Articles by Zhiye Liu, News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician

Zhiye’s love for PC hardware began when he accidentally set his Pentium P54CS PC on fire, short-circuiting his entire home. From that day on, he has constantly pursued greater hardware knowledge, which ultimately led him from being a power user to a writer at Tom’s Hardware. When Zhiye’s not covering the latest news on CPUs or GPUs, you can find him overclocking RAM to the latest trance hits.

Articles by: Zhiye Liu

Windows 11 rockets SSD performance to new heights with hacked native NVMe driver — up to 85% higher random workload performance in some tests

By Zhiye Liu published 22 December 25

Windows 11 users rave about lightning-quick SSD performance uplifts from the native NVMe driver from Windows Server 2025.

Mini-ITX motherboard launches with four full-sized RAM slots in the middle of a RAM shortage — support for up to 256GB of glorious DDR5 on a tiny PCB

By Zhiye Liu published 18 December 25

Maxsun launches the MS-PC Farm B860I, a mini-ITX motherboard with four DDR5 memory slots for Intel processors.

Samsung eyed up for huge 8nm chip order from Intel — the Z990 chipset for Nova Lake CPUs could be Intel's 8nm debut

By Zhiye Liu published 18 December 25

According to a Hankyung report, Samsung Foundry has secured a substantial order from Intel to produce Intel's chipsets on Samsung Foundry's 8nm process node.

Best RAM deals 2025 — last-minute RAM savings to beat the price crunch

By Zhiye Liu last updated 17 December 25

We're rounding up the best RAM deals from retailers across the U.S.

Arctic launches its best thermal paste yet for chips of all types — claims new MX-7 formulation runs 3% cooler than its predecessor

By Zhiye Liu published 16 December 25

Arctic has launched the MX-7 thermal paste, the successor to the all-popular MX-6.

Best MicroSD Express Cards for Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025 — the best cards on the market, benchmarked and ranked

By Zhiye Liu last updated 15 December 25

We’ve carefully chosen the best microSD Express cards to meet the needs and budgets of all Switch 2 owners, based on our detailed lab testing.

Asus swaps out the PCIe x16 connector for x8 on new RTX 5060 Ti GPUs — Gigabyte does the opposite with x16 upgrade to its WindForce Max card

By Zhiye Liu published 15 December 25

Asus and Gigabyte have released revised versions of the companies' GeForce RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards, powered by Nvidia's Blackwell architecture.

Framework raises DDR5 RAM upgrade prices by 50% amid DRAM shortage — only for Laptop DIY edition, says prices will likely rise again

By Zhiye Liu published 12 December 25

Framework, the computer manufacturer, has recently raised the price of the DDR5 memory options available for the Framework Laptop DIY Edition by 50%.

'Outlet' RAM sold in Japan as new with huge markups, scuffed packaging — Crucial DDR5-5600 64GB kit commands $600 overseas as AI shortage bites

By Zhiye Liu published 11 December 25

Japanese retailer Sofmap offloads Crucial's Pro DDR5-5600 C46 64GB (2x32GB) memory kit for $602.74.

Biwin Black Opal OC Lab Gold Edition DW100 DDR5-6000 C28

Biwin Black Opal OC Lab Gold Edition DDR5-6000 C28 4x48GB Review: High-Performance Memory For Demanding Applications

By Zhiye Liu published 11 December 25

Biwin launches a very special DDR5-6000 192GB memory kit from its OC labs. Can the spacious memory kit outperform the current competition on the market?

RAM scalping takes hold on eBay, some DDR5 selling for more than $2,000 — price-gouged kits fetch 7x their original value, adding almost double the markup on already inflated prices

By Zhiye Liu published 11 December 25

Scalpers exploit the memory shortage to sell memory kits at exorbitant prices on platforms like eBay.

