When it comes to gaming keyboards, Asus generally gets a lot of things right. The latest models are packed with every gaming feature around, such as rapid trigger or 8,000 Hz polling, but these are often countered by the hefty fee you incur for choosing the ROG brand.

A great example of that is the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE, which normally costs $220. It's an excellent keyboard, but that's way too much money in comparison to the competition. Well, not any more, because you can bag one for $152 at Amazon right now, and it's the cheapest it's been at that store.

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When Reese checked out the Falchion Ace 75 HE, he came away very impressed by its super-fast switches, additional controls, and overall build quality. However, he wasn't quite so happy with the price tag, and that's understandable because the $150+ keyboard market is extremely competitive, with lots of brilliant options to choose from.

But with a 31% discount, the Falchion Ace 75 HE is far more appealing, and if you don't mind the fact that it's wired-only, you're getting a superb button-basher for the money. Asus' latest Hall effect ROG HFX V2 switches are ridiculously quick, thanks to their short travel, low actuation force, and highly adjustable actuation point.

Along with an 8 kHz polling rate (somewhat pointless, but still kinda neat to have) and rapid trigger functionality, this keyboard is ideal for twitchy, competitive shooters and esports in general.

That said, it's great for any kind of gaming, as well as general use, thanks to the handy media wheel/roller and touch bar on the back, which you can configure for all kinds of roles. This is all done via Gear Link, a web-based app that's light-years ahead of Armoury Crate.

Yes, 150-odd bucks is a lot of money to throw down for a keyboard, but at least you're not paying over the odds with this deal.

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I reviewed this exact keyboard last November (as well as its predecessor in 2024), and came away mightily impressed. Not simply content with giving it a score of 92%, I've been using the Kinesis Gaming FreeStyle Edge RGB Plus every day since then, and I still think it's the best ergonomic keyboard for gaming.

And now that you can get it for just a quarter over $149 at Amazon, it's the perfect time to step into the world of ergo keebs and give your shoulders, wrists, and overall posture relief from cramped, awkward gamer button bashers.

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The Edge Plus is quite old-school in some ways, with a slightly dated design and feature set. But while you're not getting rapid trigger or snap tap keys, or even a simple media wheel, what you are getting is a highly adjustable and exceptionally comfortable ergonomic keyboard.

The permanently split structure means you can spread out the two halves such that your shoulders never have to rotate in slightly to accommodate a compact layout. The included lift kit offers three levels of tenting (raising the inside edge of each half) to prevent wrist strain from dealing with a flat keyboard.

Add in the fact that the tactile switches are lovely to use, the RGB lighting is subtle rather than overwhelming, and the extra keys on the left are easy to program for macros, and you've got a solid platform with which to work all day on, and then game for hours afterwards.

There are some aspects I'm not keen on, though. The wrist pad material is a sweat magnet, the delete key is a heck of a reach, the lift kit flaps about when you move the keyboard, and I'd prefer it if the cables were removable. But these are minor quibbles when you consider the whole package.

If you prefer linear to tactile switches, you can buy that version of the FreeStyle Edge RGB Plus for a fraction over $159 at Amazon, but since all the switches are hot-swappable, you can fit anything you like as long as they match Gateron's pin layout (which is pretty standard).

If you're a heavy PC user like me, you owe it to yourself to go ergo, and Kinesis' keyboard is a great way to do just that.

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You know I've tested a lot of mechanical keyboards over the years. In fact, I started my clicky switch love way back in 2013, with the OG Corsair K70 Vengeance and a Cherry MX Red switch, but nothing, and I mean nothing, has come close to the Asus ROG Strix Scope II RX for me. Even with its silly and ridiculous name, that seems to grow ever longer. I reviewed it for another publication in about 2024, and was just blown away by the build quality, the switches, the sound dampening, the fact Asus had pre-lubed everything to death. And it was clean too, stupidly so, it looked and still looks gorgeous. I set up the RGB once, two years ago, and I haven't changed it since.

Back then, it averaged $120 on retail. Today, Newegg's got it listed with a 33% discount at $80 (with the promo code: FTTF283).

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Like complete honest truth with you, I actually recently took a look at Corsair's Makr Pro 75 line as well. A similarly sound-dampened premium pre-lubed affair, albeit with Hall effect switches, and even though I enjoyed it, I just ended up gravitating straight back to this beauty. The Makr Pro 75 now sits diligently on a shelf again in its box, whereas my slightly dusty ROG Strix Scope II hogs the limelight.

I could wax lyrical about it all day. The build quality on it is exceptional. It's not particularly heavy by modern standards, and there's no nonsense marketing hype either. I see so many manufacturers just adding layers of foam, brace plates, gaskets, for the sake of it, so they can make the numbers bigger on the product page, or tell you exactly how each spring is specifically chosen based on its acoustic time signature or some bs, and it just feels unnecessary. All of it adds extra cost at diminishing returns, and we end up paying the price. You have to draw a line somewhere.

That's why the Scope II 96 wireless sat at the top of our best gaming keyboard list for so long as well, and why its wired sibling packs in all the same traits, albeit at a slightly larger form factor, and still dominates two years on.

Millions of words I've typed on this thing, over years, spillages, food, dirt, dust, debris, sweat, blood, the lot. It's endured it all and held up against all of it. Not a single switch failure. Not a single moment where I've gone "man, I wish I could try something new". If that ain't high praise, I don't know what is, and when it costs damn near a third as much as the big boys' latest bounties, well, if I lived in the US it'd already be in my basket (as a back-up, you know, ya boy's got needs).

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Even if you can afford to upgrade your PC gaming setup to sport the most powerful or latest hardware, that doesn't mean you should. That's because many components and peripherals are vastly overpriced in the current climate (looking at you, DRAM and SSDs), but there's one sector that's bucking that trend: OLED monitors.

And for $649 at Amazon, you can bag yourself a really epic and super-immersive ultrawide OLED display, safe in the knowledge that you're absolutely not paying over the odds.

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The Asus ROG Strix XG34WCDG is essentially a lower-priced version of the ROG Switch PG34WCDM monitor we reviewed back in January 2024. It uses a different panel (Samsung QD-OLED vs LG WOLED) that isn't quite as highly specified, with the XG34WCDG sporting a maximum refresh rate of 175 Hz and a peak HDR brightness of 1,000 nits (240 Hz and 1,300 nits for the PG34).

The relatively high resolution of 3440 x 1440 is a boon for pixel density, but it will mean you'll need a beefy GPU for gaming at native settings, though with upscaling being as good as it is these days, you're not going to need anything too extreme.

What you lose in terms of outright performance, you gain significantly in bang-for-buck, as well as general comfort. The ROG Swift display has a very tight 800R curvature, whereas the ROG Strix is much easier to live with at 1800R (the bigger the number, the more gentle the curve).

Since it's a newer model, the XG34 also boasts Asus' OLED Care Pro tech, including a configurable proximity sensor which the monitor uses to determine if anyone is sitting in front of it. When there's nobody there, it switches everything to black to keep OLED burn-in at bay.

For truly immersive gaming, there's little that beats a hulking ultrawide, and while they're not necessarily perfect for general work scenarios, having all that real estate does make it easier to manage lots of Windows.

At $649, this Asus ROG Strix XG34WCDG is the cheapest it's ever been on Amazon and a full $350 under its launch MSRP. The RAMpocalypse might be doing its best to ruin the cost of upgrading your PC, but you can still treat yourself for less with this monitor.

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Two months ago, Asus announced the ROG Equalizer, a power cable for certain Nvidia RTX graphics cards designed to banish the fear of melting connectors once and for all. Well, perhaps not completely so, because it seems we now have the first case of a melted ROG Equalizer cable.

As posted on ChipHell and reported by Uniko's Hardware on X (via Videocardz), there's admittedly very little information to go on, other than a crystal-clear picture of a seriously fried connector at the end of an Asus ROG Equalizer cable. Three of the six power pins look properly scorched, with one showing a considerable degree of melting in the plastic housing.

However, there's no indication as to what PSU and graphics card this cable was plugged into, nor the circumstances as to how the melty-melty all came about, so the one thing we can't do right now is point our fingers at Asus and go 'Ha! Your cable is rubbish!' Well, we can, but we just can't use this solitary picture as evidence for such a judgment.

If you're unaware of what all the hoohar is about Nvidia's 12VHPWR (and the subsequent 12V-2x6 design update) connector, let me give you a quick explainer. In order to have its graphics card use gopping great globs of power but also not require lots of big connectors on the card's PCB, Nvidia designed a compact system to be used instead of the traditional 8-pin PCIe system.

A precursor to 12VHPWR first appeared on certain RTX 30-series cards, such as the RTX 3090 Ti and 3060 Ti Founders Editions. This design just comprised twelve power pins (six +12V, six ground), but the iteration of the design that was approved by PCI-SIG and adopted into the PCIe specifications also housed four more pins for sensing.

That format first showed up on Nvidia's RTX 40-series, and almost immediately, reports of melting connectors appeared from owners of GeForce RTX 4090 cards. So much so that it resulted in a class action lawsuit against Nvidia being filed in 2022.

The problem is quite simple. A full load, an RTX 4090 can use up to 450 W of power, but distributed across six pins, each one only has to deal with 6.25 A of current. However, should one pin fail in some way, or the graphics card draw more current in one or two pins than the others, the resulting load imbalance can push the current over the 12VHPWR's design rating of 8.33 A per pin.

