The PlayStation 5 emulation scene has been a wonder to witness, with rapid progress matching the community's ambition. The latest development on this frontier is SharpEmu, an open-source PS5 emulator, successfully running on the Steam Deck with Astro's Playroom even booting to show the PlayStation Studios loading screen. The framerate doesn't go past 1 FPS, but the fact that it's even running is very impressive.

We scoured the internet for more information on this but couldn't find anything. This seems to be the first and only case of someone getting a PS5 game to load on a Steam Deck without streaming involved. The video above shows the Steam Deck in its desktop mode inside SteamOS, which is based on Linux. Performance fluctuates between 0.5 FPS and 1 FPS according to the overlay in the corner, and the audio is just as choppy.

SharpEmu can smoothly run lightweight 2D titles like Dead Cells and Dreaming Sarah on more capable hardware, but the team's focus is not on compatibility. KytyPS5 is far more advanced in terms of the games people have been able to boot on it, including 3D titles like Demon's Souls. However, Kyty is limited to Windows while SharpEmu has native support for Linux and Mac, and there's even an unofficial Android fork.

We tried this version on a OnePlus 12 and were able to get Dreaming Sarah to show an initial splash screen with the developer's logo. After that, though, the screen turns black, and nothing happens, despite the FPS counter constantly hovering around 60 FPS. A few questionably optimistic users on Reddit have even suggested running SharpEmu on Android through Winlator, so that GTA VI can be played on Android once it launches.

Just like the Steam Deck, even the fact that the game launches on Android is a mighty feat and a testament to the sheer ambition of this community. SharpEmu is only meant for x86 devices; it runs on Apple Silicon Macs through the Rosetta 2 translation layer, and on Windows-on-Arm devices through Microsoft's Prism translation layer. But since it's written in C# from scratch, evidently, the code can be recompiled for Android.

With the ongoing component crisis making even consoles more expensive to purchase, and the death of physical media right around the corner, emulation is once again being touted as a cornerstone of preservation. With a roadmap to playing GTA VI on PC without waiting a few years for a port no doubt in the back of everyone's minds.

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is now the world's most valuable Chinese company after passing Tencent today, with a market cap of $524 billion against the Internet giant's $511 billion. CXMT's own shares fell 1.2% on the day; the crossover happened because Tencent fell further after disclosing a 176% surge in capital spending on AI infrastructure in its second-quarter results. In doing so, CXMT has taken the top spot less than three weeks after its 466% first-day surge in Shanghai. Tencent is itself a CXMT customer, having signed a $3 billion server DRAM agreement with the memory maker in June.

Tencent reported second-quarter revenue of RMB 204.8 billion ($30.3 billion) on Wednesday, up 11% year-over-year, with capital expenditure climbing 176% to RMB 52.8 billion as the company bought computing capacity for its AI models and agents. Free cash flow went negative at RMB 13.8 billion. Tencent's U.S.-listed shares dropped 5.34% following the report, extending a decline that's reached 26% so far in 2026, even as domestic games revenue grew 17% and marketing services revenue rose 22%.

A slice of that spending will flow to the company that just displaced it. Alongside the June agreement with Tencent, CXMT signed a five-year server DRAM deal worth more than $7 billion with ByteDance in July, and server products grew from 8.4% of CXMT's revenue in 2024 to 26.5% in 2025. Investors are penalizing the buyer of AI hardware while rewarding its supplier, in part over the same purchase orders.

CXMT held 7.67% of the global DRAM market in 2025, according to sales figures in its IPO prospectus. Its $524 billion market cap now sits at roughly half of Micron's $1 trillion and about 60% of SK hynix's $880 billion, and the company plans to close the output gap with a sixth mega-fab and a 30% DRAM share target by 2030, though it still lacks the EUV lithography tools its rivals use.

CXMT swung to an operating profit of 35.43 billion yuan ($5.2 billion) in the first quarter from a 2.83 billion yuan loss a year earlier, riding DRAM prices that have climbed throughout the ongoing memory shortage. The company became the first semiconductor firm to top mainland China's stock market in its 35-year history when it listed on July 27, raising $8.6 billion in an IPO whose retail tranche was 212 times oversubscribed.

Analysts remain far apart on whether CXMT’s ranking holds water, however, with Nomura's price target of 116 yuan implying further upside, while Morningstar's fair value estimate of 14.90 yuan puts the stock at more than three times what the firm thinks it's worth.

Keychron, which is known for making some of the best mechanical keyboards, just announced the C100 8K macro pad, which is available on Amazon and the Keychron website for $64.99. This massive device features a 10-by-10 customizable keyboard, allowing you to set its functionality as needed (except for the four corner keys). It also uses exclusive pre-lubed Keychron Apex tactile switches, paired with transparent ASA keycaps, making it easier to see its per-key RGB lighting.

• Get the Keychron C100 8K on Amazon

The C100 8K is not just any macro pad, though. It features hot-swappable switches, so you can easily replace the Keychron Apex switches with ones that you prefer. It also has an 8K polling rate, making it the perfect macro pad for high-stakes competitive matches. This makes it the perfect addition for those who need a macro pad for both gaming and productivity. The online Keychron QMK launcher also makes it easy to customize the keyboard without requiring you to install software directly on your PC.

