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.
We have covered Intel’s Broadwell microarchitecture extensively over the last few months. The relatively high-performance and low-power characteristics of Broadwell make it a good fit for a wide range of devices and systems. And as such, Broadwell has found its way into everything from notebooks and tablets, to an...
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Intel has refreshed its line-up of processors in a number of categories over the last few months. Late last year, Intel’s current flagship desktop processors based on Haswell-E arrived, followed shortly thereafter by the low-power Core M series for ultra-mobile devices, and then 5th Generation Core processors for...
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Intel just wrapped up an event at a location adjacent to the Game Developers Conference where the company talked about its vision for the future of gaming, and how Intel plans to further support the industry. Intel discussed some updates to its 5th Gen Core processor line-up, Intel graphics developments, the Intel...
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When it comes to the mobile market, Intel is coming on strong as of late, and we’re not just talking about with notebooks. Intel’s Atom processors, while not as potent as their Celeron and Core counterparts, allowed mainstream tablets to run a full-featured version of Windows while still offering respectable...
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Intel promises a lot with its just-announced fifth-gen Core vPro processors, but if there's one overarching theme, it's that the company wants you to be wireless -- even if you need to take advantage of a big screen.
Three major focuses for Intel with this launch include general PC design, wireless displays, and...
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Intel's strategically timed CES 2015 launch of their new 5th Generation Core Series processors for notebooks was met with a reasonably warm reception, though it's always difficult to rise above the noise, with the sea of announcements from competitors and the like. CES is always such a zoo and that's by design...
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The Consumer Electronics Show is about to get underway, and Intel is leading the pack with a set of CPU announcements. It has been six months since the company took the lid off its first 14nm processor, the Core M, but that CPU is designed for the ultramobile, low-power market. Consumers who wanted to tap Intel's 14nm...
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It has been over six years since Intel first unveiled its Atom CPUs and detailed its plans for new, ultra-mobile devices. The company's efforts to break into smartphone and tablet sales, while turning a profit, have largely come to naught. Nonetheless, company CEO Brian Krzanich remains optimistic. Speaking to...
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Earlier this year we detailed the launch of new 15-core Ivy Bridge-based server processors from Intel, as part of the Xeon E7 refresh cycle. Today, Intel is pushing the Xeon E5 family forward -- except in this case, the new Xeon E5 v3 chips are leaping to higher core counts, the more advanced Haswell-EP architecture, and DDR4. The result?...
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Intel's next-generation Broadwell Y (now known as the Core M processor) is set to ship on schedule for the end of the year. The company, occasionally flagged with criticism of its repeated delays and with its IDF show ramping up next week, is sharing more detail on the upcoming hardware, features and performance...
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Competing with Intel's desktop or notebook processors is like taking on the proverbial 800 pound gorilla, but when it comes to resources, the company is more like an 800 pound gorilla on steroids, with advanced weaponry and a big budget. Intel is a manufacturing and process technology juggernaut. There was a time...
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Intel’s solid state storage offerings are as diverse as they come. Although Intel started with only a single family of enthusiast-class drives a number of years ago, the company has since expanded its scope to include everything from ultra-high-end PCI Express-based offerings to small, entry-level SATA drives, meant to be used solely...
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The pace of innovation on in the solid state storage market hasn’t slowed a bit in the last few years. Numerous manufacturers continue to release newer, faster SSDs at regular, frequent intervals. There’s been an underlining limitation, however, that’s prevented monumental leaps in performance—the aging SATA interface....
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Intel has established a strong record in the solid state storage space, dating all the way back to 2008 with its debut of the excellent X25-M series of drives. Back then, Intel upped the ante in enthusiast-targeted solid state storage, and they want to do it again with the drive we’ll be showing you here today, the upcoming Intel SSD...
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Intel is announcing its new tablet and smartphone designs this week at Mobile World Congress, alongside a major push to drive adoption of its 28nm XMM 7160 and XMM 7260 modem technology. It's been two years since Intel launched its first serious Atom-based smartphone platform, codenamed Medfield, and it's safe to say that those two years haven't...
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For months, there have been rumors circulating of a new Intel 15-core CPU, with a particular focus on Big Data analytics, multi-socket systems, and the enterprise market. Well, this past January, we took a trip to Intel's SAP research lab to see the new processors and the rather substantial update coming down the pipe. Unlike Intel's...
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It has been a while since I have personally setup a test bench, rolled up my sleeves and built a test system with top-shelf components, a fresh OS install and some overclocking mojo. However, Intel's recent release of Ivy Bridge-E gave us a hankering to do just that. We've been testing a lot of tablets, smartphones and ultrabooks,...
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This most recent metamorphosis of the PC hasn’t been kind to the high-end desktop processor segment. While the industry as a whole continues to focus on the steadily growing ultra-mobile market, and releases new products in rapid succession, there have only been two major flagship desktop processors released since the Intel Core i7-3960X...
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Intel is updating its line of enterprise-class solid state storage offerings today, with a new more cost-effective drive that targets datacenter and cloud-computing applications. The Intel SSD DC S3500 as it is known, is similar in a number of ways to the SSD DC S3700 we evaluated a few months back. The new drives, however, are built around...
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If Haswell's debut on the desktop has left you feeling a bit flat, the company's mobile efforts may be the pick-me-up you've been hoping for. If you step back and think about the entire CPU market, the last two years have been marked by tremendous shifts in consumer buying habits, as tablet sales skyrocketed and desktop/laptop sales have...
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We've been talking about Intel's 4th Generation Core processor technology, codenamed Haswell, for over two years now. If you've been hanging around these parts and are like most self-respecting geeks, you've likely been feeling the build-up of Haswell for quite some time. Intel has disclosed lots of information on their latest...
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It’s no secret that Intel is readying processors based in its Haswell microarchitecture. The new chips are due to be released in the not too distant future and feature a number of noteworthy enhancements, including a much more powerful integrated graphics core. When Haswell arrives though, it will supplant current Ivy Bridge-based...
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