Articles by Christopher Harper

For Cyber Monday, high-speed DDR5 RAM suitable for a high-end AMD or Intel platform is at a super accessible price point. Today, you can get a DDR5-7200 C34 kit for under $100 or spend a little more for one with RGB goodness.In most computing tasks, RAM is usually a question of raw capacity rather than speed. However, RAM speed becomes more impactful for CPU-bound workloads and sometimes in gaming. The differences you can see will vary game-by-game. However, faster RAM can lead to higher average frame rates and more stable performance, mitigating the impact of 1% and 0.1% lows.First up is the more budget pick of the two, the Patriot Viper Venom DDR5-7200 kit, which costs just $96.99. This is a 22% discount from its original pricing, and it should offer more than enough throughput for a high-end platform from AMD or Intel.Next, we want to highlight the TeamGroup T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7200 kit, which costs $107.99. This kit is specced pretty much identically to the Patriot Viper RAM kit above, besides, of course, adding RGB. We lauded the memory kit as an “overclocker’s delight” and rated it 4 out of 5 stars. Our only major issue was pricing, which is, of course, alleviated here on Cyber Monday.Of course, before utilizing any of these RAM kits to the fullest, you’ll want to make sure that your motherboard platform of choice can actually support RAM speeds this high, or at least close to it. DDR5-7200 is too fast for some entry-level motherboards, so always be mindful of your motherboard’s maximum supported RAM specification before investing in high-end RAM.That said, as long as your motherboard is up to spec, either of these RAM kits will be a great option. DDR5-7200 is on the higher end of speeds that modern systems can handle without instability issues and should serve your Intel or AMD platform of choice quite well.We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Cyber Monday. If you’re looking for other products, check out our Cyber Monday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals Live blog, Monitor Deals Live, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages. […]

Users looking to maximize the value of their HDD storage, especially for NAS usage, may be interested to hear that the WD Red Plus 10TB NAS HDD is now available for just $146 from Adorama— an awesome discount from its original MSRP of $279.At this price, you’re paying roughly 1.6 cents per Gigabyte before shipping, which is pretty good— particularly if you’re looking to utilize the WD Red’s NAS-centric features, which include far lower power consumption and operating temperatures for safe, continuous operation.WD Red Plus NAS HDDs are optimized for low power consumption and low operating temperature to ensure safe, 24/7 operation. This WD Red Plus 10TB also comes with a 3-year limited warranty, which should help protect against any undue drive failures.Some of the WD Red Plus 10TB’s most important failure prevention features include built-in RAID error recovery control (further enhancing RAID support over standard HDDs), as well as noise and vibration protection enhanced by Rotation Vibration sensors that “anticipate and proactively counteract disturbances caused by increased vibration often found in multi-bay NAS systems”.The drive is rated to operate at speeds of up to 216 MB/s with its 7200RPM, achieving a workload of up to 180TB/year, with an estimated 1 million hours (~114 years) mean time between drive failures— which should mean the drive has a long life ahead of it, though, of course, WD only guarantees three years in its warranty policy.Last year, we reviewed a sibling drive to this model— the WD Red Plus 12 TB instead of the 10TB model. In that review, we praised its core features and matching 256 MB cache. Among NAS HDDs, these WD Red Plus drives are admittedly entry-level, but the price for capacity speaks for itself.We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Cyber Monday. If you’re looking for other products, check out our Cyber Monday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals Live blog, Monitor Deals Live, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages. […]

Open-source mini display project WebScreen launched on GitHub this week with a pre-launch Crowd Supply page. WebScreen, equipped with a webcam-style mount to attach to your existing monitor (as well as its own webcam mount on top in case you still want to use one of those), is a 240 x 536 (roughly ~21:9) AMOLED display powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller. The total size of the unit, including some bezels for the mini display, is a hyper-compact 2.9 x 3.15 x 2.08 inches — broadly comparable to your average 4-inch smartphone, though the actual aspect ratio of the mini display is fairly wide.According to HW Media Lab, “We envision people using WebScreen to get their most essential notifications, stats, and alerts nearby without shifting focus away to a phone or tablet” — this functionality is intended to be used to monitor some notifications without necessitating a full separate monitor or breaking gaming/streaming/working immersion by actually picking up your phone.WebScreen is also seen as “a platform for creativity. With open-source software and hardware, users can tailor their WebScreen experience by creating and running custom applications directly on the device. Simply save your JavaScript apps to a micro SD card, and WebScreen will load them up, letting you create a truly unique display experience.” That’s definitely pretty cool, though with such confined specifications and a tiny form factor, one is left to wonder just how many practical JavaScript apps will actually end up being made for this unit.Now, we don’t want to be dismissive of some cool new hardware — especially cool new open-source hardware — but we do think at least some critique is required here. The basic concept is fine, especially if the pricing is right — a tiny extra convenience screen, especially for desk setups that otherwise don’t have room for one, is cool.But there’s really nothing that this WebScreen is doing that you, an end user, can’t already do with a basic dual-monitor setup. It’s not like your secondary monitor needs to have perfect parity with your main display either. Your main display could easily be one of our Best Gaming Monitor picks, while a secondary display could be something like this…or just the cheapest screen you find at your local thrift shop for like $30.Unless you have a really good reason not to be using a full-sized secondary monitor, the WebScreen seems like a novelty targeted at some very specific users. Its design, software, 3D printing files, and even PCBs all being open sourced are very cool, but the limited screen real estate and other questions of practicality creep into mind. Secondary monitors are usually for people who want more screen real estate, not less.Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. […]

