Hardware Industry
Hardware Industry
Article: AT&T, Google At Arms: Race for Gigabit Internet in Austin
Google's Fiber service has made waves in the past year, but not much more than that; with the 1000Mbps connection offerings presently only available in parts of Kansas, the company's competitively-priced, fast connection is just a ripple in a very stable ocean right now. That's changing with greater speed than we'd have expected, and it's a good thing for consumers.
Article: Corsair H110, H90 vs. NZXT X60, X40 Liquid Cooler Round-Up
As with any modernized adaptation of an existing technology, closed-loop liquid coolers (CLCs) have become almost fad-like in their adoption. In part, this is because CLCs actually do have very legitimate advantages over traditional air coolers - they are highly noise-to-temperature efficient, for one thing, and have an aesthetic appeal for some users. The other part of this liquid cooling craze, though, I believe is attributable to a...
Article: Kingston's Gaming Focus & New HyperX Beast Black PCB Memory - PAX East 2013
One of the most refreshing aspects of covering large gaming/hardware events is the face-to-face interaction with vendors, providing an opportunity to really understand a company's philosophy (discussed here). PAX East 2013 (which just ended - sad face) saw the return of Kingston Technology's oft-packed HyperX gaming booth. Flanked on two sides by crowds of attendees awaiting...
Article: PAXCast: On UE4’s Daylight, GRID 2 Impressions, and the Hardware Industry – PAX East 2013
One of the most-requested items of exploration from our readers has been to provide a better POV/on-site look at the conventions we attend. There’s good reason to demand such content, too: Along with many other sites, we spend much of our time producing content around specific interviews, booths, products, or announcements, none of which really provide a feel for the greater, zoomed-out look at the convention.
Article: We'll be at PAX East 2013: Here's Why You Care
PAX East is here! Well, basically. Close enough. I'm counting the hours til I'm awoken rudely by several intentionally-obnoxious alarm clocks (it's 14 hours, by the way), at which point the team will regroup and embark on our journey to Boston for the show. The event runs from Friday to Sunday (March 22 - March 24) this weekend.
Article: Asetek v. Cooler Master Liquid Cooling Patent Lawsuit
While writing four liquid cooler reviews of Corsair and NZXT products today, I had an eerily-coincidental story pop-up on my feed reader: Asetek is out for blood (again), and this time, they're targeting Cooler Master. How extraordinarily relevant to the impending review content.
Article: PS4 Hardware Specs Explained: Implications for PC Gaming & The Future
AMD's APUs have proliferated with ferocity over the past year or so; now making up about 75% of the company's total chip sales, AMD seems to be investing more seriously in what was previously considered a niche market. We don't suspect just APU sales could support a monolithic company like AMD (at least, not in its current form), but the recent launch of the PS4 and...
Article: AMD: No 8000-series GPUs in 2013
Japanese publication 4Gamer.net recently interviewed AMD Product Manager of Desktop Graphics Devon Nekechuk, who made an official statement that the company would not be introducing a new line of RADEON HD graphics processors in 2013. That doesn't mean AMD fans (and fans of competition) have nothing to look forward to, though.
Article: NVIDIA Announces Portable Gaming Console - Project SHIELD
Late last night, nVidia kicked off CES with a press conference discussing numerous graphics computing topics and advancements, but took everyone by surprise with its own handheld gaming system. NVidia's Project Shield aims to fuse the computational power and programmatic freedom of Android devices with traditional gaming...
Article: Pepcom/CES are in 2 Days - And We'll Be There. Here's Why You Care:
The biggest electronics and hardware convention of the year is just a few days away. Insanity - pure insanity. The International CES—known to many as the Consumer Electronics Show (though we're told we'll be paddled and put in a corner if we call it that)—runs from January 8th through January 11th and is hosted all throughout Vegas; the show takes place in the multi-million-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), the famed Ven...
Article: A Quick Summary of Recent AMD News - Finance, Layoffs, and Sales
AMD is in the headlines again with more bad news. With AMD's recent layoffs, not to mention the leasing of their Austin campus and the disappointment surrounding Piledriver and Bulldozer, it's not a huge surprise to see another snag.
Article: NZXT Respire T20 & T40 CPU Cooler Benchmark/Review
After reviewing the ultra high-end Phantom 820 case, the folks over at NZXT sent us their newest in mid-range computing accessories: The Respire T20 and T40 CPU coolers. These two coolers are marked at $30 and $40 MSRP respectively, fitted with 1300-1800RPM fans (50CFM or 68.8CFM), and have a fairly standard aluminum heatsink design with copper heatpiping.
Article: APUs Dominate 75% of AMD’s Processor Sales
AMD’s been reeling from the underperformance in its hyped-up Vishera architecture for a while now, and with the 8350 behaving dismally in single- and dual-threaded applications, things haven’t looked great for the company. Despite the recent layoffs—where more than 1500 employees lost jobs—AMD still has one shining star in its arsenal: APUs.
Article: FBI: Five-Year Liquid Crystal Display Price-Fixing Conspiracy Busted
The FBI today noted that twenty-two executives within the Liquid Crystal Display industry have been charged with global conspiracy to fix prices, resulting in the creation of a $71.9 billion Liquid Crystal Display industry over a period of 5 years—2001 to 2006.
Article: nVidia Reports Record Revenue Due to Kepler, Tegra
NVidia's third quarter fiscal report for 2012 is out, and things are looking good: Their revenue is up 15.3% from last quarter, for a record total of $1.20 billion. NVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang claims that this is due to the success of the Kepler GPU and recent Tegra iterations.
Article: Leaked AMD Roadmap - Steamroller Delayed, Trinity on Rise
New developments in AMD's plans for 2013 have become apparent, thanks to a roadmap leaked by the Turkish site Donanim Haber. If this slide is accurate, the first thing you'll notice is the eerie lack of Steamroller, intended to be Piledriver's successor, which points to another delay; Piledriver cores will...
Article: How SSDs Are Made: Phases of Solid-State Drive Development
From conception of design, to development, to evilly-scheming robots that (for now...) mount chips to PCBs, the process behind solid-state drive advancements can be months in the making. The controller alone can take a year (or more, in some cases) to finalize, and even then, it has to ship to manufacturers, get soldered to boards, and be tested, all prior to your consumption. In this feature, we'll walk through the...
Article: The new Chromebook... What does this mean for ARM vs. Intel?
Let's recap from 2011: The netbook was: Expensive - high base price of $349. Laggy - HD video would stutter and in-browser games would lag because of the weak...
Article: AMD's Ongoing War With nVidia: "Never Settle" Bundle
In a recent press release, AMD announced their "Never Settle" bundle, which includes a 20% off coupon for Medal of Honor: Warfighter Deluxe Edition and free game codes for Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs with the purchase of select video cards. In addition to this, AMD has released their "Never Settle" improvement for the AMD Catalyst suite and their drivers.
Article: Troubleshooting Hardware Bottlenecks: "What to Upgrade First?"
Systems die. They get old, run slow, are plagued with dust-invoked disease, and are inevitably retired. It's not always necessary to retire a gaming rig, though, despite being a fun excuse to play with new components; given a strong enough core, it's often easy to troubleshoot bottlenecks and replace the limiting hardware, potentially luring out another year or two of use.
