Articles by Zak Killian, Contributor

Zak Killian is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware who has also written for HotHardware and Tech Report. Ever since typing in games from magazines in ATARI BASIC on his family's Atari 800XL as a youth, Zak has been deeply fascinated with the capabilities of computers. His passion for gaming as a kid led to more technical engagement with PCs as a teenager, when he first built his own system: an AMD K6. Not long after, he founded his own PC repair shop in the year 2000. Now, decades later, he's still building and benchmarking new boxes, still gaming in every free hour, and still arguing on the internet with almost any opinion anyone has. Something of a modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything.

Articles by: Zak Killian

AMD CES 2026 gaming trends press Q&A roundtable transcript — 'we see a little bit of an uptick in the percentage of AM4 versus AM5 platforms'

By Zak Killian published 29 January 26

Premium We sat down with AMD at CES 2026 for a roundtable Q&A all about consumer products for gaming. We cover the full transcript of the press-only session right here.

Exploring Clawdbot, the AI agent taking the internet by storm — AI agent can automate tasks for you, but there are significant risks involved

By Zak Killian published 27 January 26

Premium Clawdbot is a new pseudo-locally-hosted gateway for agentic AI that offers a sneak peek at both good and bad futures for the technology.

AMD ROCm CES 2026 press Q&A roundtable transcript — 'ROCm from 2023 is completely unrecognizable to ROCm today' company details, as it seeks to break down barriers to AI development

By Zak Killian published 22 January 26

Premium We had the opportunity to sit down with AMD at CES 2026 for a press roundtable discussion, where we discussed ROCm and other AMD software, as captured in this transcript of AMD's Q&A session.

AMD FSR Redstone press roundtable CES 2026 transcript — company speaks out on why AI 400 lacks RDNA 4 GPU

By Zak Killian published 16 January 26

Premium We attend a roundtable interview with AMD to discuss their graphics technologies like FSR Redstone, and more at CES 2026.

A photo showing PC hardware being installed into a freezer temporarily

Australian modder solves PC in a freezer conundrum with sheer size, socks filled with silica gel powder — condensation conquered and minimal overclocking gains on display at minus 28C

By Zak Killian published 13 January 26

Trashbench succeeded where others failed, thanks in large part to the size of his freezer, which helped prevent large temperature swings that cause condensation.

Researchers turn spoiled milk into 3D printing materials — extracted proteins from dairy waste combined with polymers to create plastic alternative

By Zak Killian published 9 January 26

This work turns what would otherwise be an agricultural liability into a potential input for advanced manufacturing.

An abstract graphic representing Wi-Fi 8.

MediaTek unveils Filogic 8000 Wi-Fi 8 family at CES 2026 – new chipsets expected to arrive later this year

By Zak Killian published 5 January 26

Wi-Fi 8 is the most exciting revision to the spec since the mid-2010s, and MediaTek is one of the first to announce real hardware for it.

Chinese memory maker CXMT prepares $4.2 billion USD IPO to take advantage of tight memory market — company lays out path to profitability as DRAM demand skyrockets worldwide

By Zak Killian published 31 December 25

Chinese memory maker CXMT prepares to file for IPO in Beijing, aiming to raise $4.2 billion USD in order to expand production and fund next-gen DRAM development.

IDC warns PC market could shrink up to 9% in 2026 due to skyrocketing RAM pricing — even moderate forecast hits 5% drop as AI-driven shortages slam into PC market

By Zak Killian published 29 December 25

An IDC report revises earlier guidance, warning of a shrink in the PC market that could approach 9%.

No, Asus isn't going into memory manufacturing — Taiwanese tech giant issues statement smashing rumor

By Zak Killian published 26 December 25

Asus has directly shut down a spurious rumor claiming it would enter the memory market within the next six months.

Facebook deploys the Steam Deck's Linux scheduler across its data centers — Valve's low-latency scheduler perfect for managing Meta's workloads at massive data centers

By Zak Killian published 23 December 25

In a recent talk, Meta engineers detailed how they've been deploying a low-latency Linux scheduler originally developed by Valve for the Steam Deck across production servers.

Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition Battlemage graphics card

Evidence of Intel's 'Big Battlemage' GPU continues to mount, as BMG-G31 chip gets another official confirmation

By Zak Killian published 17 December 25

The XPU Manager tool is for monitoring Intel's datacenter GPUs, meaning it's very likely these parts are coming soon.

