Zak Killian
Recent posts
Biwin Black Opal DW100 (48GB, DDR5-6000): Currently $589 Biwin's DW100 high-speed, dual-channel DDR5 memory kit for enthusiasts leverages SK hynix RAM and offers excellent out-of-box performance. Excellent Timings Out Of The Box RGB...
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If you read this site regularly, you probably know about AMD's Ryzen AI Max series. Codenamed Strix Halo, this is AMD's massive mega-chip with up to 16 CPU cores and Radeon RX 7600 XT-level integrated graphics. The next-generation version...
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Sapphire has announced a special Nitro+ Radeon RX 9070 XT Crimson Desert Edition, and it's very clearly meant to be more than just a sticker-swap SKU. This is a full-on collaboration card tied to developer Pearl Abyss's upcoming...
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Intel's current Core Ultra 200-series processors offer excellent productivity performance, competent gaming performance, and solid power efficiency. A lot of fans are banking on the company's next-generation Nova Lake parts to be its true...
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Ayaneo has officially unleashed the Next 2, its new flagship Windows handheld anchored by AMD's monstrous Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APU and a gorgeous 9.06-inch OLED display. The system is a bold statement that pushes portable PC gaming...
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Oldheads will remember the Pentium G6950 and the Intel Upgrade Service that came with it. What you may not realize is that Intel actually did the same thing with its 4th- and 5th-generation Xeon processors, codenamed Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids. These chips have "Intel On Demand", which...
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Overclockers are arguably known for their lack of restraint, but the latest RTX 5090 experiment feels like a particularly vivid illustration of that point: BIOS files from MSI's absurdly overbuilt RTX 5090 Lightning Z—a card that...
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The Intel Arc A380 is a meager GPU by modern measures. It has just 8 Xe-cores, giving it a smaller GPU than the Core Ultra X9 388H's integrated part. It's based on the original Alchemist architecture, which is considerably less capable...
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Overclocking used to be easy, man. Just move a jumper, fiddle with a DIP switch; did it boot? Hallelujah! Things haven't been that simple in a long time, but they've gotten even more complicated with the introduction of chiplet processors...
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If you're reading this, chances are pretty solid that you're a PC gamer. Based on Steam survey data, chances are also pretty solid that you're an NVIDIA user. If you've been suffering black screens and GPU artifacts while attempting to...
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Rumors of the demise of Intel's GPU business have been greatly exaggerated. Even before the launch of the first Alchemist-based Intel Arc GPUs, naysayers were insisting that Intel would kill the brand, kill the project, or cut the whole...
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A well-known hardware modder has pulled off yet another eye-watering hardware feat by upgrading the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X from its standard 24GB of memory to a staggering 64GB capacity, turning the handheld into a one-of-a-kind machine. The...
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Arrow Lake is the codename for Intel's Core Ultra 200 series processors, which are currently its latest-generation desktop CPUs despite that they've been somewhat superseded by the Core Ultra 300 series on mobile. Before we receive the...
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Some folks act as if Intel and AMD have killed off the "high-end desktop" or HEDT market, but that's never really been the case. Instead, what happened is that mainstream desktops went from a maximum of four cores to 16 - 24 cores...
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When you think NVIDIA, you think "GPUs." It's easy to forget that NVIDIA's been making system-on-a-chip products for nearly 20 years; the first Tegra SoC came out in early 2008. The company's chips haven't really found their way into mainstream laptops, but that's about to change with the...
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An AI-powered toy company exposed more than 50,000 private chat logs between children and its products after leaving a web console almost completely unsecured. According to WIRED, anyone with a Gmail account could access transcripts of...
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What's the purpose of a computer chassis? If you said "to protect my parts from the environment," (or to protect your home from your parts), you might as well click off this post right now. If you instead said "to hold my parts in place,"...
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Remember the Samsung 9100 PRO? We reviewed it back in August. It's an amazing performer, and despite being a high-end PCI Express 5.0 SSD offering sequential speeds in excess of 13GB/second, it actually runs pretty cool thanks to the use...
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Intel may take on a limited role in manufacturing and packaging NVIDIA's next-next-generation GPUs, according to a report from DigiTimes Asia. Citing supply chain sources, DigiTimes reports that NVIDIA plans to partially involve Intel in...
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The star of Intel's CES 2026 show was of course its new Core Ultra 300 series processors, code-named Panther Lake. We have our review up if you haven't read it already, but the short version is that they offer all-around impressive...
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When we first confirmed the existence of intel's BMG-G31 GPU, the so-called "Big Battlemage", we heard about four different SKUs, only one of which was an 'Arc' GPU for gamers. The other three were Arc Pro models intended for the...
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Despite CEO Satya Nadella already having "a bunch of chips sitting in inventory" due to a shortage of power, Microsoft just announced its own next-gen AI silicon: the Maia 200 accelerator, built to run large models in the cloud faster and...
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