CATEGORIES

BEST OF CES 2024

The biggest tech show in the world returned to Las Vegas with more monitors, laptops, and handhelds than you could shake a big stick at. Thankfully, Guy Cocker was there, stick in hand, to see all the PC tech you'll want to keep an eye on in 2024

GHOST IN THE MACHINE THE RTX 4070 SUPER BUILD Anti-RGB in 2024

PEOPLE, REJOICE—the RTX Super cards have arrived, and with them comes some nicely tweaked internal specs, better performance across some models, and to top it all off, some consistency in their price tags.

TRADE CHAT: Are cheap chips a thing of the past?

I'M NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT OVERPRICED graphics cards, but the underlying cost of manufacturing advanced integrated circuits. A chip manufacturing expert from Google, Milind Shah, thinks so, recently declaring that the per-transistor cost stalled as far back as the 28nm node over a decade ago. That's pretty worrying, but it can't possibly be true. Here's why.

THE LIST: THE BEST AUDIOPHILE HEADPHONES

YOU MIGHT THINK that it's overkill to use high-end headphones for gaming, but they can transform your experience. They can make your games sound so much better than a cheap headset ever can.

This is a disappointing generation of GPUs

ALONGSIDE THE INTRODUCTION of the RTX 40-series Super models, this past month also saw the launch of AMD's RX 7600 XT. I think it's fair to say that this entire generation of GPUs has been disappointing on the whole, but AMD's offerings were particularly bad.

Intel's new Battlemage graphics coming this year

THE ASSAULT OF THE DISCRETE graphic card market by Intel has been fairly leisurely.

WINDOW'S AI UPDATE

This year's second update is all about Copilot

AMD confirms Zen 5

Intel will fight back with Arrow Lake

Build Your Own Cloud Storage

Don't trust third parties with your data? Nick Peers has the answer...

Razer Cobra Pro

An excellent all-rounder that performs admirably

Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless

The best new gaming keyboard in years

XGIMI Horizon Ultra

A truly outstanding 4K projector with Dolby Vision

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X

A creative laptop with a playful side

OneXPlayer OneXFly

Lighter, smaller, faster, stronger

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra

Watch out MacBook Pro; Samsung has you in its sights

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

The best $500 GPU around

GREEN PCs MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

The world's biggest PC maker says it can achieve net-zero by 2050. Barry Collins visits Lenovo's US headquarters to get his hands on plant-based PCs, bamboo packaging, and vegan leather covers

GAME OVER FOR GAMING PCs?

If you're looking for the ultimate gaming experience, does it still make sense to invest heavily in hardware? We look at the alternatives

ARM X86 VERSUS THE END OF AN ERA

Is it a case of when-not if-Arm chips replace x86 CPUs in our PCs? Jeremy Laird investigates, and wonders whether the very question is outdated in an age of Al and heterogeneous and open-source computing

UPGRADING YOUR STEAM DECK STORAGE

2TB and 1TB M.2 2230 SSDs are readily available, and Jarred Walton shows you how to do it

BEST VALUE GAMING PC

The best new mid-range AMD system?

Why does GPU pricing have to be so infuriating?

I NOTED A WHILE BACK that prices of pretty much everything had normalized with the pandemic receding and other supply chain abnormalities subsiding. The one exception were GPUs. Several months later, while graphics cards are cheaper, they still haven't returned to historical trends. But what's even more frustrating is that pricing just doesn't make sense.

Samsung GDDR7 Heads for 32Gbps

DRAM IS AT THE HEART of many computing devices. Whether it's DDR4 and DDR5 in PCs, HBM2 and HBM3 in GPUs, or GDDR6 and GDDR6X in graphics cards, a lot of the building blocks remain the same. It's the signaling that get upgraded, and now GDDR7 is on its way, with Samsung modules in production and Micron's alternatives to arrive in 2024.

THE BEST GAMING MONITORS

PICTURE THE SCENE: you’ve bought the best CPU and GPU you can afford, and you’re kitted up with a game-winning keyboard and mouse.

UNITY TO CHARGE FOR INSTALLATIONS

New plan derided by developers

AMD'S V-CACHE CPU GOES MOBILE

New Asus ROG is a monster

Intel's Raptor refresh

New world's fastest desktop processor. Possibly...

AMD has canceled some GPUs, but don't panic!

SPEND ENOUGH TIME in this game and you get a feel for rumors that are very likely true. And I'm getting the sense that the latest ones suggesting AMD has ditched the high-end variants of its next-gen RDNA 4 graphics family are on the money. At first glance, this seems pretty disastrous, especially given how expensive gaming GPUs have become and how desperately we need somebody to put Nvidia under pressure. But is it? Is it actually?

Mountain Makalu Max

A great wired gaming mouse, but sometimes a frustrating wireless one

Drop Lord of the Rings Dwarvish ENTR

As sturdy as a stout dwarf but basic under the skin