At the heart of Metro: Last Light is the return of the mysterious "Dark Ones," some freaky-looking humanoid beings who possess psychic powers and terrify the human denizens of the Metro. Last Light assumes that players got the "bad ending" in Metro 2033 and took the option to blast the entire population of Dark Ones into oblivion. The subsequent discovery of a single surviving Dark One sets the plot of Last Light in motion.

The TechSpot PC Buying Guide provides you with an in-depth list of today's best hardware, spanning four unique and yet typical budgets. Whether you are a first time builder seeking guidance or a seasoned enthusiast, we've got you covered.

Without question the Gigabyte U2442F is cutting edge stuff when it comes to ultrabook performance. Armed with a 3rd-Gen Core i7 processor, plenty of memory, and a quality SSD, the U2442F is as capable as a high-end desktop.

The gaming world is making a dramatic shift towards free to play games. Of course, full price retail titles still make up for a majority of releases on the PC and most other platforms, but playing a quality game without cracking your wallet open is a completely viable option nowadays.

'The game is stupid,' Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon creative director Dean Evans proudly proclaimed during a recent press event — not foolish pride, but pride in foolishness. The story unfolds through a series of 2D cutscenes that wouldn't be out-of-place in an NES-era adventure (well, except for the foul language and... other things). And when those scenes end, it's into a day-glo nightmare from the early days of MTV.

If the Galaxy S III was Samsung's crowning achievement, the Galaxy S 4 is the first defense of the throne. Arriving on the heels of one rival's flagship, the Galaxy S 4 will prove whether Samsung is continuing its trend of advancement or becoming just as predictable as the old guard that it mocked. So naturally we must ask: just how good is the Samsung Galaxy S 4?

Although it's been over a year since AMD launched the Radeon HD 7970, we are just getting an official dual-GPU version. The Radeon HD 7990 takes a pair of 7970 GPUs with overclocked cores and memory, packing 8.2 TFLOPS computer power, 6GB GDDR5 and an upgraded PEX bridge to connect the two GPUs.

The idea of shrinking hardware hasn't been overlooked by manufacturers as several are now feature space-saving designs based on mobile hardware. Such is the case with Sapphire's new Edge VS8 mini-PC powered by AMD's A8 APU.

At $170, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost sits between the Radeon HD 7790 and the 7850. In terms of performance, we actually expect the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost to be a lot faster than the GTX 650 Ti, even when it's based on the same GK106 architecture.

The Lucid 2 sports 4G LTE, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, plenty of software additions courtesy of LG, and a favorable price for someone looking for a new Android smartphone. You may be surprised to learn how tall the Lucid 2 can stand against the rest of the mid-range pack.

Before 2006 there was no point in adding undue complexity to GPUs by enlarging the die area. With DX10's arrival, vertex and pixel shaders maintained a large level of common function, so moving to a unified shader arch eliminated a lot of unnecessary duplication of processing blocks. The first GPU to utilize this architecture was Nvidia's iconic G80.

The 29EA93 is LG's first entry into the nascent category of ultra-wide consumer displays. While the 29EA93 seems suitably equipped to watch movies with its expansive 21:9 aspect ratio, how does it fare against other types of computer use? Could it be a worthy replacement for your trusty dual-monitor setup?

With the turn of the century the graphics industry bore witness to further consolidation. Where 3dfx was once a byword for raw performance, its strengths before its dismissal laid in its full screen antialiasing image quality. By the time 2001 dawned, the PC graphics market consisted of a discrete card duopoly (Nvidia and ATI), with both of them in addition to Intel supplying the vast majority of integrated graphics chipsets.

The DS2413+ is Synology's newest twelve-bay DiskStation NAS for small to medium sized businesses who need loads of storage. Along with supporting up to 48TB worth of drives out of the box, the DS2413+ can be paired with the company's DX1211 expansion enclosure that houses an extra 12 drives, doubling the maximum storage capacity of the base unit to a whopping 96TB.

Voodoo Graphics revolutionized personal computer graphics nearly overnight and rendered many other designs obsolete, including a vast swathe of 2D-only graphics producers. The 3D landscape in 1996 favoured S3 with around 50% of the market. That was to change soon, however. It was estimated that 3Dfx accounted for 80-85% of the 3D accelerator market during the heyday of Voodoo's reign.

Along with DX11 effects, folks playing Bioshock Infinite on PC can look forward to higher resolution textures and a healthy range of customization. Infinite comes with six graphical presets that cover a broad performance spectrum, not to mention individual control over settings like anti-aliasing, texture detail and filtering, dynamic shadows, post-processing, and so on.

Like many PC gamers, I've often wished a machine capable of putting the power of a gaming rig in a portable device. After a week with Razer's new Edge gaming tablet, I realize what I really wanted was to play Bioshock Infinite in the bathroom without burning my thighs. All hail Razer, deliverer of dreams.

While 3D graphics turned a fairly dull PC industry into a light and magic show, they owe their existence to generations of innovative endeavour. Over the next few weeks we'll be taking an extensive look at the history of the GPU, going from the early days of 3D consumer graphics, to the 3Dfx Voodoo game-changer, the industry's consolidation at the turn of the century, and today's modern GPGPU.

You haven't been to a place like this before. The fictional floating city where Infinite is set is all clockwork platforms and brass gears, its many sections populated with hucksters, strivers, lovers and schoolchildren. One minute, you're walking past a sheer drop, the next a park swings down into the open space.

The latest member of the Southern Islands family, the new Radeon HD 7790 is designed to fill the gap between the Radeon HD 7770 and 7850. Set to precisely target the $150 price tag, the HD 7790 should be an affordable solution that provides good value to gamers on a budget.