This macro pad is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, meaning it will work with most major desktop operating systems. It’s the perfect addition for those who want to be more efficient and find that their MMORPG mouse still doesn’t offer enough buttons for their needs. Because Keychron is known for making some of the best wireless and budget mechanical keyboards, we have high expectations for the functionality and feel of the C100 8K. The only drawback that we can see is that it doesn’t come with a wireless option, so it might be annoying or even a no-go to those who want a wire-free desk.

100 keys might be overkill for most people, but these are actually crucial for those with specialized workloads. Aside from productivity enthusiasts and gamers who want to keep all complicated macros and commands at their fingertips, these are also useful for video editors who work on projects that have hundreds of layers, photo editors working on thousands of images, programmers who frequently input the same commands over and over again, and more. This is also great for sim enthusiasts who want to recreate all the buttons found in race cars, aircraft, trucks, and more, without spending more money on specialized panels. And if they have access to a 3D printer, they can even build their own specialized keycaps for the C100 8K macro pad, turning it from a generic macro pad into something that shows the actual buttons they use for their sims.

The strategy of using last-gen laptop parts in mini PCs used to mean excellent performance at competitive prices. At least, it did until the RAMpocalypse swept across tech. Nevertheless, Geekom is pushing the idea that its IT13 Max, using a Core Ultra 9 185H at $799, offers a value option in mid-2026. Looking at some of the other prices for mini PCs we’ve seen recently, it might be right.

Other than the reasonable Ultra 9 tier price for the performance, RAM and storage in the current market, Geekom delivers a very competent mini PC here. It looks like an unassuming, business-like machine from the outside, but has plenty of ports, easy internal access, and is very sturdy.

Design of the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

Geekom’s new IT13 Max 2026 follows a very traditional NUC design. With its just-under-a-liter volume, this black device is just slightly bigger in every dimension than the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG (0.8 L), and shares a lot of the matte dark understated design and subtle branding of that unit. Later on, you’ll notice this pair has a lot in common when it comes to performance, too, despite being two Intel generations apart and featuring a huge price gap.

Geekom uses a matte plastic outer shell here, but the perforated venting areas to the sides and removable bottom plate are metal, as is an inner chassis. It is pretty easy to get into the IT13 Max, as there are just four screws positioned in the center of the rubber feet.

Users have access to power and headphones on the front panel, and a wide range of fast USB, networking, and monitor connection options. Geekom hasn’t implemented any biometrics in the power button, for example, and also eschews the addition of a Copilot button.

Geekom IT13 Max 2026 Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

When I decided to look inside, two of the four rubber feet could be unscrewed by hand, but another pair were just a little too tight, so I had to reach for my Phillips-head screwdriver. Once you get into this Geekom mini PC, there’s not much you can do, as the RAM is soldered.

The only upgrades users have access to are swapping the installed M.2 devices. There’s an M.2 2280 SSD slot with the NVMe PCIe4 500GB Kingston drive and thermal pad in place. Under that is the system’s M.2 2230 wireless connectivity card. To the side of these, I saw a vacant M.2 2242 slot. Oddly, the spec sheet I got from Geekom mentioned 2.5-inch SATA SSD/HDD expansion options, and not M.2 2242. There seemed to be an unused SATA header area on the motherboard, so perhaps specs were changed at a late stage of development.

The system offers a good array of ports built-in, and I didn’t want or need to reach for a docking solution during testing.

On the front of this mini PC, there is a generous row of four USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports. One of these supports always-on smart device charging. Next to these ports is a 3.5 mm audio jack and an inset power button with a white LED to indicate it is powered up.

On the left side, there is a full-size SD card reader, and on the right, you will find a Kensington lock slot.

At the rear of the IT13 Max 2026, there’s a series of vents, and below them, most of the I/O. This includes a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 2.0 Type-A, two USB4 Type-C (both with DP-Alt, one offers Power in), two RJ-45 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports, a pair of HDMI 2.0 ports, and a DC‑in barrel jack for the supplied power brick.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

Geekom boasts of all-round flagship performance from this new mini PC and thankfully skips any outlandish AI-related claims. Now we are getting down to testing, we shall see if there are any glaring weaknesses that come from choosing Intel’s previous-previous-gen silicon.

Geekom has opted for older silicon in the IT13 Max 2026, utilizing Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H (16C/22T), which boosts up to 5.1 GHz, and shares die space with an Arc iGPU featuring eight Xe cores. This is quite a lot of compute and GPU resources in a little SoC, and that’s why the Ultra 9 185H was one of the top mobile processors a couple of years ago. There’s an NPU on board, too, but it can only muster 11 TOPS according to Intel’s data sheets. The question is if that chip, alongside 24GB of RAM and a 500GB, still stands up.

In the comparison charts above, you can see how the IT13 Max squared up to more modern rivals. In Cinebench 2026, Maxon’s current-gen CPU rendering benchmark, the single-thread result of ~450 points does mean that the Meteor Lake machine does trail the pack, but it isn’t a disaster. Turning to the multicore result in the same test, the latest Geekom mini PC with its older “Meteor Lake” chip basically matches the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG based on Intel “Panther Lake” silicon. Admittedly, the former’s 16C/22T core/thread count and higher power limits lift it against the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H with 16C/16T in the MSI.

In HandBrake, the Geekom managed 13 frames per second on our standard video transcoding test. That’s neck and neck with the MSI, again, but only with very long videos would you likely notice how it lags behind.

