Noctua is pretty good at this whole cooling thing. It takes one swing at a liquid cooler and nails it first time. To be fair, it's not done it alone. Noctua developed the NC-LC1 atop of a high-end liquid cooling platform from the company that literally invented liquid coolers, Asetek. Nevertheless, it's a potent combination, combining a performant pump with world-class fans and sound dampening.

The NL-LC1 is the best liquid cooler I've tested, and there's one reason for that. It's just how little sound it generates while running at full speed. It's incredibly quiet. So, if you value quiet above all else, you really should give this a look.

Of course, quiet comes at a premium. If you're looking for the best bang for your buck, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 is equally competent as the NL-LC1-36 (360 mm model) without the mega-bucks price tag. But the Arctic cooler is anything but quiet at full speed, and the NL-LC1-36 and NL-LC1-42 (420 mm model) are on another level when balancing acoustics with performance.

Features

Big, bold, and brown; that's the NL-LC1. It comes in three sizes, denoted by the two numbers at the end of the name. I've got the 360 mm and 420 mm versions for review, but here's the lot of them:

• NL-LC1-24 (240 mm)
• NL-LC1-36 (360 mm)
• NL-LC1-42 (420 mm)

Regardless of size, the NL-LC1 stands out. Not only for Noctua's fine taste in colour palette, but the oversized pump unit. Noctua calls this the NL-PNA1 pump noise absorber, but you don't need to remember that. It's very tall compared to your average liquid cooler, even a standard Asetek unit, and that's in order to cover up one of the NL-LC1's more special features. The pump has 3-layer soundproofing.

Starting closest to the high-purity copper coldplate, the first layer is acoustic foam intended to absorb high-frequency sound waves. The second layer is a thinner slice of high-density material that aims to block and reflect sound waves. Then, layer three is even more acoustic foam, a thick layer stuffed between the pump and the outer casing. Lastly, the pump itself is mounted via a floating silicone mount, to keep vibrations from travelling around those three layers and making a racket anyways.

Noctua being Noctua, this entire system also acts as a tuned mass damper with the hard outer shell. The best comparison I can give is the tuned mass damper in the Taipei 101, not far from the exhibition halls of Computex, which is a 660-ton steel sphere suspended at the top of the 101-story skyscraper. This tuned mass damper has a mascot called the Damper Baby. Noctua has no such thing for its own. It does, however, provide many diagrams all about it.

Asetek's Emma V2 takes care of the pump, as well as the coolant, plate, impeller, housing, tubes, and radiator. This is the company's high-end, performance platform. Let's stick with the pump for now, which has received a number of tweaks to improve balancing, reduce noise, and increase performance and efficiency. I'm not going to out-detail Noctua's own page dedicated to the platform, so take a look at that for more.

There's a small switch on the rear of the pump that lets you adjust between quiet mode, balanced mode, and manual mode. Noctua does not recommend running in manual mode, as it could lead to louder operation. By default, the pump is set to quiet mode. That's what I've tested.

Both quiet and balanced modes run on a curve, balancing pump RPM and the temperature of the liquid within the cooler. That's monitored using an integrated liquid temperature sensor. Quiet mode limits the pump to 2,100 RPM, and Balanced mode to 2,600 RPM. In both modes, the pump will run at max speed of 3400 RPM once the liquid exceeds a preset safety temp (varies by mode). Quiet mode seems sufficient anyways, as you can see in the performance section, though running in manual mode will help drop temps a little further.

You'll get a good idea of what the pump sounds like at 3,400 RPM every time your PC starts up, as the cooler will run at this speed for roughly 50 seconds at start-up to shift any air bubbles out of the pump.

A Noctua logo sticker is included, made to fit atop of the pump. It comes separately for good reason, however, as for an added $20/€20 you can install an optional fan atop of the pump unit in its place. Not to the benefit of the pump itself, but the motherboard VRM beneath it. I've had the fan on the pump for the duration of my testing.

Onto the radiator, and the one used here has 20 fins per inch. Noctua says that is optimised for quiet fans such as the NF-A12x25 G2 and NF-A14x25 G2 used on the NL-LC1. These fans spin up to just 1,800 RPM—or rather, they usually do. For this cooler, as with some of Noctua's other twin-fan kits, the fans are offset in speed to reduce 'harmonic phenomena'. Essentially, making more noise because they're interfering with one another. For the NL-LC1-36, two of its NF-A12x25 G2 fans run at 1,750 RPM and one at 1,850 RPM.

The tubing length varies depending on the model, with the NL-LC1-42 coming with 450 mm tubes; NL-LC1-36 with 410 mm tubes; and NL-LC1-24 with 400 mm tubes. Those are all decently-sized for the sorts of cases they're likely to land in, however, I am a fan of longer tubes considering my test bench is a bit of a stretch between mobo and mount . Both the 360/420 models fit just fine, anyways.

Noise

Noise

Fan noise | measured using a sound meter from 40 cm away

Fan noise | 40 cm away

Fans @ 100% (dBA)

Noise floor (dBA)

Noctua NL-LC1-36

41.5

36.5

Noctua NL-LC1-42

42.5

36.5

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

52

36

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

48

34

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

47.5

34

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

49

35

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

46

34

015304560

Fan noise | 40 cm away Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	41.5 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 36.5 Noise floor (dBA)
Noctua NL-LC1-42	42.5 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 36.5 Noise floor (dBA)
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	52 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 36 Noise floor (dBA)
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	48 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 34 Noise floor (dBA)
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	47.5 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 34 Noise floor (dBA)
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	49 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	46 Fans @ 100% (dBA), 34 Noise floor (dBA)

Results from TopTes TS-501B Sound Level Meter

I'm choosing to start with the test results for noise for this review as it plays a pivotal role in evaluating its performance. In simple terms, it's the quietest liquid cooler I've tested, and by some margin.

At 41.5 dB(A), the NL-LC1-36 is a whole 10 dB(A) quieter at full speed compared to the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360, an excellent cooler in its own right with high-speed P12 Pro fans. It's also 5 dB(A) quieter than the Cooler Master MasterLiquidCore II, which was previously one of the better of the bunch for noise levels, and MSI CoreLiquid P13 360.

The NL-LC1-42 is a touch louder than the NL-LC1-36 by 1 dB(A). Larger fans are usually able to spin slower and produce less noise while producing ample airflow, however, that's not true for Noctua's G2 fans used here. The 140 mm model is rated to 24.8 dB(A); the 120 mm model to 22.5 dB(A). So, it checks out that there's a 1-2 dB(A) difference between them.

On an experiential level, I've tested all of the coolers included in the data within a couple of days of each other under the same conditions. I've been stood alongside each cooler running at 100% duty cycle for hour after hour, doing my best to focus on my work rather than the constant droning noise of fans whirring beside me. The Noctua is noteworthy for how little I noticed it. I had to double check my BIOS to ensure it was indeed running at 100%. It was, it's just incredibly quiet, and in such a way as to be far less noticeable to my ears than others.

Performance

Thermals

Evaluating cooler effectiveness with a Core i7 14700K

Prime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~230 WPrime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~180 WPrime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~100WX274 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °CBaldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Noctua NL-LC1-36

68

66

Noctua NL-LC1-42

68

65

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

70

67

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

73

69

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

73

69

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

72

68

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

71

68

020406080

Prime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~230 W Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	68 Max °C, 66 Avg °C
Noctua NL-LC1-42	68 Max °C, 65 Avg °C
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	70 Max °C, 67 Avg °C
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	73 Max °C, 69 Avg °C
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	73 Max °C, 69 Avg °C
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	72 Max °C, 68 Avg °C
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	71 Max °C, 68 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Noctua NL-LC1-36

55

52

Noctua NL-LC1-42

55

51

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

55

52

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

60

55

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

58

54

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

58

54

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

56

54

015304560

Prime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~180 W Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	55 Max °C, 52 Avg °C
Noctua NL-LC1-42	55 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	55 Max °C, 52 Avg °C
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	60 Max °C, 55 Avg °C
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	58 Max °C, 54 Avg °C
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	58 Max °C, 54 Avg °C
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	56 Max °C, 54 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Noctua NL-LC1-36

48

46

Noctua NL-LC1-42

46

45

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

52

50

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

53

49

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

50

48

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

49

48

015304560

Prime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~100W Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	48 Max °C, 46 Avg °C
Noctua NL-LC1-42	46 Max °C, 45 Avg °C
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	N/A
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	52 Max °C, 50 Avg °C
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	53 Max °C, 49 Avg °C
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	50 Max °C, 48 Avg °C
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	49 Max °C, 48 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Noctua NL-LC1-36

56

49

Noctua NL-LC1-42

55

47

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

56

49

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

60

52

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

58

50

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

58

51

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

59

51

015304560

X274 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	56 Max °C, 49 Avg °C
Noctua NL-LC1-42	55 Max °C, 47 Avg °C
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	56 Max °C, 49 Avg °C
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	60 Max °C, 52 Avg °C
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	58 Max °C, 50 Avg °C
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	58 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	59 Max °C, 51 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Noctua NL-LC1-36

47

42

Noctua NL-LC1-42

43

41

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB

46

43

Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB

48

46

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II

46

44

Corsair Nautilus 360 RS

47

45

MSI CoreLiquid P13 360

48

44

015304560

Baldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Noctua NL-LC1-36	47 Max °C, 42 Avg °C
Noctua NL-LC1-42	43 Max °C, 41 Avg °C
Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 A-RGB	46 Max °C, 43 Avg °C
Asus Prime LC 240 ARGB	48 Max °C, 46 Avg °C
Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II	46 Max °C, 44 Avg °C
Corsair Nautilus 360 RS	47 Max °C, 45 Avg °C
MSI CoreLiquid P13 360	48 Max °C, 44 Avg °C

We measure the package temperature of a Core i7 14700K across various applications and games at three fixed voltages. This is normalised to an ambient temperature of 20 ℃ for consistency.

Looking over the charts, the NL-LC1-36 is among the top performers in every test. From gaming in Baldur's Gate 3, to X264 and Prime95, with a Core i7 14700K, the Noctua NL-LC1-36 maintains some of the lowest average CPU temperatures of all the liquid coolers tested. At 230 W, our most demanding test, it outperforms all other 360 mm liquid coolers.

I like to review 360 mm liquid coolers to keep things consistent. It's the most popular size, and I can get comparative results. Though I do have the NL-LC1-42 to hand, so I thought I'd best put it through the ringer, too.

The NL-LC1-42, unsurprisingly, delivers the lowest temperatures in every test. All except one, the noise test that I spoke about earlier, but that's within spec and still the second-lowest for noise of the lot. It's even a couple of degrees lower than the Liquid Freezer III Pro during our most demanding test, keeping a Core i7 14700K at a chill at 65 °C, even at a fairly steady 230 W thermal load.

Installation

Noctua packages everything neatly for ease of step-by-step installation with the NL-LC1. The fans come packaged separately, meaning my first job is to get those attached. These come with anti-vibration gaskets pre-applied on the correct side for a push configuration, and a push configuration is recommended. Noctua provides the screwdriver for the job, complete with Torx T20 bit, and screws to match. Yeah, Torx screws for everything.

There's no complicated cable runs with the NL-LC1. There's no RGB lighting, which halves the cable requirements, and Noctua provides just a simple 3-to-1 adapter and an extension cable in the box to help one run the cables to a motherboard header. The pump has a separate connector, and that's your lot.

Compatible with both AM5/AM4 and LGA 1851/1700 sockets, it will cover most modern Intel and AMD systems. I'm testing on Intel, which requires one extra step to AMD, but both are relatively simple. Just attach the backplate to the rear of the motherboard (this is the extra step on Intel; it's pre-applied on AMD), attach the four provided spacers, and then the two brackets on top of that. With that all screwed into place, the pump unit sits atop and is attached via two captive screws. Don't forget the thermal paste!

For AMD systems, there's a plastic surround included that prevents too much paste getting into every nook and cranny on that AM5 heatspreader. There's also a cleaning wipe included if you mess it up or need to reapply paste down the line.

Gallery

Value

The NL-LC1, in any size, is an expensive liquid cooler. For easy comparison, let's take the 360 mm version. Noctua suggests a price of $250/€250, which as far as I can see, is the exact price it's selling for right now. That's £217 in the UK.

Compare that to the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360, and it's over three times the price. You can buy one of those for $70 at time of writing. Just $70. That's for a cooler that, for the most part, matches the NL-LC1-36 in my testing. But it's loud—loud as heck at full speed—and that matters to some more than others.

So, they say silence is golden. In this case, it certainly costs something equivalent to bullion. There's no doubt it's the best liquid cooler I've tested, with frankly incredible performance when normalised by noise, but it's far from the best value.

Beast of Reincarnation is a sci-fi action RPG whose parry-happy woman protagonist is on a mission to save an apocalypse-blighted humanity. On paper it sounds like Stellar Blade, and in practice, it feels a bit like Stellar Blade. It's open but linear, and ruthlessly focused on speed and dexterity. And yet, while Beast of Reincarnation may draw from the same pool of inspiration—think Sekiro, Final Fantasy, Nier—the net result is cosmically at odds with Shift Up's outing.

Emma is a young woman stricken by the Blight. It's the very same phenomenon that has transformed 41st century Japan into a wasteland of verdant ruins. She entirely lacks emotion thanks to her malady, nor can she remember her life before the illness. To make matters worse, she's an outcast among survivors by dint of her condition. But in exchange she has inherited some gnarly Blight powers, namely the ability to generate aggressive, tentacle-like flora.

The Blight is an infection spread by the titular beast of reincarnation, whose wrath is renewed every hundred years. Though an outcast, Emma and her similarly Blight-infected dog companion Koo are tasked with taking the fight to this mysterious deity-like beast. So off they go, chaperoned by a small crew in a giant military biped which serves as home base.

The flagrantly unoriginal premise seems to promise a bombastic, relentlessly loud spectacle. But entirely to its credit, Beast of Reincarnation is an unusually quiet and patient thing. If Stellar Blade is psytrance with the bass jacked right up, Beast of Reincarnation is psytrance with the percussion removed entirely. I mean, it's essentially a precision-oriented action game, and it can often be very tense, but the whole project is suffused with an elegiac doom. This is a richly atmospheric, melancholy videogame. It took me by surprise.

Parry On

But let's assess it as an action game first. Emma is a dab hand with a sword, but an even dabber hand at parrying with it. Like Stellar Blade, Beast of Reincarnation is a parry dance and there's just no getting around it, though if you feel vindicated by the sudden popularity of the "parryslop" pejorative, there are ways to loosen things up.

One way is with projectiles. Emma has a bow and a crossbow, and if you invest in them via Beast of Reincarnation's typically convoluted skill trees, you can make them monstrously powerful. Both can be equipped with three elemental varieties, and ammunition is automatically replenished at bonfires campsites. If I aim my bows mid-air the world slows to a crawl but Emma doesn't, an effect which depletes the "entanglement gauge" I can also manually trigger to slow down time on foot, or to use my special attacks.

But the most effective way to fill a depleted entanglement gauge is to pull off perfect parries or dodges with an ever-increasing array of swords, none of which feel different but carry certain passive benefits. Parrying and dodging is also the most effective way to make sure canine Koo's powers stay viable in combat. While the mutt will happily fight without my input, I can trigger their special attacks via a turn-based combat style menu. Smooth application of these specials will also marginally heal Emma.

I think this will be wildly variable between players, but since Emma and Koo share a pool of skill points I ended up investing far more heavily in the former than the latter. I found myself almost forgetting to use the dog's special attacks (I was too busy raining down explosive bolts from the sky) though they were always marginally useful: especially for that sliver of health, because most enemies will kill you in two or three hits.

(Not that I'm ragging on the dog: Koo's a lovely hunk of fluff.)

Beast of Reincarnation's skill trees do offer the possibility of contrasting playthroughs. Rather than focus on projectiles I can upgrade Emma's hair, which is one of the game's neatest tricks. Emma can use her sylvan expandable ponytail to gain a huge elevation boost or create bridges to otherwise inaccessible platforms. Better still, she can use her locks to eff her enemies' shit up in ways ranging practical through to "for no better reason than it looks cool".

