In PC gaming, online stores have largely replaced retail. The major ones have their own software packages that manage downloads, instant messaging, and the actual shopping experience.

Installin Windows 8.1 is a snap, but for the uninitiated, it can be a scary task. We'll walk you through the basics of getting an OS onto your drive.

Out of the box, our quad-core Intel Core i5-4670K CPU will run at 3.4GHz. But when a task doesn't need all four cores at once, the chip will engage a "turbo" mode and push to 3.8GHz on one or two cores.

Early adopters should be allowed to wear a special badge in public. That way, we can identify the brave souls who overpaid for immature technology and thank them for fast-pacing the process of getting next-generation hardware out into the market.

Cheap cases. They're not as scary as the phrase implies, even though we acknowledge that the lower end of the case spectrum can deliver some real clunkers.

WHILE 4K MAY be all the rage these days, we've yet to see that resolution grace the screens of our gaming laptop panels. The next best thing, however, may be here.

IF AMAZON'S LIST Of best-selling laptops is any indication, there's a quite a market for Windows 8.1 convertible laptops-and as of late, the lion's share of buyers has been sinking their money into Asus's Transformer Book T100.

EVERY NOW AND THEN, a product comes along that gives a glimmer of what could be. In the case of the Minix Neo X8-H, that's the future of using Android mini-PCs as streaming set-top boxes.

AMONG PC BUILDERS, Zalman is practically legendary. The company was the pioneer in the design of beautiful copper air coolers that offered both low temperatures and low noise.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A modern-day recreation of the Baldur's Gate series-or, really, any of those isometric Infinity Engine games of yesteryear-then Divinity: Original Sin might appear as if it has the potential to satisfy your old-school gaming urges, at first glance. In many ways, it does.