2.5 Geeks: New Microsoft Surface Devices - What's HOT And What's NOT?

During our latest 2.5 Geeks stream, we feature a quick breakdown analysis of Microsoft's newest Surface products, including the Surface Pro 8 2-in-1 convertible, Surface Duo 2 foldable Android device, the Surface Laptop Studio and more. Are they all that and a bag of DRAM? Do they check the right feature boxes? Let's discuss… Show Notes: 04:52 - Microsoft Surface Product Recap 05:26 - Microsoft Surface Pro 8 Discussion 13:05 - What The Heck Is the Surface Pro 7+? 13:36 - The All-New Surface Laptop Studio 20:33 - Are The 120Hz Displays Just A Gimmick? 23:55 - The Surface Duo 2 Foldable Android...

2.5 Geeks: Is Smartphone Innovation Dead? Samsung Vs Apple And More

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 17, 2021

The Apple iPhone 13 has arrived! Samsung is flipping out over foldable phones. Is this true innovation or are we just recycling the same ideas over and over? Let's geek out and talk about it. Check out our latest episode of 2.5 Geeks and let us know your thoughts in the comments... Show Notes: 05:00 What's Currently In The Lab? 09:26 Alleged Alder Lake-S Series Benchmarks Leak 13:55 Intel Core i5-12600K Alder Lake Benchmarked With DDR5-6400 Memory 16:15 Intel Z690 Alder Lake Chipset Specs Detailed 18:14 AMD Denies Favoring Miners Over Gamers For Radeon Cards 22:29 Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 Review...

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 Review: Third Time's The Charm?

by Ben Funk - Wed, Sep 15, 2021

Samsung has been refining its innovative foldable phone line-up for a couple of years now. While the first iteration of the company's Galaxy Z Fold may not have been terribly robust out in the wild, last year's follow up was by most accounts a solid device. This year, the newest Galaxy Z Fold3 5G seems to have it all: a malleable 7.6" screen, more durable construction, Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 5G Mobile Platform, and enough memory and storage to keep the Galaxy Z Fold3 viable for a long time to come.  There are many questions we wanted to answer with this device. What's it like...

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 Review: The Folding Flagship Refined

by Myriam Joire - Mon, Sep 13, 2021

Two years ago, Samsung ushered the era of folding phones with the daring (but ultimately flawed) Galaxy Fold. In 2020, the company followed suit with three much improved foldables -- the stylish Galaxy Z Flip, Z Flip 5G, and the powerful Galaxy Z Fold2. With most of the kinks worked out (pun intended), these excellent handsets were finally worth recommending, though cost and durability were still obstacles for many. But things are different today. Samsung’s new water-resistant $1800 GalaxyZ Fold3 and $1000 Galaxy Z Flip3 are more affordable and life-proof than ever. While the Fold series...

2.5 Geeks: Intel ARC Graphics Q&A With Martyn Stroeve And Scott Wasson

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Sep 02, 2021

In our latest 2.5 Geeks livestream, we have a lively discussion about all things Intel Arc Graphics -- from XeSS to the tech behind the GPU -- with Intel special guests Martyn Stroeve, Senior Director Graphics Product Marketing, and Scott Wasson, Senior Manager Graphics Tech Analysis. Show Notes: 01:30 - Introducing Martyn and Scott 03:32 - Putting Together The Intel ARC Team 07:10 - What is Intel's long-term goal with discrete GPUs? 12:47 - Additional Battlemage, Celestial and Druid GPU News 15:52 - Is XeSS somewhat of a hybrid solution vs. DLSS and FSR? 19:50 - Do game devs have to provide Intel...

