connect lcd panel to pc psu site www.tomshardware.com free sample

"Pull everything except the CPU and HSF. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU.

To eliminate the possiblility of a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU, you will need to pull the motherboard out of the case and reassemble the components on an insulated surface. This is called "breadboarding" - from the 1920"s homebrew radio days. I always breadboard a new or recycled build. It lets me test components before I go through the trouble of installing them in a case.

If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare). Long single beeps indicates that the BIOS does not recognize the presence of the RAM.

If you get the one long and two or three short beeps, test the rest of the RAM. If good, install the video card and any needed power cables and plug in the monitor. If the video card is good, the system should successfully POST (one short beep, usually) and you will see the boot screen and messages.

As shared by @momomo_us on Twitter,(opens in new tab) ASRock has built a new accessory for PC builders that allows you to turn your PC chassis" side panel into an LCD monitor. The gadget is a 13.3" side panel kit designed to be tapped to the inside of your see-through side panel, giving users an additional display for monitoring system resources and temperatures or being used as a secondary monitor altogether.

The screen is a 16:9 aspect ratio 1080P IPS 60Hz display, measuring 13.3 inches diagonally. This screen is the equivalent of a laptop display. It uses the same connection method as laptops, featuring an embedded DisplayPort (eDP) connector.

Unfortunately, this represents a problem for most PC users. The connector was originally designed specifically for mobile, and embedded PC solutions, meaning the connector is not available on standard desktop motherboards or graphics cards.

As a result, only ASRock motherboards support the side panel, and only a few models at best, with less than ten motherboards featuring the eDP connector. The list includes the following motherboards: Z790 LiveMixer, Z790 Pro RS/D4, Z790M-ITX WiFi, Z790 Steel Legend WiFi, Z790 PG Lightning, Z790 Pro RS, Z790 PG Lightning/D4. H610M-ITX/eDP, and B650E PG-ITX WiFi.

Sadly adapters aren"t a solution either since eDP to DP (or any other display output) adapters don"t exist today. Furthermore, creating an adapter is problematic because eDP runs both power and video signals through a single cable.

It"s a shame this accessory won"t get mainstream popularity due to these compatibility issues. But for the few users with the correct motherboard, this side panel kit can provide a full secondary monitor that takes up no additional space on your desk. The only sacrifice you"ll make is blocking all the shiny RGB lighting inside your chassis.

Maingear has had a good year. Through partnerships with HP (the Maingear Omen X) and Razer, in addition to former Voodoo CEO and tech legend Raul Sood joining the company, we’ve seen Maingear grow into a brand-name custom shop that offers a plethora of PC configurations, along with its signature hot rod-inspired paint shop.

Although Maingear is most known for its high-end custom water loops and premium automotive finishing, the company debuted its budget-friendly Vybe gaming desktop PC last year, bringing Maingear’s custom PC mastery to a more comfortable price point. Starting at $999 for VR-ready configurations (and $699 for budget setups), the Vybe lacks the custom paint options and open-loop liquid cooling of the company’s pricier offerings, but we wanted to see what Maingear’s conservative side had to offer.

Much to our dismay, Maingear pulled out all the stops with the Vybe configuration it sent us, single-handedly decimating our original expectations with a beast of a gaming PC equipped with an Intel Core i7-7700K overclocked to 5.0 GHz, an NVMe PCIe SSD, and dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition graphics cards in SLI. Ringing up for $3,842, this Maingear Vybe gives us an insanely powerful hardware set with everything but the kitchen sink (open-loop cooling and custom paint). Time to see how the not-so-budget-oriented premium configuration of the Vybe performs in our test suite.

The Maingear Vybe in our lab doesn’t feature the flashy custom paint we’re used to seeing with other premium PC configurations from the company (although this can be accommodated, starting at $499), but the modified NZXT S340 mid-tower ATX chassis is eye-catching in its own right. The case’s feet have been modified from its original specification to increase stability, and indeed, the Vybe is sturdy where it sits. The solid front panel doesn’t allow for an optical drive, but it gives the Vybe a sleek look with a Maingear logo and matte black finish. Maingear also ships the Vybe with an external USB DVD-RW drive, so we don’t miss the unsightly (and nearly obsolete) optical drive protruding from the front of the case.

The left side panel features an acrylic window that showcases the interior components, which are bathed in RGB LED lighting. This premium add on usually costs a cool $69, but Maingear is offering the remote-controlled light strip for free during its back-to-school sale. The underside of the chassis features a PSU dust filter, which is easy to remove and keeps your power supply clean. The top of the chassis has a 140mm exhaust fan.

The front-panel I/O is also located on the top of the case, with two USB 3.0 ports residing next to the power button. To the left of the USB ports are two audio jacks (one headphone-out, one mic-in). The motherboard’s connectivity is more expansive, with USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-C and Type-A ports (capable of up to 10 Gbps data rates) powered by an ASMedia ASM2142 chipset, two USB 3.0 ports, and three USB 2.0 ports wired directly to the motherboard’s Z270 chipset.

Display output on the motherboard comes in the form of an HDMI 1.4 port and a DisplayPort 1.2 interface, but Maingear capped these off, directing customers to the two GPUs, which sport six DisplayPort 1.4 interfaces, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and two DVI-D ports between them. You can connect to the internet using the RJ-45 port, which is powered by a Qualcomm Killer E2500 Gigabit LAN controller.

Inside the Vybe, an MSI Z270 Gaming M7 motherboard is loaded with an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, which Maingear overclocked to a stable 5.0 GHz for a $49 Redline Overclocking service fee. A 240mm liquid cooler (branded as the Maingear Epic 240 SuperCooler) takes in cool air at the front of the chassis with the aid of two 120mm NZXT case fans. Ambient heat is driven from the chassis by a rear 120mm fan and top 140mm fan.

The Vybe’s 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 has above-average speed, with a CAS latency of 15-17-17-35. These tight timings should help in memory intensive workloads, and the capacity is also more than adequate for most AAA game coming down the pipeline. Two Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition graphics cards are linked together with a familiar green high-bandwidth SLI bridge, and similar to the CPU, Maingear overclocks the GPUs (+100 MHz core, +150 MHz memory) with the purchase of its Redline Overclocking service.

One of the motherboard’s M.2 slots (between the GPUs) features an M.2 Shield, which is just a metal mounting plate used to dissipate heat from a socketed SSD. The interface is occupied by a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD, which is rated for up to 3,500 MB/s sequential read speeds. The size and speed of the primary storage is ideal for even enthusiast gamers, and getting a higher capacity SSD would assuredly sink a lot more money into the build. The SSD is complimented by a 2TB 7,200 RPM Seagate HDD (accessible from the right side panel in the 3.5” drive bay), and the total storage capacity and potential primary storage performance of the Vybe mirrors what many price-conscious DIY enthusiasts would go with in their own builds.

