Even though SSDs have been around for years, steadily improving in speed, reliability, and capacity, the good old hard disk drive is still worth considering for your gaming PC. That's because when it comes to outright storage per buck, there's nothing that beats an HDD. And in the current situation where DRAM and flash memory are both prohibitively expensive, it's even better value for money.

Seagate has been serving this market for a good while now, and it has a big range of external HDD models, covering every possible use and budget. Joining them is the newly launched FireCuda X Vault: a big HDD packed into an even bigger enclosure, replete with a touch of RGB lighting, that uses a speedy USB connection to hook up to your PC.

You have two capacities to choose from—eight or 20 TB—and using it is as simple as you could want: plug it in, wait a few seconds, and enjoy the wealth of extra storage space. Well, it should be super-simple, but there are a couple of potential bumps in the road that could stop it from being as smooth as silk. First, the USB port on the host PC must provide at least 15 W to power the X Vault.

Frustratingly, many motherboards and laptops don't actually indicate what power output they support, so you just have to test them out and hope for the best. At least the X Vault sports a little LED by its USB socket, which flashes red if you don't give it enough juice.

The other pothole in the road is the fact that you need to use a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 port to get the best performance out of the drive. While such sockets are hardly rare on the latest motherboards and laptops, if you have an older gaming PC from a few years ago, you could be stuck with Gen 1 only—or worse still, ports that can't supply enough power.

None of this is Seagate's fault, but if you are eyeballing the FireCuda X Vault as a potential buy, you really need to check what your USB ports can do before handing over your cash.

You do get some handy extras with the drive, at least. Seagate's Toolkit app offers incremental backup and real-time folder mirroring, as well as RGB controls (though you can use Windows 11's system, if you prefer), plus you get access to a data recovery service through the warranty period (typically two years).

For the performance benchmarks below, I used a gaming PC with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor, in an ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite motherboard, with 48 GB of Corsair Dominator DDR5-8000 memory and multiple WD_Black SN850X SSDs to shift data back and forth from the external HDD.

To ensure that the X Vault had the best possible chance of reaching its full potential, I used a Thunderbolt 4 port on the motherboard, using USBTreeView to check that it was operating in the correct USB mode (i.e. USB 3.2 Gen 2, 10 Gbps).

It's been so long since we've tested an HDD that the only other model we have results for our current benchmark suite is the Adata HD710 Pro. That external drive isn't aimed at gamers, and it only uses a USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) connection. I've included a couple of external SSDs in the charts, so you have a visual guide to how fast spinning platters are compared to NAND flash chips.

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Seagate FireCuda X Vault benchmarks

3DMark Storage

Index

Bandwidth (MB/s)

Average Access Time (µs)

Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)

180

32.89

1056

Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)

63

11.74

3046

Crucial X9

875

152

208

TeamGroup PD20 Mini

934

161.5

194

01,0002,0003,0004,000

3DMark Storage Data

Product	Value
Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)	180 Index, 32.89 Bandwidth (MB/s), 1056 Average Access Time (µs)
Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)	63 Index, 11.74 Bandwidth (MB/s), 3046 Average Access Time (µs)
Crucial X9	875 Index, 152 Bandwidth (MB/s), 208 Average Access Time (µs)
TeamGroup PD20 Mini	934 Index, 161.5 Bandwidth (MB/s), 194 Average Access Time (µs)

Seagate FireCuda X Vault benchmarks

CrystalDiskMark

SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s)

SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s)

RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s)

RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)

Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)

222.05

212.53

0.65

1.92

Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)

120

117

0.54

0.57

Crucial X9

1028

970

35.56

73.92

TeamGroup PD20 Mini

1999.22

1699.45

26.1

69.94

05001,0001,5002,000

CrystalDiskMark Data

Product	Value
Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)	222.05 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 212.53 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 0.65 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 1.92 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)
Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)	120 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 117 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 0.54 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 0.57 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)
Crucial X9	1028 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 970 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 35.56 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 73.92 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)
TeamGroup PD20 Mini	1999.22 SEQ1M Q8T1 Read (MB/s), 1699.45 SEQ1M Q8T1 Write (MB/s), 26.1 RND4k Q1T1 Read (MB/s), 69.94 RND4K Q1T1 Write (MB/s)

Seagate FireCuda X Vault benchmarks

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

Total Loading Time (seconds)

Scene #1

Scene #2

Scene #3

Scene #4

Scene #5

Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)

17.638

0.78

3.673

4.905

4.639

3.641

Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)

28.1

1.149

7.05

7.626

7.036

5.239

Crucial X9

14.291

0.478

3.244

3.91

3.799

2.86

TeamGroup PD20 Mini

12.759

0.447

3.005

3.684

3.4

2.223

07.51522.530

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Data

Product	Value
Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)	17.638 Total Loading Time (seconds), 0.78 Scene #1, 3.673 Scene #2, 4.905 Scene #3, 4.639 Scene #4, 3.641 Scene #5
Adata HD710 Pro (HDD)	28.1 Total Loading Time (seconds), 1.149 Scene #1, 7.05 Scene #2, 7.626 Scene #3, 7.036 Scene #4, 5.239 Scene #5
Crucial X9	14.291 Total Loading Time (seconds), 0.478 Scene #1, 3.244 Scene #2, 3.91 Scene #3, 3.799 Scene #4, 2.86 Scene #5
TeamGroup PD20 Mini	12.759 Total Loading Time (seconds), 0.447 Scene #1, 3.005 Scene #2, 3.684 Scene #3, 3.4 Scene #4, 2.223 Scene #5

Seagate FireCuda X Vault benchmarks

Temperature

Peak (°C)

Idle (°C)

Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)

55

47

Crucial X9

60

25

TeamGroup PD20 Mini

83

38

0255075100

Temperature Data

Product	Value
Seagate FireCuda X Vault (HDD)	55 Peak (°C), 47 Idle (°C)
Crucial X9	60 Peak (°C), 25 Idle (°C)
TeamGroup PD20 Mini	83 Peak (°C), 38 Idle (°C)

Suffice it to say, the FireCuda X Vault performs exactly how you'd expect an HDD to, especially compared to an SSD. But while it's slower than a tortoise, Seagate's gaming drive is quite a lot snappier than Adata's rugged model, in part because it uses a faster USB interface.

In addition to the above benchmarks, I also added the drive as additional storage in Steam, and measured how long it took to move The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered from a WD_Black SN850X installed in a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot, directly connected to the CPU, onto the X Vault's disks.

With the game tipping the scales at 116 GB, it took 11 minutes and 31 seconds to transfer all the files, so it's not something you'd want to be doing repeatedly. During the move, I recorded the write speed of the Seagate drive, and it hovered between 200 and 205 MB/s for the entire duration. So while it's not especially quick, it is very consistent (again, as expected for an HDD).

That transfer speed is about 10% as quick as you'd get with a fairly rubbish SSD, but since even those are now outrageously pricey, the X Vault's tortoise-like performance is completely forgivable. In fact, if all you care about is cold storage (i.e. you don't need to constantly access the files, you just need them close by), then the FireCuda could well be ideal.

However, there are a couple of things, other than the performance and USB fussiness, that are worth noting before deciding on the X Vault. For the sheer size and mass of the drive's enclosure, you'd be forgiven for expecting lower temperatures, but at least they don't vary much between idle and heavy loads. The meaty enclosure also does a great job of absorbing vibrations.

The provided USB cable is also somewhat on the short side. Used with a laptop, it's not that much of an issue, but I tried it on several desktop PCs, and for many of them, the cable wasn't long enough to allow the unit to rest flat on the desk next to the PC case. Worse still, the lack of slack in the cable means that the connector pulls down quite firmly on the USB port itself, which isn't great for its long-term health.

At $270 for the 8 TB model, you're not paying over the odds, though, and the 20 TB version is especially good value for money, coming in at around 2.4 cents per GB. That said, Seagate has fitted the X Vault with a similar type of HDD as it uses for its SkyHawk and Barracuda Compute product ranges, and you can buy one of those bare drives for $230 at Amazon (at the time of writing).

You won't get any more performance, but you will save a bit of money and won't tie up one of your motherboard's USB ports if you install it inside your desktop gaming PC.

Where things really make sense for Seagate's external drive is when your PC is a gaming laptop, especially so if it has a solitary M.2 slot for SSDs. Using the FireCuda X Vault to really boost the amount of storage you've got now makes a lot of sense, because you're avoiding having to pay vast amounts for a bigger SSD, nor enduring the hassle of reinstalling Windows.

The only thing you need to worry about is whether or not your laptop's USB ports can actually power the drive.

I'm old enough to remember when plug-and-play USB microphones were rubbish. Your alternative, however, was the murky, audio nerd-inhabited world of XLR, which required the use of a separate interface to connect a microphone to your PC.

XLR is still the gold standard for professional recording gear, but the world of studio-style recording can be fraught with fiddly details. HyperX has decided that its latest microphone, the HyperX FlipCast, might as well have both connections at once. On the rear of the mic is both a USB Type-C and an XLR port, so it's suitable for both plug-and-play usage and most recording interfaces. Take your pick.

Not only that, but the XLR connection doesn't require 48 V phantom power, and can work in tandem with the USB version. That means any interface with an XLR socket should work if you so desire, or you can simply plug it in the back of your rig, or both—which makes for a pretty excellent start in the compatibility stakes.

The microphone itself is a large, dynamic unit, with a podcast-style form factor. It's got a sizeable foam filter, and comes attached to a substantial curved stand, suitable for attaching to a boom arm (both ⅜-inch & ⅝-inch threads are supported). What you don't get, however, is an included desktop stand—which is unfortunately pretty standard for this sort of microphone.

In fact, you'll also miss out on an included desktop stand if you opt for our best microphone pick for podcasting, the Shure MV7+. It's pretty much my favourite microphone right now, because it captures professional-grade audio over both XLR and USB interfaces, and comes with some very easy-to-use software.

It's a fair bit more expensive than the FlipCast at the time of writing, though, with the HyperX unit coming in at $261 to the Shure's $300. Still, the HyperX better be impressive if it wants to take the Shure's spot, even if it does manage to beat it on MSRP.

It's quite a good-looking mic in person, despite the product photos on the HyperX website making the large, shiny protrusion on the top look a little cheap.

Here you get a large, capacitive mute button and a sizable LED display that acts as a gain indicator. Towards the rear is a volume control dial, while on the back it's got those XLR and USB Type-C connections, alongside a 3.5 mm jack for on-mic monitoring. The FlipCast also has a streamer-friendly RGB ring, which spins through its colour wheel at quite an astonishing rate.

Yes, it can be adjusted. Anyway, an interesting extra feature is the addition of two small buttons on the rear of the mic, which control a built-in high-pass filter and presence boost function—which gives you an idea of the sound profile HyperX might be aiming for.

Clear and precise is definitely the order of the day. High-pass filters reduce low-frequency noises (which sounds a bit counterintuitive, I know), while the presence switch boosts the upper-midrange and treble audio frequencies. What you should end up with, then, with both enabled, is a decent whack of clarity, sacrificing a little richness for a more focused sound.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings on, filters on

And lo, it comes to pass. The FlipCast captures a clear, if slightly thin, vocal tone with the filters enabled, although those switches are subtle enough that I can see many first-time users setting up the mic without realising they exist.

It's not a particularly wide-ranging sound at these settings, which will be a boon for focused voice chat cutting through the sound of gunfire, but not so great for vocal recording. Still, turn off the switches (or have a play with the EQ in Hyper X's Ngenuity software), and the FlipCast duly richens up—although it never quite reaches the crispy-yet-deep, radio-like quality of the Shure.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings on, filters off

Speaking of the software EQ, I'd really like to see HyperX include some presets by default. I know my way around an equaliser, but most gamers would likely enjoy some basic pre-engineered settings to help them find the vocal sound they're after. Still, out of the box, the FlipCast appears to have been tuned well, and its default sound profile is actually pretty good.

The basic nature of the rest of the software, though, is disappointing to see. Noise cancelling, compression, and a limiter setting have been reduced to tickboxes, which means you can only turn them on and off—and when it comes to the noise cancelling, that's a real shame.

You'll want to turn it on, because the FlipCast is a rather sensitive beast. I'm used to setting up a microphone of this type for close vocal capture, which means keeping it a few inches away from my lips. However, the HyperX mic is sensitive enough to capture at a much further distance, which might seem like a good thing at first glance.

HyperX FlipCast - all software settings off, filters off

But with the noise cancelling off and the gain set to a reasonable 60%, it likes to pick up a lot of background noise, along with a little bit of hiss. Enable the noise cancelling, and most of the unwanted noise duly disappears—but it's quite particular about which noises it picks up and which it chooses to remove, leading to the odd audio quirk.

The softly-jingling zipper on my hoodie, for example (I didn't even realise it jingled until I started using this mic), gives it the odd issue. It'll duck the noise out very quickly, then cut back in in a way that suggests a rough audio edit.

Essentially, it's a bit of a blunt instrument, and you can hear it working a little too often for my liking. A simple slider adjustment would likely allow you to tune this sort of behaviour out, but no, on and off are your only options.

Turn on all the goodies, however, and the audio capture becomes a little forced. If I was using this microphone on the regular, I'd keep the noise cancelling and limiter turned on and the compressor left off, along with the filters. At these settings, you get a good balance of dynamic range, richness, and clarity.

HyperX FlipCast - noise cancelling on, limiter on, compression off, filters off

Very nice. This mic's tendency towards sensitivity also extends to the XLR connection, where you'll likely want to enable some VST plugins of your own to reign in its high-output ways. It's a good-sounding microphone nonetheless—just with a lot of lead in its pencil.

I'm not opposed to that in principle, but it's not the easiest thing to work with. And if you choose to go USB only with the HyperX software in tow, your sonic options are somewhat limited, even if what you end up with is a great tone overall.

So, it's not a bad showing for the HyperX FlipCast. But the combination of these caveats and its significant price tag is enough to give me pause. It's far cheaper in the UK right now (£195 at the time of writing), and if that price was translated into dollars, I'd be more inclined towards a heartier recommendation.

For $261, though, I'd rather spend a little extra and buy the Shure MV7+ instead. It's got much more impressive software, which allows for simplified, easy adjustments of its various filters and noise-cancelling options to find the right sound for you. It's also got a capsule that sounds genuinely studio-ready, and while the HyperX puts up a good fight in the audio stakes, it's still outclassed by the Shure offering.

And should you wish to save some cash, it's well worth considering some of the cheaper options in our best gaming microphone guide. They might not have the same feature set or audio-capturing capabilities as the FlipCast, but you can still save a boatload of money by picking up something very good (with better software) for less.

It's a great microphone, but for this sort of moolah, I want all of my whims accounted for. And while the FlipCast makes an admirable attempt, it's not quite the be-all and end-all mic it may appear to be at first glance. Lovely sound, though. I have to give it that.

I don't know about you, but I always find myself wanting just a few more I/O ports on my tower. Between charging cables, external storage, and more 2.4 GHz wireless dongles than you can shake a memory stick at, my rig is getting mighty crowded. While I could treat myself to a funky, chunky, mains-powered USB hub, I'm kind of longing for something just a little dinkier—and flexible.

Enter the DockFrame, a USB-C hub with modular ports you can swap out. Though not officially affiliated, the project is designed to work with the hot-swappable hardware standard used by Framework's expansion cards.

A custom PCB is both compatible with any Framework USB-C modules you may have lying around as well as the DockFrame's own 'Tool Cards.' These Tool Cards are a little extra, planning to offer functionality beyond the I/O ports you'd traditionally see on a desktop—such as voltage measuring and even adjustable voltage output.

The project remains a ways off, but it's intended to be usable with both Framework laptops, non-Framework machines, and even your smartphone. Director of HW Media Lab LLC, Eleo Basili, recently shared pictures of a prototype encased in a fetching purple enclosure.

As much as I admire Framework's modular mission statement—not to mention those translucent purple expansion cards—I've not yet been able to justify going all-in on their ecosystem. For as much as Dave liked the Framework 16 laptop with a RTX 5070 upgrade, it's simply way out of my budget no matter how one chooses to configure it.

Besides that, Framework has also had to raise the prices of its modular RAM upgrades, saying it 'held off' as long as it could amid the raging memory supply crisis. Diving into this modular ecosystem may not be an affordable reality for many for some time.

There's currently no word yet on how much the DockFrame itself will cost; the project is still in the prototyping and validation phase, though is already taking pre-orders to better assess demand. As Framework's expansion cards can cost as little as $11, here's hoping the DockFrame offers a cost effective way to dip a toe into this modular ecosystem.

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.

It's not every day that I get to review a piece of computing hardware that's almost specifically designed for me, but that's exactly what Thermal Grizzly's Der8enchtable is. Well, it was actually created by Roman 'der8auer' Hartung, in conjunction with Jon Sandström of ElmorLabs, to make it easier for them to test motherboards, CPUs, coolers, etc. And since he just so happens to be the CEO of Thermal Grizzly, it's now something that I can use for the same purposes, too.

For $269 (direct from Thermal Grizzly), you can have one as well, though let's be honest here: the Der8enchtable is going to be of zero use to the vast majority of PC enthusiasts. That's because it's simply an open-platform circuit board that you can connect a motherboard to, and separately control fans, pumps, and lights; it also provides external storage options so you don't have to use those on the motherboard.

It might be a bit 'inside baseball' but let me explain why this is so useful for hardware testing. When I get a new motherboard or CPU to review, I use a basic open-chassis to mount the motherboard and PSU, then wire it all up, and then spend a good amount of time installing the operating system and test software. I also have to mess about with the BIOS to get a consistent cooling profile, to ensure thermal results across tested products are comparable.

The Der8enchtable streamlines that whole process by centralising storage and fan control. It comes with two SATA ports and four MicroSD card slots that you can use to host operating systems, applications, or whatever you need to run and test the motherboard, etc. It doesn't matter that none of these are very fast, because CPU/mobo reviewing is set up in such a way that the measured performance of the product is independent of items such as storage drives.

To see how well all this works in reality, I configured two separate SATA SSDs: one for an AMD AM5 system and the other for Intel LGA1851. On the edge of the Der8enchtable, there are two SATA sockets that are outputs: you connect them to the tested motherboard's own SATA ports via separate cables. It all worked exactly as intended, and for testing AMD/Intel motherboards, all I now need to do is just plug in the appropriate SATA cable.

In the case of the MicroSD slots, these communicate with a motherboard via a dedicated USB 2.0 header which, just like the SATA outputs, you hook up via an included USB cable. None of these options is what you'd call speedy, but as previously mentioned, that doesn't matter. What you want here is stability and compatibility, and USB 2.0 is ideal for this.

If you want a very simple setup, the only thing you need to connect to the Der8enchtable is the aforementioned USB 2.0 header and a six-pin PCIe power cable from a PSU. The latter can be mounted underneath Thermal Grizzly's circuit board, though this mandates the use of the included black-anodized aluminium legs and brackets.

Should the motherboard being tested not have onboard power and reset buttons, the Der8enchtable has headers for those, and you just connect them directly to the motherboard's. The same goes for fan, pump, and RGB headers: use them as normal on the mobo or splice them into the Der8enchtable and control them that way.

It's all very easy to put together (easier still if you don't take the same cavalier approach to instruction manuals that I have) and straightforward to use. Naturally, it does require that you understand how all the various headers and ports work, to a certain degree, but you wouldn't be testing motherboards if you didn't.

You don't have to install the legs to raise the Der8enchtable, to make room for a PSU, and neither do you have to fit the PCI slot bracket (to support GPUs, etc) or the radiator brackets. Screw the four little feet onto the underside of the board, and you can have a very low-profile test platform. Personally, I prefer it with everything attached, if only because it looks so good that way.

And speaking of looks, the Der8enchtable also sports ARGB lighting, all around the edge, which gets enabled if you connect the board's ARGB external header to any such equivalent on a motherboard. Completely superfluous for benchmarking and reviews, of course, but it really does look spectacular, and I'm not a huge RGB fan.

At the risk of sounding overly gushing, everything about the Der8enchtable is extremely good. From the build quality of the board, to the fit of the attachments and the detail of the instruction manual, Hartung et al have done a superb job. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's of a better quality than most $600+ motherboards, though it's not mass-manufactured to the same degree as those. Even the packaging is top-tier in quality.

This is also why it's pretty expensive for what it is. Paying nearly $270 for a circuit board with basic components and lights, along with a few pieces of aluminium, might seem excessive, but the market for the Der8enchtable is going to be very small. It's a niche product and as such, costs can't be recouped via selling it in large volumes.

For the right person, though, $270 is a bargain, especially for something that's so well-made and so useful. I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way because at the time of writing, the Der8enchtable is out of stock on Thermal Grizzly's site. I should imagine every hardware reviewer and top overclocker around has already bought one, especially the latter, because if you're using liquid nitrogen for cooling, having storage drives kept well away from that stuff is a good thing.

Could it be even better? That depends on your needs. For example, if it were E-ATX-sized or sported M.2 or U.2 slots, it would be fantastic for handling workstation/server-grade boards or testing the throughput rates of a motherboard's various ports. But adding all of that would make it considerably more expensive, and such scenarios are even more niche than what it's already designed for.

As it is, the Thermal Grizzly Der8enchtable is pretty much the perfect platform for any hardware tester, reviewer, or super-serious overclocker. My only problem with it is now I want another one… maybe even two. Actually, I can think of a third scenario for one. Oh my poor wallet.

It's been a long time coming, but I finally feel I no longer need to carry a Micro USB cable around with me. My travel bag is one cable lighter for the widespread adoption of USB Type-C. I can thank, in part, the European Union for that one. The bloc used its considerable might to push manufacturers into adopting the latest connectivity standard.

This win is not lost in Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament. The official TikTok account for the legislator has put out a USB Type-C edit that goes especially hard, and I want to shake the hand of whoever made it.

Here it is:

My reaction to the video was bewilderment and laughter. Someone did a spectacular job on this, and it shows, with 1.5 million likes for a piece of government communication about cable standards. There are over 6,000 comments, including:

"A usb c edit by the official European Parliament… what a world we live in."

"USB C edit before GTA VI," says another user, beating a dead horse.

"They act like they invented type c" writes another.

So, what did the EU actually do here? It's true that the EU did not invent USB Type-C. USB-IF sets the standard, and that's a corporation created by other corporations with current board members from Intel, Texas Instruments, HP, Apple, Microsoft, STMicroelectronics, and Renesas Electronics. But the EU did play a part in USB Type-C's widespread adoption.

The EU legislated that most electronic devices would be required to use USB Type-C by law from 2024 onwards. The idea being that customers have less confusion over connectors and fewer cables to throw away. E-waste is a huge issue in the modern world of cheap, accessible electronics.

The adopted Radio Equipment Directive also sought to minimise proprietary chargers, any limitations on said chargers, and prevent any one manufacturer from owning the ecosystem. You can take a guess which major tech company that was aimed at, and, wahey, it now uses USB Type-C.

There's a good case for minimising proprietary connections and cutting out cable waste. I'm all for the change. Though I do have a bone to pick with USB-IF. USB specifications are complicated and confusing. They feel like they're almost designed to be confusing; what with USB naming conventions changing retroactively and speed and power specifications that are up for interpretation. You don't always know what you're getting when you plug Cable A into Port B, or Cable B into Port A. The connector might be the same, the specification and cable could be wildly different.

But, hey, I do appreciate having one cable capable of charging all of my portable devices, even if I had to shop around for the best cable to do so.

The best PC gaming gear 2025

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3. HyperX Cloud Alpha

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4. Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless

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The MEG Z890 Ace is one of MSI's most expensive Intel LGA 1851 motherboards around. It's not the absolute priciest, as that honour goes to the $1,000 Z890 Godlike. But while the Ace is half the cost, it still sports a very steep price tag for a mere motherboard. So what exactly are you getting for $500 that you don't get with a $250 model?

Let's start with the most eye-popping feature, the number of USB ports on the rear IO panel. At first glance, it would seem that you get four Type-C and 11 Type-A sockets for USB devices, but that's only half the story. Like many mainstream and high-end Core Ultra 200S motherboards, the MEG Z890 Ace sports two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

These support up to 40 Gbps in Thunderbolt 4 mode, 20 Gbps in USB4 mode, or 10 Gbps when operating as USB 3.2 Type-C sockets, as well as providing DisplayPort 2.1 outputs. The other Type-C connections are 10 Gbps USB 3.2, but here's the really impressive part: So are all the other Type-A ports.

Yes, that's right. There isn't a single 5 Gbps or USB 2.0 socket, just a veritable wall of high-speed peripheral connectivity. If you care not one jot about gaming performance, thermal levels, or anything to do with storage, then the MEG Z890 Ace is well worth considering for that alone, assuming the price tag doesn't put you off.

But there's even more to drool over. The motherboard is home to three PCIe expansion slots and five M.2 SSD connectors. In the case of the former, two are Gen 5 and are hooked up directly to the CPU, with the remaining slot being Gen 4 and handled by the Z890 chipset. However, while they're all physically x16 slots, only the primary one is electrically x16; the others are x8 and x4, respectively.

The compromises continue with the M.2 slots, because while three of them are connected to the CPU, and they're all either Gen 4 or Gen 5 in capability, there's a fair degree of PCIe lane sharing between the PCIe and M.2 slots.

Basically, the CPU and chipset only have so many to go around, so if you load up every slot with a device or SSD, you'll have to sacrifice some performance.

