Performance
Latest about Performance

Does thermal paste expire? 20-year-old TIM tested
By Mark Tyson published
Testing shows that 20-year-old thermal paste performs similarly to new gunk. If you keep it well, then perhaps you don't need to renew your paste stocks over time.

MSI Releases BIOS Updates Enabling Intel APO For 14th Gen CPUs
By Christopher Harper published
MSI motherboards now support Intel APO for the Core i7 14700K, Core i9 14900K, and their KF variants.

Passive Salt Water Cooling Boosts CPU Performance by Almost 33%
By Mark Tyson published
A passive cooler using lithium bromide salt helped a test system deliver almost 33% better performance and stay cool for 10x longer, compared to alternatives.

Steam Deck Gets Easy Undervolting Controls With Firmware 118
By Mark Tyson published
SteamOS 3.5.1 Preview Update enhances the OS by delivering a range of fixes, and the new Firmware 118 introduces easy access undervolting controls.

MSI Updates Its AMD X670 and B650 Mobos to Cut Boot Times in Half
By Mark Tyson published
MSI’s update promises halved boot times and stable operation, implying previous implementations of this feature were not so stable.

Update: Nvidia High CPU Usage Driver Bug Fixed, Now in WHQL Release
By Mark Tyson published
If you were affected by the CPU overutilization bug in driver 531.18, you might want to install the latest 531.29 update.

AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D Install Guide Pinpoints Performance Pitfalls
By Mark Tyson published
Installing AMD’s new Ryzen 9 7950X3D or 7900X3D processors is outlined in a new official community guide. Users should follow these steps to get tip-top 3D V-Cache performance from day one.

DirectStorage 1.1 Can Speed Game Loading by 40% Claims Microsoft
By Mark Tyson published
Does shifting 100s GB of game asset decompression to the GPU make sense? We will see with the introduction of DirectStorage 1.1 featuring GDeflate GPU Decompression.
Stay on the Cutting Edge
Join the experts who read Tom's Hardware for the inside track on enthusiast PC tech news — and have for over 25 years. We'll send breaking news and in-depth reviews of CPUs, GPUs, AI, maker hardware and more straight to your inbox.