Graphics Cards, PC Monitors And Computer Audio Reviews And News
The sights and sounds of the modern computing experience are driven by key user interface technologies like graphics cards, display monitors and various audio solutions. Here you'll find reviews and news on the latest in cutting-technologies for GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), LED and LCD computer display monitors, sound cards, PC and wireless speaker systems and more.
Although the situation is improving, it is still extremely difficult to score some of the latest graphics cards at prices even approaching their MSRPs. With that in mind, we’ve held off on covering some of the hottest GPUs to come through the lab for a while, because the coverage was inevitably (and understandably) met with groans and...
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Creative Labs has been on something of a roll in 2019. The company has diversified into all kinds of gaming products from keyboards and mice to headsets and speakers. At the same time, Creative never lost track of its PC audio roots, and its flagship Sound BlasterX AE-9 delivered the goods with its high-end...
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As most of you are probably aware, Creative Labs, is one of the Founding Fathers of PC Audio and has manufactured sound cards and other audio-related hardware for 30 years. The original Sound Blaster was the de facto standard for DOS gaming audio almost right from its release in 1989. As high-profile PC games like...
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Ask a group of gamers or hardcore PC enthusiasts what they want in a monitor and you’ll likely get a few common answers. High resolutions and refresh rates, adequate size, wide viewing angles, thin bezels, and a fully adjustable stand will likely be on the list, along with support for adaptive refresh rate...
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Creative Labs was instrumental in evolving PC audio with notable products, like the Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32, AWE64, Live!, Audigy, X-Fi, and Extigy, and algorithms like EAX technology. Most of its competitors through the last three decades, like Yamaha, ESS, Turtle Beach, Auzentech and M-Audio, evolved their product...
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Samsung hopes to bring curved displays to the masses with its 27-inch CF591. The monitor has an MSRP of $349.99 and is discounted in Samsung’s online store (and others), dropping the price to just under the $300 mark. Even without the discount though, the CF591 is one of the more affordable high-end curves displays, though it’s not the...
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If our eyes are the windows to the soul, then what does that make our ears? Doorways to our internal sound stage, that's what. But listen up, it doesn't matter how gnarly the guitar riffs your favorite musician is playing or how intense the in-game effects are, if your headphones aren't up to the task, then you might as well go back to the...
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Samsung is the largest and one of the more popular consumer electronics companies in the world. Besides its hugely successful HDTV lineup, the company also makes some equally exciting LCD monitors. Samsung's offering of flat panel displays have proven to be stylish, dependable, and competitively priced. Generally, we've...
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When AMD launched the Radeon HD 4870 X2 a few months back, the company hinted at the impending release of another, more affordable, dual-GPU powered card aptly named the Radeon HD 4850 X2. Like the more powerful 4870 X2, the 4850 X2 would sport a pair of RV770 GPUs on a single PCB, but on the 4850 X2 they would be clocked somewhat lower...
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The price of LCD screens has steadily declined and in the last few years, larger monitors are starting to become relatively affordable. This is especially evident in the 19", 20" and 22" categories, where we see a significant number of products in the sub-$300 range. However 24" and larger screens still remained premium products until very...
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When we're asked by readers for hardware advice, one of the most popular topics involves the graphics card. With a myriad of options out there covering the price and performance spectrum, it's not always a cut and dried answer. First, we need to consider the person's budget requirements, then assess the rest of their...
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For each type of product and in each market, there is usually a specific price segment that will provide the best value proposition for consumers, often known as the 'sweet spot'. For quite some time, the 19" widescreen was the sweet spot of the consumer LCD monitor market. Hovering between the cheaper but aging 17" screens and the...
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In late January, ATI unveiled several new entry level GPUs manufactured using the 55nm process that was first employed with the more powerful RV670 GPU. Not only did the new process help ATI deliver more competitive graphics cards at attractive price points, it also improved on such things as power consumption, which is of growing...
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It seems like a new year always evokes the feeling of renewed hope and high expectations. And for AMD / ATI at least, 2008 appears to have reinvigorated their graphics division, which appears to be firing on all cylinders at the moment. After a year or so of NVIDIA dominating the high-end graphics space,...
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Upon its release, it was expected that even the most ardent power users and enthusiasts were going to tread lightly at first with respect to adopting Windows Vista as their primary OS. Though end users in this demographic are classically early adopters, in terms of new hardware technologies coming to market, an operating system change brings with...
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A lot of attention is paid to framerates when discussing graphics hardware, and rightfully so. Some argue that they are an outdated method for assessing a video card's performance, but when assessing a potential purchase, buyers need some way to determine why one card is superior to the other. We can talk about how...
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Graphics processors are, and have always been, extremely parallel in nature. This sentiment has been expressed time and time again by various GPU architects from all of the major graphics chip designers. If you want additional performance, in the vast majority of cases, you can gain it by adding on more rendering pipelines or a second (identical)...
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There is a common occurrence in the graphics industry that happens near the launch of any major new architecture. Before a company introduces a major change in their GPU designs, they will take their existing GPU designs and offer them at a wide variety of different speeds and price points, sometimes surprisingly low priced, in order to clear...
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While we all sit and wait to see what AMD/ATI have in store for us with their next-gen, DX10-class R600, the Radeon X1950 XTX remains ATI's current flagship desktop GPU. In light of NVIDIA's excellent GeForce 8 series of cards, the Radeon X1950 XTX has certainly lost some of its initial luster, but nevertheless it's still...
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Today's high-end flagship video cards may cost an arm and a leg, but that segment of the market is not where the real money is. The big money is made in the low-end and mid-range (or mainstream) segments of the market. It's simple really: most people shopping for a video card have budgeted $100-250, while relatively few have $400+...
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Selecting the right video card when you're on a budget can be difficult. The major deciding factor for many gamers out there is price. As mouthwatering as it is to think about getting a top-notch SLI or CrossFire setup, it's a luxury that most simply cannot afford. Fear not though, as both Nvidia and ATI have some quality entry-level...
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It can be tough for a company to decide how and where to market a video card in today's demanding retail environment. Price something too high and only a brave few might purchase the card; price it too low and it could be dismissed as a low-end or budget card by some consumers, regardless of its value proposition. These issues can...
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