Green Out

I liked the combat, for the most part. If you're a parry tragic but enjoyed the slightly more forgiving windows of Stellar Blade versus Sekiro, that's basically where Beast of Reincarnation sits on the spectrum. There's a gratifying freneticism to more prickly encounters that really highlights the emotional decompression afforded by the dog’s light turn-based trappings.

But while the fighting feels good in the hands the encounter design is often extraordinarily dull. Beast of Reincarnation takes place across a series of discrete maps of varying openness, and it often feels like enemies are just plonked thoughtlessly onto the map. There are usually too few of them at once to really ratchet the tension, especially if I stealthily eliminate some in advance. It usually took the presence of at least one hulking heavy to give the scraps any zest, but then, there's very little at stake when I die: campsites serve as checkpoints where I can save, craft and level up, but they are almost comically abundant, and anyway, no items are lost upon death.

Where combat sings is during major encounters with bosses or mini-bosses. What otherwise simmers boils over into something spectacularly spicy. It's an overused analogy, but when all of Emma's abilities interlock—her bows, her magical hair, her swordplay—Beast of Reincarnation feels truly balletic. It’s just a shame it only ever reaches that point during big cinematic scraps.

The game's prizing of fluidity is somewhat undermined by the overly rugged art style, whose lush and tangled regrowth is full of geometry that may or may not be solid. It can put a real dampener on exploration. The graphics can be egregiously busy too, often resembling a general green mucky murkiness that makes it hard to take in the true scale of the world. This extremely green overgrown wasteland remains an extremely green overgrown wasteland for the vast majority of the game, and while it can sometimes be gorgeous it wends rather too closely to the tech-jungle look of Avatar or Horizon Zero Dawn, which is starting to feel overplayed.

It also runs pretty poorly on my gaming laptop, with frequent dips below 60fps with settings on medium and FSR 3 toggled on. My PC is just below the recommended specs, but even on low it occasionally trembled. (A performance patch rolled out just an hour before this review went live, but I haven't had the chance to test it.)

Of course it's not perfect, but I admire Beast of Reincarnation. The fact that it comes from Pokémon studio Game Freak is both bizarre and, in other ways, makes perfect sense. This is a prestige double-A outing, which is basically what all Pokémon games are if you remove that timeworn brand.

But what even is double-A? Is it just "mid-range budget"? Or is it a vibe? Because if it's just the latter, Beast of Reincarnation is decidedly not that. The characterisation and voice acting—I played in Japanese, but English dubs are available from the main menu—is among the best I've seen in a big action game for years. Emma's robotic impassivity could have been performed as blandly stoic, or doll-like and naive, but instead registers as oddly, hauntingly absent.

And like I said, there's a maturity and patience to the presentation that feels more filmic than even the Hollywood-aping fare that Sony doles out (or used to). Game Freak loves its long, slow, lingering shots. It loves a strangely resonant silence. No one quips. There are no quirky asides or overbearing teaching moments. Characters speak elliptically, or else with an unguarded sincerity just a touch removed from JRPG mawkishness. It is severely committed to its bereft, enveloping ambience, and feels like it was made by a team blissfully unaware of Star Wars or the MCU.

Do not be misled: Beast of Reincarnation is tonally further away from the hypersexualised Stellar Blade than, I dunno, Pac-Man, despite feeling like an answer to its popularity. I knew the Pokémon studio's first blockbuster action RPG would be imperfect, but I also didn't expect it to be so fun and distinctive.

My, how the world can change in a year. The previous version of the Razer Blade 16 shot to the top of our best gaming laptop guide upon its release in 2025, thanks to its fantastic chassis design, great performance, and battery-powered gaming abilities, among other virtues. Yes, it was hugely expensive. But thanks to a stunning all round package, it was worth the money if you had the cash to splash.

Now I sit with the Razer Blade 16 (2026) in front of me—and on the surface, not a whole lot has changed. I've been provided with an RTX 5090-equipped config with 32 GB of DDR5, a 2 TB SSD, and a 240 Hz 16-inch OLED display, all wrapped up in the same chassis as the old model. So far, so brilliant. The major change to this refresh, though, is the addition of one of Intel's Panther Lake-based laptop processors, the Core Ultra 9 386H.

It's a very speedy gaming CPU, and a worthy addition to the Blade 16's armoury. But the thing I'm struggling with, as I'm sure you might have already guessed, is the price. Prepare yourself, folks. This particular Blade 16 costs, and there's no getting round it, $4,900/£4,800.

That's $400 more than the previous RTX 5090-equipped Blade, and, as usual, you can largely blame the memory crisis. But for this sort of price, I'm not quite as convinced by the Blade 16 as I used to be. It's still a sumptuous, fabulous machine, and I'd have one in a heartbeat if I had all the money in the world. But I'd also have a gold-plated Lamborghini and a spare room made of chocolate, while I'm at it.

Which is to say, it's become more difficult to justify the Blade 16's value for this sort of moolah. It's super-portable for a 16-inch machine, and that's worth a lot. It's a wonderfully-premium object, too, with a fantastic screen. And it gets good battery life, all the while running relatively quietly if you drop it down into Balanced mode. It's very… civilised. And I love that.

But spending nearly five grand on an RTX 5090 gaming laptop that can be soundly beaten in the performance stakes by the often-cheaper, RTX 5080-toting Lenovo Legion Pro 7i? The idea of it stops me in my tracks. Is the Razer better in many other ways? Undoubtedly. But the price to performance delta is now skewed, and that gives me the odd doubt.

There are cheaper, lesser-GPUed models of the Blade 16 available, and if I was buying one with my own money, that's where I'd be looking. The Razer Blade 16 is an astonishing piece of engineering, and rarely have I wanted a gaming laptop more. But crucially, I think its MSRP across the range is now substantial enough to keep me awake at night—and as a result, I've got to knock it down by a peg or two.

Razer Blade (2026) features

The 2026 version of the Blade 16 is still a lush device, and my review sample has a specs sheet to be proud of. The major internal change over our previously tested model comes in the form of the Panther Lake-based Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor, which replaces the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 found in last year's top-spec config.

It's a 16-core CPU, which breaks down into four Performance cores, eight Efficient, and four Low Power Efficient types. That core distribution might sound a little weak on paper, but in practice it adds up to create a powerful gaming chip, with a 4.9 GHz max boost frequency and a maximum boosted power draw of 80 W.

Unfortunately, the iGPU here isn't the Arc B390 found in Intel's top-of-the-line Panther Lake chips, which feels like a bit of an omission. Instead you get a four Xe3-cored "Intel Graphics" tile, which means that for battery-based gaming you're probably going to want to lean on the dGPU. Which in this case is a beastly RTX 5090 mobile chip capable of maxing out at a 175 W TGP.

It'll sip much less power than that in practice, of course, and you'll need a Razer cooling pad to enable its potential top wattage figure. Still, the lack of a feisty iGPU is a missed opportunity for genuinely mobile gaming, if you ask me.

Lower-specced variants of the Blade 16 are available, going all the way down to an RTX 5060/Ryzen AI 9 365 config with 16 GB of DDR5 and a 1 TB SSD. Even this "bottom-spec" model, though, has an eye-watering price given the hardware inside. It's $2,400, to be precise. Oof.

Still, my top-end sample is well-equipped no matter which way you look at it. It's got 32 GB of LPDDR5X-9600, a 2 TB Gen4 SSD, and a truly stunning 240 Hz OLED display, complete with DisplayHDR TrueBlack1000 certification.

It's still one of the best panels I've had the pleasure of setting my eyes upon—although it's got some serious competition in the form of the new ROG Nebula OLED displays found in the latest Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 models.

All this high-end hardware comes wrapped in a chassis that still stands head and shoulders above the rest. The Blade 16 is astonishingly slim given the components inside, and its crisp-edged, all-business frame feels like the pinnacle of gaming laptop design.

I say all business, but it's still got a big, neon green Razer logo on the back and an RGB-lit keyboard. You can always turn the lighting off, but I quite like the contrast it creates. Gamer executive chic? Something like that, anyway.

The keyboard has more travel than you might expect from a low-profile unit, and my typing accuracy has noticeably improved when clicking away at its keys on the go. As for the trackpad? It's glorious, with a large, smooth-yet-tactile surface and ultra-responsive clicks.

Every other laptop manufacturer should take a look at Razer's efforts here and make notes. Simply put, every part of the Blade 16 looks and feels top notch. It's amazing what huge gobs of cash will buy, isn't it?

Razer Blade (2026) performance

Jumping straight into the 1080p benchmarks, it's clear that the new Intel chip has done the Blade 16 some good when it comes to gaming performance. In Baldur's Gate 3, the newly-sharpened Blade manages to pull an impressive 21 fps lead in the averages over its older AMD-chipped sibling, with substantially higher 1% lows to boot.

1080p gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1080p resolution

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong (1080p High)F1 24 (1080p Ultra High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

66

44

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

52

39

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

63

34

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

68

38

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	66 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	52 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	63 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	68 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

83

41

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

78

43

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

62

28

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

96

55

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	83 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	78 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	62 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	96 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

110

84

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

102

83

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

114

76

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

99

84

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	110 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	102 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	114 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	99 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

120

92

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

101

76

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

117

57

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

126

51

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	120 Avg FPS, 92 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	101 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	117 Avg FPS, 57 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	126 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

126

64

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

102

53

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

117

64

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

140

72

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	126 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	102 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	117 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	140 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS

The Blade 16 (2026) is comfortably faster than the previous version in most of my 1080p gaming benchmarks, although the Legion 7i Pro remains supreme.

In Cyberpunk 2077, though, that lead shrinks to a mere 3 fps average, albeit with 10 frames gained in the 1% lows. The Blade 16 also beats the new Asus G16 quite handily, although runs into some trouble when faced with the mighty Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10.

The Lenovo machine also scorches ahead in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, leaving every other lappy on this chart firmly in its wake. It's a good example of how some high-wattage components in a chonkier laptop chassis can gulp down power, spin up the fans, and pull beyond their weight under duress.

1600p gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1600p resolution

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong (Native res. High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

39

30

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

31

24

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

39

29

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

40

28

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	39 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	31 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	39 Avg FPS, 29 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	40 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

81

45

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

80

46

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

61

33

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

96

42

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	81 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	80 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	61 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	96 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

76

48

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

75

66

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

68

45

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

111

80

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong (Native res. High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	76 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	75 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	68 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

78

67

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

63

53

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

77

46

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

77

55

020406080

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	78 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	63 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	77 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	77 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

95

56

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

68

46

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

90

58

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

96

65

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	95 Avg FPS, 56 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	68 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	90 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	96 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS

The 2026 Blade 16 beats its older sibling at 1600p, and gains a decent overall lead on the RTX 5080-equipped G16—but the Legion Pro 7i still rules the roost.

At 1600p, the 2026 Blade 16 is virtually tied with both the older model and the Legion Pro 7i in Cyberpunk 2077. However, the Lenovo lappy knocks all our other machines for six in Baldur's Gate 3 and Black Myth Wukong.

Despite the Legion being an RTX 5080-equipped machine, it's got a tendency to power ahead of many other gaming laptops (including some of the RTX 5090-equipped ones) thanks to a brace of very powerful cooling fans, a monstrous 24-core Intel CPU, and a larger chassis. Thermal throttling will hold back performance with any machine, and the Lenovo is better at letting its hardware run wild and free.

It's a much heftier beast, though. While you could certainly shove its substantial, 6 lbs, rear-lipped chassis into a backpack, it's a laptop that focuses on raw performance over portability. By contrast, what the Blade 16 and Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 are aiming for is a balance between gaming chops and day-to-day usability.

Real-world gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1600p resolution with Quality upscaling enabled, and frame gen. where applicable

Cyberpunk 2077 (1600p, RT Ultra + upscaling, 2x FG)Black Myth: Wukong (1600p, High + Quality upscaling)F1 24 (1600p, Ultra High + Quality upscaling, 2x FG)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

112

75

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

95

79

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

104

73

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

124

83

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1600p, RT Ultra + upscaling, 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	112 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	95 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	104 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	124 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

98

59

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

84

72

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

97

82

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

111

80

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong (1600p, High + Quality upscaling) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	98 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	84 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	97 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

185

103

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

144

125

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

169

100

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

184

91

050100150200

F1 24 (1600p, Ultra High + Quality upscaling, 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	185 Avg FPS, 103 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	144 Avg FPS, 125 1% Low FPS
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	169 Avg FPS, 100 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	184 Avg FPS, 91 1% Low FPS

It's a pretty convincing win for the Blade 16 over two of our tested machines on average, but here comes the Legion to spoil the party once more.

Add some upscaling and frame generation into the equation, and the Blade 16 pulls ahead of both the Asus and the previous model by substantial amounts in two of my benches. The Legion Pro 7i, though, gives it a pasting in Cyberpunk and Black Myth once more, although drops a single frame behind it on average in F1 24, with worse 1% lows.

What we're seeing here is the difference between a full fat, slightly old-school gaming laptop design with modern components, versus three slim and light machines designed to be taken on the road. While the Blade 16's gaming performance has definitely been improved by the addition of a new Intel chip, it's worth noting that better raw performance (for cheaper) can still be found elsewhere.

Gaming GPU usage

Average GPU frequency and power usage recorded during multiple Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition benchmark runs

GPU stats

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

1853

143

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

1868.53

112

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

1874

106

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

2375

127

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	1853 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 143 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	1868.53 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 112 Avg GPU power (W)
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	1874 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 106 Avg GPU power (W)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	2375 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 127 Avg GPU power (W)

The Blade 16 (2026) seems happier to send more juice to its GPU than the older model, but the average frequency is still significantly lower than the RTX 5080 in the Legion Pro 7i.

Looking at the GPU frequency figures, we can start to see where the Legion Pro 7i finds its extra grunt. While it's got toastier temps overall, the Lenovo machine's RTX 5080 is allowed to clock much higher than the other mobile GPUs on this chart.

CPU performance

CPU performance figures taken from the Cinebench R24 single-core and multi-core benchmarks

Cinebench 2024

Multi-core index score

Single-core index score

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

1200

124

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

1215

124

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

1246

118

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

2039

138

07501,5002,2503,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	1200 Multi-core index score, 124 Single-core index score
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	1215 Multi-core index score, 124 Single-core index score
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	1246 Multi-core index score, 118 Single-core index score
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	2039 Multi-core index score, 138 Single-core index score

The Core Ultra 9 386H found in both the new Blade 16 and the G16 is plenty quick—although the 24-core chip in the Legion Pro 7i is a genuine monster.

As for productivity, the Cinebench R24 benchmark shows the Core Ultra 9 386H tracking near-identically in both the Blade 16 and the new Asus G16. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is ahead by a nose in the multi-core stakes, but a little off the pace of both in terms of single-core performance.

But here comes the Legion Pro 7i once more, with its 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX streaking ahead in both benches. It's no great surprise given the big Intel chip's fearsome specs sheet, but it's still impressive to see how far one of Intel's higher-core-count Arrow Lake CPUs can pull ahead when given room to breathe.

Razer Blade 2026 thermals

When it comes to fan noise, the Blade 16 is a bit of a hairdryer in Turbo mode, which is where you'll get the performance figures above. It keeps its component temperatures decently in check while gaming, but the fan noise is very intrusive.

You can say the same about just about any gaming laptop running at full tilt, though, and I've certainly heard worse. Much, much worse, now I come to think of it.

Real-world gaming temperatures

Gaming temperature results recorded during multiple Metro Exodus EE runs

Gaming temperatures

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

82

98

62

77

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

72

98

69

77

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

86

95

82

86

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

94

105

74

79

037.575112.5150

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	82 Avg CPU (°C), 98 Max CPU (°C), 62 Avg GPU (°C), 77 Max GPU (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	72 Avg CPU (°C), 98 Max CPU (°C), 69 Avg GPU (°C), 77 Max GPU (°C)
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	86 Avg CPU (°C), 95 Max CPU (°C), 82 Avg GPU (°C), 86 Max GPU (°C)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	94 Avg CPU (°C), 105 Max CPU (°C), 74 Avg GPU (°C), 79 Max GPU (°C)

The new Razer Blade 16 is better at keeping its GPU chilled than our 2025 test sample, although the CPU runs a little hotter.

