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.
Computer cases tend to reveal certain things about their owners. With one glance, your friends can estimate just how serious (or casual) your computer hardware addiction may be. Whether the chassis is a generic, cream-colored throwback from the 90's, a standard mid-tower with a couple of LED fans, or an extravagant full-tower gaming behemoth...
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This week may be as big a week in the company's history as Microsoft has ever had. We know, that's a pretty bold statement, but there's a lot of evidence to back that up. Microsoft has been drowning in negative press and negative vibes for most of Vista's life; it has tried for years to spit-shine the image of its "Wow!-inducing" operating...
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Although the worldwide economy may be shrinking, our needs as consumers to store large amounts of data continues to grow at a breakneck pace. Whereas only a few years ago it was uncommon for most PC users to have more than just a few digital images or media files, today virtually every aspect of our lives has some sort of digital component....
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As digital media increases in popularity, so will the demand for larger storage options, whether in the form of increased hard drives capacities or through the use of expandable network storage devices. The last time we broached the topic of NAS was with our article on two impressive SOHO units from QNAP. While not industrial...
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DirectX 10 (DX10) has been one of the hottest topics for discussion and news coverage since the first DX10 compliant hardware appeared in the second half of last year. Touted as the biggest milestone in games development since programmable shaders were introduced with DirectX 8, nearly seven years ago, DX10 has generated a lot of buzz. Unlike...
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When going to a party, it's customary to not show up empty handed. Depending on the type of party, a cake, pastries, a bottle of wine or maybe even your favorite beer are all acceptable items to bring as a gesture to the host, thanking them for the invitation. When it comes to a LAN party, however, the term 'customary'...
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There are only a select few PC enthusiasts who like to show off their hardware more than gamers do. With all the questing, spying, and fragging going on, they still find the time to appreciate the machine that grants them such pleasure. As you know though, these days, any old box just won't do. No; something a little flashier than...
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Thermaltake is a company that offers a wide variety of products for custom computer builders. Whether you are looking for specialized cooling solutions, such as an active hard drive cooler, a water cooling kit or a quality CPU cooler like the Golden Orb II we recently reviewed, Thermaltake has an answer. Top that off with Multifunction...
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Whether you're a serious overclocker or simply want a quiet and cool running system, choosing a quality CPU cooler is crucial. There is no shortage of choices available, making the decision factor a daunting task for some, but taking the time to research the right cooler can result in a positive long term experience. Some coolers specialize...
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As the old saying goes, "Times are a changing". When the personal computer first caught on, word processing and text based gaming was all the rage, and then there was this thing called the "Internet" on the rise. Today, the Internet is at the center of the technological universe and the PC has become a powerful...
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One of the major up and comers in the video card industry is HIS. In recent months, HIS has garnered some attention with several impressive additions to their product line. They put a major emphasis on overclocking, cooling and stability, while providing competitive performance. With such innovations as oversized, yet quiet...
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Although AMD's socket 939 platform has moved into the mainstream with the recent release of 939-pin Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ CPUs, products based on the older socket 754 platform are still in demand. While the new socket 939 processors have been met with much fanfare (and relatively high price tags), the older socket 754 Athlon...
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Terratec Aureon Vs. AudioTrak Prodigy Two 7.1 24-Bit/192kHz Cards Under $150 by Jeff Bouton September 18, 2003 For a long time, when you thought of a sound card there were two basic choices; there were cards from Creative Labs and then there was everyone else. However, over recent years, there has been an increasing number of challengers,...
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The Teac DV-W50D DVD±R/RW Drive The Best of Both Worlds on a Budget By, Jeff Bouton August 28, 2003 As DVD burners have gone mainstream, they've also evolved into an economical burning solution, but this wasn't always the case. When DVD writers were first introduced a few years ago, they got everyone's attention with their functionality...
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The Teac CD-W552E 52x24x52 CD-RW Drive Pushing the CD-R Limits By, Jeff Bouton August 7th, 2003 It's hard to believe how far technology has advanced over the last decade. I can remember getting my first CD-ROM drive that came with a Sound Blaster audio card. That was the ultimate addition to my Wang 386/16MHz computer system. ...
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The Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro A Little Something To Break the Monotony By - Marco Chiappetta August 6, 2003 For the last few months, budget conscious enthusiasts have been enamored with ATi's Radeon 9600 Pro GPU. And when you really think about it, what's not to like? It's a relatively inexpensive product, with a great feature set...
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The Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro A Power-packed card for the mainstream "Burned in" by Robert Maloney May 8, 2003 Often, when you look at hardware ads in magazines, you will see somewhere in there a benchmark score. A 3DMark score to be more specific, will scream "16,348 out of the box", or list the system...
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Tyan S2662 Trinity i7205 Dual Channel DDR for the Pentium 4 By, Chris Angelini February 24th, 2003 KISS - four letters that together, can mean so many different things. It's a '70's rock band, it's a gesture of affection, and for Tyan, it's an acronym. "Keep It Simple, Stupid" - quite possibly the best way to avoid...
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Tyan S2495 Trinity KT400 More KT400 Madness By, Tom Laverriere February 17, 2003 Now that NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset has become mainstream, it seems as though many other AMD based motherboard chipsets just pale a little. We know at least one chipset maker that would disagree with this of course, VIA. VIA's KT400 offering has...
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Transcend's AVE3 Socket 370 Motherboard A newcomer makes a splash By, Marco ?BigWop? Chiappetta June 7, 2000 There are a lot of heavy hitters in the motherboard market right now. Companies like Asus, Soyo, Tyan and Abit, among others, are always thought of first when it?s upgrade time. Times change though, and...
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Transcends TS-ASL3 - i815E Motherboard Straight Shooting Socket 370 Performance By Dave "Davo" Altavilla 12/5/00 It seems like the folks at Transcend only came into the PC Motherboard scene within the last year or so. However, they have been in business making Memory Modules and Motherboards since 1988. Perhaps the reason...
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Tyan's S1854 - Trinity 400 VIA Apollo Pro133A with AGP4X This is our first review ever of a product from Tyan here at Hot Hardware. There is no specific reason for that other than we just haven't hooked up with them before. Tyan is a US based Motherboard Manufacturer known for producing very high quality...
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