Latest Steam Client Beta backport keeps Windows 7 and Windows 8 gaming PCs on life support — unofficial solution gives a lifeline to legacy users

By Zhiye Liu published 9 December 25

Gaming enthusiast Eazy Black has backported the latest Steam beta client (December 4, 2025 build) to support Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Chinese vendor unveils 256GB of RAM that costs more than an MSRP RTX 5090 — Asgard's DDR5-6000 retails at an eye-watering $2,400, but is more affordable than some mainstream alternatives

By Zhiye Liu published 9 December 25

Chinese memory vendor Asgard launches 256GB and 192GB DDR5 memory kits for $1,200 and $2,400, respectively.

ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 with small crack

Asus quotes customer $3,350 repair bill for RTX 5090 with microscopic 'surface irregularity', more than the entire card's value — offers 50% discount after months of haggling

By Zhiye Liu published 6 December 25

Redditor shares his ongoing struggle to get Asus to RMA an expensive ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card.

AMD isn't increasing prices on CPUs, at least for now — Ryzen appears to be safe from the AI hysteria

By Zhiye Liu published 4 December 25

Industry sources have told Tom's Hardware that there has been no communication from AMD about price hikes on Ryzen processors.

AMD raises Radeon RX 9000 GPU prices, increasing by $10 for every 8GB of VRAM — another price hike is also scheduled for January 2026

By Zhiye Liu published 4 December 25

An industry source has confirmed to Tom's Hardware that AMD has raised the price of its Radeon gaming graphics card by $10 per 8GB.

Segotep's Titanload 12V-2x6 cables use heavier-duty pins to prevent meltdowns — brute-force approach purportedly drops peak temps by up to 72%

By Zhiye Liu published 3 December 25

Segotep's Titanload family of 12V-2x6 cables use higher-capacity pins to try and reduce the risk of meltdowns under heavy GPU load.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce Max OC 8G

RTX 5060 Ti 8GB drops to $299, making it worth buying for the first time — get a big slice of Blackwell power for the same price as an RTX 5060

By Zhiye Liu published 1 December 25

Deals The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5060 Ti WindForce Max OC 8G goes on sale for $299.99, 23% off its regular price.

Revitalize your gaming PC with a 1000W power supply at a special 35% discount — Corsair RM1000x drops to an all-time low of $119

By Zhiye Liu published 28 November 25

Deals The Corsair RM1000x 80 Plus Gold power supply is currently selling for $119.99, $70 down from its regular price during this Black Friday sale.

Homegrown Chinese CPUs bring Core i7 Raptor Lake performance to domestic gaming PCs — Hygon C86-4G lands between a Core i7-13700 and Core i7-14700

By Zhiye Liu published 27 November 25

Chinese PC maker Thunderobot has launched the Black Warrior Hunter Pro gaming PC with a domestic Hygon C86-4G CPU and a GeForce RTX GPU.

Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs arrive with native DDR5-7200 CUDIMM support — 12.5% higher speeds than initial Arrow Lake chips

By Zhiye Liu published 26 November 25

Intel document confirms that the chipmaker's upcoming Arrow Lake Refresh processors will support DDR5-7200 CUDIMMs natively.

Memory MSRPs and fixed price tags disappear at Micro Center as some stores shift to spot pricing — Shopping for RAM just got a whole lot harder in 2025

By Zhiye Liu published 24 November 25

Micro Center reportedly stops publishing pricing for memory kits at some of its brick and mortar stores.

Best RAM for Gaming: DDR4, DDR5 Kits for 2025

By Zhiye Liu last updated 21 November 25

Here is the best RAM for gaming we’ve tested: computer memory that is ideal for video editing and graphics-heavy applications.

Grab 14TB of shuckable storage for $169 — WD external hard drive back to all-time low for Black Friday

By Zhiye Liu published 21 November 25

Deals The WD Elements 14TB external hard drive is available for $169.99 again, 55% off its normal price.

Save $250 on Samsung's spacious and speedy 8TB SSD — 9100 Pro drops to all-time low of 9 cents per GB

By Zhiye Liu published 21 November 25

Deals The Samsung 9100 Pro 8TB is currently selling for $749.99, $250 off its regular eye-watering price tag of $999.99.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
View Archive

Other versions of this page are available with specific content for the following regions: