ASUS have been making PSUs for some time, and their latest range contains some truly great quality options. We’ve taken the liberty of listing the current range for you, with an explanation of their features and capabilities, to help you decide the right one for your needs. Reliability is key when it comes to a power supply, and all these selections are of the highest quality, most of them being modified Seasonic units with top notch components. 

Read below for a breakdown of each of the models and do be sure to check out our ‘what to look for when buying a PSU?’ section further down the page if you need a refresher before making a purchase. If you’re not sure what PSU your system needs, do also have a look at the ASUS PSU calculator to help determine which Wattage your PC requires.

For the average user: ASUS Prime Gold

If your needs are met by 750W or 850W output and you’re looking for a slightly more affordable model, then the ASUS Prime PSU could be the right choice for you.

Although cheaper than the other options here it still has a great build quality and comes with an 8 year warranty to back this up. This is partly thanks to the dual ball fan bearings, which can reportedly last up to twice as long as the standard sleeve bearing designs.

The low-ESR capacitors it uses help to maximize power efficiency, meaning it comes with an 80 Plus Gold rating. You get a 16-pin PCIe cable included which is compatible with PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics cards

The gaming model: ASUS TUF GAMING Gold

For most gamers, the ASUS TUF Gaming PSU offers the best balance between price and performance, with the 1000W variant being able to run even RTX 4090 builds. You can also get 750W, 850W, and 1200W variants that meet the gold standard should these suit you better.

Once again this design comes with the dual ball fan bearings, plus has a PCB coating that protects it against extreme temps, moisture, and dust. The premium grade capacitors and chokes within the PSU also undergo rigorous testing, to the level of military-grade certification. All of this makes this a reliable and tough piece of engineering.

This power supply is fully modular and comes with a 10-year warranty, which is certainly long enough (and then some).

The high-end gaming model: ASUS ROG STRIX Gold

If you want to put together a gaming rig with a more high-end budget then the ROG STRIX has that extra bit of quality. It has all the same features of the TUF Gaming model discussed above, however it comes with improved ROG heatsinks that not only keep the internals extra cool but work with the onboard fan controller to stop the fans when usage drops below 40%. This ‘0db technology’ essentially means you can enjoy a near silent PSU when doing lighter workloads/gaming.

The ROG Strix comes with ‘Axial-tech fan design’ which essentially means longer fan blades and an improved barrier ring around the fan - thereby improving cooling efficiency. Again this model is fully modular, available in a range of different Wattages depending on your needs, and you get a very nice 10-year warranty.

Once again, different wattages are available, including 750W, 850W, 1000W, and 1200W.

A premium grade, small form factor PSU: ASUS ROG LOKI SFX-L Titanium

The Loki is in many ways the smaller variant of the most premium ASUS PSU: the Thor (listed below). It’s Titanium rated, meaning it has an overall efficiency of 94%, making it both quiet and thermally efficient as well.

It has the same premium end components as the Thor, but in a smaller SFX chassis that measures 125 x 125 x 63.5mm - perfect for those smaller cases. It’s available in the typical Wattage ratings: 750W, 850W, 1000W, and up to a 1200W max. 

The most high-end PSU that ASUS make: ASUS ROG THOR GAMING Titanium

As befitting its godly name, the Thor is an absolute beast. It has a Titanium efficiency rating, making it exceptionally quiet and thermally efficient. The 1200W variant of this PSU produces less than 35 dB of noise, which means it won the Cybernetics Lambda standard ++ certification (which is quite the prize in the PSU game). The maximum wattage however is 1600W, which is very high indeed, and would be able to power even the most ridiculously high-spec rig with extra to spare; there are also 850W and 1000W options available.

The power supply has the ATX form factor as well as being designed up to the future ATX 3.1 standard, giving it a great amount of future proofing. 

In aesthetic terms, you get a fully ARGB-Illuminated fan and Aura Sync compatibility, which means you can synchronize it with the same RGB effects used on the rest of your PC.

What to look for when buying a PSU?

Before we talk through the different power supply options that ASUS offer, let’s make sure we’re up to speed on what we should be looking for when shopping for one of these devices.

Wattage

The first thing you need to check is the wattage of your power supply. This is the value which measures whether the output of the PSU will be enough to power all of the components in your computer, especially power-hungry components like the graphics card and processor. Typically we advise buying a PSU with a higher wattage than the value your build requires, just to give yourself some headroom for any future upgrades.

Efficiency rating and meaning

The efficiency of a PSU in basic terms is a measure of what proportion of the wattage it draws from the mains electricity (i.e. from the socket/power outlet it’s plugged into) makes it into the computer it is powering. Besides wasting less power, more efficient PSUs tend to produce less heat (waste energy) so are also quieter as less fan cooling is required. 

Around 2004 manufacturers started providing consumers with a standardised rating system to gauge the efficiency of their PSUs known as the 80 Plus rating system, so named because all those within it will supply at least 80% power efficiency when under 20%/50%/100% loads. The differently ranked ratings within this standard range from Standard/White all the way up to Titanium, with the higher ratings typically costing more money to buy; and you can read more about these in our dedicated power supply ratings guide. Every PSU listed here falls within the top three efficiency ratings: Gold, Platinum, and Titanium.

There’s also a newer, more accurate efficiency standard from Cybernetics Labs that takes into account different regional mains power outputs (whether you be in the US, EU, UK etc.). This isn’t quite as popular as the 80 Plus rating yet but you can look up your chosen PSU from their table here, along with their decibel rating.

Passive vs Semi-passive

Passive and Semi-passive refers to the cooling technology used by the power supplies. Passive PSUs have no moving parts whatsoever, in particular they are fanless as all of their cooling duties are performed by heatsinks, which means they run pretty much silently. The downside of this however is that they are less competent at cooling high-power builds for which a fan still remains necessary.

The majority of PSUs on this list will be semi-passive: these power supplies do have a fan, but only utilise it when needed under medium-high loads, meaning they remain mostly silent in low-usage scenarios.

PSU Modularity

Modularity in the context of CPUs basically refers to how many of the cables you can remove and how many are soldered on to the PSU, which makes it harder to arrange and cable manage within your PC build. The majority of PSUs listed here will be fully modular so you don’t really need to worry about this, but if you want to know more have a read of our full vs semi vs non modular guide for more info.

The good people at ASUS are once again running their fantastic cashback campaign, and though the initial promotion period may be over, if you've purchased one of the below eligible products you'll still be able to claim on it for the next two weeks, so read the details below!

Here at WePC we love a bargain, and the opportunity to potentially save hundreds on a new PC build is too good to miss. In this deal you can pick up one new GPU, one PSU, and one AIO cooling system and receive money back, which is a strong foundation for any new rig.

How long does the ASUS cashback campaign last?

There are two date windows you need to be aware of regarding this campaign, the first is the promotion period, which is the time you have to actually buy one of the eligible products, and the second is the redemption period, which is the time you have to claim the cashback on your products. The promotion period is over, but you still have time to redeem any purchases you've made.

How do you claim the cashback?

Claiming the cashback is relatively painless, but you do need to make sure you save your invoice and receipt when purchasing your product so that you have all the necessary information to hand to complete the submission forms. You will also be required to setup an ASUS VIP account.

What hardware is eligible for cashback?

Below you can see the different hardware that is eligible for a cashback claim for UK customers, along with the amount of cashback you can claim for each product (click the links below for the products and cashback available in other regions). As you’d expect from an ASUS campaign, all the products are made by the company, but this is no bad thing as ASUS makes terrific products across all of these categories. The graphics cards are limited to AMD Radeon options only, so if you’re an Nvidia purest you’ll have to look elsewhere, however we’re big fans of a lot of the SKUs in the Radeon RX 7000 series, which often offer better performance/price.

The maximum you can earn in cashback from this list (in UK pricing) is £230, however you can earn an additional £25 off, plus win some other potential prizes, by also taking part in the ASUS Rate My Gear campaign - details of this are below.

Where can you buy these products?

The list of participating retailers for the UK are listed below.

What countries are participating in the promotion?

The full list of participating countries are below. Clicking on the link will take you to the main page for the promotion relating to that country, where you can see all the eligible products and cashback amounts listed.

What hardware should you pick? We suggest some options for different budgets & needs

We’ve taken the liberty of matching together some suitable graphics cards, power supplies, and liquid cooling systems from the list of eligible products, which would make sense in the same PC build. This is not to say you can’t mix and match them in different combinations, but we’ve tried to select them based on three different budgetary categories and use-cases.

The specific PSU Wattage variant you pick will obviously depend on the needs of your particular setup, so we’ve listed multiple options for each. Similarly whether your power supply is ATX (suitable for mid-tier and above) or SFX/SFX-L (for smaller size cases) will vary based on your build.

The premium end: powerful rigs for 4K gaming and high-end workstation builds

The upper-mid tier: perfect for QHD gaming and general creative rendering

The value options: solid FHD gaming performance for reasonable cost

For additional savings: ASUS Rate My Gear

To get additional cashback you can also participate in the Rate My Gear promotion, which can secure you £25 more in savings. On top of this, for a limited time, UK participants will be automatically entered into a competition draw where you could win an additional £50 in CDKeys vouchers plus £30 in takeaway vouchers from JustEat - so don’t miss out!

To be eligible for all the above, you must first leave a product review on one of the participating retailer sites then submit your review here. 

Please note that not every nationality is eligible to take part in this particular promotion, although there may be an alternative one they can make use of e.g. Gamesplanet for German customers.

When building a new PC, or upgrading and existing one, deciphering which component is right for you can be a bit daunting. Even within the same brand there are myriad options and sub-ranges available. Today we’ll be looking at some of the offerings from Gigabyte, a world renowned Taiwanese company that’s a giant when it comes to computer electronics, in particular we’ll be focusing on the Z790 motherboard range, which are the best options available for Intel 14th gen, 13th gen, and 12th gen CPUs.

Gigabyte are a big name in the motherboard market in particular, though they also make a mean power supply, and if you’re looking to build a new rig, picking up these components in addition to one of their GPUs is well worth considering. 

Below we’ve selected a ‘value’ option (which will still perform strongly but at a more affordable price), a ‘performance’ pick (for the high-end gamer/creator), and an ‘enthusiast’ option (for the workstation user/gamer who wants the very best out there) of both PSUs and motherboards; these would work well paired-up together, although some can be mixed and matched as well, should you wish.

Z790 AORUS XTREME vs MASTER vs ELITE X motherboards: What’s the difference?

The value option: Z790 AORUS ELITE AX/X

The Z790 AORUS ELITE AX (designated just X if you pick the option without the Wi-Fi 6E Ultra-high gain antenna) is the best way of getting access to the fairly advanced Z790 chipset but at a more affordable price. The power delivery on this model isn’t what you’d want if you were looking to overclock your CPU, but otherwise it’s fine for equipping up to Intel 14th gen processors. You get a solid amount of USB sockets on the rear panel, and four M.2 slots for storage expansion.

The main drawback of this model compared to the more expensive motherboards is that it has no PCIe 5.0 lane support for the M.2 storage sockets, so you’ll be limited to 4.0 speeds for your SSD storage. WiFi 6E remains a completely fine standard for the majority of users, but if you’re looking for the latest tech then we’d recommend one of the other boards with WiFi 7 support instead.

The performance pick: Z790 AORUS MASTER X

The Z790 AORUS MASTER X is the ideal pick for a gamer or productivity user who wants to overclock their CPU and get some high end performance out of their PC. With its 20+1+2 power phase design you’ll be able to push Intel 14th/13th gen processors further, plus it comes with four PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots for lighting quick storage support.

Additionally you get a plethora of storage options round the back, including an additional rear USB-C slot with 20Gb/s transfer speeds, plus plenty of future proofed connectivity with WiFi 7 support and 10GbE LAN connectivity.

The enthusiast option: Z790 AORUS XTREME

The cream of the crop of Gigabyte’s motherboard range is the Z790 AORUS XTREME. This board comes with a 24+1+2 power phase design, offering loads of headroom for overclocking. It also comes with additional bandwidth on its USB-A ports, meaning extra fast transfer speeds and connectivity for peripherals. It has an ‘OC ignition button’ which can be used to switch on both fans and storage drives without turning on the CPU: ideal for testing the performance temps of new cooling system on a high-end custom build without risking thermal damage to your components.

If you really want to bling up your rig to the max you can also buy the ICE version of the Z790 AORUS XTREME, which comes with an aesthetic design that blends white with titanium crystalization, plus a golden plaque with a serial number unique to each individual motherboard.

AORUS ELITE vs AORUS vs UD series PSUs: Which should you pick?

Next let’s take a look at the power supplies. For the uninitiated, the key considerations when buying any PSU are the Wattage (it has to be sufficiently high to power the components in your build), the efficiency rating (bronze, silver, gold, platinum etc.), how loud/quiet it is, the reliability, and the length of the warranty.

The value option: Gigabyte UD850GM

The Gigabyte UD series is a more affordable option for those looking for an 850 Watt power supply. Its 120mm hydraulic bearing fan is not as quiet as the more premium options here, and the warranty is limited to 5 years, though this should still be good enough for most people. It still comes with a 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating meaning at least 87-90% (depending on the load at any one time) of the power from your outlet will be going into the PC, and has a fairly compact design.

The performance pick: AORUS P1200W

A more premium pick, the AORUS P1200W has a Platinum 80 Plus efficiency rating, meaning 89-92% (depending on the load level) power efficiency, which is very good indeed, and the best you’re likely to find on the consumer market. It comes with a 10 year warranty so you can rest easy about any technical issues that might occur, plus comes with a nice and quiet 140mm smart double ball bearing fan that’s capable of some serious cooling. Finally it has a cool digital LCD monitor on which you can display more cosmetic touches (like custom text/pictures/MP4s/GIFs) or more practical health status data pertaining to the PSU.

As the name would suggest, this PSU is rated up to 1200 Watts of power, making it more than capable of supporting the most power hungry of builds.

The enthusiast pick: AORUS ELITE P1000W

Finally, the latest-gen power supply for Gigabyte is the AORUS ELITE, which comes with full PCIe 5.0 support, as well as the latest ATX 3.0 tech, giving it great stability and protection against power fluctuations even for the latest-gen graphics cards. Like the standard AORUS model it also comes with a Platinum 80 Plus efficiency rating and a 10 year warranty.

Pricing

With an MSRP at the time of writing of $249.99 for a single router, the ROG Rapture GT6 isn’t particularly cheap for a WiFi 6 router. It costs less than you’d typically see a WiFi 6E and certainly a WiFi 7 router go for, but this is what you’d expect for tech supporting this older standard. Given it’s a mesh router there’s a good chance you’ll want to pick up more than one, in which case you can typically find a pair on sale for around $480, though given it has ASUS AiMesh you don’t need it to be paired with the exact same router: any other AiMesh model should work.

Overall Design

Compared to some of the crazier, almost-arachnid looking ASUS gaming routers we’ve seen, the ROG Rapture GT6 is quite a sensible looking device, with its interior antennas giving it a much more compact profile. It still has that ‘gamer aesthetic’ look, with the RGB lighting up the ROG logo and various stylized diagonal cutouts, but it’s done in quite a tasteful way and we’d actually say this is a nice looking router.

In terms of size, measuring 172.3 x 78.1 x 176.75mm it doesn’t take up much space on your desk, nor in the vertical sense. Cooling is assisted by ventilation grills on the top, bottom, and sides and there’s a status light on the front of the device.

The router is powered by a 1.7GHz tri-core processor, complemented by 256MB of flash storage and 512MB of DDR4 RAM, ensuring it can handle extensive network processing and tasks efficiently.

Regarding its wireless capability, the obvious big drawback of this router is that it’s WiFi 6 standard, meaning it doesn’t have access to 6GHz frequency bands whatsoever, although it does still offer dual 5GHz bands and a 2.4GHz band. Whether this is a problem for you really depends on your specific needs and your wider setup; 6GHz channels have lower latency and enjoy faster speeds on average, which is better for video conferencing and online gaming, plus an additional frequency band just means greater capacity to add more devices. You can still definitely get sufficiently high speeds and low latencies on 5GHz however to enjoy gaming and other online streaming services.

In terms of the wired connectivity, the GT6 offers a decent selection of ports. The primary WAN port supports up to 2.5Gbps, provided your ISP can deliver such speeds. However, the three LAN ports are limited to Gigabit speeds, which means that the high-speed 2.5Gbps WAN connection doesn't fully extend to wired devices if you use these individually. However, you can get around this through link aggregation, meaning you can combine the bandwidths of the LAN ports to increase the bandwidth to a single device.

Additionally, there is a USB 3.2 Type-A port available for storage needs, which is nice as often even larger, newer-gen routers sometimes do not include this.

Other features

Setting up the router is fairly straightforward, in part thanks to the user-friendly nature of the ASUS app. The application gives you extensive controls over the network/mesh, plus some nice QoS options for gaming (allowing you to prioritize bandwidth to gaming traffic), parental controls for additional security in multi-person households with children, allows you to setup a VPN for additional protection, port forwarding features, and more. A Game Radar diagnostic utility also helps you identify the connection quality of servers for specific games.

You can monitor each connected device and manage their data traffic, giving you the ability to set controls on a per-device basis. This comprehensive management capability ensures you have full oversight and control of your network’s performance and security.

Included with the router is free lifetime anti-malware and parental control software powered by Trend Micro, plus Asus' Instant Guard software (for VPN setup and other security).

As mentioned AiMesh means you can pair the router with a different ASUS model that also has this when setting up your mesh, which is always a really welcome feature with the ASUS routers that have it.

Performance

When evaluating the performance of the Rapture GT6, we conducted our standard tests, though it's important to mention that our testing environment has one main limitation: our office internet connection is capped at approximately 300Mbps.

Still, we assessed the wireless performance between the router and our testing device (a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE smartphone) at the following distances using both SpeedTest and WiFiMan apps:

We tested for signal strength, latency, network download and speeds and physical download and upload speeds. 

Lastly, we performed a file transfer test by connecting an SSD to the router's USB port and transferring a file to and from a PC connected to the router's Ethernet port.

Signal strength (measured in decibel milliwatts aka dBm) is a way to determine how consistent and reliable the connection with the router will be. At one end of the scale -30 dBm is the ideal result, with around the -90 dBm mark typically signifying disconnection at the bottom end: anything around the -50 dBm to -67 dBm range is typically considered a respectable result.

Using the WiFiman app we found that the GT6 maintained signal strengths between -36dBm and -68dBm on the 2.4GHz frequency band, and -48dBm to -89dBm on the 5GHz band, depending on the distance. As you can see from the graph, it was one of a select through routers that managed to maintain a signal at our maximum testing distance (with two obstructing walls). Despite lacking external antennas, the router's nine internal antennas effectively covered the advertised 5,800 square feet.

Latency results (measured in milliseconds aka ms, with lower being better) were solid across the distances as you can see from the below graph, with latency increasing from 14ms to 32ms as the distance increased on the 2.4GHz band and from 7ms to 17ms on the 5GHz band, the latter of these being the clear preference for wireless connection if you’re online gaming.

We tested the WiFi download and upload speeds using a couple of different methods, as well as the speeds using a wired ethernet connection from the LAN port. Overall, the GT6 router demonstrates strong performance across various distances, particularly given its price point compared to the more expensive routers we’ve tested, with significant speed reductions only at the farthest points, particularly on the 2.4GHz band. The 5GHz band maintained better performance at greater distances, and latency remained relatively low, ensuring responsive connections.

Network download & upload speed was measured by the Oopla speed test app in Megabits per second (Mbps).

Physical download & upload speed is measured via the WiFiman app, also in Mbps. 

File transfer test

The file transfer test was the final one we conducted. For this we used CrystalDiskMark to record the speeds of transferring a file from a computer attached to the router via the LAN port to an external SSD plugged-into the router's USB port, and then back again. Unfortunately, the GT6 underperformed in this area, even with a wired connection.

These results indicate that the GT6 struggles to fully utilize the potential of connected storage devices, making it less ideal for users who need high-speed network access to their external drives.

Pricing

The current MSRP for the Seasonic FOCUS GX-850 V2 is around $160, which is a bit pricey compared to models by competing brands like the Corsair RM850e, however we’ve seen it reduced on Amazon to around the $105 mark, which if you can get it is an absolute bargain.

Design

The Focus GX-850 has a pretty standard design overall. As is typical among most PSUs of this generation and price bracket, it has a 120mm fluid dynamic bearing fan.

ATX 3.0 support and the latest PCIe 5 standard allows you to use the latest gen video cards natively with this PSU, without an adapter. You get a good array of cables including a 16-pin connector, however it’s with the cables that our main critiques of this PSU lies with. First off all the cables are notably bulky, making cable management a bit of a pain, secondly we found that some of the peripheral connectors had quite a short distance between them on the same cable, meaning they didn’t always stretch the required length in our build. Thankfully the GX-850 is fully modular, so you can swap out these cables with some of your own should you have them, though this is obviously less than ideal.

In terms of how it looks, this isn’t really of great importance for a PSU as far as we’re concerned, given you’ll rarely see it in a completed build, but the Focus GX-850 has quite an interesting off-black with gold accents design, along with the white lettering on the ‘Focus’ logo.

Size & compatibility

The Focus GX-850 is your standard ATX-size PSU, which will fit in any mid-tower sized case or larger model, though wil likely be too big for any small form factor case.

It’s always a good idea to measure the case against the PSU to be on the safe side of course. The specific dimensions of the GX-850 are as follows: 140 x 150 x 86mm.

Sound & efficiency

The Seasonic Focus GX-850 is gold-rated under both the 80 Plus and Cybernetics Labs standards of power efficiency. A gold-rated PSU is pretty much the (apologies in advance) gold-standard for a custom PC build. You can get higher-rated models but this will likely be overkill for most consumers.

Looking at the specific results of the Cybernetics testing, when tested at 115V the GX-850 achieved 88.845% with the 5VSB average reaching 80.848%. At 230V this increased to 90.962%, with the 5VSB average hitting 79.360%.

Sound performance is about average for a PSU in this price range: at 115V it achieved an average of around 30.73 dB(A) and at 230V an average of 30.82 dB(A) was measured, earning it a Standard ++ rating from Cybernetics.

Warranty & Support

You get a nice long 10-year warranty with this particular Seasonic PSU, which is as long as you’ll realistically need and is the best you’ll find for a gold-rated power supply. This gives you an ample time window for any future upgrades to your build that you can use with the same 850W power supply, plus piece of mind if you have any issues.

Pricing

When it was originally released in 2023 the Corsair SF850L had an MSRP of around $180, with the larger 1000W variant SF1000L retailing for $200. Prices have come down a fair bit since, though equally it’s a bit difficult to find one new on Amazon (and second-hand models don’t have a transferable warranty). You can pick a new model up on BestBuy for around $149.99 at the time of writing, which is about $20 more than the ATX-size Corsair RM850e released in the same year. Generally you expect the mark-up on a smaller-size power supply to be higher than this: the price you pay for the compact design, and the current price compares very favourably to similar offerings from other brands.

Design

The PSU is built to the ATX 3.0 standard, which makes it ideal for full stability with the latest 40-series GPUs. It also supports PCIe 5 connectors and is cooled by a single 120mm fluid dynamic bearing fan.

Despite being a smaller-sized PSU, the SF850L gets by without cutting out much compared to your standard ATX, which is nice to see. You get plenty of connecting cables and ports, including a 12VHPWR connector, EPS/ATX 12V 8-pin cable for any overclocking or high-end motherboards, plus four PCIe 8-pin connectors, meaning you can easily connect to a high end GPU and CPU and have connections to spare. It comes with Type 5 micro fit cables and has full modularity.

Additionally, although it’s a smaller size, the sockets for the connections are well spaced out, not bunched together like you often see, which again helps during the building/upgrade process.

Aesthetically it’s your standard Corsair fair: all black with the white Corsair sails logo and lettering.

Size & compatibility

As mentioned the SF850L has an SFX-L form factor, which is essentially a slightly longer SFX size, though still very suitable for mini case builds. It does also come with an adapter to help it fit larger cases if need be as well.

As always, we’d recommend that you get accurate measurements of your case before  purchasing anything to make sure the PSU definitely fits. Specifically, the Corsair SF850L measures: 125 x 63.5 x 130mm.

Sound & efficiency

There are two main rating standards when it comes to the efficiency rating of a PSU: the 80 Plus standard that’s been used for over the last decade, and the newer Cybernetics Labs standard, which is increasingly popular because it takes into account regional variations in mains power outputs, plus greater accuracy overall.

Usually both of these standards will end up rating the same PSU within the same broad category, however in the case of the SF850L it’s designated gold under the 80 Plus standard and platinum under Cybernetics Labs, both of which are good of course (though platinum is better).

Looking at the details of the Cybenetics tests, when measured at 115V of output the average efficiency came in at 90.577% with the 5VSB efficiency measuring 83.657%. When measured at 230V the PSU scored an average of 92.33%, with 83.020% for the 5VSB rail.

In terms of sound output, the SF850L is a bit louder than average, though certainly not unbearable. It has an overall Cybernetics noise rating of Standard+, an specifically scored an average of 36.09dB(A) at 115V, and 35.92sB(A) at 230V.

Warranty & Support

The warranty on this particular Corsair PSU is for 7 years, which is a bit shorter than what we’re used to for other gold/platinum rated power supplies by this brand, which often last for 10 years, however it’s still plenty long enough in our book. For the vast majority of custom PC builders, you’ll likely be looking for an upgrade by the time the 8th year rolls around anyway, so this length of coverage should offer piece of mind.

The Gigabyte AORUS line has typically filled the niche of value gaming laptops, where you get a lower TGP graphics card and a more budget overall standard of construction, but for a very reasonable price. This Gigabyte Aorus 16X, equipped with up to an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU and Intel Core i9-14900HX and is overflowing with other features that you’d typically find in a more premium device. Let’s take a look at what this machine offers.

AI Capabilities

The CPU options in the AORUS 16X belong to the 14th gen Raptor Lake Refresh line of mobile processors, rather than the 14th gen Meteor Lake line that are based on the completely new architecture. This means they don’t actually come equipped with an NPU (Neural Processing Unit), so you’d be forgiven for thinking that they don’t have much in the way of AI processing, but that’s where you’d be wrong!

Although as NPUs increase in power and the technology develops, they will likely become the linchpin of a computer’s AI capabilities, at present the majority of AI processing is actually still done by the GPU, and the latest Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics cards the AORUS 16X can be equipped with have ample power to run various AI processes.

The following are AI-driven utilities you can use on this Gigabyte laptop, which collectively are known as the ‘AI Nexus’:

Main hardware features

Looking to the hardware now, and the AORUS 16X is an impressive piece of kit.

The screen

The IPS display has 2560 x 1600 resolution, which is the 16:10 QHD+ aspect ratio that we prefer, as it gives you more vertical headroom (useful for web browsing and viewing documents and the like) compared to a conventional 16:9 1440p display.

The 165Hz max refresh rate is great for either single-player titles or competitive online shooters, and the inclusion of G-Sync is very welcome, as this is the best VRR out there for removing screen tearing.

Gigabyte claims 100% sRGB gamut coverage and Pantone validation, meaning that you should be able to do any color-based creative work to an accurate standard in the sRGB space (it will certainly be great to game on).

Finally, and most excitingly, the display is rated to between 400-500nits of brightness (depending on when HDR mode is enabled or not), which is way above average for a gaming laptop and means (along with the slight matte finish to the screen) that you should be able to comfortably use it outside as an everyday productivity laptop.

The battery

The 99 Watt-hour battery on the AORUS 16X is pretty hefty: typically on a laptop of this size you’d expect something closer to a 73 Watt-hour battery, so this is a nice upgrade. Although we haven’t yet had the chance to test it ourselves, we’ve seen other reviewers with the highest spec (and therefore highest battery draining) model getting 7 hours or more out of it, which is well above average for a gaming laptop and once again speaks to the usefulness of this device as a general productivity machine outside of gaming.

The battery is also capable of fast charging up to 50% (when the laptop is turned off) over 30mins time.

Fast memory card reader

For creatives, the MicroSD (UHS-II) memory card reader is a great feature that will massively simplify any workload involving transferring camera pictures/footage or similar. This is one of the faster models out there, so is capable of impressive transfer speeds when copying across data to your laptop or off it and onto the MicroSD card itself.

WiFi 7

WiFi 7 is the new standard for wireless connectivity, and though it’s still not fully supported yet, over the course of the next year it will be rolled out, so having a laptop that can take full advantage of it is a nice way of future-proofing yourself.

Exchangeable/Expandable RAM

Considering the power under the hood, the GIGABYTE AORUS 16X is a relatively slimline machine, which with other laptops often means you cannot upgrade the RAM as it’s soldered on: not here however! Although you can equip the laptop with up to 64GB of DDR5 at the point of purchase (which should be enough for anyone’s needs), if you started of with less memory but later fancied an upgrade this is as straightforward as unscrewing the back, gently prising it off, and then swapping out the memory sticks yourself from the two SO-DIMM slots.

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1. Improved processor performance (raw & real)

The most obvious benefit to picking up a Copilot+ PC is that it will be very fast indeed. At their 2024 Surface AI event conference, Microsoft laid out the (claimed) performance enhancements their Copilot+ standard machines would be capable of. Of course it’s always important to take such stats with a pinch of salt until independent third-party testing can take place, but we can assume that they will at least be fairly accurate.

In terms of ‘raw performance’ i.e. how the new devices will perform in synthetnic tests, Microsoft say that their new range of Copilot+ devices will be ‘58% faster than a MacBook Air M3’ in multithreaded scenarios, which is quite some markup. In ‘real performance’ scenarios this will apparently translate into a 21% reduction in the time taken to encode a 4K video file (as measured by HandBrake ToS) compared to an Apple M3 chip.

2. Greatly improved battery life

Probably the biggest win for Windows laptop users is that the new Copilot+ compliant chipsets from Qualcomm can finally compete with the M-series chipsets utilised by Apple in terms of power efficiency, meaning a massive boost to laptop battery duration.

In the two battery tests conducted by Microsoft, the Snapdragon X Elite powered Surface Laptop outperformed the MacBook Air M3 chipset. The first of these tests, using a script to simulate general web browsing use, showed a moderate improvement of 1 hour 31 minutes over the 15 hours and 25 minutes achieved by the MacBook Air (i.e. 16 hours 56 mins in total), which is nevertheless very impressive and a great deal higher than what previous Windows laptops have been capable of. The second test measured battery life during a video playback test, which reportedly showed a massive 20% increase to the battery duration for the Qualcomm chip over the M3.

3. First-party AI applications from Microsoft

The following are some of the initial Copilot+ AI-driven applications and processes that will be implemented at an operating system level into these news laptops. Some of them in particular promise to revolutionize productivity through making tasks and processes that much easier.

Recall

Although it will no longer be shipped alongside the first Copilot+ PCs and will instead come as a later optional update, first and foremost among the AI processes is ‘Recall’. This is an enhanced search feature that works through remembering your recent device usage, enabling you to seach for virtually anything you were previously looking at, whether it be a web page, a section of a document saved on your computer, or an image file, using even the most vague description of it. For example, if you were looking at an image of a piece of art and couldn’t remember the name of it, but typed in ‘painting of man holding flowers’ then the AI should be able to find it for you.

There have been concerns about data privacy that have been raised about having the computer effectively record/remember your activities, so in response Microsoft has added additional layers of data protection, and also made Recall something you have to opt ‘into’ (not ‘out of’ as it was previously) before it activates, so if this bothers you, you can still pick up a Copilot+ PC and decide not to turn it on. Finally, the company came to the decision that Recall will be held back from the laptops’ introduction on June 18th whilst they do further work on some of the security concerns.

Cocreator

‘Cocreator’ is an AI tool that uses a sketches made by the user in Microsoft Paint and/or a text description to generate its own polished looking image. This image can then be manipulated further by the user and transformed to be in line with particular styles.

Live Captions

‘Live Captions’ is a feature that can be used across a whole host of applications, where it gives real-time translations from 44 languages (into English) for any video or audio call. This should make any international communication a great deal easier for businesses and personal users.

Automatic Super Resolution (ASR)

ASR works in a similar fashion to existing graphical upscaling/super resolution tech like Nvidia’s DLSS, AMD’s FSR, or Arc’s XeSS; except where these technologies use the GPU to essentially shortcut rendering images at higher resolutions (thus requiring less processing power) ASR uses the NPU. We look forward to seeing exactly how much this improves gaming performance, but it should be a boon to laptop gamers.

4. AI applications from Third-Party companies

Besides Microsoft’s own applications of AI tech, other companies are leveraging the Copilot+ technology to enhance their existing software’s performance and functionality, or come up with entirely new applications. It’s early days so we don’t have details on much of this as of yet, but you can expect a massive amount to appear over the coming years, particularly since Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows, supported by their new AI Hub.

Some of the ones Microsoft has shown off include accessibility apps like Cephable can use this AI tech to allow for commands to be made through the detectable head movements of the user, which is great for consumers with physical disabilities. Besides this the app just showed a boost to performance and power efficiency when using the new Copilot+ standard NPUs. djay Pro, a music app, now has a NeuralMix feature that can find and isolate different tracks within a song more easily as well as improve queuing for the DJ. Almost the whole Adobe creative suite including Premiere Pro, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom and Express will gain additional functionality and performance boosts from NPU use. DaVinci Resolve will also see similar improvements.

5. All the above is available on a Windows machine

Whilst MacOS is undoubtedly a user-friendly operating system with several advantages over Windows, it still does not have anywhere near the same level of support as Windows for a whole host of applications. Just to take the most obvious one - gaming - although there are games you can play on Mac the number is tiny compared to those available solely on Windows, and even those games will not perform as well on Mac devices with the same level of processing and graphical hardware power as a Windows machine as they are just less well optimised to the former OS.

The fact all the above Copilot+ improvements effectively remove most of the advantages MacBooks had over Windows laptops is great, because now you can enjoy a similar level of performance but on a much more widely supported OS.

Pricing

Corsair Gold-rated PSUs aren’t the cheapest out there, and you pay extra for the privilege of the side-placed panel over the standard RMx series. For instance the RM1000x is available for $189.99, whereas the RM1000x Shift costs an additional $30, at $209.99. Still, you can be sure of the quality of the product you get and have the pieces of mind of the 10 year warranty.

Below is the pricing for the different Wattage variants of the Corsair RMX Shift series: 

Design

The 100W capacity on this PSU is sufficient to run the most powerful graphics cards and CPUs currently on the market. Like the standard version the RM1000X Shift is ATX 3.1 compatible and has a native 16-pin PCIe 5 connector, meaning it is fully compatible with the latest GPUs including the Nvidia 40-series graphics cards, and will provide the very best power stability and protection against spikes. In total you get seven PCIe connectors to accommodate multiple GPUs or add-in cards.

The fan is the Corsair NR140P (12V, 0.22A), which is 140mm in size and has fluid dynamic bearings, which help to make it pretty quiet, as we will see in the test results below.

In terms of the key selling point of this PSU: the shifted positioning of the power connectors, this does make it a lot easier to put your build together, with the cables a lot more visible and accessible when you take off the rear panel of your case. It removes a lot of the fumbling around when you’re plugging and unplugging cables after the PSU has been installed.

One thing to note though, we did find the cables included with the power supply to be a bit on the short side in our build. Given it’s a fully modular PSU you can always swap these for osme alternative ones, but it’s less than ideal.

