Hardware Editor · since 2019
Ravi has been building and taking apart PCs since the single-core days — his idea of a good weekend is a repaste and a spreadsheet full of thermals. He covers GPUs, CPUs and the build decisions that actually move frame rates, and he'd rather hand you a benchmark than a press release.
A Hong Kong shop is doubling old RTX 2080 Ti cards to 22GB of VRAM and selling them on eBay for about $500. I ran the actual math on whether that's a steal or a trap.
Ravi Malhotra · 1h ago · 8 min
Owners with decade-old GTX cards still running fine say the real lifespan number isn't what upgrade-cycle marketing wants you to believe.
Ravi Malhotra · 7h ago · 6 min
A hobbyist just proved a genuine language model can run entirely on an $8 microcontroller — no cloud, no GPU, no internet connection required.
Ravi Malhotra · 1d ago · 6 min
Analog Devices confirmed a June intrusion with data theft; days later, an extortion crew calling itself ExfilSquad — the same group that hit Allstate — claimed 570,000 stolen records.
Ravi Malhotra · 1d ago · 6 min
CVE-2026-15409 and CVE-2026-15410 let INC ransomware walk into SMA 1000 appliances as root — SonicWall didn't even know the holes existed until the attacks were already underway.
Ravi Malhotra · 1d ago · 6 min
AMD, Nvidia, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all raised prices in 2026. it's the same memory shortage breaking every platform.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 7 min
12GB is the entry floor for local AI — enough to run genuinely useful models, but with a real ceiling. Here's exactly what 12GB gets you, and when you'll want more.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
The cheap used pick versus the newer 16GB card. More VRAM and speed, or the lowest price? Here's the honest budget-GPU showdown for local AI.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
12GB of VRAM runs more than you'd think — from snappy 7B models to a DeepSeek R1 distill. Here's exactly which local models the RTX 3060 12GB can run, and how fast.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
Years on, the RTX 3060 12GB is still the cheapest sensible entry to local AI — 12GB of VRAM for around $200-250 used. Here's honestly how good it still is, and the one price catch.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
The o1-mini-beating 32B distill wants ~20GB of VRAM, so 24GB is the target. Here are the best GPUs to run DeepSeek R1, from the value king to the fastest.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
Two cheap 16GB cards give you 32GB of VRAM — enough for 30B+ models — for around the price of a single high-end GPU. Here's whether that dual-5060-Ti path actually makes sense.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
They run the same models — but one costs nearly twice as much. For local AI, where VRAM matters more than raw speed, the cheaper card makes a surprisingly strong case.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
16GB of VRAM opens up a lot — from snappy 7B models to gpt-oss-20b. Here's exactly which local models the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB can run, and how fast, with real benchmark numbers.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
At $549 it's the cheapest new way to get 16GB of VRAM — and for local AI, VRAM is what matters. Here's honestly how good the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is, and where its limits are.
Ravi Malhotra · 2d ago · 10 min
Qwen3-Coder's best variants want 24GB of VRAM, and its huge context wants headroom. Here are the best GPUs to run it, from the value king to the fastest option.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min
gpt-oss-20b fits on a 16GB card, but the model's huge context can quietly overflow it. Here are the best GPUs to run it, from the cheapest 16GB option to the 24GB value king.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min
Building a local-AI rig and unsure how big a PSU to buy? Here's the simple wattage math for single and dual GPUs — plus why power-limiting lets you get away with a smaller supply.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min
Because AI inference is memory-bandwidth-bound, the last chunk of your GPU's power budget buys almost no extra tokens. Cap the wattage and you run cooler, quieter, and cheaper for basically free.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min
eGPUs get a bad rap from gaming benchmarks — but local AI is a totally different workload, and an external GPU can hit ~92% of native speed. Here's whether one's worth it for your laptop.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min
MI50s and P40s are cheap because they were built for server racks, not your desk, and the gap between cheap and working is where most people give up
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 6 min
The AMD Instinct MI50 32GB sells used for $120-250 with more VRAM and bandwidth than most 2026 consumer cards. AMD just made owning one a lot riskier.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 7 min
Arc B580, RX 9060 XT 16GB, and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB are all fighting for the same budget local-AI buyer in 2026. Real prices and real bandwidth numbers settle it.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 6 min
GDDR7 modules and TSMC wafer costs just pushed every RTX 50 card higher this week — but the ugliest number isn't the one everyone's quoting.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 6 min
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the CPU every gaming build guide wants you to buy right now. If you're building for local AI too, here's where that money should actually go instead.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 7 min
South Korea is the canary. TSMC wafer costs and $20 memory chips just pushed the RTX 5090 to 2.5x its sticker price — here's the actual buy-or-skip math for running AI models at home.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 8 min
24GB of old VRAM versus 16GB of new, low-power silicon — I ran the real math on what each one costs, up front and over a year.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 6 min
Same 16GB of VRAM, wildly different price and software maturity in August 2026 — I ran the actual numbers.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 6 min
A third price hike in one year is reportedly coming for the RTX 50 series — and if you're buying VRAM for local AI, not frame rates, the calculation isn't the same as 'wait for a sale.'
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 7 min
AMD's Strix Halo mini PCs put up to 128GB of unified memory in a box the size of a book — and that lets them run models no single consumer graphics card can hold. Here's the pick, and the catch.
Ravi Malhotra · 3d ago · 10 min