Desktop Articles

For a PC-only game built on well-trod swords-and-sorcery territory, Diablo III is generating a surprising amount of buzz from not only serious PC gamers, but also more mainstream and casual gamers. That's good for PC gaming, as this may be the biggest thing to happen to that field since Minecraft.

But will Diablo III be able to capture hearts and minds the way its two predecessors did, starting back in 1996? PC gamers Dan Ackerman and Rich Brown debate the relevance of this action RPG. … Read more

No matter how big or small your computer is, there is at least one internal drive to host its operating system and programs. This drive is almost always a standard internal drive, which comes in the form of a regular hard drive (HDD) or a solid-state drive (SSD). The former is affordable and offers lots of storage space, while the latter is generally more expensive but superfast. The good news is, 2012 marked the time SSDs became more and more popular, thanks to the reduced costs and the increased number of vendors joining the storage market of this type.

That … Read more

Boutique gaming PC vendor Maingear launched a brand new full tower PC Monday morning. The all-steel aluminum-wrapped, steel-skeletoned Shift takes a page from last year's limited-edition Voodoo Omen desktop by rotating the motherboard 90 degrees clockwise, facing the ports you normally find on the back panel up on the top of the system instead. The result, Maingear says, is improved heat management, as the design works with heat's natural tendency to rise.

Regardless of the heat benefits, (we've seen plenty of PCs work just fine with a traditional layout), the result of the rotated motherboard clearly makes an impact on the look and feel of the Shift. With monitor and peripheral cables plugged in to the top and hidden under a removable, vented cover, both the front and the back of the system cut a clean profile.

(More pics and starting price after the jump.)… Read more

Lenovo made a handful of new system announcements this morning that mark a change of tactic for the Chinese-owned manufacturer. Both its IdeaCentre B500 all-in-one and its IdeaCentre K300 desktop feature gaming-oriented components, representing a departure for the typically business-focused PC maker.

The sharp-angled IdeaCentre B500 is the most unique of the two desktops announced today. Starting at $649, the B500 comes with a 23-inch, 1,920x1080 display, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a motion-control remote. Options include an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, as well as a Geforce GTS 250M graphics chip (aka a rebranded Geforce 9800GTX). We … Read more

Man, that's a nice screen. We're tempted to end here, because on the shelf next to any other all in one, the $1,699 iMac and its 27-inch, wide-screen, LED-backlit display might be all shoppers need to see. The updated specs sound great, but in terms of pure screen real estate, no other all in one on the market right now can compete with the new higher-end iMacs.

The screen overwhelms the new iMac's other features. The long-desired SD Card slot is of course welcome, but hardly innovative. Adding video input support to the mini DisplayPort jack … Read more

We can't claim to have even seen Apple's updated Mac Minis, let alone reviewed them, but we can still form a few opinions of the updated specs and the addition of an OS X Server version to the Mac Mini line-up.

To recap, Apple updated the CPU, default RAM, and hard-drive capacities of both its $599 and $799 Mac Minis earlier today. The Core 2 Duo chip in the $599 Mac Mini goes from 2.0GHz to 2.26GHz, the RAM doubles from 1GB of RAM to 2GB, and the hard drive jumps from a 120GB to a … Read more

Update (2:30pm PT): We've obtained review samples of the new iMac, MacBook, and Magic Mouse released today. Follow-up coverage--including hands-on impressions and videos--is included below.

First impressions of Apple's new 27-inch iMac [includes video]

Hands-on with the new Apple MacBook [includes video]

Hands-off analysis of Apple's new Mac Minis

First Look: Apple conjures up Magic Mouse with a dose of multi-touch

Apple Time Capsule, Airport Extreme receive small (possibly significant) upgrades

Original story follows.

Apple revamped its desktop and laptop lines Tuesday, dramatically redesigning the iMac all-in-one and MacBook laptop, and also adding a few updates to its Mac Mini line of small-scale desktops. It also introduced a handful of updated peripherals, with a multitouch mouse bringing the most thorough changes.

New iMacs The biggest news Tuesday will be the new iMacs, which move from aluminum and polycarbon design to aluminum and edge-to-edge glass, mirroring the look of Apple's line of MacBook Pro laptops. The new iMac will come in 21.5 (1,920x1,080) and 27-inch (2,560x1,440) models, each with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Starting price for the 21.5-inch model is $1,199, with the 27-incher beginning at $1,699. Apple will also offer step-up models for each screen size, coming in at $1,499 for the beefier 21.5-inch model, and $1,999 for the higher-end 27-inch iMac.

As for specs, Apple has mostly opted for raw speed over adding more processing cores. All but the $1,999 iMac come with Intel Core 2 Duo chips, but the CPU speed in the lowest model now starts at 3.06GHz. That used to be the fastest chip available in Apple's previous highest-end iMac. The one exception is the $1,999 iMac, which starts with Intel's most recent quad-core chip, the core i5 at 2.66GHz, and upgrade options for that model go all the way to the even faster Core i7 at 2.8GHz.

Other new iMac features are relatively straightforward for the systems themselves. There's no Blu-ray option, as was rumored, but you do get an SD Card slot on all new iMacs. The 27-inch version also lets you use its mini-Display Port input as a video input (via a dongle from Belkin), which means you can use the larger iMac as a second monitor. The GeForce 9400M remains the standard graphics chip, with upgrades available to Radeon HD 4670 and Radeon HD 4870 chips. Storage options go as high as 2TB on the 27-inchers.

13-inch Unibody Polycarbonate MacBook Apple has also revamped its best-selling laptop, the 13-inch MacBook. The new version retains the white polycarbonate look, as well as the $999 price. … Read more

Update: So it's clear, neither this post nor the video constitute the official CNET review. Click here for the full write-up with specs, charts, pricing and detailed analysis.

It's been almost exactly a year since we last reviewed a Psystar desktop. During that 12 month gap, Apple's suit against Psystar has steadily advanced through the court system, Psystar entered into and emerged from bankruptcy, and Apple released a brand-new operating system by way of Mac OS X 10.6.1, aka Snow Leopard. Somehow, none of those events has stopped Psystar from selling its own computers using … Read more

Update: As Semiaccurate.com's Charlie Demerjian himself informs us, it was actually he who first wrote about Nvidia halting chipset development, albeit in more dire terms, back in August for his old haunt the Inquirer. Link here. Fair enough. We'll still credit Ryan Shrout at PC Perspective for obtaining what we understand to be the first on the record acknowledgment from Nvidia.

Credit PC Perspective for digging out the news that Nvidia has put its NForce chipset development on hiatus. Nvidia will continue to supply the market with current-generation NForce chipsets as necessary, but due to Nvidia's … Read more