Gaming and Graphics on the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

The Geekom IT13 Max isn't hopeless in gaming, but it sits in the lower portion of our mini PC game benchmark comparison tables. It mostly performs better than the MSI Panther Lake mini PC, again. Not bad for something from two generations prior.

For my traditional spell of gaming fun before serious benchmarking, I decided to go on a quick adventure in Borderlands GOTY Enhanced (2019). The game ran at an average of about 80 frames per second when using the High preset at 1080p. I didn’t have any problem with frame rates mostly in the 80s, periodic dips in the frame chart looked worse than they actually felt during the game. It is definitely an older game now, and while the iGPU ran at close to its max utilization on my uncapped frame rate run, the CPU was barely burdened.

I also ran a few synthetic gaming benchmarks, a trio of 3DMark tests. One of those was the cross-platform 3DMark Solar Bay, which is well-weighted for iGPU performance comparisons, delivering playable frame rates on this type of graphics hardware.

The Geekom IT13 Max 2026 earned a score of 13,430 in this test. The Meteor Lake mini PC’s score (with eight Xe-LPG) cores is about 18% faster than the newer Panther Lake rival (with four Xe3-LPG cores). Both of them, and the AMD Ryzen AI mini PCs we have tested crumble in comparison with the GMKtec Evo-T2 with the best Panther Lake iGPU, the 12 Xe3-LPG core B390.

Moving onto some popular AAA gaming titles, I next checked how Shadow of the Tomb Raider performed on the Geekom. Its average of 37 and minimum of 29 frames per second put it once more very squarely in the same territory as the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG mini PC.

Cyberpunk 2077 was technically playable using the Steam Deck 1080p preset that we have been using for mini PC comparisons. Its average and 1% low results were 36 and 30 frames per second, respectively. Very slightly behind the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG this time by both those metrics. Running Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p using the high preset (no upscaling tech) is not recommended, as the IT13 Max achieved an average of 21 frames per second.

The overall picture that emerged was that the Geekom IT13 Max 2026 isn’t bad at modern gaming with low-ish settings, with upscaling if available, but is more suited to lighter and older titles.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

I tested the IT13 Max 2026 with the default power profile Geekom shipped it with, which is a Processor Base Power (PBP, PL1) of 45W, a Maximum Turbo Power (MTP, PL2) of 70W, and a PL4 of 120W, according to system information tools. During testing, I measured total system power consumption with a plug-in power meter, as well as reading the CPU temperatures using a Windows utility.

At low load, with Google Docs open for typing among a few other browser tabs, the system consistently pulled around 14W. At the same time, the CPU temperature would stick around 43 degrees Celsius.

During prolonged stress testing of the IT13 Max 2026, the highest wattage consumed by the whole system momentarily spiked to around 85W, but a stable sustained level of ~70W was generally observed. It also seemed to stabilize at approximately the 70 degrees Celsius level after initially climbing higher.

The Geekom is a quiet mini PC, but you can hear the small cooling fan blowing clearly if it is put through any demanding CPU or GPU task. My meter showed 29.8 dB when idling, which is good, but the noise level ramped to a more than noticeable 52.3 dB when the system was under a sustained load.

Software and Warranty on the Geekom IT13 Max 2026

This mini PC came with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled and activated. As usual, before testing, we ensured Windows and drivers were fully up to date.

There were no utilities added by Geekom. Checking the Installed Apps list on Windows revealed both Realtek Audio Console and Realtek Card Reader as the only non-standard components in a typical Windows install.

Linux is also fully supported, according to the official spec sheets.

Geekom sells the IT13 Max 2026 with a three-year warranty, though the company does require you to pay a return shipping fee.

Geekom IT13 Max 2026 configurations

Geekom sells just one configuration of the IT13 Max 2026 — the one we have tested with 24GB of soldered LPDDR5 RAM and a 500GB SSD preinstalled.

Those browsing and interested in this particular configuration should be careful, though. Geekom is still selling an older variant of the IT13 Max with very similar specs but with two SODIMM slots, making it expandable to 96GB of DDR5-5600 memory. This other Core Ultra 9 185H device comes with a single 16GB SODIMM and a 1TB SSD preinstalled. It is usually $899, but Geekom is currently selling this version for the same $799 if you prefer its RAM/SSD configuration.

Bottom Line

During my testing of the Geekom IT13 Max 2026, I found it to be a dependable device. In the current climate, the soldered dual-channel 24GB of RAM might be a sweet spot if you want your integrated GPU to access a decent chunk of the memory pool. It is interesting to see the prior IT Max model now moved down to the same $799 price if you don’t want to accept soldered RAM, would like more preinstalled storage, and are otherwise attracted to owning a tiny PC powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 9 185H with its 16C/22T and reasonable Arc iGPU.

It is very interesting to see this mini PC match the far more modern MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG we tested recently (which costs far more, as is often the case for enterprise pricing) in many of the benchmark applications and games. The MSI uses a Core Ultra 9 386H, so this is a reasonably fair U9 vs U9 comparison. In practice, the Geekom even seemed to idle at a slightly lower wattage than the MSI, but admittedly, it would pull around 70W under load, which is 15W more than the MSI Panther Lake was observed consuming. This points to one of the biggest attractions of most mainstream Panther Lake CPUs being their efficiency, which is far more important in a laptop than a mini PC like this.

