PC Hardware News, Reviews & Buying Guides — Page 50 of 61
Daily news digests, benchmark roundups, 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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- Best SSD for a Steam Deck or ROG Ally Upgrade (2026) — The best ssd steam deck rog ally 2026 picks: Crucial P310 1TB 2230 for performance Deck upgrades, WD SN770M for premium handheld builds… Mike Perry · 2026-05-20 · 11 min read
- DeepSeek 4 Flash on 128GB MacBook: Local Inference Throughput Reality Check — Yes, you can run DeepSeek 4 Flash on a 128 GB MacBook Pro M4 Max — but only the 16-core/40-core GPU SKU supports that memory tier, MLX is… Mike Perry · 2026-05-20 · 13 min read
- 8BitDo SN30 Pro on SNES Classic and Genesis Mini: Bluetooth Setup Guide — Setup guide for the 8BitDo SN30 Pro on SNES Classic and Genesis Mini in 2026 — buy the right Retro Receiver, then pair in 30 seconds. Mike Perry · 2026-05-20 · 10 min read
- Sound BlasterX G6 vs Audigy FX for Modern Retro WinXP Gaming — BlasterX G6 vs Audigy FX on Windows XP: neither has native drivers — here is what actually works for EAX retro gaming in 2026. Mike Perry · 2026-05-20 · 11 min read
- Building a 2003-Era LAN Party Rig: Pentium 4, GeForce FX 5900, Audigy 2 ZS — A period-correct 2003 LAN party PC for $250: Pentium 4 Northwood, GeForce FX 5900, Audigy 2 ZS, 1 GB DDR PC3200, WinXP SP3. Full build log… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- AI-Driven Driver Hunting on WinXP: Using Vision LLMs to Install Audigy 2 ZS Without Internet — Installing Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS drivers on WinXP in 2026 takes a vision LLM, a webcam, and a local mirror of Creative's deleted… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- AI-Driven Driver Install for Win98: Vision-LLM + 3060 12GB Build (2026) — An RTX 3060 12GB running Qwen2-VL-7B can install Windows 98 drivers autonomously by watching VM screenshots. Here's the architecture… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Build a $20 DualSense PC Adapter: The Open-Source Sony Workaround — Sony's DualSense pairing on Windows drops inputs and loses adaptive-trigger fidelity over Bluetooth. A $20 Raspberry Pi Pico W adapter… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Best PlayStation Controller for PC Gaming in 2026 — The Sony DualSense (CFI-ZCT1W) is the default PC controller in 2026 — native Steam Input means working haptics, adaptive triggers, gyro… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Best SSD for PS5 Storage Expansion Under $100 (2026) — The WD_BLACK SN770 1 TB is the under-$100 winner — passes Sony's spec and loads games within a third of a second of internal. Five drives… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS in 2026: The Last Great Win98/XP Sound Card Install Guide — The Audigy 2 ZS remains the cleanest sound card you can put in a Win98 SE or WinXP retro build. This guide covers SKU identification… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Best Mid-Range Gaming CPU (2026) — The best mid-range gaming CPUs for 2026 are the Ryzen 7 7800X3D for pure gaming, the Ryzen 5 9600X for value under $250, and the Intel… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Best USB-C Capture and Streaming Gear for Console + PC Creators (2026) — The best USB-C streaming gear for hybrid console and PC creators in 2026. Plug-and-play picks that work on PS5 and PC alike, with budget… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 12 min read
- Building a CompactFlash-Boot Win98 SE Retro PC: 2026 Workflow — Period-correct Win98 SE retro PCs in 2026 deserve modern silent storage. A 64 GB Transcend CF300 on a passive CF-to-IDE adapter boots in… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How nVidia Killed 3dfx — and Why Voodoo Still Haunts Every GPU Launch — nVidia did not kill 3dfx with one product — three strategic missteps (STB acquisition, T&L skip, Voodoo5 6000 overcommit) did. But the… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Running a Local LLM on a Raspberry Pi 5 With llama.cpp: Real tok/s on 1B-8B Models — A Pi 5 with llama.cpp + Q4_K_M runs TinyLlama ~14 tok/s, Llama-3.2 3B ~4 tok/s, and Llama-3.1 8B ~1.6 tok/s with active cooling. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 12 min read
