It’s been a pretty wild year for PC technology, and an even wilder decade. This was the decade that brought system building more into the main-stream, and saw PCs rise above the hubbub of consoles and mobile devices to achieve a healthy position in the market and in our hearts.
PC gaming is in a particularly good place, with multiplatform multiplayer more common, and proper gaming hardware getting cheaper. DDR4 memory exploded on to the scene, initially pricey, but now more affordable and higher quality than ever. M.2 SSD took longer to get off the ground, but now it’s hard to imagine a high-end rig without one of these high-speed drives.
It’s now easier than ever to build yourself a PC. Next-generation integrated graphics allow for inexpensive work systems, while GPUs have improved incrementally to enable truly next-level graphics. Ray tracing also saw a rise in popularity; while Nvidia’s RTX cards arrived in 2018, it was in 2019 that the question of ray tracing was truly posed to the industry.
We’ve been treated—spoiled, even—with sleek, powerful hardware, and it leaves us hopeful for the coming year. 2020 promises plenty, but even more is under wraps. Next-gen CPUs and Intel’s entry into the GPU market are exciting prospects, so here’s our hot-off-the-press take on what will happen in the tech industry in 2020.
GRAPHICS CHANGING THE STATE OF PLAY
Denne historien er fra February 2020-utgaven av Maximum PC.
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Denne historien er fra February 2020-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!