#ThrowBackThursday Portable apps are lightweight versions of applications that don't use an installer. Executables are contained within a single folder, meaning you can run them from a USB drive or a cloud folder synced across PCs. We've assembled a collection of the best and most useful portable apps across a variety of categories.
The world of CPUs has been notoriously busy the past few years. Since our last update AMD’s 3rd generation Ryzen and Intel Cascade Lake-X parts have hit the market. After all the extensive testing you are familiar with, TechSpot's CPU buying guide means to answer that question for you in a few easy recommendations you can trust and follow.
In this third part of our deeper look at 3D game rendering, we'll be focusing what can happen to the 3D world after the vertex processing has done and the scene has been rasterized. The majority of the visual effects seen in games today are down to the clever use of textures -- without them, games would dull and lifeless. So let's get dive in and see how this all works!
Something we've been hearing a lot this year is that there's a lack of development and progress on the PC gaming/hardware front. In an effort to determine if that's true, we'll test 2016's prime $400 GPU, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 against 2019's $400 GPU players, the RTX 2060 Super and RX 5700 XT and compare them in 37 games at 1080p and 1440p.
There are a dizzying number of headphones out there. Combined with different types and use cases available, there's an endless selection to pick from. That's where this buying guide comes in, which is based on professional reviews, user comments, and our own experiences. We've updated our best headphones selection to recognize the latest technology, trending choices and combined overlapping categories (wireless goes mainstream!).
In the world of computer chips, bigger numbers are often better. More cores, higher GHz, greater FLOPs, all desired by engineers and users alike. But there is one measure that's hot news right now and the smaller it is, the better. Let's take a journey into the world of process nodes, to find out more.
#ThrowBackThursday ICQ, short for the phrase "I Seek You," laid the groundwork for standalone instant messaging clients when it arrived in November 1996. Think about how long ago that was... Windows 95 was barely a year old, Nintendo had just introduced the N64, and those with a reason to have a cell phone actually used it to talk on.
As anticipated earlier this week when we tested AMD's HEDT Threadripper, Intel is also coming out with their own new high-end desktop series codenamed Cascade Lake-X. You already saw some preliminary data on the Core i9-10980XE, and now we're bringing you a full series review by testing the 10980XE, 10940X, 10920X and 10900X CPUs.
TechSpot's guide to the best smartphones is meant to highlight the stuff that matters, making it easier for you to buy the best device possible at your desired price point, from $200 to over $1,000.
A good, reliable, and long-lasting mouse can go a long way toward making your work or play all the more comfortable and efficient. Here are TechSpot's top picks for the best mouse you can buy, whether you're a gamer, an office worker, or anything in between, you'll find the right device for your needs.
The latest 32-core and 24-core high-end desktop CPUs from AMD have now landed. And yes, we've benchmarked the heck out of them. The Threadripper 3970X is a 32-core, 64-thread chip with a massive 128MB L3 cache, runs at 3.7 GHz and it's priced at $2,000 making it AMD's most expensive desktop CPU ever. If that's too rich, maybe the 3960X costs $1,400 for 24 cores and 48 threads.
This has been a long time coming, as we're finally getting around to testing Intel's Ice Lake architecture. This is Intel's first real attempt at a 10nm CPU, and in this review we'll be comparing it against their 14nm offerings to see how it stacks up in terms of performance.
Today we're bringing you a day-one review of the new GeForce GTX 1650 Super and it seems we're doing so against Nvidia's wishes. In a puzzling decision, they decided to block drivers and pricing ahead of release. It's not the first time they pull this kind of tactic, last time it was with the horrible GTX 1650, which scored 60 out 100. On the other hand, we're finding the GTX 1650 Super to be worth your money, so read on.
Today we're taking a look at the new Athlon 3000G, AMD's most affordable Zen-based processor yet coming in at just $50. To be clear, this unfortunately isn't a Zen 2 processor. In order words, this is similar to the Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G, featuring Zen logic cores with an integrated Vega GPU.
#ThrowBackThursday While 3D graphics turned a fairly dull PC industry into a light and magic show, they owe their existence to generations of innovative endeavour. This is the first installment on a series of four articles that in chronological order, take an extensive look at the history of the GPU. Going from the early days of 3D consumer graphics, to the 3Dfx Voodoo game-changer, the industry's consolidation at the turn of the century, and today's modern GPGPU.
GLQuake released in 1997 versus original Quake
To say that a lot of people use social media is an understatement. At last count, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat had more than 3 billion active users combined. In a small experiment to find out just how much social networks impact our lives, I decided to disable all my accounts for three weeks to see what, if any, effect it has on my day to day.
As we anticipated when we reviewed AMD's new flagship 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, rather than testing it on the very high-end Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme, we want to see how it does on budget AMD B450 boards. Maybe this combo doesn't make sense right now, but it will in the future as a potential upgrade for many AM4 owners.
The Ryzen 9 3950X looks to bridge the gap between mainstream and high-end desktop platforms and is the most expensive mainstream platform CPU we've seen in a long time. This puts AMD in the position to command a price premium for desktop computing. But is their new 16-core/32-thread monster worth the asking price?
#ThrowBackThursday By far the most common types of display panels used on PC monitors are TN, IPS and VA. We're sure you've heard these terms before if you've researched monitors to purchase, and to be clear, the type of panel is a key piece of information that reveals a lot about how the monitor will behave and perform.
The choice of PC speakers has evolved accordingly from standard systems to more audiophile oriented monitors and practical yet refined solutions covering all price segments. We've done the dirty work of researching a wide range of PC speaker offerings to bring you the best options in five major categories.
The need for a quality router has never been greater. In today's connected world, virtually every household is packed with phones, computers, smart TVs, and many other devices, all fighting for bandwidth. If you want a router that offers better throughput, range, and features, check out our top picks.
#ThrowBackThursday The tech industry is known for its predictive pronouncements and verbal sparring as for its actual innovation. Many have felt compelled to follow Intel co-founder Gordon Moore (of Moore's Law fame) in bringing their judgements and observations into the public eye… with varying degrees of success.
Launched on PC a year after it debuted on consoles, Red Dead Redemption 2 is still a big release that deserves a detailed benchmark analysis, much like what we've done for other titles this year like Borderlands 3 where we compared over 60 GPUs, Metro Exodus, and most recently Fornite Chapter 2. Unfortunately those plans went out the window when we discovered how hard benchmarking this game was going to be.
There is no elevator pitch for Death Stranding. Every inch of the game teems with meaning or implication. Even the most pretentious developments build to create a multi-layered game. It is a story about fatherhood. It is a dig at the gig economy. It is deeply concerned with environmental disaster and American politics, old and new.
Time to revisit the state of ray tracing. It's been months since we last discussed ray tracing in detail, when we tested it on early titles such as Battlefield V, and the latest releases of Metro and Tomb Raider, so there's plenty of fresh stuff to go over, more benchmarks, more experience playing those games and quite a few opinions. This is bound to be a long one, so strap yourselves in.
