MSI might not be the first name you think of when it comes to gaming mice, but the brand has been quietly toiling away with its peripherals in recent times and has come up with the Versa 300 Wireless 8K as its latest entry. On the face of it, with a 26,000 DPI sensor, 8000 Hz wireless polling rate and a light 66g mass, it looks as if this humble rodent could be up there with some of the best gaming mice we've tested—I've been putting it through its paces to find out.

On first impressions, the Versa 300 Wireless 8K comes across a little generic, with an all-black plastic chassis with a rougher texture and little contouring for comfort. That being said, the plastics used in its construction feel quite dense, and there's some pleasant texturing on the sides of the unit to supplement extended use.

At 66g, too, it's quite a lightweight choice, helping wrist flicks and quick movement without feeling like you're lugging around something heavy, and I'm a fan of how tactile this mouse feels with those textured surfaces, the large rubberised scroll wheel and all the rest of it.

The button placement here makes sense, with two main options: a DPI switch and a scroll wheel on top, and navigation buttons on the side. On the underside is a selector switch between Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity modes, and even a little cubby hole for the USB-A receiver that this mouse comes with—neat.

You do get a small amount of RGB-based flair, with a light-up MSI logo that attempts to protrude through the rear of the chassis—it's there, but seems on the dim side. Likewise, the MSI Center software that's used to control the Versa 300 Wireless 8K is a little bereft of features, allowing you to only remap input and trigger macros, plus some more advanced features such as angle snapping and the debounce time for the mechanical Omron switches this mouse has. If you want to control that singular RGB lighting zone, you'll need to use another app—Portal X—which just seems like more needless faff.

With this in mind, Portal X is web-based, meaning you can configure the mouse across different operating systems than just Windows, although with the RGB lighting here and not in MSI Center, there isn't feature parity across both suites.

On the point of those mechanical switches, the Omrons inside here have a firm and tactile click under finger, although they feel as if they've got a longer travel than the more common hybrid or optical switches we're beginning to see on a lot of gaming mice. I don't mind this, but for outright speed and precision, you may want to look at key rivals with a different switch type.

And now to where things matter: performance. MSI has put a 26,000 DPI PixArt PAW3395 sensor inside the Versa 300 Wireless 8K, which I've tested in other gaming mice over the years, and it provides ample sensitivity and responsiveness to make my usual test runs of Counter-Strike 2 a breeze.

Admittedly, using the full 26,000 DPI on offer all the time is likely to be especially jittery, but you can move it down in software between 100 and the full 26,000 to get a more comfortable level. In my instance, that was between 1600 and 3200 DPI for more accurate aiming in Counter-Strike 2, and for more comfortable navigation in Windows.

The 8000 Hz wireless polling rate is also a pleasant move for this rodent, especially against similar rivals such as the Endgame Gear OP1w 4K and the Be Quiet! Dark Perk Ergo, for added responsiveness and potentially lower latency for the pro players who are likely to notice that sort of thing. A higher polling rate means a device reports its position and inputs more frequently (hence Hz as the measurement).

All of this combines to make this MSI choice feel responsive in shooters, such as CS2, with brisk and responsive movements and inputs with little noticeable latency that make this a strong choice for FPS titles. The switches inside are mechanical ones rated for up to 60 million actuations, making them a durable choice for even the hastiest of spam clickers when you need to get a shot off first.

Connectivity is handled either by Bluetooth or 2.4 GHz, with the latter supporting the 8000 Hz wireless polling rate. The fact that this mouse also comes with Bluetooth adds some versatility against the competition, which eschews that in favour of outright performance in one device. I found the mouse's connection over either method to be reliable and stable, using Bluetooth on my MacBook Pro and the bundled receiver on my Windows gaming PC.

As for battery life, MSI rates the Versa 300 Wireless 8K to run for up to 196 hours via 2.4 GHz at a more standard 1000 Hz polling rate. Up it to 8000 Hz, and you'll throw a lot of that endurance away, with my testing putting it at around 75 hours at full pelt. That's still not bad against other choices, which tend to have a larger drop-off when you run them at full power.

And then we come to quite a useful piece of information I've purposefully left out—price. MSI has attached a $100/£60 price tag to the Versa 300 Wireless 8K, making it surprisingly affordable against rivals mentioned above for the feature set on offer here. On the whole, it helps this choice stand out if you're after a powerful and lightweight rodent for FPS titles that doesn't break the bank.

With this in mind, I think other options from the likes of Endgame Gear or SteelSeries look a little more eye-catching and have stronger software features for a similar outlay. This MSI one does well on features and performance, although I think it lacks a certain polish to make it a real top contender.

I'm very intrigued by the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. For one, I enjoyed my time with the previous iteration, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM. For a second, it's got Intel's new Arc G3 Extreme processor nestled inside. And for a third, our Dave got his hands on one at Computex, and said it "feels like the standard all new handheld gaming PCs will be judged by."

Exciting stuff. Except MSI has now listed its new mega handheld for pre-order, at the low low price of... $1,799? Holy moly, that's an expensive slice of portable gaming hardware (via Wccftech).

To be quite honest, it's not an entirely surprising figure. Earlier leaks indicated the MSRP would be well north of $1,500, and a 32 GB/1 TB handheld with a brand spanking new (and presumably very performant, given my testing of the Arc B390) Panther Lake-based chip was always going to make for a pricey machine.

Still, it didn't stop me from sucking air through my teeth when I spotted the listing earlier today. However, if you're really desperate for one, you could potentially save some cash at other retailers.

Best Buy also has a listing for the new handheld at $1,700, although as it's currently unavailable, that could well go up by the time it's actually in stock and ready to ship.

But honestly, this seems to be the pricing world we live in now when it comes to high-powered handhelds. Our best handheld gaming PC, the Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS, used to be a regular feature on our deals pages for around $750 to $800. Now you'll find it listed for north of $1,500 at most retailers that still stock it.

As our Jacob Fox recently opined, handhelds have quickly reached a point where the average gamer will struggle to afford one, and the new Panther Lake offerings are expected to be very expensive across the board. At least looking in comparison to the pre-memory/everything else crisis pricing models.

It seems like only yesterday we were complaining that the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X had a ludicrous price tag at $1,000. As that MSRP is currently holding, it's actually starting to look like a genuine value proposition less than a year after its launch. Especially when a Steam Deck OLED 1 TB with an ageing APU now costs a mere $50 less.

As convenient as handheld gaming PCs are, I'm really struggling to come to terms with these prices in regards to buying advice. While true portability and the option of playing your PC games comfortably in bed is a wonderful thing, it sure does come with a hefty premium these days.

Still, here's hoping the new Claw is as good as our early impressions suggest. It'll have to work pretty hard to justify this sort of cash, I can tell you that much for free.

It's not lost on me that Nvidia isn't a primarily gaming-focused company anymore. On the off-chance you've been living under a cool mossy rock for the last few years, Nvidia were once primarily known for their powerful graphics cards, but are now very much all-in on AI.

Why? Well, let me put it this way: during the first quarter of 2026, the data centre segment of Nvidia's business raked in $75.2 billion alone. Supplying the AI industry with hardware has proven incredibly lucrative for the company, leading Nvidia to become the world's first $5 trillion company last year.

So, imagine my surprise when at this year's Computex, Nvidia finally unveiled the much-leaked RTX Spark. Billed as a "superchip," machine learning applications definitely feature in the elevator pitch—that's hardly surprising because, as our Jeremy so expertly explains, it is "basically a rebadge of the GB10 superchip in the DGX Spark desktop AI box that it launched in October last year."

However, the full hardware sell isn't only geared towards AI agents but flesh and blood gamers too, promising 100 fps at 1440p in the latest games. In other words, we could be looking at performance comparable to the RTX 5070 GPU from a mobile SoC.

The company is also apparently working with all the anti-cheat vendors to make competitive games work on RTX Spark, going as far as to tell us, "We are working closely with game developers to ensure all the top games run great." It's such a simple thing, but it sure is nice to hear Nvidia talk about gaming again.

As someone who desperately tried to keep a bulky Acer Aspire 5755 G alive for well over a decade, I'm also definitely intrigued by what the RTX Spark could offer laptop gamers.

Now, if you spend any amount of time pining after the best gaming laptops like I do, you'll know you can already get mobile RTX 5070 GPUs. Unfortunately, this form factor often has some significant drawbacks. Basically, if the laptop chassis ain't bulky, it will be hot, and either way under load the fan will likely sound like it's threatening to take off.

On top of that, the battery life may be somewhat lacking, giving you a scant few hours of unplugged gaming. That all goes without saying anything about the price, but I'll get into why I'm doubting RTX Spark machines will save our wallets from devastation a little later.

On the subject of practical matters, the pre-release RTX Spark machines we've seen so far have all been pretty sleek. I will also take a gaming battery life that Nvidia purports to be "better than anything you've seen before on RTX laptops."

That said, it definitely doesn't hurt to maintain some showfloor scepticism for hardware hypemen. Firstly, it's worth noting that the aforementioned RTX 5070-level performance is based on an early specs role call, which lists 'up to' 20 Grace CPU cores, 6144 RTX Blackwell GPU cores, and 128 GB of unified LPDDR5x memory.

To dissect the use of 'up to', the RTX Spark isn't just a single laptop processor but a full lineup of notebook SoCs that we'll start seeing more of later this year. Mark Aevermann, the consumer product marketing lead of RTX Spark, told our Dave that over time we will eventually see about "30 laptops and over ten or so desktops," all attacking different price points.

Memory configurations will range from 16 GB to 128 GB, and based on that detail alone I'm expecting most RTX Spark machines to be too rich for my blood. Back in the day, my Acer Aspire 5755 G cost me a little over £700—in light of the memory supply crisis, I would be extremely surprised if any RTX Spark machines rock up around that price point.

But perhaps I could be persuaded to save my pennies. Our Dave went hands-on with a native Arm build of Alan Wake 2 on a pre-release version of the Surface Laptop Ultra, hardware that Microsoft has apparently been working on with Nvidia for about three years. Though a very tightly controlled demo on the showfloor at Computex, Dave highlights "This is still a DirectX 12 game, with a native Arm port running smoothly on this thin-and-light gaming laptop without blowing a gale out the back."

Now, not every studio can invest the resources to create a native Arm build, so in those instances there's Prism emulation. Jo Vivoli, the senior manager in Nvidia's tech marketing team, told Dave, "If you're a developer and your game is running through an emulator, we're going to work with you to make sure it's a good experience. If you want to make a native Arm build, we're going to work with you to make sure it's a good experience."

Another Microsoft representative also said "We've been looking at the 200 largest, most used creative applications, most used games and we're on track to have those working in time for launch."

That sort of support represents a huge amount of investment in Nvidia's new PC platform from multiple partners. We already know the likes of MediaTek, Microsoft, and MSI (mm-hm), have been working with Nvidia on RTX Spark machines for years now—once the ball drops later this year, it will get rolling with a fair bit of momentum behind it. As exciting as all of that is though, I wouldn't be surprised if the price of an RTX Spark machine leaves many PC Gamers in the dust.

Computex is both a proving ground for newly released tech and an excuse for companies to throw stuff at the wall and hope enough people like it. As such, we tend to see a lot of weird tech (here's looking at you, ferrofluid case and GPU with Swarovski crystals in it). However, while laptops have been a little dry this year, MSI has somehow made my favourite and least favourite devices.

Starting with my favourite, I love the Prestige 14 Flip AI+, and its Vincent Van Gogh-themed look. One version is based on Starry Night, and the other is based on Starry Night Over the Rhône. They are more or less just the artwork put on the back of a laptop, with a similarly coloured keyboard, but that's good enough for me, as it's still gorgeous art that would look lovely any time it's pulled out of a backpack.

They also come with a themed mouse pad, box, Bluetooth mouse, and even an ID badge. It's a bit over the top, as one would expect from MSI's Prestige collection, but lovely nonetheless. You're getting Intel Core Ultra processors and no dedicated GPU, so it's not quite a fully-fledged gaming laptop, but it should still handle some games, and it's got an OLED display to back that all up.

It's definitely a bit much for watching YouTube or messing with Excel spreadsheets, but it'll be the nicest laptop in your local cafe. The last MSI artisan laptop (Ukiyo-e edition) was also gorgeous looking. We don't yet have a price, but the Ukiyo-e edition sits around the $1,500 to $2,000 mark.

If you are looking for a gaming laptop to stand out in… other ways, let me introduce you to the MSI Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Draco Epic (yes, that's its full legal name). It comes with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an RTX 5090 mobile. MSI has truly thrown everything at it, with a 240 Hz Mini-LED display, Cherry MX mechanical keys, a dedicated vapour chamber cooler, and a premium box with limited edition coins, a mousepad, and a gaming mouse.

It's even got super speedy SSD storage, with a total of four M.2 slots that can be linked together as a SuperRAID 5 array, plus a 6-speaker surround sound system, and a wealth of ports (including Thunderbolt 5, USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A and C, plus an SD card reader).

Unfortunately, though, I simply don't like the chunky backplate or the RGB trackpad, and the dragon design is too much for my tastes. It looks impressive in a lot of ways, but I think I'd feel actively embarrassed for just a moment taking it out in a public space. In fairness, those specs imply a very high price point, so I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable taking it out of the house anyway.

I can see the level of artistry on show here, and perhaps if I were on the Computex show floor and saw it in person, my perspective would change. But I don't think I've ever longed for a big RGB-infested, dragon-displaying gaming laptop before, and I don't know if MSI could change my mind.

Asus might be sticking 24 carat gold into its mice to celebrate its 20th anniversary and Gigabyte is slapping satellite-grade metals onto its motherboards for its own anniversary, but it's a diamond anniversary for MSI as it's jamming smooshed up diamonds into its next-gen GPU cooling solutions.

The next-gen graphics card cooler MSI had on-show at Computex today is a concept design for what the cards of tomorrow (or rather 2027 at the earliest) could look like. The new cooling feature set is estimated to cut maybe four degrees centigrade off the peak temperatures of a high-end GPU, but every little counts.

Those new features in short:

• Full metal fan blades
• Rifled heat pipes
• Diamond-composite thermal pads
• Diamond-copper composite contact plate

Switching from the plastic fan blades of its existing coolers means saying goodbye to potential warping of the blades at high speeds, allowing for a more rigid structure, which should reportedly increasing cooling efficiency.

And they feel really cool to the touch, too, though I wouldn't want to get a finger caught in one of them.

Maybe more interesting is the rifled barrels of the heatpipes MSI is using on this new design. Inside the pipes there is a spiral structure which increases the contact area inside them, allowing for greater thermal transfer as opposed to the regular design.

Then we come to the diamonds. Mixed inside both the heatpads sitting atop the expensive memory modules and the base plate of the cooling array itself, is a diamond powder designed to increase the thermal conductivity within both components. In the baseplate it's a diamond-copper composite and you can see in the images that it looks kinda dirty by comparison with the standard all-copper version. But it also sometimes sparkles in the light. And cools a bit better, apparently.

Now, as I said, these new features will only drop the temps by an approximate four degrees, but you've got to think that switching in more expensive materials and introducing more intricate manufacturing is only going to do one thing to the manufacturing price of associated cooling shrouds, and therefore to the price of the associate cards.

But this is a concept design in lieu of actual new GPUs to drool over, so while that RTX 5090 there does look pretty, you're not going to be able to buy one even if you did have the cash. Best just wait for the RTX 6090, eh?

After being shown off in prototype form at CES earlier this year, and even before then, MSI's flagship Maestro 900R chassis is just a few months away from release. So, er, get saving because when it does release in Q3 it's going to cost a hefty $699.

But it is a lot of case, and apart from a strangely exposed filter on the roof that slightly messes up the premium aesthetic, it's maybe a surprisingly impressive case from MSI. I think the thing that really stands out to me, aside from maybe the triple-sided panoramic glass frontage and the sheer size of the thing, is the completely removable motherboard tray.

To be honest, I found its placement a little odd when I first laid eyes on it at MSI's HQ this week, seeing it from the back with the PSU positioning exposed. Because the removable tray doubles as a kind of open test bench when you remove it from the case, the PSU is mounted directly behind the motherboard.

That looks strange because it's completely enclosed on all sides, with the power cable snaking out from inside the case. But it is side-mounted so most of the PSU's fan is exposed to the chassis' backpanel vents, so it is still getting some fresh air.

To be honest, when you've spent $699 on your case you're probably not just going to use the central tray as a test rig and toss the rest away, but it's still a mighty useful feature for a DIY PC builder, side-stepping the need to stick your new motherboard on its box, with the CPU, RAM, and PSU plugged in to see if it starts up. Now, you can mount your motherboard securely, along with your CPU, PSU, and RAM and make sure it's working before slotting the entire thing into your waiting case.

Though if you're combining it with the Coreliquid E15 360 AIO chip-chiller, that's not something you're going to be able to mount outside the case owing to its hoofing great 110° wraparound pump screen.

The Maestro 900R is a real showpiece chassis with that panoramic fishtank design, though some of the finer details would hold me back from dropping near $700 on the case myself. The fact that top cover, mirroring the design of the bottom edge, doesn't go across the full length of the case means that a large part of the mesh filter is fully on display at all times. And the cover itself feels a little plasticky, too.

I am very taken with that central, pull-out test bench though.

If that's too rich for your blood, too, the more affordable MPG Maestro Vixta might be more your speed. It's got an innovative floating base design, with a full 75 mm clearance intake space at the bottom of the case allowing for greater airflow coming into your machine.

It comes in wraparound tempered glass design, or a dedicated airflow version with dual 160 mm fans mounted in the front. There is also an optional 120 mm intake fan you mount above that space to pull in the cool air. Though, realistically, that space under the case is just going to get filled with discarded USB sticks, or pens, scraps of paper, old sandwiches, etc.

Or maybe that says more about my desk habits than anything else.

I'm not exactly jazzed about our current AI moment, where machine learning major players seem to want to inject LLMs into everything. Well, during this year's Computex, MSI unveiled the MEG Vision X2 AI⁺, a gaming desktop that features "a first-of-its-kind AI Holostage" built in. Excuse me while I attempt to contain my excitement.

In other words, this is a gaming desktop with an AI cyber prison attached to it (no wonder I initially misread this tower's unique selling point as being an 'AI hostage'). Taking centre stage inside this gaming desktop will be "LuckyClaw, MSI's agentic AI companion," though MSI's press release suggests "digital companions, desktop pets, and custom third-party AI avatars" may also be available down the line.

MSI's own agentic AI companion LuckyClaw will be available from first-time setup. "LuckyClaw responds to natural speech commands, enabling seamless, hands-free control of performance profiles, MSI monitor settings, RGB lighting, and more," MSI claims, "Future skill updates ensure LuckyClaw grows alongside its user, continuously expanding its capabilities over time."

MSI pitches this unholy union between AI and hardware as redefining "human-computer interaction by transforming the gaming PC from a passive device into a living, interactive presence." I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not let an AI anywhere near my rig's performance settings. I know I've joked in the past about making my gaming desktop into a shrine to Miku Hatsune, but the RGB inside my desktop tower is 'interactive' enough for me, thanks.

The LuckyClaw avatar looks like a pudgy red dragon with lobster-style gauntlets. This armour could potentially be a nod to OpenClaw, the open-source LLM-based AI agent—though given the recent story about Summer Yue's own run-in with this particular bot, that association isn't really selling me on LuckyClaw.

AI-integration aside, details about the MEG Vision X2 AI⁺ as a gaming desktop are thin on the ground. The press release suggests the MEG Vision X2 AI⁺ will ship with an Intel CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU, though it doesn't nail down any specifications beyond that, including the all-important price tag

This announcement really hinges on touting the "cylindrical display interface integrated directly into the chassis," and the introduction of LuckyClaw; there's no word yet on a release window for the MEG Vision X2 AI⁺ gaming desktop.

Of course MSI was going to be talking AI when it comes to monitors at Computex this year. I mean, for the third straight year that's largely all everyone else is going to be talking about at the show, too. But still, "the world's first agentic AI monitor" probably wasn't top of my list for must-sees at the Taiwan tradeshow.

I'm way out west in Taipei, at MSI's HQ—which was originally MSI Factory 3—and I'm spending my Sunday prodding and poking a bunch of its new toys. I've had my hands on the new MSI Claw 9 EX AI+, with its fancy new Intel G3 Extreme processor, and I've had my eyeballs on a range of MSI's new monitors as well.

The $1599 MEG X was definitely one that stood out, though not necessarily for all the right reasons. This is the screen billed as that first agentic AI monitor, and it comes with a bunch of new AI-powered features. I would say most of them are of the sort that makes you wonder if someone told the designers they had to find a way to integrate as many features as possible into the screen that they could hang an 'AI' badge.

But there is one that anyone who has struggled with monitor on-screen displays (OSDs) will maybe appreciate: The MEG X has a feature which means you can just ask it to change a setting and it will do it for you.

• 34-inch / 5th-Gen QD-OLED / 3440x1440 (UWQHD@360Hz) / 0.03ms (GtG)
• Built in AI Processor delivers AI Super Resolution, AI Gauge, AI Scene, AI Audio Scene, AI Crosshair, and AI Vision+ to assist in gameplay practice.
• MSI's exclusive AI Care Sensor detects user presence to automatically adjust OLED Care settings.
• 5th-gen QD-OLED with Penta Tandem, 5-layer structure boosts light efficiency by up to 30%. RGB Stripe minimizes color fringing.
• DarkArmor Film delivers 40% deeper blacks and offers 2.5x better scratch resistance.
• Connectivity: 2x HDMI 2.1 input (UWQHD@360Hz), 1x DisplayPort 2.1a (UHBR20) input, 1x Type-C (DP alt.) w/ 98 W PD, 2x USB 5 Gbps Type-A, 1x USB 5 Gbps Type-B, 1x Headphone-out

Now, I'll grant you that's not a feature that would have me dropping $1599 on a new ultrawide 1440p OLED monitor, but it is still a feature I wouldn't mind seeing being used across the board. Mostly because I have a very rational hatred of monitor OSDs and the fiddly controls you're forced to use to access them.

The advent of the nubbin/joystick control was a game-changer, taking us past the days of trying to figure out what the unlabelled buttons under the bottom bezel actually did, but it doesn't change the fact that the settings menus for monitors are borderline impenetrable to the average user.

The MEG X and its LuckyClaw feature, however, means you can talk to a cartoon dragon with crab claws—which has the personality of an over-enthusiastic toddler/bro—and simply ask it to alter the brightness or enable the on-screen crosshair feature. I don't want to actually engage with the wee red guy, but the system seems sound.

It's all thanks to the micro-controller inside MSI's modern monitors which allows you to alter the monitor's settings from within Windows rather than the traditional OSD. It is simply linking up its AI software to that functionality to perform the adjustments on the fly, if you're in a game, for example.

Unfortunately, despite the MEG X reportedly being on sale from August 5 this year, this specific feature was not yet available for demo. But I did see a non-shouty-dragon version, just using an OpenClaw interface running on the already released MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36. That's a monitor which uses the same Samsung 5th Gen Penta Tandem panel with the striped RGB pixel layout, and is actually awesome.

There are a bunch of other, far less useful features, such as AI Super Resolution, which by MSI's own admission doesn't perform as well as either FSR or DLSS as it's just running on the monitors scaler, and a specific version of that which just upscales the area where your scope might be in the middle of the screen, and there's a light bar which can tell you which channel (left or right) music might be coming from, but shouldn't be used for games as that might be considered cheating.

BUT give me the AI settings feature in a less obnoxious-dragon kinda way, and I could potentially be convinced that an AI monitor isn't such a bad thing after all.

From my time playing around with the new Panther Lake-powered MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ I've found some seriously extreme things about this handheld gaming PC. Mostly that's a good thing, but it being 2026—and the fact I'm talking about a new gaming handheld mere days after the Steam Deck price hike—you can probably already guess what the not-so-good extreme thing is…

• It's powered by the new Intel G3 Extreme processor
• It's extremely quiet
• It's battery life is extreme
• It feels extremely good in the hands
• And the price is obviously extreme

Yeah, that. There isn't yet a final price for the handheld yet, and there is likely only going to be one model at launch towards the end of June, but we've been told today at a pre-Computex hands-on event with the Claw that we're looking at $1500. So long as MSI can maintain production costs and keep it at that price point. Which is maybe a tiny bit concerning.

It is worth re-iterating that the Steam Deck has just had a hoofing great price hike itself, and has still somehow sold out of its entire stock for North America. Not that I'm making excuses for that eye-watering price, but if Valve's ageing handheld—and a far weaker setup at that—is going to set you back around $1,000 maybe we shouldn't be surprised that a system that looks to be the benchmark by which all other handheld gaming PCs are rated is going to cost a chunk more.

Now I've got that one negative out of the way let's get onto the more positive stuff… and there's a lot of it.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ specs

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is using the top chip in the new G3 range of dedicated handheld Intel chips, the G3 Extreme. That means you're getting the full 14-core processing array, along with the 12 Xe core Arc B390 iGPU. While there is a more affordable 10 Xe core version in the straight G3 chip, MSI is not looking at using that just yet.

I asked the question and was told: "So far we're starting with the G3 Extreme and we're going to be sticking with this one in our first wave."

Those 14 cores breakdown into just a single pair of Cougar Cove Performance cores, with eight Darmont Efficient cores, and a further four low power E-cores capable of operating on their own while leaving the rest of the more power-hungry cores turned off.

Which is the right way to structure it, if you ask me. I don't need a ton of high-performance CPU cores in my handheld. I get that it's fun to do the whole 'I used my handheld as a full desktop computer' thing, but if I've got a handheld I want it to be doing mobile stuff with a great battery life, and power budget saved by not spooling up some beefy cores will be my personal preference.

Along with that you're getting 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 and a 1 TB SSD. That SSD is of the standard 2280 variety, which means users have a greater number of options to choose from if they wish to upgrade the storage down the line. Though it bears saying that, owing to the limitations of the chassis, you're only able to use single-sided SSDs in there.

In terms of the I/O, there's a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports on the top, with a MicroSD card reader, fingerprint reading powerbutton, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. You're also getting new "HD haptic" linear resonant actuator (LRA) modules to deliver a new, more accurate, quieter, and lower powered vibration motor in the handles.

There are some things that notably haven't changed from the previous version of the MSI Claw, namely the screen, the Hall effect triggers and sticks, and the 80 Whr battery. So, you're still getting a 1200p IPS-level panel, with a peak luminance of 500 nits and support for VRR, from 48 Hz to 120 Hz.

MSI is also sticking with Windows, too. It's obviously going to have the Xbox mode of the Xbox Ally X, with MSI creating a lightweight quick settings screen that mimics what Asus has done with its Armoury Crate software. So, it will be a more tailored handheld experience, but SteamOS it is not.

Though MSI has tested SteamOS after Intel recommended giving the Claw a whirl with alternative operating systems, but I'm told "with SteamOS, there are still technical barriers." With my own experience of trying Valve's Linux OS out on various non-Asus, non-Lenovo, non-Valve handhelds, I would have to agree. MSI has tested other Linux operating systems in the labs, but when I ask if they're working okay I'm told they're "workable, but just for engineers".

MSI is also testing out TMR sticks in the labs, but the results of those experiments have come too late to get into this version of the Claw at least.

Even though it is using the same big ol' battery, the new Claw is a little lighter than the old one, coming in at 785 g versus 795 g for the old version. Which actually surprised me. Having picked it up and played around with it, it feels so much lighter than that in the hand. It's well balanced, and the flared grips, closer to that of the ROG Xbox Ally X and the Xbox Controller it's based on, make it feel far more comfortable than the previous device when you're actually holding it.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ battery life

"I promise you battery life that should be more impressive than the current Lunar Lake one we have right now," the MSI product manager for the new Claw tells us. "Thanks to Intel technology support for that."

Given the previous version was pretty impressive in that regard I cannot wait to see what the battery life is when we actually get one in our hands for proper testing outside of the MSI HQ in Taipei where I'm currently pawing at the device. MSI isn't giving out a specific battery life figure itself, but the Lunar Lake version just about topped two hours in the PC Mark gaming battery life test.

And one Intel rep I spoke to had been playing 007 First Light on his flight over to Taipei and hadn't thought about plugging it in until around four hours into the game.

There is a new Endurance mode, which drops the CPU cores down to just 8 W, leaving the whole thing with around a 17 W TDP. Of course, if you want to push it you can get the G3 Extreme up to 45 W if you want to run it in console mode plugged into the wall.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ performance

It's quick. That's something which should surprise no-one given how well the Arc B390 Panther Lake iGPU has performed in 12 Xe core laptops. I wasn't allowed to benchmark it per se, but was able to mess around with Hogwarts, F1 25, and Battlefield 6. At its native 1200p resolution—especially with XeSS frame generation doing its thing—you're going to be able to match its 120 Hz refresh rate in those first two at least.

BF 6 is a bit tougher on the GPU, but you'll still be able to top 60 fps at 1080p with some judicious use of XeSS, though without frame gen as yet.

I did have the Claw 8 EX AI+ running at 4K on a TV in MSI's office, with F1 25 running at between 80 and 90 fps, but I will say the use of frame generation, while necessary, wasn't doing good things for the visual stability or a smooth experience.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ hands-on verdict

I'm into it.

I'm into the Void Purple colourway MSI is going with for this initial release. I'm into the performance of Panther Lake, especially with a smartly specced out G3 chip, which prioritises the iGPU over jamming in more P-cores. I'm into the style and feel of the device in the hand. And I'm definitely into the battery life, too.

I worry about the price, and given the potential power/battery life balance of the 10 Xe version of the Intel G3 series, I'm a little disappointed that MSI is resolutely sticking to just a single expensive SKU. It's also a shame the Claw doesn't seem to be particularly supportive of Linux, but that may well just be a G3 thing.

Having played around with the device, and its quick settings/Xbox mode layout, it's still far more finicky than the standard Big Picture Mode experience you'll get with a simple Bazzite installation. I do reckon you'll quickly get used to it and its foibles, however.

But I've come away from my time with it impressed by what MSI and Intel have created here. There are other G3-powered handhelds I'll get my mitts on over the next few days at Computex, with Acer and OneXPlayer both having other machines here in Taipei, but while the first two MSI Claw devices felt very much like the company was partnering with Intel in a more experimental way, this is the first of its handhelds that really feels like a finished, premium product to me.

But that's just based on a few hours playing with the thing and chatting with MSI and Intel folk about the device and its design. The real proof will be when we get it home and start properly messing around with it.

Intel has just announced some new processors for handheld gaming PCs, and everyone knows what that means: a new MSI Claw. While other handhelds were lapping up AMD chips, the MSI Claw boasted Intel, so it's almost a given that the new G-series chips will tuck themselves inside a new Claw—and now it looks like we might have an actual image of what the handheld will look like.

A supposed Vietnamese promo image for the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ was recently posted on Reddit (via VideoCardz) after being spotted on the MSI Claw Discord server. VideoCardz also has a different photo of it, and the site claims it has obtained this separately, which increases the likelihood that it's legit. Nevertheless, there's still an 'unverified' caveat to all this, so take the salt and pinch it.

First look at the design of the new MSI CLAW 8 EX AI+: Alleged leaked promotional image from r/MSIClaw

The Redditor who posted the image says, "The leak seems to originate from press images leaked through a Vietnamese media outlet, and I obtained it from the MSI Claw Discord server."

According to my trusty buddy ChatGPT, the image's text translates to "MSI officially announces Claw 8 EX AI+ equipped with Intel G3 Extreme." That sounds about right to me, especially given we'd seen this name for the handheld show up at online retailers previously, so I won't question my non-sentient little friend.

The main thing worth mentioning here is its design, which seems to straddle both standard and ROG Xbox Ally X styles of handheld. The latter introduced controller grips that jut away from the screen in the style of the PlayStation Portal. This allows for a bigger screen while maintaining grip comfort. It hasn't gone the whole hog like the ROG Xbox Ally, though, with the screen just jutting down a little.

The recently announced Intel Arc G-series Acer handheld, on the other hand, has gone with more of a Lenovo Legion Go S kind of design: smooth, rounded grips and nary a jut in sight. Both are likely to be more comfy than the older, angled but non-jutted designs that you'd find in, say, an original Asus ROG Ally. Handheld makers seem to have learned a lot about what makes for a comfy device.

We haven't seen an official announcement from MSI yet, so no word on an official price or release date yet. But all signs point towards something very expensive. The retailer listings I mentioned earlier had the new Claw working out, after currency conversions, to $1,800+.

So, likely not one for those on any semblance of a budget, but we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps there'll be a non-Extreme G3 version with less storage at a more reasonable price.

Is this it? Does this 32-inch 4K OLED panel represent the end game in 2D displays, the challenge of PC gaming monitor tech basically solved? Not quite, but with the new MSI MPG 322UR X24 you do get a sense of the monitor industry closing in on something resembling the ultimate flat-panel display tech.

Okay, Okay, 10 years from now or whatever, when we've all got seared retinas from our fancy new microLED monitors, I'm going to regret those words. But what this MSI monitor definitely does, in close co-operation with Samsung it has to be said, is directly address the key weaknesses of existing QD-OLED gaming monitors and leave me struggling to land a really telling critique.

While the MSI MPG 322UR X24 doesn't entirely solve all of those QD-OLED issues, it does deliver an experience that comes with perhaps just one significant caveat. Forgive me for being a tease, but I'll leave that distracting thought dangling tantalisingly out of reach while we dig into the details.

At first glance, this new model looks just like all of MSI's previous 32-inch 4K OLED monitors. It's got exactly the same design, the same chassis. So, it's the QD-OLED panel itself that's changed. Indeed, it's the first actual upgrade that Samsung Display—the arm of the sprawling South Korean ultra-corp that actually makes QD-OLED panels—has released in this form factor since the first 32-inch 4K QD-OLEDs appeared almost exactly two years ago.

As it happens, MSI's own MPG 321URX was our first taste of a 4K OLED of any kind, so it's fitting that MSI is also first to this updated panel. But what, exactly, has changed? Let's start with brightness. This panel is rated at 300 nits full screen, up from 250 nits on the previous generation.

Peak HDR brightness in a small window (probably 2%, but MSI isn't quoting specifics) remains at 1,000 nits, albeit the VESA certification has had a bump from HDR True Black 400 to HDR True Black 500. But as we'll see, arguably none of those metrics map terribly well to the subjective experience.

Next up is a new filtering layer that reduces the characteristic purple tint of QD-OLED panels in bright ambient light, a problem that has afflicted all QD-OLED panels from day one. Underneath it all is a new version of the electroluminescent material that actually generates the light in QD-OLED panels, known as HyperEfficient EL 3.0.

It's what enables the increased brightness, but Samsung also claims it's twice as durable as the previous generation, which in turn is said to be twice as durable as the original EL material from around 2022. It's basically impossible to test those claims in short order, but the bottom line is this display ought to be even more resistant to burn-in than previous 4K QD-OLED monitors, and those have thus far proven pretty good.

If this all sounds familiar, it's because it's almost the same set of panel upgrades we saw in 34-inch ultrawide format with another recent MSI monitor, the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36. However, that 34-inch ultrawide panel has one feature that this 4K model lacks, namely true vertical RGB-stripe subpixel structure. This 32-inch panel sticks with Samsung's previous triangular RGB subpixel structure.

The vertical stripe setup is better in particular for font rendering. However, at the pixel density of a 32-inch 4K panel like this, having true RGB-stripe subpixels is not terribly critical. Put it this way: This triangular RGB 4K panel produces much nicer fonts thanks to its greater pixel density than the vertical RGB-stripe but lower density 34-inch ultrawide.

Those upgrades aside, we're talking 3,840 by 2,160 pixels and 240 Hz refresh, both of which are unchanged, as are the colour coverage ratings including 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and the 0.03 ms pixel response. Similarly, connectivity is largely carried over. Detail changes include an upgrade to DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20, but a very slight downgrade for the USB-C power delivery from 98 W to 90 W. But, essentially, we're talking two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, USB-C and a two-port USB-A hub, just as before.

All of which brings us to what really matters, the viewing experience. Out of the box, the immediate impression is that the characteristic overly warm colour temperature of QD-OLED panels has largely been fixed. It looks significantly more neutral.

In reality, if you run this display next to a well calibrated IPS panel, it's still apparent that the panel tilts a little warm, but in isolation, the white tones look pretty clean. Related to this is the general purple tint to black tones in bright ambient light of QD-OLED panels. As with the aforementioned MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36, which also uses the latest gen panel tech, that's reduced here but not quite eradicated.

Personally, I think it's been reduced to a point where it's not going to be an issue in most scenarios, but that is a somewhat subjective call. As for brightness, with this new MSI MPG 322UR X24 and its latest-gen QD-OLED panel, it's a problem very, very nearly solved. On the desktop, this thing really is very punchy when maxed out. In fact, it's questionable if you'd want to have it at full brightness to look at mainly white apps or web pages.

There are caveats. Light up the whole panel in mostly white and there is some noticeable brightness fall off. But at worst, you're getting 300 nits-plus, which isn't too shabby. In practice, of course, you are rarely, if ever, driving the entire panel at full white. Indeed, if like me, you use dark mode for as many apps and websites as possible, this panel is, if anything, too bright for daily comfort at maximum brightness. It's got some serious visual fizz.

So far, I've been talking about the desktop experience. In game, this panel absolutely sizzles. As I've mentioned in some previous reviews, the outright brightness ratings for QD-OLED panels are a little misleading, particularly in comparison to equivalent monitors using LG's WOLED technology.

That's because LG's WOLED tech has an additional white subpixel for boosting outright brightness. The thing is, most content is a mix of colours as opposed to pure white and, in that context, the extra white subpixel doesn't always help. It either won't boost colour brightness at all, or can wash colours out. Either way, QD-OLED simply has better true colour brightness. And, in practice, that means the subjective experience with this latest QD-OLED panel is pretty eye-popping.

For SDR content, this monitor subjectively feels like at least equivalent to a 400 nit IPS panel, for instance. And for HDR? It's pretty stupendous. There's a particular scene I discovered in CyberPunk 2077, which is my go-to for testing HDR performance, where you're in a basement nightclub scene full of neon lights and lasers and stuff.

That looks awesome enough as it is thanks to the perfect per-pixel lighting control. No LCD monitor, even one with fully-array dimming comes close. But then, off at the end of a room, a door opens revealing a sunny daytime street vista, flooding a corner of the nightclub with warm, outdoor light. It's a real wow moment and perfectly demonstrates both what HDR is all about and how OLED does it so much better than any LCD panel.

Incidentally, for this monitor MSI has once again implemented its EOTF boost mode. I've covered this in multiple previous reviews, but the short version is that it aims to combine the best aspects of both the VESA HDR 400 mode with the Peak 1000 nits mode and give the highest brightness for both darker and brighter gaming scenes. And it works pretty well. In short, you can use EOTF boost mode for all HDR content and be confident you're getting a good experience.

What else can I say? Well, all of the above is mostly enhanced by the glossy screen coating, albeit some don't like the increased reflectivity that comes with it. The basic colour calibration, meanwhile, is pretty good for both SDR and HDR content and, of course, the speed is darn nifty, what with QD-OLED's fairly bananas 0.03 ms response times. Okay, 240 Hz is nothing terribly special these days, but in a 4K context, good luck hitting more than 240 fps in most modern games.

Of course, as a reviewer looking at these kinds of screens, it's all too easy to be blase about how fast QD-OLED is, how precise the lighting and contrast is, how good the viewing angles are, and on and on. But make absolutely no mistake, this monitor is dramatically better than any LCD by so many metrics.

More to the point, where OLED panels used to have a clear weakness, most obviously full-screen brightness, this latest QD-OLED generation essentially solves that problem. It also mostly fixes the purple-tint thing in bright ambient light, too.

And that, folks, brings us to the one remaining caveat I mentioned up front. It is, entirely predictably, OLED burn-in. My previous OLED reviews are testament to the fact that I'm far from a catastrophist when it comes to OLED burn-in. It's a real problem, but something the evidence shows takes a long time to become really apparent.

What's more, this latest panel generation ought to be even more durable. The independent test I linked above of the previous-gen QD-OLED 4K panel showed that burn-in was only just becoming an issue after two years of the most brutal, worst case usage. So, you'd expect to get longer than that from this new panel. And for more gaming-centric use, which is less likely to cause burn-in, you might expect four, five or even more years of essentially burn-in free viewing. MSI's warranty at the very least gives you a three-year backstop.

But a sliver of doubt remains and, ironically, it's the fact that this monitor is so good that makes any chance of burn-in that much more problematic. Earlier generations of OLED monitor had some pretty obvious shortcomings such that the assumption, arguably, was that most gamers who could afford this class of display would probably want to upgrade to something better after a few years. But this monitor is so good, I'm not sure the next generation or two is going to offer a compelling enough upgrade. That means you want to be sure that it really lasts. And you can't be, not entirely.

