Zak Killian
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
It's quickly becoming a tradition for ASUS to announce a new, seemingly absurd product on April 1st and then turn around days later and say "oh, by the way, that's real and we're going to be showing it at Computex." It happened with the ROG Ally handheld last year, and this year the company's ROG Mjolnir power station...
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It's been nigh on nine months since Jeff Kampman from Intel's Graphics Technical Marketing team raised the question: does AMD's 3D V-Cache actually help that much if you're not running a top-end graphics card? Well, we've been busy and haven't had time until just recently to get the testing done, but now we have and...
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If you're not from the American South, you probably have no idea about Waffle House. A regional chain of casual dining restaurants that opened in 1955, the company now has over 1900 stores in 25 US states. The key features of Waffle House are that the restaurants offer cheaply-priced and quickly-served diner food, and...
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Normally we wouldn't report on something like this, because ultimately "some guy on a forum said a thing" isn't exactly newsworthy on its own. However, in this case, the poster in question is Kepler_L2, a well-known fellow who frequently shares insider information and astute analysis of upcoming hardware, particularly...
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It's been a year and a half since AMD launched its Socket AM5 platform and its Zen 4 desktop processors, so the time is nigh for a new generation. Most people are expecting AMD to announce its second series of Socket AM5 processors at Computex in May, and then launch them not long after. There's a new piece of...
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When you hear the brand Zotac, your mind may immediately think of graphics cards, but the company was actually one of the real pioneers in the mini-PC space with its Zbox brand. Zboxes date back to 2011, predating even the original Intel NUC, and Zotac has offered a wide range of models sporting both Intel and AMD...
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It's been a week now since Dragon's Dogma 2 released, and while the Steam reviews are slowly recovering—they're currently at 55% positive, up from a nadir of under 35%—the critical reviews have largely been glowing. It's certainly not a game for everyone, but it's definitely a good game for those who will enjoy it, and overblown controversies
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Moving up a tier in a product stack means you're typically supposed to get a better-performing part, right? Well, at least in the case of the MSI Claw and its Intel Core Ultra processors, that may not always be the case. Testing the two variants of the MSI Claw against the two variants of the ASUS ROG Ally, at least...
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Do you have a Socket AM4 system, dear reader? If you're reading this, there's a solid chance you've at least had one in the past even if you don't right now. Launched eight-and-a-half years ago, the Socket AM4 platform has been enormously successful for AMD, and it continues to persist into 2024 with new CPU releases...
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It's well known among enthusiasts that AMD's Ryzen processors benefit tremendously from high memory clocks, especially in multi-threaded applications. This isn't down to the memory bandwidth increase (although that can help), but more about the increased clock rate for the CPU's Infinity Fabric. That means that the...
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When we originally wrote about OpenAI's Sora back in the middle of February, we noted that the AI video model would be used by some independent creators before it became available to the public. The idea is that OpenAI wanted to assess whether the model had any real value before opening it up to the public, likely...
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AI image generators typically work through a process known as "diffusion". Basically, the model that's generating the image starts with a very vague, blurry picture, and successive sampling steps refine the image until it's sharp and realistic—or at least, as real as the model can get for what you've prompted...
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When Dragon's Dogma came out in 2012, much of the world was still preoccupied with Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls Part V: Skyrim. It was a difficult time to be releasing an open-world fantasy RPG. In combination with the reality that the game had major performance issues on consoles and that it was not available on PC...
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There's been a ton of chatter about a potential successor to the PlayStation 5 lately, thanks to myriad leaks that are so legitimate they've prompted Sony to start an investigation into exactly how they might have occurred. We wrote about the supposed PS5 Pro leaks yesterday; you can read about them here.
With...
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Did you know there's a Steam sale on? That's right—the 2024 Steam Spring Sale has been on for the better part of a week, and it runs until noon tomorrow. In contrast to the last few Steam sales, some of the discounts this time around are surprisingly deep. Whether you've been waiting to snap up some older titles at...
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Do you have a Windows-based gaming handheld? Unless it's an MSI Claw, it almost certainly uses AMD Ryzen mobile hardware. In that case, you might want to hold off on your Windows Updates for a while—assuming you have configured your system with that capability. If you haven't, then you're probably experiencing reduced...
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Some people have claimed that AI is a fad, or a flash in the pan. It's easy to understand the perspective; the hype around the explosion of generative AI feels similar to the hype around previous fads, like 3D TVs or the metaverse. AI isn't a fad, though. It is already transforming every single part of the tech...
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Before we get into today's news, we should set the stage: Pocketpair is a small Japanese game developer with a few minor successes under its belt. Most people, particularly outside of Japan, have probably never heard of any of Pocketpair's previous games, like Unity-engine survival-craft title Craftopia or the rather...
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It's only really in the last decade that small form factor builds have come into their own. Time was that building a small PC meant using meager hardware and forgoing fancy expansion cards. Now that everything is integrated onto the motherboard or the CPU package itself, and thanks to the proliferation of compact...
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When DOOM came out in 1993, Id Software had all kinds of companies coming around asking to license the engine to use it in various types of software for which it was completely unsuited. John Carmack said that vendors of CAD programs and home designers wanted to make use of his amazingly-performant 3D engine, but...
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Things have been rough in the AAA gaming space over the last few years, and arguably the last decade. There's been a lot of turnover, as a good number of legendary studios have closed their doors and many others were shuttered before they even got a chance to shine. A high rate of turnover combined with a failure to...
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Maingear ZERO Legendary Boost Gaming PC: As Configured - $3,389 @ Maingear The culmination of over a decade of design, Maingear's ZERO moves critical connectors to the back of the motherboard, giving it the cleanest looks of any computer we've reviewed to date. Beautiful Build With Back-Side Connectors Unconventional...
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