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Category: Other
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Published: Thursday, 02 March 2023 15:33
When it comes to mobile computing there is a wide variety of the types of devices that you can go with but one thing that is consistent with them is that adding additional desktop real estate can be complicated. Unlike with a desktop PC where you can buy whatever monitor you would like and add as many as you want as well. Doing that with your laptop is like buying an anchor. Either you will only be able to use it when docked at that location or you are transporting a large monitor which short of LANs isn’t something that I would do. Thankfully there are portable monitor options and like with desktop monitors they have been improving. Today I’m going to check out the 16B1P3300 from Philips which is a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display with HDR support to see if it fits the bill to pair up with my 13-inch Razer Blade Stealth 13.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Monday, 27 February 2023 14:04
AMDs 7000 Series CPU launches brought along with it the new AM5 socket which now uses an LGA socket style as well as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 as well. For CPUs they have a variety of options and their performance has been impressive. The one exception to that is looking at gaming performance when compared to AMDs own Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU which was the first desktop processor to have a stacked 3D L3 cache. This was a late addition to the 5000 series of CPUs and offered staggering performance in cache-limited situations, especially gaming. Well for the 7000 series they have announced three 3D CPUs, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D. The two Ryzen 9 CPUs are launching tomorrow February 28th and they did send over the 7950X3D for testing so today I’m going to see how it performs.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 23 February 2023 15:41
When it comes to external or portable storage there is just about any option you may be able to think of available. But because they are external, the enclosure takes up a lot of extra space and you are limited to the connection option that it comes with originally. SanDisk recently introduced a new lineup to their professional lineup that they call Pro-Blade and with that, they have M. 2-based SSDs in compact mags and then multiple dock options depending on how you are planning to use it. I’ve been looking for external backup options for our main server and these stood out as a good option paired up with the Pro-Blade Transport and today I’m going to put them to the test to see how they perform.
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Thursday, 09 February 2023 09:56
With the launch of Intel’s new 13-gen CPUs, they did also introduce a few new 700 series chipsets with the flagship Z790 chipset being the only one available at the time of launch. Like with the 600 series chipsets, Intel has left the memory to be flexible with motherboard manufacturers having the choice to go with DDR4 or DDR5 which means there are a LOT of options available and one of those is the MSI MPG Z790 Edge WiFi DDR4 which falls into the middle of the pack for MSI’s lineup overall but is their highest end DDR4 motherboard with a unique silver theme for its cooling. Today I’m going to check out more of what the Z790 Edge DDR4 has to offer, so let’s dive in.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:13
Lexar has continued to expand their SSD lineup including the addition of their Lexar NM800 Pro which is available with and without a compact heatsink. The NM800 Pro sports an NNOGRIT 1G5236CAA controller which gives it PCIe Gen 4 capabilities and Lexar has it listed with read speeds up to 7450 MB/s and 6500 MB/s for its write speeds, at least on the 2TB model. This lines up well with other Gen 4 SSDs. Lexar is a long-respected brand and they gave their Pro-branded SSD a five-year warranty so I’m excited to put their new drive to the test and see how it performs. Today I will take a closer look to see what secrets it has to offer then we can run it through our test suite to see how it performs to find out if this is the drive to consider next time you are shopping for a new SSD.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Thursday, 26 January 2023 16:22
It feels like most of the time there are the same names over and over again but every once in a while someone new does jump into the mix. The brand Fantom Drives isn’t new to the industry, they and their parent company Micronet Technology have been around since 1988 but even after all of that time today is the first time that we have had a Fantom Drives product come into the office. Today I’m going to check out the Fantom Drives Venom8, a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD. I’m going to take a closer look at the drive to see what it is all about then put it through our test suite, so let’s dive in and see how it performs!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Monday, 23 January 2023 12:49
I’m late to the party on this one but late this last fall Kingston expanded their DDR4 lineup of their gaming sub-brand FURY with a special edition to their FURY Beast DDR4 which features a bright white heat spreader and RGB lighting, both of which are now staples in what my niece calls the “streamer” style PC build. While DDR5 is growing in popularity with Intel and AMD's latest CPUs both supporting it. There are still people who are opting to go with DDR4 with Intel builds and older AMD chipsets which are still a much better value. So today I’m going to check out what the FURY Beast DDR4 RGB Special Edition is all about with their 3600 MHz 32GB kit.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:44
At CES this year AMD announced a few things in their CPU lineup including their upcoming 7000 series 3D CPUs and they also introduced three new non-X CPUs for their previously launched 7000 series of CPUs. The CPUs are the Ryzen 9 7900, the Ryzen 7 7700, and the Ryzen 5 7600. All three share a lot including core and thread counts to their similarly named X brothers but all three have lowered TDP wattages down to 65 watts which is to offer options for people not looking for something as extreme as the initially launched CPUs and for small form factor builds which are a lot more limited in cooling. If you have been around here in the past I love small form factor builds, especially builds focused on LAN use and this was an exciting announcement on that front. I’m a little late to the party on testing them but just received all three CPUs and today we are going to check them out and see how they compare so let’s dive in!