To conclude, this does indeed seem like a capable, moderately quiet under light day-to-day loads, and power-efficient offering for the ticket price in mid-2026. At $799 the prior model might offer some of the best competition if removable RAM, albeit just 16GB, and a 1TB preinstalled SSD can sway you.

If you want the perfect desk setup for either your gaming battlestation or home office, then there is quite a lot of furniture to consider. The obvious pieces of furniture you need for any room are a desk and chair, but you also need to think about how you want to position your PC: will it be on the desk, on the floor, or on a wheeled tray if you don't want to suck in the carpet dust? Whether you're going to use the default monitor stand or mount the screen to an arm or even to the wall to free up precious desk space, and whether you're going to use a microphone boom arm for easy mic positioning.

There are also smaller, but equally important pieces such as mats for using under the wheels of a chair to protect your flooring; headphone and gaming headset stands for holding or charging your headset when not in use. Plus other small ideas that may help fully equip your PC/home office environment.

We've used our expertise to find the best deals on the best equipment that we think could help you in your journey to complete the ultimate setup.

Quick Links: Best PC Furniture Deals

● Find ergonomic gaming chair deals at Amazon
● Save $109 off Secretlab gaming desks
● Grab 50% off a chair mat at Best Buy and protect your carpet or flooring

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Maxsun isn't that well-known in the U.S, but the China-based company has been around since 2002, and a player in the motherboard game (as well as things like graphics cards and storage) overseas for decades. In that time, it has released some unique motherboard designs, such as the Intel-based iCraft B760M Cross, which features its anime-based brand mascot, Aijia, on the box, with pink and light blue highlights on the white PCB. It was a cool board, but like many of the company's previous samples, it was not without shortcomings.

Today we're testing Maxsun's Terminator B850M Pro II, a budget Micro ATX AM5 board that sports a black aesthetic and is generally well-equipped for a small-form-factor motherboard. You get support for the latest flagship-class processors like the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 (as well as future AM5 processors), Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5 GbE networking, three M.2 sockets (two PCIe 5.0 x4) and two SATA ports for storage, and room for expansion with two full-length PCIe slots. I would like to see faster USB ports (the fastest is only 10 Gbps) and perhaps a better audio codec, but this board is otherwise comparable to similarly priced B850M options.

The performance portion of our testing went smoothly, but results were average to below average, depending on the test. The Terminator B850M Pro II was competent at gaming and some of the single/lightly threaded tests, mixing in with most other boards, but was slower in heavily multi-threaded tests with our Ryzen 9 9900X.

Below, we’ll examine the B850M Pro II’s performance and other features, although as you have probably guessed from the score above, it won't make it to our list of the best motherboards. But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from the Maxsun website:

Specifications of the B850M Pro II

Inside the Box

Inside the box along with the motherboard, the only accessories included are the Wi-Fi antennas, two SATA cables, and a warranty card. That’s it. No stickers, extra thermal pads, nada. It’s paltry by any standard, but it’s still enough to get your SATA-based drives connected and your new PC online.

Design and Features of the B850M Pro II

The B850M Pro II uses an 8-layer matte-black PCB, with large heatsinks covering the VRMs, M.2 sockets, and chipset. The black motif is broken up by two crimson lines running diagonally across the heatsinks. You will not find integrated RGB lighting, but can add it using the existing ARGB headers. It’s not an exciting Micro ATX board vying for attention, but does blend in with any black or dark build theme.

Starting our tour in the top-left corner, we see the two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required between the two separate VRM heatsinks. On the left, we get a better look at the Terminator branding on top of the large heatsink. Nothing extraordinary here.

Moving past the socket area to the right, the next feature we encounter is the four DRAM slots, with the locking mechanism located on top. Maxsun lists support up to DDR5-8000, which is a bit lower than most B850 (and X870) boards, but still well past AMD’s sweet spot (6000-6400 MT/s). We couldn’t get our DDR5-8000 kit to boot, even with the APU, but it’s to be expected as those speeds are right at the limit and our sticks weren’t on the memory QVL. No worries, as our DDR5-6000 and DDR5-7200 kits worked just fine without the help of an APU and its generally superior memory controller.

In the upper-right corner, next we see the first of two 3-pin ARGB headers (the other is along the bottom edge). The Maxsun Sync 2 software controls any attached RGB lighting and gives users your typical fare of pre-programmed lighting and customization (speed, color, etc.). But that’s the only piece of software the company offers for this board.

Moving down the right edge, we run into the first two (of five) 4-pin fan headers. Since we don’t have access to the manual (one wasn't included in the box and we can't find one online), and the specifications on the web page don’t mention it, we’re not sure how much each header supports. We’ve reached out to Maxsun for clarity, but until they respond, assume they support 1A/12W each, which should be enough for multiple fans and an AIO without worry. The BIOS is the only way to control the fan headers. Sadly, Maxsun still doesn’t have a dedicated desktop application for monitoring, overclocking, or fan control. And while there are ways around it, if you want to be in the conversation with ‘the big four’ motherboard brands in the US, having Windows-based software helps.

Continuing along the edge, we run into the 24-pin ATX connector for the board power, and the front-panel USB ports. The first is a USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) header, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C connector, and a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) header. What’s worth noting here is the lack of a 20 Gbps header. And the rear IO’s fastest port is also 10 Gbps. While 20 Gbps ports aren’t common on B850 boards, it would be nice to see at least one.