So, that's it. That's my caveat. Would it stop me buying the MSI MPG 322UR X24? Ultimately, no. But it is the one issue that prevents me from screaming, "buy, buy, buy." Well, that and the very likely fact that MSI will be doing a cheaper, very slightly de-featured, version of this monitor, maybe with reduced USB-C power delivery, that kind of thing.

It wouldn't surprise me if that model could be had for $800 or less within six months or so. In other words, I like the new MSI MPG 322UR X24 an awful lot for $1,099. But I'd love essentially the same monitor, with the same panel but fewer features for several hundred dollars less, even more.

A new report suggests motherboard manufacturers are in a bad state right now, with the memory crisis and the Iran war affecting all kinds of PC hardware. As PC builders are disincentivised from, well, building PCs, the motherboards needed for them also get left behind.

The report, from Digitimes, notes a "collapse" for many motherboard manufacturers, claiming it is worse than previous financial crises and the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It notes that MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock are all expected to see declines in 2026, in regard to motherboard sales. As of the time of writing, motherboard sales figures for 2026 are not yet public.

The first element of this collapse is the memory crisis. As AI is intent on sucking all that memory for it to run, those looking to buy new DRAM kits are now paying a steep premium. Some simply won't and will hang on for it to go down. This memory crisis also hits other elements of a PC, like graphics cards, making them harder to buy at MSRP.

Jese Martinez from custom PC company PowerGPU recently affirmed the same to me, arguing, "it's memory, it's storage, it's multiple things that are happening. And it's not just a few 100 bucks. Stuff is going up twice the price or three times the price."

Naturally, if the price of components is stopping people from being able to upgrade, there's no point in buying a motherboard for the day it eventually goes back down. If the crisis lasts beyond 2027, one might assume they'd prefer to wait for the latest thing anyway.

However, that's not the only factor in this crisis. Digitimes notes that interest in Nvidia's RTX 50 series line of graphics cards is lower, too, due to a lack of updates and upgrades since the start of the year. We haven't seen the rumoured RTX 50 Super series yet, and it's unclear if we will, either. The report argues, "The mid-to-high-end gaming PC market lacks technical specifications that stimulate upgrades."

Digitimes claims that Asus, the industry leader in motherboards, sold 15 million units in 2025, but shipped just 5 million in the first half of 2026, indicating a steep drop for this year. It goes on to suggest that Asus is aiming for 10 million in total for 2026, which is apparently the lowest number of shipments in over a decade.

This doesn't necessarily mean the companies are in trouble, though. Asus' March earnings call argues its high-end brand value and shift to AI would help it weather the memory crisis. Gigabyte and ASRock, similarly, are looking to make money from AI. Though AI is arguably the biggest factor in the downturn of the motherboard market, it is also a money-making machine, responsible for Nvidia being worth $5 trillion. The main group that will be affected by this are the buyers, but AI doesn't seem to really care about them.

Microsoft's fabled Project Helix chip, the AMD-engineered basis of the next-gen Xbox console, will reportedly be used by Asus, MSI and other brands to make third-party gaming machines. However, consumers won't be able to buy the Helix chip separately.

So says KeplerL2, one of the most reliable members of the tech-leak illuminati. Posting on NeoGAF forum (via WCCFTech), KeplerL2 said, "it won't be sold directly to consumers, but you will be able to buy an ASUS / MSI / etc Helix machine."

The idea that Microsoft will branch out from producing and selling only its own Xbox-branded hardware isn't new. Nor is the idea that an OEM like Asus would get involved. After all, we already have the economically monikered (not) Asus ROG Xbox Ally X handheld gaming device acting as something of a harbinger or early template for this approach.

However, the Xbox Ally X isn't a perfect model for the future living room console. It uses an essentially off-the-shelf AMD APU in the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, a chip that's not only available in non-Xbox handhelds, but also in everything from laptops to desktops, albeit under different branding as part of another tranche of the AMD Ryzen product range.

Project Helix, on the other hand, will be exclusive to Microsoft. Sure, it's engineered by AMD and most of not all the IP will be available in other chips. Currently, that's expected to translate into Zen 6 CPU cores and a GPU most closely related to AMD's next-gen RDNA 5 family of PC graphics cards.

But the precise mix of CPU and GPU core count—and perhaps some specific features in the ray tracing and / or machine learning spheres—may be exclusive to Helix. Moreover, console chips are traditionally built in big numbers and with few if any variations.

That tends to make them cheaper to make and deliver more bang-for-buck compared to traditional gaming PC hardware solutions, albeit at the cost of losing most if not all end-user configuration options. Console chips are what console chips do.

The catch, of course, is the possible confounding influence of console subsidies, where the expectation of games license revenues allows console makers to sell machines cheaper or even at a loss but still make a profit on the overall business.

Still, one of the interesting possibilities around the Helix chip has been the idea that if it were sold separately, it might form the basis of a powerful but relatively inexpensive PC gaming rig.

Exactly how Project Helix will be engineered isn't clear. But if it has on-package memory, the result would be a solution that just needed a motherboard to drop into and some storage and Bob's your next-gen-gaming parental sibling. Or, perhaps more likely, it will be a soldered-on chip with no socketing to speak of.

One might imagine, then, if Microsoft is banging its own-branded Xbox Helix boxes out for, say, $800 a pop with a fancy chassis and packaging, plus some controllers, some kind of bare bones setup, maybe using your existing case, SSD and PSU to cut the price even further then—hey presto—there's your $500 comprehensive gaming rig upgrade.

Well, however realistic that ever was, KeplerL2's post seems to consign it to history. It ain't happening because you won't be able to buy the Helix chip separately. That still leaves the likes of Asus or MSI to potentially undercut the official Microsoft console, however.

Given how pricey the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is, Asus isn't a great candidate for that solution. MSI could be better, but even then, what with the memory and broader computer chip crisis, it would be a tall order for any OEM to hit a spectacular price point with a new device.

Arguably, Apple has just about achieved that with the MacBook Neo, though that obviously isn't a gaming device. But even Valve is struggling to cope with chip prices to the extent that the upcoming Steam Machine's launch has been disrupted.

All of which means that Project Helix doesn't immediately look like it will be the budget PC gaming saviour some observers once thought it might just deliver. It's still an intriguing chip and, personally, I can't wait to see what mix of AMD tech Microsoft has gone for. But I doubt it will end up being the basis of a new generation of cheap gaming PCs.

It's not often that I write about a refresh of a vendor's gaming laptop portfolio, and it's simply because there's rarely anything new to report. A slightly better screen here, a mildly faster processor over there: small changes are pretty much par for the course. But in an announcement for its new Raider and Crosshair models, MSI has targeted the thing that I dislike most about gaming laptops: how noisy their fans are.

"Performance has always been the hallmark of MSI gaming laptops, and that remains true with the all-new Raider and Crosshair", begins Derek Chen, vice president of laptop sales and marketing. "Beyond delivering stronger performance, we have also optimized thermals and fan acoustics across all models, ensuring a quieter and more comfortable experience even under load."

That alone is nothing to get excited over, but don't worry, MSI does explain exactly what it's done differently to get a handle on fan noise. Well, for the Raider model, at least.

"To ensure the Raider keeps fan noise below 50 dBA even during gaming, MSI’s R&D team redesigned the motherboard to a more compact layout, creating space for larger fans inside the chassis. With bigger fans, the system can maintain strong airflow at lower RPMs—effectively reducing overall fan noise.

"In addition, MSI further optimized the laptop’s fan curve, allowing fan speeds to scale smoothly and consistently with system load. This prevents unnecessary RPM spikes during light workloads, eliminating sudden and distracting noise for a quieter, more refined experience."

That does sound encouraging, and even if it's only half as effective as MSI claims it to be, the fresh design should go a long way into giving my, and every other laptop gamer's, ears some blessed relief.

And it's not the only thing that MSI has addressed: "The reduced motherboard size also allows for a slimmer chassis depth, making the Raider easier to fit into standard 16-inch laptop backpacks and more convenient to carry on the go."

Well, huzzah and huzzah again, because MSI's full-on gaming laptops have always had a bit of a problem with chonk. The new Crosshair is also slimmer than before, and if we're really getting the changes MSI's laptops have been crying out for—better portability and decreased fan noise—without any reduction in performance, then we could see some genuine contenders for the top slot in our guide to the best gaming laptop.

Hey, remember Meltgate, in which 12VHPWR (and latterly, 12V-2x6) GPU power connectors were blamed for melting graphics cards in a horrifying fashion? MSI remembers, and as a result, two of its newest PSUs have been equipped with an upgraded version of its GPU Safeguard tech to keep an eye on the current levels being delivered to your card.

MSI says that not only will a software pop-up alert you to any power-related issues, but a hardware buzzer will merrily scream "your very expensive hardware is about to be ruined" if it detects anything going pear-shaped with the pins. Okay, it probably just buzzes.

GPU Safeguard+ is supported by MSI's MPG Ai 1600TS PCIE5 and MPG Ai1300TS PCIE5 power supplies, and works by interfacing between your graphics card and MSI Afterburner to form an "intelligent bridge" with your PSU.

If any abnormalities in the power delivery are detected, MSI says the system will instantly throttle consumption and provide the aforementioned warnings. It's also GPU agnostic, which means it should work on all graphics cards that make use of a 12V-2x6 connector, MSI or otherwise.

Given that both of the supported PSUs are very high wattage, this strikes me as an excellent idea. They're the sort of power supplies you'd buy if you were building a machine with an RTX 5090, and that card can pull some serious juice.

Not to mention the price. Any graphics card melting is a tragedy, but a $4,000+ model? It doesn't bear thinking about.

That being said, the melty-power-connector fiasco seems to have been primarily caused by improper installation, so it's a concern no matter what kind of GPU you're using with the modern 16-pin connector designs. No matter the power supply, it's always worth checking the graphics card connection is properly seated several times before first boot.

Here's hoping the tech trickles down into lower-specced PSUs, as I think it's a good shout for anyone who wants total peace of mind from their machine. MSI has missed the opportunity to give it a hilarious "Awooga" sound effect, though. Perhaps a Star Trek-style red alert? I'm just spitballing here. Call me.

The memory crisis seems to have put the squeeze on basically everyone, other than those creating the memory. Even well-known gaming brand MSI appears to be struggling and plans on increasing its prices to offset ongoing problems.

According to the United Daily News (machine translated), MSI is reportedly planning to increase the prices of its gaming products by 15-30%. Huang Jinqing, general manager of MSI, reportedly states: "This year is the most challenging year since the company was founded." (via Tom's Hardware)

Alongside this candid admission, Jinqinq estimates the PC market will decline by 10-20% due to a supply shortage and the rapidly rising costs of memory. Jinqinq argues that a concentration on high-end products, the leveraging of long-term contracts with memory manufacturers, and upgrading DDR5 motherboards to support DDR4 will increase revenue on the gaming side. Elsewhere, it reportedly plans on growing revenue from servers, too.

Hybrid motherboards aren't unheard of. ASRock showed off the H610 combo late last year, but it's still very rare. However, as the memory crisis rages on, we could see more attempts at the same design.

Hsu Hsiang, MSI chairman, reportedly said it's not MSI's goal to buy whatever volume of memory it can afford, with the company instead moving away from the low end of the market for now. Naturally, as long as its share of the market doesn't decrease more than the price hike, it can still benefit from charging more.

Reportedly, increasing the stock of more expensive gear and raising the price of the low-end will funnel people towards the higher end, selling less stock but earning better margins in the process. The United Daily News notes potential fears of increasing price rises, pushing consumers to buy PCs before they get even more expensive.

Notably, this isn't too dissimilar to the business plan put forward by Asus just last week in its earnings report. Asus CFO Nick Wu reckons that Asus leveraging its "high-end brand value and high-end product mix" will help it weather the storm of the memory crisis.

Asus hasn't specifically announced any price hikes, but it has announced a focus on the high-end, with its high margins and niche appeal, over the mass appeal of the budget end of the market.

Both MSI and Asus have noted AI as a way to recoup some costs, which is somewhat ironic given that it is the cause of that memory stock/price instability. MSI plans on investing more in AI servers—it just has to hope it's not hung out to dry, like nearly everyone else has been with regard to memory. I suppose if you can't get out of the pit, the only way through is down.

I like a 4K 32-inch OLED, I do. And MSI's models have offered one of the most affordable options to achieve that 4K OLED experience. So, the good news is that MSI has updated its 32-inch 4K OLED offering with Samsung's latest panel tech. So, it's brighter and mostly fixes at least one weakness of Samsung QD-OLED tech versus the LG alternative.

The new MSI MPG 322UR X24 is essentially an update to the MSI MPG 322URX I reviewed last summer, which in turn was a revised version of the MSI MPG 321URX, which I sampled in 2024.

But where the previous revisions had been basically fiddling around the edges using essentially the same generation of Samsung QD-OLED panel tech, the latest model looks like a much more substantial revision, offering Samsung's latest technology.

At this stage, the various generations of OLED panel tech from Samsung and LG have become completely baffling. I've rounded it all up here, if you dare to read up on the details. But for this new MSI, I'll try to keep things tolerably brief.

Highlights of Samsung's latest QD-OLED revision are based around a new five-layer Tandem OLED panel. It's a fair bit brighter than previous QD-OLED generations, albeit the specs are a bit confusing. MSI is quoting peak HDR performance at 1,000 nits, which is no change from previous panels, though full-screen brightness jumps from 250 nits to 300 nits.

The HDR rating is odd because I've seen this panel tech before, at least a very close relation to it in the MSI MPG 341CQR, where it's rated at 1,300 nits HDR and 300 nits full screen. Just to confuse things further, MSI has revealed that the new MSI MPG 322UR X24 has been awarded VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, an upgrade from the True Black 400 of previous 4K 32-inch models.

Whatever, I'm pretty confident that this new 32-inch 4K model will feel punchier. That will be helped by what MSI calls "DarkArmor Film", but I believe it is actually a Samsung technology. Again, I've seen it on the MSI MPG 341CQR, and it's claimed to "eliminate the purple tint common on previous QD-OLEDs, enhancing light absorption to boost black levels by 40% for superior contrast in well-lit rooms."

It didn't totally eliminate the issue from the 341CQR, and I expect it won't from the new 322UR X24, either. But it does reduce the problem sufficiently that it's only now present in really extreme ambient light conditions that I really can't see being relevant for most gamers. For the record, LG OLED panels don't have this problem at all.

Oh, this monitor is also getting MSI's improved HDR handling, which, to cut a long story short, means a single mode is good for both dark scenes with bright highlights and really bright outdoor game scenes. I really liked it on the 341CQR, so it's great to see it applied here, too. Huzzah.

One thing this new model doesn't have, as far as I can tell, is the so-called RGB-stripe subpixel structure that debuted on the 341CQR. That's a pity, but perhaps not a major omission. For the 341CQR, it really helped because that's a low pixel density monitor with a 1440p-class panel.

This 32 incher is 4K with elevated pixel density and, in subjective viewing terms at least, suffers from fewer of the issues that RGB stripe sets out to fix in the first place, like fuzzy text.

MSI hasn't priced up the MPG 322UR X24 just yet, and this particular variant with USB-C and 98 W power delivery and 240 Hz refresh will probably be a bit spendy. However, MSI has always offered slightly cut-down variants using the same base panel tech for less money, and when that is very likely released, I expect we'll see something down around the $800 / £800 or even lower soon enough. And that really will be pretty tempting.

We've been tracking various long-term OLED monitor burn-in tests in our own mini meta series of reviews over the last two years. Until now, the message has been pretty consitent. OLED burn-in is real but barely a problem. Now, at the two-year mark, there's arguably a subtle shift in the narrative that needs to be recorded. Burn-in does appear to eventually become more problematic. How problematic? That's a subjective call.

The latest data point comes from YouTube channel Monitors Unboxed, which has uploaded its latest 24-month update. As before, Monitors Unboxed's testing represents something of a worse-case scenario for OLED wear thanks to primary usage that majors on static productivity apps for around 60 hours a week with Windows in Light mode, but with a dark taskbar.

The idea is that few measures have been taken to reduce burn in, instead the monitor has been used much as any LCD display might be. Again, all the testing is based on the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, which I reviewed way back in early 2024 and uses a Samsung QD-OLED 32-inch 4K panel. All told, Monitors Unboxed's testing is now at the two-year mark with over 6,000 hours of uptime.

For the most part, the Samsung panel continues to show progressive but very gradual degradation over the six-month, 12-month, 18-month and 24-month assessment periods. Most obviously, there's a faint line down the centre of the panel due to multitasking with two application windows, plus some burn-in along the bottom due to the taskbar.

But there are some nuances. At 24 months, Monitors Unboxed found the beginnings of icon-specific burn-in along the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. It's only slight and the details of the icons can't be made out. But they are just visible against some backgrounds.

When it comes to the mechanics of how this all works, it turns out that it's the green subpixels that take the biggest hammering, with the least wear visible from the red subpixels. This causes a very slight colour temperature shift over time from 6,441K when new to 6,341K at 18 months.

However, at 24 months, the colour temperature had somewhat reverted to 6,386K. This could be the pixel compensation cycles doing their thing. But, whatever, this is only a small drift in colour temperature that is unlikely to be subjectively noticeable.

Similarly, some regression in visible burn-in when viewing certain colours was actually found. In other words, in some scenarios, it's less visible. Monitors Unboxed reckons this is probably down to overall panel wear causing the contrast across areas of the screen to reduce.

Speaking of overall wear, the channel measured maximum full screen brightness over the test period. For the first 18 months it remained at 243 nits. At 24 months, it fell very slightly to 238 nits. Again, that's not enough to be visible, but it does indicate a long-term trend.

At this stage, the main remaining question is whether panel wear might accelerate in future. Well, that and the extent to which any given user might be bothered by the burn-in exhibited thus far.

While this test is being presented as a worst-case scenario, I suspect most of us would at least find that our typical usage would make for pretty harsh conditions when it comes to, say, taskbar burn-in. So the reality would likely be some light burn-in that's just about visible in certain conditions.

Personally, I think that's a marginal result. It's not a definite deal-breaker for long-term OLED ownership. But if you'd paid $1,000-plus, let's say, for your OLED screen, I don't think being a little disappointed at noticing ever more visible burn-in at the two-year mark would be unreasonable.

In the end, this is a subjective call. Burn-in is real, it's noticeable, but it's not catastrophic. The point at which it becomes unacceptable will ultimately be down to personal preference. But that in itself is arguably a bit of a result compared to where we were five-plus years ago where the assumption was that OLED almost certainly wasn't suitable for daily computing. Today, well, the verdict is rather more nuanced than that.

MSI has had a sizeable gap in its high-end X870E product stack, with its Carbon Wi-Fi option sitting well below the likes of the ultra high-end Godlike models, which now have several variations. The older X670E chipset benefitted from an additional model, the MEG Ace, and it’s this model that finally makes the transition to AMD’s latest high-end chipset in the form of the MEG X870E Ace Max.

Offering more features and added aesthetic tweaks than the Carbon Wi-Fi, but with a substantially lower price tag than the cheapest Godlike models, the MEG X870E Ace Max is an imposing beast bristling with high-end features. These include 10 Gbps Ethernet, dual PCIe 5.0 SSD support and loads of overclocking and tweaking features that will keep you busy for days.

As well as offering the new features of all of MSI’s new Max range of AMD motherboards such as a 64 MB BIOS for new feature and CPU support and independent base clock frequency adjustment with jumpers for on-the-fly tweaking, you get all the other benefits of the flagship X870E chipset and then some.

There are a pair of USB4 Type-C ports and the added bandwidth of this chipset means that the slowest USB ports on the rear I/O panel are USB 3.1 10 Gbps. It has nine of the latter by way of Type-A ports and a further two Type-C offering the same speed too. The front panel Type-C port that hooks up to your case is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps and even offers 60 W power delivery for fast charging laptops or power banks courtesy of an extra PCIe power connector.

The headline feature list is a long one. You get 10 Gbps Ethernet as well as 5 Gbps port, and dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 support, although to run PCIe Gen 5 SSDs the second slot requires the USB 4 Type-C ports to be disabled, while the first slot requires the third PCIe slot to remain empty. However, all M.2 ports are cooled on both sides by heatsinks so SSD temperatures should not be an issue. The onboard audio includes Realtek’s ALC4082 codec as well as an ESS DAC.

The massive VRM heatsinks, which cool an impressive 18+2+1 power delivery, are topped with a large illuminated holographic display and the top M.2 heatsink is equipped with an illuminated Ace logo. Powered up the MEG X870E Ace Max is sure to turn heads. MSI has included all of its DIY features too, such as a GPU release button, tool-free M.2 SSD and heatsink installation and quick-connect aerials for the Wi-Fi 7 module.