HDD prices spike as AI infrastructure and China's PC push collide — hard drives record biggest price increase in eight quarters, suppliers warn pressure will continue

By Zak Killian published 15 December 25

Despite continual predictions that SSDs will fully displace HDDs, demand for spinning rust is on the rise.

A photo of a rat in a rig for playing Doom.

Experiment to train rats to play Doom reaches a new level; rats can now shoot enemies — wraparound AMOLED screen provides virtual environment for neuroengineers' expanded open source project

By Zak Killian published 14 December 25

The project, led by neuroengineer Viktor Tóth, has evolved into a second-generation setup that significantly expands what the rats can do inside the Doom engine.

A screenshot of the Tiny Core Linux default desktop.

Tiny Core Linux 16.2 still fits a proper Linux desktop into a 23MB download — but it has grown 1MB since the last time we looked at it

By Zak Killian published 7 December 25

Tiny Core Linux is a true example of just how small a functional desktop operating system can be, even in 2025.

A photo of an adapter board adding OCuLink connections to a Framework Laptop 16.

Enthusiast adds OCuLink port to Framework 16 Laptop — offering PCIe 4.0 x8 bandwidth for big GPU performance gains

By Zak Killian published 3 December 25

The project has been bandied about for years, but has finally come to fruition thanks to the dedicated efforts of one modder.

Noctua confirms that Intel's Nova Lake won't need new CPU coolers — coolers for LGA1851 and LGA1700 are compatible with the upcoming LGA1954 socket

By Zak Killian published 27 November 25

A support message from the Austrian heatsink manfaucturer makes it clear that you'll be able to use the same mounting hardware on Intel's new CPUs.

In wake of Windows 10 retirement, over 780,000 Windows users skip Win 11 for Linux, says Zorin OS developers — distro hits unprecedented 1 million downloads in five weeks

By Zak Killian published 24 November 25

The Windows-like Linux distribution claims over a million downloads in the past month for its latest build, most of which came from Windows users.

AMD ditches 'FidelityFX' in favor of apparently-meaningless 'FSR' branding, Fluid Motion Frames also renamed to FMF

By Zak Killian published 22 November 25

AMD has set the full release date for FSR Redstone and also revealed that the full name is now simply 'FSR'.

Korea's Fair Trade Commission reportedly raids Arm's Seoul office amid Qualcomm licensing dispute — stems from allegations of unfair market practices

By Zak Killian published 20 November 25

The raid is purportedly tied to Qualcomm's allegations of unfair market practices by Arm in several jurisdictions.

A photograph of a graphics card being chilled by a portable camping freezer.

Overclocker uses camping freezer to push RTX 5050 to nearly 3.5 GHz, smashes world records — smallest Blackwell GPU gets 23% clock boost

By Zak Killian published 15 November 25

Using a shunt mod and a freezer, Trashbench achieved a 23% boost in clocks on the smallest Blackwell GPU.

A photograph of the Microsoft Mach 10's turbo switch.

The 'worst-selling Microsoft product of all time' sold just 11 times, and eight people returned it — why you've never heard of OS/2 for the Mach 20

By Zak Killian published 11 November 25

A specialized version of the ill-fated OS/2 holds the dubious record, and probably will forever.

A promotional photograph of a Sandisk USB flash drive protruding from a laptop.

SanDisk reportedly jacks up flash prices by 50% as memory makers cash in on AI-fueled demand

By Zak Killian published 8 November 25

As AI datacenters scoop up limited wafer supply, both DRAM and flash prices skyrocket.

Elon Musk's SpaceX to launch reusable "fabships" for orbital chip manufacturing experiments — 'the ultimate egg drop challenge,' Besxar's orbital chipmaking experiments to occur over 12 launches

By Zak Killian published 4 November 25

The new D.C.-based startup is hoping to use the vacuum of space as its clean room for chip fabrication.

AMD confirms its Radeon RX 5000, 6000 series cards will still get some new features 'as required by market needs' — company also says RX 7900 USB-C change was a mistake (Updated)

By Zak Killian last updated 31 October 25

The latest AMD Radeon graphics driver skips older GPUs for feature updates and drops functionality from last-gen flagships.

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