The AMD Ryzen Flagships

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 AMD [...]

Introduction

Corsair recently updated their budget case lineup with the new Carbide SPEC-04, the successor to the Carbide SPEC-03. The Carbide SPEC-04 brings an overhauled design and some extra features yet maintain its budget price point.

For our review today, we received the Corsair Carbide SPEC-04 in black however, it will also come in red and yellow as well. Corsair’s Carbide SPEC case series has always had the design language that screamed gaming, but the fourth iteration of the series, the SPEC-04, is quite a bit different. Whereas previous generation SPEC series cases featured an ultra-aggressive design, the new SPEC-04 features a design that’s a bit more [...]

Today, AMD launched their refreshed, Radeon RX 500 series graphics which focus on the mid-range, and entry-level gaming markets. These new cards are based on the same Polaris architecture as the previously released Radeon RX 400 series of GPUs, albeit with a few notable enhancements. These new GPUS will go head-to-head with NVIDIA’s GeForce 10 series, specifically the GTX 1060 6GB and 3GB, and the GTX 1050 and GTX 10580 Ti. If you were hoping for some competition on the higher-end from AMD, you’ll have to keep waiting for their upcoming RX Vega GPUs who’s availability is still currently unknown, but AMD assures us Vega is “just around the [...]

Tiny Graphics Card for the Casual Gamer

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 XFX [...]

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?

AMD Ryzen Specs CPU Ryzen 1700 Ryzen 1700X Ryzen [...]

Out with the old, and in with the new. That is a mantra that has been echoed throughout history. Of course, before releasing a new product, you need to clear out inventory of the older product it will be replacing. As such, a variety of retailers have begun heavily discounting AMD’s Radeon Pro Duo.

AMD Radeon Pro Duo Heavily Discounted – $799 on Newegg

AMD’s Radeon Pro Duo is a dual-GPU graphics solution aimed at “prosumers” that is, gamers who create content and content creators who game. The board packs two of AMD’s previous flagship Fiji GPUs, which are also found on the company’s Fury X graphics card. It was released back [...]

Gigabyte’s Mid-Range X99 Motherboard

When Intel launched the Broadwell-E platform earlier this year, Intel’s X99 chipset saw a surge in interest as many users became interested in upgrading their systems which required a suitable motherboard to match. Today we have an X99 platform motherboard that sits at below the $250 pricepoint and has the features to keep up with most users needs.

Today we’ll be reviewing the Gigabyte X99P SLI which is a motherboard that falls into the $200 range with a fairly extensive list of features making it quite competitive on paper.

The original X99 SLI motherboard from Gigabyte was priced at the $200 price point but [...]

At long last the latest and heavily anticipated Battlefield game has been released. Showcasing the grim atmosphere of World War 1 the game takes us from the trenches in France, to the Ottoman Empire in modern day Turkey.

The Battlefield series has always been one of the quintessential PC titles since the original Battlefield 1942 way back in 2002 and its developer DICE has been known for going the extra mile for PC gamers, with fantastic hardware optimization and being at the forefront of AMD’s mantle back in Battlefield 4, though Battlefield games have always been plagued with glitches and bugs at launch the worst of which was Battlefield 4 and while having [...]

Mid-Range Gaming PC Build

With summer ending quickly, fall just around the corner and along with it the biggest game releases of the year, gamers are looking to upgrade or build an entirely new Gaming PC that can easily run their games without a hiccup. This month, we’ve put together a Mid-Range Gaming PC for $1,200 which will include everything you need to play the latest and greatest games coming out this season.

Let’s take a look at how we did!

 

Best Gaming PC Build Component Summary – Budget: $1,200 CPU Intel Core i5-6600K Motherboard MSI Z170 SLI-PLUS Memory Patriot Viper 4 16GB (2x8GB) [...]