PC Components, Peripherals And Gadget Reviews And News
Dig into our deep-dive product reviews and news of PC components from processors, to motherboards, graphics cards (GPUs), sound cards, and storage, along with other gadgets and peripherals that complete the computing experience. Whether you're a DIY PC enthusiast builder or just looking to read-up on what should be inside or connected to your next pre-built PC, here's where you'll find all the nuts and bolts sorted on what makes modern computer systems tick, as well some of the best user interface devices to go with them.
Over the past few years, a handful of mobile graphics companies have emerged as key pillars of the industry. The top dog, by far, has been Imagination Technologies, with Qualcomm, Nvidia (during the Tegra 2 / Tegra 3 era) and ARM all picking up significant businesses of their own as well. But now, there's a new kid on the block -- a company...
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There are consumer projectors of nearly every shape and size and for a myriad of purposes. From big, feature-rich monsters ideal for large home theaters to tiny pico projectors (which can now be found in some smartphones), there are projectors available now that let users display photos or video for a small audience almost...
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VIA introduced its dual-core Nano just four months ago, but the company is already demonstrating that processor's big brother. The newly minted VIA QuadCore is--you guessed it--a quad-core processor that connects two dual-core Nano cores in an MCM (multi-chip module). The new chip won't actually ship for some months, but it may become...
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VIA caused quite a stir a few months ago when the company first revealed initial details regarding their low-power Nano processor. At the time, the product was referred to by its internal codename of Isaiah. In addition, the President of VIA's design center that was tasked with making the processor, was decidedly outspoken,...
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With all the buzz around VIA's recent announcement of their next generation low power Isaiah mobile processor and the parade of online coverage of the recent press event VIA held at their Centaur design center in Texas, we felt rather than regurgitating the usual marketing fluff and press pitch material, we would get together with some of...
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With the adoption of PCI Express as a next-gen I/O technology, all of the major chipset manufacturers worked hard to bring compatible chipsets to market. Naturally, Intel was first on the scene with the 900 series chipsets. But on the AMD side, VIA was first to market with its K8T890 Chipset. Building on the successes of...
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Over the years, we've evaluated multiple versions of Asetek's famed Vapochill vapor phase-change cooling system. In fact, our first experience with a Vapochill dates all the way back to June of 2000. The first Vapochill we evaluated hardly resembles today's more refined models, however. Gone is the standard beige case, replaced with a custom...
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VIA is perhaps most notable for its contributions as a supplier of chipsets for AMD's Athlon XP/64 processor families. The company's work with Intel's offerings has ranged, over time, from clandestine manufacturing of unlicensed core logic (in Intel's eyes, at least) to the manufacture of a respectably leading edge product in the form...
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When AMD's Athlon 64 was initially introduced, all of the major players in the core logic chipset business immediately jumped on board, and introduced, or released, full-featured chipsets for the new processor. And although SiS, ALi, VIA and NVIDIA all had similar Athlon 64 chipsets on their respective road maps, it was VIA and...
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Watch any episode of "This Old House", "Hometime", "The New Yankee Workshop", or any other Do-It-Yourself type program for that matter, and you're bound to hear a certain phrase repeated over and over. Carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, chefs, they all use it. This phrase has almost become a mantra for anyone who...
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By, Marco Chiappetta April 8, 2004 Almost four years ago, we took at a look at Asetek's original version of the Vapochill designed for the Pentium III, and we came away impressed. The enclosure was a basic beige full-tower, which by today's standards isn't very exciting. The installation was...
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VIA PT880 Chipset Preview A Performance Preview of VIA's Dual-Channel P4 Chipset By: Chris Angelini December 8, 2003 For the first time since NVIDIA unveiled its nForce2 chipset more than a year ago, VIA is in a very promising position. To begin, AMD's Athlon 64 is upon us, bringing...
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VisionTek Xtasy 9800 Pro 128MB AGP Back from the Dead with a Whole New Attitude By - Jeff Bouton July 1, 2003 It wasn't that long ago that VisionTek was one of the top manufacturers of nVidia based graphics cards. The Xtasy line offered a wide range of solutions, from the budget MX series, to the top card of the day, the GeForce 4 Ti4600. ...
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The HotHardware Vintage PC Collection! A Quick Trip Down Memory Lane... By, Marco Chiappetta April 2, 2003 We spend quite a bit of time working with cutting edge technology here on HotHardware.Com. We've recently had our hands on 3.06GHz Pentium 4s, Radeon 9800 Pros, a slew of low-latency memory, the latest motherboards and even some...
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The VIA P4PB Ultra Motherboard Review Intent on Total System Performance for the P4 By Robert Maloney March 19th, 2003 Our first impression of the VIA P4PB Ultra, when the box showed up on the testing bench, was that it screamed (literally) that it was here to play. From the no-nonsense black box with a guy yelling (at what we...
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The VisionTek XTasy GeForce4 Ti 4400 Compelling performance without the price tag By -Dave Altavilla April 9, 2002 If variety is the "spice of life", then it is safe to say that NVIDIA is cooking up some "Three Alarm Chili" these days and it's guaaaaraaaanteed (insert thick Cajun Bayou accent here), to make...
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The Visiontek GeForce 4 Ti 4600 The NV25 hits retail shelves! By - Marco Chiappetta March 20, 2002 In February 2002, NVIDIA announced their latest flagship GPU, the GeForce 4 Ti 4600. This new GPU would not only raise the bar in terms of performance, but would also sport a slew of new features. NVIDIA revamped their Anti-Aliasing...
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VIA's P4XB P4X266A Motherboard Yes, VIA is Selling Motherboards Now! By, Marco Chiappetta February 14, 2002 A few short months ago, if you were planning to build a high-end Pentium 4 system, an i850 based motherboard and expensive RDRAM was in your future. VIA Technologies changed that though when they released their P4X266 chipset. ...
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The 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP Update! New Drivers, Benchmarks and Full Review Rating! By Dave "Davo" Altavilla 5/12/00 Welcome back folks! This is an update to our initial Voodoo5 PREview article on 4/24/00. We aren't going to spend a lot of time with flowery verbage here. You came here for one thing. You...
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The 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP An "In House" PREview and Test Of Alpha 2 Product By Dave "Davo" Altavilla 4/24/00 This product review needs no introduction. We have been waiting a long time for the next coming of Voodoo Graphics. In what seems like a deluge of market hype over next generation 3D Graphics...
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The 3dfx Voodoo 5 Incarnate Up close and personal with 3dfx's next generation product By Dave "Davo" Altavilla and Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta 4/4/00 We packed our gear... Digicam, Notebooks, Laptop, Breath Spray, Cheeze Wiz, Rolaids... all the stuff that a good journalist should come prepared with to any important...
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The VisionTek XTasy Titanium Series Line-up Taking Graphics to the Next Level By - Jeff Bouton November 1, 2001 Just in time to compete with the long awaited new Radeon's from ATI, nVidia has release their latest version of the popular GeForce GPU's named "Titanium." By now, it is fairly obvious that when it comes to competition,...
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