Drop the Blade 16 down into its Balanced power mode, and the fan noise, temps, and component speeds drop with it. It's remarkably quiet at these settings, although as you would expect, this does affect the gaming performance.

I recorded a 12 fps lower result in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1600p with Quality upscaling and frame gen enabled, resulting in a 100 fps average with 68 fps 1% lows. That's still plenty fast enough for me, and likely where I'd keep the Blade 16 at all times if I owned one myself.

And therein lies the Blade 16's party trick. When you combine its portability, good frame rates at Balanced power settings, and the still-decent battery life you'll see below, the whole package starts to make a lot more sense. It's capable of being civilised in a way most high-powered laptops are not, and that goes a significant way towards justifying the expense.

Razer Blade 2026 battery life

The new Blade 16 claims to have better overall battery life than the older model, but when it comes to my gaming test figures, that doesn't prove out. To keep things even, all of our laptops are tested by setting screen brightness to 50%, disabling the Wi-Fi, and unplugging them from the wall—which, in the Blade 16's case, causes the software to switch into a Balanced power mode.

A 102 minute score is pretty good going, but it's still significantly lower than the previous model.

Gaming battery life

Results recorded in the PCMark 10 gaming battery life test, with screen brightness set to 50% and Wi-Fi disabled

PCMark 10 gaming battery life test

Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

102

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H

117

Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

135

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX

73

037.575112.5150

PCMark 10 gaming battery life test Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 (2026) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	102
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W) | Core Ultra 9 386H	117
Razer Blade 16 (2025) | RTX 5090 (175 W) | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370	135
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 (175 W) | Core Ultra 9 275 HX	73

The new Blade 16 drops significantly behind the previous model in this particular test, although it's still a long way ahead of the Legion Pro 7i.

Synapse has an extra Battery Saver setting that lowers the power draw even further, though, so for extra points I enabled it and ran the test again. This resulted in an extra six minutes or so of battery life, which isn't exactly mindblowing. Given the limited gains, I'd prefer to keep the performance of Balanced mode while I was gaming on the go.

Regardless, although the 2026 version of the Blade can't match the older model for gaming battery life in my regular testing, it's still an impressive result when compared to the Legion Pro 7i—which puts the difference between these machines in stark contrast.

You might get more performance elsewhere for your cash, but if you want usable battery life and gaming chops, you'll be paying for it. The Blade 16 might not be the fastest gaming laptop on the planet, but when it comes to travel convenience, it's still a fearsome contender.

Razer Blade 2026 aesthetics

The Blade 16 is a truly gorgeous machine. The crisp chassis design, stealthed-out colour palette and trim corners create a moody, purposeful aesthetic that I can't get enough of. This Razer lappy is here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and guess what? It's all out of Hubba Bubba.

In all seriousness, this is a gaming laptop with the gamer aesthetic tastefully reigned in, which means it wouldn't look out of place in your next business meeting, or on the train to work. It's still got a big neon green Razer logo on the back and an RGB keyboard, but both can be turned off for the true stealth experience. It's lean, mean, and beautifully well-made.

And while we're on aesthetics, I have to rave about the Blade 16's 240 Hz OLED display. You can spot this panel from across a crowded room, as I have done at many tech conferences and events. It's stunningly vibrant without appearing over-saturated, and has caused me to stare gormlessly at benchmark demos running in the background that I'd ordinarily glance at with indifference. And the contrast levels? Sumptuous.

I've spent a lot of time gaming on many different OLED displays, and they're usually very impressive. This one, though? It still stands out from the crowd.

Razer Blade (2026) software

No laptop software is perfect, and Razer Synapse is no exception. Still, it's pretty straightforward to configure, with clearly laid-out presets for Silent, Balanced, and Performance modes to help reign in some of the fan noise (and the performance, naturally) when attached to the wall.

CPU and GPU power settings can be custom configured for the plugged in modes, but the battery options limit you to Balanced and Battery Saver power presets—although you can still switch the fans between an automatic mode and a fixed speed option within the menus.

I'd like to see some more manual power configuration options while on battery, but alas, the software suddenly changes from "do what you like" to "not on my watch, buddy." Otherwise, there are plenty of settings to play with. The display, speakers, keyboard, trackpad, and lighting can be tuned to your preferences, and there's a floating bar along the top showing you real time data for your CPU and GPU temps, fan speeds, and more.

There's also a Battery Health Optimizer, which can be manually set to prevent the battery from topping itself up to the maximum, extending its overall lifespan. It's nothing revolutionary, but the Synapse integration feels reasonably comprehensive and easy enough to mess with, even if it's not quite as granular as something like Lenovo's LegionSpace solution.

Razer Blade (2026) value

The Razer Blade (2026) is now substantially more expensive than the previous model, and the new CPU isn't really to blame. The memory crisis has torn its way through the gaming laptop market, and the Blade 16 is far from immune. Which means that many of the Blade 16's competitors have also jumped in price. But now it's sitting perilously close to the five grand mark, a gaming laptop I genuinely adore is suddenly a tougher sell.

Our Dave gave the previous version's performance a solid thumbs up, even though it was off the pace when compared to some heftier, far-less-portable machines. It was quieter, more refined, more pleasant to live with. And that offset some of the benchmark quibbles, an opinion I very much agree with for the newer model.

However, while the much-faster (and much chonkier) Lenovo Legion Pro 7i can often be found for significantly less, I can't help but wonder how much the Blade's ultra-premium, ultra-portable design is actually worth. More, certainly. But substantially more? It's a very difficult thing to square.

There is a silver lining, though. The RTX 5080 Blade 16, with the same speedy Intel chip (albeit with a 1 TB SSD), can be found for $4,000. The RTX 5070 Ti version is cheaper still, at $3,500. And while these are still eye-watering sums for a gaming laptop, you can buy a lot of the best things the Blade has to offer for a substantially lower price.

The Razer Blade 16 is a fabulous machine, there's absolutely no doubt. If I had a huge amount of disposable cash to spend, I'd spec one out with relatively little thought. It screams desirability from every angle, and I've loved spending time with my review sample. Plus, it's still one of the easiest 16-inch machines to stuff in your bag and take on your next flight.

But at these prices, I think some of the Blade 16's drawbacks start to weigh more heavily upon its svelte frame. It's still one of the best gaming laptops money can buy—but for this sort of cash, I think it's lost just a touch of its shine.

As a child of the '90s-era pocket monster craze, I had what I suspect historians will call Monster-Taming Madness. A not-so-terrible, but sort of annoying affliction that meant I always had a Tamagotchi in my pocket, a handful of Pokémon cards, and the entire Spice Girls discography on standby for summoning creatures from discs in Monster Rancher.

To say I was obsessed is putting it mildly, but in all that time I spent collecting little guys and preparing them to duke it out, I never once considered the obvious: What if I gave one of these guys a gun?

When it launched in early access, that's what Palworld was known as: Pokémon with guns. It's not an entirely unfair description of the survival crafting, creature-collecting adventure, and two years ago, I would've agreed with it. It certainly looks like a case of copying someone's homework, though that's not a good distillation of the Palworld 1.0 we have today.

Palworld has come a long way since early access, with the bones of a satisfying, iterative creature collector all here. I just wish I jived with more of the survival bits, and that Palworld embraced the things that make it stand apart from Pokémon outside of hokey ultra-violence satire.

The Pokémon in the room

Let's go ahead and get it out of the way—yes, Palworld's trainers, pal spheres, and even some monster designs are all similar to Pokémon. And yes, that's part of the appeal. It's also one of the least interesting influences when you start digging into the meat of Palworld's systems.

Comparisons to Ark or Conan Exiles feel more apt with its minion-like system for catching pals and deploying them to do base-keeping chores back home. In Ark, dinosaurs toddle about your base completing grindy survival crafting tasks, while thralls in Conan Exiles serve a similar purpose.

Palworld's pals work like the dinosaurs and thralls, but the execution is leagues better. Organizing your workforce is immediately satisfying in a way the others aren't, because you don't have to fight with it. I catch a pal, check its skills, and drop it at a crafting station to get started. There's no overly obtuse taming mechanic, and no need to engage with messy stat calculus. Even when I didn't have a clear grasp of all the nuances, my army of cute critters got their chores done without much fuss.

Not every pal is willing to do every type of job, and I love how Palworld conveys their preferences through 'work suitability' levels—a clearly delineated set of specialty task icons highlighting a pal's capabilities. I was never left wondering why my new favorite early game pal, Pupperai, wasn't best in show for helping out around the base. It could only chop trees, pick berries, and move materials. Pupperai looks unemployable when the wild Tanzee nearby has those same skills, plus expertise in two additional task types.

My problem in Ark was always feeling so exhausted by the taming process that I would eventually just say 'fine, I'll do it myself,' before abandoning the idea. Pals will always try and help, at least a little, and the option for min-maxing is there through work suitability levels, partner skills, and passives.

Aesthetically displeasing

While I dig some of the new pal designs and scenery, Palworld's look and presentation occasionally sour me on the whole thing. There's just no way around how off-putting I find some of the game's tone and direction, which only grows worse as Palworld signals it's not very confident in its own artistic decisions. I get it, you aren't like the other games, you're different—the edgy older brother with a crude sense of humor.

I'm not just talking about Lovander giving me the bedroom eyes, either. Palworld has several little moments with weird tonal dissonance that feel inserted for virality or a need to prove it's different.

The first time I felt that way was right after crafting the Meat Cleaver, an early game tool you can use for butchering adorable critters like Lamball or Cattiva. So, being the monster that I am and unwilling to sacrifice Pupperai, I surveyed the starting area, judged all of its pals by their cuteness, and chose the one I liked the least as my first test subject. Sorry, Chikipi.

Violently butchering my pals didn't have much purpose, or at least not in the early game. In the time it took me to fetch a Chikipi from my Palbox and hack it apart, I could've already clobbered one in the wild without the weird blur effect making it into a goofy spectacle. There's no explicit gore to hide, it's just a bit for making the action cartoonishly violent. It was only in the very late game, when I unlocked the cleaver's automated mass-killing counterpart, that I saw any potential use for butchering pals at all.

Most of Palworld doesn't strain this hard to be shocking, but there's an air of the attitude sprinkled throughout. You'll find pals crying in cages, warnings that some little 'buddies' are working in various states of injury, and a handful of little guys wielding guns. Honestly, I'm glad there aren't more gun-wielding pals. That's more your avatar's thing. Tanzee, along with maybe four or five other pals are the only ones I can recall that stay strapped. You mostly just craft saddles to ride them like horses… or put them on the death machine.

Home groan

Legend has it that if you look into a mirror and whisper "survival crafting" three times, I'll come leaping out to ask what we're playing and when. I love'em, especially if they come with a good set of blocks because my friends always appoint me to the position of base architect, and I'm not stopping there. Our survival crafting house is getting the full service, appropriate holiday decor and all.

If you're also that person, bad news: Palworld makes for a pretty boring set of Legos.

If you're not that person, well, it's nice that the building is so bare-bones simple you can slap some crap on the ground and move on. But if I'm going to spend 100+ hours surviving and crafting, you're damn right I'm getting irritatingly picky about how my space looks.

Palworld's kit isn't all bad, but the underwhelming architecture and a few 1.0 tools are still worth mentioning:

• The building grid is massive and painfully strict. You have to stack three walls to accommodate bigger pals if you don't want to see them clipping through.
• Its building pieces, like walls and foundations, are of course oversized as a result. Palworld's map already suffers from a lot of empty space, and it's tough to let that go when my base looks the same way thanks to so much dead space.
• I love the new paint tool that changes the color of some building pieces. Light shades of wood are almost always a sin in my book, so I used it to customize wooden building pieces and turn them into darker grains.
• Paint works on storage furnishings too, and I love displays of color-coded chests. However, you can't paint some of the more basic furnishings like simple tables or chairs, though those futuristic production facilities need it the most.
• The alignment tool for snapping walls or furnishings neatly beside each other rules. We should make this mandatory in every base builder.

Creature crafter

Micromanaging pal work suitabilities was easily the best part of my Palworld base design experience, and getting into the nitty-gritty of breeding for other stats was a similar treat. It's another thing you don't have to fully engage with—I didn't even touch the system until approaching the final boss—but it's a delight for anyone also into Pokémon's stat-perfecting systems.

Pals have more situational builds, so I can spec them to help out with housekeeping, combat, or buffing duties. Do you want a Sekhmet for combat or crafting? Will Chillet keep your base cool, be your primary mount, or both? Their passives—a random selection of traits affecting everything from work speed to attack damage to their ability to work at night—are randomly assigned to pals caught in the wild, and help you breed for traits suiting their role.

I've got absolutely zero chill when it comes to in-game travel, so I didn't even fuss over breeding a more powerful sidekick for the final fight. I just wanted the fastest ride available, and that's led me down an Eidrolon Ignis breeding frenzy. Don't worry, Palworld doesn't make it weird. There's just a lot that goes into the process, which includes tasks like:

• Mass catching wild pals for the desired gender or passive. Sometimes you'll even stumble upon a Lucky pal, the game's version of shiny Pokémon.
• Adding pals with breeding-specific buffs to the team managing your base.
• Setting up facilities like the Breeding Farm and Egg Incubator; the Ranch for special food ingredients; or the Pal Condenser for merging weaker pals into your best one.
• Breeding for particular stats, passives, an entirely different pal, or even the chance at Mutated Eggs with special features.

I haven't seen many cool Mutated Eggs yet, and my main battle team remains mostly made up of pals caught in the wild, not bred for specialities. For most of my 100+ hours through the main story, I only tinkered with the Surgery Table to give pals special passive implants. It looks a bit grim when set up, but fortunately lacks the theatrical brutality of butchering. I rolled my eyes at the presentation, then tinkered with implant combinations for hours.

That's emblematic of my Palworld experience. Lots of little moments where I grimaced at edgy reminders it's a big kid's game before getting lost in the freedom of its systems. It was nice to skirt by in tough battles without going all-in on designer pals, but when the time came, I could indulge in the side of me that loves involving a spreadsheet.

"Gotta catch'em all," also takes on a whole new meaning when I can actually catch them all in a single game with no fuss. Pokémon's historically miserable system of transferring, trading, buying the same game in a different color, and limited events evolved into one of my biggest peeves with the series. Palworld doesn't have the same massive monster roster, or at least not yet.

Knowing I could complete the Palpedia was a delight that often kept my character and her team overleveled from pal-catching XP. I sped through most story bosses using the default world settings, and felt like I was missing out on seeing what my pals could do while I was busy blowing the place up. It wasn't until the late game that I was humbled by a monstrous boss pal. Several deaths later led me to give aerial combat an honest try, and well, I should've done that from the beginning.

A showdown with Panthalus—Palworld's mythical big whale beastie—forced me to respect the mechanics. It was either that, or risk drowning again. So, I relied on my flying pal, Jetragon, for safety.

My new strategy worked, and shooting missiles from above was more fun than running around with a gun. Both are effective, but from the sky I'm at least using my pal, and I like the control I have over both my character and her pal as a unit. Palworld let me experiment more than I realized, and I like that.

There's a push and pull between some of the things that matter most to me in survival crafting games, though I can't deny how good Palworld's creature collecting foundation is. I love micromanaging pals at my base, fighting alongside them, and perfecting pedigrees through implants and eggs. I'm disappointed by the base building, lackluster open world, and mundane exploration.

It also lacks personality, unless being bludgeoned to death with a bat labeled "violence" counts as one. We can argue it's parody or satire, sure, but it's not very good at that, either.

With all of its success, I hope Palworld uses future updates to establish a more confident identity that relies less on being the most audacious person in the room. It's full of enough thoughtful systems and entertaining loops worth embracing—no need to dress it down in callow internet humor.

I've been a very happy chappy ever since discovering the wonders of the Chinese 'clone' mouse market. Brands in this market attempt to deliver quality gaming mice that take after popular shapes by mainstream brands, but for a lot less money. I was sceptical at first, but my experience with Mchose mice has squashed my scepticism, and this K7 V2 Ultra+ is a fine example.

