Its been an exciting few years in the PC market, especially with big gains in the CPU market. But it gets a lot crazier when you look back farther. Intel recently did this when they were celebrating the 40^th birthday of their 8086 microprocessor. While most of you may not know the 8086 specifically, you would recognize some of the processors that it paved the way for. Most notably the ones that came after it the 286 and the 386. I personally grew up playing with those and played my first real PC games like the original Warcraft on a 486 after we spent a LOT of money to upgrade to I think it was 12MB of ram. The 8086 brought the X86 platform so 40 years was a big milestone. To celebrate Intel brought out the 8086K, named after the original. It is also their first CPU to deliver 5.0 GHz single core turbo clock speeds. Well, today I’m going to take a look at the 8086K and see where it fits in the market.

AMD launched their new Ryzen lineup about a month and a half ago but when they sent out initial sampling they only sent out the Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen 5 2600X. Those were mostly what people wanted to see, but they did launch a few other CPUs at that same time. A few reviewers went and picked them up at the store but I don’t have the budget for that. AMD did follow up though and sent over the Ryzen 7 2700 and Ryzen 5 2600, two really interesting CPUs. I will get into why in just a minute. After that, I will go through my testing and then talk about how they fit in the market. Let's go!

Just over a year and a month ago AMD rocked the PC market with the launch of their Ryzen CPUs. They started off with their 7 series CPUs then slowly introduced the others, the Ryzen APUs only just hit the market in fact. I say it rocked the entire PC market because the Zen-based CPU launch had a cascade effect across AMD's whole lineup that drove innovation forward from just about everyone. Building high-end PCs was new and exciting. The product shortages in memory and video cards have hampered things a little but hardware wise the past year has been amazing. AMD hasn’t left things alone, now that Intel has responded AMD themselves are ready with their Zen+ CPUs. They teased them last week and today's the day you can get them. Well I’ve been busy testing them and I can finally pull the NDA shaped tape off my mouth and talk about their performance.

Well as you can tell we are a little late on this article. Last week AMD launched their new CPUs with Vega graphics. Without getting too much into it right now (I’ll explain later) but I spent well over a week fighting with issues when trying to test and I didn’t get things worked out until just before this past weekend. Anyhow, testing is done, now we just need to talk a little about what AMD is doing with these new CPUs and then dive into the results! So let's go see what AMD's new Raven Ridge CPUs are all about!

Its hard to believe considering we just finished up an Intel launch, but it is already time to check out Intel’s next launch. Kaby Lake was launched at the beginning of this year and the Mainstream lineup of CPUs is getting refreshed with Coffee Lake and Z370. This is the 8^th generation of Intel’s Core processors going back to the original launch back in 2006. While I’m sure Kaby Lake owners aren’t going to be all that happy about the relatively early launch, but those who waited might be excited to find out that Intel has added cores to the mainstream lineup and is bumping up the entire product stack. As someone who is still building my wife’s Kaby Lake build, I completely understand the feeling. But as long as she never finds out her new PC is already out of date I will still be alive long enough to put the i7 and i5 CPUs that Intel sent over to the test.

It’s been a crazy year in the CPU market, with that craziness also pushing the rest of the market as well. Back in June Intel introduced their new Core-X line of CPUs as well as the X299 chipset. That launch was missing the top portion of their CPU lineup though. The increased competition and the surprise announcement from AMD of Threadripper seems to of prompted Intel to expand on their planned lineup. They added four more CPUs up above the i9-7900X with 12, 14, 16, and 18 cores. Well, the wait is over, they are available and today I’m going to check out the top two that Intel sent over. The i9-7980XE is Intel’s new flagship CPU with 18 cores and 36 threads with the i9-7960X just behind it with 16 cores and 32 threads. Let's see what they have to offer across a range of tests.

The Ryzen 5 launch was a lot better for budget minded gamers but all eyes have been on the Ryzen 3 launch to see if AMD is going to pull off the hat trick. Plus AMD has traditionally been the perfect company to go with when doing gaming PCs on a small budget. While the Ryzen 5 CPUs are great, they don’t really help with those builds. Today is the official launch day for Ryzen 3 and I’ve spent the last few weeks testing and playing around with it. I’m excited to give a quick run down on the details then dive into the performance numbers to see how it performs.

