PC Hardware News, Reviews & Buying Guides — Page 13 of 62
Daily news digests, deep-dive reviews, and long-form buying guides on GPUs, CPUs, home AI workstations, local LLM runtimes, retro PC builds, and the tools real builders use in 2026.
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- llama.cpp vs Ollama on a 12GB RTX 3060 in 2026: which is faster? — Ollama wraps llama.cpp so the raw speed gap is small. The real choice is tuning depth vs setup ease on a 12GB RTX 3060 in 2026. Mike Perry · 2026-07-18 · 9 min read
- Local RTX 3060 rig vs Kimi K3's cheap API: the 2026 cost-per-task math — Kimi K3 shipped at $0.94 per task and reshuffled the local-vs-cloud math. Here's the break-even threshold for an RTX 3060 rig in 2026. Mike Perry · 2026-07-18 · 9 min read
- Running local LLMs on the Ryzen 5 5600G iGPU (no dedicated GPU) in 2026 — Community-measured tokens per second, the DDR4 bandwidth ceiling, and the upgrade path to a real GPU for the Ryzen 5 5600G on 2026 LLMs. Mike Perry · 2026-07-18 · 9 min read
- Grok 4.5, GPT-5.6, Kimi K3: four frontier models in eight days — what it means for local rigs — Grok 4.5, GPT-5.6, and Kimi K3 shipped in eight days. Here's what a 12GB RTX 3060 local rig still does that no frontier API can match. Mike Perry · 2026-07-18 · 10 min read
- Dual RTX 3090 Ti in 2026: Worth It vs. the Alternatives? — Dual RTX 3090 Ti setups still make sense for CUDA rendering and local LLM inference in 2026, but gaming, power draw, and case fit make it… Mike Perry · 2026-07-18
- Best SteamOS Handheld Gaming PCs in 2025: What to Buy — A synthesis of public specs and reporting on SteamOS handhelds in 2025 — Steam Deck OLED, Legion Go S, and how SteamOS compares to Windows. Mike Perry · 2026-07-18
- Local AI Server LLM Setups 2025: What Hardware Matters — A synthesis of public specs and community builds on what actually matters for a local AI server running LLMs in 2025 — memory, GPU tier… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Best Budget Gaming PC Build 2026: AMD Parts Guide — An AMD-anchored budget gaming PC build guide for 2026: CPU, GPU, storage, and PSU picks synthesized from public pricing and benchmark… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- PC Sim Racing Wheels in 2026: Logitech G29, Thrustmaster and HORI Compared — The 2026 entry sim-racing shortlist: Logitech G29 as the safe default, HORI FFB DLX as the Xbox alternative, Thrustmaster TH8A when… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 11 min read
- CompactFlash as a Boot Drive: Silent Storage for a Period-Correct Retro PC (2026) — How to boot a retro PC from a CompactFlash card — pick a fixed-disk-mode card like the Transcend CF133, image from a modern PC, set BIOS… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Raspberry Pi 4 8GB Homelab in 2026: Jellyfin, Pi-hole and Home Assistant on One Board — The Pi 4 8GB comfortably runs Pi-hole, Home Assistant, and Jellyfin together for a household in 2026 — boot from an SSD, keep media in… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 11 min read
- Asus RTX 5060 Hits Near-MSRP on Amazon Prime — Is the Budget Blackwell Worth It? — Asus RTX 5060 at Prime near-MSRP is a first-of-its-kind fair price on mainstream Blackwell. Wins for pure gaming; loses to the RTX 3060… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- Local AI Server Build 2026: RAM, VRAM and NVMe for 13B+ Models — The 2026 home AI server: 12GB VRAM anchor, 64GB RAM, fast NVMe, 8-core CPU, quiet cooling. Reference BOM around the MSI RTX 3060 12GB and… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Local LLM PC Build 2026: What 12GB of VRAM Really Runs — The pragmatic 2026 local-LLM PC: MSI RTX 3060 12GB, Ryzen 7 5800X or 5700X, 32GB DDR4, Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe, Noctua NH-U12S — priced… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Four Frontier Models in Eight Days: What a 12GB RTX 3060 Can Actually Run — Four frontier launches in eight days. Kimi K3, GPT-5.6, Grok 4.5, Muse Spark 1.1. A 12GB RTX 3060 cannot host their flagships — but… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- RetroArch Cores Download Guide: Safe Sources 2025 — How to download RetroArch cores safely in 2025 — official core downloader vs third-party sources, checksum verification, and CPU picks… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Building a New Gaming PC in 2026: The Complete Guide — A synthesis guide to CPUs, GPUs, motherboards, storage, and networking for building a gaming PC in 2026, plus budget tiers and a parts… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- What Does DPS Mean in Gaming? Damage Per Second Explained — DPS measures damage output per second in shooters and MMOs. Here's what it means, how hardware affects it, and how to raise yours. Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Fine-Tune Video and Image Models at Scale: NeMo vs Diffusers — How NVIDIA NeMo Automodel and Hugging Face Diffusers fit together for scaling video and image model fine-tuning, from single-GPU LoRA jobs… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- RTX 5090 AI Desktop: 2026 Build Guide & Benchmarks — A synthesis of public specs and reviewer benchmarks on the RTX 5090 for local AI work, plus build guidance for CPU, PSU, cooling, and… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Raspberry Pi Projects on GitHub: 2025 Guide — A synthesis of the Raspberry Pi GitHub projects worth running in 2025: home automation, AI vision, clustering, and beginner builds worth… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Raspberry Pi Pico W Becomes a Driverless USB WiFi Adapter — A Pico W flashed with community firmware becomes a $6 driverless USB WiFi adapter — the answer to WiFi on Win98, embedded boxes, and any… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X3D Goes Newegg-Exclusive at $329 — The 7700X3D is a slower 7800X3D that isn't reliably cheaper, per Tom's Hardware. Here's what that means for the AM4 value stack — and why… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- Best Budget SSDs for Retro and Homelab Builds in 2026 — Retro rigs, homelabs, and model libraries all need the same thing — reliable, cheap SSDs in the 240GB-1TB tier. Our five picks, the… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 12 min read
- Building a Silent Windows 98 Gaming PC in 2026: The Full Parts List — A complete parts list for a silent Windows 98 gaming PC in 2026 — CompactFlash or SATA SSD in place of the loud period HDD, undervolted… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 12 min read
- Best SSD for a Retro PC Build: CompactFlash vs SATA in 2026 — For a Pentium III or early Athlon daily driver, silent CompactFlash beats period-correct spinning rust every time. When to use… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 12 min read
- AMD Ryzen AI Halo: A DGX Spark Rival at Mini-PC Size — AMD's unified-memory mini-PC hosts weights no consumer GPU can fit, at a fraction of the sustained power draw. Where it wins, where it… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 12 min read
- Kimi K3 Scores 57 on Intelligence Index at $0.94/Task — The Artificial Analysis leaderboard puts K3 in the same band as Opus 4.8 — but at $0.94 per task, the cheap-Chinese-open-model era looks… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 13 min read
- Local LLM in VSCode: The 2026 Setup Guide — How to run a local LLM inside VSCode in 2026 — the extensions, Ollama setup, model picks, and hardware tiers that actually matter for… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Best Raspberry Pi Alternatives for AI in 2026 — Raspberry Pi 4/5 struggle with on-device AI inference. Compare Jetson Orin Nano, Coral Dev Board, Radxa Rock 5B, and Hailo-8 add-ons for… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Intel Arc B580 for LLM Inference: What It Can Actually Do — Intel Arc B580's 12GB VRAM and IPEX-LLM/llama.cpp support make it a budget option for local LLM inference — not a datacenter training card. Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Best Handheld Gaming PC Under $200 in 2026 — No Windows-based handheld gaming PC ships under $200 in 2026 — this synthesis breaks down what the sub-$200 market actually delivers… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Best Raspberry Pi Alternative for Klipper (2025 Guide) — Raspberry Pi still anchors most Klipper setups, but SBCs like the BigTreeTech CB1 and compact x86 boxes are viable hosts too. Here's how… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- CRT vs LCD for Retro Gaming: Which Wins in 2026? — CRT or LCD for retro gaming? A synthesis of input lag, resolution, scanline emulation, and cost data to help you pick the right display. Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Asus ROG Xreal R1 Brings 240 Hz to AR Glasses — What PC Gamers Should Know — Asus announced the ROG Xreal R1, the first AR glasses at 240 Hz refresh. What actually changes for competitive PC gamers, and what to pair… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- Best Budget SSD for a Gaming PC in 2026: Crucial BX500 vs SanDisk vs Samsung 970 EVO Plus — The Crucial BX500 1TB SATA is the cheapest safe pick; the Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe is the smart step up. When each choice actually… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Gemma 4 Stealth Update Fixes Tool Calling: What Changes Locally — Gemma 4 got a stealth fix for broken tool calling and truncation — re-pull is mandatory. A 12GB RTX 3060 runs the fixed model comfortably… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Rescue a Dying Vintage IDE Drive: Imaging Retro Disks with a USB-to-IDE Adapter — Image a dying vintage IDE hard drive with a Unitek USB-to-IDE adapter and ddrescue, then restore to a CompactFlash card for a solid-state… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- Kimi K3 Nears GPT-5.6 at Half the Cost — And What It Means for Home Rigs — Kimi K3 matches GPT-5.6 quality at roughly half the API cost. Smaller open-weight variants fit on a 12GB RTX 3060 — here's what runs on… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge in 2026: Faster Inference on the RTX 3060 12GB — Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge outperforms vanilla AUTOMATIC1111 on the RTX 3060 12GB and finally lets FLUX-family models fit at usable… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 9 min read
- xAI Open-Sources Grok-Build: Running Agentic Coding on Your Own GPU — xAI open-sourced Grok-Build, its agentic coding agent. Community quants run on a 12GB RTX 3060 at ~30 tok/s — genuinely usable local… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17 · 10 min read
- IPEX-LLM Ollama Update 2026: What's New for Intel GPU Rigs — The latest IPEX-LLM release refines Ollama's Intel GPU backend, widening Arc and Data Center GPU Max support and clarifying quantization… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- RTX 5090 AI Build 2026: Full Parts List & VRAM Sizing — A synthesis-based guide to sizing CPU, RAM, PSU, and storage around the RTX 5090's 32GB of VRAM for local AI inference and model-training… Mike Perry · 2026-07-17
- Intel Arc Pro B60 AI Performance: 24GB VRAM Explained — Intel's Arc Pro B60 packs 24GB of VRAM and Xe2 AI acceleration into a workstation GPU built for local LLM inference — here's what the… Mike Perry · 2026-07-16
- Intel Arc Pro B60 AI: 24GB VRAM for Local LLMs in 2026 — Intel's Arc Pro B60 pairs Xe2 architecture with 24GB (48GB dual-GPU) VRAM for local LLM inference. Here's what public specs and coverage… Mike Perry · 2026-07-16
- Best Cooler for the Ryzen 7 5800X: Noctua NH-U12S vs ML240L — Noctua NH-U12S vs Cooler Master ML240L on a hot-running Ryzen 7 5800X. Real load temps, noise, longevity, and a per-scenario pick. Mike Perry · 2026-07-16 · 9 min read
- Add NVMe Boot and Active Cooling to a Raspberry Pi 5 in 2026 — Add NVMe boot and Active Cooling to a Pi 5 in 2026. Parts list, install steps, real throughput deltas vs microSD, and the pitfalls to avoid. Mike Perry · 2026-07-16 · 10 min read
- CompactFlash-to-IDE Boot Drive: The Silent Win98 Build Upgrade — Swap a 90s IDE HDD for a CompactFlash boot drive on Win98. Parts list, install steps, real boot-time deltas, and the pitfalls that void… Mike Perry · 2026-07-16 · 10 min read
- RTX 3060 12GB vs Arc B580 for 1080p Gaming: Which Wins? — Arc B580 vs RTX 3060 12GB at 1080p high/ultra: real FPS across modern AAA and esports, ray-tracing verdict, driver-maturity caveat, price… Mike Perry · 2026-07-16 · 10 min read
- Raspberry Pi 5 IOMMU Driver Lands for the Mainline Linux Kernel — The Pi 5 IOMMU driver just landed in mainline Linux. What it enables — VFIO, KVM device passthrough, DPDK — and who should actually care. Mike Perry · 2026-07-16 · 10 min read