Component

Around 80% of the population have no idea what a true, high-end gaming PC looks like. KitGuru readers do of course, and so do the folks at Razer. To prove that point, we managed to get a tour around the Razer Battle Bus recently and while there, asked why the mobile marvel has …

Solid-state drives have a lot of advantages over hard disk drives, especially when it comes to mobile devices. Unfortunately, due to relatively high prices on SSDs with adequate capacities, hard drives are used in the vast majority of notebooks nowadays. But chief executive officer of Phison Electronics, a maker of …

When it comes to upgrading your PC it is usually pretty easy to understand the benefits associated by spending more money. A new CPU and motherboard will give you extra overclocking potential and a snappier system. A new graphics card will give you better gaming performance and a new SSD …

Tis the season for a new system upgrade! What better way to end the year than to treat yourself to some new hardware? Bored of the ‘same old' chassis? Then how about an open case with easy access at all times? We reviewed the Aerocool Strike-X case back in March …

Semi-custom system-on-chips for video-game consoles account for a significant portion of AMD’s sales. Many market observers have been concerned that while SoCs for Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 bring in huge revenue, profit margin of such business may be negligible. While the margins of the SoCs are below …

In the coming quarters Advanced Micro Devices will continue to shift its focus from personal computers to other devices. By the end of 2015 about half of the company’s revenue will come from products that are not related to personal computers, in line with the company’s plans. For many years …

Nvidia Corp. has quietly added GeForce GTX 965M graphics adapter into its drivers. The listing of the graphics solution could mean that the new graphics processing unit is already shipping to notebook PC makers and may be unveiled shortly. Theoretically, it could also mean that desktop version of the product …

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday implied that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s 20nm fabrication process would only be used for select products, whereas the main focus of the chip designer is on more advanced fabrication processes with FinFET transistors. Unfortunately, AMD did not reveal any actual plans. “From an overall standpoint, today …

The world’s record GPU frequency of 2.20GHz was set on Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics cards made by Asustek and EVGA. While it is hard to believe that the GM204 GPU can be pushed further towards 2.30GHz – 2.40GHz, the new Asus ROG Matrix Platinum GeForce GTX 980 graphics card is …

GlobalFoundries, the world’s second largest contract maker of semiconductors, has leading edge process technologies and advanced fabs. However, in the recent years the company had to significantly alter its plans, which affected its performance and relations with customers. Fortunately, according to AMD, a key client of GF, the problems seem …

Although it is well known that the Serial ATA-6Gb/s interface does not allow modern high-performance solid-state drives to show their whole potential, the majority of PC makers and SSD manufacturers continue to use it due to cost and inventory management simplification reasons. However, a lot is going to change starting …

EVGA have earned a fantastic reputation over the years for their selected range of motherboards and graphics cards. Today we look at one of their high end power supplies – the SuperNova 1200 P2. This is a creation with OEM partner, Super Flower. The EVGA SuperNova 1200 P2 supply is …

Advanced Micro Devices has announced that select retailers will sell its flagship dual-chip AMD Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card for £500 for a limited time. A number of leading stores in the U.K. already offered the dual-GPU graphics board for about £500 on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Apparently, the …

PMC-Sierra, a leading designer of storage controllers, and Memblaze, a producer of high-end storage accelerators, have unveiled a new extreme-performance PBlaze4 solid-state drive that boasts both extreme capacity and extreme performance. The Memblaze PBlaze4 solid-state storage solution is powered by PMC’s Flashtec NVM Express (NVMe) controllers, use PCI Express 2.0 …

Seagate Technology on Tuesday introduced an all-new family of hard disk drives designed for enterprise-class network area storage (NAS) storage devices. The new HDDs will provide enhanced performance and reliability for NAS applications and will compete against Western Digital’s Red Pro series HDDs. Seagate’s Enterprise NAS hard drives feature 7200rpm …