Power delivery on the B850M Pro II is on the light side, sporting a total of 15 phases, with 12 dedicated to Vcore. Power heads from the 8-pin EPS connector(s) and onto the Realtek RT3678BE PWM controller. From there, it moves to the paltry Vishay Sic654 50A DrMOS MOSFETs. The 600 Amps available is relatively low, but Maxsun lists support for up to 300W TDP, which means, in theory, you can toss in a Ryzen 9 9950X or the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, and still be OK.

If that’s your plan for this board, make sure you have adequate case cooling, especially if you’re pushing the CPU hard for extended periods, as these VRMs will get toasty with a high-wattage processor. If you’d like to know more about VRMs and what you actually need from a motherboard, check out the Motherboard VRM thermal testing article we recently published.

On the bottom half of the board, starting on the left, is the exposed audio section, consisting of the Realtek ALC897 codec and four dedicated audio capacitors above it. The ALC897 is the most basic audio codec on consumer-class motherboards. In fairness, it is commonly used, especially in the Micro ATX form factor. That said, its direct competitors (by price point) use the improved ALC1220 or the latest-gen ALC4080 codecs. And while you’ll be hard-pressed to notice a difference without plugging in some of the best PC speakers, it’s still a difference among the comparables.

In the middle are two full-length PCIe slots, and under the plate-style heatsink are all three M.2 sockets. Starting with the two PCIe slots, the top slot with the reinforcement is your PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and is primary for graphics. It also uses a quick-release GPU latch for easy removal. Press the button to unlock and remove. Easy. The bottom slot connects via the chipset, supports PCIe 4.0 x4, and is good for expansion cards. You could use it to add faster USB Type-C ports, if needed.

In between the PCIe slots are the three M.2 sockets. The B850M Pro II gives you two PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) M.2 sockets (up to 80mm) that source their bandwidth through the CPU, and a single PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) socket that also supports up to 80mm devices. Note that when using both PCIe 5.0 M.2 sockets, the primary graphics slot drops to PCIe 5.0 x8. Having all three M.2 sockets under the graphics card with a plate heatsink isn’t ideal, especially if you have one of those PCIe 5.0 drives.

We've also included a few images of the active ICs for the board. This Maxsun uses a mix of Realtek (PWM controller, audio) and Vishay (MOSFETs) branded ICs.

At the bottom are several headers, including front-panel audio and USB ports. A complete list of connectivity is listed below (from L to R):

• Front panel audio
• 3-pin ARGB
• 4-pin fan header
• COM port
• Debug header
• USB 2.0 header
• (2) SATA ports
• 4-pin fan header
• Front panel

The rear IO on the B850M Pro II generally has what most users need, just perhaps not the fastest or the largest number of ports. Starting on the left, we see the DisplayPort and HDMI (v1.4) video outputs. Next to that are the first two (of four, in blue) USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps ports, your 10 Gbps Type-C port, and a convenient clear CMOS button. The tall stack of black USB ports is USB 2.0. Above the second set of Gen 2 ports is the Realtek 2.5 GbE port. Next to that is the Mediatek Wi-Fi 7, but note it only uses the 160 Hz frequency and can be slower than the fastest Wi-Fi 7 devices. Last but not least, on the right is a full 5-plug plus SPDIF audio stack.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, but I would like to see at least one 20 Gbps port, even on a B850-class Micro ATX motherboard.

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Firmware

Maxsun has updated its BIOS from the ground up, introducing a mobile-inspired interface with larger icons, more buttons, and “card-style modules” for easier navigation. Like most modern BIOSes, it has an informative, functional, easy mode with different sections (modules) on the left, information and buttons (for enabling EXPO, ReSize Bar, EUP, and RGBs), along with other system details like fan speeds and settings, as well as boot priorities. You can also adjust the background with three included images (Sweet Aiga, Sci-Fi Mecha, and Textured Glass), which is unique.

The advanced portion of the BIOS offers plenty of options to tweak your system, but doesn’t appear to have quite as many options as other motherboards. Still, there are lots of options, including PBO, to tweak your CPU. You can also tweak your memory.

In all, the BIOS worked well and will be fine for most users, but the mobile-inspired interface isn’t quite as refined and doesn’t give you the premium vibes we see from Gigabyte, MSI, or Asus BIOSes.

Software

Maxsun Sync 2 is an application that controls RGB lighting, picking up not only the board but also our RAM and GPOU (as expected). There are 10 different lighting effects, most of which you can change (speed, color flow, etc.) to your liking. It worked well in our limited testing, controlling each item it picked up without issue.

For those looking for an application that controls fans, overclocking, and the like, you’ll need to stick with the BIOS, as Maxsun does not offer one at this time. If the company wants to compete with the ‘big four’ (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock), it needs to offer software, since the competition pretty much all has well-established monitoring and control applications.

