May 17
I build a new production system every couple of years. This time around, I thought I’d use AMD’s intriguing Ryzen 7 1800X. I haven’t used an AMD CPU for my main production system, well, ever, as far as I can recall. Let’s define what I mean by production system. I work out of my house …
Apr 24
I confess the title of this article isn’t completely accurate because I don’t talk about a single Ryzen 5 gaming PC, but several different possible options. However, I only build one of these options. Each option differs in cost and configuration somewhat; one even dips below $1,000 while still offering the same graphics hardware. Before I discuss …
Apr 10
I ended part I of this ongoing Ryzen system diary on something of a cliffhanger: the PC had suddenly stopped booting. I’ve been away from the AMD fold for years when it comes to actual system building, so blaming the Ryzen system for the boot issue was my first reaction. I shrugged that immediate, admittedly …
Mar 20
I’ve been reviewing fewer products recently, so when AMD let me know they’d ship me a Ryzen system, I jumped at the chance. A few weeks passed, a couple of false starts and a box appeared on my doorstep from CyberPower PC. Built around a Ryzen 1800X and an Asrock X370 Killer SLI motherboard, the …
Sep 19
My younger daughter surprised me when she asked for a desktop PC prior to heading off to graduate school. She had been using an HP Omen, which included reasonably decent graphics (mobile GeForce GTX 960) as well as a quad-core processor. I’d often see her online playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, Fallout 4, and other PC …
Jun 16
Recently, I’ve been fielding a lot of questions related to buying or building gaming PCs. What goes around, comes around, I guess. At the recent E3 Gaming Expo, Microsoft announced the Xbox One S, a more svelte, more powerful Xbox One capable of 4K output. The company also mentioned it would develop an even more …
May 25
Eric needed a new PC to run his spiffy HTC Vive VR kit, so we built one. The parts list impresses: Core i5 Skylake, GTX 980, 16GB DDR4. Eric, David Bryant, and I got together and tackled assembly chores. Along the way, we experience one of the worst case designs I’ve seen in a …
Feb 07
The State of the PC: 2017
The personal computer evolution seems to be slowing. Apple seems to be ignoring high-end customers, 2-in-1 designs are proliferating, and the desktop PC stagnates. On the OS side, MacOS seems to be stagnating and Windows continues to be overly intrusive. What’s going to happen to the PC going forward? Eric, David, and I discuss happenings …
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