Components

It's time to revamp the Graphics Charts section! For 2012, we're increasing the number of games and resolutions, dividing the results into three segments. But that's not all. We also include GPGPU benchmarking, power consumption, temperature, and noise.

Who needs sleep when you have caffeine? We take a second GeForce GTX 680 and run it in SLI against two Radeon HD 7970s. Then we add 5760x1080 benchmark results. Then we overclock our single-GPU flagships for a third comparison. Does our story change?

Enthusiasts want to know about Nvidia's next-generation architecture so badly that they broke into our content management system and took the data to be used for today's launch. Now we can really answer how Kepler fares against AMD's GCN architecture.

AMD's new FirePro V3900 is the company's low-profile, entry-level workstation graphics card. It's priced to compete against Nvidia’s Quadro 400. Today we're putting it up against Nvidia’s Quadro 400 and five other professional and desktop graphics cards.

Big radiators need lots of space that most enclosures simply weren't designed to offer. We're using Swiftech’s latest triple-fan cooler to test the fitment and performance in four cases supposedly set up to accommodate high-end water cooling setups.

We've been bugging AMD for years now, literally, to show us what GPU-accelerated software can do. Finally, the company is ready to put us in touch with ISVs in nine different segments to demonstrate how its hardware can benefit optimized applications.

Intel's vaunted Sandy Bridge architecture has finally made its way to the company's dual- and quad-socket-capable Xeon processors. We got our hands on a pair of eight-core Xeon E5-2687W CPUs to compare against the older Xeon 5600- and 5500-series chips.

There's a big hole in between AMD's $450 Radeon HD 7950 and its $160 Radeon HD 7700. Today, the company introduces Radeon HD 7850 and 7870 to fill that gap, and they push a lot more performance than we expected. But are they really ready for prime time?

What can you get for $140? How about AMD's top-of-the-line A8-3870K APU with four CPU cores and an integrated Radeon HD 6550D? That's also enough for a Pentium G620 and discrete Radeon HD 6670. We benchmark both to uncover the best budget-oriented option.

We know that Intel's X79 Express platform hosts the fastest desktop processors in the company's portfolio. But can it be made more affordable? We round up the least-expensive $200-$260 motherboards to determine how much you have to give up for cheap X79.

Intel's six-core processors are fast, but enthusiasts almost always want to push unlocked multipliers harder. Core i7-3960X can easily exceed 4 GHz, but what happens to power efficiency when clock rates go up? Sandy Bridge-E demonstrates weaknesses there.

Do Intel’s Core i7-3000-series CPUs really need closed-loop liquid cooling? Today we're testing fourteen different LGA 2011-compatible air coolers on an overclocked Core i7-3960X in order to determine whose is the most effective.

These are the lowest-end cards built using AMD's new Graphics Core Next architecture. Is 28 nm manufacturing, a fresh design, and new functionality enough to warrant upgrading existing value-oriented champs like the Radeon HD 6850 and GeForce GTX 460?

We've been waiting on AMD's Financial Analyst Day for more information on how the company plans to approach new and current businesses moving forward. Ahead of the big event, AMD pre-briefed us on the news.

We've been bugging AMD for years now, literally: show us what GPU-accelerated software can do. Finally, the company is ready to put us in touch with ISVs in nine different segments to demonstrate how its hardware can benefit optimized applications.

We really like to hunt down great values in the processor space. Since our last round-up of affordable CPUs, AMD released its Llano-based APUs and Bulldozer-based FX family. Also, Intel introduced a handful of Sandy Bridge-based Pentium chips.

Introducing a new processor architecture takes a colossal effort. AMD's modular Bulldozer design ran into its share of resistance at launch. Can a handful of software updates turn the company's flagship FX-8150 into the powerhouse AMD promised?

We’ve been more than outspoken about the naming AMD and Nvidia use for their mobile GPUs. Are they really trying to mislead buyers, though? We briefly examine their methodology and frame that against the limitations of high-end mobile computing.