solar

Slash Your Skyrocketing Electricity Costs: My 30% Power Bill Reduction Strategy

Shocked by a $4800 annual electricity bill? Discover how I analyzed my power usage and developed a strategy to slash costs by 30%. Learn about Time-of-Use billing, the impact of peak hours, and how combining solar panels with battery storage can lead to significant savings.

server

Optimizing My Proxmox Node: Journey of Upgrades and Challenges

It costs me $260 to run a home server, now I am able to run four with even less money.

networking

IOCREST Thunderbolt 10G NIC Review

This is the best upgrade for a GbE-limited Mac

The Problem With YouTube Tech Reviews

Should You Trust a Review That Was Done In Days, While You Have To Live With It For Months and Years?

macos

What is A Worthy Upgrade - Used M1 Mac Mini Price Analysis

Why you shouldn't get the storage upgrade, and which configuration has the best resale value.

macos

ACASIS TBU405 Thunderbolt 3/4 to M.2 NVMe Enclosure Review

The Best External Enclosure For The Storage-Challenged Macs

nas Featured

Mac Mini as a Low Idle Home NAS

M1 Mac Mini Can Be A Great Home NAS, Here is How I Do It

hba Featured

A New Breed of HBA - Raiden Thunderbolt to SATA HBA, 8 Ports [Indiegogo Campaign]

This is a breakthrough in the era of Thunderbolt.

macos

Whisper.cpp - NVIDIA RTX 3090 vs Apple M1 Max 24c GPU

Have you ever found yourself in the tech aisle, scratching your head and wondering, "Why should I pick the M1 Max when the PC is flexing its muscles with better test scores?" Well, my friends, it's a story worth telling, and it's all about what makes your tech heart happy!

minipc

Kamrui AM08 Pro with AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS Review

The AD08 Pro is a sleek and capable mini PC packed with Zen 3 and RDNA 2 superpower.

ssd

Buyers Beware: Fanxiang S880 2TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD Review

Fanxiang S880 is the latest challenger in the budget PCIe 4.0 SSD space. While being priced like other QLC SSDs like the Intel 670p 2TB, it offers tremendously more than its QLC counter parts, sometimes punching above it’s class to compete with the premium offerings from Samsung and Western Digital.

minipc

AceMagician AM06 Pro with Ryzen 5 5600U Review

The AceMagician AM06 Pro, powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 5600U, offers impressive performance that can rival i9-10900 in a compact package.

networking

IOCREST M.2 PCIe Dual Port 2.5GBe NIC Review

For those who that has too many M.2 slots but too few NICs? This M.2 2.5GbE NICcould be your savior.

minipc

Asrock DeskMeet B660 Review: The Mac Mini Alternative?

The Asrock DeskMeet B660 is a solid barebones system for the tinkerers.

server

Intel N95 iGPU Transcoding Performance Review

The N95 chip can perform admirably, particularly when it comes transcoding tasks.

server

Ace Magician AD03 Review: A Solid Intel N95 CPU Mini PC

I bought an Ace Magician AD03, but should you?

Intel

Intel Arc A380 Review - Impressive, But Not In the Way You Think

TL;DR: For media encoding/transcoding, this thing is a godsend, with some caveats. However, if you are just going after a smooth, seamless experience with your GPU, don’t buy this card, at least not yet.

My Test Bench for Intel Arc A380

Been kept busy tinkering with the Intel Arc A380. Reviews coming up soon.

gpu Featured

vGPU (SR-IOV) with Intel 12th Gen iGPU [Updated Nov 2023]

Virtualize Intel iGPU for multiple VMs for hardware accelerated graphics and media encode/decode.

amd

[Update 10/11/2022] Afterthoughts on Zen 4 Reviews, and How to Make Sense of Them All

The new Zen 4 CPUs don't make sense, here's why.

server

IOCREST M.2 HBA In-Depth Review

Testing IOCREST HBA against Dell PERC H310

Nvidia

Testing NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2060 12GB, and AMD RX 6600 for Cloud Gaming Build

I tested the NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2060, and AMD RX 6600 for my cloud gaming setup, the real winner is actually surprising.

DIY

AMD X670 Motherboard Line Up Preview

With AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPU launch right around the corner, I figured that I would look at the motherboard offerings. After flipping through different fancy product brochures, I failed to find a board that makes any sense. Yes, you heard that right - None of these new AMD motherboards

2.5gbe

IOCREST Dual Port Realtek 8125B 2.5Gbe NIC Review

Reviewing 2.5Gbe dual port NIC from IOCREST, and set it up in Proxmox for TrueNAS Scale and Unraid to get 2.5Gbe without driver support.

server

“Upgrading” the HBA on My Energy-Efficient NAS with a M.2 PCIe HBA from IOCREST

I bought an M.2 HBA, while it is awesome for me, it may not be for everyone. Click to find out more about this miraculous device that turns your unused M.2 slot into an 8-port SATA HBA.