Fast forward to today, and we now have a power supply market replete with all kinds of 'solutions' to the connector melting problem. Even the minor redesign, called 12V-2x6, did little to prevent the problem from occurring. Der8auer's detailed analysis of the Asus ROG Equalizer cable shows that while it's a decent enough product, it doesn't really offer much in the way of protection against the problem.

With RTX 5090 graphics cards now costing more than $4,000 in the US, you'd think there would be a far more concerted effort to banish meltygate once and for all. Part of the reason as to why we haven't seen a permanent solution yet is that the fact not every 4090 or 5090 owner has suffered from a melting connector.

The exact number of casualties is probably impossible to determine, but since graphics card vendors, as well as Nvidia, put money aside each year to cover warranty claims, the only way that they would really sit up and pay attention is if the total cost of all the replacements for damaged cards consistently exceeded the pot of money for claims.

We probably can't rely on hardware vendors coming up with a permanent solution, either. It's unlikely that Nvidia will abandon 12V-2x6 in favour of a completely new design, and having active load balancing on graphics cards will eat into a vendor's profit margins (though they're hardly small sums of money when it comes to the RTX 5090).

This particular instance of a melted ROG Equalizer cable could be entirely user error or even a clickbait thing, just to get a bit of attention, but since Asus' design has no means to actively prevent one pin from supplying too much current, this will almost certainly not be the only case we'll see, genuine or otherwise.

If you do have a very high-power RTX card with a 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 connector, here's my advice for keeping it as melt-free as possible:

1. Try to use a PSU that has a native 12VHPWR socket and cable: this won't guarantee perfect safety, but it removes the multiple points of failure you can get with adapter cables.
2. Don't keep removing the cable to check that it's okay: Power cables aren't designed to be repeatedly unplugged and jammed back in, and doing so can weaken the connections, leading to smaller contact patches and thus higher temperatures.
3. Explore undervolting your graphics card: You can just drop the maximum power limit for your RTX GPU in the Nvidia app, but you're better off following a detailed guide on how to lower your GPU's voltage across its range of clock speeds. If it all works as intended, you should get a graphics card that not only uses less power but is also cooler and, in some cases, able to clock higher.

Until we have graphics cards and/or power supply units that actively monitor the current draw on each pin, and dynamically prevent it from exceeding a set limit as standard, the melting connectors are still going to be a thing that will hit the headlines from time to time. Just like this one.

Let's imagine that you've been working hard at creating an all-white theme for your gaming den, and there's just one item left to tick off the list: a super-nice white keyboard. There are lots to choose from, but many of the really great keyboards sport excessively high price tags.

A great example of that is the Asus ROG Falchion Ace 75 HE, which normally costs $220. It's an excellent keyboard, but that's way too much money in comparison to the competition. Well, not any more, because you can bag one for $160 at Amazon right now.

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When Reese checked out the black version of the Falchion Ace 75 HE, he came away very impressed by its super-fast switches, additional controls, and overall build quality. However, he wasn't quite so happy with the price tag, and that's understandable because the $150+ keyboard market is extremely competitive, with lots of brilliant options to choose from.

But with a 27% discount, the Falchion Ace 75 HE is far more appealing, and if you don't mind the fact that it's wired-only, you're getting a superb button-basher for the money. Asus' latest Hall effect ROG HFX V2 switches are ridiculously quick, thanks to their short travel, low actuation force, and highly adjustable actuation point.

Along with an 8 kHz polling rate (somewhat pointless, but still kinda neat to have) and rapid trigger functionality, this keyboard is ideal for twitchy, competitive shooters and esports in general.

That said, it's great for any kind of gaming, as well as general use, thanks to the handy media wheel/roller and touch bar on the back, which you can configure for all kinds of roles. This is all done via Gear Link, a web-based app that's light-years ahead of Armoury Crate.

Yes, $160 is a lot of money to throw down for a keyboard, but at least you're not paying over the odds with this deal.

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Computex 2026 has been a peculiar affair, primarily because the PC market and general global economy is just so shoddy right now. In addition to much of the tech on show seeming more out of reach than usual, though, this year's computing expo has shown me just how ephemeral the PC gaming market has become. Like a cloud, it certainly exists and you can see it from afar, but get up close and its boundaries start to become more obscure.

Obviously a lot of what we've showcased here at PC Gamer is stuff that's more exciting for PC gamers, but there's been plenty else at Computex that seems to not fit neatly into that 'just for PC gamers' category. And I know one could say that about pretty much anything in this space because most PC gaming gear can be used for other things, but it seems like even manufacturer intentions and target markets are now becoming a little blurred.

For one, we've had definitively non-PC gaming products that might actually be decent for PC gaming. Take Asus' new ProArt monitors, for instance. These are nominally for design professionals, but I don't think you'd find any gamer complaining about a 240 Hz QD-OLED.

Or there's the new Dell XPS 13, which seems to be the company's answer to the Apple MacBook Neo. It's aimed at students and professionals that use a laptop for light work, much like the Neo. However, its gaming chops are expected to be decent, too, thanks to its Wildcat Lake and before long its Panther Lake processor.

Even out of the products we've seen that are more specifically gaming-oriented, though, there have been some that fit into the 'not just for gaming' mould.

PC case line-ups often have unassuming and professional-looking options, so I suppose it's no surprise that the same is true at this year's Computex. In particular, the Tryx Vas caught my eye, with its metallic briefcase design and giant side fan. I could just as easily imagine this in an executive's office as a gamer's den.

Then there's Keychron's ultra-thin magnetic switch keyboard. I mean, tell me you like the Apple Magic keyboard without telling me you like the Apple Magic keyboard. This thing is practically crying out to be slapped on a Starbucks coffee table by a freelance digital nomad. But it's also magnetic, meaning it must surely benefit from all the analogue gubbins that gamers love, like rapid trigger.

And then there's Corsair's new TC80 gaming chair. The company explicitly distances itself from gaming here: "Following our popular TC500 Luxe, we have continued the move away from traditional gaming chair style. The TC80 has more subtle branding, a muted color pallet, and a more professional vibe overall."

It's still a gaming chair, but moving away from "traditional gaming chair style" means it's also kind of not. Or, rather, it's something that won't look or feel too out of place in an office but is still aimed in large part at PC gamers.

It's a trend that I've noticed for at least the last couple of years. I remember, for instance, when SteelSeries showed me its Apex Pro Gen 3 keyboard. During my trip to SteelSeries HQ in Copenhagen, the company was keen to emphasise that gamers are no longer just using their peripherals for gaming—they're using them for working, relaxing, travelling, and everything else in-between.

So SteelSeries was going to start catering for that a little, toning down the gamey-ness and making things a little more well-rounded. That seems to have been a general direction for many manufacturers over the last couple of years, though I'd probably call it companies cottoning on to the reality that was always the case: people use their products for multiple things, not just gaming.

The as-yet unmentioned elephant in the room, though, is of course Nvidia's new RTX Spark processor. The N1X-based chip was long-anticipated but only finally announced at Computex a couple of days ago.

The main take-home is that it's a chip with integrated graphics that promises some serious gaming performance despite not having a separate, discrete GPU. If Nvidia's RTX 5070-level claims hold up, it should even blow away the chips that sit inside handheld gaming PCs when it comes to gaming performance—but it's still all integrated. It'll be very game-dependent, given it's Arm-based, but in theory it could be fantastic for lightweight, efficient gaming.

And that last part is key: it should allow for lightweight and efficient devices—devices such as the RTX Spark-powered MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+ that was announced alongside it at Computex.

RTX Spark is, of course, designed to be put inside machines you'll run AI on—this is 2026 Nvidia we're talking about, after all—but it's for gaming, too. In other words, RTX Spark machines are unlikely to be marketed as just gaming laptops or just productivity and AI machines.

This melding of gaming and non-gaming markets isn't completely new, but witnessing this year's Computex really brought it home. The lean into do-it-all products seems one that's here to stay. And perhaps that's a good thing, with the market being as it is—when things are so expensive and the cost of living is so high, I'd rather spend my money on one device or peripheral that does everything well.

The old marketing saying of 'sex sells' frequently gets converted to 'excess sells' when it comes to computer tech, and for the 20th anniversary of the ROG brand, Asus has taken this to another level with a new 3000 W power supply unit for gaming PCs.

It's not the power rating that's so eyebrow-raising about the Asus ROG Thor 3000W Titanium III Edition 20, as 3 kW PSUs aren't anything new in the world of workstations. For example, Corsair has the WS3000 and Asus itself has the Pro WS 3000W Platinum. However, for gaming PCs, it's completely overkill and totally unnecessary, even if you're overclocking the twangers off every single component in your rig.

And yet, that's the exact market that Asus is selling its latest mega supply to. Making matters even worse is the fact that the PSU sports four 12V-2x6 power sockets, despite the fact that you can only game on a single RTX 5090. Sure, you could slap another three into your PC for giggles, but it won't help to make anything run faster.

For AI workloads, it's a different story, but that's not mentioned in Asus' marketing, nor is it what ROG is all about. The Thor 3000 W Titanium III Edition 20 does have gaming-related features, such as an OLED display that can be magnetically attached to the PSU or your PC's case via an extension cable, plus a voltage monitoring system to prevent your RTX 5090 from self-destructing.

But no gaming setup is going to get anywhere near the unit's 3000 W power limit (1600 W when using a 115 V supply), and even though the Thor's peak efficiency will be around the 1600 W mark, that's still far more than you're likely to need.

