The last machine in this quarter's System Builder Marathon, Paul's $750 Gaming PC certainly isn't least. A triple-core Athlon II X3 didn't necessarily overclock well, but a fourth-core unlock gives this system a huge efficiency advantage in our suite. more

In this System Builder Marathon, we get to make a great $1,500 Core i7-920 enthusiast PC and then pit it against the Core i5-750 system from our previous series. Is the extra money for the Core i7-920 worthwhile, or can the Core i5-750 go the distance? more

We loosened the leash on our budgets a little this month in order to pack all of your most requested features into a system that's accessible to more than just affluent enthusiasts. Will this build be complete enough to avoid previously noted regrets? more

After Intel's Core i3/Core i5 introduction and AMD's Athlon II/Phenom II refresh, things have been quiet on the CPU front. However, some prices have shifted and some familiar standbys are riding off into the sunset in this calm before the hexa-core storm. more

In his last day of GDC 2010 coverage, Loyd Case sits in on a handful of sessions, listening to some of the most influential voices in the gaming community. Is Farmville the future of gaming, or will big-budget blockbusters continue impressing us? more

This year's Game Developer Conference is in full swing, and Loyd Case is on the ground, reporting the latest goings-on. His Day 1 coverage includes AMD's push for open-standard physics, Windows Phone 7, Playstation Move, real-world gaming, and Surface. more

Intel is preemptively launching the first hexa-core desktop CPU weeks ahead of actual availability. But how does this 32nm monster perform when we take a deeper look into performance per watt? After yesterday's preview, today we look closer at efficiency. more

Already the performance leader in desktop processing, Intel is following its quad-core Bloomfield design up with Gulftown, a hexa-core design sporting 12MB of shared L3 cache. Is the lone Gulftown model, Core i7-980X Extreme, worth a $1,000 asking price? more

Would you rather use 7-Zip, FreeArc, WinRAR, or WinZip? We put four of the most popular file archiving tools to the test, analyzing compression ratios and performance. Spoiler alert: WinZip 14, the latest version of this popular title, gets creamed. more

Think your Athlon or Phenom processor is already tuned to deliver the best balance between performance and power consumption? Think again. We show you how to tweak Cool'n'Quiet for more aggressive power savings at standard speeds using several AMD CPUs. more

With three new Radeon HD 5000-series cards launched last month, older models being put out to pasture. And an upcoming next-generation launch from Nvidia later this month sees GPU prices fluctuating quickly. Check out this month's recommendations! more

SSDs might be the fastest storage option today, but by no means is it the most popular. Magnetic media offers high throughput and proven reliability for existing ecosystems. We looked at developments in four enterprise hard drive generations. more