Including MSI’s EZ Conn-Cable (V2) which splits a header on the PCB into 3-pin and 4-pin RGB connectors plus a 4-pin fan header, there are nine fan headers in total. The PCB also includes two thermal sensor headers, three more 3-pin ARGB headers, a water cooling system water flow header and voltage measuring points plus power and reset buttons.

There are more buttons on the rear I/O panel too, including a CMOS clear button, one for USB BIOS Flashback and another called a smart button, which defaults to reset but can be configured to other tasks in the EFI. The EFI itself is generally excellent with an appealing color scheme and layout plus superb fan control.

The software is a little clunky and slow, but you are able to tweak your fans and lighting easily within Windows, albeit often with less granular control than the EFI when it comes to fan speed.

Motherboard benchmarks - AM5

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)CPU metrics during system benchmarksChipset temperatureCinebench 2024Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)SSD temperatureVRM temperature7zip 24.07

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

149

NZXT N9 X870E

148

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

150

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

148

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

147

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

149

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

147

037.575112.5150

Samples per minute

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	149
NZXT N9 X870E	148
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	150
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	148
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	147
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	149
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	147

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

160

162

NZXT N9 X870E

162

160

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

160

161

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

158

162

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

159

162

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

158

162

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

160

162

050100150200

CPU metrics during system benchmarks Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 160 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 161 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	159 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

NZXT N9 X870E

69

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

36

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

50

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

68

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

57

020406080

Peak temp (°C)

Chipset temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61
NZXT N9 X870E	69
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	36
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	50
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	68
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	57

Single

Multi

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

136

1792

NZXT N9 X870E

132

1748

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

135

1836

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

137

1809

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

137

1817

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

138

1803

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

137

1763

05001,0001,5002,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	136 Single, 1792 Multi
NZXT N9 X870E	132 Single, 1748 Multi
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	135 Single, 1836 Multi
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	137 Single, 1809 Multi
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	137 Single, 1817 Multi
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	138 Single, 1803 Multi
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	137 Single, 1763 Multi

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

113

84

NZXT N9 X870E

116

76

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

111

77

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

109

72

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

116

81

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

118

80

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

112

79

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	113 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	116 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	111 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	109 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	116 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	118 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	112 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS

Peak temp (°C)

Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

70

68

NZXT N9 X870E

67

60

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

66

61

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

78

70

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

82

74

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

71

64

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

82

79

0255075100

SSD temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	70 Peak temp (°C), 68 Avg temp (°C)
NZXT N9 X870E	67 Peak temp (°C), 60 Avg temp (°C)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	66 Peak temp (°C), 61 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	78 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	82 Peak temp (°C), 74 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	71 Peak temp (°C), 64 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	82 Peak temp (°C), 79 Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

60

NZXT N9 X870E

38

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

44

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

47

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

58

015304560

Peak temp (°C)

VRM temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	60
NZXT N9 X870E	38
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	44
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	47
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	N/A
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	58

Compressing

Decompressing

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

172

208

NZXT N9 X870E

176

195

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

179

192

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

173

205

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

171

202

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

177

197

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

167

198

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	172 Compressing, 208 Decompressing
NZXT N9 X870E	176 Compressing, 195 Decompressing
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	179 Compressing, 192 Decompressing
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	173 Compressing, 205 Decompressing
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	171 Compressing, 202 Decompressing
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	177 Compressing, 197 Decompressing
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	167 Compressing, 198 Decompressing

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

The VRM temperature only just topped 60 °C with our open air test bench and minimal airflow so in a well-cooled case there should be even lower results and plenty of room for overclocking, even with AMD’s flagship 16-core CPUs. Both chipsets on the PCB are cooled by a single large heatsink and the peak temperature sat at 61 °C, which is reasonable given the heatsink is comparatively small for X870E.

The CPU package power was 10 W lower in games than the MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi and NZXT N9 X870E at 120 W but we have seen lower, such as the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X, which draw only 104 W in the same tests. Things were near identical under heavy loads though. As usual, the extra premium didn’t result in much extra performance at our stock speed settings, but the average PCIe Gen 5 SSD temperature of 68 °C was one of the lowest we’ve seen and kept our super-fast SSD well away from throttling.

This is a monster motherboard that doesn’t just tick all the boxes when it comes to premium features, but includes plenty of future proofing too with 10 Gbps Ethernet, 64 MB BIOS, Wi-Fi 7 plus PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU support. As usual with AMD’s flagship chipset, there’s enough bandwidth to offer loads of USB ports and PCIe slots, including USB4, although there are some situations that result in shared bandwidth.

Still, it does pip mighty competition in the like of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero in a few areas, costing $100 more mind you, but does look set to cost less than its own refreshed replacement, the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero and about the same as Gigabyte’s X870E Aorus Master X3D Ice. Ultimately, at this price, most boards have similar features so it usually comes to aesthetics and perhaps a dose of brand loyalty. Thankfully, MSI has certainly created a droolworthy motherboard that’s significantly cheaper than its Godlike range, but still packs an enormous punch.

We’re in the middle of AMD’s 800-series chipset lifecycle and several manufacturers including MSI have seen fit for a motherboard refresh. This often includes tweaks to designs to improve performance, include modern features or even add support for new CPUs. The MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi will retail for around $260, so what do you get for your money?

Its headline features aren’t huge, but could be useful for those that want to maximise their future proofing or have an additional easy way to overclock their system.

Firstly, the BIOS size has increased from 32 MB to 64 MB, which opens the door to housing drivers such as Wi-Fi controllers directly in this storage space, allowing Windows to access your Wi-Fi network during installation. Future features and CPU support are also reasons for a larger BIOS according to MSI.

A base clock generator chip allows for separate adjustment to this frequency so it’s not tied to the rest of the system, providing an additional way to overclock and gain free performance. You can even adjust this on the fly outside of the EFI using two jumpers on the PCB.

MSI has gone all out here with the white theme on this $260 B850 chipset motherboard, even including the PCIe and DIMM slots as well as the CPU cooler mounting brackets and GPU release button mechanism, so if you have a white PC case, it’s already a contender. It’s attractive, uncluttered, but does lack its own RGB lighting, if that’s your thing.

Aside from its minor feature updates that include the 64 MB BIOS as well as separate base clock adjustment and physical jumper buttons to tweak that on the fly, the usual bits are here such as PCIe 5.0 GPU and M.2 SSD support, although cooling for the latter may be an issue due to the tiny heatsink included here, which is also devoid of underside cooling too.

Still, the heatsink and SSD installation across the board in its three M.2 slots are all tool-free so there are no tiny screws to deal with. The first M.2 slot is PCIe 5.0 compatible, the second PCIe 4.0 with four lanes, but the third is PCIe 4.0 with only two lanes, so you’ll likely want to avoid that one unless your SSD specifically meets that slower speed.

The MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi also has an impressive four PCIe slots, which are made up of the primary PCIe 5.0 slot, a PCIe 4.0 slot with four lanes and two PCIe 3.0 slots with just a single lane each, so there’s no much flexibility here. The slower slots here also share bandwidth with the PCIe 4.0 slot, which gives up two lanes if either of the former are used. Due to the number of slots, the board also has an additional 8-pin PCIe power connector.

Fans and RGB lighting headers are plentiful with seven 4-pin headers for fans, including one using MSIs EZ Conn-header connector and it’s included splitter cable. In total there’s also one 4-pin and four 3-pin and RGB headers. There does seem to be an unusual number of headers on the board in general, but this is partly thanks to a pair of 2-pin headers being added to provide on-the-fly base clock adjustment.

If you like plenty of fast USB ports, unfortunately this is one area that’s left wanting. The Type-C front panel port only offers USB 3.0 speed rather than sprightlier USB 3.2 Gen 2x2’s 20 Gbps. The rear I/O panel has a very mediocre six Type-A ports and four of those are only USB 2.0. This is no worse than this board’s predecessor, but then it currently costs considerably less.

We do get a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps Type-C ports, but it also cuts corners with audio too, only mustering Realtek’s low-end ALC897 codec rather than ALC4080 or ALC1220. The rear I/O panel does at least have buttons for clearing the CMOS and using USB BIOS Flashback and there’s also 5 Gbps Ethernet.

Motherboard benchmarks - AM5

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)CPU metrics during system benchmarksChipset temperatureCinebench 2024Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)SSD temperatureVRM temperature7zip 24.07

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

149

NZXT N9 X870E

148

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

150

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

148

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

147

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

149

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

147

037.575112.5150

Samples per minute

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	149
NZXT N9 X870E	148
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	150
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	148
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	147
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	149
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	147

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

160

162

NZXT N9 X870E

162

160

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

160

161

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

158

162

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

159

162

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

158

162

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

160

162

050100150200

CPU metrics during system benchmarks Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 160 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 161 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	159 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

NZXT N9 X870E

69

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

36

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

50

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

68

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

57

020406080

Peak temp (°C)

Chipset temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61
NZXT N9 X870E	69
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	36
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	50
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	68
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	57

Single

Multi

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

136

1792

NZXT N9 X870E

132

1748

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

135

1836

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

137

1809

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

137

1817

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

138

1803

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

137

1763

05001,0001,5002,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	136 Single, 1792 Multi
NZXT N9 X870E	132 Single, 1748 Multi
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	135 Single, 1836 Multi
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	137 Single, 1809 Multi
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	137 Single, 1817 Multi
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	138 Single, 1803 Multi
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	137 Single, 1763 Multi

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

113

84

NZXT N9 X870E

116

76

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

111

77

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

109

72

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

116

81

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

118

80

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

112

79

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	113 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	116 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	111 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	109 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	116 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	118 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	112 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS

Peak temp (°C)

Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

70

68

NZXT N9 X870E

67

60

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

66

61

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

78

70

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

82

74

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

71

64

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

82

79

0255075100

SSD temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	70 Peak temp (°C), 68 Avg temp (°C)
NZXT N9 X870E	67 Peak temp (°C), 60 Avg temp (°C)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	66 Peak temp (°C), 61 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	78 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	82 Peak temp (°C), 74 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	71 Peak temp (°C), 64 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	82 Peak temp (°C), 79 Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

60

NZXT N9 X870E

38

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

44

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

47

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

58

015304560

Peak temp (°C)

VRM temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	60
NZXT N9 X870E	38
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	44
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	47
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	N/A
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	58

Compressing

Decompressing

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

172

208

NZXT N9 X870E

176

195

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

179

192

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

173

205

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

171

202

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

177

197

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

167

198

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	172 Compressing, 208 Decompressing
NZXT N9 X870E	176 Compressing, 195 Decompressing
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	179 Compressing, 192 Decompressing
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	173 Compressing, 205 Decompressing
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	171 Compressing, 202 Decompressing
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	177 Compressing, 197 Decompressing
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	167 Compressing, 198 Decompressing

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

The VRM and chipset temperatures both remained under 60 °C, which isn’t bad considering they were dealing with some extended high-load tests with hardware such as AMD’s Ryzen 9 9900X and a high-end SSD. There’s certainly scope for pushing the CPU a little further with Precision Boost Overdrive or manual overclocking.

The benchmark scores were on par with more expensive boards too, with the 147 scored in Blender and 1,763 in Cinebench’s multi-thread score closely matching those of the mighty and hideously expensive MEG X870E Godlike X, with the same being true in our game tests. One area it was a little below par was the CPU power, which was on average around 30 W higher in our game tests. This is likely down to the more basic discrete P-PACK power phases used.

The benefits of a 64 MB BIOS are still unclear and likely won’t have an impact immediately. AMD’s next generation of CPUs is already slated to work on 800-series chipset motherboards so these benefits will likely be revealed a little further into the future. The independent base clock overclocking is certainly useful, but most only venture as far as Precision Boost Overdrive features so may have limited appeal. Still, MSI should be applauded for going the extra mile.

The biggest issue, though, is that while it has solid performance and somewhat cool VRMs, it’s just too expensive compared to equivalent options. Even MSI’s own MAG B850 Tomahawk costs less and is better in nearly every way. Unless you must have its new features, then we’d suggest either it or white alternatives such as the Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice are much better buys.

GPU meltgate returns, this time with an unexpected twist: more meltiness. This time, it's looking like one of the main preventative strategies against melting GPU cables might not be as simply effective as initially thought, as there are reports of gamers' yellow-tipped MSI cables creeping out on their own over time (via Wccftech).

We've witnessed 12V-2x6 cables melting for years now, the first being with the RTX 4090. Since then, there have been a number of attempted diagnoses and fixes, but on the melting goes.

The main solution of late has been to ensure the cable is fully—fully—inserted. Thus, enter stage left: the yellow-tipped cable. MSI cooked up this solution for the RTX 4090 a couple of years ago, and it cooked up the same solution for RTX 50-series cards about a year ago. The idea is, if you have the tips of the power connector yellow rather than all black, you'll be able to tell whether they're fully inserted.

Which is all good in theory, but these unfortunately haven't seemed to stop the tide of melting cables. There have been reports of these yellow cables melting, too—check out Unikoshardware on X for some examples, as they've kept a pretty extensive record of GPU meltgate over the last few months.

I assumed such cases might be to do with a combination of user error and bad design, the bad design part being just that full cable insertion is difficult and at any rate shouldn't prove catastrophic when done incorrectly, and the user error being not taking enough care to insert the cable fully. But it looks like that assumption might have been incorrect: there might have been no user error at all.

PSU cables (16-pin) slowly backing out on their own – yellow part becomes visible from r/MSI_Gaming

According to one Redditor, who has corroboration from other Redditors experiencing the same issue, the cables are initially inserted fully without any yellow visible, but over time the connector starts to creep out again:

"I always make sure [the cables are] fully seated and clicked in properly. There’s no tension on the cables at all—they’re straight and not being pulled or bent sharply. However, over time, the connectors seem to slowly back themselves out. Little by little, I start seeing the yellow part of the connector becoming visible, as if it’s not fully inserted anymore. It’s almost like they’re gradually sliding out on their own. I double-check them and push them back in, but after some time, the same thing happens again."

Some of the examples shown are incredibly clear and obvious—they're no longer fully plugged in. The yellow tips are clearly visible in the following Redditor's picture.

Comment from r/MSI_Gaming

It's somewhat ironic that this is going noticed in large part because the tips are yellow. In a way, it's a vindication of the yellow tip idea: it does work in revealing when the cable isn't fully connected. It's just you were only meant to have to check once, when you actually plug it in. The cable wasn't meant to scoot out on its own.

That's especially pertinent given the longstanding advice has been to set it and leave it. Ie, don't mess around with your cable, unplugging and re-plugging, once you've got it sorted. If this is how the 12V-2x6 cables are, however, then maybe there'll have to be more fiddling than that.

An alternative would be to get a fancy gizmo to add on to your cable. There's one from Thermal Grizzly that issues over-volting and over-heating warnings as well as preventative shutdowns, or there's one from Aqua Computer that has such shutdown failsafes but also attempts to distribute power through the pins more evenly to prevent an issue in the first place.

At any rate, if you haven't checked your GPU connector in a while, now might be a good time to make sure it's fully seated.

Top-level overclocking pushes PC hardware into scenarios that it's never expected to experience on a day-to-day basis. One exception is MSI's new $5000 RTX 5090 Lightning Z graphics card, sporting two 600 W 12V-2x6 connectors, 40-phase VRMs, and even an option to use a special BIOS that pushes the card's limit to a dizzy 2,500 W. Sounds like it can cope with anything, yes? Well, if it's 1.2 volts, then the answer is no.

Over the 30 years that I've been messing around with graphics cards, experimenting with mods, and cooling, I've been relatively lucky to have ruined only a handful of cards. But then again, I've not quite gone to the same extremes as top overclocker Alva Jonathan (aka Lucky_n00b) does in their attempts to push graphics cards in search of world records.

In a recent YouTube video, Jonathan shared their latest ventures with an RTX 5090 Lighting Z graphics card, specifically multiple early samples that were sent over by MSI to see just how far the boards could be pushed. Where a standard GeForce RTX 5090 has a power limit of 575 W, MSI's new model has two further modes of operation: 800 W (OC) and 1,000 W (Extreme).

This is why it's water-cooled as standard, with a hulking 360 mm radiator doing its best to shift all that heat. Jonathan's samples arrived without said cooler, because no serious overclocker is ever going to use such a thing: for them, it's liquid nitrogen or nothing.

The first attempts at overclocking were pretty successful, topping the HWBot charts with a score of 683,433 in the Geekbench 5 GPU Compute test. However, MSI also has a 2,500 W XOC BIOS for the card, and when Jonathan and his colleagues switched to that, in the hope of claiming an even-higher record, things went instantly awry.

And by awry, I mean the GPU itself cracked apart like it had been struck by a hammer. Even though processors have many layers of metal in them, they're mostly comprised of silicon, which is quite a brittle material. The one thing it doesn't handle particularly well is thermal shock: rapid changes in temperature, causing the material to expand too quickly.

But it didn't split apart because it was running at full pelt. In fact, it was just starting up at room temperature. The issue was that the 2,500 W XOC BIOS uses a default voltage of 1.2 volts, which is well over what the chip normally deals with. As Jonathan explains in the video, "1.2 V [is] OK for negatives temps on LN2 (liquid nitrogen) but very dangerous on ambient (+25C)."

That level of operating voltage will produce significant current spikes in some parts of the die, rapidly heating them. Too rapid, it would seem. Cue insta-death for one $5,000 GPU.

Admittedly, it's not like Jonathan paid that much money for the card, because it was a free sample from MSI, and when you're at the very cutting-edge of overclocking, mechanical failures aren't exactly a rare occurrence (which is probably why MSI shipped five samples in total). Still, it just goes to show that no matter what kind of limits a graphics card might boast, there's always a way to surpass them.

Is there a moral to this story? No. Does it provide any helpful advice or guidance for your average PC gamer on how best to get a bit more performance from their rigs? Absolutely not. Is an image of an Nvidia GB202 cracked to pieces, because it was accidentally zapped, kind of impressive and even a little bit funny to see? Hell, yeah.

MSI's Lighting Z RTX 5090 is seemingly very impressive. With AIO liquid cooling and a huge screen, MSI says it is "Built to sustain 1000W loads with absolute stability." I wouldn't know personally, as I'm a mere mortal and not one of the 1,300 lucky enough to spend over $5,000 on one. However, we have seen some testing, and MSI weren't lying about that power draw. It's a thirsty beast.

KitGuruTech managed to get their hands on it, and in gaming tests, they saw a max pull of 1076 W in Cyberpunk 2077 when overclocked. The rig they have popped that monstrously powerful card in has an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, an MSI X870 Carbon motherboard, plus 64 GB of DDR5 memory, and an MSI MPG 1600 W power supply.

It's worth noting that KitGuru runs Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with RT overdrive and no DLSS, which is "all designed to put maximum load on the GPU." Though Cyberpunk's max is 1076 W, the average sits around the mid 700s, which is still about 120 W above what our gaming tests got for the RTX 5090 Founders Edition.

A Plague Tale: Requiem got an average of around 650 W with a max of 754 W. Tests for Hardware Unboxed tell a similar story, getting up to 845 W in A Plague Tale: Requiem, with it dropping down to 731 W without overclocking. Non-overclocking power consumption still sits comfortably higher than the Founders Edition RTX 5090 (by between 20-70 W), but figures across the board report big performance gains too.

Our friends over at Tom's Hardware got time with the card, and report 14 average fps higher across their suite of tests than the RTX 5090 FE, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle being the biggest difference at 25 average FPS.

The Lightning Z comes with two 600 W 12V-2x6 connectors, plus a USB Type-C port to connect to the built-in screen. Perhaps the most unique part of the card, as we reported last month, is the fact that it is watercooled and designed to "completely ignore the concepts of balance in favour of extremes."

Nothing shows the extremes of this MSI card more than the price, with us spotting it being listed for an unfortunately rather funny $5090 over at Best Buy. Now you may say a $3,000 increase on the RTX 5090 MSRP for a 15% performance bump absolutely isn't worth the cash, but you'd have to assume you can get one right now, which is a pretty big assumption.

If you need an entire rig though, you can pick up an RTX 5090 PC (with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, 32 GB of DDR5 memory, and 2 TB of SSD storage), for around $500 less than the Lightning Z. I certainly know where my money would be going, and not just because I'd need a time machine, luck, and a seriously loaded bank account to want that 1000 W behemoth.

This is definitely not a trend we want to see develop: graphics cards with pricing to match their model numbers. But it's happened, all the same. The MSI Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z Liquid Cooled Graphics Card is up on Best Buy for $5090.