Intel Arc Livestream Q&A With Special Guests Martyn Stroeve And Scott Wasson Of Intel Graphics

by Brandon Hill - Mon, Aug 30, 2021

While AMD and NVIDIA have primarily duked it out in the enthusiast discrete graphics card market for well over a decade, Intel is looking to kick the door and join the party. Intel announced that its first-generation Alchemist graphics cards would debut in Q1 2022 with compelling performance and modern technologies like real-time ray tracing, variable-rate shading, and AI-based upscaling for games. With this in mind, we will have a Q&A session with Intel this week to dig deeper into what makes Arc tick. We'll have Martyn Stroeve, Intel Senior Director Graphics Product Marketing, and Scott Wasson,...

Here's How To Upgrade Your PlayStation 5 With A Fast SSD

by Ben Funk - Thu, Aug 26, 2021

Sony's PlayStation 5 launched in November of 2020 somewhat incomplete. While the hardware had an M.2 slot to expand the internal storage needed by PS5 games, the software didn't know what to do with it out of the box. Earlier this year though, Sony opened up a beta program with early access to firmware that can use that slot, and we managed to get in. To make the most of that, we teamed up with the folks at Sabrent, who sent along a 2 TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe SSD and a heat sink solution to keep the drive cool. Unfortunately, the PS5's limited internal space prevented us from using the heatsink,...

2.5 Geeks: Intel Arch Day 2021 Highlights, Radeon RX 6600 XT And A Special Guest!

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Aug 20, 2021

In this latest episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks, we're live with special guest David Kanter, to chat about the many disclosures Intel Corporation made at Architecture Day 2021 and AMD's recent Radeon RX 6600 XT launch. We also quickly recap some of this week's other big news regarding mobile devices like the ASUS Smartphone For Snapdragon Insiders and the Google Pixel 5a... Show Notes: 04:42 - AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT: AMD RDNA 2 For Mainstream Gamers 11:11 - Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Hands-On 11:28 - Smartphone For Snapdragon Insiders Review 11:42 - Google Pixel 5a Review 13:10 - Intel Architecture...

Radeon RX 6600 XT Review: AMD RDNA 2 For Mainstream Gamers

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Aug 10, 2021

AMD officially unveiled the Radeon RX 6600 XT in late July, and just last week we were able to give you a first-hand sneak peek and tour of one of the higher-end partner boards, the PowerColor Radeon RX 6600 XT Red Devil. Today though, embargos lift on performance and power data, and we’re able to provide some additional pieces to the puzzle. Incidentally, there’s an additional embargo lifting tomorrow for other partner boards, so stop on by in the morning if you’d like some additional Radeon RX 6600 XT flavor. But we digress. On tap for you here today we have two Radeon RX 6600...

2.5 Geeks: AMD Ryzen 5000G And Radeon RX 6600 XT, Big Gaming PC Giveaway!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Aug 05, 2021

This week we'll be kicking around AMD's new Ryzen 5000G Series desktop processors and the solid value they over, along with the unveiling of AMD's Radeon RX 6600XT. We'll also be sharing details of our latest big gaming PC giveaway promotion that's happening NOW... Show Notes: 06:34 - Sony PS5 Benchmarked With Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4 SSD 11:30 - Nubia Red Magic 6R Review: Affordable, Powerful Gaming Phone 15:45 - 3dfx Claims Its Comeback Is Real With A Portfolio Of Products, Raising More Questions 18:01 - Power Users Dislike The Lack Of microSD On Today's Phones 20:45 - AMD Launches Radeon RX 6600...

Talking Intel Accelerated News And Process Tech With TechTechPotato

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 29, 2021

In this episode of Two And A Half Geeks Dr. Ian Cutress of TechTechPotato and Anandtech joins us for a lively discussion of the disclosures made during the 'Intel Accelerated' event and what it all means from chip-level transistor tech to process node naming and everything in between... Show Notes: 02:22 - Introducing Ian And His Background 06:18 - Dell XPS 17 (9710) Review 10:15 - California's Confusing Energy Legislation 18:48 - Intel Alder Lake Rumors 22:33 - Intel Accelerate Coverage 24:35 - Thoughts On Intel's New Process Node Naming 35:38 - Discussing RibbonFET and PowerVias 53:24 - Some...

