PATREONPC 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.
As details of upcoming Lynnfield processors and P55 chipset-based motherboards hit the scene, there is a growing buzz within the industry about the effects of bringing Nehalem down into the mainstream market segments. While X58 and Core i7 performance dominates, complete system pricing has kept some average consumers looking to upgrade...
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A few months back NVIDIA "released" the GeForce GTS 250 priced at just around $150. The reason behind the quotations in the previous statement is that the GTS 250 is not exactly something new. While a lot of NVIDIA's R&D dollars have gone into their higher-end products such as the GTX 285 and GTX 295, to satisfy...
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The PC world was treated to one of those rare occurrences a few weeks back--a 1-2 punch into the 3D graphics fray from both ATI and NVIDIA. We're talking about the near simultaneous launches of the ATI Radeon HD 4890 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275. Both of their names lead to obvious suggestions about where they fit into their respective...
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While most computer enthusiasts overclock their systems to get increased performance from their components, there are a select few that push the limits of hardware to another level for the entertainment factor alone. Instead of just trying to get higher frame rates for gaming or better throughput for other types of workloads, these...
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NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 285 about three months ago, and in our launch article, we found it to be a very strong product. As you are no doubt aware, the GTX 285 is a replacement for the GTX 280. The GT200B GPU at the heart of the GTX 285 is nearly identical to the GTX 280's GT200 GPU. The most significant difference between the two GPUs...
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Home PCs have reached a new plateau recently with the much heralded release of the Core i7 processor from Intel, which goes hand-in-hand with the X58 Express chipset and the motherboards built upon it. Although the Core i7 does borrow technology from earlier CPUs, there are some major changes including placing all four cores...
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Synopsis: When the new Core i7 processors arrive sometime later this month, pricing for the flagship Core i7 Extreme 965 will be set at $999, the Core i7 940 at $562, and the Core i7 920 at $284. Expect enthusiast-class X58 based motherboards to sell for around $300 give or take a few dollars depending on the...
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NVIDIA's current list of graphics products reads like a mathematician's crib sheet; there are no fewer than 10 active SKUs in their GTX 200- and 9000-series of graphics cards. It's generally understood that higher model numbers typically mean better peformance, but the subtleties behind the GSO / GT / GTX / GX2 monikers are...
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Enthusiasts love high-end hardware, and when it comes to Intel chipsets, that means the X48 and X38 Express platforms. The 910GL Express sits at the polar opposite of the company’s lineup, shoring up sales of entry-level systems where price is the principal consideration. In between, you have a massive list of discrete and integrated chipsets...
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Gigabyte is no stranger to innovation. Year after year, we see the company build unique features into its products to increase performance, improve power utilization, decrease noise, and enhance the user experience. As enthusiasts, we love to see innovations that improve products and differentiate them from the rest of the pack. Gigabyte has...
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At the end of October '07, NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT 512MB hit the scene and garnered near universal praise due to its strong performance and value proposition. With its revamped 65nm GPU and single-slot board design, the GeForce 8800 GT was poised to storm the $200 - $249 graphics card space. However, due to availability issues,...
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When you think of GIGABYTE, you may envision only a manufacturer of motherboards and video cards, but there is a lot more to this Taiwan based company than initially meets the eye. GIGABYTE also markets Network Servers, Notebook PCs, a broad array of peripherals and their Thermal Solutions line which covers PSUs, air and water cooling kits,...
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Gigabyte has almost always been a well respected brand amongst PC enthusiasts, but it seems the company has come on very strong in the last year or so. Gigabyte has released a number of highly praised motherboards is recent months, like the GA-P35T-DQ6 and GA-965P-DQ6 2.0 that were all lauded for their feature sets, performance, and overclockability....
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It's probably safe to assert that, by and large, DIY Small Form Factor PCs are still niche products. Although they have been offered by the likes of Shuttle, AOpen, MSI and many others for nearly half a decade now, there's still an audible gasp that's heard from non PC-centric folks when then first encounter one. Questions range from, "What...
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NVIDIA has enjoyed quite a bit of success the last couple of years thanks in part to its GeForce 6 and 7 Series graphics cards. Like every other company in the world, NVIDIA likes to ride its success as long as possible. In NVIDIA's case, this can be done with product refreshes. The most recent refresh brought us the GeForce 7950 GT, interestingly...
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A few short weeks ago, NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce 8800 series of graphics cards and the nForce 600 family of core logic chipsets on the very same day. The flagship parts in each of these product categories, the GeForce 8800 GTX and the nForce 680i SLI, made the basis of what NVIDIA has dubbed their "Ultimate Gaming Platform". The...
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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 card should soon start dropping. Thus, it's...
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Now that the dual-GPU GeForce 7950 GX2 has hit the streets, the GeForce 7900 GTX is no longer NVIDIA's flagship desktop graphics adapter. But that doesn't mean it should all of a sudden be disregarded and brushed aside as an afterthought for a high-end gaming rig. In fact, the 7900 GTX may even become a more attractive option for some...
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Trends in PC hardware usually come about for a good reason. As processor and memory speeds continued to rise, many manufacturers responded by producing more elaborate air cooling apparatuses. Some of them worked well, while others offered almost no improvement at all. In either case, lowering temperatures in this...
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Although performance has been greatly enhanced over the last few years through the use of faster spindle speeds, larger caches, and newer interfaces, hard drives still tend to be a bottleneck in a typical PC. Mechanical devices, by their very nature, require time to seek the data requested, read it, and then transfer that information back...
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For the better part of the last decade, there has only been two major players in the discreet graphics field, and as one of those players, nVidia needs no introduction. The GPU manufacturer has stayed at or near the forefront of technological advances through the years. Although there has been a misstep or two along the way, you generally...
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With all the praise that has been heaped upon NVIDIA for their 7800 series of graphic cards, it was bound to cause a bit of dismay for rival ATi. For nearly two years ATi had been riding high on the success of their 9700 and 9800 series of cards, while NVIDIA had been trying to save face after a few mishaps of their own. ...
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