Well, unless you just happen to have an overclocked 800 W Asus RTX 5090, plus a heavily PBO'd Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, a mountain of DRAM sticks, an even bigger mountain of Gen5 SSDs, plus a small warehouse-worth of fans and RGB lighting.

Of course, I am applying logic to a product that isn't logical. It's not really a gaming PSU at all: It's an over-the-top statement from Asus, simply because it can, and partly because the whole ROG brand has become synonymous with this line of thinking.

But even if you can afford it, I would recommend that you look elsewhere for an all-singing, all-dancing power supply, because when you look closely at Asus' images for the new PSU, you can see that it's just a spruced-up standard design. The main power switch and some of the connectors also look somewhat wonky, indicating that this isn't a special, hand-crafted unit. Ho-hum.

The OLED gaming monitor tech announcements are coming thick and fast at Computex this year. One intriguing new monitor has been outed by Asus featuring a new WOLED panel from LG that we've not seen before.

The big news is that the Asus ROG Swift PG32UCWM features RGB-stripe technology. In other words, the panel's subpixel structure is composed of conventional red, green and blue vertical subpixels in that order.

Until recently, all OLED gaming monitors had panels with various weird and wonderful subpixel structures. LG's panels had an extra white subpixel to boost peak brightness. Samsung used a triangular layout, albeit with the standard RGB colours.

These non-standard subpixel layouts cause various issues. So, the ideal solution is an absolutely standard RGB-stripe structure. And that's what the Asus ROG Swift PG32UCWM's new LG WOLED panel offers.

Note that the "W" in LG's WOLED branding doesn't refer to a white subpixel, but the white colour of the base emissive OLED material, which is then passed through red, green and blue filters for each subpixel, respectively.

Anywho, the ROG Swift PG32UCWM is, as I said, a 32-inch 4K model. It runs at 240 Hz at 4K and offers an alternative 1080p mode at 480 Hz. It also sports VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification. And that's where things get a bit tricky.

You can already buy 32-inch 4K Samsung QD-OLED based monitors, including the MSI MPG 322UR X24 I reviewed recently, that offer brighter True Black 500 certification. And Samsung has announced yet another 32-inch 4K panel with True Black 600 certification, 360 Hz refresh and RGB-stripe subpixels for later this year.

That latter panel in particular makes the new LG WOLED in the Asus ROG Swift PG32UCWM look a bit behind the curve, even as it launches. It'll do 350 nits full screen and 1,500 peak HDR.

The LG WOLED in the Asus, meanwhile, tops out at 1,000 nits peak HDR. Asus hasn't quoted as fullscreen figure. But it will likely be in the 250 to 275 nits range. These brightness figures are despite the panel using LG's latest Tandem OLED tech. And that's likely because of the removal of the white subpixel, which LG has thus far used to increase the brightness rating of its OLEDs.

Still, the good news here is that OLED technology is really kicking on this year. We're getting brighter panels seemingly by the week and RGB-stripe is being ever more widely adopted.

I wouldn't be surprised if most OLED gaming monitors are RGB-stripe by this time next year. Add in increased brightness and we're surely approaching a situation where the art of OLED gaming monitors is pretty much perfected.

Well, maybe with one final caveat around burn-in remaining. But the evidence continues to mount around existing panels that burn-in isn't a massive issue. And these newer panels are meant to be yet more robust.

We've seen all manner of keycaps over the years, from Kerbals to desserts and just about everything in between. But I don't think I've seen any quite so peculiar as those just announced from Asus ROG.

They come in a 'Mystery Box Edition 20', with the latter part of this referring to the company's 20th anniversary line-up. We've already seen an absolute chonker of a GPU under this moniker, so I guess it makes sense to have something small in the range too like keycaps.

It looks like they are literally mystery boxes, in which you don't know which keycaps you're getting. In one box you get 6x mystery keycaps. And what are the keycaps, exactly? Well, it's all ROG peripherals, of course.

Each keycap sits on top of a bed of stalagmite crystals. To start with, there's a Gladius mouse, a Raikiri controller, an Asus Delta headset, alongside a couple of different versions of the ROG logo.

The last couple are the most interest of the bunch, though. There's the Chariot chair which, erm, spins around. Not on its own, you have to spin it yourself, but still. Peculiar. Then there's the Claymore keyboard which is split into two. The left side has the bulk of the keyboard, while the right has the numpad, and both can be pressed independently. Y'know, just 'cause.

The only thing that I think would make it better would be if there were a little keyboard keycap on the keyboard keycap. But alas, we're just a single order of magnitude into bonkers territory here.

It's a bit silly, but it's also just a bit of fun, so I'm not too against it. The company has announced plenty of more serious products at this year's Computex, including an esports OLED monitor I quite like the look of, so I'll forgive Asus for the frivolity here. Though much will depend on just how rare the fancier keycaps are, because I wouldn't much fancy having to rack up dozens of spares just to collect them all.

With Asus' ROG brand turning 20 years old this year, it has announced a whole pile of fancy black and gold gaming gear at Computex. Its new 82 g mouse is just as fancy as you'd expect and comes with some truly outrageous specs.

Called the ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20, Asus's new gaming mouse has "Authentic 24K gold-plated detailing", as well as a black translucent shell. The first time I saw it, I thought it looked a bit like it had cardboard internals (because gold under black certainly muted the colour palette a tad), but I don't think it looks bad by any stretch.

With it, you get a max 8,000 Hz polling rate (both wired and wireless), along with Asus's own ROG 100M optical micro switches, and a 65K DPI sensor. Those are truly absurdly high specs. The Razer Viper V4 Pro, our pick for the best gaming mouse, also goes up to 8,000 Hz polling but only 50,000 DPI. However, the max polling and max DPI of both of these gaming mice are arguably too much for 99% of players, and 8k polling often isn't worth the battery drain for a wireless mouse.

82 g is a good bit heftier than the V4 Pro, and I suspect that could have something to do with the gold internals. It is based on the Harpe II Ace (which is only 48 grams), and Asus says its shape was developed with the help of esports pros.

Asus also notes it comes in a "display-ready presentation box", and that box seems to come with stickers, a cable, the connectors, and a keyring of some kind. Asus has also announced the ROG Azoth Extreme Edition 20, which is a black and gold-themed variant of the ROG Azoth gaming keyboard.

Asus has confirmed to me that the Harpe II Extreme Edition will be $260 and the Azoth Extreme Edition will be $600. That's a lot more than the Viper 4 Pro, and Razer's offering isn't exactly cheap.

As with all of Asus' ROG 20th anniversary items, this gaming mouse seems like a commemorative item, more so than something you'd just buy to simply use. And I'd imagine you'd need to have quite a bit of cash burning a hole in your pocket to consider it. Here's looking at you, Xbox Ally X20 bundle.

As hardware goes, graphics cards can be on the heftier side. Asus ROG's Astral cards were already a case in point, but the company has just unveiled an anniversary edition well-deserving of the two C's in 'thicc'.

During this year's Computex, Asus announced the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20. The GPU isn't only CHONKY, but makes the most of its expanded surface area with a curved AMOLED display and "a quad-fan design that delivers up to 20% improved airflow." The main drawback is that this big boy graphics card will likely gobble up not only the contents of your wallet, but all of your PCIe slots too.

The Edition 20 series celebrates the ROG (Republic of Gamers) sub-brand's 20th anniversary. The full ROG Edition 20 lineup encompasses a number of other PC components, including a mother board and even an NUC, marking all of the hardware with a black-gold colourway. Asus Chairman Jonney Shih said during his opening speech at Computex 2026, "Twenty years on, we didn't just change the game, we transformed the world around it."

No firm release window for the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 has yet been announced. So far, Asus has only said, "Many limited-edition items and the exclusive Armoury Crate Edition 20 software theme will be released as limited-time offerings throughout 2026."

Pricing details are also thin on the ground. However, judging by the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 most recent flirtation with all that glitters—specifically, the $7,000 gold-plated Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab OC Edition—it will likely cost a pretty penny. The slightly less powerful Asus ROG Astral RTX 5080 Dhabab Core edition still went for $2,589. With those kinds of numbers, it hardly seems worth saving up my pennies.

This card, along with the other ROG Edition 20 components, is limited edition, just as last year's ROG Matrix RTX 5090 was. There were only 1,000 models of that one, and of course limited supplies tends to mean higher prices.

Still though, the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 mounted on the corresponding Edition 20 the open-frame ROG GR20 PC case was a thing of beauty to behold on the Computex showfloor. I'd be inclined to consider an open concept set up like this show piece were it not for the fact my home office is an absolute dust magnet—and I'm not made of PCIe slots, either.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is undeniably a great device, but it's an expensive one. So when I saw Asus had unveiled an upgraded anniversary edition, bundled with a pair of AR glasses, I felt a little pain for my bank account.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle includes an Xbox ROG Ally X with a snazzy black and gold theming (including a 'custom gold internal structure'), TMR thumbsticks, and even the addition of a 7.4-inch OLED screen.

For context, the standard ROG Xbox Ally X comes with a 7-inch IPS LCD screen, so this is already a major upgrade. Both screens have a 120 Hz refresh rate. The TMR thumbsticks are a welcome addition, meaning you're less likely to have to take the thing apart due to stick drift. TMR sticks should also make for a slightly better battery life, too.