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (23H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late September 2024 (this includes the Branch Prediction Optimizations for AMD). Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits (matching our Intel test system), cooling, storage, and video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest publicly available non-beta motherboard BIOS. The hardware we used is as follows:

TEST SYSTEM COMPONENTS:

• CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
• Cooling - Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420
• Storage - Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD
• RAM - Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32)RAM - Teamgroup T-Force Delta DDR5-7200 CL34 (FF3D518G7200HC34ABK)RAM - Klevv Cras XR5 RGB DDR5-8000 (KD5AGUA80-80R380S)
• GPU - Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G
• PSU - EVGA Supernova 850W P6
• Windows 11 64-bit (23H2 - 22631.4169)NVIDIA Driver 561.09

Benchmark Settings

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Benchmark Results

Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. The Windows power scheme is set to Balanced (default) for this baseline testing, so the PC idles appropriately.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetics offer a valuable method for evaluating a board's performance, as identical settings are expected to yield similar results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are areas where motherboard manufacturers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and these settings can impact specific testing scenarios.

Starting with the synthetic benchmarks, the Terminator B850M Pro II performed average to below average in most tests. In fact, Cinebench R24 and POV multi-core scores were the lowest we’ve seen (mind you, it’s only a couple of percent slower from worst to first), which was surprising considering power use was similar to other B850 boards. Outside of that, results were average for the rest.

Timed Applications

3D Games and 3DMark

Starting with the launch of Zen 5, we’ve updated our game tests. We’re keeping the F1 racing game but have upgraded to F1 24. We also dropped Far Cry 6 in favor of an even more popular and good-looking game in Cyberpunk 2077. We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). Cyberpunk 2077 uses DLSS, while we left F1 24 to native resolution scaling.

The goal with these settings is to determine if there are differences in performance at the most commonly used (and CPU/system-bound) resolution with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS setting, which can affect your gameplay and immersion.

In our 3DMark and game tests, the B850M Pro II was dead-on average in the synthetics and slightly above average in both games. While the Maxsun didn’t have a great showing in the rendering, encoding, and other tests, it proved to be a competent gamer.

Overclocking

Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking on both sides of the fence, while the out-of-the-box potential has increased. For overclockers, this means there’s less fun to have. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever, and they easily support power-hungry flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them. There are multiple ways to extract even more performance from these processors: enabling a canned PBO setting, manually tweaking the PBO settings, or just going for an all-core overclock. Results will vary and depend on the cooling as well. In other words, your mileage may vary. Considering all the above, we will not be overclocking the CPU. However, we will try out our different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications.

For memory testing, we start with our fastest non-clock driver kit: Klevv 32GB (2x16) DDR5-8000. Per usual on this platform, it booted to Windows but wouldn’t pass a stress test with our 9900X. The Team Group DDR5-7200 kit worked without issue. Those speeds are well past the ‘sweet spot’ for the AMD platform, and with today’s RAM prices, we doubt many people are looking at these higher speeds anyway.

Dropping in the Ryzen 5 8600G APU, which typically unlocks the ability to run our DDR5-8000 kit, didn’t this time around. We couldn’t get the system to boot with this RAM kit, no matter what we tried. But, between the 8000 MT/s listed spec and our kit not being on Maxsun's QVL, it was an expected result, and nothing to hold against it as it’s well past the sweet spot.

Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures

We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, cache, and Memory enabled for power testing, using the processor's peak power consumption value. The wattage reading is obtained from the wall using a Kill-A-Watt meter, which captures the entire PC (excluding the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. Please note that we have moved to using only the stock power-use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure that the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors.

Stress testing this board with our DDR5-7200 kit showed it to be less power-hungry than most competitors. At idle, it sat around 89W and slightly higher than average, peaking at 245W, one of the lower results under load. This averages out to 167W, slightly better than the average B850/X870/X870E-based boards.

VRM temperatures were good during our testing, peaking at 50 degrees Celsius on our sensor and 55 degrees on the hottest internal sensor. For 50A MOSFETs pushing 160W loads for this test, that’s a solid result. You can use a higher-wattage processor and possibly overclock, but make sure you have good airflow to keep the budget VRMs running cool.

Bottom Line

The Maxsun Terminator B850M Pro II proved to be a competent budget-class AM5 motherboard, but it doesn’t do enough to stand out. Gaming performance was as expected, but other performance was a bit lackluster with default settings. It offers a solid set of features, including Wi-Fi 7 (though limited to 160Hz), three M.2 sockets (two PCIe 5.0), and support for the latest Ryzen 9 processors. The BIOS is functional and easy to navigate. Still, the lack of Windows-based software for monitoring, fan control, and overclocking is a notable omission, since competing motherboards already have well-established software ecosystems.

For me, the biggest question about this board's market viability is price. Maxsun stated the MSRP is $199.99, but is found on Alibaba for $243.76 and Amazon for $229.00. At those prices, it’s not worth it when the competition is all currently (at the time of this writing) priced below $199. Hardware-wise, MSI’s MAG B850M Mortar Wifi ($199.99) is probably the best-equipped option and arguably one of the better-looking B850 boards. ASRock’s B850M Steel Legend ($149.99) in white is also attractive (the only one of this group with RGB lighting) and the least expensive option. Asus’ Prime B850M-A WiFi-CSM ($191.99) is also a consideration, with similar specs and still less expensive than the Maxsun. With all of these other boards available, the Maxsun is a tough sell anywhere above $200.

Terminator B850M Pro II is an option in the MicroATX B850 space, but not the best. At the currently inflated price, it won't make our best motherboards list. If you can find it for $199, it’s definitely in the conversation, especially for anyone who needs two PCIe 5.0-based M.2 sockets in a budget, small-form-factor board. Until the price comes down for us in the U.S., competing boards are the better option.

