Joel Hruska
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
For years, RAM has followed a predictable pattern in the computing industry. New standards debut, with questionable performance gains and at significantly higher costs compared to previous products. As time passes, the new standard is adopted by more and more chipsets and vendors until it becomes dominant. Costs drop...
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If your any kind of a computing enthusiast, you're quite familiar with EVGA, even if you haven't bought and of their hardware. From power supplies to motherboards and graphics cards, the company has established a solid reputation for producing high-quality, enthusiast equipment. EVGA recently sent over one of their new Torq X10 gaming...
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One of the most hotly debated issues regarding current consoles isn't just whether the PS4 or Xbox One is the better device -- it's whether the new consoles launched with sufficiently advanced hardware at all. Many in the press and readers alike have complained that next-gen devices just aren't powerful enough to...
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Apple's iPhone 6 Plus packs a bevy of improvements into its phablet-sized frame -- its battery life dwarfs all previous iPhones, its screen quality and resolution are excellent, it's just six ounces, and a scant 7.1mm thick. As an added bonus, according to a number of MacRumors readers, it's got a hidden feature -- it...
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As iOS 8 rolls out across Apple's devices, the bug reports -- the inevitable, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes maddening bug reports -- have begun to surface as well. iPhone and iPad users are complaining of slow keyboards, iMessage problems, glitches, app crashes, content management issues, missing content, sticky...
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Earlier this year, Samsung made major waves with the introduction of its 850 Pro SSD and the first commercial iteration of 3D stacked flash memory. Now, Micron is striking back with lower-geometry conventional NAND -- and new drive technology it claims will accelerate performance more effectively than other competing...
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Last month, we covered a new research project from Microsoft, dubbed Project DeLorean, that seeks to dramatically improve the subjective experience of cloud gaming by cutting perceived latency between the player and the server. Today, in a potentially related announcement, comes news that Microsoft is also working on...
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Today, Apple unveiled the upcoming iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, ending months of speculation over whether or not the company would ever move to larger screens or higher PPI. The answer, it turns out, is yes -- the iPhone 6 will pack a 4.7-inch screen while the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. Resolution on the iPhone 6 is...
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Earlier this year we detailed the launch of new 15-core Ivy Bridge-based server processors from Intel, as part of the Xeon E7 refresh cycle. Today, Intel is pushing the Xeon E5 family forward -- except in this case, the new Xeon E5 v3 chips are leaping to higher core counts, the more advanced Haswell-EP architecture, and DDR4. The result?...
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If you're a classic gamer, you've probably had the unhappy experience of firing up a beloved older title you haven't played in a decade or two, squinting at the screen, and thinking: "Wow. I didn't realize it looked this bad." The reasons why games can wind up looking dramatically worse than you remember isn't just...
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If you use social media at all these days, you've undoubtedly noticed the rampant proliferation of viral headlines. From advertising "Local woman loses 55 lbs of belly fat using one weird trick," to Upworthy's self-righteous spewing twaddle "This man found 3,654 war orphans, 62 kittens, and Jesus at Arby's -- You...
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News is out today of a survey from video advertising platform Ebuzzing claiming that it would cost an average of E140 per year per UK citizen to pay for an ad-free Internet and that the majority of users (98% of them, in fact) would never, ever be willing to pay such fees. I'm not surprised by results like this -- if someone asked me "Would...
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For the past few years, as Intel has struggled to gain market share for its Android-x86 project, it's been hampered by software compatibility issues and associated performance degradation. Now, some of that burden is being lifted off the company's products -- the popular and widespread Unity 3D engine has announced...
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Ever since NVIDIA unveiled its 64-bit Project Denver CPU at CES last year, there's been discussion over what the core might be and what kind of performance it would offer. Visibly, the chip is huge -- more than 2x the size of the Cortex-A15 that powers the 32-bit version of Tegra K1. Now we know a bit more about the...
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Intel's 14nm Broadwell Production Throws Down Gauntlet For Major Semiconductor Competitors In Mobile
If Intel's recent 14nm Broadwell Y unveil has made anything clear, it's that the company is now determined to go toe-to-toe with every foundry manufacturer at the 14nm node. It wasn't initially clear if this would be the case. While Intel made a big splash with its first 14nm announcements, news of the delays and a...
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News and rumors about Valve's (possibly) upcoming Source 2 engine have been buzzing for months, but a recent update to DOTA 2 contains the most persuasive evidence yet that a major engine is in the works. After the last patch, the game now contains a number of programmed default paths, directories, and file names that didn't previously exist....
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It's hard to remember now, but there was a time when people were genuinely excited for Microsoft's ARM-based Surface RT and Surface Pro. When the company announced these products, they were seen as a much-needed opportunity for Redmond to spread its wings and tackle fresh markets and new challenges. When the actual...
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More details have surfaced on how the FBI uses its own custom malware to penetrate the Tor network's anonymizing service -- and while those tools have been deployed in some important investigations, it's sure to raise hackles in the post-Snowden era. Several years ago, the FBI launched a major sting operation against...
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Thin and light clients are all the rage these days, even in the desktop space -- from Intel's NUC to many diminutive Steam Machines, the idea from OEMs is that even mainstream buyers are going to adopt system form factors the size of playing cards. If true, it would explain the thinking behind Apacer's latest innovation -- a new style of DRAM...
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For years, Verizon and the other telcos have imposed limits on supposedly "Unlimited" data plans and justified those limits with dubious appeals to network quality of service. While throttling data usage makes a great deal of sense in certain contexts (downtown rush hour being an excellent example), most companies...
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We've detailed Crytek's problems in several previous posts, and it's now clear that it wasn't just the company's UK studios that were affected. Crytek announced today that it has officially moved development of its F2P shooter "Hunt: Horrors of the Guilded Age" to Germany -- ignoring the fact that the majority of the US team had apparently...
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When Nvidia unveiled its GeForce Experience application last year, AMD was quick to return fire, but the company's version of the Raptr software client lagged Nvidia's application in several areas. While both could be used to optimize a game for best performance, Raptr (nee Gaming Evolved) didn't have the same ability...
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