Intel’s codename "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processors were designed for laptops, but now we are starting to see them trickle over into mini PCs. That includes the recently launched MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG (starting from $569, $1,999 as tested). This particular design is pleasingly compact and low-key in a traditional NUC manner, but can this matte black panther roar?

Design of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Simply put, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is a very compact roughly 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.5-inch design with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H chip inside.

The Core Ultra 9 386H delivers 16 cores and threads of processing power (6P + 8E + 2LPE) running at up to 4.9 GHz. MSI is also selling models with the Ultra 7 355, and Ultra 5 322 processors.

The Cubi’s shell is sturdy and pleasant enough in a matte black finish, made from recycled plastics. Inside, the motherboard is held firm inside what looks like a folded sheet aluminum frame.

Another welcome feature is the external power switch. This is a small power button puck on a slim connector that is 18 inches (45 cm) long. There’s a dedicated port for this on the left side of the Cubi, and the end of the puck is mounts with a little double-sided foam tape..

The power button dongle is a nice touch for those who might mount the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG somewhere out of view, like behind a monitor or under a desk. Those who keep the Cubi in reach can benefit from the fact that the power button on the unit has an embedded fingerprint reader. I found the biometric unlocking here to be hit and miss, however, and it often didn’t recognize my thumb.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

MSI has implemented a couple of physical convenience features in the build, starting with the three-step toolless access system.

All you have to do to pop the metal bottom off is turn a slotted screw, push a metal latch, and pull a ring. The trouble is I did need a tool to turn the first slotted screw, I fear my fingernail would have split if I hadn't grabbed a screwdriver. The force of pulling a tiny ring attached to the latch was also slightly concerning.

Beyond the Core Ultra 9 386H processor, our sample came loaded with 32GB of DDR5 (2x 16GB DDR5-5600 SODIMMs made by Samsung) and a removable 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2280 DRAM-less SSD from Phison. With these inserted, the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was fully populated. \The Wi-Fi card is also removable from its M.2 2230 slot.

On the front of the unit, there are three ports: USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 2.0 ports, and a 10 GBps USB-C port. On the back, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with MSI PowerLink, which turns the PC on with a monitor), and a pair of 2.5G Ethernet jacks. Finally, on the side of the system, there's a Kensington lock slot.

I feel that the MSI is slightly stingy with ports here. Most notably, there is not even a single USB Type-A port in the rear. So I had to use a USB-C dongle to keep my wired keyboard connected at the back for the tidiest possible setup.

It is good to see various USB ports on the front, however. And I appreciate that this small device allows up to four displays at once (2x HDMI, 2x USB-C DP-Alt).

For wireless networking, there is Wi-Fi 7 on board and Bluetooth 5.4 is also built-in.

There is no 3.5mm audio jack here, which would have been welcome on the front. You'll need Bluetooth, or to use audio out through HDMI or USB Type-C ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

The MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was built to be an office workhorse, so there won’t be many complaints about performance. It comes wielding Intel’s latest silicon, with 16 cores to take CPU-demanding tasks and multitasking in its stride. And the system does its job while sipping very low amounts of power, and rather quietly.

In Cinebench 2026, Maxon’s current-gen CPU rendering benchmark, the little MSI Cubi comes last in the rankings of our recent crop of mini PCs. Though low in comparison to its peers, its score isn’t disastrous here, as this is testing the kind of CPU muscle that won’t be called upon by a typical home or office user of a mini PC like this.

Similarly, in CPU-heavy benchmarks like Blender and Handbrake, the MSI Cubi lags behind the crowd. Even against the GMKtec EVO-T2, which also uses Panther Lake silicon and has fewer P-cores, the MSI still lags here. We are certain this is due to MSI’s default configuration maxing out at around 55W. The GMKtec machine was seen pulling over 70W at the wall.

On a more positive note, during our demanding tests, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG stayed admirably cool and quiet. This feat was clearly aided by the chosen lower power limits and use of Intel’s newest energy-sipping mobile silicon in this form factor.

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Unlike some mini PCs, this one isn't squarely targeted at gamers. Still, with a mere quartet of Xe3 cores pushing the 3D visuals along, this compact and quiet mini PC can do some gaming.

I fired up Forza Horizon 5 for a bit of racing down in Mexico. I liked the High and 1080p settings, and the game managed 45-40 frames per second. The frame rate felt like it dropped precipitously every few minutes as I was driving around, though. This indicates that the game's suggested Low or even Medium settings would be a better choice for consistency.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

Next up, some real gaming courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little MSI Cubi can - and can't - play this game.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider performed quite nicely on the Intel Graphics (four Xe3 cores) fed by the dual-channel DDR5-5600 memory configuration we had. Using the High settings at 1080p makes for pleasing visuals, and I would argue the 37 FPS average was perfectly adequate for this solo-play atmospheric adventure.

Cyberpunk achieved a similarly playable frame rate using the Steam Deck preset at 1080p. On a big screen this is a little bit blurry / smeary. Moving up to the High preset at 1080p (with upscaling and frame gen turned off) dropped the frame rate below the magic 30 FPS, though, and below most folks' tolerance. If you had no other avenue to enjoy this demanding title, there could still be a spot in between these settings that would work for you.

In comparison to the other devices we have recently tested, the MSI NUC sat near the bottom of the pile. It only undercut the Geekom A9 Max 2026, which should have benefited from a great performing Radeon 890M iGPU but was kneecapped due to its single-channel memory configuration. This system is really made for work, and while you can technically play on it, you'll want something stronger for a good experience.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

According to system tools like HWiNFO, the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor inside this MSI Cubi has a TDP of 25W, with PL1 30W and PL2 65W. During testing, I measured total system power consumption with a plug-in power meter, as well as reading CPU temperature using a Windows tool.

In an idling state on the desktop, the system pulled around 17W consistently. At the same time, the CPU temperature would stick around 40 degrees Celsius.

During prolonged stress testing of the MSI Cubi, the highest consistent wattage consumed was around 55W. It seemed to stabilize at approximately the 75 degrees Celsius level.

I would characterize this as a quiet mini PC. Its MSI Frozr AI Pro fans were more or less unnoticeable in idle and light loads. My meter showed 30.8dB, and the meter doesn't measure below 30, so there's a possibility it may be even quieter. Meanwhile, the 37.3dB at max fans wasn't horrible, and it takes effort to tease this much noise out of the MSI.

Software and Warranty on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

MSI’s latest NUC comes with MSI Center pre-installed. This is a suite of controls and extras wrapped up in a tabbed Windows interface. The main tab is packed with system monitoring information, but this new version of the tool offers to leverage AI to “automatically recognize various user scenarios, triggering appropriate adjustments in performance, sound effects, display mode,” and more. Elsewhere, MSI’s NUC was pleasingly free of bloat and third-party clutter, including a wonderful lack of short-lived free trials. Businesses really don't want to deal with that.

MSI sells the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with a 1-year warranty as standard, but opting for a pre-built configuration with Windows 11 Pro on Amazon will also boost your warranty to 3 years of advanced tier coverage.

Configurations of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Nosing around online retailers in the U.S. today didn’t uncover the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with the exact configuration, as tested. We got in touch with MSI about the 32GB RAM model, as tested, and were informed that it was only available business-to-business and its MSRP was $1,999 but that depends on factors such as order size.

On Amazon we saw a barebones version with the same Core Ultra 9 386H for $809. Upgrading to 16GB of RAM (single-SODIMM, single-channel) and a 1TB SSD, with Windows 11 pre-installed skyrockets the price to $1,661 (with Win 11 Home) and $1,767 (with Win 11 Pro), respectively.

MSI is also marketing Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG mini PCs with Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 355 and Ultra 5 Processor 322 configurations. You can find these on Amazon, both in 16GB/1TB/ configurations for $1,549 and $1,079, respectively.

Bottom Line

Though the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is clearly aimed at businesses with its productivity focus . Its understated looks and quiet operation may attract those who want a small-form-factor productivity PC at home, especially if they intend on putting together a minimum-fuss multi-monitor setup.

If the MSI’s quiet, efficient, and compact form isn’t a killer combination for you, and you are open to less established brands, we have recently tested several other mini PCs from companies like Arctic, Beelink, GMKtec, and Geekom.

These less established brands definitely offer better value with more potent processors, and more generous memory/storage configurations, at better or similar pricing to the MSI. In the MSI’s favor, I’d say it quietly satisfies its target market more than adequately, and sprinkles attractive bonuses like fingerprint security, the remote power button, MSI Power Link, the touted ‘tool-less’ component access, and 3-years of advanced warranty coverage when you choose a Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with Win 11 Pro.

Correction, July 30:, 2026 This review originally said the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG includes vPro remote management. It does not. We regret the error.

In recent reviews of professional displays, I’ve talked about their function as content creation tools with reference color and the ability to integrate into video post-production and photography workflows. But there is a conceptual side that today’s monitors do not usually address. Designers and creators often collaborate and present their ideas, and for that, different display tools are needed. Things like touchscreens, tablet-style stands, and webcams are just as useful as standardized color modes and reference calibrations.

The Acer ProDesigner PE320QXT is such a monitor. It doesn’t have fast refresh or Adaptive-Sync, but it does have 219 ppi pixel density thanks to its 32-inch IPS panel with 6016 x 3384 resolution. It also has a Quantum Dot film for wide-gamut color that covers over 120% of DCI-P3. A 10-point capacitive touchscreen supports Microsoft Pen protocols. An integrated webcam lets users collaborate remotely. And a slick oleo stand lets the panel tilt back 60 degrees or stand up straight for a wide range of useful positions. Though exotic, it isn’t super expensive at $1,800 to start. Let’s take a look.

Acer ProDesigner PE320QXT Specs

6K resolution is somewhat rare, but I’ve seen a few such panels now, so it no longer has unicorn status. 6016 x 3384 is an in-between resolution that is not supported by video content. You won’t find 6K video anywhere. But it is useful for photography and CAD. It’s also great for presentation and conceptual graphics.

The PE320QXT’s maximum refresh rate is 60 Hz, so gaming with any sort of fast motion is impractical. But if your interest lies in titles that prioritize graphics over speed, 219ppi makes for a stunning image. Though the panel tech here is IPS, contrast is above average at over 1,500:1. HDR10 is also supported, though there is no zone dimming here so you won’t find much extra contrast for HDR content.

You will find lots of color though. The PE320QXT has one of the largest color gamuts I’ve yet encountered. In testing, I measured over 120% coverage of DCI-P3 and over 81% coverage of BT.2020. Adobe RGB gets a fair shake too with 96%. There are color modes to cover all current standards except for Cinema P3; however, Display P3 is included.

The PE320QXT forgoes the integrated calibration of other pro screens I’ve reviewed, but there is some tweakability in the OSD. You get Calman verification as well. I found all the preset modes to be reasonably accurate with just a few minor issues. I’ll talk more about that later.

Peripheral features include USB ports, types A, B, and C. There are four video inputs, two HDMI 2.1 and a DisplayPort 1.4 along with USB-C. Internal speakers play with five watts apiece, and there’s a headphone jack. A 4K webcam is mounted on the top and includes an angle adjustment knob and a cover for the lens. My sample shipped with a stylus that works with Microsoft protocols and can function as a pointing and drawing device. The screen is 10-point capacitive touch.

The PE320QXT is a different kind of professional display. It maintains color reference but is squarely aimed at designers and collaborators. At $1,900, it’s a decent value when you consider its unique abilities, extreme pixel density, and included extras.

Assembly and Accessories

The PE320QXT ships in fully recyclable packaging with molded pulp protecting the contents. The panel, upright, and base assemble without tools into a solid package. More on that unique stand in a moment. The webcam is permanently attached to the top of the panel. The pen comes in its own box with a USB charging cable for its Type-C port. Bundled cables include HDMI and USB, plus an external power supply brick.

Product 360

From the front, the PE320QXT looks like any other monitor, though it sits lower than most. That’s due to the oleo stand, which provides 60 degrees of tilt so you can angle the panel up like a tablet. The tilt extends five degrees forward as well. The height range is almost 10 inches, but if you want the panel to sit vertically in front of you, you’ll need a pedestal. You also get 360 degrees of swivel, with the base moving on a smooth bearing concealed within it. All movements are smooth and precise and befit a premium display.

The webcam sits atop the panel and is permanently attached. It has a little lens cover for security that slides left and right. You can roll a dial to angle the lens and tilt it completely backwards. The pen I received stows on the bottom of the screen magnetically and is compatible with Windows’ touchscreen protocols.

The screen’s front layer is very slick and shiny, perfect for drawing but not as good at preventing light reflection. You’ll need to be conscious of ambient light sources, especially when tilting the PE320QXT upwards. The image is very sharp and clear when no light hits it.

The ports are around the back and face rearwards. You get three USB ports, one upstream and two downstream. Video includes two HDMI 2.1 and a DisplayPort 1.4 plus a USB-C (DP Alt) port that supports 90 watts of power. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, and there are a decent pair of internal speakers, five watts each.

OSD Features

The PE320QXT uses buttons for OSD control. I found this a bit confounding since nearly every monitor today employs a joystick. Navigation is intuitive but slow. I also turned off the power accidentally a few times. Pressing any of the first four keys brings up a quick menu. Click button four for the full OSD.

The OSD is Acer ProDesigner standard and starts with basic image controls. The HDR option includes Off, Auto, and HDR600. I found that even on Auto, I had to manually select the HDR mode for HDR10 content. You’ll also want to turn on the Max Brightness option to get, you know…

In the Color menu, there are gamma and color temp presets for the General color space. These options are grayed out in the other color modes. They are found on the second screen under the Color Space sub-menu. There, you get Adobe RGB, sRGB, BT.709, DCI (Display P3 only), and HDR, which corresponds to BT.2020. General and HDR cover over 120% of DCI-P3 while the other modes are fairly close to their respective values. The picture modes include two calibration settings that can be any gamut and four memories which the user can select. In the Calibration sub-menu, you can specify two of the presets’ gamut selection.

Gaming’s single option is a two-level overdrive. It’s reasonably effective on its Normal setting, but there’s only so much it can do with a 60Hz refresh rate and no Adaptive-Sync.

The PIP/PBP menu gives you options for viewing two sources at once. You can size and move the PIP window and swap sources too.

In Save Settings to, four memory slots let the user assign configurations to four of the 10 picture modes.

Acer ProDesigner PE320QXT Setup And Hands-on

The PE320QXT can be calibrated in the OSD like a regular monitor in its User picture mode when the General color space is selected. This is the default setting, and its gamut covers a very colorful 120% of DCI-P3. I left the gamma preset on 2.2 and tweaked the RGB gain sliders for excellent grayscale tracking and no visible errors. To access other gamuts, use the Color Space option in the Color menu. The most used options are listed below with their color temp and gamma defaults. I noted that all of them grayed out the other picture controls so they cannot be calibrated in the OSD. You’ll see all test results on pages four and five.

For gaming and productivity, I stuck with the General color space and User mode with my calibration in place. I’ll deliver the spoiler first: the PE320QXT is not a monitor for fast-paced shooters. There is significant motion blur at 60 FPS to where aiming becomes difficult if you’re accustomed to faster screens. And there’s no Adaptive-Sync, though this wasn’t a significant issue since the frame rate never varied from 60. There is an overdrive option which reduces blur a little and works without ghosting on its Normal setting.

If your games are more like Myst, then you can have a spectacular time playing on the PE320QXT. The color is stunning with rich hues and bright primaries. The image is also razor sharp. 219ppi is a benefit you can plainly see when compared to the 140ppi of the same-sized Ultra HD monitor. You won’t be able to see the dot structure without a serious magnifying glass.

With a resolution like 6K, you must consider the original content. Nothing is mastered in 6K, so unless you’re playing a rendered game, there will be some upscaling. Watching 4K video was a good experience with clean rendering, but the frame rate is locked at 60Hz. There is no support for 24 or 50p cadences.

Rendered graphics are the PE320QXT’s strongest ability. I look forward to the day that 8K is a thing because 6K is so realistic already. Moving through a virtual environment suspends disbelief far more effectively than lower resolutions. Looking at CAD drawings and conceptual renderings is also much more useful with this much pixel density.

Color-critical work is also a good experience, but I wished for more flexibility in the PE320QXT’s OSD. You’ll see in the tests later that color and gamma are close to the mark, but grayscale tracking has errors that are just visible. This manifests more in neutral tones like clouds or snow. And black and white material has a slight color cast as well.

The touchscreen function is something I haven’t seen before in such a large monitor. To activate it, just make a USB connection between the PE320QXT and the PC. I could use my finger or the included stylus to act as a pointing and drawing device. It was handy to store the stylus on its magnetic strip across the bottom of the screen. The webcam was also very cool. It rotates enough that you can keep your face centered in the frame regardless of the panel’s position. With 60 degrees of tilt, it can almost lie flat, which is great for use while standing. The stand is super solid and flexible and lets you put the monitor in almost any position. 360 degrees of swivel means that you’re only limited by cables when swinging the monitor about.

Takeaway: The PE320QXT acquits itself well as a collaboration and design tool. It isn’t quite a reference display for video postproduction or photography, though it supports those color spaces correctly to the point where you could use it for presentation. Gaming isn’t its forte with a 60Hz limit, but the overdrive was effective at reducing motion blur. The tablet feature and flexible stand are its most usable assets since you can work in a group while standing or sitting. The webcam also makes collaboration easy.

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Comparing professional displays is difficult because they take different approaches to their design goals. For this review of the PE320QXT, I’ve laid out the results and charts with comments in the same areas that I normally test.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

· Response Time Full black to white transition – 7.93ms

· Absolute Input Lag Full black to white transition – 26ms

Though I can’t recommend the PE320QXT for high-speed gaming, it performs better than many 60 Hz panels I’ve tested. The response time is very quick at just under 8ms. There is some motion blur but not as much as you’d expect. The overdrive helps somewhat, but gaming should be kept to slower-paced titles for best results. Doom Eternal will go a little soft when the action ramps up.

Input lag is 26ms, which is slower than typical gaming monitors but faster than typical human reaction times. Obviously, a skilled gamer will be hampered by that much delay, but casual gaming is well within the PE320QXT’s wheelhouse.

Test Takeaway: You can play games on the PE320QXT if you take its limitations into account. At 60 Hz, there will be some motion blur. And input lag isn’t super low, but it isn’t super high either. The overdrive is effective at reducing some of that softness. Though there is no Adaptive-Sync, you’ll rarely see a frame tear if your PC can run 6K at 60fps.

Viewing Angles

The PE320QXT has some of the best off-axis image quality of any IPS screen I’ve tested. The side view would fool anyone into thinking it’s an OLED. There is no visible color shift, nor is there a change to brightness or gamma. This is important given its design intent. The giveaway comes in the vertical view where you can see a red shift. But gamma and brightness aren’t significantly different. The PE320QXT is designed to be shared, and it easily can be as these results show

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

· Screen Uniformity Deviation From Center 0% Black Field – 11.28%

I noted some slight glow around the edges of my PE320QXT sample, which put its deviation score over the visible threshold of 10%. A lot is going on here with the extra Quantum Dot and capacitive touch screen layers in play, so this result is not surprising.

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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Maximum Backlight Level

· Maximum White Luminance General Mode – 346.3619 nits

· Maximum Black Luminance General Mode – 0.2194 nit

· Maximum Contrast Ratio General Mode – 1,578.4:1

· Calibrated White Luminance General Mode – 206.9276

· Calibrated Black Luminance General Mode – 0.2125 nit

· Calibrated Contrast Ratio General Mode – 1,621.4:1

· ANSI Contrast General Mode – 1,542.8:1

The PE320QXT doesn’t have local or zone dimming, so measurements of full field and window patterns are the same. SDR brightness tops out at 346 nits, which is plenty of light for any indoor environment. Given the shiny screen, I would recommend using higher brightness settings to keep the image from being affected by reflections. Black levels are respectable for an IPS screen, resulting in an above-average contrast ratio of 1,578.4:1. This is excellent performance.

When I calibrated the General mode, I had to reduce the contrast slider to solve a clipping issue, but the ratio actually increased to 1,621.4:1, a nice gain. ANSI contrast (intra-image) is also solid at 1,542.8:1. The picture has a nice depth and texture, and though it won’t match an OLED, it is visibly superior to most IPS monitors.

Test Takeaway: The PE320QXT has plenty of light output and excellent black levels and contrast for an IPS screen with above-average scores in all areas. My only complaint is that there’s no dimming available to increase dynamic range. Adding a full-array Mini LED backlight would take it to another level.

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To verify the PE320QXT’s color accuracy, I tested grayscale, gamma, and gamut tracking for the Color Space modes that match commonly used standards. I noted that they cannot be calibrated in the OSD except for General, which uses the monitor’s full native gamut. The charts are below, and at the end of this page is a table summarizing all the error values.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

The PE320QXT’s default color space in the User mode is General with a 2.2 gamma and D65 color temp (Warm setting). It runs a tad cool with barely visible errors at 90 and 100% brightness. You won’t see a problem in most content. Gamma is a tad light as well. I tweaked the RGB gains to visual perfection, though gamma is unchanged. Overall, though, the picture is excellent, more than enjoyable for general use.

The other modes are fixed and cannot be adjusted in the OSD. They all have slight errors in grayscale tracking, being either a tad cool or a tad warm. The furthest off the mark is HDR (BT.2020), which is very warm in tone. This will manifest later in the HDR tests. In all cases, gamma is either on point or a little light.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

Color tracking takes a middle road between P3 and BT.2020. The PE320QXT is a P3+ monitor thanks to its Quantum Dot layer. But note the direction of the green hue. It tends towards BT.2020. This is a compromise that keeps color from being too garish while taking advantage of that bonus volume. This creates a more natural look. I noted that Adobe RGB was on point for saturation and only showed slight hue errors in cyan and magenta. The PE320QXT has enough green to qualify as a true Adobe RGB display. Many other pro screens can’t make that claim.

Grayscale, Gamma and Color Gamut Test Summary

Below is a table of all the color space options’ results. Volume figures are impressive, especially for Adobe RGB and BT.2020, where the PE320QXT fills more than nearly all its competitors. Gamma runs a tad light and varies anywhere from 1.36 to 4.54% from its intended reference point. Grayscale errors are right at the visual threshold with a few slight issues but nothing significantly wrong. Gamma range values are very tight with very few variations.

Test Takeaway: The PE320QXT is a color-accurate monitor with a good selection of modes for professional use. It can’t be calibrated in the OSD, though, which might be an issue for long-term maintenance of standard references. It also lacks a P3 Cinema mode, which could be a problem for video post-production. In the General color space, it calibrates to a very high standard. It also has more color volume than just about any other professional display I’ve reviewed.

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Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The PE320QXT supports HDR10 content with two modes. I noted that it would not switch automatically to HDR mode when a signal was applied.

HDR Brightness and Contrast

· HDR White Luminance – 424.9390 nits

· HDR Black Level – 0.2125 nit

· HDR Sequential Contrast – 2,000.2:1

The PE320QXT is rated for VESA DisplayHDR 600, but I could not get my sample brighter than 425 nits. There is no local dimming available, but since contrast is higher than SDR at 2,000:1, it is logical to conclude that some field dimming is taking place. Measuring window patterns returns the same result as full fields. The result is that HDR is only slightly more impactful than SDR. The PE320QXT would really benefit from a full array Mini LED backlight.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

The BT.2020 grayscale errors I observed in the SDR tests are also present for HDR. There is a very warm tone here that cannot be corrected in the OSD. The EOTF tracks close to the reference with slight darkness from 10% brightness up to the tone map transition at 65%. This is the correct value given the measured black and white levels. The only issue I noted was lightness between zero and 10%. Shadow detail is well rendered but not at black as it should be.

The PE320QXT’s color tests show much better results with linear oversaturation and hue points that are close to their targets. The DCI-P3 gamut is used fully while BT.2020 covers more than other professional monitors I’ve tested. The PE320QXT runs out of color at 90% red, 80% green, and 98% blue. With over 81% coverage of 2020, it’s one of the most colorful monitors you can buy.

Test Takeaway: The PE320QXT does a decent job with HDR thanks to solid luminance tracking. But it leaves dynamic range under the table with its edge backlight. It also has a warm grayscale, which means neutral tones aren’t quite neutral. Color is the best part with vivid hues and accurate gamut tracking. It also fills more of the BT.2020 gamut than just about any other monitor.

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When shopping for a professional monitor, it’s important to consider what it will be used for. The most common category is color reference, where you’ll be creating video and photography. There, accuracy and flexibility are paramount. You must have reliable color modes and the ability to easily adjust them when needed. And if you’re creating game content, you need fast refresh, speed video processing and Adaptive-Sync.

But if you want to conceptualize and present, you need things like a flexible stand, a touchscreen and a webcam for remote collaboration. You also need good viewing angles, so sharing doesn’t leave some users looking at different colors. The Acer ProDesigner PE320QXT is made precisely for those purposes.

Though I noted some discrepancies in grayscale tracking, the PE320QXT displays solid accuracy out of the box. The only thing missing there is an easy way to calibrate in the OSD. I noted that the General color space did allow calibration to a very high standard. HDR color also showed a few hiccups in the grayscale test where neutral tones were visibly warm. But color and luminance tracing were exemplary. The PE320QXT is also missing the gaming element with no Adaptive-Sync and a 60 Hz refresh rate. But its 6K resolution and massive color gamut deliver a stunning image when gameplay isn’t too twitchy.

Not only did image quality shine, but its presentation and design features were impressive. The touchscreen element worked without issue and was a real value-add for artists and designers. The included stylus was a nice touch, as was the integrated webcam, which makes for easy remote collaboration. And the stand was truly useful with its 60-degree up angle. A large touchscreen that you can also draw on is a real plus for digital art.

If you need a large monitor that can function as a meeting place, a design tool, an artist’s easel or just as a really nice display, the Acer ProDesigner PE320QXT fills the bill. At $1,800, it’s also a decent value when compared to other pro monitors. Those looking for something different should definitely check it out.

MORE: Best Gaming Monitors

MORE: How We Test PC Monitors

MORE: How to Buy a PC Monitor

If you want a Windows or Linux laptop that you can upgrade and repair, you should be looking at Framework. But to maintain that repairability, the company's build quality has always left something to be desired.

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro ($1,199 to start without SSD, RAM, or OS, $1,599 to start pre-built, approximately $3,272 as tested) is the company's attempt to shake that image, with a CNC aluminum chassis, a haptic touchpad, a high-resolution touchscreen, and other premium features that hadn't previously made it into Framework's repair-friendly laptops.

This design is far and away better than its existing chassis, but launching a laptop based on repairability when parts for it are extremely expensive puts the Laptop 13 Pro out of reach for many.

Design of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro is a big step up in design from its predecessor, the original Framework Laptop 13. It has a new, blacked-out color scheme as opposed to Framework's go-to silver. But more importantly, it feels like a much more premium product.

The CNC-machined aluminum chassis has significantly less flex than the regular Framework laptop, which would sometimes bend with just one hand. That's not to say there's no bending, specifically around the display, but this is an improvement that made me feel far more confident having the laptop in my backpack.

The chassis has an almost velvety feel. I can't explain it, because this is solid aluminum, but it has some sort of coating that feels unique in my hands. The black color, however, is a fingerprint magnet.

With the laptop open, you'll find one area that doesn't feel as premium — the bezel, which is still plasticky and attached with magnets. It doesn't look or feel as premium as the rest of the system, and many other laptops have just a small portion below the screen, allowing for thinner borders, especially at the top.

This keyboard deck, too, feels more solid. There's a bit of give, sure, but the magnetic attachment and five Torx screws (more on that in upgradeability, below) feel a lot more like one consistent piece when assembled.

Our review unit came with the "graphite gray/black" keyboard, with distinct orange accents on the Framework keys (an extra $10). It looks really cool and should be the default, but there are also all-black options and one with lavender keys in place of the gray.

At 11.68 X 9.02 x 0.62 inches and 3.17 pounds, this system easily fits into my backpack. It's similar in size and thickness to a MacBook Pro (12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches, 3.4 pounds with M5).

Upgradeability of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

Framework's modularity continues on in the new design. In fact, if you wanted, you could build a Laptop 13 Pro around your old Framework mainboard, Ship of Theseus style (though some parts would need to be swapped simultaneously to accommodate the new battery's shape and size).

We reviewed a DIY Edition of the Laptop 13 Pro, which meant installing a Framework-supplied SSD and LPCAMM2 memory before getting started. The only tool you need is the Torx T5 screwdriver that comes in the box.

The SSD is a pretty standard install, but the memory, which is LPCAMM2, was a first for me. You have to be extremely careful with it, aligning the memory with a sensitive interposer (which also happens to be slightly under a ribbon cable connected to the screen. This got in the way for me a few times, but it's easy enough to get around. There's a memory cover that goes on top of the LPCAMM2, with three screws labeled in the order you should tighten them to firmly seat the module.

On AMD Ryzen AI 300 configurations, LPCAMM2 isn't available: you use standard SO-DIMMs.

From there, you need to attach the input cover using a ribbon cable (do take a minute to admire the underside of the haptic touchpad and its four piezo sensors), which then snaps into place on the chassis. The bezel snaps onto the bottom of the screen and also attaches with magnets.

From there, you flip the laptop over and tighten five captive Torx T5 screws. Pop in your expansion cards, lock the slots, and voila, you're ready to install an operating system.

On the Intel version we tested, there's nothing limiting where you place expansion cards. On models using AMD's Ryzen AI 300 chips, however, you'll want to be sure not to put USB Type-A ports in the rear slots, as they'll use more power than other cards.

If you buy a prebuilt version, the OS will come pre-loaded. Otherwise, you can largely reverse any of these steps at any time to make upgrades, including likely eventual mainboard improvements.

My main criticism is that LPCAMM2 is hard to get right now (harder, in general, than regular SO-DIMMs, which at least some enthusiasts might have around). You can get them from Framework, but this isn't a standard that you have a lot of options to buy from. In that way, the DIY version doesn't make a ton of sense, unless you really, really want to bring your own SSD.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

We tested the Framework Laptop 13 Pro in its most powerful configuration: with an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H and 64GB of RAM. Our system also had a roomy 2TB SSD. To best compare the system to other laptops in our benchmark database, we opted to run Windows 11.

On Geekbench 6, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro notched a single-core score of 2,952 and a multi-core score of 14,965. The single-core score was similar to the same X9 chip found in the Asus Zenbook Duo. But in multi-core, the Zenbook had a score that was 15.49% higher, likely due to cooling; Framework is cooling Intel's top mobile chip with a single fan. Apple's M5 MacBook Pro and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite in the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 both scored higher on both tests.

The Framework Laptop and its WD Black SN7100 SSD were the fastest of the group in copying 25GB of files, with a speed of 2,800.33 MBps, followed most closely by the OmniBook at 2,620.91 MBps.

On Handbrake, the Framework transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 4 minutes and 9 seconds, ahead of the Duo but behind both ARM-based laptops.

To stress test the system, we ran Cinebench 2026 ten times and monitored scores and CPU speeds. The scores were largely in the 3,800 and 3,900's, with a peak score of 3979.85 on run 6, before scores started dropping down slightly. In HWInfo, the CPU’s P cores averaged 3.16 GHz, while the E cores reached 2.75 GHz, and the low-power E cores measured at 2.61 GHz.

Graphics on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

As we've seen in other Panther Lake laptops, the Intel Arc B390's Xe cores are no joke.

The 12 cores on the X9 388H enabled the Laptop 13 Pro to achieve a score of 1,362 on 3DMark’s Steel Nomad cross-platform benchmark. It lost only to the presumably better-cooled Zenbook Duo using the same chip.

Display on the Framework Laptop Pro 13

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro marks the company's first custom display, along with the first time its 13-inch laptop has had a touchscreen (touch was previously available on the Framework Laptop 12).

The 13.5-inch, 2880 x 1920 display (one of the few 3:2 screens on the market these days) offers a variable refresh rate between 30 and 120 Hz.

Most importantly, Framework's display is exceedingly bright. In the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, an explosion in the X-Mansion and lightning coming from Thor's Stormbreaker axe were eye-popping.

The panel measured an astounding 709 nits on our light meter, handily surpassing the MacBook Pro's mini LED screen (558 nits) and the OLED panels on the Asus Zenbook Duo (456 nits) and HP OmniBook Ultra 14 (414 nits).

The Framework's display was largely on par with the MacBook's in terms of color volume, covering 114.3% of sRGB and 81% of the more challenging DCI-P3 color space. The MacBook was a fraction of a percent better. The bigger differences are in the benefits mini LED may bring against LCD, but the point remains that for Framework, this is an impressive display. If older Framework Laptop 13 owners take one upgrade from this system, it may well be the panel for the sake of the quality, even if they don't care about touch.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

The keyboard cover on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is one large piece sitting on top of the components, just like previous designs. Here, the keyboard has white backlighting and 1.5 mm of key travel.

And unlike some laptops, you can feel all of that travel. As I breezed through the monkeytype.com typing test at 123 words per minute, I did note that the keys feel a bit stiffer than I'm used to on other laptops. A colleague I showed the laptop to liked the effect, though I think some people might hope the keys wear in a bit.

This laptop also marks the first time Framework has offered a haptic touchpad. This one uses four Piezo sensors to convert pressure into clicks.

