Review Index Page 13

  • Asus TUF VG27AQ 27" Gaming Monitor Review

    The Asus TUF Gaming VG27AQ is a hot item at the moment and we believe this is due to a combination of factors: it's a 27-inch 1440p 165Hz IPS display, it includes a novel feature called ELMB-Sync, it's well built and price of admission is just $430.
    By Tim Schiesser on
    80
  • Ryzen 5 3600 vs. R5 2600: GPU Scaling Benchmark Test

    The old value king Ryzen 5 2600 remains to this day a great CPU option. Gamers asking if they should spend some $70 more on the R5 3600, or just get the 2600, this is the article for you. It was time to get these results out.
    By Steven Walton on
  • AMD Ryzen 5 3500X Review

    If you haven't heard about the Ryzen 5 3500X until now it's likely because this CPU is mostly being sold and marketed to OEMs and system integrators. Initially it was reported as an OEM-only part for China, but it turns out you can pretty much buy it anywhere, though the conditions will vary from one region to another.
    By Steven Walton on
    60
  • AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB vs. 8GB

    As promised in our day-one Radeon RX 5500 XT review, today we're taking a look at the 4GB version to see how it performs and more importantly how it compares to not only 8GB models, but also other graphics cards that compete in the same price range like the RX 580.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Storage Performance Roundup: Mechanical Disk Drives to PCIe 4.0 SSDs and Everything In Between

    Computer storage has come a long way since our last roundup. We have new PCIe 4.0 SSDs, NVMe drives are becoming the de facto standard for new machines, and prices for legacy drives have plummeted. Rather than just focusing on high-end drives, this time we decided to take a step back and explore the entire storage market from top to bottom.
    By William Gayde on
  • AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB Review

    The Radeon RX 5500 XT is AMD's answer to Nvidia's recently released GeForce GTX 1650 Super. Codenamed Navi 14, we finally have the new budget-oriented Radeon on hand and to evaluate just how good the Radeon RX 5500 XT is, we have cards from MSI and Gigabyte to put to the test.
    By Steven Walton on
    75
  • HP Omen X 27 Review: The Fastest 1440p Gaming Monitor

    The HP Omen X 27 is a standard 1440p display (2560 x 1440), but it pushes the refresh rate up to 240Hz for the first time. We've had 240Hz available on 1080p monitors for some time, but 1440p hasn't been able to step up to the super high refresh podium until now with these modern panels.
    By Tim Schiesser on
    95
  • Ryzen 9 3950X vs. Core i9-9900KS Gaming, Feat. Tuned DDR4 Memory Performance

    Today we're comparing the Ryzen 9 3950X and Core i9-9900KS in a massive number of games, using one of G.Skill's most premium 16GB memory kits, the Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL14. For those of you spending $600+ on a CPU, purchasing top end DDR4 memory doesn't seem like a stretch, so here's a head to head comparison between AMD and Intel processors using manually tuned timings.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Intel Core i7-1065G7 Gaming Test: Integrated Graphics Performance

    After exploring the capabilities of the new Ice Lake Core i7-1065G7 on the productivity side, we're coming back to test the CPU for ultrabook gaming using the G11 Iris Plus integrated graphics.
    By Tim Schiesser on
  • Intel Cascade Lake-X HEDT vs. AMD Ryzen: Fight!

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
    70
  • Third-Gen Threadripper Lands: AMD Threadripper 3970X & 3960X Review

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
    90
  • Intel Core i7-1065G7 Benchmarked: Ice Lake with Iris Plus Graphics

    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.
    By Tim Schiesser on
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super Review

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
    90
  • AMD Athlon 3000G Review: An Unlocked $50 CPU

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
    85
  • Ryzen 9 3950X on Good and Bad B450 Motherboards

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
  • AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: The New Performance King

    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?
    By Steven Walton on
    90
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 PC Graphics Benchmark

    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.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Death Stranding Review

    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.
    By Heather Alexandra on
  • Intel Core i9-9900KS Review

    Intel launched today the "new" Core i9-9900KS processor which appears to be a pointless release, similar to the Core i7-8086K that we never bothered to look at. Intel says this new processor delivers up to a 5.0 GHz all-core turbo frequency. It's a limited special edition set to become available starting today for $513.
    By Steven Walton on
    80
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review

