I recently obtained an NVIDIA SHIELD TV, which is one of the best Android TV boxes available today. I was originally hesitant to purchase it as it has active cooling with a fan. However, after hearing some reports that the…
In recent years, video card makers have come to realize that even though gamers want powerful, well-cooled GPUs, they don’t always want to listen to a vacuum cleaner, especially when there are no game or movie sounds to cover up…
On a Mac (OS X or now macOS), you can change the audio input and output devices by going to System Preferences, then clicking on Sound, and then either the Output or Input tab. However, there is a faster method…
If you’re looking for a silent, fanless portable computer, Intel Core M processors may fit your bill. While the previous generation Broadwell Core M allowed for silent computing, the performance was somewhat lackluster. The current generation Skylake Core M3, Core…
The GeForce 10 series of graphics cards from NVIDIA are extremely powerful, but also power-efficient, making them ideal candidates to use for a silent gaming computer. Of the 3 cards currently available, which should you choose? The answer depends on…
You may have heard of or even been partaking in the sensation sweeping the landscape, Pokémon Go. Despite it’s ability to get people outside and into all sorts of trouble, one thing you may or may not have discovered is…
The Surface Pro 4 is an amazing 2-in-1 tablet computer. In particular, the cheapest Core M3 version is completely fanless, and thus caught my interest as soon as it was announced. Even though the cooling solution on the Pro 4…
After trying to build a completely silent gaming PC by going through various “silent” cases, which focus on hiding noise rather than getting rid of it’s source, I decided to try a different philosophy: There’s no need to hide noise…
AMD’s new Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card just had a bunch of performance reviews posted today. While it appears to trade blows with the similarly priced (at $649) nVidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti in terms of performance (i.e., FPS),…
Information Week reports that SSD prices are falling fast and capacity will surpass HDDs in 2016. I hope this is true, as that will mean that we can finally have affordable silent home storage solutions, something I’ve been waiting a…
Costco has a great deal with a couple of Surface 3 bundles that can save you $80 off the retail price. The two bundles available are: $599: Surface 3 (2GB RAM / 64GB Storage), Type Cover (black), Surface Pen (silver)…
Microsoft announced the Surface 3 on March 31, 2015. This new Surface device is essentially a smaller version of the Surface Pro 3 launched last year, but with the most important difference (for silence) being that it is fanless! Check…
The Cooler Master HAF XB Evo Open Air Chasis bills itself as a high airflow computer case that can also be used as a test bench by simply removing it’s top and side panels. The large mesh vent on the…
The Prolimatech MK-26 is a very well regarded graphics card cooler, but how well can it perform when the objective is silent / quiet computing? To find out, I installed the MK-26 on an EVGA GTX 780 SC ACX video…
It’s been a long time since I wrote Part 1 of this series, and the system is actually already built and has been running for several months. In Part 2, I will list out the various water cooling components I…
I’ve been building desktop PCs for a long time, but a constant obsession of mine that I have never been able to get just right is the balance between noise and power. Simply put, I want silence and the ability…
Happy 2014! The year of 2013 introduced a lot of cool products and revisions, including the release of new game consoles (Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft XBox One), updated phones from Apple (iPhone 5s/5c) and Google (Nexus 5), a more…
While games designed for the computer usually use keyboard and mouse input, sometimes it can be beneficial to have a console style game pad or controller. One great option for a controller for PCs is the XBox 360 Wireless Controller…
A while ago, I was in the market for a new Haswell-based computer system. One of the common problems I’ve always had is that plugging headphones directly into the onboard audio found on the motherboard (or linked to the front…
nVidia’s GeForce GTX 770 series GPU lauched today, and reviewers seem pretty happy with it, particularly its price point. At $400 MSRP yet with slightly better performance (though also higher power consumption) than the GTX 680, it seems to be…