Finally, it comes with a new D-Pad that can be swapped between four-way and eight-way input.

In the new models, you can expect almost the same processor (the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme in the X20 has an NPU, but other than that, it's exactly the same as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme), which means pretty much identical game performance, as well as 24 GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 1 TB SSD, and an 80 Wh battery. The X20 is around 40 g heavier, but everything else remains the same.

Unfortunately, we don't know the answer to the biggest questions here. We don't have a confirmed price point or a release date. There are some random numbers on the side of the page when you get to the 20th anniversary section, so they could correlate, or they could… not.

As for price, I'm expecting a very heavy hit here. Not only are you getting some meaningful upgrades on the original $1,000 Xbox Ally X, but you're also adding in a pair of ROG XReal R1 AR glasses, which fetch around $1,000 by themselves. This is all before mentioning that the ongoing memory crisis has been a major pain when it comes to reasonably priced hardware, and 24 GB of memory is quite a lot.

The sell for this X20 bundle is the pairing of the glasses and the handheld. You can plug the 240 Hz glasses into the top and get what appears to be a 171-inch screen right in front of you. It is tethered to the device, though, so you likely won't be whipping out that bad boy on the train. Given what I expect its cost to be, I wouldn't want to bring it out of the house anyway.

The march of OLED technology continues. According to market research outfit Trendforce, OLED monitor shipments are up by 78% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026. Trendforce reckons increased supply of Samsung's QD-OLED panels is a key factor, but it's actually Asus that is selling the most OLED monitors.

Q1 2026's figures are actually down 11% on Q4 2025. But given tech products have distinct annual cycles driven by things like school schedules and holiday periods, the most representative comparisons are with the same quarter the previous year. In that context, OLED's continuing progress is clear enough.

Apart from the broader trend toward OLED, Trendforce reckons Samsung ramping up supply is a key factor. "The key growth driver was the increasingly abundant supply of QD-OLED panels, which enabled new market entrants to ramp up volumes and effectively fill gaps in the market," Trendforce says.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly given its premium pricing, it's actually Asus that is selling the most OLED monitors, with 24% market share. "Its leadership was underpinned by a comprehensive OLED product lineup," Trendforce says, noting how broad Asus's OLED monitor range is.

Samsung (Samsung Electronics that makes monitors, as opposed to Samsung Displays that makes the actual QD-OLED panels) came second with a 16.4% share, while MSI clocked third with 12.2%.

This time around, Trendforce isn't quoting overall volumes of OLED monitor shipments. But to put all this into context, it previously said that the overall OLED monitor market amounted to 2.735 million units in 2025, a 92% increase on 2024.

While it's a somewhat subjective call, I'd say Samsung driving volumes of OLED monitors is a good thing. Samsung's QD-OLED panels tend to be more vibrant than LG's competing WOLED panels thanks to utilising a pure RGB subpixel structure where LG relies on an additional white subpixel to boost measured brightness in a way that doesn't always translate well into the real-world experience.

Put another way, Samsung's latest QD-OLED panel tech, as seen in the MSI MPG 341CQR X36 in 34-inch ultrawide form and the MSI MPG 322UR X24 in 32-inch 4K configuration, is pretty darn stellar.

When Asus took over Intel's baton for the Next Unit of Computing (aka the NUC or mini PC), some of us hoped that we'd be treated to a fresh new direction to the original concept. Essentially, that's what we got, but it also came with something we didn't want, and the latest Asus ROG NUC perhaps embodies everything that has gone wrong with the whole platform.

Ostensibly, there's not a great deal of difference between the freshly announced ROG NUC 16 and last year's ROG NUC. They both sport Intel Arrow Lake HX processors (albeit the Plus models in the 16) and a GeForce RTX 50-series mobile GPU; you can fit up to 128 GB of memory (up from 96 GB) and two M.2 SSDs in both of them, as well.

The looks have been spruced up, with the ROG NUC 16 being a tad flashier in appearance than the older design. It's not a radical change, and if I'm permitted to be honest, the white model (sorry, Moonlight White Edition) gives me 'Temu PlayStation' vibes. But mini PC aesthetics are very much a subjective thing, and if it's thumbs up for you, then good on ya.

There's no indication of the official MSRPs for each variant of the ROG NUC 16 just yet, but Videocardz reports that pre-orders in China are roughly in the $4,400 ballpark. Right now, if you're so inclined, you can bag yourself the RTX 5080 version of the previous NUC, with 32 GB of DRAM and 2 TB SSD, for a mere $3,868 at Amazon.

So it looks like if you want a top-spec ROG NUC 16, you'll need to find a spare four thousand bucks stuffed down the back of your couch. Before you splash the cash, though, you should know that this amount of money will get you a Lenovo Legion Pro 7i with the same hardware and still leave $1,000 spare for an extra display and peripherals.

NUCs-for-gamers, and mini PCs in general, are always going to be a niche product and thus a low-volume seller, so an inflated price tag is to be expected. But this? Four kilo dollars is beyond any measure of reason or justification, despite the grimness of the RAMpocalypse. Sure, the new NUC can be kitted out with up to 128 GB of DDR5-6400, which you might think would be great for AI modelling.

However, Asus is marketing this device at gamers—it claims all that memory will ensure "smoother high-FPS gameplay and faster responsiveness"—and the NPU in the Arrow Lake processor isn't good enough to make proper use of masses of DRAM; for that, you need something like the Framework Desktop. And if you use the GPU instead, you'll be limited to a maximum of 16 GB of VRAM (RTX 5080 variant).

Other than taking up considerably less desk space than an equivalent laptop, the Asus ROG NUC 16 makes zero sense as a gaming purchase, or any kind of purchase for that matter. Mini PCs are supposed to be ultra-compact, with their compromised performance offset by an enticing price tag.

Asus does make such NUCs, though they're aimed at the business and education markets. What we've got here is less something for PC gamers, and more for cash cows that can be won over with ROG branding and top-tier hardware specs.

It's the 20th anniversary of the Republic of Gamers (ROG) and although we've already been treated to a special edition copper-themed Crosshair motherboard, it looks like Asus has something extra lined up for PC Gamers: its own line of DRAM kits.

Well, strictly speaking, it's just the one kit so far, and even then, it might just be a one-off, as part of the ROG celebration. Videocardz reports that Asus dropped the deets on the DRAM at its ROG Day 2026 event in China, but for everyone else, there's a preview look at the DDR5 set via 林大餅Bing's YouTube account.

Apparently developed via a collaboration with Biwin, the 48 GB dual-channel kit is rated to 6,000 MT/s with CL26-36-36-76 timings. That CAS latency is very tight, and I dare say that a good number of AM5 motherboards won't like it very much. Naturally, you can expect it to be fine with Asus' high-end boards, AMD and Intel flavoured, as it comes with XMP profiles for both platforms.

In terms of looks, well, it's ROG-a-go-go, as you'd expect, but I have to say that I quite like the design: angular, but not garish, with a rather classy colour scheme.

As for the price, Videocardz says that it's listed as 5999 yuan, which directly converts to a fraction over $888. How much of that is down to the RAMpocalypse is anyone's guess, but a 48 GB set of Biwin DDR5-6000 CL28 is $540 at Amazon. Specialised DRAM kits are always pricier than the regular stuff, so once you account for that (plus a bit extra for the ROG tax), I reckon we'll be looking at around $850 retail.

The interesting thing about all of this is whether or not Asus has been planning on entering the desktop memory market en masse. If this DDR5 kit is the only thing it's going to release in this sector, then the specs and pricing make sense, but if it's part of a long-term strategy to announce being a competitor to Corsair, G.Skill, and many others, it couldn't have come at a worse time.

ROG enthusiasts won't really care, though, and will probably try to snap up a set as soon as they can. After all, the only part of a complete gaming PC setup that Asus currently don't offer is a CPU and a memory kit. Oh, and internal SSDs, though you can get external units.

But if it's happy to start producing its own branded DRAM, I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of M.2 drives suddenly appeared, perhaps even followed by an Arm-powered processor by the end of the decade. Anyone fancy a 100% ROG rig?

Even though Asus is doing its very best to let us all know that this year marks the 20th anniversary of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) branding, you may well not have picked up on the fact that it's releasing all kinds of one-off goodies to celebrate two decades of high-end gaming gear. But whatever else Asus has got planned, it's not going to top this pure blast of nostalgia for me.

Fellow PC enthusiasts, I give you the Asus ROG Crosshair 2006. Yes, I know it's just a motherboard, and if you're a recent starter in one of the best hobbies around, you might not think much about it. But if you were a hardware enthusiast around the start of the millennium, then you'll know exactly why this is ticking every box for me.

Back then, every PC component aimed at the hardcore crowd was plastered with copper heatsinks, often in some ludicrously over-the-top form that was unnecessary, since power levels back then weren't anything like as high as they are now.

To that end, Asus took its very first ROG motherboard, its latest ROG X870E Dark Hero model, and blended the two in what can only be described as a total smorgasbord of copper. Alas, it's not real copper. For example, the VRM heatsinks are "lightweight aluminum" that have been given "an eye-catching copper hue."

That's pretty disappointing, truth be told, but not entirely unexpected. After all, copper is horribly expensive these days, and that amount of the metal would make the motherboard very heavy and absurdly pricey.

And while copper has one of the highest thermal conductivities of any pure metal (second only to silver) and roughly double that of aluminum, the latter is more than good enough for use in today's cooling contraptions.