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A group of researchers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Oberlin College have developed a tiny device about the size of a coin that directly attaches to an external port on a Boeing 737 that connects to its Flight Management Computer (FMC) and Multipurpose Control Display Unit (MCDU). According to Wired, this gadget, which goes into one of the ports that aircraft mechanics use to test and diagnose avionics, is small enough to fit under its dust cap and go unnoticed during routine inspections. It then overrides the signals between the MCDU — the terminal in the cockpit that allows pilots to see and input data — and the FMC, the actual computer that controls the plane’s navigation, autopilot, performance calculations, and more.

The idea began when researchers were experimenting with hacking cars remotely in the mid-to-late 2010s, when they wondered if aircraft could be vulnerable to these types of attacks as well. Since an entire commercial aircraft is quite expensive, the group settled on looking for bargain-bin used aircraft parts until they were finally able to build a complete avionics stack to do their experiments on. Another UCSD professor, Aaron Schulman, was working on a different research project about credit card skimmers when the group realized that the communication bus that some skimmers were tapping into to steal payment information could potentially work similarly on a jet. “We realized that it's a reasonable threat for someone to plug a device into a bus and read stuff off of it and potentially even gain control of it,” Schulman told Wired. “We were like, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve got to rethink everything.’”

This was where the researchers discovered that a port in one of the Boeing 737’s two Electronics and Equipment (E&E) bays, located either in front of or behind the nose wheel well, connected to a bus that carried the data between the FMC and MCDU. This port, typically used for testing and diagnostics, isn’t protected by anything except for a dust cap and could easily be accessible by anyone authorized to work on or be around the aircraft. What’s more concerning is that the device can connect to the internet via in-flight Wi-Fi, allowing the researchers to tap into the plane’s avionics remotely.

Some of the changes they were able to make included intercepting, altering, and spoofing data and commands that go between the FMC and MCDU. This includes changing the outside air temperature readings and the aircraft weight inputted into the system, which could mess with the aircraft’s takeoff performance. If the temperature that the FMC has is higher than what the MCDU shows, or if the weight is lighter than what is actually measured, then the engine power set that the FMC will set for the takeoff might not be enough to get it off the ground.

This is actually the biggest threat to aircraft, as incidents of mistyped takeoff weight (by 100 tons) have resulted in tail strikes for LATAM 8073 in 2024 and Emirates 407 in 2009. A more egregious accident happened in 2004, when the crew of MK Airlines 1602 typed the empty weight of their Boeing 747 instead of its actual weight, resulting in the plane striking an earthen berm and causing it to disintegrate and crash into the ground. However, these events have caused the industry to implement stricter measures to prevent these crashes from happening again, including independent computations on their electronic flight bags (EFBs) and warning messages on the Electronic Flight Display (EFD), which is independent of the MCDU.

Another thing that a potential attacker can do is to silently change the plane’s flight plan, causing it to divert from its intended routing. They can do this by making minor changes that might be imperceptible to the pilots, causing the flight to go astray over time. Despite these threats, pilots are trained to deal with conflicting data from the MCDU and override the FMC as necessary. Incidents in the past, like the disappearance of MH370, have ensured that multiple systems exist so that a malfunctioning or compromised FMC will not lead to disaster. For example, an aircraft deviating from its assigned route and altitude will be contacted by ATC, as we have seen in this small aircraft crash that began when the pilots were confused by GPS jamming.

Because of these safety layers, Boeing told Wired, “Our technical experts are confident that the layers of protection in place on the airplane, including within the system design and the operating environment, provide sufficient mitigation to significantly limit the feasibility and risk of real-world attacks.” Still, it doesn’t mean that aircraft manufacturers should just ignore this threat. The researchers initially suggested permanently blocking the service port, followed by better isolation of electrical systems, or the addition of cryptography to prevent a device such as this from spoofing the plane’s systems. However, they also feared that Boeing would not do anything, as major changes like this are expensive and could take years to implement. We see this in some aircraft that still carry passengers or freight to this day but are kept updated through 3.5-inch floppy disks.

Since late 2025, RAM, storage, and graphics card prices have shot through the roof, making items that were once affordable out of reach for many people. Anyone still in the market for those parts has to rely on combo deals for any reasonable pricing. Newegg has an excellent 3-item combo running where you essentially get the 16GB of DDR5 RAM for FREE with a huge $274 discount. For only $658.99, you get the powerful Ryzen 9 9900X processor, a quality Asus X870E-Plus Wi-Fi 7 motherboard, and 2x8GB Team Group DDR5-5200 RAM, along with a free Cooler Master 240mm AIO.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

The star of the combo has to be the ‘free’ RAM. The combo offers 16GB (2x8GB) of TeamGroup’s T-Force Vulkan DDR5-5200. And while the RAM speed is outside of AMD’s sweet spot, you’d be hard-pressed to notice a performance difference without looking at a frame counter. These black, non-RGB sticks will also look great with the included motherboard. If you apply the ~$274 discount to the RAM, you’re getting it for free. And if 16GB isn’t enough, buy the same kit again net 32GB for only $240.

