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.
Much of the conversation surrounding AMD’s continued assault on Intel has revolved around the desktop and server markets, where the company’s Ryzen and EPYC processors have consistently increased in popularity, gen over gen. AMD has, however, also made significant inroads in the mobile space, with both high-end gaming notebooks...
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As enthusiasts, we're often most enamored by the latest and greatest graphics cards, processors, and storage technology in our endeavors to squeeze as much performance from our systems as possible. However, it is the human interface devices -- like our keyboards, mice, and monitors -- that can have the most...
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The humble webcam has seen a surge to prominence fueled by the rise of web conferencing and remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few short years ago, a webcam could be buried away below the display of a laptop and few users would complain or even notice. With those days behind us, consumers and professionals alike have been...
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Earlier this week, Intel announced its highly anticipated family of discrete graphics cards targeted at the enthusiast gaming market. The cards are based on Intel's Xe-HPG architecture, and will be marketed under the Arc brand name.
The first-generation Arc graphics cards were developed under the GPU codename...
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Intel held its annual Architecture Day earlier this week, and it’s safe to say that members of the press and analyst communities were waiting with baited breath for the deep dive disclosures on the company’s next-gen silicon architectures and products that are typically unveiled at the event. This year...
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The Radeon RX 6600 XT officially launched earlier this week, bringing AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architecture down to more affordable price points (relatively speaking). Radeon RX 6600 XT cards target mainstream, 1080p gamers, and the two models we previously looked in our initial coverage proved to be decent...
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Embargos lifted on Radeon RX 6600 XT reviews this morning, but that mainstream gaming GPU isn’t the only one AMD is pushing out the door today. The Radeon Pro W6600, which was announced back in early June alongside the more powerful Radeon Pro W6800, is also launching today. As its name implies, the Radeon Pro W6600, like its gaming-class...
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AMD officially unveiled the Radeon RX 6600 XT in late July, and just last week we were able to give you a first-hand sneak peek and tour of one of the higher-end partner boards, the PowerColor Radeon RX 6600 XT Red Devil. Today though, embargos lift on performance and power data, and we’re able to provide some additional pieces to the...
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AMD is officially taking the wraps off of its latest APUs, the Ryzen 7 5700G and the Ryzen 5 5600G. As their branding suggests, these new products are based on the same technology as Ryzen 5000 series processors, namely AMD’s excellent Zen 3 core architecture, but with integrated graphics capabilities as well, hence the “G”...
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The ‘Intel Accelerated' webcast kicked off today, hosted by newly-minted CEO Pat Gelsinger and Dr. Ann Kelleher, SVP and general manager of Technology Development. The dynamic duo disclosed a number of new and interesting details regarding the company’s IDM 2.0 strategy along with Intel’s process and packaging...
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Although the situation is improving, it is still extremely difficult to score some of the latest graphics cards at prices even approaching their MSRPs. With that in mind, we’ve held off on covering some of the hottest GPUs to come through the lab for a while, because the coverage was inevitably (and understandably) met with groans and...
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Intel has been making noise in virtually all segments of the storage market as of late. A few weeks back, we took a look at the Optane Memory H20, which combines 3DXpoint media with traditional NAND on hybrid M.2 device to accelerate the storage subsystem in mainstream notebooks and PCs. More recently, we evaluated...
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When we reviewed the Intel Optane SSD 905P back in 2018, despite a significant price premium over NAND-based SSDs, we gave the drive and Editor’s Choice award due to its exceptional performance where it mattered most for consumers, e.g. access times and random transfers at low queue depths. Intel Optane solid state drives typically offer...
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This morning Kingston announced that its latest DC1500M series of enterprise-class solid state drives have begun shipping. Like many of its predecessors in Kingston’s enterprise SSD line-up, the new DC1500M series leverages a hot-pluggable U.2 (2.5”, 15mm) form factor, that’s compatible with common U.2 backplanes. The drives...
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The PCI Express 4.0 interface has been around on AMD's Ryzen platform for a long time now, ever since the launch of Zen 2 and the X570 chipset. The new spec has finally gone mainstream on Intel's platforms, as well, with the release of the Rocket Lake-S 11th Gen Core processor family and the accompanying Z590 PCH. That means that neither camp...
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Today, HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks webcast will have a live chat with two execs from AMD's Radeon graphics and gaming team. Frank Azor, AMD's Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions, and Carlos Silva, Director of Software Development, will join us at 5:30 PM EST to talk about everything you could possibly want to...
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When AMD unveiled "Big Navi", now known as the Radeon RX 6000 series, the new GPU family brought with it support for Microsoft's nascent DirectX Ray Tracing. DXR adds photorealistic lighting, reflections and more visual effects to make games that support the technologies look more true to life. However, real-time ray...
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Notebooks often have limited storage capacity, despite significant advancements over the last few years. An M.2 drive is only the size of a stick of gum, but not every laptop can fit more than one or two drives at a time, and some users aren't comfortable opening up their machine to upgrade them, which ultimately limits their storage capabilities....
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After an official unveiling at Computex 2021 and last week’s launch of the powerful GeForce RT 3080 Ti, NVIDIA is ready to go open kimono and spill all of the new, more-mainstream GeForce RTX 3070 Ti’s juicy details. Cards are due to go on sale tomorrow, but we’ve been able to put a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition through...
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AMD is expanding its line-up of RDNA 2-based GPUs today, with a trio of new Radeon Pro graphics cards targeting the professional workstation market. These new Radeon Pro cards leverage the same GPU architecture as their consumer-class Radeon RX-branded counterparts, but Radeon Pros feature completely different...
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During their Computex 2021 keynote, NVIDIA’s Jeff Fisher, GeForce Senior Vice President, and Manuvir Das, Head of Enterprise Computing, unveiled a number of new enterprise and consumer products, targeting multiple market segments. For all of the gamers though, it was Jeff Fisher’s official unveiling of the...
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During her Computex 2021 keynote this evening, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, along with compatriots Frank Azor and Scott Herkleman, revealed a number of the company’s new products an initiatives, targeting the server, desktop and mobile markets. For gamers, perhaps the most enticing announcement was the revelation of...
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