Okay, it's actually $5090.99. Apparently, the draw of the extra $0.99 is so strong it partially trumped what must have been an intentional gag by whoever priced this thing up.

The slight caveat here is that, as I write, the card is sold out. So, it's possible that the price is a light hearted, if possibly tone deaf, placeholder. That said, it's not the most expensive RTX 5090 on the Best Buy.

The Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 WINDFORCE 32G is up for $5,498.75. And that's in stock and available to buy. So, there's no doubting the real price of the MSI card could genuinely be as high as $5090.

As for the precedent this sets for other cards, it obviously ain't great. Next-gen RTX $6090, sorry 6090, anyone? How about an AMD Radeon RX 9070 for $9070? A possible next-gen AMD 10,000 Series would be, er, fun, too.

Of course, even if intentional (likely) and a real price (quite possibly), what this mainly does is just underline the fact that the brief period where GPU prices normalised, at least relative to official MSRPs, is now firmly behind us.

You can check out our current best graphics card deals here. We're not actually listing any RTX 5090s right now on account of the painful pricing. But even so, the cheapest RTX 5080 is over $1,300. And a 5060 Ti 16 GB starts at $520. Ouch.

Long story short, pretty much nothing is available at MSRP. And as things stand, what with the AI industry planning to spend even more on hardware this year, it's hard to see how that gets better, not worse, any time soon. Bleh.

If you've kept up with hardware news in recent years, you'll likely have seen reports of graphics card power connectors melting or similar. It happens enough as to be noteworthy, and led to a redesign for the connector itself, 12VHPWR. It's also led to companies building out their own countermeasures, including a new one baked into the latest version of MSI Afterburner.

The latest version of Afterburner, developed by Unwinder, incorporates a new feature that will warn a user when a power supply is showing signs of abnormal load or instability. Using a new PSU.dll plugin, Afterburner now supports new power supply reporting functionalities:

"New plugin provides traditional PSU 12V/5V/3.3V voltages, currents, output power, efficiency, temperature and fan speed monitoring functionality on MSI MEG Ai1x00 series power supplies and additional per-pin current monitoring for 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 connectors on new MSI MPG Ai1x00TS power supplies.

"When you set critical threshold for such sensor, you may see alarms from 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 overcurrent or current imbalance in monitoring window, in On-Screen Display, enable sound alarm, load some specific emergency MSI Afterburner profile (e.g. a profile with drastically lowered power limit), perform emergency system shutdown and so on," the 4.6.7 beta notes say.

Afterburner support also offers the ability for a system to set an emergency power brake, knocking 25% off the total power limit when an emergency occurs to prevent damage to the card, or worse, an electrical fault that causes physical damage to the card, power supply or more.

This feature currently only works with select MSI PSUs, however. The forthcoming MSI MPG Ai1x00TS range—which I've not seen on sale anywhere yet—feature the prerequisite GPU Safeguard+ feature.

Other non-MPG PSUs, such as the MSI MEG Ai1x00 range, support GPU Safeguard (without the plus) and some real-time monitoring features in Afterburner. Though not the per-pin current monitoring.

GPU Safeguard+ was announced back at CES 2026. It involves hardware and software monitoring and protections for faults, alerting a user when something crops up.

If a fault occurs, a buzzer on the power supply sounds. Upon hearing this, a user is meant to shutdown their PC, though if it happens when they're not around, a black screen will be thrown up to try and prevent a continued load from doing damage to components. MSI Center is also able to throw out an error message, as is Afterburner with this update.

These PSUs also offer a low-level anti-melt mitigation (if you want to be grandiose about it), and one that I've found pretty handy on a couple of builds. The connector itself is painted yellow, so it's easier to spot when it's not quite fully seated. Slightly loose connectors are often blamed for melted cards, though notably not in all cases, and MSI suggests this dual-colour connector is enough in itself to prevent a good deal of issues.

"While our dual-color connectors have mostly addressed issues caused by loose connections, we wanted to do a bit more to address the other factors that can contribute to this overheating," MSI says.

These measures go a good way to ensuring peace of mind with a high-wattage graphics card inside a system. Though you have to wonder, why is this something that the consumer has to be worried about to begin with? Graphics cards are more demanding than ever, with wattages easily in excess of 300 W for some cards, but does that necessitate a higher risk of malfunction, or does the power solution just need to be more robust to begin with?

Other companies have solutions for the same problem: Asus has a chunky power connector for its BTF cards that does away with the need for a cable entirely, and ASRock's PSUs include sensors and dual-colour connectors to lower the chance of anything bad happened. Whatever the case, paying for new kit for peace of mind doesn't feel like a long-term solution to a problem, especially as graphics cards aren't cheap themselves.

This review is, if I can read a spreadsheet correctly, the first time this site has assessed a laptop containing the Ryzen 9 9955HX. So if you’ve ever wanted one of AMD’s thundering 16-core Zen 5 chips in your portable(ish) PC, this is your chance. It’s fast, though not 9950X3D fast. An unfair comparison considering the desktop chip doesn’t have to deal with the constrained thermal envelope and limited power draw of a laptop, and the 3D V-Cache really does make a difference.

Despite the rainbow keyboard and presence of an RTX 5080 GPU, you’ll be surprised to hear this this isn’t a gaming laptop. MSI positions it as “engineered for the demands of STEM professionals,” which probably doesn’t mean gardeners, and then takes a puff on some burning leaves to huskily exhale the phrase “it operates like a high-tech brain”.

Yeah, man.

The Vector A18 HX may well “deliver the performance and reliability engineers need to excel in every challenge,” but luckily for us it also delivers the kind of frame rates that make PC gamers very happy, and is so obviously a gaming laptop in an unconvincing disguise with its 240 Hz display, seven heat pipes, and two fans to keep it all cool. We’d be amazed if any actual work gets done if someone pulls it out at a meeting about building a bridge or some other towering concrete structure.

Being an 18-inch laptop, the Vector A18 HX is a bit of a towering concrete structure itself. You’re not going to want to pass it one-handed to your engineering colleague, even if it is their turn to play Kerbal Space Program. At 3.6 kg it weighs the same as an adult sloth or about a dozen mangoes, and if you’ve ever tried lugging either of those around with you you’ll know how heavy they can get.

The enormous 400 W power brick only adds to the burden, though luckily it has a reasonably long cable attached, and the laptop can happily charge from one of its USB4 ports as long as you can feed it enough juice. Once it’s charged, however, you’ll only get about an hour of use out of it before you’re heading back to the plug socket.

It’s also very expensive, and there's a version with a Mini-LED 4K-adjacent display that will probably push the price up to truly eye-watering levels. The one we’ve got here has a normal IPS attached, with a 16:10 WQXGA resolution.It’s capable of 500 nits of brightness, and the fact it’s relatively modest in pixel density allows the RTX 5080 to really stretch its legs.

At native resolution it doesn’t take much DLSS for Cyberpunk 2077 to hit 60 fps or higher in its Ray Tracing Ultra mode, and once you start messing with frame-gen you can push that much further. CPU-intensive games such as Baldur’s Gate III just love that 16-core chip, pumping out 90 fps without resorting to any upscaling.

It does all this without making too much noise, suggesting the extra size of an 18-incher is really helpful to cooling system engineers. You can use the MSI Center app to spin the fans up to full all the time, in which case you’ll definitely know it’s there, but in general use the system is intelligent enough to keep the noise down compared to some 16-inch or smaller machines. There's no grinding or whining from the fans, and the peak temperatures from the Vector’s chips are very reasonable, hitting just 74 °C from the GPU after a gaming session, with the CPU a little higher.

A few laptops have scored higher than the Vector A18 in our CPU tests, and they all use the Core Ultra 9 275HX, a 24-core, 24-thread chip. The Ryzen’s 16 cores are all the equivalent of P-cores, plus it has Hyper-Threading, and it absolutely dominates in things like Zip file decompression and CPU rendering in Blender.

It would be very interesting to see what this chip could do if paired with a 5090, but the 5080 does an excellent job. The GPU power measurement of 132 W is beaten by other 5080 laptops such as MSI’s own Vector 16 HX AI A2XW (with the Ultra 9 275HX), but the frame rates from the AMD-powered 18-incher are a smidgen higher.

Gaming benchmarks

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (1440p Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1440p High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)F1 24 (1080p Ultra High)F1 24 (1440p Ultra High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling Quality, 2x FG)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)GPU statsGaming temperaturesMetro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1440p Ultra)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)3DMark Time Spy Extreme3DMark Port Royal

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

91

55

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

101

46

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

76

41

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

69

41

037.575112.5150

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	91 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	101 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	76 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	69 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

95

57

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

100

52

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

64

39

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (1440p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	95 Avg FPS, 57 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	100 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	64 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	N/A

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

91

49

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

71

59

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

39

27

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

66

36

0255075100

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	91 Avg FPS, 49 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	71 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	39 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	66 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

100

79

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

95

80

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

64

33

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

88

64

0255075100

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	100 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	95 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	64 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	88 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

71

42

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

71

61

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

62

50

020406080

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1440p High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	71 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	71 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	62 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	N/A

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

73

51

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

39

24

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

23

11

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

51

44

020406080

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%)) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	73 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	39 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	23 Avg FPS, 11 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	51 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

110

86

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

67

58

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

44

28

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

76

55

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	110 Avg FPS, 86 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	67 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	44 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	76 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

70

50

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

66

35

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

39

22

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

50

44

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	70 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	66 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	39 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	50 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

45

34

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

42

33

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

24

16

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	45 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	42 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	24 Avg FPS, 16 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	N/A

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

125

48

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

61

47

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

58

34

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

85

48

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	125 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	61 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	58 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	85 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

42

32

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

18

11

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

11

9

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

28

21

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	42 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	18 Avg FPS, 11 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	11 Avg FPS, 9 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	28 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

122

46

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

120

73

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

77

52

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

93

60

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	122 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	120 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	77 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	93 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

80

38

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

76

60

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

51

31

020406080

F1 24 (1440p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	80 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	76 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	51 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	N/A

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

180

75

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

89

63

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

41

27

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

130

66

050100150200

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling Quality, 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	180 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	89 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	41 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	130 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

72

35

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

35

27

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

23

19

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

57

44

020406080

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	72 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	35 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	23 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	57 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

2335

132

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

2236

131

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

1306

71

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

1670

98

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	2335 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 132 Avg GPU power (W)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	2236 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 131 Avg GPU power (W)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	1306 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 71 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	1670 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 98 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

81

91

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

82

94

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

59

82

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

74

81

0255075100

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	81 Avg CPU (°C), 91 Max CPU (°C)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	82 Avg CPU (°C), 94 Max CPU (°C)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	59 Avg CPU (°C), 82 Max CPU (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	74 Avg CPU (°C), 81 Max CPU (°C)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

132

38

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

130

76

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

83

46

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

94

50

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	132 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	130 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	83 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	94 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

100

20

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

96

59

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

63

40

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1440p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	100 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	96 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	63 Avg FPS, 40 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	N/A

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

93

21

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

52

39

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

33

24

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

68

41

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	93 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	52 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	33 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	68 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

Overall index score

GPU index

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

11134

11004

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

10668

10334

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

7042

6973

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

8257

8354

03,7507,50011,25015,000

3DMark Time Spy Extreme Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	11134 Overall index score, 11004 GPU index
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	10668 Overall index score, 10334 GPU index
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	7042 Overall index score, 6973 GPU index
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	8257 Overall index score, 8354 GPU index

MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX

15168

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX

13773

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX

9245

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H

11082

05,00010,00015,00020,000

Overall index score

3DMark Port Royal Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX | RTX 5080 | Ryzen 9 9955HX	15168
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285HX	13773
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 275HX	9245
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025) | RTX 5080 | Core Ultra 9 285H	11082

Performance-wise, you’re getting as much as a laptop at this price-point can possibly manage, and the only way to get more is to pay another $1,000 more for a 5090 in something like the Alienware 18 Area-51. I have no idea what engineers earn, but I hope it’s lots.

The Vector A18 HX is well supplied with ports. It’s good to see USB4 in a laptop rather than old-fashioned 3.2, even though the 10 Gbps speed of that connector still hasn’t been saturated by anything other than SSDs. It means you can plug whatever you like into it and expect to get great performance without having to worry about flavours of Thunderbolt, and the HDMI port is a 2.1 model so you can output VRR to a TV that supports it.

System benchmarks

3DMark Storage7zip 24.07Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)Cinebench 2024PCMark 10System temperatures

Overall index score

Avg bandwidth (MB/s)

MSI Vector A18 HX

1946

332.57

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

1589

272.43

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

2070

351.51

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

2162

370.06

07501,5002,2503,000

3DMark Storage Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	1946 Overall index score, 332.57 Avg bandwidth (MB/s)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	1589 Overall index score, 272.43 Avg bandwidth (MB/s)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	2070 Overall index score, 351.51 Avg bandwidth (MB/s)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	2162 Overall index score, 370.06 Avg bandwidth (MB/s)

Compressing (GIPS)

Decompressing (GIPS)

MSI Vector A18 HX

181.257

241.164

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

176.834

184.258

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

120.68

135.81

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

108.39

104.167

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	181.257 Compressing (GIPS), 241.164 Decompressing (GIPS)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	176.834 Compressing (GIPS), 184.258 Decompressing (GIPS)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	120.68 Compressing (GIPS), 135.81 Decompressing (GIPS)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	108.39 Compressing (GIPS), 104.167 Decompressing (GIPS)

CPU (samples/min)

GPU (samples/min)

MSI Vector A18 HX

176.7

1842.72

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

154.35

1865.75

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

109.3

1425.58

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

73.56

1575.28

05001,0001,5002,000

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	176.7 CPU (samples/min), 1842.72 GPU (samples/min)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	154.35 CPU (samples/min), 1865.75 GPU (samples/min)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	109.3 CPU (samples/min), 1425.58 GPU (samples/min)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	73.56 CPU (samples/min), 1575.28 GPU (samples/min)

Multi-core index score

Single-core index score

MSI Vector A18 HX

1510

129

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

2156

130

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

1254

79

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

1171

125

07501,5002,2503,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	1510 Multi-core index score, 129 Single-core index score
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	2156 Multi-core index score, 130 Single-core index score
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	1254 Multi-core index score, 79 Single-core index score
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	1171 Multi-core index score, 125 Single-core index score

MSI Vector A18 HX

63

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

93

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

73

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

112

037.575112.5150

Battery life (minutes)

PCMark 10 Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	63
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	93
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	73
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	112

Max CPU temp (°C)

Max GPU temp (°C)

MSI Vector A18 HX

93

70

MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW

102

72

Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)

83

54

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

104

76

037.575112.5150

System temperatures Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector A18 HX	93 Max CPU temp (°C), 70 Max GPU temp (°C)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW	102 Max CPU temp (°C), 72 Max GPU temp (°C)
Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 10 (STOCK/QUIET Profile)	83 Max CPU temp (°C), 54 Max GPU temp (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	104 Max CPU temp (°C), 76 Max GPU temp (°C)

It’s also positioned next to the Ethernet and charging sockets on the back edge of the laptop casing, which is ideal in a desktop replacement machine (you’re not going to be throwing this into a bag to take to the coffee shop, but it’s perfect as a powerful machine that can be tidied out of the way into a cupboard) as it keeps the cables from snaking across the desk.

The 18-inch screen is probably good enough by itself for many uses, but being able to hook it up to something bigger, maybe an OLED or Mini-LED for extra vibrancy, is always going to be helpful if you’re spinning large models around in CAD (or maybe playing Battlefield 6). Elsewhere, the keyboard and trackpad are both a good size, and while the latter has a good amount of movement and a solid click when you press down on it, the keys themselves are nothing special.

This isn’t a bargain laptop, and it’s not the kind of thing you’ll buy hoping it will punch above its weight. Both its weight and its punch are considerable, but then so is the price, and so you’ll need to weigh up whether to get an 18-inch laptop or a desktop machine. They’re basically the same thing once you’ve added an external monitor into the equation. Pick this one from MSI, and you’ll have the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you’ve got one of the best-performing RTX 5080 laptops (until the next one comes along) and you can cosplay as an engineer at the weekends too.

Asus has rushed to clarify reports from Hardware Unboxed that it had listed its line of Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPUs as end-of-life, with a statement released today which states the outlet "may have received incomplete information from an Asus PR representative regarding these products."

In short, someone HUB spoke to in the post-CES malaise has gone a bit far when it comes to the official status of the RTX 5070 Ti being listed as definitively EoL. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone from Nvidia also had a not-so-quiet word in Asus' ear last night which 'encouraged' some official clarification today from HQ.

The full statement from Asus reads as: "We would like to clarify recent reports regarding the Asus GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. Certain media may have received incomplete information from an Asus PR representative regarding these products.

"The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB have not been discontinued or designated as end-of-life (EOL). Asus has no plans to stop selling these models.

"Current fluctuations in supply for both products are primarily due to memory supply constraints, which have temporarily affected production output and restocking cycles. As a result, availability may appear limited in certain markets, but this should not be interpreted as a production halt or product retirement.

"Asus will continue to support the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and is working closely with partners to stabilize supply as conditions improve."

Yesterday, Hardware Unboxed published a video (now updated) stating categorically that it had been told by Asus representatives that the RTX 5070 Ti was in end-of-life status due to the super-low supply of the GPU packages. "This model is currently facing a supply shortage and as such they have placed the model into end-of-life status," it says in the piece.

We spoke to our own contacts at Asus yesterday who said it was the first they or the entire EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) team at Asus had heard about it, and that EoL itself was "a big term".

A change in priority focus, or a serious shortage in chips could always impact the production or sales of a specific card, but to officially say that a card is end of life is something very different.

Which is also what I got from talking to MSI today, too. Officially MSI has stated that it has "no plan to EoL anything" and that its "goal is to feed all gamers with all GPUs," which comes as no surprise after what Asus has come out to say.

Given the memory shortage, a shift in priority to the RTX 5080 as the main 16 GB Nvidia card in the line up makes sense, but the way that sales have been across the board suggests that gamers looking at the high end will buy an RTX 5090, and the more sensible money goes on either the RTX 5070 or RTX 5070 Ti. But generally not the RTX 5080.

Nvidia actually killing the RTX 5070 Ti would be killing off a significant model in the grand scheme of things, especially as that would leave the RX 9070 XT completely unchallenged in that sector of the market.

Still, none of that changes the fact the RTX 5070 Ti is getting harder to find for a realistic price, and that's not going to get better until the focus stops being on manufacturing HBM or whatever data centres need this week. So yeah, no official end-of-lifing for the RTX 5070 Ti, but with such limited production—and a likely greater focus on shipping cards to system builders over the DIY market—there's a good chance it and the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti are going to feel like dead cards for a while.

Although CES 2026 wasn't the most exciting of the Vegas consumer electronics events of recent years—and heck, with all the big AI talk, there didn't seem to be much 'consumer' about it—there was at least one area of PC gaming hardware to get excited about: monitors. So rather than another day of doom and gloom talking about the rise of AI and the memorypocalypse, let's look at some positives.

Probably the most important area we saw really exciting developments in was OLED monitors. One of the biggest problems with these that has probably stopped a lot of people from taking the plunge and buying one—alongside high price tags and worries about burn-in—is text fringing. OLED panels look fantastic for gaming, but for other things, they haven't always been the best choice, because small, thin, and wriggly little shapes such as letters (the most common little digital wrigglers) have tended to look a little fuzzy when displayed on an OLED panel.

That's because of the way OLED displays its pixels. As a refresher, there are two main types of OLED panels: QD-OLED, from Samsung, and WOLED, from LG. These do things slightly differently at the sub-pixel level—QD-OLEDs have square red, green, and blue OLEDs organised in an RGB triangle, while WOLEDs have rectangular red, green, blue, and white OLEDs lined up in a row—but they're all less than perfect at displaying text.

Neither QD-OLED nor WOLED subpixel layouts have been able to give the clarity of a traditional LCD monitor's subpixel layout. Both of them have tended to make text either slightly fuzzy or shadowy around the edges. Things have improved with newer generations, but the problem hasn't been eliminated.

Now, though, new OLED panels from both LG and Samsung are coming out with a different subpixel layout. Samsung's taken a leaf from LG's book of OLED and arranged its sub-pixels into rows. LG, on the other hand, has decided to drop the white sub-pixel altogether.

Samsung is still using quantum dots with a blue backlight, so such monitors are QD-OLED, while LG is sticking to WOLED branding as it will still be using a white backlight that passes through colour filters. Despite these differences, though, the fundamental layout is the same: vertically lined rows of red, green, and blue subpixels for each pixel, which should reduce fringing.