To say that the X299 and Core X launch has been bumpy would be an understatement. During Computex, details were announced and the boards were shown off and Youtubers like Linus took to the streets literally and figuratively to voice their opinions. I myself have kept quiet, avoiding a lot of the drama, but mostly because I don’t like to voice an opinion on something from specification sheets and rumors. So I held out waiting to get everything into the office and take a closer look. Well, Intel sent over the new i9-7900X and the i7-7740X and today I’m going to talk a little more about everything and then dive into the performance. When that is all said and done, then we can finally start to look at the overall picture.

So last month AMD introduced Ryzen to the world with their Ryzen 7 processors. I took a look at all three and also did some more in depth gaming testing. Well, now it's finally time for AMD to introduce the Ryzen 5 CPUs for those who are looking for more of a budget friendly option. A few weeks ago they sent over a kit with the Ryzen 5 1600X and the 1500X and I’ve had a little time to spend with them. So today I’m going to run through the new series then take a look at how the new 4 and 6 core flagships from AMD perform. Then tomorrow I’m going to check out the coolers they bundle with them as well.

So at the Ryzen launch I took a look at the 1800X and the 1700X and compared them to the Intel i7-6900K and the i7-7700K and I followed that up with the Ryzen R7 1700. Well around that time Intel sent over the i7-7700K, the one I did my previous testing on was a loaner. So rather than cover everything everyone has already seen with the 7700K I wanted to change things up. I posted up on our Facebook asking people what they would like to see compared between the 7700K and the R7 1700 and I ended up with a list of games and someone also mentioned streaming performance. I decided to combine that list with all of the games we already test our video cards with and I put together a big list of games to check out. After a LOT of testing, I’m ready to finally sit down and check out the results. Are you guys ready? I know I am!

The AMD Ryzen launch was exciting and filled with drama. The hype levels peaked just before the launch and while the performance was amazing in almost every benchmark there were some people surprised at the in game performance numbers and a few of the early issues with the new platform. On top of all of that, for me, I was also dealing with a dead CPU right at the launch. Our original review was written to include the R7 1700 but due to having trouble with it those results had to be pushed until AMD sent a replacement. Well that came in and I was able to get it tested but our review queue was already filled with completed coverage. So today I finally have the chance to take a closer look at it. Now I recommend everyone check out my original review for most of the details on the launch as this was an unplanned article, but once you are done we can run through the performance of the lowest priced Ryzen 7 CPU and find out if it is the value CPU to pick up right now.

So by now even most of the gamers and geeks that I know that don’t even follow hardware launches have been talking about AMDs RYZEN launch. It’s an almost unprecedented launch and there are a few reasons for it. While Intel has been chugging away with their yearly CPU launches on their mainstream chips, the every two year release of new CPU sockets. AMD has been running on various revisions of their Bulldozer microarchitecture and the AM3+ platform for the past 6 years. For a lot of the younger enthusiasts, this actually goes back to before they could afford to build a custom PC. Add to all of that the recent dominance by Intel in the higher end market and you have a lot of people foaming at the mouth to pick up something from AMD that can compete. Well after months of hype, today is the day that we can finally sit down and check out the new CPUs and the new AM4 platform. AMD sent over all three of the newly launched CPUs, the flagship 1800X, the 1700X, and the 1700. Before you run out and pick one up, check out how it performed for us and make a point to check out a few other independent sources as well so make sure it is what you were hoping.

About two months ago AMD did a large product line refresh that focused around the newly introduced Wraith Cooler, at the time we took a look at the cooler. Then closer to our LAN event they sent out samples for some of the other CPUs and APUs introduced. In their FM2+ mainstream line they refreshed the Kaveri APUs as well as an Athlon X4 CPU. Well with our LAN event keeping my schedule tied up I’m just now finally getting a chance to see what the new A10-7860K sample and Athlon X4 880K that they sent out a that time. Then on top of that just last week the A10-7890K came in to round things out. So today I’m going to run through AMDs FM2+ refresh and see how they perform. I’m especially interested I the Athlon X4 880K to find out if it’s a worthwhile budget replacement for someone considering an AM3+ build.

It feels like just yesterday I was checking out the original Kaveri APU from AMD but surprisingly they actually launched it in mid-2014. Between this and now we have seen their FX line get refreshed and a whole mess of CPUs from Intel as well so it is no big surprise that we are now seeing a Kaveri refresh. Specifically we are going to take a look at the new A10-7870K APU. The 7870 might confuse some people because AMD did use that on their GPUs just a few years ago but they aren’t related. So in order to find out what the 7870K is all about let’s check out where AMD improved the APU then run it through all of our benchmarks to see how it performs!

