Components articles

With power limits of CPUs and graphics cards climbing ever higher, and news reports of chips hitting sky-high temperatures appearing almost weekly, it seems that now is as good a time as any to ask a simple question – just how hot is too hot for today's PC components?

While the GPU is the main driver of PC gaming performance, skimping on other parts like storage, mobo or PSU can lead to a bad experience. Here are 7 things to avoid when building or buying a budget PC.

Almost every desktop PC has one. They have billions of transistors, can use hundreds of watts of power, and can cost over a thousand dollars. They are masterpieces of electronic engineering and generate extremes in product loyalty and disdain... and yet the number of things they normally do can be counted one just one hand. Welcome to the world of graphics cards!

You don't have to use magnetism or electrical charge to store data. It can be done using light, or more rather, the reflection of it. Okay, if you want to be really specific, it's done using the interference of infrared and visible electromagnetic waves, but let's not worry too much about that!

Just as transistors revolutionized computers, by increasing the speed at which circuits could switch and perform math operations, the use of semiconductor devices in storage devices was aimed at producing the same outcome. Lets dissect SSDs.

It's magnetic. It's electric. It's photonic. No, this isn't going to be about a new superhero trio in the Marvel universe. This is all about our precious digital data. So let's prep for theatre, scrub our hands clean, and dig into the anatomy of what we use today to hold onto our trillions of digital bits.

Power supply units don't break headlines like the latest CPUs do, but they're awesome pieces of technology. Let's put on our gowns, masks, and gloves, and pull open the humble PSU – breaking down its various parts and seeing what each bit does.

How well do you know the components that make up your PC? Take the humble motherboard, it sits there, quietly keeping everything running, and rarely gets the same attention as the CPU or graphics card. Motherboards are remarkably important though, so let's go all Grey's Anatomy, and dissect the motherboard – breaking down its various parts and seeing what each bit does!

We've all been there. You want to buy a new graphics card, you read the reviews, and settle on the best GPU within your budget. Then you have to decide from half dozen or so manufacturers that offer nearly identical hardware. But which is the most reliable? The same scenario could be applied to other components like motherboards, storage or memory. That's why when we found this annual list compiled by boutique PC manufacturer Puget Systems we asked them to reproduce it for you.