A sleek PSU shroud hides a fully modular Corsair AX860i power supply, but you can access it from the right-side panel. Maingear recently changed up its configurators, and it now offers EVGA-branded PSUs in the Vybe. The AX860i in our review unit was replaced by an EVGA Supernova 850W PSU in the same price class as our sample’s AX860i, but either of those are adequate enough to power the beastly SLI rig, so we shouldn’t see too much of a difference between what we have in front of us and what Maingear offers today.

The PSU’s stock ATX, CPU, and PCIe power cables are connected to red, individually-braided cables (for an extra $99), which connect to the motherboard in the visible (main) chamber of the chassis. The red cables and the aforementioned remote-controlled RGB LED light strip give the Vybe some much-needed aesthetic wow factor, but the customized Maingear cable shroud running up the right side of the motherboard also makes the interior stand out. The cable management is also pristine, with all of the case’s wires, power, and data cables (visible or not) all neatly tied down without obstructing airflow or fan blades.

The Maingear Vybe doesn"t come with any trial software or bloatware, but Maingear loaded GeForce Experience and MSI Afterburner with an overclocking preset for the GPUs, pushing the core clock up by 100 MHz and the memory clock by 150 MHz. Customers should appreciate the simplicity of the installation, which came loaded with all of the latest drivers, firmware, and Windows updates.

Maingear also ships the Vybe with all of the components" manuals, spare parts, and accessories, giving users the ability to upgrade without worrying about missing cables, screws, mounts, or software (it even comes with its Windows 10 retail box and product key). The complete set of individually-braided CableMod PSU cables are also included.

If you’ve got a large, permanent desk at your home or office, it’s cheap and easy to connect your laptop to one or more external displays. However, if you’re on the go, you can’t lug a 27-inch monitor in your bag nor can you likely fit it on a tiny hotel or co-working table. That’s where the best portable monitors come in.

Portable monitors typically range from 13.3 to 17 inches and most come with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, though some can hit 4K and the cheapest models may be just 1366 x 768. These monitors weigh just a couple of pounds and most of them can draw power directly from your laptop’s USB ports, meaning you don’t have to carry yet another power brick in your bag.

Most portable monitors are designed for productivity work, providing a helpful second screen for your laptop that’s often the same height as its built-in display. However, people also use portable monitors for console or PC gaming, with some operating at up to 144Hz. You can even connect one that uses HDMI to your Raspberry Pi.

Below, we’ve listed the best portable monitors you can buy right now. If you want to stay productive on the road, don’t leave home without one. For your permanent desk, check out our lists of best gaming monitors, best 4K gaming monitors and best budget 4K monitors.

Why you can trust Tom"s HardwareOur expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.Make sure it connects to your device(s). Some monitors connect over standard HDMI, which lets them work with almost anything, while others use USB-C’s alternate mode. A select few provide DisplayLink connectivity, which allows them to plug into any USB 3.0 capable port, even an old-fashioned type-A connector.

Pay close attention to monitor kickstands. A kickstand can be a make-or-break proposition for some portable monitors. The best portable monitors have a built-in kickstand that allows you to easily adjust the display for the best possible viewing angles. On the other hand, some monitors have separate, magnetic origami-style covers that double as a kickstand. These are rarely (if ever) better than a good built-in kickstand and can ruin an otherwise good display experience.

Battery or no battery? Most modern portable monitors draw power over USB-C, either via a dedicated wall charger or by drawing power directly from your laptop. However, some models, like the Asus ROG ROG XG16AHPE and XG17AHPE, have a built-in lithium-ion battery that allows you to game without being plugged into a wall. So, if you prefer to connect to your laptop via HDMI, you could do so with just a single cable with battery-equipped monitors.

Productivity or Gaming? Most portable monitors come with a standard 60Hz refresh rate, which is perfectly fine for productivity tasks and suits most consumers. However, some alternatives like the Asus ROG ROG XG16AHPE and ViewSonic VX1755 offer up to 144Hz refresh rates and support for Adaptive-Sync technologies for those that want to game on a portable display that’s larger than what their laptop natively offers.

For more guidance picking a monitor of any resolution – gaming or otherwise – check out our PC Monitor Buying Guide and list of the Best Computer Monitors.

When you think of displays with a 300Hz refresh rate, you typically picture desktop monitors with a Full HD resolution. However, Nexigo offers something on a smaller scale in the form of the NG17FGQ. This is a 17.3-inch portable monitor that offers a 300Hz refresh rate and connects to a laptop or desktop via HDMI or USB-C (DisplayPort Alt-Mode).

To take advantage of that fast 300Hz refresh rate, you"ll need to connect over USB-C with a computer that supports full bandwidth capabilities. If you decide to connect via HDMI, you"re limited to 240Hz, which is still heady for a portable monitor.

Gaming performance across the board is excellent with the NG17FGQ, and it can produce some amazing colors once the panel is calibrated. Its overall good build quality also means that it should stand up to the rigors of behind tossed around in a bag while traveling.

The Asus ROG Strix ROG XG16AHPE is a gaming-centric portable display that supports a 144 Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync compatibility from its IPS panel. That"s a nice departure from the standard 60 Hz panels typical in this class. The ROG XG16AHPE also is formidable on the endurance front, thanks to its built-in battery.

The ROG XG16AHPE measures 15.6 inches diagonally and has the typical 1920x1080 resolution. Thankfully, the IPS panel provided excellent viewing angles in our tests, but it features a rather odd kickstand that cuts diagonally across the back of the monitor. However, we found that this unorthodox design allows the ROG XG16AHPE to easily transition to portrait mode.

The aforementioned built-in battery’s capacity is 7,800 mAh and is rated for 3 hours when operating at 144 Hz. In our testing at 144 Hz, our runtimes managed to come in right around Asus" factory estimate.

Asus pulled out all the stops with the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP, which is an impressive 15.6-inch Full HD portable monitor. At first glance, the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP seems like your run-of-the-mill entry in this segment with its Full HD IP panel and 60 Hz refresh rate, but Asus has baked in plenty of features that make it unique.

For starters, there"s an integrated 7,800 mAh battery that is good for three hours of runtime before a recharge is needed. Our testing also showed that the battery could be juiced from 0 percent to 100 percent in just over two hours. The other standout feature of the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP is integrated Wi-Fi connectivity.

With Wi-Fi enabled, you can mirror your device"s screen to the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP without plugging in a USB-C or HDMI cable. When you couple this with the integrated battery, you have a completely wire-free experience with this portable monitor. Asus provides broad compatibility, with support across Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Android and iOS operating systems.