We first saw this solution at the tail end of 2025 with the announcement of LG's new OLED panel. We haven't seen this solution in person yet, but we have seen Samsung's, as used in the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36, an ultrawide 2K monitor with a refresh rate of 360 Hz and 300 nits of brightness.

The revised subpixels do make text look sharper, although there's a limit in this case, due to the low pixel density. Even so, our Jeremy found his overall experience using the monitor so pleasant that he scored it a mighty 92% in his review.

For CES, HyperX also announced a monitor that uses Samsung's latest 'V-Stripe' panel, this being the HyperX Omen OLED 34—and yes, HyperX having a monitor is a first, although it's HP that's making them. It's the same deal as the MSI one: 360 Hz, 21:9 aspect ratio with WQHD resolution, and so on.

At CES, we also saw Asus launch two new gaming monitors, one using Samsung's tech and the other LG's. The Samsung panel monitor, the ROG Swift PG34WCDN, is the same deal as the MSI and HyperX, but the LG panel monitor is a 27-inch, 240 Hz, 4K affair, called the ROG Swift PG27UCWM. The LG one will, presumably, fare even better on the fuzziness front thanks to incredible pixel density.

LG announced the UltraGear Evo 39GX950B at CES, which doesn't use its very latest striped panel tech, but does use its 4th gen tandel OLED tech, and our Jeremy reckons it might end up being a pen-in for the best gaming monitor of 2026. It boasts a ridiculous 5,120 x 2,160 resolution, and at 39 inches on the diagonal, those pixels are kept nice and dense.

Then there's Intel and Samsung's CES-announced partnership to work on improving OLED power efficiency. Specifically, the two companies are pushing out a technology called SmartPowerHDR, which, when in HDR mode, adjusts the screen's voltage on the fly to help reduce overall power consumption depending on what's on screen.

Both LG and Samsung have also upped the ante in the OLED TV sphere by announcing new panels that can reach 4,500 nits of brightness—though it's worth noting that figure is for small screen areas, and full-screen brightness is much lower, though still brighter than desktop OLED monitors. It's not got any of that fancy subpixel stripe stuff going on, but it's a nice improvement for the couch gaming crowd.

So, there have been some genuine improvements to OLED monitors released in and around CES, from both major panel providers. But OLED isn't the only panel tech that's had something exciting pulled out of its sleeve: IPS has, too.

That's thanks to the improvements to Nvidia's G-Sync Pulsar blur reduction technology. Monitors can cause a kind of perceived motion blur that occurs when pixels hang around in their previous spots for too long. Pulsar is a form of backlight strobing, like Ultra-Low Motion Blur (ULMB), that strobes the backlight between frame refreshes to help your eyes not perceive such persistence blur and view the moving image more clearly.

G-Sync Pulsar was officially announced at last year's CES, but there have been no monitors capable of using it until the ones just announced at this year's CES from MSI, Asus, Acer, and AOC. More importantly, though, the technology itself has actually been upgraded. Originally, Pulsar was going to strobe the backlight in full between each monitor refresh, in line with a variable refresh rate. Now, however, just one horizontal strip of pixels at a time strobes right ahead of the rolling 'scanout' that writes new pixels to the screen with each refresh.

Nvidia claims all this leads to "4x the effective motion clarity" and that the rolling strobing should reduce flickering compared to, say, ULMB. Which is all great on paper, of course, but we've not just seen it on paper. Our Andy got his lucky eyeballs on G-Sync Pulsar, and said the experience has "kinda ruined all other gaming monitors for me" because of just how clear those in-game movements are.

But don't take my word for it, take his: "The picture overall, with both fast-moving and static objects, seemed to beam straight into my retinas with impressive precision—resulting in a moving image quality that looks miles ahead of anything I've seen to date … As someone who's stood in front of hundreds (likely thousands, at this point) of extremely good gaming monitors, the way G-Sync Pulsar changes how you perceive fast moving images is downright profound."

I suppose the difficulty from here will be deciding between the two. Do you want amazing motion clarity, or some seriously vibrant colours? I suppose much might come down to cost. OLEDs have been steadily decreasing in cost over the past year, but that new one from MSI is $1,099, which ain't exactly cheap.

On the positive—perhaps optimistic—side though, now that there are newer, better OLED panels on the market, the older ones might drop even lower in price. So, perhaps an indirect effect of the new striped subpixel panels will be cheaper older OLEDs, making them genuinely viable for the average gamer on a moderate budget. We've already seen decent recent monitors that have panels using the older triangular subpixel layout go for around $400 on sale, and perhaps such monitors will go for even cheaper moving forward.

At any rate, it feels good that we've at least got one area of PC gaming hardware that isn't seeing skyrocketing prices and lacklustre improvements—memory shortage be damned. Once we sift through the performative AI rubbish that took up most of CES 2026, there's a definite gem hidden in there, and it's the promise that this year holds out for gaming monitors. Though let's just hope I haven't spoken too soon.

The PC gaming industry is now essentially a repeating cycle of product announcements generating an excitable 'ooh' followed immediately by a sigh of recognition: this isn't for me. Case in point is my reaction upon hearing about the "most powerful gaming laptop on the planet"—'ooh!'—followed by the immediate dual recognition that this will be very expensive and probably very loud and scarcely worth unplugging from the mains—'oh, yeah'.

It is undeniably impressive, however, that MSI is packing very powerful hardware in such a small form factor.

The company says about the Raider 16 Max HX and Raider 16 HX: "Don’t let its size fool you. The Raider 16 Max HX is the world’s first gaming laptop capable of delivering a massive 300W total system power. Under full-load conditions, it unleashes 175W to the RTX 5090 or 5080, while simultaneously feeding 125W to the Intel Core Ultra 200HX processor—making it the most powerful gaming laptop on the planet."

What's also impressive, and a welcome seeming trend for CES this year, is an element of modularity to these Raider laptops. It's not quite the complete modularity we've seen elsewhere, but here we're getting "an exclusive quick-access bottom panel" that "allows users to easily expand memory and storage without removing the entire back cover."

Apart from this, the Raider 16 HX laptops—judging from the specs sheets, it seems the 'Max' just designates the top-tier model, but non-Max ones can also come with a beefy RTX 5090, too—have 2.5K, 240 Hz, OLED displays. Which is, of course, a good pairing for the "most powerful gaming laptop on the planet."

I do of course wonder whether this will also be the most expensive gaming laptop on the planet. A big reason why our Andy rated the MSI Raider 18 HX AI A2XW so low in his review is that it's incredibly expensive. As in, over $4,000; that kind of expensive.

And that one 'only' had an RTX 5080 inside. He did find it to be quieter than the Titan 18 HX, though, so perhaps sound won't be as big of an issue. Although we're working with a smaller form factor here, which will presumably mean more work for the fans to undergo to keep everything cool.

On that front, MSI explains: "MSI equips the Raider 16 Max HX with the all-new Cooler Boost Trinity with Intra Flow thermal system—featuring three fans, six heat pipes, five exhaust vents, and phase-change thermal compound."

At 2.6 kg, it's lighter than those 18-inch whoppers, but heavier than sleeker 16-inch gaming laptops like the Razer Blade 16. That laptop also offers 175 W of power to the RTX 5090 inside, but I suppose MSI's selling point here is that it's also giving 125 W to the Core Ultra 200HX at the same time. Which will be great for some productivity workloads, and also some more CPU-intensive games.

As for whether all that power will be worth the inevitably high price tag, we'll have to wait and see what it's like in practice.

Nvidia showed off its original version of G-Sync Pulsar motion blur reduction technology two years ago at CES 2024. At first it was only going to be available for monitors with the proprietary G-Sync module installed, but this later opened up to all G-Sync monitors using one of MediaTek's scaler chips.

Now, two years after its initial announcement, Nvidia has announced an update to the tech which should mean more blur reduction. Oh, and there are actually monitors supporting the tech, now.

Perceived motion blur on a monitor, to simplify a little, is essentially caused by the perception that pixels are still hanging around in their previous position after they've moved on to their new spot. That's not really what's happening, of course. This can either be caused by a a slow pixel transition to a new value, or it can be caused by our eyes still holding on to the previous frame for a little too long after the image has changed.

Pulsar attempts to use backlight strobing to solve this problem, and the original version essentially turns off the backlight between each displayed frame. This backlight strobing will be familiar to those of you who know about Ultra-Low Motion Blur, but Pulsar tailors this ULMB strobing to match variable refresh rates, thus the G-Sync identifier. Making the strobing match your monitor's variable refresh rate is supposed to help prevent perceived flickering.

So far so good, but what's new? Well, apart from some tangential 'Ambient Adaptive' technology that adjusts your monitor's brightness and colour based on your room's ambient lighting, the big change is how the new Pulsar does its strobing. The new version doesn't actually strobe the entire backlight. Instead, it strobes just a horizontal strip at the point of the 'scanout'.

When your monitor refreshes to display a new frame, it actually does this a row at a time, rolling down your screen. The new G-Sync Pulsar uses "Regional Backlight Pulsing" to "pulse" (ie, strobe) the backlight at the row where the pixels are about to change—there are ten "backlight stripes", ie, rows, that can be strobed. Think of it like a wave, rolling down your screen, flowing just ahead of where your monitor is scanning out the new frame.

Compared to not having Pulsar enabled, the benefit is, according to Nvidia, that you have each frame visible for just 25% of the frame time, which means "4x smaller object hold time" and "4x the effective motion clarity."

It is, of course, a technology mostly aimed at competitive gaming, thus why the promo shots are of a Counter-Strike character.

It also therefore tracks that the monitors announced alongside this new technology, which make use of it, are ones that should be great for esports: 27-inch, 360 Hz, 1440p IPS panels from Acer, AOC, Asus, and MSI. It'll be interesting to see how a 360 Hz monitor with the new G-Sync Pulsar compares to, say, a 540 Hz monitor without the new strobing tech, for competitive FPS gaming.

There's something to be said for throwing moderation out the window and going all in on excess. MSI seems to agree, as it's just taken the wraps off the MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z, a truly monstrous, water cooled, 8-inch screen emblazoned GPU that makes the regular RTX 5090 look downright pedestrian.

It's been designed to 'completely ignore the concepts of balance in favour of extremes', according to the launch presentation I just attended, and boy howdy has MSI refused to do things by halves. Well, we are in Vegas, after all.

For a start, there's an 8-inch display mounted to the card itself, which has eschewed a regular air cooler for an external 360 mm radiator with a three fan cooling arrangement. It's fed by a newly-designed pump that MSI says delivers 71% increased flow over previous GPU pump iterations, which is in turn attached to a full copper, full cover cold plate arrangement designed to keep things frosty. With a carbon fibre plate on the back, naturally.

And frosty it'll need to be, as this beast is built to draw huge amounts of power. It's fed by dual 16-pin power connectors and 40-phase VRMs, with a dual BIOS system which allows the "extreme" variant to draw up to 1000 W.

For reference, the regular RTX 5090 has a TGP of 575 W, so this PSU-worrying ubercard is capable of nearly doubling the already-eye-watering demands of an FE model. MSI recommends a 1600 W PSU, and I really doubt it's kidding.

There's also a 2500 W+ BIOS for "extreme overclockers" only, which I imagine is reserved for those types with a spare canister of liquid nitrogen hanging around. Those of us that use the regular modes, however, will be treated to a top stock boost clock of 2,775 MHz, around 365 MHz more than most RTX 5090s.

Should you wish to push the card further (and let's face it, there wouldn't be much point buying it if you didn't), intrepid overclockers will be able to tweak it to its maximum potential via the Lightning Hub web app, or with an app on your phone. The truly enthusiastic will also be able to adjust the voltages with some handy dedicated multimeter "V-check" connections.

Oh, and you can switch the BIOS between the 1000 W and 800 W versions with an included keyring. It looks like a lightning bolt, and... well, I can't help but feel it's a bit tacky. Still, excess is excess. How do you switch BIOS modes on your card, anyway? A switch at best? Pah. Check out my dangling plastic tat.

Anyway, this particular RTX 5090 is the first MSI GPU to use the Lightning moniker since an RTX 2080 Ti variant many moons ago, and the company seems very excited to bring the branding back. The launch presentation was full of CGI jet fighters, overwrought metaphors of extreme performance, and several memorable quotes. My favourite?

"Madness shaped our engineering". Indeed.

Still, this GPU really does look to be an impressive achievement of extreme engineering over common sense. Every bell and whistle seems to have been throughly polished, even down to the MOSFETs and chokes, which have been "hand selected" for the very best performance. It also emerges from its box like an aerospace component, which, let's face it, is just freaking cool.

How much? No idea. What I do know, however, is that MSI is only making 1300 of them, and considers each card to be a collectors model. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on potential pricing here, but let me be the first to say: I doubt it will be anything close to cheap.

But hey, that's compromise talk. The MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Lightning Z is all about the extremes, dude. And while I'm always a fan of good value, I can't help but salute a well-intentioned punt at the ultra-enthusiast market. Got some serious cash to flash? May I present this, the silly-yet-fabulous GPU of your dreams. Or the Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab OC Edition. One of the two, anyway.

The new MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 has an utterly appalling name for an incredibly appealing monitor. Our Jeremy spent the Christmas week testing the new gaming screen featuring the very latest 5th Gen Samsung QD-OLED panel, and has come out the other side giving it an ed's pick award and a high score of 92%.

And he's not an easy person to please when it comes to gaming monitors, especially those with actually relatively low resolutions and pixel density figures. After all, the new MSI display is a 34-inch ultrawide with a 3440 × 1440 native resolution and therefore a 110 ppi density metric.

With every other QD-OLED I've tested and touched with my eyeballs, that combination would have us all retching uncontrollably. Font fringing. That's the problem, and it makes all those old 34-inch panels—and basically anything with a native res under 4K and/or screen size bigger than 32-inches—seriously unpleasant to use for anything outside of pure gaming.

When you've got a game loaded up fullscreen, and you're fragging away with gay abandon, then you'll notice not a thing and be wondering why I'm making sick cat noises around your 1440p OLED monitor. But as soon as you exit and try to read pretty much any bit of text rendered in Windows you'll see what I mean and the dry heaving will begin.

Without getting too technical, the issue is down to the subpixel layout of previous QD-OLED panels which used a weird triangular structure. The design is absolutely fine for a TV you're going to be sat on a sofa watching, less so for a smaller panel that's going to be positioned a couple of feet (at most) from your nose.

The result was an indistinct edge to fonts and coloured fringing around the outside. With the new RGB stripe layout—essentially just the red, green, and blue subpixels arranged left to right—that issue is all but entirely removed. Take this to a 27-inch 4K panel and it will be completely gone, I'd wager.

Right now, it's only available in this 34-inch 3440 × 1440 Samsung panel, but further panel configurations will become available throughout the coming year.

But it's not just fixed the font fringing problem, the MSI monitor also features a semi-glossy coating and panel layer that enhances light absorption. Put a Samsung QD-OLED and LG WOLED side-by-side, shine a light on both, and you'll see a slightly purple tinge come to the surface. With this new PureBlack layer that's far less noticeable. There is still a difference between the two OLED panel technologies, but you've got to be firing a really strong light at the panels to really see it.

What about peak brightness? Well, that's not exactly a game-changer, with the new panel offering a fullscreen average brightness of 300 cd/m². That's better than the previous 250 and 275 cd/m² ratings of older QD-OLED generations, but we really want to be getting up to 400 cd/m² for OLED brightness to be effectively a solved thing.

Still, with some effective MSI tuning, the MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 delivers the best HDR experience, both in dark scenes with pin sharp highlights and in bright outdoor scenes, too. That's a first for PC OLED gaming monitors.

The new panel will be out very soon, with a ~$1,100 price tag. But MSI has long been ultra competitive when it comes to panel pricing, so I would expect to see that drop sometime throughout the year. If only the hardware to drive it would do the same.

Once you've gone OLED, you won't ever want to go back. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say that about the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36? To discover that it ditches the usual shortcomings of Samsung's QD-OLED tech while capitalising on all that characteristic OLED goodness, including perfect per-pixel lighting and incredible speed?

Well, there's good reason to think that it might just be a goer. Because this new MSI monitor rocks Samsung's very latest QD-OLED panel technology. MSI is referring to it as "5th-Gen" Samsung QD-OLED, which is news to me. I thought the very latest panel tech from Samsung is Gen 4. Likewise, MSI refers to not only "5th Gen" but "5th Gen Tandem OLED" when describing this panel technology, which leaves me a bit baffled.

"Tandem OLED" has hitherto been a marketing pitch employed by LG, Samsung's main competitor in the OLED panel manufacturing industry, to describe its own latest WOLED technology. Has someone in MSI marketing department gotten a little over excited when it comes to both the 5th-Gen and the tandem thing? Very possibly.

Whatever, another unexpected spec detail, but one that's definitely present, is a move away from the slightly odd triangular subpixel pattern that Samsung has been using in its QD-OLED panels thus far to a more conventional vertical RGB stripe.

Samsung hasn't quite delivered a totally standard RGB solution, where all three subpixels are exactly the same size and shape, as per pretty much all LCD monitors—the blue subpixel is noticeably smaller, for instance. But the subpixels are arranged in a vertical RGB stripe pattern and that should help with any image rendering that relies on subpixel structure, such as font smoothing and text clarity.

That's especially handy given this display offers a 3,440 by 1,440 native resolution on a large 34-inch panel. The consequent pixel density of 110 DPI is quite a bit lower than, say, either 27-inch or 32-inch 4K screens. On previous QD-OLED panels of the same size and resolution, text has looked pretty rough thanks to colour fringing. In theory, that should be solved.

The headline specs include a boost in full-screen brightness to 300 nits. That's a welcome-rather-than-spectacular improvement on the 250 nits of most previous QD-OLEDs and a lot lower than the 400-plus nits that brightest QD-OLED TV sets can achieve. Personally I'd like to see a figure north of 400 nits before I deem full-screen brightness a totally sorted limitation in this type of display.

That said, this panel also steps up from VESA DisplayHDR 400 to DisplayHDR 500 certification. Peak HDR brightness is likewise up to, from 1,000 nits to 1,300 nits.

If light emission is only up, on paper, light absorption is also said to be much increased, which is a good thing. QD-OLED's characteristic problem with ambient light, where the panel takes on something of a purple-grey tinge in really bright conditions, has had the effect of reducing perceived contrast. It's a bit of a bummer given perfect per-pixel light control is the number one attraction with OLED tech.

For this new generation of Samsung QD-OLED panel, that issue is much improved, though it's not entirely solved. If you place this MSI next to a monitor with LG's competing WOLED tech and shine a really bright LED on both panels (as I have done), it's clear enough that this new Samsung QD-OLED technology still kicks back more light than an LG WOLED.

But the improvement is sufficient that I'd argue it should no longer be a factor in choosing between Samsung QD-OLED and LG WOLED panel types. Unless you play or work in incredibly bright ambient light conditions, the perceived contrast of this monitor is fantastic. Oh, and in case you weren't entirely sure, yes the panel coating is glossy, not matte.

Another upgrade, this time from MSI rather than Samsung, involves enhancements to the EOTF controls. EOTF or Electro-Optical Transfer Function is essentially the map that determines how electrical signals are translated into actual light output on a display and it's particularly important for getting HDR calibration right.

The last MSI panel we looked at, the MSI MPG 271QR X50, had an EOTF "Boost Mode". That's designed to combine the best attributes of the certified DisplayHDR 500 mode, which gives the highest full-screen brightness, and the panel-native EOTF mode, which enables the brightest peaks for small details on the screen. This model also offers customisable versions of both the DisplayHDR 500 mode and the HDR 1,300 mode. So you can tweak them to suit your preferences, in theory, at least.

Wrapping up the main panel specs, you get the usual 0.03 ms pixel response—at least an order of magnitude faster than any LCD monitor—and 360 Hz refresh, which ought to be fast enough for all but the most demanding esports fans. As for connectivity, along with DisplayPort and HDMI, there's also a USB-C interface for single-cable connectivity to a laptop and 98 W of power delivery. Add in a two-port USB-A hub and this monitor has you pretty well covered.

The same goes for the stand and chassis. It's well engineered, albeit pretty anonymous to look at, and offers a full range of height, tilt and rotate adjustment. There's also pivot, but only about 20 degrees in each direction to help level out the display, as opposed to the full 90 degrees you'd need to swing the panel right round into portrait mode, the latter being a niche concern for an ultrawide 34-inch panel like this.

