Articles by Matthew Connatser

Matthew first got into PC gaming after the Wii U launched out of pure disappointment, building his first desktop in 2015. Ever since, he's been burning money buying PC parts he really doesn't need, like a custom liquid cooling setup that may or may not have caused an electrical fire in his last PC build. All this experience in PC building led to a career in writing about them, and Matthew has written for Tom's Hardware, Digital Trends, HotHardware, and a few other publications. He mainly reports on PC news but would spend all of his time benchmarking if he could. Matthew originally went to college to get a computer engineering degree to complement his journalistic career but instead got a degree in history and linguistics, which he enjoyed studying much more than physics and math.

Articles by: Matthew Connatser

ASRock's WRX90 WS Evo motherboard for Threadripper Pro.

ASRock's WRX90 WS Evo Threadripper Pro motherboard is a beast — 24 power stages, seven x16 PCIe 5.0 slots, and four slots for PCIe 5.0 SSDs

By Matthew Connatser published 10 January 24

ASRock's upcoming WRX90 WS Evo is a top-end motherboard for Threadripper Pro CPUs, and it compromises on nothing.

Adata showcases case with a glass panel that curves from the side to the top — Invader X Pro also includes a 5-inch LCD monitor

By Matthew Connatser published 10 January 24

Adata's Invader X Pro case uses a single piece of curved glass for both the side and top panels.

Low-powered Raptor Lake CPU fails to impress in graphics benchmark — Intel Core 7 150U loses to AMD's CPUs with Radeon 740M graphics

By Matthew Connatser published 10 January 24

A Geekbench 6 GPU result for Intel's recently launched Core 7 150U has surfaced, and the performance just isn't good.

SK hynix may increase DRAM production as demand increases

By Matthew Connatser published 9 January 24

Although SK hynix cut production for DRAM last year, increasing demand might push it to boost production back up.

AMD Fluid Motion Frames comes to Radeon 700M series iGPUs

By Matthew Connatser published 9 January 24

AMD's driver-level frame generation tech makes its way to integrated graphics with a preview driver.

Samsung's 990 Evo is the world's first hybrid PCIe 4.0 x4 and 5.0 x2 SSD — FrankenSSD has two different interfaces with two different lane widths

By Matthew Connatser published 7 January 24

Samsung has prematurely revealed its upcoming 990 Evo, and this is certainly a weird SSD from the usually desirable brand.

Nvidia RTX 40-series Super teaser image, showing a GPU on earth's horizon.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Super pricing leak - expect reinvigorated $599, $799, and $999 offerings

By Matthew Connatser published 7 January 24

Just a day before launch, the pricing for Nvidia's rumored GeForce RTX 40 Super lineup has supposedly leaked, and it's not entirely impressive.

Frontier trained a ChatGPT-sized large language model with only 3,000 of its 37,888 Radeon GPUs — the world's fastest supercomputer blasts through one trillion parameter model with only 8 percent of its MI250X GPUs

By Matthew Connatser published 7 January 24

Frontier, the world's fastest supercomputer, can train a large language model like GPT-4 with just 8% of its GPUs.

Ryzen CPU bug crashes PCs using Firewire devices — old school interface causes new school problems on Linux PCs, but a fix is on the way

By Matthew Connatser published 6 January 24

A strange Linux bug would crash the system for Ryzen CPU owners that use Firewire devices.

AVX-512 is a gamechanger on Intel Emerald Rapids CPU — 5th Gen Xeon runs twice as fast on average with slightly higher power consumption

By Matthew Connatser published 6 January 24

A review details how much faster Intel's 5th Generation Xeon Emerald Rapids processors are with AVX-512; in some cases, performance is over ten times higher.

MSI teases its first handheld gaming PC — and it may be powered by Intel (Update)

By Matthew Connatser last updated 4 January 24

MSI is teasing its first handheld gaming PC, and we'll apparently hear more about it at CES.

SuperCloud's RS3210 Z11 server with Zhaoxin Kaisheng server CPUs.