Size & compatibility

Besides the rearranged modular panel RM1000X Shift has the standard ATX form factor, so any ATX case should be able to fit it in no problem. Thaat being said the rearranged modular panel might not be accessible in all cases: some case chassis have PSU compartments/shrouds that might cover up the side with the cabling, so just make sure that your chosen case won’t obstruct this section before you buy.

The Corsair RM1000X Shift comes with the following dimensions: 150 x 180 x 85mm. Note the 750W and 850W variants are a little smaller in terms of the depth though.

Sound & efficiency

As you’d expect from a Gold-rated PSU (both in the 80 Plus standard and the Cybernetics standard), the efficiency of the RM1000X Shift is pretty damn good. Looking at the Cybernetics website for the details of their testing, we see that when tested at 115V it averaged an efficiency of 88.494%, with the 5VSB efficiency coming in at 76.997%. When tested at 230V the efficiency result was 90.176% and 78.295% in the 5VSB test.

In terms of noise output the Corsair RM1000X Shift is pretty quiet. It has an overall Cybernetics noise rating (LAMBDA) of A. In testing it measured with an average noise output of 23.62 dB(A) at 115V and 23.59 dB(A) at 230V.

Warranty & Support

As with most Corsair Gold PSUs you get a 10 year extended warranty on this power supply, which is ideal and a testament to the confidence Corsair have in the reliability and quality of the product.

Copilot+ PCs are essentially all laptops with capability to run the latest in AI processing tech and applications, which promises to bring great benefits in productivity for the user, as well as in more mundane (but important) factors such as battery life and raw processing power.

The first of these devices have hit the shelves, and we’ve put together a shortlist of the best of the bunch, each fulfilling a particular niche which might meet your needs as a consumer. Read on for all the details!

What is a Copilot+ PC?

A Copilot+ PC is one that has a processor chipset with an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) powerful enough to run the latest AI functions within the Copilot suite. By definition, a Copilot+ PC is one which meets the requirements set out by Microsoft of having an NPU with 40 TOPS of power (Tera/Trillion Operations Per Second), plus 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space. Consequently, this excludes the previous generation of Intel AI-driven CPUs, the Meteor Lake/Intel Core Ultra series, which are limited to a maximum of 34 TOPS.

At the time of writing, it’s only Qualcomm’s ARM chips that are capable of meeting the Copilot+ requirement when the first devices are released on the 18th of June, so this guide will be limited to those options, however, when AMD Ryzen AI 300 and Intel Lunar Lake models come out later in 2024 we’ll have more options to choose from. 

You can read more about whether one of these devices is right for your needs in our 5 Reasons to buy a Copilot+ PC guide.

The perfect general productivity laptop?: Microsoft Surface Laptop (7th Edition)

The MacBook Air series has enjoyed the crown for best productivity laptops for a good few years now, particularly given its fairly reasonable pricing (which isn’t typical for an Apple product). Of course, not everyone wants to use MacOS and there have been various competitors in the Windows laptop market that have tried to match these devices, but they’ve all fallen short in at least one area by comparison: be it the display quality, processor performance, battery life, speaker quality, general build quality, or pricing.

It could be however that the latest 7th Edition Microsoft Surface Laptop is a device worthy of the crown, as the new Snapdragon X Plus chipset (only available on the 13.8” model) or the more powerful Snapdragon X Elite chipset (available with both the 13.8” and 15”) have both the processing power and battery life to match Apple’s finest devices. This is alongside a sleek, slimline chassis and high resolution (2304 x 1536 or 2496 x 1664) display, with 120Hz maximum refresh rate. The laptop looks great and is available at a very reasonable starting price.

Ultralight laptop with an OLED display: Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x

With the introduction of the new range of Copilot+ chipsets and their improved efficiencies, we should hopefully see great developments made in terms of thin and light devices, and one we’re immediately excited about is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. This 0.51-inch thick notebook is very slender indeed, and at 1.28kg/2.82lbs it’s also very light, but this doesn’t mean it skimps on its other features.

This Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite machine not only has a powerful processor but comes packing with a lush OLED display, with 3K (2944 x 1840) resolution that reportedly supports HDR 600 True Black with up to 1000 nits of peak brightness. You also get an impressive 90Hz max refresh rate, meaning some light gaming isn't’ out of the question. The keyboard and trackpad are also of a high standard, making this a great all round productivity device.

A slimline laptop with 5MP IR camera: HP OmniBook X 14

The Omnibook X 14 is a brand new line of laptops from industry veterans HP, who are also looking to take on the MacBook alternative space with a slimline (0.56-inches thick) 14” screen device that also comes packing with the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor. The new design looks particularly nice around the keyboard, with its differently-colored function keys and power key.

Besides this you get high-quality 5MP IR camera for an excellent image when you’re making videocalls and a 2.2K (2240 x 1400) display. 

An upgraded 13-inch laptop with haptic switch design: Dell XPS 13 (9345)

The Copilot+ variant of the Dell XPS 13 (the model 9345) essentially has the same design as the previous variants, though from an aesthetic perspective at least this is no bad thing: the XPS 13 is one of the nicest looking laptops on the market, with its minimalist seamless trackpad design (which merges into the chassis of the laptop with no visible edges). In terms of functionality the XPS 13 divides opinion: some dislike not being able to quickly identify where the trackpad begins and ends, and others being turned off by the haptic/capacitive function keys, though if you’re a fan of these features then it’s unquestionably a great device. It comes with a bright (500 nits) 120Hz screen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution: not the highest on this list but plenty good for a 13-inch screen.

The difference from the previous version then lies solely with the new Snapdragon X Elite chipset, which should bring great processing power and top-notch battery life.

General productivity device with a 1600p touchscreen: Dell Inspiron 14 Plus

If you’re happy with a more conventional Dell laptop design with a more affordable price tag, then this latest in the long-running Dell Inspiron series could be the pick for you. It comes packing with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus (a 10-core CPU), which doesn’t quite have the oomph of the 12-core X Elite but if your focus is general productivity then you possibly don’t need this anyway.

It does however have a high resolution 14-inch, 2560 x 1600 screen, that comes with touchscreen functionality, along with a microSD card reader, fingerprint reader, and an impeccable keyboard for typists: all great features for an office place device. On top of that you get a HDMI 1.4 output which you won’t find on the thinner chassis designs here.

Best 2-in-1 device: Microsoft Surface Pro (11th Edition)

Our final pick is another Microsoft Surface Pro, but this time the original rather than the clamshell laptop variant above. The Surface Pro is the pioneering, much imitated 2-in-1 device, which essentially resembles a tablet (with touch screen and stylus support) with a detachable keyboard section, that can be used in either laptop or tablet form factors.

This remains a very popular design for office workers, students, and similar, and the additional battery life, processing power, and OLED panel in the latest 11th Edition variant should make this iteration even more of a popular choice.

An 860W power supply may be a fairly non-conventional Wattage, but it fits nicely among competing 850W and 800W offerings from companies like Seasonic and Corsair. Read on to see how well the PSU performed in our testing.

Design

When it comes to PSU designs, the Fractal Design Ion+ 860P keeps it simple and functional. It forgoes flashy lights and focuses on high-quality internals. The two-tone design between the top and bottom is sleek and understated, though as with all PSUs you’re unlikely to see it much anyway once it’s installed.

The connector setup is fairly standard, though somewhat limited in variety. However, for a 860W PSU, the number of connectors should suffice for most builds. It combines the ATX 12V and PCIe connectors in the same range, providing adequate connections for both the CPU and GPU. The Ion+ 860P includes two 4+4 pins and six 6+2 pins, which should be ample for most standard builds.

There are ample SATA and peripheral options with four individual connection ports. Additionally, the side of the PSU features a ‘zero RPM mode’ / semi-passive mode switch, allowing you to further reduce noise levels, though noise is generally minimal anyway; this mode isn’t suitable for all builds anyway, so the option to turn it off or on is welcome.

On the side of the PSU with the power socket, you'll find a simple off-on switch and extensive ventilation to help exhaust heat from your system. The excellent cooling system is a standout feature, with a large 140mm fluid dynamic bearing fan that ensures efficient airflow, keeping temperatures low for optimal performance.

Size & compatibility

The sizing of the Ion+ 860P follows a standard ATX form factor and has broad compatibility, making it straightforward to incorporate into your build if your case meets the ATX requirement. Just remember to connect all the modular cables you need before securing the PSU, as reaching into the case later can be tricky.

If you’ve got a smaller-sized case then there’s a good chance it won’t fit, so check the specs of your case to make sure it does support ATX before buying.

Specifically the PSU comes with the following dimensions: 150 x 150 x 86mm.

Sound & efficiency

The Ion+ 860P excels in both sound and efficiency, making it an excellent choice for quiet and cost-effective operation. Cybernetics have given it an A+ rating for noise, meaning it operates almost silently, this is in large part thanks to the counter-balanced magnets used in the fan mechanism, notched blade edges on the fans themselves, and other little design techniques.

Cybernetics also gave the PSU a Platinum rating for efficiency, meaning that ≥89% & ＜91% of the electricity you pay for is effectively used to power your PC. The Cybernetics testing results provide detailed insights into the Ion+ 860P's award-winning performance. At 115V, it achieved an average efficiency of 89.952%, with the 5VSB efficiency slightly lower at 76.311%. The average noise output was impressively low at just 18.05 dB(A). At 230V, the efficiency improved further, averaging 91.727%, with the 5VSB efficiency at 76.109%, and the noise level slightly reduced to 17.99 dB(A).

Warranty & Support

Fractal Design usually gives a nice lengthy warranty for its power supplies, a testament to the build quality of their designs. When bought new the Ion+ 860P came with a 10-year warranty, however you’ll likely have to pick one up second hand these days, and the warranty is unfortunately non-transferable.

Pricing

In the US the Netgear Nighthawk RS700 has an MSRP of $699.99, which comes with a 1-year subscription to Netgear Armor cyber security. This is obviously not cheap, although it’s pretty typical of WiFi 7 routers with these sorts of specs at the time of writing.UK customers will have to pay substantially more though: a ridiculous £799.99 (the equivalent of around $1,000 at the time of writing) which frankly just isn’t worth it, no matter how well it performs: you could buy a renewed MacBook Air for the same price.

Overall Design

The Nighthawk RS700 is quite a nice-looking device, if you’re into vaguely sci-fi looking tech. It resembles a tall (28.17cm/11.09”), all-black obelisk of an irregular hexagonal shape, with quite a relatively narrow (though stable) base of approx 4.9” across, meaning it thankfully takes up a minimum of desk space. 

The front has all the status lights and buttons running down it in a single vertical strip, with the ports and sockets doing the same on the rear side. Heat vents are located on the top and bottom. Overall it’s pretty unobtrusive looking, and ideal for any office or home setup.

The quad-core 2.6Ghz processor, plus 2GB of RAM and 512MB of NAND Flash gives plenty of power and memory to manage multiple connections and allocate bandwidth.

The RS700 has contains 8 internal antennas, and is rated for a WiFi coverage of 3,500ft2, being able to connect to 200 different devices.

Frequency bands include one 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz, which can be connected to separately or merged together and connected to simultaneously through Multi-Link Operation, a feature unique to WiFi 7 routers, allowing the router to pick the fastest speed for your device from the combined selection of channels.

Wired connections include a 10Gpbs WAN (Wider Area Network) input for your ISP connection (well above the web package most people can get now, but it gives some nice futureproofing). More uncommonly you also get one 10Gbps LAN (Local Area Network), which means you can match  the bandwidth coming into any of your devices connected to this via ethernet, which is very nice. In addition you get four more 1Gbps LAN ports (though two of these can be aggregated together to form a 2Gbps connection) and one USB 3.0 Type-A for a fast storage connection.

Other features

Additional features include the ability to set up a guest network with different permissions, which gives you that extra bit of network security: pretty typical for routers at this price point. The RS700 also comes with the ability to add a VPN to your entire network, which updates automatically for the latest security patches.

For added protection, you can use Netgear Armor with its smart parental controls, additional VPN and general protection against hackers, though this requires a paid-for subscription which is a bit irksome considering the asking price of the router in the first place.

The inbuilt application to control the router is pretty feature-rich on the whole, offering extensive controls and a straightforward interface. The requirement to sign in and register the router, which automatically starts your subscription trial and warranty, is a bit long winded (this applies to other Netgear routers we’ve tested). Finally, the app does come with frequent pop-ups advertising additional subscriptions and features, which is a bit irritating, but realistically you won't need to use the app very often after the initial setup, so they’re manageable.

Performance

In our testing, we evaluated a router's effectiveness across a variety of standardised scenarios. It's important to note however that our testing environment has certain limitations: we only have WiFi 6 devices available, specifically the Samsung S21 FE smartphone, so our WiFi testing was confined to the 2.4 and 5GHz frequency bands. Additionally, the web connection is limited and throttles at around the 300Mbps mark.

We tested the wireless connection between the router and the phone at our standard distances: 10ft/3m (uninterrupted), 30ft/9m (uninterrupted), 60ft/18m (with one wall in between), and 90ft/27m (with two walls in between).

Finally, we conduct a file transfer test by connecting an SSD to the USB port on the router, then transferring a file to and from it with a PC connected to the router’s ethernet port.

Signal strength basically measures the reliability of the connection, and is measured in dBm (decibel milliwatts). The scale of results typically measures between -30dBm and -90dBm, with the former being considered the ‘ideal’ result, and disconnection typically occurring at around -90dBm. The main factor governing signal strength (besides external interference) is typically the quality/power of the antenna on the router.

In this test the RS700 scored strongly, particularly within the 5GHz band, where it bested every other router we've bested so far. At 2.4GHz results ranged from -41dBm to -62dBm up to 60ft (with loss of signal at 90ft), with the 5GHz results ranging from -31dBM to -76dBm (including those readings taken at 90ft). The RS700 advertises a coverage of 3,500 sq. ft., which would be approximately the 60ft test, though it does reach beyond this on the 5Ghz frequency as we can see.

Latency is measured in milliseconds (ms), and represents how long it takes for data to travel between the router and the device, with the lower values obviously being quicker. Latency ranged between 13-20ms in the 2.4GHz band across the first three distances (with loss of connection at 90ft). In the 5GHz band, latency ranged between 11-23ms at the first three distances, jumping to 36ms at the 90ft range.

Regarding the speed test, we conducted several tests to evaluate internet speed, including the physical connection speed between the phone and router, and a WiFi speed test to assess how signal strength impacts performance.

Network download speed was measured by the Oopla speed test app in Mbps (Megabits per second). Measured at the 10/30/60/90ft distances, the 2.4GHz averaged at 103/78.4/5.6/0Mbps respectively, with upload speeds of 62/50/22/0Mbps. 5Ghz attained average downloads of 273/269/117/25.5Mbps and uploads of 239/227/131/8Mbps. On LAN, the RS700 achieved a download speed of 262Mbps and an upload speed of 254Mbps, which doesn’t sound a lot given the maximum 10Gbps LAN limit, however considering the limitations of our internet this was still a solid result.

Physical download/upload speed is measured via the WiFiman app, also in Mbps. Measured at the 10/30/60/90ft distances, the 2.4GHz band had a 206/206/137/0Mbps download strength, with an upload of 286/258/149/0Mbps respectively. The 5GHz channel achieved 1200/864/288/8Mbps download and 1080/1080/576/17Mbps upload speeds respectively.

File transfer test

For our final test, we benchmarked the read and write speeds when transferring files between a PC connected to the router via a LAN port, and an SSD (in a USB adapter sled) connected to the router via the USB port. 

Using the CrystalDiskMark tool, we saw the router achieve a 260MB/s read and 159MB/s write speed in the first sequential test (with 8 queues and 1 thread) - this is when the files are arranged linearly and so is always the quickest test of the bunch. In the first random test this dropped to 75MB/s for the read and 66MB/s for the write in the 32 queue and 1 thread test, with the 1 queue 1 thread being even slower.

As you can see in the bar graph image, out of all the routers we’ve tested so far, the RS700 was the fastest option, particularly when it comes to write speed.

Although not the latest WiFi standard (the more expensive NETGEAR Orbi 970 Series covers this), you’ll still be able to utilise 6GHz frequency bands, and the device promises excellent throughput. Let’s see how it measured up in our tests.

Pricing

The full three-way Netgear Orbi RBKE963 setup is not cheap, coming with an MSRP of $1,500 at the time of writing, though we have seen it reduced by a hundred dollars or so in the occasional sale. As stated, you can pick up the 2-part set for cheaper, around the $1,100 mark, or buy the router itself or the satellites for $600 each.

Pricing can vary depending on retailer and also which color option you choose (black or white).

Cheaper WiFi 6E mesh options are available, but what you’re really paying for here is the performance and wide area coverage. More on this in Performance section below.

Overall Design

The host router and satellites both look identical to each other at first glance. All have a sort of angular oval shape with raised panels on the front and back, allowing for heat to be expelled through the gaps, with a groove underneath from which the status light emits. We had the black edition and these panels were colored black with the base section being grey. 

The only visible difference between the two types is the backports: with the router having a 2.5G WAN connection.

These reasonably sized devices don’t take up much space, and are pretty unobtrusive in their design: ideal for home or office use. Separate mounting kits are available if you wish to month them, which attach to the two screw ports on the bottom.

Each device comes with 12 internal antenna in total and are rated for a WiFi range of 3,000 sq. ft. per device.

The available WiFi channels stretch across four frequency bands: one 2.4GHz, two 5GHz channels, and one 6GHz; as standard though, the 2.4GHz and both 5Ghz bands are merged into one larger band using smart connect, with only the 6GHz allowing you to connect to it separately. You also get a dedicated Internet of Things (IoT) channel, which keeps your smart home devices etc. separate from the rest of your network traffic, helping to keep it clearer.

