If you recently purchased or built a new PC, or upgraded an older PC, the most important thing to do aside from stress testing is to benchmark. Whereas stress testing helps ensure the PC is completely stable not only during idle but also during heavy load, benchmarking will help ensure that the PC is operating at the appropriate level of performance for the components installed. As simple issues such as an outdated driver or an improperly configured component may significantly degrade performance, benchmark testing will allow you to quickly catch any issues and to fix them immediately so you can take full advantage of the new hardware that you’ve spent your hard [...]

We’ve all been there. The moment when the new Call of Duty is released and we wait eagerly to download and install it only to find out that it runs at 10 FPS our old gaming system. Or after setting up a brand new “school” PC to find that it performance on CS:GO, TF2, LoL, and Overwatch isn’t exactly what you expected.  It happens.

While the ideal thing to do at this point is to buy a completely new gaming PC with the best gaming graphics card and the best CPU, that’s unfortunately not feasible for most people. As such, here’s a list of the best ways to increase the FPS in your games before going out and spending $2,000 for a new gaming [...]

Alienware is launching a massive lineup of gaming products with their new Area 51 gaming PC spearheading the way.

The new Area 51 Threadripper gaming PC will feature either the new AMD Ryzen-based Threadripper processors or Intel’s new Core-X processors. For those choosing AMD, the Area 51 Threadripper Edition will be the first to feature AMD’s new Ryzen based Threadripper processors with up to 16-cores and 32-threads. Dell claims they will be AMD’s exclusive partner to offer AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors in pre-built systems through 2017. For those choosing Intel Core-X series processors, customers will have the choice of up to [...]

Corsair recently put up a teaser for its latest project known as the Corsair ONE.

The leading peripherals and PC component manufacturer is looking to dip its toes into the pre-built PC market after previously inching towards the pre-built realm with their Bulldog PC which was launched last year in a barebones or DIY kit configuration. The Corsair ONE however, changes the game as it’s not only pre-built, but it’s also the first Corsair system designed for the desktop.

From the limited images they’ve shown so far, the ONE has a design that’s very typical of Corsair’s traditional design language sporting a futuristic yet [...]

AMD’s latest earnings call was a mixed bag as revenues declined over 3Q2016 and are expected to continue to decline heading into 1Q2017. However, despite the quarterly setbacks, AMD had a positive 2016 overall with increased revenues and lower debt over the previous year.

What’s even more exciting for AMD however, is the amount of high profile product launches coming this year. During AMD’s earnings call, AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Su confirmed that Ryzen will launch with “…widespread system and channel availability expected on day one” in early March. This confirms a previous leak that AMD will launch Ryzen during or before GDC. This [...]

AVADirect is a boutique system builder with its origins in the suburbs of Cleveland Ohio. It’s probably not one of the first names that pop into your head as a system builder, but they’ve been making everything from gaming to business systems for over a decade.

Recently, AVADirect launched their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC which is exciting because it’s based on Corsair’s excellent Carbide 240 Air PC case. Despite the relatively small size of the mATX formfactor case, AVADirect managed to fully kit it out with an overclocked Intel Core i7-6700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Given how much we love big [...]

“Why is my computer so slow?” or “How do I fix my slow computer?” This is a question we get asked on a regular basis both here at Custom PC Review as well as in our daily personal lives. While the simple answer is just to upgrade the PC to something better and faster or call a computer technician, sometimes even the fastest systems out there can be taken down by a simple malware infection or outdated drivers.

In the latest of our how to guides, here are 10 things you can try to fix your slow computer before calling a technical expert. Without further ado, let’s take a look!

When we use our [...]

Generally when most people purchase a new PC, one of the most important things they overlook is a quality UPS, or uninterruptible power supply. We’re definitely guilty of it since sometimes we don’t even run a UPS and we for sure don’t always recommend people pick up a UPS despite how crucial it is when it comes to protecting the computer equipment we’ve recommended them spend thousands of dollars on.

While PC components have gotten faster, cheaper, and more reliable than they’ve ever been, it still remains that these components are made up of semiconductor circuits. Semiconductor circuits that are sensitive to [...]

Way back at CES 2014, Valve made a huge splash at the show announcing their intent to popularize PC gaming in the living room. In order to do this, Valve was building a custom Steam OS which would either be installed by an end user to their own gaming PC, or be bundled with Steam Machines – Valve approved gaming PCs manufactured by their PC OEM partners.

While Valve and their PC OEM partners created a lot of hype during the show, the Steam Machine concept has pretty much fizzled out in the past year as Steam have made no big announcements regarding the status of their Steam OS or Steam Machines. With [...]

As an enthusiast hardware review site, we generally don’t review low end graphics hardware, but it’s understandable that not everyone needs to have the latest $500+ graphics cards and it’s always interesting to see just how far you could get with a sub-$100 budget.

Today we’ll be reviewing two entry level Radeon R7 series graphics cards from ASUS, the ASUS Radeon R7 240 and R7 250. In terms of specs, both the ASUS Radeon R7 240 and Radeon R7 250 are equipped with 28nm Oland GPUs with a choice between the Radeon R7 250 containing a fully unlocked Oland GPU (aka Oland XT) paired with faster GDDR5 memory, or the Radeon R7 240 with [...]