Other features include a built-in accelerometer that allows the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP to switch from portrait to landscape mode with ease, two USB-C ports, and a single Mini-HDMI port. Throw in excellent color performance across sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, and it"s hard not to recommend the ZenScreen Go MB16AWP.

The Viewsonic VX1755 shares a similar design theme with the Viewsonic TD1655, right down to its black front, minimal bezels, color scheme and downward-firing speakers. It is constructed of high-quality plastic, with metal being reserved for the pop-out stand.

It supports a 144 Hz refresh rate like the ROG XG16AHPE, and backs that with AMD FreeSync Premium Adaptive-Sync technology. Not only could you pair the VX1755 with a laptop to expand your workspace or simply provide a larger screen to game on (versus, for example, a laptop’s built-in 13-inch display), but you could easily use it with an Android smartphone (via USB-C) or with an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 console.

When it was time to hit our benchmark stand, color performance was similar to the VD1655, which is below average. We measured 64.2 percent of the sRGB color space and just 45.5 percent of DCI-P3. On the plus side, we measured 250.6 nits for brightness, which is dead-on with ViewSonic"s 250-nit claim.

The Innocn is a mold-breaker in the portable monitor space. We typically expect OLED panels to come with a hefty price premium over their IPS rivals, but the Innocn 15A1F delivers OLED goodness for under $400. Not only is this pricing comparable to IPS panels in the 15.6-inch size class, but the color, brightness, and contrast are far superior on the 15A1F.

The 15A1F measures 15.6 inches diagonally and features a 1920x1080 resolution with a refresh rate of 60Hz. Brightness is rated at 400 nits, and we came remarkably close to that figure in our instrumented testing. sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut performance were admirable, and it"s hard to beat the contrast made possible with an OLED panel.

The Lenovo ThinkVision M14t comes in a bit on the smaller side compared to other portable monitors, measuring in at 14 inches across. It maintains a 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60Hz and features excellent image quality from its 8-bit IPS panel.

Lenovo boasts 300 nits brightness with the ThinkVision M14t, although on our light meter, it peaked at 250 nits. One of the standout features of the monitor is support for 10-point multi-touch input. A stylus is also included if you"d like to draw or write text on the screen. The stylus has multiple sensitivity levels when drawing, and the built-in handwriting recognition in Windows 10 and Windows 11 can convert your handwriting into ASCII text.

When it comes to connectivity, we should mention that the only way to connect the ThinkVision M14t to a laptop is by using USB-C (DisplayPort Alt Mode), which is a limiting factor. Many monitors in this price range (and cheaper) at least offer HDMI connectivity as an alternative.

For most gamers, 144 Hz is more than adequate, particularly for a portable monitor. However, if you’re an eSports gamer and need even more speed, the Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE is a great choice, because it can do up to 240 Hz.

If you thought that the Asus ROG Strix ROG XG16AHPE was brawny, you haven"t seen anything yet. Its overachieving sibling, the ROG Strix XG17AHPE dives deeper into enthusiast gamer territory with a larger 17.3-inch IPS display.

The monitor has two USB-C ports (DisplayPort Alt-Mode supported) and Micro-HDMI for connectivity, features a 3ms response time, boasts a maximum 300 nits brightness, and a contrast ratio of 1,000:1.

In our testing, the monitor lasted roughly 2 hours per charge when running full-bore at 240 Hz at 80 percent brightness, with the speakers blaring at full volume. On the opposite end of the spectrum, pegging the refresh rate at 60 Hz with 50 percent brightness saw runtimes extend to four and a half hours.

If you need your portable monitor to do video or photo editing, it helps to have vibrant colors and lots of pixels. Not only does the Zion Pro feature a dense 3840 x 2160 resolution for a 15.6-inch monitor, but it also uses AMOLED display technology that allowed it to cover the full DCI-P3 gamut in our tests. This means rich colors that are unmatched in this category, but the infinite contrast means that you get inky blacks and a huge color gamut.

On the connectivity front, you"ll find one HDMI 2.0 port and a single USB-C port. Two speakers are onboard; there"s even 10-point multi-touch for those that like navigating through the Windows 10/Windows 11 user interface using your fingers. This is truly a portable monitor that won"t disappoint when it comes to color performance and features.

However, no monitor is perfect, and the Zion Pro gets some demerits for its icon-based OSD and tedious adjustments needed for proper calibration. We"d also be remiss if we didn"t mention the price, which comes in at a hefty $600. But if you’re looking for a beautiful display that can match (or exceed) the color performance and clarity of the best built-in laptop monitors, the Zion Pro is hard to ignore.

Whether you"re shopping for one of the screens that made our list of best portable monitors above or something else, you may find savings by checking out our best monitor deals page, along with our lists of Dell coupon codes, Lenovo coupon codes, LG coupon codes, HP coupon codes, Monoprice coupon codes and Newegg promo codes.

Few things are more frustrating. You’re in the middle of working on a project, reaching a major milestone in a game or maybe just booting up your Windows 10 computer and, just like that, the entire OS crashes and presents you with a Blue Screen of Death, usually for no immediately apparent reason.

The screen starts with an old-fashioned unhappy face emoticon “ :( “ (a colon, followed by an open parenthesis). Next, you see a brief explanation that “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.” Windows writes one or more log files when a stop error occurs, so you see language about “collecting some error info” and a counter that keeps track while it’s writing that data (shows as “25% complete) above.

Microsoft provides a scannable QR code in modern BSODs (lower left) that you can scan with a smartphone and look up that way. The message also provides a lookup URL for stopcodes, where you can enter a numeric stopcode (and where you’ll see most common stopcodes, including the one shown above). The most common stop codes include:

You can also download the Microsoft Error Lookup Tool (current version: Err_6.4.5.exe) to look up numeric error codes at a command prompt or in PowerShell, if you prefer.

Though nobody wants to see a BSOD on a Windows PC, they do occur from time to time. In the vast majority of cases, the PC will restart itself automatically after an error log, called a crash dump or a dump file (extension .dmp) is created. By default, Windows 10 stores dump files in one of two locations.

If you select “Small memory dump” as the option for saving crash dumps, such files show up as Minidump.dmp files. For all other selections, the crash dump is named Memory.dmp. Crash dumps get written to the %SystemRoot% folder, which usually expands to C:\Windows. By design, small memory dump files are limited to 256KB in size. Other memory dumps will vary in size up to the size of memory on the PC where the dump is collected. Thus, on a PC with 16 GB of RAM, a Complete memory dump file will always be 16 GB in size (and other dump files, except for the small memory dumps, can be as large as 16 GB, but will often be smaller).