In terms of the wired connections, as mentioned the host router has a WAN port rated for 10Gbps through which you get your ISP broadband input. Both the main router and the satellites then also have a single 2.5Gbps ethernet port and three 1Gbps ports. 

Unfortunately, no USB sockets are present at all, meaning a NAS setup via ethernet is your only real option.

For processing, both satellites and the router get a Quad-core 2.2GHz CPU, which is remarkably powerful. They also feature 512MB NAND Flash memory and 1GB of RAM to help manage all those potential connections.

Other features

The included application allows you to setup a guest network with levels of access you can control for greater security.

In terms of encryption you get 802.11i, 128-bit AES encryption with PSK, plus a 30-day trial of Netgear Armor if you want an extra layer of protection. Netgear armour also comes with parental controls features that enable you to setup restricted profiles for different devices connected to the network, though once again this does not come for free after the 30 days.

The application itself is a bit of a pain to setup, involving a sign-up process that demands a lot of information, but once you get going it’s quite easy to use with a good amount of features.

Performance

In our performance testing, we subjected the Orbi 960 host router to a variety of scenarios to evaluate its effectiveness. It should be noted that our testing environment was a bit more limited than is ideal: we only had WiFi 6 devices to test with (we opted for the Samsung S21 FE smartphone specifically), so our WiFi testing was limited to the 2.4 and 5GHz frequency bands. Additionally, the network was limited and throttled to around 300Mbps.

The wireless connection (between the router and the testing device i.e. the phone) was tested at the standard distances we always use: 10ft/3m (uninterrupted), 30ft/9m (uninterrupted), 60ft/18m (with a wall between the two devices), and finally 90ft/27m (with two walls between the devices).

Given there was no USB port on the router, we could not perform our standard file transfer speed test.

Signal strength and latency

Signal strength is measured in decibel milliwatts (dBm) and essentially measures the reliability of the connection. In this measuring system, -30 dBm is the perfect result for a signal at one end of the scale, with around the -90 dBm mark typically signifying disconnection at the bottom end: the better results are those closer to -30 dBm, though anything around the -50 dBm to -67 dBm range is considered good. Signal strength typically depends on the quality of the antennae on the router and the level of interference between the devices. Our results were recorded using the WiFiman app.

On the 2.4GHz frequency band the Orbi 960 displayed good signal strength at every distance measured, coming in about the middle of the pack compared to other routers we’ve tested (with a range between -41dBM and -70dBm). Overall the 5GHz band was slightly weaker than average, though this was only really noticeable at the longest distance measured (across all distances, ranging between -48 and -89dBm).

Latency is measured in milliseconds (ms), and is basically how long it takes for data to travel between the router and the device, with the lower numbers representing faster speeds. At the 2.4GHz band the Orbi 960 performed well on the lower distances, though latency suffered at the highest distance, performing worse than others at the 27 metre mark. Overall, results ranged between 13ms and 26ms at this frequency. The 5GHz band showed superior performance in this area, with a range of results between 10ms to 20ms, so possibly the preferred frequency if you’re doing some fast-paced gaming.

Network download speed was measured by the Oopla speed test app in units of Megabits per second (Mbps). Performance on this may be affected considerably by any network throttling (which we do experience in our testing environment) so take these specific results with a pinch of salt. Results on the 2.4GHz band saw a 65.3-35.5Mbps download rate as it failed to work at the full range, with a 67.9-6.2Mbps upload rate. The 5GHz band saw 197-57Mbps download rates, with 227-83.9Mbps upload (so considerably stronger). LAN speed was measured at 254.8Mps download and 275.5Mbps upload.

Physical download/upload speed is measured via the WiFiman app. 2.4GHz saw a 229-8Mbps download range, with the 8Mbps low point (being very low) taking place at the longer ranges with the most obstacles; upload ranged between 286-51MMbps. The 5GHz band saw much stronger results: ranging between 1080-25Mbps but still was high in between; upload was between 1080-34Mbps.

If you’re new to the world of OLED monitors, look further down this page for the OLED panel explainer section for some general information to get you started. Otherwise, let’s dive right in!

What features make ASUS OLED monitors among the best?

The chief determinant of image quality on OLED monitors are actually the panels themselves, which are usually made by LG, Samsung, Panasonic etc. and then sent out to third-party brands (such as ASUS) to build a monitor around. The same OLED panels are often used by multiple brands, and where this is the case they typically have very similar image quality, however differently branded monitors distinguish themselves from each other in other areas.

We’ve reviewed many an ASUS monitor here at WePC and there are a few things you can typically expect from the brand’s products. Great build quality, at least on the higher budget products, is one of the brand’s calling cards. ASUS displays typically have great user interfaces which are easy to navigate and offer a lot of options and settings you can tweak to get your image just how you like it. Finally, ASUS gaming monitors are particularly feature rich when it comes to settings designed for gamers, though the specific features differ depending upon the model: read below for the details of the ones we’ve selected.

The latest generation ASUS ROG Swift OLED monitors

In Q1 2024 ASUS released three new OLED gaming monitors in the ROG Swift line: the PG32UCDM, PG34WCDM, and PG49WCD. The ASUS Swift line are the most premium of the ASUS monitor range. Although different in size and some of their other features, the three devices have several things in common that have impressed us.

All three are HDR capable in some capacity, with the first two models having VESA DisplayHDR and the ability to control brightness levels whilst within HDR mode, at least on what setting (not something you typically see, particularly in gaming monitors). They all come with the standard image quality adjustments: gamma, color temperature etc., but also allow for changing color space and color temperature tweaks.

Support for both Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync is present in all three, which is nice to see, as you often only get one or the other.

Finally all three monitors have USB-C (with DisplayPort) inputs with 90W power delivery, which gives nice flexibility in your setup and again isn’t something you’d usually find on a gaming-focused model.

ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM

The ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM is a lightning quick 4K QD-OLED monitor with a 240Hz max refresh rate and a superb 0.03 ms grey-to-grey response time: ideal for gaming at this resolution (assuming your rig is powerful enough), or color-accurate work in the sRGB space or within the 99% DCI-P3 gamut.

In addition to the custom heatsink present in all three of these displays, it has a graphene film layer to further dissipate heat and minimise burn-in.

The monitor has a great number of connections and ports, to the point where you can effectively have your computer, a separate laptop, and two game consoles plugged into it at the same time and just switch between whichever you fancy at any given moment.

Finally the aspect ratio control feature is a good option for serious competitive players of first-person shooters, as it effectively lets you shrink the used portion of your screen to 24.5”/27”, allowing for the entire screen to be in the centre of your view.

ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM

The ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM is a non-curved, 27-inch monitor (excluding the bezels, 26.5” of viewable screen). It comes with the standard QHD resolution (2560 x 1440), and the same 240Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms G2G response time, and 99% DCI-P3 coverage as the above display plus high color accuracy.

It comes with an OLED panel, rather than a QD-OLED one, but it’s of superb quality. Finally, the screen also has a matte coating which does a great job of minimizing glare/reflections. If you're after a glossy version you can always check out the Strix OLED XG27AQDMG below, which is very similar but with a different stand.

ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD

The ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD is a true behemoth of a display. This QD-OLED panel monitor is a whopping 49-inch, super-ultrawide beast, with a 1800R curved screen, offering maximum immersion in games. 

It has the same graphene layer as the PG32UCDM, a 144Hz max refresh rate, and 0.03ms grey to grey response time.

Plus a new ROG Strix OLED monitor for your consideration

The ROG Strix range of products are all gaming-focused, mid-to-upper tier products. Although the below ROG Strix OLED monitor doesn’t quite match up to the above picks in terms of aesthetics or features (though it’s not very far behind with the latter), it’s still a high-quality display.

ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG

The ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG is an exceptional display on a bang-per-buck basis; we haven’t seen an OLED gaming monitor of this level of quality before at this price, which is why we gave it 5/5 in our recent review (click the link to take a look yourself).

We’d encourage you to read more about it there, however to quickly summarise, it has a 240Hz refresh rate, the same near-perfect response times, black point, and contrast ratio you get on any other OLED panel, and a great peak brightness of just below 434 cd/m2. It comes with the first glossy WOLED panel on the market, specifically a 3rd generation MLA WOLED panel from LG.

OLED panel explainer

Who are OLED monitors suitable for?

OLED monitors are as ideal for gamers as they are for creatives, or those after a great display for watching video media and films. All OLED and QD-OLED monitors effectively have an infinite contrast ratio, which means you’ll get maximum detail in dark scenes and images, as well as nice inky blacks: great for watching movies or any creative video work. 

Response times are also extremely fast in OLED monitors, which makes them ideal for competitive fast-paced gaming: you’ll see basically no ghosting on screen, even at high FPS. Screen burn-in was a risk on older OLED panels when gaming: where any image constantly on the screen for an extended period of time (e.g. an in-game HUD) could permanently leave its mark on the display, but developments in anti-burn-in tech have effectively minimised this problem.

The color replication OLED monitors offer is quite varied, though many of the latest ROG Swift range have 99% DCI-P3 gamut coverage, or at least over 100% sRGB coverage, and high color accuracy, making them suitable for color-accurate work in this range.

OLED and QD-OLED panels

Whereas conventional LED panels use a separate backlight to illuminate the pixels, which can cause negative effects like backlight bleed, OLED panels use individual Light Emitting Diodes (made from Organic materials: hence OLED), that provide more precise control and can turn off completely - allowing for perfect blacks.

QD-OLED is a further development of this technology that utilises Quantum Dots to give a more vibrant picture: typically being brighter and more colorful.

This year has seen a big focus on both AI tech and gaming handhelds, though there was still a nice breadth of products to keep us busy over each category. Read below for all our selections.

Best all-in one PC

The MSI Modern AM273Q AI series is an all-in-one PC design reminiscent of the Apple iMac: essentially a 27” 1400p screen with the internal components of the PC built into it, including an Intel Core Ultra processor (going up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U CPU) plus DDR5 RAM. It has Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI ports so you can just use it as a monitor should you wish to connect it to a conventional PC, plus an upgradable 2.5" HDD/SSD, and card reader, making it a great general productivity device.

Eco-friendly design is also at the heart of this product: it’s constructed with Post-consumer Recycled plastic, comes in environmentally friendly packaging, and has several power saving functions that make it more energy efficient to use. As a result, it also wins a WePC sustainability award, alongside some other products we’ve discussed below.

Obviously whether or not this device will be worth a buy depends upon both its price and real-world performance, neither of which we know at this time, but based on the information we have we like the direction MSI are going.

Best AI software

AI generated imagery is obviously not a new phenomenon, however we’ve yet to see it implemented so well as with ASUS MuseTree. Obviously the use of AI in creative work is a hot-button issue, but its integration in creative workflows seems inevitable. MuseTree places this powerful tool within an intuitive user interface that makes creating and combining visuals a doddle.

Half of the creative interface is centred around an ‘Idea Map’ formed of keyphrases/prompts and associated AI-generated images, which you can drag and drop to merge together, forming a new image based on a blending of the two ‘concepts’. The other side of the application is the ‘Idea Canvas’ where you can sketch out your ideas with a pen tool, and then apply different AI-generated art styles or other images to your initial sketch. All the new imagery that’s created can then be saved in your Ideas Library.

Best desktop CPU

As expected, AMD showed off their new Ryzen 9000 series of desktop processors, which will initially include the Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 7 9700X, Ryzen 9900X, and the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. All told this was a pretty standard release, with no earth-shattering changes to the tech, however the imminence of the release (scheduled for July 2024) and how it should shake up the processor markets makes it noteworthy: Intel’s 15th gen is likely not coming until towards the end of the year.

These CPUs use the same AM5 socket as the previous range, which AMD have now committed to support until 2027: a nice contrast to Intel users who have had to buy new motherboards each gen. The 9000 series are based on Zen5 tech which is mostly just improvement tweaks on Zen4, rather than completely new tech: it uses the same I/O die but with new chiplets and an altered capacitor layout. 

These changes do however amount to notable performance improvements: “up to twice the data bandwidth, and up to twice the AI performance of the last gen” according to senior technical marketing manager Donny Woligroski. Performance benchmarking provided by AMD should always be taken with a pinch of salt, but they’re claiming the Ryzen 9 9950X will perform between 4%-23% faster in gaming, with a productivity increase of 7%-56%.

Best graphics card

In terms of brand new founder’s edition GPU, Computex 2024 unsurprisingly didn’t have a lot to offer, but the best graphics card we did see was a new AIB from ASUS, and boy howdy does it have some power.

The ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 features the first ever use of a liquid metal compound on the GPU die. In conjunction with a ‘custom-engineered cold plate’, and 360mm radiator it can be pushed to a ridiculously high boost clock of 2700 MHz. Besides this you get the ASUS GPU Tweak III app to monitor thermal data and potential power anomalies.

We don’t know how much this card is going to cost, though we can safely assume it will be out of the reach of 99% of consumers; still - it’s an impressive development in pushing the envelope of graphics technology.

Best motherboard

We’re a fan of the back-connect motherboard concept, making for a more aesthetically pleasing and airflow efficient PC build, and the MSI Z790 Project Zero Plus aims to take this one step further.

The motherboard is compatible with the latest in low-profile socketable RAM known as ‘CAMM2’ which lies flat against the motherboard, allowing for more space for other components like sideways coolers. Besides this the CAMM2 memory also benefits from a superior connection to the processor and higher bandwidth capacity, meaning faster speeds and lower latencies (plus better stability).

Best Monitor

There were a few fine looking displays on offer at Computex 2024, but none so fine as the Acer Predator X32 X3. Acer hasn’t been a big player in the premium OLED gaming monitor market, however this offering looks to be a strong contender, coming with a 31.5-inch 4K display with a 240Hz max refresh rate, that can switch to a 1080p resolution capable of a ridiculous 480Hz refresh rate: ideal for the consumer that wants to play both immersive 4K games without losing their competitive edge in fast-paced online shooters 

This is not the only dual-mode monitor out there, MSI also released the MPG 321CUPF but this is limited to 4K at 160Hz, and 1080p at 320Hz, so Acer takes the crown for having the fastest display of its kind, and we’re looking forward to getting our hands on it to review.

Best storage solution

The XPG Adata Project NeonStorm PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD is probably the most outlandish design we’ve seen for a Solid State Drive, and we love it. This shiny gold bit of kit has an in-built water cooling system, composed of an alloy tube surrounded by a water cooled-casing, complete with two radiator fans.

It’s likely to be a pretty niche product, but if SSD throttling is a concern for you then this looks to be an excellent buy. The people at XPG/Adata say that storage size will go up to 8TB we can expect it to hit the shelves next year.

Best gaming & creator laptop

The ROG Zephyrus G16 is a product that ASUS have been putting out for years now, but has been consistently tweaked and redesigned with each iteration. Its smaller sibling, the G14, regularly features as our best 14-inch gaming laptop of the year, and the complete redesign of both in Q1 2024 saw them further bridge the gap between gaming laptops and slick productivity devices, with their sleek new chassis, improved keyboard, and top-quality speakers. They also were some of the first laptops to come equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors.

These newer versions come with all the features introduced into the early 2024 models, but with the newer AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series processors (which should be more powerful in both conventional processing and AI workloads) plus WiFi 7 support. It also supports the new SD Express 7.0 standard for exceedingly fast SD card performance. All of this makes it a true contender for a Windows-based MacBook alternative you can actually game on!

Best mobile & AI processor

The mobile processor space has never been so competitive, and this can only be good for the consumer. ARM’s Qualcomm series has stirred up the industry with its challenger architecture, though Intel and AMD aren’t going to go down without a fight and their architecture still arguably has greater compatibility with Windows.

At Computex 2024 both Intel and AMD showed off new AI-focused mobile processors, with a focus on power efficiency, but it was the AMD Ryzen AI 300 chips that pipped Intel’s Lunar Lake offerings to the post, due to the higher maximum TOPS (Tera Operations per Second) its chipset was capable of, which is the standard measure of AII processing: specifically 50 compared to the 48 on the NPU of Lunar Lake. This is only a general guideline for how these chipsets will perform in real-world scenarios of course, and it may be that the different design of both chips gives them an edge in different scenarios over the other. Based on what we do currently know though, AMD’s offering wins out in terms of Computex launches.

Best new handheld

In an event with a large representation of handheld gaming devices, the Zotac Zone was the new kid on the block. Up until now the company has been best known for making graphics cards, but this new offering looks very interesting. 

It has a 120Hz AMOLED, which compares favourably to the 90Hz OLED in the Steam Deck, 16GB of DDR5 RAM (the same as the Steam Deck but lower than the max 24GB in the ROG Ally X) and a starting storage size of 512GB, though this can be expanded after purchase. The Ryzen 7 8840U APU chipset is considerably more powerful than that in the AMD Custom APU 0405 in the Steam Deck, and probably about on par with the Z1 Extreme of the ROG Ally X At an asking price of $799 it matches the ROG Ally X but is substantially higher than the $649 Steam Deck.

Concerns over the lack of VRR aside (we’ll have to see how much difference this makes when we test the thing), the Zotac Zone could be a big challenger in the handheld space.

Best updated handheld

We’ve seen a couple of updated handhelds at Computex 2024, including the MSI Claw 8 AI Plus with its upgraded Lunar Lake CPU and slightly larger screen size. The stand-out model for us however was the ASUS ROG Ally X, which now comes with twice the battery size, twice the storage, and a few other smaller improvements to improve the overall gameplay experience.

For an additional $100 on top of the asking price for the older version (bringing the MSSRP up to $799), we think this is well worth it.

