Zak Killian

Texas

Technical Editor at HotHardware

News writer for the Tech Report, general nerdery and weebness.

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Articles

Intel Open Sources AI Playground, Here's What You Can Do With It

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

Intel's been making some interesting moves in the AI space lately, and this week it's gone one better by open-sourcing its AI Playground software. In a fresh video posted to the Intel Software YouTube channel, Guy Tamir — Intel's director of oneAPI development and self-described "tech evangelist" — announced that the company is throwing open the doors on AI Playground, inviting developers to grab the code, tinker with it, and build their own versions.
Is Intel Prepping A New Bartlett Lake-S Gaming CPU With More Performance Cores?

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

Bartlett Lake is a real, confirmed CPU family for Intel's LGA 1700 platform; the company confirmed its existence back at CES 2025. However, it's designed by the company's NEX group and aimed at edge compute and networking use, not high-end gaming. That may change according to the latest leaks and rumors, though, and we could see a chip with twelve Raptor Cove P-cores end up being the last gasp for the LGA 1700 platform.
AMD EPYC Is First In TSMC N2 While Intel 18A Could Be Stiff Competition

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

AMD put out a press release yesterday justifiably crowing that one if its EPYC "Venice" processors was the first HPC product to tape out and be brought up on TSMC's advanced 2nm (N2) process tech. That's certainly good news for AMD, but it's not the only firm seeing success with bleeding-edge fabrication tech. According to Taiwanese site 3C News (who is citing KeyBanc and TechInsights), Intel's 18A might just be the best of the 2nm-class fabrication processes. First up, the AMD news.
NVIDIA Unveils GeForce RTX 5060 Family, Bringing Blackwell Under $500

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

Blackwell-based GeForce GPUs have finally arrived for us mere mortals. Indeed, NVIDIA is officially announcing the GeForce RTX 5060 and its titanium (Ti) sibling today, with availability for some partner graphics cards starting as soon as tomorrow. The GeForce RTX 5060 comes with 8GB of VRAM, while the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti will come with either 8 or 16GB of memory. These new GPUs are based on the very same Blackwell architecture as the previous GeForce RTX 50 series releases.
MSI's Next Claw Gaming Handheld May Power Up With Ryzen AI Extreme

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

The first-generation MSI Claw was based on an Intel Meteor Lake processor, and then the second-generation Claw, for which we have a review forthcoming, is based on Lunar Lake. As a preview for our review, it offers broadly similar performance to handhelds based on AMD's Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Well, it looks like the next MSI Claw might skip the equivalence altogether and go straight to AMD for next-gen Ryzen AI hardware.
Nintendo Switch 2 Pricing, Play Modes, Launch Date And All We Know So Far

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

Nintendo's successor to its unbelievably-popular Switch console is simply known as the Nintendo Switch 2. If you're in a hurry, here are the most important facts about the new system: it launches on June 5th, and the latest information still says $449.99 for the console with Joy-cons and dock, or $499 with a copy of Mario Kart World.
ASUS NUC 15 Pro Slim Mini PC With Arrow Lake-H Lands At Retail

1 week ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

If you recall, Intel exited direct consumer PC sales altogether back in 2023, handing off its last remaining products of that type to ASUS with the NUC brand. Folks reading this site have a pretty high likelihood of having had a good experience with a NUC in the past, and the latest models sporting Arrow Lake processors look like they could be the most powerful petite PCs to bear the name so far—at least as far as standard NUC models go, anyway.
Radeon RX 9060 XT Spotted With A Key Spec Ahead Of RTX 5060 Ti Showdown

2 weeks ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

We were roundly impressed when AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series managed credible competition against NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series—especially when compared dollar-for-dollar, where the unicorn-priced $549 RX 9070 XT nips at the mythical $999 RTX 5080’s heels. Can AMD do it again with the Radeon RX 9060 series? We'll find that out when the new cards go head to head against NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5060 Ti in the coming months—or weeks.
Dinner With Jensen And Trump Eases NVIDIA GPU Trade Restrictions In China

2 weeks ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's recent appearance at a $1 million-a-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago may have influenced more than just the guest list. According to sources with alleged knowledge of the matter, the Trump administration has shelved plans to impose new export controls on the Hopper H20, which is the most advanced AI chip that NVIDIA's allowed to sell to China.
AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Strix Halo Mini PC Breaks Cover And It's Up For Preorder

2 weeks ago | hothardware.com | Zak Killian

In our review of ASUS' brilliant ROG Flow z13 tablet, we noted that while we were fond of the system, we were keen to see what Strix Halo could really do when out from under the yoke of the 80W power limit imposed by ASUS. If you feel the same, you're probably excited about HP's Z2 Mini workstation, but that's not the only mini-PC on the way with a sixteen-core Zen 5 CPU. Check out this GMKtec EVO-X2 machine packing the same part inside.