There's no way around this limitation, unfortunately, but at least none of the slots are fully disabled if you choose to use them all, and they don't affect the USB ports at all.

As with all of MSI's latest motherboards, there's a host of user-friendly features to make your PC life that little bit easier. All of the M.2 heatsinks and the primary PCIe slot for a graphics card have quick-release mechanisms, dedicated buttons for clearing and flashing the BIOS, debug LEDs and a display to indicate boot process stages and errors, and even the Wi-Fi antenna just pushes into its sockets (no screws involved).

The UEFI is logically set out and easy to use, though once you delve into the advanced section, it helps to have a Master's degree in electronics to decipher the terminology. That's entirely normal, of course, and certainly not meant as a criticism of MSI's interface, but given that today's motherboards support a high-resolution output, it's a shame that more information isn't displayed about what many of the settings actually do.

The overall build quality of the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is very high, as one would expect from a $500 motherboard. It's helped by the substantial metal support panel on the rear of the board, and although it makes the Ace very heavy, there's practically zero chance of it warping when loaded with massive graphics cards.

With a multitude of other features, many relating to power and overclocking, you'd think that using a Core Ultra 9 285K in the MEG Z890 Ace would result in premium-level performance. Surprisingly, that's not the case.

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 AIO | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

The motherboards in our benchmark results were tested over a long period of time, so some of the differences will be due to BIOS, microcode, and Windows updates. However, I've been using this particular motherboard in test rigs since it first launched in October 2024, and it's never been top-tier when it comes to performance.

For example, our Factorio test stresses the CPU's cache and memory systems, with the latter relying on RAM timings employed by the motherboard. The Z890 Ace was slower than this 12 months ago, but it's barely improved since then.

The overall gaming performance can't be described as being bad, as some of it is down to quirks of Intel's Arrow Lake architecture, but that $500 price tag carries certain expectations. A year ago, it was even more expensive ($650 at launch), and you would have surely been disappointed by the gaming results if you'd bought one back then.

It's a slightly better situation when it comes to content creation and CPU-heavy benchmarks, but once again, not what you'd expect from such an expensive motherboard. One possible explanation for the so-so results is that MSI could be using conservative RAM timings to improve stability and support for ultra-fast CUDIMMs.

However, the Zzip results suggest that this might not be the case, as they're pretty good for the most part. Compressing lots of files very rapidly demands high memory bandwidth and low latencies, so if the MEG Z890 did have slow timings, they'd show up here.

That said, given the gaming results, if your content creation apps are heavily dependent on RAM performance, you might want to consider the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero over the MSI MEG Z890 Ace. They're both just as pricey and feature-rich as each other, but the Asus board doesn't exhibit the MSI's variable performance.

Perhaps the biggest surprise with the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is that despite being festooned with metal heatsinks across the board, its thermal performance is no better than motherboards that are half the price. Again, none of the figures are poor in isolation; it's only when you compare them to the competition that you begin to wonder just where all that money is going.

Well, the answer is simple: connectivity options. The veritable wall of USB ports and M.2 slots, along with a 10 Gbps LAN interface and Wi-Fi 7 module. Few other motherboards come close to the Ace in these aspects, especially the fact that every USB port on the rear IO panel is 10 Gbps or faster.

Something else $500 is buying you is overclocking support. While Intel's Core Ultra 200S chips can't hit the same heights as its last-generation Raptor Lake processors in terms of raw clock speeds, significant gains can be found by overclocking the die-to-die (D2D) and E-core clocks. This is something the MEG Z890 Ace makes very easy to do, though how successful such endeavours are will depend heavily on the quality of the CPU.

But that's it, unfortunately. You might think that all those user-friendly additions, such as the quick-release mechanisms, are also part of the cost, but MSI's MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi has many of them too, and it's half the price of the Ace.

All of which means that the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is only going to appeal to a very specific PC user, and it's certainly not going to be one who's solely interested in gaming. Such enthusiasts will, of course, choose an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D over a Core Ultra 9 285K anyway, but diehard Intel gaming fans will be better served choosing the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite.

On the other hand, if you have a small mountain of USB devices and SSDs all wanting a single home, then the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is certainly worth considering.

The MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi has been on the market for 12 months, as it was one of the first motherboards to be released alongside Intel's Core Ultra 200S range of desktop CPUs, aka Arrow Lake, in October 2024. At the time, there were few other models to choose from, but that's considerably changed over the months, and MSI faces stiff competition at this price point.

The Z890 Tomahawk's original MSRP was $300, though you're more likely to find it around the $260 mark, and while that's not a huge reduction, it brings it more in line with boards from ASRock and Gigabyte. That's not the only thing that's changed since last year, as the performance of Arrow Lake has noticeably improved due to a wealth of microcode, BIOS, and Windows updates. In gaming, Core Ultra 200S still lag behind AMD's Ryzen 9000-series, though.

MSI's Tomahawk series of motherboards has been around since 2018, as part of its budget and mainstream selection of products, sporting the MAG (MSI Arsenal Gaming) moniker. The Z890 Tomahawk WiFi sits near the top-end of the MAG pile, partly because of its price tag, but mostly because of the comprehensive array of features it has.

That's because, as its name suggests, the Tomahawk utilises Intel's Z890 chipset, which provides the most PCIe lanes for expansion slots, storage options, and USB ports among the entire 800-series. The motherboard has three PCIe slots: one x16 Gen 5, directly connected to the CPU, and two x4 Gen 4 via the Z890 chipset.

Alongside them, there are four M.2 slots for SSDs. The CPU controls two of them, with the primary slot being Gen 5 and the latter being Gen 4; the remaining two are both Gen 4 and controlled by the chipset. One of the best aspects of Arrow Lake and the Z890 is the fact that there are sufficient PCIe lanes to allow for all of the above to be filled and still retain full performance.

The same is true for all the Thunderbolt and USB ports on the rear IO panel. You get two of the former, and given that they support up to 40 Gbps in Thunderbolt 4 mode, 20 Gbps in USB4 mode, or 10 Gbps when operating as USB 3.2 Type-C sockets, as well as providing DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, you get a host of options just from them alone.

As for the other USB ports, there are four USB 3.2 running at 10 Gbps (three Type-A, one Type-C) and a further four USB 3.0 at 5 Gbps. Surprisingly, there are no USB 2.0 ports on the rear IO panel, but I don't think anyone can complain about having a total of ten sockets for peripherals, as that's the going rate at this price point.

Likewise, the array of user-friendly features across the motherboard is most welcome. Two of the M.2 heatsinks and the primary PCIe slot for a graphics card have quick-release mechanisms, there are buttons to clear and flash the BIOS, debug LEDs and a display to indicate what's happening during the boot process, and a Wi-Fi antenna that simply pushes into its sockets. Even the UEFI is clear and easy to use.

So far, so good. In fact, if all you care about is storage, expansion, and support for peripherals, then you might as well stop reading now and just head off and buy one. Before you do, though, it's worth noting that the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk isn't outstanding in every area.

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 AIO | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

Given that the above motherboards in the gaming benchmark results were tested over a broad period of time, some of the discrepancies will be down to differences in BIOS, microcode, and Windows. However, the fact that MSI's board is notably slower in our Factorio test has been an issue since launch. It's better than it was, but there's no obvious reason as to why it should be so far behind the other motherboards.

That said, the overall gaming performance isn't bad; it's just very average when compared to other boards. Some are better, some are worse. It's almost certainly not helped by the peculiarities of Arrow Lake, as MSI's X870 Tomahawk for AMD processors performs just as well as any other X870 board.

It's a similar story when it comes to content creation and CPU-heavy benchmarks. In all cases, the MSI Z890 Tomahawk lags behind the other boards we've tested, but not enough to be really noticeable in real-world situations. MSI may be using conservative RAM timings to boost stability, which would go some way to explain the above results and, to a lesser extent, why it's slower in Factorio.

You might be tempted to think that you can get around all of this by simply applying a spot of overclocking to the Core Ultra 200S processor used in the motherboard. That's certainly very easy to do, as MSI's UEFI has everything logically set out and clearly labelled. However, with default settings, the Z890 Tomahawk isn't starting at the best position to overclock from.

As you can see, the Core Ultra 9 285K used for all our LGA 1851 motherboard tests is drawing the most power during the Baldur's Gate 3 benchmark on the MSI board. Not by a huge margin, but when it's already 9 W up on the Gigabyte, overclocking will only make that worse. More power means more heat, and not just for the CPU, as the VRMs will be tasked harder.

While the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite's peak VRM temperature is almost certainly a manufacturing error, the fact that the Z890 Tomahawk runs hotter than the NZXT N7 Z890 and ASRock B860 Steel Legend doesn't bode well for serious overclocking. It doesn't cope particularly well with a first-generation PCIe 5.0 SSD, either, though newer drivers do run cooler, so if you are going to take that route with your primary storage, you should consider one of the latest Gen 5 SSDs.

If you're looking for the best performance and thermals, regardless of budget, then the fiercesomely expensive Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is untouchable. However, it's $220 more expensive than the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi, almost double the cost.

That doesn't mean it's the best Z890 motherboard out there, of course. If money is no object, then the Maximus easily wins, and where budget is important, ASRock's B860 Steel Legend WiFi can be picked up for as little as $160 at Amazon. The latter doesn't support Wi-Fi 7, though, and it has fewer Thunderbolt and USB ports than the MSI model.

Taking everything into consideration, the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi stands out as being a solid proposition: It has connectivity and expansion options that wouldn't look out of place on high-end motherboards, yet it sports a competitive, mainstream price. You don't get the best performance, unfortunately, but it's not so slow that you'd have any reason to be concerned.

Had I reviewed this motherboard back in October 2024, the conclusion wouldn't have been anywhere near as positive, but sometimes it really does pay to be late to the party.

Should your Windows machine run into major difficulties, you may find yourself staring at a blue screen. No, not the infamous Blue Screen of Death (which has since changed to the Black Screen of... Death), but the Windows Recovery Environment, or WinRE for short.

Here you can repair startup issues, access the command prompt, and adjust a whole host of important system settings outside of the regular Windows 11 desktop with ease—or at least you could, up until you installed a security update released alongside the Windows 11 25H2 update for many users last week.

As per Microsoft's Win 11 25H2 known issues page, update KB5066835 has stopped USB devices, like keyboard and mice, from functioning in WinRE. Which is, of course, the primary way to control any of the vital system recovery tools within. Bully.

Our Nick has tested this issue himself and reported that, while he could move the mouse and flip between options with the keyboard, each input resulted in around four seconds of lag, making it extremely tedious to use. So, it's perhaps not as serious for some users as Microsoft claims, but it sure sounds like a frustrating experience to add on top of your, well, frustrating experience.

Microsoft says it's working to release a solution to resolve the issue in the coming days—which isn't much comfort if you have need of the Windows Recovery Environment in the meantime, but hey ho. At least it's not as bad as the litany of bugs that came with the last major Windows 11 update, 24H2.

Virtually everyone I know had some sort of issue with that one, and as anecdotal as my personal experience is, the many, many reports of problems we covered over its release seem to back it up. As for our personal experiences with Windows 11 25H2 so far? It seems fine, which isn't a huge surprise since it doesn't appear to make many major changes on the surface.

Proper, ground-breaking changes, however, appear to be being rolled out over time, and are mostly Copilot-based. Good stuff. I'm sure you're as excited as I am for our new AI PC future. Strap in, folks. I've got a feeling this is going to be a wild ride.

I've made no secret of my penchant for purple. So, it likely comes as no surprise that I've been pining after the Gengar Razer Kitty Kraken V2 headset since it was first announced (ghost type Pokemon are some of my favourites, and it's not just because they often adhere to my carefully curated colour scheme).

While I enjoyed my time with the Kraken Kitty V3 Pro, I'm still not a huge fan of the headset's pastel pink 'quartz' colourway. So, when I heard the Gengar Razer Kitty Kraken V2 is now available outside of Asia, I was there with my Pokeballs at the ready.

Obviously, there are a few key differences to note between the V3 Pro and this pretty purple version of the V2. Besides the kitty ears getting swapped out for the ghostie's wee purple horns, the main difference is that the Gengar Razer Kitty Kraken V2 is a wired headset. That means a stable, constant connection at the risk of forgetting about the wire all together and potentially dragging your rig behind you when you leave your desk…but what sort of Slowpoke would do that, right?

The wire itself is contained within a hardy plastic sheathing that could likely withstand a chewing from a deskchair castor (not that I'd recommend putting that theory to the test). At two metres in length, the attached wire is long enough to not feel too restrictive while also mostly avoiding getting tangled up under foot. The main downside is that with this integrated, non-detachable USB-A wire, the Gengar Razer Kitty Kraken V2 is destined for your desktop and your desktop only.

The V2's lack of even a 3.5 mm connection option definitely makes it one of the least versatile gaming headsets I've had the pleasure of reviewing lately. Sure, not everyone has quite the aura necessary to rock a set of purple horns or pink kitty ears while casually out and about, but the difference is you at least have the option to try with the Kraken Kitty V3 Pro.

Anyway, as you may expect from the tag team of a wired, USB-A connection and Razer's Triforce 40mm drivers, the Kraken Kitty V2's audio quality is crisp. I was especially impressed by the clarity of dialogue, though I found lower, bassier frequencies got a little lost in the shuffle. To put it another way, while the scant few voice lines throughout 2016's Doom came through loud and clear, Mick Gordon's already crunchy soundtrack lost some detail—especially when the hordes of hell were hissing in my ear. I found that games with comparatively less hectic soundscapes tend to be better served by this headgear.

While there's no Active Noise Cancelling on offer here, the gentle clamping force of this headset blocks out a fair amount of ambient sound and offers a surprisingly immersive audio experience (just ask my colleagues how many times they each made me jump in surprise while I was testing this headset). The inner earcups are generously cushioned too, making this another Razer headset that's comfortable to wear all day. Better yet, these are covered in a plush leatherette that's easy to wipe clean, so that striking purple colour won't be dulled by my contour of choice over time.

A raised mic mute button, a volume wheel, and the integrated microphone arm are all found on the outer edge of the left earcup. The mic arm is neither detachable nor retractable, unlike the V3 Pro, though it is very bendy; it's easy to adjust and holds its position well when you twist it out of the way—though I personally do miss the option to make it disappear altogether.

As for mic audio, the quality here is about what you'd expect for a gaming headset—clear save for the odd bit of crunch around the plosives. It's perfectly serviceable for Discord calls or in-game chatter, but you might want something a wee bit more professional if you want to launch your musical career with the very best Pokerap cover (like there never was).

Listen to the microphone test here:

Though this wired gaming headset acquits itself well on audio quality all around, the styling really is the headline act here. The outer face of the earcups feature a subtle offering of RGB, with light shining tastefully through Gengar's silhouette. The striking purple spikes along the headband are genuinely sturdy, not to mention visually striking. I think my favourite detail though is the splash of red within the inner ear cup, featuring a line drawing of Gengar that's almost always out of view. Being the only one to see that mischievous grin on the regular is a design flourish I enjoy immensely.

However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that you're paying for that style at a premium; the Gengar edition of the Kraken Kitty V2 costs $40 more than any of the other colourways, bringing its price closer in line with the Razer Barracuda and the Razer Barracuda X Chroma wireless headsets. That's not the most damning comparison though; the Razer Kraken V3 X, with a USB type A wired connection and the same 40 mm Triforce drivers, is less than $50 on Amazon, meaning the Gengar styling comes at a $100 premium.

The Gengar edition is definitely not what I'd call a budget option. Furthermore, I'd argue it's a price point that makes sense for a wireless headset that can fulfil your audio needs across a variety of scenarios, from gaming to just listening to music on the go, but not necessarily a wired headset you can't really use on much besides your desktop PC.

If you're longing for a purple bit of kit but aren't fussed about RGB, I personally still recommend the slightly cheaper SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X. A wireless headset offering a wealth of connection options, the Arctis Nova 3X is much more versatile for one thing. But if all you're after is a cute, wired gaming headset that doesn't come at such a premium, then the $60 Razer Kraken Kitty V3 X may better suit.

For more than 20 years, ASRock has been churning out motherboards for just about every possible PC user and scenario. They were all very barebones and functional, though, and it wasn't until 2010 that it specifically targeted the gaming sector, with a collaboration with esports player Fatal1ty. Fast forward to 2019, and ASRock broadened its gaming appeal with the first of its Phantom Gaming series of motherboards.

These were designed "closely with partners to fine-tune the products, and to ensure every product can deliver outstanding gaming experience." Well, I can say now that one of its most recent Phantom Gaming offerings, the X870 Nova WiFi is neither fine-tuned nor delivers anything like an outstanding gaming experience.

Don't get me wrong: it's not a bad motherboard. It's just that it's hampered by a number of compromises, middling performance, and a price tag that's a touch too high in today's competitive market.

ASRock set the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova's MSRP at $300 for launch, barely a month ago, but it's already been reduced to $280 at various retailers around the globe. It's not a huge reduction, but even so, the overall price isn't quite low enough for what you're getting.

The problem is that what looks great on paper doesn't translate into a dropped jaw when experienced first-hand. This is especially true of the main feature of ASRock's Nova models: a mountain of M.2 slots for SSDs.

There are five M.2 slots in total: two Gen5, two Gen4, and one Gen3. Sounds okay, yes? Well, that fifth PCIe 3.0 slot only uses two PCIe lanes, so not only is it two generations old, it's also half the speed. Oh, and you'll lose the two SATA ports if you do use it.

Then, if you install any kind of SSD in the second M.2 slot and use either of the two USB4 ports on the rear IO panel, both systems will run at half speed. You can override this in the UEFI/BIOS, so that the M.2 slot is fully 4x, but that will completely disable the USB4 ports.

Finally, if you stick an SSD into the second Gen4 slot, the x16 PCI Express slot at the bottom of the motherboard will...you guessed it...run at half speed. Given that it's electrically an x4 slot to begin with, that leaves you with just two PCIe lanes. Fine for something like a sound card, but not so good if you planned on setting up the X870 Nova in a dual-GPU AI rig.

It's a similar situation with the rest of the rear IO panel's sockets. While there are 11 USB ports in total, only four of them are really fast: the two USB4 and the two yellow ones (40 Gbps and 10 Gbps, respectively). The rest are pretty basic, 5 Gbps in speed or USB 2.0, which is really only fast enough for mice and keyboards.

All of this is caused by the fact that AMD Ryzen processors and the solitary X870 chip in the motherboard only have so many PCI Express lanes, and every PCIe slot, M.2 socket, and SATA and USB port has to share them. There are just not enough lanes to ensure they can all run at max speed if used together.

While we're on the subject of the M.2 slots, it's worth noting that only the primary slot between the CPU and top PCIe slot has a quick-release heatsink and SSD mounting system. It's only one of two M.2 slots that has a thermal pad on the motherboard itself.

The two Gen4 and sole Gen3 slots have traditional heatsinks that require nimble fingers and a precision screwdriver to remove and reinstall them. At least, they all have quick-release mounting systems for SSDs, though if you plan on fitting anything other than 2280-sized drives, you'll be out of luck, as that's the only size the motherboard supports.

The rest of the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova's niceties include a board-mounted power button and a BIOS code LED display, both of which are useful for testers like me, but also handy for that initial boot-up test when building a gaming rig. There are plenty of fan headers, though they're not located very well and configuring them in the UEFI is very clunky.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Strix LC III 360 | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

Since AMD launched its Ryzen 9000-series of processors last year, relevant motherboards, Windows, and AMD's drivers have all undergone a wealth of updates to improve power management, thread scheduling, and RAM compatibility. For the performance tests of the ASRock X870 Nova, I used its latest 3.50 BIOS, which incorporates AMD's most recent microcodes for the CPU.

Theoretically, there should be no difference between any AM5-socket motherboard if one uses the same hardware, but due to the constant nature of firmware and software updates, you will always see some disparities between motherboards tested a few months ago and anything brand new.

But even accounting for that, the X870 Nova WiFI is rather underwhelming in our gaming benchmarks. It's possible that Microsoft's latest 25H2 update to Windows 11 is responsible for part of the performance deficiency, but I suspect that it's more to do with ASRock being very conservative with its CPU and RAM settings.

If that's the case, then it's a symptom of ASRock's solution to a run of CPU failures some people were experiencing with its motherboards. Given the very short time any reviewer gets with a motherboard, it's impossible to tell if ASRock has fully solved the issue, and although I'm reasonably confident it has, any cautious buyer is likely to be wary of picking up an ASRock AM5 motherboard at the moment.

So, not great, but not bad, at gaming. Fortunately, whatever ASRock is doing to affect our game benchmarks, it has no impact on Cinebench, Blender, and 7zip. All of the above results are perfectly normal for a Ryzen 9 9900X, and I repeated all of those tests multiple times to confirm the figures.

7zip is far more affected by RAM speeds and timings than the other two benchmarks, but since that's okay as well, it does mean the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova is worth considering for a content creation rig. Well, a content creation rig that only uses a couple of SSDs at most.

On the plus side, even when the Ryzen 9 9900X was pulling its maximum power consumption of 162 W for well over 10 minutes, the voltage regulator modules (VRMs) barely got hot. With a peak temperature of just 50 °C, it's clear that ASRock has installed a very solid heatsink and thermal pad solution on the X870 Nova.

Alas, the same can't be said about the M.2 slots. The primary slot only just about copes with a PCIe 5.0 SSD, and at a peak of 78 °C, that's close to hitting the thermal limit of the Corsair drive used. However, if you stick to using a Gen4 SSD or buy one of the very latest Gen5 SSDs (which do run a lot cooler than the first generation of PCIe 5.0 drives), then you should be fine.

I did find that the second Gen5 M.2 slot performed a little better, in terms of thermals, and that's probably because there's a wider area of metal to dissipate heat from. We're only talking about a handful of degrees, though, and should you fit another SSD under that heatsink, that difference will surely evaporate.

The one thing that did catch my eye (and hands) with the ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi is just how solid it feels and how good it looks, under a certain light. There is a strip of LEDs along the bottom edge of the board but none anywhere else, so the aesthetics aren't due to them: it's the coating on the M.2 heatsinks that's responsible for the pretty looks.

Around the back of the motherboard, there's a very large slab of steel, there to prevent any possible flexing of the board when fitted with a massive graphics card. I do wish more manufacturers would do this because the X870 Nova feels very sturdy. It does make it rather heavy, of course, but at least you get a sense of quality to it all.

Conclusion

If you've read through all the way to this point, I don't think you'll be surprised by my conclusion. The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi won't be suitable for most PC enthusiasts—in fact, it's only likely to appeal to a very niche group of individuals.

Put simply, this motherboard only makes sense if you need to use a lot of SSDs. More specifically, lots of SSDs and no SATA HDDs, or any peripherals that demand a full-speed USB4 port. However, if outright storage options are a must, then you're going to be better off picking an X870E motherboard, though many of these are not better than the ASRock model.

Given the so-so gaming performance and ASRock's history with CPU failures, it's not particularly suitable for gamers. And if your PC is going to be used solely for gaming, then you might as well opt for a budget B850 board and save yourself a heap of cash.

I'm a big fan of ASRock's Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova, which I use in one of my Intel test rigs, as that has six M.2 slots and only one of them is compromised in terms of PCIe lane availability. Every slot is Gen4 or better, and you can fit any size SSD and still use all four SATA ports.

Of course, many of the X870 Nova WiFi's issues are to do with the nature of AMD's Ryzen processors and its motherboard chipset, but had ASRock gone with the X870E chipset, quite a few of them would disappear altogether. It probably wouldn't be any better at gaming, but it would certainly be in more keeping with the Nova range's USP of being storage monsters.

If you're anything like me, there's a good chance you have boxes of USB cables, not entirely sure which are USB Type-A, which are USB Type-C, and which even work. I know, I'm a mess, but this isn't about me. Well, if you need to test a bunch of USBs and don't want individual tools, a big PCB with 12 different connector types slapped onto it has been spotted, and it was even available for sale.

As reported by Hackaday, the colourfully named 'USB and more tester' can be bought via Tindie for $60, though it has been sold out for two days now. According to the listing, it is "equipped with 12 different connectors that allow you to test almost any cable."

Next to each connector is a sequence of indicators to spot if pins have been shorted to the ground or if it's simply failed to connect. On the back are input connectors for each port.

You will still need a multimeter (a device to measure things like voltage or current) for full testing, "but future versions are planned to automate these tests." Though there are 12 different connectors, there are 18 total connections.

In the Tindie, Iron Fuse, the seller says, "I originally created this device as a tool for myself — I often have to repair various devices, and because multimeter probes are relatively large, it’s extremely inconvenient to check connectors using only a multimeter." Notably, Iron Fuse has actually hand-picked the connectors and soldered them all on.

The fact that it's 12 cm x 17 cm means that it's almost small enough to carry around with you, though the exposed PCB would certainly worry me.

Here are the ports you can find in the tester:

• USB 3.0 male in
• USB 3.0 male out
• USB 3.0 in
• USB 3.0 out
• HDMI in
• HDMI out
• DP in
• DP out
• USB Type-B out
• USB 3.2 Type-B out
• Mini USB out
• Samsung 30-pin out
• Micro USB out
• Micro USB 3.2 out
• USB Type-C in
• USB Type-C out
• Apple 30-pin out
• Apple 8-pin out

My only real complaint about this spread of connectors is that they're not grouped up as neatly as I've put up above. The USB 3.0 is spread out across the board. HDMI in isn't right next to HDMI out, etc.

