Every technology starts with a motivation, and throughout the past year Benchmark Reviews has watched the computer hardware industry follow trends that seem all too familiar of yesteryear. In this article by Executive Editor Olin Coles, the past 2008 calendar year is summarized for it's accomplishments, but the real focus is on the coming year ahead. Will 2009 be the year that component computer hardware becomes important again, or will it be relegated to a niche hobby for enthusiast?

It used to be that counterfeit CD and DVD media originated from overseas and found its way onto popular auction websites. But in a wake of widespread technology developments, anyone is capable of creating completely indistinguishable copies of their favorite audio CD or movie DVD. Do most people still purchase the original content, or is everyone stealing from the artists? In this article, Benchmark Reviews offers a candid look into Consumer Home Piracy as we present the Research Findings for July 2008 as provided to us by Futuresource Consulting in partnership with Macrovision.

Each year NVIDIA hosts a invite-only event for industry editors. Everyone from reviewers to magazine editors were on hand to learn the reasons behind NVIDIA's latest graphics processor launch. At this editor's day event, the heads of technology converge for a day of demos and discussion - and a few nice surprises. Benchmark Reviews was pleased to receive an invitation into this exclusive event, and looked forward to the opportunity to share thoughts with the biggest name in the graphics market.

Prior to actually experiencing the NVIDIA Editor's Day event, I was a little bit concerned that my time would taken up with buzz-word marketing pitches and hard-line product comparisons. To my complete surprise, there wasn't a single moment that had me feeling green-washed. Actually, the opposite was true; at several points throughout various topic discussions the NVIDIA staff would often times point out where a competitors product might have done better than their own in a last-generation product lines. In fact, there were many times where the discussion felt more like a tech discussion than the voice of an industry leader. At its core, the NVIDIA Editor's Day event was about a sharing concepts and developmental ideas with the theme Gaming Beyond: Beyond Gaming.

The 2008 International CES is now finished, and while exhibitors use the weekend to tear-down booths there are as many writers who will feverishly extol the numerous technology displays viewed over the past week. Benchmark Reviews was after the only the most notable computer technology highlights and announcements at the show, and this article reveals what we believe to be the most important innovations for Q1/Q2 2008.

This is my short story of a first year visit to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and it supplements my 2008 International CES Computer Technology Highlights article. Prior to starting Benchmark Reviews in March 2007, I had only heard of the aftermath and accolades from the stories handed down from affiliate webmasters from the previous years' CES. Since I am a resident of Nevada, I feel the gravitational pull of Las Vegas more than a few times per year. But this year I was on a mission: meet the manufacturers, ask the important questions, and attend the parties. This is a diary of the most interesting experiences while I attended the 2008 International CES convention, and the lessons I learned the hard way. This article is dedicated to anyone who is considering, planning, or just slightly curious about joining the crowd in Sin City.

On day number one of SC07, the SuperComputing exposition hall was officially opened to the media and select visitors for open coverage. Many of those in attendance gravitated to some of the largest names in the high performance computing industry such as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and Intel. However Benchmark Reviews spent some quality time at a few exhibits by manufacturers with roots to the enthusiast segment. In this article we brief you on the Tesla project from NVIDIA.

On my first day of SC07, I found myself a bit overwhelmed at the number of supercomputer demonstrations taking place at the convention. But among the myriad of racks and monitors I discovered something that was never before seen. One of the first booth visits was with Violin Memory, which offered a very unique Enterprise class memory appliance. Boasting a 1.7 GBps bandwidth over 504 GB of total RAM (see below), I couldn't help myself but to take a few pictures for our readers. Look a little closer, and you might be impressed to see the numerous VIMMs populating the Violin 1010 appliance.

Koolance is probably best know for their involvement in liquid cooling products for the overclocker and hardware enthusiast. But when Benchmark Reviews stumbled upon their booth at SC07 before the show opened, we noticed a few things different about their strategy. As it turns out, the Enterprise market will benefit from liquid cooling far more than the rest of us.