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 seems like Intel started talking about the Penryn core as soon as the Conroe core launched in the form of the first Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors. Penryn was to be the next evolution in Intel’s Core microarchitecture and would be the foundation of a new class of mobile, desktop, and server processor built using the company’s...
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It has been quite some time since Intel launched a desktop chipset targeted squarely at power users and PC enthusiasts. Of course, the P965 and current P35 have both been very well received by motherboard manufactures and the enthusiast community, but these chipsets were actually designed for the upper-mainstream space. In fact,...
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Day 2 at this year’s IDF began with a mobility keynote hosted by Intel’s David “Dadi” Perlmutter and Anand Chandrasekher. The keynote was broken up into two parts; the first focused on notebooks and Intel’s mobile platforms as a whole and the second focused on “ultra mobility” featuring a number of UMPCs and MIDs....
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During a closed door session at IDF, we had a chance to get some hands on time with a few upcoming Intel platforms including Skulltrail, the octa-core platform Intel is targeting at enthusiasts. We also saw some dual-core 45nm desktop and mobile (Wolfdale) machines at work and even snapped off a few pics of a phase-change cooled, overclocked...
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There were a multitude of products on display on the show floor at the Intel Developers Forum this year, most of which were designed for the enterprise space. In addition to the plethora of servers on display, however, were products from a number of manufactures that are well known to enthusiasts. We stopped by a few of their booths and...
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Midway through the first day at IDF, there was an interview held with Gordon Moore, the retired Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Intel Corporation, in which he spoke of the early years at the company and the many hurdles they faced in the beginning....
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This year’s Intel Developer Forum began with a brief overview of the event given by Pat Gelsinger, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. Pat spoke briefly about this year being the 10th Anniversary of IDF and talked about the many speakers and partners that will contribute to the event....
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We first took a look at Intel's P35 Express chipset back in May, when it was released into the wild to supplant the still relatively youthful P965 and usher in the era of DDR3 memory and 1333MHz FSB Intel processors. The P965 is a tough act to follow. Despite its intended mid-range market placement, Intel didn't hamper the P965 in any way...
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What goes faster than a Core 2 Quad processor at 3GHz? Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, nothing from AMD at the moment. Thankfully Intel has a few more "MHz in the can", or so to speak. Actually, it appears they may have a lot more, as you'll see in the pages that follow. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves...
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Over the last year or so, since Intel's Core microarchitecture and Conroe core were ready to be unveiled at the Intel Developers Forum in early March '06, Intel has been more open and has allowed the media a view into more details regarding upcoming products much earlier than they had before. You don't have to take our word for it, however....
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It was at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that we were first exposed to an Intel demo machine dubbed the ' V8' . Intel wouldn't label the machine as a direct response to the QuadFX platform by AMD, but they did want to stress the point that enthusiasts could have a dual-socket, eight-core...
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There's something to be said for Intel's chipset release practices. Typically, each major revision has consisted of multiple versions: a powerful, enthusiast high-end chipset, and then a number of slimmed down versions. Note, we say "slimmed down" instead of "stripped down", as much of the architecture and feature set remains untouched....
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Intel has spent millions making their "Core" brand synonymous with high performance processing. In these days of the Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core 2 Extreme, it’s pretty easy to find a Core microarchitecture-based processor to match nearly any possible price point. The performance levels of the Core 2 product lineup have been...
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Motherboard chipset technology isn't refreshed at the same fevered pitch that processors, memory or IO products are. A CPU or GPU speed-bump is like low-lying fruit relatively speaking, but chipset enhancements can usher in a whole host of stability, interoperability and verification challenges. Let's face it, when...
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A little over a year ago at the Intel Developers forum in San Francisco, Intel allowed a small group of members of the technology press to run benchmarks on a pre-configured Conroe-based system, well before processors based on the Conroe core had begun to ship. This was a new strategy for Intel, but a welcomed one in our opinion as it gave...
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Hot on the heals of the holiday weekend, Intel is launching a new flagship quad-core processor targeted at hardcore power users and PC enthusiasts. As its name implies, the new Core 2 Extreme QX6800 has frequency parity with its dual-core counterpart, the Core 2 Extreme X6800 - sans the "Q". At 2.93GHz this makes the Core 2 Extreme QX6800...
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Intel held a briefing today to further disclose and discuss details regarding their upcoming 45nm High-K Penryn and Nehalem processor cores. Roughly two years ago, Intel talked about their proposed "tick-tock" product strategy which entailed the shift to a new process technology followed by an enhanced or entirely new...
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Without question, the process of choosing a standard, pre-built PC or building one yourself has become almost trivial over the last few years. Given the caliber of hardware on the market, even with just a little bit of knowledge, it is difficult to purchase a system today which would not be suitable for nearly any standard application....
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Intel's impressive manufacturing process capabilities and fab resources are well known throughout the industry. In fact, most would argue that their manufacturing prowess has played a large part in the company's success. They've had many "firsts" over the years due to process advancements, the most recent of...
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To say this year has been a bit of a whirl-wind adventure would be an immense understatement. We've seen Intel move from a back-seat position versus the Athlon 64 X2 with their Pentium D architecture, to commanding virtually all of the lime-light as of late with Core 2 Duo, not to mention running away with nearly all of...
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When Intel unleashed the Core 2 back in July, they introduced the P965 as their mainstream chipset, while the 975X Express chipset was upgraded with Core 2 support to cover the high-end enthusiast segment. However, the P965 didn't end up being 'just' a mainstream product. As production boards utilizing the...
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Intel moved in on a quiet little investment of a UK-based company against the backdrop of IDF the other day. And if you weren't maniacally focused on some of these things, as we are around here at HH, it would have sneaked past you, right under your nose, without so much as a twitch of your...
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