It is, for all intents and purposes, a Razer Viper V3/V4 Pro clone, and the latter is currently the absolute best gaming mouse on the market today. I say V3/V4 Pro because it sits between the two, using an overclocked PixArt PAW3955 TI sensor that hits up to 50,000 DPI. That's PixArt's flagship market-available sensor, and the Razer Viper V4 Pro has its own top-of-the-line, custom PixArt sensor that has the same DPI as this but higher IPS capability and so on. Still, the K7 V2's sensor is flagship as far as what is actually on the market.

Regarding just the shape, I notice no difference between this and the Viper V4 Pro, which tracks, given EloShapes shows no difference either. There is, of course, a difference in build quality (and no optical switches), but that's less to do with the Mchose and more to do with the Viper being practically flawless—the best build quality I've seen in any mouse. The K7 V2 Ultra+ doesn't match that, but it does match other premium mice in terms of build quality.

To be more specific, it feels lovely under the palm, is sturdy, and I have zero complaints when actually using it in-game, but if I'm pulling out my metaphorical magnifying glass for inspection, it's not completely perfect. I've noticed there's a slight amount of friction to the left mouse button before it actuates depending on where I press it. Plus it is, of course, heavier than the Viper V3 Pro and V4 Pro as it weighs 59 g, whereas the former are 54 g and 49 g respectively.

But those are pretty small sacrifices to make for getting the same Viper shape and a very performant sensor for a little over half the price of a bona fide V3 Pro or V4 Pro. It's not as cheap as some of Mchose's other options—in fact, not even some rather premium-feeling ones—but for a flagship sensor and a Viper shape, it sits right with me.

There's another thing to note, which is that you're getting a wireless charger in the 2.4 GHz receiver, which is a fantastic choice and works really well. We've seen similar from the 8BitDo Retro R8, but this one connects and charges magnetically and wirelessly rather than via some pins. Both are good, but the magnetic system might have the edge for longevity (no pins to damage) and how easy it is to just slap on top. It's super convenient and has the added benefit of keeping the receiver weighty enough to stay put, in combination with its sticky base lining.

It charges pretty quickly when on the stand: about 1% every minute, if not a little faster. Not that that matters much, because after using this thing for three or four days of pretty extensive work and gaming it only dropped to about 80%. And chucking it on top of the charging stand is effortless, provided you remember to do so.

The lighting on the receiver looks gorgeous too, primarily because it runs around the bottom so it looks a lot like a more subtle underglow than anything too garish. Though it would be more useful if it changed colour based on the mouse's battery life rather than whatever colour(s) you set it to.

These colours and effects can be changed in the software, which is available either locally or online. It is of course great that there's a web-based version; however it does take a while to load. But once you're in, you get access to every setting you might want, including things like lift-off distance (LOD) and even sensor rotation.

Getting to the meat and potatoes of competitive gaming, which is the use case this mouse is aimed at given the Viper inspo, everything is flawless. Playing Counter-Strike 2, I've had zero problems with connectivity or tracking.

The Viper shape is wonderful too, keeping my hand nice and steady when holding angles, so I can say it's at the very least pleasant for a relaxed palm grip. And given it's the most-used mouse by Valorant pros and close to that for Counter-Strike pros, I think many others would agree.

The Viper shape is also good for claw and fingertip grips, making it pretty versatile, just like Logitech's G Pro/Superlight shape. In fact, it's often considered better for these than for palm grip, but I use a hybrid palm grip and do enjoy it.

The last two sprinkles of icing on the cake are its connectivity options and its aesthetic. Some competitive gaming mice don't bother including Bluetooth, but this one does and I found it to work very well. It connects to my laptop instantly and I can now immediately switch between laptop and PC by a flick of the underside switch from Bluetooth to 2.4 GHz.

Finally, although it's still a pretty plain mouse in black, it does have a little golden flair to it on the logo, side buttons, and scroll wheel. I think it looks rather classy, which isn't always the case with golden trimmings. The blue version also looks gorgeous just judging from the product photos, though I've not seen that one in person.

In all, I really can't complain about anything in this mouse for the price. It would be nice if there was that extra tidbit of attention paid to things like button click quality, and of course it would have been nice to see this closer to 50 g. But I don't think I can expect to get that without stepping up into the $100+ range, especially given the included charging stand and wireless charging internals.

Mchose has stayed on the right side of the mark here, and I'm especially looking forward to any potential discounts in future which sweeten the deal even further. Though even without that sweetening, it's got my approval.

It's not often we see serious innovation in air cooling; many merely spin on tried and tested formulae. That's not the case here, however, as the Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP is offering something new to PC builders: 3DHP technology.

I first glimpsed the 3DHP (3D Heat Pipe) tech in a backroom of Cooler Master's Taipei HQ in 2025. I was under a strict oath not to talk about anything I saw in that room, which was easy enough, as it was almost empty except for a pair of air coolers: one using a traditional U-shape heatpipe design and the other using 3DHP. The 3DHP design includes an additional heatpipe at the centre of the U-shape.

The benefit of this extra heatpipe is clear through a thermal imaging camera: there's no deadzone (cool patch) in the middle of the cooler. For the V8 Ace, in particular, 3DHP is used on two of its six heatpipes—the two big ones in the middle—with the other four in a more traditional layout. Altogether, there are a lot of heatpipes running through every part of this single-tower cooler.

That's the thing to remember when looking over the results from my testing with the V8 Ace 3DHP below. It's a single-tower cooler competing with the very best dual-tower coolers I've tested. That's a huge success, and just goes to show, there's still performance on the table even for an air cooler.

Features

There are two versions of the Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP: Intel and AMD. These cover more than just the brackets in the box. They also differ on the contact they make with your choice of chip.

I have the Intel option for review, which is designed "around higher sustained heat density." It also appears more concave at point of contact to better fit the—how do I say this politely—non-Euclidean shape of Intel's chips. They have been known to bend, namely the older 12/13/14th Gen chips.

The AMD option is designed around "contact consistency", i.e. it's flatter. This follows the same thinking employed by Noctua with the NH-D15 G2, which also offers a model with a 'low base convexity' specially for AM5. So it's good to see Cooler Master doing something similar here to get the most out of its cooler.

There are two fans included with the V8 Ace. These run at slightly different speeds and come with different ratings for airflow and static pressure. The front fan is rated to 3.85mmH2O, at 2500 RPM and 37 dB(A), which helps push the air through the stacked heatsink. While the rear fan is rated to 2.00mmH2O at 2050 RPM and 34 dB(A). Both are what Cooler Master calls 'Loop Dynamic Bearing', which to my understanding is more or less its take on fluid dynamic bearing with an idea to continually flowing back the lubricant through the bearing to extend its lifespan. Over 200,000 MTTF (Mean Time To Failure) is pretty great.

Performance

Thermals

Evaluating cooler effectiveness with a Core i7 14700K

Baldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °CX264 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °CPrime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~180 WPrime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~230 WPrime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~100 WAmbient temperature

Max °C

Avg °C

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

51

47

Arctic Freezer 36

54

51

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

54

51

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

57

53

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

54

50

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

54

48

Cooler Master Hyper 212

59

57

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

53

48

Noctua NH-D15 G2

50

46

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

52

48

015304560

Baldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	51 Max °C, 47 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	54 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	54 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	57 Max °C, 53 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	54 Max °C, 50 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	54 Max °C, 48 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 212	59 Max °C, 57 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	53 Max °C, 48 Avg °C
Noctua NH-D15 G2	50 Max °C, 46 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	52 Max °C, 48 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

63

53

Arctic Freezer 36

63

55

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

64

56

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

68

58

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

63

54

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

63

53

Cooler Master Hyper 212

70

61

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

64

55

Noctua NH-D15 G2

61

52

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

60

52

020406080

X264 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	63 Max °C, 53 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	63 Max °C, 55 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	64 Max °C, 56 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	68 Max °C, 58 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	63 Max °C, 54 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	63 Max °C, 53 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 212	70 Max °C, 61 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	64 Max °C, 55 Avg °C
Noctua NH-D15 G2	61 Max °C, 52 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	60 Max °C, 52 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

64

60

Arctic Freezer 36

64

60

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

66

62

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

70

67

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

63

59

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

63

61

Cooler Master Hyper 212

74

68

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

65

62

Noctua NH-D15 G2

61

57

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

64

58

020406080

Prime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~180 W Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	64 Max °C, 60 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	64 Max °C, 60 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	66 Max °C, 62 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	70 Max °C, 67 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	63 Max °C, 59 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	63 Max °C, 61 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 212	74 Max °C, 68 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	65 Max °C, 62 Avg °C
Noctua NH-D15 G2	61 Max °C, 57 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	64 Max °C, 58 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

76

71

Arctic Freezer 36

79

75

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

80

76

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

90

85

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

83

78

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

82

74

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

78

73

Noctua NH-D15 G2

73

66

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

80

71

0255075100

Prime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~230 W Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	76 Max °C, 71 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	79 Max °C, 75 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	80 Max °C, 76 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	90 Max °C, 85 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	83 Max °C, 78 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	82 Max °C, 74 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 212	N/A
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	78 Max °C, 73 Avg °C
Noctua NH-D15 G2	73 Max °C, 66 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	80 Max °C, 71 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Cooler Master Hyper 212

61

55

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

57

52

020406080

Prime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~100 W Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	N/A
Arctic Freezer 36	N/A
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	N/A
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	N/A
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	N/A
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	N/A
Cooler Master Hyper 212	61 Max °C, 55 Avg °C
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	57 Max °C, 52 Avg °C
Noctua NH-D15 G2	N/A
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	N/A

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

26

Arctic Freezer 36

27

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

23

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

21

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

20

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

20

Cooler Master Hyper 212

27

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

29

Noctua NH-D15 G2

30

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

22

07.51522.530

°C

Ambient temperature Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	26
Arctic Freezer 36	27
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	23
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	21
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	20
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	20
Cooler Master Hyper 212	27
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	29
Noctua NH-D15 G2	30
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	22

We measure the package temperature of a Core i7 14700K across various applications and games at three fixed voltages. This is normalised to an ambient temperature of 20 ℃ for consistency.

The V8 Ace performs excellently in my testing. It keeps a Core i7 14700K running at 1.275 V at a rather chilly 47 °C while roaming around in Baldur's Gate 3. That's only one degree higher than the Noctua NH-D15 G2, which I'll remind you is an absolutely massive cooler that costs $160. The V8 Ace delivers the second-lowest average and max temperature of the ten I've tested alongside it.

It performs very well in X264, once again in the top three alongside large dual-tower coolers. Though only matching the slightly cheaper Dark Rock Pro 6. It's also a little off the mark when dealing with the intense ~180 W load of Prime95. That doesn't quite add up, as push the thermal load to ~230 W and it's once again a cut above the rest; second only to the NH-D15 G2, which remains our best performer by some margin in my latest round of retests.

For a single-tower cooler, the V8 Ace is undeniably impressive. Those new and improved heatpipes are working wonders.

Value

Of the many things the V8 Ace, uh, aces, it's not value for money. In all fairness, there are very few coolers that are a match for the Arctic Freezer 36 in this regard, and especially not the $120 V8 Ace, though it's really the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE that proves the thorn in Cooler Master's side.

At $40 or less, the Peerless Assassin is rather extraordinary. It matches or betters the V8 Ace in testing, likely thanks to its large size. It is loud, however, and noticeably so compared to the V8 Ace. That might be enough of a deal breaker for many. Compared to the Noctua NH-D15 G2, at least, the V8 Ace seems a touch more affordable.

At $120, the V8 Ace is in the upper echelons for air coolers. I hold that air coolers still have a place in the cooling market, so dominated by liquid coolers today, as a more reliable, quieter, and often cheaper option. Remove cheap from that list of attributes and it's a bit more of a niche proposition.

Noise

This cooler may look like a V8 engine, but it certainly doesn't sound like one. It's roughly on par with the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6. It's louder than Noctua's NH-D15 G2, using Noctua's excellent G2 fans; and the Arctic Freezer 36, which uses two of Arctic's older, quieter P12 PST PWM fans. However, it's quieter than the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE.

Noise

Fan noise | 40 cm away

@100% (dBA)

Noise floor (dBA)

Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black

48

35

Arctic Freezer 36

40

35

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

47

35

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

49

35

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

49

35

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

48

35

Cooler Master Hyper 212

44

37

Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex

45

37

Noctua NH-D15 G2 (Standard Version)

44.5

35

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

50

35

015304560

Fan noise | 40 cm away Data

Product	Value
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP Black	48 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Arctic Freezer 36	40 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	47 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	49 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	49 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	48 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Cooler Master Hyper 212	44 @100% (dBA), 37 Noise floor (dBA)
Cooler Master Hyper 612 Apex	45 @100% (dBA), 37 Noise floor (dBA)
Noctua NH-D15 G2 (Standard Version)	44.5 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	50 @100% (dBA), 35 Noise floor (dBA)

Results from TopTes TS-501B Sound Level Meter at 40 cm away

All were tested in the same conditions at around the same time, with a noise floor consistently around the 35 dB(A) mark.

Gallery

Installation

The V8 Ace is very easy to install. I can only speak to the process with the Intel variant, but that's usually more involved compared to an AMD socket. It only requires a rear bracket, a couple of double-ended thumbscrews, two mounting brackets, some thumbscrews, and then tightening the cooler atop of all that with the two captive screws provided.

That sounds like a lot, but it's ready to go in under five minutes on my test bench.

The included fans are on rails to make it easy to remove them and reinstall them during the installation process. These also seem to be user-replaceable, in that the fan is attached to the sliding frame using four regular fan screws. That's very useful if you need to replace a dud fan down the line and there are no exact replacements available.

The V8 Ace is fairly symmetrical, with equal distance between both left and right fans to the middle of the cooler. That means it does overhang across the top of my RAM kit, which is thankfully pretty low. You could easily make way for a taller RAM kit by sliding the fan upwards a touch, though in doing so, it sorta ruins the V8 engine aesthetic. Better to just use a lower-profile RAM kit.

The V8 Ace is thinner than the Noctua NH-D15 G2, which is a benefit of the single-tower design. However, it is pretty much just as tall. So if you're worried about an oversized air cooler not fitting inside your case, the V8 Ace might not entirely solve that problem. Similarly, at just under 1.1 kg, it's a fairly hefty thing itself—one to uninstall if you're driving anywhere with your PC in the backseat.

Aesthetic

Speaking to Cooler Master at Computex, I get the vibe that the V8 aesthetic is hit-or-miss with the PC building crowd. I like it, personally, as I don't care for RGB lighting and it blends in nicely with a range of standard parts. It does look a little cheaper than it should, I suppose, but it reminds me of a time when PC parts weren't afraid of being a little cheesy.

If it really isn't for you, Cooler Master has included 3DHP on a couple other coolers, such as the Hyper 212 3DHP and V4 Alpha 3DHP. The V4 doesn't look like an engine, for the record.

Corsair Cove might be the most exuberant city builder I've ever had the good fortune to play. A fantastical spin on the Golden Age of Piracy, it sees a bunch of ne'er-do-wells escape a prison ship and start a new life on a deserted island dominated by a skull-shaped mountain and imposing sheer cliffs.

This new life largely involves consuming large amounts of booze, dancing with pigs and taking turns going down ziplines. There's no grotty realism here—these pirates are living it up in paradise. But maintaining this whimsical pirate colony takes a bit of effort.

Highrise

Tropico 6 developer Limbic Entertainment has undoubtedly taken some inspiration from Tropico 2: Pirate Cove, but this is neither a follow-up to Pirate Cove or a pirate-themed reskin of Tropico 6. The vibe might be familiar, but Limbic is doing its own thing here, and Corsair Cove is all the better for it.

What we get is a logistics-heavy romp structured around vertical city building. There are plenty of pirate-themed activities you'll be able to dive into, as you send crews across the ocean on skulduggerous adventures, but they're all in aid of your city-building ambitions, netting you loot and upgrades that will help you build an efficient colony clinging onto the daunting cliffs of Skull Rock.

So let's stay on land for a wee while and dig into some city planning. The core is familiar: exploit resources throughout the island by plonking down harvesting buildings, refine them into goods in another building, and use these manufactured products to keep pirates happy, build up your wealth, and construct yet more buildings.

Beyond this well-trodden loop, however, things get pleasingly novel. You see, there's not much ground to build on, which necessitates cliff-clinging construction projects. Those then need to be linked together by bridges, ropes, ziplines, elevators and so on. These connection tools are flexible and forgiving, so you'll always find a way to hook up your buildings, but it's not enough to simply create a web of paths—they need to be efficient, too.

