Zelda Looks Stunning In 8K Ray Tracing Demo Powered By Ryzen 9 7950X And RTX 4090

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild originally released over five and a half years ago for Nintendo's Wii U console, a system which was arguably under-powered when it came out five years before that in 2012. It's one of the most beloved games of all time, so naturally, PC gamers are doing what PC gamers are wont to do: hacking and modding the game on powerful PC hardware to look and play better than ever. The latest example of this is from YouTube channel Digital Dreams, who has carved out a niche on the video-sharing site as a place to find games modded to heck and upscaled to heavenly-high...

Watch NVIDIA's Beastly GeForce RTX 4090 Tackle 13K Resolution Gaming

by Mark Tyson - Tue, Nov 01, 2022

A YouTuber has shared a video online demonstrating that it is perfectly feasible to indulge in some Genshin Impact PC gaming at '13K', and achieve an average of 30 frames per second, using one of NVIDIA's latest and greatest (and supremely power hungry) consumer GPUs. Of course, we are talking about the beastly NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. With the launch of NVIDIA's first Ada Lovelace architecture GPUs, spearheaded by the awesomely powerful GeForce RTX 4090, gamers started to realistically look beyond 4K gaming. Display makers have started to proliferate 5K monitors, and TV makers are itching to upgrade...

Join Our Livestream Q&A With Intel's Marcus Kennedy About All Things Raptor Lake

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Oct 19, 2022

A very special guest will join Dave, Marco, and Chris on this week’s Two and a Half Geeks livestream. Marcus Kennedy, the General Manager of the Gaming Division of Intel’s Client Computing Group will join us LIVE for a discussion of all things relating to Intel’s 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors. We’ll also take YOUR questions live during the cast, so be sure to tune in! Intel’s Raptor Lake processors were unveiled at the company’s Innovation 2022 event in September. We were privy to a deep dive of the architecture which you can read about here. The initial launch...

Hands-On And Unboxing NVIDIA'S Beastly GeForce RTX 4090

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Oct 05, 2022

NVIDIA announced its new GeForce RTX 40-Series GPUs at its GTC Developer’s Conference two short weeks ago. We have been privy to a deep dive of the underlying Ada Lovelace architecture and have gleaned more details from AIB partners, but now we have a couple cards in hand to share with the camera. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founder's Edition We are still waiting for the embargo to lift before we can talk performance and offer our full thoughts, but we are able to unbox the cards. Up for show, we have MSI’s Suprim Liquid X GeForce RTX 4090 as well as NVIDIA’s own GeForce RTX 4090...

Intel Arc Roundtable Chat With Raja Koduri On The Eve Of Launch

by Chris Goetting - Tue, Oct 04, 2022

Intel Arc will be fully out in the open very soon. However you qualify it, we now know the cards will be available a week from now, on October 12th, though reviews will begin popping up tomorrow, 10/5/22. On the eve of this event, Intel’s Tom “TAP” Petersen and Ryan Shrout sat down with Raja Koduri, the Vice President of Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG), to reflect on their experiences and the road traveled leading up to Intel's Arc launch. Shrout kicked off the conversation by asking Raja about how he thinks the Intel Graphics team ended up. “It’s...

Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips And Tricks That Will Boost Your Windows Productivity

by Chris Goetting - Mon, Oct 03, 2022

The mouse and graphical user interface are still arguably two of the greatest innovations in computing. They make computers easy to use, but that does not always mean slinging a cursor around is the best use of time. The keyboard still reigns supreme for many Windows tasks, so it is worthwhile to learn how to use it efficiently and may even make computer work a little bit easier. Most of the shortcuts we'll recommend learning here are not massive one-off time savers. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of adding these to your workflow can potentially save minutes to hours of effort a day, versus...

2.5 Geeks Live: GeForce RTX 40, Ryzen 7000, Raptor Lake, Arc Pricing - WOW!

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 30, 2022

We've been so busy analyzing and reporting on all the recent NVIDIA, AMD and Intel launches and announcements that we haven't had a chance to just sit down and talk about them. So let's chill-out and do just that – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series, AMD Ryzen 7000, Intel Raptor Lake and Arc were all on tap in our most recent 2.5 Geeks Livestream... Show Notes: 06:56 - Ryzen 7 7700X & Ryzen 5 7600X 08:15 - Shorter Runways And Leaks 10:37 - Ryzen 7000 Thermals Tease 11:21 - GeForce RTX 40 Series Arch 23:28 - Will DLSS3 Work On RTX 30? 32:13 - AMD Ryzen 7000 Review 34:55 - Marco's AM5 "Not" Regret...

Intel Arc Alchemist A770 LE And A750 Release Dates And Pricing Revealed

by Chris Goetting - Thu, Sep 29, 2022

Intel finally confirmed the release date and pricing of the long-awaited Arc Alchemist A770 GPU at its Innovation 2022 event earlier this week, but we were left waiting for concrete details about the Limited Edition version of the card and its little sibling, the Arc A750. Well, Intel has just released another batch of details, so let’s dive into it. The flagship Arc A770 card will indeed release on Wednesday, October 12th with a starting price of $329 USD. We now also know that the A770 LE (Limited Edition) will carry a slightly higher price tag of $349 USD. For its part, the extra...

