About

About HCW - BS Free since 2000

HCW's server location

hardCOREware.net was started in February 2000 by Carl Nelson in Vancouver BC, Canada. The intention was to provide in-depth reviews on PC hardware and accessories without the pandering to hardware companies often seen on ‘hobby sites’ of the time. HCW became known for their tough view on PC hardware, and no-punches-pulled attitude.

HCW has grown a lot over the years. Originally, we would mostly cover cooling products along with some hardware. Today we focus mostly on the hardware that matters to you most; motherboards, processors, video cards, memory, etc. At the same time, we still cover the stuff we think you should know about; new cases, power supplies, and other quirky products that may grab our attention. We also attend the major PC trade shows, such as CES and Computex, as well as bringing you information from factories tours all over the world.

Quick Facts:

  • HCW runs on a Dell PowerEdge 850 with a Pentium Extreme 3.73 GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 2 Raptor 74 GB Hard Drives.
  • The server is located in Vancouver BC, hosted by NetNation.
  • The design was done by Apaja Creative Design in Finland
  • Our first review was of the Creative Labs GeForce DDR, Carl’s personal video card at the time
  • First motherboard review: Tyan s1854 Trinity 400 (VIA Apollo Pro 133a)
  • First cooler review: Alpha CO-PEP66T Coppermine
  • First CPU review: AMD Duron 1100 MHz

HCW Staff

Carl Nelson
Editor in Chief

  • Founded hardCOREware.net in 2000
  • Favourite games of all time: Final Fantasy 3 (SNES), Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Half Life, Team Fortress (Quake 1), Street Fighter II
  • Location: Hong Kong
  • Personal blog: http://www.k-rad.hk

Trevor Flynn
Senior Editor

  • Joined HCW writing crew in 2002
  • Runs several HCW sponsored LAN events, including Hardcore War and LANsomnia
  • Favourite games of all time: Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, Fifa RTWC 98, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
  • Location: Eastern Canada
  • Personal blog: http://www.trefly.com

Wolfgang Kritzinger
Software Engineer

  • Maintains HCW’s dedicated webserver
  • Wrote HCW’s custom CMS backend
  • Favourite games of all time: Quake 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Drakan
  • Location: Austria
  • Personal blog: http://morgh.us

Privacy Statement

Information Collection and Use
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Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our Homepage so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.