Kingston KC3000 SSD Review: A PCIe Gen 4 Speed Demon

At a time when it’s exceedingly tough for enthusiasts to acquire many top-flight PC components, dashing hopes for many a fun upgrade or new build, solid state drives remain a shining beacon of hope. The SSD market has seen a consistent influx of new and updated products, addressing virtually every price bracket, with good availability across the board. At the high-end, massive performance increases have also been the order of the day, with PCIe 5 drives – set to double peak sequential performance yet again to nearly 14GB/s – due to arrive later this year. As it stand today, Phison-based...

HotHardware's 17 Best Of CES 2022: Chips, Laptops, Displays & More

by Zak Killian - Fri, Jan 07, 2022

The 2022 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show has concluded. We didn't attend this year's show in Las Vegas in-person, but that's mostly because the majority of the biggest players in the market didn't show up either and we attended a handful of private briefings at other venues. The severity of the pandemic prompted Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Google (among many others) to stay away from the show and simply make their announcements virtually. Still, as they say, the show must go on; whether in-person at CES or strictly online. The tech industry proudly showed off its latest, greatest,...

Intel Arc Alchemist Claims Over 50 Design Wins And XeSS Lands A Killer Debut Game Title

by Jeff Butts - Tue, Jan 04, 2022

A new era’s begun in discrete graphics, as Intel has announced shipment of the latest Intel Arc graphics to OEM customers. Codenamed Alchemist, Intel Arc graphics chips will offer a new choice in the consumer high-performance graphics arena. Game studios have already adopted the technology, with several AAA PC gaming titles being optimized to take advantage of the new market share. As we’ve noted previously, Intel confirmed the Arc graphics processor is designed first and foremost for gamers. It’s built on TSMC’s 6-nanometer manufacturing process, and offers up 32 Xe cores....

Intel Launches Huge Arsenal Of 12th Gen Mainstream Alder Lake Desktop Chips, Coolers And Chipsets

by Paul Lilly - Tue, Jan 04, 2022

Intel has just expanded its lineup of Alder Lake desktop processors with nearly two dozen new SKUs spanning its Celeron, Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i9 product categories. it also unveiled a trio of stock cooling solutions for its latest Alder Lake chips, and added three additional 600 series chipsets, all in an effort to further extend its reach into the mainstream market with its latest-generation CPU architecture. The first batch of Alder Lake processors released in early November and consisted of three main models, each with ("K") and without ("KF") integrated graphics. They included...

ASUS B660 And H610 Motherboard Models And Pricing Tipped In Retail Leak

by Jeff Butts - Fri, Dec 31, 2021

Intel’s Alder Lake CPU announcement is expected in less than a week, but some of the accompanying motherboard pricing and specs have been leaked early. The leaks come from a computer component supplier in Ecuador and include several ASUS motherboards. TecnoMega Store has three models listed, all basic in features. The leaked products include the ASUS Prime B660M-A WIFI D4, Prime B660M-A D4, and Prime H610M-E D4. These motherboards range in price from $121.11 to $191.11, which includes the nation’s 12 percent VAT. Electronics in Ecuador are typically more expensive, but the features...

Intel’s PCIe 5 SSD Sneak Peek Shows Blistering-Fast 28GB/s Speeds With Dual Samsung Drives

by Jeff Butts - Fri, Dec 31, 2021

Update (12/31/01): Intel's Ryan Shrout decided not to wait for CES to showcase a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K system rocking a Samsung PM1743 PCIe 5.0 solid state drive achieving over 13GB/s in IOMeter, but why not showcase a pair of drives? The question was posed, and Shrout answered with another awesome bandwidth demo, this time achieving an eye-popping 28GB/s. A few asked why we didn't show both of the PCIe 5.0 drives running at the same time. Fine @IanCutress here you go. Addressing them independently in IOmeter for a combined bandwidth over 28 GB/s!! https://t.co/107wlJ4wit pic.twitter.com/c8fecGkxli...

ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade SSD Review: Super-Fast NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Dec 21, 2021

This past year was a tough one for PC enthusiasts. It was exceedingly difficult to acquire some of the most sought after components, like the latest and greatest CPUs and GPUs for example, and if you were lucky enough to score one, you often had to pay through the nose for it. Solid state storage, however, continued to advance at a steady clip and despite industry wide shortages, pricing remained relatively stable. Some of the best solid state drives are quite affordable, widely available, and some are even predicting significant price drops in the coming year. The ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade we’ll...