I don't really care, though. To me, the Crosshair 2006 is all about remembering the grand old times of PC modding, tweaking, and messing about. I'm not suggesting that it was better or easier to do back then; it's just that there were bigger gains to be found from overclocking stuff compared to what you can typically get with today's hardware.

This motherboard isn't a return to those days, just a visual reminder of my glory days of PC hardware schenanigans, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the vast majority of handheld gaming PCs using an AMD chip to handle graphics duties, users have been mostly limited to using FSR upscaling to give frame rates a healthy bump. However, with its latest update, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X now offers Microsoft's Auto SR as a different option, and this upscaler is powered by the processor's NPU.

You know what an NPU or neural processing unit is, right? It's that thing inside some processors that seldom gets used for anything. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat bit of hardware that's great for handling AI models without using masses of power, but hardly any applications require one to be present.

But with the Auto SR Preview feature in the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X update, that's no longer the case, because Microsoft's upscaler doesn't run on the GPU inside the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that powers the handheld PC. Instead, it's all done on the chip's NPU.

Microsoft explains why this is a good thing in a short blog about AutoSR: "When super resolution [upscaling] runs on the GPU, it counts towards frame time. To avoid impacting FPS, models are limited to a minuscule 1–2ms, constraining their size and quality. Game-integrated super resolution fits in this window and still delivers quality by relying on the game to provide more detailed texture data.

"Auto SR sidesteps this limit by running larger models on the NPU in parallel with the GPU. This gives Auto SR an entire extra frame of time to run the model—critical for devices like the ROG Xbox Ally X, that couldn’t otherwise run these models without significantly impacting FPS."

Now, it's important to note that Microsoft isn't saying that Xbox Ally X users should abandon using AMD's shader-based FSR in favour of Auto SR. Quite the opposite, in fact: "Game-integrated super resolution remains the preferred choice. Auto SR steps in where game-integrated super resolution isn’t available or when hardware constraints prevent it from simultaneously delivering quality and FPS."

In other words, a game that has been developed to use FSR natively is likely to produce better results than what Microsoft's automatic upscaler can achieve, but if that's not an option in the game, then Auto SR comes to the rescue. Well, sort of.

The system only works when the Xbox Ally X is docked and connected to an external display. The latter isn't a requirement; it's just that the only reason why you'd game on a docked handheld is to max out the power limit, so you can get the best frame rate on a big screen. But this does mean that you're still going to be using FSR, or AMD's driver-based RSR, when using the device in handheld mode.

That suggests the NPU has to work pretty hard to do Microsoft's upscaler, and even though it's designed to operate in low power conditions, the combination of the CPU, GPU, and NPU's power consumption probably isn't great for unplugged battery life.

And unfortunately, even with the update for Asus' handheld, getting Auto SR onto your Xbox Al…no, I'm not writing that silly name out again. Getting Auto SR onto your XAX is somewhat of a faff. You need to enrol in Xbox Insider to begin with, go through all the required updates in Windows, open the Xbox Game Bar to check that Auto SR is available, and install the latest Auto SR package from the Microsoft Store.

Let's hope that's all a lot simpler and easier to do once it's out of preview. Anyway, my take on all of this is that Auto SR will be a nice extra to have on laptops, once it's rolled out for more devices. And when desktop PCs with Intel Core Ultra chips, for example, get added to that pile, it might be a great way to finally make use of that NPU, while giving your graphics card a bit more breathing space to render your favourite games.

The best gaming laptop is a modern technology flex. No longer are we exclusively talking about hot, heavy, and loud beasts the size of VCRs, we're finally in the realms of thin and light machines with genuine gaming chops as well as the ability to deliver stellar frame rates even on battery power.

This is why the Razer Blade 16 is my pick as the best gaming laptop of the lot. Its newer, slimmer chassis, RTX 50-series GPU with the BatteryBoost tech, and improved cooling make it an all-round great notebook.

But that's not to say that more traditional machines don't still have a place. While I love the latest Razer Blades, MSI's Vector 16 HX is still a delightfully anachronistic thing. It does have a large, old school chassis, and it does sound loud if you ramp it up, but it also delivers a great experience on a balanced setting and does so for a great price, making it my favorite mid-range machine.

If you're looking to save some cash, though, Lenovo's LOQ range has matured to the point now where it's my pick as the best budget gaming laptop you can buy today. It's stylish, well-built, and regularly discounted.

Quick list

The best gaming laptop

We tested: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 | RTX 5090 | 32 GB | 2 TB SSD

Previous

1 / 3

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1080p gaming performance

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

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

63

34

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

50

44

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

65

47

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	63 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	50 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	65 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

62

28

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

69

41

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

79

42

020406080

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	62 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	69 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	79 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

114

76

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

88

64

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

91

67

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	114 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	88 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	91 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

117

57

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

93

60

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

113

52

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	117 Avg FPS, 57 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	93 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	113 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

117

64

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

94

50

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

124

52

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	117 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	94 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	124 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

You can see in the performance data the chassis is holding the RTX 5090 of the Blade 16 back, but the overall experience is key rather than the raw frame rates here.

Native (1600p) gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

39

29

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

28

21

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

37

22

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	39 Avg FPS, 29 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	28 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	37 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

104

73

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

85

48

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

115

76

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	104 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	85 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	115 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

61

33

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

66

36

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

77

38

020406080

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	61 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	66 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	77 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

97

82

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

76

55

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

105

67

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	97 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	76 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	105 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

97

82

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

76

55

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

105

67

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	97 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	76 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	105 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

77

46

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

57

44

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

70

52

020406080

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	77 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	57 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	70 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

169

100

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

130

66

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

168

94

050100150200

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	169 Avg FPS, 100 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	130 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	168 Avg FPS, 94 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W

90

58

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W

68

41

Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W

86

34

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16 | RTX 5090 175 W	90 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 120 W	68 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Alienware 16 Area-51 | RTX 5080 175 W	86 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS

You can see in the performance data the chassis is holding the RTX 5090 of the Blade 16 back, but the overall experience is key rather than the raw frame rates here.

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

Razer Blade 16

135

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16

112

Alienware 16 Area-51

73

037.575112.5150

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16	135
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16	112
Alienware 16 Area-51	73

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Razer Blade 16

1874

106

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16

1670

98

Alienware 16 Area-51

2297

124

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16	1874 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 106 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16	1670 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 98 Avg GPU power (W)
Alienware 16 Area-51	2297 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 124 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Razer Blade 16

86

95

82

86

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16

74

81

68

72

Alienware 16 Area-51

84

105

78

80

037.575112.5150

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 16	86 Avg CPU (°C), 95 Max CPU (°C), 82 Avg GPU (°C), 86 Max GPU (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16	74 Avg CPU (°C), 81 Max CPU (°C), 68 Avg GPU (°C), 72 Max GPU (°C)
Alienware 16 Area-51	84 Avg CPU (°C), 105 Max CPU (°C), 78 Avg GPU (°C), 80 Max GPU (°C)

The battery life of the Blade 16 puts it head and shoulders above the competition, though you can also see where the chassis is holding back the GPU and CPU at its heart.

I'll say it again, the new Razer Blade 16 is the best gaming laptop I've ever used, and I've been messing around with them professionally for the best part of 20 years now. But it's not about the fact I've been using an RTX 5090-powered version, with some pleasing gaming grunt behind it. Because it's not. The real kicker, the real reason why this is the best gaming laptop is because the experience of actually using the device itself is a genuine pleasure—whether that's gaming, productivity, or just general laptopery.

The Blade 16 is the antithesis to practically all the failings of modern gaming laptops; historically chonky machines, with atrocious battery life, and horribly loud fans. Its smart "thermal hood" and improved overall thermal design, means the Blade 16, even at full volume, doesn't get its fan noise up to the same level as something like the Asus Zephyrus G16 or the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 I've also checked out. It is still noticeable, and you're not going to want to sit in a library with the fans on full, but it has none of the turbine whoosh of the Gigabyte or the whine of the Asus.

The other thing that has got me about the Blade is that it's actually a capable gaming laptop just on the battery alone. Some of that is Razer's design, but there is also the RTX Blackwell GPU architecture's ability to quickly shift gears in terms of the frequency and power draw, within the timing of a single frame, even. That efficiency delivers a huge difference in gaming away from the plug, and Nvidia's new BatteryBoost tech helps, too. Now, it will crush the in-game settings if you allow it to optimise them on its own, but it also comes with a context-aware algorithm that will drop the frame rate to 30 fps when it sees there's limited action on screen.

And then there's that screen. We've had other 1600p OLED panels side-by-side with it and the Blade's is absolutely best—and there aren't a ton of actual OLED panel manufacturers so there must be something to Razer's tuning and electronics going on here. All told, the Blade 16 is the do-anything gaming laptop I've always wanted. It can game like a champ on the latest games at high resolution and frame rates, it can even do it on battery, and will do it quietly, too.