Both the price and the relatively niche nature of this device mean it's likely only something you'd actually get use out of if you spend a lot of time testing USB connections. If you happen to repair devices often, or just work in tech in any form, there's a genuine use case here. Though I'd probably hang on until the multimeter revision is done cooking.

The more I look at the word 'gripes', the less it looks right. Nevertheless, we're running through our PC gaming gripes all week. Since I've been building gaming PCs pretty much non-stop this year, I feel like I've got at least a few bones to pick with components and how they slot together.

Before I unleash my fiery tirade upon unsuspecting PC parts, let me take a moment to say… I actually think the PC building experience is pretty darn great. It's a helluva lot of fun. Challenging in a way that, for some brains, at least, is really rewarding. So don't take my gentle prodding as a reason to put off building your own gaming PC sometime soon. Do it, it's great.

There are ways to circumvent some of my gripes—the latest motherboards do a lot to make sure the building process involves as few screws as possible, but these are often limited to the more premium models. Similarly, there are other products that aim to make life easier for PC builders, and I'll note my favs in the copy as we go.

Onwards with the gripes.

1. Short CPU power cables

Modern PC cases have made cable management a doddle. You plug in your power cables, run them up the side through Velcro straps or some sort of clip, and then through grommets or behind cable covers to the front of the case. Except the CPU power cable. This isn't so much on the cases themselves, as they often offer a routing option down the backside rear of the case to tuck your cable neatly away—the darn cables often just aren't long enough.

CPU power cables are often a little longer than their PCIe counterparts for GPUs, as is the case on the Be Quiet! Pure Power 12 M I have to hand, but they're often not long enough to navigate up the rear of the motherboard and loop back on themselves to connect to the motherboard's uppermost power connector. Some PSUs do it better than others, and some cases, too, but I'm too often left with an ugly cable criss-crossing the rear of the motherboard tray and making a mockery of my cable management efforts.

Corsair provides reasonably long CPU power cables (690 mm on Corsair's AX1600i to 630 mm on Be Quiet!'s Pure Power 12 M, and yes, I've just measured both with a tape measure). Though I have a minor gripe to air with Corsair's modern power supplies, such as the RM850x. You have to wrestle the individually wrapped cables into cable combs yourself. Now, I'm all for custom cables with discrete cables for every pin—I like the look—but having put these combs on three PCIe cables and the motherboard 24-pin recently, I'm over it. I spent more time getting these combs to look good than I did on any other part of the build.

Sort it out, will ya?

2. SSD heatsinks on motherboards with easily misaligned screws

I have a test bench at home, powered by an Intel 13th Gen processor and using an Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero motherboard. It's a great system, though I primarily use it for testing CPU coolers these days. That sort of testing doesn't involve any major modifications to the platform, bar the obvious, but I often need to clone the SSD inside it for testing other machines. This means I am removing the SSD and reinstalling it at least once a month, every month, for a few years.

The problem with the Z790 Dark Hero is that it was released just before the industry began adopting tool-free NVMe slots. These modern heatsinks are great; mostly solving my gripe (except motherboards with a single heatsink covering three NVMe SSDs, meaning you often have to pull out your graphics card to access any of them, even the lower ones). The Z790 Dark Hero's heatsink? Not so much. It has two captive screws that secure onto two raised standoffs. You have to align these juuuuust right to get it back on, which is easier said than done with a menagerie of air and liquid coolers blocking my way.

If you're the type to set and forget when it comes to PC building, you might not resonate with this one. I'm fine with that, but after a long day's PC building, realising I need to remove the SSD in my test bench, clone it, then put it back in is a sure-fire way to ruin an evening.

Another smaller gripe here. If a motherboard manufacturer still insists on using tiny screws to secure the NVMe drive into the slot instead of one of those small captive clips, I'm fuming. Well, I'm mildly annoyed, at least.

3. USB 3.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1) headers

This is probably my biggest PC building gripe. USB 3.0 headers absolutely stink. They're awkwardly placed, regularly require you to bend a thick cable in an uncomfortable way, and you can't do much to make them look any better. That's both down to motherboard manufacturers sticking them in bad spots and case manufacturers using the chunkiest cables known to man to connect the front panel.

USB 3.0 headers are also fragile. If you bend them too much, they break. As evidenced by the picture above. Not to mention my gripes with the whole 'USB 3.0 is USB 3.2 Gen 1' debacle…

I also find I often don't have enough USB 3.0 headers to even use all the USB ports on a case's front panel. Take the Corsair 5000T I use for my own gaming PC, I have a top-end Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Pro X motherboard in there, which is plenty capable in many ways, but it only offers a single USB 3.0 header. So, two of the USB ports on my front panel don't work. I mean, it's not the end of the world, but it is gripes week after all…

4. USB 2.0 connectors, or lack thereof

While we're on the topic of USB, we're still reliant on USB 2.0 headers for many components to chat with a PC's software. But most motherboard manufacturers have settled on offering just two of them. With screens and smart features becoming the norm for premium parts to separate themselves from the crowd, i.e. Corsair's iCUE gear or most high-end liquid coolers, I'm often left wishing for one more header to make everything work.

Some gear comes with a splitter to make life easier. Corsair's iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD has one in the box, for example. That helps mitigate the issue somewhat, but it's not the norm. Hyte offers a way around this with its new Powered USB Hub, which combines one USB 2.0 header into four powered USB 2.0 headers. That's neat, but at $30, it's an added expense for an issue I wish we didn't have to begin with.

There's also the issue that Corsair specifically will fail to update the firmware on any device that's plugged into a USB header hub rather than directly into the motherboard itself. I mean, it might fail to update the firmware anyway because of some buried bit of conflicting software, but you've got to give it a chance.

Bandwidth, eh? Never enough of it. And space on a modern motherboard is hard to come by.

5. Short liquid cooler tubes

You've either grimaced while stretching a liquid cooler tube further than it should go or you've never had the displeasure and you're wondering what all this is about. The latter group won't really see the issue here, but as someone who regularly uses the Thermaltake P5 as my test bench, I'm often trying to make a liquid cooler fit in a way that's not ideal.

The issue with the P5 is, ultimately, it's designed for fancy custom cooling loops. The radiator mounting location is too far away from the motherboard tray, which causes coolers with 400 mm tubes (the standard length) to get tugged in a way they would not wish to be. There are some options here with longer tubes that minimise this issue. The Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro, our pick as the best liquid cooler, has 450 mm tubes. So does Corsair's iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD. I'd recommend checking this spec on any cooler if you're thinking it might be an issue in your choice of case, as not only can it lead to uncomfortable tube runs, it can restrict the orientation of the cooler and lead to louder operation.

One of the joys of writing our Budget or bust feature is the possibility of stumbling across a diamond in the rough, and that's exactly what's happened to me recently. I've been testing the Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone of late, and I can now confirm that it's a brilliant little audio-grabber for a mere $26/£23.

That's right, $26. That makes the weeny Amazon unit less than the price of takeout for two, and after my time with it, I reckon it's worth at least twice as much. I've just added it in as our new pick for the best budget gaming microphone, and if you'll allow me to expound, I'll tell you exactly why.

For a start, it delivers everything you need, nothing you don't. I was expecting a flimsy chassis, nasty materials, and a stand that flops around like a dead fish for this sort of cash, and absolutely none of those expectations were met. The little Basics mic feels remarkably well-built, and I'd put good money on it lasting for years.

Then there's the sound. While I wouldn't go as far as to call the Basics a studio-grade mic, it's genuinely excellent at picking up and reproducing your voice at a distance. You don't get any gain controls here (just a well-placed mute button with an LED indicator), but in practice, you don't really need them.

Shove it on your desk at a reasonable distance, and the little Amazon unit will pick you up just fine. Which is just as well, really, as the cable's a bit short. Nothing's perfect, I'm afraid, so you'll need to go digging around in the cupboards for a spare one if your PC is a floor-dwelling machine.

But what's not "just fine" is the audio quality. Sure, it's not the sort of rich, super-shiny audio capture that'll have audiophiles falling head over heels, but the Amazon USB mic records a fantastically clear, surprisingly rounded tone, especially for a microphone this attractively priced.

I'm used to the idea that ultra-budget audio gear is rubbish, because let's face it, it often is. The Amazon mic has shown me the error of my ways, though, and manages to capture a tone so thoroughly decent-sounding, if you'd told me it came from an $80-$100 unit, I would have absolutely believed you.

Above: The Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone recorded in a desktop position, from a reasonable distance away.

Again, it's not the best thing I've ever heard. But for $26? That sound quality is remarkable, I think you'll agree.

There is one more drawback to make note of, and it's a fairly big one: you don't get any software to play with. That means no noise cancelling, and being a condenser mic, that's a bit of a shame. Condenser units will pick up unwanted noises in the immediate vicinity, although it must be said that the Basic's cardioid pattern does seem to have well-judged limits, so it's not particularly noise-prone overall.

Other than that? It's a bit of a superstar. While those of you looking for a more professional sound will be better suited by one of our other best gaming microphone picks below, if all you need are the basics, and the basics done well, then the, err, Amazon Basics is probably for you.

Quick list

• Best overall: Shure MV6 USB Gaming Microphone
• Best budget: Amazon Basics USB Condenser Microphone
• Best mid-range: NZXT Capsule Elite
• Best USB bundle: Sennheiser Profile Streaming Set
• Best looking: HyperX Quadcast S
• Best podcasting: Shure MV7+
• Best streaming: SteelSeries Alias Pro
• Best headset mic: Audio-Technica ATH-M50xSTS StreamSet

The best gaming microphone

Have you ever gone to plug in your USB Type-C cable to extend your display, ready for the glory of a second monitor, only for nothing to happen? Well, there's a good chance it's because your USB port isn't quite capable of doing so. Microsoft is implementing a new system to try and stop this problem.

As announced in the Microsoft USB Blog (which I've just discovered is a thing thanks to Tom's Hardware), writer Ugan-Sivagnanenthirarajah talked a little about the rationale behind this decision and how Microsoft plan on implementing it.

Microsoft has introduced new goals that suppliers looking to have Microsoft's stamp of approval must meet before being able to put Windows on their machines. Microsoft wants partners to make sure USB data, charging, and display capability "just works" on all its USB Type-C ports. Microsoft also makes sure its partners ensure that USB Type-C ports with 40 Gbps ports also "give full compatibility with USB4 and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals."

In order for hardware to launch with Windows 11, version 24H2, companies must achieve both goals, as well as following all other rules of the WHCP compatibility program.

To ensure partners meet the standard of making sure USB ports just work, all WHCP-compliant hardware with USB Type-C must have USB-IF-certified silicon in their PC, and all devices plugged in must "charge efficiently and consistently as every USB-C port on a certified PC needs to support USB Power Delivery charging." All Type-C ports must support DisplayPort Alt-Mode for connecting extra monitors and have to be "validated using Microsoft's built-in USB controlling drivers."

For a port to be certified as USB4, it must be capable of a 40 Gbps max data speed or more, must offer up to 15 W of power to accessories (with that being 7.5 W for tablets), has to support PC charging, must support a minimum of dual 4K at 60 Hz display, and has to have both PCIe support and Thunderbolt 3 compatibility.

The testing process is implemented via Microsoft's HLK (Hardware Lab Kit), and "OEMs, silicon vendors, and accessory brands run these HLK tests and submit logs to Microsoft. Any failure halts certification until the issue is resolved in hardware or firmware."

And if you're wondering why Microsoft is going through all this trouble—have you used a USB port on a modern PC lately? It's all kinds of bad, and the naming for each USB generation is just as bad. I just hope Microsoft's efforts are actually effective enough to do something about USB confusion.

Microsoft points out that "manufacturers can implement ports that look identical but differ wildly in functionality," so customers can be misled by the ports. This new process to implement standardized Type-C functionality is intended to give some clarity on that, and give assurance when you buy a WHCP-certified machine.

This new process is a good thing for Microsoft to implement, and Microsoft is likely looking for a bit of a PR win right now. It fired just under 7,000 employees just last month, and Microsoft's Build conference was interrupted by protests in regard to ties to the Israeli military, with further pressure from BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).

Ah, birthdays. Love them or hate them, there's no escaping the unwavering gaze of Father Time. Except in the world of computing, where most tech only sees a handful of birthdays before heading out to pasture. There are one or two exceptions to this, though, and this year sees the 25th birthday of USB 2.0—the universal and ubiquitous connection system that we just can't seem to give up, even today.

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is older still, as its very first iteration started to appear on computers around 1996. Uptake of the new port was pretty slow, though, and it wasn't until 1998, when Microsoft released Windows 98 and Apple launched its iMac, that we started to see proper software and hardware support for it.

Since I've already said that it's the 25th birthday of USB 2.0 (thanks to Heise for the handy reminder), it's pretty obvious when it first launched. What made it better than the first version was the inclusion of a faster, 480 Mbps data transfer mode. It's arguably the start of the whole naming mess that USB is well known for, as the organisation responsible for it all (USB Implementers Forum, USB-IF) decided that this superfast mode should be called High Speed.

Why is that a messy name? It's because the much slower 12 Mbps mode in USB 1.0/1.1 is called Full Speed. Umm, isn't 'full' faster than 'high' when talking about speed? Well, it would eventually transpire that the USB-IF is an advocate for not learning any lessons at all from mistakes, and we'd eventually be treated to the nomenclature farce that of USB version 3.0 (and that's a whole 'nother story).

The USB 2.0 specification would be tweaked a little more over the years, adding more types of connector designs and battery charging stuff. In terms of raw capabilities, it's been surpassed by USB 3.0 and USB4 (yes, USB4, not USB 4.0), but grab any new motherboard off a retailer's shelf and you'll often still see a couple of USB 2.0 ports staring back at you. And it's nearly always present in the form of a header, to be connected to the front IO sockets on a PC case.

As to why they're still in use, it's because they're very easy to implement within a motherboard design. That peak transfer rate of 480 Mbps is very low compared to what you can get out of a USB 3.0 or USB4 port—not that Apple cared when slapping it on the iPhone's USB connection—so the little sockets aren't going to demand much of the USB controller that's handling them; that particular circuit is usually found in the motherboard's primary chipset.

Perhaps the one thing the humble USB port has been most infamous for over the years is the fact that the Type-A connector (the standard rectangular one) isn't especially 'universal'—unlike Type-C, which will work in any orientation, Type-A plugs only operate when stuffed into the slot just so.

Even now, after using the darn things for 25 years, I still do the try-it-three-times dance with my USB memory sticks. Try to stuff it—oh no, it won't fit! Flip it over and try again. Oh no, it won't go in! Flip back to the starting point and bingo, in it goes. Every. Single. Time.

By the tech standards of today, USB 2.0 seems very dated—it's not especially fast and it doesn't offer much in the way of power, but it's not the only old bit of kit in your gaming PC. The SATA bus interface is also 25 years old, and the first iteration of PCI Express is hot on its heels, just three years younger.

Of course, the latter is almost never used in its 1.0 configuration, and most PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 systems will only drop to version 3.0 or older when switching to a power-saving mode. It's a similar story with SATA, as your motherboard will almost certainly be using the 3.4 or 3.5 specification, and those young pups are just seven and five years old, respectively.

When it comes to genuinely old tech in your PC, USB 2.0 pretty much rules the roost. Part of me wants to celebrate this fact, because I like old stuff, but to be honest, I'd much rather see it gone and have USB 3.0 as the actual minimum port standard now. USB 2.0 won't be around in another 25 years, but I reckon it'll see out this decade. See you again in five years for the 30th anniversary, then.

Question. What's the difference between USB 3.1, USB 3.1 Gen 2, and USB 3.2 Gen 2? Answer, they're all exactly the same, they're just different iterations of the totally bananas naming schemes that have been cooked up for USB over recent years. But if you thought USB branding was a mess, well, you really don't want to know about the catastrophic mess that are the underlying hardware complexities.

And guess what, it's all Apple's fault. Well, it's partially Apple's fault according to an anonymous USB engineer who gave a remarkably entertaining talk on the history of USB and the USB-C standard posing as a fox. Yes, really.

To be more specific, the talk was held on the DegenTech YouTube channel, self-described as, "a network of working professional furries interested in STEMM. We host open meets and presentations on VRchat and hangout on discord." The talk was held by a DegenTech member going by the name of Temporel and with a history of USB engineering for various large outfits including Siemens.

According to Temporel, the answer to the question of of USB-C got so complicated and over-engineered is Apple. Kind of.

"If someone wants to hate on Apple, this is the time because partially this is Apple's fault," Temporel says. To cut a long and surprisingly fascinating story short, the problem comes down to charging.

The original USB-A standard was never intended to support device charging. It was about hooking up devices like keyboards and mice with very low power requirements, along with reliable data transfer.

And it was very good at that, enabling 480 MB/s of data over just two wires. Indeed, as Temporel says, USB Type-A did a stellar good job of killing off legacy interfaces like Firewire and parallel. "It was cheaper, more convenient. It was very scalable," Temporel says.

But it didn't support much by way of power output, just 0.5 A and 5 V. So, the problems all started in 2007 when Apple launched the iPhone and wanted to use USB to charge the device.

Apple cooked up its own out-of-spec USB interface with 2.4 A of charging power. That could damage a computer, so Apple devised a method where the iPhone would only charge at the higher speed when it detected a power supply as opposed to a standard USB port.

Pretty quickly, lots of other companies copied this approach, resulting in as many as 20 different standards based on USB but not actually compliant with the USB spec. In 2012, the USB standards body added support for 1.5 A, but this wasn't enough.

The upshot was that all USB chargers and sockets ended up having integrated circuits and current sensing hardware that would figure out what the maximum charging capability was in any given device-and-charger scenario, but it was all outside the official USB spec.

China then implemented a standard that combined Apple's charging standard with one from Huawei and made it compulsory. And since so many devices are made in China, that went a long way to creating a de facto standard for USB devices.

When USB Type-C came along, it was a chance to start anew. But the problem was then backwards compatibility. As Temporel explains, "all of the mayhem that is on the old spec is now added on top of the USB-C because you still have to support USB-A.

"You have standard USB. On top of that you have 15 independent standards from manufacturers. Then on top of that you have whatever six standards USB wanted to implement that didn't help and just made it worse. That was slightly patch fixed by bloody China to force everyone to use at least two of them. And then on top of all this, they're now going to start piling the USB-C protocols."

Anyway, if you've ever wondered why something didn't just work based on the assumption that USB is USB, now you know. USB is rarely, if ever, just USB. You can find out more from the full video, which is well worth a watch.

Technology often has a way of coming full circle—just ask my burgeoning LP collection or the entire VR gaming industry. Things that once were, often will be again (picture that Tim and Eric 'mind blown' clip here). I know this, but it never stops me from being surprised when something long-forgotten resurfaces.

Something, that is, like dual-screw locks on cable connectors. Yes, that sacred locking mechanism of times once past is now with us again, but this time, as Redditor tomyan112 shows us, it's on a USB-C connector rather than a VGA or DVI-D.

This isn't a new development, but it's certainly the first I've seen of it. As it turns out, though, the USB-C locking connector specification sheet (PDF) outlined just such functionality (both in left-and-right format and one-above format) as part of the USB-C spec way back in 2016. They kept that one quiet, didn't they!

Lo, hearken ye to times once past, when cables twined around legs and monitors did topple asunder.

If you're of a certain age, you too will remember that the gold standard for connecting your gaming monitor was a DVI-D cable if you were lucky, or a VGA cable if you were not. (The former transfers a digital rather than analogue signal and generally supports higher refresh rates and better image quality at higher resolutions.)

Screw lock for PD240W usb type-c cable has returned. from r/pcmasterrace

For the young'uns reading who are still none the wiser, these 29-pin and 15-pin connectors were at risk of having their pins bent or coming loose if they relied on just staying plugged in, so there was a screw either side of them which you'd turn into the screwholes on the monitor and GPU to keep them secure.

And truth be told, I don't know why I'm talking about all this in the past tense, given I'm quite literally still using a DVI-D cable right now to connect my second monitor (an old BenQ XL2411Z) to my PC. I am having to use a DVI-D to DP adapter to hook it up though, given GPUs abandoned DVI long ago.

I do miss the screwy mechanism. That roll of the thumb, followed by another roll of the thumb, followed by another roll of the thumb, and another ro- you get the idea. Then the heart-stopping moment when you catch the cable with your foot and wonder whether the monstrous battlestation you've constructed around yourself is about to come tumbling down and expose it for the frail house of cards it is.

Come to think of it, maybe I don't miss it all too much. I can't think of many use cases where having a USB-C cable locked in place would be of massive benefit, and USB-C cables aren't massively prone to bending or breaking, either.

But hey, maybe just for nostalgia's sake? You can run a DisplayPort signal over USB-C, after all. It might be worth it just for that sweet hit to the ol' memory bank you'll get while you struggle to keep your arm bent under your monitor as you twizzle the screws for the umpteenth time. Ah yes, that's the spot—just like we did it back in 2007.

For over two decades, ASRock has been designing and manufacturing motherboards for desktop PCs, workstations, and servers. The first use of the model name Taichi appeared in 2016 with the X99 Taichi, and since then, every new chipset released has been given the Taichi treatment.

As part of ASRock's motherboard range for Intel Core Ultra 200S processors, the Z890 Taichi Lite is the cheapest of the Taichi line-up but it's not exactly a mainstream offering. With a retail price of $400, the Z890 Taichi Lite is certainly expensive, though there are far pricier Z890 boards around.

So what exactly is one getting for four hundred notes, and compared to ASRock's Z890 Taichi, what's so 'Lite' about it? Well, the former is around $90 more expensive but you get more substantial VRM and SSD heatsinks, an additional M.2 SSD expansion card, and that's about it. The rest of the specifications are identical, other than the fact that the Taichi Lite has silver/white heatsinks to the Z890 Taichi's black/purple colour scheme.

And speaking of specifications, you get a lot with the Z890 Taichi Lite. At first glance, that might not seem to be the case, as there are only two PCIe slots on the board—one for your graphics card and one for an expansion card. However, the lack of PCIe slots is balanced by the fact that there are six M.2 slots, one being Gen5 x4 and the rest all being Gen4 x4.

One of the Gen4 slots will be disabled if you use the second PCIe slot, but at least all the PCIe and M.2 slots are all full-speed. Some Z890 motherboards sport more PCIe slots, but they'll often be a slower Gen or more commonly, they have fewer M.2 slots. Here, you're getting a veritable smorgasbord of storage options.

In terms of connectivity, it's almost as impressive. The rear IO panel sports 12 USB ports, but there are no 20 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. At least you get two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 40 Gbps sockets to use if you do need blistering transfer speeds. Frustratingly, the USB ports aren't grouped by speed on the rear panel and the colouring is misleading.

Underneath each LAN socket, there are two USB Type-A connections. The one closest to the LAN is a 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, whereas the bottom one is 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2. The ports coloured in yellow are ASRock's 'Lightning Gaming Ports', where each socket is connected to a different controller to reduce input lag.

I can't say I've ever experienced any issues having a keyboard and mouse connected to the same USB controller, and I'd have preferred ASRock to have grouped the USB ports by actual transfer performance.

You also get WiFi 7, and while that might not sound worth having, if you have a router that only supports WiFi 6, for example, every WiFi 7-enabled motherboard I've tested so far has better download performance than older systems. Not just in terms of peak throughput but also sustained transfer rate.

In terms of niceties, you get a quick-release heatsink for the main SSD and PCIe slots, power and reset buttons on the board, and an LED display for BIOS codes (super useful for diagnosing problems). However, the other SSD heatsink only covers three slots—the remaining two are open to the air, so if you do fit them with a fast NVMe drive, you'll need to make sure they have their own heatsinks.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: MSI MAG Coreliquid I360 | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Corsair RM850x Shift 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

Arrow Lake motherboards have gone through a torrent of BIOS updates since first appearing in October 2024, and Windows 11 has also seen similar tweaks for improving Core Ultra 200S processor performance. The ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite sample was issued with a very old BIOS, so I flashed it to v2.19, the main recent non-beta one.

I also retested the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk (an Arrow Lake launch review sample motherboard) with its latest BIOS, but I've included original figures for an Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero, marked with an asterisk, to show how things have improved since last year.

Although I've only tested a relatively small number of Z890 motherboards, compared to the vast number available on the market, one thing has become very clear. There's far more variability in how well these motherboards cope in gaming situations than there should be. In theory, every Z890 model should be roughly the same, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

I tried several BIOS versions with the Taichi Lite to see if the gaming performance could be improved, and while more recent ones are much better than those from last year, it's still not as good as it should be. For example, in our Factorio benchmark, the Taichi Lite took 11% longer to complete the updates than the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice. That said, at least it was no worse than the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk.

The gaming performance isn't bad but for the money, you'd expect better or at the very least, parity with the Gigabyte motherboard. The fact that it's $110 more expensive than the Aorus Elite doesn't make it an ideal choice for a gaming-only Arrow Lake PC.

The Taichi Lite's gaming performance could be forgiven if it was a market leader in productivity and content creation tasks, but it's no better in these scenarios. The 7zip compression results suggest that ASRock is using settings in the motherboard's firmware, or perhaps even its design, that aren't maximising the Core Ultra 9 285K's memory and cache system.

File compression works system memory hard, so any weaknesses in RAM timings and signalling will show up here, and once again, the Gigabyte model is better than the Taichi Lite. In fact, it's barely any quicker than the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero board, which was using a first-release BIOS and a version of Windows that doesn't have all of the latest Arrow Lake updates.