Best unique case design

Fractal are one of our favourite case designers and the Fractal Mood mini is a new vertical and slimline design, created to fit unobtrusively into the aesthetics of a modern homme. This is a lightweight design is surrounded by fabric and topped by an included 180mm fan that sucks air up through the case and expels it through the top. It can fit up to a 325mm graphics card, which expels air out through the side mesh. The surrounding cover can be easily removed to allow for all-round access to the case’s internals.

You can expect to see this hit the shelves in June and we’re excited to get one for ourselves and put it through its paces.

Best budget case

Montech had a good few cases on offer including the King 65 PRO (a more affordable version of the 95 Pro) and the Sky 3, with its pretty unique design of a downswept front section with two in-built 80mm fans blowing upwards into the case. We look forward to learning more about these cases, however the one that drew our attention the most was the 64-Montech XR, which is as classic a case design as can be, purely because it looks to be a decent quality, nice looking case for an asking price of a mere $64!

The mesh variant comes with three front-mounted 120mm fans and one on the back, with the non-mesh having a glass front panel with two 120mm fans towards the front of the reverse side (i.e. on the right) and again one 120mm on the back. The rose-gold non-mesh in particular looks to be very nice, though apparently this will be released slightly later than the other colors.

Best productivity gadget

The ASUS AirVision M1 wearable display is essentially an enhanced pair of wearable glasses, more compact than a VR headset and more easily worn in public, that allows you to create and view multiple virtual screens that you can rearrange at will. These screens can be linked to a device and pinned in place so that they stay static, even when you move your head.

Each eye lens has a 1920 x 1080 Micro OLED display, with reportedly up to ‘1100 nits brightness and a 95% DCI-P3 color gamut’. You get 57° of vertical viewing angle and 60% transmittance. A multi-function touchpad is built into the left side of the frame which allows you to start/top video, arrange your various windows, and toggle other settings.

On top of all this, the AirVision M1 has a very low 2 watts of energy consumption, and ships in plastic-free packaging. 

Best aesthetics

We’re not a shallow bunch here at WePC, so aesthetics often come far below performance and functionality in terms of how we rate a product, that being said, the new Corsair Custom Lab looks absolutely sumptuous. 

Corsair put out a whole host of different computer tech, including most peripherals you can think of, and the Custom Lab lets you design in minute detail the aesthetics of each of these (from the mouse side buttons to individual keycaps) so you can have a truly unique looking gaming setup

The selection of peripherals is currently limited to the Corsair M75 Wireless mouse, K65 Plus Wireless keyboard, and an MM300 mouse pad, however more options are ‘coming soon.’

Best custom case design

Each year Computex treats us to a great array of weird and wacky custom cases, from beer-cooled to bubble tea setups, and lots of thematic designs. This year it was the glorious ED-209 PC case for RandomDesign, designed to promote the new RoboCop: Rogue City game that caught our eye. What can I say, I like Robocop. 

Stefan Ulrich, the man behind RandomDesign, used 3D printing on different materials along with resin casting and sculpting techniques to make this fantastic design. Sadly this isn’t available to buy as a consumer product, but if you’ve got enough money, perhaps the man himself would make you one. I’d buy that for a dollar!

Sustainability Awards

Sustainability was a big focus for several products at Computex 2024, which is great to see, particularly given the looming energy demands of expanding AI data centres and the questions that poses for future energy production.

We’ve already mentioned two winners of the WePC Sustainability award this year, the MSI Modern AM273Q AI all-in-one PC and the ASUS AirVision M1 wearable display, both listed above, however the product line which caught our attention the most was the T-Force ECO RAM from Teamgroup.

As far as PC components go, RAM is the one most likely to be swapped out and disposed of, so it makes sense to ensure it’s constructed as environmentally consciously as possible. Of the two Teamgroup products, the T-FORCE DELTA RGB ECO DDR5 is made from 80% recycled aluminium and 100% Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) plastics. Additionally the company produce a storage solution: the TEAMGROUP PD20 ECO Mini External SSD (up to 4TB of storage with speeds up to 1,000 MB/s), which is constructed from 75% PCR plastics.

During the presentation, we found out AMD is going to commit to the AM5 platform, at least until 2027, and we can expect a new flagship 800-series motherboard to boot - the X870/ X870E. The new generation will be DDR5 only, support USB4, PCIe 5 Gen5 graphics, and a higher EXPO memory clock support.

AMD Ryzen 9000 release date confirmed

The official Ryzen 9000 release date is set for July this year. There was no mention of whether the entire range will launch at the same time or not but generally speaking, we see the core lineup launch first, followed by the others. AMD showcased its flagship processor in a little more detail, with benchmarks showing the 9950X hitting an increase of between 4-23% in certain games and between 7-56% in some productivity/ content creation workflows over the Intel i9-14900K. Of course, we need to for the independent benchmarks before giving this any acknowledgment. Furthermore, Intel's 15th gen processors are also expected later this year.

AMD Ryzen 9000 processors & specs

The official specs for the Ryzen 9000 were again pretty close to the more recent leaks and rumors. The flagship will come with the same 16-core 32-thread makeup as its predecessor and the same max boost of 5.7GHz. The only specification that is different at the moment is the Cache, which is now 80MB. You can see the full Ryzen 9000 series range below. AMD failed to mention or compare the new series against the 7000-series X3D SKUs, some of which are highly regarded for their performance but the way things look right now, we doubt it is worth upgrading a 3D-cache variant.

We have been lucky to see some fantastic CPU lineups from both AMD and Intel in recent years and it doesn't appear to be slowing down. The value for many, especially gamers appears to be slowly improving and as it stands there has never been a better time to get into the PC gaming market. There was no mention of price during the AMD announcement but the new series is rumored to have the same MSRP as Ryzen 7000. This would mean that the flagship 9950X would cost $699 and the more affordable Ryzen 5 9600X would retail at $299 in the US.

Pricing & availability

One of the most enticing things about the XG27AQDMG is the price. Coming with a standard MSRP in the US of $749, there is also a special launch price of $699 if you pick it up in the initial launch from one of the following retailers: Newegg, MicroCenter, and the ASUS eShop, though it’s stated that the latter eShop will only have a limited amount of stock.

The initial launch will be limited to these few retailers on the 30th of May, with the wider launch at the standard price to follow at an undetermined time after. As of yet we do not know when other global markets will be able to buy this monitor.

Even at the standard pricing this is very good value for what you get, as we’ve seen monitors with similar specs go for up to $250 more. That being said, it remains to be seen how non-US pricing will compare as ASUS products tend to be more expensive in Europe and elsewhere.

At the time of writing there have been various QD-OLED supply issues that have affected availability of certain displays, however it’s unclear as of yet whether there will be sufficient supply of the glossy WOLED panels that this model uses.

Design & specifications

At first glance the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG looks very similar to the other ROG gaming monitors released in 2024: it has the same stand with a broad, square-looking (actually hexagonal) base in a dark gray color, although compared to the IPS panel monitors the bottom bezel is notably smaller. Much of the screen is also substantially thinner than the IPS ROG line, although about half of the rear is taken up by the thicker section that houses the connection ports and affixes the screen to the stand. Overall, it’s a pretty nice looking monitor, with the thinner edges and bezels being particularly pleasing.

In terms of build quality the XG27AQDMG also impressed: the stand is sturdy and stable and we experienced minimal screen wobble, and transitioning between the different ergonomic positions felt smooth. We noticed no obvious points of weakness on the display itself. It’s not a particularly light monitor to move about, but that’s a worthwhile trade-off for such a solid stand.

In terms of ergonomics you get a fairly standard amount of tilt (+20° ~ -5°), as well as a decent amount of swivel (45°) and pivot adjustment (90°). The top of the stand has a 1/4" tripod screw socket you can use to attach a camera and the base also has a phone-holder slot that you can use to prop up your phone underneath the display, which is a simple but welcome addition.

The monitor also has VESA mount support and comes with the mounting kit included in the box.

In terms of connectivity all the ports and sockets are round the back of the monitor, facing downwards, which makes it look cleaner but is often a pain when you’re trying to plug things in. 

You get a single DisplayPort 1.4 socket which is fine, and two HDMI ports but they’re only 2.0, which will annoy some people, though in practical terms for most users it shouldn’t make a difference: Variable Refresh Rate and Auto-Low Latency Mode are both still supported at the native 1440p resolution, if this was a 4K monitor then it would be more of an issue. The only real downside is that you will not be able to avoid Display Stream Compression when set to 10bit color, but at 8bit color you will, and this isn’t an issue that most consumers would care about anyway.

We would have liked to have seen a USB-C port, but the given the two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and 3.5mm headphone jack are pretty standard for this price point.

OSD, features & settings

As with most ROG monitors you get quite an impressive amount of tweakable features within in the menu: including a good number of visual presets, fully adjustable color temperature, contrast, and brightness, and various different OLED-specific and gaming features.

The monitor fully supports both G-Sync and FreeSync Premium to help minimise screen tearing. It comes with the latest ASUS OLED Care anti-burn in tech which is very important in an OLED gaming monitor, as well as a custom passive heatsink to reduce thermals. There is a pixel refresh setting that enables about 5 mins after you put the monitor to sleep or set it on standby.

OLED displays aren’t traditionally the best at displaying text, but the XG27AQDMG comes with features like META and Clear Pixel Edge to ‘provide brighter full-white windows, clearer text, and improved motion clarity’: more on our experience of these below.

The display comes with a Extreme Low Motion Blur (ELMB) setting you can switch on, which is a form of Black Frame Insertion (BFI) for those that don’t know: helping to remove both screen flickering and motion blur by simulating CRT flicker. ELMB can’t be used in conjunction with VRR (G-Sync or FreeSync) and is capped at 120Hz, so will primarily be of interest to console users or for those who aren’t concerned about pushing their refresh rate to the max: true competitive players might prefer to run at 240Hz instead.

The XG27AQDMG does have firmware updating for any future tweaks and improvements that ASUS come out with, and crucially, does have a 3 year warranty that covers panel burn-in, although the company has come under fire in recent years for its shoddy RMA and customer support practises, so just bear this in mind and check the small print.

Screen testing & performance

Subjectively the screen of the monitor looks great (more on this below), but how did it measure up in our testing? Read on for the results.

Color gamut, accuracy & picture quality

We tested the XG27AQDMG at various presets (though more are available in the monitor’s settings), using the i1DisplayPlus colorimeter and DisplayCAL software. Below you can see the results, with the ideal values listed at the top for reference.

The standard User mode settings (the values of which can be changed by the user) is what we recommend for general use and gaming, and you can manually increase the brightness levels on this preset to get it closer to FPS mode should you wish. Cinema mode was noticeably cooler thanks to its higher color temperature. sRGB Cal mode was nearly perfect for color-accurate work in the sRGB gamut (120 cd/m2 being the brightness value that most closely resembles ‘natural light’), however the color temperature was a bit on the warm side.

When calibrating the display, this resulted in a significantly worse average deltaE*00 in exchange for a better white point when compared to the sRGB Cal mode preset. Your own calibration may achieve better results than this, but otherwise we recommend just sticking with this preset for any color-accurate work.

In terms of gamut coverage the DCI-P3 results were slightly worse than the 99% that ASUS claimed, but probably still good enough for non-professionals. The 99.8% effectively amounts to 100%, so, based on this, professional color work could be conducted in the sRGB space.

Brightness

For every monitor we review we record the peak brightness, minimum brightness, and what number on the brightness settings equates closest to 120cd/m², which, as mentioned, is the approximate value for natural light. 

100 brightness  434 cd/㎡0 brightness    35 cd/m²20 Brightness   123 cd/m²

ASUS claims a peak brightness of 450cd/㎡, and though our results fell just slightly short of this, it’s not by enough that you’d likely notice much difference. 434cd/㎡ is a very nice high peak brightness and sufficient to overcome any glare the glossy screen may experience in indoor scenarios.

Panel uniformity

Panel uniformity measures how consistent the luminance and colors are across the whole screen. The display is divided into a 5x5 grid, with the central square used as the reference point from which every other square is tested for variance.

Variance below 1.00 shows up as green, and this is the ideal result, with the variance being imperceptible to the naked eye. Yellow represents a greater degree of variation between 1.00 - 3.00, though at the lower end this is still unlikely to be discernible to the untrained eye/general user, and doesn’t necessarily preclude the display from color accurate work. Greater variance is more of a problem, and shows up as red.

As we can see in the image above, there was a nearly 50/50 split on the sectors between green and orange. For gaming this is a perfectly fine result, and is even acceptable for amateur color work, although professional color graders may want to look elsewhere. Panel uniformity can differ between monitors of the same model, so please do also bear this in mind.

Viewing angles

As with virtually all OLED screens, the ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG has excellent viewing angles: there’s limited color shift when you view the on-screen image from the side, indeed color is still pretty visible even as you approach the 180° mark.

Gaming performance

We tested the XG27AQDMG across a range of different titles, from CyberPunk 2077 to CS2, and were very impressed with its performance. The picture was crisp, colors popped, and the contrast looked great as you’d expect from an OLED screen. Loss of color was minimal in both very dark and very bright scenes. The whole experience was immersive as can be on a 27-inch screen, helped by the minimal bezels around the edges.

When gaming the screen felt very responsive and fast. With VRR on we didn’t notice any screen tearing whatsoever. At 240Hz on fast-paced games like CS2 motion blur and ghosting was almost entirely imperceptible, and most users will likely never notice it. At 120Hz with ELMB switched on, even our most keen-eyed monitor specialists couldn’t spot any whatsoever, and the same was true when we conducted the Alien UFO test: a practically perfect result.

General performance & productivity

When watching YouTube and movies the display performed admirably, as you’d expect from an OLED panel. The high peak brightness of the screen combined with the glossy panel also really helped produce a great looking image.

For general usage, the XG27AQDMG was okay, but text clarity still lagged behind that of an IPS monitor, even with META and Clear Pixel Edge enabled in the settings. It still performed above average in this area compared to other OLED panels however, and ultimately this is just the trade-off you make when opting for an OLED monitor; some people aren’t bothered by it at all.

The ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS is a new 1440p gaming monitor from the Taiwanese tech giant, and the ROG Strix XG27UCS is a 4K variant. Both offer a great number of features and impressive specs that you’d typically find in more premium-end displays, however they’re both available at what amounts to budget pricing (certainly in the case of the 1440p model anyway). As a result they’re both great options if you’re looking for a new gaming display without breaking the bank, and possible contenders for our best gaming monitors for 2024.

ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS vs XG27UCS: what are the differences?

The XG27ACS and XG27UCS are two very similar monitors, even the names are nearly identical! The main difference between them is obviously resolution, with the XG27ACS being QHD aka 1440p (with a 2560 x 1440 resolution exactly) and the XG27UCS being UHD/4K (with an exact resolution of 3840 x 2160). Both displays have the same 16:9 aspect ratio.

In terms of maximum refresh rate, the QHD model is slightly faster at 180Hz, though the 4K XG27UCS has a very impressive 160Hz max refresh rate, which is well above what you’d expect for a UHD monitor at this price point. In real life scenarios, most users won’t be able to tell the difference between refresh rates at these two speeds.

In terms of peak brightness, the 4K model is rated a bit higher: 400cd/㎡ on SDR mode and 450 cd/㎡with HDR enabled, whereas the QHD monitor is 350cd/㎡and 400 cd/㎡ respectively.

The final, very slight difference, is that the QHD XG27ACS has a reported DCI-P3 color gamut coverage of 97%, whereas the UHD XG27UCS apparently comes in at 95% - again, this probably won’t make much practical difference in real world scenarios.

XG27ACS

XG27UCS

What do you get for your money?

Moving on to the similarities, you can see a list of the specifications of both monitors below.  ASUS’ settings navigation menu is one of the better ones out there: you get some nice gamma, saturation, and color temp controls, certainly more than you’d typically see at this price.

The contrast ratio is pretty good for an IPS panel, and the color accuracy is on point, meaning if you wanted to do some color-based work in the sRGB spectrum at least alongside your gaming, this monitor would do nicely. The anti-glare coating also helps for both work and gaming when the sunlight is shining. In terms of gaming specifically, the 1ms g2g response time is very nice, and should reduce ghosting considerably (particularly in conjunction with the other features listed below).

The stands offer a lot of adjustment options, which are always nice to see, for tilt, height and swivel; you can even rotate the screens to use them in portrait mode if you like, and they come with a VESA mount. There’s even a slot for your phone in the base of the monitor stands, allowing you to place it in either portrait or landscape position, a simple feature but a nice one, plus something you don’t see very often.

Other features both monitors come with include:

The ROG Strix line is ASUS’ premium gaming range, yet the pricing on both these products is more like what you’d find in their more budget-friendly TUF line of products, which is something we’re definitely not going to complain about! The $299/£329 MSRP of the QHD model is very reasonable indeed, and although the $449 pricing for the UHD model stretches the term ‘budget pricing’ a bit, considering this is a 160Hz 4K monitor with some great features it’s very good value.

So which monitor should you buy?

For the vast majority of gamers, the ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS is the model we’d recommend, purely because 1440p gaming is more achievable than running AAA titles at 4K resolution, which requires a very powerful graphics card and processor if you want to enjoy them on higher settings and get good FPS (see our best gaming PC build under $2,000 and $3,000 for some examples). The monitor itself also has the advantage of being quite a bit cheaper.

That being said if you’re definitely after a 4K display: either because you also intend to use it for creative purposes where this native resolution will help in editing/graphic design or similar, or simply because you just crave the 4K gaming experience, then the XG27UCS is a great choice.

Where to buy the ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS & XG27UCS

The 1440p ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS is available to buy now from multiple retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy and the ASUS store.

Currently we haven’t seen the 4K ROG Strix XG27UCS for sale anywhere yet though we expect its appearance to be imminent on these same retailers.

ASUS are running another cashback campaign on their wide range of products, this time for their premium ProArt line, which encompasses PC components, prebuilts, monitors, peripherals, and more.