Just to fully square away the technical housekeeping, it's worth noting that MSI offers another MPG 341CQR monitor model, minus the "QD-OLED X36" bit on the end. It's an older model with a VA panel and it's moderately mind boggling that MSI would use largely the same name for this new and radically different OLED. But that's how it goes in the PC monitor market. There's pretty much a competition among the big brands to come up with literally the worst and most confusing product names possible.

If that's all of the technical details covered off, how does this monitor actually look? The immediate impression is not dramatically different to previous QD-OLEDs. But on closer inspection, there are numerous improvements.

The general punchiness in SDR mode on the Windows desktop is pretty good but doesn't feel like a huge upgrade. In all honesty, I would prefer there was just a touch more full-screen punch. Then it would be possible to put to bed, once and for all, that particular OLED shortcoming.

Average brightness of 300 nits is decent, don't get me wrong. And Samsung's QD-OLED punches above its specs when it comes to perceived brightness. That's because LG's WOLED tech uses an additional white subpixel to boost peak white brightness. For colour brightness, QD-OLED is generally superior, even when its peak nit rating says otherwise.

Ultimately, this monitor is brighter than many—maybe even most—gamers will need in normal viewing conditions. It's just that at this fairly lofty price point, it would be nice to be able to bury any concerns absolutely for good.

Anywho, along with a bit more punch, and probably related to the improved light absorption, is slightly more accurate colour balance. QD-OLEDs tend to be overly warm in terms of colour temperature and that flaw is definitely improved with this new-gen panel.

As for the text rendering, fonts definitely look a little crisper thanks to those RGB subpixels. But you have to be realistic about a display like this with modest 110 DPI pixel density. It's never going to be super sharp.

What is pretty super, on the other hand, is the speed. If you haven't experienced a 0.03 ms OLED running at high refresh—in this case 360 Hz—well, let's just say you're missing out. This thing is painfully quick and offers spectacular motion clarity. Along with the per-pixel lighting and mega contrast, it's the speed really stands out. Once you've experienced the response and clarity of an OLED like that, pretty much any LCD looks a little washed out and smeary by comparison.

Of course, the 34-inch ultrawide form factor of this MSI panel isn't actually ideal for esports, despite all that speed. You'll still want a 16:9 aspect monitor if online shooters are your main gaming distraction. But you have the option with at least some shooters of playing at 2,560 by 1,440 with black bars on either side. And thanks to the OLED tech, those black bars really are just that—absolutely black—and thus less distracting than they otherwise would be.

The final and in some ways most impressive piece of the puzzle, then, is HDR. The on-paper highlights include loftier peaks, now hitting 1,300 nits and matching the best monitors with LG WOLED panels, DisplayHDR 500 certification and the aforementioned enhanced EOTF modes. If anything, the subjective experience is even better.

The default DisplayHDR 500 mode is really nice. It renders SDR content pretty much perfectly and allows for a punchier experience with SDR content, such as the Windows desktop, day to day, albeit with a tiny bit of visible dimming if you are lighting up large sections of the panel. It works especially well if you run all your apps in dark mode.

Personally, I do just that and it looks fantastic on this monitor. You get a subjective experience that looks closer to a 500 nit SDR monitor, just with epic lighting control and contrast.

In games, though, that's where this monitor really shows its HDR chops. This is the first OLED monitor I've ever seen that looks almost as impressive in Cyberpunk 2077's sunny desert scenes as it does rendering a moody underground nightclub punctuated with sizzling neon lights.

In this context, EOTF Boost mode works really well. You get very impressive full-screen punch for outdoor game scenes while maintaining those eye-popping HDR peaks for small details in darker gaming environments. All told, this monitor delivers the best HDR I've yet seen on a PC monitor. It really is that good.

Really, my main reservations concern the basic format and resolution. For all-round use, 3,440 by 1,440 pixels on a 34-inch ultrawide doesn't make for terribly sharp pixel density, especially if you're used to a 27-inch or 32-inch 4K monitor. So, spending this much money is a big ask.

Of course, purely for gaming, this size and resolution strikes a great balance between detail, immersion and frame rates. It's a fair bit less demanding than 4K, and the ultrawide aspect is incredibly immersive. So, if 34-inch ultrawide and 1440p is your preference, this is undoubtedly the best example of this class of gaming display yet. It really is fantastic.

As a final aside and an anecdotal measure of just how impressive this monitor is, well, it's been on my desk for a few weeks as my daily driver and I'm reluctant to put it back in the box. I see a lot of monitors and this is an awfully rare occurrence. Monitors usually get booted straight after the review. But not this one. When you also consider that I very much prefer panels with quite high pixel density, there can be no doubting that the MSI MPG 341CQR QD-OLED X36 is something quite special.

As hardware reviews go, this one has probably been the most challenging one I've ever undertaken in my three decades of testing and rating PC hardware. Not because the product is incredibly complex or difficult to use; far from it, in fact. And not because it was a bug-ridden, early-release mess either. Indeed not, as the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition is probably the most stable, easy-to-use, and feature-rich desktop PC motherboard I have ever tested.

The problem is in its name: X Edition. This is a limited release model, created by MSI to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its Godlike series of motherboards. Only 1,000 units will be made available, and restricted to Micro Center and Newegg in the US, and Scan in the UK. So the chances of an average PC enthusiast being able to buy one are astonishingly remote, even if you have a wallet capacious enough to afford the Godlike X Edition.

So how does one go about testing and ultimately reviewing a product that hardly anyone will be able to buy? In some ways, MSI has made the challenge simple by taking a standard MEG X870E Godlike (though they're hardly what you call standard) and upgrading the package to produce the X Edition.

I might as well get this out of the way now, though. It doesn't feel like MSI has done enough to make the X Edition really worth being limited to one thousand units. That's because there's only a handful of differences between the standard Godlike and the Godlike X Edition. You get an MSI plushy-keyring dragon toy, a bespoke heatsink for the primary M.2 SSD slot that's labelled with the unit's production number, plus a USB-powered stand/box to show off said heatsink.

There are also some minor tweaks to the look of the UEFI/BIOS, and the polychromic display over the rear IO panel shroud sports a different colour, but that's pretty much it. As far as hardware and operational features are concerned, you're not missing anything by picking up a normal Godlike.

Of course, that particular motherboard is just completely over-the-top anyway, and it's really not suitable for the vast majority of PC gamers or overclocking enthusiasts. It is an astonishingly well-equipped and comprehensively specified motherboard, but unless you absolutely must have 15 USB rear ports, all rated to 10 Gbps or faster, up to 7 M.2 slots, and all the visual bling possible, the standard Godlike is going to be an excessive purchase for anyone.

That said, while I can't afford an MSI MEG X870 Godlike, let alone the Godlike X Edition, for my gaming rig, I would buy one in a flash if money were no object whatsoever. Not because it's the best AM5 motherboard you can buy, but simply because I use a lot of USB devices and SSDs. If I could host them all on one motherboard, with next to no compromises, I'd be very happy.

If I had to rank the Godlike X Edition's features, expansion and connectivity options would easily come top of the pile. Starting with PCIe slots, there are only three of them, and while two are physically x16 in size, only the top slot is electrically x16 Gen 5. The second PCIe slot is x8 Gen 5, with the little one at the bottom being x4 Gen 4. The latter will be forced to run at x2, though, if you fill the fourth M.2 slot with any kind of SSD.

That's the only bad news, because when it comes to M.2 slots, it's a smorgasbord of connectivity. You get two x4 Gen 5, two x4 Gen 4, and one x2/x4 Gen 4 SSD slots, but if that's not enough storage options, you also get MSI's M.2 Xpander-Z Slider adapter card, which can house two hot-swappable Gen 5 SSDs.

While the M.2 card is very slim, taking up just one PCI slot in the PC's chassis, it's surprisingly tall and long. There's a single 60 mm fan to keep things cool when fully loaded with hot Gen 5 drives, but it's quite noisy under load. It also blocks airflow to very thick graphics cards (think monster-size RTX 5090s), but I guess if you've just bought a Godlike or Godlike X Edition motherboard, there's a strong chance you'll be watercooling your GPU anyway.

The rear IO panel on the MSI MEG X870 Godlike X Edition is the same as the normal Godlike, and it's like a small slice of paradise for any USB hoarder. Where the vast majority of motherboards offer a range of USB ports at various speeds, MSI has gone all out here. You get eight USB 3.2 Type-A and five USB 3.2 Type-C, all rated to 10 Gbps, and as per AMD's X870 requirements, there are two USB4 Type-C ports that are good for 40 Gbps.

That's fifteen USB ports on the rear panel alone. However, if you go ham with SSDs and fill the second M.2 slot, then the USB4 ports will be limited to 20 Gbps, and the drive will go from x4 to x2. That's because the motherboard's USB4 board-mounted controller shares PCIe lanes with that second M.2 slot.

If you've spent all that money on a Godlike motherboard, you might be disappointed to find such compromises, but all AMD AM5 boards have them, because desktop Ryzen processors and the X870E chipset just don't have enough PCI Express lanes to go around. Should that be a deal-breaker for you, then you'll either have to go down an Intel Core Ultra 200S route or blow your budget clean out of the water with an AMD Threadripper build.

Continuing the theme of excess, the Godlike and Godlike X Edition both sport two displays: a polychromic one on the rear IO panel shroud, and the other is MSI's Dynamic Dashboard III. The latter is built into the EZ Bridge, a unit that magnetically attaches to the motherboard, and as well as being home to a configurable four-inch LCD display, it also houses power and reset buttons, a release mechanism for the main PCIe slot, as well as a host of headers.

These are all mounted horizontally, making it much easier to have a neater-looking build in terms of cables. This is where you can connect the included fan hub to the motherboard, with dedicated headers for its SATA power and control, along with headers for thermocouple sensors (also included), front panel chassis connectors, MSI's special all-in-one fan/USB/ARGB cable header, and more.

To be honest, there are so many headers and sockets for power, fans, lights, and sensing that it's somewhat overwhelming. If you're a PC novice, no matter how wealthy you are, it's likely to be far too daunting to use in a first-ever build.

Experienced builders, especially those who are keen on overclocking, will no doubt relish all these options to expand, cool, and monitor the motherboard. And speaking of cooling, MSI has naturally plastered the whole motherboard with swathes of metal, front and back, to prevent excessive thermals from ruining anyone's day.

The heatsink covering the CPU VRMs, for example, is one of the largest I've ever seen. That doesn't automatically mean it's very good, of course, but we'll see just how capable it is when we dig into the benchmarks shortly. The same goes for the M.2 heatsinks: they're dense and large, but the one covering the primary SSD slot does have some issues.

Rather than it being an enormous slab of steel, it's actually quite slim, and it's topped by a very smooth and reflective surface, plus there's a small display embedded in it. Neither aspect is a good thing for heat dissipation, as we'll see soon enough. You actually get two of these heatsinks, one that you can use all the time, and another (unique to the Godlike X Edition) that you can either fit to the motherboard or mount in a special display box.

This has a USB Type-C port on the rear for powering the heatsink's display, and a small button at the front of the box cycles through various preset modes for the screen. It all looks very pretty when running, but it doesn't quite feel 'special' enough for an anniversary, limited-run product.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test rig: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Asus ROG Strix LC III 360 AIO cooler | 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | 2 TB Corsair MP700 SSD | Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1000 W PSU | Thermal Grizzly Der8enchtable chassis | Acer XB280KH monitor | Windows 11 25H2

Something else that doesn't feel all that amazing is the performance of the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition. It's certainly not bad, but as you can see below, you're not getting anything better from it than you would from a motherboard that's a quarter of the cost of a standard Godlike.

While some of the differences in gaming performance between the boards can be explained by changes in BIOS, CPU microcode, Windows updates, and game patches, the fact remains that you're not going to magically get a higher frame rate just because you've bought one of the most expensive desktop motherboards around.

Through my various tests of MSI's latest boards, both AMD and Intel, I get the feeling that it uses quite conservative CPU and memory settings by default, to maximise stability and compatibility. You can bypass some of these by jumping into the UEFI and enabling things like Enhanced PBO or Game Mode, but they don't automatically result in a significant gaming boost.

It's a similar story in our productivity/content creation benchmark results. The MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition is pretty on par with the other motherboards, and for the same reasons as in the gaming benchmarks. If you want more performance than this, you'll just have to spend a lot of time working through and testing each UEFI option that relates to the CPU and RAM.

I did explore this briefly, but the Ryzen 9 9900X isn't AMD's best processor for overclocking and our choice of RAM kit is based on stability and compatibility, not outright performance. In other words, I didn't get much more out of our test rig with the Godlike X Edition, or at the very least, nothing more than I've got from other AM5 motherboards.

While the gaming and CPU test results are perhaps a little disappointing, they're completely understandable. However, the one aspect of the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition that you might be surprised about is just how average the thermal performance seems to be.

It's best to ignore the CPU temperatures, as these are far more affected by the cooler and test environment than the motherboard itself. This is also true for other temperatures, of course, but as the VRMs and primary SSD were being cooled entirely by the host's heatsinks (i.e. no active fans), the above results are a good indication of how well each motherboard handles heat.

Despite the enormous VRM heatsink, the Godlike X Edition's voltage regulators appear to run hotter than almost any other board in the test group. However, I have noticed that there is a distinct lack of information provided by any vendor as to where and how this temperature is reported. That means the differences in reported temperatures could be entirely down to the placement of the thermal sensor.

To see how well the X870E Godlike X Edition coped with more extreme power loads, I enabled PBO Enhanced Mode 3 in the UEFI and ran the Baldur's Gate 3 and Cinebench tests again. It made not a jot of difference in BG3, neither performance nor temperatures, but it caused havoc in Cinebench.

With a peak CPU package power of 208 W (24% higher than when using the default configuration), the extra energy drove the CPU temperature up to 97 °C, but produced a score no different from before. Interestingly, though, the VRM temperatures were no higher (they were actually a little lower), which shows that MSI's heatsink is a lot better than the test results suggest.

I do wish MSI had a better heatsink for the main SSD slot, though, because while it looks very nice, the combination of the reflective surface and active display does little to help thermals. A peak temperature of 76 °C isn't catastrophic for a Gen 5 SSD, but it's not exactly great, either.

Conclusion

At this point in a motherboard review, I normally move on to discussing whether the item in question is worth buying or not, weighing up its relative merits and failings against the competition at its price point. There's no point in doing that here, partly because there are very few other desktop AM5 motherboards that cost this much.

The main reason, though, is that I suspect most people just won't be able to buy the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition. With only 1,000 units available, they're likely to be snapped up the very second they reach the scant few retailers. You can buy the normal MSI MEG X870E Godlike, though.

Let's ignore the price ($1,100 at Amazon) of that particular board; forget about its enormous size and weight, too (E-ATX size and almost three kilograms). Think of the average default performance as simply being an invitation to experimenting with coolers and UEFI settings. What really matters is MSI's 'everything and the kitchen sink' approach to the Godlike.

You get truly exceptional levels of expansion and connectivity, more so than any other AM5 motherboard. The visual appearance is spectacular when everything is fully lit and displaying merrily away. As a centrepiece for building the ultimate Ryzen desktop PC, the MSI MEG X870 Godlike and Godlike X Edition imbue the kind of excess that many a PC enthusiast aspires to.

Sadly, even if you could afford the Godlike X Edition, you probably won't be lucky enough to actually get one. Best just get the MSI MEG X870E Godlike instead, then.

The MSI Forge GK600 is a tenkeyless (TKL) gaming keyboard, meaning it's missing the numberpad. But Katie, I hear you say, if a normal keyboard has all the keys you could ever want, what's the point getting rid of them in favour of a TKL board? Well, friend, it's all about real estate and maneuverability. And cash, of course. But isn't everything? Say you've spent all your cash on the best gaming PC and you're now stuck with a teeny tiny desk. A TKL board nets you more desk space so you can stack plates and coffee cups beside it to your heart's content, or whatever else you're draping over your battlestation.

With the MSI Forge GK600, you're killing two birds with one stone: saving space on your desk while also protecting your dragon's hoard of gold. Let's get into what makes the Forge GK600 special and, of course, what doesn't.

Sitting somewhere in the region of a 75-80% layout, the Forge GK600 takes up less space without sacrificing as much productivity as the super compact layout of something like the 60% NuPhy Air60 HE. Its dedicated navigation and direction keys aren't being swallowed up by the mass of other keys, so you don't need to fumble around for them, while the two-column layout of the navigation section keeps it from extending into your valuable mousepad space. There's no programmable macro keys, but you still get use of 12 F-keys at the top.

I'm not a huge fan of the Delete key being dead center of the left column as a person who spends most of their time re-hashing walls of text. It initially left many a paragraph lost to an erroneous page-up/insert keystroke, but didn't take long to get used to the odd positioning.

In place of dedicated media controls, like the lovely programmable dial of the Corsair K65 Plus, MSI has opted for a funky little display in the top right corner. I thought it was just a flashy solution for indicator LEDs so you know what you're connected to, whether that's via Bluetooth, wireless, or a wired connection, and if you're about to type in caps or have accidentally locked your Win key.

The display had felt completely unnecessary until I realised it has a full menu of lighting profiles and other goodies in there. There are loads of great lighting effects to scroll through. While that makes the screen slightly more useful, and omits the need for software, I'd personally rather it not waste what little battery life there is. Especially as that's the major drawback of the whole package for me.

I got an RGB-lit battery life of just 24 hours out of the Forge GK600—around three days of gaming and working, on and off. That's not the worst battery life I've seen on a gaming keyboard, but it's a darn sight shorter than something like the Keychron K2 HE's 74 hours with RGB enabled. Switch off the lights, and MSI reckons you'll get 20 days out of it. Assuming you're at your keyboard 8 hours a day that's around 160 hours, which is still less than half the 240 hours unlit that the Keychron offers. Then again, the prices do scale accordingly.

Sadly, MSI opted for opaque legends on the Forge GK600 keycaps, which means the board is all but useless in the dark. Everything else about the keys is fantastic, however, from the cute, tri-tone colourway, to the OEM profile that gently cradles my fingers, to the subtle non-slip keycap texture. The fact everything is hot swappable is just the cherry on the cake, or on the keyboard if that's what you want. Should MSI's proprietary linear mechanical switches not suit your preferences—and they won't be for everyone—it's easy to swap them out for third-party switches of your choice.

For a lot of people hot-swap switches will be the main draw, but since the Forge GK600 positions itself close enough to the budget range, it could happily appeal to users who aren't into keyboard modding. That said, the lack of alternative switch options for the base board is more likely to alienate any non-modders hankering for a clicky experience, or something a little more tactile.

Tapping away at the board, the linears are swift and offer some intense resistance, though they can feel a little gooey with the level of bounceback. It's clear some effort has gone into sound dampening. With an IXPE foam layer, silicone pad and various extra layers added to try to keep the noise down it does a good job of softening the clunk. Sadly, all that padding affects the board exponentially when it comes to weight and thickness.

At the thickest point the Forge GK600 is 34 mm, and I wouldn't exactly call it a lightweight board either at 943 g. 56 g shy of a full kilo makes it a hard to champion as a portable keyboard. Sure you're saving a little more desk space and neatening up your battlestation with the omission of wires, but portability is something all wireless boards should be aiming to offer in the age of gaming on the go. The weight will also play into a decision for anyone who switches up connections a lot.

While it's possible to connect either it with the USB type-C cable, 2.4 GHz wireless via an appropriately compact dongle, or to up to three machines simultaneously via Bluetooth, the Forge GK600 hides the switch directly under the keyboard. It's dead center, with the labelling upside down if you lift the keyboard vertically. It's not even close to accessible, so if you switch connections a lot this probably isn't the board for you.

When all is said and done, the Forge GK600 TKL is a relatively good price for what you're getting. It's part of the budget Forge line that frankly has no business being as snazzy as it is. And so much for the pink tax, because the violet Forge GK600 TKL actually comes in cheaper.

At this price, it all depends on what you can afford to overlook as to whether this board is for you. If you're not worried about moving around and key spacing doesn't bother you, the Gamakay x NaughShark NS68 offers Hall Effect switches with programmable actuation for half the price of the GK600 TKL. Otherwise, the budget Forge GK600 TKL still offers a lot for stationary gamers who play mostly in rooms with the light turned on. We goblin-moders might look elsewhere, though.

As much as a good battery life is going to be a high priority when it comes to buying a wireless gaming mouse, sometimes the need to nestle your rodent neatly in its own dock and go "aww look, it's sleeping" will quickly knock battery life off the top of that list. And while gaming mouse docks are often disregarded as a novelty or even a gimmick, it's hard to deny their practicality. I mean, plugging in? In 2025? Why waste my energy on something so tedious?

