MSI has made a bold move by giving the company's Z170 XPower motherboard a Titanium theme. What exactly does that mean? Well firstly the motherboard features a unique metallic styling which is sure to turn heads. And then there's the application of a sixteen phase power delivery system that makes …

For many, the R9 Fury X and GTX980Ti are fantasy solutions – dream cards most of us will never be able to afford. What if you only have £200 to spend and need a new graphics card that can handle resolutions up to 1440p? Today we look at the latest …

AMD released the R9 390X GPU three months ago and the custom-cooled board partner offerings are available in strength. Today we are taking a look at Asus' STRIX DC3 OC version of the R9 390X which utilises the company's triple-fan DirectCU III cooler and an automated production process. Asus' approach …

2015 has been a good year for those interested in high-performance small form factor (SFF) computing. Some of the most noteworthy releases have been ASRock's X99E-ITX/ac motherboard which brought an entirely new level of performance to consumer mini-ITX systems. And let's not forget about the array of mITX cases that …

Today we take a look at EVGA's second-fastest GTX 980 Ti offering – the GTX 980 Ti Classified ACX 2.0+ graphics card. EVGA uses a redesigned PCB with a 14+3 phase power delivery system in order to ship the card with a factory overclock of 1190MHz on the core, with …

Gigabyte's Z170XP-SLI is aiming to tempt users looking for a motherboard that offers the Z170 platform's core features, but without requiring a significant cash outlay. In the Z170XP-SLI, Gigabyte offers one of the lowest cost boards to support SLI, while also retaining features such as USB 3.1, USB Type-C, and …

Nvidia has launched the GTX 950 to combat AMD's R7 370 at the £129 price point. We take a look at Palit's factory-overclocked, dual-fan GTX 950 2GB StormX Dual graphics card to see what sort of performance the solution can offer. We have taken a more in-depth look at the …

Nvidia's Maxwell GPU architecture has been well-received by enthusiasts and gamers. One of the most promising features for Nvidia has been the architecture's ability to scale positively from low-end to high-end hardware, showing competitive performance and positive power consumption numbers along the way. But the gap between a £100 GTX …

Exploiting the Skylake CPUs for their allure to gamers, ASRock's Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ is a motherboard that targets the enthusiast gaming audience by offering a wide range of the bells and whistles they may desire. Can pumped-up audio, a Killer NIC, strong multi-GPU support, and high-speed storage interfaces persuade …

While Intel's High-End Desktop (HEDT) CPUs are fast and fun, it's on the mainstream platform where the chip manufacturing company really shifts volumes to gamers and DIY enthusiasts. Multiplier-unlocked Core i5 and i7 variants of the latest mainstream micro-architecture are the popularity champions on an annual basis; an affordable platform …

The launch of Intel's Skylake CPUs sees the introduction of a whole new platform based around the LGA 1151 socket. Making use of Intel's feature-healthy Z170 chipset, Asus is targeting gamers who value premium aesthetics and enhanced gaming-grade features with the Maximus VIII Hero. Will the Republic of Gamers (ROG) …

With DDR4 prices being driven down in preparation for the launch of a mainstream chipset supporting the memory type, now can be considered a good time to bag a high density quad-channel kit. Combining a quartet of 8GB DIMMs in a quad-channel configuration with an operating frequency of 2400MHz and …

Targeting gamers with a keen eye for a deal, Wired2Fire has combined a concoction of the best bang-for-buck components to form an attractively-priced, and aptly powered, gaming system. Leveraging the power of a 4.4GHz overclocked Devil's Canyon i5 and the well-balanced GTX 970, can the Wired2Fire Diablo Reactor show off …

Retrofitted with a new CPU based on Intel’s latest-and-greatest Broadwell micro-architecture, MSI’s GT72 2QE Dominator Pro G also ships with an additional gaming-centric gem – the use of a 1920×1080 G-Sync panel that runs at 75Hz. As is expected from MSI’s GT72 series of gaming laptops, a considerable portion of …

When it comes to performance processors for the consumer market, Intel's Haswell-E chips are the fastest around. With such great performance potential are enthusiasts who want to squeeze every last bit of juice out of their system in order to break world records. That's where MSI's X99A XPOWER AC motherboard …