NVIDIA DLSS Vs AMD FSR: F1 2021 Performance & Image Quality

by Ben Funk - Tue, Dec 14, 2021

Ignoring the difficulties securing hardware for a moment, it's a pretty glorious time to play games on the PC. We get our choice of resolutions, frame rates, and detail levels, and if our hardware isn't up to snuff there's some innovative creative technologies available that try to bridge the gap. NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling requires the green team's RTX hardware, but AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution upscales graphics on just about any modern graphics card worth owning. Since FSR's public release, the question has always been about which method is better, assuming we have a choice in...

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Benchmarks: Huge AI And Gaming Gains For Next-Gen Android Flagships

by Paul Lilly, Myriam Joire - Tue, Dec 07, 2021

Qualcomm recently announced a new flagship mobile chipset for next-gen Android devices, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which also kicks off a rebrand of the Snapdragon platform. Going forward, Qualcomm will no longer use three-digit model number designations as it has done with past chipsets like the Snapdragon 888+ 5G. In somewhat vague terms, Qualcomm said it needed a "bigger tent, a longer playing field so to speak," as it aims to broaden the appeal of Snapdragon "while keeping true to its core." The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 gets the party started, with Qualcomm kicking off its rebranding effort with a premium...

HiFive Unmatched: Exploring A RISC-V Computing Experience

by Colton Westrate - Wed, Dec 01, 2021

Experimenting with SiFive's HiFive Unmatched RISC-V development board over the last few weeks has felt a bit like stepping back in time. The experience left me feeling a bit nostalgic. Picture this. It's 1997. I'm a high school sophomore. I head over to my friend's house after class because a long-awaited CD with something called "Slackware Linux" on it has arrived. It's installed on a 486DX4 100 PC that lives in their poorly-lit, unfinished basement. The day's 30 minutes of free dial-up from the local ISP are used to download "tarballs" with "Kermit." Linux is strange and confusing, but I do like...

NVIDIA ICAT Unveiled: In-Game Image Quality Analysis Made Easy

by Ben Funk - Tue, Nov 16, 2021

There's been a lot of discussion about image quality and super-sampled graphics in 3D games over the last few months. Ray tracing is quite expensive from a computational standpoint, so frame rates typically suffer when it's enabled. Upscaling technologies seek to claw some of that performance back, by rendering at a lower resolution and scaling up to the display's native pixel density, using high quality algorithms and other innovative techniques. NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) version 2, which uses machine learning to upscale games, was the only game in town for a while, but that...

Intel 12th Gen Core Alder Lake Performance Review: Chipzilla Is Back

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Nov 04, 2021

After many months of speculation, an early glimpse into the hybrid Alder Lake architecture in August, and an official line-up and feature reveal last week, Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors are finally ready for prime time. The time for innuendo and speculation is over – for the most part. We’ve had the flagship 12th Gen Core i9-12900K and mainstream Core i5-12600K processors in hand for testing for a couple of weeks now, and have all of our findings laid-out for you on the pages ahead. Needless to say, after years of aggressive competition from rival AMD, this particular platform...

LG UltraGear GP9 Review: Bluetooth Gaming Soundbar With Grunt, Lacks Grace

by Paul Lilly - Tue, Nov 02, 2021

This past Summer, LG created a new product category with its UltraGear Gaming Speaker (GP9), though not entirely from scratch. The GP9 combines aspects of a soundbar with a portable Bluetooth speaker, and also serves as an external USB soundcard with a built-in Hi-Fi Quad DAC (ESS9038 Pro) to bring your headphones to life. It works with PCs, game consoles, and anything that blasts out audio through a Bluetooth connection. It also has a distinctive gamer aesthetic, or at least what LG thinks qualifies as one with the usual RGB lighting flare. But is it any good at everything or anything it's designed...

Intel 12th Gen Core Debut: Alder Lake CPUs Are Ready For Battle

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Oct 27, 2021

At its inaugural InnovatiON event, which kicked off this morning, Intel revealed a number of additional details regarding its upcoming 12th Gen Core processors, codenamed Alder Lake. We’ve been covering leaks, rumors and whatever else emerged regarding Alder Lake for ages. And after Intel’s recent Architecture Day a few weeks back, we were able to dive into the Alder Lake architecture and disclose many of the underlying technologies that enable its hybrid design, including its Performance and Efficiency CPU cores. Today, however, Intel disclosed some additional feature and platform...

Intel Is Confident It Can Win Apple Back As A Customer After Being Exiled From Macs

by Keith May - Mon, Oct 18, 2021

Apple may be on the precipice of releasing its latest processors, the M1 Max and M1 Pro, but that doesn't stop Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger from counting Intel out. Apple is now moving to its second generation of M1 CPUs after transitioning away from Intel, following 15 years of partnership. In 2020 Apple announced its own silicon and marked the move away from Intel as its CPU of choice ushering in an entirely new operating system and way of thinking for developers. The Apple M1 is an 8-core ARM-based CPU built on the 5nm architecture and is an absolute unit when it comes to efficiency. This was a sizeable...