    Just in time for the holiday shopping season, we have not one but two new Super graphics cards from Nvidia. So what's new on the GTX 1660 Super? Not a lot on the GPU front, but Nvidia has upgraded the GDDR5 memory with a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth. In fact, this provides the 1660 Super with even more memory bandwidth than the Ti model.
    By Steven Walton on
    90
  • Mesh Wi-Fi System Roundup

    Mesh Wi-Fi routers are a recent trend in the networking market and aim to bring some of the advanced features of enterprise networking systems to the consumer. How well do they work, and what performance benefit do you get by switching to one? We'll take a deep dive today into the top players on the market to find out.
    By William Gayde on
  • The Outer Worlds Review

    Yes, The Outer Worlds mechanically resembles the Fallout series. It was made by the same team that worked on the first two Fallout games. It's built on the skeleton of Dungeons and Dragons. This is not dissimilar to what Fallout has become under the ownership of Bethesda, though I will say that I have not felt as motivated to finish Fallout 3 or 4 as I felt to finish The Outer Worlds.
    By Gita Jackson on
  • Intel Core i5-10210U Tested: 10th-Gen Laptop CPU with Adaptix Technology

    Today we're reviewing another 10th-generation Intel CPU, and like the last one we tested, the 4-core/8-thread Core i5-10210U is much more interesting than it appears at face value. You'd think that with these 14nm+++ CPUs Intel has basically nothing left in the tank, but even with the quad-core we're reviewing today, that's surprisingly far from the truth.
    By Tim Schiesser on
  • $400 GPU King: Radeon RX 5700 XT vs. GeForce RTX 2060 Super

    We've got yet another big game benchmark for you, this time comparing the GeForce RTX 2060 Super to the Radeon RX 5700 XT. This is an apples to apples comparison of the two top $400 GPUs in the market for these holidays and beyond.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Fortnite Chapter 2 GPU Benchmark Update

    Today we're revisiting graphics card performance in Fortnite. With the new Chapter 2 Season 1 update the game's visuals have been improved and since we do include Fornite in our big benchmark features, we thought a large scale benchmark update would be in order. The last time we ran a dedicated Fortnite benchmark article was back in Chapter 1 Season 2, nearly two years ago now and since then the game's popularity has only risen.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Intel Core i7-10710U Benchmarked: 14nm+++ Comet Lake

    Time to get back into some CPU benchmarking, and we're not looking at any old CPU, but the first of Intel's 10th-generation processors. Seeing Intel reach the limits of their 14nm process, we genuinely weren't expecting the Core i7-10710U to be this good.
    By Tim Schiesser on
  • AMD Radeon RX 5700 vs. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super: 40+ Game Mega Benchmark

    Today we've got a massive 41 game benchmark comparing the GeForce RTX 2060 Super and Radeon RX 5700 head to head. This big comparison includes new titles such as Borderlands 3, Gears 5 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. All the results are brand new and were gathered during the last week using the latest display drivers as well as the latest game versions.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Flashing a Radeon RX 5700 to 5700 XT: Free 10% Performance Boost

    In addition to our launch day reviews of the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT, we followed up with extended comparisons, overclocking, and more. Most recently enthusiasts have gone further though, by tinkering and flashing vanilla RX 5700 cards with 5700 XT BIOS, making them instantly faster at no extra expense. Sounds like a really good deal.
    By Steven Walton on
  • Nintendo Switch Lite Review

    The Nintendo Switch Lite is one of the finest handheld gaming devices I've ever used. It's sturdy, stylish, and comfortable. It launches with a library that's already over 2,500 games strong. If all you're looking for from the Nintendo Switch is personal, portable play, it's perfect.
    By Mike Fahey on
  • PCIe 4.0 vs. PCIe 3.0 SSDs Benchmarked

    High performance storage is in transition as the industry is beginning to adopt the PCIe 4.0 standard. In this roundup, we'll be taking a look at the new Corsair MP600, Sabrent Rocket and Gigabyte Aorus SSDs, all new PCIe NVMe 4.0 drives pitted against the excellent Samsung 970 Pro SSD and Intel's top of the line Optane SSD 905P.
    By William Gayde on