Examining a crash dump file can be helpful when troubleshooting related causes. For more details, see our story on how to use a minidump file to fix your Windows BSOD. That said, many users simply search on the stopcode and/or the numeric error code when seeking remediation advice. (Note that Microsoft calls that numeric code a “bug check code” or “bug check string.”

The immediate tendency following a BSOD is to get right into fix-it mode, start looking things up, and attempting repairs. Not so fast! Microsoft explains the entire troubleshooting process in its “Troubleshoot blue screen errors(opens in new tab)” tutorial. While you can – and probably should – read the Microsoft advice in its entirety, here’s a summary of key recommendations:Shut down the Windows PC that experienced the BSOD

If you recently installed a new device driver (or your BSOD info points to a driver or device), uninstall or roll back that driver (if you don’t really need the device you can disable it temporarily instead)

If the BSOD recurs despite the items taken out of the picture by removing, disabling or uninstalling them, whatever’s still left in the picture remains problematic. At this point you want to reboot into safe mode once again, and open an administrative command prompt or PowerShell session. From the command line, enter these commands, one at a time:DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

The first of these two commands finds and replaces any damaged operating system components in the side-by-side filestore (aka WinSxS). The second of these commands runs the System File Checker (SFC) and will repair any damaged files it finds.

There’s a complete BSOD handling infrastructure available from Microsoft, built around a tool called the Windows Debugger (aka WinDBG). You can download it as part of Microsoft’s free Windows Developer Kit(opens in new tab) if you really want to dig into the gory details. There are a lot of details to learn about, and minutiae to address, if you want to put this tool to work on crash dumps. For non-IT professionals or non-developers, I recommend Nir Sofer’s excellent BlueScreenView utility instead. It’s set up to automatically load the symbol tables it needs to resolve error codes, and it knows where to find crash dumps in need of analysis. It also presents crash dump data in a highly-readable form.

As an illustration, I forced one of my test laptops (a Lenovo ThinkPad X390 Yoga) to blue screen at an administrative command line. There, I entered the string taskkill /im svchost.exe /f. Warning: typing this string into an administrative command prompt or PowerShell session will crash the PC immediately. That’s because it kills a key program named svchost.exe (Service Host) that supports DLLs in the Windows runtime environment. Because most (if not all) Windows programs use one or more DLLs this basically makes Windows inoperable. Thus, it causes an immediate BSOD with the CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED stopcode (shown in the lead-in graphic for this very story).

The top pane of the window shows all the crash dumps it finds on the target PC. Because there’s only one in this case, I shrunk it down to show as many details from the bottom pane as possible. Even so, the data in the top pane is important, with information in certain columns of special interest. Column 1 shows the name of the dump file. Column 3 shows the stopcode, which it labels “Bug Check String.” Column 3 shows the associated hexadecimal error code, 0x000000ef, which it labels “Bug Check Code.”

For most genuine BSODs (remember, I forced this one to happen) the stopcode and the error code will often help affected users zero in on causes and potential cures for their woes. In my experience, at least 90% of BSODs become fixable simply based on this information. That’s because it will often be solved by disconnecting, disabling, or uninstalling related devices, drivers, applications, or updates – just as Microsoft recommends, and I summarized in the previous section.

Some BSODs won’t be amenable to quick and easy fixes. When they come up, as they sometimes will, it’s time to ask for help in getting things figured out. I can recommend two terrific sources of troubleshooting assistance available online, each with its own dedicated user forum specifically focused on solving BSOD issues. Likewise, each one stipulates certain requirements on users seeking BSOD help.

Source number one comes from TenForums.com (key disclosures: I am a VIP member of this community; I contribute input and suggestions to its members daily). The TenForums venue is in its BSOD Crashes and Debugging forum. Posting instructions are explicitly provided, along with a collection of BSOD tutorials, including those on WinDBG Basics,and how to Install and Configure WinDBG for BSOD Analysis, Run BSOD Error Troubleshooter in Windows 10, and Enable or Disable BSOD Automatic Restart in Windows 10.

Source number two comes from British PC security and troubleshooting site BleepingComputer.com. They operate a user forum named Windows Crashes and Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Help and Support. There, you’ll find pinned threads for the following topics (all of which are worth reading through):Sysnative Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Academy: A series of detailed questions readers should answer to ask the experts at Sysnative for help with BSOD issues.

BSOD Posting instructions: what information users should gather (based on downloading and running a Sysnative app) to obtain necessary dump files and content.

BSODs but no Dump Files: instructions on how to configure a Windows PC to produce dump files whenever a BSOD occurs. Essential to know because diagnosis without dumps is nearly impossible.

Thus, you’ll have to read up a bit, download some tools, run some scripts and/or collect some logs that you’ll submit to make a semi-formal request for BSOD help. This will take one or more hours and force you to do some homework before such help becomes available. It may also involve numerous back-and-forth communications, where you’re asked to run additional diagnostic tools and collect additional logs and data to shed more light on your situation. Trust me: these guys know what they’re doing. I’ve seen only a handful of issues where users did everything asked of them where the BSOD experts couldn’t help them get things fixed.

Raspberry Pi has long been the gold standard for inexpensive single-board computing, powering everything from robots to smart home devices to digital kiosks. When it launched in 2019, the Raspberry Pi 4 took Pi to another level, with performance that’s good enough to use in a pinch as a desktop PC, plus the ability to output4K video at 60 Hz or power dual monitors. More recently, the Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB) model came out, offering enough RAM for serious desktop computing, productivity and database hosting.

If you don"t already own a Raspberry Pi 4, it definitely belongs in your tech toolkit. Starting at just $35 for the 2GB model, the Raspberry Pi 4 can serve as a learning PC for the kids, a media center, a web server, a game emulation machine or as the brains of a robot or IoT device. It opens a whole world of possibilities for improving your life and having a ton of fun.

In this Raspberry Pi 4 review and Guide, we"ll help you answer the key questions you need to choose the right model of Raspberry Pi 4 and to make the most of one, if you already own it.

Elsewhere, we"ve outlined extensively why every tech geek should own a Raspberry Pi. But choosing which Raspberry Pi to buy is an open question because there are reasons you might want to get a different model, such as the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero. However, if you’re looking for an all-around, general purpose Raspberry Pi, there’s no doubt that it’s the Raspberry Pi 4, which goes by the official model name of Raspberry Pi 4 B (there’s no 4 A, so the B is superfluous).

But let’s say you already own a Raspberry Pi 3 or an earlier model and are wondering if you should also get a Raspberry Pi 4. The newer platform has a number of distinctive advantages, including speeds that are two to four times faster, support for USB 3 and true Gigabit Ethernet and dual video output with resolutions up to 4K. If all you’re doing with your Pi is running a security camera or playing old arcade games, you might be able to stick with what you have, but you’ll definitely want a Pi 4 for future projects.

