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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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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 15 November 2022 17:22
Nvidia shook things up with the performance of their first Ada-based card, the RTX 4090, but for a lot of people, that level of performance isn’t needed or is out of their price range. Things start to get interesting as we start to see the rest of the product stand fill out over time. Nvidia announced two RTX 4080 models alongside the RTX 4090 but later “unlaunched” the 12GB model leaving just the RTX 4080 16GB as the one 4080 model and today is the day. The embargo’s lifted and we can finally check out how the RTX 4080 performs ahead of it launching in retailers tomorrow morning. So today I’m going to check out the RTX 4080 Founders Edition and see how it compares with the RTX 4090 as well as last generation's cards. Let’s dive in!
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Category: Smart Home
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Published: Friday, 11 November 2022 15:31
When we moved into our house and moved our camera system over getting a camera inside of our detached garage was one of the key locations. We had previously had an attached garage where I felt like I would at least be able to hear if someone was in there. But being detached just about anything could be going on in there without us knowing it and with our cars, lawn equipment, and a lot of tools inside being able to keep an eye inside was important. It also turned out to be a great indication of when my wife and I were home. I later added an app-based garage door controller as well but both were tied into two different systems meaning more than one app. Eufy Security recently introduced a new camera that combines both of these. They aren’t the first to have a similar product, but if you are already in the eufy ecosystem having it all together is a big benefit. They have two models of the eufy Security Garage Control Cam, one for a single door setup and a second that can handle two garage doors. Today I’m going to check out the Garage Control Cam Plus and see how eufy’s attempt at garage control and surveillance works out.
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Tuesday, 08 November 2022 16:18
If you would have asked me years ago who was innovating in the fan market Lian Li wouldn’t have been on my list at all. They surprised everyone with their Uni Fan design which cleans up wiring through a daisy chainable design back in 2020 and since then they have brought out a few other variations which have been extremely popular. Their most recent design is the Uni Fan SL-Infinity and today I’m finally going to get the chance to check out the new design which integrates an infinity mirror design. It’s a look I’ve never seen used on a fan so I’m excited to see what it looks like.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Thursday, 03 November 2022 18:51
It’s been a crazy month with launches from everyone all packed together. We just finished checking out AMD's new CPUs and Intel announced their new 13th-generation CPUs. Sadly right in the middle of all of that fell my pre-planned vacation. So while everyone else has taken a look at the new CPUs I’m late to the party and had both the Intel i9-13900K and the i5-13600K waiting for me when I got home. I jumped into testing and today I can finally step back and take a look at all of the numbers to see how Intel’s CPUs compare with the last few generations of CPUs from AMD and Intel. Let’s not waste any more time and dive right in!
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Category: Cooling Hardware
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Published: Monday, 17 October 2022 12:28
This past July Be Quiet! introduced their new Silent Wings 4 fans which as the name implies is the replacement of their popular and great performing Silent Wing 3 fans. The new lineup includes a variety of options including standard, PWM, and high-speed fans in 120mm and 140mm and Silent Wings Pro 4 options as well in both sizes. I’ve been excited to check the new lineup out after I saw them and Be Quiet! has done a few unique things to their new fans which I haven’t seen in the past. Today I have a few of the basic Silent Wings 4 140mm and the Silent Wings Pro 4 in the 120mm option that will let us see what the basic option has to offer as well as the higher-end pro model. So let's check them out!
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Category: Video Cards
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Published: Tuesday, 11 October 2022 09:00
Two weeks ago during their GDC Keynote Nvidia announced the first few video cards from their upcoming 4000 series of GPUs based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. They announced the RTX 4090 and two RTX 4080 cards, one with 16GB of VRAM and the other with 12GB which in addition to the memory those cards have a different base GPU as well. But today the performance embargo for the RTX 4090 is lifted so we are going to focus on that and the RTX 4090 will be available for sale tomorrow should you be interested in picking one up. Today I’m going to dive into the 4000 series of cards to tell you a little about them if you haven’t read about them yet then we will check out the RTX 4090 Founders Edition closer and then dive into testing, it’s a lot to go over so let’s dive in!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Monday, 10 October 2022 16:07
That last time we worked on the Icyu project build, which is a rack-mounted upgrade to our Blue Iris security camera server, I put together our cooling and cleaned up our server rack. With that out of the way, it’s finally time to dive into the big hardware. So today I’m going to talk about what CPU I went with, which motherboard, and the memory we are going with and then I get it all installed. So let’s jump in and see what will be powering the new server and get things up and running.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Friday, 30 September 2022 19:03
Ahead of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series launch, I took a look at the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 7 7700X but at the time we didn’t have the two other 7000 series CPUs to test. That said AMD did end up sending over the Ryzen 9 7900X and the 7950X for testing and while a little late today I’m going to check both of the Ryzen 9 CPUs out and see what they are all about. Both CPUs double up the core count from the 7700X and 7600X with the 7950X having 16 cores and the 7900X having 12 cores and they have similar clock speeds so I’m excited to see how they perform.