MSI's mid-range Z97 motherboard is the first to market with on-board USB 3.1 in the connection's Type-C form. With the port providing transfer rates of up to 10Gbps and support for new reversible USB Type-C devices, can MSI's Z97A Gaming 6 prove itself as a good option for users wanting …

We had a chance to take a look at ASRock's USB 3.1 implementation with the company's excellent X99E-ITX/ac motherboard and a custom USB 3.1 RAID testing card. How does ASRock's 10Gbps USB 3.1 solution fare? USB 3.1 has been a huge talking point for the past few months. We have …

Retrofitted with Gigabytes new pin-enhanced socket, the X99-Gaming 5P is targeting enthusiast gamers with an eye for multi-GPU configurations and an ear for high-quality audio hardware. Can the red and black-themed design appeal to gamers shopping for a mid-priced X99 motherboard? Branded as part of the G1 Gaming series, Gigabyte's …

The push for small yet powerful computers has been evident over the past few years. Many enthusiasts are no longer happy with an ATX motherboard and full tower chassis to house their single graphics card and pair of storage drives. Instead, budding aficionados are challenging themselves to create smaller and …

For those of us with more than one device that sees regular usage, keeping in control of where important files are stored can rapidly become a complex chore. And that's without even bringing the differing backup and file transfer procedures of handheld devices into the picture. The Asus Transfer Express …

We were in Cambridge over the weekend for MSI and TeamGB's first OC Academy tour. In coordination with TeamGB overclockers and a number of sponsors, the OC Academy is designed to give enthusiasts a chance to benchmark a selection of hardware in order to promote involvement in the UK's overclocking …

Hot off the heels of Intel’s SSD 750 series launch, and with NVMe-based SSDs beginning to gain momentum in the consumer marketplace, MSI is preparing to launch an adapter card to provide support for SFF-8639 drives to its X99 motherboards. Intel’s SSD 750 series drives utilise four lanes of PCIe …

The multi-threaded performance of Haswell-E processors makes them ideal for home users with demanding workloads. Video editors, game streamers, and users running virtual machines are some of the audiences who may benefit from up to eight CPU cores running on the Haswell microarchitecture. Those demanding workloads can bring with them …

The push for greater performance from storage devices is seeing enthusiast drives transition towards PCIe-linked connections for increased bandwidth. While faster hardware is great, on paper, it is of limited use if the surrounding ecosystem is unable to put the performance increases to effective use. That's where the SSD-optimised Non-Volatile …

Between the 17th and 19th of April, MSI, Team GB Benching, HWBot, and Overclock.net will be running their first OC Academy event. OC Academy is designed to bring together professional overclockers, budding enthusiasts, and tech-lovers, all of whom are keen to thrash MSI's hardware by way of liquid nitrogen in …

Nvidia's GTX 970 sits in that graphics card sweet-spot where it's about 10-20% slower than its GTX 980 brother, but retails for only 60% of the price. It's that alluring balance between performance and value that makes the GTX 970 a smart candidate for constructing a strong SLI configuration. OcUK …

Guaranteed reliability and enhanced thermal performance are the crucial principles upon which Asus' TUF series motherboards are forged. A variety of military-grade certification tests, as well as five years' worth of warranty, tackle the ‘guaranteed' part of guaranteed reliability. The physical elements of reliability and thermal performance, however, are handled …

ASRock's Fatal1ty series of motherboards caters for gaming enthusiasts and today we have the line-up's flagship in for review – the X99 Professional. With 4-card SLI and CrossFire support, Killer and Intel NICs, and enhanced audio, does ASRock's red-and-black Fatal1ty X99 Professional live up to its top-of-the-line status by carrying …

Combining the market's current bang-for-the-buck kings, Chillblast builds its Fusion Barbarian gaming system around the Devil's Canyon Core i5 4690K processor and Gigabyte's G1 Gaming GTX 970 graphics card. Backing up the powerful frame-rate generators are 16GB of DDR3 memory and a 120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. How does the …

Longevity and reliability are particularly important purchasing decisions for a component such as a motherboard. Quite simply, your system's motherboard failing can be considered not too far off a personal disaster. Gigabyte aims to put those reliability concerns at ease with the 168 hour, server-level validation process used on its …