AMD Radeon RX 6600 Review: Lower-Cost RDNA 2 For 1080p Gamers

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Oct 13, 2021

AMD is expanding its mainstream RDNA 2 graphics card line-up today with another Navi 23-based offering, the new Radeon RX 6600. As its name implies, the Radeon RX 6600 is a close relative to the Radeon RX 6600 XT, which launched just a few weeks back. This card also targets roughly the same audience, i.e. budget conscious 1080p gamers, though with proper support for FSR and a growing number of titles that enable it, smooth framerates at higher effective resolutions are also going to be possible. As was the case with the Radeon RX 6600 XT, AMD itself won’t be making its own reference cards...

Far Cry 6 With Ray Tracing And FSR Performance Review: Bring On The Eye Candy

by Ben Funk - Wed, Oct 06, 2021

The raid on this fort is reminiscent of infiltration missions in Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag A whole new crop of blockbuster games are lining up for a big holiday shopping season. Ubisoft didn't really intend for that to be the case for Far Cry 6, but early this year the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans. The game had been hit by some delays, but at the end of May the company set a date: October 7, 2021. Finally, the latest Far Cry title has arrived and the open-world first-person shooter is ready for players to take down its repressive government and maybe learn a little something along the...

Intel Core i7-1195G7 Performance: MSI’s Prestige 14 EVO Flies

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Oct 01, 2021

Earlier this year, we took a look at the MSI Prestige 14 EVO, a high-performance thin and light ultrabook, which was packing Intel’s latest Tiger Lake-based mobile processing platform at the time. In our deep-dive evaluation of the machine, we found it to offer strong CPU and integrated graphics performance, with speedy PCIe Gen 4 NVMe storage, and a host of handy features, all in a competitively priced, attractive package. When all was said and done, we gave the MSI Prestige 14 EVO a ‘Recommended’ award and thought users looking for a machine with a similar form factor would...

ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED Review: Ryzen 5000-Powered Excellence

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 24, 2021

Much of the conversation surrounding AMD’s continued assault on Intel has revolved around the desktop and server markets, where the company’s Ryzen and EPYC processors have consistently increased in popularity and adoption, gen over gen. AMD has, however, also made significant inroads in the mobile space, with both high-end gaming notebooks – like the excellent ASUS ROG Strix G15 AMD Advantage Edition – and in the thin-and-lite space as well, with a variety of Ryzen 5000U series based machines. We’ve actually had the notebook we’ll be showing you today, the ASUS...

EVGA Z12 Gaming Keyboard, X20 And X15 Mice Review: Value-Priced Arsenal

by Nathan Ord - Tue, Aug 31, 2021

As enthusiasts, we're often most enamored by the latest and greatest graphics cards, processors, and storage technology in our endeavors to squeeze as much performance from our systems as possible. However, it is the human interface devices -- like our keyboards, mice, and monitors -- that can have the most significant impact on our user experience. A high-quality keyboard and mouse, for example, can make you more productive, reduce fatigue, and even improve your gaming chops. So, when EVGA offered up their upcoming X20 and X15 gaming mice and Z12 RGB keyboard, we were eager to take a look. After...

Dell UltraSharp 4K Webcam Review: Up Your WFH Video Quality

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Aug 25, 2021

The humble webcam has seen a surge to prominence fueled by the rise of web conferencing and remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few short years ago, a webcam could be buried away below the display of a laptop and few users would complain or even notice. With those days behind us, consumers and professionals alike have been scrambling to improve their on-screen presence to the point of creating a shortage of the now critical device. That same demand has drawn more players into the discrete webcam space, including Dell. Dell's recently released 4K-capable UltraSharp Webcam aims...

Meet Intel's Arc GPU Superpowers: Alchemist, Battlemage, Celestial And Druid

by Brandon Hill - Fri, Aug 20, 2021

Earlier this week, Intel announced its highly anticipated family of discrete graphics cards targeted at the enthusiast gaming market. The cards are based on Intel's Xe-HPG architecture, and will be marketed under the Arc brand name. The first-generation Arc graphics cards were developed under the GPU codename Alchemist, while the second, third, and fourth-generation Arc GPUs will carry the codenames Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid, respectively. At first glance, we didn't think much about these codenames, but upon reflection, there's more to them than meets the eye. One thing that all of these...