2.5 Geeks: Sapphire's Awesome RX 6800 XT, Dell UltraSharp 4K Webcam Live Test, Intel PCIe Gen 4 SSD & More

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 22, 2021

In our latest 2.5 Geeks livestream, we talk about Sapphire’s excellent Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT, a super-fast Intel NVMe data center SSD, Dell’s top-of-the-line, new UltraSharp 4K webcam and a bunch of other tech news. We hope you enjoy it -- and don't forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel! Show Notes: 01:49 - Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable Revisited: Refined And Ready 05:22 - TCL 20 Pro 5G Review: Premium Features, Midrange Pricing 08:58 - Samsung Confirms August 11 Galaxy Unpacked Event For Galaxy Z Fold 3 And Z Flip 3 12:47 - Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake CPU Reportedly...

2.5 Geeks: Important Happenings For DIY Tech Enthusiasts, Gaming PC Giveaway Hints And More!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jul 08, 2021

Biden's FTC order for right to repair, NewEgg building PCs from your personal parts wish list, the fastest SSD on the planet and pointless pixel peeping with AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution - All of this and a some hints of our next Gaming PC giveaway on this episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks... Show Notes: 06:16 - ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 Review: Powerful Tiger Lake-H Gaming 11:12 - Doom Eternal Ray Tracing Tested: The Devil's In The Details 16:43 - Intel Optane SSD P5800X Review: The Fastest SSD Ever 23:25 - AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution And The Problem With Pixel Peeping 32:47 - President Biden...

AMD's Frank Azor And Carlos Silva Talk FidelityFX Super Resolution Live Here 6/22 At 5:30 PM ET

by Brandon Hill - Tue, Jun 22, 2021

Today, HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks webcast will have a live chat with two execs from AMD's Radeon graphics and gaming team. Frank Azor, AMD's Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions, and Carlos Silva, Director of Software Development, will join us at 5:30 PM EST to talk about everything you could possibly want to know about AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology. And you can get your own questions answered live as well via the chat, if you join us. We'll stream live via YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and Periscope for those interested in joining in on the chat to field questions in real-time....

2.5 Geeks: New GeForces And Radeons, Fresh Consoles, Windows 11 And Hot Tech News

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jun 10, 2021

In this latest episode of our 2.5 Geeks webcast, we chat about the new AMD Radeon Pro W6800, yesterday’s launch of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, and a bunch of the hottest topics from our news feed this past week, including Windows 11 and some interesting game consoles. You can watch it right here, but don't forget to hit our YouTube channel to like and subscribe as well... Show Notes: 04:07 - Playdate Portable Gaming Console Hits Preorder Crank Up In July For $179 09:16 - Atari VCS Game Console Finally Launches June 15 With Eye-Popping Price Tag 13:01 - Windows 11 Is Coming, So What New...

2.5 Geeks: Computex 2021 - We've Got A LOT To Talk About!

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Jun 03, 2021

In this latest episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks, we'll be digging in to the many happenings of Computex 2021, from the AMD Radeon RX 6000M announcement, to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the 3D V-Cache demonstration, Zen 4, and Intel Xe-HPG tease and more... Show Notes: 04:52 - AMD Confirms RDNA 2-Infused Samsung Mobile Chip Coming This Year With Ray Tracing 07:28 - AMD's RDNA 2 Architecture Powers 10 TFLOP Gaming PC Inside Tesla Model S, Model X 10:40 - AMD Radeon RX 6800M Rips Benchmarks In Powerful All-AMD ASUS Gaming Laptop 24:37 - AMD Talks Zen 4, Demos...