China's x86-chipmaker Zhaoxin launches homegrown servers with Chinese-made CPUs — partners with SuperCloud for domestically produced dual-socket KH-40000/32 designs key to country's self-sufficiency

By Matthew Connatser published 4 January 24

SuperCloud's R3210 Z11 is the first server to feature Zhaoxin's made-in-China Kaisheng CPUs.

Pricing for upcoming Ryzen 5000 SKUs leaks — Ryzen 5 5500GT at 150 euros and Ryzen 7 5700X3D at 300 euros

By Matthew Connatser published 4 January 24

New listings for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 5000 SKUs like the Ryzen 7 5700X3D are appearing in Europe.

U.S. government delays reinstating Chinese tariffs that would make graphics cards and other components more expensive

By Matthew Connatser published 3 January 24

The tariffs haven't been applied to PC components since March of 2022, and they won't for at least another six months.

Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs are slower at single-core work than previous-gen models — new benchmarks show IPC regressions vs Raptor Lake

By Matthew Connatser published 2 January 24

Probably not what Intel wanted.

Steam survey suggests more people bought the RTX 4090 than the Steam Deck — along with millions of other RTX 40-series GPUs

By Matthew Connatser published 2 January 24

Valve's statistics often raise more questions than answers.

AMD budget GPU listed with twice the memory of RX 7600 and RTX 4060 — RX 7600 XT with 16GB GDDR6

By Matthew Connatser published 30 December 23

An EEC listing from Gigabyte indicates that AMD's RX 7600 XT is coming and could have up to 16GB of memory.

SSD prices predicted to skyrocket throughout 2024 — TrendForce market report projects a 50% price hike

By Matthew Connatser published 29 December 23

A report from TrendForce anticipates a 50% increase in NAND flash prices in the near term, which will further boost SSD prices.

Mobile Raptor Lake Refresh Core i5-14450HX CPU packs a punch — Core i5-14450HX performs like a desktop Core i5-13400 in Geekbench 5 benchmark

By Matthew Connatser published 29 December 23

A Geekbench 5 result for the Core i5-14450HX has appeared, and the performance is equal to the Core i5-13400.

A render of the GPD Win Max 2 taken from GPD's website.

AMD's 'new' Ryzen 7 8840U will power GPD's 2024 handheld lineup

By Matthew Connatser published 28 December 23

GPD plans to replace the Ryzen 7 7840U in three of its handhelds with the Ryzen 7 8840U some time next year.

Ampere's 128-core CPU works with a motherboard the size of a dinner plate — ASRock's deep micro-ATX is also available with bundled 64-core CPU for $1,500

By Matthew Connatser published 27 December 23

$1,500 is all you need to get an ASRock motherboard and one of Ampere's 64-core Altra Q64-22.

A die shot of the Steam Deck Van Gogh APU.

Steam Deck's custom AMD processor exposed — Van Gogh die shots reveal CPU, GPU core designs, and unused hardware

By Matthew Connatser published 27 December 23

YouTuber High Yield has done a deep dive into the Steam Deck APU, and some interesting details have been uncovered.

Power supply maker yanks hair dryer advice for melting-prone 16-pin GPU connectors — Seasonic quietly deletes suggestion that PC builders use a hair dryer to bend power cables

By Matthew Connatser published 27 December 23

Seasonic has now removed a suggestion in its 12VHPWR cable guide to use a hair dryer to make bending easier.

Samsung's Semiconductor Plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea

US Govt's sluggish Chips Act payouts slam the brakes on Samsung's fab — company delays mass production at Texas fab to await further CHIPS funding

By Matthew Connatser published 26 December 23

Samsung's Texas fab will be operational in 2024, but won't have mass production capability until 2025 at the earliest.

Intel's CEO says Moore's Law is slowing to a three-year cadence, but it's not dead yet

By Matthew Connatser published 24 December 23

Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger says transistors now double every three years instead of two, which isn't exactly Moore's Law.

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