All the tech world is a-buzz right now because of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge architecture which has Digital Rights Management in it. DRM is bad because it serves absolutely no benefit to the consumer, and routinely aggravates everyone who has ever dealt with it. In a nutshell, DRM ultimately forces you to keep spending money on things you’ve already...

CPU temperature is a big deal because if you run too hot, your computer shuts down. Instantly. Click! Off. It’s a good thing when this happens because it saves the PC from literally burning up. A CPU can overheat for any number of reasons, but it usually occurs when a fan stops working. Other times it may occur from being a bit overzealous with...

The market right now is absolutely flooded with netbooks. They are hot sellers, after all. Have sales of them peaked yet? Unknown. They are the absolute cheapest fully functional laptop computer you can buy. Dell is selling their popular "mini" model starting at $279. Yes, $279. One would have never imagined even just a few short years ago that you buy...

Pretty much any processor you can buy today has multiple cores. Two cores seems to be the defacto standard, however you can get up to 4 cores without breaking the bank, but do you see a worthwhile gain from these additional cores? This article titled “How Many CPU Cores Do You Need?” addresses this very question. Jumping to the results of the...

If you ever have the need to compare a couple of old CPU’s to see which one is “faster”, a good resource is PassMark’s CPU Benchmarks chart. This chart lists almost any older CPU you can think of and is compiled based on actual scores submitted by users. While certainly not definitive, this gives you a quick comparison of the relative...

Longevity is a factor when buying or building a new computer, no question. You don’t want to put your money down on something that will break in less than two years. Even though computers are dirt cheap these days, it always just plain sucks when something busts on your computer box because it just wrecks your day. Computers that last a long time are not...

In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago. In this installment we’ll be looking at something everyone has in their...

Here is a story most people wouldn’t want to touch with a thirty meter pole. AMD has been stealing (not legally, just morally) Intel’s CPU design ever since the 286 days. I even have an AMD 286 on my key-chain. Back in the day, it didn’t matter which company made your big bad 286-12MHz CPU,...