Samsung Electronics has world-class semiconductor manufacturing facilities and leading-edge process technologies. While the company designs its own system-on-chips for mobile devices, Samsung continues to use application processors from Qualcomm for its high-end smartphones and extensively uses intellectual property from ARM Holdings and Imagination Technologies. Apparently, Samsung wants to change that …

Asustek Computer has unveiled its new small form-factor graphics card that fits into mini-ITX computer cases. The new Asus GeForce GTX 970 DC Mini sports advanced DirectCU cooling solution and is factory-overclocked. It is probable that the new graphics adapter is the world’s most powerful SFF graphics card. The Asus GeForce …

Although AMD’s next-generation accelerated processing unit (APU) code-named “Carrizo” employs the company’s upcoming high-performance “Excavator” x86 cores, they may never make it to high-performance desktop computers as AMD tailored its forthcoming APUs specifically for mobile devices. In order to cut-down power consumption of “Carrizo” chips compared to current-generation “Kaveri” APUs, …

Advanced Micro Devices recently set a goal to improve energy efficiency of its accelerated processing units by 25 times by 2020. To achieve this goal, AMD will have to outpace historical energy efficiency trend by over 70 per cent, but the company claims it knows what to do and even …

Apple has been trying to cut its orders to Samsung Electronics for many years now, but when it comes to making ultra-low-power system-on-chips using a leading-edge process technology, in high volume and with high yield, Samsung is one of a few companies who can do the job. As a result, …

Today we take a look at the new modified, custom card created in a partnership with Overclockers UK called the GALAX GeForce GTX 970 OC Silent ‘Infinity Black Edition'. Gibbo at Overclockers has created another custom card built with a nickel plated heatsink and the I/O plate is also nickel …

As reported, Overclockers UK has decided to follow its colleagues from the U.S. with special discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Unlike “traditional” price slashes many of which look rather symbolic, deals on the special days usually result in rather dramatic savings. For example, OcUK will offer a bundle …

Although solid-state drives are considerably more affordable these days than they were several years ago, high-capacity 1TB SSDs remain pretty expensive and with price-points like £349/$550 out of budget of the vast majority of PC enthusiasts. However, the situation is changing. Mushkin Enhanced, a leading maker of advanced PC components, …

In a bid to maintain market shares and unit shipments this year leading manufacturers of mainboards had to cut prices and initiate various campaigns to boost sales. Such tactics lead to price-cuts as well as erosion of gross-margins, something that threats the future of the companies. However, next year motherboard …

Thanks to the fact that the new-generation graphics cards from Nvidia Corp. arrived to the market and next flagship graphics solutions from both AMD and Nvidia emerged on horizon, current top-of-the-range graphics solutions began to rapidly drop their price. The Radeon R9 295X2 graphics cards are now available at price-points …

Everybody loves speed, and there's no easier way to enhance the snappiness of general usage tasks than by using a solid state drive. But the primary storage interface – SATA 6Gbps – saw its speed limit reached by fast SSD's more than two years ago. If you wanted higher performance, …

We do not know exactly when companies like Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. make their first chips using 7nm, 5nm, 3nm or 2nm process technologies. But we do know what should happen before leading semiconductor producers manufacture their new chips using ultra-thin process technologies: ASML should sell …

A Chinese web-site that leaks unofficial information about future central processing units and graphics processing units has published what it claims to be the first benchmark results of AMD’s next-generation Radeon R9 300-series graphics card code-named “Fiji XT”. If the benchmark results are correct, then the graphics adapters will offer …

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has ordered two additional extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanners from ASML Holding. The equipment will be delivered in 2015 and will complement initial two EUV scanners TSMC has today, which will be upgraded. Four scanners will let TSMC make chips using 10nm process technology and EUV lithography …

Multiplay's legendary Insomnia events are a great place to get hands-on with a ton of kit that you don't normally find in the shops. On hand for Thermaltake was Martin Pajenkamp to explain the cool features of his Core V51 chassis. Have to say that we do like an intelligently …