- Best Gaming Headset for PS5 and PC in 2026 — PS5 + PC headset picks from $32 to $349, with real mic SNR numbers and the gotchas (no Bluetooth audio, USB-C quirks) that trip buyers up. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Troubleshooting a Vintage WinXP Retro PC That Won't Boot: Driver Verifier, BIOS, and IDE Recovery — Most XP no-boot calls are a dead CMOS battery, an AHCI/IDE mismatch, or a Driver Verifier session left enabled — and they fix in minutes. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Controlling Windows 98 and XP PCs with AI agents — the retro-agent project — The retro-agent open-source project exposes Win98/XP machines to AI agents via a lightweight TCP protocol. Full architecture, use cases… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- RTX 3060 vs RTX 5060 Ti — two generations apart — RTX 5060 Ti 16GB vs RTX 3060 12GB: 73.4 vs 41.9 FPS at 1440p (1.75×) and 1.9× with ray tracing, per Tom’s Hardware’s 2026 GPU hierarchy. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run DeepSeek-R1 32B on Apple M3 Ultra — Fits natively — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for DeepSeek-R1 32B on Apple M3 Ultra. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Ryzen 7 9800X3D vs 7800X3D upgrade guide — Ryzen 7 9800X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D — MSRP, VRAM, TDP, synthetic scores, and real AI inference tok/s head-to-head. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Core Ultra 9 285K — 9950X3D vs 285K: AMD leads gaming (95.7% vs 71.8%, Tom's Hardware) and PassMark multi-thread (70,098 vs 67,233); Intel costs $110 less at… Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run DeepSeek-R1 32B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 — Requires CPU offload — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for DeepSeek-R1 32B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run Llama 3.1 70B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 — Requires CPU offload — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for Llama 3.1 70B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run Qwen 3 14B on Arc B580 — Fits natively — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for Qwen 3 14B on Arc B580. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run Qwen 3 32B on Arc B580 — Requires CPU offload — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for Qwen 3 32B on Arc B580. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 10 min read
- How to run Qwen 3 32B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 — Requires CPU offload — step-by-step Ollama and llama.cpp setup plus real tok/s numbers for Qwen 3 32B on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. Mike Perry · 2026-05-19 · 11 min read
- Asus ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses pre-orders start today at $849 — 240 Hz virtual gaming at 171 inches on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation — Asus ROG and Xreal jointly opened pre-orders for the ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses on May 15, 2026, per Tom's Hardware's primary coverage. The… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 9 min read
- LG UltraGear 52G930B 52-inch 5K gaming monitor review: Extreme in every respect — LG has launched the UltraGear 52G930B, a 52-inch 5K OLED gaming monitor reviewed this week by Tom's Hardware under the headline "Extreme… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 8 min read
- MLX engine comparison… and oMLX is the top choice. — A benchmark post on r/LocalLLaMA quickly became a reference point for Apple Silicon LLM users: a direct comparison of inference engines on… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 9 min read
- llama.cpp MTP support landed - Qwen3.6 27B at 2.44× on a Strix Halo, 2.17× on a RTX 3090 rig — Multi-Token Prediction speculative decoding arrived in the mainline llama.cpp repository on May 16, 2026, via PR #22673 (commit 4f13cb7)… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Lemonade v10.5.1: an MTP + ROCm 7.13 quick start for Strix Halo — The Lemonade SDK team tagged v10.5.1 on May 18, 2026, positioning the release as an MTP + ROCm 7.13 quick-start aimed at AMD Strix Halo… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- MTP (Multi-Token Prediction): 2x Faster Token Generation on AMD Strix Halo & Radeon 9700 AI Pro — A benchmark video published May 18, 2026 on YouTube — surfaced through an r/LocalLLaMA thread that climbed the subreddit's front page the… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read