You'll often find that your buildings need resources that are all the way on the other side of the island, and while pirates will diligently move goods anywhere and everywhere, if they're too slow, it creates a bottleneck, disrupting your economy and potentially sending your colony's denizens into a grog-soaked rage.

Whenever you encounter a bottleneck, though, you'll find yourself with a bevy of options that can help resolve it. This is one of Corsair Cove's greatest strengths—it's abundant with solutions. If you've got resources waiting at the top of a cliff, for instance, build a zipline to get them down faster. If your warehouse's supply of ale is lacking, you can create a link to a second ale supply. Alternatively, you can just tell your tavern to grab the ale directly from the source, rather than the warehouse.

Click on a building and you'll see all the paths that fuel it, colour coded so you know how efficient they are. This makes it incredibly easy to identify problems before deploying something from your broad arsenal of solutions.

Eventually you'll have a mind-bending mess of connecting paths going up and down the cliffs and across vast chasms, making your colony look like the product of a very ambitious (and possibly drunk) spider. It's so much more visually impressive than a tangle of motorways in, say, Cities: Skylines, and there's something extremely appealing about being able to see all of the solutions to your logistical conundrums expressed physically all across the island.

Corsair Cove is, broadly, an absolute snack. It's got Sea of Thieves' vibrant colour palette, with lots of flourishes evocative of more fantastical pirate fiction, like Hook and Pirates of the Caribbean. There's joy to be had simply soaking it all in, studying the eccentric buildings with all of their cute little details. My personal favourite is the pig being spun around by a pirate standing on a tavern table—neither of them ever tire.

Shipshape

But don't spend too much time soaking up the atmosphere—there's piracy to be done. When you construct a ship you need to fill it with a crew, adding their own stats to the vessel, alongside a captain, each with their own special abilities, represented as cards that can be deployed during your high seas adventures. And then off they jet, as you send them to search for treasure, hunt down ships or embark on smuggling runs.

The seafaring romps are surprisingly involved—though they're always brisk. In a fight, you'll deploy defensive, offensive or utility cards that can damage vessels or their crew, protect your own ship, or claw back the supplies you spend activating cards. But you've also got stealth missions where you'll use cards to sneak around, or chases where the cards will let you close gaps or flee enemies. Dice rolls then determine how successful you are.

Initially, it can feel like you have far too many options for what are very simple adventures, but as you tackle higher tier adventures, all these tools will become a godsend. It's impressive how much Limbic has managed to fit into a system that you'll only spend a few minutes with at a time, and it's equally impressive how all the stats, cards and dice rolls still feel manageable in these short spurts.

The RNG can be a right bastard though, and I encountered a number of adventures where there was simply nothing I could do to win, necessitating a bit of save scumming. This is more forgivable when the seafaring adventures are so short, though.

While the city building and seafaring are both distinct, featuring completely separate mechanics, they elevate each other rather than being at odds, tied as they are to the campaign and the novel progression system. It's through both of these things that you define the kind of pirate monarch you want to be, represented by four pirate principles: Empire, Notoriety, Seafaring and Wealth.

You can focus on one or dip into each of them, moving the campaign forward and unlocking new tech—there's a tech compass rather than a tech tree—by performing deeds connected to each principle. Some unlocks are shared, or do similar things, but others are unique to one principle. You'll find larger homes for your pirates, upgrades to your gathering and production buildings, access to new resources, and brand new ships with different stats and specialisations.

Some of the deeds will task you with creating efficient routes between buildings, or having a certain number of pirates living in your colony, while others will send you off to explore the seven seas where you'll get into all sorts of scrapes. This way, everything is connected. Working on your colony will help you out at sea, and hitting the ocean will help you make a larger, more efficient colony.

It's a fantastic progression system that's inherently more engaging than a simple tech tree fuelled by some random abstract currency. Your choices have weight, and your colony and fleet are directly linked not just to the kind of pirate monarch you want to be, but the kind of pirate monarch you're actually showing yourself to be.

Since you're never forced to pick a focus, though, it can be easy to fall into a trap. If you try to play broad, dipping into every principle equally, you'll end up chasing your tail as you try to satisfy all the demands being flung at you. You'll quickly find yourself unravelling as you're forced to manage too many different kinds of pirates, ships and buildings, which may end in a colony-wide mutiny.

Pirate code

This doesn't mean you just need to pick a single principle to dedicate your life to, however, and when crises do arise Corsair Cove tends to give you some breathing room to resolve them. If, for instance, you're short on quality footwear for your pirates' calloused hooves, you're given multiple opportunities to fix the shortfall, and you can always claw your way back from the precipice as long as you have some cohesion—the currency that effectively serves as your colony's health bar.

Cohesion can also be spent, though, so you really need to stay on top of it. You'll encounter lots of random events where the rewards will be balanced by a cohesion cost, and critically it's one of the few ways you can get more pirates early on, as there's no passive population growth. If you want to welcome a bunch of shipwrecked pirates into your colony, you'll take a cohesion hit.

This is a bit frustrating in the early game, as you'll be desperate for more pirates and more cohesion without a reliable method to get either of them. Unlike the other logistical bottlenecks, this one often leaves you just waiting, ramping up the in-game speed as you hope for some good luck. Eventually, however, this becomes less of an issue as you unlock buildings and opportunities to get more of both.

Corsair Cove can sometimes devolve into a stressful juggling act, then, but for the bulk of my time it's been plain sailing. There are a lot of ways in which it's smoothed out the city building process without sacrificing the joy that comes with solving complex logistical problems. It's been a pleasant palate cleanser after Anno 117, now that I don't have to worry about servicing individual households or stressing about building radiuses. There are fewer irritants and niggles, but I feel just as busy and engaged.

It sits somewhere in between a low-stress, cosy city builder like Fabledom and a highly-involved logistics puzzler like Whiskerwood or Factorio, taking the best elements from both. And when it does throw out some curveballs, it gives you plenty of time to figure out what to do before everything goes up in smoke.

Can it really be well over four years since Alienware rolled out the AW3423DW, the first mainstream OLED gaming monitor? The AW3423DW wasn't perfect, but by many important gaming metrics, it absolutely monstered every LCD-based display. That model, of course, was a 34-inch ultrawide and now Alienware has released its most significant update yet for that form factor, the Alienware 34 AW3426DW.

So, what does four years of OLED gaming monitor development buy you? In really simple terms, some new threads, a bit more brightness, and a higher refresh rate. But when you dig down into the details, there's way more going on here.

Most importantly, Alienware has upgraded to Samsung's very latest QD-OLED panel tech, known as Penta Tandem. In terms of headline specs, that means a bump from 250 nits full-screen and 1,000 nits peak HDR brightness of that OG Alienware OLED, to 300 nits and 1,300 nits respectively. You also get an upgrade from VESA DisplayHDR 400 True Black to 500 True Black certification, again highlighting the punchier panel.

The refresh rate is up, too, from 175 Hz four years ago to 280 Hz today, albeit there was an interim Alienware 34-inch ultrawide OLED, the Alienware 34 AW3425DW, that upped the refresh to 240 Hz while keeping most of the other specs the same.

It's also worth noting that there are versions of this Samsung-sourced new-gen 34-inch QD-OLED panel with yet higher refresh, most obviously the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 which I reviewed earlier this year. Apart from the higher refresh, the MSI's panel specs are largely the same.

The MSI kicked off at $1,099 when I reviewed it back in January. Now it's available for $899. So, it's still $100 more expensive than the Alienware's $799 launch price. But let's park that value comparison for now and come back to the Alienware's overall value proposition later.

As with the MSI, the new-gen QD-OLED panel used here has plenty going for it beyond the simple brightness upgrade. The Penta Tandem emissive layer doesn't just produce more light. It makes the panel more resistant to burn-in. On that note, you get the usual Alienware three-year warranty including burn-in cover. So, you at least know burn-in isn't a worry for three years.

Next up is the RGB-stripe subpixel structure. Previous Samsung 34-inch ultrawide QD-OLED panels have used variations of a triangular subpixel structure. That can cause problems when the rendering pipeline is assuming the presence of a standard LCD-type RGB subpixel structure, where each pixel is composed of red, green and then blue vertical stripe subpixels.

The most obvious example is font smoothing technology like Microsoft's ClearType. The coloured text fringing that triangular subpixel structures can result in with ClearType enabled is most obvious with relatively low pixel density panels like this monitor, which comes in at 110 DPI. It's never really been an issue for gaming and, honestly, it was never that bad on the Windows desktop. But, in any case, it's now effectively a solved problem with the introduction of a true RGB-stripe subpixel structure.

Arguably more important are a couple of other panel tweaks. First, the characteristic purple tint that QD-OLEDs suffer from in bright ambient light has been reduced, albeit not actually removed entirely. That's welcome if, for instance, you position your monitor near a large window. In that scenario, this generation of QD-OLED maintains better contrast and black levels.

The glossy panel surface has also been revised with a tougher, more scratch-resistant surface. Owners of earlier QD-OLEDs with glossy coatings, which was nearly all of them, often reported that the screen scratched easily and extensively, for instance when cleaning the panel. This new gen panel should be more durable in that regard.

Elsewhere, this new Alienware AW3426DW looks pretty similar to its interim update sibling, the Alienware 34 AW3425DW. It uses the same AW30 design ethic with its rounded forms and deep-blue plastics. It's well enough slung together, though I actually preferred the slightly retro "Storm Trooper" vibe of the AW3423DW and its swooping white and black plastics.

Whatever, as with previous 34-inch Alienware OLEDs, connectivity is decent but not comprehensive. Along with a couple of HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4 interface, there's a USB hub that includes USB-A and USB-C data ports on the lower bezel.

However, there's no primary USB-C input and thus no option for single-cable connectivity to a laptop and likewise no KVM switch. Notably, the more expensive MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 includes both of those features. So, you'd want to factor that in with the higher refresh into your value calculations.

Of course, what really matters is image quality and here the news is almost all good. Out of the box, the new Alienware 34 AW3426DW immediately has that little bit more pop that the OG Alienware OLED. It's not a life-changing difference in terms of full-screen brightness. But as with the MSI MPG 341CQR X36, it's getting awfully close to the point where it's hard to imagine anyone demanding more day-to-day punch from an OLED panel.

The reduced purple tint in bright ambient light is really welcome, too. This is a somewhat subjective call. But I'd say it will no longer be a nuisance for most users. It's also likely that whatever changes Samsung made to reduce the purple tint also contribute to improved colour balance. Previously generations of QD-OLED panels suffered a pretty obviously overly warm colour temp. This new panel is better, though again it still tilts a little warm.

If that all applies to regular SDR running, the HDR sizzle on offer is something special. On paper, LG's latest Tandem WOLED panel tech is brighter. But only because it includes an extra white subpixel to boost brightness. In terms of colour brightness and the subjective look of the panel, this new QD-OLED generation is absolutely competitive. It may even look more vibrant in some scenarios.

Alienware has also included just about every HDR mode you could wish for. Along with the standard VESA True Black 500 mode and the panel's Peak 1300 mode, there's a Peak 1300 Bright mode.

It's essentially the same idea as MSI's EOTF Boost mode. In both cases, it's an attempt to combine maximum full screen brightness, as per the True Black 500 mode, with the highest peak HDR brightness for small details. For the most part, it's very successful.

The monitor looks absolutely superb in contrasty HDR game scenes, the type where there's a mix of small bright details punctuating a dark overall vista. Nighttime sequences in Cyberpunk 2077 is the obvious example, here, and this panel absolutely rocks for that kind of play. It's so much better than any LCD monitor, it's not even funny. Once you're used to the vibrant, contrasty OLED experience, going back to the watery, light-bleedy LCD look is a bit of a bummer, that's for sure.

It's pretty darn good for daytime game scenes, too. I only hesitate slightly because full-screen brightness is still a slight limitation, even with this latest Penta Tandem QD-OLED generation. Would you really want the desert sun brighter than this panel can render it? It would feel a bit more realistic, but then you'd also be flirting with an uncomfortable level of brightness.

One thing that's for sure is that the SDR calibration in the Peak 1300 Bright mode is a little off. That's a pity, because it's very good in the other two main HDR modes and were it as good in Peak 1300 Bright, you could plausibly leave the panel in that mode for all kinds of content, all the time, rather than having to switch modes between SDR and HDR.

Unusually, Alienware has also included support for Dolby Vision. That's an HDR standard distinct from the HDR10 used by default by Windows. In truth, Dolby Vision is more relevant for video and movies than games, but it's a nice little extra.

Overall, the HDR implementation is really very good. But the deeper we get into these latest OLED panels, the more complicated the HDR proposition becomes in practical usage terms. Should most PC gamers really have to worry about things like multiple HDR modes, EOTF curves and all that stuff? Having options is great, but it's about time one of the major monitor brands had the confidence to work out an optimal HDR setup and make that a very clear default. And then perhaps bury all the other options in a submenu.

What else can I tell you? Well, there's good panel uniformity and none of the banding or "dirty screen" effect that some LG-based OLED monitors can suffer from. And as with pretty much every OLED, the pixel speed is fairly ludicrous. It's easy to gloss over pixel response given all OLEDs are so fast, but as the quoted 0.03ms response time implies, this panel is getting on for two orders of magnitude faster than any LCD monitor. It's a huge advantage in terms of in-game motion clarity.

While we're talking speed, Alienware has included an "Esports Mode" that will compress whatever signal you're sending to the display into a 25-inch 16:9 window. Obviously, the idea here is to mimic the typical 24-inch to 25-inch panels favoured for serious online shooter play.

LG offers a similar feature on its own monitors and while it works okay in both cases, I do struggle to entirely believe that anyone who is truly serious about esports is going to choose an ultrawide like this. Pretty obviously for the $800 launch price, you could have something running at well, well beyond the 280 Hz this Alienware offers, too.

More broadly, with this category of gaming monitor, you are making a trade off. The 110 DPI pixel density is relatively low. Even with the RGB-stripe subpixel technology, you're not getting super-sharp image detail and nice, crispy fonts. You could very much argue that a 32-inch 4K panel, like the Asus ROG Strix XG32UQWMS and its LG Tandem OLED panel, is a better overall compromise between gaming and general-purpose computing. It's certainly a lot sharper and clearer.

But then the immersion of a 34-inch ultrawide is something special, while the added pixel density of 4K comes with a lot more GPU load. For pure gaming, 34-inch ultrawide would be my pick. For a broader remit, it's a very close call, it really is.

So, this new Alienware is undoubtedly a very nice implementation of Samsung's new Penta Tandem QD-OLED tech. It's also cheaper than the 360 Hz versions of essentially the same panel, such as the MSI MPG 341CQR X36.

Personally, were I buying today, I'd still try to find the extra $100 for the MSI. The superior 360 Hz refresh isn't exactly critical, but it wouldn't hurt. And I'd want the USB-C connectivity and KVM switch for maximum utility and flexibility.

The thing is, the gap is only $100 because the MSI has dropped substantially from its $1,099 launch price to $899 of late. I doubt it will be very long before the new AW3426DW is offered at some kind of discount over its $799 launch price by Alienware. And it wouldn't take much of a haircut before it looked like the better deal versus the slightly better specified MSI.

Then again, if you think 280 Hz is plenty, and it probably is for most gamers, most of the time, and you don't care about USB-C, why pay more? Right now, and without any kind of discount, this is easily one of the most compelling gaming monitors on the market. It's seriously good.

The moment you touch the new Framework 13 Pro laptop you know it's different to what's come before. Despite the bubblegum pink USB Type-C ports I've jammed in either side of the machine, this is a serious laptop for serious work. But it's also still instantly recognisable as one of the company's eminently upgradeable and repairable notebooks. This is the true beauty of Framework's new machine, a laptop that at once exists as the pinnacle of its hardware journey, but also steadfastly refuses to compromise on the core principles that has made it one of my favourite PC builders.

Though, it must be said, that refusal to compromise here comes at a hell of a cost because of the focus on ultra expensive LPCAMM2 memory.