Before Cyber Monday, the Phillips Evnia 34M2C8600 has gone on sale for 29% off, costing just $569.99 instead of its original $799.99 MSRP. This monitor, released mid-2023, is a 34-inch 175 Hz OLED 21:9 Ultrawide monitor with support for DisplayHDR True Black 400, a curved screen, and a resolution of 3440 x 1440 (WQHD). This is a genuinely feature-rich monitor, and our original review rated it 4.5/5 stars, even at its original pricing.Beyond the OLED crash course, our original review praised this monitor in nearly every facet. Of course, there is still some room for improvement. For example, this OLED display is rated for just 450 nits brightness, which allows it to achieve the DisplayHDR grade of True Black 400. However, compared to the substandard DisplayHDR grade of just “400”, which isn’t HDR, True Black 400 can leverage OLED’s infinite per-pixel contrast and turn around a stunning image at a much much lower brightness than IPS HDR monitors, which generally aren’t considered good until you reach the maximum HDR grade of “1000” for 1000 nits.For those who may not know, the core appeal of OLEDs is always found in their near-infinite contrast. Barring a rare few entry-level OLEDs that somehow manage to fumble this, nearly every OLED on the market will have perfect, inky black levels thanks to the fundamental nature of the display panel type. OLEDs, like VA panels, are capable of full per-pixel dimming, which can completely power off a pixel in dark scenes…but unlike VA panels, they are also far more vibrant and responsive. OLED panels are even more vibrant and responsive than high-end IPS panels, with some boasting near-instant response time comparable to classic CRT displays. This makes them ideal for gamers in a way other modern panel types are not.(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)Regarding genuinely unique features, we highlight the Phillips Evnia “Ambiglow” feature in our original review. Ambiglow takes industry-standard RGB lighting behind the monitor and matches it to the content onscreen, adding an extra, subtle immersion factor for your peripheral view, especially in a dark room.We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Black Friday. If you’re looking for other products, check out our  Black Friday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized  SSD and Storage Deals Live blog,  Monitor Deals Live,  Graphics Card Deals, or  CPU Deals pages.Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. […]

nineEleven years and 9 months after the original February 2013 launch of Crysis 3 and three years following the Remastered launch, the source code of Crysis 3 has been acquired by a known code leaker/researcher, @SvenTek_667 on Twitter, as reported by @vxunderground (an account for a platform dedicated to archiving malware and other niche software).In our sleuthing, we couldn’t find any major releases based on this— but in this early stage of leaked source for an old game, that’s to be expected. With some salt, let’s discuss the true implications of a source code leak like this.First, we need to establish a little bit more history than just when the game and its Remastered edition happened to be released. The current context of the Crysis Trilogy and its Remasters is mainly for better supporting modern platforms than providing noticeable graphics overhauls. Besides adding ray-traced reflections to the Trilogy, which already had a superb screen space reflections (SSR) implementation, graphics upgrades between the original Crysis trilogy and the Remastered games on PC are relatively minor.Today it was unveiled that a ‘video game researcher’ @SvenTek_667 has come into possession of the source code to Crysis 3 — the 2013 first-person shooter video game.We have no idea why nerds are freaking out about this game (we never played it), but people are going nutsNovember 30, 2024The modern consoles are the platforms to benefit most from these Remasters since the original trilogy could run as low as 20 FPS with compromised visuals targeting the PS360 console hardware of the 2010s era— and these days, you can’t even buy the non-Remastered Crysis Trilogy on Steam anymore.So, with this information in mind, what exactly does a source code leak for Crysis 3 mean to current gamers? Well, one significant change between the original Crysis and subsequent entries in the trilogy (as well as all the remasters) is the near-complete dropping of mod support after Crysis 1. For mod developers, though, a source code leak is pretty much the golden goose— a game engine with all its internals exposed is a mod dev’s happy place, even though using said source code leaks can be legally dubious.As far as a separate game rather than mod development goes, it’s unlikely that we’ll see much from this. Prior source code leaks of CryEngine 3 have already occurred, so it’s not like people don’t understand how to meet or exceed the technical capabilities of a decade-old game engine. The current version of CryEngine, released in 2022, is CryEngine 5.7.1, for your reference.Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. […]

