alike have been...
Read more...
When we reviewed the Dell G5 15 SE, an all-AMD gaming laptop that features an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H processor and a Navi-based Radeon RX 5600M, we didn't have a chance to dive into integrated graphics performance. The gaming battery life with powerful discrete graphics left something to be desired of course—the...
Read more...
Doom is a game franchise that needs no introduction. In 1992, id Software laid down the groundwork for first-person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D. When Doom came along a year later, the studio cemented its status among elite American game developers, thanks in no small part to the game's outstanding graphics and...
Read more...
Hot on the heels of the release of AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series processors and Navi-based Radeon RX 5700 series, we’ve connected with the VP and General Manager of the Radeon Business Unit, Scott Herkelman, to discuss the launch, get a few technical questions answered, and get to the bottom of the “jebaiting”...
Read more...
Dell has a long history of producing high-quality displays, and the recently released Dell UltraSharp 27 Premier Color UltraHD 4K monitor (model UP2718Q) we will be showing you here -- the company’s first to support HDR10 -- is no exception. Though this display demands a premium price, it is also chock...
Read more...
Does the name Daniel Guermeur mean anything to you? It should. He's the founder and CEO of Das Keyboard, previously known as Metadot, and he's part of the reason why the peripheral market is now flush with mechanical keyboards. It started in 2005 when, on a mission to become a faster and more accurate typist, he...
Read more...
Mechanical keyboards are commonplace now, but that wasn't always the case. For many years, squishy membrane and dome-switch keyboards dominated the landscape in part because they're cheap to produce, and also because typists who've never used anything else didn't really know what they were missing. Imagine trying to describe the taste of ice...
Read more...
Intel has been slowly releasing information about its Devil’s Canyon processors for a few months now. If you’ve been on top of the processor scene, you probably know that Devil’s Canyon is the codename for a new revision of Intel’s 4th Gen Core processors, based on the Haswell microarchitecture, that features a...
Read more...
As a species, we've come a long way from the days of carving notes into stone. While our ancestors used chisel and rock, we now use keyboards to hammer out our thoughts and anything that needs to be documented. Some of us spend hours a day sitting in front of a PC, a large portion of which is dedicated to punching keystrokes at a frenzied...
Read more...
In case you didn't get the memo, the 4K Ultra HD revolution has begun. What's been remarkable about the ongoing transition from Full HD 1080p to 4K Ultra HD is that hardware makers and content creators didn't get stuck in a 'chicken and egg' scenario. Typically when new technology emerges, hardware makers wait for software developers to come...
Read more...
In about six weeks, Blizzard will launch Reaper of Souls, the first expansion pack for Diablo 3. I've spent the last few weeks playing in the beta for RoS, and while I normally hold an article this extensive for a launch, there's enough locked-in differences to be worth discussing at this stage. This new expansion comes with the usual...
Read more...
We're not going to beat around the bush, here. BioShock Infinite is game-of-the-year material. The floating city of Columbia is one of the most evocative, intense, gorgeous environments I've ever seen -- but how much you like it may depend on what sort of visual wizardry you prefer. BioShock Infinite is built on Unreal Engine 3, and while...
Read more...
Gaming is something we've done quite a bit of over the years, but sitting down to pick a list of the most addictive games ever proved surprisingly tricky. Addictive games aren't necessarily the top sellers, or record-smashing behemoths. Sometimes, their appeal is measured in near-perfect execution of a narrow concept, while other games keep...
Read more...
There are two types of power users on this planet, and they consist of those who use a 30-inch monitor, and those who don't. The latter far outnumber the former, but thanks to a number of factors, this particular digital divide is growing smaller by the day. For one, 30-inch monitors are somewhat more affordable compared to a few years ago,...
Read more...
Once upon a time, CRT monitors ruled the land. They were big, they were bulky, and you could easily throw your back out if you ignored your chiropractor's advice to bend at the knees and keep your chin up, when picking up heavy objects. Back in the day, a 19-inch CRT weighed around 40 pounds and dominated your computer desk with all that junk...
Read more...
Eleven years ago, now-defunct developer Ion Storm released Deus Ex and made video game history. The original title cast players in the role of JC Denton, a nanotech-augmented agent with the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO) circa 2052. The game's plot is a fusion of classic conspiracy theories and a referendum on what it means...
Read more...
The original Drobo direct-attached-storage (DAS) device hit the scene in summer of 2007 and took the tech world by storm. It represented a new paradigm in how you could implement external, redundant back-up storage with much of the same goodness that RAID offers, but without a number of the headaches and the complexity that also comes with...
Read more...
Lately, it feels like the good, old, reliable hard disk drive (HDD) doesn't get any respect. When it comes to storage, Solid State Drives (SSDs) are getting all the attention these days--and it's no wonder, considering the speed, durability, low-power, and silent-running attributes of current solid state drives. But SSDs are also very expensive...
Read more...