The best budget gaming laptop

We tested: Ryzen 7 250 | RTX 5060 (115 W) | 16 GB DDR5-5600 | 512 GB SSD

Previous

1 / 2

Next

1080p gaming performance

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

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W

36

24

Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W

29

14

Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W

32

20

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W	36 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W	29 Avg FPS, 14 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W	32 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W

60

27

Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W

48

20

Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W

69

38

020406080

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W	60 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W	48 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W	69 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W

57

39

Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W

64

31

Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W

49

41

020406080

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

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W	57 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W	64 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W	49 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W

65

34

Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W

52

18

Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W

54

25

020406080

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W	65 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W	52 Avg FPS, 18 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W	54 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W

63

46

Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W

58

19

Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W

61

20

020406080

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10 | RTX 5060 | 115 W	63 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Acer Nitro V15 | RTX 5060 | 85 W	58 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF Gaming A16 | RTX 5050 115 W	61 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS

Despite the single channel memory of the LOQ, the actual gaming performance is impressive across the board, thanks to its high-wattage GPU

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10

89

Acer Nitro V15

123

Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025

74

037.575112.5150

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10	89
Acer Nitro V15	123
Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025	74

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10

2473

71

Acer Nitro V15

2256

57

Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025

2718

42

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10	2473 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 71 Avg GPU power (W)
Acer Nitro V15	2256 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 57 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025	2718 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 42 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10

58

71

59

72

Acer Nitro V15

81

100

79

85

Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025

75

81

69

74

0255075100

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen10	58 Avg CPU (°C), 71 Max CPU (°C), 59 Avg GPU (°C), 72 Max GPU (°C)
Acer Nitro V15	81 Avg CPU (°C), 100 Max CPU (°C), 79 Avg GPU (°C), 85 Max GPU (°C)
Asus TUF Gaming A16 2025	75 Avg CPU (°C), 81 Max CPU (°C), 69 Avg GPU (°C), 74 Max GPU (°C)

The LOQ's battery life is classically poor Lenovo fare,

There is one thing that would normally have me blowing up in genuine nerd-rage at this latest Lenovo budget laptop, but my broiling temper has been calmed by the one thing that will soothe a savage gaming beast: performance. The chart-topping gaming performance of the RTX 5060 at the heart of this LOQ system, when put against all the other RTX 5060 machines we've tested, means I can accept its other configuration crimes. And that makes the new Lenovo LOQ 15 the best budget gaming laptop of this generation.

The issue in question is the fact Lenovo has, to my eternal consternation, decided to fit its LOQ 15 machine out with just a single stick of 16 GB DDR5 memory, which instantly halves the available memory bandwidth that you would have seen if there were two sticks of 8 GB DDR5 in there. Same memory capacity, twice the bandwidth, and pretty much the same price.

And today, when the price of sourcing another 16 GB SODIMM to fit alongside it is utterly punitive, that feels like a bummer. Or would if the gaming performance wasn't actually really good. Despite the cut memory bandwidth, the 1080p frame rates are excellent and at least as good, if not better, than far more expensive RTX 5060-toting laptops we've tested. Throw in some judicious use of DLSS and Frame Generation and you're getting stellar gaming frame rates from a genuinely budget laptop.

It's also a beautifully built machine, too. The 1080p screen is vibrant—much better than last year's model—and matches the GPU perfectly. The chassis is smart, too, feeling less 'gamery' than laptops you might see from other vendors, and feels reassuringly solid, with that classic great Lenovo keyboard. Listed at around $1,300, I've already seen this machine drop to the $800 mark and I would expect to see it around those levels pretty regularly throughout the regular deals seasons of the year.

The best 14-inch gaming laptop

We tested: Ryzen 9 AI 365 | RTX 5070 115 W | 32 GB RAM | 1 TB SSD

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1 / 2

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1080p gaming performance

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

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

45

28

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

44

33

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

33

14

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

40

25

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	45 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	44 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	33 Avg FPS, 14 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	40 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

65

38

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

68

31

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

63

34

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

55

32

020406080

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	65 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	68 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	63 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	55 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

65

56

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

72

59

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

51

32

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

61

38

020406080

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

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	65 Avg FPS, 56 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	72 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	51 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	61 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

78

43

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

85

47

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

55

24

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

66

15

0255075100

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	78 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	85 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	55 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	66 Avg FPS, 15 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

84

50

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

93

46

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

64

39

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

72

22

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	84 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	93 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	64 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	72 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS

The Blade 14 has the sleekest chassis of the lot, but still manages to get great gaming performance out of its RTX 5070 GPU, even up against the more powerful chip inside the Asus G14

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

134

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

106

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

156

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

110

050100150200

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	134
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	106
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	156
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	110

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

2589

97

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

2001

75

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

2246

68

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

2478

90

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	2589 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 97 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	2001 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 75 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	2246 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 68 Avg GPU power (W)
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	2478 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 90 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W

79

85

78

81

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W

74

84

75

79

Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W

72

80

74

76

Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W

68

71

75

81

0255075100

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Razer Blade 14 | RTX 5070 115 W	79 Avg CPU (°C), 85 Max CPU (°C), 78 Avg GPU (°C), 81 Max GPU (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 5070 Ti 110 W	74 Avg CPU (°C), 84 Max CPU (°C), 75 Avg GPU (°C), 79 Max GPU (°C)
Asus TUF A14 | RTX 5060 105 W	72 Avg CPU (°C), 80 Max CPU (°C), 74 Avg GPU (°C), 76 Max GPU (°C)
Acer Predator Triton 14 AI | RTX 5070 110 W	68 Avg CPU (°C), 71 Max CPU (°C), 75 Avg GPU (°C), 81 Max GPU (°C)

The Asus 14-incher, with its weaker GPU, has superior battery life, but at well over 2 hours, the Blade 14 still makes a good case for itself in the PCMark 10 gaming battery life test

For my money, the new Blade 14 is absolutely the best 14-inch gaming laptop you can buy today. Though that was certainly not the case in the previous generation, where Asus went straight for Razer's jugular, redesigning its Zephyrus G14 to create a beautiful little AMD-powered laptop that had our hearts aflutter.

But the slimmer chassis of the new Blade 14 makes it look far more modern than last year's chonker design. That was something which really put me off all the Blade laptops of the previous generation. But now we're back with the MacBook-ish aesthetic that means the new machine fits as well in a boardroom meeting as in your gaming den. Well, so long as you disable the green glow of that Razer logo on the lid anyways.

That slimmer chassis does mean Razer has had to do away with configurable memory, which means soldered memory and no option to upgrade down the line, at least not for the folk without solder for blood. That's mostly a non-issue for me, with the RTX 5070 version coming with 32 GB or 64 GB options at point of sale, but does give me pause for the RTX 5060 Blade 14. It's still more than $2,000 and comes with just 16 GB LPDDR5X and nowhere to go after that.

The Razer Blade 14 is the gaming laptop that I would actually want to be spending my own money on. I've spent a long while testing both this and the G14 together, and while the Asus is still a quality machine, I continue to use the Razer laptop as my daily driver today, for work and play. It delivers a better experience, is a better looking system, and though it is pricey (while still being cheaper than the previous generation) it's still the best 14-inch gaming laptop you can buy.

The best mid-range gaming laptop

We tested: Intel Core Ultra 9 275X | RTX 5080 | 32 GB DDR5-5600 | 1 TB

Previous

1 / 3

Next

1080p gaming performance

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

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

65

45

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

61

43

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W

50

44

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	65 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	61 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W	50 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

85

41

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

85

43

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W

69

41

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	85 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	85 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W	69 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

94

81

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

88

75

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W

88

64

0255075100

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	94 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	88 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W	88 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

122

70

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

111

50

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W

93

60

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	122 Avg FPS, 70 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	111 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W	93 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

131

63

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

120

60

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W

94

50

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	131 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	120 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 5080 1210 W	94 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS

Across the board, the MSI Vector 16 produces chart-topping 1080p gaming performance

Native (1600p) gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

39

30

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

36

22

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

28

21

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	39 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	36 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	28 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

118

79

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

104

78

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

85

48

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	118 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	104 Avg FPS, 78 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	85 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

83

43

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

82

39

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

66

36

0255075100

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	83 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	82 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	66 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

105

81

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

102

76

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

76

55

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	105 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	102 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	76 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

105

81

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

102

76

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

76

55

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	105 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	102 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	76 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

175

100

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

160

78

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

130

66

050100150200

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

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	175 Avg FPS, 100 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	160 Avg FPS, 78 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	130 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

90

62

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

84

54

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

68

41

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	90 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	84 Avg FPS, 54 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	68 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

The performance edge of the affordable Vector 16 remains even when you switch to a higher resolution and enable upscaling and frame gen in games that support it

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

88

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

102

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

112

037.575112.5150

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	88
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	102
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	112

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

2392

136

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

2150

114

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

1670

98

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	2392 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 136 Avg GPU power (W)
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	2150 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 114 Avg GPU power (W)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	1670 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 98 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW

81

91

72

75

Gigabyte Aorus Master 16

83

105

66

68

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)

74

81

68

72

037.575112.5150

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
MSI Vector 16 HX AI A2XW	81 Avg CPU (°C), 91 Max CPU (°C), 72 Avg GPU (°C), 75 Max GPU (°C)
Gigabyte Aorus Master 16	83 Avg CPU (°C), 105 Max CPU (°C), 66 Avg GPU (°C), 68 Max GPU (°C)
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2025)	74 Avg CPU (°C), 81 Max CPU (°C), 68 Avg GPU (°C), 72 Max GPU (°C)

Let's be honest, you weren't expecting to run the big ol' MSI Vector 16 away from a plug socket for long, were you?

When I first pulled the Vector 16 HX AI out of its packaging and started benchmarking it, I certainly did not expect it to be finding a spot in our best gaming laptop list. It's a chonky notebook and when you put it into top performance mode the thing sounds like a chinook trying to take off inside an echo chamber. But it's found a way into my heart and remains my pick as the best mid-range gaming laptop you can buy today.