On the one hand, it's a huge step up from the company's mechanical touchpads, which often felt cheap. I never had any issues with gestures or navigation. But I could sometimes see and feel the haptic touchpad flex in the keyboard deck, which could probably be fixed with a bit of extra reinforcement.

Audio on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro uses a pair of 2W side-firing speakers, rather than the bottom-firing speakers on the original Framework Laptop 13 design. If you're using Windows 11, you get Dolby Atmos support (tough luck for now if you're a Linux user), including the Dolby Settings app.

Despite Framework's claims that they're louder, they're really best for personal listening. Alice Merton's "Ignorance is Bliss" only barely filled my living room. The vocals, guitars, and drums were distinguishable and sounded pretty good otherwise.

It's not uncommon for wristrests to vibrate while playing music, but on the Framework Laptop, that extended to the haptic touchpad, which would noticeably move under my finger while listening to music.

Battery Life on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

Framework is debuting a larger, 74 WHr battery on the Laptop 13 Pro. Even when powering the Core Ultra X9 388H, the system was long-lasting. On our battery test, which browses websites, streams video, and runs light OpenGL tests with the screen at 150 nits, the Laptop 13 Pro ran for 15 hours and 55 minutes, beating other Windows-based competitors. Only the MacBook Pro surpassed that, at 18 hours and 14 minutes.

Heat on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

As configured, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro can get a bit toasty. Again, the Core X9 388H is running under a single fan.

During our Cinebench 2026 stress test, the keyboard hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which did feel warm to the touch. The haptic trackpad measured 90 F, while the hottest spot on the bottom was 117 F.

Internally, the CPU measured an average of 90.1 degrees Celsius and reported throttling for much of the back of the test.

Webcam on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

The 1080p webcam on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is serviceable, but not the best.

While colors were accurate enough in video and photo testing, there was graininess in both well-lit and dark images.

Additionally, this laptop doesn't sport an infrared camera for Windows Hello. Your only option is the fingerprint reader.

Software and Warranty on the Framework Laptop 13 Pro

We tested the Framework Laptop 13 Pro with Windows 11, and it was blissfully free of bloatware. Framework's dedicated shortcut on the F12 key opens up a page on its website for guides for the system.

I would like to see an easy way to customize the keyboard. VIA's web app doesn't recognize the keyboard in my testing (previously, it has only recognized the 16-incher and its various input modules). I hope to see support for that soon. (At least the key tester function worked).

Framework sells the Laptop 13 Pro with a one-year warranty. An extended three-year warranty is available that varies based on configuration. Framework told Tom's Hardware that this is because the "cost of servicing the warranty scales with the cost of the system," so more expensive systems with pricier hardware have more costly extended service plans.

Framework Laptop 13 Pro Configurations

We tested the Framework Laptop 13 Pro in a DIY configuration that's $1,799 with an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H before adding in memory, storage, an operating system, or any of the extras like the expansion cards.

If you purchased all of our components from Framework, the system was approximately $3,272 when we started testing it. In the middle of testing, the price of the memory on the DIY systems nearly doubled from $849 to $1,600, making our configuration roughly $4,023. That's without an OS, as we installed our own copy of Windows.

That being said, this configuration is backordered, and Framework isn't taking further orders: "We are working with Intel and expect to get additional allocation of X9, but we don't have timing we can communicate on when it will be available for order," Framework said through a PR representative. It's also likely to see a price increase, as the company has already announced that its X7 and X9 chip prices are going up. It's very possible that by time you read this review, any number of components may have changed price.

The 2TB SSD was $505, while the keyboard was $10 (for the colors), as was the bezel ($10), though both of those aesthetic options can be had for free if you opt for black or a few other color options.

The cheapest DIY Edition, with an Intel Core Ultra Series 3, starts at $1,499. If you prefer AMD Ryzen AI 300 over Intel Core Ultra Series 3, that starts at $1,399 with a Ryzen AI 7 350.

On the prebuilt side, the cheapest Intel system (with the same Core Ultra 5 325, plus 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage) is $1,599 (up from $1,499 during pre-orders), while AMD versions begin at $2,299 (up from $2,099) with 1TB of storage and 32GB of memory.

Bottom Line

When Framework debuted the Laptop 13 Pro, it promised a "MacBook Pro for Linux users." I'm not sure I agree. The MacBook Pro has an air of utility, while the Framework Laptop Pro 13 is more playful. That alone makes it feel different.

This Framework is by far its best-built laptop, feeling more premium and rigid than ever before, along with a bright screen and a haptic touchpad. But there are some areas, like the bezels and expansion ports, that still show the gaps.

The new silicon is also faster and more efficient than we've seen. We've complained about battery life on some older Framework systems, but Panther Lake is efficient enough (along with a 74 WHr battery) to bring Framework in line — and ahead — of at least some premium Windows-based competitors.

Price and availability may scare off some customers. Erratic, expensive chip pricing is the norm these days, but most people don't see that firsthand. They only see the bottom line. But also, at this price, you could get an M5 Max MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM, which would way outperform this system on multi-core and graphics performance.

There is room for improvement, especially in cooling. But the biggest issue Framework has here for its niche audience is the price of components, especially for the DIY edition. But if you happen to have parts lying around, there's no question that this design should usurp its old one as quickly as possible.

The best laptops must do more than look expensive; they need to justify their price with the right mix of design, performance, display quality, and daily usability. HP’s OmniBook X Flip 14 (starts at $1,399.99; $2,599.99 as tested) gets much of that formula right, with a sublime metal chassis, a choice of two refined colors, AMD Ryzen AI processors, and the convenience of a 2-in-1 design. It feels every bit like a high-end machine, with solid entertainment features and impressive build quality, but its high price, middling performance, and merely decent 1920 x 1200 OLED display keep it from fully standing out.

Design of the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The OmniBook X Flip 14 is HP’s design at its best. The deep espresso finish gives the laptop a rich, almost executive character. (The other available color is atmospheric blue.) Its matte metal surfaces felt reassuringly solid in my hand. HP also claims a MIL-STD-810H durability rating.

At 12.32 x 8.6 x 0.57 inches, the OmniBook’s footprint is slightly larger than Dell's XPS 14, though the weight is essentially a wash: 3.09 pounds for HP versus 3 pounds flat for Dell. Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7i is much lighter at 2.15 pounds, but HP is the only one offering a 2-in-1 form factor, with a 360-degree display hinge that lets it fold into a tablet. While its size and weight prevent it from being a good iPad replacement, the functionality can be handy in cramped places like an airplane seat where it might not be as comfortable to use it as a laptop.

The laptop offers just enough connectivity– two USB4 ports, one USB-A port (10 Gbps), HDMI 2.1, and an audio jack. The compact 65 W power adapter plugs into either USB4 port, conveniently split across both sides of the chassis. A Realtek 8922AE-VS networking card supports the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 Specifications

Productivity Performance on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

We tested a high-end OmniBook X Flip 14 configuration featuring a Ryzen AI 9 465 processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.

Our comparison systems include the 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro featuring the M5 processor (was $2,349 as tested, but is now $2,549), the Dell XPS 14 with a Core Ultra X7 358H ($2,199.99), and two Lenovo models: the Yoga Slim 7i ($1,629.99 with a Core Ultra 7 355) and the Yoga Slim 7x ($1,579 with a Snapdragon X2 Elite X2E-88-100). The OmniBook is the only 2-in-1 design in the group.

The OmniBook landed in the lower half of the pack. In Geekbench, where it scored 13,734 points in multi-core, and our Handbrake 4K-to-1080p video transcoding test, which it completed in 4 minutes and 56 seconds, it outpaced the Core Ultra 7 355-powered Yoga Slim 7i (11,555 points and 5:56), but it couldn't match the stronger Core Ultra X7 358H in the XPS 14 (16,927 points and 4:30). The MacBook Pro proved even more potent (17,926 points and 3:31) but it was outgunned by the Snapdragon-powered Yoga Slim 7x (20,563 points and 2:11).

The OmniBook's average speed in our 25GB file transfer test was 1,477.3 MBps, essentially tying the XPS 14 (1,419.76 MBps) but trailing the Yoga Slim 7i (1,659.21 MBps). The MacBook Pro (1,917.35 MBps) and Yoga Slim 7x (1,934.78 MBps) led.

Though it didn't top our charts, the OmniBook still offers performance a step above what many thin-and-light laptops offer and decent multitasking capability, with its 10-core/20-thread design.

To stress test productivity laptops, we run 10 loops of Cinebench 2026. The OmniBook started at 3,465 points and slowly descended to 3,070 points by the fifth iteration, then steadily recovered and completed the last run with 3,306 points. During the test, the Ryzen AI 9 465 CPU ran at an average frequency of 2.79 GHz.

Graphics Performance on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the OmniBook's Radeon 880M integrated graphics offered basic performance at best, outpacing the Intel Graphics in the Yoga Slim 7i (513 points), but coming nowhere near close to Adreno X2-90 GPU in the Yoga Slim 7x (1,115 points), MacBook Pro (1,122 points) or the Arc solution in Dell's XPS 14 (1,446 points), powered by the Core Ultra X7 358H.

Display on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 is available with three touch display options: a 1920 x 1200 IPS, a 1920 x 1200 OLED, or a sharper 2880 x 1800 OLED. Our unit came with the middle option, the 1920 x 1200 OLED. It’s unquestionably colorful – watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Endor’s green forests looked lush, and OLED’s excellent contrast provided inky blackness in space scenes.

Brightness, however, is the weak point. Stormtrooper armor didn’t have the crisp white pop that it should, and blaster bolts and lightsabers looked a bit muted. HP rates this panel for just 300 nits, which is low even by OLED standards and feels out of place given the rest of the laptop’s excellent execution.

That said, the 2880 x 1800 OLED panel should solve that problem. HP rates it for 500 nits in SDR and 1,100 nits in HDR, and it also increases the refresh rate to 120 Hz – all the other panels are limited to 60 Hz. Since the 2880 x 1800 panel is only $80 more than the 1920 x 1200 version through HP’s online configurator, it looks like the display upgrade to get.

The OmniBook is also compatible with a digital MPP 2.0 pen, which we didn’t test, but HP offers as a $30 option.

Our charts confirm the OmniBook’s limited brightness, registering just 266 nits. The OLED-equipped XPS 14 and Yoga Slim 7x are considerably brighter, but none of them come close to the Yoga Slim 7i. The MacBook Pro proved the brightest, though it’s not an exact comparison since it uses a mini LED panel. Color-wise, however, the OmniBook topped the charts, with sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage just as high as the Yoga Slim 7x.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The OmniBook has a keyboard that I can type on for long sessions without feeling fatigued. The keys offer just enough travel to feel engaging, with good cushioning at the bottom of the keystroke and a flex-free deck. Though key spacing is minimal, the angled edges of the keys provide a sense of separation.

On the MonkeyType test, I hit 120 words per minute with perfect accuracy, which is as quickly as I can go on any keyboard. White backlighting provides excellent visibility; toggling backlight brightness (F10) briefly brings up a handy menu to adjust backlight duration.

Layout-wise, the half-height up and down and full-size left and right aren’t intuitive, and dedicated home, end, page up, and page down keys are absent. The F1 key, which doubles as volume mute, offers a convenient orange LED indicator when the volume is off.

The touchpad is mechanical rather than haptic. Its nicely sized, matte surface offers seamless finger swiping – my fingers didn’t stutter or drag – and predictable clicking action.

Audio on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The OmniBook’s dual speakers provide decent audio for a laptop. While not loud – there’s just enough volume for movie watching in a quiet room – the setup sounds balanced and has audible bass. In Phil Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number”, the drum hits had a satisfying sharpness and some punch at the low end. Vocal and instrument separation is good, with no hint of strain. The Chainsmokers’ “Summertime Friends” also sounded pleasant: crisp vocals, enough bass to satisfy, and an airy soundstage.

HP includes a DTS Headphone:X license (useful if you have supported headphones, which I don’t) and DTS:X decoder license via the DTS Sound Unbound app, though it doesn’t provide any equalizer controls. Confusingly, to get software EQ, you need to use the HP app, which provides music, movie, and voice presets and a graphic EQ. I found the Music preset sounded best and didn’t hear improvements while tweaking the EQ.

Upgradeability of the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

Four small Philips-head screws secure the OmniBook’s bottom panel, which are not all the same size – the fronts are shorter than the rears. I used a plastic trim tool to pop the clips securing the panel, starting along the rear edge and working my way around the edges.

Upgradeable components include the M.2 2280 SSD, M.2 2230 wireless card, and the battery. The memory is not upgradeable.

Battery Life on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The OmniBook X Flip 14 lasted a respectable 14 hours and 53 minutes in our battery test, which consists of web browsing, running OpenGL tests, and streaming videos with the screen at 150 nits while connected to Wi-Fi. It outlasted Dell’s XPS 14 (12:23) but it was almost two hours shy of the Yoga Slim 7i (16:38) and couldn’t catch the MacBook Pro (18:14) or Yoga Slim 7x (19:25). That said, the OmniBook’s numbers still make it perfectly practical for a full workday without a charger.

It’s notable that configurable models come equipped with a more powerful 70 Wh battery if they are also equipped with the 2880 x 1800 OLED panel. It's possible the higher-resolution display requires more power.

Heat on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

During our 10-loop Cinebench 2026 stress test, the OmniBook's surface temperatures peaked at 79 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad, 109 F between the G and H keys, and 113 F on the underside. Internally, the Ryzen AI 9 465's average temperature was 69 degrees Celsius across all cores. The laptop felt borderline hot to the touch in certain places. Without the stress of a benchmarking run, the laptop felt lukewarm at most. Its cooling fans sound unnoticeable for general use and are quiet enough to be ignored under load.

Webcam on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

HP’s 1080p webcam delivers a balanced picture. In my living room with overhead lighting, my face was properly exposed despite a bright window in the background, which wasn’t blown out. Some noise was evident in darker shadows, but the picture looked smooth and detailed. The detail is also good – I could make out writing on my chalkboard about a dozen feet away. The webcam also offers an IR sensor for Windows Hello sign-ins and a physical privacy shutter.

Software and Warranty on the HP OmniBook X Flip 14

The main app included on the OmniBook is the HP app, which provides software updates, battery smart charge settings, touchpad gesture control, diagnostics, a virtual support assistant, and support access. Audio equalizers are also available, though spatial settings are in the tandem DTS Sound Unbound app.

HP also includes its Omni+ app for secure password management, HP Smart for connecting printers, and HP TV+ to centralize streaming apps. A McAfee trial was also installed. These apps are not unique to the OmniBook, though, and don’t directly add value.

HP covers the OmniBook X 14 Flip with a one-year warranty.

HP OmniBook X 14 Flip Configurations

We tested the OmniBook X Flip 14 in a built-to-order configuration direct from HP with a Ryzen AI 9 465 processor, Radeon 880M integrated graphics, 2K OLED display, 32GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. It retailed for $2,599.99 as of this writing, though a 13% off sale briefly appeared during the review period.

Models from HP start at $1,399.99 with a Ryzen AI 5 430/Radeon 840M, 2K IPS screen, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. Customization options include Deep Espresso or Atmospheric Blue colors, several CPU choices – a Ryzen AI 7 445/Radeon 840M, Ryzen AI 7 450/Radeon 860M, and Ryzen AI 9 465/Radeon 880M. CPUs starting with the Ryzen AI 7 445 automatically upgrade to 32GB of memory. Storage choices range from 512GB to 2TB.

HP also sells a version of this laptop with Intel Core Ultra Series 3 internals, which aren’t priced too differently from the AMD models.

Bottom Line

The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 is a polished premium convertible with excellent build quality, comfortable inputs, and practical battery life, but its high price, middling performance, and underwhelming 2K OLED display make the value equation tricky.

Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7i offers a superior screen for less money, while Dell’s XPS 14 delivers better performance if you’re willing to sacrifice some battery life. Still, HP remains worth considering if the 2-in-1 functionality is a priority, especially if you configure it with the sharper, brighter 2880 x 1800 OLED panel.

There is no shortage of 27-inch gaming monitors to choose from. This size strikes a balance between screen area and desktop footprint. But who would turn down a 32-inch panel when it comes to the best gaming monitors? No one I can think of. It requires a bit more room, but if you have it, it’s a screen size that lets you keep multiple apps open and edit documents side by side. It’s also a great window for the detailed graphical worlds found in today’s most popular games.

Larger screens always cost more than smaller ones, or do they? Following my recent review of AOC’s U27G4XM, a 27-inch 4K Mini LED panel that sells for $350, I have the U32G4. It also uses a 4K panel with a dual-refresh operation that toggles between 4K/160 Hz and FHD 320 Hz. It forgoes the Mini LED for an edge array, but in doing so, it actually costs less while being larger, 32 inches diagonal. It also has Adaptive-Sync, wide gamut color, and HDR. Let’s take a look.

AOC U32G4 Specs

The U32G4 starts with an IPS panel that’s both fast and full of contrast. I measured around 1,100:1, which is a little higher than average for the category. Keep in mind that an OLED with similar specs will cost you close to $1,000, so this AOC is a terrific bargain. Speed comes from a 160 Hz refresh rate and a decent overdrive. You also get backlight strobing that can be used in concert with Adaptive-Sync. That’s something usually reserved for high-end gaming screens. The dual-mode feature doubles the Hertz to 320 and sets the resolution to FHD (1920x1080). That’s a bit soft for such a large screen, but it nearly eliminates motion blur.

There’s plenty of color and brightness here with 480 nits available for SDR content. Contrast is solid with respectable black levels that are a little lower than the average IPS panel. No Quantum Dots are used, but color coverage is measured at 90% of DCI-P3. HDR10 content is supported, with a VESA DisplayHDR 400 rating. And three HDR emulation modes work to increase the dynamic range of SDR material.

Gamers get a nice set of extras, including aiming points with a dynamic option, sniper modes, and a frame counter. There are no LED lights, USB ports, or internal speakers. But you do get a precise four-level overdrive and the backlight strobe, which can be used along with Adaptive-Sync. That’s a boon for those who want to stay at 4K resolution but don’t have a fast enough video card to run at 160 fps. Of course, the 320 Hz/FHD option is just a button click away.

If you’re willing to give up the U27G4XM’s Mini LED backlight, the U32G4 represents a phenomenal value. $320 for a 32-inch 4K gaming monitor? That’s a deal well worth checking out.

Assembly and Accessories

The U32G4 ships in crumbly foam packaging, with the base, upright, and panel requiring toolless assembly. Once done, it’s a reasonably solid piece with a wide stance and good stability. The power supply is internal, so you get an IEC cord plus DisplayPort and HDMI cables.

Product 360

The U32G4’s styling is simple and elegant, with the panel’s shape formed from triangles in the back. A bright red trim ring encircles the fulcrum in the back and the words “AOC Gaming” appear as well. The cooling vents are hidden inside the gap you see at the top.

The screen has an 8 mm-wide flush bezel with a 20mm strip across the bottom. Under the right corner are four OSD control keys and a power toggle. A tiny status LED glows orange in standby and white when the power is on. The screen’s anti-glare layer keeps ambient light from spoiling the image while being clear and grain-free.

The stand is secure and tight in operation. It includes a red-trimmed cable hole that’s turned to the side, so it doesn’t show from the front. Ergonomics include a 5/23-degree tilt, 20-degree swivel, and a 5-inch height adjustment. You also get a 90-degree portrait mode. Movements are firm and smooth with little to no play. Though relatively lightweight, the U32G4 is a solid piece of gear.

There isn’t much happening on the I/O panel, except for a DisplayPort 1.4 port and two HDMI 2.1 ports. There are no internal speakers, but you can plug headphones into the 3.5mm jack. There are no USB ports or LED lighting. If you prefer to use a monitor arm, a 100mm VESA mount is provided with fasteners included.

OSD Features

To summon the U32G4’s OSD, press the right-most control key. Don’t press the power toggle by mistake, as I did several times. The menu is convenient and concise, and divided into seven sections.

The Game Setting menu starts with the dual mode feature, which includes 4K 120 Hz, 160 Hz, and FHD 320 Hz modes. The quicker way to switch is to press the second button, which pops up a quick menu and changes modes in a few seconds. You’ll need to visit the Nvidia or AMD control panel once to set each mode, then you can toggle back and forth at will.

There are also game modes in addition to the Eco picture modes. That makes for many possible combinations, so I suggest sticking with Standard/Standard for all content. It’s the closest to spec and calibrates to a high standard. This menu also offers shadow control for low-end gamma, a color saturation slider, a dial point (the aiming point, static or dynamic), and three sniper magnifications. The second screen has MBR and MBR Sync, which is the blur-reducing backlight strobe. Sync means you can use it along with Adaptive-Sync. There is a little phasing, but it is effective at keeping blur at bay when frame rates drop below 120fps. You can also turn on a frame rate indicator. The overdrive has four levels, of which Faster strikes the best balance between ghosting and blur reduction at 160fps.

The Picture menu contains the eight main picture modes. Standard works the best, and I used it for all testing and gameplay. You can adjust the color temp with fixed modes and a set of RGB sliders. There are five gamma presets, color management and three gamut options. Panel Native covers around 90% of DCI-P3 and is suitable for all SDR and HDR content. The sRGB mode is accurate enough to qualify for color-critical applications.

There are three HDR emulation modes that extend the perceived dynamic range of SDR content. When HDR10 signals are present, a fourth mode appears, Display HDR. It is the best choice for its accurate grayscale, EOTF, and color tracking.

The only other peripheral feature I noted here was PIP and PBP. You can view two sources at once and the PIP window can be moved and sized. You can swap the windows and select which one plays audio through the DisplayPort or HDMI inputs.

AOC U32G4 Calibration Settings

The U32G4 looked a tad warm to my eyes, and initial measurements showed it was a little short on blue in grayscale patterns. It can be used without calibration, but a few tweaks to the RGB sliders removed all visible errors. Gamma runs a shade dark on the 2.2 setting. Changing it to 2.0 was too much; it washed out the image. I noted that the sRGB mode had no calibration options, but it tracked grayscale and color with reasonable accuracy, though it showed a few gamma quirks. I’ll tell you more about that on page four. HDR signals have four modes available, with Display being the best choice. They cannot be calibrated. Below are my recommended SDR settings. Please enjoy.

Gaming and Hands-on

Right out of the gate, I could see how quick the U32G4 was. Even at a “mere” 160 Hz, it delivered smooth motion thanks to its precise and artifact-free overdrive. It’s one of the better implementations I’ve seen, especially at this price point. I used the Faster setting (third of four) and was rewarded with no perceivable motion blur. I was able to stay at 160fps thanks to a GeForce RTX 4090.

I tried the backlight strobe and found it effective at lower frame rates. I capped the action at 120 Hz and still had a smooth experience. It keeps Adaptive-Sync on, which is something I’m rarely able to do. There aren’t many monitors at any price that have that ability. If you have a slower video card, you can still enjoy 4K resolution at lower frame rates.

The dual-mode switch worked without issue once I set it up in the Nvidia control panel. You can toggle it in the OSD or press the second control key for a quick menu that does it faster. Running FHD on a 32-inch monitor is soft at best, but there’s no denying the benefit of 320fps. The U32G4 is quick at 160 Hz and super-quick at 320 Hz. This is also a good way to enjoy high frame rates from a budget gaming PC.

There are no Quantum Dots here, so I missed a little green saturation. But otherwise, the U32G4 is very colorful. DCI-P3 coverage is around 90%, so there is plenty of color for SDR content. The sRGB gamut option is useful when a smaller color space is needed, but I noticed slight gamma issues. Shadow areas were a bit light, and some highlights were muted. You can see why in the tests on page four.

For workday tasks, I stuck with Panel Native and a few tweaks to the RGB sliders to remove all grayscale errors. Gamma is a shade dark, but there is no loss of detail. Set the brightness slider to 200 nits, and you’ll enjoy a vivid and pleasing image.

4K at 32 inches has plenty of pixel density at 139ppi. That’s fine enough to hide the dot structure unless you sit inches from the screen. Text is smoothly rendered without visible jaggies. Graphics look realistic with photos being particularly enjoyable. That might have something to do with the large format. 32 inches is my go-to and it’s the size of my reference screen. It’s perfect for writing where I need to keep extra windows open to refer to charts and data. Spreadsheets can be viewed with much less scrolling, and webpages display more of their content too. Photoshop lets you see the picture and keep lots of toolbars at hand.

Takeaway: For $320, it’s hard to imagine a better 4K gaming monitor than the U32G4. It’s fast, bright, and colorful. It doesn’t have USB ports or internal speakers, but it does have all the goods for high-performance gaming with low input lag, smooth motion resolution, and accurate color. It’s equally adept at productivity with lots of screen area for documents and large, clear text. If you have the desktop space for something bigger, a 32-inch monitor is a great option.

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For all tests except panel response, I’ll be comparing the U32G4 to a group of 27-inch 4K screens. My database doesn’t have any current 32-inchers except for BenQ’s PD3226G. The other displays are AOC’s U27G4XM, ViewSonic’s VX2730D-4K, Titan Army’s P2712V, and Gigabyte’s GS27U.

Pixel Response and Input Lag

Click here to read up on our pixel response and input lag testing procedures.

The response test group consists of the last five LCD panels I’ve tested, so their sizes and resolutions vary. It’s interesting to note that refresh rate doesn’t always mean faster screen draw. That is a function of the overdrive. When I test, I set it to where there are no ghosting artifacts. This is usually not the fastest setting. In the U32G4’s case, doubling the refresh rate adds a scant 0.16ms to the score. This is an imperceptible amount. The overdrive is effective, but the first three panels will be a touch smoother at the indicated refresh rates. Remember that an OLED panel is about ten times quicker with draw times around 0.25ms.

In the lag test, the U32G4 takes the win at 320 Hz with a 13.4ms score. This puts it on par with many premium gaming monitors. At 160 Hz, it manages to outdo three monitors with higher refresh rates. For the price, this kind of performance is hard to beat.

Test Takeaway: The U32G4 is one of the faster gaming monitors I’ve tested. It’s worth pairing with a video card powerful enough to run at 160 Hz at 4K resolution, as it offers excellent overdrive and very low input lag. To get smoother processing, you’ll need an OLED, which will cost you around three times as much. This is impressive performance to say the least.

Viewing Angles

The green tint seen in the U32G4’s 45-degree side photo shows its IPS origin. But it isn’t the most tint I’ve seen. And there is no change to gamma or brightness, which is a major plus. This is a very shareable monitor. The top view has a red cast with reduced gamma and luminance.

Screen Uniformity

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, click here.

I noticed a Uniformity picture mode, which indeed improves uniformity but at the cost of peak brightness and contrast. No matter, because my U32G4 sample scored an excellent 6.58% in its Standard mode. There are no visible issues here in any test pattern or content. This is excellent performance.

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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.

Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

The U32G4 is fairly bright for its size. Most 32-inch screens do well to hit 400 nits unless they have Mini LED backlights. At 480, the U32G4 is nearly as bright as its 27-inch Mini LED stablemate, the U27G4XM. If you use a 32-inch monitor at 480 nits, you will tire quickly unless your room is sunlit, or you’re outside, say in a location shoot tent. The black level is respectable for an IPS monitor, so you get 1,154.9:1 contrast, which is a tad above average. Only the ViewSonic boasts more dynamic range.

After Calibration to 200 nits

After calibration, the U32G4’s black level goes up to second place behind the overachieving VX2730D-4K, and contrast stays consistent at 1,147.4:1. ANSI contrast is also very consistent at 1,088.4:1, keeping it ahead of all but the ViewSonic in this group of tests. This is excellent performance.

Test Takeaway: You won’t mistake the U32G4 for an OLED or VA monitor, but among IPS screens, the most common tech, it stands out with solid contrast and good black levels. It also has high brightness, which is an asset for outdoor use or if you have a very sunny office like me.

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The U32G4 is on the edge of needing calibration. I expect most users will be satisfied with the image as it comes out of the box. If you do tweak, stick to the Standard/Standard mode which allows access to RGB sliders, gamma presets and color gamut options.

Grayscale and Gamma Tracking

Our grayscale and gamma tests use Calman calibration software from Portrait Displays. We describe our grayscale and gamma tests in detail here.

In the first chart, you can see that the U32G4 is a tad warm in tone, but the errors are close to the 3dE threshold. Brightness levels below 50% have no visible issues. This is solid performance for the money. Gamma runs a tad dark with rising values in the 60-90% range. This is a small error that won’t adversely affect real-world content. Some highlights may look muted, but problems will be hard to spot.

Calibration tightens up grayscale tracking by bringing all errors below 2dE. You won’t see anything but perfectly neutral tones here. Gamma is a shade lighter too, which is a subtle but positive change. Considering that the U32G4 is a 32-inch 4K monitor for $320, I can’t complain.

The sRGB mode has similar grayscale tracking, but gamma is a bit askew. The dip at 10% means dark areas will be too light. As the values rise, it mutes highlight areas, especially in the 80-90% brightness region. The U32G4 can be considered qualified for critical applications, but some compensation for the gamma error should be made.

Comparisons

In the default comparison, the U32G4 sits right on the edge of “needs calibration.” I would say it does, but I’m pickier than most. It’s an occupational hazard. I doubt too many gamers would complain. But if you tweak, at least with my recommended settings, you’ll make visible gains in image quality. Not only are the neutral tones more neutral, but the gamma is also a tad lighter, which gives the picture more verve.

Though gamma is a shade dark, its tight range of values mitigates the visual impact of any inaccuracy. The range is small at 0.12 while the deviation is 3.64%. That equates to an actual value of 2.28, not too far from 2.2. This is excellent performance for a budget gaming monitor.

Color Gamut Accuracy

Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.

The default color chart shows excellent tuning on AOC’s part, with only slight hue errors in magenta and cyan. Green comes up a tad short of full coverage thanks to the lack of Quantum Dots. The inner points hit their marks, but you only get around 85% of the green primary. This is typical of non-QD LCD panels.

Calibration corrects secondary hue errors without changing any saturation points. The improvement is subtle but visible. This is excellent performance.

The sRGB chart adheres well to the standard despite the gamma errors I noted earlier. This is why you can use the U32G4 for critical work. Gamma issues can be compensated for using a software profile if you wish.

Comparisons

This is a solid group of color-accurate monitors, with the U32G4 in fourth place. If you lined them all up, you’d see very little difference except for the top three, which cover more of the green primary. From a precision perspective, the U32G4 holds its own with more expensive displays. DCI-P3 coverage comes up a little short of 90%, but for the price, there is nothing to complain about. sRGB coverage is ideal at 99.32%.

Test Takeaway: The U32G4 is very accurate out of the box when price is considered. You’re getting a 32-inch 4K display for $320. That alone is enough. With calibration, it delivers solid accuracy with its only weakness being green primary coverage when referenced to DCI-P3. The sRGB mode has excellent gamut accuracy and only needs improvement to its gamma tracking. Overall, the U32G4’s color performance is more than good enough to satisfy users looking to save a bit of money on a large screen.

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Our HDR benchmarking uses Portrait Displays’ Calman software. To learn about our HDR testing, see our breakdown of how we test PC monitors.

The U32G4 supports HDR10 content with an automatic switch and four specific picture modes. It can also mimic HDR’s dynamic range with three emulation modes for SDR signals.

HDR Brightness and Contrast

I was surprised to see that the U32G4’s HDR peak was a little lower than its SDR number. This isn’t a huge deal, but it does narrow the gap between SDR and HDR in terms of impact. I also noted that there was no dynamic contrast in play. There is no edge-zone or field dimming, and the DCR option in the picture menu is grayed out. This means there is no difference in black levels or contrast between SDR and HDR. In both modes, you get around 1,100:1. The U32G4 supports HDR but doesn’t embrace it. This is also true of the ViewSonic, Titan Army, and Gigabyte displays. If you want high-impact HDR from an LCD, go for a Mini LED screen like the U27G4XM.

Grayscale, EOTF and Color

In the HDR grayscale test, there is a slightly warm tone, but the error is barely visible in content. That’s a good thing because there are no adjustments available. The highest errors just crack 4dE, not bad for a budget display. The EOTF tracks very closely to the reference with a little lightness around 40-50% brightness and an elevated black level seen at the 0-5% part of the chart. The tone map transition at 65% is correct for the measured black and white thresholds.

The color test shows a little oversaturation, but no more than any other HDR monitor I’ve tested. This is a typical approach taken by most displays that gives HDR more punch. It’s effective in the U32G4’s case with no cause for complaint. Hue tracking is on point. The DCI-P3 chart is a tad short on green; also typical for non-Quantum Dot screens. In the BT.2020 test, the U32G4 runs out of color at 85% red, 70% green and 90% blue.

Test Takeaway: The U32G4 is a color-accurate HDR monitor but not a particularly bright or impactful one. It has no dynamic contrast available to extend that range but that isn’t unusual at this price point. The standard is supported with accurate color and luminance tracking, but HDR doesn’t look significantly different from SDR.

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Now that 4K monitors are becoming available at truly attractive prices, the array of choices is vast. But it seems they’re mostly concentrated in the 27-inch category, if my review database is any indication. I doubt there are users who would choose a 27 over a 32 unless they just don’t have the room. 32 inches used to be a significant price jump, but no more. The AOC U32G4 is $320, and for that sum, you get a lot.

