Guides
Once the domain of external, bus-powered hard drives, these days the market for external storage has been almost completely consumed by portable SSDs. Rapid technological advancements in NAND flash technology (including the advent of 3D NAND) has allowed their capacity to eclipse 2.5-inch HDDs, all the while multiple improvements in host interface speeds (such as the move from USB 2.0 to 3.0, and onwards to 3.2 Gen 2 / Gen 2x2 / USB4) has made portable SSDs faster and more reliable than the hard drives they replace. All of which has helped to make portable SSDs the go-to solution for external storage, both big and small. For our latest storage buyer's guide, we've rounded up some of the best portable SSDs we've looked at in...
Best Budget Laptops - Holiday 2013
Introduction Over the past decade, we've seen a dramatic slowing in the rate of performance increases on PCs and laptops. Where it was typical to see a doubling in performance...
30 by Jarred Walton on 11/28/2013
Analyzing Power Use: 80 Plus Bronze vs. Platinum
I’ve been toying around with updating my computer lately, and one of the topics I wanted to look at was the choice of power supply. For the most part...
79 by Jarred Walton on 10/30/2013
Analyzing the Price of Mobility: Desktops vs. Laptops
Computers have been getting faster over the years, and with the increased performance we eventually passed the point where most systems were “fast enough” and the various features and...
110 by Jarred Walton on 9/7/2013
Choosing a Gaming Laptop, Back-to-School 2013 Edition
We regularly get asked for opinions on what product is “best” for a certain use case. Naturally, what makes a product perfect for one user may not matter much...
61 by Jarred Walton on 8/23/2013
Choosing a Gaming CPU: Single + Multi-GPU at 1440p, April 2013
One question when building or upgrading a gaming system is of which CPU to choose - does it matter if I have a quad core from Intel, or a...
254 by Ian Cutress on 5/8/2013
Best Thin and Light Laptops, April 2013
My focus on laptop recommendations today is on the rather nebulous “thin and light” category. That can mean different things to different people, but with Ultrabooks encroaching on this...
82 by Jarred Walton on 4/19/2013
Best Motherboards for $100-$200, April 2013
A quick look at the motherboard market and there is plenty to choose from under the $200 mark from both Intel and AMD. For Intel this marks the...
25 by Ian Cutress on 4/18/2013
Best High End Z77 Motherboards, April 2013
As part of our ‘Best X’ range of pipeline posts, our focus turns on to the motherboard segment. At this point of the year, we really are between...
30 by Ian Cutress on 4/11/2013_carousel.jpg)
Best Budget Laptops, April 2013
Last week we launched a new sort of buyer’s guide for AnandTech with our Best Budget Ultrabook recommendation. We’ll be fleshing out the “best XYZ” recommendations for other components...
39 by Jarred Walton on 4/5/2013_carousel.jpg)
Best Budget Ultrabook, March 2013
We’re planning to start a regular revolving list of recommended products at AnandTech—sort of like a mini buyer’s guide focused on a single product or component. Anand has asked...
30 by Jarred Walton on 3/28/2013
Holiday 2012 Ultrabook and Ultraportable Guide
We’ve provided some buyer’s guides for system builders so far, but today we’re going to ditch the DIY sector and instead look at pre-built laptop options, with a focus...
78 by Jarred Walton on 12/12/2012
Holiday 2012 Workstation Buyer's Guide
Though mobile devices continue to consume more computing marketshare at the expense of traditional desktop PCs, phones and tablets, and to an extent even laptops, simply cannot compete with...
49 by Zach Throckmorton on 12/10/2012
Holiday 2012 Small Form Factor Buyer's Guide
There have been many interesting developments in the small form factor market segment since our last SFF buyer's guide. Specifically, current-generation Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs and AMD Trinity APUs...
74 by Zach Throckmorton on 12/5/2012
Holiday 2012 AMD Trinity Buyer's Guide
While AMD's second generation "Trinity" APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) have been available in pre-built desktops and laptops for many months now, the chips and accompanying motherboards themselves have only...
72 by Zach Throckmorton on 11/29/2012
Midrange System Buyer's Guide
Intel has dominated the midrange and high-end segments of the desktop processor market since the release of its Sandy Bridge architecture in early 2011. A few months ago we...
95 by Zach Throckmorton on 9/11/2012
Fall Budget System Buyer's Guide
Most of the systems I build for friends and clients are destined to spend their days performing basic computing tasks like checking email and Facebook accounts, shopping for shoes...
39 by Zach Throckmorton on 9/1/2012
AMD Llano HTPC Builders Guide
Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) are becoming more and more popular due to a number of reasons. The desire of consumers to watch and enjoy their media, be it Blu-rays/DVDs...
76 by Ganesh T S on 6/5/2012.png)
Holiday 2011 Mainstream High-End Buyer's Guide
After covering the budget and midrange sectors of the DIY PC market, as well as pre-built desktops and laptops, today we have a guide outlining mainstream high-end builds. Saying...
52 by Zach Throckmorton on 12/9/2011
Holiday 2011 Midrange System Buyer's Guide
The latest edition of our Holiday 2011 guides focuses on midrange desktops. If you enjoy the prospect of building your own PC or you just prefer the ability to...
58 by Zach Throckmorton on 12/6/2011
Holiday 2011 Laptop Buyer’s Guide
We say it every year, but the trends continue so we’ll keep repeating it: laptops and mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular, often at the cost of desktop sales...
88 by Jarred Walton on 12/2/2011
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