My testing shows it delivers some of the highest gaming frame rates of any RTX 5080-powered gaming laptop we've tested in this generation. Because of those high frame rates, and the way MSI has managed its different preset modes, you're still getting gaming speeds in the balanced preset that matches many other systems' full speed modes.

And that calms down the fan noise to a level that is completely acceptable. Suddenly you have a gaming laptop which, while not a particularly svelte machine, is still able to deliver a thoroughly pleasing gaming experience.

Then there's the price. Even at its standard $2,500 price point that puts it below pretty much every other gaming laptop I've seen sporting the same Nvidia RTX 5080 mobile graphics chip. Cheaper and faster is a combo that I am always happy to get behind, and I will take a compromise if it comes in the shape of a bit of a thick machine.

The best high-performance gaming laptop

We tested: Core Ultra 9 275HX | RTX 5080 | 32 GB DDR5-6400 | 2x 1 TB SSDs

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1 / 2

Next

Native (1600p) gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

40

28

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

38

18

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

39

30

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	40 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	38 Avg FPS, 18 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	39 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

124

83

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

119

64

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

118

79

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	124 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	119 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	118 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

96

42

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

97

45

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

83

43

0255075100

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

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	96 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	97 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	83 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

111

80

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

69

43

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

105

81

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	69 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	105 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

111

80

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

102

58

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

105

81

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	102 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	105 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

77

55

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

72

32

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

71

52

020406080

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	77 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	72 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	71 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

184

91

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

175

107

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

175

100

050100150200

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

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	184 Avg FPS, 91 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	175 Avg FPS, 107 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	175 Avg FPS, 100 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

96

65

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

90

35

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

90

62

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	96 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	90 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	90 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS

If you put the Legion 7i Pro up against any other RTX 5080-powered laptop it will smoke it. This is the fastest gaming laptop for a reason

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

73

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

96

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

88

0255075100

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	73
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	96
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	88

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

2375

127

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

2324

126.5

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

2392

136

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	2375 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 127 Avg GPU power (W)
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	2324 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 126.5 Avg GPU power (W)
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	2392 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 136 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W

94

105

74

79

HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W

98

105

70

75

MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

81

91

72

75

037.575112.5150

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro | RTX 5080 175 W	94 Avg CPU (°C), 105 Max CPU (°C), 74 Avg GPU (°C), 79 Max GPU (°C)
HP Omen Max 16 | RTX 5080 175 W	98 Avg CPU (°C), 105 Max CPU (°C), 70 Avg GPU (°C), 75 Max GPU (°C)
MSI Vector 16 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	81 Avg CPU (°C), 91 Max CPU (°C), 72 Avg GPU (°C), 75 Max GPU (°C)

The gaming battery life of the Lenovo is classically poor, but it makes up for it by being one of the most configurable gaming laptops around

It may be another chonker of a gaming laptop, there is a real style to Lenovo's latest Legion Pro 7i design, and more than a little Alienware-esque flair, too. The geometric RGB rings around the rear exhaust ports on the machine, and the front light bar give it that effect, and a real eye-catching style. But it's the gaming frame rates which have made this Legion Pro 7i the best high-performance gaming laptop on our list.

And I've tested a bunch of them now. For me, if it's a question of a top two, then it's between the Blade 16 and this new Legion Pro 7i. In terms of pure performance alone you couldn't look beyond the Lenovo—it tops the Razer machine's RTX 5090 with a lower sticker price and theoretically weaker GPU—but if you want a do-everything notebook with genuine battery gaming chops, the Blade is 100% where it's at.

That Legion gaming performance comes at a cost, however, with either loud fans at the top performance preset, or weak gaming performance otherwise. Thankfully, the LegionSpace app comes to the rescue, offering a custom mode with a granular level of tweakery to please any PC nerd; to a level which is rather unprecedented and the sort of thing gaming laptops have been crying out for.

With it, I can restrain the excesses of the Intel CPU while letting the Nvidia GPU run free, keeping fan noise in check while I do so. This means there's little compromise to gaming performance, fan noise stays relatively low, and I can flip on the DLSS 4 extras, such as Multi Frame Gen and see frankly ludicrous gaming performance from this machine.

The best 18-inch gaming laptop

We tested: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX | Nvidia RTX 5090 | 64 GB DDR5-6400 | 2 TB SSD

Previous

1 / 2

Next

Native gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

48

36

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

18

11

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

20

14

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	48 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	18 Avg FPS, 11 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	20 Avg FPS, 14 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

125

74

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

61

47

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

102

27

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	125 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	61 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	102 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

94

47

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

71

59

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

78

52

0255075100

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

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	94 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	71 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	78 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

118

98

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

67

58

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

91

61

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	118 Avg FPS, 98 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	67 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	91 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

118

98

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

67

58

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

91

61

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	118 Avg FPS, 98 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	67 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	91 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

89

68

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

35

27

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

68

52

0255075100

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	89 Avg FPS, 68 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	35 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	68 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

131

76

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

89

63

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

103

64

037.575112.5150

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

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	131 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	89 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	103 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p

111

66

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p

52

39

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p

60

31

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W | 1600p	111 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W | 2400p	52 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 | 2400p	60 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS

Even with upscaling enabled, you can see how badly the gaming performance of these laptops is affected running at 4K resolutions. That's where the Alienware's 1600p screen wins

System performance

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test)GPU statsGaming temperatures

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W

81

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

93

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W

71

0255075100

Battery life (PC Mark 10 gaming test) Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W	81
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	93
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W	71

Avg GPU freq. (MHz)

Avg GPU power (W)

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W

2169

166

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

2236

131

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W

2145

104

07501,5002,2503,000

GPU stats Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W	2169 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 166 Avg GPU power (W)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	2236 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 131 Avg GPU power (W)
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W	2145 Avg GPU freq. (MHz), 104 Avg GPU power (W)

Avg CPU (°C)

Max CPU (°C)

Avg GPU (°C)

Max GPU (°C)

Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W

80

88

67

70

MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W

82

94

72

74

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W

77

104

76

79

037.575112.5150

Gaming temperatures Data

Product	Value
Alienware 18 Area-51 | RTX 5090 175 W	80 Avg CPU (°C), 88 Max CPU (°C), 67 Avg GPU (°C), 70 Max GPU (°C)
MSI Raider 18 HX AI | RTX 5080 175 W	82 Avg CPU (°C), 94 Max CPU (°C), 72 Avg GPU (°C), 74 Max GPU (°C)
Acer Predator Helios 18 AI | RTX 5090 175 W	77 Avg CPU (°C), 104 Max CPU (°C), 76 Avg GPU (°C), 79 Max GPU (°C)

The RTX 5090 is a top-end GPU and the most power-hungry of all Nvidia chips, and that has a material impact on its ability to game on battery at full speed

There's something delightfully old-school about the new Alienware 18 Area-51. Its anodised aluminum chassis is anachronistic in all the right ways, while still feeling modern. I'm into it, is what I'm saying, especially in this large, desktop replacement form. In fact, right now, the Alienware 18 Area-51 is the best 18-inch gaming laptop you can buy. And we've tested a good few of this generation.

The Alienware's 2560 x 1600 screen maybe doesn't necessarily lend itself perfectly to that notion, maybe not for the budding video producer managing 4K video day-in, day-out. But what it does mean is that you can get great gaming performance out of both the mobile GPU at the machine's heart and the panel it's pumping pixels onto.

This is what the Alienware 18 Area-51 is actually best at, because when paired with the RTX 5090 mobile graphics chip you are able to get the most out of that powerful slice of GPU silicon. I have tested an RTX 5090 version of the HP Omen Max 16, and that does deliver marginally higher frame rates, but it's clear the serious cooling on offer with the Alienware machine is letting the Nvidia chip do its thing more than capably.

It's not a perfect desktop replacement, however. Honestly, in a high-priced 18-inch laptop I want a great screen, and this one just isn't. It's fine, but an OLED at least would be more than welcome, as would even a higher resolution panel. Sure, you do get 300 Hz refresh when powered directly from the discrete GPU itself, but it's still not a winner. Still, this is an excellent big-screen gaming laptop that beats out the rest of the 18-inch competition because of its quality cooling, funky chassis, and excellent overall gaming and computational performance.

Best gaming laptop battery life

How we test gaming laptops

For the new generation of gaming laptops we have changed our testing suite for the new machines coming through in 2025. Part of that is bringing in more up to date games, but also ensuring that we're capturing both gaming at a consistent, comparative 1080p resolution as well as at each machine's native resolution.

We are currently using Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, F1 24, and Metro Exodus Enhanced Ed. as our GPU testing suite. This gives us a spread of third-person, first-person, driving, and RPG/strategy games to really push the machines being tested, and also allows us to feature the latest in GPU features, such as upscaling and frame generation.

As such, we have also included a 'real-world' benchmark for games where that makes sense in our reviews, where we utilise both Quality upscaling as well as frame generation where available. We also test without so that we can get a bead on how the hardware performs, but this metric allows you to see what sort of frame rates you can get in standard gaming.

As well as games, we use the industry standard 3DMark benchmarks of Time Spy Extreme, Port Royal—for ray tracing performance—and the storage benchmark to see how the system will work in terms of slick game loading.

We track both gaming temperatures, using Nvidia's Frameview application while capturing both average and 1% Low frame rates, and we also capture thermals of both CPU and GPU while engaging in more productivity lead testing.