Its IPS panel has slightly higher than average contrast at around 1,100:1. Color is accurate with no real need for calibration, but you can tweak it for a small improvement. It’s bright at over 480 nits peak though HDR is a little less vivid at around 450 nits. And it doesn’t offer dynamic dimming so the quality difference between SDR and HDR is small. In all scenarios though, it is very colorful. You don’t get Quantum Dots, but you do get 90% coverage of DCI-P3.

Video processing is on par with many premium screens thanks to a precise overdrive and extremely low input lag. The U32G4 also lets you run backlight strobing with Adaptive-Sync, a feature that very few monitors offer. And the dual-mode feature works without issue if you want to race around at 320fps in FHD resolution.

If you only have a small monitor budget but want a large screen, the AOC U32G4 is pretty much a no-brainer. It’s fast, bright, and colorful, and games with the best monitors I’ve reviewed. It’s versatile too, with dual-refresh and MBR Sync. For $320, it has no real competition. Budget-conscious gaming PC owners should definitely check it out.

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AMD introduced its mid-cycle Ryzen AI 400 chips for laptops at the beginning of the year. Predictably, mini PC makers have decided to update their Ryzen AI 300 designs from last year with the newest generation processors. While the gains from the new silicon might be politely described as incremental, Geekom here has also taken the opportunity to upgrade the cooling system.

The firm also decided to go with a single 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM configuration here. Considering the ongoing RAM shortages, it says it decided to do so to allow for less wasteful upgrades down the line. However, AMD iGPUs like the Radeon 890M here, are heavily impacted by the reduced bandwidth of using single-channel system RAM.

Nevertheless, the 32GB/2TB device configuration supplied looks like a relatively generous offering in the current climate.

Design of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom basically sticks to the classic 5x5-inch NUC design with its anodized silvery metal Mini PC. If you’ve seen a Geekom A-series Mini PC before, it will be immediately familiar, and it offers appealing, though derivative (NUC x Mac Mini), stylishness.

The A9 Max 2026’s dimensions are officially listed as 135 x 132 x 46.9mm (5.3 x 5.2 x 1.9-inches). Geekom’s spec didn’t mention the weight of the device, but it tipped our scales at 705g (~1 pound and nine ounces). These weights and measurements don’t include the external PSU or VESA mounting bracket supplied. Other bits in the box include a region-appropriate cloverleaf plug and cable for the PSU, screws for that mounting bracket, and an HDMI cable.

We’ve already mentioned the metal shell of this Mini PC, which has a UV coating to make it more durable. Geekom says that there is also an inner metal frame, and removing the black plastic bottom reveals a metal bottom layer. It suggests its selection of construction materials and techniques makes the A9 Max “extremely sturdy [and] it can withstand up to 200Kg of pressure.”

You power up the Geekom A9 Max with its front-mounted power button. It’s a simple button, which lights up to indicate power. There’s no built-in biometric sensor, and no Copilot button, either.

Geekom A9 Max 2026 Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

Starting from the front, Geekom has chosen to put four USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) on the front panel, one of which is configured for fast charging any connected smart devices. To the right of these is a 3.5mm audio jack, and then there’s the flush and slightly convex power button.

Turn the unit clockwise, and you see the Kensington slot as the sole user port interrupting the neatly perforated metal vista. The rear is black plastic with sizable vents at the top. Below the vents are a DC barrel jack, twin HDMI ports, twin 2.5G Ethernet ports, twin USB4 ports (with DP-Alt support), another USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) port, and a USB 2.0 port. The other perforated side of the device features the SD 4.0 card reader slot.

There’s nothing else on the top of the Mini PC but the Geekom logo. On the bottom, there are VESA mounting screws and four rubber feet, which have to be removed to access the inside.

Once you pry the sticky feet off, there are four crosshead screws to remove. Then I used a guitar plectrum to flip the bottom off. The bottom comes away without any attached wiring. However, you can’t do much yet, as four more screws need to be removed so the metal shielding layer on the bottom can be removed. Rather than untaping all the antenna wires, which partly fix the inner metal underside to the rest of the inner components, I managed to open it up like a door.

With eight screws removed, I had access to the SSD and RAM slots. The Geekom A9 Max has two M.2 SSD slots. The 2280 slot was populated with a Kingston branded 2TB drive with a thermal pad on top. You can just about see that underneath it is the M.2 Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 card. To the side of this 2280 SSD is another slot, which it is claimed is usable for drives in the 2230 form factor. I noted a thermal pad was already stuck on the metal shell, which would run the length of a 2230 drive if installed and the unit screwed back together, that’s nice attention to detail.

More user-configuration options provided by this tiny motherboard were provided by the pair of SODIMM slots. Geekom had fitted a single Micron 32GB DDR5-5600 module, so one slot was left free. The decision to sell this device in a single-channel configuration was “mainly to provide better long-term upgrade flexibility,” I was told in an email. “Since the A9 Max only has two memory slots, a factory-installed 2×16GB setup would require users to replace both modules when upgrading to 64GB or 128GB in the future. With a single 32GB module, users can simply add another 32GB stick later to achieve 64GB dual-channel memory more easily and cost-effectively.”

I’d agree more with this idea if the Mini PC had 16GB of RAM in total, but I fear it will be a long time before buyers of machines of this type will be able to justify purchasing another 32GB SODIMM – to unleash rather than constrain the Radeon 890M. More on that later.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, with its Zen 5 CPU architecture and 24 threads running at up to 5.2 GHz, won’t be holding anyone back in office productivity, general computing, and similar day-to-day tasks. It also has a great reputation for efficiency, inheriting the mantle of its predecessor, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which gathered many design wins for AMD. Here, the CPU is fed by an ample 32GB of system RAM, and the 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD storage equipped is pretty fast too, with read/write transfer speeds of up to 6,139 MB/s and 5,499 MB/s, respectively, according to CrystalDiskMark.

Single-Threaded

Multi-Threaded

In Cinebench 2026, the A9 Max 2026 scored 4,667 points in the multi-core test. That's very similar to the Beelink SER10 MAX with the exact same processor. No surprise. However, the Beelink has dual-channel RAM, which doesn't make a lot of difference in this kind of CPU-heavy rendering workload, as you can see. In the HandBrake video encoding test we see a similar story, with the Geekom middle of the pack, outpacing the Intel competition, but a smidgen behind its AMD brethren.

During our demanding tests, the Geekom A9 Max 2026 stayed admirably cool, but its peak noise level might make you want to move it to a less prominent area of the desk, or use the VESA mounting option to hide it behind your monitor.

Gaming and Graphics on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

In its marketing materials, Geekom pitches the new A9 Max as a computer for all niches, mentioning its CPU and AI compute power, as well as indeed gaming and being able to “conquer AAA titles with ease” thanks to the “Radeon 890M integrated graphics, clocked at a high frequency of 3.1GHz.” So, without further ado, let’s run through our standard set of synthetic 3D engine and gaming tests.

Before beginning the games benchmarking proper, I felt like firing up the old-but-gold Far Cry 5 for a bit of mayhem in Montana. After trying a few preset settings, I settled on 1080p Medium. The High preset was just a bit too slow, and Low settings seemed barely any faster. With Medium settings chosen as the sweet spot for this configuration, I adventured through the attractive wilderness and enjoyed eliminating a few crazy cult members. The average FPS of just above 30 FPS, with a minimum of 26 FPS (according to the built-in benchmark) was enough to enjoy the single-player game without being too distracted by performance issues. I am accustomed to 1440p gaming in this title with a higher quality level and a better frame rate. But it wasn’t insufferable on the A9 Max configuration we tested.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

3DMark Solar Bay tests seem like the best fit for this iGPU, with frame rates smooth enough that it doesn't hurt your eyes to watch. Sadly for the Geekom, it placed last in the pack in this test, even behind the office productivity targeted MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG.

Next up, built-in real game benchmarks courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little A9 Max 2026 can - and can't - play this game. High settings in this game resulted in a grating 17 FPS. Using the Steam Deck preset resulted in a far more playable 29 FPS.

Moving over to Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTTR), and the A9 Max 2026 as configured managed just a 26 FPS average. If you have no other avenues to enjoy this game, you’ll have to nudge settings lower to get above a consistent 30 FPS. Opting for 720p visuals could also help, if you were willing to do so.

We had a similarly disappointing gaming experience during the Minisforum X1 AI Pro 470 review, which also combined this exact AMD Zen 5 mobile processor with a single 32GB stick of DDR5-5600. Check the details of that article to learn exactly the difference reconfiguring the DDR5 to dual-channel can make (spoiler: equipping dual-channel memory made a very big difference in our 3D gaming performance tests). In our newest mini PC tests, the Beelink SER10 MAX comes with the same AMD  Ryzen AI 9 HX 470  processor but is kitted out with dual-channel RAM and can hit a far smoother 54 FPS in the SOTTR High preset.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Geekom A9 Max 2026

This little computer was pleasingly thrifty when it came to power use. Measured at the wall, I observed a mere 7W of power was being pulled by the system when idling in Windows 11. Under the heaviest loads I could muster, the system power consumption rose to about 79W. System tools showed that the idle / stress CPU temperatures were around 34C and 79C, respectively. Perhaps Geekom could quiet the IceBlast 3.0 fans, then? Or, if you buy this, you’d have latitude to slow the fan profiles in the BIOS.

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 was quiet at idle, with my readings showing it made about 29 to 30dB noise. The loudest it got was around 41dB, when I was trying to stress the system by running CPU and GPU benchmark tests simultaneously.

Geekom boasts about its new IceBlast 3.0 system here. I found that it works well enough as shipped, but it isn’t the quietest under load and may benefit from user tweaks. There’s no software for these kinds of adjustments, though, so it is a BIOS tweak / reboot process you’ll have to work through.

Software and Warranty on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom ships the A9 Max 2026 with no custom software at all. It's just clean Windows 11 Pro, as supplied. Also, we note that the marketing material boasts the system fully supports both Windows 11 and Linux. At the time of writing, there is only one fully populated option for would-be buyers of the A9 Max 2026 - identical to our test unit - so you can’t potentially save money by going barebone / Linux.

A 3-year warranty is provided with the A9 Max 2026.

Configurations of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

At the time of writing, there is only one configuration of the Geekom A9 Max 2026 is available, and that is precisely the one tested with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, 32GB / 2TB, and Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. Amazon currently has this machine on a 'limited time deal' with 10% off reducing the price from $1,599 to a more reasonable $1,439.

On some stores, you may still be able to find last year's model, with an HX 370.

Bottom Line

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 is a handsome, durable, and performant all-arounder. However, we will say again that its Radeon 890M iGPU is seriously hamstrung by the single-channel RAM configuration it is sold with. This lack of bandwidth becomes painfully obvious when 3D gaming.

Pondering the A9 Max 2026’s pricing more carefully suggests that mini PC desktops like this are no longer the bargains they used to be. The very modest uplift provided by AMD’s AI 400 Gorgon Point chips doesn’t really make a strong case for the 2026 refresh models.

This updated 2026 release competes with Geekom’s own older editions, as mentioned in the above Configurations section. However, the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 which we reviewed in March seems to offer more expandability (3x M.2 SSD slots, OCuLink), a fingerprint reader, Copilot button, and is a little quieter under load. You can still grab that Minisforum Mini PC with a similar build but slightly larger footprint for $759 barebones, or 32GB/2TB + Windows 11 Pro for $1,399.

If you want to dabble in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider with pleasing graphic details and reasonably smooth 30FPS+ frame rates, please budget to add a matching 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM to the retail configuration, or wait and see if there’s a barebones model arriving. A cheaper barebones model would allow buyers to source their own dual-channel memory kit (we’d go for at least a pair of DDR6-5600 16GB modules), and M.2 SSD - and don’t forget an OS.

If you want the performance of Dell’s XPS family but don’t want to lay out the cash to step up to a slightly snazzier design and higher resolution display, the Dell 14S is a cheaper alternative. The 14S is Dell’s mainstream 14-inch laptop, starting at $1,269 compared to $1,589 for the XPS 14.

A nearly $300 difference is nothing to sneeze at in this economy, so we’ll take a look at the 14S and what it offers for a cost-sensitive audience. And with an as-tested price of $1,469, we’ll see whether it still represents good value compared to its more expensive sibling.

Design of the Dell 14S (2026)

Although the 14S is a lower-priced alternative to the XPS 14, it doesn't skimp on features or build quality. Like the trendier XPS 14, the 14S features an aluminum chassis finished in celestial blue on our review unit. The keyboard deck, lid, and bottom of the chassis feature a matte finish, while the edges of the chassis and lid are highly polished.

The only hint of cost-cutting to my eyes is the use of a plastic bezel around the screen. However, I wouldn’t have even noticed the material difference if Dell hadn’t explicitly pointed it out. Build quality is impeccable, with no flex in the chassis and no floppiness in the firm display hinge.

While the XPS 14 goes for a minimalist approach on the port front with just three Thunderbolt 4 ports, the 14S gives you a lot more variety. You’ll find an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left side of the chassis. On the opposite side, there’s another USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port and a 3.5 mm jack. There’s really nothing to complain about here, and it’s nice to see that we have both USB-A and USB-C support for legacy and newer devices alike.

Our 14S review unit features a 1200p OLED touchscreen, weighs 3.28 pounds, and measures 12.35 x 8.82 x 0.61 inches. For comparison, the XPS 14 is 12.19 x 8.26 x 0.58 inches and weighs just 3 pounds. The Asus ZenBook A16 measures 13.92 x 9.54 x 0.65 inches and weighs 2.87 pounds, while the Apple MacBook Air (M5) weighs 2.7 pounds and measures 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches.

Dell 14S (2026) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Dell 14S (2026)

The Dell 14S uses an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 processor, featuring 4 performance cores, 4 low-power efficient cores, and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz. This is the same processor used in one of the XPS 14 models we tested. The Zenbook A16 uses a Snapdragon X2 Elite SoC, Qualcomm’s flagship Arm chip and an excellent all-around performer, while the MacBook Air uses Apple’s entry-level M5 Arm SoC.

Our review unit came equipped with 16GB of LPDDR5x-7467 memory and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD. 512GB is rather small at this price point, considering most laptops we test come with a 1TB SSD as the baseline.

In the Geekbench synthetic CPU benchmark, the 14S's single-core performance closely mirrored that of the XPS 14 featuring the same CPU, with the former achieving a score of 2,704 versus 2,685 for the latter. However, there was a significant discrepancy between the two in the multi-core benchmark, with the 14S hitting 11,064 compared to 7,964 for the XPS 14. The Zenbook A16 proved to be an exceptional performer with its Snapdragon X2 Elite processor, with 3,807 and 22,733 on the single-core and multi-core benchmarks, respectively.

The 512GB SSD on the 14S was relegated to the back of the pack in our 25GB file transfer test, finishing at an average speed of 1,378.71 MBps. This was well behind the XPS 14 (1,730 MBps) and the chart-topping MacBook Air (1,924 MBps)

It was a similar story on our Handbrake test, in which we transcode a 4K video file to 1080p. Here, the 14S finished the test in 7 minutes and 22 seconds, nearly 40 seconds behind the XPS 14. However, the Zenbook A16 absolutely smoked all of the laptops in this test, finishing in just 2 minutes and 8 seconds.

During the Cinebench 2026 stress test, the 14S started at just over 1,600, before dipping to 1,465. It then recovered to a peak of 1,735 before settling in the 1,550 to 1,650 range for the rest of the runs.

The Ultra 7 355 P-cores averaged 2.61 GHz, while the low-power E-cores averaged 2.45 GHz.

Graphics on the Dell 14S (2026)

The Dell 14S uses integrated Intel Graphics with 4 Xe cores. On the 3DMark Steel Nomad test, the 14S achieved a score of 505, which was just below that of the XPS 14 (532).

However, the Zenbook A16 once again flexed its muscle with a score of 1,262, while the MacBook Air came in at 1,005, nearly double the result of the 14S.

Display on the Dell 14S (2026)

Our 14S review unit came optioned with a 1920 x 1200 (FHD+) 60 Hz OLED touchscreen. This is a step up from the base system and features an FHD IPS display.

The display was overall quite colorful, with vivid colors and inky blanks; something that I’ve come to appreciate with OLED displays. I watched a few movie trailers, including the most recent trailer for The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The trailer for Spider-Man looked especially brilliant, with the suit's iconic red and blue and the seismic destruction left by Hulk's Thunderclap.

My one complaint about the display is that it wasn’t particularly bright. Dell specs the OLED panel at 300 nits, and our lab instruments measured an average of just 269 nits. The displays on all of its competitors broke the 400-nit mark, with the XPS 14 hitting 466 nits.

As for color performance, the display on the 14S reached 84.5 percent of the DCI-P3 space by volume and 119.3 percent of the sRGB space. Those numbers were right on top of the numbers we recorded for the other three laptops in this test, with just a few percentage points separating them.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Dell 14S (2026)

The Dell 14S features an island-style backlit keyboard with springy keys and near-silent actuation. The exception to this rule was the spacebar, which seemed to bottom out easily and rewarded me with a grating “clank” every time I pressed it with my thumb.

With that said, I used Keyhero.com to measure my typing speed, which was 87 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy.

Unlike the XPS 14, the 14S doesn’t feature a haptic trackpad (after all, cost-cutting has to come from somewhere). Instead, it features a top-hinged trackpad, meaning that “clicks” performed near the top of the surface, above the hinge, don’t register. You’ll need to keep your thumb near the bottom of the touchpad, where your thumb should naturally rest anyway if you’re using proper hand positioning.

Audio on the Dell 14S (2026)

The 14S uses dual 2-watt speakers, which sound reasonable enough. They’re not particularly powerful or worthy of high praise. I played the City of Angels soundtrack, culminating with the four heavenly instrumental tracks performed by Gabriel Yared.

While the strings sounded quite good, the angelic vocals that come in about a third of the way through in An Angel Falls sounded dull and lifeless. This was especially disappointing as the voices dropped into the lower registers. However, this is me being nitpicky about audio using one of my favorite albums of all time; for typical productivity-related tasks, the speakers on the 14S will do just fine. I didn’t find any third-party software to fine-tune the speakers.

Upgradeability of the Dell 14S (2026)

There are six screws (two of which are captive) that hold the Dell 14S' bottom panel in place. Once the screws are removed, the whole panel lifts off from the back.

There are two upgradeable pieces of hardware inside our review unit (besides the battery, which can be replaced): there’s an M.2 PCIe Intel BE213 Wi-Fi 7 card and a Kioxia 2230 PCIe 4.0 512GB SSD. While our unit had a 2230 SSD, the M.2 slot can accommodate up to 2280 modules.

Battery Life on the Dell 14S (2026)

One of the remarkable accomplishments of the XPS 14 that we previously tested was its battery life. The 14S also delivers on that front, lasting 20 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test, consisting of browsing the web, streaming video, and running OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness. This was just one minute shy of the XPS 14’s performance. Also, keep in mind that the 14S has an OLED display; our previous XPS 14 review unit used a non-touch IPS panel, so a similarly equipped 14S would likely post even better battery numbers.

For comparison, the MacBook Air, which has long been one of the reigning champs of battery life, could only muster 15 hours and 28 minutes of runtime. And the Zenbook A16, which was a performance monster in our productivity tests, couldn’t quite hit 10 hours and 30 minutes.

Heat on the Dell 14S (2026)

While running our Cinebench 2026 stress test on the 14S, we measured external surface temperatures and processor temperatures via its internal sensors.

The Core 7 Ultra 355 hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit on the keyboard between the G and H keys, around 82 F on the touchpad, and 108 F on the hottest point on the bottom. The processor measured 88 degrees Celsius.

One thing to note is that while the XPS 14 has two system fans, the 14S has just one.

Webcam on the Dell 14S (2026)

Dell's 14S uses an entry-level acceptable 2MP camera. It is by no means as clear or crisp as the 8MP unit in the more expensive XPS 14, but we weren't expecting that given its positioning. Color was quite good on the webcam, but the images were neither sharp nor grain-free. There was a lot of noise in the images, and details were quickly lost, as my facial hair looked a bit "muddy."

The camera also struggled with the overhead LED lights in my home office, causing blooming effects that marred the images.

Like many laptops, the 14S also incorporates an IR sensor for Windows Hello facial recognition.

Software and Warranty on the Dell 14S (2026)

The 14S is relatively light on included bloatware. Dell Optimizer and Dell Support Assist are installed by default. The former lets you optimize settings for the display, battery, and thermal management. The latter allows you to scan your system for issues, update software/firmware, optimize your network connection, and obtain assistance from customer service.

There are also the usual Intel utilities for graphics and security; however, I didn’t see the app shortcuts typically featured in a fresh Windows 11 installation (e.g., Dropbox, LinkedIn).

The 14S comes with one year of what Dell calls Basic Onsite Service. You can optionally add Accidental Damage Service (covering drops, spills, and power surges) for $59/year (currently on promotion for $29/year).

Dell 14S (2026) Configurations

The 14S is available with four processors (Core Ultra 5 322, Core Ultra 7 355, Core Ultra X7 358H, and Core Ultra 9 386H), Intel Graphics or Arc Graphics, 16GB or 32GB of memory, 512GB or 1TB SSD, and a 14-inch 1200p IPS or OLED display (in touch or non-touch options). You can also choose between Celestial Blue and Frost Blue for the chassis color when ordering directly from Dell.com.

The base configuration with a Core Ultra 5 322 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch non-touch IPS display costs $1,269.99. That is a very attractive entry point for the 14S, but options can quickly ratchet up the price. For example, a config with a Core Ultra 9 386H, Intel Graphics, 32GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch touch OLED display retails for $2,019.99, while a Core Ultra X7 358H with Arc Graphics, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 14-inch touch OLED display sells for $1,869.99. In the $1,800 to $2,000+ price range, you’d probably be better off going with an XPS 14.

Our review unit, featuring the Core Ultra 7 355, Intel Graphics, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch touch OLED display, landed about in the middle at $1,469.99.

Bottom Line

The Dell 14S attempts to mimic some of the perks of its flashier relative, the XPS 14, with a high-quality aluminum chassis, OLED display options, and stellar battery life (over 20 hours in our testing). It also adds in features you don’t get on the XPS 14, like an HDMI 2.1 port and USB-A ports.

However, you also give up a bit. You don’t get the quad speakers, 8MP webcam, Gorilla Glass screen cover, or the option for a 2.8K 120 Hz OLED touch screen.

If those features aren’t important to you, consider this: our 14S review unit retails for $1,469.99. An XPS 14 with the same processor, memory allotment, storage size, and a 14-inch 2.8K 120 Hz OLED display costs $2,249.99. That’s a nearly $800 upcharge. In the grand scheme of things, the 14S is definitely living up to its “mainstream” positioning in the Dell laptop family.

Arctic's latest under-the-desk Senza PC design is using an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mobile processor. Sure, the upgrade has also allowed Arctic to shove ‘AI’ in the product name, but this is a very appealing design with great build quality, good performance, a reasonable selection of ports, and silent operation as the cherry on top.

Design of the Arctic Senza AI 370

This definitely isn’t the smallest mini PC around. Its dimensions could probably fit more like three mini PCs in a row. The largest part of this device measures 21.10 (L) × 7.09 (W) × 1.97 (H) inches. In addition to the sizable main unit, there’s also a 120W external PSU and a front panel dongle with some handy ports and an LED-illuminated power button.

The central section of the main unit is where all the performance components are located. Its ‘wings’ are basically passive cooling radiators with heatpipes spreading out from the center, perforating a multitude of fins on either side.

The Senza, its front panel dongle, and PSU are designed to mount discreetly under your desk. After confirming that everything worked post-unpacking, I dutifully followed the instructions and used the printed template to mount the PC and front panel neatly beneath my oak desk. My desk is so heavy I had to work on it as if I were working under a car, lying on my back, but it slotted into place the first time thanks to the accuracy of the template and my deft use of an awl. All the fittings (screws, fabric fasteners, braces, and straps) are provided in the box with the Senza AI 370.

Arctic Senza AI 370 specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

On the PC back panel, there is a decent selection of ports. The mix includes a USB4 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports. Dedicated video out options are provided with HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.0 - but the rear USB4 port can also handle video out, too. Two 3.5mm jacks are also there for audio in and out. Wired networking support is provided with a 2.5G LAN port.

The rear is also where you plug in the supplied 120W PSU via a barrel jack. Lastly, there’s an unusual looking dedicated dual USB-C (two Type-C ports positioned at right angles to one another), which mates with the front panel I/O dongle cable supplying USB4 data and power.

The use of a front panel I/O dongle is a great idea, and it makes thepower button easy to reach. I would have liked to see more ports, here, personally.

As I am always plugging various peripherals into my PCs, I decided to connect the under-desk USB4 port on the main body of the Arctic Senza AI 370 to an above-desk dock. Specifically, I used StarTech’s driverless 208UE USB4 dock to give easy access to a host of fast connectivity options.

Inside the Senza AI 370, there is quite a lot of empty space but limited expandability. It’s easy enough to get in and see the guts of the device, with just four Phillips screws holding the metal panel in place. Under the panel there are no RAM slots, but you can see the soldered Micron DDR5-8000 chips surrounding the AMD processor. Before you buy, ensure 32GB of RAM will be enough for you for the foreseeable future.

I also found an Arctic heatsink atop an M.2 2280 slot. The sample device came with 1TB of fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage installed. System tools revealed it to be a Chinese YMTC PC411 SSD.

We also spied an M.2 2230 slot populated with a Mediatek Wi-Fi 7 (2x2 MIMO) + Bluetooth 5.3 card. You could swap that out for repair or upgrade purposes one day, if required. There are no further internal expansion ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Arctic Senza AI 370 doesn’t break a sweat with day-to-day productivity tasks, browsing, and similarly light workloads. AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a very capable chip with its Zen 5 CPU architecture featuring 12 cores and 24 threads, the integrated Radeon 890M graphics, and a power-efficient NPU for on-device AI.

Despite relying on an older AMD processor, the Arctic Senza AI 370 shows it can match and even beat the two Ryzen 9 AI HX 470 mini PCs that have also recently been subjected to our newest suite of tests. Let’s single out Cinebench 2026 multicore scores first. Here the Senza clearly leads the pack of newer AMD Ryzen and Intel Core Ultra mini PCs, at almost 7% faster than the second-placed Beelink SER 10 Max. In the Blender Monster render test, the Senza’s HX 470 rivals actually do win by a tiny amount, but the difference is small enough to be within the margin of error.

Another productivity test, targeting video encoding performance this time, shows that the Arctic won’t be usurped by its newer generation challengers. The Senza AI 370 proudly leads the Handbrake table, and a victory is a victory, but the actual difference is so small it is essentially a draw between the three AMD mini PCs.

I think the Arctic’s good performance in these productivity tests can be put down to the system’s significantly better memory bandwidth.

Gaming and Graphics on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Senza AI 370’s APU should make it a decent enough performer in games, at least if you're realistic with the settings. Its Radeon 890M iGPU comes with 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs, and it is accompanied by fast dual-channel DDR5-8000 in Arctic’s silent machine.

Before moving onto our standard synthetic and iconic PC gaming tests, I decided to run around in one of my favorite 3D gaming titles, Ubisoft’s The Division 2. I enjoyed taking down a Bloodhound and its high-tech escort troops, and liberating an enemy control point. The action was fluid enough, without experiencing any stutters or other low-performance tells. I played in FHD using the High preset, and later saw using the built-in benchmark tool that the Arctic Senza AI 370 achieved an average of 53 FPS across a diverse set of game scenarios.

Next up, our benchmarks include a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections.

In 3DMark Solar Bay, which uses an engine / resolution most appropriate to the graphical firepower of most of this crop of iGPU-only mini PCs, the Senza AI 370 easily beats the newer-gen Ryzen competition. However, it is clearly outclassed by the Intel Arc B390 iGPU in the GMKtec EVO-T2.

Moving on to more real games, let’s check the data provided by the multi-scene benchmarks built into Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the silent Senza can perform.

A pattern seems to be established in the synthetics above, which continues into our real gaming tests. Specifically, the passively cooled Arctic Senza AI 370 is the best choice for iGPU gaming if you don’t want to spend far more cash on the potent Panther Lake GMKtec EVO-T2. The Arctic consistently outclasses both the newer HX 470 processor-based challengers, though we see the Beelink SER10 Max with dual-channel RAM do much better than the Geekom A9 Max 2026, constrained by a single stick of DDR5-5600.

On Cyberpunk 2077, the Steam Deck and 1080p preset felt noticeably more fluid than the High 1080p option. If I were to persevere with this demanding title on the Senza AI 370, I’d perhaps try some form of upscaling to see if I could maintain the High quality setting but with an improved FPS.

It's worth repeating, the silent Senza seems to outclass the newer AMD challengers across gaming tests thanks to its superior memory subsystem based on its soldered 32GB LPDDR5X‑8000 dual‑channel RAM.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Arctic Senza AI 370

When I left the Senza AI 370 to idle, my power meter measured wattages at or below 10W from the wall for the whole system. When the system was pushed with simultaneous CPU and GPU benchmarks running, power draw seemed to peak at a little under 92W.

System tools showed that during light activities like browsing the web and typing reports like this one, the CPU temperature stayed around 30 degrees C. Playing The Division 2 for 30 or 40 minutes, the reported CPU temperature seemed to stay between 60 C and 70 C. It didn’t constantly creep upwards; it would sometimes go towards that upper bound, and sometimes fall again. However, running a workload like Cinebench R23 multicore the temperatures seemed to creep inexorably upwards, with the highest measurement I saw at 96 C.

Between tasks, the reported CPU temperature would fall very rapidly. I saw it dive from 75 C to 45 C in under 10 seconds after one of the recent benchmarks I completed. That’s pretty impressive given that there’s no fan.

In my testing before installing it under the desk, oddly enough, I could actually hear a sound when the YMTC PC411 SSD was being accessed. I'm unsure what it was, but I did notice it.

Software and Warranty on the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic’s Senza AI 370 ships with a clean copy of Windows 11 Pro installed. That's it. There were no bundled utilities, dashboards, or custom monitoring and tuning software. Arctic sells the Senza AI 370 with a two-year warranty.

Configurations of the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic sells just a single Senza AI 370 configuration: the one we tested with a AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370,32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a 1TB SSD. Windows 11 Pro is included, but Arctic says that the machine is Linux compatible.

Those in Europe can head directly to the official company website and snag a Senza AI 370 for the MSRP of €1,199.99. Meanwhile, UK buyers can grab a device from Arctic’s official Amazon web store for £910.49. Compared with many of the other mini PC prices we are seeing, that seems very reasonable for a fully populated mini PC with fast memory and storage plus unique silent / passive appeal. Those German and UK prices include VAT at 19% and 20%, respectively.

I asked Arctic about the availability of the Senza AI 370 in the U.S. and was told that no official distributor had been set up for this device. The company is seeding the device to U.S. media, however, to gauge interest in devices like this.

Bottom Line

If you want a mini PC that you can't see or hear, the Arctic Senza AI 370 is for you. Many will be attracted by mini PCs for their minimal physical footprint, but Combine that with its silence, well-behaved thermals, plus solid performance, and there's really not much to complain about.

Concerning performance, Arctic’s choice of soldered 32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a fast SSD gave this device equal or better application and gamingi performance compared to its newer-gen Ryzen 9 AI 470 HX equipped mini PC rivals we have tested recently. It is noticeably cheaper, too, but sadly not easy to grab if you live stateside right now.

AGI is back with another drive, this time with one more oriented at budget shoppers who want different capacity options with a heatsink. The AI828 slots in somewhere between the AI818 – a drive that didn’t impress us at all – and the AI858, a drive that was surprisingly good. The AI828 is a “one size fits all” type of drive that can work in a desktop, the PS5 console, or in a laptop if you don’t use the included heatsink. It’s not the best choice for any of these, but beggars can’t be choosers in this market. After all, we have PCIe 3.0 drives returning and entry-level drives like the TeamGroup NV5000 showing up, as well. The AI828 can outdo those and some of our original PCIe 4.0 favorites like the TeamGroup MP44L. Just don’t expect miracles.

AGI AI828 Specifications

The AGI AI828 covers every capacity you could ever hope for: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB. Unfortunately, only 1TB and 2TB units were available at the time of review. These were going for $239.99 and $449.99 which is on the expensive side in both cases. Right now, however, this drive comes in and out of stock and can be priced competitively. It’ll probably be difficult to find the 8TB SKU, though.

The drive can hit up to 7,400 / 6,700 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, with no specification for IOPS given. IOPS tend not to be important for this segment – that is, a budget drive – and AGI is likely mixing multiple controllers and flash types based on availability and cost, which makes it less straightforward to try and nail down performance numbers. However, we would expect it to match the Seagate FireCuda X1070, with more than enough performance for this class.

AGI’s warranty covers the drive for the standard five years, with a bit extra on the writes front: the drive can absorb up to 750TB of data writes per TB capacity. The industry standard is 600TB. You probably won’t need this amount of writes, but it can be reassuring nonetheless, especially when dealing with less well-known brands and drives. It also suggests, but doesn’t guarantee, that TLC flash is used on the drive.