Thankfully, the MSI Versa Pro Wireless gaming mouse and Mouse Dock Pro are all about the path of least resistance. Since the world is now moving into some strange, AI-fuelled Edo period I'm betting the use of gaming mouse docks will start to see a resurgence, too. Alright, better prep yourself for further laziness productivity rants as we get into why the MSI Versa Pro Wireless and Mouse Dock Pro is quickly becoming my new favorite gaming accessory duo.

Aside from the huge, lit-up logo and RGB-studded side panels there's a certain sleek simplicity to the Versa Pro and Mouse Dock Pro. Granted they sit closer to that modern gamery aesthetic than the distinguished retro vibe of the 8BitDo Retro R8, for example, and only coming in black it alienates the more gaudy peripheral enjoyers out there, but I can appreciate the restraint having tested so many pro FPS mice covered in weird holes and the like.

The Versa Pro's silhouette is reminiscent of a chunkier, more cohesive-looking Logitech G502 Hero, and it's clear MSI has taken a heap of inspiration from it as one of the best mice on the market.

MSI has opted for a broad curve in its approach to ergonomics that allows the hand to sit flatter. The lightly-recessed diamond grip side panels and comfy thumbrest gently cradle my thumb, while giving me something to hang onto that isn't silicone. Not that I'm averse to silicone grips—they do work. Just more often than not they're the first thing to go on a gaming mouse. The omission here indicates a longer shelf life.

Durability isn't something MSI has overlooked either. The chassis takes a good hard squeeze without flinching, and the Omron optical switches MSI has opted for are rated at a 70-million-click lifespan, so it should last a while unless you start yeeting it across the room.

Of the many, many buttons on the MSI Versa Pro most are blessed with that swift and satisfying click you want from a gaming mouse. All bar one: the infinite scroll switch. Don't get me wrong, I am an infinite scroll stan until the end times—this being a scroll wheel that can freewheel—but as it wobbles under my fingertip there's something a little more Fisher-Price about that specific button than the rest.

Still, the sheer number of buttons included is something MSI should take pride in. I'm talking four-way scroll wheel, three thumb buttons, two up top beside the standard left and right clickers, and even a DPI shifter on the bottom. All these are available to program as you see fit, which really adds to the productivity and convenience factors for FPS gamers and MMO players, or anyone else taken by the need to macro.

All that programming happens through the MSI Center software which, as is tradition for gaming accessories, is one of the worst things about the whole package. The barrier to entry is huge. In order for the Versa Pro to even show up in the software, MSI needed to grill me about the exact date, location, and store of purchase, along with the product serial number, before it would acknowledge the existence of a mouse at all. No, I don't want to upload an invoice, thanks. I just want to check my polling rate.

I passed the inquisition, but MSI Center still bugs me with the odd popup advertising Norton 360—for which the only options are install now and snooze—but the software interface itself is intuitive, and the act of creating and assigning macros is incredibly easy.

Insofar as accuracy goes, all the tests came back with steady arcs and minimal discrepancies. The main thing is that it's accurate, and while it doesn't have the ridiculous polling rate of its dock-paired twin Razer Viper V3 Pro, most gamers just don't need it. Besides, it's features like 8K polling that really mess with battery life.

The lightbars flanking the scroll wheel started to flash red at around 30% to indicate a low battery, with the RGB flicking off automatically to give me a few hours to get to a save point and pop the Versa Pro back onto its cute little magnetic plinth. All in all, it kept going with RGB on for around 24 hours before I had to charge up. While that's not even close to the lightless Viper V3's 95 hours at 1,000 polling, 80 hours sans RGB isn't the worst battery life I've encountered. Plus, you can charge as you play easily since the docking station also has a USB port for easy access.

If you're not concerned about wireless tech, the Logitech G502 X does all this with the addition of a swappable sniper button and for less cash. Super serious gamers might consider the Deathadder V4 Pro instead, but often these flashy wireless gaming mice with docks are far too expensive to warrant the frills. If you want to cover your bases without going overkill, you could do a heck of a lot worse than the MSI Versa Pro and Dock around the $100 mark.

Any day I cast my gaze upon a cursed bit of hardware is a good day, in my book. By that metric, today is off to a heel-stomping start, thanks to Varmilo's line of wireless 'Foot Keyboards'.

I'll give you a moment to process that. Alright? Now, let me explain. The cursed keebs in question are a line of wireless peripherals designed to give you an esports edge (via Videocardz). How, you may be asking? By relegating key button presses to the domain of limbs you otherwise aren't using to game… is this what they call 'maximising efficiency'?

So, picture this: rather than stretching your palms to reload or sprint, you could bind those commands to one of these under-the-desk peripherals instead. These cursed keebs come in three and four key versions, so the world's your oyster—or rather, foot pedal.

Regardless of the button layout you go for, each 'key' is an ABS cap 25 mm in diameter, and features a Cherry MX Silent Black switch under the hood (or should that be 'under hoof'?). Each one requires an actuation force of at least 60 g, bottoming out at 85 g, meaning you're unlikely to accidentally press these by just resting your tootsies on top. The entire unit itself weighs about 1 kg as well, so it's unlikely to shift around under your toe taps.

With a polling rate of 1000 Hz and support for a 2.4 GHz connection, this bit of kit from Varmilo should be reasonably responsive. You can also connect wirelessly over Bluetooth, or plug in for a wired connection if you'd rather. If you'd like to toe tap revolution your way through your local competitive scene, you can pick up one of Varmilo's feet keyboards for about $50 (or £39).

Now, for all of my wide-eyed wonder, it turns out gaming peripherals that look a bit like a foot pedal for a sewing machine or indeed your bass guitar are nothing new. Outside of racing sim setups, it turns out MSI offers the Liberator line of foot pedals for gaming. It's interesting to note that both of these products are pitched as offering an edge in competitive games to able-bodied gamers, rather than as an accessible controller or peripheral.

At any rate, the Liberator is neat as it offers a more cradle-esque form factor, placing its buttons like bumpers you can nudge into, as opposed to the Varmilo device's leverless fightpad look. The GP12 model from MSI is particularly interesting too as it allows you to connect up to four units together for a total of 12 remappable buttons within toe's reach… though at that point, why not just source a dance mat?

I'm not sure I love that we've started flippantly calling it 'the memory apocalypse,' but given just how much hardware this peaking pricing could affect, it does feel fitting. Motherboard sales are apparently just the latest victim, with some retailers apparently seeing a devastating year-on-year decline.

According to Hong Kong hardware site, HKEPC, a number of Chinese media reports claim that major motherboard manufacturers—including MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus—have seen motherboard sales drop up to 50% compared to figures from November and December 2024. HKEPC suggests this drop in Motherboard sales is due to DRAM prices beginning to rise in October, putting off would-be PC upgraders at a time when we'd normally see a bunch of enthusiasts making new purchases. The report goes on to further predict that this will have a subsequent knock-on effect for CPU sales before long.

HKEPC observes that gamers are spending their funds elsewhere, with sales figures for gaming peripherals (such as gaming mice and controllers) alongside monitors being much less affected. HKEPC reports that many users online have either postponed or simply downsized their PC hardware upgrade plans as a result of memory prices surging.

For instance, the site claims some forum folk who were planning to buy a completely new rig have instead opted for setups with lower RAM capacity as they wait for prices to become slightly more reasonable. Unfortunately for all of us, the memory pricing apocalypse could carry on well into 2028 and beyond, as Samsung and SK Hynix opt to 'minimize the risk of oversupply.'

But how did we get here? Would it surprise you if I said 'AI'? A whole lot of memory is necessary to sate the computational demands of an AI server. With AI continuing to be big business (Nvidia, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced a multi-billion dollar strategic partnership less than two weeks ago), it's perhaps little wonder we're seeing such a shortage.

As these major tech players hog supply, that means there's less to go around at a consumer-level—and that means surging prices. But as we're already seeing, it's not just memory we've got to worry about. For one thing, TLC and QLC NAND flash wafers often used in SSDs are also seeing a shortage induced price hike. For another, GPU prices weren't exactly tumbling down during the latest Black Friday sales either.

At the best of times, PC gaming is an expensive hobby—but that's more true now than ever before. With prices like these, it's not hard to see why there are fewer purchases.

The best gaming laptop can mean different things to different people, but it's something we spend a lot of time thinking about and testing ourselves on PC Gamer. In fact, of all the hundreds of products we prod, poke, and benchmark throughout the year, gaming laptops make up around 10% of the total we test.

So, we know our silicon onions when it comes to mobile machines for making good with the gaming. Each and every gaming laptop that crosses our path gets put through the same rigorous process, where we test gaming and productivity performance with a curated set of benchmarks, and monitor power and thermals, too. And, because we test a ton of them, we can compare each against all the gaming laptops that have gone before.

In this list right here are all the highest-rated machines we've scored over 80% so far this year, with links to their full reviews, and all the benchmarking data you could wish for. And we'll keep adding them as they keep on making good ones.

Best gaming laptop deals today

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• Dell: Up to $500 off Alienware laptops

💻 RTX 5050 - Acer Nitro V 16 AI | $629 at Walmart
💻 RTX 5060 - Lenovo Legion 5 | $1,000 @ Walmart
💻 RTX 5070 - Gigabyte Gaming A16 | $1,180 @ Newegg
💻 RTX 5070 Ti - MSI Vector 16 HX | $1,299 @ Walmart
💻 RTX 5080 - MSI Vector 16 HX AI | $1,900 @ Best Buy

The laptop low-down

Simply the best

Dave's verdict: 90%

"This is the first gaming laptop that has been able to deliver the sort of all-round PC experience that would have me consider ditching both my work laptop and my desktop gaming PC. And that is saying something. The Blade 16 is a genuinely lovely device, that can deliver whether plugged into a wall socket or running on its battery."

Read our full Razer Blade 16 (2025) review.

A little surprise

Jacob's verdict: 89%

"This gaming laptop is ideal for those who want to be able to take their laptop around with them and use it for more than just gaming. Its subtle design and form factor make it very portable, and its RTX 5060 GPU has surprisingly strong gaming chops, especially with frame gen enabled. You can probably get a little better performance for cheaper, but probably not in such a great form factor and premium chassis."

Read our full Asus TUF Gaming A14 review.

Fastest around

Dave's verdict: 87%

"The new Legion chassis looks good, and the performance is absolutely top-notch. But it's the level of customisation that sings to me, allowing you to create a gaming profile that at once delivers the frame rates and the noise level you desire. Just a shame the battery life is still so weak."

Read our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 review.

Object of desire

Dave's verdict: 86%

"Razer's "aggressively priced" Blade still manages to be frustratingly pricey, especially in the face of cheaper, more powerful competition. But when it comes to actual use, it's a huge improvement over last year's model and there's now no other gaming laptop I'd want to have my digits on or spend my money on."

Read our full Razer Blade 14 (2025) review.

A classic

Dave's verdict: 83%

"A classic gaming laptop, that makes up for its lack of battery performance or pencil-thin chassis design with serious gaming frame rates even outside of its cacophonous Extreme Performance mode."

Read our full MSI Vector 16 HX AI gaming laptop review.

Second best

Dave's verdict: 83%

"The strangely inconsistent fan noise really takes the shine of this generation's G14, despite it still being a delicious device, with a beautiful OLED screen, and decent gaming performance. But with a new Blade 14 rectifying all the issues Razer's compact machine has had over the past couple of years, it certainly suffers by comparison."

Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review.

Sturdy

Ian's verdict: 81%

"A relative bargain among today's top-end gaming laptops, the 2025 Acer Predator Helios 16 offers solid performance and exceptional screen brightness with the usual drawbacks of running hot and having almost no battery life."

Read our full Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI review.

Budget boi

Zak's verdict: 81%

"Lenovo's hit the mark just right on three things in particular. The graphics card. The screen. The build quality. It's exceptional in those elements and delivers excellent 1080p gaming performance. Sadly, however, due to what are assumedly cost-cutting measures on the RAM and SSD front, it doesn't quite nail the landing with its entry-level model."

Read our full Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 10 review.

That chassis

Jacob's verdict: 80%

"The Alienware 16 Area-51 is a great pick for someone looking to game primarily on a laptop and still have some semblance of portability. It lacks an OLED panel, which is its biggest miss, and performance is a touch slower than some we've seen. But it more than makes up for these with a price tag lower than others offering the same level of quality."

Read our full Alienware 16 Area-51 review.

Chonker

Nick's verdict: 80%

"With such a high price tag, you'd expect Alienware to pack this laptop with all the best goodies. For the most part, it has, and the performance and general experience are great. But the screen is disappointing, the unplugged performance isn't great, and the keyboard feels cheap. At least this gives Dell plenty of scope to make next year's version better."

Read the full Alienware 18 Area-51 review.

Our experts

Tech headlines out about memory at the moment are all grim reading, thanks to the enormous rise in how much it now all costs. That doesn't mean there isn't something to catch your eye, though, and an announcement from Adata and MSI, as well as a rumour about SK hynix, is great news for anyone who wants to go absolutely ham with RAM.

Starting with the joint venture between Adata and MSI, a new DDR5 module is set to appear on the market that is certainly going to be snapped up by anyone who needs as much RAM as possible in their PCs, without sacrificing performance.

AMD and Intel's latest top-end desktop platforms (i.e. X870E and Z890) support up to 256 GB of RAM. However, to reach this amount, you normally have to buy four 64 GB DIMMs, filling every slot on the motherboard. When you do that, you're typically forced to use the memory's lowest speed (e.g. 4800 MT/s), which isn't ideal for something like high-resolution video editing.

The answer to this is Adata and MSI's 4-rank DDR5 modules. Where most DIMMs have just one or two ranks of memory, these sticks will be so loaded with DRAM modules that each one will offer up to 128 GB of capacity. Not only that, they'll be rated to run at up to 5800 MT/s, though MSI says it has successfully tested these new 4-rank CUDIMMs at speeds up to 10,000 MT/s.

This has all been made possible by the use of a tiny clock driver chip (i.e. these are CUDIMMs), a component that acts as a signal repeater to either allow for very high clock speeds or very large DRAM capacities.

When CUDIMMs first appeared on the market, they were all about maxing out speeds and bandwidth, such as Corsair's Vengeance DDR5-8400 CUDIMMs, but clock drivers are increasingly being used to support the use of more DRAM chips on the circuit board, as Crucial has done with its 64 GB DDR5-6400 CUDIMMs.

There's no word on pricing yet, but given how expensive ordinary DDR5 is at the moment, this stuff is going to be painfully pricey. It's also worth noting that you're pretty much limited to an Intel Z890 motherboard to use it. Some B860s might cope with it, but no AMD motherboard will, as they don't support clock drivers.

Although these hulking CUDIMMs are really for high-end workstations, what SK hynix is purported to be making is for the other end of the computing scale. It's a new type of module that has alternating layers of DRAM and NAND flash memory, all connected with vertical fan outs (the fancy name for wires).

This will apparently be sold under the moniker of HBS (high bandwidth storage), which is perhaps a bit too similar to HBM (high bandwidth memory). However, unlike HBM, SK hynix doesn't see its funky new memory stuff to be exclusive for hulking AI servers.

Instead, it's for low-power mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, and the idea behind stacking DRAM and NAND flash dies together into a single package is that mobile SoCs (system on chips) will have access to high-bandwidth memory and storage. Why do they need this? AI, of course (yeah, you just knew it would be), because even local models will use lots of memory and storage.

If HBS takes off, though, there's a good chance it could find itself being used in handheld gaming PCs and laptops. Obviously, that's not a great idea if you want to be able to update the device's RAM and SSD, but for small units where price and power are heavily constrained, all-in-one memory and storage modules could be a winner.

Apple already does this with its iPhones, but not within the same chip. It stacks a physically separate DRAM chip on top of the processor, and then a NAND flash module on top of that. SK hynix's HBS combines these into one component, and because it can be heavily layered inside, you could potentially get even more capacity and performance than traditional chip stacking.

I should imagine we won't see HBS or 128 GB CUDIMMs until we're well into 2026, and by that time, even a single 16 GB stick of DDR5 will cost a fortune. So it's great news that new RAM tech is on its way, but it's disappointing that I'll never be able to buy any of it unless I sell all of my internal organs on the black market.

Best handheld PC 2025

All our current recommendations

Pick a category Best overallCore ComponentsChairs & DesksSystems & LaptopsScreensPeripheralsCases, Cooling & Storage

Choose a list Best gaming laptop 2025Best gaming PC 2025Best gaming rigs 2025Best handheld PC 2025Best mini PC 2025

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BEST OVERALL

1. Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS

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BEST BUDGET

2. Valve Steam Deck

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BEST WINDOWS

3. MSI Claw 8 AI+

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BEST BIG SCREEN

4. Lenovo Legion Go

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BEST COMPACT

5. Ayaneo Flip DS

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Read the full guide: Best handheld PC 2025

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300 nits and 500 Hz. Pay close attention to those two numbers, because they give the new MSI MPG 271QR X50's game away. Yup, this 27-inch, 1440p gaming monitor packs the latest revision to Samsung's 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED panel technology.

A new generation of OLED panel is always exciting, but how much of an upgrade is it over the best currently available OLED monitors? Does it fix OLED's full-screen brightness limitations? What about QD-OLED's specific problems with ambient light and font rendering? What does a 500 Hz OLED actually look like set to full reheat? Hold those thoughts while we cover off this new display's various speeds and feeds.

Along with the lofty 500 Hz refresh and 2,560 by 1,440 native resolution, you get OLED's characteristic uber-low response times, which come in at a claimed 0.03 ms. No question, this thing is built for speed.

It's also engineered to be brighter than previous displays that rely on Samsung's QD-OLED technology. Right at the beginning of the year at the CES show, Samsung unveiled the next step in its QD-OLED roadmap. As we understand it, that's not quite the same technology as this MSI uses. But this monitor is still a notch brighter than previous QD-OLED generations.

That's probably explains why peak performance is some distance off the 400-plus nits full-screen brightness Samsung was talking about back at CES and has since been implemented for TVs. Instead, MSI is claiming a mere 300 nits for the MPG 271QR X50.

You could argue that's both a little disappointing and a bit behind LG's latest tandem WOLED technology, which is rated as high as 335 nits in various new 27-inch 1440p monitor models that use that new tandem OLED panel, including the LG UltraGear 27GX700A. However, it's still a step up on previous gaming monitors using Samsung's QD-OLED technology and it's notable that both this monitor and that LG get the same DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 certification.

That probably reflects the fact that, while LG's WOLED panels beat Samsung QD-OLED when it comes to cranking out the highest peak brightness displaying pure white, QD-OLED tends to perform better for colour brightness. For the record, MSI isn't claiming any advance when it comes to peak HDR performance, with the panel topping out at 1,000 nits in a 3% window. Monitors using the new LG tandem OLED tech go as high as 1,500 nits by that measure.

Peak panel performance aside, you get comprehensive connectivity thanks to HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1a (UHBR20) and USB-C with 98 W of power delivery, plus a two-port USB-A hub. Notably, this display can hit the full 500 Hz via all three input options, which just goes to show the attention MSI has paid to the details.

Another example that MSI has gone the extra mile is the "EOTF Boost" mode in the HDR options. Most OLED monitors have two primary HDR modes, one mapped to the panel's DisplayHDR certification (in this case, the aforementioned DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500) and one to the panel's peak brightness, which is 1,000 nits for this monitor.

The problem is that the former tends to deliver better results when brighter outdoor scenes are being rendered, the latter when displaying small, bright highlights on a mostly dark background. The EOTF Boost mode is supposed to give you the best of both worlds.

Rounding out the features and frills, MSI's usual design language for OLED monitors makes another appearance. It's neat enough, even if some of the plastics feel a bit cheap and scratchy and the RGB-lit MSI logo on the rear is pretty half-hearted.

As with other QD-OLED panels, there's a fair amount of pixel over provisioning, which allows the panel-protection software to shunt the image around to prevent burn-in. That's welcome in terms of longevity, but, visually speaking, it makes for slightly larger effective panel bezels.

On that subject, the MSI MPG 271QR X50 also has a sensor powered by a chip with an NPU and AI algorithms which supposedly detects when you step away from your PC, dimming or disabling the display. In practice, it's pretty clunky and probably not much of an advance over a timer that puts the display to sleep. Another win for AI. Not. More importantly, however, there is a reassuring three-year burn-in warranty.

Whatever, just how good is that new Samsung QD-OLED tech? It's definitely a touch punchier than before, but not dramatically so. Of course, in terms of full screen brightness, we're only talking about a step up from 250 nits up to 300 nits. And brightness isn't even perceived in a linear fashion. In other words, doubling the measured brightness doesn't double the perceived brightness.