Reviews
Quick! What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Western Digital? If you're like most people, you immediately thought of hard drives and other storage products, which have been WD's bread and butter for several decades now. But the times, they are a changin', and in case you haven't noticed, Western Digital is no longer...
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Trusted sources we've spoken to in the semiconductor industry have implied that TSMC is considering a partnership with Apple that would realign the manufacturer's technology roadmap and fundamentally alter the balance of power between the foundry and its other customers. Morris Chang, TSMC's CEO, spoke about the possibility of closer...
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Samsung and AT&T are hoping to attract customers who want a sleek Windows Phone at an affordable price with the Samsung Focus 2. The Focus 2 is Samsung's first 4G LTE Windows Phone. It's also the third Windows Phone from AT&T that connects to the carrier's 4G LTE network. AT&T's 4G LTE network is currently available in 47...
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When Asus asked us if we'd be interested in a reviewing their new, high-end USB 3 implementation that offered better performance than anything available elsewhere, we were skeptical. Historically, USB performance has been a function of which controller (Intel, AMD, NEC, Texas Instruments, VIA, etc.) was used. Similarly, other types of...
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Over the last few months, we have looked at plenty of Z77 based motherboards here at HH, covering a wide range of price points. But today we dive deep into one of the higher-end models available, the Gigabyte G1.Sniper3. We slapped an Ivy Bridge chip in this one instead of the Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K and 2700K's we've tested in the...
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A little over three months has passed since NVIDIA unleashed its first Kepler-based GPU on PC gamers, known as the GeForce GTX 680. At the time of its arrival, the GeForce GTX 680 was the clear leader in high-end graphics cards. The card offered better overall performance than AMD’s competing Radeon HD 7970 and the GeForce GTX 680 was...
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It's no secret that HTC has had a rough time competing with other big name smartphone manufacturers in the last couple of years. It looked like the company might be turning things around with its One series and the EVO 4G LTE for Sprint, but then the company got hit with another delay thanks to a U.S. Customs review. The EVO 4G LTE is...
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Give credit to Intel for recognizing the notebook market needed a swift kick in the pants, and for putting a noose around the necks of netbooks, which have all but been eliminated from the market place. Sure, a few straggling netbooks remain, but by and large, Intel is now heavily invested (both literally and figuratively) in the Ultrabook...
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When we reviewed Corsair's 60GB Cache Accelerator back in May, we were impressed by the drive's ability to boost the speed of an HDD-based PC without the need for a fresh OS installation. Today, we'll be evaluating the performance of Corsair's 30GB Cache Accelerator. At $54.99 ($44.99 w/ rebate from NewEgg), it's considerably cheaper...
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The term “laptop” can only be loosely applied to the nearly 9.39-pound Alienware M17x--you don’t exactly want to have the thing perched on your lap for any extended period of time. But you know what? Who cares. The M17x is a powerful and (mostly) portable gaming rig, and Dell can call it anything they want; awesome by any...
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There are generally two types of iterative processes that manufacturers go through with respect to product development and refinement; there are feature and performance enhancements that result from market feedback and there are enhancements as a result of technology advancements and cost reduction (or both combined). When it launched...
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We've already covered all of the juicy details of Intel’s Z77 chipset and put a few motherboards through their paces, but there are so many manufacturers with killer boards available based on the chipset, that it’d be a crime if we didn’t round up another stack of them for you. This round of Z77 mainboards consists of entries...
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It was exactly 6 months ago to the minute that AMD officially took the wraps off its Tahiti GPU and the original Radeon HD 7970. The Radeon HD 7970 was the first graphics card to feature AMD’s “Graphics Core Next”, or GCN, architecture and when it hit the scene, the Radeon HD 7970 proved to be the fastest single-GPU...
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One of the most highly anticipated Android phones of the year is the Samsung Galaxy S III. This smartphone comes with a number of new features we haven't seen on other phones including S Voice (improved voice control functionality), new sharing features, NFC features including Samsung's new TecTiles, and more. The hardware specifications...
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At the International Supercomputing Conference today, Intel announced that Knights corner, the company's first commercial Many Integrated Core (MIC) product will ship commercially in 2012. The Descendent of the processor formerly known as Larrabee also gets a new brand name -- Xeon Phi. The idea behind Intel's new push is that the highly...
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As was the case with every iOS release before it, Apple is promising some fairly major enhancements and new features with iOS 6. iOS 5 was a major release in its own right, bringing Siri -- a voice-controlled assistant -- to the mix and yet again raising the bar in mobile operating systems. It also introduced a drop-down Notification...
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Samsung's Galaxy Tab line continues to expand, with the latest additions coming in the form of the Galaxy Tab 2 Series. The Galaxy Tab 2 Series is available in 10.1-inch and 7.0-inch screen sizes. While these second-generation models clearly borrow some design cues and other specifications from their predecessors, we were a bit surprised to...
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Let's cut right to the chase. The first and most important thing you need to know about Max Payne 3 is this: It's not a happy game. In the first Max Payne, you assumed the role of a deep undercover DEA agent tasked with breaking a massive drug ring. On the night of the worst snowstorm in New York's history, Payne finally breaks the case...
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Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Business Units, opened up this year’s AMD Fusion Developers Summit by reiterating AMD’s commitment to heterogeneous computing. She began her talk by saying that AMD is firmly committed to heterogeneous computing because the company has literally bet its future on the...
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We have been talking about Intel's Thunderbolt technology here at HotHardware since well before it received its official name. Way back in the day, Thunderbolt went by the Intel codename "Light Peak". We had discussed Intel’s Light Peak technology on a number of occasions over the last few years and caught glimpses...
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These days, it seems we're hearing more and more about tablets eating away at market share that was once ruled by netbooks and notebooks. Netbooks we can believe -- we haven't seen a compelling wave of new netbooks in months -- but are people really choosing tablets with limited functionality over full-scale laptops? That argument is expected...
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One of the things we like about AVADirect is the extensive catalog of off-the-shelf parts to choose from. In fact, a major advantage of shopping from a boutique system builder as opposed to a bulk OEM is the availability of name brand hardware you'd otherwise buy from Newegg, or wherever it is you purchase your components, when rolling your...
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