On that count we run Cinebench 2024 for CPU-based rendering, 7zip 24.07 for general CPU performance, Blender 4.2.0 to test both CPU and GPU rendering performance, and Procyon to test a machine's AI image generation capabilities.

Finally, we use the PCMark 10 Gaming battery life benchmark to allow us to get a standard number for how long a machine will stand up to the rigours of modern gaming.

But we also run some experiential tests on a given system, which will involve using it as a day-to-day PC for work and play, ensuring we get a read on how well a machine performs across different use cases. We also check out a system's panel—we use Lagom's LCD test images to help discern things like black levels and white saturation as well as general desktop and gaming testing to see how it feels to use a laptop's screen.

It's also important to check the actual gaming frequency of both a laptop's GPU and CPU, to see how a given slice of silicon performs given the thermal constraints of different notebook chassis.

We will also open up every laptop, not only to see how easy it is to get the back off the different machines, but also to see whether it's possible to upgrade or repair anything inside them. It's important to see whether there might be a second M.2 SSD slot hiding away in there, or whether there is upgradeable memory, or whether some unscrupulous manufacturer has decided to just go with single channel memory or some such poor play.

Personally I also like to always write a review of a given laptop on the machine itself. That gives you a good feel about both the trackpad and keyboard, as well as the ergonomics of the chassis design, too.

We then bring all of that subjective and objective data together alongside the price to decide how well each machine we test stands up against all the other gaming laptops we've looked at in our combined decades of PC hardware testing.

How to spot the best deal

👉The latest gaming laptop deals are right here👈

FAQ

The ASUS ROG Xbox Ally released in late 2025 and was marketed as an Xbox device (remember This Is An Xbox?), but it'll play mostly everything in your Steam library—providing the hardware specs allow it—and it even plays nice with the Epic Games Store. It was the lesser spec'ed of two Xbox Allys: the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X is the more premium model and PC Gamer's Dave James reviewed it favourably, though it is extremely expensive, especially in light of a February price hike.

Not wanting to fork out AU$1,799 for the ROG Xbox Ally X is totally understandable, but if you're after a decent handheld that'll play the vast majority of indies plus a lot of modern blockbusters, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally will probably suit you. Its launch price was AU$999, but right now Amazon is selling it for AU$769, shipping included.

It's not the cheapest handheld gaming PC on the market: that would be the OG Steam Deck LCD, which Valve is selling for AU$649 at the moment until stock runs out, at which point it'll be gone for good.

So which should you get? I love the Steam Deck, and have written about how indispensable its trackpads have become for me. Performance between Steam Deck LCD and Xbox Ally are pretty similar, though the Xbox Ally has a 7 inch 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the LCD has a 7 inch 800p display. The Xbox Ally has double the storage of the Steam Deck LCD at 512GB.

Leaving performance aside, the hugest point in the Xbox Ally's favour is that it runs on Windows 11. That's not good for a lot of reasons, but it's ideal for players who predominantly play online games that implement anticheat that's incompatible with Steam's Linux-based OS, such as Marathon or Destiny 2. The Xbox Ally is a clear winner in that department.

If you're in the market for a handheld gaming PC and don't mind spending more, check out our roundup of the best handheld gaming PCs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many folks will get on perfectly well with just one monitor. However, if you're a PC gamer whose galaxy brain simply can't be contained by a single screen, have I got some deals for you.

First up, if you'll bear with the sense of deja vu for just a moment, is the LG UltraGear 32GX850A-B. Yes, our Andy did write a different deal post about this 32-inch 4K OLED earlier in the week, but it's only gone and come down in price since then. Now you can get this lovely dual-mode gaming monitor for only $750 from Amazon.

As for my second deal of the day, make some noise for the 27-inch Asus ROG Strix XG27UCG. If you're on a budget, this could take centre-stage as your primary gaming panel for only $299 from Amazon. Our Jeremy previously rated this more affordable option in his Asus ROG Strix XG27UCG gaming monitor review, effectively crowning it as our pick for the best budget 4K gaming monitor.

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If you have the funds for both of the above, I can only imagine how powerful your dual screen setup will be. But if I'm being completely honest, the Asus ROG Strix XG27UCG is kind of overkill if you're just using it for second screen viewing or document spelunking.

Sure, you make a saving on this 4K monitor as it's an IPS panel, and not an OLED. But it's also a dual-mode monitor that can swap into a lower resolution, higher refresh mode; in other words, you're getting both a 4K, 160 Hz monitor and a 1080p, 320 Hz monitor in one for under $300.

Throwing it back over to the LG 32GX850A-B, this OLED with a typical brightness of 275 nits features dual-modes as well. For $750, you get 4K at 165Hz, and 1080p at an even speedier 330Hz. Given that a recent poll revealed that there are as many 4K gamers as 1080p ones among PC Gamer's ranks, this is arguably the best of both worlds.

That said, while this is a great deal on an OLED monitor, you'll need a decent GPU to get the most out of it in 4K. It's definitely worth checking our best GPU deals guide for bargains, but the best graphics cards often come at a premium. In other words, while you may be saving a buck on the monitor, committing to the high resolution, high-ish refresh rate gaming lifestyle might cost you in the end.

👉Check out all of Amazon's gaming monitor deals here👈

On paper, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB makes a whole lot of sense. I was particularly impressed by the RX 9060 XT 16 GB when I tested it last year, and the 8 GB version is usually substantially cheaper. In fact, out of all of AMD and Nvidia's current-generation graphics cards, it's the most affordable of the lot. Dropping the VRAM to 8 GB can't make that much of a difference, can it?

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yes it can. Not all the time, of course. Certain games at high settings, though, will hamper the AMD card's performance quite badly—and crucially, in a more significant way than its main competition, the Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB.

Does that make the RX 9060 XT 8 GB a total write off? Nope. In fact, if the Nvidia card didn't exist, I'd be tempted to call the AMD GPU's performance pretty good for its paltry MSRP of $299. The RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB doesn't have it all its own way in my benchmarks, either. Sometimes the AMD contender pulls ahead, so it's not a super clear-cut thing.

But there are a couple of caveats to be aware of. One, you won't find one of these for less than $350 right now, and the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB tends to bottom out around $390-$400. And two, when the RX 9060 XT 8 GB drops off the pace, it's sometimes by a significant amount. Again, these drops are in certain games at certain settings, so it's not a completely consistent thing. But it's enough to give me pause, and I think you should consider your options, too.

It's far from a bad graphics card, and one that'll serve you fine if money's a real concern and you need something that can cope with modern gaming. But the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB handles VRAM-constrained situations significantly better in many of my tests, and that's the sort of headroom that I think's worth paying for. At least when the price difference between the two is this tight.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Features

The RX 9060 XT 8 GB uses the same Navi 44 chip as the 16 GB version, based on AMD's RDNA 4 architecture. With that comes a loadout of 2048 Shader Cores, 32 Compute Units, 32 dedicated Ray Accelerators, and 64 Matrix Cores—essentially the equivalent of Nvidia's mixed precision, AI inferencing Tensor Cores.

While both the RX 9060 XT 8 GB and the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB have the same RAM loadout in terms of size, the Nvidia card uses speedy GDDR7 over a 128-bit bus for a total max memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, while the AMD equivalent uses slower GDDR6 over the same sized bus. That means a max memory bandwidth of 322.23 GB/s, significantly less than the RTX 5060 Ti.

The RX 9060 XT has 32 KB of L0 cache per workgroup processor (essentially two Compute Units), 4 MB of L2 cache, and 32 MB of L3. This multi-layered system is again in contrast to Nvidia's cache handling, which equates to 128 KB per Shader Module of L1 cache, and 32 MB of L2.

In terms of clock speeds, the stock RX 9060 XT has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a "game clock" of 2530 MHz, and a max boost clock of 3130 MHz.

The game clock figure represents the average sustained speed during a typical gaming workload, although my particular review sample, the Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT OC Edition, lists a higher sustained game clock figure of 2760 MHz—likely due to the fact it has a surprisingly large, tri-fan, 2.5 slot cooler.

This seems a little overkill for an RX 9060 XT, which has proven itself to be a cool-running graphics chip even with the small, twin-fan cooler equipped to the 16 GB version I tested last year. I found that card to regularly sustain somewhere near its top max boost speeds while keeping temperatures low, and this Asus 8 GB sample is much the same.

Asus doesn't list the exact TGP of this particular variant, but it does suggest a 550 W power supply, 100 W more than the official minimum spec. The default RX 9060 XT 8 GB has a TGP of 150 W, although I've recorded a peak power draw of this card at 175 W under extremely heavy load.

Again, the default RX 9060 XT 16 GB sample I reviewed previously also liked to jump over its 160 W TGP at points, managing an even larger peak of 182 W.

Around the back is a single HDMI 2.1b port, and two 2.1a DisplayPort connections. One last thing to note about this particular Asus card is the addition of a small switch tucked into the backplate, which allows you to switch between Performance and Quiet fan modes. I've left it in performance mode for my testing, as this card runs quiet even when pushed to its maximum.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Performance

And so, to the meat and potatoes: gaming performance. Initially, I was pleased to see that the cheaper RX 9060 XT 8 GB managed to get within three frames of the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB in Black Myth Wukong at 1080p on average, which suggested to me that I was likely to have a fight on my hands between the two.

In Cyberpunk 2077, however, the wheels really come off for the AMD card.