AGI AI828 Software and Accessories

AGI does not offer any substantial, direct software support. We recommend using CrystalDiskInfo for monitoring the health status of your drive. For basic benchmarking, CrystalDiskMark is a good choice. If you’re looking to backup data we suggest MultiDrive for windows and either Clonezilla or Rescuezilla for bootable options.

AGI AI828: A Closer Look

This is a single-sided drive that comes with an optional heatsink. This makes it great for the PS5 and many desktops, with the heatsink, and for laptops without. As this is intended to be a budget drive, that’s a bonus, as often there is no heatsink option. It’s best not to have to worry about a drive overheating in any circumstance, and the heatsink is sufficient for the job, but may not always be necessary.

The drive is pretty barebones with a DRAM-less SSD controller, two NAND flash packages, and a power management IC. As there is room for four flash packages, this drive could very well be single-sided at even high capacities. Not having a DRAM package helps. The PMIC is an Active-Semi or Qorvo part similar to what we’ve seen on some WD drives in the past. Power management can be handled this way, with discrete components, or as an embedded feature of the controller, each method with its own trade-offs.

The use of the PMIC makes sense when we look at the alignment of the drive: the controller is in the center. Leaving enough space for four NAND flash packages is ideal for a budget drive, and having the controller in the middle can be beneficial in some ways. We remember the WD Black having this configuration to help with cooling and to make even-length traces to the flash packages. Cooling is also aided as the heatsink can spread heat out to either side, with flash usually running cooler than the controller. This gives the center, hottest area of the drive a lot of heatsink surface area to dissipate heat before thermal equilibrium is attained.

As for traces, SSD controllers generally have to contend with timing issues to make sure all the flash operates in tandem, and even small differences can impact latency and, ultimately, drive efficiency. While we don’t think you should buy a drive based on this arrangement, it shows attention to detail on AGI’s part, even though that’s probably giving them too much credit with this being focused on the lowest possible BOM cost.

The flash is not directly identifiable through decoding or through utility use. We suspect the flash can vary on this drive, anyway, especially at different capacities. Examples we’ve seen have used TLC flash, and that matches the endurance rating of the drive. On the other hand, the Seagate X1070 with the same controller and TLC levels of TBW is using Micron’s 232-Layer QLC flash. Looking at the performance characteristics of the drive as a whole, we’re limited by the controller and relatively small capacities on hand. Usually, you will have TLC flash with smaller SKUs as it offers higher baseline performance, as historically, QLC flash dies have been denser, which means fewer dies. However, in this era of 1Tb dies for both TLC and QLC, this is less of a certainty.

The flash that can be paired with this drive is somewhat limited to newer generations due to the required I/O speed, but there is still enough variance – especially if you take flash quality into consideration – that nothing is guaranteed. This isn’t particular to this drive, especially in the current market where flash supply is limited. Still, we can be reasonably certain that it won’t be using “bad” flash, which puts it a cut above lower-end drives that are once again becoming common.

MORE: Best SSDs

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Comparison Products

We’re pulling no punches. The AGI AI828 is going up against drives that can match or outclass it and are generally of a higher capacity. This puts the drive at a disadvantage, but we don’t really think it belongs in a lower class, either. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

The drive is up against some of the best DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 drives we’ve tested, with both TLC and QLC flash. These include the Crucial P310 with QLC, the Biwin Black Opal NV7400, the Addlink A93, the Inland TN470, and the WD Black SN7100 with TLC. The last one is using exceptional BiCS8 TLC, which has very low latency and very high power efficiency.

Drives that may be considered a step or half step lower include the Klevv CRAS C925 with different TLC flash, the Biwin NV7200 with QLC, and the Kingson NV3 with variable hardware. The AI828 is more of a match with these drives, but they are all tested at 2TB versus the 512GB and 1TB SKUs of the AI828. With fewer flash dies, the AI828 is at a disadvantage in some sequential workloads.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities, including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams. Future gaming benchmarks will be DirectStorage-inclusive, and an evaluation for future-proofing is included where applicable.

The AI828 is at the bottom of the chart, but it's not as bad as it could be. Poor performance at 512GB is to be expected – remember that most of the comparison drives are 2TB or larger. Such a low capacity for the AI828 does not allow for optimal use of newer, denser flash. Even at 1TB, things are stretched a bit.

We recorded 53µs for latency in 3DMark for the 2TB Seagate X1070, which means the AI828 1TB’s result here is actually not that bad. 50µs is far from a good score, but it's good enough for gaming. 512GB probably isn’t enough space for a gaming drive, but the AI828’s other capacities would work. This is not our first choice for a gaming drive unless it’s the least expensive, but your experience in general will not suffer from using it.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is an industry standard trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The results are particularly useful when analyzing drives for their use as primary/boot storage devices and in work environments.

Things are significantly better in PCMark 10, which is not entirely surprising, as the flash compatible with this controller is likely to be newer. We want to point out that this doesn’t necessarily help us discern the flash in use. QLC flash, for its part, can have surprisingly good read performance because, for one, you can end up reading hot data from the pSLC cache, and two, QLC tends to be optimized for 4KB reads to compensate for the flash’s slower native speed. So the flash type is not always made clear through synthetic tests.

We consider ~45µs to be an ideal target for drive responsiveness, and both capacities of the drive hit this. We should add that 44µs is the same score we got on the 2TB X1070, so we see nothing unusual here. As always, a drive with BiCS8 TLC or QLC flash – that would be the Black SN7100 here – is optimal for the very lowest 4KB read latency. However, the AI828 is quite fast enough to serve as a primary drive or as the only drive in your system.

Console Testing — PlayStation 5 Transfers

The PlayStation 5 is capable of taking one additional PCIe 4.0 or faster SSD for extra game storage. While any 4.0 drive will technically work, Sony recommends drives that can deliver at least 5,500 MB/s of sequential read bandwidth for optimal performance. Based on our extensive testing, PCIe 5.0 SSDs don’t bring much to the table and generally shouldn’t be used in the PS5, especially as they may require additional cooling. Check our Best PS5 SSDs article for more information.

Our testing utilizes the PS5’s internal storage test and manual read/write tests with over 192GB of data, both from and to the internal storage. Throttling is prevented where possible to see how each drive operates under ideal conditions. While game load times should not deviate much from drive to drive, our results can indicate which drives may be more responsive in long-term use.

Our main PS5 tests show no problems with the PS5. These would be the read test and the game transfer test from the M.2 SSD. The problem comes with the write test – game transfer test to M.2 SSD – where clearly the 512GB drive is not writing or not writing fully to the pSLC cache. Generally, this is not a problem in our testing because pSLC caches are large enough to handle even larger writes, plus drives have sufficient idle time to free up the cache. However, the cache size varies with capacity, so it is smaller at 512GB, and for drives using denser flash, especially that is going to be an issue.

This is not likely to be a real-world problem as a drive, and especially a PS5 drive, probably won’t be taxed this hard, and even if it is, the average speed here is still largely sufficient. This just demonstrates why smaller drives have gone away as the move to denser flash makes performance less consistent – even a 512GB drive lacks sufficient dies for optimal parallelization. In fact, it’s just one die per channel with 1Tb dies. On the other hand, SSD prices scale with flash, especially with the price hikes, which means lower-capacity drives are making a return. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t work well at this performance level. So you are left in a situation where you either have to make do with a much slower drive or spend enough money to get 1TB or more to make a faster drive worthwhile.

Transfer Rates — DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom 50GB dataset. We write 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to the test drive, then make a copy of that data to a new folder, and follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file. This is a real-world type workload that fits into the cache of most drives.

The AGI reads data fine, but struggles a bit during write workloads. This impacts copy performance, as writes are more limited than reads. Write performance can be impacted by the size of the pSLC cache, but if that is not too small, then it is impacted by the amount of parallelization the drive achieves. Smaller drives have fewer flash dies, and therefore less parallelization, and as a result write more slowly, which in turn reduces copy performance. This means the 512GB AI828 struggles to match the larger drives in this list, although, actually, its performance is not terrible for a drive of its size.

When you double the number of dies, you can reach up to double the speed, and with half the dies, you might drop to half the speed. The 512GB SKU here manages to maintain 1.1 GB/s, which, for this type of workload, isn’t world-endingly bad.

The 1TB SKU also struggles against the larger drives. The only other 1TB drive, the TN470, is near the bottom of the list. The budget NV3 is about as fast as the 1TB AI828. So, we can be somewhat happy with the AI828’s result. We’d figure that with at least a slower controller, the AI828 is going to fall behind the TN470. That doesn’t change the fact that this drive should be at a discount as a result. We are merely saying that the performance here is not unexpected, although things should be better at 2TB.

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes and at different queue depths for both sequential and random workloads.

Fundamentally, we don’t see any issues with the AI828 in ATTO. The dips for 1KiB and 2KiB writes, for example, have little to no impact on real-world performance. This is not only because you mostly feel the reads with consumer workloads, but because writes are preferably combined into full 16KiB pages, and typically your logical page will be at 4KiB. Likewise, the dip for larger writes with the smaller 512GB SKU is expected because you lack sufficient dies for parallelization. This could be an issue if you intend to write or store larger files to the drive, but then a 512GB drive is probably not ideal. One exception might be if it’s used externally, in which case picking a heatsinked drive is odd, but even if that weren’t the case, the typical NVMe to USB enclosure is rated for a meager 10Gbps, anyway.

Read performance is more problematic. The 512GB SKU still has issues with larger I/O for the reason mentioned, although this begins at a smaller size. You will likely have files or blocks at 128 KiB or larger, and your performance may suffer from going with a smaller drive. The 1TB drive is better off except at 2MiB, where we have a dip. We’ve in the past hypothesized this could be a flash alignment issue, which would suggest this drive uses six-plane flash. With the 2,400 MT/s requirement here, that would mean 232-Layer YMTC or Micron TLC.

In CDM, we can move right over to sequential reads and writes to get a fuller idea of performance. For example, both capacities are fine with sufficient queue depth, but at queue depth 1 – which is a realistic workload for file transfers – the smaller 512GB model struggles. It’s still within striking distance of the 2TB NV3, which means it’s actually pretty good for a drive of its size. The 1TB drive has no issues at all. We see something similar with sequential writes, except that the 512GB SKU sees no performance improvement with queue depth. It simply doesn’t have enough flash to eke out more than ~4.1 GB/s.

With random 4KB operations, though, the amount of dies won’t matter at QD1. This is because you’re only hitting one die at any given time. As a result, both capacities have the same latency for both reads and writes. This isn’t always the case, as sometimes a large-capacity model might have more overhead, or you may see different hardware combinations at some capacities. However, in this case, both drives are dead even. While the 4KB write latency is fine, the 4KB read latency is not great. However, this is actually better than the X1070’s 55.44µs we got at 2TB and is better than any of the 5 GB/s budget, PCIe 4.0 SSDs we’ve tested.

Again, we consider ~45µs to be excellent, with ~50µs being a second dividing point. The AI828 is close enough to put it above last-generation drives, but it’s slow enough to be relegated to game duty. The exception would be if you really only need 512GB and have to save money any way you can. In that case, this drive is passable, as you might otherwise be looking at older PCIe 4.0 or even PCIe 3.0 drives. This one still feels more snappy than those. At higher capacities and on a tight budget, if you can find the drive at the right price, it could also work, but would not be our first choice.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of pseudo-SLC (single-bit) programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC (three-bit) or QLC (four-bit) flash. Performance can suffer even more if the drive is forced to fold, the process of migrating data out of the cache in order to free up space for further incoming data.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds. This process shows the performance of the drive in various states including the steady state write performance.

The AI828’s first, fastest mode in pSLC writes at ~6.4 GB/s for 51 seconds with a 328GB cache on the 1TB SKU. Given that this is almost one-third of the full capacity, we’re dealing with TLC flash. This is a large cache, which means the drive will struggle once it’s depleted. That is the case with the 1TB drive, averaging below 200 MB/s in the post-cache mode. This is very slow, HDD slow, and even QLC flash slow, but that is not completely unexpected. A modern 1TB drive does not have enough dies to hit a higher speed, and if the cache is very large, as is the case here, the trade-off is slow performance outside the cache. The good news is that the large cache hides this very well in 99% of real-world cases.

The 512GB SKU has even fewer dies, too few to really manage sustained writes very well. It’s better in a read-heavy role, but it's too small for large media. In many cases, you’re better off with an HDD in that case. If, however, you need a smaller option for a primary drive in, say, an older machine, this could do the trick. Older machines benefit greatly from going to an SSD – especially an NVMe SSD – and will usually be read-heavy or even read-exclusive. If you are intending to get a small, 512GB caching drive, this is certainly not the way to go.

We must admit that, in our testing, the smaller SKUs’ cache size is tiny. This is highly unusual and points to AGI using a static cache in that circumstance. Such a small cache means the drive can rebound better, even with half the interleaving or parallelization of the 1TB drive, so it scores higher in steady state write performance testing. The use of static pSLC makes sense here to improve post-cache performance and potentially also to improve flash endurance. Static pSLC can lead to lower effective write amplification if you’re not doing big writes, and it is still ample enough to cache potentially damaging random writes. So, it’s possible AGI is making the best of a bad situation.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade, as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre stock storage in terms of capacity and performance. Desktops are often more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features, so we show the worst-case scenario for idle.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt, or efficiency, is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

For temperature recording, we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a ~22°C ambient. Our testing is rigorous enough to heat the drive to a realistic ceiling temperature, but real-world temperatures will vary due to the environment and workload factors.

Power efficiency is rough on the AI828. We also saw this with the X1070, so it must be chalked up to the controller. We suspect it’s because our workload is hard on the drive, and this controller is not as strong. You will likely not have issues with everyday, read-heavy activities. Also, our idle testing is for desktops, and a laptop with proper power-saving states will not be in as bad a shape. That’s all to say that we don’t think these results preclude the drive’s use in a laptop because, frankly, this drive isn’t fast enough to be an issue in most cases. We might recommend a different drive like the Black SN7100 if you're aiming at power efficiency or want/need a cool-running option, though.

Speaking of the heatsink, it kept both drives at a maximum temperature of 54°C. This means plenty of headroom, and the drive should be suitable for any machine that can take it. It won’t overheat. That’s a bonus for PS5 usage because the thermal envelope can be tighter.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications, such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus, disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

AGI AI828 Bottom Line

The AGI AI828, like the Seagate X1070, is not a great drive, but it’s also not one to dismiss. Memory prices have risen greatly within the last year, which impacts SSD prices through NAND flash costs and, sometimes, DRAM costs as well. An SSD’s cost is derived almost entirely from the flash, in fact. We’ve seen budget drives return in force, and we’re seeing low-end PCIe 4.0 and even PCIe 3.0 drives coming back.

This is also a reality for volatile memory markets – DDR4 is coming back, there was a threat that included even DDR3, and, believe it or not, DDR2 prices are increasing as well – with no end in sight. To put it simply, the AI828 would not have gotten far a year or so ago, but in the current climate, it’s not too bad. We feel that Seagate did a better job of presenting and supporting its drive, and, simultaneously, we feel like AGI has made improvements in its SSDs, so our score falls somewhere in between.

Let’s start with the good. AGI offers a wide capacity range for the drive, which is good for people who need 512GB or, theoretically, 8TB at a lower price. We think 8TB luxury buyers might opt for a faster drive like the Sandisk Optimus GX Pro 8100, WD Black SN8100, or Samsung 9100 Pro, or frankly, the less-expensive WD Black SN850X. The lower-end 512GB version of the AI828 perhaps makes more sense, but that’s one area where older technology might make sense. Newer flash is more dense and so really prefers higher capacities. On the other hand, the AI828 is more responsive than older drives, which is probably more important from a user experience perspective. So, despite some of the bad results, the fact that it’s using newer hardware is a bonus.

The drive also comes with a heatsink and runs pretty cool. It should be great for a normal desktop or in a PS5. It’s not very efficient, but that generally doesn’t matter in these two scenarios. Certainly not in most desktops, although there are exceptions. If you do have proper power-saving, it should be fine, though. The drive is designed to pull 5.5W or less at peak, which frankly isn’t concerning. So, we’re willing to give it a pass on the power side, although there are better options for laptops. One thing we have to mention again is that smaller SKUs don’t perform as well, and, since we’re testing at 512GB and 1TB today, the AI828 looks worse than it is. Most of the competition is sitting at 2TB because that was the sweet spot back when prices were sane.

It’s still hard to love the performance on this one. Like the X1070, which uses QLC flash, things are inconsistent across our benchmarks with relatively poor results on the whole. We opted not to put this one up against older or slower drives, even though some of those are making a comeback. The fact is, this drive will beat PCIe 3.0 and many lower-end PCIe 4.0 options and really shouldn’t be compared to those. You’re probably better off going with its newer tech unless budget is your only priority. Against other PCIe 4.0 drives in this range, however, even adjusting for capacity, it’s going to struggle. This drive has to be priced inexpensively to make sense, and if it is, we can recommend it for lighter duty.

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The latest board from the budget side of the Z890 lineup to land on our test bench is the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wi-Fi II. This updated Intel board is a streamlined revision of the original, optimized for Intel’s Core Ultra 200S Plus processors. It retains the same aesthetic, core power delivery, and DIY-friendly features, but has two connectivity downgrades: a single TB4 port (down from two) and reduced Wi-Fi 7 speeds. It’s a decent budget motherboard; it’s just that the feature-reduction refresh is a bit curious to me.

Currently listed at $229.99, the Tomahawk Wi-Fi II costs roughly the same as the original Z890 Tomahawk. Aside from the two downgrades, it also tweaks some header locations and, minimally, the aesthetics. Hardware-wise, you still get nearly everything from the original, including capable power delivery (19 phases, 90A MOSFETs), two Type-C ports (one TB4/40 Gbps) and seven Type-A USB ports on the rear IO. There's also Wi-Fi 7 and 5 GbE networking, a last-gen audio solution, along with MSI’s EZ DIY and EZ Overclock features.

Performance on the Tomahawk II was good overall with the MSI Performance setting, landing somewhere in the middle among the boards tested. In short, it’s competent across a wide variety of PC activities, including gaming, rendering, encoding, and office-type work. There’s nothing to worry about on the performance front.

Below, we’ll examine the board's performance and other features to determine whether it deserves a spot on our list of the best motherboards. But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from MSI.

Specifications of the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wifi II

Inside the Box

Inside the box, MSI includes a few accessories to help get your system running, hopefully, without a trip to the store. You get the typical array of guides and EU notices, a 1 to 3 EZ Conn-Cable (V2), Wi-Fi antenna, EZ M.2 clip remover, (2) EZ M.2 Clips II, and two SATA cables. There isn’t much here, but it is similar to other budget boards.

Design and Features of the Tomahawk Wifi II

Looking at the Z890 Tomahawk II, it’s tough to discern any aesthetic changes versus the original. It sports an all-black 6-layer, server-grade PCB design with black heatsinks all around. There are bright yellow/green branding accents on the chipset heatsink, the primary M.2 heatsink (for which I wish to see a larger one for the PCIe 5.0 M.2 socket underneath), and the top VRM heatsink. As for RGB lighting, the Tomahawk II, like the original, doesn’t include RGB lighting, though it does have multiple headers to connect your own. It’s not begging to be the showpiece of the build, but it surely looks good with a black build theme.

Focusing on the top half of the board, we get a better look at the capable VRM heatsinks and socket area. What is different on this board compared to many others is that the two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) are above the DRAM slots instead of above and to the left of the VRM heatsinks. In its place is the first (of seven) 4-pin fan headers. Each header supports PWM and DC devices, with current/power ratings ranging from 1A/12W (SYS_FAN1-6) to 2A/24W for the CPU_FAN1 and 3A/36W for the PUMP_SYS1 header. There’s plenty of power to go around. Header control is managed via the BIOS or MSI's Control Center software.

Below the EPS connectors are the four DRAM slots, each with a single locking mechanism at the bottom. With the CPU power leads so close above, it makes sense to have them on the bottom, where there is more room to access them. The board supports up to DDR5-9200 MT/s, which is plenty fast for the platform. Our own testing showed the board worked fine at DDR5-8800 MT/s with a 2x24GB kit, so there’s some headroom left with 2x16GB sticks to reach the listed peak.

In the upper-right corner and along the edge, we spy three more 4-pin fan headers, along with the EZ debug (4 LEDs, basic troubleshooting) and the 2-character EZ Digi-Debug LED, which offers more details on POST issues and doubles as a temperature display once booted.

Below that is the JAF_2 EZ-Conn-header V2, which allows you to connect ARGB LED strips, fans, and USB 2.0 devices (with the included adapter cable), saving space on the motherboard. Last but not least, on the top half is a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connector.

Power delivery on the Tomahawk II is capable and appropriate for this class of motherboard. It has 19 phases, 16 of which are dedicated to Vcore. Power is supplied to the Monolithic Power Systems (MPS) MPS2477 controller. From there, it heads to 16 MPS 90A SPS MOSFETs. The 1,440A available can handle the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, and even the Core Ultra 9 285K, even with overclocking. Just be sure to keep air flowing in your chassis, as the components here will get warm with sustained heavy use.

On the bottom half of the board, we’ll start on the left with the audio section. There, we see a couple of dedicated audio capacitors and the last-gen flagship codec, the Realtek ALC1220P. While this isn’t the latest/best audio codec available, it’s a good one and makes sense for most budget-class motherboards. You should still be happy with it, as it’s difficult to tell them apart without seeing the actual specifications anyway.

In the middle of the board are three full-length PCIe slots and four M.2 sockets. Starting with PCIe, the topmost slot has reinforcement, which MSI calls Steel Armor II. It is your sole PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and connects through the CPU. The bottom two slots connect via the chipset and support PCIe 4.0 x4. The top slot does not bifurcate, if you’re wondering.

Among and around the PCIe slots are four M.2 sockets. The top socket, M.2_1 (above the top PCIe slot and under the heatsink that, again, I wish were larger), is your CPU-connected PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) socket. The other three M.2s all connect through the chipset and run at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps), with M.2_4, the bottom-right socket, also supporting SATA-based M.2 devices. All sockets support up to 80mm modules and can run RAID 0/1/5 modes for redundancy and/or increased speed (RAID is not a backup). Between the PCIe slots, M.2, USB, and SATA ports, there is no lane sharing. You can fill all the slots and sockets and still receive the full bandwidth from each.

Finally, moving past the chipset heatsink to the right edge, are two of the four SATA ports (supporting RAID 0/1/5/10). The other two are mounted vertically along the bottom edge.

We've also captured several images of the IC's used to make this motherboard work consisting of a mix of Genesys Logic for a USB hub, Killer/Intel Ethernet, Realtek audio, and Monolithic Power Systems MOSFETs.

At the bottom of the board is a slew of headers. It offers your typical set of connectivity in this area, with nothing missing or worth a specific mention. Below we’ve listed all the connections across the bottom of the board.

• Front panel audio
• 4-pin RGB header
• 3-pin ARGB header
• 2-pin chassis intrusion header
• TB5 AIC header
• 8-pin PCIe connector
• (2) USB 2.0 (380 Mbps) headers
• (3) 4-pin system fan headers
• (2) 3-pin ARGB headers
• TPM header
• 2-pin Clear CMOS header
• Front panel headers

Flipping the board around to the rear IO, the Tomahawk II provides basic connectivity for the platform. You get everything, but compared to the original Tomahawk, you get one less Thunderbolt (40 Gbps) Type-C port. On the left, there's the HDMI (v2.1) output and the TB4/DisplayPort Type-C port, both of which work with integrated video. Next to that is a 10 Gbps Type-C port, while above that are the seven Type-A ports (3x 10 Gbps, 4x 5 Gbps). Below the USB ports are two buttons (BIOS Flashback and Clear CMOS). Next is the Killer 5GbE, the EZ antenna quick-connect for the slower (2.9 Gbps) Wi-Fi 7 connections, and the 3-plug (2x 3.5mm and SPDIF) audio stack. The next stack holds the 40 Gbps Thunderbolt Type-C port and the only USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) port. Next to that are four USB 2.0 ports, and the Realtek-based 2.5 GbE port stacked on top. Rounding out the USB ports back here are two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) ports.

There’s nothing particularly notable here, just a difference in TB4/40 Gbps port count (now one).

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Firmware

MSI has updated its BIOS and renamed it “Click BIOS X.” It arrives with improved aesthetics and functionality. The company changed the format to left-aligned headings, middle-aligned details, and right-aligned system status information, and it’s all logically laid out. Like most other board partners, it features an informational EZ Mode that offers high-level functionality, including access to Game Boost, PBO, XMP profiles, and more. The Tomahawk uses a black background with a yellow highlighting theme and is easy to read.

Overall, we like the layout (it's one of my favorites), and maneuvering around is intuitive after a short time, though it does take some getting used to.

Software

MSI Center is a single utility that offers a wide range of functionality. From hardware monitoring to RGB control with Mystic Light, the software has many applets and is a one-stop shop for downloading other utilities, including overclocking and fan control. Those looking to use the Gamebar feature, Super Charger, or any other utilities MSI offers will find them all in MSI Center. This is the latest version from early 2026.

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (25H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late April 2026. On the hardware front, we’ve updated the RAM kits to ones appropriate for the platform. Peripherals, including cooling, storage, power supply, and graphics cards, remain unchanged. We also use the latest publicly available BIOS unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:

TEST SYSTEM COMPONENTS:

• CPU - Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus
• Cooling - Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420
• Storage - Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD
• RAM - Kingston Fury Renegade - 32GB DDR5-7600 CL38 (KF576C38RWAK2-32)
• RAM - G.Skill Trident Z5 CK - 32GB DDR5-8200 CL40 (F5-8200C4052G24GX2-TZZ5CK)
• RAM - V-Color 256GB (2x128GB) DDR5-8000 CL64 (TECQ5128G80Q864K)
• GPU - Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G
• PSU - EVGA Supernova 850W P6
• Windows 11 64-bit (25H2 - 26200.8037)
• NVIDIA Driver 595.97

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results

Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features at default. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS, then set the memory by enabling the XMP profile. If there are boosts enabled by the BIOS by default, it runs like that. The Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) for this baseline testing, so the PC idles appropriately.

Synthetic Benchmarks and Real World Applications

Synthetics offer a valuable method for evaluating a board's performance, as identical settings are expected to yield similar results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are areas where motherboard manufacturers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and these settings can impact specific testing scenarios. We’ve also combined our previous ‘timed’ benchmark applications into this section.

Performance on the Tomahawk Wifi II was average among the tested boards. Nothing really stood out either way in this set of benchmarks.

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of the Arrow Lake refresh chips, we’ve updated our game tests. We’re keeping the F1 racing game but have upgraded to F1 25. We’ll continue with the ever-popular and aesthetically pleasing Cyberpunk 2077. We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed in the table above). Both games are set to use DLSS.

The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system-bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS metric, which can affect your gameplay and immersion.

As has been the case with previous motherboards and CPUs, the 3DMark tests don’t show much separation from worst to first, and we see that again across our varied datasets. 3DMark scores were fine, and gaming results were also comparable, although F1 25 was a bit slower and matched the previous-gen 285K for some reason. Still, it’s a performant board, just like the others. Whether you’re using the machine for office productivity, rendering, encoding, or gaming, the results are on par with others.

Overclocking

Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking on both sides of the fence, while out-of-the-box performance has increased. For overclockers, this means there’s less fun to have. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever, and an overwhelming majority support power-hungry flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them.

There are multiple ways to extract even more performance from these processors: manually adjust the settings or use some of the fancy AI overclocking board partners have been touting. Results will vary and depend on the CPU's cooling and quality. In other words, your mileage may vary. Considering the above, we’re not overclocking the CPU for these review articles. However, we will try out our different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications.

Memory testing went without issue. The board was stable with the DDR5-7600 kit, and we went all the way up to our (new) fastest kit, Kingston Fury Beast 48GB DDR5-8800, without issue during our 30-minute stress test.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, cache, and Memory enabled for power testing, using the processor's peak power consumption value. The wattage reading is obtained from the wall via a Kill-A-Watt meter, capturing the entire PC (excluding the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. We have moved to using only the stock power use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors.

Stress testing with our flagship-class 270K Plus and the Team Group DDR5-7600 kit at stock yielded a peak of 345W at the wall, which aligns with other boards. The Tomahawk II used 61W at idle. There’s nothing noteworthy, otherwise.

VRM temperatures ran warm, but are not a concern on this board. Throughout the 30-minute test, the system (excluding the monitor) averaged 233W, and our sensors on the back of the board, directly under the MOSFETs, recorded temperatures peaking at 58 degrees Celsius, while Hwinfo and the internal sensor showed temperatures peaking a couple of degrees lower at 56 degrees Celsius. That value is well within specification for the MOSFETs doing all the work below. We’re confident that the power delivery can handle anything you throw at it. Chances are, the CPU temperature will limit you before the board does, but always maintain good airflow to keep temperatures down.

Bottom Line

The Z890 Tomahawk II is an interesting new iteration compared to the original. For all intents and purposes, it’s the same board with native Core Ultra 200S Plus support. However, the II moves away from the Killer-based 320MHz Wi-Fi 7 to the slower (less expensive?) Intel/Mediatek Wi-Fi 7 solution and moves to a single TB4/40 Gbps Type-C port. The Wi-Fi speed is something most can overlook, as few have a Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem in the first place. And, again, for the overwhelming majority, it’s fast enough and supports plenty of concurrent connections. I still would like to see the second Thunderbolt port, though. Most users don’t have two devices that can each utilize 40 Gbps bandwidth, either. So while this likely doesn’t affect many, it’s still a small step back from the original – only a problem if you’re one of the few who need it.

Currently (at the time we published the article) priced at $229.99 (was just on sale for $199.99, so keep an eye out!) on Newegg, it’s on shelves alongside the Asus Prime Z890-P ($229.99 and recently reviewed), Gigabyte’s Z890 Gaming X Wifi7 ($219.00), and the ASRock Z890 Lighting Wifi at $211.99. If we look at the specs of competitors at a similar price point, we see that the Tomahawk II is similarly equipped, if not better. It’s the only one with 5 GbE, and all of these have one Thunderbolt 4/40 Gbps port. The Wi-Fi, you ask? These boards have a mix of Wi-Fi 6E and the even faster Wi-Fi 7.

So while we’re disappointed the Z890 Tomahawk II took a step back in some areas (one of the only reasons it didn’t make our best motherboards list), it isn't effectively any different than the more expensive competition. At the current sub-$230 price point, it doesn’t stand out from most others, and the original is still available for $229.99. If you need faster Wi-Fi 7 and an additional Thunderbolt/40 Gbps port, stick with the original Tomahawk. If you don’t need those features, the Tomahawk II is the preferred option if you can find it cheaper than the original Z890 Tomahawk.

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The 7700X3D always made sense. Ever since the 5800X3D released and showed itself as the best CPU for gaming (at the time), AMD has continued to double down on 3D V-Cache, dominating the competition from Intel in games by double-digit margins. Because of the immense success of X3D CPUs, we’ve seen several variations with lower bins. Originally we had the 7800X3D, and now we have the 7700X3D. It’s cheaper and has lower boost clocks, but it gives you the same eight Zen 4 cores and 104 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. It’s a 7800X3D for less money.

That, at least, is the assumption. Reality is a bit different.

• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D available exclusively at Newegg

A little less than two years after the 5800X3D released, AMD introduced the 5700X3D. Like the 7700X3D, it came with a cut to maximum boost clocks (400 MHz with the 5700X3D instead of 500 MHz here, but we’re splitting hairs), but still largely offered the gaming performance of the 5800X3D for less money. The problem here is that, although the 7700X3D could be a worthy successor to the 5700X3D, it’s too expensive.

The 5800X3D released in April 2022 for a suggested price of $450. Flash forward to January 2024, and the 5700X3D rolls out at $250. The 7800X3D launched in April 2023 for $450. The 7700X3D is arriving more than three years later in July 2026 for a suggested retail price of $330. It’s safe to call the 7700X3D a day late and a buck short, even ignoring the external pricing circumstances of the DIY market now.

That’s just a high-level analysis of launch pricing, too. Looking at prices now, the comparison is even more rough. Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the same price, within 5% of average gaming performance, 2X multi-threaded performance, and around 40% faster in single-core performance. AMD’s own Ryzen 7 7800X3D is, at the time of writing, available for $349, just $20 more than the 7700X3D (though I suspect that price will change). Buy a secondhand 7800X3D from Amazon, and it’s cheaper than the 7700X3D.

And, if you’re just focused on gaming performance and getting the best bang for your buck, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D is around $100 cheaper than the 7700X3D and within 2% of the average gaming performance.

The 7700X3D performs exactly how I expected it to. It’s not as fast as the 7800X3D, but if you squint hard enough, it’s close enough. It’s just too expensive. At $330, you’re almost forced to step up or down to AMD’s other Zen 4 X3D chips to get into a value sweet spot, and if you’re not solely focused on gaming, Intel offers much more powerful CPUs around the same price.

If the 7700X3D followed in the 5700X3D’s footsteps and released at $250 (even after three years of the 7800X3D on the market), it’d be a slam dunk. That’s not where we are for release, so let’s hope a price cut is waiting in the wings.

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D specifications and pricing

There’s a good chance the Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the last X3D processor we’ll see sporting AMD’s Zen 4 architecture, short of a potential Ryzen 5 7500X3D in the future. It further segments AMD’s last-gen lineup, and although there’s good pricing separation between each of the Zen 4 options, the spec differences are small.