The most disappointing aspect of the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite is its cooling systems for the power delivery components (VRMs). All of the motherboards were tested in an open chassis (picture a metal frame with the board attached to it) and most PCs will have a surfeit of cooling fans blowing air across a motherboard's heatsinks.

To see if this would improve matters with the Taichi Lite, I added a 140 mm directly above the VRM heatsinks and repeated the tests. The lowest I could get the temperatures down to was 50 °C, which is no better than what the Gigabyte and Asus boards achieved with no active cooling.

Now, the issue could just be with this particular sample sent for review, but I couldn't see anything wrong with the heatsink mountings. It's possible that the thermal pads used aren't up to the job and if that's the case, then there's a good chance that every Taichi Lite board is like this.

At least it handled the heat from a Gen5 SSD under full load pretty well. Not as good as the Asus and Gigabyte boards, but it's better than the MSI. The main SSD heatsink isn't especially big, but there are two thermal pads, one for each side of the SSD, and I suspect this is what's helping here. The heatsink's quick release mechanism is simple to use, and it firmly attaches to the SSD.

Conclusion

If you've read through this review to the very end, absorbing all the details in the above charts, you'll almost certainly have to come to the same conclusion as me as to whether the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite is worth buying.

At $400, it's considerably more expansion than the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice and MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk, so you'd expect it to offer more features and/or performance. The latter isn't there but what about the former? Well, six full-speed M.2 slots is going to be very nice for some PC users (I'm very much in that camp) and it's two more than the Gigabyte and MSI models.

It also sports more USB ports on the rear IO panel, though not as many as the hugely expensive Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero. I don't think they're organized or labelled very well, but along with the dual LAN ports and WiFi 7 module, the Taichi Lite is well equipped in terms of connectivity.

The question to answer, though, is whether the extra M.2 slots and USB ports are worth $100. I would say it's just about okay—one could purchase PCIe M.2 and USB expansion cards for the same amount of money and get the extra connects and storage that way, but here, they're already available. Of course, the Taichi Lite only has one spare PCIe slot, whereas the Gigabyte and MSI boards have two apiece.

However, the weak VRM cooling isn't ideal, and although the temperatures are well below any thermal limits, I do have concerns that it's not up to scratch for any serious overclocking (not that Arrow Lake chips overclock particularly well). If ASRock is able to squeeze a bit more performance out of its Z890 Taichi Lite via BIOS revisions, it'd have a feature-rich model on its hands, albeit a rather pricey one.

For some PC users, this could be an ideal Z890 motherboard, but if you're just looking at gaming use only, then the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite isn't the board to pick.

With the public launch of Windows version 24H2 last year came a security issue that was only 'resolved' this week. Those who installed Windows 11 from a media file using the October or November version of the software seemingly can't access any future security updates, and the solution is a fresh install of just the Windows OS.

As acknowledged in the recent Windows release health update, this security issue was opened on December 24, 2024, and 'resolved' on February 6. This issue notes that it happens with those using install media, like a CD or USB drive, to install Windows 11 files that were distributed in October and November 2024 updates.

As the Windows 24H2 update launched in October officially, if you happened to have upgraded as it launched, you will want to get the most recent build and install it. However, if you installed 24H2 via the Windows update tab, your Windows 11 will be able to get security updates as usual.

This was 'resolved', as the fix is effectively 'Don't install the Windows 11 updates that have security update issues.'

Windows security updates are used to fix vulnerabilities in Windows that can be exploited by third parties or can result in stability issues. Getting security updates is a necessary part of the software upkeep of your Windows 11 PC as going without security updates can put your rig at risk. This is why Microsoft ending support for Windows 10 at the end of the year is a big deal to those who haven't upgraded yet. The longer you go without regular software maintenance, the more risk your rig is undertaking.

Coincidentally, a brand new workaround to install Windows 11 on devices that don't fit the hardware requirements was created around the launch of 24H2. This means that if you used Rufus or Flyby11 recently to install Windows 11 on a rig incompatible with Microsoft's OS software, you will need to do a clean reinstall in order to fix it.

If you have the version of Windows 11 without future security updates, it's pretty simple to update and you can use the same method you did in the latter half of last year. Just grab the latest version of Windows 11 and install it.

Unfortunately, this does mean having to sit through the Windows 11 update screen, but you don't need to remove personal files to do a clean install so it shouldn't be a huge ordeal. Just make sure to do it soon, as the allure of putting off Windows updates is a tempting one. I'll get to it later.

If there's one universal rule we can all agree on, it's that some enterprising creator will force Doom to run on almost anything. We've covered many successful attempts over the years, but even I was surprised to see PC gaming's arguably greatest shooter running on an Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter.

Yep, just the adapter. After Panic Blog spotted the Apple dongle appeared to be performing some upscaling trickery to stream 1080p content, a hacksaw attempt later revealed some surprisingly beefy hardware inside—at least for a relatively unassuming-looking device.

The adapter uses a Samsung 400 MHz Arm SoC with 256 MB of RAM and its own internal storage to perform video compression and upscaling duties, meaning that there's a tiny computer hiding inside the chassis.

Rather than simply scoffing at the audacity of such a relatively powerful SoC hiding inside a cable adapter, YouTuber Nyan Satan made an in-hindsight-obvious connection (via Hackaday). That's more than enough power to run Doom—and so run Doom it shall.

Nyan (or should that be, Mr Satan?) used an existing Checkm8 bootROM exploit to enable custom code on the device, allowing Doom to run in all its crunchy glory.

The demonstration video doesn't appear to show input commands, but as Hackaday points out, given that it connects via USB 2.0 it should be possible to send keyboard inputs to the game without major issue.

Doom on a dongle indeed. This most recent adaption of id-Software's classic joins the ranks of other hardware-defying attempts to run Doom on almost anything, including on a satellite, on a pregnancy test, through the medium of gut bacteria, and even on a Lego brick.

Still, who said Apple products were bad at gaming? Not I, at least, nor our James—who's been performing some experiments of his own playing some of the best PC games of all time on a Macbook.

Doom on an Apple display adapter though? Well, none of us thought of that.

There's nothing more innocuous-looking than a USB flash drive. But, as anyone with some basic cybersecurity knowledge knows, they can be one of the easiest ways to infect your devices. The Buffalo RUF3-KEV might be more secure than most, though, as it boasts a whole host of security features to its name.

Buffalo's DiXiM Security Endpoint is an embedded anti-malware system that monitors files stored on the drive for threats in realtime, working alongside a built-in antivirus scanner that scans transfers for potential nasties (via PC Watch). Not only that, but it features password authentication to keep would-be snoopers out of your important files.

The drive comes in 64 GB, 32 GB and 16 GB capacities, and features a capless "auto-return" sliding design to prevent dust ingression and that fluff from the bottom of your pocket gumming up the works.

The bad news? It's currently only available in Japan. However, the company has a US operation, so it's possible that it might become available in other markets—or you could always stump up for pricey international shipping.

Mind you, even with all that anti-malware and antivirus tech, I'd still be wary of plugging a used one into my machine. Years of conditioning have taught me that even the best cybersecurity systems can be fooled, and I would imagine Buffalo's solutions are as susceptible as any to being caught with their metaphorical pants down.

Flash drive-based cyber attacks have been in the news recently, as a cyberespionage group dubbed GoldenJackal was recently accused of using a USB-drive-delivered malware toolset in an embassy in Belarus, jumping the "air gap" created by its otherwise secure system to install file collectors and cause havoc on infected PCs.

And as for viruses you can pick up simply by plugging in a discovered drive? The list seems endless. A 2016 study found that half of people plug in USB drives they find in a parking lot, and while I'd like to think that the average person's cybersecurity awareness has increased since then, the continued insistence on wariness regarding found USB drives suggests that's probably still a common impulse among many.

Still, fair play to Buffalo for putting security front and center, and imbuing at least one of its drives with a suite of preventative measures. I can only hope that drive-based security solutions like this become the norm, not the exception, in years to come.

After all, we've all got a few spare drives knocking around, and it'd be nice if plugging in each one didn't come with a wince and an immediate Windows-based virus scan if it's been out of your sight for a while. Just me? It shouldn't be, I reckon. Call me paranoid if you like, but you can never be too careful, can you?

Up to now, anyone wanting to build a new gaming PC with an Intel Core Ultra 200S processor has been forced to choose a Z890 motherboard, and the cheapest of those is only just under $300. Intel's new B860 motherboard chipset, aimed at the mainstream market, is supposed to address this by offering fewer features but at a lower price tag. The Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi retails around $210 so is it worth considering?

To answer that question we first need an understanding of what the fundamental differences between the two chipsets are, so let's break it down into what each one is capable of supporting.

Even just a cursory glance at this table shows that the B860 is a far less capable chipset compared to the Z890 but it's not really any different to how it was with previous generations. Considering that AMD allows CPU overclocking with its B850 chipset (and yes, the names are all far too similar), the fact that Intel is still sticking with memory-only overclocking with the B860 is very anachronistic.

While the B860 chipset doesn't support USB4, there's nothing to stop a motherboard vendor from adding such a feature to a mid-range model. However, to do so, four PCIe lanes out of the supported 14 would be required for 40 Gbps, so it's unlikely that you'll see many B860 motherboards sporting USB4, if any.

In the case of the Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi, eight of the 14 PCIe 4.0 lanes are used for two of the M.2 slots (the primary M.2 slot is a CPU PCIe 5.0 connection), which leaves just six lanes for everything else. Four of those are taken up by a lone PCIe x4 slot, at the bottom of the motherboard, so Asus didn't have much scope for adding more.

What this and most other B860 motherboards do have, though, is a Wi-Fi 7 module and having tested several new boards of late (all sporting the aforementioned wireless system), I can honestly say that it's a feature that's well worth having.

You don't even need a Wi-Fi 7 router to take advantage of the better system, either—I use a Wi-Fi 6 router and the wireless signal and transmission speeds are notably better on Wi-Fi 7, compared to older ones.

Some other nice touches are things like the quick-release lever for the graphics card slot—no more digging around trying to unlock the card, just press the plastic bar above the chipset's heatsink and you can easily pull the card out.

The latest BIOS is in 1080p, making it much nicer to read, and the Q-Dashboard option, providing an overview of the motherboard's sockets and slots, is a great way to see what's connected properly at a glance.

It's fair to say that the launch of Arrow Lake, back in October 2023, didn't go to plan for Intel and the performance of the Core Ultra 200S series of processors missed expectations all round. Since then, both Windows 11 and Z890 motherboards have received numerous updates, improving thread scheduling, power profiles, and memory latency.

That makes it a little difficult to fully assess the performance of this Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi because it's been released with all these updates in place, whereas the previous Z890 benchmark figures are all pre-patches.

However, we do have results for the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice and given it retails at $270, it's a useful inclusion in the benchmarks below. At the very least, one will be able to see what the current state of Arrow Lake is like and see how far it has come.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: MSI MAG Coreliquid I360 | RAM: 332 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Corsair RM850x Shift 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

The first benchmark I ran was our Factorio test, as I discovered during my initial tests of Intel's Core Ultra 200S processors, that it's a very good indicator of whether the BIOS is decent or not. As it turned out, the one that the TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi shipped with wasn't, so the first thing I did was update to the 0805 BIOS—it's a beta release but it does support all of Intel's latest performance fixes for Arrow Lake.

Well, it wasn't quite the first thing I did. During the installation of Windows 11, I needed to install drivers for the Wi-Fi module. While this can be bypassed if you don't have a LAN connection (press Shift+F10 when you reach the stage where the installation looks for a network, then enter oobe\bypassnro to restart and have the option to set up a local account), I prefer to just jump into an online setup as soon as possible, to get all the relevant updates.

Except I couldn't because there are three Wi-Fi driver sets on the support page for this motherboard (Realtek, MediaTek, and an unbranded driver) and the box/manual doesn't state which module is installed on the board. After trying them all several times, as well as manually installing a whole host of other drivers, I eventually got the MediaTek set to work.

Anyway, you can see that the Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, and our Factorio test all run at a level that puts the performance of the Asus B860M-Plus roughly halfway between the average state of Z890 motherboards in October 2023 (for the launch of Arrow Lake and marked with an asterisk) and the recently tested Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice.

It's not bad but it's not great, either. In theory, the B860 chipset shouldn't have any impact on the gaming performance of a CPU, because it just handles USB ports, M.2 slots, and the like. So the disparity seen will be down to how Asus has designed the rest of the motherboard and how it has configured the BIOS.

If productivity and content creation are more important to you than gaming, then it's good news on that front. For our standard CPU benchmarks of Cinebench 2024, Blender 4.2, and 7zip, the Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi performs far more like the Gigabyte Z890—the differences you can see are within margins of test variance.

Where things start to go awry for the Asus B860M-Plus is heat. The motherboard doesn't have any thermal sensor for its VRMs so it wasn't possible to accurately measure how hot they get during a heavy CPU workout. I did use the tip of my finger to judge how toasty the heatsinks were but one can hardly add 'Hmm, that's a bit hot' to a graph.

And then there's the primary SSD heatsink. It's a slim piece of lightweight metal, with a fairly insubstantial thermal pad underneath, so I didn't expect it to manage a PCIe 5.0 SSD when being worked hard. Suffice it to say, my lack of expectation was fully met as the drive repeatedly bounced off its thermal limit, throttling the write performance.

Given that one of the motherboard's key selling points is a Gen5 SSD slot, the fact that it doesn't really cope with one is rather disappointing, though to be fair to Asus, relatively few affordable motherboards do cope.

At least the chipset itself ran cool at all times, and I even experimented with loading it up with another SSD and various USB devices to try and stress the little chip as much as possible. At no point did its temperature ever exceed 40 °C and a quick finger test of the heatsink showed that this wasn't a reading error.

Conclusion

Taking all of the above into consideration, it's hard to recommend the Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi motherboard. It's not a bad product and at $210, it's notably cheaper than many other Arrow Lake boards. However, if you're willing to spend a little more, then there are better microATX options to choose from.

For example, Asus' own Prime Z890M-Plus WiFi sports four PCIe slots and six SATA ports, and it's just $27 more expensive. The ASRock Z780M only has a WiFi 6E module and a single PCIe slot, but alongside the eight rear USB ports, there are two full-speed Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports.

It is $260, though, but for $20 less, you could get the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Ice, with ten USB ports on the rear IO panel and one of those is USB4.

And that's just if you must have a microATX motherboard. If your PC case has room for a full-size board, then you're going to be far better off with one of those, Z890 or B860, as there will be more room for PCIe slots and other features.

Other than its relatively low price, the TUF Gaming B860M-Plus doesn't have much else going for it and in today's motherboard market, just being cheap isn't enough.

Almost four months after AMD first announced the details of its budget-orientated B850/840 chipset, the first motherboards to sport them have finally arrived. The first one to pass through our magnifying glass of inspection is the Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi—an ATX-sized model that probably best represents the higher end of the B850 range.

In case you're not familiar with the new chipset, it's worth noting that the primary difference between AMD's Xx70 and Bx50 is the number of connectivity options, such as USB and M.2 ports, but it's a little more nuanced than that. For example, X870 motherboards all come with at least one USB4 port but such a feature is entirely optional for B850 boards.

What you're getting here though is pretty much all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a last-gen X670 motherboard. The ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi sports four M.2 slots for SSDs (the primary one is Gen5, while the other three are all full-speed Gen4), which makes a change from seeing multiple M.2 slots running at all kinds of different speeds.

The good news continues with the USB options. You're not getting USB4 but at least you have one 20 Gbps Type-C, one 10 Gbps Type-C, two 10 Gbps Type-A, four 5 Gbps Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports on the rear IO panel. Those twelve USB ports are joined by another four headers on the board (1x 10 Gbps, 1x 5 Gbps, 2x USB 2.0) for a total of 16 USB ports.

However, the payback for all these storage and connectivity options is a dearth of SATA ports and PCIe slots. You get two apiece and that's it. That's probably going to be fine for most PC gamers building a new AM5 rig, and at least both PCIe slots are electrically x16 (one being Gen5 and the other Gen4), but just two SATA ports seems a tad measly.

If you do need more SATA options, then this isn't the motherboard for you but I strongly suspect that most B850 models will be similarly equipped.

The ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi motherboard supports all AM5 Ryzen processors and thanks to its 20 power stages (80 A each, with 16 for the CPU), it should have no problem dealing with a 170 W Ryzen 9 9950X or the like.

In terms of RAM, you can load it with up to 192 GB of DDR5, though the more you pile in, the less likely it will run at higher speeds. As with all AM5 processors, DDR5-6000 is the best balance between stability and performance, so you're going to be better off just using two DIMMs and no more.

Asus, MSI, and others have taken the opportunity, with the launch of new CPUs and motherboard chipsets, to do something about the overall ease of use of their products. In this instance, there's not much on offer, though—just Asus' Q-Release mechanisms for the primary PCIe and M.2 slots.

The former works by holding a graphics card firmly in place until you pull it out at an angle, which pushes the mechanism back. I'd much prefer to see the implementation used on other Asus models, where you pull a spring-loaded lever on the side of the board to release the graphics card. At least the one on the M.2 slot is very simple to use and it's genuinely worthy of the Q-Release name.

But that's where QoL (quality of life) features start and end on the ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi. For example, there are no chassis fan headers in the middle of the board—all three are located at the very bottom. There is no display for BIOS codes, just four tiny LEDs that indicate the status of the CPU, RAM, GPU, and boot status.

There's a tiny, almost hidden power button (but no restart) on the board but it is tucked away right at the top, making it very inaccessible once installed in a case, with cooling and wires all fitted. While such features aren't hugely useful to everyone, I expect to see better ones on a motherboard with a $300 price tag.

You do get a BIOS reset and flashback switch on the rear IO panel but they're both very small and fiddly to use. It would add mere cents to change them into more substantial buttons.

Then again, this is a motherboard that's designed to be installed once and only gradually worked on with component upgrades over time, and I should imagine most PC enthusiasts will just be more interested in the substantial heatsinks covering the VRMs and primary M.2 slot, or the fact that it sports a built-in Wi-Fi 7 module.

Benchmarks and performance

As we've only recently updated our motherboard benchmark suite, we don't have a wealth of other models to compare the ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi to. Since the first Zen 5 processors came to market, AMD has been gradually improving the performance of its Ryzen 9000-series chips with Windows and BIOS updates.

This means that some of the performance results aren't fully comparable as the underlying performance environments aren't 100% identical. However, at the very least, one can look at the figures and judge how well the ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi performs compared to an Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk on the basis of how they were in October 2024.

At the very least, the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro included in the figures is as up-to-date as possible and both it and the MSI board are similar in price to the ROG Strix B850-F Gaming.

That said, I have retested the ROG Crosshair with its latest BIOS version and Windows 11 24H2, and while there is no difference in the average frame rates since the last time I benchmarked the motherboard, the 1% low figures are lower by around 5 to 7%. On the plus side, in Windows 11 24H2, the Factorio benchmark is now 13% quicker, as is the compression result for the 7zip test.

While it's best not to read too much into these figures, mostly because of the impact of Windows 24H2, the Asus B850-F is clearly just as good as the others and in the case of Cyberpunk 2077, better than the $640 Crosshair X670E Hero. It's worth noting, though, that the results for that board and the MSI Tomahawk were collected with an 'all-high' power profile enabled.

AMD recommends that you use Balanced in Control Panel and then Balanced or Best Performance in Windows Settings, but I have consistently found that the Ryzen 9 9900X and 9950X perform better in games if one uses the High Performance setting in Control Panel.

If all you want is a motherboard for PC gaming and nothing else, the little Asus seems to be the one to go for. That said, we're only talking about a few frames per second here and there, and at $300, you'd certainly want a bit more than just gaming chops.

When it comes to CPU-heavy tasks, such as offline rendering and file compression/decompression, the ROG Strix B850-F is as good as the two X870 boards and it easily outpaces the X670E model in the 7zip test.

That's to be expected, of course, because while the B850 chipset doesn't really offer any real benefits over the previous generation, in terms of performance tweaks, the newer motherboards do support higher RAM speeds. That suggests the manufacturers have improved the underlying memory structures, increasing stability and reducing latencies.

However, while relative performance is on par with the Gigabyte and MSI boards, the Asus B850-F falls behind in another aspect.

Even though the ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi has hefty metal heatsinks covering the power stages and the primary M.2 slot, they're clearly not as good as those on the Gigabyte and MSI models. I suspect it's down to the thermal pads used between the sinks and components because removing the M.2 heatsink after all the tests were done showed that the thermal pad barely made contact with some of the Corsair MP700 chips.

That would be acceptable on a $120 budget motherboard but on something that's $300? Not in the least bit and it makes a bit of mockery of the fact that the ROG Strix B850-F sports two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots. If the main SSD cooling system isn't up to dealing with a Gen5 drive, then the other one certainly isn't.

It also brings the board's gaming performance into question because many PC gamers will want to overclock their CPU, use ultra-fast RAM, or install a Gen5 SSD. If the board isn't truly capable of managing the thermal load, is it worth buying it just for the sake of a few more frames per second?

Conclusion

On the basis of those last thermal performance figures, you can probably guess where the conclusion to this review is heading. But just to make the point extra clear, here's how the Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi compares to the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro and MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi in terms of price and features.

Other than the weak thermal solutions, the Asus B850-F is a really good motherboard. However, its feature set doesn't justify the price, especially when one can get more USB and SATA ports, and more PCIe slots, for the same kind of money.

If Asus had set the price to, say, $240 then it would be a far more tempting proposition.

The Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi is a good motherboard but it's let down by some odd decisions concerning component choice, layout, and thermals. It's also let down by the price and if you are looking to spend $300 on a new AM5 motherboard, Gigabyte and MSI have better options.

Good news, everyone: You don't have to safely eject your USB drives before playing Delta Force, despite what the game might have told you earlier. In a message to PC Gamer, developer Team Jade clarified that the original post was just a "translation error," and that USB drives are fine—it's what you put on them that could get you banned.

"USB drives are absolutely fine!" said a Team Jade spokesperson, so long as you don't use "USB devices that enable certain macros, scripts etc" that could interfere with the game or give you access to certain advantages. So don't run cheats off a thumbstick, basically, and you'll be fine. The list of banned tech has been updated to read "Cheating USB tools" now, rather than "USB drives."

Which makes a lot more sense than the original list of banned tech Delta Force originally put up, which featured a lot of stuff you'd expect—don't use Cheat Engine, or Speed Wizard, or frame-capture software that the game might mistake for an aimbot—but also seemed to lay down a zero-tolerance ban on "USB drives" of any kind. Given how many of us have external hard drives and thumbsticks jammed into our machines at all times, it seemed an inexplicable and draconian ban.

But hey, it's not a ban at all, turns out, unless you happen to be hosting some kind of nefarious software on your sticks. Bear in mind that the rest of the forbidden software in Delta Force's list is still a strict no-no, though. Don't take this as a licence to go hog-wild with your virtual machines and emulation scripts.

It's good news, anyway, because I hear Delta Force can be quite good. PCG FPS connoisseur Jake Tucker wrote recently that the game's large-scale combat reminds him of "Battlefield's very best," and ranks as "the best large-scale multiplayer shooter I've played in years." High praise indeed, and now our Jake can rest assured he doesn't have to unplug his media library every time he fires the game up.

Intel's new Core Ultra 200S series of desktop processors launched to a mostly negative response, due to the regression in gaming performance compared to the previous generation of chips. However, they are pretty good at content creation tasks and they consume far less power in gaming, so they could be suitable for some folks. But what motherboard do you buy?

The new Arrow Lake CPUs only fit into an LGA1851 socket, so you can't fit one in a previous-generation motherboard. At the moment, there's only one chipset available (Z890) and most board vendors have focused on creating ATX-sized models that are quite expensive. Then again, if one is going to spend over $500 on a Core Ultra 9 285K, you're probably best off getting a suitably capable motherboard to ensure the setup lasts you as long as possible.

The ROG Maximus Z890 Hero isn't at the very top of Asus' Intel motherboard range but it's not far off, as it sports as comprehensive a set of features as one could possibly ask for. Naturally, that means the price tag is equally as big, but that's par course for high-end motherboards these days.

Pretty much everything about the ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is big—opening the enormous packaging reveals a motherboard that weighs in at an astonishing 3.6 kg (8 lbs). From the huge primary M.2 slot heatsink to the massive polychromic display, nothing about it is subtle even though it doesn't sport in-your-face graphics.

Just read through the specifications to see what I mean. Few motherboards come with six M.2 slots and fewer still have two Gen 5 slots and four Gen 4 ones. If that's not enough storage for you, then there are a further four SATA ports and a SlimSAS connection, for additional NVMe or SATA drives. How about 11 USB ports on the rear IO panel and a further 10 via headers?

If overclocking is more your thing, then you're not going to be disappointed. Power is handled by a total of 27 stages (22 of which are rated to 110 amps), covered by some of the chunkiest heatsinks I've seen for a very long time. I'm a little surprised that Asus didn't choose to use active cooling for the VRMs but given Arrow Lake's reduced power consumption compared to Raptor Lake, it's perhaps not necessary.

The engineers at Asus have worked hard at making the motherboard more user-friendly ('EZ DIY', as Asus calls it) and it's replete with lots of so-called 'Q' features—M.2 Q-Release, M.2 Q-Slide, M.2 Q-Latch, PCIe Slot Q-Release Slim, Q-Antennae, and so on. Fortunately, it's not just marketing nonsense, as the features genuinely make it really easy and simple to install and remove graphics cards, SSDs, and the Wi-Fi aerial.

