Hardware

We all think of the CPU as the "brains" of a computer, but what does that actually mean? What is going on inside with the billions of transistors to make your computer work? In this new four-part mini series we'll be focusing on computer hardware design, covering the ins and outs of what makes a computer work.

During this year's GDC, Nvidia announced that GTX graphics cards would be getting basic ray tracing support with a driver update. For putting together this test we took the most powerful Pascal GPU we had on hand - the Nvidia Titan X - and pitted it against Nvidia's RTX line-up in the three games that support ray tracing thus far.

Intel's been having some trouble competing with the wave of Ryzen processors, forcing the chip maker to be a little more creative. Today we have the Intel Core i5-9400F on hand, which is basically a refreshed i5-8400 with a 100 MHz clock speed boost, no integrated graphics and a lower price point.

When we recently updated our Best CPUs feature, we noticed that access to affordable first-gen Ryzen processors remains an attractive option for many. The Ryzen 7 1700 is a standout option for an 8-core/16-thread part selling for $160, meaning you can either buy the R7 1700 or the R5 2600 at the same price.