Articles by TomsHardware

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but could a thousand words be worth a picture? Maker and developer Diego Trujillo Pisanty sought to find out with his Raspberry Pi-powered blind camera project. Instead of using a lens to capture light to make a picture, it listens for sound and constructs an approximation of what could be around it based on the audio detected.The device works similarly to a regular camera in that you aim the camera at what you want to capture and press a button to generate an image. In this case, however, it has a…

Today at Amazon, users can find Western Digital’s WD Black 1TB SN850X for its lowest price to date. It’s been going for around $100 lately but right now it’s discounted to just $77 which takes the price down to about 8 cents per GB. This is a notably fast SSD suitable for everyday use and as well as gaming.We reviewed the WD Black SN850X when it launched mid of last year and recognized it as one of the fastest SSDs on the market for gaming. Overall, it has exceptional performance. Our biggest con was the price — given today’s discount,…

OBS (Open Broadcaster System) is a remarkably powerful tool. With OBS we can record videos, using various scenes and sources to create broadcast quality shows, for free! OBS can also be used to livestream via many different services, and using a few plugins you can also interact with your community.Recently I had a need to record video from a 4K USB video capture device. The video source was the latest LattePanda Sigma SBC, which I was testing using Steam for a review. Steam’s built-in FPS counter was a little small (yes I could install another FPS counter, but that would…

Today’s best Anycubic Photon Mono M5s dealsNo price informationCheck AmazonWe check over 250 million products every day for the best pricesAnycubic’s newest Photon Mono M5s is a smarter, faster, medium format resin 3D printer bursting with 12K worth of pixels. Yes, that’s a whopping 11,530 pixels on the X axis. Anycubic is also saying it’s three times faster than ordinary printers, capable of reaching a print speed of 105 mm/hour. During testing, the machine printed a 3.5 inch tall figure in under an hour.It’s the first auto leveling resin printer we’ve seen, and it uses a combination of sensors and…

AMD’s latest processor revision guide for the EPYC 7002 ‘Rome’ server chips reveals an interesting new bug (errata) that can cause a core on the chip to hang after 1,044 days of uptime (~2.93 years), meaning you’ll have to reset the server for the chip to run correctly. AMD says it will not fix the issue. AMD’s description of the issue, which impacts its second-gen EPYC processors (AMD’s fourth-gen Genoa chips are the newest), is succinct, but there’s a lot to unpack.(Image credit: AMD)The issue stems from the core failing to exit the CC6 sleep state, but AMD says the…

ASRock Rack has showcased its first motherboard for Ampere’s Altra and Altra Max processors marking its entrance into the Arm-based servers business. The company’s ALTRAD8UD-1L2T demonstrated at Computex can be used to build miniature servers or workstations featuring up to 128 Armv8 cores and datacenter-grade expandability and manageability. ASRock Rack’s ALTRAD8UD-1L2T fully supports Ampere’s Altra and Altra Max CPUs with 32 – 128 cores that can be paired with up to 2TB of memory using eight DDR4-3200 modules. In addition, the motherboard takes advantage of rather abundant I/O capabilities that Ampere’s 1st Generation Altra Max datacenter SoCs have, including 128 PCIe Gen4…

Consumers often overlook RAM (Random Access Memory), but our RAM benchmark hierarchy will help you find the fastest DDR5 and DDR4 memory kit for your system. Memory is one of the most critical hardware of any system. The right or the wrong memory kit significantly impacts your system’s overall performance in gaming, productivity, and (if you don’t have enough of it) general sluggishness. Of course, you can always reference our Best RAM list to find the best deals on memory.Companies regularly release new memory kits with different speeds, timings, capacities, and ranks, making sifting through seemingly endless models surprisingly time-consuming….

Whether you’re building a new PC or upgrading an existing system that was once one of the best gaming PCs but now struggles to tackle today’s games, the best RAM kit for your money depends on the platform you pick and the workloads you plan to run.The hard part is evaluating whether faster memory affects your system. For example, if you’re running an Intel system with one of the best graphics cards, most programs won’t respond meaningfully to faster or slower system memory. On the other hand, some workloads will scale well with higher data rates, including some games and…

When it comes to historical re-enactments, one thing you don’t want to do is break immersion. That’s where TankArchives’ latest Raspberry Pi project comes into play. Using a Raspberry Pi Zero , he’s turned a vintage 1940s Argust A camera digital thanks to a Raspberry Pi High Quality camera module. Best of all, the original camera was not damaged during the creation of the project. Using this Pi-powered digital camera, TankArchives can capture images while retaining the appropriate look and feel of the era.The camera used in this project, the Argust A, isn’t a terribly expensive antique to acquire. TankArchives…

While Raspberry Pi boards have been around since 2012, they have historically been powered by Broadcom SoCs. But in January 2021 we saw the first Raspberry Pi silicon, the RP2040 arrive and in a short space of time it has become a major SoC in the maker community. With two Arm Cortex M0+ cores running at 133 MHz, 264KB of RAM and up to 16MB of Flash (stored external to the RP2040), these chips open up a new range of microcontrollers that compete more closely with traditional Arduino boards than a Raspberry Pi 4. Raspberry Pi used the RP2040 in…