I do wish Asus would refresh its BIOS layout and structure, though. It's packed full of options as always and now defaults to a 1080p resolution (so it looks crisp and clear) but it's somewhat overwhelming at times. The jump in complexity between Easy and Advanced modes can't be very welcoming for beginners, that's for sure. Still, at least the Q-Dashboard is a nice touch, displaying an overview of your motherboard's parts and connectors.

Performance testing motherboards is a somewhat tricky affair, mostly because there's usually very little difference between various models in most tests. It's only when one uses highly specific synthetic benchmarks that small differences begin to make an appearance, and these rarely translate into a noticeable discrepancy in real-world situations.

This is especially true in the case of Z890 motherboards because they're all brand new in the market, so there isn't a wealth of results to compare against. Hence why there are only two other boards in the results below: an MSI MEG Z890 Ace and an MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk.

For the most part, you can see there's little to separate them, especially in gaming. However, the Factorio test really stands out, as the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero achieves a 21% faster result than either of the MSI boards. I've spent some time discussing this with both companies without much success in understanding the result.

The only thing I can think that might be behind it is that the Asus motherboard applies a fixed clock speed for the Core Ultra 9 285K's internal ring bus, whereas the MSI boards allow it to vary. Intel tells me that Asus' approach is the correct one.

However, the ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is slower in the 7zip tests and not by a margin of error, achieving a 14% lower result in the decompression benchmark. Games store all data in a compressed format and decompress it on the fly when required so the 7zip figure suggests that one might notice a decrease in gaming performance when using the Asus motherboard. But as you can see in the gaming results, it doesn't affect those particular games.

Tracking the CPU package power, VRM and chipset temperatures during the main benchmarks will highlight any deficiencies in a motherboard's power delivery and cooling systems and while there are some disparities between the three motherboards, they're not significant. The ROG Maximus Z890 Hero's heatsinks do an excellent job of keeping everything cool but given that the MSI board's do likewise, I do wonder if their vast size was really necessary.

But I have no such concerns over the heatsink for the primary M.2 slot. It's a monstrous slab of metal and as you can see, it does a superb job of keeping a PCIe 5.0 SSD's temperature under control.

At no point did it ever exceed 70 °C and this is the only motherboard I ever tested that's managed to do this with a Gen5 SSD. The fact that it's so easy to remove and reattach is the proverbial cherry on top.

There's an awful lot to like about the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero. Despite its sheer mass, hulking heatsinks, and pretty polychromic display, it's a relatively understated design that should suit most PC enthusiasts.

Underneath all the metal is a motherboard that's loaded to the hilt with ports, slots, and sockets. If you want to build a new gaming PC with an Intel Core Ultra 200S processor, you're not going to be left wishing for anything.

Well, apart from its price, that is. At a few bucks over $690, it is very expensive—and while there are even pricier Z890 motherboards on the market, that price tag is enough to make anyone look twice before buying.

The Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is an excellent motherboard, of that there's no doubt, and should easily last you through many years of use. Whether that's enough to justify spending that kind of money, especially when more LGA1851 motherboards will come out in 2025, is far less certain.

Nintendo has had a difficult relationship with emulation, and that's putting it mildly. The company has often legally pursued emulator developers and ROM websites, and its website makes it clear that it's not ok to copy or download older titles, nor download a ROM for emulation even if you own the original game, lest you fall foul of various copyright laws.

Twitter user @ChrisMack32, however, seems to have made a rather embarrassing discovery. They've posted a video of a SNES controller being disconnected (via USB, no less) from a booth at the official Nintendo Museum in Japan, and it turns out it makes a rather familiar noise—the "ding dong dun" of a Windows USB device disconnect.

Hmm. While we only get a brief look at the screen, it appears whatever device the controller was connected to seems to be playing Super Mario World. That's a SNES title, of course—which suggests that its being emulated on a Windows PC underneath.

Well, it is the superior machine, of course. Still, for a company that has keenly banged the drum against emulators and sites distributing ROMS—even if they're used by those that own an original copy of the games they wish to emulate—it does seem a bit rich. Nintendo has even argued that emulation "harms innovation", which also seems like a bit of a stretch.

On the other hand, what did we really expect? A proper SNES running in every booth at the Nintendo Museum? Sounds like a nightmare to maintain, to me. You could always run them officially on the Nintendo Switch of course, to keep things above board.

But that's a Windows sound effect for sure, so unless this video's been edited, it looks like the Nintendo Museum may have taken the easy route and booted them up on a good old fashioned PC, via an emulator.

And that's sort of the whole point, isn't it? While ROMs and emulators exist in the minds of many in a sort of moral grey area, I don't think I'd be blowing too many minds if I said that people are drawn to them for the sheer convenience, among other things. It's just, y'know, not actually legal.

As several Twitter users pointed out, the fact the controller was easily disconnected also means that, thanks to that open USB cable, this particular machine could now be connected to by any number of devices—and thereby very easily compromised.

So, a fail on the emulation front, and a cybersecurity whoopsie all in one go. Good stuff. Anyways, one simple little sound effect, one slightly embarrassing reveal. I could hark on about this being a massive tacit win for the PC and emulation as a whole, but it seems in poor taste at this point. I think someone at the Nintendo Museum may be about to receive a nasty letter, and that's enough to ruin anyone's day.

For the most part, change happens slowly in the world of PCs and that's especially true of the humble USB port. Most motherboard manufacturers only throw in a handful of Type-C connectors on the rear IO panel but ASRock has decided enough is enough. Its forthcoming Z890 Taichi Aqua eschews Type-A altogether, offering ten Type-C sockets instead.

News of ASRock's bold move was reported by Tom's Hardware, though I've noticed that the latest AMD and Intel motherboards are all sporting more Type-C ports on the rear panel. For example, MSI's X870 Tomahawk Wi-Fi has three and two of those are USB4 capable. That seems like a fair number to me but ASRock clearly thinks otherwise.

As part of its range of motherboards for Intel's Core Ultra 200S series of processors, the Z790 Taichi Aqua is very much a niche motherboard. That's because there isn't a single USB Type-A socket on the back; it's 100% Type-C and oh boy, does it look weird.

I don't mean that in a critical sense, more just that's such an unusual sight. The Type-C USB connector was first introduced back in 2014 (yes, that's right—ten years ago) but the desktop PC world has been very slow at adopting the format. I bought an ASRock Z790 Nova motherboard earlier this year and it has just one Type-C port on its rear IO panel.

Some of the high-end Intel motherboards I'm currently testing are a little more generous, though none of them have more than three Type-C sockets.

The thing is, as great as it is to see the little universal port making a proper appearance on desktop PCs, I think binning Type-A ports altogether is a mistake. If you have a wired gaming keyboard or mouse, then it's almost certainly going to be Type-A. Same with headsets, speakers, webcams, even VR headsets.

Even if you're looking at that ASRock motherboard and going "That's the one for me," you're almost certainly going to need a whole stack of USB port adapters (or just one very large hub) to make full use of the Taichi Aqua's rear panel. And while the motherboard still supports Type-A with its front connectors, the number available is really down to what your PC case actually has.

Now, if all those Type-C ports on the ASRock Z890 Taichi Aqua do float your boat, it's worth noting that they're not equal in terms of USB specification. Two of them are 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports (not USB4, I hasten to add), while the remaining eight are split equally between 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen2 and 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen1 connections. And yes, the USB nomenclature is a complete mess.

Mind you, what you should definitely do, before rushing out and buying one, is wait and see what the gaming performance of Intel's Core Ultra 200S processors is like. If it's great and you love a lot of Type-C, then ASRock's motherboard should be right up your alley.

Despite being announced at the same time as AMD's Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors, motherboards sporting AMD's new 800-series chipset have taken a good while to arrive. But they're here now and the first one to arrive in the PC Gamer hardware tower is the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk Wi-Fi.

Ostensibly, it's a very similar motherboard to MSI's X670E Tomahawk but there are a whole host of improvements, though not because of the new X870 chipset. Think of that as being a 'do-over' of the X670/X670E, rather than bringing any sweeping changes to the fore.

AMD's Ryzen processors have built-in controllers for USB ports and PCIe lanes, so all the chipset does is basically offer more connections. X870E motherboards sport two expansion chips, just like the current X670E models, whereas X870 ones, such as this MSI board, just have one. But, when one looks at all of the ports available, that's going to be more than enough for most PC gamers.

The rear IO panel of the MAG X870 Tomahawk is jam-packed with USB ports, including two 40 Gbps USB4 Type-C, which also double as Thunderbolt 4 sockets. There's another Type-C in there, though only rated to 10 Gbps, but then you've got three more of that speed in Type-A form, plus another three at 5 Gbps and four USB 2.0 sockets. And that doesn't include all the headers on the motherboard for front-mounted USB ports.

Normally, that level of USB-ness is the preserve of top-end, mega-bucks boards so you may be wondering how MSI has managed it on a $300 offering. The answer lies in the fact that despite having lots of PCIe and M.2 slots, as well as a mountain of USB ports, they're not all full-speed variants.

The three PCIe slots are mechanically x16 in size but only the top is wired like that. It has a PCIe 5.0 connection to the CPU but the other two are slower—a lot slower.

The middle PCIe slot is (electrically) x1 Gen 3 and the bottom slot is x4 Gen 4, though if you use the third M.2 slot, it will drop to x2 Gen 4.

As most PC gamers will just slap a graphics card into the top slot and not use the rest, it's not a massive issue but if you do need to use them for high-speed expansion devices, just be aware you're not going to get much performance from them.

The M.2 slots are similarly messy. The top two are directly wired to the CPU and so are electrically x4 Gen 5. However, the second slot shares PCIe lanes with the USB4 Type-C ports in the rear IO panel, so if anything is connected to either socket, you get x2 Gen 5.

The third and fourth M.2 slots are both Gen 4 but while the latter is x4, the former is only x2. That's far more complicated than it needs to be but that's the price one must pay to have all those USB ports.

What isn't complicated is MSI's new graphics card retention mechanism for the first PCIe slot. Push a small button on the right-hand side of the board to slice the system away from the card and hold it open; press it again to close and lock it.

I know most people only remove their graphics card once in a while but for anyone who does it frequently, it's an absolute marvel. How robust it is over years of abuse is another matter but I'm genuinely impressed by it.

MSI deserves credit for trying to make its new X870 motherboards much easier to use all round—the UEFI/BIOS is now much slicker and user-friendly, headers on the board are all labelled and sensibly placed, and the rigidity of this Tomahawk makes it pleasantly simple to install in a case.

There's another addition that I'm impressed by and it's the additional 8-pin PCIe power socket at the very bottom of the motherboard. The traditional 24-pin power system was designed to provide current on the 12 V lines in an era before ultra-high power GPUs and masses of RGB fans became the norm. In short, it just doesn't provide enough current for the demands of a high-end enthusiast's setup.

The latest PCIe specification demands that the PCIe slot for graphics cards should allow for up to 165 W power excursions—power spikes to you and me—and MSI's new power connector helps meet that requirement, along with ramping up the available current on fan/pump and RGB headers to 11 and 3 A respectively.

If you like to go all-out with your gaming PC accessories, then the extra socket will come in very handy (though if your PSU is top-mounted in the case then you'll need an extension cable to reach it).

Benchmarks and performance

All of this would be for nought if the motherboard didn't perform especially well and for the new round of AMD and Intel boards, we've updated our benchmark package.

Rather than carry out dozens of tests that all show the same figures, we've honed it down to a variety of scenarios (gaming, light and heavy content creation) and used software to record power consumption and thermals for the CPU, VRMs, and chipset.

As the latest motherboards boast a full-speed Gen5 M.2 slot, we now also test how well the integrated heat spreaders cope with PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

As we've only just swapped to the new suite, we don't have a wealth of figures to compare against but at the very least, you can see that a Ryzen 9 9900X, paired with 32 GB of DDR5-6000 CL32 and an RTX 4070, performs just as well in the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk as it does in an Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero.

The same is true for when the workload switches to content creation tasks, and the disparities you see between the boards are mostly down to test variance. The exception is the 7zip test—I repeatedly tested both boards, multiple times, to check these results and the X870 Tomahawk was always faster. Not by much, but it's better than nothing.

There's little to separate the two motherboards when it comes to thermals and power consumption, too. The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero runs with a hotter chipset but that's because there are two chips under its heatsink, whereas the X870 Tomahawk just has one.

Given that this is a 120 W Ryzen CPU, it'll cope with any other model just fine. MSI added a 170 W option to its BIOS, which I experimented with briefly—the CPU didn't like it all that much but the board's VRMs did, only adding 10 to 15 more degrees to the peak temperature, with no significant air flowing on them.

As with the performance results, any differences are down to test variances, especially when it comes to heat because it's just not possible to maintain a fixed ambient temperature in my office.

Conclusion

With no surprises with all the test figures, there's only one thing left to cover and that's whether the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk is worth buying. At $300/$300/AU$548, it's certainly not cheap and if you're looking to save money with a new AM5 build, then you're better off sticking with a B650E model (or waiting until AMD releases an equivalent in the 800 series).

You are getting a very capable motherboard for a lot less money than a high-end X670E, though. The build quality, component layout, and feature set are all top-notch, and there's a wealth of nice touches—the graphics card release mechanism, the quick-install SSD system, and the BIOS to name but a few—to warrant some of the price tag.

The colossal number of USB ports that you can have also goes no small way in justifying the cost and if that aspect of a motherboard is important to you, then it's hard to ignore what the MAG X870 Tomahawk offers compared to other motherboards.

However, what I can't ignore are the PCIe and M.2 slots. In the case of the former, you're only getting one decent one and that'll be snapped up by the graphics card, leaving a x4 Gen 4 and x1 Gen 3 behind. The last one is rather disappointing to see on a $300 motherboard.

And while you do get four M.2 sockets, there are compromises with two of them that affect one of the PCIe slots and the USB4 ports. In part, that's a limitation of the chipset and what Ryzen processor one uses with the motherboard, but it's also because MSI has chosen to load up the X870 Tomahawk with so many USB ports.

So it really comes down to whether storage and PCIe expansion are important factors when making a motherboard choice. If it is, then something like the Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AX ($210 on Amazon) is the way to go, with four full-speed M.2 slots (1x Gen 5, 3x Gen 4), though it does have the same PCIe slot arrangement as the X870 Tomahawk.

But if you want as much USB connectivity as possible, all wrapped up in a very classy motherboard, then the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk should be seriously considered.

What are you doing, Apple.

In a livestream event on Monday unveiling the new iPhone 16, as well as updated models of the Apple Watch and Airpods, Apple debuted a new iPhone and a pricier Pro model, as usual, both featuring USB-C ports just like last year. Also, ridiculously, just like last year, the standard iPhone model has a compromised port that can only move data at the same speed devices were capable of in the year 2000.

Last year Apple finally replaced the Lightning connector it's been using in the iPhone since 2012 with USB-C, the universal connector that most other mobile devices (and laptops) have harmoniously rallied around over the last half-decade. Even though Apple's been slowly working towards fully adopting USB-C for awhile, first putting the ports in MacBooks and iPad Pros, it's been a very slow process to see that port actually make it to the company's most-used mobile devices. And the USB-C port that Apple put on the iPhone 15 was a half-step: it ran at 23-year-old USB 2.0 speeds, because only the iPhone 15 Pro got a new system-on-a-chip containing an on-board USB controller that could handle 10 gigabit USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds. That's 20 times faster, incidentally.

I assumed that this year, the iPhone 16 would catch up to last year's Pro model, since Apple traditionally trickles down the features from the Pros to the base phone a year later. But no. When the iPhone 16 tech specs page finally appeared on Apple's store, I sat there for a second in disbelief. There it is again: USB 2.0.

The iPhone 16 is using a new system-on-a-chip this year, rather than the model in last year's Pro, and Apple clearly decided not to prioritize putting a proper 21st century USB controller on there. Maybe there just wasn't room, since this year it's hyping up its new "Apple Intelligence" AI features. I humbly suggest that it might have been intelligent to equip the new, $800 phone with a USB spec more capable than the one used on the iPod circa 2003.

It's a particularly frustrating omission considering that almost all of Apple's other devices have made their way onto the high-speed USB train by now. During Monday's event Apple announced a small refresh of the Airpods Max headphones, which have now ditched the Lightning cable. The Airpods Max are otherwise unchanged and cost the same $550 they cost in 2020. Meanwhile, all of Apple's recent refreshes of its iPad models—the Air, the Mini, and the regular iPad—have been getting their own USB-C ports, and now only the base model iPad is USB 2.0 speed (480 Mbps) because it's using an older chipset. The iPad Mini is USB 3.0 (5 Gbps); the iPad Air is USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps). The iPad Pro is leading the pack with USB 4 (40Gbps!).

Considering the plain jane iPad was last updated in October 2022, I have a feeling it'll be joining the Air with a modern chipset and a no-longer-embarrassing USB-C port very soon. The iPhone, I guess, will have to wait yet another year.

It essentially took EU regulations dragging the iPhone into USB-C adoption for it to finally happen last year (while I'm sure Apple was planning the change, those regulations definitely gave it a push). I'm sure the iPhone 16's USB 2.0 spec is purely a cost-cutting or space-saving exercise within the tight confines of the phone body, but I still can't but help feel like it's a little bit petty to support the standard without doing it right.

Even if we aren't moving loads of data to our phones via USB cable these days, on principle I can't abide it. The cheapest Android phone you pluck off the shelf will almost certainly do USB 3 speeds, yet the richest company in the history of the world making the most popular smartphone can't even hit the baseline for speed we've been using for well over a decade?

I don't need Apple's new "AI emoji" feature to express how I feel about that: 👎

If there's a brand more associated with high-quality audio capture than Shure, I can't think of one. Should you find yourself in a recording studio, or watching a live band at a local venue, a quick look at the microphones will almost certainly reveal a Shure model or two somewhere in the lineup. We've been rating the Shure MV7 as our best microphone for gaming for some time now, and it's one that I've had several years of experience using for all sorts of vocal recording.

Now there's a new kid on the block. The Shure MV6 is the company's first attempt at a dedicated USB gaming microphone and, as if to prove it, they've festooned the outer chassis with a lime green ring underneath the foam and stuck a big green capacitive button on the top for quick muting. Yours for $149/£129, significantly cheaper than the $250 asking price for the MV7, which has sadly been discontinued in favour of the MV7+.

Other than the gamer-friendly green accents it's a pretty straightforward-looking device, and quite a bit smaller than the MV7 of old. That was a mic that required either a boom arm mount or a separately sold desk stand to hold it aloft. Here though, you get a proper desk stand as standard—and quite the chunky thing it is, too.

The footprint here is a little large for a desktop device, but at least that means it won't be going anywhere. It's properly weighty and overbuilt, so there's no wobbling to worry about on an even surface. It reminds me of a miniature live mic stand, the sort that Steven Tyler might attach scarves to and throw around if he was a mere foot tall. You can enjoy that mental image for free, if you like. I have.

Anyway, I digress. The real headline news here is Shure is claiming it's taken all of its microphone knowledge and shrunk it down into a USB gaming mic. This is a dynamic unit, which should give it more of a focused sound compared to traditional condenser microphones. The downside is that dynamic mics can be sensitive to poor mic technique, like shifting your speaking position or constantly adjusting your distance.

To address this, Shure makes use of an Auto Level Mode within its Motive Mix software suite. This intelligently adjusts the gain in real-time to give a consistent volume of sound, jumping in to lower the gain setting if you suddenly yell, and boosting it if you begin to drift away from the microphone or shift in your seat. While Auto Levelling is nothing new to those familiar with VST plugins, building a decent version of it into the software and activating it by default is a smart move when giving us unwashed gamers a dynamic mic to play with.

Upon plugging in the mic with an included USB Type-C cable and opening the software, you're greeted with a quick tutorial on how best to use it, with a suggestion to keep the capsule six to 12 inches from your mouth for best results. Good advice for most mics I'd say, to get the richest, most focussed sound—especially a dynamic one. Still, it's a little more difficult here to achieve than most, depending on your setup, as the cable is only 100 cm long.

Even if your PC is up on your desktop like mine, that's still not a lot of cable length for positioning options. A bit of a naughty niggle, that, although most of us will likely have a longer cable sitting in a desk drawer somewhere.

Thankfully, however, that Auto Level adjustment works brilliantly. While you'll always get the best vocal results with a mic like this close up, you can put it at a fair distance and still get a clear and distinctive sound. I tried to catch it out in a variety of ways, but it's pretty instantaneous to react—meaning you don't have to cosy up to the foam like a pro podcaster to get a good result out of it.

Speaking of close up, if you do choose to move the microphone nearer to your mouth to get a rich, warm result, you'll find it's much less prone to plosives than previous models. The MV7 is a glorious, wonderful microphone, but it does have a tendency to blow out "puh" and "buh" sounds when you put it near your lips. Here the MV6 employs another software trick, the charmingly-named Digital Popper Stopper. Again, it's enabled by default and does an excellent job of stopping percussive sounds from overpowering the rest of the audio.

There's also built-in noise reduction, something I'd suggest is a must-have for any desktop mic, even a dynamic one that's less prone to picking up background noise. It's very powerful, but I'd say that if anything it's a little too aggressive for my liking. Any noise reduction turned up to a sufficient level can introduce a slightly washy, warbly quality to certain vocal tones, and here it's occasionally perceptible.

There's no slider adjustment, just an on or off setting, which makes it a bit of a blunt instrument. That being said, it does cut down on ambient room noise considerably.

What does have a slider, however, is the tone adjustment. This is essentially an EQ setting that ranges from Dark, through to Natural, and then up to Bright. By default, it sits in the middle at Natural, which is where most will likely keep it, although as a fan of a "hot radio" kind of sound I like to edge it towards Dark to richen up the tone.

Speaking of tone, the quality of the vocal capture here is brilliant. While you'll still want something like the Shure MV7 up close if you're recording podcast audio, audiobook content or anything truly "professional sounding", the sound quality that the MV6 is capable of capturing from a desktop position is genuinely impressive. It'll definitely boost your audio quality at your next meeting compared to anything lesser, and as a gaming mic, I'd say it does a much better job of preserving your vocal tone while rejecting unwanted noises compared to most desktop units, thanks to that software help.

It's also a breeze to use. The Motiv Mix software is mercifully straightforward, with a built-in soundcheck feature to let you adjust gain levels and record a quick clip of yourself with the various settings to find the right sound for you. The mic itself is also pretty unobtrusive as an object on your desk, even with those lime green accents, so it should blend into the background as a good desktop mic should.

That sizable base at the bottom of the stand does give me pause, though. It's solid as a rock, and immune to being tipped over, but it does take up a fair bit of room if you want to get the mic as close as Shure suggests. Still, it doesn't wobble, and feels like it could be used as an impromptu weapon in a zombie-based emergency if needed, so plus points there.

The real question is, should you buy an MV6 over an MV7 if you're in the market for a USB gaming microphone? Well, if you're leaving it on your desktop, thanks to that included stand, the ease of use, and the less obtrusive form factor, I'd say yes. It's also cheaper, and the top-mounted capacitive mute button is a handy extra feature.

If you're really looking for the top-end of audio quality though, and don't mind getting a large mic up in your face to do so, I'd still go for the MV7 as the better pick overall. It's a clumsier, chunkier beast, but it's also got a slightly warmer, crispier quality to it that I couldn't quite replicate with the MV6, even getting it up close with a boom arm. The MV7 also has an XLR connection, making it just as at home in a professional studio as it is with a standard PC.

To be honest, though, that's me getting all audio nerdy and looking for things that others will likely never notice, and picking out details that most gamers really shouldn't care about. It's still fairly pricey, I suppose, and both the Audio-Technica AT2020USB+ and the Razer Seiren Mini are fine options for substantially less cash, but both pale in comparison to the quality—in terms of build, vocal capture and features—of the MV6. The SteelSeries Alias is also worth a look if you want a mic that really minimises desktop space with good distance capture, but it's more expensive than the Shure, and the sound quality can't quite match it.

The bottom line is this: What Shure has made here is a mic that's built like a tank, can be used comfortably at a reasonable distance, and is significantly cheaper than the MV7—all while minimising most of the issues you get with traditional desktop microphones. And that's quite an impressive thing. Just give us a longer cable next time, ey Shure?

Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. Biddee. "So, as I was say—" Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. "Sorry, my PC is having a meltdown." Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. "This is infuriating." Biddum. Biddee. Biddum. "Forget it."

This was me only yesterday, when I was caught out trying to talk to my fellow PCG hardwarers in a Google Meet. Every second my PC was playing a sound to notify me that a USB device was connected, and then another sound that it was disconnected. And then connected again. And then disconnected again. Then connected. Then disconnected.

For three hours I was trapped inside this hellish cycle of Windows f***ery.

Biddum. Biddee.

First, I trudged through Windows Event Viewer to see if I could find some log of which device might be causing the issue. No dice. Event Viewer doesn't offer a clear picture of USB connections and if and when they're connected/disconnected. You'd think it would do that, but if it does, I couldn't see it.

Then onwards to Device Manager to see if I could physically catch the perpetrator in the act. This was a bit of a long shot—I've been here before—it's tough to keep track of which USB device is coming and going. 