Unfortunately the time is running out for you to pick up your eligible products, with the 21st May being the final day you can buy them, although you have until the 4th of June to actually claim your cashback on any qualifying purchase.

Read below for all the relevant details and make sure you don’t miss out!

What is the ASUS ProArt range?

The ASUS ProArt range, as the name suggests, is designed with professional artists in mind, though it’s just as suitable for a high-end gaming setup. ProArt products range from power supplies and PC cases, to peripherals, all the way up to monitors (like the ASUS ProArt PA279CRV we had the pleasure of getting to use) and graphics cards. With the exception of the CPU, RAM, and SSD (though SSD enclosures are available) you can basically have an entirely ProArt PC build should you wish. Not only do these products all perform excellently, but they have a common refined aesthetic to make your PC look exceptional.

ProArt products tend to be high-end, premium models, so getting some money off these top-end items is especially welcome.

How to claim your ProArt cashback

How long does the ASUS ProArt cashback campaign last?

As mentioned, it’s important to distinguish between the ‘promotion period’ and the ‘redemption period’: the former is when you actually have to buy the products by, the latter is the time you have after the point of purchase to fill out the cashback claim form and upload the invoice of your purchase.

Promotion period

9th April – 21st May 2024

Redemption period

23rd April – 4th June 2024

The best cashback deals

You can see the full range of ProArt products eligible for the cashback redemption here, however we’ve selected below the ones we deem to be the best of the bunch, organised by product category.

Prebuilt PCs (for gamers & creators)

Motherboard

Graphics Cards

AIO Cooler

PSU

Display

Keyboard / Mouse / Mousepad

Networking

Custom prebuilt ASUS ProArt systems are the ideal way to pick up high end creative workstations and gaming computers without having to bother putting them together yourself. You can get yourself a truly powerful rig with a slick aesthetic that blends in nicely with the rest of the ProArt line, which includes mice, keyboards, and monitors suitable for color-accurate visual workflows.

This particular Powered By ASUS Artisan Ultra computer has one of the best CPU and GPU combinations on the market, plus comes with a fantastic larger case with many great features to help you with your creative workflow. You get Windows 11 Home (64 Bit) as standard with it, plus free UK delivery. Read below for all the details on the various components within it and everything else you need to know.

The case: PA 602

The ProArt PA 602 E-ATX PC case is a big boy with a lot of premium features. It supports a 420mm radiator along the top of the case should you wish to opt for AIO cooling, or three individual 140mm/120mm fans if you want to go fair-cooling, plus a 450mm horizontally mounted graphics card / 125mm vertically mounted one. You get two extra thick 200mm fans included in the front of the case, plus one 140mm rear fan (we’ll discuss these more below). The case can support up to 8x 2.5” SSDs or 4x 3.5” HDDs on the rear and bottom of the case which all have nicely organised brackets. 

Although it’s of a hefty size, the PA 602 comes with two built-in wheels on the rear of the case, which makes moving it around a lot easier. This is a feature we have seen implemented on rare occasions but here it’s done quite tastefully: the wheels look fairly hidden and if you stand the case flat they won’t move, you have to lean the case backward to engage them.

Other nice features include an integrated, tool-less graphics card slot clamp for easy mounting, a PWM fan hub that supports up to 6 case fans, and a compartment on the top-rear of the case which can house the foldable WIFI antenna, allowing you to stow it away when not needed for a sleek, minimalist look. There’s also a pretty mad InfraRed dust detection feature, which gives you a prompt when the dust build-up reaches a point where it’s affecting airflow. 

The I/O On the top of the case is also interesting: you get a power lock latch which you can engage to prevent accidentally turning off your PC (useful if you’re performing creative work and frequently plugging devices in and out of the top sockets). There’s also a PWM control that easily allows you to switch the case fans between max speed and auto settings. The extensive USB-A ports (2x USB 2.0 and 2x USB 3.0) are very welcome, as is the 20Gbps USB Type-C port.

The open front grill maximises air intake and the angular air deflectors in front of the PSU shroud and next to the motherboard plate help channel it effectively towards the exhaust fan at the rear of the case.

Finally the whole thing has a nice, refined aesthetic common across the ProArt line.

The case fans

The two front-mounted 200 x 28mm intake fans are both extra large in diameter and extra thick, allowing for greatly enhanced cooling. Of a ProArt design, they yield a very high airflow whilst being nice and quiet. The rear of the case has a single 140mm exhaust fan mounted as standard which also performs well.

These are all the fans that come with the case but you can add three additional fans to the top as stated, if you’re not opting for a water cooled build. These can be 120mm or 140mm and the rear fan can also be replaced with a 120mm one should you wish.

The motherboard: ProArt X670E-Creator WIFI

The ASUS ProArt X670E-Creator is a top-notch motherboard for creatives who need maximum connectivity. It comes with a whopping 11 USB ports on the rear IO, including 2x 40Gbps USB 4 Type-C ports that also act as DisplayPort outputs, a 20Gbps USB-C port, 7x USB 3.2 Gen 1 sockets, plus a single USB 2.0. There’s also a 10GbE and a 2.5GBE ethernet port, suitable for LAN or broadband connections, plus a HDMI output and a DisplayPort input socket, and three 3.5mm audio ports covering line in, line out, and mic in.

The main chassis of the motherboard comes with 2x PCIe 5.0 and 4x M.2 sockets and has a nice, elegant design with ProArt details in black with gold and silver details.

The GPU: ProArt GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

The RTX 4080 Super is one of the most powerful cards out there and will make mince meet of any game on max settings at 4K resolution, plus any high-end rendering workload. The ProArt AIB variant performs similarly to the Founder’s Edition of the card, though comes with an aesthetic that matches the rest of the build.

The CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D

The processor that comes with the PBA Artisan Ultra is the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D, which is the most powerful gaming processor currently available, thanks to its 3D-Vache technology. It’s also a hugely powerful CPU when it comes to running workstation programmes and creative software, so is the ideal pick for this build.

The CPU cooler

The CPU cooler our particular model came with is the PCS Frostflow 200 Series High Performance CPU Cooler, rated up to 250W, though you can always update this to a more heavy duty model should you wish on the PC Specialist site by DeepCool or Corsair.

The Memory

Corsair are one of our favourite RAM manufacturers, and their Vengeance line is a staple of most of our builds. With 64GB of the latest DDR5 RAM (from 2x 32GB sticks), clocking at speeds of 5600MHz, you shouldn’t have any problem with even the most demanding applications, and will definitely be able to open as many tabs in your browser as you like!

The SSD

Solidigm are one of the most high-end SSD manufacturers, and this P44 PRO Gen model is a great premium storage solution. It not only offers a top-notch read speed (7,000 MBps) and write speed (6,500 MBps) but is actually quite energy efficient in spite of this. 2TB is ample storage for the needs of most gamers, but if you want more space for additional storage for creative uses, you can increase this further with the extensive expansion potential as mentioned.

The PSU

The power supply is an 850W Gold rated model from Corsair, our favourite PSU manufacturer. This is sufficient for this particular build, particularly given that the 40-series GPU are actually pretty energy efficient considering the power increase over the previous gen, although once again you can always upgrade it if you want a bit more juice or room for future upgrades.

The warranty

If you pick up this build from PC Specialist, you get a 3 year standard warranty covering 6 months collect & return, 1 year of parts warranty, and 3 years of labour. This can be upgraded further for a relatively reasonable price increase to silver, gold, or platinum coverage. Have a read on the PC Specialist site for more details.

The MSI line of PSUs has some absolute belters this year, and covers the full range of Wattage for PC builds with different power demands, plus options for different budgets. We have the latest premium-end MEG Ai1300P, which has a tonne of unique features, plus more affordable mid-range options like the MAG A850GL.

If you want to get your head around what the different specs mean before we dive into our selections then do take a look further down this page at the ‘Things to consider when buying a power supply’ section.

A platinum-grade, feature rich, premium PSU: MEG Ai1300P PCIE5

Top of the line in the MSI PSU range is the Ai1300P: a truly premium power supply that will future-proof your build, give you all the juice you need for some high performing components. As the first ATX 3.0 compatible power supply in the market, MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 is built according to Intel Power Supply Design Guide for ATX and as name suggest complies with the latest PCIE5 standards, providing native 16 PIN PCIe connector for latest NVIDIA RTX 40 graphics cards, along with many interesting new features. 

There’s a port in the PSU that can connect via mini USB cable to a socket on a MSI motherboard to allow for MSI G.I. (Gaming Intelligence) features. These features include a real-time power monitor, to see what Wattage, Voltage, and temperature is being output by the PSU at any one time, plus the power that is being supplied to each component; an intelligent fan mode which allows adjustment of fan speed to reduce noise depending on loading, and a multi/single rail switching feature, which can change to either depending on the current output and the user’s needs.

Besides this, the PSU is rated to a Platinum 80 Plus efficiency standard (the best there is). It comes with extra large (twice the normal size) heatsinks, which feature Japanese-made 105°C capacitors. The SILENT GALE 120mm fan has blades that are constructed from liquid crystal polymer for improved stability, strength and heat resistance, plus it runs on a hydrodynamic bearing that both reduces fan noise and should extend its lifespan. You get a nice 10 year limited warranty for extra piece of mind and even get a couple of cable management inserts included! If you are looking for a PSU to support your RTX 4090 or 4080 SUPER, it is quite a decent option.

A high-quality, upper-mid range PSU: MPG A1000G PCIE5 & A850G PCIE5

If you’re looking for a great quality, upper mid-range power supply then the MPG A1000G has the bells and whistles, plus the build quality to meet your needs.

To start with, this PSU has a Gold efficiency rating under both the 80 Plus and Cybernetics award standards, which is very nice indeed. The capacitors in this product are again 100% high-quality, Japanese-made 105°C components and this, along with the high build quality in general, mean MSI guarantees it with a 10-year warranty.

Again, the design is based on LLC Half Bridge Topology with DC-DC, and you get industrial level protection from the following mechanisms: OCP, OTP, OVP, OPP, UVP, and SCP. You also get 2x total power excursion and 3x GPU power excursion.

If you want to save a bit more money and don’t quite need 1000W of power for your PC, you can also get the 850W, A850G variant. In general, these two models would be an ideal match if you are looking to build a high end RTX 4070 SUPER or above gaming PCs.

A more affordable, but flexible PSU: MAG A850GL & A750GL PCIE5

The MSI MAG A850GL is fully modular, comes with PCIe 5.0 and Intel PSDG support, a DC-DC full bridge design, active PFC, and a Gold 80 Plus & Cybernetics efficiency rating. You get a 120mm cooling fan with a fluid dynamic bearing (meaning reduced noise). As with the models above, it can handle up to 2x total power excursion and 3x GPU power excursion.

Compared to the above MPG G models, these PSUs sacrifice some of the extras like the silent fan mode, Japanese-made capacitors, and the 10 year warranty (you get 5 years with the ‘MAG GL’) for a lower MSRP. They are however slightly more compact than the G versions though, and smaller than most other ATX 3.0 power supplies on the market, giving you a bit more room for cable management in the back of your case, and the flat cables it comes with further facilitate this.

In terms of colour options, you can also pick up a white version of the PSU, if you’re looking to put together an all-white build.

Additionally, you can get the lower-powered 750W version if your rig doesn’t need quite as much juice and you want to save a bit more money.

The entry-level option: MSI MAG A750BN and MAG A650BN

The MSI MAG A750BN & MAG A650BN are true entry-level options for those looking to put together their build on a tight budget. They have a Bronze 80 Plus efficiency rating, which is the lowest on this list, but it still has a 5 year limited warranty so if there are any problems it can easily be replaced/repaired, along with the peace of mind offered by its integrated OCP, OTP, OVP, OPP, and SCP protection mechanisms.

Cooling is powered by a 120mm fan which only emits low levels of noise thanks in part to its sleeve bearing. Once again, it’s based on a 12V single rail with a DC to SC circuit design, and active PFC.

If 650W will cover your needs, you want an ATX size PSU, and you’re happy with the Bronze efficiency rating, then this is a great way to save some cash.

Things to consider when buying a power supply

If this is your first time buying a PSU or if you just want to brush up on your knowledge a bit before making your purchase, cast your eyes over the below features you need to be aware of.

Wattage rating

The initial thing to consider is the wattage rating you’ll need your power supply to be. This figure will need to be sufficient to meet the needs of all the components in your PC build, particularly power-intensive ones such as the graphics card and processor. It’s wise to invest in a PSU with a higher wattage than what your current build demands, allowing for potential future upgrades and providing a buffer for increased power requirements. If you are looking for a PSU calculator, you can try MSI’s Power Supply Calculator. 

ATX and PCIE standards

As the power draw of the new graphics cards increase, the power requirements also increase. Note that even if your graphics card says it required 500 Watt, the power excursion, that is the instantaneous power draw at a limited time can be 3x the rated wattage. If your PSU cannot handle that, even a 1000 Watt PSU might not suffice to keep your system running. That is why new ATX 3.0 / PCIE5 power supplies comes with extra components to compensate for the extra power surges.

Another thing to keep in mind if you are looking for a PSU to handle new RTX 40 series graphics cards is to make sure the PSU comes with a native 16 pin power cable. While you can make it work with a 8-pin PCI to 16-pin PCIE5 adaptors, having a 16-pin cable under warrant out of the box will be more convenient than looking online for an alternative solution.

Efficiency rating

The efficiency of a power supply unit is essentially a measure of what amount of the electricity it draws from the mains power outlet is effectively utilized by the computer it powers. Higher efficiency PSUs not only waste less power but also generate less heat, resulting in quieter operation as they require less fan cooling.

Over the last couple of decades the 80 Plus rating system has been the most common standardized rating system used to help consumers assess PSU efficiency. PSUs within this system must deliver at least 80% power efficiency under 20%, 50%, and 100% loads. The rankings in the system range from Standard/White to Titanium, with higher-rated PSUs typically come at a higher cost. You can find detailed information about these ratings on our power supply ratings guide. Additionally, there's a newer and more precise efficiency standard from Cybernetics Labs that you’ll increasingly see quoted with a similar range of ranks, which considers variations in regional mains power outputs (such as those in the US, EU, UK, etc.).

Semi-passive vs Passive

Either passive or semi-passive cooling technologies can be used in PSUs to regulate temperature, though the latter is much more common. Passive PSUs operate without any moving parts, meaning they have no fans and rely solely on heatsinks for cooling, so run virtually silently. 

Entirely passive PSUs do struggle to adequately cool high-power builds however, and so every power supply on this list is semi-passive, meaning they feature a fan but activate it only when required under medium to high loads, maintaining near-silent operation during low-usage scenarios.

Modularity

Modularity in power supplies refers to the ability to detach cables, as opposed to having them permanently soldered onto the PSU. Fully modular PSUs allow you to remove all cables, offering flexibility in cable management within your PC build. Most examples here will be fully modular.

Overclockers UK are one of our favourite retailers of computer hardware, and they do a great range of pre-built gaming PCs in the form of their Refract brand. Besides the quality of the machines themselves and their pretty reasonable pricing, they’re particularly good because of the 3 year warranty and free upgrade service that they offer (you can read more on this below).

We also like that the Refract range covers a great number of different price points, and for each model they give example performance benchmarks of what FPS you can expect in-game across a range of titles, plus what sort of use-case the device would be suited for (4K AAA gaming or 1080p MOBA titles, for example).

Every Refract PC comes with Windows 11 Home (64-bit) OS as standard, and the whole prebuilt line was updated just before the new year with the latest in Nvidia GPUs and Ryzen processors, so let’s have a look at what’s on offer!

The best ultra high end gaming PC for Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man & Flight Simulator at 4K (VR Ready)

If you want to play the latest AAA titles at 4K resolution with no restrictions, then the Ultraviolet is the PC for you. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is the most powerful graphics card money can buy, bar none, and the ridiculously high 24GB VRAM it packs is particularly useful when gaming at the highest resolution possible. Similarly, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor is the best out there for gaming thanks to its 3D V-Cache technology, and comfortably in the top five of all time for workstation tasks as well.

The Phanteks Eclipse case offers plenty of room for airflow and features three front-mounted intake fans, plus comes fitted with a 360mm outtake radiator attached to the CPU liquid cooling pump. Besides this, you get plenty of RAM (32GB DDR5) and SSD storage (2TB) for all your gaming and productivity needs, plus WiFi support and an RGB strip set. Have a read on the Overclockers UK site to see some of their benchmarking with this machine in different games.

A massively powerful 4K/1440p gaming rig for Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us, Alan Wake 2, Flight Sim & more! (VR Ready)

Whilst not quite as powerful as our top pick when it comes to gaming at those higher resolutions, the Refract Indigo will still blow the doors off anything you throw at it, both in 4K and 1440p. Just to give you an idea, the RTX 4080 Super GPU that it comes with outperforms the previous-gen RTX 3090 (previously the go-to 4K gaming graphics card) by around 20% on average at the highest resolution. Once again the Ryzen 9 7900X3D leverages the benefits of AMD’s 3D V-cache technology to give you a superbly high-end gaming experience, and is only slightly behind the CPU in our top pick in terms of raw power. Have a read of the product page for some benchmarking info on what FPS this PC can churn out in different titles.

The Kolink Citadel Mesh comes with three intake fans on the front, one outtake fan on the rear, and is again equipped with an AIO liquid cooler with 360mm radiator to cool the CPU. You get 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, WiFi support on the motherboard, and a digital RGB LED strip.

A top-notch prebuilt PC for playing Starfield, The Last of Us & Resident Evil 4 Remake (and more) at 1440p (VR Ready)

If you’re looking for a gaming PC that offers all the power you need for 1440p gaming, then the Azure gaming PC in the Refract line gives terrific performance and value for money. The RTX 4070 Ti graphics card in conjunction with the Ryzen 9 7800X3D (the best price/performance high-end gaming CPU currently available) is a formidable combination, and will get you great FPS at this resolution.