For the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, the only spec difference it carries is a cut to clock speed compared to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. You lose 200 MHz on the base clock and 500 MHz on the maximum boost clock. It’s a similar setup to what we saw with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 5700X3D, just a bit more aggressive. The 5700X3D shaved 400 MHz off the base and boost clock of the 5800X3D.

Otherwise, you’re getting the same eight Zen 4 cores available in the 7800X3D, along with 104 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache (64 MB of that L3 is stacked on the CCD). It also comes with the same rated TDP of 120W, though as we’ll see throughout our benchmark results, the 7700X3D never crossed into triple-digit wattages during our testing.

The 7700X3D slots into existing 600- and 800-series motherboards, and AMD says that it will boot on existing AM5 BIOS images (though the company recommends flashing the latest firmware). We didn’t need to install a specific BIOS image or chipset drivers to boot with the 7700X3D, so if you already have an AM5 motherboard, you should be set. In addition, the 7700X3D does not come with a stock cooler, despite arriving in AMD’s larger box design that we saw in the previous generation.

Outside of the step up to the 7800X3D, there’s a step down to the 7600X3D, which trades two cores (and consequently 2 MB of L2 cache) for a bump to a 4.7 GHz boost clock. As we’ll get to in our gaming benchmarks, there’s something about the range of 4.5 to 4.8 GHz where these Zen 4 X3D chips hit their stride, and the 7700X3D just barely hits that range without PBO assistance.

The 7700X3D arrives at a recommended retail price of $330, putting it in hotly contested waters. Intel has its newer 270K Plus around that same price, while the last-gen Core i7-14700K lands closer to the $380 mark. Down a step, the 250K Plus is more than $100 cheaper at $220, while the Core i5-14600K is available for around $250.

For AMD, you can step up to the 7800X3D for a $50 premium (at current prices) or down $90-$100 and get the 7600X3D. Of this tight grouping of Zen 4 X3D chips, none of them are bad options purely for gaming. Deciding between them is tricky. We’ve seen the 7800X3D on sale for as low as $348, which is a negligible price difference compared to the 7700X3D. And even at list price, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D is significantly cheaper, yet comes within just two points of the average gaming performance of the 7700X3D.

It’s impossible to give a concrete conclusion about which is the best because even a minor sale of $20 or $30 off tips the scales. The 7700X3D isn’t a bad processor, but there are a lot of situations where it’s not the optimal choice, mainly due to its proximity in price to the 7800X3D. Given the 7700X3D’s performance, it would ideally be priced around $260 to $280.

You’ll spend much more if you want to get one of AMD’s latest X3D chips with the Zen 5 architecture, which represent somewhere around a 15% to 20% improvement in average gaming performance. The 9800X3D is the cheapest Zen 5 X3D processor right now, and you can expect to spend about $450 to $480 on one. AMD suggested to Tom’s Hardware that it’s looking into a cheaper Ryzen 5 9600X3D for a future release, but that’s not available at the moment.

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The Ryzen 7 7700X3D puts to bed any notion that clock speed is irrelevant in a modern gaming PC. The chip is sandwiched between two other X3D chips: the coveted Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the less-considered Ryzen 5 7600X3D. The 7700X3D shares its DNA with the 7800X3D, both sporting eight Zen 4 cores and 104 MB of combined L2/L3 cache. The 7700X3D just shaves 200 MHz off the base clock and 500 MHz off the boost clock.

As usual, we tested a suite of modern games at 1080p with a mixture of High and Ultra settings, and without upscaling or frame generation enabled. We use the RTX 5090 on our CPU test bench to remove any GPU bottlenecks and isolate CPU performance as much as possible.

Given that we have eight cores to play with, I expected the 7700X3D’s gaming performance to land closer to the 7800X3D, not the 7600X3D. That’s not the case. The 7800X3D is 4% faster than the 7700X3D on average in games, while the 7700X3D is just 2% faster than the 7600X3D. You don’t give up much performance with the 7700X3D compared to the 7800X3D, but on the other hand, you don’t gain much performance compared to the 7600X3D, despite a $90 to $100 difference in price.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D remains the fastest gaming CPU on the market, outside of the better-binned Ryzen 7 9850X3D, and it’s 19% ahead of the 7700X3D. Looking backwards a generation, the re-released Ryzen 7 5800X3D at $350 is in a tough spot. The 7700X3D is nearly 20% faster despite arriving on the market for $20 less. The impact of memory shortages has created some bizarre value comparisons, especially for CPUs.

Breaking out of the X3D bubble, Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 270K Plus remains potent competition. The 7700X3D is ahead by 5%, and slightly less compared to the Core i7-14700K, which isn’t as wide of a margin as we’re used to seeing with new X3D chips. Particularly when bringing application performance into the mix, which we’ll get to next, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus justifies a single-digit drop in gaming performance for how much it gains elsewhere; that’s assuming, of course, that you aren’t going for a pure gaming rig.

With Raptor Lake Refresh and Alder Lake chips, we tested with DDR5 memory (you can read more about our testing procedure later in this review). We tested DDR4 memory recently on these chips in our Ryzen 7 5800X3D re-review. That data is excluded here to keep the charts readable, but you shouldn’t expect miracles with DDR4. Based on our results, Raptor Lake Refresh chips with DDR4 are in the low single digits behind the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Outside of frame rate, you can see that the Ryzen 7 7700X3D landed squarely on 4.5 GHz in our gaming tests. Interestingly, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D locked in the same average as the 7600X3D at 4.7 GHz, despite the former boosting up to 5 GHz. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D also arrived at the lowest average power consumption, despite carrying a 120W TDP, clocking in just 0.1 W behind the 7600X3D.

The power consumption figures are interesting. The 7700X3D carries the same TDP as 7800X3D, but real-world power consumption is closer to the 7600X3D, which has a 65W TDP. And that lowered power consumption helps temperatures, with the 7700X3D clocking a cozy 55-degree Celsius average.

There’s headroom here in temperatures and power consumption for AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) to close the gap with the 7800X3D (but, then again, that chip has access to PBO, as well). We manually disable PBO in our testing, as it can push the chip outside of AMD’s default specifications, and in turn, void your warranty. If the warranty isn’t a concern for you, however, the 7700X3D should take nicely to a PBO bump.

007 First Light Benchmarks

007 First Light is the newest game in our test suite, and despite IO Interactive’s Glacier engine taking particularly well to X3D CPUs in Hitman 3, we see a shift toward Intel here. The 270K Plus is 7.6% faster than the 7700X3D, and that’s without optimization for Intel’s new iBOT feature. We can also see slightly weaker 1% lows on the 7700X3D compared to the other Zen 4 X3D chips, though nothing that completely changes the perceived smoothness.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks

Baldur’s Gate 3, on the other hand, sees a nice boost with 3D V-Cache, as evidenced by the fact that the 5800X3D nearly matches the much newer 9700X (though with worse 1% low performance). The 7700X3D is in lockstep with the 7600X3D, and just shy of 6% behind the 7800X3D. Compared to the 270K Plus, the 7700X3D handily earns a victory with a 16.7% lead in average performance.

Looking at clock speeds, you can see Baldur’s Gate 3 gets much more out of these chips than First Light, all without an increase in power consumption. That leads to some exceptional efficiency results, with the 7700X3D offering two and a half frames for every watt consumed.

Crimson Desert Benchmarks AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Crimson Desert is another recent addition to our test suite, and it shows remarkable CPU scaling in our benchmark of the dense city streets in the Hernand town center. Breaking from our other results, the 7700X3D is 6.9% ahead of the 7600X3D here, and just 1.3% behind the 7800X3D. The efficiency here is second to none at nearly three frames per watt. The 7700X3D is offering 7800X3D-like performance at 7600X3D-like power, which is the best-case scenario for this CPU.

Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks

Counter-Strike 2 offers a closer look at the importance of 1% low performance, with our averages exceeding 600 FPS across most of the test pool. The 7700X3D is just 1.1% faster than the Core i7-14700K on average, but we can see a 24.7% jump in 1% low performance. That’s a common theme among all the X3D chips we tested in this game. That smoothness is important here. With such high average frame rates, swinging 100 FPS (or more) in either direction isn’t uncommon.

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077 shows a much tighter contest in average performance. Here, the 7700X3D is in lockstep with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 14700K. Interestingly, the 7600X3D is a little faster here, though by less than a frame compared to the 7700X3D. Flipping over to our clock speed geomean, we can see what’s going on. Most of the chips in our test pool pushed up toward their maximum boost clock in this game, leaving the tame boost clock of the 7700X3D behind.

We’re looking at very tame power usage here, with an average of just 67 watts, and plenty of thermal headroom. PBO would help the 7700X3D push out a small lead over the Intel competition.

Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks

Doom: The Dark Ages is the only game in our suite using the Vulkan API, and it features always-on ray tracing. However, we still see CPU scaling even with such a GPU-focused pipeline. The 270K Plus squeezes out a marginal lead over the 7700X3D, but AMD’s chip is a bit more consistent in 1% low performance. The 250K Plus is especially impressive here, offering average performance on the level of $300+ CPUs for just $220.

As we can see from our clock speed results, the CPUs we tested ran comfortably below maximum boost clocks, suggesting the game is heavily threaded. As a result, the 7700X3D claims a clean 5% lead over the 7600X3D, nearly matching the 7800X3D.

F1 2024 Benchmarks

F1 2024 is an interesting benchmark because it provides yet another example of the 7600X3D outclassing the 7700X3D. The performance is close enough to call it identical, but I ran five passes on this game on both the 7600X3D and 7700X3D, and came away with the same results. Regardless, F1 2024 shows a massive advantage toward X3D chips, with even the lowly Ryzen 7 5800X3D beating every non-X3D chip in our test pool.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks

Far Cry 6 mirrors what we saw in Doom, with the 7700X3D, 7600X3D, and 270K Plus all arriving around the same average frame rate. We don’t see an upper ceiling like in Doom, however, allowing the 7800X3D to claim a lead of 6.9%, and the 9800X3D shooting ahead to a 30% lead.

The power use for the 7700X3D here is especially low, falling behind the 7600X3D by about 6%. There’s probably some small, untapped optimization here that would help the 7700X3D close the gap with the 7800X3D.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks

Final Fantasy XIV is another title that loves 3D V-Cache, and even among X3D CPUs, the game shows big jumps for newer architectures. The 7700X3D is 21% ahead of the 270K Plus here, but all of the Zen 4 X3D chips are tightly grouped between 175 and 180 FPS. In a blind shootout, it’d be impossible to tell between them.

Once again, the efficiency of the 7700X3D is remarkable at over three frames per watt consumed. The chip drew just 55.7 watts on average during our test, 32% lower than the 270K Plus and in line with the 7600X3D.

Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D slips in the rankings in Flight Simulator 24, clocking in a frame behind the 250K Plus and 4.6% behind the 270K Plus. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D enjoys a comfortable lead, but there’s very little difference between AMD’s Zen 4 X3D offerings. They remain the most efficient of the bunch, however, with average power consumption below 60W.

Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks

The 7700X3D once again trails Intel in Hogwarts Legacy, with the 270K Plus offering a 9% bump in average performance. The 7700X3D is a marginal 1.5% faster than the 7600X3D in this game, and it trails the 7800X3D by 3.8%. The 9800X3D, meanwhile, is a staggering 29% faster than the 7700X3D.

Marvel Rivals Benchmarks

The Unreal Engine 5-based Marvel Rivals remains the most popular hero shooter on Steam, but despite its technical backbone, the game shows clear CPU scaling at 1080p. As expected, the 7700X3D is marginally faster than the 7600X3D, and 5.1% behind the 7800X3D. Similar to Hogwarts Legacy, Intel holds an advantage with Arrow Lake refresh, though at significantly higher power draw and worse efficiency as a result.

Minecraft RTX Benchmarks

Minecraft is easily the most difficult benchmark for Intel. We’ve seen consistently low performance out of Arrow Lake CPUs in this test. Note that our Minecraft test uses a render chunk distance of 96, specifically stressing the CPU and memory chain to it.

Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks

Spider-Man 2 shows the 270K Plus once again besting the 7700X3D, this time by 4.9%. The 7800X3D also offers around a 5% jump. We can again see clock speed acting as a big influence in this test, but that extra clock speed comes at the cost of increased power draw, with the 270K Plus nearly doubling the average wattage of the 7700X3D in this test.

Starfield Benchmarks

Starfield is one of the few examples where we can see a clear benefit of the 7700X3D over the 7600X3D, with the former posting a 6% lead. The 270K Plus is slightly ahead of the 7700X3D, with a 3.6% lead, while the 7800X3D pushes further with a 6.7% jump in average performance.

The Last of Us Part One Benchmarks

Rounding out our game suite is The Last of Us Part One, where both the 270K Plus and 7800X3D are around 6% faster than the 7700X3D. AMD’s latest CPU is 5% faster than the base Ryzen 7 7700X, and 4% faster than the 7600X3D. You can see AMD’s non-X3D chips running into a performance wall, with the 7700X and 9700X posting virtually identical results.

This is one of the few games where the 7700X3D consumed more power than the 7600X3D, though only with a 5% bump to average wattage. Still, that’s enough for the 7600X3D to steal the top slot in efficiency away from the 7700X3D, which sits at the top of the efficiency rankings in most other titles.

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AMD’s X3D chips are built first and foremost for gaming, with only niche (and expensive) chips like the recent Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 pulling double duty in gaming and productivity applications. The hindered clock speed of the 7700X3D means it struggles even moreso than the 7800X3D in lightly- and heavily-threaded applications, which is already an area of weakness.

In our multithreaded geomean, the 7800X3D is 6.9% ahead of the 7700X3D while the base Ryzen 7 7700X is 12.8% ahead. AMD’s latest non-X3D eight-core, the Ryzen 7 9700X, is around 13% ahead with its default 65W TDP and a massive 28% ahead in its 105W TDP mode. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D pushes things even further with a 37% lead.

Short of the Ryzen 5 7600X3D, which the 7700X3D leads by a clean 25%, AMD’s latest X3D chip is at the bottom of the pile for multithreaded performance, at least among our DDR5 offerings. The comparison isn’t great among AMD’s offerings, but it's far worse among Intel’s.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is 130% ahead, more than a 2X increase. We’re comparing radically different architectures and core counts, but the 270K Plus is leaps and bounds faster than the 7700X3D in multithreaded applications, and within 5% in games. Even the $220 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 70% ahead in our multithreaded geomean. The 7700X3D wins for gaming, even if its lead is small. But if you even just dabble in apps like Handbrake, Blender, and DaVinci Resolve, you’re giving up a lot of performance at this price with the 7700X3D.

The margins are always tighter in our single-threaded geomean, but the limited clock speed of the Ryzen 7 7700X3D means it ends up below every other DDR5 option in our test pool. The 7800X3D is 10% ahead, while the 9800X3D pushes ahead with a 25% lead. The base Ryzen 7 7700X also leads by a clean 20% margin.

In Intel’s camp, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is 42% ahead, while the 250K Plus is 33% faster. The Core i7-14700K and Ryzen 7 9700X are in lockstep, both beating out the 7700X3D by around 29%.

Single-threaded performance is especially limited on the 7700X3D, not only due to lower maximum boost clocks, but also the SRAM stacked on top of the CCD. It acts as an insulating layer between the CCD and IHS, giving you minimal headroom for large clock speed boosts on a single core, even with manual overclocking and robust cooling.

Rendering Benchmarks

In demanding rendering workloads like Cinebench, Blender, and POV-Ray, the 7700X3D struggles. The 4.5 GHz boost clock limits single-core performance, while the underlying Zen 4 architecture can’t scale up to AMD’s modern eight-core offerings. And, bringing Intel into the mix, strong single-core performance and Intel’s hybrid architecture with large core arrays allow Team Blue to sit near the top of the chart in most of our testing.

In Cinebench 2024, the 270K Plus was 135% faster than the 7700X3D in a multi-core render. The base 7700X, meanwhile, is 10% faster and the 9700X with its 105W TDP is 21% faster. Single-core performance shows big gaps, as well. The 7600X3D is faster than the 7700X3D with its higher boost clocks, while the 270K Plus offers around a 39% boost in performance.

There are even bigger gaps elsewhere. In POV-Ray, the 270K Plus is nearly three times as fast as the 7700X3D in the multi-core test. In Blender, the 7700X is 11% faster than the 7700X3D, and the 9700X 24% faster, in the Monster scene. And in V-Ray 6, even the $220 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 66% faster than the 7700X3D.

In heavily-threaded workloads, the 7700X3D and 7800X3D offer very similar performance, with a slight edge to the latter. We only see a big divergence between them in single-threaded workloads.

Encoding Benchmarks

Alongside rendering, our encoding benchmarks factor heavily into our geomean. We can also see a repeat here of what we saw in our rendering benchmarks, particularly among heavily-threaded video encoders like Handbrake. Across codecs, the 270K Plus is usually twice as fast (and sometimes more), while the non-X3D 9700X offers around a 30% boost depending on the codec. Compared to the 7800X3D, the 7700X3D is 7% slower with x265 and AV1.

In single-threaded audio encoding via LAME, the 7800X3D was nearly 9% faster than the 7700X3D, and that gap grows to nearly 10% in our extended LAME results.

Surprisingly, there’s a decent gap between the 7700X3D and 7800X3D in our image encoding/decoding benchmarks. In our multi-threaded JPEG-XL decode, the 7800X3D is 7% faster, while the 9700X is 26% faster. Similar margins appear in the encode.

Creator App Benchmarks

Creator applications like the Adobe suite and DaVinci Resolve are some of the most important for the 7700X3D; if you’re building a PC for gaming, the most likely non-gaming workload is some sort of video or photo editing application. These applications feature a ton of workloads spanning heavily-threaded and lightly-threaded tasks, so the margins between chips are much tighter.

Starting with Photoshop, AMD holds a strong position in this application across all of its CPUs, 7700X3D included. It matches the 14700K and closes in on the performance of the 270K Plus. The scales turn toward Intel in Premiere Pro, with the 270K Plus outperforming the 7700X3D by 9.5%. However, the 7800X3D is only a meager 1.9% ahead. We can see a similar situation in DaVinci Resolve.

Rounding out our tests is After Effects, where the 7800X3D is around 5% faster than the 7700X3D, and the 270K Plus is more than 30% faster.

Web and Office Benchmarks

General-purpose web and office workloads are usually lightly-threaded, so the 7700X3D struggles in these benchmarks. However, all of the CPUs in our test pool are more than capable of running these workloads, so although the 7700X3D often ends up near the bottom of the pile, the performance difference in real-world use isn't as big as the numbers would suggest.

In web-based workloads measured via WebXPRT, you can see the 7700X3D only manages to outclass AMD’s DDR4 options in our test pool, even falling short of the Core i7-12700K. Those single-core speeds really put a damper on performance here, though the extra two cores on the 7700X3D allowed it to achieve 15% better application start-up time than the 7600X3D in PCMark 10.

Microsoft Word and Outlook show similar performance differences, but the 7700X3D gains back some places in Excel and PowerPoint. A strong performance in Excel is important, but PowerPoint is tricky. As you can see from our results, the 7700X3D actually outperformed the 7800X3D; that’s just a consequence of PowerPoint not being a demanding application to run in most situations.

Chess Engines, Compilation, Compression, AVX, and Other Benchmarks

Rounding out our application tests are a series of highly specific workloads. We have a mixture of practical workloads like LLVM code compilation and compression/decompression with various algorithms, as well as some tests like various chess engines that drill down on IPC and applications like Optcarrot, which is an NES emulator looking at Ruby application performance.

Depending on what you plan to do with your PC, many of these workloads might not be applicable to you. Because of that, they aren’t included in our geomean, as some CPUs scale especially well in these niche workloads in a way that isn’t representative of overall performance.

SPEC Workstation 4 Benchmarks

Similarly, we run SPECWorkstation 4. We already run a subset of the tests included in SPEC in our own benchmark suite, but our full SPEC results give you numbers for the particular benchmark configuration used in the suite, as well as some additional scientific and security results.

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The 7700X3D is one of the most efficient gaming CPUs on the market, even offering more performance per watt than the 7800X3D. It’s highly optimised for that workload. Outside of games, power consumption remains very low, often below 80W even in all-out heavily-threaded tasks. Performance also slips, however, leading to worse efficiency.

Starting with raw power consumption, the 7700X3D averaged just 74W during a multithreaded Cinebench 2024 run, matching the 7600X3D. Again, the 120W rated TDP here is interesting, as the 7700X3D isn’t pushing past what the 7600X3D demands. In Blender and Handbrake, we can see the two chips in lockstep, as well.

The 7700X3D justifies its higher TDP a bit more in Linpack, where it drew 74W to the 7600X3D’s 65W. It’s worth highlighting our single-threaded y-cruncher pass, as well. In this test, the 7700X3D drew less power than the 7600X3D.

Outside of heavy workloads, we also measure idle and active idle (YouTube playback) power, and the 7700X3D does surprisingly well in these tests. As you can see from our two Zen 3 chips, AMD’s idle power consumption increased massively with a switch to a DDR5 platform with Zen 4. The 7700X3D pulls that idle power consumption back significantly, even compared to the 7600X3D and 7700X3D.

Turning to efficiency, you can see that the 7700X3D remains one of the most efficient options out of our test pool, though the margins are much thinner. In games, the X3D stack blows everything else away, but in Handbrake, we can see the 9700X offering similar efficiency. More interesting is the 270K Plus. The 7700X3D is 33% more efficient in our Handbrake x256 encode, but the two CPUs are in completely different performance classes.

When there’s such a wide disparity in application performance, these efficiency numbers can look a bit skewed. Cinebench provides a good example of that. The 7700X3D was nearly 40% more efficient than the 270K Plus, but the 270K Plus is around two and a half times as fast in this test. The 270K Plus and 9800X3D offer identical efficiency metrics, on the other hand.

A clearer way to visualize that is with a scatterplot. You can see in our Blender scatterplot, for example, a tight grouping of AMD’s processors around the bottom left of the chart, noting great efficiency but weaker performance. There are a few CPUs that hit an efficiency sweet spot, most notably the 9800X3D and 250K Plus.

Test Setup

We use a frozen test image and nearly identical test benches across the platforms in our pool. You can see the exact configuration we used for testing below. All of our tests are run on the same stack, including the OS build, chipset drivers, GPU drivers, and application versions. Particularly in game testing, where new updates are released constantly, we retest every chip in our test pool to validate our results, opting for the latest data for each CPU.

Our AMD and Intel test images never mix, so there aren’t remnants of AMD drivers on an Intel platform or vice versa. Across both vendors, we enable EXPO/XMP, turn off Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), and enable ReBAR. We also don’t enable any motherboard-specific optimizations, such as Gigabyte’s X3D Turbo Mode, as that adds an uncontrolled variable to our testing (and can sometimes even hurt performance).

On that thread, we also explicitly disable any performance profiles or optimizations that push the processor outside of warrantied operating specifications. That means running with Intel’s default performance profile (enforced power limits) and disabling PBO. Both push the processor out of the warrantied specifications.

• MORE: Best CPU for gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: Intel vs AMD
• MORE: How to Overclock a CPU

It’s surprising we didn’t see the 7700X3D sooner. AMD has told us that the 7700X3D (and the re-released 5800X3D) are both targeted releases to ease the burden of high DDR5 prices, but just like with the 5800X3D, it feels like AMD could’ve done more to ease that burden. The 7800X3D has already approached the MSRP of the 7700X3D with sales, and the 7600X3D has clearly come out on top as the value-focused option among AMD’s Zen 4 X3D CPUs.

It’s a tough pricing situation regardless, a consequence of continuing to bin and release various versions of largely similar silicon. Still, the 7700X3D has a pricing window. That window just doesn’t exist at $330. At $300, it would be more competitive with the rest of the market, and at $280, it’d be a difficult CPU to contend with. At $250 like we saw the 5700X3D, it’d be a no-brainer. $330 is the maximum price where you might be able to justify the 7700X3D, and that’d only be if you completely ignore CPUs going on sale and wipe out Arrow Lake Refresh from your memory.

The two CPUs that remain the most potent competition are Intel’s 270K Plus and the 7600X3D, not the 7800X3D. On sale, the 7800X3D is the better buy, full stop, but if the 7700X3D is targeting gamers that want to stretch their dollar the furthest, the 7600X3D offers a lot more value.

You can see that clearly in our gaming geomean. The 7600X3D is just 2% slower than the 7700X3D on average, and even in extreme situations, the performance gap between them never approaches double digits. The 7800X3D and 7700X3D offer a similar value at list price, which is about half a frame per dollar. Meanwhile, the 7600X3D offers three-quarters of a frame per dollar.

The value isn’t bad with the 7700X3D, make no mistake. It’s in line with the 270K Plus and 7800X3D, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a value-focused alternative to the 7800X3D, but it doesn’t provide much additional value. At around $280, it’d shoot up in the value rankings and become much easier to justify.

On the other end of the spectrum is Intel’s 270K Plus. It’s 5% slower in average gaming performance than the 7700X3D, but it makes up for that small gap with more than twice the multithreaded performance of the 7700X3D. Even if you only commonly use one non-gaming application, the performance uplift of the 270K Plus is large enough to justify a small hit to gaming performance.

With most 3D V-Cache CPUs, the drop-in application performance is easy to justify, even if the boost in gaming performance can’t keep pace. You buy an X3D chip primarily for playing games, not compiling code, running Fourier Transforms, or building a web server. Here, however, the margins in gaming are some of the smallest we’ve seen between X3D and non-X3D CPUs, while the margins in applications are some of the largest.

There’s three paths away from the 7700X3D right now. The 270K Plus offers a much more well-rounded CPU around the same price. The 7600X3D delivers the gaming value that the 7700X3D is sorely lacking, and the 7800X3D is only slightly faster in games, but it’s also only slightly more expensive. Hopefully we’ll see the 7700X3D drop to between $250 and $280. At that price, it’s a CPU worth considering. At its current price, it’s hard not to go with another option.

• MORE: Best CPU for gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: Intel vs AMD
• MORE: How to Overclock a CPU

Over the past several years, I’ve reviewed a growing number of augmented reality (AR) glasses. For the most part, these shades share the same mission: to give consumers a way to enjoy video content and even work on productivity tasks with a Mac or Windows device via a 150-inch (ish) virtual screen.

Most of these glasses top out at a 120 Hz refresh rate and weren’t designed specifically for a gaming audience (though many can be used for gaming). That is changing with the Asus ROG Xreal R1, which is a collaborative effort from two big names in tech. Not only does the R1 boost the maximum refresh rate to 240 Hz to appease hardcore gamers, but it also serves as a breakout box for gaming on your PC, Xbox, PlayStation, or Switch.

The R1 promises and delivers a lot, but it comes at an even higher price than Asus’ AirVision M1, which debuted at $700 two years ago.

Design of the Asus ROG Xreal R1

Although it shares many of the same internals as the Xreal One Series AR glasses, the R1 has an unmistakable ROG flair. Whereas the “One” glasses have smooth surfaces and rounded edges, the R1 has a more angular design and chamfers along the temples. And in keeping with ROG design ethos, there is a line of 9 LEDs along both temples, along with Republic of Gamers etchings.

The glasses are constructed from high-quality plastic, which feels similar to that of the Xreal One and One Pro. But whereas the Xreal glasses have a soft, matte finish, the R1 has a shimmering grey finish. Unlike the One glasses, the R1 doesn’t have a detachable front frame, which probably isn’t too much of a hindrance, as the glasses already have a clean, modern aesthetic when viewed from the front.

The R1 features open-air speakers along the temples, with a USB-C port at the rear of the left temple. The top of the right temple features a programmable Quick button. On the underside of the right temples, you’ll find a menu button and a rocker switch that navigates through the menu system. When the menu is inactive, that same rocker switch adjusts the display brightness.

The R1 uses a flat-prism lens design, resulting in much less visual heft near your eyes than traditional bird bath lenses. This design also results in a 57-degree field of view, which is identical to the One Pro. Content is projected using dual 0.55-inch Sony Micro-OLED displays, featuring a 0.01 ms response time and a 240 Hz refresh rate (double that of competing AR glasses) with Frame Rate Boost enabled. The glasses can also project an image equivalent to up to 171 inches across at a distance of 4 meters.

Three levels of electrochromic dimming are offered on the R1. The darkest setting blocks most, but not all, environmental light to heighten the sense of immersion while gaming or viewing media content. Electrochromic dimming is a must at this price point, since less expensive glasses rely on cheap physical plastic light blockers to achieve the same effect. And the physical light blockers are an all-or-nothing affair, with no granularity in their light-blocking abilities.

One other item of note: The R1 features the same accessory port between the nose pads that accepts the Xreal 6 DoF camera module.

In addition to the R1, the retail box includes a hard carrying case, the USB-C-to-USB-C cable, a prescription lens frame, small and large nose pads, a polishing cloth, and the ROG Control Box.

Specifications for the Asus ROG Xreal R1

Asus Xreal ROG Control Dock and the Asus DisplayWidget Center

Our R1 review unit shipped with the ROG Control Dock. It’s a lightweight accessory designed to connect your R1 glasses to a PC or gaming console. The front of the unit has a single USB-C port for video out to your glasses. The back panel features two HDMI ports and a DisplayPort for video input. There are also two USB-C ports: one for power-in and one for power-in and data.

The dock ships with two USB-C-to-USB-A cables for connecting power and managing data throughput from your PC.

The top of the unit features a power button, an exit button, and a joystick to navigate the glasses' OSD. If you don’t want to install any additional software, you can control all R1 settings (including screen brightness, refresh rate, color modes, tint level, and more) using the joystick and the OSD.

However, I found that the easiest way to control (most of) the R1’s settings is to use the Asus DisplayWidget Center. After installing the app, the R1 appeared as a controllable “display” within it. From there, I could control R1 settings via three menu tabs: Gaming, Visual, and Spatial Screen. The only option under Gaming is to enable Frame Rate Boost, which allows you to set a maximum refresh rate of 240 Hz (up from the default 120 Hz). From the Visual tab, you can control the tint level for the electrochromic lenses, brightness, text sharpness, and color temperature. In the Spatial Screen tab, you can adjust the screen aspect ratio, screen size, screen distance, IPD (57 to 66 mm), and control spatial lock.

Using the Asus Xreal ROG R1

The R1 is designed with gaming in mind, so I dedicated most of my time to testing it in that environment. For my testing, I used two different gaming rigs: a desktop PC with a Core 7 Ultra 265k and an RTX 4060 Ti, and an MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ handheld gaming PC with an Arc G3 Extreme SoC.

Without question, working with the desktop system was the most involved, as it required using the ROG Control Dock with various wires going in and out for video and power. However, using the R1 with the Claw 8 EX AI+ proved to be the simplest, with me only needing to plug the glasses into a free Thunderbolt 4 port.

I’ll take the time here to talk about the much-ballyhooed 240 Hz refresh rate option. This mode is enabled by selecting Frame Rate Boost from the R1’s OSD. However, I found that switching to this mode resulted in worse image quality, with a blurrier image and some jitter (especially at the outer edges of the viewable area), which led to eye strain. The effect was noticeable when using the ROG Control Dock and when plugged directly into a Thunderbolt 4 port. This is the byproduct of Asus and Xreal using a software algorithm to “boost” the frame rate from its native 120 Hz.

I experienced none of the visual anomalies in the native 120 Hz mode, so the 240 Hz mode was more of a novelty to me than something I’d rely on extensively for gaming. However, your experience may vary in this respect. The R1 supports an IPD range of 57-66 mm, and I’m just outside that range at 71 mm. So it could have been that my eyes were more sensitive to the 240 Hz mode.

While gaming on the desktop, I was able to play Battlefield 6 at 1080p and achieve over 100 FPS with DLSS Balanced enabled at High quality settings. Likewise, I easily hit similar FPS with details maxed out playing Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

The monitor I use for gaming is a 49-inch DQHD 240 Hz OLED, and I love the widescreen gaming aspect ratio. Being limited to 1080p resolution just didn’t seem to do the desktop gaming experience justice for me when using the R1. Yes, the image quality and response times are good, but if I’m sitting at my desk, I’d rather use my monitor.

That whole sentiment changes, however, when gaming on the Claw 8 EX AI+. Going from the 8-inch 1200p display to the simulated 171-inch 1080p display, with no limits on mobility, is an amazing experience. Since there’s only one cable to manage, going from the R1 to the handheld, you have great freedom in where you can game. From gaming on the couch, to the car, to your back porch, to sitting at the airport during a layover – the big-screen sensation that isthe R1 follows you anywhere.

Given the Xreal One Pro starting point, it’s no surprise that the R1 uses similar (or perhaps the same) Bose-tuned open-air speakers. As with the One Pro, the speakers are decent, with a respectable amount of bass and clarity at moderate to high volume levels. If you just want a low-impact, throw-on-and-go experience with the R1 and a gaming handheld, you’ll be more than pleased with the sound output. However, if you want the best mobile gaming experience, nothing is stopping you from also wearing a high-quality pair of wireless earbuds or headphones.

