Posts Tagged Under: pc hardware

Budget Showdown: R3 3200G & GTX 1650 Self-built PC vs. Upgraded Prebuilt PC from eBay

Up until a few years ago, the value king for gaming was the Intel i5 processor. More recently, AMD’s Ryzen APUs have stolen the show at the low tiers, and we all know that no integrated graphics from Intel can currently compete with AMD’s Vega 8 and Vega 11 iGPUs. So it’s a no-brainer for gaming builders at very low budgets (who are entirely skipping graphics cards) to go with Ryzen APUs.

But outside of such head-to-head CPU comparisons, a broader value question remains for upper-low-tier (and lower-mid-tier) builders: how would a self-built system balanced around AMD’s newest R3 (including a discrete graphics card) compare to a highly discounted prebuilt system with a few key upgrades?

Read More

Four Practical Alternative Uses for Empty 5.25” Drive Bays

Icy Dock Expresscage - 4 practical alternative uses for 5.25" drive bays

Icy Dock’s Expresscage Tool-less Hot-swappable 2.5″ Drive Enclosure

While there are a great number of options these days for good-looking PC cases that entirely lack 5.25” drive bays, the majority of cases still offer at least one of these spaces. And efficient builders won’t want that space being used for nothing.

Don’t get me wrong: Many builders still do want to use those spaces to house intended utilities, including disc drives, card readers, extra USB ports, and even floppy drives. But that doesn’t mean there won’t still be an unoccupied bay sitting around at the end of the day. (I personally have a Pioneer Blu-Ray/DVD/CD player in my tower, and for the time being, it sits above an unused 5.25” bay.)

So, here are a few ideas for what to do with those bays instead of leaving them as cavities in your build:

Read More

Types of VRAM Explained: HBM vs. GDDR5 vs. GDDR5X

SEC VRAM - Different Kinds of VRAM Explained—HBM vs. GDDR5 vs. GDDR5X

Some Samsung VRAM

All graphics cards need both a GPU and VRAM to function properly. While the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) does the actual processing of data to output images on your monitor, the data it is processing and providing is stored and accessed from the chips of VRAM (Video Random Access Memory) surrounding it.

Outputting high-resolution graphics at a quick rate requires both a beefy GPU and a large quantity of high-bandwidth VRAM working in tandem. For most of the past decade, VRAM design was fairly stagnant, and focused on using more power to achieve greater VRAM clock speeds.

Read More

Newegg’s 2016 Christmas Week Sales

AfterChristmasWeekSalesNewegg2016

 

The craziness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are long behind us, but Newegg has Christmas Week sales! Though less extensive, these sales are great for some last minute pre-New Year shopping. There were no monitors on a good enough sale to include, so we were forced to abandon the “What is your new year resolution?” joke opportunity.

Please note: The best deals are dependent on rebates. Such rebates are reliable, but only if you follow the instructions exactly and submit everything on time, so better be careful!

Read More

Amazon’s PC Hardware Cyber Monday Deals

CyberMondayWeekSalesNewegg2016

Amazon has a few nice deals on its PC components for Cyber Monday. To be totally honest, Amazon has some amazing deals, but most of them are not related to PC parts, so we are sad. If you know of any good deals that we missed, let us know in the comments section!

Please note: The best deals are dependent on rebates. Such rebates are reliable, but only if you follow the instructions exactly and submit everything on time, so better be careful!

Read More

RX 480 Launches, Added to Superb and Excellent Tiers

rx480-1

Here it is! After months of waiting (technically a year, if you have been waiting since the last AMD release), the RX 480 has finally been released. AMD’s new graphics card is made with their new 14nm manufacturing process, setting expectations sky-high. The price is also generously low, and the anticipation levels have been off the charts! So how does it do? Let us take a look. (Sources listed at the bottom.)

Read More