Device Manager flashes blank every time a device is connected or disconnected, which means it's partially a memory game to remember what was once there and has since disappeared. Considering none of the named USB devices were going anywhere as I watched on intently, that meant it was one of the devices with a generic title, such as 'Human Interface Device' or 'USB Input Device'. Of which, I have many.

Biddum. Biddee.

Through which I proceeded to remove every USB device from my PC, one by one. That's sure to weed out the nasty little culprit. I'd pull a cord, wait, see if the sound starts up again, and if it did, plug the cable back in again. Twenty minutes later and the sound didn't cease for more than a second. It wasn't any of my external USB devices that caused the issue. S**t.

Biddum. Biddee.

Is my Windows 11 installation b0rked beyond repair? I started to believe this to be the case, and the internet—in its infinite wisdom and troubleshooting expertise—told me that may be the case. So, I tried a registry edit as per some advice online. I patiently wait for my machine to reboot with the change in place and…

BIDDUM. BIDDEE.

"I can't take it anymore!" I say, as I rip my f***ing headphones off.

The sound went on like this for around three hours, which for the most part saw me holding my head in my hands.

I did, however, discover the root cause of the issue eventually. And it was all thanks to a little app called USBLogView.

After talking to the PC Gamer Hardware team about my issue in no uncertain language (I'm not usually one to swear but this experience f***ing sucked). I was told by our Nick Evanson that there was some app that might be able to show me which device was disconnecting and reconnecting each time. He couldn't remember the name, but I forgive him, as the mere knowledge of 'an app that shows me which USB device is connected/disconnected' was search term enough to bring up said app in Google Search.

USBLogView is a simple piece of freeware uploaded to a simple website seemingly running on a server untouched from the early 2000s. I'm not judging it on looks: I find most websites that look like this offer the best solution to whatever problem I'm having at the time. I might have been a little more cautious as to installing this application from a mysterious website had it not been for the biddum and biddee I knew was still going off, whether I could still hear it or not.

So, I loaded up USBLogView, and waited patient—oh, there it is. Mysterious Human Interface Device with Vendor ID '1b1c'. I search around for a good database of vendor IDs, stumble across devicehunt.com, and find that it's all Corsair's fault.

No, it's not. It was a Corsair device. The device in question is a fan controller inside my Corsair 5000T clad PC. I know this because as soon as I open the side panel on my PC and ensure the USB header connections are firmly in place, the notifications go away. One of the connections was loose and it's probably my pristine cable management tugging on each cable that's actually to blame. Damn these organised hands. 

The issue hasn't come back since. Phew.

Business cards are a dying art—in the West, anyways. Most of us may never come to appreciate a finely crafted card capable of making a slick-haired serial killer wince with jealousy. But this business card competition over at Hackaday hopes to change that. Or, at the very least, get creative with what constitutes a 'card'.

There are some guidelines for business cards entering into the contest: the card has to be roughly 3.5 x 2-inches and should "fit easily in a pocket". Beyond these few basic guidelines, the rules are open to interpretation. Though there are a few categories to strive for, including for the thinnest cards, utilitarian cards, and best-looking cards. 

The contest runs until July 2 but we've already various excellent entrants to gawk at.

One project, crafted by LambertTheMaker, ditches the usual information you'd expect to find on a business card, such as a phone number, email address, or any discernible company detail, for a basic 8x8 LED matrix screen, on which to play Snake. The business card, nee black PCB, also contains directional and A/B buttons to control it.

So, a games console, then? That's my kinda card.

There's one more like it, too. This card from Edison Science Corner is a mini tic-tac-toe console.

Another is a couple sheets of paper—seriously—and between which creator Lincoln Uehara has stuffed a circuit. With the correct cuts and folds, it's possible to fold the pieces of paper into a usable USB Type-A connector. In theory, it's then possible to use this to create some sort of usable flash drive, though as far as I can tell, the WIP project lights an LED.

This card from Martynas is handy in emergency situations. Well, sort of. It's a circuit able to generate an SOS signal in morse code.

Adam Billingsley's entry is a card capable of delivering a text-based payload to your PC when connected via USB, sharing your key information (and ideally not something nefarious), and which also sets off an awesome rainbow animation. One of the best bits about this entry, however, it reportedly only costs $4 to make.

Vying for the 'most expensive' category, if there is such a thing, is probably this one from Dimitar with an e-ink display embedded in the front of it. That means it also requires a fairly large lithium battery.

My absolute favourite design, however, is chaosneon's "persistence of vision" card, which you have to shake to reveal the text displayed on its handful of LEDs. This project, like some of the others, has been in the works for a good few years now—business card design is surprisingly popular on Hackaday.

The best bit about most of the designs—they're open for others to copy and develop themselves.

The practicality of any of these cards is, uh, dubious at best. I struggled to get my company to pay for a couple hundred cardboard business cards for a trip to Taipei—what will it think when I submit my invoice for 200 tiny games consoles? 

Hey, some of the designs are cheaper than you'd expect, at least. This one from Dima I'd actually like for myself—it's a handy card for its included measurements on the exterior and it includes an NFC chip to put all your details or a link to your portfolio on, which is easily accessed by the scan of a mobile phone. At around $36 for 100 units, that's actually do-able! 

Many of us use flash memory sticks to temporarily store files for a while but only for a short time. One company has decided to offer something a bit special regarding the last aspect by creating a USB storage device rated to retain its data for up to 200 years. The only snag is that it holds just 8,192 bytes of data.

Yes, you read that right. Not 8GB, not 8MB—we're talking 8kB of information. That's a handful of pages in a standard text file, at the very most. That might seem an unusably small capacity but there's a very good reason for it being so tiny. Instead of using industry-standard NAND flash for storage, German makers Machdyne opted to go with a single ferromagnetic RAM chip (via Tom's Hardware).

Ferromagnetic RAM (FRAM or FeRAM for short) works a little bit like ordinary RAM does, except that it doesn't have billions of tiny dielectric capacitors inside for storing data in the form of charge. Instead, FRAM uses ferroelectric capacitors which have a major advantage in that they don't need to be periodically refreshed to retain their charge. Kept in ideal conditions, the data won't leak away for well over a century.

That's considerably longer than any consumer-grade SSD you can buy, where you'll be lucky to get more than 10 years of safe data retention, even if you just use it once and keep it tucked away safely.

FRAM also works as fast as NAND flash does, though not as speedy as the latest DRAM kits do, and also has a really good write endurance limit. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? The downside to FRAM is that very few companies make it and it's considerably more expensive to produce, compared to flash and DRAM.

The Machdyne Blaustahl isn't pricey, at just €29.29, but as I say you're only getting 8kB of FRAM. Most USB flash drives are well into the gigabyte level of capacity, so if you assume that the bulk of the cost is the FRAM chip, a 1GB version of the Blaustahl would demand an asking price of just under four million Euros. So yeah, you're not going to be storing any pictures, video clips, or important PDFs on it.

However, 8kB is enough to hold a password or other vital snippets of data, so its longevity could make it useful for retaining login details for your critical accounts. At the moment, the device doesn't offer any encryption but Machdyne states that it's planning on implementing support for it in the future, via an open-source firmware update.

Tucked away in the device's tiny circuit board is a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller to manage the storage and USB Type-A interface, and 4MB of NOR flash memory to store a built-in text editor. The FRAM can be write-protected via a spot of soldering and should the RP2040 fail or USB ports utterly disappear in the distant future, the ferromagnetic RAM chip can be read directly from its contacts.

Now, all I need is for someone to invent something that will help me locate the countless USB flash drives I've misplaced over the years. One of those and a few Blaustahls and I'll be set for life. Mine and the drive's.

The best wireless gaming keyboards offer a degree of flexibility and freedom that you just don't get with a regular wired keyboard. Freeing your wireless keyboard from the chains of its cable means that you'll have the option to use it wherever you like, from your lap to the sofa and beyond. Within range, anyway.

The best wireless keyboard is the Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless. While that's a long name to remember, the board itself is simply the best we've used in a very long time, with an excellent typing feel, useful programmable features, and a sturdy yet compact frame. The best budget wireless keyboard is the Keychron K2 (version 2), as its 240-hour battery life and typing feel are genuinely impressive for a keyboard this cheap.

We've seen all sorts in our many years reviewing keyboards, and here we've listed the absolute best of the best, to make sure you get the wireless typing and gaming experience you're looking for. Given you're thinking about going cable-free, now might be an idea to take a look at our guides to the best wireless gaming headsets and the best wireless mice, as once you start breaking free of the dreaded cables, there's really no going back.

The quick list

Best wireless gaming keyboard

Wireless keyboards pass through our hands often, but every now and then a keyboard appears that blows us away—and the Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless is simply the best wireless gaming keyboard we've seen in, well, forever. Actually, scrap that, it's simply the best gaming keyboard in general, but the fact that it's wireless as well is nothing but a bonus.

The typing feel is outstanding, thanks to lubed switches straight from the factory that provide a sublime typing and gaming experience right out of the box. Lubing keys is normally something reserved for people who are really, really into their keyboard feel, but Asus has deemed the process worth doing for the ROG NX switches used, and the results are extremely impressive.

More than that, the Scope II 96 is quiet by mechanical keyboard standards, thanks to some sound-dampening foam, a choice of PBT or ABS plastic keycaps, and some sturdy stabilisers for the larger keys. Mechanical keyboards can be something of a headache when it comes to noise, but the Scope II 96 really is noticeably quieter than the competition.

The switches themselves are hot-swappable, for those of you who like to experiment with a different feel—although we found the feel of the ROG NX Snow switches in our review model to be so good it's unlikely you'll want to.

Beyond the typing experience, the compact frame is both well-built and well-thought-out, with a full numpad and a programmable multimedia wheel. Software-wise, the ROG Strix II uses Asus' Armoury Crate, and while we're not huge fans, it does at least allow you to set up things like macros and RGB lighting customisations fairly easily.

The battery life is also excellent, with a quoted maximum of 1,500 hours of continuous use, and we found we only had to plug it in once during our testing. There's also a Bluetooth mode activated by a toggle on the rear of the board, which is an extra party trick that may well come in handy for some.

Ultimately, it's the mechanics of the Scope II 96 that really make it stand out apart from the pack, and even though you'd struggle to call it cheap, at an MSRP of $180/£170 it's still a fair bit less than its most immediate competition like the Corsair K70 Max.

What you're getting here is a wireless keyboard with virtually no compromises, and a user experience that's second to none, and that means it has to top the list of our best wireless keyboards—and may well do for some time.

Read our full Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless review.

Best budget wireless gaming keyboard

The Keychron K2 redefines affordability, which makes it the best budget wireless gaming keyboard. It starts out at just $69/£69 and you get a decent-sized gaming keyboard with great wireless functionality and Gateron mechanical switches.

You may think that for this sort of price, you're going to have to make major sacrifices. Maybe even ditch mechanical switches. But you don't. The Keychron K2 offers swathes of features that are more likely found on pricier boards, including both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and simple swapping between Windows and macOS.

There are a few Gateron switches to choose from. Your usual fare of linear, clicky, or tactile. We have tactile Gateron switches in our review unit, which are unspectacular and quite pingy on the enter and backspace keys, but otherwise pleasant enough to use for both typing and gaming.

The battery life is rated to a lengthy 240 hours with the backlighting off, and you might not mind keeping it disabled during the day. With the cheapest board offering only white LED backlighting, it's purely a useful feature for low-light situations. Like writing your horror novel in the dark.

All that being said, what you get here is a wireless keyboard with a better typing feel than most, some usable backlighting, and from a trusted brand for less than the competition. You simply get a lot for your money with the Keychron K2, and when it comes to wireless gaming keyboards that often cost a lot of cash, that sort of saving goes a long way.

Read our full Keychron K2 review.

The best mid-range wireless gaming keyboard

The Ducky Zero 6108 is the best mid-range wireless gaming keyboard, and just the fact that I can say all those words in the same sentence is somewhat of a miracle. For the longest time, 'wireless' has been synonymous with 'expensive', but we're finally starting to see some wireless gaming keyboards that don't require emptying the bank account. Case and point, this Zero 6108.

Let's start with the obvious: Ducky is very well-known in the world of mechanical keyboards, and for good reason. Its products have historically tended to be long-lasting, sturdy, and high quality, and that certainly tracks with the Zero 6108. Although the 6108's chassis is plastic, it's a very sturdy board and comes with all the hallmarks of quality, such as PBT double-shot keycaps, pre-lubed Cherry MX2A switches (barring the non-lubed Blue version), and per-key RGB lighting.

The typing experience is lovely in part thanks to those PBT keycaps. These are lightly textured, and our Reece found them to be comfortable to type on compared to smoother ABS choices.

It's a full-sized board, too, so don't worry about running out of keys, although it looks a little different to most other full-sized boards because the key groupings are mushed together a little to save space (it's still a big keyboard compared to actual 80% or TKL options, though). You even get a few media keys to work with and a few on-keyboard (read: no software required) RGB lighting controls.

Battery life is nothing to write home about—18 hours with RGB enabled, or 138 hours with lighting off over Bluetooth—but it's enough to keep you going for a couple of days with RGB enabled.

Then, of course, there's the fact that it's wireless, which is fantastic for its circa $100 price point. Admittedly, many of you will probably just keep it plugged in anyway, but it's not just a fast 2.4 GHz connection that this thing offers, but Bluetooth, too. Which is great for connecting on the go, or to new devices you bring to your desk.

In other words, then, you're getting a pretty solid all-around package with the Ducky Zero 6108, at a very enticing mid-range price point.

Read our full Ducky Zero 6108 review.

Best Hall effect wireless gaming keyboard

The Keychron K2 HE is the best wireless Hall effect keyboard not just because it packages the latest and greatest mechanical switch tech for gaming in a rather suave, premium-feeling package, but also because it offers this for cheap. In a world where Hall effect keyboards are usually $200 or higher, this $140, 75% layout, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz wireless keyboard is a great value proposition.

But let's start with the Hall effect switch technology acting as a foundation for this board. These switches house a small magnet which affects the sensor at the base, on the PCB, causing a voltage or a change in voltage—to what extent the voltage is caused or affected can represent how close or how far away the magnet is, and therefore how far the key has been pressed. This means you can set the switch's trigger point to wherever you like, including high up for a light-touch gaming keyboard.

With the K2 HE, you can even change at which point each individual key activates, so if you want a faster response from the WASD keys, for instance, but slower response from the number keys, it'll do that just fine. And you can enable 'rapid trigger', which allows you to re-actuate keys as soon as you let off pressing them, enabling more (you guessed it) rapid keypresses.

Apart from this Hall effect tech, the elephant in this keyboard's room, if you've seen the above images, will be the wooden panelling on the side of the keyboard, which gives it a rather luxurious look. That's found only on the special edition, but the keyboard looks plenty nice without.

Its good looks carry across to feel, too, because the Keychron K2 HE features double-shot PBT keycaps, heavy casing, and lubed Gateron double rail switches. All this makes for a sturdy, creamy-sounding keyboard.

The software is another boon for the K2 HE, too, as with any Keychron keyboard. It's browser-based, so no need to bloat your PC with yet another piece of peripheral software, and everything is incredibly easy to adjust and configure.

The fact that all this is offered for such a reasonable price is what makes the Keychron K2 HE, without a doubt, the best wireless Hall effect keyboard on the market right now. If you want the best that modern switch technology has to offer for competitive gaming, this keyboard will do it.

Read our full Keychron K2 HE review.

Best low-profile wireless gaming keyboard

The ROG Falchion RX Low Profile is the best low-profile wireless gaming keyboard for its blend of superb lubed switches and compact size.

Yes, you read correctly. Lubed switches. Much like its popular bigger sibling, the ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless, the Falchion offers lubed switches for a sleek typing experience. It really works wonders, too. I've never enjoyed using a low-profile board more than this.

The low-profile design of this board is easy to type on and reduces some of the pressure on your wrists throughout a gaming session or work day. However, a truly ergonomic board like the ZSA Moonlander might be more your speed if you really want comfort over all else. That takes some getting used to, whereas the Falchion is more the keyboard you already know, just shrunk down in size.

Despite its tiny size, the Falchion RX does come with sound-dampening and media controls—two things we hadn't expected to see on this sort of board. The media controls are pretty special, too. It's a capacitive bar along the top of the board, which can control volume and other functions of the board once set up via Armoury Crate.

The 60% size does forgo some of the usual keys we'd expect to find on a keyboard, such as a numpad and function row. That means you have to rely on shortcuts to achieve some things, or the Windows character pop-up for others (Win + .). For that reason, you might want to grab the tenkeyless Keychron Q3 Max instead for a little more flexibility.

With an absurdly long battery life rated to 430 hours with the lighting off, and both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz connectivity, the Falchion RX Low Profile is a superb pick for a wireless gaming keyboard.

Though I do have to say, it's pretty darn expensive considering how few keys you're actually getting. Also, the non-standard stems on the keycaps may be a pain to swap out should you break one. Still, no keyboard is truly perfect, although if one came close, it might be another Asus model...depends on how much you really want low-profile, I guess.

Still going for low? Then this is the one you want. As low-profile keebs go, this is a bit of a cracker.

Read our full Asus ROG Falchion RX Low Profile review.

Best tenkeyless wireless gaming keyboard

The best tenkeyless wireless keyboard is the Keychron Q3 Max. It's simply one of the best gaming keyboards around right now, let alone for the fact that it's also wireless over 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth.

The secret to the Q3 Max's success? Lubed Jupiter switches from Gateron and a rock-solid aluminum chassis stuffed with sound-dampening layers. It's the best-sounding keyboard I've heard in years, and I've tested a whole lot of them.

The battery life of around 100 hours with RGB enabled, or 180 without, is one of the reasons we like this board. Sure, it won't beat the ROG Falchion RX Low Profile, but with more keys, it's definitely one of this keyboard's stronger features. We only charged it once in two weeks of testing. Not bad at all.

For a compact board, the Q3 Max does come with media controls in the form of a multi-function dial, or knob as Keychron calls it, which sits in the top row. It's pretty understated, and it's handy for controlling the RGB effects on the board as much as anything else it offers.

You can hook up to three devices over Bluetooth, which can be changed via the board itself through the labelled shortcuts, and a dongle is provided for 2.4 GHz. It's a good pick if you plan to move between home and office a lot for added flexibility. And it's not too big for a backpack.

There are a few options for keycaps, one fairly straightforward set and another we reviewed with legends on the side, rather than the front. These also offer shine-through for the RGB effects and are altogether a pretty wicked addition.

Alas, the Keychron Q3 Max is an expensive beast. That's true of so many gaming keyboards today, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. Still, it's worth it if you can make your budget stretch. Compact wireless keyboards don't come any better than this.

Read our full Keychron Q3 Max review.

Best ergonomic wireless gaming keyboard

Going cable-free doesn't mean you have to give up on low-stress, all-day comfort, and if you want the best ergonomic wireless keyboard, then the MoErgo Glove80 could well be perfect for you.

'Could be' is the operative phrase, though, as the Glove80 is so different from most keyboards that it will take you a long time to adapt to its split, highly curved, columnar arrangement of keys.

Oh, and the thumb islands, too. Commonly pressed keys, such as the space bar, return, shift, and so on, are all located in clusters of six keys, directly below your thumbs. It takes some serious brain-rewiring to use them fully, but eventually, it'll all become second nature.

The Glove80's ergonomics are highly adjustable, with multiple screw legs in the base of each section, to let you set the tilt and tent to your heart's...well, wrist's desire.

You get a choice of up to four Kailh switches when you order a Glove80, though it depends on what's available in MoErgo's store at the time. But it does mean you can have a near-silent keyboard or a loud clackity-clack, depending on your taste.

Despite effectively being two separate keyboards, only one of the halves connects directly to your computer via Bluetooth (no 2.4 GHz option, sadly). The other section communicates with the main part via its own BT module. You can pop a USB Type-C cable into it if you do want to use it wired, but it's mostly just for charging and updating firmware.

One aspect that might make you think twice about the Glove80 is the price. Such a boutique and bespoke isn't going to be cheap, and you're looking at the best part of $400 for one, with a rather nice travel case. And it has to be said that it doesn't quite feel like a four-hundred-dollar keyboard.

But if ergonomics means everything to you and you're willing to pay the price, both in time and cash, to have the greatest level of typing comfort you can get from a keyboard, then the MoErgo Glove80 should be top of your wishlist.

Read our full MoErgo Glove80 review.

Also tested

FAQ

Glossary

Actuation Point
The height to which a key needs to be pressed before it actuates and sends an input signal to a device.

Clicky
A switch that delivers an audible click every time it's pressed, generally right around the point of actuation.

Debounce
A technique to ensure that only one input registers every time a key is pressed.

Hall effect
A technology that uses magnetism to detect whether and how far down a key is pressed.

Housing
The shell that surrounds the internal components of a switch.

Hysteresis
The result of the actuation point and reset point in a switch being misaligned. This generally means a key needs to be lifted off further than normal before it can be actuated again.

Linear
A switch that moves directly up and down, generally delivering smooth keystrokes without noise or tactile feedback.

Mechanical Keyboard
A keyboard built around individual switches for each key rather than a membrane sheath mounted on a PCB.

Membrane Keyboard
A keyboard on which all the keycaps are mounted on a membrane sheath; when a key is pressed, a rubber dome depresses and pushes against the sheath and PCB beneath, actuating the key.

Stem
The component of a switch on which the keycaps are mounted on a mechanical keyboard.

Switch
The physical component of a mechanical keyboard beneath the keycaps on a mechanical keyboard. The switch determines how a key is actuated, whether or not it provides audible or tactile feedback with each press and more.

Optical switch
This is a type of mechanical switch which instead of a physical metal contact switch uses light to measure when actuation takes place. These can be more configurable too, allowing for not just off and on states, but more analog designs, and even dual actions for a single key depending on how far the switch is pressed down.

Tactile
A switch that provides a 'bump' of feedback every time it's pushed.

Tenkeyless (TKL)
A keyboard that lacks the right-hand number pad.

It might sound a little silly to have a guide to using the Xbox controller on PC, considering how easy it is to simply plug one in and start playing the vast majority of PC games today. It's true: usually there's no fiddling or configuration required! But the Xbox has been around for 25 years now, and you know what that means: Edge cases.

Microsoft's current Xbox Series X|S controller is among the best PC controllers just on design alone—I love its textured grips and its clicky D-Pad, though I acknowledge the latter may drive some people crazy.

Despite maintaining roughly the same look for the last 20 years, though, the Xbox controller has had a lot of small revisions. And some of those small revisions change how best to use the pad on PC, particularly if you want to connect it wirelessly.

That's why this guide covers not just the most recent Xbox pads, but all of them:

• Xbox Series X|S controllers
• Xbox One controllers
• Xbox 360 controllers
• Original Xbox controllers

Yes, I've even thrown in instructions for using a gamepad from the original 2001 Xbox on PC, too, for all you Duke fans out there. I gotchu.

Windows' built-in controller support means you don't need any special software to set an Xbox pad on PC; it should be recognized within seconds of plugging it in. But there are different ways to connect an Xbox controller via Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless, and a few specific things you should know about two versions of the Xbox One controller if you're trying to one of those (tl;dr not all of them offer Bluetooth).

Here's how to use your Xbox controller on PC, no matter the make or model.

Wired Xbox controllers

The Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S controllers all use USB cables to connect to your PC. It really is that simple: they'll be recognized by Windows and just work in any PC game with controller support.

If you don't have a decent length one on hand, you may need to buy a USB cable to connect them, however:

• Micro-USB to USB-A cable for Xbox One controller
• USB-C to USB-A cable for Xbox Series controller
• (The wired Xbox 360 controller comes with its USB cable built-in)

What if you want to use the original Xbox controller on PC, from all the way back in 2001?

The easiest way to do that is with the officially licensed Hyperkin Duke controller pictured above, a painstaking recreation of the monstrous original pad. This updated version comes with a USB cable for easy plug-and-play with modern systems (instead of the proprietary console controller port).

Hyperkin also makes the DuchesS controller, a recreation of the Xbox "S" pad that quickly replaced the Duke as the go-to pad for the original Xbox. It was smaller, and moved the black and white buttons to a more convenient location.

If you really want to use your vintage Duke or S controller from an original Xbox rather than a reproduction, you can buy this adapter and pair it with the XB2XInput driver to make the 20+ year old controller play nice with your PC.

Follow the simple setup instructions on the XB2XInput Github page if you go that route, and you should have everything working in just a couple minutes.

Now let's get into wireless.

Wireless Xbox Series X|S controller on PC

Hardware

• Xbox Series X|S controller
• Xbox Wireless adapter for Windows (optional)
• Or built-in Bluetooth / a Bluetooth dongle
• AA batteries

How to use the Xbox Series controller on PC with Bluetooth

The Xbox Series controller includes built-in Bluetooth, which allows for easy wireless pairing with your PC. There are two ways to go about using this controller wirelessly: one is with an Xbox wireless adapter, and the other is through a standard Bluetooth connection. Note: You don't need the official adapter as long as your PC has built-in Bluetooth, or you have another Bluetooth dongle.

How to connect with an Xbox Wireless adapter for Windows

As simple as a wireless connection gets:

1. Plug an Xbox Wireless adapter into a USB port.
2. Turn on your Xbox Series controller by holding the Guide button in the center. Now press the the small sync button on the top of the controller until the Guide button begins flashing.
3. Press the small sync button located on the side of the Xbox Wireless adapter for a couple seconds. Watch the flashing Guide button on the controller. When it goes solid, you're connected!