2.5 Geeks - Crypto And Gaming GPUs: Let's Solve This Problem, Plus A Special Guest

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, May 20, 2021

In this episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks, we invite Andy from eTeknix to join us for a lively discussion about crypto-mining and GPUs, limited or unlimited hash rate products, shortages, and how the industry should best solve this problem?! Show Notes: 01:52 - HotHardware Destiny 2 Talon Gaming PC Giveaway With Falcon Northwest, AMD And Bungie! 02:57 - Introducing Andy from eTeknix 03:39 - Intel Core i9-11980HK Preview: 8-Core Tiger Lake-H Unleashed 07:23 - Intel Optane Memory H20 Review: Performance Where It Matters 12:31 - Qualcomm's Snapdragon 778G 5G SoC Packs Potent Performance Punch For...

2.5 Geeks: How Many CPU Cores Do You Need For Gaming? And A KILLER PC Giveaway!

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, May 14, 2021

On this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, Dave, Marco and Chris run down some of this past week's interesting tech news and discuss our in-house research results regarding how many CPU cores you need for a great gaming experience. We'll also give details on our latest AMAZING gaming PC GIVEAWAY in collaboration with Falcon Northwest, AMD and Bungie... Show Notes: 01:30 - Happy Birthday to Dave! 06:02 - Intel 11th Gen Core H45 Tiger Lake-H CPUs Launch To Push Laptop Performance Envelope 13:51 - Sony's PlayStation 5 Refresh Reportedly On Track With 6nm AMD Ryzen SoC 17:41 - Data Breach...

EVGA XR1 Review: Full-Featured High Quality Stream Capture

by Chris Goetting - Fri, May 07, 2021

HDMI capture cards, or HDMI capture devices, are extremely valuable tools with a wide variety of uses. As the description implies, these devices allow virtually any HDMI feed to be routed through them to be captured by a computer. The HDMI inputs on capture devices can be used with game consoles, video cameras, or even another computer -- just about any HDMI video source. This signal can then be encoded on the fly for a livestream, recorded for preservation, or both simultaneously. Most capture cards also allow for an HDMI output which passes a signal through the device, directly to a display with...

2.5 Geeks: What The Heck Is NVIDIA Up To?

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, May 06, 2021

In this latest episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks, the guys recap some of last week’s happenings and discussing all of the recent NVIDIA news. From the rumored GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, to dedicated Crypto mining cards, to hash rate limiters and Grace CPUs, NVIDIA has a lot going on... Show Notes: 02:47 -- What's in our the lab 08:56 -- New Spectre Chip Security Vulnerability Found 15:52 -- Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 Review 27:51 -- HP ZBook Fury 15 G7 33:44 -- What's NVIDIA Up To? GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 48:07 -- Hash Rate Limited Products And Crypto-Mining 56:25 -- No Chia Jokes Please 57:12...

2.5 Geeks: Why Is AMD Kicking So Much Tail?

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Apr 30, 2021

In this episode of HotHardware's Two And A Half Geeks, we'll be discussing AMD's current success, its stellar earnings and how the company is kicking so much tail versus its competitors... Show Notes: 06:55 - Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, Pro 360 Laptops On The Prowl With Tiger Lake And AMOLED Displays 07:56 - Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey Gaming Laptop Combines Tiger Lake-H And GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 09:57 - Falcon Northwest Talon Review: Killer Bird Of Prey Gaming PC 13:18 - Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable Review: Eclipsing Surface Pro 18:16 - ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 Review: A Mighty Zen 3 Gaming Laptop 25:10...

Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable Review: Eclipsing Surface Pro

by Ben Funk - Tue, Apr 27, 2021

The detachable hybrid 2-in-1 laptop category may sound somewhat exotic, but these convertible tablet PCs aren't exactly a new thing. Hybrid devices with keyboard docks -- either first-party or made by other manufacturers -- are available that run Android, iPad OS, and of course Windows 10. Perhaps the most well-known detachable hybrids are from Microsoft's long-running Surface Pro family, including the x86-powered Surface Pro 7 and Arm64-equipped Surface Pro X. Dell is now throwing its latest entrant into this arena with the new Latitude 7320 Detachable.  At a quick glance, the Latitude 7320...