Zak Killian
Recent posts
If you read that headline and thought, "why would I want my gaming PC to be a showpiece?", this new PC case might not be for you. However, most DIY PCs these days are gaming PCs, and gaming PCs tend to be slick or showy and harness...
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AI processing is a super heavy computing task that requires tens of thousands of dollars of graphics cards, right? Well, no, actually. AI tools come in all kinds of forms and sizes, and there are plenty that can run in real-time on a phone...
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You ever Googled yourself? No, it's not an improper question—we're talking about the actual process of putting your own name into Google and seeing what comes up. You might be surprised. Shady websites charge fees to list huge databases of...
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Nintendo is ripe for a new piece of hardware, which is always a momentous event for game console purveyors. As a result, any sort of leak, rumor, or filing concerning new hardware by Nintendo is noteworthy, even when it doesn't seem like a...
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Back at Innovation '23, Intel announced that its Meteor Lake processors would be officially-launched on December 14th. Despite the fact that they haven't made their debut, Intel's first disaggregated CPUs have already appeared in a few...
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Much has been made of AMD's mobile SoC naming convention, but it's really not that complicated. The first digit tells you what year it came out, the second digit tells you where it sits in the product stack, and the third digit tells you...
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It's a pain point for any system builder: you spend the time to coordinate parts that will look good together, and then you go to wire it all up and it doesn't matter because even with good cable management your aesthetic is still ruined...
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When we saw the system requirements for Remedy's Alan Wake II, we knew this game was going to be a PC system smasher. Of course, we already knew that—the game supports path-tracing, also known as full scene ray-tracing, and we've...
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If you follow technology news much at all, you're probably familiar with the latest iteration of the GPT line of AI models, known simply as GPT-4. At its heart, GPT-4 is a large language model with billions of parameters, able to converse...
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Are you a Skyrim fiend? Do you have thousands of hours in Bethesda's fantasy magnum opus, and long for more to do in the land of the Nords? Well, good news. Now you can conquer Skyrim in Age of Empires 2, thanks to an expansive custom map...
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Remedy Entertainment's Control was one of the first games to really showcase the potential of real-time ray-tracing with its gorgeous reflections and excellent ray-traced shadows. The company's next game, a sequel to 2010's Alan Wake...
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In case you're unfamiliar, "delidding" is the process of removing the thick metal plate attached to the top of modern CPUs. This plate is known as the "integrated heat spreader" or "IHS," and it protects the fragile silicon die of the...
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Remember the days when graphics cards, like any other expansion card, simply took up a single slot? Sure, there'd be some cooling apparatus on them, and occasionally you'd see some ultra-high-end board with an extremely overbuilt cooler...
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A major part of Intel's chip dominance over the last 30 years has been its bleeding-edge process technology. For decades the company was ahead of everyone else in fabrication, and this often gave its architectures superior performance...
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It's been a month since the release of the franchise-rebooting Mortal Kombat 1, and the reviews are in. Generally speaking, people are pretty fond of the game, citing its gorgeous Unreal Engine-powered graphics, new assist character...
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Spotted by sleuths at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair this past weekend, footage of what is likely the most interesting product showcased at the fair has come to light. Laptop OEM Emdoor is getting ready to launch its first gaming-focused...
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Laptop aficionados and HotHardware devotees will both recall when we reviewed the Alienware m18 R1 earlier this year. That machine was gorgeous inside and out, with the latest Core i9 processor and GeForce RTX 4090 graphics wrapped up in a...
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Well, the Microsoft purchase of Activision-Blizzard-King has finally closed, and we're now observing what may well be the the first knock-on effect of the acquisition. Anyone who didn't expect major ripple effects from the purchase hasn't...
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It's common for gamers to talk about input lag as stems from input devices and display devices, but the majority of the motion-to-photon lag for most PC gamers actually comes from the software stack itself. NVIDIA has its Reflex technology...
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Let's talk display technology. Almost all TVs and computer displays these days are based on LED-backlit LCDs. The only other common display technology anymore is OLED, and despite the similar name, those have nothing to do with this post...
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If you're into PC hardware, you're probably familiar with Galax whether under that name or as one of its sub-brands, like KFA2 and Gainward. Galax has been known as a global seller of graphics cards and other PC parts. Indeed, it actually...
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Surprise, surprise: an upcoming first-party Nintendo game has leaked to the internet ahead of its launch date. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the long-awaited new traditional-style side-scrolling title in the famous franchise of everyone's...
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