Overview Sony’s latest attempt to lift a slice of the handheld pie so ably scoffed by Nintendo is the PS Vita: a chunky black slab of portable PlayStation. It’s a substantial revamp of the company’s handheld legacy that started with the PSP and has evolved, until now, through five largely identical models since its 2004 debut. Each step saw minor revisions – three of which, the PSP-1000, 2000 and 3000, were basically size revising updates – and attempts to chase a rapidly changing market. The PSP Go added a sliding-case design further shrinking the device, and ditched [...]

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Overview So here it is, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 and, for the time being, it’s the fastest graphics card around. AMD has blinked first and opted to release its brand new graphics card architecture before Nvidia, and just before the new year. It’s a brave move by AMD though. Bringing out a radically different graphics design spec, compared with its previous vector processors, in the same year as it brought us a brand new CPU architecture. Especially given the depressing failure of the AMD FX chips. We’ve seen little bits from AMD about its new architecture, the plainly-named Graphics [...]

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Overview Sapphire has waded in first with its take on AMD’s latest HD 7000 series card, the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OverClock edition. Unlike the AMD Radeon HD 7970 there are unlikely to be very many strictly reference models of the Radeon HD 7950. Instead we’re more likely to see card manufacturers taking the opportunity to put their own spin on the PCB, clocks and cooling. The HD 7970 was a reference model all the way down the line, with overclocked versions only coming much further down the release schedule. The Radeon HD 7950 though is being freed by AMD to allow manufacturers [...]

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Is it possible to build a fully-fledged and decently frigid gaming PC for $999 with a profit margin to spare? The Gamer Paladin HS11′s spec sheet suggests it is. In contrast to the fiery Chimera 4, you get a sensible trio of a Gigabyte Z68 mobo, Core i5-2500K CPU and NVIDIA GTX 570 1.2GB graphics card, plus 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. A smart NZXTSource 210 boxes it all up, an 800W PSU supplies the current, and a 120mm liquid CPU cooling system sucks out the heat. There’s no display for that money and don’t even think about an SSD, but the whole package is ultra-customizable [...]

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We could tell you to be patient. The Motorola Atrix, LG Optimus 2x, Samsung Galaxy S II, and so on are all about to hit mobile stands across the country, bringing about the next generation of Android handsets and (potentially) opening up a number of new doors for Android gaming. But patience is for the boring. So here’s our list of the top ten best Android handsets for gaming on right now, the criteria for judgement being a mixture of intense research and the application of the office Ouija board. We’ve tried to pick from all ranges of the spectrum when it comes to price, so if your books [...]

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Back in 2008-2009, we saw a big push in casual gaming for mobile devices. This, we think, should be credited to the introduction of online software distribution stores such as the App Store and the Android Market. Developing games for iOS devices was relatively easier because of iOS’ limited hardware variety, but developing games for Android, however, was and is a much more difficult task. Sony introduced their PlayStation Suite software framework earlier this year for their own Android-powered devices and tablets (Xperia Play and Tablet S/P) as well the PS Vita which allowed PSOne games to [...]

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Top 10 Gaming Laptops – September 2011 This list is based on actual or estimated gaming performance, factoring in the hardware specification (particularly the graphics card) relative to the laptop’s size. September Update: When buying a gaming laptop now–in Q3 2011–it should definitely be built around a 2nd-generation Core processor from Intel (Sandy Bridge). These CPUs are built with a 32nm manufacturing process and offer the best overall performance as well as the best performance per Watt. AMD machines based on the new A8 Fusion APUs are also an interesting alternative for gamers on [...]

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The 1982 Lockheed Sea Shadow may be rusting away in Suisun Bay, but its Commie-spooking contours haven’t been forgotten. They apparently inspired the design of the Asus G74SX-A1, which just won a HotHardware recommendation for its cheese-eschewing looks as well as its performance, efficient cooling and realistic $1749 price tag. For once, the Core i7-2360QM CPU coupled with a GeForce GTX 560M and generous 12GB dollop of DDR-1333 RAM actually conspired to surpass the manufacturer’s 3DMark benchmark claims. It wasn’t flawless though: overall computing performance was middling compared [...]

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As the name might suggest, this Sapphire HD 6670 Ultimate is the direct replacement for the HD 5670 Ultimate. The Sapphire Ultimate graphics card again comes passively cooled and is only a little more expensive than its older brother. So it’s essentially more of the same then? Almost. This updated GPU comes with the AMD Radeon HD 6670, plus 80 extra shaders, a smattering of extra texture units and a small hike in core clock speeds. Other than that, it really is pretty much business as usual between the HD 5670 and the HD 6670. All that GPU tweakery means you do get some extra performance [...]

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The Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 is in serious gamers’ graphics card territory, without hitting the big prices.Nvidia doesn’t have a great lineup in the budget segment of cards, and anything lower than this here GeForce GTS 450 isn’t really worth a look for those with any passing interest in frame rates. This venerable card does have some gaming chops to offer, and for the £81 cost it’s a tough card to argue against. The version we’ve tested is the standard reference version directly from Nvidia. That means it has no extras, no funky third-party cooling solution and definitely [...]

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