Go for the variant with nine longer blades or seven shorter blades? That’s the question we’ll tackle in this test of the Pure Wings 3 140mm fan. In addition to the different geometries, you can also choose between different speed ranges with differently placed maximums. The high-speed variant has the upper hand, as expected, when it comes to needing to achieve the highest possible airflow. But it also excels in other situations. Read more “More and faster blades, BeQuiet! Pure Wings 3 (BL113)”
In recent weeks, information about the upcoming AMD A620 chipset and cheaper AM5 boards for Ryzen 7000 CPUs based on it began to appear. One of the hardware “leakers” shared the alleged specifications that the A620 chipset is supposed to have, and also what will be the other features of the boards built on the chipset. According to earlier reports, these could start selling or at least be revealed as early as this month. Read more “A620 chipset specs leak: With PCIe 4.0 but no overclocking”
Thanks to the addition of E cores even in the lowest Core i5 Raptor Lake models (13400F and 13400), the raw performance between generations has advanced the most in years. However, the improvement may not always happen, the relatively small number of performance ones (P) combined with the lower Turbo Boost 2.0 clock speeds some games don’t like, and when they reach for E cores, the concept of big.LITTLE is at once detrimental. Read more “Intel Core i5-13400F: Best price/perf ratio, questionable for games”
Last week, news stories have emerged that AMD is artificially inflating prices of its processors or GPUs by deliberately underselling the demand. This news has spread a lot. And yet, the report is almost certainly nonsense born out of misinterpretation (or misunderstanding of economics). There’s already been an official denial issued, but the story keeps spreading, so we feel it’s appropriate to address it a bit. Read more “Fact check: AMD is not limiting shipments to inflate prices”
Asus’s efforts in the field of standalone PC fans are on the rise. After the premiere in the form of the ROG XF120, there is now the half-price TUF TF120, which also gives more attractive results in some applications. And that’s even compared to other, similar fans with ARGB LEDs. The geometry of the TF120 is quite sensible, which is why it often beats its competitors in its price range. Read more “Asus TUF Gaming TF120: Cheap, lighted and efficient fan”
You may remember our old tests of SSD coolers, which were topped by the EKWB EK-M.2. The latter was something of a minor miracle five years ago, beside the various unfinished solutions. Given that its production is still ongoing, it’s interesting to see how the once cutting-edge SSD cooler stands up against the current competition. That’s why we dusted it off (a new piece with fresh pads, of course) and sent it into battle. Read more “EKWB EK-M.2 re-test: Pioneer among SSD coolers after years”
You’ve known for some time that Raijintek has been working on a new Morpheus (8069) graphics card cooler. Last year’s images of its design were already pretty much final, but we’re only now learning a lot of the essential things that were still a question mark. After Raijintek released the Morpheus 8069 cooler and published all the basic specs for it. This also removes the confusion around how the memory will be cooled. Read more “Raijintek Morpheus 8069: GPU cooler with 400W TDP is ready”
That this or that can no longer be improved? It can only seem that way until someone points out the possible shortcomings. This also applies to the circular grille in front of fans, on which Noctua has found a few weak spots, where their solution (compared to traditional circular grilles) lead to higher efficiency – the drop in airflow is supposed to be even lower with an even smaller increase in noise. And all of it makes sense. Read more “The NA-FG1 or how Noctua perfected the circular grille”
When PCI Express 4.0 first appeared in desktops in 2019, SSDs started to use it virtually right away. On the other hand, PCI Express 5.0, available from autumn 2021 on the LGA 1700 platform and from autumn 2022 on AM5 boards, has suffered a disappointing lack of any SSDs till now. But they are finally here now. Corsair has shown its first PCIe 5.0 module, which however raises some concerns by including a cooling a fan. Read more “PCIe 5.0 SSDs have started selling. The first models use a fan”
Within the Raptor Lake-S CPU segmentation, it belongs to the lowest class (Core i3), but at the same time it is the fastest 4-core processor at all. AMD hasn’t had anything that directly competes with the Core i3-1x10xF processors in this segment for quite some time. So Intel, alone in the field, is pushing these processors in small steps, and the Ci3-13100(F) is already a very well “polished” foundation for budget gaming PCs. Read more “Intel Core i3-13100F: Tailor-made for cheap gaming builds”
It clearly outperformed its predecessors (including the R7 5800X) and also the Core i9-10900K, which has two more cores. But it can’t compare with the Core i7-13700K in heavy MT workloads, and that’s just a month after its release. In ST loads, however, it’s even performance-wise, as in games, where Ryzen 7 is more efficient. Whether the R7 7700X is worth more than the Ci7-13700K for similar money, however, you’ll have to judge for yourself. Read more “AMD Ryzen 7 7700X: More efficient, but much weaker than Core i7”
Shortly after the Dark Power 13 power supplies, BeQuiet! is releasing significantly cheaper alternatives from the Pure Power range (12 M), in up to five output variants starting at 550 W. In this instance too, these are PSUs that are designed to meet the more stringent ATX 3.0 standard. In addition, BeQuiet! is expanding its range of thermal pastes, one of which is actually a liquid metal with a higher stated thermal conductivity than TG Conductonaut. Read more “A host of BeQuiet! news: Cheap ATX 3.0 PSU and thermal pastes”
The number of tested SSD coolers is piling up, and the inter-comparison of different models is already quite voluminous. It includes inefficient structures, simpler (but efficient) and more complex designs. The IceCap cooler, which is the subject of this analysis, is among the more reasonable solutions for a few euros. In short, an inexpensive option to consider when thinking about how to reduce SSD temperature. Read more “Gelid IceCap vs. more than 40 other M.2 SSD coolers”
Many small coolers designed for SFF systems that are compatible with the AMD AM4 platform can’t be mounted on AM5. The NH-L9a(-AM4) top-flow cooler also made the list, and Noctua had to modify its mounting system. The implementation is quite clever, the work is already done and the old-new coolers, whose design is basically unchanged, go on sale. We also have information on which processors they support and under what circumstances. Read more “Noctua NH-L9a(-AM5) cooler now also available for Ryzen 7000”
This time, it wasn’t as long a wait as for the Ryzen 5 5600. On the contrary, the Ryzen 5 7600 came out very shortly after the faster model with the “X” in the name. AMD apparently hurried with this lower-power model also because of dissatisfied reactions that 7600X criticize the worse cooling. With the significantly more efficient R5 7600, the situation with silicon is brighter. Plus it’s cheaper and doesn’t lose all that much in performance. Read more “Ryzen 5 7600: Raphael in AMD’s most popular series scores again”
It was all the way back in December that the overall specs of cheaper Ada generation GPUs, GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, became known. But it looks like they may be launched in a slightly different form than the company intended at the time. According to proven leaker Kopite7kimi, these graphics cards will have a significantly lower TDP than previous leaks have claimed, and could be quite low-power and efficient GPUs. Read more “RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 will be power-efficient, TDPs slashed”
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