Posts in Category: guides

The 5 Best Gaming Laptops to Buy in 2019

These days, you don’t need to get a humongous gaming desktop to play AAA titles at max settings. With lower prices, powerful components, and sleek designs—now is an excellent time to get a gaming laptop. Most modern gaming laptops feature Nvidia’s new RTX cards, although even the ones with older GPU models manage to achieve high-end performance in sleek, portable packages. Don’t forget to check out other computer-related reviews at websites similar to buyersimpact.co.uk (https://buyersimpact.co.uk/) if you’re interested. But anyway, these are some of our favorite gaming laptops for 2019, listed in order of increasing price:

Read More

Your Comprehensive Wireless Network Adapter Guide

Wireless Network Adapter Guide

Previously, we’ve discussed routers and gave recommendations for some of the best routers in our article on The Best Routers, and How to Choose a Router for You. Today, we go over what we use to connect to those routers wirelessly: The wireless adapter.

We cover the most important things to know in detail, then we offer recommendations for internal and external options at different budget levels. So if you’re already knowledgeable about wireless cards (or you’re in a hurry), go ahead and scroll down to the list of recommended options!

Read More

Capture Cards: A Quick Buying Guide

capture cards buyers guide

At first glance, it can be hard to figure out what you’re getting with capture cards. With the world of game capturing growing ever larger thanks to the popularity of streaming and retro gaming, more fans are wanting to try their hand at recording their epic gaming moments. In this quick guide, we take a look at different capture cards (at various prices) to hopefully make things clearer!

Read More

How to Choose the Right Storage for Your Gaming PC

M.2 SATA, M.2 NVME, SSD, HDD—if any of those abbreviations make your head spin faster than a hard drive platter, look no further. This article outlines the different storage options on the market today, highlighting the best use-cases for each and recommending the best product in every class.

Upgrading an older storage drive to an SSD is one of the surest (and cheapest) ways to give a boost to an older PC, but where should you begin? There are three main options on the market today: HDDs, SATA SSDs, and M.2 SSDs. Here’s a look at each.

Read More

Motherboard VRMs: What are Power Phases, and How Many Should I Have?

Motherboard VRM Power Phases Explanation

Often, motherboard product pages and online forum users mention a motherboard’s VRM and how many power phases it has. Being a somewhat technical topic, VRMs aren’t an easy topic to get into. So today, we will introduce the concept of the VRM and these so-called power phases as simple and straightforward as possible, so that you can easily discern what a motherboard product page is telling you (and when it matters).

Read More

Buying Used PC Hardware: A Beginner’s Guide

Beginner's Guide to Used Hardware

If you’re close to the ‘Destitute’ level on our main chart—or even within spitting distance—new hardware prices can seem insurmountable. But what if you didn’t have to pinch pennies waiting for a sale? What if you could have a powerful—if slightly dated—system for a fraction of the cost?

Thankfully for you, there’s a surprisingly huge market for used hardware online! eBay is obvious, but forums like /r/hardwareswap are tight-knit, self-policing communities of enthusiasts eager to swap silicon. It’s also quite safe: PayPal is the most popular payment method, with their Goods and Services option offering buyer protection in the event of fraud.

That being said, not all used components age as gracefully as others. We’ve created this guide so you can shop wisely.

Read More

The Newbie’s Guide to PC Cooling Fans

beginner's guide to PC case fans

So, you’re building a PC; with modern components running faster (and hotter) than ever, you’ll need at least one fan. Searches reveal thousands of models bragging about their CFM or noise levels or bearing type. How do you cut through the marketing jargon? This guide for beginners should demystify computer cooling!

Read More

Choosing the Right Monitor: Size, Resolution, Price – and Sitting Distance!

monitor-size-resolution-sitting-distance

If you peruse sites like this, there’s a good chance you’ve come across the monitor discussion. “I’m buying a monitor, what size/resolution/refresh rate should I get?” Choosing the right monitor can be as important as (or, in some situations, even more important than) anything else in your build.

After all, your monitor is how you experience your build. The best graphics card and CPU don’t mean much if the monitor you’re using can’t show you the benefits of those parts.

Read More

4 Troubleshooting Tips for Overclocking Your PC

Often, PC enthusiasts will speak of overclocking the way car enthusiasts discuss high-performance engines, with megahertz and voltage taking the place of horsepower and torque. Overclocking is often a relatively simple way to squeeze out extra performance from computer components; however, problems sometimes do arise. Luckily, most problems faced with overclocking are easily fixed with some basic troubleshooting techniques.

For our purposes, we’ll look at issues affecting the components that are overclocked the most: the CPU and GPU.

Read More