Well if it feels like I was just here talking about a newly launched Intel CPU it is because, well, I was. Intel ran into a few issues with their Broadwell launch and those issues pushed its launch back significantly. Well to their credit they didn’t let those issues slow down the Skylake launch, so today they are launching their new flagship consumer CPU at Gamescom. The reason they are launching there is because the first part of the Skylake launch is completely focused on gamers and overclockers. They are only launching two SKUs, their i7-6700K and the i5-6600K. Both are overclockable, high clock speed CPUs focused right at enthusiast and gamers who want to get the best possible performance without the heavy investment that an X99 build would cost them.

For those of you following what Intel has been up to, they officially announced their Broadwell based CPUs at Computex this year. Last year we did see a Broadwell based Core-M CPU come out for some ultrbooks but beyond that everyone has been waiting to see what they would have to offer for desktops and normal laptops. Well coverage has been trickling out and you can expect to see CPUs finding their way into stores soon as well. Today I’m going to take a look at the Core i7-5775C, Intel’s flagship desktop model. You will also notice their isn’t a new chipset launch to go with this one as these 14nm Broadwell CPUs run on the same 9 Series Intel chipset that the Haswell based CPUs ran on. 

This past September AMD introduced a refresh of their FX CPUs that included a few new more power efficient CPUs along with a major pricing restructure to update the lineup. While I had the chance to test out most of the lineup there were a few that weren’t included. Recently AMD sent over one of the CPUs that I missed the FX-8320E. With the FX-8320E being a budget focused gaming CPU AMD also sent along with it a motherboard that matched its low price point and gaming focus, the 970 Gaming from MSI. Paired together you can get them for just a few dollars more than an i5-4670K with no motherboard or any of the 2011 socket CPUs. With 8 cores and a turbo clock speed of 4 GHz it should still be performer, but of course there really is only one way to find out, let’s check it out.

While it’s been obvious AMDs big focus has been on their APUs for the last few years. Even so in the background they have still been making a few waves with the FX line of CPUs, the main one being the launch of the 5GHz CPU a little over a year ago. Just when we thought they may have forgotten about the enthusiasts they are actually introducing a few new CPUs to the FX lineup and making changes to the overall pricing structure to better place their CPUs to compete with Intel’s introductions over the summer. Today I’m going to mainly be focusing on the newly introduced FX-8370 and the lower wattage FX-9370E, but AMD did send along the FX-9370 and the FX-9590 so we can see how the new CPUs perform in relation to their bigger brothers.

If it feels like we were just right here not to long ago talking about Intel’s latest CPU it is because we were. They launched their Devils Canyon CPUs about two and a half months ago and here we are again. The thing is, today’s launch is designed to be sold alongside of the I7-4790K. This is because officially the 4790K and everything else on the 1150 socket are considered mainstream products. The i7-5960X Haswell-E CPU I will be looking at is an enthusiast product. That means there aren’t limitations like the limited number of PCIe Lanes that the mainstream line runs into all of the time. On top of that we have twice as many cores, twice the ram, DDR4, and a big price tag like all of the other flagship CPUs. The 5960X will certainly not be for the light hearted or budget builds, but I’m excited to see how it performs compared to the model before it and the extremely fast mainstream chips that sell beside it. While I’m at it I’m going to see what king of room you might have left when it comes time to overclock as well.

Earlier this year AMD introduced their Kaveri APUs and I had the chance to take a look at the A10-7850K. While I wouldn’t consider is an enthusiast part, I came out of our testing seriously impressed with the improvements AMD has made on the GPU side of things. I thought the new Kaveri APUs would be perfect for HTPCs as well as budget gaming rigs. Well today AMD is officially announcing a few new APUs that fill in a few gaps in that product line. The new APUs are the A10-7800, A8-7600, and the A6-7400K. While the architecture is the same, the new models do have a few interesting standouts. For one the A6-7400K is unlocked and has a low price to compete with the Intel G3258 Anniversary Edition. The other one that caught my eye was the A10-7800. It shares similar stats with the A10-7850K but with nearly half the power usage! Today I’m going to take a look at the A10-7800 to see if it is as exciting as the numbers imply.