The most important new features are the faster processor, a 1.5-GHz Broadcom CPU and GPU, more and faster RAM, the addition of USB 3 ports, dual micro HDMI ports (instead of a single HDMI connection) and support for 4K output. The higher bus speed that enables USB 3 support also allows the on-board Ethernet port to support true Gigabit connections (125 MBps) where the last-gen models had a theoretical maximum of just 41 MBps. The microSD card slot is also twice as fast, offering a theoretical maximum of 50 MBps versus 25 MBps on the 3B+.

Because the new SoC needs more power, the Raspberry Pi 4 B charges over USB Type-C instead of micro USB. It also requires a power adapter that can deliver at least 3 amps of power and 5 volts, though you may be able to get away with 2.5 amps if you don’t attach many peripherals to the USB ports. Putting aside the power needs, USB Type-C connectors are reversible, which makes them much easier for kids (and adults) to plug in.

The Raspberry Pi 4 has similar design and dimensions to its predecessors, but it’s an all-new platform, powered by a new processor, the Broadcom BCM2711B0. Since the first Pi in 2012, all Pis have used 40nm SoCs, but this new chip is based on a 28nm process and, instead of the older Cortex-A53 microarchitecture, it uses Cortex-A72. The BCM2711B0 in the Raspberry Pi 4 has four CPU cores and has a clock speed of 1.5 GHz, which at first blush doesn’t seem much quicker than the quad-core, 1.4-GHz BCM2837B0 in the Raspberry Pi 3B+.

However, Cortex A72 has 15-instruction pipeline depth, compared to just 8 on the older model, and it also provides out-of-order execution so it’s not waiting for the output of one process to start on another. So, even at the same clock speed (and the BCM2711B0 is based on a smaller process node), Cortex-A72 processors will be significantly faster and use more power than their A53-powered ancestors.

The RAM is also quite a bit quicker, going from 1GB of DDR2 RAM operating on the Pi 3B+ to up to 8GB of DDR4 RAM on the Pi 4. In addition to the increased bandwidth, having more memory is a huge deal, particularly for web surfing.

The GPU got a nice boost too, moving from a Broadcom VideoCore IV that operated at a core clock speed of 400 MHz on the Pi 3 B to a VideoCore VI that’s set at 500 MHz. The new architecture allows it to output to a display at up to 4K resolution with a rate of 60 frames per second or to support dualmonitors at up to 4K 30 Hz.

There are three current Raspberry Pi 4 models that are identical, except for the amount of RAM. For $35, the entry-level model sports 2GB of RAM, which is enough for most projects, from robots to retro arcade machines, but if you’re using the Raspberry Pi 4 like a desktop PC, you should get the 4GB model, which goes for $55.

The Raspberry Pi’s official Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) is so memory efficient that we found it difficult to exceed 4GB, even with a ton of browser tabs open, videos playing and several different apps running. However, as more apps come out that take advantage of it, the $75 Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB) model will have more utility. If you can afford the extra $20 over the 4GB model, it’s a good idea to future-proof.

At 3.5 x 2.3 x 0.76 inches (88 x 58 x 19.5mm) and 0.1 pounds (46g), the Pi 4 is thin enough to fit in your pocket and light enough to carry anywhere. The board is durable enough to probably survive rolling around in your bag, but if you’re moving it around much, we recommend sticking it in a case, mostly to protect the pins. However, I often use the board bare on my desk and I’ve even shoved it into a pocket in my backpack without incident.

The Raspberry Pi 4 covers more than just the basics when it comes to ports. The right side has four USB Type-A connections, two of which are USB 3.0. There’s also a full-size, Gigabit Ethernet port for wired connections there. The bottom edge has a 3.5mm audio jack, two micro HDMI ports and the USB Type-C charging port. On the left side, you’ll find the microSD card reader.

And on the top surface of the board, you’ll see ribbon connectors for the Camera Serial Interface (CSI) and Display Serial Interface (DSI), which provide dedicated connections to Raspberry Pi’s own camera and screen (or compatible accessories).

There’s a lot you can do with the CSI port, including use a Raspberry Pi Camera as a PC webcam or turning it into a motion-alert security camera. Of course, you can connect a camera to a USB port as well, and there are a couple of more common ways, including the micro HDMI ports, to output to a screen.

Perhaps the most important interface on any Raspberry Pi is its set of GPIO pins. Using these, you can connect to lights, motors, sensors and a huge ecosystem of HATs, which are expansion boards that attach to the top of the Pi. See the GPIO section below for more details.

To provide your Raspberry Pi 4 with juice, you"ll need a power source that can deliver at least 3 amps and 5 volts over a USB Type-C wire. The official Raspberry Pi 4 power supply, which costs around $10 - 12(opens in new tab), does the trick, but so will any phone or laptop charger that meets these minimum standards and outputs to USB-C. You can also power the Pi 4 off of a USB PD power bank that you would use to charge a phone.

Depending on how much juice your PC can output, it"s possible that you could power a Raspberry Pi 4 off of its USB-C port, though it"s possible that you"d see a lightning bolt icon appear in the top right corner of the screen, which means that the board is operating at reduced power.

Like every Raspberry Pi model ever made, the Raspberry Pi 4 has no power switch. The default way to turn on a Raspberry Pi is to just plug it in. When you"re ready to turn it off, you shut down the OS and then unplug the cable. You can also buy power switches that will turn the power on and off, but don"t forget to shut down the OS before cutting the electricity.

Note that all prior versions of Raspberry Pi used micro USB connectors for power and could work off of a 5-volt, 2.5-amp power supply (or often lower). So, if you have a power adapter from a Raspberry Pi 3, it won’t work with your Raspberry Pi 4.

In theory, any USB Type-C to Type-C cable should work, but models of the Raspberry Pi 4 that were produced before early 2020 had a small bug that prevented them from charging over "e-marked" USB cables. E-marked USB cables are usually those which offer high-speed data transfer over USB 3 at 10 Gbps. On the other hand, any cable that is USB 2.0 will definitely work with Pi 4, as will a lot of USB 3.1 cables at 5 Gbps.

We tested a number of USB-C cables on a Raspberry Pi 4 and found that the vast majority worked, with the major exceptions being an Apple MacBook charging cable and two 10 Gbps cables. Considering that you"re using this wire for charging only (the USB-C port only accepts power), there"s no reason to get one that supports high-speed data transfer. Raspberry Pi 4s that were manufactured in early 2020 and later have this problem fixed.

