Zak Killian
Recent posts
Microsoft's DirectStorage is based on development done for the "Velocity Architecture" in the Xbox Series family of consoles. The intention is to drastically improve performance under a "sustained random" I/O workload such as that used by...
Read more...
Like a lot of enthusiasts, your author here upgraded his Socket AM4 Ryzen gaming system to a Ryzen 7 5800X3D when those chips came out. Because of that processor's explosive gaming performance, AMD's Zen 4 CPUs, while extremely quick in...
Read more...
We take them for granted, but modern computers are absolutely amazing. Have you ever considered how much work must have gone into making sure that you can have a half-dozen displays connected to one system, with varying DPI and refresh...
Read more...
If you've got an NVIDIA RTX 40-series GPU and you feel like you need more frames in heavily ray-traced games Cyberpunk 2077 and Dying Light 2: Stay Human, you're in luck: both titles got updated today with support for the Ada...
Read more...
Corsair has a new series of power supplies, and they do something that some brands should have done a long time ago: move the modular connectors to the side of the unit. For folks who aren't experienced system builders, what this implies...
Read more...
If you're not from Switzerland or one of its surrounding states, it's likely enough that you've never heard of Digitec Galaxus. Despite that, the shop bills itself as the largest vendor of PC parts in that mountainous nation, and that...
Read more...
Artificial intelligence mostly isn't, at least not yet. Still, the artificial neural networks that humans have created are capable of some very impressive things, and you've probably seen plenty of examples of text and images created by...
Read more...
Have you ever heard of CFD Gaming? Neither have we, but the company appears to be first to market with a Phison-based PCIe 5.0 SSD. The M.2 NVMe drive has appeared in shops in Japan's famous Akihabara technology district with a 2TB...
Read more...
Understandably, AMD is really keen to sell through the remaining stock of its previous-generation RDNA 2-based graphics cards. To that end, the company has put up a blog post with a bunch of price-versus-performance data that carefully...
Read more...
HPC and hyperscale guys are excited for Intel's Xeon Max processors with onboard HBM, but Sapphire Rapids comprises an entire line of processors spanning the whole range of Xeons. One of those chips has just shown up in the Geekbench...
Read more...
Square-Enix's Forspoken is out now, meaning that you can actually test DirectStorage in a real game. Forspoken even includes a built-in benchmark that not only shows framerates but also tracks load times. As you'd expect, faster SSDs mean...
Read more...
MAINGEAR MG-1 Gaming Desktop: Starting At $1499 The Maingear MG-1 is the fastest pre-built gaming PC we've ever tested. It also makes for a solid workstation, and it's not hard to look at, either. Excellent Performance Massive Room...
Read more...
When Intel announced the lineup for its Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, there were three tiers, just like its CPUs. We've seen Arc A300 GPUs, and we've seen Arc A700 GPUs, but so far, the A500 series is missing in action. Well now, a new...
Read more...
If you were looking forward to playing Square-Enix's new open-world fantasy title Forspoken this weekend, well, hopefully you have a brand-new graphics card. Not only are the game's system requirements surprisingly high, but there's also...
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...
Read more...
Being exactly such a person myself, I can tell you that people with niche interests run into performance bottlenecks you just don't see normally. A key example of such a use-case comes in the form of using graphics cards externally over...
Read more...
Cyberpunk 2077 had one of the most disastrous game launches in history. A lesser game company might have abandoned the title and left it to rot, but CD Projekt Red has been continually crafting updates for the game and has it beaten into a...
Read more...
If you follow hardware news, you likely recall the discovery that Intel's 12th generation Core processors, even the ones without the "K" suffix, could be overclocked on fancy motherboards that featured an external clock generator. Well, as...
Read more...
One of the more peculiar statements to come out of a processor company last year was AMD's insistence that the Navi 31 GPU was "architected for 3GHz". As hardware enthusiasts will likely be aware, even the top-end Radeon RX 7900 XTX...
Read more...
Ayaneo was one of the very first vendors offering hand-held gaming PCs. The earlier models from this and other companies used lower-end and lower-cost APUs from AMD to get their foot in the door. As they've seen success, newer models have...
Read more...
Everyone that does creative work, whether it's in visual art, writing, music, film, or even chemical engineering, should be concerned about AI overtaking their jobs at some point. It's not happening right now (unless you work at CNET), but...
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...
Read more...
