Disclosure

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Some retailer links earn a commission. Others are plain reference links that earn nothing. Retailer pages listed as sources may also contain an affiliate tag when they document a dated price, seller, stock state, or listing text. Those links require the same financial disclosure and sponsored link treatment as other commissionable retailer links. A retailer citation establishes what the listing said on that date. Specifications and benchmarks use manufacturer documentation or the publication that performed the test. No retailer relationship influences which products get recommended.

TechFuel HQ participates in affiliate programs — the Amazon Associates Program, Commission Junction (CJ), and Rakuten Advertising (which powers our Newegg links) — and may earn a commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to the reader. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Pages carrying commissionable links must explain the financial connection before the first such link, including one used as a source. The disclosure belongs close to the recommendation or retailer link.

A commission never changes which product gets recommended. If a product is not worth recommending, it does not get recommended. A retailer link used as evidence may carry an affiliate tag, but its commission status is disclosed and does not change what the citation supports.

Advertising

TechFuel HQ uses Google AdSense. We place display ads at article section boundaries, after the main article and in the desktop sidebar. Selected discovery pages and the area after the PSU calculator also carry ads. Google places Auto ads according to our account settings and page exclusions. Google selects the ads. Their appearance does not mean we recommend the advertiser or its products. The error page, the search page and pages marked noindex carry no ad code.

Advertising is separate from the editorial process described on the editorial standards page. The Privacy Policy covers the cookies Google’s advertising uses, the opt-out paths, and consent for visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. Google Analytics 4 and Cloudflare Web Analytics remain the site’s measurement scripts.

TechFuel HQ may accept a relevant sponsored article or paid mention. We identify the sponsor and label the placement clearly at the start of a sponsored article or beside a paid mention, before a reader encounters the paid message. A sponsor may supply information, but TechFuel HQ decides whether the topic fits, checks claims and sources, edits the copy, and may reject or correct it. Sponsorship never buys a favorable conclusion, a ranking in a comparison, or a recommendation.

Promotional links in paid placements use rel="sponsored"; we may also add nofollow. We do not sell followed links or publish an advertiser’s ghostwritten copy as independent editorial. The byline and disclosure must accurately describe the work and the financial relationship. Our editorial standards govern these decisions.

Affiliate and paid-ad disclosure wording

An affiliate disclosure should name the financial connection in plain language and sit close to the recommendation or retailer link. The FTC’s affiliate-marketing guidance gives this pattern: “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.” TechFuelHQ’s equivalent is the commission sentence in the Affiliate links section above and the shorter line placed immediately before a page’s first retailer links. “Affiliate link” or a buy button alone is not enough, according to the same guidance.

“The following is a paid advertisement” describes a different relationship: an advertiser paid to place the following material. The FTC says clear terms such as “ad,” “advertisement” and “sponsored” can work when they are easy to notice and understand. Use that wording only when it accurately describes the placement, identify the paying brand where needed, and put the disclosure with the paid message rather than burying it on this page.

Display ad space and an affiliate recommendation are also different. The FTC says an obvious paid ad next to an independent review does not need an extra endorsement disclosure when buying the ad did not affect the review or its prominence. Display ads, affiliate links, and sponsored editorial placements have their own disclosures above; each paid placement also needs its relationship-specific disclosure on the relevant page.

Source standards

  • Vendor specs are cited with links to the vendor’s official documentation page
  • Benchmarks are cited with links to the original test source (publication, repository, or vendor)
  • News and licensing changes are cited with links to the originating announcement

If a claim other than the author’s own result cannot be cited to a real, resolvable source, it is omitted.

Real-artifact policy

Where a 2024–2025 article references a physical measurement, photo, or receipt — a Kill A Watt reading, an iperf3 result, or a parts receipt — that artifact was captured on the author’s own gear during the 2024–2025 testing period. Most of that gear was sold or retired in early 2026 (see Colophon).

Articles published from June 2026 onward source benchmarks from named third-party publications, cited inline at each claim, with one exception: the author’s own hands-on observations and measurements, on the gear in use now or on systems used before. Those stand as published, with or without a saved file on the site.

The current rig is a Ryzen 7 7800X3D / ASUS ROG STRIX B650-A / 32GB DDR5-6000 (one module) / ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC / NZXT Kraken 360 / EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 GT / Samsung 970 EVO Plus / Gigabyte AORUS FO48U — the published ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC bench dataset (captured 2026-06-08–2026-06-09, when the rig still had 64GB) is the most data-heavy example.

Where a hardware claim is neither the author’s own result nor backed by a real third-party citation, it is omitted; figures that are vendor-spec or third-party are labeled as such and carry their source, separately from anything measured first-hand.

Updates

Articles are revised when the underlying facts change. “Last updated” identifies a material page revision, while “Sources checked” or “Last verified” identifies the stated source check. A price snapshot keeps its own date. A page update does not mean every source or retailer price was rechecked; cosmetic edits do not bump the material-update date. The methodology describes the date rules.

Errors and corrections

Spotted an error or want to challenge a recommendation? Email contact@techfuelhq.com with the article URL and the specific section. Material corrections are made in-place with an updated “Last updated” date.

Contact

Publisher: Lowell K. Wood IV Email: contact@techfuelhq.com Location: St. Louis County, Missouri, United States