How to connect the Xbox Series controller via Bluetooth

1. Press the Windows key and type "Bluetooth" until search brings up the "Bluetooth & other devices" settings menu. Click it to open that settings page. Here you should see your Bluetooth is set to "On" and is discoverable.
2. Turn on the Xbox Series controller by holding the Guide button. Press the sync button on top of the controller until the Guide light begins to flash rapidly.
3. In the Bluetooth settings menu, click "Add Bluetooth or other device" and then select Bluetooth from the menu options. After a few seconds of searching, your Xbox Series controller should show up. Click to pair. And you're done.

Wireless Xbox One controller on PC

Hardware

• Xbox One controller
• Xbox Wireless adapter for Windows
• AA batteries

How to use the Xbox One controller wirelessly

The Xbox One controller is slightly more complicated than the Series X|S controller, because it saw a mid-generation update that changed its internal hardware. We'll get to those changes in a second. But this first option, connecting with a USB wireless adapter, will work with any Xbox One controller.

How to connect with the Xbox Wireless adapter for Windows

This process is nearly as simple as connecting with a USB cable, and is basically identical to connecting the controller to an Xbox console.

1. Plug A Xbox Wireless adapter into a USB port.

2. Turn on your Xbox One controller by holding the Guide button in the center. Now press the the small sync button on the top of the controller until the Guide button begins flashing.

3. Press the small sync button located on the side of the Xbox Wireless adapter for a couple seconds. Watch the flashing Guide button on the controller. When it goes solid, you're connected!

How to connect the Xbox One controller via Bluetooth

Here's where things get a little complicated. Certain models of the Xbox One controller can connect to any old PC Bluetooth adapter. Others can't. Here's how to tell if your Xbox One controller has built-in Bluetooth:

The shape of the plastic molding at the top of the controller is your guide. The first iteration of the Xbox One controller does not support Bluetooth and has a few other annoyances: Its bumpers have a narrower click range, making them less comfortable depending on where you position your fingers.

The redesigned controller that launched with the Xbox One S console revision has a smaller plastic molding along the top. It also adds a 3.5mm headphone jack to the bottom of the controller, another easy giveaway. On top of that headphone jack, it also has built-in Bluetooth!

1. Press the Windows key and type "Bluetooth" until search brings up the Bluetooth & other devices settings option. Click it to open that settings page. Here you should see your Bluetooth is set to "On" and is discoverable. Windows version note: Using the Xbox One controller via Bluetooth only works on Windows 10 with the Anniversary update applied. On Windows 11, you're good.
2. Turn on the Xbox One controller by holding the Guide button. Press the sync button on top of the controller until the Guide light begins to flash rapidly.
3. In the Bluetooth settings menu, click "Add Bluetooth or other device" and then select Bluetooth from the menu options. After a few seconds of searching, your Xbox controller should show up. Click it to pair. And you're wirelessly connected!

Headset note: Only one Xbox One controller can be paired via Bluetooth. Headsets not supported.

Wireless Xbox 360 controller on PC

Hardware

• Xbox 360 wireless controller
• Xbox 360 wireless receiver for PC
• AA batteries

How to connect a wireless Xbox 360 controller

The Xbox 360 controller came in a hardwired version that was our go-to on PC for years and years because it was just so dang cheap. These days there are tons of knock-offs for sale, but you're likely not going to see many official Microsoft ones available new. We'd definitely recommend one of the newer Series X|S controllers, anyway—they feel much, much better in the hand.

There was also a wireless version of this controller that wasn't quite so convenient for PC gamers, since Bluetooth connectivity wasn't an option back then. But if you happen to have a wireless 360 controller sitting around that you're determined to use, it is possible on PC with the right accessory.

A wireless Xbox 360 receiver plugs in via USB and can connect to up to four Xbox 360 controllers. To pair, you'll hold down the sync button on top of the Xbox 360 controller until the LED starts to blink; then hold down the button on the wireless adapter for a few seconds. Release and the two should connect shortly.

Note that the model linked above is not an official Microsoft adapter, which has been discontinued, but it should do the job. If you want one of Microsoft's, you can still find them new or used on Ebay. The official wireless adapter for Xbox One & Series X|S controllers does not work with 360 controllers.

Updating Xbox One & Series controllers

It's not just games that have updates these days. So do controllers! While it's not necessary to update your Xbox controller, if you want to, the process is pretty simple.

1. Open the Windows Store and search for Xbox Accessories. Install the app and open it. Or you can just click this link.

Windows version note: The app only works with Windows 10 with the Anniversary update applied. On Windows 11, you're good.

2. Plug your Xbox One controller in with a micro-USB cable, or Series X|S controller with a USB-C cable.

3. Click the "More options" button to check if there's a firmware update for your controller.

Instead of configuring controller options on a game-by-game basis, you can also use the Accessories app to change button mapping, swap and invert sticks and triggers, and enable or disable rumble.

If you have an Xbox Elite controller, you can also use the Accessories app to configure options like trigger and analog stick sensitivity. You can save different configurations to the two profiles the controller supports.

Not a controller person? Here's a round-up of the best gaming keyboards, and best gaming mouse.

Who hasn't wondered or dared to dream exactly how many USB devices you can connect to a single PC? Or how many unpowered USB hubs you can daisy chain? Or what about daisy chaining powered USB hubs or the limits to slotting in USB controller cards?

The possibilities are almost endless, with the emphasis on almost. Because YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has the answers to all these questions, and more.

For reasons that we won't bore you with, the theoretical limit for USB devices connected to a single PC is 128, but the practical limit is one fewer. At least, that's the, er, theoretically practical limit.

In actual practice, it typically turns out to be far fewer. That's usually down to the USB hubs being used to expand the number of ports and how they're connected.

In reality, pretty much every physical USB hub actually contains multiple internal hubs. And however many hubs there are, you can usually double that ostensible number because each hub in any reasonably recent device can typically run in both USB 2.1 and USB 3.1 modes.

The rough upshot is that if you attempt to daisy chain three of any given hub, Windows will get cranky on you and inform you, "Error. Too many USB hubs. A hub will not function when it's connected more than 5 hubs away from the root port."

In simple terms, each hub acts like a double hub, so three of them daisy chained is actually six hubs away from the system root USB port. You'll also very quickly run into power delivery problems using unpowered hubs. So, there's zero chance of hitting 127 devices using unpowered hubs.

Even using larger 16-port powered hubs connected separately to the PC can create problems, because such physical hubs, again, contain numerous internal USB hubs.

So, to really test the limits of USB device support, what you really need is a crypto mining motherboard with a zillion PCIe slots, each of which can house a USB controller card and thus avoid the need to daisy chain external hubs.

Your next problem is finding enough USB devices to plug in. And no, you can't just use a load of cheap USB memory sticks because Windows will run out of letters of the alphabet to with to assign to the drives.

Anyway, armed with 20-odd USB sticks, a rack full of keyboards and a basket of mice, plus that ex-crypto platform stuffed with USB cards, Linus Tech Tips managed to get the USB device count up to 110 before the system suffered some kind of crisis, possibly driver related.

The channel also noted that, at that point, the CPU was running at 30 to 40 percent load just sitting at idle with over 100 USB device connected.

Anyway, despite the eventual limitations and not quite achieving the 127-device maximum, it's impressive to see just how tolerant a PC is to loading it up with far more USB devices than you're ever likely to need and in countless configurations.

Having just dropped a new, totally net-zero flash drive, TeamGroup steps in as yet another tech company taking steps to reduce the use of new plastics, and tackle some of the issues that come along with the inevitable evil that is e-waste.

From the same company that brought us the first PCIe 5.0 storage made for non-server use, the C175 ECO is TeamGroup's new, eco-friendly USB 3.2 Gen 1 flash drive. It comes in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, and you're looking at read speeds of up to 100MB/s. Most importantly, though, it's made from 75% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics, and TeamGroup claims that it's managed to reduce 69% of carbon emissions in the manufacturing process, without the recycled plastic ending up an inviable mess.

Right now there's more than 347Mt (million metric tonnes) of e-waste piling up across the globe. 57.4Mt was generated in 2021 alone, and that number is on the up, increasing on average by a couple of Mt per year since then. And while it's not clear how much of that is made up of flash drives, I'd guess it's a lot just from the sheer number of flash drives being handed out free.

It's not always easy to know what to do with old flash drives. When there's the risk of your data going walkies, many will hang onto their flash drives indefinitely. Mine are just scattered through my drawers because I'm too lazy to get rid of them right now. Essentially, they seem insignificant in the grand scheme, which is in part why they are so likely to end up just in the trash. And unwanted tech in your cupboards is still mostly considered e-waste, anyways.

Let's be real, no one's going to go all the way to a special e-recycling point just for a little dongle they found in a drawer. But at least there are companies working on making flash drives more sustainable. And it doesn't involve companies making me go plant trees on behalf of its eco-pact with customers, which I appreciate.

As TechPowerUp notes, for every C175 ECO sold, you save 2 sheets of A4 paper or a teeny tiny 0.1% portion of a 600ml PET bottle—that equates to 9,200 less PET water bottles wasted, or around 203,000 pieces of A4 paper saved for every 100,000 C175 ECO flash drives sold. Every little helps.

Not only is there a nifty little storage clip that lets you attach the cap and stop it from getting lost and causing more e-waste, it's another cute addition to the trend of matcha green tech we're seeing at the moment. An appropriate colour for something so green. Oh and as a nice little extra, it comes with a lifetime warranty.

Sony's new PS VR2 headset is out now, and I've been testing it these past few weeks to see how it squares up to the best VR headsets for PC. Spoiler alert: it's very good. But being a PC Gamer editor I did feel inclined to plug it into my PC as I would my Quest 2 just to see what might happen.

Turns out, nothing. There aren't any PC drivers to get Sony's new VR headset working on PC, and SteamVR doesn't take any notice of it. Or so I thought.

I was watching a video from Tyriel Wood - VR Tech and they figured out that you can get the headset working if you plug it directly into your graphics card using the onboard USB Type-C connection. If you have one of those.

Only a handful of graphics cards do. The GPU I/O USB-C port was originally introduced way back in 2018/19 alongside a new alternative mode called VirtualLink that was designed primarily for use with virtual reality headsets. The intention was to roll all the cables usually required for VR into a single USB-C connection. And it worked, but it never really took off as an industry standard, later being abandoned. 

The connection made it onto a few graphics cards before shuffling off this mortal coil. Nvidia rolled out the VirtualLink on the back of its Founders Edition cards with the RTX 20-series, but killed it for the RTX 30-series and beyond. Meanwhile, AMD introduced the port with the RX 6000-series, and surprisingly kept a functioning Type-C display connection on the recent RX 7000-series cards.

And thankfully I have an AMD RX 7900 XT in my PC today to try this trick out. It's possible it'll work on any laptop with a USB-C display connection capable of powering the headset, too.

It's a simple trick, really: I plugged the PS VR2 into the back of my graphics card using the Type-C connection and it worked. Kinda. It's not outputting as a VR headset, or being recognised by any VR apps as one, but it will act as a sort-of-VR second monitor.

As I said at the top of this article, it's just not very good. You wouldn't use it for anything, not that I can think of anyways. It's just another monitor screen only visible via the headset. But it is noteworthy that it sort of works. I do wonder if this opens the door to someone creating some sort of driver shell that might get it functioning on PC as an actual VR headset, but it's likely a lot of work for a headset that's billed as PS5-only.

If you really want good PC VR, you can buy a Meta Quest 2 for a lot less. 

Out of the box, the Sabrent 6-Port Docking Station doesn't feel like a cheap piece of kit. Yet here it comes, trundling onto the Steam Deck accessories scene at an audaciously low $30. That's a darn sight cheaper than any Steam Deck Dock I've tested, and while the competition at this price is thin, there's no denying its superiority as a sterling choice of budget Steam Deck dock.

With USB 3.0 all around—three Type-As and an added Type-C to boot—the Sabrent dock has the upper hand against the original $40/£35 Jsaux Steam Deck Dock with its (frankly superfluous in 2023) USB 2.0 connections. The Sabrent even manages to match the $50 upgraded Jsaux Dock's connections. And although it forgoes the ethernet port (who's playing competitive online games on the Deck anyway?), you do get the fantastic addition of a USB Type-C 3.0 for charging peripherals or further storage—something we'd been dreaming of since the docks started dropping. 

The Sabrent's HDMI 2.0 connection does mean you're limited to 4K @60Hz, so if you ever decide to splash out on an 8K TV, you won't be able to make the most of it with this dock. Though if you can afford an 8K TV, you can probably afford to get the $90/£79 official Steam Deck dock with DisplayPort 1.4 port. Though how many 8K TVs sport DP? Anyway, the Steam Deck isn't exactly going to bench at 4K, let alone 8K, so unless you plan to use it as a movie player, it may be worth tempering your expectations a little. It's a $30 dock for crying out loud; surely, 4K is impressive enough.

As I said earlier, it doesn't look or feel like a cheap dock. It's plain black with a textured plastic finish, though it doesn't sound hollow when you tap it as some do. It may not be made from milled aluminum like the Jsaux designs, but at least it doesn't have any strange tribal markings making it look cheap. It's as sturdy as it needs to be for something that will just sit beside your TV for the foreseeable.

The Deck also sits up at a good angle in the Sabrent Dock; it doesn't lay back as far as the competition, so the cable doesn't feel like it's pushing against the port so much—one less thing to worry about. There's also enough headroom at the back so as not to block the vents, and with the USB Type-A ports on the side, there's a little more leeway for those with short controller cables.

My main issue is that this is yet another dock that leaves little room for a hard case. I guess it's expected across the board, and it does mean there's little wiggle room if you want to dock sans case—which is a good thing. Still, having to take the case off whenever I want to dock the Deck is pretty annoying.

When it comes down to it, this is a sturdy, well-built dock. It doesn't suffer from the lack of USB Type-C that the competition does, and it features up-to-date enough connections to recommend, especially at that price point. No, you won't get an ethernet connection, but for me, that's a fair trade for a spare USB Type-C port. Essentially, there is no competition at the low price of $30.

It used to be the case that when you talked about Intel's B motherboards, you were talking about something pretty much low-end with a cheap VRM, under par connectivity, or a poor USB complement. But most critical of all, was the lack of memory overclocking. That's all changed since the release of the B560, and for many users, a good quality B760 board will happily run a Core i9 13900K and DDR5-6000+. Add to that a high end GPU, you've got a high-end system by any measure. 

So, B doesn't have to mean budget, and in the case of the Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi, that's especially true. While it really does look like a premium board, and at a glance it's deserving of ROG branding, at $269 / £279 / AU$499, it appears to be the most expensive B760 motherboard on the market. That puts it head-to-head with many Z790 boards that cost less, meaning the Asus is up against some stiff competition. The ROG Strix B760-F does have some features that elevate it above the cheaper Z790 boards though.

Firstly, let's go over the B760 chipset. Apart from disabled CPU overclocking, the major difference between B760 and Z790 is the CPU to chipset DMI link speed. In the case of Z790, this link is an x8 link, whereas B760 has an x4 link. This means B760 will generally have a lesser I/O with fewer SATA and USB ports or fewer M.2 slots. 

If you're aware of these limitations, and you're one of the many gamers that stick to a single GPU with an SSD or two and a typical suite of USB products, then B760 is a perfectly viable option. Perhaps B-series boards haven't quite shaken off their 'cheap' reputation.

Back to the Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi, it looks like it's got what it takes to elevate it above the level of most of the cheaper Z790 boards. Onward we go.

Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi overview and specs

I haven't considered many recent ROG boards to be genuine beauties, but I do like the retro touches of the B760-F. There are some little Space Invader type ships and arcade-y bits around the board which are a nice touch. The trend of modern motherboards is to incorporate primarily neutral black themes, which are easy to blend in with your preferred RGB light show.

Speaking of RGB, Asus includes a small RGB lit ROG logo atop the main VRM heatsink next to the rear I/O. The board includes four more RGB headers, three of which are addressable meaning you can control various fans, AIO coolers or RGB strips via Asus' solid Aura Sync software.

Another key feature is support for DDR5-7800. That's elite tier right there. It takes some real PCB engineering to qualify for those speeds. You also get a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header (but no Gen 2x2), seven fan headers and a Thunderbolt (USB4) header. 

The board's storage complement isn't bad, with three M.2 slots and four SATA ports. All M.2 slots support PCIe 4.0 x4 and are cooled by capable heatsinks. Other than overclocking, storage is perhaps the key differentiating factor between Z790 and B760. There are Z790 boards around the same price that include four M.2 slots including a primary PCIe 5.0 slot and up to eight SATA ports. Again, for the majority of users this won't matter, but for file hoarders, Z790 does offer better storage support.

The VRM of the Asus ROG Strix B760-F is very good. Asus chose a well-balanced 16+1 phase VRM with 60A stages. Though we're mostly past the days of abysmal 4-phase heatsink-less designs, many of the cheaper B760 or Z790 boards still come with basic VRM implementations. They'll be fine with one of the many 65W i3 or i5 processors, but will struggle to handle a heavily loaded 13900K. 

The Asus will have no such trouble. Feel free to run your 13900K under heavy loads, knowing the VRM and chunky heatsinks of the ROG Strix B760F will take the punishment.

The rear I/O is certainly one of the better B760 ones you'll come across. A USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port is definitely welcome. An additional Gen 2 port and six Gen 1 ports should take care of most gamers' USB requirements. You get HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4a ports, CMOS clear and BIOS flashback buttons along with a full set of audio ports with S/PDIF.

For audio duties, Asus selected the ALC4080 codec. It's a good step up from the ageing ALC897 you will find on cheaper boards. It's got a Savitech headphone amplifier with a 110dBA signal to noise ratio. Not bad at all.

2.5G networking is pretty much ubiquitous now, but WiFi 6E is one of those features that isn't yet a top to bottom feature, with some boards omitting WiFi all together. The good quality audio, networking and I/O in general help to justify the relatively steep cost of the ROG Strix B760-F.

Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi performance

System Performance

Gaming Performance

Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi analysis

The results don’t throw up any real surprises, as usual. But the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master did have an edge in some of the system tests. The Asus was strong in the storage test.

When it comes to gaming, the Asus generally performed well. Civilization VI isn’t a game that needs hundreds of FPS, but it is a good test for both CPU and GPU scaling. The mighty RTX 4090 and a 13900K on a B series board? Not. A. Problem. 

B760 doesn’t allow CPU overclocking, but you are free to play with power limits.  As long as you've got top spec cooling to handle the heat output, the board can deliver.

I did a very quick test with a set of G.Skill DDR5-7200 and was pleased to see it boot up and load windows without issue. The Asus memory QVL list shows many kits at DDR5-7000+ are supported. Excellent! I am thrilled Intel finally saw the light and allowed unlocked memory to be used from B560 onwards. It's really elevated B series chipsets to a new level now we don’t have to deal with that silly restriction.

The BIOS of the Asus will be familiar to any user that's poked around in a ROG BIOS over the last several years. Again, you cannot manually overclock, but there are lots of things to play with, even if it's not at the level of a Maximus board. Not that I'd expect it to be. Tweakers will still be better served by the fully enabled features of Z790.

Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi verdict

It's a recurring dilemma. Do you buy a high-end B series board or a low-mid range Z series one? It applies to AMD's lower high-end board and their higher low-end chipsets, too. It all depends on what you want to do with your rig.

The Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WiFi is able to hold its head high alongside many Z790 boards, that's as long as you don't want to manually overclock. But with the advanced turbo modes of modern chips - not to mention the level of cooling required, overclocking isn't what it once was. 

The Asus is able to run the fastest memory kits which is fantastic even if they are overkill for most users. You won't get the PCIe 5.0 SSD support, but does it matter right now? A PCIe 4.0 SSD isn't going to become obsolete overnight. Heck, a good PCIe 3.0 SSD is still more than able to hold its own in a modern 2023 gaming rig.

So, unless you need a bazillion USB ports or something like 10G LAN, the Strix B760 is a board that delivers just about everything you would expect from a ROG board. The BIOS is feature rich, you can run a 13900K up maximum power limits, with up to 128GB of DDR5 and an RX 7900XTX or RTX 4090. Do that and you'll get all of the performance of a board at more than twice the price.

OK, the Asus - from what I can gather, is the most expensive B760 board of all but its still pretty attractive overall when compared to the price of many enthusiast tier boards. Ask yourself if buying a high end Z790 board is worth it at this point in time? 14th Gen CPUs won't be supported so there's no upgrade path available. But there's an alternative view on that. You might have a 12th Gen CPU or buy something like an Core i5 13400F now. What if in a year or two you choose to upgrade to a 13700K or 13900K? You'll want a board with a capable VRM to power it, and that's an area the cheaper boards can fall behind.

If you don't want to cough up the big bucks for a Maximus board, saving and going for the Strix B760-F is a perfectly variable alternative, and one that will allow you to divert a few hundred towards a better CPU or GPU or a bigger SSD. This B series board isn't cheap and boring. Far from it.

How big is too big for a gaming monitor? Ask a bunch of PC gamers, and the answers will vary. Competitive gamers like 'em small and fast, while immersive gamers tend to go big and colorful. That's why I always found large-format gaming displays so interesting. The BenQ Mobiuz EX480UZ wants to give you everything you need from a fancy OLED TV with the sensibilities and features of a gaming monitor. 

The EX480UZ is a massive 48-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 120Hz and HDR10 support. This monster OLED did a great job of making my favorite PC games pop while looking like one of those fancy new TVs. As someone who recently decided to ditch a TV in favor of a big OLED gaming monitor, I'd been interested to see what else was out there. 

The one big difference between these large OLED monitors and TVs is connectivity. While a DisplayPort is excellent for PC gaming, only two HDMI 2.1 ports limit you if you plan to set this up as a television replacement. I'm probably in the minority since I have about half a dozen HDMI devices when you count all the game consoles and streaming gadgets.

So, ideally, I would have liked an extra HDMI port or two. The EX480UZ also has two USB 3.0 ports, a 90W USB Type-C downstream port to charge your devices, a USB Type-B port, and a S/PDIF jack. Not the worst loadout then, and that downstream port meant I could charge the Steam Deck.

The ergonomics of the Mobiuz aren't great as a PC monitor. The legs take up a lot more space than I'd like, so think again if you had the notion of setting this up on a desk unless you have a freakishly large workspace. There's a limited tilt on it, so I can see an issue with finding the most comfortable viewing angle outside of some creative VESA mounting. 

Ideally, you want space between your face and a monitor of this size, but the sheer vastness of the Mobiuz means there's no way to safely push it back without it falling off your desk. A square stand could have given me an extra few inches of usable space. I can only imagine what working a full day using this display so close would make your eyes feel like. I did use it for a few hours to do some writing and gaming, and sitting so close to it gave me issues with text readability, even with text scaling applied. 

You'll often hear the phrase 'amazing picture quality' when talking about OLED monitors, which is true in this case. Additional features like ergonomics and ease of use will set the stellar ones apart from the rest, though, since many of the OLED panels of these larger gaming monitors will more or less be similar in performance. 

That said, the Mobiuz deserves some praise in the looks department. I recently built myself an RTX 3080-powered gaming PC, so I've been going back to games I thought looked incredible on PC. I can confirm that Spider-Man: Miles Morales looks fantastic on this monitor. Watching Miles thwip around New York City in 4K at 120Hz never gets old, or diving deep into Freelancer mode in Hitman. Though, using that HDR10 mode has been pretty hit or miss on some PC games. I tried Spiderman, Hitman 3, and Gears V, all games with excellent HDR content, which look fine on the Mobiuz. The contrast did feel a little off in Hitman and Gears in darker areas, but it didn't ruin the vibe. 

I also played a few hours of HiFi Rush, Tango Gameworks' quirky and vibrant rhythm action game, which proved to be a nice showcase for the monitor's color range. At moments, it felt like watching a Saturday morning cartoon. If you're an OLED skeptic (some do exist), seeing a game like this in action would definitely make you understand why we are all infatuated with OLED displays.  

At first, I wasn't amazed by the speaker bar at the bottom of the EX480UZ. I thought it seemed distracting, but eventually, it did grow on me. Mainly because it sounds surprisingly good for a gaming monitor speaker. The 2.1-channel speaker with a built-in 10W sub provides a decent enough soundscape and gives the Mobiuz some personality and visual flair—something I wish my Aorus OLED had instead of a dinky pair of legs.

The thing that really gave me pause is the price tag. The Mobiuz retails for $1,699 though I have seen it drop down to $1,400 over the last few weeks. If you're comparing it to OLED gaming TVs of that size, LG CG 1 is cheaper at $1300 and often discounted for a lot less than that and offers all the apps and 'TV' features out of the box.

The BenQ Mobiuz EX480UZ is yet another large OLED that looks incredible and games amazingly, though it's a little impractical (and expensive) to recommend for most PC gamers. I love the picture quality and speedy response time, but its price and unimpressive HDR keep it from being a great monitor. 

The rise of sizable 1440p, 240Hz OLED gaming monitors, which we've said often feels like the new sweet spot for PC gaming, is becoming more of a thing. With this being another 4K, 120Hz gaming monitor acting as a TV replacement, the whole thing's starting to feel like more of a novelty. This is a shame because I recently became a large OLED display convert. Big 4K OLED gaming monitors will still have a place in homes and offices for weirdos like me, but maybe not for this price. 

Remember that characteristically quirky Asrock motherboard that transmogrified from an AMD B650 board into an X670? Well, Asus has got something similar going on with its new ROG X670E-I board. It has a chipset on a PCIe stick.

