Reviews
While he may not have invented the Internet, Al Gore has played a major role in bringing the issue of Global Warming to the masses. In his book and movie "An Inconvenient Truth", Gore made a compelling case, and whether his message convinced you or not, one thing is certain, it's clear people were listening. Today, there...
Read more...
ATI has been particularly aggressive with their FireGL workstation graphics card lineup over the past six months. While their flagship R600-architecture was the basis for the solid (but ultimately underwhelming) Radeon HD2900XT release for the gaming market, our tests have shown that this particular GPU architecture actually is much more competitive...
Read more...
With recent price cuts to current generation Radeon HD 3800 series cards, due to increased competition from new mainstream graphics cards from NVIDIA, there is a large gap in ATI's product stack between the sub-$200 Radeon HD 3870 and the now roughly $400 Radeon HD 3870 X2. Until AMD readies a new batch of GPUs to fill this hole in their...
Read more...
Water cooling has traditionally been considered an extreme solution, pursued by enthusiasts looking for the best cooling performance to squeeze every last drop of performance from their systems. For a long time this wasn't far from the truth and you were unlikely to find a water cooling setup that wasn't hooked up to an overclocked rig. However,...
Read more...
When we're asked by readers for hardware advice, one of the most popular topics involves the graphics card. With a myriad of options out there covering the price and performance spectrum, it's not always a cut and dried answer. First, we need to consider the person's budget requirements, then assess the rest of their...
Read more...
AMD made it very clear in our sneak peek at the 780G integrated chipset and Athlon X2 4850e processor that its platform aspirations were coming to pass. Not only did the company introduce a complementary hardware ecosystem, complete with processor, chipset, and graphics solution, but it succeeded in trumping the best effort of its principal...
Read more...
Earlier this year, we conducted a series of reports on both the high-end and mid-range workstation graphics card markets with a range of comparative tests. In our prior tests, we found performance to be exceptionally close between comparatively priced products from AMD/ATI’s and NVIDIA’s high-end and mid-range cards. NVIDIA is typically...
Read more...
Do you remember the original Pentium 4? It launched at 1.5 GHz and gave us our first bittersweet taste of the NetBurst microarchitecture, which Intel would use to replace the P6 design.When the Pentium 4 began its life, Intel manufactured the chips on a 180 nm node. The 42 million transistors that went into those first Pentium 4s - internally...
Read more...
NVIDIA's onslaught of new graphics cards based on the company's G92 graphics processor continues today with the introduction of the GeForce 9800 GTX. As its name suggests, the GeForce 9800 GTX is the successor to the wildly popular and unusually long-lived GeForce 8800 GTX.We're sure you all know by now that the GeForce 8800 GTX was...
Read more...
It's not very often that we see innovation in a PC chassis. Of course, just about every other component in a typical PC is enhanced or somehow improved on a regular basis, but chassis haven't really changed all that much in the last few years. Aesthetically they have gotten more pleasing and diverse, new materials are being used,...
Read more...
We're always on the lookout for Asus Eee PC updates and today we've come up with some breaking news for you relative to the Windows XP variant that is due to hit the market in April. Actually, it's more than just some breaking news; we've got one. Though the machine isn't due out until sometime in...
Read more...
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that AMD's initial Phenom processor launch didn't go exactly as planned. The first batch of retail-ready Phenom processors were clocked lower than expectations and in the days leading up to the launch, the now infamous TLB bug reared its ugly head. If you're not aware, all initial Phenom...
Read more...
Last week, NVIDIA formally launched the dual-GPU powered GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card and nForce 790i SLI Ultra chipset. We evaluated both of the products in depth in our coverage of the launch, but had to leave out one important detail per NVIDIA's embargo agreement - that being Quad-SLI.It wasn't that Quad-SLI needed...
Read more...
We wish the current "green" trend would have happened a long time ago, and we actually hope that it results in a permanent mentality adjustment rather than fading like so many trends do. We are happy to see that companies are now expected to be somewhat environmentally-conscious. We love to see companies compete on metrics like performance...
Read more...
For each type of product and in each market, there is usually a specific price segment that will provide the best value proposition for consumers, often known as the 'sweet spot'. For quite some time, the 19" widescreen was the sweet spot of the consumer LCD monitor market. Hovering between the cheaper but aging 17" screens and the...
Read more...
DDR3 is the future of desktop PC memory in the near term, no question about it. Nonetheless, the transition to the next level of memory technology will be a gradual one, much like we saw when we advanced from DDR to DDR2. With higher latencies and higher price tags, the argument for migrating to DDR3 in its current state...
Read more...
It's no secret that the days of procuring performance exclusively through faster clock speeds are over. The current crop of multi-core server, desktop, and mobile CPU designs are a dead giveaway that processor vendors like Intel are instead looking to increased parallelism as the facilitator of more computing horsepower. The problem, according...
Read more...
Way back in late 2006, NVIDIA simultaneously unveiled a new flagship GPU and desktop chipset that became the foundation of what NVIDIA was calling the "ultimate gaming platform". At the time, the combination of a pair of GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards and an nForce 680i SLI-based motherboard was clearly the most powerful hardware combo...
Read more...
When it comes to 7,200 RPM desktop drives, there are few names in the industry that are quite as well respected as the Western Digital Caviar lineup. It’s a time-tested brand which has consistently held its own, in terms of raw performance, acoustics, and reliability. While the Caviar name once stood for a single lineup...
Read more...
In an impromptu pre-IDF press briefing today, Intel disclosed a wealth of new information regarding its roadmap product efforts, upcoming multi-core processors and their associated platforms. The discussion, chaired by the Senior VP of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, Pat Gelsinger, even covered additional...
Read more...
In late January, ATI unveiled several new entry level GPUs manufactured using the 55nm process that was first employed with the more powerful RV670 GPU. Not only did the new process help ATI deliver more competitive graphics cards at attractive price points, it also improved on such things as power consumption, which is of growing...
Read more...
When ASUS unveiled their Republic of Gamers (ROG) series of products, they stated their mission clearly: "deliver the most innovative and best performing PC solutions to enhance the usage experience for power users". There's a lot in that statement to live up to, but ASUS was confident in their abilities. Over the years that we...
Read more...