Once again, you get 32GB of 5600MHz DDR5 RAM, 1TB of storage, plus WiFi included as well as that all-important RGB LED strip! Cooling comes by way of an AIO liquid cooler with 360mm radiator, three intake fans, and one outtake fan in the rear of the Kolink Observatory Z Mesh case.

A nicely priced 1440p & 1080p gaming PC for Red Dead Redemption 2, Starfield, and Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings (VR Ready)

Gaming at 1440p resolution can be a relatively affordable prospect with the Refract gaming Celeste. This rig will get you solid performance at QHD on various games thanks to its RTX 4070 GPU and Ryzen 7 7700X combo, particularly if you leverage the latest DLSS 3.0 tech that the Nvidia graphics card supports to generate additional frames.

You once again get an AIO cooling system, though this time the radiator is found on the front of the Kolink Unity Lateral case, with three other fans attached to the ceiling and another on the rear. 32GB of DDR5 5600MHz RAM, 1TB of M.2 SSD storage, onboard motherboard WiFi support, plus an RGB strip round things up nicely.

A budget friendly 1440p & 1080p gaming PC for playing Elden Ring, Forza Horizon 5 & Warzone 2

The Jade Refract gaming PC with its RTX 4060 Ti graphics card and Ryzen 7 7700 processor is a great value option for those who want to play at 1440p resolution, but want to save their pennies. You won’t necessarily get fantastic FPS on the highest settings on the latest AAA titles, but if you don’t mind turning the graphics down a bit then it should handle them no problem. In addition you’ll get great performance on slightly older titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Forza Horizon 5, Elden Ring and COD Warzone II at this resolution, even with the settings turned up.

The Kolink Citadel Glass SE comes with two front fans included, one rear fan, plus CPU air cooling. You also get 32GB of DDR5 5600MHz RAM, 1TB SSD storage, plus Wi-Fi support included with the B650 motherboard.

A solid 1080p gaming rig that won’t break the bank: ideal for Warzone 2, WOW, Fortnite & Apex Legends

The Refract Gaming Amber is the ideal prebuilt PC if you’re looking for an affordable 1080p gaming rig. For titles like COD: Warzone II, World of Warcraft, DOTA 2, Fortnite and Apex Legends you’ll get great FPS performance, thanks to its Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics card, plus AMD Ryzen 5 7500F combo.

Besides this you get 16GB of DDR5 5600MHz RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and onboard Wi-Fi. The Kolink Citadel Mesh RGB Micro-ATX Case comes with two front fans included, one rear fan, plus an air cooler for the CPU.

An entry-level PC for CS2, Valorant, Fortnite, Apex Legends and more (with onboard graphics)

Not everyone needs a powerful PC to play the games they love. If all you enjoy playing are titles like CS2, Valorant, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Rocket League and you don’t need to run them on the highest settings then it’s a waste of money to splash out on a high-end rig, in fact, you don’t even need a dedicated graphics card.

The Refract Gaming Crimson comes with one of the latest-gen AMD Ryzen 7 8700G APU: essentially a processor that has powerful integrated graphics, specifically (in this case) the Radeon 780M. Depending on the game, this iGPU can sometimes outperform older graphics cards like the GTX 1060 and GTX 1660. Have a look at the product page to see what sort of FPS performance you can get across a range of titles.

Besides this you get 32GB of DDR5 5600MHz RAM, 250GB of SSD storage, 1TB of HDD storage, plus a 300Mbps Wireless N PCIe Adapter.

Three year warranty on Refract PCs from Overclockers UK

So confident are Overclockers UK in the standard of their products that each prebuilt PC comes with a 3 year ‘Collect & Return’ warranty as standard, although it’s important to note that this is for UK customers only. This warranty covers both replacement parts for any found faulty in the machine (assuming these parts are available) plus labour costs, just make sure you keep the box to send it back in! Providing you live on the UK mainland, all postage will be covered by Overclockers UK.

The warranty also cover a free upgrade service: obviously you’ll need to pay for the components themselves but the labour costs for the installation, plus the postage (providing you meet the aforementioned requirements) will be covered by Overclockers UK. 

The typical (but not guaranteed) turnaround time for Overclockers UK to repair and ship back your PC after they have received it is 72 hours, though this is subject to variation.

The GPU in question is the hugely popular RTX 4060 Ti, a card that offers excellent 1080p performance at an affordable price tag. At the time of writing this, buyers can get the ASUS Dual RTX 4060 Ti White Edition for 5% off - which doesn't seem like much, but at $399, could be a fantastic price if increases take effect soon.

Why you should consider the RTX 4060 Ti right now?

The RTX 4060 Ti is the successor to the popular 3060 Ti which was released back in 2020. It hit shelves in May 2023 and offered up performance gains in 1080p and 1440p gaming. But what made this card so popular and why should you consider it right now?

Well, the RTX 4060 Ti is one of the best gaming GPUs on the market for individuals on a budget. It retails for around $400 and offers up good framerates in both competitive and casual gaming scenarios. It features new technologies from NVIDIA that aid in higher-resolution gameplay, showcasing a clear improvement over its predecessor.

Regardless of this, the biggest reason to consider this card right now is due to the impending price rises that are on the horizon. It's unclear how the Chinese supply chain rumors will impact the US and European market price, but if rumors are to be believed, it won't be a positive effect.

With that in mind, now could be the perfect time to invest in a new GPU, especially if you're already considering upgrading to a 40-series model. At $399, this RTX 4060 Ti isn't the cheapest model on offer, but it might be in a few weeks if prices skyrocket.

Where to buy this RTX 4060 Ti deal?

Right now, you can buy the RTX 4060 Ti at a number of different retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and eBuyer - to state but a few. That being said, one of the cheapest places to get ASUS' White Edition right now is the Amazon - where you'll be rewarded with a 5% discount.

If you’re new to AIO setups, you can read our how to install liquid cooling guide, which will walk you through the process in easy to understand steps. ASUS also has their own all-in-one liquid cooling guide which you can consult to get more information on their different product lines; their ‘comprehensive compatibility’ table is particularly useful on this page if you want to make absolutely sure that a particular cooler matches your chosen motherboard socket. Finally, do also read our ‘what to look for when buying an AIO cooler?’ section further down this page if you need to brush up on your knowledge before pulling the trigger on a purchase.

Are ASUS AIO coolers any good?

ASUS are known for producing some of the most high-end AIO coolers available, which regularly appear in our ‘best CPU cooler’ lists each year. They mostly produce premium grade products though they do have more affordable options within the TUF range as well. Most ASUS liquid coolers come with a 6 year warranty, which should bring you some comfort as to the quality of these products.

Premium coolers with a 360° option: ROG Strix LC III Series

£159.99 - £224.99 MSRP

The ASUS ROG Strix LC III is a high-end, high performance cooler that comes with a fairly unique feature: a magnetic water block that you can rotate 360° to fit any mounting option you choose, allowing for maximum flexibility in your PC build. 

The series comes in 240mm (with two fans) and 360mm (three fan) options in either black or white coloring, plus you can pick up ARGB variants of either and/or an LCD model with an 2.1” IPS LCD screen on the water block. All have high-end, high performance coolers that feature an upgraded version of the Asetek 7th gen pump that gives around 0.5°C better cooling on average than the already impressive standard version, thanks to the enhanced cold plate.

The 120mm ROG radiator fans all the options come with have a 2,200RPM speed, capable of generating a 70.38cfm airflow, whilst staying below a respectable 36dB in terms of noise. The ARGB on the fans looks great (assuming you picked that model) and can be controlled via Aura.

The budget-friendly option: TUF Gaming LC II Series

£119.99 - £149.99 MSRP

The TUF Gaming range is ASUS line of products that provide more affordable options for gamers, and these TUF Gaming LC II ARGB coolers are the most cost-effective picks here by some margin, once again available in either 240mm or 360mm variants depending on the size you need.

The more budget-friendly pricing of this cooler doesn’t mean it’s a weak product: it has solid cooling performance plus ARGB lighting controllable via Aura Sync on its three 120mm fans. You get durable, reinforced-sleeve tubing, and It’s also very quiet, with a claimed peak noise level below 29 dB.

Like many of our selections here it supports LGA 1700 sockets for 12th, 13th, and 14th gen Intel processors, the older LGA 1200 and LGA 115x sockets in case you’re running 10th and 11th gen, plus has AM4 and AM5 socket support for AMD Ryzen processors.

Quiet yet powerful; reserved and elegant: ProArt LC 420

£299.99 MSRP

The ProArt LC 420 is design suited to content creators and workstation users and the like who aren’t interested in distracting RGB, and want something a bit more stealthy. It’s available in just this one black color and in 420mm size only, which is large indeed.

Noctua are a premium fan brand favoured by enthusiasts, known for being powerful, yet quiet, and the three 140mm NF-A14 fans the cooler comes equipped with are top notch. The fans will only reach about 31.5db when put under strain and yet are capable of shifting 4.18mmH20 of fan air pressure. The radiator they’re housed in is extra thick to provide a greater surface area and therefore improved cooling.

Besides this you get an illuminated meter which displays system information, plus extra reinforced tubing to ensure superior durability.

The ultra-high performer with LCD screen: ROG RYUJIN III series

£289.99 - £404.99 MSRP

The ROG Ryujin III is the most high performance AIO that the company currently makes, and arguably the best on the market today. It’s the ideal pick for those looking to put together an extreme overclocking build.

The previous generation Ryujin II still features in our best of guides, but this latest model improves on the winning template even further with its new Asetek 8th generation pump with improved embedded fan, which delivers up to 2°C cooler temps than the 7th gen Asetek pump in the previous model. Besides more effective cooling, the pump is also quieter. 

In terms of the fans, the three premium-end Noctua 120mm 2000 PWM radiator fans in the non-RGB variant are also nice and quiet, though you can also opt for ROG magnetic Daisy Chain ARGB fans if you wish in the ARGB versions. You can buy either in black or white color variants or in 240mm or 360mm size.

The waterblock is covered by a 3.5" full-color LCD screen on which hardware info plus customizable animations (in GIF form) can be played, with twice as much storage as the previous gen. You also get one year free subscription to the AIDA 64 advanced diagnostic and system monitoring tool included when you buy this product.

Another ultra-high performer with circular LED array: ROG RYUO III series

£199 - £259 MSRP

The RYUO III is another 360mm radiator option that comes with a Asetek 8th gen pump, however, instead of the LCD screen in the more expensive cooler you get a circular mini LED array that can display the usual stats on the core system or customized animations and ‘ROG-exclusive anime content’. This cooler is ideal for painting with an ASUS ROG motherboard and case with similar styling. The build quality is again top notch, with the components being made from aluminum with a vacuum coating for maximum durability.

You get up to three premium ROG ARGB fans with this cooler, which obviously have the benefit of controllable ARGB lighting to match the rest of your PC case.

For those putting together a custom loop design: RYUJIN III Water block

If, instead of an AIO you’re constructing your own custom loop water-cooling setup, then you can buy the RYUJIN III Waterblock separately. Depending on which model you go with, this can provide you with the same LCD screen and ROG monitor features as you’d find in an AIO setup.

Save money on these coolers with Rate My Gear

ASUS are once again launching their Rate My Gear campaign, allowing you to get £25 cashback off select products if you pop in a review of said products.

At the time of writing, all the coolers on this page, bar the TUF II are on the list of eligible products. Click the link to read the terms and conditions and claim your money back!

What to look for when buying an AIO cooler?

Compatibility with the CPU and motherboard

When picking a cooler, the first thing to do is look at what TDP value it supports: this represents the Wattage (i.e. power) of the CPU, with higher TDP values requiring more advanced cooling. With regards to motherboard compatibility, you’ll want to match up the sockets supported by the cooler with those of the motherboard.

Factors that determine cooling performance

CPU AIO coolers work by affixing a conductive heatsink to the processor which draws heat away from the component by the movement of liquid through it. Warm liquid is pulled away from the heatsink towards a radiator where the temperature is dissipated outside of your case, the now-cooled liquid travels back to the heatsink where it ‘picks up’ more thermal energy, and the cycle continues. The movement of the water is controlled by a pump which is usually affixed to the heatsink forming what is commonly referred to as a ‘water block’. This is connected by tubes to the radiator, which works by forcing the warm liquid into thin tubes in a high-surface area mesh through which fans blow air.

The three main factors that determine the effectiveness of an AIO cooler then are the heatsink, the water pump, and the radiator.

Noise levels

On average, AIO setups tend to be a bit quieter than air cooling builds, particularly under heavy strain, though this is not always the case. As mentioned above, liquid cooling setups do still incorporate fans in order to extract heat from the radiator and out of your case which do make a noise, and the water pump itself also makes a noise; how quiet an AIO is can vary depending on the manufacturing of these two features.

Reliability

Given these AIO systems will be pumping liquid around the electrics of your highly valuable computer, reliability is of the utmost importance. Assuming you put the tubing together correctly, it tends to be the pump which can cause any leaking issues, so we advise doing a bit of reading to make sure this is of an acceptable quality. Thankfully ASUS products tend to be of very high build quality.

If there are any issues with your unit, ASUS also offers a 6 year warranty for AIO coolers, which is one of the longer ones out there, with a 1 year warranty for the water block element specifically.

Pricing

The MSI Raider 18HX A14VIG is nothing if not expensive, with a retail price of £4,699.99 (~$5,868.24 with 20% VAT) in the UK as of writing. It soars even above the rest of the best 4090 laptops in the market. It doesn't quite reach the heights of the top MSI laptop in the Titan but still on a high level, except maybe the Razer Blade seen at a similar price point.

Design

MSI gives a great overall build quality and design, the Raider 18HX comes with a robust design. The metal chassis is rigid and opposes flexing quite well. Although you might find the keyboard to bend under greater force, under normal utilization it's not affected greatly at all. Plus with such a large size, the keyboard is easy to use and doesn't compromise on much at all providing a top writing experience.

MSI Raider 18HX A14VIG, source: BGFG

In general, the look of the laptop is a lot more sleek, providing a more incognito gaming device. That's not to say it doesn't stand out from any basic devices considering the red highlights around the vents and the RGB around the outside. Although with the size of the thing, it's down to draw some eyes on you if you're out somewhere.

The weight of the model also makes it a bit harder to move around and get to places without a workout. Although it's not surprising considering that it fits both the i9-14900HX and an RTX 4090 laptop GPU inside of it. Plus all the cooling is capable of taming the 250W so it's unsurprising that h the thickness is a lot higher than most, as you can clearly see all the heatsinks adorning the inside and spitting out the heat of the parts.

MSI doesn't skimp on the connectors either, with so much real estate you can enjoy a whole slew of connectivity. This includes two USB-Type C connectors with Thunderbolt 4, one of which even grants PD3.1 charging. But there are also three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 choices, one SD card reader, an RJ 45, HDMI 2.1, and a combo 3.5mm audio jack.

The ethernet and video port are on the back of the laptop making them less in the way of your mouse or other accessories. The power connector is also on the rear, but that comes with its own problems, as it utilizes a custom plug for it. This also comes up with MSI center errors if it's not properly inserted, which is good for safety but does mean playing around with it so it is properly charging.

As unfortunate as the non-standard connector is, it might be simpler as it does deliver 330W through it and even Thunderbolt 4 is limited to 100W. At least you get it for peripherals and some power delivery.

MSI Raider 18HX A14VIG, source: BGFG

Performance

Looking at what the laptop can do in terms of gaming and performance we put it through just a couple of tests. With a look at gaming capabilities in Cyberpunk 2077 as well as the performance capabilities in production with the use of 3DMark and Cinbench 2024.

We also found how much the MUX Switch can change the performance. Although MSI utilizes an AI performance option for changing it out you can set it to use the GPU, the CPU, or a hybrid of the two for graphics. As we find out it seems best discrete graphics are used.

MSI Raider 18HX A14VIG benchmarks, source: BGFG

We see the laptop be able to be a strong choice as a gaming laptop for Cyberpunk 2077. Running at native 4k makes it prettier and nicer to use on the display, but does limit its performance. As we pure rasterization drop it down under 60 FPS for both discrete and hybrid modes. That falls even more when using ray tracing but it also puts a bigger gap and shows off discrete mode giving you plenty more power.

But being an RTX 40 series card, you can also turn on DLSS 3 and benefit from improved performance and the utilization of upscaling to get more out of the game. That also comes with frame generation and improving the look of the game while using the technology.

Cinebench also shows the prowess of the machine as it soars in the GPU benchmark, this time though the hybrid combination boosts its capabilities and shows it has its benefits in certain scenarios. Although 3DMark is not one as again discrete soars to higher levels, especially ray tracing as seen in Port Royal.

Final words

Overall, the MSI Raider 18HX A14VIG is an exceptional piece of hardware. It brings with it plenty of power and performance from utilizing the top line of hardware available in the mobile sector. Which is unfortunately limited to what it can achieve and can be confusing considering the 4090 in this is nowhere near the RTX 4090 GPU as we saw in our review of the card.

However, the laptop comes with some drawbacks, mainly the cost and weight. The over £4,000 price tag is certainly not for everyone and is quite the desktop replacement for some. But also with a 3.6kg weight, it's not as mobile as most other laptops, but with the cooling and power inside of it, we wouldn't expect any less. But for the right person, it will be the right fit.

Can I play Manor Lords on my laptop?

Despite looking pretty exquisite, Manor Lords is actually not a massively demanding game, which is very nice to see. Below we've listed the official recommended specs for the game (it's always best to aim for these rather than the minimum specs, which will barely run the game), however do bear in mind that these are a guide meant for desktop computers. The GPU and CPU in a laptop are always lower-powered versions of the desktop variants (even if they have the same name), so this means you'll need to aim for one model/SKU above in order to achieve the same level of performance.

