Quiet and Beautiful

AVADirect wasn’t really a systems builder on our radar until late last year when we reviewed their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC. After extensive testing, we found that the system was well configured, well built, and well priced, quickly propelling AVADirect to the top as one of our favorite custom PC builders.

Recently, AVADirect sent us another one of the systems in their lineup, the AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC, which as its name implies is AVADirect’s quiet gaming PC offering based on AMD’s X370 Ryzen platform.

AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC Specs Desktop AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC Case Phanteks Eclipse [...]

Razer is demoing its newest concept design, Project Linda, at CES 2018. Razer’s project Linda aims to leverage the power of the Razer Phone and instantly transforms it into an Android based laptop PC. The concept is similar to the Windows Dock or the Samsung DeX Station, but rather than dock to a desktop PC, Project Linda seamlessly docks the phone right into the laptop.

The way it works is that the Razer Phone docks in face-up position where the touchpad would normally be found. This allows the phone to be used as the touchpad and the phone’s forward facing onboard speakers serve as speakers for the system as well. Having the phone in a face-up [...]

Rumors are abound that Nvidia may be gearing up to release a variant of the GeForce GTX 1060 with 5GB GDDR5 of memory. This new card will be strictly targeted towards the Chinese PC cafe market.

The new variant is rumored to feature a new GP106-350 GPU core. It features the same 1,280 CUDA cores as the GP106-400 in the GTX 1060 6GB, but will feature a narrower 160 bit memory bus which will help reduce cost.

In addition to shaving off 1GB of memory, the card is also rumored to use less robust packaging to save cost. This won’t matter though, since this card is targeted towards internet cafes rather than off the shelf retail. No word on pricing or [...]

As the end of the year approaches, AMD packed a special surprise for its graphics card users – the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition (Yes, that’s Adrenaline without an “e”) which is now available for download at AMD’s website here. The new update brings a healthy boost to features as well as many refinements to existing features.

 

Performance Latency

Performance has always been the paramount focus when it comes to any driver. According to AMD, the new Andrenalin driver ups the performance in some popular titles like Overwatch, Prey, and Project Cars 2. Input latency has been optimised slightly for DX11 titles. [...]

For all the readers living in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you get all the food, drink and of course plenty of Black Friday shopping after!

Today and for the next 48 hours, we’ll be scouring the internet for the best Black Friday deals on technology, computer hardware, and other generally awesome deals you may want to check out. We’ll keep this post updated with all the latest deals, so check back often!

 

CPCR Black Friday Picks Laptops MSI GL62M 7RDX-NE1050i5 15.6″ (Core i5 7300HQ, GTX 1050, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) – $599 After $50 Rebate MSI GS73VR STEALTH PRO-060 17.3″ (Core i7-7700HQ GTX 1070 8G MAX Q [...]

Introduction

For the most part when gaming there are just two senses that matter – sight and sound. This is why having a top quality headset is one of the most important elements to winning on the virtual battlefield. Traditionally, gaming headsets have always been manufactured by gaming peripherals companies that make headsets that are either average or below average quality, but with the dearth of options from premium audiomakers, until recently there really wasn’t much of a choice.

Several years back, renowned German audio products maker Sennheiser jumped into the gaming headset market and saw such success that they now have several models of [...]

Razer has just added the Electra V2 and Electra V2 USB gaming headsets to its peripherals repertoire, bringing many features previously reserved for premium headsets down to the mainstream crowd.

The Razer Electra V2 and V2 USB are both equipped with a pair of custom 40mm Neodymium drivers mounted on a sturdy unibody aluminum frame. Both the earcups and the suspension headrest is padded with plush leatherette cushions. A removable boom mic can be easily stored away when not in use. Volume and mic mute has been integrated directly into the earcup for added convenience.

The Razer Electra V2 uses a unified mic and audio 3.5mm plug for [...]

HP has released the world’s first 2-in-1 convertible mobile workstation. The HP ZBook X2 aims to bring high performance into a versatile form factor that’s also familiar to professionals already proficient to drawing tablets.

The ZBook X2’s design borrows much from today’s drawing tablets. The ZBook X2 has a column of function buttons on either side of the display, much like many high-end drawing tabs do. An adjustable kickstand at the rear lets the user’s hands rest in a comfortable position.

To provide the best experience for artists and designers, HP has opted for a 14-inch 4K IPS panel that covers 100% of the Adobe [...]

MSI recently announced the Vortex G25, a small yet powerful gaming PC.

The MSI Vortex G25 is absolutely tiny. It’s slim build is almost reminiscent of a blade server. When stood up vertically, it takes up less space than a gaming console. It’s so compact, in fact, that it can be mounted on a VESA monitor mount. At just 5.51lbs, it won’t rip your monitor apart, either.

The Vortex G25 is outfitted with Intel’s 10th generation “Coffee Lake” CPUs. Users can choose from the Core i7-8700 or the Core i5-8400. Graphics options include either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or a GeForce GTX 1060. All [...]

YouTube is easily the best online video streaming service on the internet with an array of video content ranging from amateur home videos to professionally produced shows. While it’s nice to watch the content online, it’s sometimes not feasible to do so. For example, if you’re out for a jog and you simply want to listen to a podcast, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to load up an MP3 file?

Yes it is, and today we’ll be showing you how using a service called Peggo. Peggo is a web service that easily converts Youtube videos to MP3 so you can use it on your PC, Mac, smartphones, smartwatches, MP3 players and other devices hassle [...]