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
![Windows 95](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/igU4FMHNeKkDHoCyzNez4Q-320-80.png)
The disk 'Format' dialog in Windows was only meant to be a temporary solution but it's still chugging along, 30 years later
By Nick Evanson published
news Who'd have thought something cooked up one 'rainy Thursday morning' could have such longevity?
![Cyberpunk 2077 ray tracing](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/MGhzSCsxAWCFbHhuLMkR3Y-320-80.jpg)
Microsoft's new patent promises more efficient ray tracing for the Xbox and that could be a real boon for AMD's graphics cards too
By Nick Evanson published
news Not all patents ever see real-life applications but this one could be very popular with devs.
![A cartoon-stylised illustration depicting two robots fighting each other](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/GX4Dme5bvUfvHZYKSd6T8o-320-80.jpg)
OpenAI's GPT-3.5 is the champion of the Street Fighter III LLM Colosseum, beating Mistral on its home turf
By Nick Evanson published
news Beat 'em ups are clearly the superior way to test large language models.
![Fake Bitcoin on pile of coins](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/c5p5LbpFXR4NgeGpDMjzLE-320-80.jpg)
UK police bust a fast food worker turned £3 billion bitcoin scam member on a £7.5 million money laundering charge
By Nick Evanson published
news Posh houses, expensive jewellery, and private schooling were all bought with the ill-gotten virtual funds.
![A stylised photograph of a person acting as a hacker, break into servers and infecting them with a virus, as show by computer monitors displaying green text and codes](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/mFkytw2xMwt8YqnsfRjQj4-320-80.jpg)
Forget your money and identities, hackers are now after your water, according to the White House
By Nick Evanson published
news It seems like a little bit of basic cybersecurity is all that's required to keep it safe, though.
![A photograph of a wired set of headphones, resting on top of an open, silver metal coloured laptop, on a light wood desk](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/NAmArajEeRd5c6mhEcpcKU-320-80.jpg)
Music streamer that spent years streaming other artists' work as their own gets convicted of fraud in Denmark
By Nick Evanson published
news And it was a very profitable six years of streaming, too.
![Screenshot of Dragon's Dogma 2, showing a view of the centre of the game's main city, Vernworth](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/FUHGFG7xdggyyUC3Cugvm3-320-80.jpg)
Dragon's Dogma 2: The best settings for your PC
By Nick Evanson published
Deal with the dragon Get the perfect balance of graphics and performance with our recommended quality settings.
![A screenshot from Dragon's Dogma 2, showing the player character standing on a wooden bridge, with woodland and mountains in the distance](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/f6xfLZ54oFPmPkR2dandsd-320-80.jpg)
Dragon's Dogma 2 already has the file for DLSS Frame Generation, so where is the feature?
By Nick Evanson published
news And the game offers FSR 3 but there's no AMD FG either.
![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)
Arise Arc owners and rejoice as Intel's new drivers offer up to 36% more performance in Dragon's Dogma 2. Maybe
By Nick Evanson published
news Yes, I've actually tested them but the GPU gods were rather moody today.
![Gaming PC group shot](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/xXhrEsP3nMY9e43WUFUxSC-320-80.jpg)
Gaming PC and graphics card shipments will grow into 2025 'due to economic improvement as well as new GPUs'
By Nick Evanson published
news IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly Gaming Tracker report makes positive reading for the gaming market.
![In-game screenshot from Dragon's Dogma 2, showing a fantasy landscape with a city and mountains in the distance](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kZ4dh5rRRxKhcqwCsjT6x8-320-80.jpg)
Dragon's Dogma 2 performance analysis: It'll take everything your PC has and still want more
By Nick Evanson published
Testing the dragon I hope you have a top-end CPU and GPU because you're really going to need them.
![PS5](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/KNP7AFZEnEm24o5jZ8dQvV-320-80.jpg)
PlayStation 5 Pro hardware leak suggests its GPU is a RDNA 3/4-hybrid design, with some big improvements coming this way
By Nick Evanson published
news I'll stick be sticking with my gaming PC, of course.