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Category: CPU's
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Published: Monday, 26 September 2022 13:06
On March 2 2017 we published our first of many Ryzen reviews and AMDs long awaited CPU refresh and new at the time AM4 socket turned the CPU world on its head quickly accelerating what was a very stale CPU market. Just the last two years alone have felt like 10 years making the 5 and a half years from that launch to now feel like it has been 20 years. So much has changed with one exception, AMD has still been using that same AM4 socket. Well, tomorrow Zen 4 will be available for sale, and along with it the new AM5 socket as well and today I’m taking a look at the new Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 7 7700X CPUs to see what they are all about. So let’s dive in and check them out!
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Category: Motherboards
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Published: Monday, 26 September 2022 09:06
To go along with the Zen 4 launch AMD is also launching their new AM5 chipsets and motherboards. They have four new chipsets, the X670E, X670, B650E, and B650 but for the launch, I am testing with the highest-end X670E with Asus’s ROG Crosshair X670E Hero. To go with today's coverage of some of the new CPUs I’m also going to check out what the X670E Hero has to offer for features and put it through a few tests as well. With a new LGA style socket, USB 4, and PCIe 5.0 as just a few quick highlights when looking at the specifications I’m excited to see what else it will have to offer!
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Category: Pc-hardware
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Published: Wednesday, 21 September 2022 10:38
In our first look at our latest project build Project, Icyu which is a rack-mounted upgrade to our Blue Iris security camera server setup I dove into some of the issues that I’ve been running into and some of the goals for the new build. I also started putting the hardware together for the build with the case, hard drive storage, the power supply, and the rack rails and got all of that set up and installed in our server rack. Today I want to continue on that and get into cooling and noise by checking out what I’m going with to keep the CPU cool, the case cool, and hopefully keeping noise levels for the system overall down. To do that I’ve partnered up with Cooler Master and Noctua which we have worked with a lot in the past.
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Category: Mobile
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Published: Thursday, 15 September 2022 14:06
For years the biggest issue that I would have with my mobile devices was keeping things charged and ready to go. I’m always really bad about remembering to charge devices and when phones took a long time to charge this would lead to me panicking hours before I leave the house trying to get at least some charge into my phone and often plugging in for the drive to get a little more. That has gotten a lot better with quick charge options, a lot of devices can get a full charge in that “panic” window but you do need to have AC adapters and cables that can handle it, we are now seeing their capabilities reach the point where one adapter can fan charge your phone and laptop and Anker is a big name in that area. They recently introduced their new GanPrime lineup and before I go on vacation this year I wanted to check out a few of their new and older devices to see if I could improve on my charging setup so today I’m going to check out some of what Anker has to offer and see what they are all about.
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Category: Power Supplies
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Published: Thursday, 08 September 2022 09:02
Last year Lian Li introduced their SP750 SFX power supply which focused on the high-end/high-wattage SFF builds and today they are expanding on that with their new SP850 which ups the wattage to 850 watts. The SP850 is SFX, not the usual SFX-L and while this isn’t the first 850-watt SFX option out there, it is only one of a few. This is however the first that is also coming with a new PCIe 5 power connector included which can deliver up to 400 watts to one supported device which means no need for adapters on the last generation of Nvidia Founders Edition cards and if the rumors are correct the next generation of cards as well. So let’s dive in and check out what the Lian Li SP850 is all about.
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Category: Storage
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Published: Wednesday, 07 September 2022 19:11
Crucial recently launched their two new latest drives the P3 and the P3 plus and I recently took a look at the P3 Plus. The P3 Plus is their budget-focused PCIe 4.0 drive and the standard P3 sticks with the PCIe 3.0 interface of their past drives for those who don’t need 4.0 performance or don’t have the hardware to take advantage of the performance. I was impressed with the P3 Plus, especially with its price point considering its performance. So today I’m going to check out the P3 in the same 2TB capacity as I did with the P3 Plus and we will find out how it performs and if it is also a good value so let’s get to it!
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