Explainer articles

Misconceptions in tech are endless, but myths about low-res CPU benchmarks top our list. Let's revisit this hot topic and test the new 9800X3D at 4K to clarify what really matters.

You bought a new CPU and it seems to run cool, so you try a bit of overclocking. The GHz climb higher. Did you hit the silicon jackpot? You've got yourself a binned chip. But what's that exactly?

Firmware is essential to the operation of electronic devices, acting as the foundational software that makes it all work. While firmware is sometimes used interchangeably with "software," they are not the same thing.

Welcome to a fundamental area of computer design: how numbers are represented in hardware! This can ultimately mean the difference between a blazing fast machine and a costly $475 million bug – Pentium 4, anyone?

Something we hear a lot is that CPU performance doesn't matter for 4K gaming. Without proper context, CPU benchmark data can be misinterpreted. Let us explain to you what's what with some hard data.

Are you thinking of jumping into the OLED gaming ecosystem with a brand new 32-inch 4K fast refresh monitor but aren't sure whether to choose a QD-OLED or WOLED panel?

At a high level, JPEG is a lossy image compression technique. What you may not realize is that achieving this required a fascinating blend of human perception, elegant signal processing, and clever engineering prowess.

Let's begin with a visual challenge: What are the colors of the tiles marked as A and B in the image?

Have you been researching your next monitor purchase and ran into terms like G-Sync, FreeSync, and VRR? Do you want to know how G-Sync compares to FreeSync, and if your GPU will take full advantage of your monitor?

#TBT Every few years it seems like there's an amazing new technology with the promise of making games look ever more realistic. We've had shaders, tessellation, shadow mapping, ray tracing – and now there's path tracing.

You're playing the latest games at beautiful 4K ultra res. Do you ever wonder how those graphics got there? Welcome to our 3D Game Rendering 101: A guide to how one basic frame of gaming goodness is made.

Your phone's ability to identify any song it listens to is pure technological magic. In this article, we'll show you how the ever popular Shazam app does it.

In the space of four years, GPUs have gone from having a few megabytes of cache to over tenfold that figure. Why did this happen and what benefits has it brought us?

In the realm of computer chips, bigger numbers are often better. More cores, higher GHz, greater FLOPs. But there's one metric where smaller is better. Enter the world of semiconductors and process nodes.

Three vendors. Three architectures. Three approaches to GPU design. Join us as we dive into their semiconductor hearts and see how Ada Lovelace, Arc Alchemist, and RDNA 3 contrast and compare.

While chiplets have been in use for decades, today they are the hottest trend in processor tech and at the cutting edge of technology, with millions of people worldwide using them in desktop PCs, workstations, and servers.

PCI Express has been around for 20 years, and with no sign of it being replaced any time soon, we dive into the technology to see what makes it so special.

With the best graphics cards now sporting more RAM than an average PC, we look at just why games are using ever more video memory to create all the visual effects.

When 2013-era graphics produce 2023-era memory loads

Let's see if you can spot the difference between a human writer and an AI. We asked GPT 4.0 various tech questions and put them side-to-side with our answers taken from TechSpot explainers.

When choosing your next monitor to buy, it might be worth considering one that offers HDR. Here's our explainer, giving you all the info you need on this amazing technology.

The latest and biggest 3D games often seem to have a problem with stuttering. Ask around and finger of blame often points to shader compilation. But why, and what can be done about it?

With power limits of CPUs and graphics cards climbing ever higher, and news reports of chips hitting sky-high temperatures appearing almost weekly, it seems that now is as good a time as any to ask a simple question – just how hot is too hot for today's PC components?

In this explainer we support with data why testing CPU performance with a GPU bottleneck is a bad idea, so you can have a full understanding of our testing methods when reviewing CPUs.

SSD trimming is a process that helps to maintain the performance of a solid-state drive over time. Windows and other operating systems optimize SSDs by using trimming. But what exactly is it and how does it work? Read our explainer on everything trim related!

Modern PCs have CPUs that can handle anywhere from 4 to 32 threads simultaneously thanks to developments in chip design and manufacturing. But what exactly are threads and why are they so important?