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.
The personal computer industry is about to undergo a major metamorphosis, due in large part to the recent efforts of Intel and AMD. For the last few decades, mainstream desktop processor manufacturers have focused on increasing the performance of their CPUs by raising their clock speeds, augmenting the base architectures with specialized instruction...
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Over the past 10 years or so, the Personal Computer has found its way into a majority of homes, evolving from a high-priced curiosity to an everyday necessity. As with any other market, companies have come and gone during that time period, with their bottom lines inevitably tied to the products they produced. In today's...
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When we talk about video cards, the focus is typically on the latest high-profile offerings that leave many of us in a perpetual state of hardware envy. It's a common picture, with ATI or NVIDIA releasing a new model and the other usually answering with their own killer product not long after. It's a constant dance called "competition",...
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Although desktop dual-core processors from AMD are on the horizon, engineers there are still hard at work refining their single-core processor designs. The latest revision to the Athlon 64 core, internally code named "Venice", recently made it way onto the mass market...
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Over the past several years, NVIDIA has not only made a name for themselves in the Desktop Motherboard Chipset business but they have also cultivated a profitable and highly successful business unit in this area as well, commanding approximately 48% market share in the AMD Athlon 64...
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Memory has come a long way in the past few years. What was once a nondescript PC component, consisting of nothing more than a few black chips on a green PCB, has since evolved into a brightly colored, and lighted, crucial system component with a multitude of different heat spreader types and speed grades. Just take a look at this pair of Corsair...
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Last weekend, over 300 gamers descended upon the Boston suburb of Wilmington, MA with little else but 32 hours of non-stop fragging on their minds. Well, that and possibly coming home with some new gear for their PC. Just over a year ago LPANE, the LAN Party Association of New England, was formed with the hopes of pulling together...
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When Intel released the i925XE chipset, it took their existing line of top-tier motherboards to the next level, by providing additional support for CPUs running on a 1066MHz bus. The current list of CPUs that run at this speed is, however, quite short. Combine this fact with the imminent release of Intel's dual-core processors and...
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A few months ago, we assessed the performance of a pair of GeForce 6800 GTs and a pair of GeForce 6800 Ultras running in SLI-mode, and were impressed by the platform's performance. We did have some concerns over driver support and the TCO of the platform, however. NVIDIA's current SLI...
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In July of 2004, AMD released their latest economy class processors in the form of the Sempron line. The initial release was predominantly Socket A-centric, with only one Socket 754 solution being offered. Since that day, the Socket A Sempron family has grown to incorporate 7 flavors, yet the socket 754 Sempron line only recently...
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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...
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Once the dominant player for chipsets compatible with AMD's Athlon, VIA has fallen out of favor lately, it seems. The company introduced its K8T890 chipset with PCI Express support way back in November of last year. Yet, we've heard very little about retail products centering on the platform until recently. The PT-series, destined for...
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Hot on the heals of the official announcement of Intel's new dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor, we have more news for those interested in Intel platform solutions. Today, NVIDIA is finally taking the wraps off of their nForce chipset for the Intel platform, a chipset now known as the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition. For months there...
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Today, we're bringing you a Dual-Core Pentium quick take, on short notice from the folks at Intel. With only a few hours of testing at our disposal, we're attempting to make time with some level of meaningful analysis for you and hit Intel's NDA embargo lift time this morning. Would we...
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Every so often a new technology, or a new piece of hardware, comes along that polarizes the PC enthusiast community. One such product is the recently released NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI chipset. The nForce 4 SLI chipset is the preferred platform for NVIDIA's Scalable Link Interface technology, that gives users the ability to use a pair of GeForce...
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While we have already taken a look or two at NVIDIA's current mainstream offering, the GeForce 6600, in the past, today we've got a completely new take on this card with Albatron's PC6600U Trinity Series. While the basic technology behind the PC6600U remains largely the same as past cards, the core clock and memory speeds have been raised...
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In January we took a look at the HIS X700 Pro IceQ Turbo because it piqued our interest with its somewhat unique cooling solution. HIS took a page from the book of "OTES", which stands for Outside Thermal Exhaust System, a thermal management approach pioneered by Abit...
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When shopping for a new video card, naturally, we all want the fastest card available performance wise. However, many simply can't justify the price that some high-end cards currently command. With many premium models now selling for more than $500, gamers on a budget often need to focus their efforts on finding a good,...
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It's been a little over six months since ATI first announced the All-In-Wonder X800 XT, but in the months following the announcement the card never made it onto retail shelves. It's no secret that ATI has struggled through some supply issues recently with their high-end GPUs. Since the time that we were first introduced to the card, ATI has...
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Years ago, when computers with a 200MHz Pentium processor and 32MB of RAM were all the rage, we came upon a nifty device that came pre-installed in a wimpy Packard Bell PC. This device was a PCI TV Tuner Card. Back then, the ability to watch TV on a computer was somewhat of a rarity. And now, while there are many more options available,...
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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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Five plus years ago, there weren't many "must have extras" to include on your do-it-yourself list of desired PC components, minus that relatively expensive Sound Blaster and a pricey, yet affordable, 3D Graphics card. In fact there weren't too many extras to consider in a configuration other than perhaps an optical drive of some...
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