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Category: Audio
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Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 11:25
With some companies, it feels like they are just constantly pumping out new products but then you have other companies who focus on a smaller niche and take their time with upcoming products. Antlion Audio without a doubt falls into that second category. Antlion Audio reached out about a product they were testing back at the start of the pandemic and they had already been working on it for a long time to have prototypes but they sent one over just to get some feedback on. While spring of 2020 feels like its only been a year, a REALLY long year its been a lot longer than that and in that time they have been battling to get things perfect in their eyes and today is finally the day that they are introducing their new product which they call Kimura. Kimura is a new microphone setup combined with an in-ear monitor. They aren’t the first to do it, but as they did with the ModMic they are hoping to show what can really be done. So today I’m going to check out the Kimura Duo which comes with two in-ear monitors and we are going to see what they are all about and then put them to the test so let’s dive in!
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Category: Smart Home
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Published: Thursday, 12 January 2023 08:53
The popularity of video doorbells has taken off over the last few years but long before that people have been upgrading their locks. Starting with older programable locks with codes which have now moved on to full smart locks that can be controlled by codes, your smartphone, and even by fingerprints. What if you combined those two together? That is what eufy Security did with their latest security product, the Video Smart Lock. They took their previous smart lock which had a touch screen and a fingerprint sensor and integrated one of their 2k resolution cameras into it and a doorbell button. Together they eliminate the need for two different products at your front door. I’ve been putting it to the test so today we will take a closer look at it and then go over how it has been working. Let’s get into it!
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Category: Networking
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Published: Tuesday, 10 January 2023 13:31
If you haven’t been paying close attention to WiFi standards over the last few years the change in naming might be confusing. Especially having WiFi AC switching to WiFi 5. The part where things get even more confusing though is when we have WiFi 6 and then later WiFi 6E. Officially both fall under the 802.11ax standard but the E designation adds the 6 GHz band alongside 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz which have been used in the past. I’ve taken a look at multiple WiFi 6 products but with 6E I have had devices that support it but no access point to check it out yet. Well, EnGenius has finally brought out their ECW336 WiFi 6E access point and today I’m going to check out what sets it apart from their WiFi 6 models so let’s dive in and check it out.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 14:26
In addition to the Asus card that Nvidia sent over for the RTX 4070 Ti launch, MSI also sent over their flagship RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. Their Suprim lineup always goes way over the top on cooling performance and the X means that this is also an overclocked card. So today I’m going to check out the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X to see if MSI is still keeping the Suprim styling as a clean opulent model which focuses on better build quality and performance. Without a Founders Edition for the new RTX 4070 Ti that leaves a big opening for anyone like me who may not want the crazy “gamer” styling that most cards have and the styling and build quality that the Founders Editon cards have. Will this be the best option when shopping for an RTX 4070 Ti? I’m going to check out what sets it apart and then put it through our test suite to find out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Wednesday, 04 January 2023 09:00
Well here we are in the new year and with it being CES time there are lots of new tech announcements and Nvidia has pulled the cover off of their latest 4000 Series GPU the RTX 4070 Ti and this is a case of what is old is new again as those of you who have been paying attention may recognize this as the unlaunched RTX 4080 12GB. After fixing that mistake and renaming the card we finally have the chance to check out Nvidia’s planned step below the RTX 4080. This is great timing as well, this is the first card launched after AMD’s 7900 XT and 7900 XTX and the 4070 Ti looks positioned to compete with the 7900 XT. The new cards don’t have a Founders Edition sadly but Nvidia along with Asus has sent over the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti OC that I’m going to check out so let’s learn a little more about the RTX 4070 Ti and then check out what Asus’s card is all about.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 23 December 2022 19:30
