Category Archive: Computer Technology Guides

Computer Technology Guides

Keeping Hot Laptops Cool and Running Fast

Back in the day, before everybody started checking email on their smartwatch or shopping online with their phone, mobile users did their work on laptop computers. These days tablets and smart devices get most the attention, but notebook computers are still beating them on performance and productivity. Unfortunately, all that power generates heat, which slows down the system to maintain stability. But what if it didn’t have to? That’s where notebook coolers come in, such as the Cooler Master NotePal Ergostand III used as our example in this article about keeping hot laptops cool and running fast.

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Preparing System Image for Windows 10 Upgrade

Microsoft has generously offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, and so far the response has been very positive. In this article Benchmark Reviews details the steps needed to successfully complete a full backup of Windows 7 or Windows 8 to a System Image, prior to upgrading to Windows 10. This process preserves everything on the drive, and may be used to restore back to your previous installation without losing any data or applications. This guide may also be used to create a Windows 10 backup System Image, or for creating a hard disk image that can be restored onto an SSD.

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Game Realism Via NVIDIA Enhanced Effects

Earlier this year, NVIDIA introduced the Maxwell architecture and a lot of upcoming features that Benchmark Reviews briefly talked about on the review of the GTX 980 by Olin Coles. These features were demonstrated in detail, but were still pending to be released on actual games, that is until Assassin’s Creed Unity was released earlier this year. Thanks to NVIDIA GameWorks, game developers have the ability to use NVIDIA’s sample libraries and SDKs as well as implementing some of the features mentioned that allow for a more realistic game-play experience.

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PC Gaming on Ubuntu Linux

In this article I’m going to be talking about PC gaming with Ubuntu Linux. I will discuss several areas that at the end I hope will give you a better understanding of PC gaming on a Linux based OS and how it compares to traditional Windows PC gaming that you may be considering moving away from or to try something different. While I will give examples and basic instructions within Ubuntu. This article is not meant to a full guide on using Ubuntu, and as such, if there are sections that you have trouble understanding or want more help or information, askubuntu.com is a great place for help with specific problems or questions you may have with the OS. That being said, let’s get started!

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Intel X79 Motherboard Overclocking Guide

This Intel X79 Motherboard Overclocking Guide is meant to assist and outline aspects of overclocking parameters as well as the experience of overclocking on the ASUS X79 series of motherboards. I have detailed our recommendations to maximize the overclocking potential / scaling on ASUS’ X79 series of motherboards. This guide has been developed after extensive internal testing across multiple boards, multiple UEFI builds and a high sampling rate of C0 CPUs and limited sampling of C1 stepping CPUs. While this guide is not definitive and will not contain every possible overclocking combination or guarantee results, the information detailed has been consistently duplicated and yielded repeatable results in our testing. Of course the quality of the CPU and cooling is very important but overall we think the results on our boards should exceed those of others at like settings.

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Turning PC into Apple Macintosh: Hackintosh Computer

A “Hackintosh” is a computer that runs Apple’s OS X operating system on non-Apple hardware. This has been possible since Apple’s switch from IBM’s PowerPC processors to Intel processors a few years ago. Until recently, building a PC-based Mac was something done only by hard-core hackers and technophiles, but in the last few months, building a Hackintosh PC has become much easier. Benchmark Reviews looks at what it’s possible to do with PC hardware and the Mac Snow Leopard OS today, and the pros and cons of the building a Hackintosh computer system over purchasing a supported Apple Mac Pro.

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Best Thermal Paste Application Methods

Over the past several months, I have read an unreasonable number of discussion forum posts which offer inaccurate and often times incorrect information. It’s not really all that surprising to read poorly conceived information on the Internet, which seems to be an anonymous means of passing off opinion for fact. As a general rule we don’t let too many things go untested, and the advice of wanna-be experts is not doing the hardware enthusiast and overclocker community any good. In this article, Benchmark Reviews dispels myth and establishes fact on the topic of proper application of Thermal Interface Material.

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