As with any Raspberry Pi, you’ll need a minimum of two things (aside from the board itself) to operate the Pi 4:A power adapter that outputs at least 5 volts and 3 amps over USB Type-C

If all you have is storage and power, then you"ll need to do a headless install of Raspberry Pi, where you control the computer remotely via VNC or SSH. Otherwise, you"ll also need:A micro HDMI to HDMI cable (or two) to connect to a TV or monitor. You can connect to two screens simultaneously.

A keyboard and mouse. You can use wired or wireless peripherals. A wireless keyboard like the Corsair K83, which has a built-in touchpad, is a real space-saver.

You don"t absolutely need but might want the following accessories:A case to protect the Raspberry Pi 4. We recommend getting one that leaves you access to the GPIO pins.

Setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 is the same as older models. Our article on how to set up a Raspberry Pi for the first time shows you all the steps in detail. In short, you’ll put a blank microSD card into your PC or Mac and use Raspberry Pi Imager to ‘burn’ a disk image of Raspberry Pi OS onto it. Then, you can put the microSD card into the Raspberry Pi, turn it on and follow the setup process in Raspberry Pi OS.

No matter how fast your processor, RAM and GPU are, if your storage is slow, everyday tasks, like opening apps and files, will be laggy. Like all Raspberry Pis, the 4 B’s primary storage device is its microSD card reader, which is convenient but a bit constrained. According to the Pi Foundation, the 4 B has a top transfer rate of 50 MBps, which is double the speed of the reader on the 3 B+. There’s no known limit on capacity.

If you have a speedy USB Flash drive or an external SSD, you can get far better storage performance out of the Pi 4 B. The Pi 4 B is the first Pi with USB 3 ports, which have a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 625 MBps. To find out how this works in real-life, we attached an external SSD to a Raspberry Pi 4 B. You"ll find full results in the article, and what we found was impressive.

Using a Western Digital Blue SSDin a USB to M.2 enclosure, we saw transfer rates that were two to 13 times faster than the microSD card. And applications definitely opened a lot faster with the SSD attached. Unfortunately, a regular USB Flash drive was often slower than the microSD card.

With a recent firmware update, you can now boot your Raspberry Pi 4 from a USB SSD or Flash Drive. So, after you’ve installed the firmware and correct files to your external drive, you can take out the microSD card altogether.

In testing, the PI 4 B’s Ethernet port achieved 943 Mbps, which blows away the other Raspberry Pis. In fact, in a throughput test, the Pi 4 B got 943 Mbps (close to the 1,000 Mbps maximum). That’s nearly five times as many as the Pi 3B+, which only got 237 Mbps.

With a more power-hungry processor and the need for at least a 5-volt, 3-amp power adapter, the Pi 4 should be expected to consume more power than its predecessors.At idle, the Pi 4 B draws 3.4 watts, which is just 17% more than the 3 B+. Under load, that number jumps to 7.6 watts, but that’s still only 19% more juice than its direct predecessor. If you want the lowest-power Pi, performance be damned, then go for the Pi Zero W, which consumes a mere 0.8 watts at idle and 1.6 watts under load.

When the Raspberry Pi 4 first came out, it ran much hotter than it does today. Thanks to some firmware updates, the burning hot USB controller isn’t quite as toasty as it was at launch. Still, if you’re doing any kind of serious task on the Pi 4, we recommend a fan or at least a heatsink so you can avoid throttling. Our favorite fan solution is the Pimoroni Fan Shim, which attaches to the GPIO pins.

The real star of the show on any Raspberry Pi is its set of 40 GPIO (General Input / Output) pins. The pin count and layout remains unchanged from prior models, going back to the Raspberry Pi 2, so any HATs (hardware attached on top), sensors or LED screens that were made to attach to a Pi 2 or Pi 3 will be compatible with the Pi 4.

However, the Raspberry Pi 4 has added a few new capabilities to some of the pins. For hardcore makers who are wiring up a variety of peripherals, the GPIO pins now support four additional I2C, SPI and UART connections. So, if your sensors or peripherals require any of these interfaces, you now have a lot more of them.

One of the goals of the Raspberry Pi 4 is to be a capable PC that anyone can use for surfing the web, doing light productivity work or even playing very basic games. In order to test this use case, I spent several hours doing my everyday work on the device and I even wrote portions of this review using it.

I really liked being able to output to dual monitors, something I do everyday at both work and home. And, since much of my daily work routine these days takes place in a web browser, I had no problem writing, editing and researching articles using Chromium. Even with 15 tabs open, switching between them was smooth and I didn’t max out the 4GB of on-board RAM. In fact, even with nearly 60 tabs open and several programming and productivity apps running, I still didn’t get close to 4GB.

And while I wouldn’t want to use it every day, the free GIMP software provides a decent way to edit still images. If I wanted to crunch spreadsheets or compose documents outside of Google Docs, LibreOffice more than fits the bill.

Opening apps and tabs off of a microSD card made the system seem sluggish when compared to a modern, SSD-powered PC. However, you can attach an external SSD to the Raspberry Pi 4 to solve that problem.

The Raspberry Pi 4 has dual micro HDMI ports that can each connect to a separate monitor or TV and can operate at up to 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution. If you have multiple 4K displays (for recommendations, see our Best 4K Gaming Monitors page), you have a choice: you can either run each screen at a somewhat-sluggish 30 Hz refresh rate or you can enable 4K mode in the settings menu, which jacks up the voltage a little so you can run one monitor at 4K and 60 Hz and another at up to 1080p 60 Hz.

During extensive hands-on testing, I found that while 4K at 30 Hz is tolerable, little things, like the movement of the mouse pointer, are a bit sluggish. If you have a 4K screen, you’re definitely better off going for the 60 Hz mode, but note that the added voltage may also cause your CPU to get hot and throttle more easily, so use that fan.

However, there’s an excellent work-around that solves both the jerkiness and the DRM problems. A developer named Ventz made a special version of Chromium that uses code from Chrome OS, which allows it to run streaming services seamlessly. All you need to do is follow Ventz’s instructions here.

Adding more video memory can also help with playback. To adjust the amount of video memory, launch the Raspberry Pi Configuration tool from the Preferences section of the start menu. Then, change the GPU memory to 128 or 256 on the Performance tab.

With an emulator, you can play games from a wide variety of classic systems, from original arcade games to the Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64 (N64). With its faster processor, the Raspberry Pi 4 should work better for emulating more demanding games, such as the N64 title GoldenEye 007.

To install Retropie, just download the Raspberry Pi 4 disk image and use Etcherto burn it to a microSD card.Then, boot up and follow the instructions.