![Sony PS VR2 pictured on a desk](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/d2esPm2XHjQeeQi287dZtT-320-80.jpg)
Sony's reportedly stopped making any more PS VR2 headsets until it can figure out a way of shifting a pile of unsold VR goggles
By Nick Evanson published
news Hmm, that explains why it's eyeing up PC support, too.
![OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/eQ4QvnT5n24R9f4nQNq5MP-320-80.jpg)
OpenAI hopes to break AI's reliance on Nvidia by using investment from UAE to make its own chips
By Nick Evanson published
news It's going to take a lot to take on AI's silicon big guns.
![A creative illustration of a binary human brain and genomic DNA on a dark blue particle background](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sdgwMqTVwY2q2GD7qEBiS9-320-80.jpg)
What is general intelligence in the world of AI and computers? The race for the artificial mind explained
By Nick Evanson published
Mind and the machine GPT and Dall-e are just the first baby steps in the world of human-like AI.
![Snapdragon X Elite](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/PFiCdx5kbSAJSKjJAV3yzJ-320-80.jpeg)
Samsung does an Apple with its first Snapdragon X Elite laptop, suggesting the new Arm-based Windows machines aren't going to be a cheap alternative to x86
By Nick Evanson published
news AMD and Intel can breathe easier for a little longer, it would seem.
![Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. wafers](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XuGHfLVi8kZrZqBZtkFyp9-320-80.jpg)
Intel's chief financial officer admits the company is 'heavier than we want to be in terms of external wafer manufacturing'
By Nick Evanson published
news Intel's outsourcing more silicon manufacturing that it would want, but the customer-competitor relationship with TSMC will continue in the future.
![A promotional image for Nvidia NeMo, using icons to represent the different aspects of the generative AI framework](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/JpqCr9bj2LStxcxaBqdPjR-320-80.jpg)
Nvidia is finding NeMo in hot water as the GPU giant and its LLM toolkit are being sued for copyright infringement in the latest in a long line of AI lawsuits
By Nick Evanson published
news Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean what's mine is yours.
![MSI Vector 17 HX AV14VGG gaming laptop](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/NXjMufBADboXqgQWNbq2gR-320-80.jpg)
MSI Vector 17 HX (2024) gaming laptop review
By Nick Evanson published
Full Fan Power Intel Core i9 14900HX | RTX 4070 (140W) | 32GB DDR5-5600 | 1TB SSD | $2,299 | £2,399
![An generic image of Samsung GDDR7 modules against a background of Samsung silicon wafer diagrams](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/HQgbnz6z7FMcicqMFZPz7c-320-80.jpg)
JEDEC rubber stamps the GDDR7 spec, mega bandwidth VRAM is on its way for next-gen GPUs
By Nick Evanson published
news Don't expect to see it on mainstream graphics cards for a good while, though.
![A stock photo of the making of pecorino cheese, with the whey and curds clearly visible](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sFdmhzxQuWBmvbAcKiPgW5-320-80.jpg)
Sponge made from a cheesy waste product can help recover the gold from your dumped circuit boards
By Nick Evanson published
news Get bigger muscles or solve the e-waste problem? Easy when you think about it.
![Image of Noctua NF-A12x25 fans zoomed in close.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ST2xZSJdbZr6gBjoPcKeXm-320-80.jpg)
It's black, brown, and beige from here on out, as Noctua confirms it has ditched development on white fans and coolers
By Nick Evanson published
news Four years of hopes and dreams, all crushed in a single Tweet.
![AMD RDNA 2 GPUs edited side-by-side with pink hue](https://cdn.statically.io/img/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ugfW9iTupwHYrTDro6MRbE-320-80.jpg)
AMD's Chief Technical Officer: 'We're enabling our gaming devices to upscale using AI'
By Nick Evanson published
news AI FSR for AMD GPUs everywhere or just the upcoming RDNA 4 chips? Place your bets now.