CPU temperatures within limits? – Thermal Grizzly, Thermalright, Jeyi and Feng Zao LGA1700 frames in comparison test

Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs with their LGA1700 and Independent Loading Mechanism (ILM) including the bending problem have been around for 9 months now. The successor CPUs aka Raptor Lake might not be long away, but it has already been confirmed that they will use the same socket and thus most likely ILM as well. Existing motherboards with a 600 [...]


Next Gen performance and OC potential – G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6400 CL32 2x 16 GB kit test with teardown

G.Skill is probably one of the best-known brands in the desktop memory market and of course, the Taiwanese manufacturer also has several interesting SKUs for the new DDR5 standard on offer, of which we finally get to test one for you today. Specifically, it’s a Trident Z5 RGB kit with silver heatsinks and DDR5-6400 CL32 XMP profile, which we [...]


It’s over 7000! – Teamgroup DELTA RGB DDR5-6400 CL40 2 x 16GB kit Review with Overclocking and Teardown

Teamgroup has been offering some of the fastest memory modules for the platform with the T-Force DELTA DDR5 kits almost since the launch of Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs. At least on paper, other manufacturers have recently introduced even faster kits, but XMP specifications are not everything, as we know. Today, we will take another close look at [...]


JEDEC vs. Intel DDR5 specs – timings tRRD_S, tRRD_L, tFAW and tRTP in benchmark tests with Alder Lake

Today I want to talk about a guilty pleasure of mine, the overclocking of RAM, more precisely DDR5 and its timings. There is a strange difference between the specifications of JEDEC, the standard’s committee, and the Intel specifications of the Alder Lake CPUs of the 12th generation. And even though the exact functionality of the individual [...]


GEEKOM IT8 Mini-PC Review – A turbulent history and hidden features

Today we’ll take a look at GEEKOM’s mini-PC, which looks very similar to Intel’s NUC systems on the outside, a self-proclaimed new star in the sky of microcomputers. Although they say they were founded in 2003, this is the first system from this brand. So the whole thing is worth a closer look, more on that in the article below [...]


HYTE Revolt 3 PC Case Revire – Cute cheese grater with a big potential

You could almost think that today there would be another review of the NZXT H1, which recently got a revised version, but no, this is about the Revolt 3 case from HYTE, a brand of the system dealer iBUYPOWER, which looks similar at first glance. According to their own statement, they want to “show their commitment to the DIY market.” [...]


German Engineered Bend Aids for Intels LGA1700 – Thermal Grizzly CPU Contact Frame and Alphacool Apex Backplate Thermal Testing | Review

The LGA1700 socket, which Intel introduced for the 12th generation of their Core CPUs last November, is known to have one or two problems with bending hardware. For context, I recommend our other two posts if you haven’t read them already. But in short, the problem is that the clamping force of the ILM (Integrated Loading Mechanism) is [...]


Affordable DDR5 lottery with potential peak performance – Patriot Signature Line DDR5-4800 modules in overclocking test | Review

SK Hynix 16 Gbit M-Die is known to be the holy grail in terms of DDR5 overclocking, at least at time of writing. The prices for the fastest kits with clock rates in the XMP profile of over 6000 Mbps are still quite expensive. However, if you dare to work on the clock and timings of the RAM yourself anyway, cheaper kits with the same ICs are an [...]


Motherboards, Qualified Vendor Lists and not working memory kits – How the non-standard can drive buyers to despair

Qualified Vendor Lists, or QVL for short, are probably familiar to anyone who has looked for a suitable pairing of motherboard and RAM kit. Since RAM kits with an XMP profile are not covered by the official specifications of the CPU manufacturers (Intel or AMD), motherboard and RAM manufacturers test the compatibility between their products [...]