This is a next-generation Framework laptop, but is still completely compatible with every Framework 13 device the company has shipped in the past five years or so. That is a hell of an achievement, meaning that you could have an ageing 13-inch laptop and pick and choose from the company's Marketplace store whichever parts of the new machine you wanted. If all you wanted was the beautiful new CNC aluminium chassis and input cover, go for it; if you just wanted the new touchscreen, be our guest.

But it's the full package here, with the Panther Lake-based Core Ultra Series 3 mainboard at its heart, that has made this hands down the best Framework machine you can buy or build. Every detail of the new laptop feels exquisite… bar one. And I know it's a familiar refrain from me now, but I wish there was a more premium display option. I've been spoiled by OLEDs and Retina displays, and if Framework wants to truly own its 'MacBook for Linux' tagline then that's the only place it falls down. And even then, only slightly.

Otherwise, I'm in love with what Panther Lake offers this device—almost silent operation, super-long battery life, and outstanding gaming performance—as well as how it feels, both in terms of that new chassis and this vastly improved keyboard and haptic touchpad. The Framework 13 Pro represents the idealistic young company all grown up, and it's a machine that's an absolute delight to use.

Framework 13 Pro features

From a pure performance and efficiency point of view, it's the Intel mainboard sitting inside the Framework 13 Pro which makes this such a powerful and usable laptop. The Core Ultra X7 358H chip baked into it comes with the magnificent Arc B390 integrated graphics core that has made the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ such an outstanding gaming handheld, and that gives the 13 Pro some impressive gaming chops, too.

One other interesting thing to note about the new mainboard is its use of LPCAMM2 modules. Interesting… and expensive. When the design choices were made—with the goal of maintaining high memory bandwidth and throughput for the Panther Lake CPU without soldering on LPDDR5X and losing upgradeability or repairability—Framework would have known it was a more expensive option, but the memory crisis has made that exponentially worse.

There is also a level of fear to dropping in a new memory module that I've not experienced before. When you add in the LPCAMM2 module you need to line it up on a whole load of pins. Pins which, like motherboard socket pins, are very much incompatible with an errant thumb brushed across them. Too casual installation will kill a new mainboard real quick.

That new Intel SoC has been wrapped in a new cooler, which along with the efficiency gains of the Panther Lake architecture, allows for regularly silent operation. Combine that efficiency with the increased battery capacity of 74 Whr (compared to 61 Whr in previous versions of the machine) and you're getting stellar battery life out of the machine.

To cope with that increased battery girth Framework has redesigned the CNC machined aluminium bottom cover to have less of a taper to the front of it. The actual thickness of the frame hasn't really changed, but it's more uniform now. Which is no bad thing, and really does give it that MacBook/Razer Blade feel to the chassis. Impressively though, it is still backwards compatible with all the other Framework 13 laptops the company has ever released in that you could order the chassis on its own and drop your existing system into it without an issue.

Also getting the CNC aluminium treatment is the top cover for the rear of the display and the input cover housing the keyboard and the new haptic touchpad, both of which are excellent. The increased travel on the keyboard makes it a joy to type on, and the responsive trackpad is a real improvement over the original, and was designed especially for Apple folk coming across the divide to a PC laptop. My only concern is that multi-finger gestures too easily actuate a press, which is difficult to configure on the Fedora distro I'm using at the moment.

Finally, the Framework 13 Pro comes with a new touchscreen panel. It's a 120 Hz display, with a 2880 x 1920 native resolution that runs impressively bright (up to 700 nits) if you want it to. What it isn't, however, is a responsive OLED display. It's not a gaming panel, as CEO Nirav Patel explains to me when I speak to him on the show floor at Computex, but there is still a level of ghosting to the display which doesn't feel as premium as everything else about the device.

Framework 13 Pro value

The concept of 'value' for the Framework 13 Pro is a tricky one. On the one hand you have the fact that the best version of this machine comes with the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, and they demand the fastest LPDDR5X memory you can give them. And, to ensure Framework sticks to its upgrade/repair ethos, it is using LPCAMM2 modules to deliver that fast LPDDR5X memory.

These are not common, and they are not cheap. There are few suppliers, and Framework recently admitted that its current supplier for these Micron modules has increased the cost by "more than double". You only have to look at the configurator on the Framework website for the 13 Pro to see what that means. A 16 GB LPCAMM2 module costs $239, while the 32 GB version adds another $800 onto the cost of the laptop. That makes the cost of the Framework 13 Pro rather prohibitive for most mere mortals.

Even a 16 GB 13 Pro config will run you well over $2,000. And even if you switch to AMD, the HX 370 Framework 13 Pro configs of the same spec costs just shy of $2,500.

The other side of this, however, is that Framework has been walking the walk on long-term upgradeability for its devices for many years over many different generations of PC hardware from different manufacturers. That means the initial premium outlay for a Framework system can be offset by the fact that you may not have to buy another whole laptop again for a very, very long time given the level of granular upgrades on offer.

I will grant you that this is a very high bar to get over, however. When the cost of an initial Framework 13 Pro purchase is this high you're going to have to keep hold of this thing, upgrading piece-by-piece for many generations, to even get close to breaking even with someone who just bought a new machine every time, and hang the ecological consequences.

Framework 13 Pro sound

When it comes to the actual audio experience, Framework has added new side-firing speakers to the design, rather than the original down-firing ones. They deliver impressive clarity and will go pretty loud, too, but they are still just laptop speakers. Basically, do not expect real room-filling audio with thumping bass.

But it's the other sound production side of the Framework 13 Pro that has me truly impressed, and that's the fan noise. It's long been an issue for me and Framework laptops; there's no way to control the fan levels unless you hack in some third-party tools made by the community, and they noise has often trended far too far to the unpleasant for my liking, especially when under serious load.

That was a concern for me as someone who wanted to use the B390 iGPU at the heart of the Core Ultra X7 CPU inside this machine for gaming. I shouldn't have been worried, however, as even when I'm pushing the Arc GPU the system is tuned to rein it back in a little (but not too much) and keep it running at a genuinely quiet level. There is fan noise, but it's slight at worst.

For most of the time I've been using the Framework 13 Pro outside of gaming, though, it's been all but silent. And often actually silent.

Framework 13 Pro performance

When I first started benchmarking the Framework 13 Pro, with its Intel Core Ultra X7 358H chip, I'd come off the back of testing the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ with the very similar Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor. And there was a slight level of disappointment at seeing the performance not quite hitting those levels or the levels of our initial Panther Lake performance tests when the architecture first came out.

But I've already mentioned just how quiet a device this 13 Pro machine is, and that's as true when doing CPU rendering as it is when I'm pushing it with Cyberpunk 2077. On a machine such as this I'll take a few missing frames per second in exchange for an actual experience that doesn't make me want to stab myself in the ears to get away from the sound.

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1080p gaming performance

Black Myth Wukong (1080p Medium)Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium)Horizon Zero Dawn (1080p Original)Metro Exodus Enhanced (1080p High)F1 24 (1080p Medium)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

29

22

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

33

16

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

22

18

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

27

19

010203040

Black Myth Wukong (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	29 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	33 Avg FPS, 16 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	22 Avg FPS, 18 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	27 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

49

38

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

51

33

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

33

25

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

33

20

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	49 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	51 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	33 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	33 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

49

31

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

61

32

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

42

28

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

58

16

020406080

Horizon Zero Dawn (1080p Original) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	49 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	61 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	42 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	58 Avg FPS, 16 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

40

25

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

41

15

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

23

13

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

32

19

015304560

Metro Exodus Enhanced (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	40 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	41 Avg FPS, 15 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	23 Avg FPS, 13 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	32 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

93

39

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

107

64

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

72

41

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	93 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	107 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	72 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	N/A

For the most part, the Framework 13 Pro is able to keep up with the most powerful handheld gaming PC of today thanks to that Panther Lake iGPU.

1080p upscaling performance

Black Myth Wukong | Upscaling (1080p Medium)Cyberpunk 2077 | Upscaling (1080p Medium)Horizon Zero Dawn | Upscaling (1080p Original)F1 24 | Upscaling (1080p Medium)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

44

28

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

50

28

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

33

27

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

38

25

015304560

Black Myth Wukong | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	44 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	50 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	33 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	38 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

64

48

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

73

50

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

44

30

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

36

24

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	64 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	73 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	44 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	36 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

60

41

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

66

51

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

59

35

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

70

7

020406080

Horizon Zero Dawn | Upscaling (1080p Original) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	60 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	66 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	59 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	70 Avg FPS, 7 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

104

43

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

124

88

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

83

58

037.575112.5150

F1 24 | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	104 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	124 Avg FPS, 88 1% Low FPS
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	83 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	N/A

With the Quality upscaling preset you're getting very playable performance out of the Framework 13 Pro at 1080p.

Synthetic gaming performance

3DMark Time Spy3DMark StorageFFXIV Shadowbringers

Index score

GPU index score

CPU index score

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

5766

5275

12220

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

6499

6091

10487

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

3480

3114

10469

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

4366

3935

11534

03,7507,50011,25015,000

3DMark Time Spy Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	5766 Index score, 5275 GPU index score, 12220 CPU index score
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	6499 Index score, 6091 GPU index score, 10487 CPU index score
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	3480 Index score, 3114 GPU index score, 10469 CPU index score
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	4366 Index score, 3935 GPU index score, 11534 CPU index score

Index score

Avg bandwidth (MB/s)

Access time (ųs)

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

2089

353.96

85

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

2152

366.66

83

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

2117

359.34

84

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

1900

323.75

94

07501,5002,2503,000

3DMark Storage Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	2089 Index score, 353.96 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 85 Access time (ųs)
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	2152 Index score, 366.66 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 83 Access time (ųs)
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	2117 Index score, 359.34 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 84 Access time (ųs)
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	1900 Index score, 323.75 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 94 Access time (ųs)

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

19.175

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

10.952

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

21.9

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

23.24

07.51522.530

Total load time (seconds)

FFXIV Shadowbringers Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	19.175
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	10.952
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	21.9
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	23.24

The synthetic gaming performance does highlight the power of the Panther Lake architecture, and the solid game loading speeds, too.

You can see in the CPU benchmarks that the chip is bouncing off 100 °C and thermally throttling, and it's the cooling limitations necessary to maintain the chilled experience which are slightly holding back the gaming frame rates, too.

System performance

Cinebench 20247-zipThermal performance

Single-core index score

Multi-core index score

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

114

893

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

111

794

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

115

988

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

151

1391

03757501,1251,500

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	114 Single-core index score, 893 Multi-core index score
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	111 Single-core index score, 794 Multi-core index score
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	115 Single-core index score, 988 Multi-core index score
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	151 Single-core index score, 1391 Multi-core index score

Compression (GIPS)

Decompression (GIPS)

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

95.053

78.763

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

92.318

78.753

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

109.33

115.42

Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90

113.69

108.62

037.575112.5150

7-zip Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	95.053 Compression (GIPS), 78.763 Decompression (GIPS)
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	92.318 Compression (GIPS), 78.753 Decompression (GIPS)
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	109.33 Compression (GIPS), 115.42 Decompression (GIPS)
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	113.69 Compression (GIPS), 108.62 Decompression (GIPS)

Max CPU temp (°C)

Max CPU package power (W)

Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390

100

43

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390

97

37

Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M

89

50

0255075100

Thermal performance Data

Product	Value
Framework 13 Pro | Core Ultra X7 358H | Arc B390	100 Max CPU temp (°C), 43 Max CPU package power (W)
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ | Arc G3 Extreme | Arc B390	97 Max CPU temp (°C), 37 Max CPU package power (W)
Framework 13 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | Radeon 890M	89 Max CPU temp (°C), 50 Max CPU package power (W)
Asus Zenbook A16 | Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme | Adreno X2-90	N/A

As soon as you see the thermal performance of the X7 358H inside the Framework 13 Pro you can see why the 16-thread chip is only marginally ahead of the 14-core G3 Extreme version in multi-core performance.

Even if we are talking about a slight tempering of the performance of the Arc B390 iGPU compared with other devices sporting Intel's top integrated graphics, it's still the most powerful that you will find and places this machine head and shoulders above the best that AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 can muster.

And I was already pretty impressed with that.

Framework 13 Pro aesthetics

With its graphite black, CNC milled aluminium chassis the Framework 13 Pro is the most effortlessly stylish laptop the company has ever produced. It feels like the culmination of everything Framework has been working towards for these six years. The slightly chunkier styling, necessitated by the bigger batter sitting underneath the touchpad at the front of the device, makes it feel far more solid than before.

And actually makes it feel far more like the MacBook it's trying to ape, and the Razer Blade 14 that it's potentially going to replace as my daily driver.

It actually is more solid, too, as you can pick it up by the corner and the extra structural rigidity afforded by that new aluminium frame means there is zero give. The same is true of the keyboard as well which betrays no movement bar the extra travel of the keys Framework has deliberately introduced into this version.

But then you've also got all the other Framework touches that has made its 13-inch laptop such a pleasing device for years. You have your choice of coloured and translucent bezels as well as a plethora of colours for the USB Type-C input modules. For this layout I've gone for a pair of bubblegum pink ports and a translucent grey bezel for that extra techie feel. But that's my preference and you can make your own choices at the point of purchase yourself.

Framework 13 Pro software

There is no bloat, because there doesn't have to be any software included at all.

If you just want to stick a Linux distro onto your device the SSD will be shipped blank, likewise if you want to use your own copy of Windows rather than spend $200 on a needless Windows Pro license.

There is a driver bundle for Windows you can download from the Framework support site, and you will need Wi-Fi drivers in hand when you install Windows ('cos that's still a thing), but Linux support is largely there out of the box when you install your distribution of choice.

The slight downside of this, as I noted before, is that there is no system control software. That means there is no granular control over power options beyond the OS options, and there are no fan controls, either. The fan control issue isn't a thing for Panther Lake, however, thanks to its quiet operation straight off the bat, but I wish I could control the SoC's TDP as easily as you do on a gaming handheld, but that's a relatively minor gripe in a world that is often replete with too many different bits of control software fighting each other.

Framework 13 Pro battery life

Of course this is not a gaming laptop, but the level of gaming performance you can get out of this ostensibly productivity laptop is excellent. Development by day, gaming by night. Or on the go, because the battery life of the Framework 13 Pro is also very, very good.

Stick it on balanced mode in Windows and boot up a game and you'll find the battery drains in a little under two hours, but the latest Arc drivers include the same Endurance mode I loved so well in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. It doesn't quite get you the same five hours of gaming that handheld delivers, but you're still not getting far off a doubling of the gaming uptime of the standard mode.

That does try and stick you to 30 fps as a rule, but when you're trying to keep gaming as long as possible when you're on the move—or trying to make sure that when you're done playing you have some power left for some actual work—then it's a worthy compromise.

That, however, is a Windows thing, requiring the latest Intel Arc drivers and isn't necessarily something you can replicate within a Linux environment. Almost all of Framework's impressive 13 Pro battery life numbers are recorded from a Windows installation, with only its seven days of standby measured with Ubuntu.

That doesn't mean it's bad in Linux, not by a long shot. I'm using a Fedora Cosmic Atomic distribution at the moment, and have been running it all day long today, without it going into standby once, playing music, downloading games, and having video meetings, as well as writing this review, and I've only gone through half the battery capacity in six hours. It's all-day battery life for sure, though I think Panther Lake's optimisations are probably going to be felt more keenly in a Windows environment.

When most people are looking for a gaming headset they want it to have a few things: work with their platform of choice, sound good, decent mic, and a reasonable battery life. Other features like noise cancelling are nice but unnecessary, as well as adding to the price of the unit. The LucidSound LS500 does away with such frivolities and focuses in on what you really need in a headset, delivering a surprisingly good pair of cans for under $70 USD.

Taking the headset out of the box the first thing I noticed is how light it is. The LucidSound LS500 boasts long haul battery life of up to 70 hours, so I was expecting a heavier fit. Instead it is a lightweight and comfortable headset. This is thanks to the plastic construction, which feels a little cheap but makes up for it in featherweight comfort. It even includes glasses slots to make long wear for four-eyed folks like me.

It’s not as comfortable as Turtle Beach’s solution but does a far better job than the likes of top dog Razer BlackShark’s for glasses comfort. Despite this, they are living up to their battery life quotas as I have yet to charge this headset after many tens-of-hours of testing.

