This one's a bit of a weird one, and it's going to require some analysis to understand, so pay close attention. The rumor this time around is that AMD's RDNA 4 graphics card line-up "will not have any high-end GPUs." The leaker compares the situation to RDNA 1 (the Radeon RX 5700 XT) and Polaris (the Radeon RX 480)...Read more...
AMD's current-generation desktop and laptop processors are fundamentally based on two designs: Raphael, also known as Dragon Range in laptops, and then Phoenix (or possibly Phoenix Point), created specifically for portable PCs. The former is a chiplet processor that offers up to 16 cores, while the latter is a...Read more...
As much as we love gushing about the latest hardware around here, the fact remains that most people don't care that much. As proof of this sad statement, check out the sales of the Nintendo Switch. That system's specifications were pretty mediocre when it came out back in 2017, even for a tablet. Despite that, it's...Read more...
Folks with LGA 1700 motherboards should keep eyes peeled for firmware updates if they're keen for a CPU upgrade. We already told you about BIOS updates from Gigabyte that add support for Intel's next-generation CPUs, but now there are reports coming in that both ASUS and ASRock are adding that same support to their...Read more...
Are Intel's Arc GPUs dead? After all, we heard that rumor before we even had Alchemist GPUs in hand, and after the lukewarm reception that Intel's graphics products have received, as well as the departure of the father of Xe himself, Raja Koduri, surely Intel is going to can the product line?
Of course not. The...Read more...
It's hard to believe it, but it's already been more than two years since the launch of the PlayStation 5. That system released on November 12th, 2020—not that anyone could find one at that time. This November will mark the 3rd year since the console's release, and that's the same interval between the release of the...Read more...
Back in 2021, Intel had two different architectures going for its 11th-Generation mobile and desktop Core processors: Tiger Lake was handling laptops, and Rocket Lake was rocking desktops. According to rumors, we'll see the same thing again soon, where a refresh of Raptor Lake powers desktops while Intel's first...Read more...
When the GeForce RTX 3060 launched with 12GB of video RAM, it was a careful choice made by NVIDIA. Because of that chip's 192-bit memory bus, NVIDIA had the option to launch with either 6GB or 12GB of memory. That led to the awkward situation where the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3070 Ti, and even the RTX 3080...Read more...
It's hard to believe, but the PlayStation 5 will be three years old this November. The console has only recently overcome supply shortages but some are already clamoring for an upgraded model. According to Tom Henderson of InsiderGaming—historically known as a reliable leaker of game information—while the fifth...Read more...
This whole Microsoft-buys-Activision deal is looking less and less likely by the week. Last week, NVIDIA and Google spoke up against the purchase, and the week before that, Microsoft had to revise its response to the FTC to remove remarks that recommended the outright destruction of the commission. Now, a new...Read more...
Have you built a current-generation system yet, loyal HotHardware reader? If not, one of our first guesses as to why could be the high price of motherboards. While AMD has its budget B650 chipset out and the cheapest boards are in the $150 USD range (loosely), Intel's 700-series platform is currently limited to the...Read more...
Intel's desktop Raptor Lake processors are insanely fast, to be sure. A significant portion of that speed originates with their sky-high clock rates, and to hit those numbers, it needs quite a bit of power. Rumors have been swirling for a bit that Meteor Lake, fabricated primarily on Intel's next-gen "Intel 4"...Read more...
The state of the HEDT market has been pretty bleak the last few years. AMD's Threadrippers went PRO-only, while Intel's been letting its high-end customers languish on the Cascade Lake-X platform that's still rocking the old Skylake core design at its heart. The blue team has new workstation processors on the way, but...Read more...
Little PCs like Intel's Raptor Canyon NUC 13 Extreme are absolutely awesome, but you aren't going to be fitting a GeForce RTX 4080 in one of those things. You might get away with a Radeon RX 7900 XTX, but it'll still be a snug fit—and that a pretty good-sized chassis, as small-form-factor machines go. If you want to...Read more...
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a fascinating processor. AMD stacked an extra 64MB of L3 cache, known as 3D V-Cache, onto a Ryzen 7 5800X, giving it immense gaming performance in some titles despite a small drop in clock rate versus the stock model. A lot of folks are holding off on Zen 4 until they can buy one of AMD's new...Read more...
In an unprecedented move, NVIDIA "unlaunched" the "GeForce RTX 4080 12GB," leaving the extant GeForce RTX 4080—based on GA103, with 16GB of memory—as the singular GeForce RTX 4080 model. This was done pretty late, though, and those chips and even cards were already manufactured. It's a given that NVIDIA will re-launch...Read more...
It would not have been totally unreasonable to think that Intel would stick to enthusiast desktops for Raptor Lake and skip budget or mobile offerings. After all, Raptor Lake is by some measure a stopgap solution, basically a tweaked Alder Lake with higher power limits. The big shift is coming with its...Read more...
If you watched the company's presentation on November 3rd, then you're well-aware that AMD is launching the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and similarly-named Radeon RX 7900 XT on December 13th. As it turns out, that may not exactly be the full story, though. AMD said that its reference cards would be available on that date, but...Read more...
AMD's Q3 earnings statement confirmed what had been rumored in the industry for weeks: sales of Zen 4 CPUs have been slow, or at least, slower than AMD would have liked. There's probably a few reasons for this, but the biggest one is surely the rather high price of entry for the AM5 platform. Not only do you need a...Read more...
Google's budget-conscious A-series Pixels have been a solid purchase since their debut with the Pixel 3a. A new report suggests that Google's new budget Pixel 7a is going to represent a major upgrade over the already very good 6a (above). In fact, it may even beat the flagship Pixel 7 in some ways.
Because Android...Read more...
Regular readers or general enthusiasts may recall our story from Tuesday, when we told you about a collection of reports that pegged AMD's upcoming RDNA 3-based Radeons as coming in two forms: the Radeon RX 7900 XT with 20GB of video RAM, and the flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX, with 24 GB. Now another leaker is...Read more...
AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 processors are damn fast, no doubt about it. That speed also comes with a cost, though, both in terms of power draw and a literal monetary cost. We'd all like if there were new Zen 4 processors that were a little cheaper and a little less power-thirsty, so it's good news when we hear that...Read more...