Bottom Line

The Asus ROG Xreal R1 glasses are a real testament to what’s possible when two companies at the top of their game work together on a singular product. Xreal is arguably the leader in modern AR glasses, while Asus is among the leading players in gaming peripherals, laptops, and handhelds. They’ve created an impressive product with a 240 Hz refresh mode, customizable RGB lighting effects, and support for the existing Xreal accessory ecosystem (namely the Xreal Eye camera).

The included ROG Control box lets you connect an HDMI or DisplayPort output from your graphics card to the glasses. It also provides quick access to the R1’s controls using the top-mounted joystick.

But the R1 really comes alive when used with a handheld gaming PC like Asus’ own ROG Ally, or a competing device like the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. The R1 connects to these devices via a single cable and delivers a fully “mobile” gaming experience projected onto a virtual 171-inch display.

However, the primary sticking point with the R1, like many other high-end AR headsets, is the price tag. $849.99 is a tremendously high price, even with the ROG Control Box included. For example, the Xreal One Pro is $599, the Xreal One S is $449, while the RayNeo Air 4 Pro will set you back just $239. If you look past the 240 Hz mode (which can be hit-or-miss depending on the person), is the R1 really worth $250 more than the One Pro, or over $500 more than the Air 4 Pro? The objective answer is no on both counts.

ASRock is well known among PC enthusiasts for its graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, and gaming monitors. Now, it has entered the market for liquid cooling solutions.

We’re looking at two of the company’s first AIOs here, the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and Steel Legend 360 LCD. Both of these liquid coolers feature 3.4-inch 480 x 480 displays for showing off animations and monitoring performance metrics. Aside from aesthetics, the main differences between the two are the included fans and radiator size. The Steel Legend 360 incorporates a standard 27 mm thick radiator, whereas the Phantom Gaming 360 uses a thicker-than-normal 32 mm radiator.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the coolers, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks and decide whether ASRock’s Phantom Gaming and Steel Legend AIOs deserve to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of ASRock Phantom Gaming & Steel Legend 360 LCD

▶️ 60hz 3.4-inch LCD display

Both the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and the Steel Legend 360 LCD include a 3.4-inch square IPS screen with a 480 x 480 resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate, with brightness rated at 250 nits.

To control and customize the screen, you’ll need to download ASRock’s Polychrome Display software. You have the option of selecting six preset themes, or you can build your own theme, and/or customize the individual elements shown on the display.

While I certainly wish there were more presets available, my biggest complaint using this software is the extreme file compatibility limits. If you’d like to upload a custom background, the image or video file needs to be less than 20 megabytes and 1080p or lower in resolution.

▶️ RAM Clearance

As with most liquid coolers, the design of both the Steel Legend and Phantom Gaming 360 has the CPU block set so it doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots – ensuring that all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible.

▶️ VRM fan

Included on top of the CPU block is a 70 mm, 3,000 RPM fan designed to help keep your RAM and motherboard’s VRM modules cool. As you’ll see in our Karhu benchmarks, it does an excellent job of cooling these parts of your computer.

▶️ Thick CPU cold plate

The copper contact plate is unusually thick, like you’d more typically see in an AIO supporting AMD Threadripper or Intel Xeon server CPUs.

Differences between the ASRock Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and Steel Legend 360 LCD

▶️ Color schemes and aesthetic

While they are similar in many ways, each of these AIOs has a different aesthetic, similar to what you’d see in the company’s motherboard lines. The Steel Legend might appeal to those who prefer simpler designs, with a white body and gray fan blades.

If you want flashy lighting, the Phantom Gaming 360 might be your thing. In addition to ARGB lighting on the fan blades, it also includes a lighting strip across the side of the radiator.

▶️ Radiator sizes: 32 mm and 27 mm

There are two primary technical differences between the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and the Steel Legend 360 LCD; one of those is the radiator size. The Steel Legend 360 LCD has a standard 27 mm radiator, whereas the Phantom Gaming 360 features a thicker 32 mm radiator.

▶️ 120 mm fans

There’s more to a liquid cooler than just the radiator and liquid pump. The included fans directly impact noise levels and cooling performance. This constitutes the second primary technical difference between the AIOs we’re reviewing today.

Both units include fans that are 28 mm thick and pre-installed for user convenience. The Steel Legend 360 features three individual 120 mm fans, with a white shell and gray blades.

The Phantom Gaming includes a fancier fan block instead of individual fans, and features ARGB lighting on the fan blades and a strip across the radiator. These fans aren’t as powerful – or as noisy – as the fans included with the Steel Legend, but this is balanced by the thicker 32 mm radiator included on the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD.

Packaging

The outer packaging is a bit flashy – at least, in comparison to your normal AIO box. It features a rendering of the cooler against a black background with streaks of purple hues.

The inner packaging is just as fresh as the outside, with each component of the cooling system well protected from the chaos that shipping can bring by using a combination of soft covers and individual cardboard walls for each component.

Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Tubing clips
• A small tube of thermal paste
• 360 mm radiator and 120 mm fans
• 3.4-inch LCD display

AM5 Installation

This section assumes you’ve already mounted the 360 mm radiator. Installation of AIOs is typically much easier when you have already secured the radiator to your computer case.

To begin putting things together, you’ll first need to remove the default AM4/5 retention from the motherboard.

The next step is to place the mounting bars on top of the studs, securing them with the included screws. The middle of the mounting bars includes a helpful image indicating the direction the bars should be installed, with an arrow pointing towards where the CPU should be.

Now you’ll want to apply the included thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

Afterwards, place the pump block against the CPU and mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it. You should have the liquid tubing in the south position for best thermal performance.

The next step is to slide the LCD display on top of the VRM fan. To complete the AIO’s installation, you’ll want to connect the USB, PWM, and ARGB headers as appropriate – then you can power on your system.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some also use generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the Flova F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent.

The thermals of both ASRock AIOs are excellent, able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under its peak temperature (TJ Max) in Cinebench R23 with PBO enabled – allowing for the best possible benchmark performance. Of particular note is the performance of ASRock’s Steel Legend 360; it maintained an average of 61.5C over ambient (83.5C), the best result we’ve seen on this test bench.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but require running loudly to maintain said performance. The ASRock AIOs we tested reach 46.9 and 47.8 dBA, which is about average for most liquid coolers on the market.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

When a standard power limit is imposed, the thermal differences between the two ASRock coolers close, with both coolers performing about the same. I measured 47.3 and 47.9 degrees over ambient, giving them the third- and fourth-best performing results from this test bench.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

ASRock’s Steel Legend stood out in this test, outperforming all other competitors, with an average temperature of 57.4 C (35.4 C above ambient). The Phantom Gaming AIO also performed well, taking the fourth-place spot.

But thermals are only part of the story. Noise levels, especially when you’re gaming, are far more important here. When tied to my motherboard’s default fan curve, ASRock’s Steel Legend 360 had a noise level measured at 39.2 dBA. The Phantom Gaming 360 LCD was just a hair louder, measuring 39.6 dBA.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

With recordings of 258.8 and 258.2W average CPU power consumption, ASRock’s AIOs perform essentially on par with each other while noise-normalized.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

DDR5 temperatures were excellent in this test, with averages of 20.9 C (Steel Legend) and 21.5 C (Phantom Gaming) recorded. Of the AIOs I’ve tested on this configuration, only Silverstone’s IceMyst Pro with its unique stackable fans performs better.

We’ve also included a chart showing the CPU temperatures in this test, and thermal performance was strong – outperforming air coolers by ~5 degrees C. But I haven’t recorded this data for other AIOs yet.

Conclusion

ASRock’s Steel Legend 360 LCD and Phantom Gaming 360 LCD are both strong coolers, well suited to heat-intensive CPUs like AMD’s Ryzen 9950X3D or Intel’s Core i9-14900K.

Of the two ASRock AIOs, I would recommend the Steel Legend 360 LCD for users who want the best thermal performance possible (and a lower price tag). It might lack the thicker 32 mm radiator included with the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD, but its included fans are stronger, and as a result provide lower CPU temperatures and quieter noise levels in common scenarios. Still, at around $160, the Steel Legend is far from the most affordable AIO with a display, and it’s only available in white.

Samsung is back with another solid-state drive, and this time it's something a little bit different. The 990 is a QLC-based 990 EVO Plus, positioned as a budget drive that can still push a lot of bandwidth. It’s a little late to the game and not quite what was rumored for the 990 QVO, but it does bring some new technology to the table. We’re always interested in seeing what Samsung puts out, and this time is no different. It should not be confused as being part of Samsung’s Pro line or, for that matter, the EVO line, so keep that in mind.

The drive has its ups and downs, but in this challenging market, and for a budget drive, that’s to be expected. Samsung is still well-regarded for its name and reliable hardware, even as there has been a massive push towards enterprise, away from the consumer side. Samsung has, in fact, given some ground in the SSD space for many years, even as it produces some of the most common OEM drives. So while this is not a Crucial situation, it’s best to jump into this review with the right expectations about what this drive is and isn’t. It’s a budget drive with full Gen 4 throughput that hits the most common capacities with sufficient performance and power efficiency. It’s not meant to be a throne-taker.

It’s also thankfully not another 990 EVO situation – that drive felt somewhat underwhelming by the time it arrived, even when pitted against budget drives – but the 990 is also not a QLC rallying call. It’s a competent drive that mostly hits the right notes, as intended. Given how scarce Samsung QLC drives have been, and how much demand its QLC flash surely has elsewhere, it can feel like Samsung is throwing consumers a bone, though it would be crass to put it that way. We instead think this is smart positioning by the company as it knows the future is with QLC and the technologies used in this flash (even if first shown two years ago at ISSCC) point firmly at an ambitious future. The 990 just lets you own a piece of that.

Samsung 990 Specifications

The Samsung 990 is only available at 1TB and 2TB capacities, with MSRPs of $269.99 and $529.99, respectively. These prices are very high, as you can get competing drives like the Crucial P310 for substantially less, and in fact even the TLC-based WD Black SN7100 costs less. But Samsung has historically launched with MSRPs well above actual market price. You should be able to get the drive at significantly lower prices after launch, but the “Samsung tax” may still apply. We’ll get into what that means throughout the review.

This limited capacity range is unfortunate, but enables Samsung to pack the flash into just one package, which reduces PCB space so that any OEM variant can be used in multiple M.2 form factors and will always be single-sided. Less than 1TB is also not enough for these denser dies if you want good performance. That leaves 1TB and 2TB as the target capacities, which also makes sense in a market where 4TB+ is getting exceptionally expensive. We’ll eventually see 2Tb dies to make single-package 4TB a reality, but that’s further along in Samsung’s roadmap.

The drive can reach 7,250 / 6,450 MB/s for sequential reads and writes and up to 850K / 1,200K random read and write IOPS. Peak performance is attained at 2TB, where you have the optimal amount of interleaving or parallelization: Sixteen 1Tb dies means four dies for each of four flash channels, the typical ceiling. However, as these are four-plane dies, you still get 32-way interleaving at 1TB with eight dies, which is enough to get good performance with just two dies per channel. Less than that is much less ideal, and more than that introduces additional overhead, especially for budget controllers. The math changes with six-plane and 2TB dies, but for this flash, 1TB is the reasonable minimum, with 2TB offering the best performance.

The drive is rated for approximately 4W of power draw across the two capacities, when looking at both reads and writes. Check our power results below to see how accurate that is. The drive is rated for 400TB of writes per TB capacity, which is high for QLC flash – we would typically see maybe 300TB, which is one-half of the TLC standard – but also indicates a very high drive writes per day (DWPD) rating. This is due to the warranty only covering three years rather than the normal five, so the amount of writes per year is significantly higher. This is atypical, so requires further explanation.

For those who live for TBW and write endurance, this illustrates why TBW often looks better on paper. Spreading 400TB over three years works out to roughly double the daily write allowance of a typical 300TBW / five-year QLC drive. Most people will never approach either number, and they will live with the shorter coverage window. However, if you intend to hammer the drive with writes to the point of exceeding TBW within the three-year warranty period, then this could be good. Although you really shouldn't use a budget DRAM-less QLC-based drive for that type of workload. However, that option exists and is rarely the case with a QLC-based drive. As a final note, the drive does support TCG Opal 2.0 for encryption.

Samsung 990 Software and Accessories

Samsung’s Magician software is the gold standard for consumer SSDs. This is an SSD toolbox with all the features you need. It displays system and drive health information, including SMART, and checks whether your drive is legitimate. You can also benchmark your drive and use any optional features, such as encryption. The software is also essential for keeping the drive’s firmware up to date, although you can also download that from the first link.

Samsung 990: A Closer Look

The 990 has an SSD controller, a single NAND flash package, and power management circuitry. There is no DRAM package present. This is a single-sided drive, which is ideal for compatibility and cooling. There is a lot of free space on the PCB, and by putting distance between the controller and flash, there is separation to mitigate component heat generation. This would also help if a heatspreader or heatsink were to be added. Without this space, the drive could be sold in a shorter form factor, which is particularly useful for OEM drives.

The label has information about the drive, such as the date of manufacture (DOM), model, serial, the PSID, and the power rating. We always caution that you not take certain drive information as being conclusive about the hardware. For example, you should not assume TLC or QLC flash from a drive’s TBW. Likewise, you shouldn’t rely on the labeled power rating – and this is done more often on M.2 2230 drives for portable devices – as any indication of drive power efficiency. Here we have 3.3V / 1.85A, which indicates potential power draw over 6W. Now, the power ratings given on spec sheets will often be average and not peak, and will be separated as read or write rather than mixed. In fact, this drive’s load power states can reach a peak of 5.90W via SMART, which is much above the rated average ~4W. We track both peak and average in our testing.

We always enjoy reviewing Samsung drives with a focus on the technicals, as the manufacturer remains a leader in many ways. The 990, in particular, requires some extra description to be fully appreciated. Simply looking at the benchmark results might make the technology seem underwhelming – to be honest, this is very much a budget drive, even taken in the best light – but that doesn’t mean Samsung phoned this one in. In fact, there are signs of deliberate design here, and some of the decisions could help sell this drive. Samsung still has to get the pricing right, of course, but what else is new?

Let’s start with the controller. The 990 is using the PiccoloQ, which is the QLC flash version of the Piccolo. The Piccolo is utilized on the 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus, two TLC-based drives. In all cases, it’s a four-channel, DRAM-less design, which limits performance and capacity. In both cases, the controller takes up to 2,400 MT/s flash – this is more than enough to saturate PCIe 4.0 – and the interior design is the same. This means it’s a Samsung 5nm part with multiple ARM Cortex-R8 cores and a single R5 core. If the Piccolo stands out in any way, it’s that it offers a PCIe 5.0 x2 option in addition to the standard 4.0 x4 interface. This option or mode has limited usefulness, though, and nothing in the 990 would change that if enabled for the PiccoloQ.

So, not much new on the controller front, but the use of this controller at the 990’s rated speeds does give us some more information. Namely, we know the 990 EVO runs more slowly because it’s using flash slower than 2,400 MT/s, 1,600 MT/s Samsung V6P TLC, to be precise. If we look at Samsung’s V7 QLC flash, it can run at that same speed. This is why the originally speculated 990 QVO with that flash was targeted at the same speeds as the 990 EVO. Things have changed since then. This drive could have been the 990 QVO, but with the EVO and EVO Plus lines going DRAM-less this generation, we suspect the QVO tier was “promoted” to the plain 990 name, and the 990 now targets the 990 EVO Plus's specs

The evidence to back this up, which also supports the loose 990 QVO rumor, is that Samsung does have a V7 QLC OEM drive: the BM9C1. This is the cousin to the PM9C1 line with OEM 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus (PM9C1b) variants. The BM9C1 is available down to M.2 2230 and uses the same PiccoloQ as the 990 (the QLC version of the 990 EVO/EVO Plus’s Piccolo). It’s just limited to the same speeds as the 990 EVO, as it’s running at 1,600 MT/s. We have to be careful here, though, as Samsung’s V9 QLC press release indicates a 60% I/O improvement, which, with the V9 being 3,200 MT/s, suggests a 2,000 MT/s ceiling for the V7 QLC. Since there is an OEM TLC-based drive in between the 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus (the PM9C1a) at 2,000 MT/s, the possibility for a ~6 GB/s 990 or 990 QVO with V7 QLC existed.

Before we dive more deeply into the flash, since we haven’t seen the new Samsung QLC in a while and there is some neat tech here, let’s decode the module. “K9” tells us it’s Samsung NAND flash memory. “YYG” indicates it’s a QLC flash package with sixteen dies (HDP) in a 2TB configuration, which confirms 1Tb dies. “Y8” means it’s 8-bit, J tells us the voltage, “5” tells us the number of chips enabled and ready/busy signals, and “D” tells us the generation. With V7 being “C” and V8 skipped, this suggests V9. The second part of the code tells us how the flash is packaged and that it’s commercial / consumer-grade. While you aren’t expected to know how to read codes on your SSD, knowing how it works can be useful, especially with Samsung drives, even if it’s just a matter of trying to figure out if you have a counterfeit product.

So let’s talk about the flash. This is a 286-Layer part, technically, but is sold as 280-Layer once accounting for source/ground and dummy lines. Dummy lines are usually at stack edges, as the physics of flash can make these lines otherwise unusable. A higher layer count – Samsung’s V7 is only 176-Layer, although technically 191 layers – generally means higher bit density. Bit density is key to scaling NAND flash, which is acting as capacious, non-volatile storage media. This can be disappointing to some because it means you don’t always see any real performance scaling as the layer count progresses.

Fitting more flash into the same space can mean less room for charge in each cell, which makes it harder to optimize for performance if you’re trying to maintain the same endurance level. That is certainly the case with this flash, as the performance only manages to match that of last-generation 176-Layer QLC flash from competitors, which is why we want to go out of our way to point out Samsung’s design decisions and why it leans innovative in ways you won’t see in, say, your game load times.

For one, when we talk about the layer count difference – reported versus actual – you also get an efficiency number that is the ratio between usable and total word lines. Samsung is a leader here, with high layer efficiency. Samsung also has held off using three decks or stacks of flash and is still at two, due to having superior channel etching – it’s able to drill down more layers with a higher aspect ratio. It’s also possible to run lines through the flash itself rather than rely largely on masked steps, which sets the stage for Samsung scaling to extremely high layer counts. One issue with high layer counts is that you start losing uniformity from layer to layer, and Samsung accounts for this with optimized word line spacing, too. So, as we’ve said in the past, it often feels like Samsung is falling behind on layer count, but in reality it has a very focused strategy and the best technology in the business, and we can see this with the 990’s flash.

For the consumer, though, the 990 is a little bit weird. This is presumably 3,200 MT/s flash that is being “wasted” with a 2,400 MT/s controller. This flash has amazing bit density, but having a single sixteen-die package at 2TB is nothing new. What about performance? Samsung has made optimizations to improve performance on this flash, but nothing amazing. This QLC is only comparable to the competition in performance terms, particularly at 2,400 MT/s. Samsung is playing catch-up, but we also think this is a case of designing for enterprise rather than consumer.

QLC flash is now highly sought after in enterprise for its density, and Samsung’s optimizations all benefit that kind of environment. In fact, from a consumer’s perspective you could look at this V9 QLC as being focused on higher bit density – but no 2Tb dies – and you would largely be correct. Samsung’s V9 QLC is 86% more dense generationally and about 94% more dense than the competition’s 176-Layer QLC flash.

We’ll take a look at one new technology in the V9 QLC flash to illustrate. One important consideration is flash power interruption leading to data loss, which, without power loss protection (PLP) means you are looking at protecting data at rest. This is on the non-volatile media or flash, not the volatile memory like DRAM. When folding from the pSLC cache to the native flash, data loss is not an issue because you don’t invalidate the original pSLC copy until the write has been verified. However, when writing to native QLC, you are writing multiple pages where the upper pages will require higher levels of sensitivity for proper reading. There are different methods of writing to QLC flash, but generally multi-bit flash has multiple write passes that go from fuzzy (coarse) to precise (fine), and lower pages write faster and may be complete first. Therefore, it’s important not to ruin existing lower-page data if you lose power while still adjusting voltage for the upper pages.

Micron has a unique way of dealing with this using a differential engine that can predict values from partial shifts, but a more common method is simply to back up or buffer the values in nonvolatile flash. QLC stores four bits per cell, so a full backup means writing four bits of pSLC per cell. pSLC is used because its writes are fast, whereas QLC's upper-page writes, in particular, are an order of magnitude slower. Samsung reduces the buffer to a single parity bit by using an odd/even algorithm, creating a sensing window that’s more like TLC (8-state) than QLC (16-state). This improves performance, endurance, and bit density. Some of that performance is still lost for higher bit density. For consumers, the direct benefit is higher TBW, but we speculate the higher density is aimed more at enterprise and future flash generation products. This is in part a response to Solidigm’s floating-gate design, a different technology than charge trap, with tighter charge placement.

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Comparison Products

The Samsung 990 enters a crowded market with a lot of good options, at least in theory. If we’re looking at QLC-based drives, this means the Crucial P310 and Sandisk WD Blue SN5100 at the very top. Both of these drives perform incredibly well. Below that, we have the older wave of drives represented by the TeamGroup MP44Q. That drive in particular remains a budget favorite with a fast controller and good QLC flash.

We would put the rest below that, even though the hardware is not always worse. This would include the Biwin M350, the Kingston NV3, and the Seagate FireCuda X1070. These drives are using alternative controllers – SMI, SMI, and TenaFe, respectively – that are roughly comparable, and the flash is not particularly old, either. However, these drives tend to be more budget-focused with reduced performance and (ideally) reduced cost.

We’ve also thrown in Samsung’s 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus for comparison. The 990 should be closer to the latter, but with QLC flash, it would be okay landing somewhere in between. On the whole, we would expect the drive also to be between the two main categories of drives – that is, above the budget ones, below the two fastest, and closer to the middle MP44Q and its MAP1602-equipped alternatives, but with Samsung’s name recognition. The technology is here to make this a reliable drive, which is also a factor to consider, but being this late to the game puts the 990 at a general disadvantage.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams. Future gaming benchmarks will be DirectStorage-inclusive and an evaluation for future-proofing is included where applicable.

We start by looking at 3DMark because, frankly, QLC-based drives make a lot of sense for gaming. Aside from large installs and updates, you’re mostly doing reads, which do not favor TLC drives as much. While it’s true that QLC flash is still slower, often-accessed data might be left in the pSLC cache – if you leave enough space free – and QLC is also optimized for random reads. Games do involve a lot of sequential reads and often at larger block sizes than you’d expect, but as long as the drive has sufficient interleaving (it’s sufficiently large) you are going to get pretty good performance.

For 3DMark, which is a synthetic test, we might expect the drives to perform as they do under ideal, cached circumstances. This means the 990 should perform closely to the 990 EVO Plus and better than the 990 EVO, even though both of those latter two are TLC-based. It does. The 990 gets pretty close to the P310, which is one of the best QLC drives out there, aside from the Blue SN5100. We tend to look at ~45µs as a good cutoff point for all-around performance – gaming doesn’t need to be super responsive – which is roughly around the popular budget NV3. The 990 is significantly faster than that, which is all you could ask for here.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is an industry standard trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The results are particularly useful when analyzing drives for their use as primary/boot storage devices and in work environments.

PCMark 10 performance usually, but not always, follows 3DMark. There is speculation that some drives or firmware may be optimized for benchmarks like PCMark 10, but taken within a greater suite of tests it’s still useful to get a feel for application performance. For us, that means for a primary drive – your boot or OS drive where your apps live – or for your everything drive, if you work and game on a single drive in your system. This isn’t too unusual with laptops where M.2 slots are limited.

The 990 again ends up roughly where we’d expect – above the 990 EVO, and close to the 990 EVO Plus. It’s not on the level of the P310 or Blue SN5100, but it’s clearly above the budget drives. This is a strong result with good latency. For instance, we would take the 990 over the NV3 any day, every day. On the other hand, the P310 and Blue SN5100 are frankly better drives. These two drives are better optimized and performance-oriented. The 990 is more of a gap filler that’s late to the scene.

We have to say, though, that we’re glad Samsung didn’t push out a 990 QVO that was more like the 990 EVO, even if it would have arrived earlier. Such a drive would have used older QLC flash and performed more slowly simply due to the lower interface speed.And frankly we’d rather have density-optimized flash that can run at the 990 EVO Plus level. That’s what the 990 delivers, even if it feels a little underwhelming. However, it makes perfect sense given the current market, enterprise demand, OEM demand, etc. The drive is still very fast and of a superior quality to a great many budget drives out there, and that makes it worthwhile.

Console Testing — PlayStation 5 Transfers

The PlayStation 5 is capable of taking one additional PCIe 4.0 or faster SSD for extra game storage. While any 4.0 drive will technically work, Sony recommends drives that can deliver at least 5,500 MB/s of sequential read bandwidth for optimal performance. Based on our extensive testing, PCIe 5.0 SSDs don’t bring much to the table and generally shouldn’t be used in the PS5, especially as they may require additional cooling. Check our Best PS5 SSDs article for more information.

Our testing utilizes the PS5’s internal storage test and manual read/write tests with over 192GB of data, both from and to the internal storage. Throttling is prevented where possible to see how each drive operates under ideal conditions. While game load times should not deviate much from drive to drive, our results can indicate which drives may be more responsive in long-term use.

You know our PlayStation 5 line by now: just about any drive will do. The 990 can push more bandwidth than the 990 EVO, which arguably makes it a better pick. It’s on par with, or better than, most budget drives out there. At least, for the things you will usually be doing on the PS5. It’s clear from our one bandwidth test that the drive ran out of cache, and it has the typical slow QLC flash write state. This is not indicative of real-world performance if you do normal installs/updates with mostly reads. If you are freshly installing the drive and moving a ton of games onto it, then yes, this could be an issue, but the QLC write speeds are still significantly faster than 1GbE if you’re intending only to download a ton of games at once. Otherwise, you can check the cache size in the relevant testing section.

Transfer Rates — DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom 50GB dataset. We write 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to the test drive, then make a copy of that data to a new folder, and follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file. This is a real-world type workload that fits into the cache of most drives.

We also see some write performance issues in DiskBench. This is dependent on cache size and speed, but for the most part should be limited by the interface speed. However, there are cases where copy speed will simply be slower, whether due to the controller or other optimization trade-offs. We can see that the 990 EVO, with TLC flash, is not exactly doing great here, and the 990 EVO Plus does much better. However, the 990 lags behind, and is very far behind the P310 and Blue SN5100.

So, we can put some of this slow speed on the Piccolo/PiccoloQ controller. To avoid getting too technical on this, we suspect it is partially architectural. This is reflected in power efficiency, as both the P310 and Blue SN5100 – with the Phison E27T and a proprietary Sandisk controller, respectively – are significantly more power-efficient than the 990 EVO, 990 EVO Plus, and as we’ll discover, the 990 as well. We also know that Samsung’s V9 QLC flash is not particularly inefficient.

As for the controller, there are reasons to design it differently. Reliability is one reason, especially if you sell a lot of OEM and enterprise drives that share the technology. Scaling is another, as you may use similar technology across your stack. You might want to optimize for a different sort of performance baseline; you may have unique endurance requirements, and you also might have to keep capacity in mind – enterprise drives, in particular, could make better use of this flash’s interface speed when scaling for capacity. Therefore, DiskBench results for our specific testing may not really be what Samsung is optimizing for, in which case the 990’s performance more or less hits expectations based on the 990 EVO and 990 EVO Plus. It just disappoints against drives like the NV3, which are otherwise inferior.

And to put a cap on it, yes, this is a consumer drive, but if you go back and read our 990 EVO review – and other recent Samsung SSD reviews, for that matter – you will see we underlined the idea that Samsung has been late to the party with less-than-leading performance recently. The fact is, Samsung has and has had bigger fish to fry, and its technology is sound but no longer looks amazing on the standard consumer benchmarks. That makes its products less relevant if you just want the fastest drive, although we’d argue there are secondary effects like drive reliability that still keep Samsung in the fight, certainly as an OEM option. It’s also true that consumer use has a lower bar – any halfway-decent NVMe drive is fast enough for daily driving – which means, sometimes you’re just buying the Samsung name.

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes and at different queue depths for both sequential and random workloads.

ATTO gives us a clear image of how a drive performs over a range of block sizes. This can relate to different file sizes, for example, you probably have many files at or below 4KiB in size for various things but larger files, archives, and media files will usually be in units of MiB. Depending on what you’re using the drive for you may want to pay attention to how a drive performs within a certain range. For the quickest comparison, we show the results on a logarithmic scale and, there, the 990 shows significant dips for reads between 64KiB and 1MiB.

What you need to know is that flash is interleaved to improve performance, which means that larger I/O sizes will show higher throughput. A single, four-plane die, with modern 16KiB pages, can interleave up to 64KiB internally. If you have one die per each of four channels, that’s 256KiB. If you parallelize that over four dies per channel – which is the ideal amount and what we have with the 2TB 990 – then you reach 1MiB. While alignment here can impact performance, for example we sometimes look at six-plane flash these days, in general you will see a gradual throughput increase as you go. You’ll see this beyond 1MiB as data can and will be cached in volatile memory, either system-side or in a small cache on the drive. If you’re looking at higher queue depths, which we do with CrystalDiskMark, performance saturates even further as the controller is able to optimize data placement and retrieval with knowledge of what’s coming.

What this usually means is that QD8 is enough to get drives close together, while there will be more disparity at QD1. QD1 is much closer to real-world, as most operations will be at low queue depth, the vast majority at our below QD4 and the majority at QD1 or QD2.

We see that the 990 matches the P310 with QD1 reads, while some drives, like the X1070, do surprisingly well. We can assume that the controller plays at least a partial role here. The X1070 is a good example because, let’s be real, it’s not a drive a lot of reviewers liked. Yet, it has pretty good performance in this instance, indicating it could be a solid secondary storage drive. Fair enough. The 990 just doesn’t really have the response we like to see for that, but it’s fast enough to remain relevant. We got the impression in our X1070 review that its controller was chosen for cost savings and that was plenty for daily use, but we don’t think Samsung cheaped out on the PiccoloQ. Rather, Samsung is looking at the bigger picture, as it also sells drives with the Piccolo controller, including its OEM offerings.

Random latency seems much more important to a lot of people. We generally find that sub-50µs is one bar and another is sub-45µs. The 990 manages the former, which puts it above last-gen drives and some earlier Gen 4 drives, and budget drives like the X1070. It’s in the same ballpark as the NV3, too. It’s sufficiently far behind more popular budget drives, though, to draw our interest. In most cases you won’t notice it, but if you’re using this as your only drive and are sensitive to that, it’s not your best option. On the other hand, we think you have to balance that against pricing and some management of expectations. Any modern SSD is going to be very fast, and with current pricing it might be worth putting more weight on reliability, for example.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of pseudo-SLC (single-bit) programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC (three-bit) or QLC (four-bit) flash. Performance can suffer even more if the drive is forced to fold, the process of migrating data out of the cache in order to free up space for further incoming data.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds. This process shows the performance of the drive in various states including the steady state write performance.

Samsung’s TurboWrite 2.0 caching technology utilizes a fixed, static portion of pSLC combined with a much larger dynamic portion. These two zones have unique characteristics which, when taken together, ideally keep the drive feeling fast across a variety of workloads. The static portion ensures the drive always has some cache for random writes, while the dynamic portion varies with drive usage so that you always have ample cache. While the 990 EVO had 108GB total regardless of capacity, it’s more typical for Samsung to increase both caches in absolute terms as capacity goes up. This is the case with the 990 EVO Plus, which has a 216GB cache at 2TB. But we know from our 9100 Pro review that Samsung is quite capable of going with a larger cache. The general trend for consumer SSDs has been to go that way, especially for QLC-based and DRAM-less SSDs, as it better hides weak performance states.

Therefore, it’s not too surprising that the 990’s cache is pretty large. In its fastest state, it writes at almost 6.1 GB/s for over 57 seconds, for a cache in excess of 350GB. This is larger than the 2TB 990 EVO Plus’s but smaller than the 2TB 9100 Pro’s. Our suspicion is that the 990 follows the newer, larger scheme, but we’re dealing with QLC rather than TLC flash. QLC flash to pSLC is 4 bits to 1, while TLC is 3 bits to 1, so in relative terms the 990 lines up with the 9100 Pro. That’s all fine and good. As for how fast it writes, Samsung markets the 990 as having over 50% faster write performance than the 990 EVO, which is accurate simply because we’re moving from 1,600 to 2,400 MT/s, with newer flash and firmware.

Once the cache is exhausted, the drive has to write to the native QLC flash directly or fold data over from pSLC to QLC. The latter is slower but can reduce wear in some cases – folding uses predictable, sequential writes – and reduces the likelihood of errors in transmission. Considering the technology we mentioned above and how Samsung avoids problems with power loss, it makes sense that going slower is by design. In fact, given we know the expected speed of the flash – rated at 41 MB/s per die – we can reasonably assume the firmware wants this outcome. It’s not that the flash can’t handle higher speeds, even at the risk of endurance. It’s simply that for a consumer drive of this type, the response is reasonable and measured. Going faster would require reducing the cache size potentially, which tends not to be a good trade-off for this type of drive.