NVIDIA DLSS 3’s Frame-Generating Magic Explored In Early Performance Testing

by Chris Goetting - Thu, Sep 29, 2022

NVIDIA has made no bones about its embrace of AI to continue the march of 3D graphics innovation. The company has developed and refined its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) techniques significantly since it was introduced way back in 2018. The latest incarnation introduced with the GeForce 40-Series cards has been put to an early test by the image quality connoisseurs over at Digital Foundry. NVIDIA DLSS 3 Tech Recap And Potential Pitfalls DLSS 3 is a major revision to the technology and introduces a new feature that can generate extra frames in-between rendered frames seemingly of thin air....

Delidded Ryzen 9 7900X Shows A Huge Drop In Temps But Don't Try This At Home

by Mark Tyson - Tue, Sep 27, 2022

The AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors already have a reputation for running hot, but we are assured this is perfectly as planned. As such, it won’t be an issue in the near or distant future. Nevertheless, TechTuber Der8auer has been up to his old tricks, cracking open one of these newly released CPUs with his Delid Die Mate tool – to see if delidding might be a good idea for advanced tinkerers and overclockers looking to tame AMD’s spicy Raphael CPUs. The short answer is delidding (facilitating direct die cooling) appears to work wonders, with Der8auer seeing his all core temperatures...

iPhone 14 Pro Owners Complain Of Alarming, Violent Camera Shake In Apps Like TikTok

by Tim Sweezy - Mon, Sep 19, 2022

Update 9/19/2022 4:58pm: Apple has confirmed to Bloomberg that it is aware of the issue and has an update planned for next week to address it. The original story appears below. Those who opted in to be first in line to get the latest iPhone may be experiencing a shaky beginning. Users of the Pro and Pro Max are reporting a very odd camera shake while using apps such as Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. The iPhone 14 released last week, and as usual people were jumping at the opportunity to have the latest and greatest Apple has to offer. While people may be enjoying the faster A16 Bionic chip, Dynamic...

Bombshell: EVGA Severs Ties With NVIDIA And Exits The GPU Market

by Zak Killian - Fri, Sep 16, 2022

In an absolutely gobsmacking bit of news, both Gamers Nexus and JayzTwoCents scored an exclusive press conference with EVGA (along with Jon Peddie Research) where the company's CEO, Andrew Han, announced that EVGA would be severing its ties with NVIDIA and completely exiting the GPU market. This comes along with allegations toward NVIDIA of "disrespectful" behavior from EVGA's CEO. The aforementioned YouTube channels broke the news, but EVGA itself hasn't remained silent on the topic. While there's no press release, the company made a post to its popular user forums explaining that EVGA will not...

Adata Elite SE880 External SSD Review: Tiny, Durable, And Fast

by Tim Sweezy - Fri, Sep 16, 2022

Adata Elite SE880 External SSD - Starting At: $79 The Adata Elite SE880 is a compact, durable, high-performance external solid state drive, ideal for PC users and console gamers looking to expand their storage. High Performance Tiny Form Factor Tough Enclosure Includes USB-A And USB-C Cables Included Cables Are Short Max Performance Requires USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Adata's Elite SE880 external SSD is billed as a high performance, sturdy portable drive for road warriors and gamers. This compact SSD is small enough to comfortably fit in a shirt pocket -- it's actually smaller than an Airpods case --...

Intel Arc Revelations: A770 Hits 2.7GHz, Addressing Cancellation Rumors And New GPU Details

by Mark Tyson - Fri, Sep 16, 2022

Intel Graphics' Tom "TAP" Petersen confirmed on our Two and a Half Geeks livestream last night, that a 'random' Arc A770 graphics card was easily overclocked to 2.7GHz, and stable enough at this blistering clock speed for AAA gaming sessions. TAP also noted that the graphics card, which would normally run at up to 2.1GHz stock, wasn't cherry-picked either. In some other tasty morsels from Thursday's livestream AMA (ask-me-anything) session, TAP answered questions about Arc graphics card cancellation rumors, ray tracing performance, DirectX APIs, specs of the A750 and A770, the Arc generations...

Intel's Tom TAP Petersen Answers Your Arc Graphics Questions Here LIVE At 5:30p ET Today

by Chris Goetting - Thu, Sep 15, 2022

Join us on today’s Two and a Half Geeks livestream where Dave, Marco, and Chris will be joined by Tom “TAP” Petersen of Intel for a special interview. What’s so special? We are going to be fielding YOUR questions about Intel’s Arc Graphics platform for TAP to answer. You can just kick back, watch and listen here at HH but join in the convo on YouTube!  Intel's Arc Alchemist graphics cards are just about set for launch. Though the Intel Graphics team has been firing up teaser videos on features and performance, we're sure this information has left...