- 21 GPU's benchmarked running a small TTS model (vram peak: 5GB) — A Redditor posted results from a self-funded benchmark sprint on vast.ai, renting GPU instances for a few minutes each to run OmniVoice, a… SpecPicks News Desk · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Best Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kits and Accessories for Home Lab Builds (2026) — The Pi 5 is the best single-board computer for home labs in 2026. Here are the top starter kits, must-have accessories, and real use-case… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Best NVMe SSD for PC Gaming Builds in 2026 — The best NVMe SSDs for gaming in 2026 ranked by real load-time benchmarks, DirectStorage readiness, and value-per-GB from Gen3 to Gen5. Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 9 min read
- Best SSD for Steam Deck Storage Expansion (2026) — The SanDisk 1TB Extreme microSD is the best pick for most Steam Deck owners — no teardown, no warranty risk, and 130MB/s reads for under… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 9 min read
- Best AIO Liquid Cooler for Ryzen X3D & High-End Intel (2026) — The ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240, NZXT Kraken 240, and Thermalright Frozen Notte are the best AIO coolers for Ryzen X3D and high-end Intel… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 13 min read
- AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395: The 128GB Mini PC Running 70B LLMs Locally — Per AMD's specs, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395's ~256 GB/s bandwidth caps Llama 3 70B Q4_K_M at ~6 tok/s, though its 128GB pool holds the whole… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 14 min read
- Best Wireless Controller for a Couch-Gaming Living-Room PC in 2026 — The DualSense, 8BitDo Ultimate 2C, and Xbox Wireless are the best couch gaming controllers for a living room PC in 2026 — here's when to… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 14 min read
- Best Gaming CPU for 1080p and 1440p Builds in 2026 — The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the fastest gaming CPU in 2026, with the 7800X3D and i5-14600K offering strong value for 1080p and 1440p builds at… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read
- Quake 3 + UT99 Dedicated Server on Raspberry Pi 4 8GB: Headless AI-Managed Setup (2026) — Step-by-step Quake 3 + UT99 dedicated server setup on Raspberry Pi 4 8GB with systemd supervision and a local-LLM AI manager. Pulls ~8W… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read
- Best Wired Headset for PlayStation Cross-Play Cross-Platform Voice Chat (2026) — Wired beats wireless for PlayStation cross-play voice chat in 2026. The Turtle Beach Recon 50 PS at $35 is the best buy for most players. Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Period-Correct 2001 Pentium III Build: Sound Blaster Audigy Era Synthesis — A period-correct 2001 PIII build uses the Intel 815EP chipset, Tualatin-core CPU, GeForce 2 GTS or 3 Ti 200, and a Sound Blaster Audigy… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 12 min read
- Best Starter Kit for Learning Robotics on Raspberry Pi (2026) — The Pi 4 8GB paired with the Freenove Ultimate Starter Kit is the best way to learn robotics on a Raspberry Pi in 2026 — 57 projects… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read
- MTP in llama.cpp: The Regression, the Fix, and the KV-Cache Free Lunch — MTP is working in current llama.cpp main after a 48-hour regression. Here's what broke, which commit fixed it, and why Q8_0 KV cache… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Claude Mythos: What Anthropic Found + Why Regulators Were Briefed — Anthropic's Mythos AI surfaced thousands of OS and browser flaws and briefed the FSB. What was disclosed, and what local-agent operators… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 10 min read
- Qwen 3.6 27B on 24GB VRAM: Backend, Quant + Settings Synthesis — Qwen 3.6 27B runs best on 24 GB VRAM with Q4_K_M in llama.cpp or Q5_K_S in ik_llama.cpp. Here's the full quant, backend, and… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read
- Best Budget Gaming Monitors Under $300 for 1080p in 2026 — The HP 24mh FHD is the best budget gaming monitor under $300 in 2026: 23.8" IPS, 75Hz, built-in speakers, and sub-$150 street price that… Mike Perry · 2026-05-18 · 11 min read