Users looking to maximize the value of their HDD storage, especially for NAS usage, may be interested to hear that the WD Red Plus 10TB NAS HDD is now available for just $169.99 from Newegg— a $110 discount from its original MSRP of $279.99.At this price, you’re paying roughly 1.6 cents per Gigabyte before shipping, which is pretty good— particularly if you’re looking to utilize the WD Red’s NAS-centric features, which include far lower power consumption and operating temperatures for safe, continuous operation.For those unfamiliar with the feature set of the WD Red Plus NAS HDDs, let’s run through the most important ones. As mentioned prior, these HDDs are optimized for low power consumption and low operating temperature to ensure safe, 24/7 operation. This WD Red Plus 10 TB also comes with a 3-Year limited warranty, which should help protect against any undue drive failures.On the note of failure prevention, some of the WD Red Plus 10 TB’s most important failure prevention features include built-in RAID error recovery control (further enhancing RAID support over standard HDDs), as well as noise and vibration protection enhanced by Rotation Vibration sensors that “anticipate and proactively counteract disturbances caused by increased vibration often found in multi-bay NAS systems”.Finally, the drive is rated to operate at speeds of up to 216 MB/s with its 7200RPM, achieving a workload of up to 180 TB/year, with an estimated 1 million hours (~114 years) mean time between drive failures— which should mean the drive has a long life ahead of it, though of course WD is only guaranteeing three years in its warranty policy.Last year, we reviewed a sibling drive to this particular model— the WD Red Plus 12 TB instead of the 10 TB model. In that review, we praised its core features and matching 256 MB cache, but did note some performance losses against other HDDs, in particular SSHDs. Among NAS HDDs, these WD Red Plus drives are admittedly entry-level, but the price for capacity speaks for itself.If you want to evaluate other HDD options, feel free to consult our roundup of the Best HDDs, which should include live pricing updates for your benefit. We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Black Friday. If you’re looking for other products, check out our Black Friday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals Live blog, Monitor Deals Live, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages. […]

Speaking to the MIT Technology Review earlier this week, AI startup Altera disclosed that it had successfully run several experiments of varying scales. It deployed AI-powered “players” into a Minecraft server and saw them dynamically socialize based on their personalities, including picking their roles within the village to create a “society” of up to 1000 “players” simulating human behavior.This experiment was meant to “push the limit of what agents can do in groups autonomously” and saw lots of human-like behavior develop over time, including an AI chef giving more food based on who showed “him” the most appreciation. Other roles that were seen include “guards” who built fences (and presumably other perimeter features) and an “artist” bot that picked virtual flowers. Of course, “farmers,” “traders,” “builders,” “explorers,” and “defenders” all emerged as a natural result of the AI interacting with Minecraft’s gameplay systems.Ways that the agents were collectively tested included the addition of an in-game taxation system that the bots had to pay, complete with tax laws that they voted for. Depending on interactions between AI agents, the tax rate would go higher or lower whenever there was a vote. The testers also got some AI agents to spread the word of The Flying Spaghetti Monster deity of the parody religion Pastafarianism.Some behaviors also seemed to be almost entirely emergent. In a 500-agent simulation, many of the bots took to pranking each other for their own “amusement” or even taking an interest in environmental advocacy. Of course, these AI agents don’t have any accurate self-awareness. Thus, the eco-conscious likely don’t know just how taxing their very existence is on the environment— but it’s still quite amusing to see how much human-like behavior can emerge under Altera’s “Project Sid.”Altera has dubbed the experiment that makes this possible “Project Sid.” Sid’s AI agents are all given “brains” composed of multiple modules—some are just for understanding the gameplay mechanics of Minecraft, but “some modules are powered by LLMs and designed to specialize in certain tasks, such as reacting to other agents, speaking, or planning the agent’s next move.”In the long term, Altera founder Robert Yang hopes to unlock “the true power of AI.” In his eyes, that happens when we “have actually truly autonomous agents that can collaborate at scale.” This means we could create “agents that can really love humans (like dogs),” though this is sure to be controversial for many AI critics and sci-fi consumers.Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. […]

OLED displays have become more standard across the PC and console gaming marketplaces. Gamers know that OLED provides industry-leading gaming performance, contrast, and color accuracy— albeit at a significant price premium, at least until we spotted this great Black Friday deal from Corsair. The Xeneon 27QHD240 is now just $499which, which is half off its original MSRP.A 27-inch OLED monitor would be unthinkable at this price point a year ago. Now you can get a 27-inch OLED with a 240 Hz refresh rate and 1000 nits brightness for superb DisplayHDR 1000 support for a steal. Add in the expected gaming features like Adaptive Sync (G-Sync/FreeSync) support and glowing reviews from several reputable outlets, including our own Corsair Xeneon 27QHD240 review, and it seems the entry to high-quality OLED desktop gaming has never been cheaper.In our original review of the Corsair Xeneon 27QHD240, we praised the monitor on every key point. We loved its deep contrast and saturated colors, its near-perfect, calibration-free accuracy, and next-level gaming performance in a package with premium build quality. Our issues were with its original price point (now very mitigated) and some minute HDR color inaccuracies.Black Friday deals like this are sure to be snatched up quickly, so act fast if you’ve been waiting for a great OLED gaming monitor at a reasonable price point! Considering OLEDs at this grade have been regularly priced at and above $1,000 (pricing comparable to much larger but slower entry-level OLED TVs), $499 is an absolute steal.We are working hard to find the best deals for you this Black Friday. If you’re looking for other products, check out our Black Friday Computer Hardware Deals Live blog for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals Live blog, Monitor Deals Live, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages. […]