Nick Evanson
Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?
Latest articles by Nick Evanson
![A GameSir Nova Lite and Microsoft Xbox Wireless pair of controllers against a coloured background with a PC Gamer recommended logo](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cdWnsApaCEWi3SDdEUTxWo-320-80.jpg)
Best PC controllers in 2024: the pads I recommend for PC gamers
By Dave James last updated
Total control Grab one of the best PC controllers for when your keyboard and mouse simply won't do.
![A photo of an Asus ROG Ally X handheld gaming PC, with a PC Gamer Editor's Choice logo](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vKWg88pZnKKPbxEEjFytb-320-80.jpg)
Asus ROG Ally X handheld gaming PC review
By Nick Evanson published
Bigger but better Some big changes and a host of further tweaks have fixed the old flaws making this the handheld gaming PC to get.
![An Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition graphics card from various angles](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rSgW4YvezTnrXsd3HEfJX9-320-80.png)
I downloaded Intel's new AI Playground beta and may have finally found something Arc is honestly good at
By Nick Evanson published
news It turns out that Intel's graphics cards are better at doing AI than they are at churning out ultra-high frame rates in games.
![Chrome Browser Logos](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/EdZQfCyReBjSAgbb64XZ9T-320-80.jpg)
Google has changed its mind about dropping support for third-party cookies in Chrome, after years of trying to make it happen
By Nick Evanson published
news Depending on who you listen to, this is either a brilliant decision or a truly horrible one.
![A stylised image of AMD's RDNA 3 GPU design for its Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/b5hZ3jGxuxwssYSDEA4iLE-320-80.jpg)
AMD RDNA 4 info leak confirms RT performance is getting boosted but could fall short of a major hardware redesign
By Nick Evanson published
news AMD's GPUs are perfect at rasterization but still trail behind Nvidia when it comes to ray tracing.
![An image of Linux's mascot, Tux the penguin.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/i5TSKD2VVirrGsyqqwK4cG-320-80.jpg)
It's not just Windows PCs that have gone belly up, as CrowdStrike's Falcon software has been b0rking Linux-powered computers, too
By Nick Evanson published
news It doesn't matter what operating system you use, a buggy application can seriously ruin your day.
![A photo of an RTX 4070 Ti with its heatsink removed, showing the factory-applied thermal paste on the GPU die](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wYtS9WUArtiqMeRJEH82u-320-80.jpg)
Nvidia's third-party RTX 40-series GPUs are losing performance over time thanks to rubbish factory-installed thermal paste
By Nick Evanson published
news It's not just about bad hotspots, the whole chip ends up getting hotter, causing it to hit thermal limits quicker.
![A close-up image of an Intel Raptor Lake die.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/hHGDd3xd2xfFZxauXbcesH-320-80.jpg)
No E, just the P—Intel quietly launches Raptor Lake Rekked for the embedded market
By Nick Evanson published
news But with the Core i9's reputation looking very iffy, would anyone want to take the gamble and use it in an industrial situation?
![A photo of an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor resting on a metal heatsink](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/9WKMCNYDHRUSMttqUSudUV-320-80.jpg)
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D CPU review
By Nick Evanson published
Cache for cash It's just a 5800X3D, except a bit slower and a whole lot cheaper. Which actually makes it better.
![A stylized, rendered image of the Earth (focus on Europe) represented by little dots, binary code and lines](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XSgWNxzWMtfTHhfqgVfmQZ-320-80.jpg)
The CrowdStrike IT outage is pretty grim but let's hope it's not as bad as the infamous Dyn DDoS attack, Facebook mega-crash, and Rogers network disaster
By Nick Evanson published
news This one looks as bad as they come and there have been some truly massive IT problems in recent years.
![AMD Strix Point APU chip, held in a hand, with the reflected light showing the various processing blocks in the chip die](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/VCkwq2FV7M7bUiVenTvcmb-320-80.jpg)
AMD's tweaked RDNA 3.5 GPU is solely focused on improving mobile gaming performance
By Nick Evanson published
news There are plenty of little changes under the hood to help the graphics processor do more for less power.
![NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg riding the Canadarm2 robotic arm while maneuvering a roll-out solar array toward the International Space Station’s truss structure 257 miles above the Pacific Ocean](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/RRvyKTNszKpk5RtwXQLEFC-320-80.jpg)
Researchers create Dune-like pee-pants for the next generation of astronauts and maybe even wealthy, overly 'dedicated' gamers
By Nick Evanson published
news The design looks far more appealing than the adult diapers spacewalkers currently have to use.