We have provided several examples down the page that will run the game to a good standard at FHD, QHD, and UHD resolutions.

Manor Lords recommended specifications (desktop)

Best affordable gaming Laptop for Manor Lords @ 1200p

The Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 with RTX 4050 laptop GPU will easily run Manor Lords at 1200p resolution (the same as 1080p but with a bit more vertical headroom) with solid FPS. Combined with the Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPU, it's a great value laptop that's a good option for less demanding strategy titles like this, but which can also play first person games on the lower settings. Besides this you get 16GB of the latest DDR5 RAM and a 512GB SSD.

An alternate model you may want to consider is the ASUS ROG Strix G15: this laptop is from the previous generation, but sports a display with a 300Hz refresh rate - a desirable quality for playing competitive shooters. Graphics wise you get an Nvidia RTX 3060 laptop GPU, which is actually slightly more powerful than the RTX 4050, though it doesn't have full DLSS 3.0 support.

Best gaming laptop for Manor Lords @ 1600p

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is one we had the pleasure of conducting detailed performance testing on that actually won out as our best overall gaming laptop in our WePC 2023 annual awards. When it comes to playing Manor Lords at 1600p resolution (again, basically 1440p but with more vertical screen space) we recommend the option equipped with an RTX 4060 laptop GPU and Intel Core i7-13700HX processor.

For the money you'll struggle to find a laptop with both these core specs and a superbly bright screen, top-notch battery life, plus a raft of other features that you'd more commonly see on a more premium-price device.

Best gaming laptop for Manor Lords @ 4K

A 4K gaming laptop is never going to be a cheap purchase, and even for a game like Manor Lords you'll still need some oomph to run the game at this resolution. This particular MSI Raider comes with an excellent 120Hz UHD+ display (4K/UHD but a bit taller), a RTX 4070 laptop GPU, and the latest gen Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, which is top of the line. The superb Mini-LED panel is very nice and bright, so you will enjoy a rich viewing experience inside and outside of gaming.

Final Word

We trust you are now equipped with all the info you need to know about the best gaming laptop for Manor Lords. If you didn't find what you're looking for here, do be sure to check out our other gaming laptop guides, organised by price point, brand, and more, in the dropdown menu above.

In our review of the Corsair 2500X PC case we noted its biggest strength was its support for ‘cableless’ back-connect PC builds, though sadly we did not have the components at the time to make a fully operational one ourselves. Well, now we have, and we are quite pleased with the end result! 

We decided to put together this build with an AIO cooler setup and a vertically mounted GPU as a bit of a test of the case’s full capabilities. Read below for our experiences in putting together this beautiful beast, the components we used, and what you should bear in mind if attempting one of these builds yourself.

What is a back connect PC build?

Back connect motherboards are those which have all of their cable mounts located on the back/underside, so that all of the wiring is located in the back chamber of the case, freeing up the main chamber of the PC to have a nicer aesthetic appearance and better air flow. Although this technology has existed for a couple of years now, these boards have really started to take off in 2024, and likely represent the mainstream future of PC building.

Various PC cases have also been released that are designed to be fully compatible with these motherboards, having the necessary holes in the motherboard plate to feed the wiring through into the back chamber, and the space within the back chamber for the additional cable length. These include a range of ‘dual-chamber’ cases from Corsair (such as the 2500X/D and the 6500X/D), so named because the back chamber is almost as large as the main one, giving sufficient space for cable management.

There have even been a few back-connect graphics cards released which connect to a PCIe High-Power connector and graphics card high-power slot on the motherboard for their power, which in turn connects to the PSU. This removes the need for the long power cable to snake directly from the GPU to the PSU in the back.

What we included in our back-connect build

Although back connect builds are becoming increasingly popular, there’s still not a massive number of cases and motherboards out there that do support this tech, and those that do aren’t always compatible with each other, so the first step is to make sure that all of your components are before you pull the trigger.

Corsair kindly supplied us with the case, vertical GPU mount, and a full array of the latest RX120 RGB fans and a LCD iCUE link H150i AIO cooling system, plus we used our own Corsair PSU and RAM which are our go-tos of choice anyway, and an iCUE LINK Cable kit. We’d strongly recommend getting a cable kit if you’re putting together a similar AIO build to ensure you have a sufficient number of the longer cables, giving you more flexibility when it comes to component positioning.

The TUF GAMING B760M-BTF WIFI motherboard was kindly supplied by ASUS (if you’re using DDR5 RAM you’ll want to pick the D5 variant, and D4 for DDR4), and we used an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics card that we had in stock, plus an Intel Core i9-12900KS processor.

Putting it together

If you’ve ever built a PC before then you shouldn’t have any issue with building a back-connect rig, at least with this 2500X case anyway. The case performed admirably, with plenty of gaps to run cables through out of sight, plus ample holes through which cable ties etc. can be looped around in the back section to aid in cable management. For a not-so-big case it felt quite roomy inside.

Fitting the AIO and fans

As the GPU would be taking up much of the bottom of the case, we placed the 360mm iCUE LINK H150i AIO radiator on the top, with the end with the protruding cooling tubes facing the rear of the case so as to improve the aesthetics when looking through the glass front panel. We loosely fixed the radiator to the top rail with four screws only at first (in case some adjustment was required - which it was) then affixed the water pump on top of the CPU. Following the installation of the GPU, we tucked the liquid tubing behind it as neatly as possible. Prior to this though we added the other case fans. 

Besides the AIO radiator, we used five additional 120mm fans in total - originally we were planning on using six but we had to remove one from the bottom of the case to allow the vertical GPU mount to fit. These newer Corsair RX120 RGB fans are constructed with a glass fibre reinforced liquid crystal polymer that improves airflow, providing up to 2,100 RPM and 74.2 CFM of airflow / 4.38mm-H2O static pressure. They’re also nice and quiet, in part thanks to their magnetic dome bearing, and can be set to ‘Zero RPM Fan mode’ within the software, allowing them to switch off ‘during low load periods for near-silent operation’. Along with the cooler they’re fully integrated with the iCUE LINK ecosystem, which you can read more about by clicking the link to our dedicated guide.

The new connectors these Corsair fans come with make wiring the whole thing significantly easier than it used to be, with a single connection powering the fan and the RGB on it. The fans can all be interchangeably fixed together using little stubby connectors, in a sort of Lego-like fashion; these connectors also move power between the fans, so you only need one cable running from the end fan of a bank of three that have been connected together, in order to power the whole lot. The fan casings are magnetised so have a degree of stick when you press them against the case; you’ll still need to screw them on to affix them properly, but it makes doing so that much easier.

To note: the part of the build we had to think about most was connecting all of the fans and AIO together onto the small square iCUE LINK System Hub located in the back chamber (see its picture under the ‘back compartment’ section below), which has two compatible connection ports. You can daisy chain all of the fans and AIO system together, with the final component linking to the hub, and they should all work: each of the two connections is capable of supporting up to seven different devices, so the hub can support fourteen in total. We found the neatest solution to be to connect the bottom fans to the side fans with a longer cable running along the bottom of the case (with the excess length tucked away into the back compartment), and a shorter cable connecting the side fans to the hub around the back. We also connected the rear fan to the AIO radiator, which then ran its cable through the back to the hub’s other socket.

The GPU

Given the draw of this setup is what the case looks like from the front, we took a more pragmatic approach to cable management round the back: prioritising ease of access for upgrades and modifications (including to the iCUE Link hub) rather than tightly clamping everything down for aesthetics purposes. You could get better results if you took longer, though it’s always going to be a bit cramped on a back-connect build of this size. 

Ultimately, given the amount of cabling that ends up in the back compartment in back-connect builds, you’re going to have to deal with a fair amount of wiring, although the additional space offered by the dual-chamber construction of the 2500X did help considerably. If you want more space for a tidier setup, then we’d recommend the larger Corsair 6500X, which is almost the same case, just bigger.

As ever it’s a good idea to make sure all your case wiring is fitted to the motherboard before putting in the PSU, and we fitted all the power cabling to the PSU before we screwed it in.

The back compartment

Given the draw of this setup is what the case looks like from the front, we took a more pragmatic approach to cable management round the back: prioritising ease of access for upgrades and modifications (including to the iCUE Link hub) rather than tightly clamping everything down for aesthetics purposes. You could get better results if you took longer, though it’s always going to be a bit cramped on a back-connect build of this size. 

Ultimately, given the amount of cabling that ends up in the back compartment in back-connect builds, you’re going to have to deal with a fair amount of wiring, although the additional space offered by the dual-chamber construction of the 2500X did help considerably. If you want more space for a tidier setup, then we’d recommend the larger Corsair 6500X, which is almost the same case, just bigger.

As ever it’s a good idea to make sure all your case wiring is fitted to the motherboard before putting in the PSU, and we fitted all the power cabling to the PSU before we screwed it in.

Starting it up

Assuming you’ve gone through the process of installing Windows on the SSD/HDD you’re using and installed all the necessary drivers, the next step to get your fans and AIO running correctly is to make sure that the iCUE LINK software is installed and (this is important) fully up to date with the latest software and firmware (you can check this within settings by clicking the cogwheel icon in the top right). If you don’t do this you may find elements of the RGB do not work correctly, particularly if you’re using a mix of components. After doing this, we recommend restarting the computer, then opening up the software again.

Once the application is up to date, navigate to Home > Lighting Setup (under the Link System Hub section) and follow the setup wizard.From here you can setup various animations, layers, and groupings for the different fans and components. Under Hardware Lighting you can also set some more limited effects that will operate even when the iCUE application isn’t running. Fan Control will also let you setup custom RMP curves and profiles for different scenarios.

Read below for our look over the features of this device, plus the results of our performance testing.

Overall Design

As is common among ASUS gaming routers released over the last couple of years, the GT-AXE16000 has a spider-like appearance with eight antennas designed to maximize Wi-Fi coverage. Half of the top of the router is covered by a reflective mirrored panel, which we must say attracts smudges extremely easily, and reflects the lights from the router and any other source: this is not a subtle looking device in any respect, including its size, which is enormous, making where to conveniently place it a possible issue.

The router has quad-band frequencies: one 2.4GHz, two 5GHz, and one 6GHz (for those WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices that can utilise it), with a combined maximum (theoretical) bandwidth of around 16,000Mbps (or 16Gbps), hence the name GT-AXE16000.

The WAN connection, which for the uninitiated links to your external broadband connection, has a 2.5Gbps bandwidth, which means this is the effective peak internet bandwidth you can achieve, though this is still well above what most people in most of the world have access to.

Besides the WAN port, you get six ethernet ports that can be used to set up LAN connections: four of these have a 1Gbps bandwidth, whereas two go all the way up to 10Gbps - obviously well beyond the broadband WAN input but potentially useful for data transference if you’re shifting some seriously large file sizes. Link aggregation is also supported if you wish to combine two of the 1Gbps cables together into a single 2Gbps data channel.

Other features

Like all recent high-end ASUS routers, the ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 comes with AiMesh technology, meaning you can setup a mesh network between different ASUS routers that have this feature, without them needing to be the same model like you typically would with most other brands.

The router comes with the typical WiFi 6E features you’d expect like MU-MIMO data streaming, WPA3 encryption, OFDMA, Target Wake Time, a maximum 160MHz channel bandwidth, and 1,024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). You also get gamer-focused QOS features designed to prioritize gaming bandwidth over any other users of your network, ensuring minimal performance drops.

In terms of the onboard software, the mobile app you can download to manage the router is actually quite intuitive and well designed - a refreshing change from say the ASUS Armoury Crate software you find on laptops. Within the settings you can configure your standard Wi-Fi, WAN, and LAN settings, plus set up different web filters for different age groups within the Family menu, edit general security options, view the devices on your network and your typical diagnostic information, and more.

Pricing

When it originally went on sale back in 2022, the GT-AXE1600 had an MSRP of $699.99, which was rightly considered to be a very high asking price by most reviewers at the time. The price has dropped to $599.99 since then and we’d still consider this a steep asking price given 6E is no longer the latest WiFi standard (though still perfectly fine for the vast majority off users), however we’ve seen it on offer for $499.99 of late, and this is a lot more reasonable for a premium gaming router.

Performance

The maximum bandwidth of our internet is unfortunately not sufficient to test the capabilities of the router to reach the claimed maximum Mbps on the different frequency bandwidths (the max we can get is around 280Mbps). What we could do however is conduct a signal strength test at various distances.

In layman’s terms, a weaker signal effectively means you’ll enjoy a lower percentage of the bandwidth, and will give you a decent indication of how far the effective range of the router will be for your needs.

We also tested the read and wire speeds of the router when doing file transfers. This should help give you an idea of the effective ability of the router to move files via the LAN connections.

Signal strength test

Signal strength is measured in dBm (decibel milliwatts). It's not immediately intuitive how the measuring system works but -30 dBm is the perfect result for a signal at one end of the scale, with around the -90 dBm mark typically signifying disconnection at the bottom end: the better results are those closer to -30 dBm, though anything around the -50 dBm to -67 dBm range is considered good.

As you can see below the best results were those taken 10 feet away from the router, as you'd expect, without much difference between the different frequency bands. At 30 feet away (with no obstructions) and 60 feet away (with a single wall in the way), the results were well within the -50 dBm to -67 dBm window.

At 90 feet away with two walls between the device and the router, we noticed significant differences between the different frequency bands, with the 2.4GHz band performing best as is typical due to the higher penetration of its frequency, the 5Ghz band just barely getting through, and the 6GHz channel struggling to make a connection (it alternated between a very poor connection around 50% of the time and being completely disconnected for the other half). At these distances then (with this many walls in the way), you can only really rely on the 2.4GHz band.

File transfer test

To test the utility of the GT-AXE1600 WiFi from a file sharing perspective, we connected our testing laptop via WiFi (using the 5GHz band) to the router and then connected an SSD to the router via a USB-C 3.0 connection to the port on the router. We had the laptop placed around 10 foot away. We then tested the bit rate when transferring an 18GB file (specifically a game file from the Assassin's Creed Valhalla folder) from the laptop to the SSD (the Write speed), and then back again (the Read speed).

These aren't the best results we must say, and we were hoping for an additional 10-15Mbps higher to keep it in line with the competition (including from ASUS' own Netgear RAXE500), however the positive is that you'll get monstrously high speeds going ethernet to ethernet and using the two 10Gbps connections.

Should you buy the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE1600?

For the average gamer, even a competitive gamer, buying the ROG Rapture GT-AXE1600 would be complete overkill, given most of its features just would not be used. Whilst it’s definitely fast, there are cheaper models out there that have the 2.5Gbps WAN socket to maximise the performance benefits of fibre optic broadband connections; we’d recommend the older Asus ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 if you don't mind being limited to WiFi 6.

Where it comes into its own is if you’re planning on transferring large files quickly between different computers in the same LAN network, so you can take full advantage of the 10Gbps ethernet ports along with the 1Gbps connections. Creatives working in the same physical space who wish to move large video files would find this very useful, you’ll be able to shift 8K footage around like no one’s business, and it could be used to set-up a network storage bank (a NAS for instance). Alternatively if you’re looking to set up a LAN gaming network or some other creative server setup this could be the pick for you, although if that’s the case you may want to opt for a WiFi 7 router instead; we’d at least wait until you see the price of this device come down from the current $599.99 asking price.

If you're building a new gaming PC or are simply due a CPU upgrade, then now's a great time to check out the 14th gen. It released towards the end of last year - we did get some hands-on with our Intel Core i9-14900K review and Intel Core i5-14600K review if you want a closer look!

Get Star Wars Outlaws for free when you buy an Intel Core 14th gen CPU

Star Wars Outlaws is an upcoming title, which isn't due for release until August 30th, 2024. Despite that, Intel has already partnered with Lucasfilm Games and Ubisoft to bring this deal. Buy any i5, i7, or i9 CPU from the Intel 14th gen and you'll get the game for free. We've already got a guide to where to buy Intel 14th generation CPUs, but here's a list of what's eligible.

Which CPU should I buy for Star Wars Outlaws?

There aren't yet any official system requirements for Star Wars Outlaws, making it difficult to suggest the best CPU for the job. Despite that, we expect the game to be reasonably taxing on your system, especially as an open-world AAA game. Considering that Intel aren't including any of their budget Core i3 processors in this offer, obviously you'll want a little more power.

For many builds, we'd recommend the Intel Core i5-14600K - a great CPU for gaming if strong performance on a modest budget is your main focus. If you want to stream and record while gaming, something such as the i7-14700K will go a long way. For the very best, you'll want the flagship i9-14900K.

With the game improving pretty much every week with consistent updates, it's a great time to get into The Finals. Our best CPU and best GPU for The Finals guides can set you on your way if you happen to be putting together a new build or upgrade.

Projectiles passing through teammates is easily the best change

As fans of The Finals, we can't say just how many times a teammate running right by as you fire an RPG and blow yourself up has happened, but it is frustrating to say the least. Particularly with the rather spammy CL-40 grenade launcher. Either way, the patch note in question reads as follows:

Based on the wording, we'll assume that this collision check is relevant for when a teammate is in very close range as you fire, rather than simply letting all projectiles pass through at any range. Some testing has to be done though. Regardless, it seems like the our sentiment is shared on Reddit.

The Finals 2.4.0 patch notes

The full patch notes for The Finals 2.4.0 can be found here. We'd say the biggest highlights are the quality of life improvements, including the change to projectile collision with teammates. There is also a new community event kicking off for the Power Shift gamemode, with a special prize incentive. On top of that, you'll find changes spanning the following categories:

One hotly-discussed issue in this Reddit thread is the update to Contracts. Many people disagree with some changes to challenges, feeling as if they've been dumbed-down quite a bit and don't offer much of a challenge at all, considering you have two months to complete them.