This lightweight plastic construction delivers a headset that weighs only around 260 grams. The mesh construction headband also does well for long hours of gaming. If it’s not my glasses tiring me it’s pressure on the head, and I can say this headset stays comfortable for many hours-long gaming sessions.

Connectivity will depend on the unit you have, either Xbox or PlayStation, but both come with a handy dongle that can also be used on your PC. The dongle is quite large, but has USB Type-C and Type A connectors which is a nice touch for versatility. The 2.4 GHz Connection can be activated by holding down the ear cuff button for a few seconds, or you can swap to Bluetooth mode using the power button. Unfortunately, you can’t do both at once, but at this price I wasn’t expecting anything that fancy.

It is worth noting that the chat boom style mic doesn’t appear to work in Bluetooth mode, and only responded when I was gaming with the dongle connection. In game it works just fine, with mic monitoring available by the other ear cuff button—though it’s never worked for me. Still, for a headset this cheap, the mic has fine quality pickup with pretty good voice isolation, and I was having no problem clearly shouting out enemies and mining goods in our Deep Rock Galactic adventures.

But how do they sound? Really quite great, especially for the price. I spent hours just riding my horse around in Ghost of Yotei on PlayStation 5 just enjoying the sounds of nature and the breeze through fields. When coming to campsites, I’d be able to ride around them and the directional sound always pointed me in the right direction. In Hades 2 on PC I was able to turn on the vow or rivals and locate Hecate’s true form by the direction of her voice.

When listening to music, sure other headphones would do a better job, but these really aren’t bad. There’s a surprisingly good breadth of sound, with treble and bass both coming through clear and well tuned. Though the latter is a little lacking especially if you’re used to bass boosted cans. Still, I doubt you’d get much better for a regular, non-gaming headset that cost around the same amount of money. They even look reasonably stealthy with the boom style mic in the upright position. It’s certainly a gamer headset but doesn’t go too hard on the gamer aesthetics so you’re not embarrassed to wear it out in public.

For under $70 USD, the LucidSound LS500 provide a really well rounded headset that has focussed on the most important qualities to gamers. Having such great audio quality for this price really is a huge win. All the sacrifices that have been made to get this headset to the price point are really worthwhile ones, leaving just what you need in a quality gaming headset. Great audio, a decent mic, and the ability to connect to whatever you need.

From the archives: This story originally ran in PC Gamer #321 (UK, Sep. 2018). The review appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and presentation.

It’s a damn crime that no game ripped off Red Faction: Guerrilla’s Geo-mod destruction feature. You take a hammer and you use it to smash out a panel of a wall and break through a pillar. Smash out a few more walls and maybe the building creaks. A few more whacks of the hammer later and the whole thing comes down, perhaps with you inside. And hey, maybe it knocks through another building on the way down. It’s still amazing to watch.

Guerrilla does this one thing really well. It’s an otherwise uninspired open world game, with okay driving, unimpressive shooting and a boring story. Hell, Mars doesn’t even look that nice, because it’s Mars. But knocking down buildings in an open world is more than enough to carry this game.

You’ll crash a jeep through a base. You’ll detonate mines and blow up a bridge, which will then collapse on top of an enemy settlement. You’ll melt the beams of a tower and watch it fall over. This destruction felt great in 2009, and it still feels good now.

In this Re-Mars-tered edition, which is free for owners of the Steam version, THQ Nordic touts reworked textures among other improvements, along with better shadows, lighting, a shader and postprocessing rework, and native 4K support.

For a freebie, it seems pretty good after four hours or so. I can’t say I notice vast visual improvements, but environmental textures like rocks and the ground look a little sharper. The lighting is nice, too, but it’s not a vast upgrade.

To anyone picking this up for the first time, I recommend focusing on the campaign. That’s where the biggest destructive opportunities are, like a huge bridge and a massive tower, which take meticulous use of the object-melting nano rifle and rocket launcher to bring down.

You’ll wait a while to unlock all the really good toys, but the singleplayer will give you plenty to blow up along the way, as well as a dull story about miners rebelling against an army that’s a bit like a boring version of Firefly. The big destructive opportunities in this campaign need to be seen, though—I still talk about them with friends years later.

I’m not in the mood for finishing the campaign these days after doing it twice before, but that’s where the game’s Wrecking Crew mode comes in. It’s basically a score attack that gives you a quick dose of the game’s destructive physics in a variety of settings.

You pick a loadout, set the parameters, like time limits and how easily the buildings fall, then knock them down as quickly as possible. It makes a great pass-the-pad party game, and there’s a challenge mode with leaderboards, too.

No imitators

It’s weird that no one else made a game like Guerrilla after its release. Destruction features have shown up in everything from Battlefield to Minecraft to Just Cause, but Volition’s game still offers something that no other game does. It’s the idea of blowing each building up like it’s a puzzle, efficiently using your arsenal so it collapses in the most satisfying way possible.

It might’ve been Red Faction’s sparse Mars setting that made Guerrilla work in the first place. It’s noticeable that all the best buildings are far away from one another, and it probably wouldn’t have been possible for Volition to replicate the Geo-mod system in the vast cities of Saints Row. But that is the type of open world game I’ve always wanted to play, where you can manipulate the environment.

We’re instead in an age of open world games packed with busywork and towers to climb. I like those, too, but Guerrilla shows open worlds and destructible buildings are a perfect match.

Even old THQ didn’t seem to know why Guerrilla was good. Volition followed this up with Armageddon in 2011, a bad sequel that took us away from big open setpieces to the tedious, more linear underground. Still, if THQ Nordic is bringing Darksiders back for another shot, perhaps Red Faction will get its chance again, too. I just wish its influence, and its collapsing buildings, had carried a little further.

After you spend above a certain amount of money on your gaming keyboard, you're not really paying for quality, specs, or competitive edge anymore. I felt this recently while testing out Melgeek's Centauri 80. In my approximation, any more than $200 and you move into bragging rights/centrepiece territory, and by that logic, I reckon the Asus ROG Azoth Extreme Edition 20 is worth about three centrepieces.

It's an expensive old beast, and $100 more than the already very pricey Asus ROG Azoth Extreme, which we reviewed back in 2024. But it's hard to say that Asus hasn't thrown absolutely everything at this new keyboard to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of ROG; you're getting an 8,000 Hz polling, up to 1,600 hours of battery life, a carbon-fibre positioning plate, as well as multi-layer dampening, plus a whole host of extra accessories and extras in the box.

Oh, and did I mention the 24K-gold-plated commemorative nameplate? I probably should have mentioned the 24K-gold-plated commemorative nameplate.

The Azoth Extreme is a very well-built bit of tech. It's super hefty, but it's heavy for a reason. It's sturdy, and though I wouldn't much like to drop a $600 gaming keyboard, I feel like I could do so with relatively minor problems here. The OLED screen up at the top right looks lovely, and the controls next to it are easy to use and quite handy. You can adjust volume, change brightness, and even set up custom controls. It's not quite as useful as the likes of the Corsair Galleon 100 SD and its built-in Stream Deck, but it will likely be enough for most.

Thanks to that weight, this TKL keyboard isn't exactly the type of thing you'd throw in a backpack. That said, a heavy keyboard is not nearly as much of a deal breaker as a heavy mouse or a heavy headset. In fact, the only thing I'd watch out for is the long-term wear on a particularly light mouse pad; 1.5 kg is a lot to put on any pad, and that's not including the weight of your hands on the wrist rest either.

The Azoth Extreme Edition 20 splits its keycap designs between standard black ones with a translucent base for the letter and number keys, then fully translucent caps for the F keys, space bar, and those on the side. Aesthetically, it works well and allows the per-key RGB to really shine. Initially, that RGB comes in all-gold (or, I suppose, with it being RGB, closer to a yellowed white). It makes the gold accenting on the side of the keyboard and bottom of the palm rest really pop. Despite gold tending to be a very gauche accent choice, it actually looks great in-person.

The two types of keycaps don't just add to the aesthetic; they also feel different on the fingertips, which is a decent way of keeping your fingers in check when you're not actively looking at the keyboard. The full translucent keys are very smooth to the touch, feeling similar to the ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition gaming mouse, while the other style of keycaps have more of a matte feel. Both keycap designs are pretty in their own right, and the difference in feel between the two isn't distracting either.

As far as typing is concerned, I'd say the Azoth Extreme Edition 20's actuation is on the light side, but not so much that I found myself misclicking. It's near perfect for accuracy, speed, and ease of use, in my book. The typing sound is light and clicky, with those dampening layers taking out any thock you might expect from the weight of shoving keys down. It's almost like Asus has scooped the bass and mids from it and just left the treble on top.

Typing feel, as a result, is lovely. Keys press easily with a light, satisfying sound. It's easy to find your place on the keyboard by feel too due to the mixture of keycaps and solid spacing all around. I do miss the extra keys of a full-fledged keyboard, but with some smart custom controls, I get by just fine.

My first gaming test with the Azoth Extreme Edition 20 was to take it into a Counter-Strike 2 match, and I can happily report that me losing had nothing to do with the keyboard. It's super snappy and responsive, with its light actuation keys making quick reactions much easier. It's also just plain effortless to use, with little fatigue after hours of gaming. As I learned when I tested the Melgeek Real 81, that's a really important facet of using any gaming keyboard.

You're getting an optional 8,000 Hz polling here (though worse battery life as a result), but you're still getting mechanical switches, which is a surprise. Them being hot swappable certainly helps, but one would hope for analogue or optical switches, for faster clicks, better battery efficiency, and rapid trigger. Still, it's super fast anyway, so you may not notice that downgrade from some other high-spec 2026 gaming keyboards.

Overall, I'd say the Extreme Edition 20 is a stronger package than the 2024 Azoth Extreme, coming with the poll rate booster, plus tons of extra bits, a palm rest, and an upgraded battery life. The NX mechanical switches feel great under the fingers, but you are paying $100 for that upgrade.

One problem I do have with the Azoth Extreme Edition 20 is a pretty common one, as far as keyboards go. The keycaps that don't have translucent tops have white lettering on black, which can be quite tough to make out in the dark. Some keyboard manufacturers get around this by making lettering translucent and shining RGB through it (like the Logitech G915 X Lightspeed), but that makes them harder to see under natural light. This means when there's little light on the keyboard, I have to make out keys through feel.

Unfortunately, Asus's software continues to be a problem. It worked fine when I first set it up but, it suddenly just stopped working when I tried to swap the OLED screen animation. The web app requires an extra bit of software to actually run, and it soon stopped as it said I didn't have the software, despite me installing it. A fresh install did not fix this problem, either. In Armoury Crate, it simply refuses to recognise the keyboard, even with multiple restarts and a fresh batch of software.

Software problems aren't unique, but the Azoth Extreme 20 is a glorious keyboard with golden highlights and a breadth of extra little goodies included in the box. It feels like a limousine coming to pick you up, but inside it turns out to be a plain old Honda Accord. There's nothing wrong with an Accord, but Asus is pulling out the stops for this keyboard, and it simply can't make it down the runway without a hitch.

Stating that the Azoth Extreme Edition 20 is expensive feels so obvious it's almost not worth saying. That might be kinda the point here: it's a limited edition bit of tech that comes with a thank you card, extra switches, a switch and keycap puller, a polling rate booster, the aforementioned nameplate, a cleaning cloth, and all manner of little extras. It is extravagant and meant to feel that way.

As such, comparing it to a standard gaming keyboard is a bit hard, as you don't walk into a Walmart and think 'I wonder if that's worth it'. It's more of a piece of hardware you search out, and if you're prepared to part with all of that money, you are getting a truly lovely bit of tech. I just couldn't ever see myself being prepared to spend that much on it.

I submit that there are two types of videogame remakes. The first type goes all in on transformation, taking big swings with its source material to the point that the remake can be embraced as a wholly new take. The most successful version of this approach is Capcom's Resident Evil remakes—horror shooters so beloved and distinct that they comfortably coexist with their originals.

Halo: Campaign Evolved isn't that.

What we have here is the other type of remake—the kind that goes all in on modernization, offering perceived upgrades to an otherwise unchanged foundation. Halo Studios has no discernably new take on Bungie's landmark FPS, other than a desire to make Combat Evolved look and play more like its later Halos. The "faithful" treatment sets an admirable goal, but that also means Campaign Evolved positions itself as a replacement for, or at least in competition with, the original.

That's a hurdle that was always gonna be tough to clear, because OG Halo is still a fantastic game 25 years later, and among my all-time favorite shooters. It's also readily playable with modern conveniences through The Master Chief Collection (another Halo Studios joint). I completed a playthrough of the original after running through the remake, which was helpful for spotting differences, but honestly, I'd take the weakest excuse to play more Halo.

The high value and quality of the MCC makes Campaign Evolved the superfluous add-on from the jump—it has fewer features, fewer campaigns, and zero competitive multiplayer.

New ride

What Campaign Evolved does have going for it, primarily, is novelty. It's neat to scour battlegrounds I've explored at least a dozen times reimagined by people who care, and to kick back to expanded and expensive-looking cutscenes that rival Halo 2 Anniversary's work. I especially admire how Halo Studios carefully applies hindsight to Halo: CE's weapon sandbox, allowing the occasional SMG, needle rifle, or energy sword to appear earlier in the series than expected without upstaging vanilla loadouts.

It's also impressive to look under the hood and consider what Halo Studios has pulled off here. With the help of underlying Bungie-era code, they've made Halo feel like Halo in an Unreal Engine 5 wrapper. If they hadn't done that right, the whole thing would've been dead on arrival, but the grenades do bounce correctly and Master Chief is appropriately floaty. Campaign Evolved is the best-feeling Halo that this team has ever assembled, and by extension, one of the slickest shooters of this scale in recent history.

Broadly speaking, it's a decent audition for future Halo projects (more remakes, right?) that I expect to go over smoothly with many Halo fans. But I can't help but also see everything that's worse about this thing—stuff that you could write off as nitpicks, but I see as evidence of this team's boring, more ordinary vision for Halo.

Master grief

Indeed, Campaign Evolved has the guts of Bungie, but that hasn't stopped 343 Halo Studios' historically flawed taste in Halo from gumming up the works, such as:

• A sprint button that defangs Flood encounters and makes vehicles less dangerous
• An assault rifle with such a long effective range and ubiquitous ammo that you're rarely pushed to use anything else
• A Warthog that's so convenient to drive and difficult to flip that the campaign's famous "Warthog run" loses all of its tension
• Waypoints that tell you exactly where to go at all times, despite level design already doing that naturally

They're bewildering choices made extra annoying by the remake's measured hand in other areas. Halo Studios clearly believes some old design principles are sacred—there's no mantling or grapple hooks, and only a tasteful sampling of later weapons. So to commit to these consequential revisions tells me the studio is not just updating a 2001 videogame for a younger palate, but truly believes that Halo is better this way. If so, they're wrong.

I know complaining about features that have become standard practice of an FPS sounds silly, but I'm unconvinced that Halo is improved when you can always run away from problems, or when Master Chief's mechanical steed controls like a Honda Civic, or when exploration is optional.

Yes, you're kinda slow in the original, but it's an appropriate speed for its mostly indoor arenas, and outside, Chief's jog ensures vehicles are important. Sure, the old Warthog flips a lot—that's why it's fun to learn its quirks and eventually get good at powersliding its massive body around corners. Yes, it's possible to get lost in the old game, but reading environmental cues can also be a rewarding part of play, and the remake doesn't even try to maintain that (you can turn off waypoints in HUD settings, but you can't disable them at a lobby level).

To enjoy Halo's classic qualities and miss them within this remake is not to succumb to nostalgia. It's to recognize the value of an FPS that does its own thing—that asks something slightly abnormal of its players for a real reason. I want to believe the stewards of Halo also think that, but my faith is shaken when modern trends are applied to a 25-year-old game as if they're an inevitability of an imaginary design rubric. I don't play Doom and wish for a realistic reload button. I don't play Mario and balk at a missing grapple hook. I don't play Halo 1 and expect to sprint.

Postcardification

I'm far less scandalized by, but still mixed on, Campaign Evolve's big art pass. This is an undeniably attractive game. I caught myself many times admiring Halo Studios' reassembled vistas, staring at a downright ridiculous ocean wave effect, or savoring cutscenes that highlighted Master Chief's Mark V armor in fully realized detail.

