Components

By Joe Osborne Computex 2017 is next week, and the biggest brands and most die-hard fans in computing will descend upon Taipei, Taiwan. It’s arguably the most important show of the year for the desktop, laptop and components you’ll want to buy. This is the show for folks who are left disillusioned by the lack…

By Darren Allan MSI has just revealed a new top-of-the-range enthusiast-targeted motherboard which isn’t just good – apparently it’s godlike, and comes with some interesting extras including the ability to act as a Wi-Fi extender. The Z270 Godlike Gaming motherboard is the ‘one board to rule them all’ according to MSI’s press spiel, and it…

By Darren Allan Razer has announced a partnership with Bungie in order to provide gaming peripherals which will be specially themed and branded for the massively multiplayer shooter Destiny 2. Razer will sell special versions of a mouse, mouse mat, keyboard and gaming headset to celebrate the launch of Destiny 2, with the peripherals coming…

By Darren Allan AMD has revealed its first graphics card which is based on next-gen Vega technology (a step on from Polaris), aimed at professional usage – and it will be available to buy as soon as next month. The card in question is the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, and as the name hints, it’s…

By Matt Hanson Earlier this year AMD launched its highly successful Ryzen line of processors, and it’s not stopping there, with news that it’s preparing to launch a 16-core (32-thread) processor named ‘Threadripper’, aimed at enthusiasts and high-end desktop PCs. This news comes after rumors emerged that AMD’s competitor, Intel, was lining up a series…

By Darren Allan AMD has confirmed that it is bringing out a ‘Threadripper’ 16-core (32-thread) processor aimed at enthusiasts and high-end desktop PCs, promising blistering performance from the chip. Jim Anderson, Senior VP and General Manager, Computing and Graphics at AMD, trumpeted the arrival of the monster processor at the firm’s financial analyst day. Anderson…

By Darren Allan Following recently leaked details of Intel’s Core i9 enthusiast-targeted CPUs, spillage has occurred on the AMD front, revealing the alleged specs of the incoming high-end Ryzen 9 series processors. Going toe-to-toe with Core i9, Ryzen 9 – also known as ‘Threadripper’ – will have a flagship model with 16-cores (32-threads, all ripe…

By Darren Allan Word from the CPU grapevine is that Intel is turning up the dial another notch on its processors, with the introduction of Core i9 models as a new high-end option. Previously, as you’re most likely aware, Intel has offered its Core family in increasingly powerful i3, i5 or i7 flavors. Core i9…

By Darren Allan AMD pitched its Ryzen processors to be highly competitive against rival Intel offerings, and these CPUs are increasingly looking better value for money, as something of a price-cutting battle is going on between online retailers. Some of the biggest discounts (percentage-wise) have been applied to the Ryzen 7 1700X, the second-best processor…

By Darren Allan Nvidia has revealed its new Volta technology, which follows on from the current-gen Pascal graphics cards, along with the first ever GPU to use the tech: the Tesla V100. As those familiar with Nvidia’s naming conventions will realize, this is a heavyweight GPU targeted at data center usage and high-performance computing (as…

By Darren Allan Intel has revealed its new Xeon processor family, with refreshed branding and of course much improved performance, with the chips sampling now and expected to become available around the middle of the year. The Xeon Processor Scalable range ditches the old E3/E5/E7 naming convention, instead going for a scheme based on precious…

By Darren Allan Support for voice commands with the Raspberry Pi is here. The Windows 10 Creators Update brought forth an IoT Core with Cortana support to the Pi 3, and now the diminutive computer boards have been hooked up with Google Assistant. This is thanks to a partnership between Google and the makers of…

By Darren Allan Microsoft may support a different type of secure login for Windows Hello in the future, allowing users to verify their identity by using a stylus, according to a recent patent. The patent application from Microsoft, which describes a ‘method for authentication with a computer stylus’ (spotted by V3.co.uk), involves the stylus having…

By Kevin Lee Gaming hardware these days seems to be louder than ever, with exaggerated designs and enough RGB lighting to make the Vegas strip look dull. Thankfully, that doesn’t apply to all gaming hardware, with Logitech being one of the few companies pushing hard against the tide. The Logitech G413 is perhaps one of…

By Darren Allan Alongside all the big announcements Microsoft had to make at its education-related press event yesterday – including the Surface Laptop – the company also launched a (quite literally) lower-profile piece of hardware which is nonetheless an interesting addition to its peripheral line-up: a new Surface Arc Mouse. This is essentially a Surface-branded…