The Logitech launched the G502 back in 2014 which at the time was a complete departure from the “Logitech” styling and quickly became their edgy styling for years. While most of the Logitech mice have moved back to a smoother style, the G502 was so iconic that its design has stuck around with Logitech updating it every few years to the latest hardware and adding a Lightspeed model back in 2019 as well. So when they announced an updated G502 lineup it wasn’t a complete surprise, but with it being a full lineup, not just one or two mice that was a surprise. The new lineup has the G502 X product name and includes a basic G502 X which is the wired version, the G502 X Lightspeed which is wireless, and the G502 X Plus which is wireless as well but has Lightsync RGB lighting as well. All three are now available in black or white as well which is a big change. The G502 X Plus is the model that Logitech sent over for us to check out and is what I have been testing for a few weeks now so let’s dive into the new design.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 13 December 2022 16:01
Yesterday I had the chance to check out both of AMD's reference cards for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT launch. Well, today cards are available for sale and alongside of that, I have the opportunity to check out an aftermarket card from XFX, specifically the XFX MERC 310 7900 XT. This gives us a great chance to check out how XFX’s card compares with the stock-clocked reference design both in performance but also in cooling and noise. Being an aftermarket card, the MERC 310 7900 XT is larger than AMDs design, and XFX has used that as a chance to up the clock speeds as well with the game clock increased from 2000 MHz up to 2220 MHz and the boost clock which on the reference card can go up to 2400 MHz can go up to 2560 MHz on XFX’s card which is a big overclock. So let’s dive in and see what XFX has to offer!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 12 December 2022 20:55
In addition to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX that I already covered today, AMD is also launching its brother the Radeon RX 79000 XT and we have had that card in the office as well. This is also an RDNA 3 architecture card and it shares the same Navi 31 GPU as the 7900 XTX but with a few changes. So today I’m going to check out what those changes are and then we can see what the AMDs reference card looks like and how it differs from the 7900 XTX then see how it performs in our test suite as well. So let’s dive in!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Monday, 12 December 2022 17:18
With Nvidia having launched the RTX 4090 and more recently the RTX 4080 and their pricing being out of range of a lot of users, people have been clambering for AMD's next generation of cards. AMD's latest generation was announced early in November but until today their performance has been under embargo. Today I’m going to check out what AMDs two new RDNA 3 based GPUs have going on and put both to the test as well starting with the RX 7900 XTX in this review. So let’s dive in and see what they are about and what this card is capable of and find out once and for all if AMD's new cards will be the saving grace for anyone not willing to take out a loan for a new video card.
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Thursday, 01 December 2022 16:38
This fall I set out to upgrade our now-aged security camera server which over the years we have tripled the number of cameras that we were running and at the same time started upgrading their resolution as well. The gradual expansion and upgrading has pushed our once powerful system to its limits and beyond and has needed an upgrade for a few years now. Over the last few articles I have gone over the specific limitations we found with our old system and our new system that we call Icyu is all together except for one very important aspect, storage. I have been trying to decide what I’m going to go with and my decision paralysis has delayed the already previously delayed build even longer. So today I’m going to talk about what I’m going with, at least for now so I can get the system up and running and finally let our old system have some rest.
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Category: Smart Home
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Published: Thursday, 24 November 2022 12:05
It used to be rare for people to have cameras around their homes but with doorbell cameras becoming more and more common, once people buy in with a doorbell camera you do sometimes see them adding more. Another location where you see cameras being added is with floodlights because they are higher up and get a lot better coverage than your doorbell cameras but you are limited to where the camera is pointed. Eufy Security has a few standard options, but their Floodlight Cam 2 Pro caught my eye because not only does it have three lights for better light coverage, it also has a 2K pan/tilt camera built-in meaning you don’t have to be stuck with one view. We were upgrading the lighting in and on our garage which is a good time to check out the Floodlight Cam 2 Pro to see how it performs.
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 15 November 2022 18:27
In addition to the Nvidia RTX 4080 Founders Edition that I have already taken a look at for the launch, we did also receive an aftermarket card as well. MSI sent over their RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio which will be the first aftermarket 4000 series card we have had in the office. Because of that, I am excited to see how it performs differently compared to the Founders Edition, especially with an overclock and a completely different outlook on how to keep the card cool. Beyond that, I’m also curious to see what MSI is doing for styling this generation so let’s dig in and check it out.
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