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 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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The big headlines in today's video card related articles almost always come down to seeing double; whether it's two NVIDIA GeForce cards connected in SLI or two ATi Radeons running in CrossFire mode. Perhaps it's justified in that people always want to see higher framerates and increased performance, regardless of the cost. ...
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The beige box; you had one, I had one, just about everyone and their mother had one. It wasn't that long ago either, that we all had our generic cases on display for no one to notice. Of course, this was back in the day when megahertz ruled, megabytes were plentiful, and a 56K modem was a bragging right. Fast forward a bit, and now we're running...
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It seems that today's mid and high-end video cards are coming with increasingly more creative cooling solutions. Lately, large, quiet fans are becoming more popular as seen with Abit's OTES, HIS's IceQ II and Sapphire's Lethal Cooling. All of these options aim to keep a video card cool under load while minimizing fan noise, and...
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The GV-R96X128D 9600XT from Gigabyte High-End Quality at a Mid-Range Price By, Jeff Bouton March 2, 2004 When it comes to deciding on the perfect video card for your needs, manufacturers don't make it easy for the average buyer. While naming conventions are aimed at classifying the product so the consumer can decipher what they are getting,...
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Gigabyte's GA-8S648FX Motherboard Bridging the gap with the SiS 648FX "Burned" in by Robert Maloney August 13th, 2003 A lot of hype and controversy has surrounded Intel's latest chipsets, the i865 Springdale and the i875 Canterwood, and they are proving to be very capable solutions...
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The Gigabyte GV-R98P128D Powered by the ATi Radeon 9800 Pro By - Marco Chiappetta July 17, 2003 At the moment, gamers looking for a "Top-of-the-Line" graphics card, basically have two GPUs to choose from, either an ATi Radeon 9800 Pro or an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900. Video cards based on these two GPUs are so evenly matched, they...
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Gigabyte's 7VAXP-A Ultra KT400A Motherboard Competition For The nForce 2 By, Tom Laverriere May 27, 2003 If anyone has ever been part of a team, not just in sports but in any part of life, there is one valuable lesson to learn and that is competition within the team makes the team better. There are many reasons for this. ...
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The GeForce FX 5900 Ultra A Preview And Performance Analysis With NVIDIA's New Killer By - Dave Altavilla May 12, 2003 Here we are again, with another installment of my pixel is faster than yours. Why is it that Graphics Cards create so much buzz in the PC Enthusiast market? Perhaps it's because Processors, Motherboards,...
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GeForce FX 5200 Ultra Performance Analysis Detailed Benchmarks With NVIDIA's Value Gaming Card By - Marco Chiappetta and Dave Altavilla March 12, 2003 Last week's Game Developers Conference was pumped up with lots of hype and excitement, regarding not only the software behind next generation game engines, but also the hardware that will power...
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Gainward's AGP8X NVIDIA Powered "Golden Samples" Giving Things a Boost with AGP 8X By - Jeff Bouton December 03, 2002 When it comes to maintaining longevity in the video card market, nVidia seems to have the process down to a science. Since the release of the GeForce4 series of GPUs last year, the product line has enjoyed a...
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The Gainward GF4 PowerPack! Ultra/750XP Golden Sample! An Awesome Card With an Insane Bundle... By - Marco Chiappetta June 20, 2002 Over the last year or so, Gainward has done an excellent job differentiating their NVIDIA based video boards from their competition's. Gainward's designers and marketing team seem...
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Getting PC1066 Level Performance From PC800 RDRAM & PC800 Motherboards A modification project on the Abit TH7II-RAID By, Dave Altavilla April 5, 2002 It's been a long time coming but finally, the Pentium 4 platform has gone mainstream enough that motherboard manufacturers, like Abit, are building...
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Overclocking The GeForce4 Ti 4600 When fast isn't fast enough... By Dave Altavilla 3/3/02 What self respecting PC Enthusiast wouldn't take a brand new graphics card technology and push it to its limits? Well, perhaps there are a few conservative types out there that would rather take the "in warranty" and stable path...
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