Category - Basics

News Test

This is how the 12VHPWR is done correctly: Crimping instead of soldering and how to supply the GeForce RTX 4090 with power properly

First there were bent cables, then annoyed buyers of the at least 2000 euro expensive NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, no matter which model or manufacturer. The manufacturer of the 4-pin adapter from 12VHPWR to 4x 8-pin for older power supplies was also careless. And, of course, we learned something once again in the course of our investigations. Since [...]


Beginner tutorial: Plan and assemble PC air cooling properly

Yes, it’s winter again and the next hot hardware is just around the corner. Admittedly, summer is still a long way off, but it’s still getting warmer every day because the wattage of the components is also increasing so immeasurably. For a PC owner or self-builder, the topics of waste heat, cooling and ambient temperature (also [...]


The big Ryzen 7000 Memory and OC Tuning Guide – Infinity Fabric, EXPO, Dual-Rank, Samsung and Hynix DDR5 in Practice test with Benchmarks and Recommendations

AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, based on the Zen4 micro-architecture, still use the same chiplet design as their predecessors, with a few small but not negligible changes. Igor already gave details about this in yesterday’s big review. Today we want to look at how to configure the new CPUs as optimally as possible and for this we [...]


Monitor sizes, panel types and special features | Part 1 Monitor basics

After a long hick-hack with my internet provider and a professional special case – the time has finally come. We’ll start with the basics on the subject of monitors. Today we’ll look at the topic of panel types, screen sizes and resolutions. However, I will not do a total deep dive into the technical level, but only go so far [...]


Fan testing 2.0: feedback, measurements and new metrics for cases and radiators using the example of a Phanteks T30

The better is the enemy of the good, and that is exactly why we have taken stock after almost 40 tested fans, evaluated the feedback from readers and added more details. Although the effort involved increases somewhat, many processes can be automated. The question of which units to base the whole thing on has kept us busy for some time. Since the [...]


NVIDIA’s and AMD’s demands on the PCI SIG for the new 600 Watt VGA cards – limits, allowed overruns and transients | Exclusive

Is the 600 watts really the upper end or where are the tolerance ranges for exceeding the standards for a short bursts? And why does the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti suddenly show a completely different behavior under full load? I will answer exactly these questions today, because the review of the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti has (probably not only) made me [...]


Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 GAMING OC WATERFORCE WB – When aluminum destroys the cooling circuit | Investigativ

Due to a given occasion, I now even have to add a third part to my water cooling investigations. It will unfortunately show what happens when you combine (without knowing it) an aluminum cooler with copper components and I will specifically question why the result turns out so extreme, as in this case. Of course, you also have to differentiate the [...]


Missing flux compensator: Flux residues in cheap radiators – why so many AiO water cooling systems really die | Investigative

I did not make it easy for myself, but worked on this topic for almost half a year. In the first article last year I had already written about clogged radiators and tubes, defective pumps and the theory behind the coolants on their additives. After a very complex analysis with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and with the help of energy [...]


Depth examination of thermal paste (ArcticMX-4): Searching for snake oil with scanning electron microscope and X-ray spectroscopy. What’s inside?

To describe it in detail, otherwise the headline would have been too long: Today, we will use the field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) to analyze in more detail what is really inside one of the most popular (and also cheaper) thermal pastes in the form of the Arctic MX-4. The [...]