AMD launched their newest Ryzen CPUs to great fanfare back in March and while we found performance to be good in our launch review of the Ryzen 1700, we noted that there were quite a few growing pains that needed to be fixed before Ryzen could really shine against Intel. As such, rather than publishing another review of Ryzen on motherboards using incomplete BIOS firmware and badly optimized Windows, we decided to wait it out until AMD and its motherboard partners roll out the badly needed updates to allow Ryzen to really shine in all its glory.

As such, today we’ll be finally reviewing the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X and 1800X, the flagship [...]

A few weeks ago, AMD launched the Radeon RX 500 series, which is mostly a refresh of the previous-generation RX 400 series they launched less than a year ago. Mostly because the Radeon RX 500 series is based on the very same Polaris architecture as its predecessor, albeit on a slightly more mature process. Whatever your stance on rebadges, it’s clear that AMD has decided to double-down on its Polaris architecture in 2017, at least for the midrange and entry-level segments until its RX Vega GPUs appear later on to cover the high-end market. So like it are not, Polaris is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Today, we’re going to take a [...]

AMD’s Ryzen 5 CPUs aren’t expected to launch until April 11 so up until now, benchmarks for the Ryzen 5 series were simulated by disabling cores on the octa-core Ryzen 7 series CPUs. However, according to a recent video released by Youtube channel Santiago Santiago, we get a glimpse at Ryzen 5 1400 performance in the flesh thanks to a retailer which appears to have jumped the gun on sales of the upcoming CPU.

In the video, the CPU was benchmarked with eight games: Battlefield 1 (DX12), Fallout 4, GTA 5, Hitman (DX12), Just Cause 3, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, The Witcher 3, and Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX 12). The test bench consists of an HIS [...]

Youtube channel AdoredTV recently uncovered a potential shortcoming in Nvidia’s drivers which can cause performance dips when a Nvidia graphics card is paired with a Ryzen CPU.

When paired with a Nvidia graphics card, AMD’s Ryzen 1800X falls short – sometimes by as much as 40% – when compared to an Intel Core i7-7700K running Rise of the Tomb Raider. GPU statistics collected during benchmark runs reveal that the Ryzen-based system wasn’t pushing the GPU to 100%, causing it to lag behind the Intel-based system. This was consistent in both DX 11 and DX 12 benchmarks. Normally, this would indicate a bottleneck on the CPU, which was [...]

Gaming hardware has traditionally held a reputation for being bulky and intimidating. Gaming PCs are often visualized as huge towers decked out with flashy lights and sports car inspired paint jobs. While that would’ve been accurate just a few years ago, performance PCs are no longer confined to just “big”. Thanks to ever increasing tiny hardware that pack a serious punch, SFF, or Small Form-Factor, gaming systems are significantly growing in popularity.

Today we’ll be reviewing one tiny, budget-focused graphics card that can fit almost anywhere yet provide decent gaming performance for the casual gamer, the [...]

After recently launching the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia also released the GeForce 378.78 driver package which among other improvements significantly increases performance in games running on DirectX 12.

According to Nvidia, the new drivers increase DX12 performance by an average of 16% across the board with games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider and HITMAN boasting performance improvements by 33% and 23% respectively. Additional improvements include a wider array of games supporting Nvidia’s ANSEL in-game screenshot feature, support for the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and improved SLI support in several games.

Nvidia’s latest driver can be [...]

Well, this is it ladies and gentlemen. We’ve been waiting anxiously for over a year now for AMD’s latest Processor, after the disappointment of Bulldozer the PC building scene became primarily an Intel favored one for most serious workloads. While AMD’s APUs have found a pleasant place in the budget market and the FX lineup became a decent option for gamers looking for good bang for the buck, AMD remained way behind Intel in technology for what seams like forever. That changes today. Today we will be looking at Ryzen, will it live up to the hype? Will it fall flat on it’s face?

When AMD released the Radeon RX 470 in August of last year, high demand coupled with low supply meant that it almost didn’t make much sense thanks to its inflated pricing at the time. However, in the months since, pricing has dropped quite a bit and with recent driver updates, the performance of the Radeon RX 470  has significantly improved in performance as well. Is the RX 470 worth considering for someone looking for a sub-$200 1080p gaming graphics card?

Today, we’re going to see about answering that question as we look at the PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Devil 4GB, which is one of the more premium and fully-loaded RX 470 [...]

When NVIDIA first announced the Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards back in May, it was very clear that they had a pair of winners on their hands. Fast forward four months to today, and it seems that the company is still commanding the high-end GPU market with no competition expected from rival AMD until early-2017. With that in mind, anyone in the market for a high-end graphics card really only has two options – the GeForce GTX 1080 or the GeForce GTX 1070.

Today, we’re taking a look at the latter or more specifically, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 AMP! ZOTAC is a company who’ve been producing GeForce graphics cards [...]

Microsoft has slashed its Xbox One gaming console to half of its MSRP price. This is the third and final price cut to the Xbox One console before the launch of the Xbox One S on August 2nd. This is in addition to the “Buy a Microsoft Surface, Get $400 Towards an XBox One” deal that Microsoft is currently running.

At the time of press, the Xbox One 500GB can be purchased for just $249 while quantities last. The console comes bundled with one of several titles including Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Forza Motorsport 6, Watch Dogs, The Crew, and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Microsoft is looking to clear its existing inventory in preparation for the [...]