Building a Home NAS...

What do we do in a time when certain component prices have gone through the roof? We make do with what we have and upgrade other aspects of our systems. Speaking of which, I've been meaning to sort out my data storage situation for a long time. So, let's take the plunge!

Alan Wake 2 Performance Analysis...

Alan Wake 2 is the new hotness in the games industry. Love it or hate it, you cannot deny the impact that it has had on the general conversation with regards to hardware, software, and game development. While I'm not as on-board with the near universal, unfettered praise for the title as most reviewers appear to be, I do find the discussions surrounding the hardware requirements and performance of that hardware near and dear to my heart.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at how current mid-range hardware performs in this game and whether that actually lines up with the hardware requirements that the developers put out just before the game's release...

Starfield Performance Analysis...

Starfield has been a much anticipated title for a number of years now but the hype, counter-hype and social media battles have been raging pretty strongly around this one since it was made an Xbox and PC exclusive. 

Normally, though, those concerns usually melt away shortly after launch when players can actually get their hands on the game and just play. In Starfield's case, this hasn't been quite the experience - there are many players who are struggling to run the game because it can be quite demanding of PC hardware. There are raging debates as to whether the problem lies with the developers, the engine, or the hardware manufacturers...

Since I had my savegame destroyed in Baldur's Gate 3 and didn't feel like repeating thirty hours of gametime I instead decided to switch over to Starfield for a change in pace. As a happy coincidence, I have a lot of familiarity with prior Bethesda Game Studios titles and a penchant for testing on various hardware configurations... and it just so happens that I have a new testing rig (mostly) up and running so it has turned out that Starfield is a prime target for the shakedown of this new testing capability...

Mid-Range Hardware: RTX 4070 review (Part 2)

Last time, I looked at the relative performance between the RTX 4070 and an RTX 3070 on an Intel-based system. This time, I've chucked these two cards into my AMD system and compared them with my RX 6800 to see the performance scaling on a mid-range system.

Mid-Range Hardware: RTX 4070 review

The RTX 4070 is an interesting card. $100 more expensive than the 3070 on paper but cheaper than most people were probably able to purchase their 30 series card during the period of late 2020 through to just before the release of the 40 series in 2023.

Certainly, I paid slightly less than MSRP on the base model and that was around €50 cheaper than I paid for my 3070 when, in desperation, I just bought the first card I could get my hands on because I didn't have a graphics card.

However, the 40 series cards are almost literally languishing on store shelves due to their high prices and lacklustre performance increases over their 30 series counterparts, with the notable exception of the RTX 4090.

With that in mind, I want to focus on that step forward in performance and look at how the RTX 4070 improves on the 3070 on a mid-range system.