Maingear's Innovative Stealth Gaming PC Designed With Gigabyte Is Now Available

by Paul Lilly - Mon, Sep 12, 2022

It's taken a few months but Project Stealth, the joint collaboration between Maingear and Gigabyte to turn cable management on its head, is now available to configure and purchase. Pricing on the innovative prebuilt gaming desktop starts at $1,999, though before we get to the stock and customizable part selections, let's recap what makes this PC so unique. Project Stealth is, in part, the fruition of a clever redesign of the standard ATX motherboard, in which the connectors are moved to the backside of the PCB. Maingear patented this design way back in 2011 and shopped it around to several companies...

Your YouTube Channel Could Get Hijacked By Scammers, Here's How To Get It Back

by Chris Goetting - Fri, Sep 09, 2022

Scammers and fraudsters have been targeting YouTube creators with sophisticated email campaigns. The emails pose as legitimate notices from Google which claim to be a copyright report and possible strike against the channel. These include a Google Drive link to the purported report, which actually contains a malware payload designed to hijack the user's Google account. One of these phishing attempts was sent to HotHardware today, which was thankfully recognized for what it was before getting too far. Unfortunately, a friend of our site, Aaron Leong, was not so lucky a few weeks ago. Aaron runs...

Intel's Deep Dive Video Shows A770 Trouncing RTX 3060 In Ray Tracing Workloads

by Mark Tyson - Fri, Sep 02, 2022

Intel has published another episode of the Tom and Ryan Show. This time, the hot topic is Ray Tracing on Intel’s slowly emerging line of Arc Alchemist discrete GPUs. While it is interesting to hear about real-time ray tracing on Intel hardware, and the underlying technology, we are most interested in Intel’s claims—backed up with charts—that the upcoming Arc A770 clearly outshines the GeForce RTX 3060 in ray traced gaming performance. The key 1080p performance chart shared by Intel shows the Arc A770 beating the RTX 3060 by as much as 56% (Fortnite). It features 17 popular...

Oh No, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer Might Give Gaming NFTs A Chance According To This Interview

by Lane Babuder - Fri, Aug 26, 2022

In a recent "Bloomberg Studio 1.0" show Emily Chang interviewed Microsoft Gaming/Xbox CEO Phil Spencer. The interview covered a wide range of topics ranging from work culture at Microsoft, the future of gaming, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, the metaverse, the cloud, and the use of crypto and NFTs in gaming. We'll focus on the part that seems a little short towards the end of the interview. At about 19 minutes and 22 seconds in Emily asks about crypto. She specifically mentions that play-to-earn is "all the rage right now." Spencer remarks that play-to-earn is something he is cautious...

Intel Details How XeSS Balances Resolution And Frame Rates In This Deep Dive Video

by Zak Killian - Fri, Aug 26, 2022

One of the key features of NVIDIA's RTX graphics cards is DLSS. Standing for Deep Learning Super Sampling, the technology uses AI to intelligently upscale real-time graphics with superior quality compared to traditional methods. Well, Intel would like you to know that it has its own solution that it believes is equivalent if not superior, and it's known as XeSS. The blue team just put up a video on its Intel Graphics YouTube channel titled "Intel XeSS Technology Deep Dive." In the video, Ryan Shrout and Tom Petersen walk the viewer through an explanation of what XeSS is, how it works, and how it...

Drop+ LOTR Mechanical Keyboard Review: A Quality Dwarvish Deck

by Mark Tyson - Wed, Aug 24, 2022

Drop+ Lord of the Rings mechanical TKL keyboard  - Starting MSRP: $169 This keyboard may cause LOTR fans to drool, but it costs nearly double the product it is based upon. LOTR Designs (Dwarvish or Elvish) TKL Form Factor Non-Captive USB-C Cable N-key Rollover Extended Left Shift Key Dye-sub PBT keycaps Holy Panda X Lubed Switches Highly Detailed Packaging Basic Lighting No Key Transparency Lack Of Configuration Options LOTR Script Can Be Jarring Small Rear Feet Price Premium The Drop+ Lord of the Rings (LOTR) mechanical tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard’s rather unique selling point is that...

2.5 Geeks: AMD Threadripper Pro 5000, Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2022 Impressions And More!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Aug 11, 2022

Samsung just unpacked the hot new Galaxy Z Flip4, Galaxy Z Fold4, Galaxy Watch 5 and Buds2 Pro. Meanwhile AMD just took the wraps off full reviews of its many-core Threadripper Pro 5000 beast workstation CPU family. How does all this fabulous new tech look, feel and perform? Join us today at 5:30 PM ET for our first look impressions and deep dive analysis! Don't Forget To Like And Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel! Show Notes: 5:07 Start 6:05 Introducing Ryan 7:47 Google Pixel 6a Review 10:07 OnePlus 10T Review 15:19 AMD Adrenaline DX11 & OpenGL Updates 19:41 Galaxy Z Flip4 & Z Fold4 Discussion...