Tomb Raider on the PC supports DirectX 11, which brings access to advanced rendering technologies absent on current-gen consoles such as depth of field, HD ambient occlusion, hardware tessellation. Additionally, compared to the diluted console versions, the PC build offers better textures as well as AMD's TressFX real-time hair physics system.

This brave new multiplayer SimCity grants me the focus I need to once again lose myself in the minutiae of running a virtual town. Maxis' latest creation is easily the most compelling SimCity I've played since the 1989 original. It's also a disaster.

After wearing the single-GPU performance crown for 12 months, the GTX 680 has been dethroned by the new GTX Titan. The Titan carries a GK110 GPU with a transistor count that has more than doubled from the GTX 680's to a staggering 7.1 billion The part has 25% to 50% more resources at its disposal, including 2688 stream processors (up 75%), 224 texture units (also up 75%) and 48 raster operations (a healthy 50% boost).

I've always had a soft spot for the Crysis series. Crysis 3, unfortunately, spends most of its time lost in the weeds. There's plenty of hunting, but it's sporadic, and changes made to the formula combine with dodgy AI and odd level-design to make the whole thing feel uncomfortable and ungainly.

Crytek has given us another opportunity to hammer some hardware with the arrival of Crysis 3. Though this time PC gamers won't have to wait for graphical extras. Crysis 3 boasts of high-resolution textures, DX11 support and plenty of customization options that set it apart from the diluted consoles builds. The result looks incredible.

Pebble, a humble Kickstarter project embraced by nearly 70,000 backers, is the most buzzed-about smartwatch yet. Have those early believers been vindicated by the release of a phenomenal product or are they just another cautionary tale of what happens when reality doesn't meet the hype?

Instead of using AMD or Nvidia's ultra-pricey dual-GPU card (or the new $999 Titan), we're going to see how more affordable Crossfire and SLI setups handle triple-monitor gaming compared to today's single-GPU flagships.

Dead Space 3 might be a direct console port but it's done right, at least as far as I can tell after a few hours of gameplay. The game might not have DirectX 11 features or a high resolution texture pack, but I personally found it to be quite enjoyable.

Mixing things up, Cooler Master's latest mid-size enclosure breaks the conventional mold with boxier dimensions -- in fact, the company describes it as a LAN box. Given the HAF XB's cube-like figure, it's no surprise that Cooler Master is pushing the LAN-friendly angle as well as pitching the HAF XB as the ideal test bed.

The MSI GX60 aims to deliver a solid gaming experience on the go without breaking the bank. The GX60 packs a quad-core AMD A10-4600M CPU alongside the very speedy Radeon HD 7970M discrete graphics, 15.6-inch Full HD display and SSD/HDD storage options for a very attractive price.

The touchable, classy Acer Aspire S7 is targeted right at the road-warrior, power-hungry, super-user. Two years after the introduction of Ultrabooks, we have yet to see a model that executes on all counts, but despite a couple of disappointing flaws this is one of the closest to the perfect mark.

The BlackBerry Z10 debuts at a time when smartphones are as much about play as they are productivity, and this phone can thrive in this era only if it can strike a balance between entertainment and enterprise. Is this the savior that BlackBerry - the company and operating system - so desperately needs?

Cooler Master recently launched the updated Scout 2 chasis priced at just $90 -- slightly less than the venerable HAF 922. Despite its relatively low price, the Scout 2 has plenty to offer, including ergonomic steel-reinforced carrying handles and room for up to two SSDs, nine fans and any graphics card.

In the Nokia Lumia 920, Windows Phone 8 has a worthy competitor to iOS and Android. It also features brand new software that is faster and more robust than its predecessor. Will a winning hardware foundation and vastly improved software secure the Lumia 920 a place among the elite?

Lenovo is looking to capitalize early and often with the do-it-all Yoga 13. Priced from $999, this system was one of the first portable systems to launch alongside Windows 8. Without jumping right to the conclusion from the get-go, I will let you know that it's a very capable all-around system that doesn't compromise on that it is first and foremost: a notebook. Lenovo Yoga 13 Review.

The Black 4TB has a 7200RPM spindle speed with an average access time of 4.2ms. WD says it has a drive to drive throughput of 154MB/s, making it the fastest Black hard drive yet. This in addition to dual-actuator technology, 64MB of cache, 6Gb/s SATA support and a Marvell dual-core controller.

A $200 laptop is a difficult thing to assess. On one hand, the Acer C7 Chromebook has that shockingly low price tag, on the other, there is weak build quality and a netbook-grade processor. The trade-offs are not trivial and that's before we acknowledge that the Acer C7 runs Chrome OS.

This year was a big one for PC mods, with two - DayZ and Black Mesa - rivalling commercial products for public awareness and, perhaps more importantly, quality. Here's a shortlist of the best mods released during 2012.

Despite the prevalence of military-themed motherboards, enthusiasts haven't had a whole lot of stock options for matching cases. Hoping to fill that void, Corsair updated its Vengeance gaming lineup with the C70 series in Military Green while Thermaltake launched the Level 10 GT Battle Edition.

Far Cry 3 is an open-world shooter through and through. The setup is simple: You're set loose on a massive island in the south pacific and tasked with gradually conquering it. Here's a gun. Have fun. It's an exhilarating and empowering adventure that combines player freedom with shiny technical polish.

Like the original game, Far Cry 3 is set on a tropical island found somewhere at the intersection of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. We'll be testing FC3's open world environment using 29 DirectX 11 graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.

Modern tablets were designed primarily as media consumption devices. But more recently, units like the Microsoft Surface are challenging this idea with optional keyboards for tablets. Unsurprisingly, accessory makers have come up with a few units for the iPad as well. We checked out three of them.

Hitman: Absolution is the first game to be developed using the new Glacier 2 engine, specifically built to have a strong emphasis on enabling very dense crowds and allowing players to not only interact with characters but also to influence their behavior. The engine is said to be able to handle up to crowds of 1200 characters, which makes Absolution unlike any other game.

Absolution picks up the Hitman story where the last game in the series, 2006's Blood Money, left off. Yes, the last Hitman game was released more than half a decade ago. That's a long time between sequels, even in the relatively slow-moving video game world. But that extended time in development likely accounts for a lot of what makes Hitman such a sprawling, interesting game.

OCZ is finally ready to unveil its first truly in-house SSD controller. It's been three years since Indilinx released a brand new controller and they are doing so today with the Barefoot 3, which is to be featured in OCZ's latest SSD series known as Vector.

With updated pricing, drivers, and performance across the board, we are revisiting today's AMD and Nvidia graphics card offerings to see where you should spend your hard-earned cash this holiday season and into early next year.

Each iteration of Sony's flagship device has improved and been better than the previous version, but no single attempt has been just right. The Xperia TL, available now on AT&T, is as close as the company has come to finding the smartphone sweet spot, but is that good enough?

The Wii U meets the standards of modern console gaming, while also supporting Wii Remotes and therefore serving as an HD version of the Wii. It does all of these things and introduces some well-realized new features to modern console gaming.

For Call of Duty fans, developer Treyarch just delivered an early Christmas present when they released Black Ops II this week. As the ninth game in the Call of Duty franchise and the sequel to the 2010 game Black Ops, we are hoping to see something meaningfully new from Black Ops II.

The Galaxy Note II is a smooth and dynamic experience from top to bottom. Its above average size can be both a gift and a hindrance. It's probably too big as a phone or too small as a tablet for most, but many will find it's a comfortable compromise between the two form factors.