It"s very easy to set up a Raspberry Pi web server, and this is one of the most popular use cases for the computer. In fact, at Tom’s Hardware, we use a Raspberry Pi 3 B as a server on our local network that we use to host our battery test for our laptop reviews.

We’ve explained how to overclock the Raspberry Pi 4 and what kind of results you get in a separate article. However, the top line is that you can easily overclock the 1.5 GHz CPU over 2 GHz (in our case, up to 2,147 MHz) and increase the frequency of the GPU from 500 to 600 MHz without missing a beat. Just make sure that you have a fan, such as the Pimoroni Fan Shim.

The Raspberry Pi 4 is the best Raspberry Pi, the best single-board computer and one of the best values you can get in tech. While most adult users would not want to replace their PCs with one, the Raspberry Pi 4 is powerful enough to use a desktop computer in a pinch.

However, the biggest benefit of the Raspberry Pi’s performance and generous helping of RAM comes not from folks who use Raspberry Pi 4s in lieu of x86 PCs, but from all the innovators who harness that power to create new IoT devices, servers and robots.

Editor’s Note: A few of the benchmark results in this article were licensed from contributor Gareth Halfacree, who has posted his own,detailed analysisof Raspberry Pi 4 performance on Medium.

Getting the best graphics card is key if you"re looking to buy the best gaming PC or looking to build a PC on your own. The graphics card is even more important than the CPU. Unfortunately, the process of figuring out how to buy a GPU can be intimidating. There"s so much to consider, from the type of monitor you"re using (for recommendations, see our Best Gaming Monitors(opens in new tab) page) to the size of your PC case to the game settings you plan to play at.

Below are the things you need to keep in mind when shopping for your next GPU. For specific recommendations, see our best graphics cards list of the current options, as well as the GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy to see how today"s cards compare to older cards that you might be looking to upgrade and replace.

Thankfully, the supply and GPU prices on Nvidia"s RTX 30-series cards as well as AMD"s RX 6000 cards continues to improve. After 18 months of extreme prices, most cards can now be found online for only 20–30% over MSRP, sometimes less. However, note that next-generation GPUs are around the corner, like the Nvidia "Ada" RTX 40-series and AMD"s RDNA3, so keep that in mind.

Why you can trust Tom"s HardwareOur expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.Save some money for the CPU. If you spend all your money on graphics and don"t opt for one of the best CPUs, your system might score well on synthetic benchmarks but won"t do as well in real game play (due to lower minimum frame rates).Match your monitor resolution. Many mainstream cards are sufficient for gaming at 1080p resolutions at between 30-60 fps, but you"ll need a high-end card for resolutions at or near 4K resolution with high in-game settings on the most demanding titles. So be sure to pair your GPU with the best gaming monitor for your needs.Consider your refresh rate. If your monitor has triple-digit refresh rates, you"ll need a powerful card and processor to reach its full potential. Alternatively, if your monitor tops out at 60Hz and 1080p, there"s no point in paying extra for a powerful card that pushes pixels faster than your display can keep up with.Do you have enough power and space? Make sure your PC case has enough room for the card you"re considering, and that your power supply has enough watts to spare, along with the correct type of power connectors (up to three 8-pin PCIe, depending on the card).Check the MSRP before buying. A good way to tell if you"re getting a deal is to check the launch price or MSRP of the card you"re considering before buying. Tools like CamelCamelCamel(opens in new tab) can help separate the real deals from the fake mark-up-then-discount offerings.Don"t get dual cards—they"re not worth it. Game support for Multi-card SLI or CrossFire setups has basically died. Get the best single card you can afford. Adding a second card is usually more trouble than it"s worth.Don"t count on overclocking for serious performance boosts. If you need better performance, buy a more-powerful card. Graphics cards don"t typically have large amounts of overclocking headroom, usually only 5-10%.

There are hundreds of graphics cards from dozens of manufacturers, but only two companies actually make the GPUs that power these components: Nvidia and AMD — though Intel"s Xe Graphics has started to ship for laptops and should also come to desktops in the next few months. With its RX 6000 cards, AMD is more competitive than it has been in years with Nvidia and its current-gen Ampere cards, like the GeForce RTX 3080, in general performance.

That said, the realistically lit elephant in the room that we"ve been ignoring thus-far is real-time ray tracing. Introduced as a major new feature with Nvidia"s now previous-generation RTX 20-series cards, "Team Green" is now on its second generation RTX with 30-series GPUs. AMD ("Team Red") stepped into this game in a big way in 2020 with its RX 6000 cards, but it"s still on its first go-round with real-time ray tracing, and so lags behind Nvidia on this front.

Our Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy breaks things down using six demanding RT games. Games that only use a single RT effect, like reflections, tend to be less demanding and less impressive overall. So weigh the importance of ray tracing performance with how interested you are in these games, how important the best possible visuals are to your enjoyment, and how much future-proofing you want baked into your GPU.

Also, don"t forget DLSS, Nvidia"s AI-assisted resolution upscaling. It can deliver improved performance with less of a hit on frame rates than is typical from maxing out your monitor"s resolution the traditional way. Support for this feature is limited to a subset of games, admittedly a growing one — many of the complete ray tracing games support DLSS. AMD has its own open source alternative to DLSS, called Fidelity FX Super Resolution (AMD FSR), and FSR 2.0 should further improve things, but DLSS is more widely supported in games that really need upscaling.

For more on these subjects as well as screen-smoothing variable refresh technologies, see our AMD vs Nvidia: Who Makes the Best GPUs? and FreeSync vs. G-Sync: Which Variable Refresh Tech Is Best Today? features.

The price of video cards varies greatly, with super low-end cards starting under $100 and high-end models going for $2,000 or more in the case of the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. As is often the case, top-end cards aren"t worth the money unless for some reason you absolutely have to have the best performance possible, or if you do professional work where 10% more performance will pay for itself over time.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super, Nvidia GTX 1650; AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, RX 6400, RX 5500 XT 4GB/8GB. Older: Nvidia GTX 1060, GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1050; AMD RX 590, RX 580, RX 570, RX 560Budget cardsDecent for playing games at 1080p or lower res at medium-to-low settings

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3060, RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 Super, RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2070, RTX 2060 Super; AMD Radeon RX 6800, RX 5700 XT. Older: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1080; AMD Radeon VII, RX Vega 64High-endGood for VR headsets and gaming at resolutions at 1440p or high-refresh 1080p monitors.

If you want to use your GPU with a PC VR HMD, you need at least a mid-range card, with optimal performance coming from a card like the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super/AMD RX 5700 or higher. The lowest-end cards you can use with these headsets are the AMD Radeon RX 570and Nvidia GTX 1060. And the card requirements of course increase with newer, higher-resolution headsets. Obviously, this isn"t a critical factory if you have no interest in VR.