One interesting thing about the V9 flash is that it can operate in a pTLC caching mode. We don’t see that here. Honestly, that’s not too surprising: Solidigm’s 5-bit PLC flash effectively was designed to run as QLC/pQLC for enterprise, so it’s possible this pTLC mode was for cases where you might need that higher level of performance or endurance. After all, this is extremely dense flash even in such a mode, which points more at enterprise use.

We’ve seen QLC flash from Kioxia also optionally have this mode – and for that matter, Solidigm’s PLC can do pTLC, too – in the past, but that mode doesn’t appear to be designed for consumer use. There may be other reasons for not using it in a consumer product, such as power optimization, as consumer workloads probably benefit more from a straight pSLC and native/QLC hybrid.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre stock storage in terms of capacity and performance. Desktops are often more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features so we show the worst-case for idle.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption but performance-per-watt, or efficiency, is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

For temperature recording we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a ~22°C ambient. Our testing is rigorous enough to heat the drive to a realistic ceiling temperature but real-world temperatures will vary due to the environment and workload factors.

Is the 990 power-efficient? Samsung markets the drive as being 38% more efficient than the 990 EVO – or that it cuts power consumption by 38% – which, technically, works with our numbers. It’s not a huge bar to hit as the 990 EVO was not very power-efficient. Even the X1070 is significantly more efficient! The 990, unfortunately, really doesn’t do well against other drives in its class, regardless of flash. We can’t chalk this up as being fully due to the controller because the 990 EVO Plus does well enough for itself.

This is actually expected since, for example, the Blue SN5100, which is using BiCS8 QLC, is less efficient than its BiCS8 TLC sibling, the Black SN7100. QLC and TLC flash of the same generation often have significant differences. TLC flash saw six planes first while QLC tends to be optimized for density. While it’s true that pSLC performance between the two is often comparable, behind the scenes the drive still has to deal with wear-leveling, garbage collection, and other maintenance with block granularity. QLC is slower, with larger blocks and pSLC taking more bits. So all else being equal, TLC often outshines it in power efficiency.

Our impression here, as is the case elsewhere in the review, is that this flash is basically V7 QLC with twice the density. Samsung uses impressive tricks to get it there; the flash is technically a bit faster and more efficient, and it has some neat changes that mostly apply to enterprise. This means you can have the 990 doing worse than the 990 EVO Plus with its V8 TLC. This is not perplexing. QLC flash is made for bit density, and Samsung intends to scale flash for a very long time. It also skipped V8 QLC for a reason. This doesn’t endear it to people wanting to buy this drive for laptops, although we assure you that this does use some cutting-edge technology, and we do think it should be very reliable. It’s just not going to be as efficient as you might expect.

Samsung is cognizant that its drives will end up with OEM variants in laptops and in many cases, shorter form factors. The 990 EVO wasn’t a great laptop drive due to its heat generation, but it works. The 990 is significantly better, so it, too, will work as a laptop drive. We think this drive deserves a heatsink in a desktop or PS5, and probably should have heatspreading of some sort anywhere else, if at all possible.

The question is, will it overheat? In our testing, we found that it got closer than we prefer to that point. Our maximum reported controller temperature was high relative to the initial throttling temperature, but a true composite value would be lower. Even so, the controller did get warm. On the other hand, our Iometer testing is far from real-world. We push our drives hard. This is not the sort of drive for a desktop replacement or high-end laptop in our opinion, although we think with typical workloads it’s perfectly fine. After all, the results here are better than the SK hynix Gold P31, which is a laptop staple. By all means, in a Gen 3 slot this thing will fly. If you’re hammering it at Gen 4 speeds, though, yeah, it’s not the coolest drive in town.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications, such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus, disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Samsung 990 Bottom Line

The Samsung 990 is bound to be underwhelming for some, but none of our results should surprise. We know what this technology is and we’ve seen Samsung’s entries in recent years with the 990 EVO, the 990 EVO Plus, and the 9100 Pro. You could even put the 980 and 990 Pros into that mix. The move away from DRAM on the EVO Plus series, in particular, was a sign of the times. It’s not surprising to see the raw 990 – the 980 was TLC-based – go to QLC without the “QVO” addendum. The original speculation of the 990 QVO being a QLC 990 EVO, with the EVO itself being a surprisingly “slow” drive, was probably correct given the OEM evidence, and the 990 being a step up lets it command the 990 name by itself. To reiterate, this is exactly what we expected.

Skipping over the 990 QVO and V7 QLC flash is only sidestepping, and that’s likely because the market has changed so much over the last year or two. Bringing out a QLC-based 990 EVO equivalent just wouldn’t sell and might even make the brand look bad. It could certainly be done, and even still done, as an affordable SKU with better yields. But any 990 was going to be exactly what we got, instead. You need the faster flash to saturate PCIe 4.0 with a DRAM-less drive, and this was always going to be DRAM-less. Using a new or licensed controller with TLC flash would be weird, as it’d be going up against the existing 990 EVO Plus. Frankly, the 990 is a good 990 EVO replacement from retail and OEM perspectives, with one caveat: endurance. Samsung saves itself some headaches by reducing the warranty to three years, and as this flash is robust, it can just nudge up the TBW as a distraction.

We think that’s an important part of the message here. This flash seems designed for enterprise and has technological changes to back that up, with the main consumer benefits being the potential for increased reliability. But memory is still in high demand, and this has to be a budget part, so here comes the three-year warranty. Performance is not bad – it certainly beats earlier Gen 4 QLC-based drives and would beat the rumored 990 QVO as well. It’s just not really performance-focused. It’s also a much more efficient design, but that’s in comparison to Samsung’s own hardware. It’s merely mediocre there in the current landscape. Samsung seems to be building for the future with higher layer counts and bit density, so this lays the groundwork. A client drive seems almost like an afterthought. Users shouldn’t take that personally, but also shouldn’t underestimate this drive as it’s more than effective enough for its purpose.

In fact, in the era of Gen 3 drives returning and so many “box of chocolates” SSDs with random names and hardware, a reliable Samsung SSD is a nice option. Even with QLC flash. If you only need a budget drive to throw into a build or to upgrade an old PC, you get Gen 4 performance and a TLC-like experience for most things. We also feel this drive should be reliable and, although it runs hotter than we’d like, it’s not going to be molten like some other drives. It’s just a polished design by Samsung that fills a micro niche, and clearly it thought a response was needed. It’s not a lot different than our reaction has been to Samsung’s last few new drives, which have all been competent but largely never the strtong leader. That’s okay with us, as we can tell the manufacturer has a longer-term perspective; it just means a little less awe when you finish a build using a Samsung drive.

If you really want the best experience with a QLC-based drive, we still recommend the Crucial P310 – which is going away – or the Sandisk WD Blue SN5100. These offer incredible performance for QLC flash. Otherwise, there are some MP44Q-like drives out there that continue to be budget leaders. The 990 fits somewhere along there as a known-brand alternative. If you’re looking for Gen 5, DRAM, or TLC, then you’re also looking at a higher price tag. Frankly, QLC costs more than it should, in part due to enterprise demand. On the other hand, a modern QLC drive will provide an equivalent experience 99% of the time. The priorities are up to you. For us, the 990 is a fine primary drive for normal builds and OK for laptops, although we’d go cheaper for the PS5 and higher-end for an enthusiast machine.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

The Razer Blade 16 has long been leading contender among the best gaming laptops, thanks in part to its careful component selection and strong style. In this case, our review unit comes equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor and a flagship RTX 5090 GPU.

While the chassis remains the same as the Razer Blade 16 that we tested a little over a year ago, the 25W processor in our new review unit enabled some impressive runtimes that eclipse the competition. You’ll have to pay a considerable sum for the luxury, but the Blade 16 makes as strong a case as a compelling premium gaming laptop.

Design of the Razer Blade 16

We were impressed with the design of last year's Blade 16, and luckily, Razer hasn’t altered the formula for this year’s model. You get the same matte-black chassis that measures just 0.69 inches at its thickest point (0.59 inches towards the front). Build quality remains excellent in true Razer fashion.

The overall design is minimalist, with a minimal amount of RGBs and no obvious ventilation slats along the sides for heat management. Instead, the clean design would look at home sitting on your desk while you're gaming with an Xbox controller, or sitting on your desk in a cubicle at work. The only bit of flash that you’ll find is the RGB Razer logo on the lid.

You’ll find thin bezels around the glossy 16-inch OLED display, below which you’ll find the full-size keyboard and a large trackpad. There’s also a small status LED at the front right of the chassis (just below the Intel Core Ultra sticker on the deck). It pulses white when the laptop is in standby mode.

There’s a healthy assortment of ports on the laptop, including three legacy USB 3.3 Gen 2 Type-A ports. There’s also one Thunderbolt 4 port, one Thunderbolt 5, an SD card reader (UHS-II), a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5 mm combo audio jack. There’s also a proprietary power port.

The Blade 16 measures 13.98 x 9.86 x 0.69 inches and weighs 4.71 pounds. For comparison, the MSI Raider 16 HX also packs an RTX 5090, but measures 14.29 x 10.62 x 1.14 inches and weighs over a pound more (5.73 pounds). The Alienware 16 Area-51 is heavier still at 7.49 pounds, with dimensions of 14.37 x 11.41 x 1.12 inches.

Razer Blade 16 Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the Razer Blade 16

Our Blade 16 review unit is equipped with a Core Ultra 9 386H processor, which has 16 total cores (4 performance, 8 efficient) and a maximum performance turbo frequency of 4.9 GHz for the performance cores. There’s also 32GB of LPDDR5x memory and a GeForce RTX 5090 GPU (1,597 MHz boost clock, 175W max TGP).

This combo generally performed well across our gaming benchmark suite, with a few exceptions. While playing Battlefield 6 at native resolution in Overkill detail mode, with DLSS Quality and Frame Generation enabled, I was comfortably getting between 110 and 120 FPS, even with a lot of action happening on the screen.

For this review, the competitive set consists of last year's Blade 16 (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 at 28W, RTX 5090 at 160W TGP), MSI Raider 16 Max HX (Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus at 55W, RTX 5090 at 175W TGP), and the Alienware 16 Area-51 (Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus at 55W, RTX 5080 at 175W TGP).

As usual, we start our gaming benchmarks with the Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest setting) benchmark, where the Blade 16 delivered 182 FPS at 1080p. Performance at 1600p scaled down to 133 FPS. The 2025 edition of the Blade 16 was 16 FPS behind at 1080, but at the resolution that most would play at, 1600p, the older model was nearly 30 FPS faster (162 FPS versus 133 FPS).

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings), the laptops were pretty evenly matched, with most running between 65 and 70 FPS at 1080p and at around 40 FPS at 1600p. For the Razer Blade 16 specifically, it achieved 65 FPS at 1080p and 42 FPS at 1600p.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) saw the Blade 16 running in third place ahead of its predecessor (106 FPS at 1080p, 108 FPS at 1600p). The Alienware 16 Area-51 and Raider 16 Max HX were a few FPS ahead at each resolution, but it was still a relatively close fight among the top three.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) proved challenging for the Blade 16, as it lagged behind with 94 FPS at 1080p and just 71 FPS at 1600p. For comparison, last year's model eclipsed those numbers at 121 FPS and 94 FPS, respectively. The 25W CPU simply couldn’t keep up with the 28W Ryzen and 55W Intel HX chips

However, the Blade 16 was back to its fighting form in the Borderlands 3 (Badass settings) benchmark, easily slipping into second place behind the Raider 16 Max HX with 175 FPS at 1080p and 126 FPS at 1600p.

Metro Exodus is still our preferred benchmark for gaming laptop stress testing. Our review unit averaged 133.39 FPS at 1080p across 15 loops using the RTX benchmark preset. The CPU performance cores averaged 3.96 GHz, and the efficiency cores averaged 3.5 GHz. The RTX 5090 GPU also ran at 1.95 GHz.

One item of note is that the two system fans are incredibly loud while gaming, which may force you to use a pair of the best gaming headsets to block out the added noise.

Productivity Performance on the Razer Blade 16

The Razer Blade 16 uses a 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor, 32GB of memory, and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. With some of the competition sporting upwards of 8 additional cores, the Blade 16 didn’t really break through in the multi-threaded benchmarks.

The synthetic CPU benchmark Geekbench saw the Blade 16 lag slightly behind its predecessor in single-core (2,895 versus 2,922), but pull ahead in multi-core performance (16,971 versus 16,025). However, neither Blade system was a match for the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processors in the Alienware 16 Area-51 and Raider 16 Max HX; the latter of which pulled numbers of 3,231 and 20,656, respectively.

In our 25GB file transfer test, the Blade 16 took second place by the slightest of margins, hitting 1,735.09 MBps. However, this result was still 1,000 MBps behind the first-place Alienware 16 Area-51.

The multi-threaded performance shortfall crept up again in our Handbrake test, where we transcode a 4K video file to 1080p. The Blade 16 pulled up the rear in this group, even falling behind the Blade 16 with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It took 3 minutes and 17 seconds to complete the task compared to just 1 minute and 51 seconds for the Raider 16 Max HX.

Display on the Razer Blade 16

As Tom's Hardware's resident monitor editor, I’m absolutely smitten with OLED panels. Thankfully, the OLED display on the Blade 16 doesn’t disappoint: it’s a 16-inch panel with a 2560 x 1600 resolution and a native refresh rate of 240 Hz.

We found that color volume was 90 percent for DCI-P3 and 127 percent for sRGB. Brightness levels were also fairly impressive, earning second place behind the Raider 16 Max HX at 408.2 nits.

Although the instrumented tests show some regression compared to last year’s Blade 16 in the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, the display looks amazing in a vacuum. The gritty visuals while playing Battlefield 6 in Overkill mode were a delight to my eyes, with sunlight glinting through windows and concussive bomb blasts kicking up debris all around me.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Razer Blade 16

The keyboard on the Blade 16 uses scissor switches with 1.5 mm of travel. The key presses are slightly clicky, and my fingers had no trouble getting used to typing on the keys.

I used my standard keyhero.com typing test and scored 89 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy, which is about par for the course for me.

The touchpad is absolutely massive, measuring 5.9 inches wide and 3.8 inches tall. It’s one of the largest trackpads you’ll find outside of Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pros. What isn’t Apple-like is the insistence on using a mechanical linkage for trackpad actuation instead of the steadier, more consistent presses made possible by a haptic touchpad. For a laptop with a sticker price of nearly $5,000, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some haptics here.

However, if you’re using this laptop primarily for gaming, you’ll likely be using one of the best gaming mice for your competitive sessions.

Audio on the Razer Blade 16

The six-speaker audio system on the Blade 16 is THX-optimized, and the audio quality is good, if not quite price-appropriate. While playing Battlefield 6, in-game dialog, explosions, gunfire, and vehicle noise generally sounded good, but the effects were competing with the turbine whine of the dual system fans. Cranking the volume to near-max levels helped drown out the fan noise, but at that point, I was experiencing a bit of aural overload, so I opted to put on a pair of headphones.

When the CPU and GPU weren’t heavily taxed, I was able to better enjoy the speakers, such as by playing Dave Matthews Band’s album Before These Crowded Streets for the 300th time. I cruised through the album with the volume set to a comfortable 50%, savoring the acoustic and bass guitars on “Dreaming Tree,” which always results in a relaxing frisson for me.

Similarly, I watched the Mel Gibson-helmed The Patriot to get into the mood for the Fourth of July, and reveled in the heavy dialogue, flintlock musket blasts, and cannon bursts.

You can make adjustments to the audio using the Razer Synapse software,

Upgradeability of the Razer Blade 16

Accessing the interior of the Blade 16 involves removing 10 Torx screws. Once all screws are removed, the bottom panel lifts off with minimal force. You’ll find the large 90 WHr battery at the bottom front of the chassis, and above are two M.2 slots that accept full-length 2280 SSDs.

The right slot was populated with a 2TB Lexar NM790 PCIe 4.0 SSD, while the left slot was empty, allowing for future upgrades. Also accessible is the PCIe Wi-Fi 7 network adapter (Intel BE213).

Battery Life on the Razer Blade 16

One thing to keep in mind is that the Blade 16 maintained competitive gaming performance among its peers, while its multi-threaded performance took a back seat. However, those compromises were fully redeemed in terms of battery life.

The Blade 16 uses a 90 WHr battery, which delivered shockingly long endurance (for a gaming laptop) in our battery test, consisting of web browsing, video streaming over Wi-Fi, and OpenGL testing with the screen brightness set at 150 nits. The system lasted a staggering 12:46, besting the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370-equipped Blade 16 by over 5 hours and the Alienware 16 Area-51 by over 9 hours. Even the Raider 16 Max HX was no match, falling short by over 4 hours.

That is a fantastic result for such a thin and light 16-inch gaming laptop, and it is a testament to the miserly energy consumption of the Panther Lake processor.

Heat on the Razer Blade 16

While running the Metro Exodus stress test, we measured the temperature of Blade 16's aluminum-alloy chassis in various spots. The keyboard measured 102 degrees Fahrenheit (F) between the G and H keys, while the touchpad was 92 F.

The hottest part of the laptop was near the rear center of the bottom of the chassis, where we measured 130 F. So it’s best to keep the laptop firmly planted on your desk while gaming, lest you roast your legs.

During the Metro Exodus stress test, the CPU measured 75.3 degrees Celsius (C). Meanwhile, the RTX 5090 came in at 87 C.

Webcam on the Razer Blade 16

Razer continues to use a run-of-the-mill 1080p webcam with an IR sensor for Windows Hello support. It’s by no means a class-leading webcam, but it’s perfectly usable for Zoom or Teams meetings.

I found the colors to be mostly adequate, but there was a little lightness in the detail in my facial features.

Software and Warranty on the Razer Blade 16

One of my favorite things about Razer laptops is that they aren’t loaded down with too much added software. On our Blade 16 review unit, Razer Chroma and Synapse were preloaded.

Synapse is an all-in-one utility that lets you adjust performance profiles, keyboard macros, audio presets, and more. Chroma, on the other hand, gives you full control over system RGBs, including the per-key keyboard effects.

Otherwise, you’ll find requisite utilities, like the Nvidia app and the usual Windows app shortcuts (we’re looking at you, LinkedIn) on the Start menu.

The Blade 16 comes backed by a one-year warranty for the system itself and a two-year warranty for the 90 WHr battery.

Razer Blade 16 Configurations

Our Blade 16 review unit came configured with a Core Ultra 9 386H processor, 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 2TB SSD, RTX 5090 laptop GPU, and a 16-inch, 240 Hz. 1600p display. The price as-configured is a whopping $4,899.99.

There are cheaper configurations available — if you retain the Core Ultra 9 386H and opt for an RTX 5070 Ti, 1TB SSD, and 32GB of memory, the price drops to $3,499.99. Going with RTX 5080 bumps (all other hardware staying the same) takes the price to $3,999.99.

Bottom Line

Overall, the Razer Blade 16 was a strong performer in our gaming benchmarks, which is the primary reason why most people would be willing to spend nearly $5,000 for this system. More importantly, the Panther Lake-based system delivered nearly 13 hours of non-gaming battery life, outrunning its closest competitor by over 4 hours. Combine those results with the beautiful display, attractive chassis, and under-the-radar design, and you have a winning combination.

However, there are some detractions; the lack of a haptic trackpad at this price point is annoying, and multi-threaded performance significantly lagged the competition. Also, the $4,900 asking price is high, although not completely out of line for a system with these specs. You can save roughly $900 by going with an RTX 5080 instead of the RTX 5090 that was in our system.

But if price isn’t an issue for you, it’s hard to argue with this compelling combination of gaming performance and battery life.

Cooler Master's HAF series of cases burst onto the scene in 2008 with the HAF 932, and it quickly became a favorite among the enthusiast crowd for its high airflow (High Air Flow) and massive 200 mm fans. From there, we've seen the HAF X (2010), the cube-shaped, dual-chamber HAF-XB (which I owned), and the spiritual successor, the MasterCase H 500 series of 2017 (there are other iterations, but these are the major releases). The HAF name was resurrected in 2022 with the HAF 500, again sporting large 200mm fans and returning to a focus on pure thermal performance. Fast-forward to today, and Cooler Master has released the HAF II 500 ($199.99), which the company calls “the next evolution of the High Air Flow series…” and is designed for “industry-leading noise-normalized cooling performance.”

The beefy mid-tower sports two huge 220mm fans up front and a large 180mm exhaust fan (all 40mm thick) in the rear to move large amounts of air quietly and keep the internals running optimally. And let me tell you, there is a lot of room inside for just about anything. Are you working with an E- ATX motherboard? No problem! 3.5-slot, 350 mm-plus video card or two? Easy. Considering two 3x140 mm radiators? You can do that, too. There's a lot of room and flexibility for all kinds of components, and we haven’t even mentioned the MasterRail system yet.

Externally, the black (the only colorway currently available) mid-tower is more of a typical cuboid shape, though wider than most mid-towers – over 10 inches due to the massive 220mm fans up front. The front panel has vertical slats running from top to bottom, with the Cooler Master brand shape (an angular, rounded-off hexagon) woven over the slats, with the same pattern used on top. Overall, it's an aggressive but good- looking chassis, and you know it means business with the huge fans visible through the front grille.

We'll cover many more details inside and outside the case, showcasing the features and any issues we may encounter during the build process. We also run the case through our thermal and noise testing to give you an idea of how it performs compared to other cases and see if it makes our best PC cases list. Below are the specifications from Cooler Master’s website.

Product Specifications

Features of the HAF II 500

▶️ External Features

As far as looks go, it’s a design (or at least a shape) we’ve all seen before, except that the HAF II 500 is a bit wider than most mid-towers. The front panel looks good and showcases the huge 220mm fans behind it, along with a filter to keep dust out. It also has the “HAF” and “500” branding on tabs on each side, along with a shiny Cooler Master symbol in the middle. The panel is secured by tabs at the bottom and magnets on top. It pops off with a gentle tug from the top, exposing the removable dust filter and those massive fans.

The windowed side panel and non-windowed back panel attach to the case similarly, with tabs to line things up at the bottom, a ball-and-socket capture mechanism, and a thumbscrew on top for each. The top panel, also filtered, hangs on via a single thumbscrew and slides off toward the back, giving access to the flexible MasterRail system on top. Also at the top front, angled down, is the IO panel. It consists of a power button with a white LED, a small reset button on the right, three USB ports, and a single 3.5mm audio jack for audio and microphone. You get one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C port and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports that flank both sides of the power button. It’s nice to see a 20 Gbps port up front, as many cases use 10 Gbps.

On the rear of the case, you can see that all airflow holes are shaped like the Cooler Master branding/symbol and appear to have less resistance, at least by air-to-grating ratio, than most others with much smaller spaces. That said, it’s probably a good idea to run slightly more intake than exhaust, or you could pull some dust in from this area (something most cases have to deal with). The power supply mounts on the bottom, in either a fan-up or fan-down configuration, and last are the eight expansion slots capable of holding two massive GPUs or four double-slot cards.

The chassis sits on four feet integrated into the metal frame that raise it roughly an inch off the floor to help with clean intake. The bottom uses a small dust filter for the PSU area only. It pulls out of the back, so depending on where your case lives, you may need to move it to get it out. But the good news is that it’s short, so you don’t need as much clearance as if it ran the full length of the case, as others do.

▶️ Internal Features

Moving inside the case, one of the first things you’ll notice is the amount of room inside, the huge fans, and the scoop to improve video card cooling. Since it’s over 10 inches wide, it feels like you’re working in a warehouse, with room for whatever components you can think of (within reason, of course). Starting at the front, we get a better look at the two Mighty40 F220 fans that bring air into the space. These dual ball-bearing fans spin from 200-1,500 RPM, and according to the specifications, each one moves over 203 CFM of air at 3.1 mmH2O static pressure, and does so at a low 36 dBA. This area supports up to 3x 120 mm fans/radiators or 2x 180 mm fans/radiators (up to 72mm thick if the air divider is removed).

Inside, a split-level layout separates the power supply and drive storage areas from the rest of the case. Towards the front is a sloped baffle covering part of the bottom fan, directing most of the air up towards the video card. The rest is dispersed within the power supply chamber, cooling any 2.5-inch (up to six) or 3.5-inch (up to three) drives in the space.

The panel where the motherboard mounts has an interior-sliding panel and a rear door, which makes building your rig and routing cables much easier. You don’t have to play games moving from one side to the other to find and plumb them; just send the cables through the large gap when both are open and connect. Easy. Once you’re done, slide the interior panel and secure it at the top with a twist of the tab (the thumbscrew at the bottom lets it slide fore and aft), so you can’t see the wires. It’s a really clean look. Also attached to that panel is the mount for the GPU support strut(s). It comes with one already mounted, but includes another in the accessories kit, to support two graphics cards.

The HAF II supports up to E-ATX motherboards and comes with the motherboard standoffs already installed (as we expect at this price point). There’s a large cutout on the motherboard baffle and plenty of room to install cooling hardware with the board already mounted. One thing I’d like to see in this case that isn’t here is rear-connect (BTF, Stealth, Project Zero) support for motherboards. You’ll have to use a ‘traditional’ motherboard. Cooler Master does stamp out plenty of holes around the edge of the motherboard real estate for cable routing.

The rear of the case holds the third included fan, in this case, a Mighty40 V180. This big guy spins from 25 to 1,370 RPM and delivers over 161 CFM at 4.0 mmH2O static pressure, at only 34 dB(A), according to the specifications. Below that are the eight PCIe expansion slots, which allow you to install up to two 3.5-slot video cards (72mm with two cards, up to 40mm each if installing four cards), rare for a mid-tower. You can run a single vertical GPU, but you’ll have to buy an adapter (PCI 4.0 or 5.0) separately.

Sliding off the top of the case (it moves back an inch or so, then lifts) exposes the MasterRail multi-purpose mounting system for fans or radiators. The rails and fully adjustable mounting points allow flexible placement of fans and radiators, enabling easy upgrades and fully custom setups. This space supports up to 3x 120 mm fans/radiators or 2x 180 mm fans/radiators (up to 58mm thick).

Flipping the case around to the back, we can see the second chamber at the bottom, along with space for the power supply and drive bays. The three pre-installed drive caddies support up to three 3.5-inch drives or six 2.5-inch drives, which is a lot in the age of M.2 form factor SSDs. PSU clearance is up to 210mm when the drives are installed in East-West orientation (pictured), and 150mm when you turn them North-South. As is, there’s enough room to hide your cables, but I wouldn’t call the cable space plentiful with all the caddies in place and East-West oriented.

Cooler Master includes several pre-installed Velcro strips for cable routing, and when you take the time to use them, they can really keep things clean in this normally messy area. In the middle, you can see that ‘door’ we talked about earlier to help with cable management. Again, open this up, slide the front one back, route your cables, slide the front back, and secure this rear one with two captive thumbscrews. I’d like to see captive thumbscrews on the side and top panels, too.

Along the top edge, we can see the included fan hub. The SATA-powered device supports up to six 4-pin PWM fans and six 3-pin ARGB devices. It supports up to 32W, which means you can use up to six ~5W fans.

The takeaways for me here are how much room there is for components and fiddling around, the copious amount of airflow, and how quiet it is at low speeds (and how it performs there as we’ll see in our testing below).

Test equipment, method, and results

Our thermal tests are presented to give you more information about the product’s performance, but aren’t intended as the sole basis for judging the chassis. The style, price, features, and noise levels of a case should also be considered, and we all have different preferences. What I might like in a case, you might not, and that’s OK. Our goal with these reviews is to give everyone, regardless of their preferences, enough information to decide whether a case is right for them.

To get heat into the system, we stress the CPU with Cinebench R26 (multi-threaded test) and the video card with Furmark 2 (1080p). CPU and GPU tests run concurrently for 30 minutes, allowing the air-cooled system to reach saturation and stabilize over that period. We then let the system idle for 15 minutes, adjust the fans to 100%, and test again.

Noise-normalized (42dBA) Maximum thermal Performance

This set of tests is designed to appeal to those who love quiet PCs, with both system fans and the CPU fan noise normalized to 42 dBA. Consider this a measure of the case’s thermal efficiency when noise levels are set to run quietly. It is audible, but just (at least for my old ears).

The HAF II 500 and its gigantic wind movers did a good job keeping our Intel Core Ultra 9 270K Plus running below its throttling point with ease, like the others. Temperatures peaked at 90 degrees Celsius, the best result (matched by the Montech TG3) among the five datasets we have on our new Intel-based test system. The HAF churned out the lowest video card temperature by far (5 degrees) in the group, which averaged 69 degrees Celsius, making this chassis great for high-power graphics cards for gaming, AI, rendering, or other GPU-heavy, compute-intensive workloads.

Maximum Noise Levels

We measure the noise levels with a sound meter from one meter away from the computer case, with the pre-installed fans running at their maximum RPM. If a case does not have enough included fans for airflow (intake and exhaust) as configured, we add a Cooler Master M120 ARGB, since we expect most users will add at least one more fan in situations like these.

With the three massive fans cranked and moving copious amounts of air, the new HAF peaked at 49 dBA, placing it in the middle of our current data sets. The Montech was the quietest at 48 dBA, a mere 1 dBA difference. Subjectively, the three Mighty40 fans' tone wasn’t unpleasant when fully cranked, and there was way more wind noise, with little audible mechanical noise. At the lower noise-normalized speed, it also didn’t emit harsh tones.

Maximum thermal performance - fans at full speed

Our noise-normalized results are designed for folks who prefer silence, but what if you don’t mind additional noise and just care about maximum performance, or maybe you have to run things at high settings to keep high-powered devices cool? This testing is for you. Obviously, when you add fans or an AIO up top, things will change a bit, but this gives you a great idea of ‘out-of-the-box’ performance, noise be damned.

Maximum thermal performance – fans at full speed

Our noise-normalized results are designed for folks who prefer silence, but what if you don’t mind additional noise and just care about maximum performance, or maybe you have to run things at high settings to keep high-powered devices cool? This testing is for you. Obviously, when you add fans or an AIO up top, things will change a bit, but this gives you a great idea of ‘out-of-the-box’ performance, noise be damned.

As we cranked the fans up, temperatures dropped 6 degrees Celsius from the noise-normalized testing to an average of 84 degrees for the HAF II 500. Video card temperatures only dropped two degrees Celsius to 67 degrees, but the HAF was still leading the pack. Overall, the huge fans did a great job of keeping our internals cool, especially with the graphics card.

Conclusion

Cooler Master’s new HAF II 500 ($199.99) carries on the HAF legacy, focusing on what made the series popular in the first place: moving a lot of air. The three pre-installed Mighty40 fans delivered excellent thermal performance in our testing, leading the pack on GPU temperatures and tying for the best CPU result on our new platform. The mid-tower not only supports a wide variety of hardware configurations, including up to four dual-slot graphics cards or two colossal 3.5-slot cards, but also cools them better than any of the five cases we’ve tested in this new setup so far. That may change over time, but for now, it’s the king of the hill, especially for video card cooling.

At just under $200, the HAF II 500 isn’t inexpensive, but it's built for enthusiasts who prioritize cooling performance without sacrificing acoustics. With massive fans, excellent airflow, a noise-optimized profile, flexible interior configurations, and a clean, built-for-purpose appearance, Cooler Master has delivered a worthy successor in the HAF lineup. It also made our Best PC Cases list as the best premium airflow chassis. So if you have the budget for a gaming, AI, rendering, or other high-power configuration, the HAF II 500 is a well-rounded sub-$200 chassis that keeps everything inside running optimally, and it does so without being loud.

The Flashforge Creator 5 is the best budget tool changer currently on the market. Of course, there are only two other true toolchangers out there right now, three if you include the Bambu Lab H2C nozzle swapper. At the time of this review, the Creator 5 is on sale for $699, after a $100 discount. For that, you get a solid, open-frame Core XY machine with a 256 mm cubed build volume and four speedy toolheads that won’t waste your filament budget.

The Creator 5 is not perfect. It purges an insane amount of material when it loads, and the required prime block is surprisingly large. If you don’t use the Flashforge filament profiles, you’ll be in for a shock at the heft of the prime tower. Why? They only adjusted the filament profile for their own material. Everything purges at single-nozzle AMS levels. This setting is buried pretty deep in the slicer, and it took some time for me to find and correct it.

The printer handle high temperature materials well, which is more relevant if you opt for the enclosed Creator 5 Pro. It's still useful on the open frame machine because it loads and unloads at a higher temp to avoid clogging.

Being an open-frame printer, the Flashforge Creator 5 is limited in the materials it can print. We used the basics, PLA, PETG, and TPU for most of our prints. Since the hot end temperature can go all the way to 320°C and bed can get to 120°C we did try some higher temp filaments like PET-GF which printed fine at 310°C.

There’s no upgrade path to take the Creator 5 to an enclosed Pro, something that other companies might offer. Even though it looks like Flashforge uses the same case for both machines, there’s no fan behind the exterior grill for extra cooling, and no way to install one. However, if your plan is to print in multicolor PLA, PETG, and TPU, this is a good, no-frills machine for your workshop. It's one of the best 3D printers we’ve seen this year, and I highly recommend checking it out for your next multicolor machine.

Specifications: Flashforge Creator 5

Flashforge Creator 5: Included in the box

The Flashforge Creator 5 arrives mostly assembled. The tool heads are pre-assembled with a mounting plate. The spoolholders, touch screen, toolkit, filament coils, and quick start guide are included.