How so? Well, this all hinges on the fact that AMD's B650 chipset uses a single chip, known as Promontory 21, whereas the premium X670 chipset houses two Promontory 21 chips daisy-chained together.

It's basically a more cost effective way of adding features and connectivity compared with taping out two different chips or going with a single larger chip and switching off various features for the lower-end implementation.

Anywho, whereas the Asrock board was all about quirky for the sake of quirky, the Asus item is a function of more practical concerns. The Asus ROG X670E-I is one of those puny Mini-ITX models which poses a challenge for laying out a dual-chip chipset.

So, as Tom's Hardware explains, Asus has whacked the second Promontory 21 chip on a PCIe 4.0 x4 add-on card. The net result is an extra two USB 4 Type-C ports with a 40 Gbps throughput as well as DisplayPort support, a Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.2 adapter, a 2.5GbE controller, and multiple further USB ports.  

The Asus ROG Strix X670E-I board also sports two M.2 slots, one in PCIe 5 spec the other PCIe 4, a couple of SATA ports (via another included add-on card), two further USB4 Type-C connectors, one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, six USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C connectors, and five USB 2.0 ports.

Plus you get 2.5GbE and high quality audio courtesy of the Realtek ALC4050 codec and ESS Sabre 9260Q DAC.

Broadly speaking, these add-in chipset cards require specific UEFI support. So, you can't just whack them into any AMD AM5 motherboard that already has a Promontory 21 chip and expect anything good to happen.

But as these modular motherboards emerge it at least seems like AMD's dual-chip approach is giving motherboard makers plenty of options.

The quirky cats at Asrock have come up with another offbeat idea. Adding a second chipset to an AMD motherboard via a PCIe add-in card. Yup, really. The starting point is an ASRock B650 LiveMixer board to which a second AM5-spec chipset is added to the setup using an extra board adapter. Genius, right? Kinda.

Numerous caveats ensue, and ultimately this is a recipe for spending more money that you would have on the X670 motherboard in the first place, only to have the X670 chipset bit hobbled by the PCIe interface. But hold that thought. 

As Level1Techs explain, the whole idea hinges on the fact that the AMD AM5 platform can support multiple chipsets either directly connected to the CPU or via daisychaining. That's how it differentiates between X670 and B650 motherboards, one has two chipsets dies and the budget version just one. So, ASRock decided to add a second chipset via a PCIe add-in card.

The X670 expansion kit comprises an add-in board with dual quad-lane M.2 SSD ports, a 10Gbps ethernet port, three USB-A 10Gbps ports, one 10Gbps USB-C ports and two SATA sockets.

The whole thing runs over a quad-lane PCIe 4.0 interface. So that's a theoretical 8GB/s of available bandwidth, which translates into 64Gbps of peak theoretical throughput. A single M.2 drive could saturate the entire link for the card, so there's lots of potential for bandwidth contention.

It's also critical to note that the card can't be used on any old AM5 motherboard. You need a special edition of the LiveMixer board with a J2 header. The card doesn't just run over the PCIe interface.

The add-in card is also not, as far as we can glean, for sale in any case. For now it's more of an engineering proof of concept.

As a way to add features, most notably 10Gbps ethernet, it's intriguing at first glance. Add in a few more features like a sound card and suddenly you have a cheap add-in board that can turn a server into a workstation.

For normal PC users and gamers, like we said it's a funky way to spend more in total than an X670 board would cost just to have a hobbled X670 implementation. So not really a goer. But we salute ASRock for its signature outside-the-box thinking all the same.

Gigabyte's Aorus Master motherboards have traditionally impressed me. They’re very much high-end offerings, but aren't priced anywhere near the top tier Extremes and Godlikes of the Asus and MSIs of the motherboard world. You still get a lot of features for your money, but when you jump over $500, diminishing returns really sets in.

A lot was written about the jump in motherboard pricing this generation, though as a second generation LGA 1700 platform, Z790 wasn't as badly affected as the all new AMD X670/E boards were back when they launched. The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master at $499 / £524 / AU$1,029 is far from what you’d call an affordable board, but compared to some of the boards costing well over that price it's a formidable competitor.

The Z790 Aorus Master appears to be an evolution of the Z690 Master with a few aesthetic tweaks, redesigned heatsinks, and support for up to DDR5-8000 memory. The Z690 Master became an excellent board after it received some welcome BIOS updates, and it means the Z790 version may struggle to justify its higher price over the now discounted Z690 version.

The Z790 Aorus Master is an extended ATX motherboard, so some consideration needs to be taken to be sure it fits in your case. It’s less of a factor than it once was, thanks in no small part to the gigantism of modern graphics cards like the RTX 4090. Gigabyte has gone for black and gray theme with just a touch of RGB atop the I/O shield. The look is one that blends form and function nicely.

A tour around the board reveals some interesting things. The PCIe slot layout is clearly built with triple and quad slot GPUs in mind. The primary slot shares its PCIe 5.0 lanes with the primary M.2 slot. 

The Aorus Master is one of a growing number of boards that have a PCIe release switch or latch. As the regular PCIe latch can be difficult to access with GPUs that have a backplate, this feature is a godsend, even if only for the few that switch GPUs a lot (like us reviewers!).

The Z790 Aorus Master is yet another Gigabyte offering with a well engineered cooling assembly. While other manufacturers have tended towards blocky metal heat sinks that lack surface area, Gigabyte continues to use old school traditional finned heatsinks. Our simple test with an unlimited power 13900K resulted in a peak VRM temperature of just 57 degrees. Outstanding!

The other heatsink worthy of focus is the massive primary M.2 heatsink. With PCIe 5.0 drives expected to generate a lot of heat, this kind of cooling ability is very welcome. But don't take it for granted. Heatsinks can and do absorb heat from adjacent graphics cards so you'll still need to ensure you have good case airflow.

The board will accept up to five M.2 drives. Other than the primary slot, they support up to PCIe 4.0. There are just four SATA ports. They're becoming less and less important but still, six would be nice at this level, if not eight.

Other interesting features include a so-called Multi-key button which can be programmed by the user to toggle the RGB on or off, boot to BIOS or enter a BIOS safe mode without losing your settings.

Despite not being awash with blazing RGB, the Z790 Aorus Master includes two ARGB headers and two RGB headers. Plus, there are no less than ten fan and pump headers, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 front panel header and power and reset buttons. Not bad at all.

The VRM of the board is a real highlight, as you'd expect from a board that’s expected to power overclocked 13900K’s. A 20+1+2 phase VRM with 105A stages will happily provide juice for ln2 overclockers. Apart from the out and out overclocking boards like the Aorus Tachyon or Asus Apex, it'll be hard to find something that beats the VRM of the Z790 Aorus Master.

If you want lots of USB ports, the Master is probably the board for you. There are 14 on the back panel alone. These include two 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C and a Gen 1 Type-C. Joining these are seven Gen 2 and four Gen 1 ports. That's a strong complement, but note that you aren't getting Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4. They certainly would have been welcome but in fairness to Gigabyte, they're one of the few features that makers use to justify the cost of the halo tier motherboards. USB 4 will eventually be as ubiquitous as USB 3.0 is today. Of course it might be called USB 4.7 Gen 4x4 or some other ridiculous name, but I digress.

The Master includes 10G Lan and Killer Wi-Fi 6E. We love to see 10G and hope it trickles down to cheaper boards in the future. The board includes ALC1220-VB audio which feels like last gen, though it’s a strong implementation with Gigabyte's reliable choice of components, including an ESS ES9118 DAC.

System Performance

Gaming Performance

As I say in most motherboard reviews, using benchmarks to evaluate a motherboard isn't all that relevant unless there is some real underlying issue that stands out. A percent or two here or there or margin of error differences don't mean much in the real world.

The Z790 platform is mature, and with power and turbo settings as close as its possible to set between boards, the results are generally close. Still , the Aorus Master performed well, particularly under multithreaded loads. Add to that a very cool and strong VRM and you get the feeling this is a board that won't have a problem being thrashed with heavy loads. It's no slouch at gaming either.

The BIOS of the Z790 Aorus Master is simply miles ahead of my first impressions prior to the 12th Gen launch when DDR5-6000 struggled to run. I reviewed a set of G.Skill DDR5-7200 on the Z790 Aorus Master and it ran flawlessly. In fact I was able to boot at 7600MHz with just a bump of memory voltage and loosening CAS latency by one step, but beyond that required unhealthy amounts of IMC voltage. I prefer my CPUs to stay alive for a little longer thanks!

If you're planning to overclock a K-series CPU, you'll need the best cooling you can get your hands on. With a VRM of this spec and cooling to match, your CPU cooling will hit its limit well before the board breaks a sweat.

The Z790 Aorus Master is a highly competitive and premium Z790 option at a good price. Its underlying design is very good indeed. The VRM and cooling are top shelf, its easy DDR5-7000 support is a highlight and the inclusion of 10G LAN plus loads of USB ports is welcome.

If you're after USB 4 or Thunderbolt you'll need to look elsewhere and the use of a last gen ALC1220 raises an eyebrow. While the core spec is still good, the formidable Z690 Aorus Master is still on the market. It can be found for significantly cheaper and apart from the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and support for fast memory, they are quite similar.

Notably, the Z790 Aorus Master is some $130 cheaper than the Asus Z790 Hero, and cheaper again than the MSI Z790 Ace but it's about the same as ASRock's Z790 Taichi. All are strong options and which one you choose may come down to what features appeal to you the most. That 10G LAN of the Aorus Master will be the clincher for many, while others won't use LAN at all, preferring a little bit of future proofing with USB 4.

But in the end, the Z790 Aorus Master is a strong board and unless you need a specific feature that’s exclusive to flagship boards, it doesn’t disappoint.

At CES 2023, LG showed off the "world's first wireless OLED TV." This massive 97-inch TV can receive 4K/120Hz video and audio signals from across the room wirelessly, freeing it of unsightly HDMI cables. 

It all uses LG's propriety Zero Connect technology. It's a separate box with all the HDMI ports you'd expect for gaming consoles, cable boxes, and even a gaming PC. It can connect wirelessly to soundbars, giving you the flexibility to set up your entertainment center unmarred by cable length. 

An LG rep told our friends at Tom's Guide that the Zero Connect box can be set up 30 feet away without losing any signal quality as long as the box has a line of sight on the TV. So much for stashing the box in a closet or something, but still impressive. 

The M3 has voice controls, so you can tell it to change inputs. As far as the latest is concerned, LG said to the site that it would be “much lower than 20ms” and “almost imperceptible.” While that won't make a difference when watching a movie, gamers might notice a bit of latency when playing something. 

The box has three HDMI 2.1 ports, two USB ports, optical out, and Ethernet, as well as a coaxial connector for cable set-top boxes. It has a rotatable antenna to ensure that the TV receives maximum signal strength. The box will automatically switch the signal's path to combat signal disruptions like people walking by or a curious cat. 

One of the cooler features is its 'One Wall Design,' a unique wall mounting system that lets you put up the massive display in a way that leaves almost no gap from the wall. It looks like a big fancy painting you can watch Netflix on. 

LG told Tom's Guide that the M3 being shown at CES is a pre-production model so the final specs and design are subject to change, although the 4K 120Hz panel would remain the same. There is no price or release date yet. 

OLED screen tech promises so much. But so far, it has delivered painfully little on the desktop for PC gamers. The only true OLED PC gaming monitor—as opposed to a thinly-disguised TV—we've so far seen is the excellent 34-inch Alienware 34 AW3423DW. Until now, that is, and the arrival of the new Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240.

Strictly speaking, you can debate whether the new Xeneon Flex is pure monitor tech, given its 45-inch ultrawide panel is derived from LG's latest TVs, right down to its WRGB rather than RGB sub-pixel structure. The relatively lowly 3,440 by 1,440 native resolution and 84PPI pixel density likewise belie the TV origins of the panel tech. But this is much more than mere a reboxed TV with added DisplayPort connectivity. There's some genuinely intriguing engineering going on here.

For starters, and as the Xeneon Flex branding implies, this OLED isn't just curved, it actually bends. You can manually set the amount of curve anywhere from completely flat through to a very tight 800R curve. For comparison, the ultra-curvy Samsung Neo G9 sports an only slightly less intense 1000R curve. So set to maximum curve, this Corsair monitor is pretty extreme.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the complexity added by the flexible panel, other physical adjustments are limited. Only tilt is provided, with no height or swivel available. As for broader specifications, Corsair rates the LG-supplied OLED panel at 1000 nits peak brightness and 150 nits full screen—plus 450 nits in a 25% window and 800 nits in a 10% window.

As those complicated specs imply, the basic question of brightness is a bit of a minefield with OLED tech. As we explained recently, OLED panels have no problems cranking up the brightness in small windows or over a limited proportion of the overall panel. But larger objects or full-screen brightness is a real challenge in terms of power consumption, heat, and the risk of burn in. Which is why the full-screen brightness ratings of OLED screens are typically a small fraction of their peak capabilities.

Anyway, where the Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 definitely delivers is speed. The panel is rated at 0.03ms for GtG pixel response and 0.01 for full on-off response, which is miles better than any LCD monitor, and the refresh rate peaks at 240Hz. The latter, surely, is plenty for all but semi-pro esports addicts.

Like all OLED panels, which benefit from per-pixel lighting and essentially perfect black levels, the Xeneon Flex promises exceptional contrast and HDR performance. Indeed, OLED technology is fundamentally different to LCD when it comes to HDR rendering, to the extent that Corsair says it is working with Blur Busters and LG to create a brand-new OLED Gaming Monitor certification standard to rate HDR performance.

Of course, with any OLED panel burn-in is always a worry and here Corsair is very reassuring. The panel has several mitigation technologies, including a full-panel resolution of 3,456 by 1,456 pixels, allowing the panel to shift the image slightly. Corsair backs it all with a three-year Zero Burn in and Zero Dead Pixel Warranty.

Finally in terms of the main speeds and feeds, the Xeneon Flex sports excellent connectivity. Along with dual HDMI 2.1 ports, you also get DisplayPort and USB Type-C with 90W power delivery, plus four USB Type-A sockets, two on the rear and two on the front of the stand.

But is it actually any good? Increasingly, the big question mark over any OLED panel implemented in a desktop gaming monitor involves brightness. Here, the Xeneon Flex is a very mixed performer. It all depends on the kind of content being displayed.

In simple terms, the brighter the content, the worse the Xeneon Flex does. Subjectively, the full-screen brightness is poor. Brightly-lit outdoor gaming scenes look pretty dull, whether running in HDR or SDR mode. Given the ultra-enthusiast price point of this panel, that's disappointing.

With content featuring dark backgrounds punctuated by small, bright objects, the OLED panel is much more able to achieve something closer to the full 1,000 nit peak claim. Combine that with the perfect black levels—and also a lack of any blooming—the results can be pretty gorgeous.

A great example is the moody bar scene in Cyberpunk 2077, where the neon signs behind the bar do pop against the dark interior. The one catch is that, even in this context, the centre of the panel is noticeably, although not dramatically, brighter than at the sides.

Then there's the question of pixel density. 3,440 by 1,440 is an awfully low resolution for a 45-inch panel. That's especially true when the panel has WRGB rather than RGB pixels, the latter being required for sub-pixel font smoothing to work properly. Admittedly, text doesn't look as bad as I might have expected. And for shooters, racing sims and what you might call console-style gaming, the pixel density is OK.

But if you spent $2,000 to play strategy games on this thing, you'd be making a big mistake. As a multi-purpose tool for both gaming and other PC work, the pixel density just doesn't cut it.

As I said, where the Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 definitely delivers is speed. That OLED pixel response combined with 240Hz refresh is a definite step up on any LCD monitor. This thing is seriously zippy.

Back on the Windows desktop, however, the brightness limitations are hard to overlook. The panel simply lacks punch and zing. Most large format OLED screens run ABL or automatic brightness limiter algorithms that adjust brightness according to how much of the panel is being driven hard. The Corsair's ABL is certainly quite aggressive, perhaps because the panel lacks a heatsink.

That's an important omission given heatsinks are increasingly being used to allow the latest OLED TVs to achieve better large-object and full-screen brightness. Looking at the way the flexible panel feature is engineered, it's hard to see how that could be combined with a heatsink. If it's correct that the flexible panel prevents the use of a panel heatsink, we'd far rather have a flat panel or a fixed curve and a heatsink enabling more overall panel brightness.

That's particularly true given the flex feature feels clunky and fragile. As you adjust the curve, it's difficult to know how far to bend the panel. In theory, the supporting adjustment arm is meant to click at full bend. In practice, it tends to click at random moments. Anyone with mechanical sympathy will also find all the creaking, cracking and clicking unnerving.

All told, the Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 is a very mixed performer. At this price point, the relatively lowly resolution and pixel density alone are pretty difficult to stomach. So, the rest of the experience needs to be exceptional. Unfortunately, it isn't.

The full screen brightness is poor in absolute terms and also inconsistent across the panel. Meanwhile, the adjustable panel curve doesn't add a great deal to the experience, while possibly limiting the brightness available to at least some extent by precluding the use of a heatsink.

More than anything, the Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 is a reminder of just how problematic HDR remains on the PC. While OLED panels offer incredible black levels, full screen brightness on larger panels like this remains a major limitation. Mini-LED monitors, of course, have their own set of issues and thus far very, very few monitors can do both the peaks and the lows in terms of brightness, while controlling everything with precision. The Xeneon Flex, unfortunately, doesn't buck that trend.

If you’ll forgive my turn of phrase, the Hero is the hero of Asus' Republic of Gamers motherboard range. It's the 'entry level' board, often the one that attracts the most user attention, and most of the time it's the first one to be released. It joins the top of the line Extreme and the overclocking focused Apex.

The Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero looks a lot like its Z690 predecessor and shares a similar feature set. That's not much of a surprise given that Z790 doesn't differ all that much from Z690, though Z790 does bring an increase in the number of PCIe 4.0 lanes and a 2nd gen optimized electrical design for helping with things like faster memory support. For example, the Z690 Hero lists support for DDR5-6400+, while the Z790 Hero supports DDR5-7800+.

Along with faster memory and out of the box 13th Gen CPU support, the Maximus Z790 Hero features very good connectivity support, a quality VRM, and the best of Asus' hardware and firmware engineering expertise. 

At $629 / £649 / AU$1,199, it feels odd referring to the Z790 Hero as the entry level Maximus board. Whether it's electrical complexity, engineering challenges, component costs or profiteering somewhere along the retail chain, it's just the way it is. You don't get high-end motherboards from any manufacturer for cheap anymore.

Let's see if the Hero has what it takes to win the hearts, minds and dollars of the people.

The Maximus Z790 Hero features a good amount of mirror like finish, at least once you pull all of the protective plastic off. There's a good-looking RGB section atop the rear I/O section. It's very tastefully done. We've hit peak RGB and the days of retina burning disco light shows are hopefully now behind us. You do get three ARGB headers and one non-addressable RGB header, however, should you want it.

The board has 8x 4-pin fan/pump headers, a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 header (with up to 60w charging support) and headers for an additional four 3.2 Gen 1 ports and four 2.0 ports. There are onboard power/reset buttons too.

Along with six SATA ports, the Z790 Hero features five M.2 slots, with just three on the board itself. The layout of the on-board slots is excellent. I've never liked M.2 slots located underneath the primary PCIe slot where they absorb heat coming from a graphics card. The Hero gets it right. Well done Asus. 

The extra two M.2 slots come courtesy of a high quality PCIe add in card, complete with its own solid and heavy heatsink. One slot supports PCIe 5.0, while the other supports up to PCIe 4.0.

The VRM heatsinks are large, with a lot of surface area. Do note that while they conform to Intel's 'stay-out' socket area, they encroach enough to potentially interfere with large coolers. In my case, the tubing of my AIO cooler. The only way I could install it was to have the tubing on the memory slot side. If you do have a large cooler, for example one with protruding heatpipes, it's definitely worth doing a bit of research to ensure it will fit.

Speaking of coolers, the Z790 Hero again features holes for mounting legacy LGA1200/LGA115x coolers. 

Around the back we have top notch connectivity options. The inclusion of dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports is a good value add, and they alone account for some of the price of the board. Add to that six USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and four Gen 1 ports and you’ll be set for a few years to come. 

The TB4 ports can carry a DP 1.4 signal, which gives you the option of triple display support when added to the single HDMI 2.1 port.

Asus includes a high class audio solution including an ALC4082 audio and ESS Quad DAC. Wi-Fi 6E is expected and 2.5G Intel LAN is the baseline. The omission of 5G or 10G LAN is disappointing at this price, but I'll let you be the judge of whether that's important to you or not. With the advent of faster Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, is LAN as important as it once was? For a NAS user, certainly, but there are a lot of gamers that don't use ethernet anymore.

System Performance

Gaming Performance

Benchmarking boards isn't as simple as it once was. Motherboard makers tend to play it fast and loose with power limits. Manually setting baseline parameters means over the top all core turbo levels are removed, though of course, you're free to enable them if your cooling allows it.

In system benchmarks, the Z790 Hero performed well, sitting at the top of the rankings, or close to it. It's no slouch in gaming either, standing up well against the other tested boards.

As is often the case though, the differences are quite small and often within a margin of error, which is a good indicator of a mature underlying platform. That's as it should be given the 13th Gen architecture and BIOS microcode aren't really different from 12th Gen Alder Lake and Z690.

When it comes to overclocking, your CPU will generally be cooling limited before the motherboard is stressed. Even a quality 360mm AIO nears its limit with a Core i9 13900K at stock! As for memory overclocking, that separates a good board with a good BIOS from a poor one.

I have a nice shiny set of G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-7200 (stay tuned for a review). It's not a given that every board can run at that speed reliably. The Hero certainly can, though in my case it required a high level of IMC voltage to do it. I think with a better CPU the Hero will be able to do more, and in fact its rated for DDR5-7800+. It's the best four-slot DDR5 board I've tested to date.

ROG boards always come with high expectations, and they very rarely disappoint. If you love ROG—and there are millions of you out there—you'll be right at home with the Asus Maximus Z790 Hero. Feel free to reliably overclock your K-series CPU with DDR5 7000+ memory. Chuck in a fast graphics card and future PCIe 5.0 SSD and you’ll be rocking a rig that will see you through 2024 and beyond.

It's a genuinely high end offering that doesn't lose all that much compared to the hyper-expensive top-end boards. Price wise, compared to the likes of the Maximus Extreme or MSI Godlike, the Z790 Hero is a relative bargain! But in the real world, as the entry level Maximus, it's an expensive proposition. You may well find that Asus' Strix or TUF boards offer what you need at a more attractive price point.

Apart from the omission of faster LAN, I cannot complain about the feature set. There's no doubt that forward looking features, such as Thunderbolt 4 and the add-in card with PCIe 5.0, add cost and complexity, but it's still a $600+ motherboard. Building a high-end system with an RTX 4080 or RX 7900 GPU is very expensive as we close in on 2023. Inflation sucks.

But ROG products are always premium tier, and there's an acceptable cost associated with that. If Asus keeps churning out well-designed boards with reliable BIOS, support for fast memory, and forward-looking feature sets, there will be buyers for them. And you won't have any remorse.

The Miyoshi Company just released a new USB 3.0 extension cable with an on/off switch (spotted by PC Watch), and I find myself going, "Wow, great idea. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?"

Well, it is a great idea, and as it turns out, someone did think of this, like, a lot of someones, years ago. 

Not only have these cables existed for ages, but you can find them for $12. Do I feel a little foolish? Absolutely! Does it change that having an off/on switch on a USB extension cable is still a good idea? Absolutely not.

So, what's the big deal about an on/off switch? Some USB devices like lights, Raspberry Pi projects, or storage devices don't have power switches. You're left constantly disconnecting those devices when you want them turned off. Just thinking about the thumb drives I've ruined and DC ports I've ruined over the years is upsetting. 

These cables do both data and power, so if you're concerned about privacy, you could plug in a webcam and just hit the switch whenever you're done. Most importantly, having these devices off is more power efficient when not in use. Say you have a smartphone and are worried about degrading the battery by overcharging it. This is a good solution for that. 

In my defense, my hardware colleague Jacob Ridley was also shocked to learn about the existence of USB switches which made me slightly less embarrassed. We both feel like men explaining how this whole 'fire thing' will be an absolute game-changer in 2022. Better late than never, I guess.  

If you bought a Steam Deck this year you might be on the lookout for some Cyber Monday deals for Steam Deck accessories. It's highly unlikely Valve is going to have any sales on the Steam Deck itself in the near future, and that goes for it's $89 docking station, too.

Luckily JSAUX's got your back, with a Cyber Monday deal on Amazon for its 6-in-1 Steam Deck compatible docking station. Typically priced at $49.99, it was already cheaper than Steam's dock, but for Cyber Monday it's going for $37.99, which is 24% off. That's less than half of what the official dock would cost you, and I dare say Amazon will deliver it more quickly, too.

JSAUX's built a slick Deck docking station, with an HDMI 4K@60Hz output, a Gigabit ethernet input, three USB-A 3.0 ports and a USB-C charging port. The hub also functions as a stand, so you can play games or watch something without holding it in your hands or plopping it in your lap.

• We're curating all the best Cyber Monday PC gaming deals right here.

Just note the docking station isn't compatible with certain Steam cases, like JSAUX's own protective case with a kickstand, which makes it too thick to fit into the docking station. If you already have a case for your deck, you might have to remove it while it's in the docking station.