Archive
-
Thermaltake's A2413 7-inch LCD
A little something for the carputer crowd
Thermaltake's A2413 7" LCD display packs a touch-sensitive screen into a motorized drive bay that looks perfect for car PCs and enterprising modders. We take the screen for a spin to see whether there's utility behind the novelty.
17 comments —
Last by d0g_p00p at 11:33 PM on 09/30/08 -
OCZ's Neural Impulse Actuator
The flying car of control schemes
Like flying cars, thought-based control schemes have been a staple of sci-fi movies for decades. OCZ has embraced the concept with its Neural Impulse Actuator, a headband that reads brain waves along with eye and facial muscles. We've taken this innovative device for a spin.
69 comments —
Last by seejayjames at 5:26 AM on 09/18/08 -
AMD refines its approach to Stream Computing
And wages the GPU compute war on many fronts
Just like Nvidia, AMD provides developers with tools to use its GPUs for non-graphics applications, but AMD doesn't make as much noise about it. Curious, we got on the phone with AMD Stream Computing Director Patti Harrell and asked her to shed some light on AMD's Stream Computing initiative.
16 comments —
Last by Helmore at 6:18 PM on 06/20/08 -
Windows Vista Service Pack 1: A performance check
What difference does a service pack make?
How does Service Pack 1 affect Windows Vista's day-to-day performance in common desktop applications and games? We've run a host of benchmarks in order to find out. Read on to see what we discovered.
139 comments —
Last by indeego at 5:42 PM on 04/10/08 -
DisplayLink's USB-to-DVI adapter
Using monitors via USB: Pipe dream or reality?
Last year, Samsung released a 19" LCD monitor capable of being hooked up via a simple USB connection. That's neat, but is there a cheaper alternative to paying $300 for a USB display? Yep. We see how DisplayLink's USB-to-DVI adapter handles in both Windows XP and Vista.
28 comments —
Last by Usacomp2k3 at 11:18 AM on 02/13/08 -
A look at VIA's next-gen Isaiah x86 CPU architecture
An all-new design from a surprising source
A brand-new x86 processor microarchitecture doesn't come along every day, but today, we have just that. We visited the offices of Centaur Technology yesterday to learn about its new architecture. Remarkably, Glenn Henry and his team of less than 100 people have created a thoroughly modern x86 processor microarchitecture...
56 comments —
Last by pogsnet at 9:37 PM on 03/09/08 -
Announcing TR Tech Share 2007
In which we give you free stuff, and we all support a good cause
We're giving away over $5K in prizes, absolutely free. We ask in return that you join us in helping outfit a Ugandan school with computers. Read our pitch, sign up to win, and make a donation. Warm fuzzies all around!
95 comments —
Last by SUSHRUKH at 2:41 PM on 12/31/07 -
TR's Christmas gift guide
What enthusiasts want to see under the tree
PC enthusiasts are notoriously difficult to shop for, so we've whipped up a holiday gift guide with our picks for the best gifts of the season. There's a little something for every enthusiast on your list and probably a few things regular folks will enjoy, as well.
55 comments —
Last by JdL at 10:59 PM on 12/18/07 -
Bigfoot Networks' Killer NIC
Is there something to the hype?
FOR YEARS, GAMERS, enthusiasts, and even mainstream users have been getting their networking for free. Whether integrated into core logic chipsets or deployed in third-party chips, Gigabit Ethernet controllers have become a staple of modern motherboards, from high-end offerings...
105 comments —
Last by derFunkenstein at 3:21 PM on 08/29/07 -
Belkin's Flip-DVI-D: too good to be true?
Pretty much, yes
This cute little device seemed to be tailor-made for our needs: it's a dual-port switch that handles four kinds of inputs: USB keyboard, USB mouse, analog audio, and—gloriously!—dual-link DVI. Belkin claims to have designed it for users of Apple's 30" Cinema Display, a cousin to our Dell 3007WFP. But does...
53 comments —
Last by pughwe3000 at 9:07 PM on 01/13/09 -
GDC 2007
We search for hardware news amid the software guys
THIS MAY COME AS a shock, but the Game Developers Conference is still very much, well, a conference for game developers. The agenda is full of sessions on topics like game design, using Microsoft's XNA tools, and the immortal...
25 comments —
Last by MadManOriginal at 7:43 AM on 03/15/07 -
TR Awards 2006
The best hardware of the past year
ANOTHER YEAR HAS COME AND GONE, leaving a trail of phenomenal new hardware, disturbing and annoying trends, and disappointing flops and no-shows in its wake. All told, 2006 was a great year for PC enthusiasts, and a very busy...
75 comments —
Last by SGWB at 11:17 AM on 01/11/07 -
Corsair's Dominator memory modules
Cooling the bleeding edge of DDR2
WE DON'T COVER MEMORY much here at TR—it's largely a commodity product; performance doesn't vary between modules running at the same speed and timings; and true overclocking potential is difficult to quantify with a limited sample size. However,...
33 comments —
Last by Stranger at 8:42 PM on 11/19/06 -
Valve's Source engine goes multi-core
Multithreading promises to make the next Half-Life episode even better
IF THE LAUNCH OF Intel's new quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor has made one thing clear, it's that some applications are multithreaded, and others are not. Those that are can look forward to a healthy performance boost jumping...
90 comments —
Last by markbeeler at 10:16 PM on 08/26/07 -
Sumo's Omni bean bag chair
Hipster nostalgia
YEARS AGO, I HAD a brief but torrid affair with a friend's bean bag chair. We were living in residence at university, and the admittedly cheap bean bag was an oasis of comfort in a dormitory filled with...
50 comments —
Last by andypandypoos at 5:43 AM on 08/22/06 -
ECS factory tour
How a motherboard is made
FOR YEARS, ECS HAS churned out budget motherboards destined for pre-built systems and value markets. Recently, however, the company has expressed a keen interest in building high-end boards for gamers and enthusiasts. This interest manifests itself in the...
56 comments —
Last by FuNky-MuNky at 10:27 AM on 06/30/06 -
Ageia's PhysX physics processing unit
Smithereens gone wild
I'VE HAD THE CHANCE to spend a few days playing with a PhysX card from Ageia, and there is much to tell, though not much one can do with the hardware just yet. I did find some interesting...
70 comments —
Last by Bauxite at 5:30 PM on 06/23/06 -
Computex 2006
Less silicone, more silicon
COMPUTEX IS A SPECTACLE like no other. An ocean away, in a land where most motherboards and graphics cards are born, it's almost like being dropped into the belly of the beast. The show has a different vibe...
60 comments —
Last by Bensam123 at 8:10 AM on 06/19/06