Design of the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 is a fast Core XY open-frame printer with a simple grey case that prioritizes mechanical simplicity to keep the price down. We mainly see this in how filament is manually loaded to each tool head and requires picking up each head to physically hold down a lever while you push the material through to the nozzle.

The build volume is 256 mm³, which is a fairly standard size when compared to most 3D printers. The removable flex plate is two-sided and coated with a common PEI textured surface, which gave us no problem.

As I mentioned previously, the open frame case is not meant to be upgraded with a door or top lid. It appears to be the same one used on the Pro version of this machine, which is a great cost-saving method for Flashforge, but disappointing to the buyer when you notice there are no fans behind the vents in the body.

The X and Y axes run on beefy 8mm belts with a linear rail for the X axis and linear rods for the Y. The Z runs on three linear rods, driven by three lead screws belted to a single stepper motor.

The tool head carriage includes the extruder motor and parts cooling fan, which are shared by four very lightweight tool heads. Each tool head has a manual cutter, hot end, and cooling fan. The tool heads attach to their base with magnets and are picked up by the tool carriage mechanically by gripping the circular protrusion on the back of the tool head, and aligned by mating with three pins on the tool head carriage. This is less complex than motorized latching pins that other machines use, but during our testing, it proved to be a very reliable system.

The hot end includes the thermistor and heater, and is replaced as a unit. This is not a quick-release system, and you will need tools and a bit of patience to change out the nozzles.

The Flashforge Creator 5 has basic, static, spool holders which allow for the use of a wide variety of spool types from sample spools and coils to oversized spools and spools with dinged up rims. Since the Creator 5 does not automatically unload filament, these work just fine.

Assembling the Flashforge Creator 5

For a complex machine, the Flashforge Creator 5 is very simple to assemble. The 4-inch touchscreen plugs into a socket on the printer, with no ribbon cable to fuss with, and attaches with two screws.

The tool heads are prewired and attached to a plate, which is screwed into the right side of the printer, and the tool heads dock magnetically, also on the right side of the printer.

The spool holders are attached to the right side of the printer with a single screw each. Four nozzle blockers slot into the right side of the printer to prevent oozing. There is one cable to plug into the toolhead carriage, and it attaches with two screws.

Before calibration, there is a nice reminder to make sure you’ve removed the three screws holding the bad in place for shipping.

Preparing Files / Software for Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 requires a download of Flash Studio, which is based on Orca Slicer, which traces its lineage to Bambu Studio and Prusa Slicer. Flash Studio is stable and works fine for connecting to the Creator 5 in either cloud or LAN mode. The filaments input from the printer itself show up on the device page, but have to be manually chosen in the slicer as they do not sync up automatically.

Flashforge does not give access to the printer directly from a browser using the IP address, but does offer LAN mode if you want to avoid the cloud. Files can also be transferred manually via a USB drive.

You can access Voxelshare, Flashforge’s file sharing site from the home page of the slicer. While not as deep as some of the other file sharing services out there, it is a good place to start looking for something to print.

Flashforge does have a nice series of guides that can be accessed directly from the slicer. Information is a little light on the Creator 5 largely because it is still in pre-order status.

Leveling the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 sets Z offset and levels the bed as part of its initial calibration, along with vibration compensation and extruder offset calibration. It calibrates the four tool heads by tapping a calibration disk hidden underneath the build plate. This takes about 40 minutes, but only needs to be done when the machine is first set up.

The printer offers to recheck the level at the start of each print. Since the printer sets the level using the tool head carriage, without the need to level each individual tool, it’s quick enough to just let it level each time.

Loading Filament on the Flashforge Creator 5

Loading filament in the Flashforge Creator 5 is a very simple, though oddly manual, process. Each tool head has a manual cutter, triggered by a lever, which also releases the extruder. To load filament, place the spool on the holder, push the end of the material into the appropriately numbered port, and hand-feed the material to the tool head. You then remove the toolhead from its dock, press the lever to release the extruder tension, and feed the material until it stops. To unload, you reverse the process.

The loading routine on the printer nicely sets the hot end temperature to match the last filament loaded, 250 °C for PLA and TPU, and 270 °C for PETG. It will then purge a rather large amount of material onto the floor of the printer.

Printing on the Flashforge Creator 5

The Flashforge Creator 5 comes with four small sample coils of basic colored PLA, which are too small to be of any real use. You should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing to stock up on filament before using the Creator 5.

For my first print, I decided to jump into the deep end of the pool. I used Creality’s Cube Me tool to make a model from a photo of Dave Hasselhoff from his Knight Rider days. I used the .12 mm layer height default profile, which set an average print speed of 160 mm/s. I tilted the model 90 degrees backward to avoid supports on Hoff’s face and stuck with the default values for tree supports. The supports were very stout, but were removed with very little trouble.

The print took 8 hours 28 minutes to complete and looks fantastic. The purge block generated by the defaults was massive on this model, weighing in at 44 grams, more than the model’s 33 grams. This purge value can be adjusted in the slicer and should be refined in future software releases as well.

I used Anycubic PLA Plus in peach pink, cyan, and black. The white is Microcenter’s Inland PLA.

I wanted to test the ability of the Creator 5 to push TPU, so I loaded up some FiberFlex 40D from Fiberology. 40D is a little bit softer than standard 95A TPU, and many of the printers I test have a hard time handling it. To make it more interesting, I gave it a difficult model, the TPU air duster from Dan the 3D Printing Dad on Printables. This file will fail at the first hint of underextrusion. Using a .12mm layer height and an average print speed of 50 mm/s, the print completed in 2 hours and 9 minutes.

The duster printed great, with no leaks in the bellows, but did fail ¾ of the way up the straw. That soft TPU was way too wiggly at the top, where the model was very small.

Sadly, the extruder clogged, which required disassembling the tool head to clear.

I wanted to give the machine another shot, so I loaded up some CookieCad Sunset TPU, which has a shore hardness of 95A. This time, I was prototyping a phone bag I made in Tinkercad.

This printed at a .2mm layer height, with an average speed of 50 mm/s. The print took a little over 10 hours to print. The quality is very nice with just a little bit of stringing on the interior of the bag, which just means I should have dried the TPU before printing with it.

For PETG, I printed a Fidget Grabber I found while browsing MakerWorld. Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 120 mm/s, the print completed in 2 hours 57 minutes. The print looks really good in Polymaker Silver PETG, and all of the print-in-place joints came out super clean. It’s not the most functional print, but it’s certainly fun.

Bottom Line

The Flashforge Creator 5 printed everything we threw at it (except softer than soft TPU) and did an excellent job. It will be even better if Flashforge can tone down the purge waste when loading and on the prime block. The slicer could be a little less clunky and sync filaments directly, but again, this is a small issue.

$699 isn’t exactly the cheapest price for a 3D printer, but it is currently the best deal you’ll get on a tool changer. If you want to print in four colors, but hate wasting your filament, the Creator 5 is worth a look.

Right now, our options for tool changers are limited. The Snapmaker U1 has a bit more polish and can be upgraded to be fully enclosed by slapping an IKEA tub on top of it. It is currently $899. The prosumer Prusa Research XL, which has a larger print volume and five heads, is $3,899.

Cooler Master occupies an unusual position in the power supply market. Founded in Taiwan in 1992 and best known for the cases and coolers that made its name, the company has spent more than two decades selling PSUs without ever being a PSU manufacturer in the strict sense. Like most brands in this space, it commissions platforms from numerous OEMs, and the quality of a given Cooler Master unit has historically tracked the quality of whoever built it. The MWE line sits at the volume end of the company's catalog: sensible, mainstream units aimed at builders who want a dependable supply without paying for a flagship badge. We take a closer look at the Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 V4 to see if it belongs among our list of the best power supplies in the market today.

The MWE Gold V4 series is the latest iteration of that formula, and it arrives with more substance than the mid-range positioning suggests. The platform was developed by Gospower in collaboration with Cooler Master, and it is currently dedicated to them - you will not find this design wearing another brand's sticker for the time being. The series is fully compliant with ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1, carries a native 12V-2x6 connector, and introduces Cooler Master's patent-pending GPU Shield current-monitoring feature alongside a digital control scheme for the PFC and LLC stages. The 750W model reviewed here targets the heart of the mainstream gaming market, backed by a ten-year warranty and a $119 MSRP.

Specifications and Design

In the Box

The MWE Gold 750 V4 ships in a cardboard box with a purple-blue sleeve wrapped around plain kraft board, a render of the unit on the front, and the important badges - ATX 3.1 with 12V-2x6, PCIe 5.1 readiness, the 80 PLUS Gold logo, and the ten-year warranty shield - laid out along the bottom edge. It is a clean, honest presentation for the class, with the GPU Shield feature called out in its own corner.

Inside, the supply is sandwiched between protective packaging. The bundle is basic: the AC power cord, a set of mounting screws, a handful of zip ties, and a few reusable Velcro straps, plus a leaflet explaining Cooler Master's recommended PCIe cable installation practices. There are no cable combs, no tester, and no storage pouch, which is a defensible economy at this price point, even if competitors occasionally throw in more.

The modular cables themselves are all-black, flat ribbon types. The 12V-2x6 cable uses the two-color connector design that the ATX 3.1 spec encourages, making an incompletely seated plug easy to spot, but we would argue that dark purple was not the best choice for this application. Wire gauges are appropriate throughout, and the flat design makes routing behind a motherboard tray painless.

External Appearance

At 140 x 150 x 86 mm, the MWE Gold 750 V4 is a compact ATX unit - 140 mm of depth is as short as modern PSUs practically get, and it will drop into any case that accepts an ATX supply at all, with room to spare for cable slack. The rhombille tiling fan grille stands out, framed by four exposed screws, with a thin gold pinstripe and gold MWE branding on the side panels, providing the only decoration on an otherwise all-black chassis. The finish deserves a mildly critical word. It is smooth and appealing - not a bad paint job by any means - it simply is not as special as the rest of the unit's feature sheet might lead you to expect.

The rear face carries the AC receptacle and a receded main rocker switch surrounded by a generous perforated exhaust area. There is no switch for the semi-passive fan mode - the Zero RPM behavior is automatic and not user-selectable, which some builders will not appreciate. The front face hosts the fully modular connector bay, clearly silkscreened, with a shared 8-pin socket group for the PCIe and CPU cables, the native 12V-2x6 socket, and a small indicator LED between them. The specifications sticker lies on the top face.

That small LED is the visible face of GPU Shield, Cooler Master's patent-pending current-management feature, and the marketing centerpiece of the V4 series. The circuit monitors the current flowing through the individual pins of the 12V-2x6 connector in real time, and if it detects an abnormal draw on any of them - the classic signature of a poorly seated or damaged connector - it intervenes and flags the fault through the LED. Given how much grief melting connectors have caused over the past few years, a per-pin watchdog on a $119 unit is a genuinely useful inclusion rather than a gimmick, even if we hope most owners never see the LED do anything at all.

Internal Design

Cooling is handled by a 120 mm Hong Hua HA1225H12F-Z fan, a hydrodynamic bearing (HDB) model rated for 2400 RPM at 0.58A. Hong Hua is a familiar name inside value-oriented and mid-range PSUs, and while it lacks the cachet of a premium Japanese fan, the HDB variant is a reasonable, durable choice at this tier, and its ceiling speed gives the platform plenty of thermal headroom to call on.

As noted in the introduction, the platform is a Gospower design produced in collaboration with Cooler Master and currently exclusive to them, so there is a clear answer to the perennial 'who really makes it' question. The layout is clean and modern, with sizable heatsinks for the power output, vertical daughterboards for the minor rails, and generous helpings of grey silicone glue securing the components.

The transient filtering stage begins on a small PCB behind the AC receptacle and continues on the main board, with two Y capacitors, two X capacitors, two filtering inductors, and a MOV - a basic but complete filter without omissions. A relay handles inrush current bypass duty alongside the usual NTC thermistor. Two bridge rectifiers are mounted on their own heatsink, feeding the APFC stage, whose boost components share the long heatsink with the primary inversion stage MOSFETs. A single 590 μF capacitor from TK (Toshin Kogyo), a renowned Japanese manufacturer.

The primary inversion stage uses a half-bridge LLC resonant topology, the mature and cost-effective arrangement that dominates this class, with Cooler Master claiming the digital tuning of the PFC and LLC stages is worth roughly three points of efficiency over the previous MWE generation - a dubious claim as the unit still lands on Gold-level efficiency class. On the secondary side, the 12V rail is generated by four MOSFETs arranged in synchronous rectification on the main PCB, while the 3.3V and 5V rails are derived from DC-to-DC converters on a vertical daughterboard. Secondary filtering leans heavily on CapXon capacitors.

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

For the testing of PSUs, we are using high precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox and various other bits and parts.

At 25°C ambient, the MWE Gold 750 V4 delivers exactly the efficiency profile its badge promises. It averaged 90.4% at 230 VAC and 89.3% at 115 VAC across the nominal load range, peaking at 92.6% (230 VAC) near 50% load and holding 90.2% even at a sustained 750W. The curve is not exactly flat, but there is no dramatic full-load sag. The figures sit comfortably within 80Plus Gold territory. What the unit does not yet have is a Cybenetics certification: at the time of writing, there is no entry for the MPM-75F4-AFG in the Cybenetics database.

Acoustically, the cold run is very good news. The Zero RPM mode keeps the fan completely stopped up to almost 40% load (roughly up to 300W), which covers desktop work and light gaming outright. The fan spins up at about 40% load, registering a whisper-quiet 31.6 dB(A), and ramps gently from there, crossing 39 dB(A) only past 80% load and topping out at 44.2 dB(A) at a sustained 750W. Thermal performance gives no cause for concern, with the primary and secondary heatsinks reaching just 64°C and 66°C, respectively, at full load.

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Inside the hotbox at roughly 45°C ambient - slightly above the unit's own 40°C rating - efficiency drops by about two percentage points, averaging 88.4% at 230 VAC and 87.4% at 115 VAC, with full-load figures of 86.5% and 85.2% respectively. That degradation is significant but entirely ordinary for the temperature delta, especially considering a unit that is now operating beyond its rated envelope.

Noise is where the heat reshapes the unit's character. The fan abandons its passive mode sooner and climbs steadily to 47.8 dB(A) at full output - a level you will definitely hear, though short of the wind-tunnel territory some compact Gold units reach under the same conditions. Internal temperatures are the figures to watch: the primary heatsink reached about 104°C and the secondary about 105°C at full load. The platform held composure, and component ratings give some reassurance, but sustained full-load operation in a 45°C environment is clearly not this unit's design brief, nor should it be for any mainstream 750W supply.

PSU Quality and Bottom Line

Power Supply Quality

Voltage regulation is relatively solid for the class. Across the 20% to 100% load span, the 12V rail moved by 0.9%, the 3.3V rail by 1.1%, and the 5V rail by 1.4%. Nothing here approaches the sub-1% figures of premium digital platforms, but every rail stays comfortably tight, and the 12V line - the only one modern systems seriously stress - is well controlled at under 1% regulation.

Ripple suppression follows the same pattern of honest adequacy. The 12V rail peaked at 54 mV under full load and 50 mV under the 12V-focused cross-load test, while the 5V and 3.3V rails topped out at 32 mV and 30 mV. Against the 120 mV and 50 mV ATX design limits, these are comfortable passes with roughly 55% headroom on the critical rail, though enthusiast-class platforms routinely halve these numbers. For the components a 750W Gold unit will realistically feed, the filtering is more than sufficient.

During our thorough assessment, we evaluate the essential protection features of every power supply unit we review, including Over Current Protection (OCP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Over Power Protection (OPP), and Short Circuit Protection (SCP).

All protection mechanisms were verified and triggered correctly during testing. With the unit hot, OCP tripped at 134% on the 3.3V rail, 136% on the 5V rail, and 128% (80A) on the 12V rail, with OPP shutting the unit down at roughly 130% of rated output, or about 975W. These thresholds are on the generous side for a mainstream unit but not unexpectedly so.

Bottom Line

The MWE Gold 750 V4 is a well-judged mainstream power supply that knows exactly what it is trying to be. The Gospower-built platform - developed jointly with Cooler Master and currently dedicated to them - is modern where it matters: ATX 3.1 compliance with a native 12V-2x6 connector, digital control of the PFC and LLC stages, and the GPU Shield monitoring feature as a genuinely novel extra at this price. The engineering fundamentals are in noticeably better shape than the MWE badge historically implied, and the 12V-2x6 connector protection can bring sales from worried consumers.

The measurements back the badge without embarrassing it. Efficiency lands squarely and honestly in Gold territory with a predictable curve, and its 80Plus listing is real and verifiable. Regulation and ripple are comfortably within specification on every rail, with the 12V line particularly steady, even if neither metric threatens the enthusiast tier. Acoustics at normal ambient temperatures are a quiet strength, with a true fanless window covering 300W of load and restrained ramping beyond it.

The compromises are easy to enumerate and, mostly, easy to live with. The capacitor selection is almost entirely Taiwanese, leaning on CapXon polymers - fine parts, but the ten-year warranty is doing some load-bearing work there. The unit gets audible under sustained heavy load in hot environments, where the internal temperatures also climb higher than we would like. None of these is a genuine weakness at this price point - they are simply the fingerprints a $119 budget inevitably leaves somewhere.

At an MSRP of $119 and with retail pricing typically drifting below that figure, the value calculus is straightforward. There are quieter units, better-built units, and units with prestigious component sheets - all of them costing meaningfully more. For a mainstream ATX 3.1 build around a mid-range or upper-mid-range graphics card, the MWE Gold 750 V4 delivers verified Gold efficiency, current-generation connectivity, unusual protective touches, and a decade of warranty coverage at a price that undercuts most of the units it competes with. That is an easy recommendation, delivered with only minor reservations.

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I've reviewed several Razer gaming chairs over the years and have come to appreciate their style, adjustability, and overall comfort. Now, Razer is introducing a new line of gaming chairs that leans heavily into styling.

Meet the new Soma Chroma, a mid-range gaming chair with a racing-style design and integrated RGB lighting customizable via Razer Chroma software. The chair can be powered via a USB-C cable or a portable power bank, and it connects to your PC via an integrated Bluetooth connection or a 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle included in the box.

But is beauty more than skin deep? Let’s take a deep look at the Soma Chroma to see if there’s more to see other than its flashy design to make it a contender among the best gaming chairs.

Razer Soma Chroma Specifications

Assembling the Razer Soma Chroma

This is the fourth Razer gaming chair that I’ve reviewed, so I could pretty much put one together blindfolded. From the packaging to the tools/accessories included, not much has changed. Inside the box, you’ll find:

• Fabric gloves for assembly (glued to the inner flap)
• Backrest and seat base (left and right arms pre-attached)
• Metal, 5-arm base
• Casters 5x
• Gas lift, tilt mechanism
• Allen wrench, screws, and plastic covers for left/right side arms
• 2.4 GHz USB dongle (attached to assembly guide)

The chair arrived in a massive box, and the actual weight listed on the shipping label as 70 pounds. Upon opening the box, I was greeted by a familiar sight: a pair of black-and-green work gloves for assembling the chair. It’s a nice touch, but I always toss the gloves aside because I prefer to work with my bare hands for a relatively simple task like this.

A large green cardstock assembly guide sits atop the components, with a tiny box containing the 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle attached to it.

The seat base, seatback, and 5-arm base were all wrapped in clear plastic bags to protect the metal and fabric on the components during shipping. The first step was to insert the castors into the 5-arm base, and then to insert the gas lift cylinder into the base.

The next step was to remove the four screws that are preinstalled from the factory from the bottom of the seat base with the included Allen wrench tool. Once removed, I attached the tilt mechanism, reinserted the same four screws, and placed it on the 5-arm base. The seatback has two screws on each side that must be removed before you attach it to the seat base.

Once the seatback was attached, I reinserted the four screws and slipped on the plastic cover to hide the screws and attachment mechanism. I'll note that on Razer Iskur chairs, the plastic cover is secured with a single screw on either side, and the screw is covered with a tiny plastic plug. The cover on the Soma Chroma simply slides and locks into place.

Once the chair is fully assembled, you’re not quite done yet. You still need to get power to the chair for the RGB lighting to work. The chair includes a relatively short USB-C cord that hangs out the back. Razer also supplied me with a 10-foot USB-C-to-USB-C extension cable, which I used to connect to my desktop PC. However, this setup is rather cumbersome and requires continually fighting the cable as you move around your workspace.

My solution was to plug the USB-C cable from the back of the chair into a portable power bank, and then tuck it into the zippered pouch at the bottom of the seatback. This worked well, and is clearly how the chair is intended to be used — however, it does not ship with a battery pack, nor does it ship with an extra-long cable (Razer sent that separately). So you'll need to invest in a battery pack or an extension cable to use the RGB on this chair.

Razer Soma Chroma Design

The Soma Chroma introduces an entirely new design language for Razer gaming chairs. Whereas the Iskur line has a more organic design, with softer curves and radiused edges, the Soma Chroma is more angular—especially on the seatback.

The seat back and the base have recessed channels, which I assume would help to improve airflow under your buttocks and around your back. It's an interesting design choice, though I imagine the recessed channels in the seat base will also quickly fill with dirt, dust, and food crumbs. The same design is mirrored on the back of the chair. While previous Iskur chairs have used the same material on both the front and back, the back of the Soma Chroma is constructed of hard plastic.

You'll find a zippered pouch at the back of the seat base, which runs the full width. It's large enough to accommodate a portable power bank, so you don't have to be tethered to a long extension cord to power the RGB lights.

Speaking of the RGB lights, they are controlled using Razer’s Synapse software. I installed the Synapse app on my desktop computer and then plugged in the 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle (the chair also has integrated Bluetooth LE, if you prefer to go that route). The Soma Chroma then showed up in the app, allowing me to configure it.

There’s a brightness slider and an option to dim the lights after a period of inactivity on the right panel. In the right panel, there are options to change the default effects pattern. You can configure more advanced effects using the Chroma Studio. As you might expect, you can sync the RGBs with your games, although the effect is not evenly remotely noticeable unless you’re in a dark room.

During the daytime, you’re not going to notice the lights at all, and the only people who will notice are your coworkers on Google Meet/Zoom/Teams calls.

Although you can control the RGB effects in software, there are also physical controls at the top of the headrest.

Razer Soma Chroma Adjustments and Comfort

The Soma Chroma features dual-density cold-cured foam for the seat cushion. It did a good job of conforming to my buttocks, as it's specifically designed to relieve pressure points. There's good thigh support for my 5-foot-10-inch and 161-ish-pound frame.

What you gain in RGB goodness, you lose in adjustability. There's no adjustable lumbar support — what you see is what you get. Razer said that the lumbar curve is designed to encourage a neutral position and reduce fatigue after long-term use. That may be true in theory, but my lower back begged to differ after sitting in the chair for 6 hours straight in an upright and "ergonomically-correct" position. This was never an issue for me with the Iskur V2, with its 360-degree lumbar support — or even with the Iskur V2 X, which has no lumbar controls.

The backrest is adjustable from its default 90-degree upright position all the way back to 155 degrees. I spent the majority of my time either fully upright or slightly reclined at about 100 degrees. Anything more than 100 degrees just doesn't feel natural to me in any gaming chair.

The Soma Chroma features 2D armrests, which are adjustable for swivel and height. The armrests have an up/down travel of 4 inches and can swivel in or out by up to 25 degrees. They're densely padded and were a comfortable home for my elbows during extended sessions.

The chair has a height adjustment mechanism via a handle located on the right side of the seat base. I preferred to leave the seat at its maximum height of 20.1 inches.

Bottom Line

The Razer Soma Chroma is an interesting chair for gamers who are already fully entrenched in the Chroma ecosystem. The Soma Chroma has full access to Razer’s software suite, so you can sync all your devices to suit your gaming (or other media) needs. The chair also features built-in Bluetooth LE and includes a 2.4 GHz wireless USB dongle.

The RGB integration is also well-done, with support for portable power banks and a zippered pouch on the back to discreetly hide it. You can also use a USB-C extension cord to connect the Soma Chroma to your PC, but it is a nightmare for ergonomics. Of course, the chair ships with neither a portable battery pack or an extension cord, so you'll need to purchase these separately.

On the flip side, the Soma Chroma isn’t as adjustable as some of Razer’s other chairs, as it lacks 3D armrests and lumbar controls. I also found that I had some minor lower back pain when using the chair for hours in my preferred seating position. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I haven't experienced this with previous Razer chairs.

And the other matter to consider is the $499 price. If you don’t need RGB wizardry, the Razer Iskur V2 X is $200 cheaper and just as good on chair fundamentals.

Asus’ ROG Strix Scar 18 (starting at $4,299.99) is an example of abundance in the world of gaming laptops, built around an 18-inch display and the latest flagship silicon: a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 in our test unit. This machine makes a loud first impression, from its stellar (albeit tricky to configure) mini-LED display to the unique scrolling marquee lighting on its lid. But at this price - $4,999.99 as tested – the Scar 18 must prove it can hold the line against Razer’s Blade 18 before it can claim a spot at the top.

Design of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)

At 15.71 x 11.73 x 1.38 inches, the Scar 18 has the footprint of a cafeteria tray – this isn’t a laptop you’ll be getting out on a plane. And at 8.16 pounds, this is also one of the heaviest laptops on the market. But performance is the goal here, not portability. Razer’s Blade 18 (15.74 x 10.84 x 1.1 inches) is thinner and significantly lighter, at 7.06 pounds.

The vibrant Aura Sync lightbar around the base of the laptop also demands attention, as does the RGB-lit Republic of Gamers logo on the lid. Both are configurable with customizable lighting and patterns in the Armoury Crate app.

The lid also has a special feature called AniMe vision, a diagonally scrolling marquee of text via LEDs shining through holes in the lid backing. (This is extremely similar to the AniMe Matrix that debuted on the Zephyrus line years ago.) There are several preconfigured versions of the Republic of Gamers logo, and you can add your own text effects. Layered effects are possible and don’t always produce the desired effect — I had a “raining” effect enabled at the same time as my text, and the text was almost impossible to make out.

The bottom line is that the Scar 18 couldn’t do anything more to look like a gaming laptop – it is designed to be seen. Build-wise, it’s a solid machine, showing minimal flex no matter how I handled it. Only the lid is metal, with the rest of the construction thick plastic.

Connectivity is thoroughly modern: two Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) and three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1, an audio combo jack, and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. Internally, it offers Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 from an Intel BE200 networking card. The power connector is proprietary for the 450 W power brick.

Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)

We tested the ROG Strix Scar 18 in flagship form, featuring a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor, RTX 5090 graphics card (175 W maximum graphics power), and 32GB of RAM. This is top-of-the-line gaming technology, though with one misstep: single-channel RAM. This might affect its performance as we’re about to see. The Task Manager confirms that only one SO-DIMM slot was used.

I put the Scar 18 through its paces playing 007: First Light at 3840 x 2400 with all detail settings maxed out. At first, this proved too demanding – I saw 26 to 32 frames per second (FPS) in most scenes. Enabling DLSS more than doubled the frame rate – I saw around 70 FPS or better, and the game was supremely playable.

Our comparison lineup includes Alienware’s 16 Area-51 (RTX 5080), MSI’s Raider 16 Max HX (RTX 5090), and Razer’s Blade 18 (RTX 5090). All laptops use a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and have GPUs rated for 175 W like our Asus. Their native screen resolutions, however, are different: Alienware and MSI are 2560 x 1600 while Razer has a unique dual-model display supporting both 1920 x 1200 and 3840 x 2400.

The Scar 18 was competitive across the board at 1200p, typically a few FPS ahead of the Alienware but a few FPS behind the MSI and particularly the Razer.

Bumping the resolution to 4K, the Scar 18 trailed the Razer in most games – the delta was at or almost 10% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 6, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 23. (Red Dead Redemption 2 was the exception.) While those numbers won't make the difference between playability and unplayability, the price of these laptops makes it difficult to overlook.

Differences versus the Razer aside, the Scar 18 still demonstrates ample performance for gaming at 4K in most of the games we tested, though not all – it averaged only 21 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 on ray tracing ultra, indicating that it won't be possible to play every game at maximum detail settings.

We stress test gaming laptops running 15 loops of the Metro Exodus stress test at RTX settings. During the test, the Scar 18 averaged 141 FPS with minimal variance between runs, starting at 141.5 FPS and finishing at 141.1 FPS. The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus CPU averaged 4.59 GHz on its P-cores and 2.58 GHz on its E-cores while the RTX 5090 had an average boost clock of 1.98 GHz.

Productivity Performance on the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)

We tested the Scar 18 with a Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. Not including a PCIe 5.0 drive seems like a missed opportunity at this price, though Razer does the same thing.

In Geekbench 6, the single-core numbers between these laptops were almost indistinguishable as we might expect given they all use the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, though the Scar 18’s multi-core score of 17,629 points significantly trailed the others, which all scored over 20,000 points.

The Scar 18 landed middle of the road in our 25GB file transfer test, averaging 2,042.69 MBps, putting it ahead of the MSI (1,357.93 MBps) and Razer (1,670.53 MBps) but behind the Alienware (2,738.9 MBps).

The Scar 18 also proved competitive in our 4K-to-1080p Handbrake transcoding test, completing it in two minutes and 11 seconds to lead the Alienware (2:24) but trail the MSI (1:51) and Razer (2:01).

Display on the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)

The Scar 18’s “Nebula” HDR display is its crowning feature. With a 3840 x 2400 (4K) resolution, mini-LED backlighting with 2,000 dimming zones, a 240 Hz refresh rate, and Nvidia G-Sync, this is quite advanced.

Tweaking is required to get this display to perform as intended, and it’s not simple. Out of the box, HDR is disabled, the refresh rate is capped at 120 Hz, and G-Sync is unavailable since Nvidia Optimus, which dynamically switches between the CPU’s integrated graphics and the RTX 5090, is enabled. To unlock maximum performance, the GPU must be put in “Ultimate” mode in Armoury Crate, which is effectively a MUX toggle that disables the integrated graphics. A restart is required for this to take effect. G-Sync, the 240 Hz refresh rate, and a special feature called “Extreme Low Motion Blur” (ELMB) then become available. The latter is aimed at esports players– it manipulates the pixels so that they turn off when switching colors, theoretically eliminating blur. (More on this in a moment.)

Those aren’t the only settings you’ll need to know about. You can toggle the mini-LED backlighting control between one zone, multi-zone balanced, or multi-zone strong. These settings produce very different images – one-zone provides the deepest contrast, multi-zone balanced is the dimmest but evens out the contrast to make dark scenes appear brighter, and multi-zone strong is the brightest and most vibrant. I stuck with the latter for nearly everything.

ELMB only works in one-zone mode without HDR. I tested it using the Blur Blusters UFO Test. It clearly made a difference – in the 240 fps scrollbar, the UFO looked crisp moving across the screen. Disabling ELMB caused it to become blurry, making it harder to see details. This feature can really matter for competitive esports.

But wait, there are even more settings! Armoury Crate includes many color modes through a feature called GameVisual — racing, scenery, RTS/RPG, fps, cinema, eyecare, vivid, and e-reading. On top of that, it also provides color temperature and gamut settings.

Then there’s the question of HDR. To get that working, it must first be enabled in the Windows Settings app. Back in Armoury Crate, you’ll find GameVisual, color temperature and gamut settings, Extreme Low Motion Blur, and mini-LED backlighting settings are no longer available. That’s the trade-off.

Complicating all this is that the settings I just mentioned are in different places in Armoury Crate. Some are in the display section, while others require going into the Devices section, selecting the Scar 18, and making changes there. It’s not straightforward, and those that simply use this laptop out of the box without tweaking won’t get the best visual experience.

After much experimentation, I played 007: First Light in GPU Ultimate mode, G-Sync enabled, a 240 Hz refresh rate, and True Color HDR enabled through Windows. The picture left little to the imagination – colors seemed to pop off the screen and the 4K resolution provided exquisite detail right down to the patches on Bond’s uniform. HDR effects from muzzle flashes and explosions were dazzling in dark environments.

When I watched Zootopia 2, I switched off HDR and used SDR multi-zone strong. Colors looked exquisite, and brightness was borderline excessive in a darker room. Bright objects like lamps almost seemed overexposed, but they weren’t – the display was simply that bright, and colors were so saturated that I found it hard to look away.

The Scar 18’s numbers are from its default out-of-the-box display settings. In color coverage, its 77.9% DCI-P3 coverage was last in the group – Alienware's OLED screen achieved 93.7% — but is still high enough to create vibrant-looking colors. Its 428.2-nit peak brightness was mid-pack, brighter than the Alienware's 368.6 nits but well back from Razer's 538 nits.

Also shown in our charts are the multi-zone strong settings, which produced 584.6 nits of brightness, with parts peaking at 625 nits. Enabling HDR, we measured an astounding 1,124 nits at 10%, 1,090 nits at 40%, and 943 nits at 100%. If you're looking for one of the brightest laptop displays around, the Scar 18 ranks high on the list.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)

The Scar 18’s keyboard is great for gaming – the keys require enough actuation force that resting your fingers on WASD or the arrow keys won’t produce accidental presses. Key travel is communicative in the sense your fingers know exactly when a key is at the top or bottom of the stroke. The bright RGB backlight is sharp and easy to see.