PNY had some of the best graphics cards on showcase at Computex 2023. The manufacturer even brought some workstation graphics cards, including the RTX 6000 Ada Generation and the RTX 4000 SFF. However, two particular graphics cards caught our attention.First off, PNY has partnered with Cooler Master to produce the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto. It has become a trend for graphics card manufacturers to pair up with cooling specialists to create innovative products. For example, Asus taps into Noctua’s experience and expertise to make the GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X Noctua OC Edition.If you think you’ve seen some thick GeForce…

FSP has revealed the Cannon Pro 2500W power supply at Computex 2023, bumping up the capacity by 25% over the brand’s previous flagship unit. Although power supplies are FSP’s forte, the company was also keen to show off a new CPU air cooler.The Cannon Pro 2500W is a server-grade power supply, but given its ATX form factor, enthusiasts can use the unit for desktop systems without hiccups. Measuring 5.9 x 7.9 x 3.4 inches (150 x 200 x 86mm), the Cannon Pro 2500W is an ATX 3.0-certified unit with support for the latest PCIe 5.0 (12VHPWR) power connector to power…

PC gaming can be expensive. After all, you need both a rig to play on, as well as shelling out for each game. But you can get started without spending thousands of dollars on a new gaming laptop. There are plenty of gaming laptops for under $1,000, which will get you basics like a 1080p display, a solid CPU and a discrete GPU ready for esports and competitive video games, along with some work when you’re done playing. You’ll probably have to turn down some settings, particularly on intensive games. There are going to be caveats in this price range….

In a quick response to the recently uncovered firmware backdoor in over 250 models of Gigabyte motherboards, the company has launched new beta firmware that mitigates the potential security risk. Unfortunately, the list encompasses new and old motherboards from a few years ago, hence Gigabyte’s urgent reaction to patching things up. Today, consumers can download the updated firmware for their affected Intel and AMD motherboards at Gigabyte’s official website.Gigabyte didn’t provide in-depth details on the new firmware. However, the manufacturer has seemingly implemented stricter security controls during the boot process. According to Gigabyte, the improved security mechanisms will detect and…

The Raspberry Pi 400, released in 2020 was quite the curveball. Eschewing the established Raspberry Pi form factor for something that harks back to the 1980s home computer era. Orange Pi released its own alternative, the Orange Pi 800 and it seems that a recent update has increased the onboard eMMC from 64GB to 128GB for just an additional $9. Hat tip to CNX Software for spotting this.Swipe to scroll horizontallyOrange Pi 800 SpecificationsSoCRockchip RK3399 Six core CPURow 0 – Cell 2 Row 1 – Cell 0 2 x Arm Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHzRow 1 – Cell…

After three years away, Computex is back in person and in full swing here in Taipei. We’ve spent the last several days on the ground (and on the MRT train) traveling between hotels and the Nangang Exhibition Center, tracking down and trying out the new products at the best tradeshow for PC tech. And despite a lack of major new CPU or GPU launches here, Computex didn’t disappoint. We spotted dozens of stunning new PC cases, eye-catching and innovative coolers, as well as lots of displays integrated into components of all kinds. New laptops and monitors weren’t here in abundance,…

TeamGroup has revealed many exciting products at this year’s Computex event. However, the T-Force Siren GD120S may be one of the most overkill M.2 SSD coolers we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a lot of beefy coolers since PCIe 5.0 SSDs have started to  arrive on the retail market. When you thought SSD coolers couldn’t get any crazier, TeamGroup comes out with an 120mm AIO liquid cooler designed for cooling the PCIe 5.0 drives, which are habitually among the best SSDs.The T-Force Siren GD120S, which comes in a pure white color, is a good-looking AIO liquid cooler for M.2 2280 drives….

One of the great things about trade shows like Computex 2023, is that you’ll sometimes see a product on display that hasn’t been fully and officially announced yet.  Case in point: MSI’s next version of its Prestige 16 Studio laptop, which was on display at the company’s demo suite with Intel’s upcoming 14th Gen, Meteor Lake processor inside. MSI had announced a Prestige 16 earlier this year at CES 2023, but that unit leverages a 13th Generation Core i7 Raptor Lake chip. The one at Computex 2023 seemingly taps into Intel’s upcoming Meteor Lake parts but its specs card says it…

G.Skill has announced many new DDR5 memory kits to rival the best RAM. But even more interesting is a custom pyramid PC running on liquid nitrogen that’s present to brag about the company’s overclocking feats.Computex 2023 isn’t just a place to exhibit new products. Some vendors, such as G.Skill, are heavily invested in the event and hold mod contests and overclocking competitions. At its booth, the company showed off a transparent pyramid-shaped system that’s the product of its collaboration with Intel, Asus, and Elmorlabs. It’s designed to demonstrate the prowess of Intel’s latest 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors, Z790 platform,…

A number of all-new memory module standards targeting different applications emerged in the last couple of years. Introduction of new modules represents challenges and opportunities for module makers, so Adata decided to show that it is ready to produce CAMM, CXL, and MR-DIMM modules for client and server applications at Compute 2023.The Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) specification is to be finalized only sometimes in the second half of 2023, but Adata is already demonstrating a sample at the trade show. It is noteworthy that Adata’s CAMM module looks quite a bit different from the one used by Dell today, but…