![intel cpu](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Ria5erNerXX8q9PbzyAZvG-320-80.jpg)
It's 2024 and yet Intel is still churning out DUAL CORE CPUs for desktop PCs, and I'm a little in awe of the plucky trooper
By Nick Evanson published
news Two P-cores are all you're getting, but they're speedy little things, so it's not as awful as you might think.
![A screenshot of Arm's Mori demo, showing the use of Arm's Arm-ASR upscaler](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/dvV6SV2byB7EWNsTfa89e6-320-80.jpg)
Arm has developed a new shader-based upscaler using AMD's open source FSR 2.2 as its starting base
By Nick Evanson published
news Not that anyone needed a reminder but once again, open-source licencing is to thank for all of this.
![An aerial photo of Samsung's Hwaseon S3 and S4 manufacturing plants](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/CBiCPfVsWppEZZh5t8kudf-320-80.jpg)
Samsung workers union is calling for an indefinite strike, to which the bosses claim there will infeasibly be 'no disruptions' to production
By Nick Evanson published
news All while TSMC enjoys a market cap just shy of one trillion dollars.
![A photo of a quantum computer hanging from the ceiling of a clean room laboratory](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/QADz6rKcfmeHv7t9ngzekF-320-80.jpg)
Multiple governments around the world have secretly agreed to restrict the export of quantum computers
By Nick Evanson published
news The move has stumped the scientific community as there's no obvious reason for it.
![An image showing a rendering gold padlock against a digital background depicting technologies in security systems](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/M3mHWJTZ6C4ToPjQSegNSo-320-80.jpg)
An infamous dataset of leaked login details, updated last week, now houses 9,948,575,739 passwords and poses the biggest threat to our online security ever
By Nick Evanson published
news Another 1.5 billion passwords have just been added to the RockYou dataset, all harvested in only three years.
![A screenshot of the launch presentation of the Ling Long portable PC](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/UADL5yvxt5J4gd83zwxmKT-320-80.jpg)
Rip the display off a laptop, snap its keyboard in the middle, and you've got this portable PC you can stick in a pocket
By Nick Evanson published
news Excuse me while I whip this out. Now any of y'all kind folks got a monitor and mouse handy?
![An image of a close-up of a human eye on lap top computer in a domestic kitchen, at night](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/pooR83RSQqkqUb6KURuLy6-320-80.jpg)
Microsoft patents a technique to display encrypted documents so only you can see them
By Nick Evanson published
news It seems to be a better system than AMD's Privacy View feature but like all of them, it can't solve one key issue.
![A promotional image of two Micron GDDR7 memory modules against a dark background](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8tYK8R5hWKRWraABLJyJDW-320-80.jpg)
Micron expects GDDR7 will improve ray tracing and rasterization performance by more than 30%, compared to previous gen VRAM
By Nick Evanson published
news Does 30% more memory bandwidth mean 30% more fps? Let's put it to the test.
![A screenshot of the Ultra test in GPUScore's Breaking Limit ray tracing benchmark tool](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/bokCUaaFMm38VPXGRgp7jW-320-80.jpg)
There's a new ray tracing benchmark in town and it paints an all-too-familiar picture of today's GPUs
By Nick Evanson published
news No prizes for guessing which vendor handles ray tracing the best.
![Kioxia Exceria Plus SSD](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/RfeudjxPHyx8mR5pVB8ohm-320-80.jpg)
SSD storage is set to use 1,000 layer memory chips by 2027, potentially offering 20 TB NVMe drives for under $300
By Nick Evanson published
news Given the pace in NAND flash development, that's certainly not impossible, even the price.
![A stock photo showing a close up of an Ethernet cable and connector, with fiber optic cables in the background](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/zFLSWv5Cyn7zzyFfTSJG6V-320-80.jpg)
Internet speed record of 402,000,000 Mbps achieved using standard optic fibre cabling, fast enough to download Baldur's Gate 3 in less than four milliseconds
By Nick Evanson published
news A gaming PC with the fastest CPU, DDR5 RAM, and Gen5 SSD would be a massive bottleneck though, so there's no chance you could use this at home.