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Feature: The mother of all questions
What motherboard / CPU combo do I need to build an Intel Coffee Lake or AMD Ryzen PC?
If you've ever decided to build your own PC, you'll know there are some bits of the upgrade process that are easier to work out than others, especially when it comes to finding the right motherboard for your new CPU. The first step is easy. Most people know whether they want to have an Intel or AMD CPU, but untangling the mess of motherboard sockets…
Feature: Intel-ligent systems
Intel Core CPUs: Everything we know about Intel’s 8th and 9th Gen Coffee Lake Refresh processors
Intel's Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs have been the staple processors of PC gaming for absolutely yonks - and they don't show any signs of going away, either. Right now, we're on the 8th and 9th generation of Intel Core CPUs, which are collectively known under the umbrella term of 'Coffee Lake'. It's been a while since I've updated this guide, so…
Feature: Core blimey
Intel Core i9-9900K review: The fastest gaming CPU has arrived, but good grief the price
Since time immemorial (i.e: 2008), Intel CPUs have largely fallen into three distinct categories: you've got your entry-level Core i3s, your mid-range Core i5s, and your high-end Core i7s. With the recent introduction of Intel's new 9th generation of Coffee Lake CPUs, however, the processor giant has now expanded that range with a new Core i9 series, the first and most powerful of which is…
Intel launch 9th Gen processors ahead of possible CPU shortage
Intel lifted the lid on their 9th Gen desktop processors this afternoon, giving us a glimpse of what's coming next after their current crop of 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] chips. Leading the pack is their flagship Intel Core i9-9900K, an 8-core, 16-thread CPU that can Turbo Boost all the way up to 5.0GHz. However, the news comes little over a week after…
Feature: Anything but the B-team
Asus ROG Strix B360-F Gaming review: A great foundation for Intel Coffee Lake PCs
When Intel first introduced their 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPUs, anyone looking to upgrade their processor only had a single choice of motherboard chipset: the rather expensive Z370. Mercifully, Intel have now expanded their 300-series family to encourage budget builders to make the jump too - and the B360 chipset is one of them. To find out if it's any cop against pricier…
Intel accidentally spills the beans on new 9th Gen CPU series
Intel might have accidentally revealed some details of their new 9th generation of processors last night, giving us our first glimpse at what lies beyond the company's current crop of 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPUs. Nothing's been announced officially yet, but a couple of internal documents that were made public yesterday mentioned a string of 9000-series processors we'd never seen before. Here's the lowdown.
Feature: Gonna need a minute to process this
Here comes the tricky bit in our How to build a PC guide. I know I said that earlier when we were learning how to install a motherboard, but that was just fiddly. Installing your CPU requires a delicate sense of precision, as bending one of its many pins underneath could spell disaster for your entire build. So, take a deep breath, and let's get…
Intel’s Core i7-8086K is their best CPU yet – and there are 8086 of them up for grabs
In happier Computex news today (which doesn't involve having the vague release date of [block id="640017" title="Nvidia RTX"] graphics cards being dashed from sometime this autumn into the vague nothingness of "a long time" into the future), Intel have announced their very first CPU with a 5.0GHz turbo frequency to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their x86 architecture, the limited edition (and very aptly-named) Intel Core i7-8086K -…
Until recently, anyone looking to buy one of Intel's 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPUs was limited to just a single chipset on their accompanying motherboard: the rather expensive Z370. Then Intel announced two more entry-level chipsets at the start of April in the shape of the H370 and B360, and now it looks like there's another one in the works as well: the…
In the age of Intel's 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPUs, not to mention AMD's Ryzen+ chips, it's probably unlikely that you'll be considering one of Intel's old Kaby Lake X processors for your next PC build. Still, just in case you are thinking about buying an Intel Core i7-7740X or Core i5-7640X, you should probably know that they're about to be discontinued starting in this…
Dell’s Alienware laptops get a boost thanks to Intel’s Core i9 Coffee Lake CPUs
Dell's Alienware aesthetic may not be to everyone's tastes, but there's no denying that their gaming laptops are seriously beefy bits of kit - especially the dinky Alienware 13 I reviewed earlier in the year. The larger Alienware 15 and Alienware 17 laptops, however, are about to get even more powerful, as Dell's just announced it's bringing Intel's souped up Core i9 [block id="637401" title="Intel…
Asus unveil new H370 and B360 motherboards for Intel’s Coffee Lake CPUs
Asus have announced a string of new motherboards for the launch of Intel's latest 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPU chipsets. Arriving in ROG Strix, Prime and Tuf Gaming brand flavours, these new H370 and B360 boards aim to bring more connectivity at a price that should (hopefully) keep those tears of despair at bay if you decide to use as the foundation for your next PC -…
Intel’s new 8th Gen Coffee Lake CPUs will have built-in Spectre and Meltdown hardware fixes
Good news for Intel fans this morning. PC security flaws and definitely not James Bond movie titles Spectre and Meltdown will likely be largely eradicated in future hardware releases, the CPU giant's CEO Brian Krzanich has said in a blog post. We suspected this would probably be the case when the flaws were first unveiled at the beginning of the year by Google's Project Zero…
Intel’s new Cannon Lake and Ice Lake CPUs might fix Spectre and Meltdown flaws
It's a bad time to buy PC hardware right now, what with graphics card prices going through the roof due to crytpocurrency mining and practically every CPU on the planet being vulnerable to the recently uncovered Spectre and Meltdown CPU flaws. Fortunately, PC land's CPU woes may not be around for much longer, as Intel's suggested its new, upcoming Cannon Lake and Ice Lake processors won't be affected by…
CES 2018: Intel launch new AMD Vega CPUs and two super powerful compact PCs
Remember that time when Intel said it was teaming up with AMD for an 8th Gen [block id="637401" title="Intel Coffee Lake"] CPU with Vega graphics inside? Well, said processor is just about ready to launch. Announced yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the two Core i7 chips will be arriving this spring, and Intel's even created two of its very own teeny tiny PCs to show…
Feature: The year of the CPU...
Yes. I know. There has indeed been an awful lot of CPU coverage lately. What with AMD’s Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper chips, plus the sudden launch of Intel CPUs with up to 18 cores, not to mention Intel finally upping its mainstream ante from four to six cores, 2017 has surely been the year of the CPU. Which begs an obvious question. What is now…
Feature: Sub £200 scorcher...
Intel’s new 8th Gen Core chips are out and there is much rejoicing. For the first time in about five years, Intel has made an unambiguous step forward with its mainstream CPUs. In short, they've bunged in an extra pair of cores across the board. Where once you had two cores or four cores, now you have four cores or six cores. Of course more…
Feature: Ermegerd, some good Intel news...
I’m jumping the gun just a little but a few of you have sent emails on precisely this subject and there’s a significant quantity of fairly solid info out there, so let’s talk about the shape of all things CPU and gaming. AMD’s Ryzen chips have very obviously been the big news thus far this year. But completing the picture for the next six months…
Feature: Attention: Read this before you buy a new PC!
Yes, yes, a 16-core CPU is likely-going-on-definitely irrelevant for PC gaming. But it's an exciting notion in simple technological terms and it represents something that certainly is important for gaming, namely that the PC as a platform has woken up again. Along with that mega-CPU from AMD, we also have the imminent prospect of new graphics card families from both AMD and Nvidia, new CPUs…