We discussed this above, but to briefly recap, Nvidia"s latest RTX 30-series GPUs are the best solution for ray tracing and DLSS. AMD"s RX 6000-series GPUs have similar ray tracing performance to Nvidia"s RTX 20-series, but they lack support for DLSS and AMD"s FidelityFX Super Resolution isn"t quite the same thing. Intel for its part will support RT in hardware and has a competing XeSS upscaling solution that uses Xe Matrix cores, basically the same idea as Nvidia"s Tensor cores. From what we know, Intel"s RT performance will be very low, given even the fastest Arc A770 only has 32 ray tracing units — though we don"t yet know how fast the RTUs are in comparison to Nvidia"s RT cores.

Game support for DXR (DirectX Raytracing) and DLSS/FSR continues to improve, but there are tons of games where it"s simply not an important consideration. If you like to turn on all the bells and whistles, placebo effect increases in image quality be damned, that"s fine. We expect RT performance to become increasingly important in the coming years, but it could be two or three more GPU architectures before it"s a make or break deal.

Even after you decide what GPU you"re after (say, for example, an RTX 3060 Ti), you"ll usually be faced with plenty of options in terms of cooler design and brand or manufacturer. Nvidia makes and sells its own cards under the Founders Edition moniker for higher-end models, while AMD licenses its reference design to other manufacturers. Both companies" GPUs appear in third-party cards from several different vendors.

More expensive third-party cards will have elaborate coolers, extra fans, lots of RGB lighting, and often higher clock speeds, but they can also be more expensive than the reference card. Overclocking gains are often minimal, with gains of just a few FPS, so don"t feel bad if you"re not running a blinged-out card. That said, beefier cooling can often translate to cooler, quieter operation, which can be important given that high-end graphics cards are usually the noisiest, most heat-generating parts in a PC build.

We"ve also noticed that Nvidia"s RTX 3080 and 3090 Founders Edition cards (along with several custom models) can get particularly hot on their GDDR6X, so it pays to do some research. For much more on this discussion, see our Graphics Card Face-Off: Founders Edition or Reference GPUs vs 3rd-Party Design feature.

Once you"ve considered all the above and are ready to narrow down your choices, you can head to our GPU Benchmarks and our Best Graphics Cards to help finalize your buying decision. Here we include a condensed version of our current favorite cards for common resolutions and gaming scenarios below. Keep in mind that there are third-party options for all of these cards, so you may want to use these picks as a jumping-off point to finding, say, the best AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT model for your particular gaming build.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050(opens in new tab) almost looked too good to be true, promising full RT and DLSS support with a starting price of $250. At launch, it immediately sold out and we saw prices of over $400. Three months later, you can actually find the cards in stock for just $250. Some might argue that"s not really a "budget" price, but dropping down $50 to the RX 6500 XT results in 35% less performance and effectively useless DXR support. If you want to go lower than $250, we suggest looking at previous generation cards and perhaps even a used graphics card. That"s a big can of worms to open, but when the cheapest GTX 1650 Super cards(opens in new tab) cost well over $300, there"s no point in even considering them.

AMD Radeon RX 6600The AMD Radeon RX 6600(opens in new tab) nominally costs the same $329 as the RTX 3060 below, and performance outside of DXR/DLSS games is basically tied. However, AMD"s GPU can actually be found for close to MSRP, while Nvidia"s card costs nearly 50% more. Winner: AMD

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060(opens in new tab) upgrades the memory and GPU quite a bit compared to the budget 3050, delivering 35% more performance on average. 12GB of VRAM also means you won"t need to worry about running out of memory any time soon. Nominally priced at $329, the RTX 3060 still tends to cost more than we"d like, but keep an eye out for future price drops.

Just a bit more money than the RTX 3060 will get you an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT(opens in new tab), and a honking 37% boost to performance in most games. It"s about a tie in DXR performance, making AMD"s card the easy pick this time. You"ll also get great 1440p gaming performance, with over 60 fps in most games even at ultra settings, and 12GB of VRAM should be plenty for the next several years at least.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080If you"re looking for the champion of graphics cards, right now it"s the GeForce RTX 3080(opens in new tab). Technically there are slightly faster cards, but they all cost more (i.e. RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3090, RTX 3080 Ti) or have very lackluster ray tracing performance (RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT). The RTX 3080 can max out all the graphics settings at 4K in most games, and DLSS can do wonders for ray tracing performance. Just beware that Nvidia"s next-generation Ada GPUs are slated to arrive around the September timeframe.

Windows 11 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, many people would be happier sticking with Windows 10. On the other hand, there are some solid reasons to upgrade to Windows 11 right now, including better window snapping options, more control over virtual desktops and fresh design flourishes such as rounded corners on windows.

If you choose to move to Windows 11, whether via upgrade or clean install, you"ll notice several significant annoyances, including a context menu that makes you click an extra time, a hobbled taskbar and a default browser menu that makes it more difficult to switch away from Edge.

Throughout its history, Microsoft has struggled to decide whether its UI should target computer-literate users or dumb things down for the not-so-tech-savvy. In a move that"s sure to please everyone who still uses an AOL email address, the company has decided to limit the number of items on all of Windows 11"s context menus.

In Windows 10, when you right-click a file, you"ll see just about every possible program you can open it with, along with a slew of other options that depend on what apps you have installed. In Windows 11, you see a maximum of five choices for files and not necessarily the most useful choices. If you want to see all the choices, you have to click "Show more options" or hit Shift + F10.

For example, when I right-clicked on a .txt file, I was not shown the option to open it with Notepad++, my favorite text editor. I only saw Notepad++, along with several other key choices such as "Scan with Microsoft defender" after I clicked for more options. Thanks for the extra click, Microsoft.

Apparently, Microsoft thinks that, after years of having all your choices in front of you, your tiny brain cannot handle the data stream anymore, lest your head explode like the guy at the beginning of Scanners. Or perhaps Microsoft has been watching too much Marie Kondo and decided, on your behalf, that having full functionality does not spark joy.

You want the ribbon? You can"t handle the ribbon or, at least, that"s what Microsoft thinks. In File Explorer for Windows 11, the company has gotten rid of the ribbon and buried many of the options where it"s harder to find them. For example, with the ribbon in Windows 10"s File Explorer, you can find the options to open the navigation pane or details pane under the View tab. But in Windows 11, you have to open the View submenu and then the show menu and it"s just less intuitive.

How about some humility, Microsoft? What we want out of Start menu is to give us quick access to all of our programs and then get out of the way. However, in Windows 11, the Start menu is designed to be showy rather than functional, sitting in the middle of the display by default and taking up more screen real est