The results are as impressive as they are expected. I'm confident that this is exactly what Halo Studios was going for—a photoreal reimagining utilizing every bell and whistle that UE5 affords. But as time with Epic's latest tech has revealed, this is an engine that seems to excel at (or maybe insists upon) a certain "generically real" look.

Where I used to gaze out at Alpha Halo's horizons and see a misty, hauntingly beautiful facsimile of nature floating in space, I see in its place picturesque compositions of mountains, trees, and water that belong on a gift shop postcard. This remake makes Halo, the place, less alien.

Playing both versions back-to-back, I took more notice of background environments than I usually would. I like how both games look in all of these instances, but I tended to prefer the original for its readability, atmosphere, and color choices.

Define 'better'

Sometimes, Campaign Evolved would knock my socks off with a view that wasn't just beautiful, but dramatic and communicative in ways the original wasn't capable of, like the jungles of 343 Guilty Spark:

And other times (honestly, more of the time), UE5's raytraced light bounces would produce annoyingly dark rooms with barely anything to appreciate, like in Silent Cartographer:

Rooms like that gave me a renewed appreciation for hand-crafted, baked lighting placed exactly where a developer wanted it. Every room in Halo: CE was the work of fine brush, but Campaign Evolved gives the impression of broader stroke simulations shouldering the VFX load, often with diminished results.

I had the same reaction to the new rendition of Forerunner facilities. In keeping with Halo Studios' past games, the remake's interpretation of Forerunner architecture is of highly reflective steel, made somewhat brushed and weathered only after fan feedback. Not only are these materials less distinct and alien than the original's rough, intriguing marriage of brutalist concrete and metal, but those fancy reflections also turn indoor gunfights into overstimulating particle fests. It never gets so bad as to be broken, but it was an unwelcome obstacle in fights. It's as if readability wasn't the priority for Halo Studios that it clearly was for Bungie.

Speaking of the B word, the close timing of Campaign Evolved and Bungie's Marathon reboot is a useful contrast. One of my favorite things about Bungie's extraction shooter is how its gorgeous environment design zags totally away from photoreal, betting all of its chips on readability, color, and dramatic weather effects that masterfully sell its alien world. The entire visual identity of Marathon ignores the presumption of "next-gen" graphics becoming a slurry of tech demo trees and mountains, and flies in the face of the narrative that Campaign Evolved's new look represents "what Halo would've looked like if Bungie was able."

I also ding this remake for artistic changes that make Halo less fun, like how they messed up plasma grenades. In the remake, the sticky nade has lost its gaseous visuals and dampened its signature hissing, important signs for noticing when one is about to go off. I know because this is the most I've ever died from plasmas in a Halo game, and it was usually because I was standing right next to one without realizing it.

Then there are updated gun sounds that I'm comfortable calling downgrades. The beam rifle has lost its iconic "shutter click", substituted with commonplace laser noises. Halo Studios, post-feedback, repurposed the assault rifle's classic cacophonous scream, but lowered its presence in the audio mix.

And the sniper rifle. Hoo boy, what have they done to my sweet child?

Extra time

The best thing about Campaign Evolved is that you still, ultimately, get to play one of the best shooters ever made. That is points in its favor, though I doubt its proposed value to anyone who's already acquainted.

Since I've seen confusion online and even among friends excited for this remake, it's worth laying out exactly what you do and don't get for $50:

✅The Halo: CE campaign, remade
✅3 bonus missions set before Halo: CE
✅4-player co-op (the original only supports 2)
❌No PvP multiplayer whatsoever
❌No theater mode

It's a sparse package befitting its literal subtitle. While 4-player co-op is a big add, the absence of proper PvP is a serious blemish that ignores a huge reason people love these games, and will personally limit its lasting appeal. I've been denied an Unreal 5 remake of Blood Gulch's skybox, and that must be some sort of crime.

And it can't be ignored that The Master Chief Collection is $40 (often much less on sale) for much, much more:

✅Six Halo campaigns, two with Anniversary updates
✅Full multiplayer support for all games with crossplay
✅Forge, Theater, File Share
✅Mod Support with Steam Workshop
❌No bonus missions

Slightly dulling the blow are those three bonus story missions, though they didn't turn out as fun as I hoped. The trio of lengthy assignments take place on a single Covenant ship, resplendent in shiny purple hallways with little variation beyond a middle chapter that goes outdoors.

I found Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson's quipping in these episodes out of step with their dynamic in the main series, but worse was a noticeable drop off in the quality of encounters. The close quarters and reliance on door spawns did a poor job of hiding the seams between enemy waves, and battles lingered longer than was fun.

The never-ending fights chafe against wonky difficulty tuning—on Heroic (my default), there's not enough ammo or cover to reasonably deal with bullet spongey brutes solo. It takes a lot to push me over the edge in Halo, but when I finally did switch to Normal, suddenly the challenge was in line with the base game. I suspect a balancing patch is in order.

The highlight of the optional interludes was weapon variety—this is where Halo Studios' lets you cut loose with the later-game guns like the battle rifle, Reach's needler rifle, and the brute plasma rifle. There's also one area in mission one that's basically an indoor skate park for Ghosts—a super cool idea for a Halo encounter.

Campaign Evolved ran very well for me at 1440p (90fps average without upscaling), but honestly, that's not an illuminating observation when you play on a RTX 5090, Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and 64GB RAM. I kept everything on Ultra and didn't babysit a framerate counter. I will say that, as the very best case scenario for hardware, I didn't like how fuzzy DLSS can still make bright light sources look. It was distracting enough that I switched to native rendering and took the frame hit. Even though the system requirements were no impediment to me in the review, I wonder if my friends on middling hardware will want to pay to play a version of Halo that runs worse than the one they already own.

That scenario gets to the heart of it: the next time I want to play the first Halo, I don't have many reasons to reinstall this 70GB remake. It was cool to see another interpretation of a game special to me, but the glitzy coat of paint primarily highlights how right Bungie got it in 2001, and how its modern stewards are nudging Halo in an unremarkable direction.

The Arctic Freezer 36-S lands at the right time. Prices are rising for PC builds but you can claw some money back with this cooler. It costs just $22/£19. A small price to pay for ample cooling for your processor. And it is, genuinely, good.

Arctic has plenty of accolades to its name when it comes to cooling. One of its more popular designs, the Arctic Freezer 36, is our pick for the best budget air cooler. With two fans, an effective heatsink design, and a great price tag, it's all anyone needs to chill most of today's popular gaming chips. But could you make do with less? That's what the Freezer 36-S puts to the test.

A few cuts have been made to the Freezer 36-S compared to the Freezer 36, including trimming down to just one fan. But it still has a lot going for it, especially when it comes to performance, as you can see in the charts below. The Freezer 36-S performs really well considering its size and price tag. Though price is a sticking point: the Freezer 36-S is going up against the best and when you can get the Freezer 36 for very nearly the same cost, it's tough to argue for the slightly cheaper model.

Features

The Freezer 36-S is a fairly slim cooler at 126 x 88 mm. It's a pretty traditional-looking thing, with a similar height to the Freezer 36. That makes it a fit for standard ATX and Micro-ATX rather than small form factor cases.

There's only one fan on the Freezer 36-S, a numerical loss to the two on the Freezer 36. Though it's a P12 Pro fan, an improvement on the twin P12 PWM PST included with the latter. This P12 Pro fan spins up to 3,000 RPM and comes with impressive ratings for both airflow (77 cfm) and static pressure (6.9 mmH2O), the latter being important once the fan is stuck to the side of a heatsink.

The P12 Pro is our current pick for the best budget PC fan and performs exceptionally well in testing throughout its large RPM range. I do have one recommendation, and that's to adjust the fan curve in the BIOS. These fans are incredibly loud at top speed, but they don't need to run this fast to be effective. They're very capable and much quieter at slower speeds.

One accessory bundled with every Freezer 36-S is a contact frame. A contact frame is just a piece of metal or, in this case, plastic, which sits around and atop of a processor instead of the standard ILM. It's important for Intel processors from the 13th/14th Gen as they are likely to bend due to the stresses applied to the chip from the ILM and cooler. To avoid this, a contact frame is preferred, and Arctic bundling one with the Freezer 36-S takes the stress out of it. That said, the metal one included with the Freezer 36 feels more robust.

Arctic throws in a small 0.8 gram tube of MX-7, the company's latest thermal paste. It's good stuff, and there's enough here for initial installation and at least another application, providing you apply a thin line and don't go overboard.

Installation

Installation is fairly straightforward with the Freezer 36, if only a little tricky depending on whether you're using an AMD or Intel processor.

The good news is it couldn't get much easier on AM5/AM4 systems. Fit a couple of brackets, apply some thermal paste, and tighten the cooler into place using two screws. Sorted.

Intel systems, on the other hand, require the removal of the built-in ILM from the motherboard and replacing it with the contact frame. That's easily done ahead of installing the motherboard inside a case, less so if not. If only humans had one more arm, it'd be a lot easier to hold everything in place while screwing the frame down. There is an added risk of the CPU falling out or breaking a pin in the socket with the contact frame, but just take it slow and it should be fine. Having spoken to Arctic about this earlier in the year, they're convinced that the contact frame is worth it in the long-run.

The Freezer 36 comes with two metal clips for holding the P12 Pro fan in place. These clips attach to the cooler itself. Unlike most other coolers I've used, which do the opposite. Install the clips first, then the cooler, than clip the fan on. This way, nothing ever gets in the way and you don't have to fiddle clips in hard to reach places. Nice design.

Thermals

Thermals

Evaluating cooler effectiveness using Core i7 14700K

Baldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °CX274 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °CPrime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~170 WPrime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~220 WAmbient temperature

Max °C

Avg °C

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

54

51

Arctic Freezer 36

54

51

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

54

50

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

57

53

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

54

48

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

52

48

015304560

Baldur's Gate 3 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	54 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	54 Max °C, 51 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	54 Max °C, 50 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	57 Max °C, 53 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	54 Max °C, 48 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	52 Max °C, 48 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

64

56

Arctic Freezer 36

63

55

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

63

54

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

68

58

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

63

63

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

60

52

020406080

X274 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C Data

Product	Value
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	64 Max °C, 56 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	63 Max °C, 55 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	63 Max °C, 54 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	68 Max °C, 58 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	63 Max °C, 63 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	60 Max °C, 52 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

66

62

Arctic Freezer 36

64

60

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

63

59

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

70

67

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

63

61

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

64

58

020406080

Prime95 @ 1.275 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~170 W Data

Product	Value
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	66 Max °C, 62 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	64 Max °C, 60 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	63 Max °C, 59 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	70 Max °C, 67 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	63 Max °C, 61 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	64 Max °C, 58 Avg °C

Max °C

Avg °C

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

80

76

Arctic Freezer 36

79

75

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

83

78

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

90

85

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

82

82

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

80

71

0255075100

Prime95 @ 1.325 V | Normalised to 20 °C | ~220 W Data

Product	Value
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	80 Max °C, 76 Avg °C
Arctic Freezer 36	79 Max °C, 75 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	83 Max °C, 78 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	90 Max °C, 85 Avg °C
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	82 Max °C, 82 Avg °C
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	80 Max °C, 71 Avg °C

Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB

23

Arctic Freezer 36

27

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6

20

Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5

21

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6

20

Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

22

07.51522.530

Ambient temperature Data

Product	Value
Arctic Freezer 36-S A-RGB	23
Arctic Freezer 36	27
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 6	20
Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5	21
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 6	20
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE	22

We measure the package temperature of a Core i7 14700K across various applications and games at three fixed voltages. This is normalised to an ambient temperature of 20 ℃ for consistency.

I was expecting a bigger delta between the Arctic Freezer 36-S and the bigger, dual-fan Freezer 36. There's not too much in it, just a couple of degrees at most during the more intensive tests.

I test each air cooler using a Core i7 14700K, running at three different fixed voltages: 1.275 V, 1.325 V, and 1.4 V. The highest of which is admittedly a bit of a torture test, running Prime95, which often leads to thermal throttling with an air cooler.

Our game of choice for testing, Baldur's Gate 3, is a little more CPU intensive than some. Though not enough to see huge swings in temperature between coolers at 1.275 V. Prime95 and X264 are very intensive, however, and the Freezer 36-S is second-worst out of the lot in these tests, behind only the Be Quiet! Dark Rock 5. Though that's a more expensive cooler than the Freezer 36-S, and there's not much in it between the Freezer 36-S and the Freezer 36. In Prime95 at 1.325 V, both oddly reached the same temperature, likely a sign of the P12 Pro and its impressive cooling ability at max RPM, and the expected variance in my test process. These aren't lab conditions, folks—as damned near to as I can get in my home office.

Aesthetics

I'm reviewing the A-RGB version of the Freezer 36-S, which includes a P12 Pro A-RGB fan. It's not the prettiest implementation, it must be said, with clear blades and LEDs embedded in the hub in the age-old fashion. But it does produce a pretty enough effect for the price. The RGB effect can be controlled via any 5V RGB header.

The Freezer 36-S looks pretty great underneath the RGB lighting. The version I have for review comes with an all-black coating, which includes heatsink, heatpipes, and even fan clips. It doesn't scream 'budget' like some others do. I wouldn't assume it's a budget model.

Sound

I test each cooler with their fans set to 100% PWM duty cycle, to see what they're capable of. I wouldn't recommend you do the same at home, especially not with the Freezer 36-S. It's very loud, coming in at 47 dBA, and much louder than the Freezer 36 with two slower-spinning fans.

In defence of the Freezer 36-S, it's still quieter than many other coolers I've tested.

Value

Arctic is its own greatest enemy in terms of value. In the US, the Freezer 36 (non-S) is $9 more, at $29, than the Freezer 36-S at $20 (on sale at time of writing, usually $22). In the UK, the Freezer 36 costs just one pound more (£20) than the Freezer 36 (£19), or £4 more for the all-black model to match. Why opt for the smaller, weaker option with one fewer fan when the better pick is only a quick search for spare change down the back of the sofa away?

The Freezer 36 is a tough act to follow, and while prices may fluctuate in favour of the 36-S at times, I just can't see myself buying one—no matter how mighty it might be for the money. There's not much wiggle room here for the Freezer 36, either, as the excellent and enormous Thermalright Peerless Assassin has the market all wrapped up at $40/£36.

It's clear the new MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM is the best gaming handheld in terms of almost all the metrics that count. It's the most powerful—delivering gaming performance well beyond that of the ROG Xbox Ally X with its AMD-powered Z2 Extreme APU—and it has an absolutely killer battery life, too. But these aren't the only metrics that count. Sure, they're the key ones if we're talking about what it's like to actually live with the MSI Claw 8 etc. but there's a large hurdle to get over before then. And it's a hurdle built out of pure cash.

The Claw 8 etc. is a handheld that's become as much of a casualty of the current memory and hardware crisis as the Steam Machine. To the point where, here at launch it's just looking like a near $2,000 toy for the really rather rich.

And this is a real failing for a handheld gaming PC. These aren't devices that are meant to be your sole machine; they're complementary systems for when you're travelling around, or just want to sit on a sofa instead of at your gaming desk. Which is why the Steam Deck was such a success. It understood the balance of price and performance was vital in this burgeoning market, and that it needed to be something additive to your gaming experience, not exclusory. And other players, such as Asus and Lenovo, were able to use their buying power to keep costs relatively low for their own subsequent devices.

That's all out of the window now, because there is no way to produce an affordable version of a handheld rocking the outstanding Intel Arc G3 Extreme silicon, whatever your buying power is. Which is a huge shame, because it really is the best gaming handheld I've ever spent time with. The chip at its heart is almost the entire reason behind that; because of its mix of extreme power and extreme Panther Lake efficiency it nails what I've always wanted a handheld gaming PC to be.

The level of compromise over the visual quality and frame rate of your games is impressively light, and while range anxiety is not necessarily a solved issue, the Endurance mode battery life is a bit of a revelation. But it's not all about Intel's silicon, because the enhanced MSI Claw design also plays its part. The weight is beautifully distributed, making it feel far lighter than it should, and the extended controller grips make it far more comfortable for a long session.