Although we didn’t review AMD’s Ryzen 9 9900X, we know the non-X3D chips, like its big brother, the Ryzen 9 9950X, were generally well received by our reviewer and the public alike. Its strong multicore and single-threaded performance, native AVX-512 support, and backward compatibility with AM5 motherboards make this CPU an excellent choice for someone who uses their PC for more than just gaming and can make use of the additional cores and threads, as you can see from our benchmark data:

The Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor built on TSMC’s 4nm FinFET process (6nm for the I/O die) with a base clock of 4.4 GHz and boost up to 5.6 GHz. It has a TDP of 120W and is relatively easy to manage the thermals, even when overclocking the fully unlocked processor. While overclocking isn’t what it used to be, you can still squeeze out a couple of hundred more GHz, and sometimes you can get there, even when lowering the voltage. In short, there’s a lot of performance out of the box, and even a bit more headroom left if you want to overclock.

Last, the Asus TUF Gaming X870E-Plus Wifi 7 is a solid all-around motherboard for the AM5 platform. It delivers sufficient power to support flagship-class processors and easily handles the 9850X3D in the combo, even with some overclocking. It comes with four M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0) and two SATA ports for storage, fast networking with integrated Wi-Fi 7 and 2,5 GbE, ample USB ports on the rear IO (13, including two USB4 40 Gbps Type-C), and a quality audio solution based on the last-gen Realtek flagship (ALC1220P). Asus’ AI solutions (AI Cache Boost, Overclocking, Cooling II, and Networking II) and the DIY-friendly design make it easy to build and get the most out of your system.

If you’re in the market for an AM5-based system that isn’t based on an X3D chip, this $658.99 combo (an incredible $274 savings) is one of the better deals available at Newegg right now. And you even get a free 240mm Cooler Master AIO. Getting RAM for what essentially amounts to ‘free’ is not something we see frequently. You can even upgrade to 32GB and still find yourself well ahead versus buying alone. Get this deal while it lasts.

We've typed many words about how the industry-standard 90-day security bug disclosure window is effectively dead and gone with the advent of AI-assisted exploiting. Illustrating that point rather poignantly, researchers at A.Security easily came up with Zoomsday. This exploit let any participant in a Zoom meeting gain control over the device of anyone else, all without them being any wiser.

The team claims it cooked the exploit with merely 20 prompts to an AI agent. The exploitable area is substantial, as recent estimates pin Zoom's monthly active users at around 220 million and an estimated 56% of the global conferencing market share.

There were two remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities present in Zoom Workplace before 7.0.6 and, for users on the "fast track" branch, before version 7.1.5. The bugs were in a library used by Zoom's annotation functionality, though no participants need to actually use the whiteboard for the exploit to work — the code is always on, so all an attacker needed to do was join the meeting. Zoom quickly fixed the bugs after the initial reports, so everyone who has updated Zoom Workplace to the current version should be safe.

With the exploit, the attacker was able to get full remote code execution, meaning they could effectively control the user's computer and their data — invisibly, to boot. Zoom isn't an application that runs with administrator privileges, so kernel-level rootkits are off the menu, but once you have the user's data, it's not like you need much else. Plus, it's easy to gain exploit persistence any number of other ways.

A.Security says a small team developed this exploit with a mere 20 prompts to an AI agent — pointing out how easy it was to come up with a nation-state-class vulnerability with meager resources. While the majority of AI-assisted vulnerability research focuses on open-source software or applications with published communications protocols or file formats, Zoom is fully proprietary, and it was still easily cracked open.

The firm further noted that "the model requiring elite teams, months of effort, and weapons-grade budgets has collapsed," and that "the barrier that kept these weapons scarce has collapsed, and it will not come back" — basically repeating what every security researcher has been yelling from the top of their lungs for the past year or so.

The vulnerability itself is, rather unsurprisingly, a buffer overrun: the program fails to check that an input is the right size, so you can push more data than it expects and overwrite part of the following memory with code that will be executed.

First, the scientists decompiled the Android package and asked an AI agent to rank the potential attack surfaces to relatively little success. They then turned their attention to the communications protocol. They found that the code library handling annotations received each object (rectangles, text, etc.) in serialized form, with count fields telling the recipient how much data to read next.

Crucially, they found that the code handling these reads didn't have a boundary check for maximum size, meaning one could simply lie about it and send a chunk of data that's too large and padded with exploit code at the end, as Norman Stansfield would say, bin-go!

There's a bargain on a gamepad for your PC or Nintendo Switch games console that you won't want to miss. This 8BitDo Ultimate 2 game controller is $57.99 right now, a 17% discount that nets you a flagship pad with precision TMR joysticks and an integrated charging dock.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

There are a couple of variants of this game controller on sale, but specs-wise, they're pretty identical, with just a few differences in color and button design. Right now, this version is the cheapest, and it'll work great with any Windows PC out of the box. It's wireless, with 2.4GHz (available with the supplied dongle) and Bluetooth connectivity, but you can hook it up to your machine using USB if you prefer.

While Windows-compatible, this variant of the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 is also a Nintendo Switch controller at heart. It features built-in vibration and, for Switch users, motion control functionality that you can use in-game. Nintendo Switch 2 compatibility is offered, too, although that requires a quick firmware update to get things running smoothly.

The 8BitDo Ultimate 2 features linear Hall Effect triggers, along with non-linear tactile triggers, with quick-switch sliders to let you choose between the two, depending on which you prefer. It's also the first 8BitDo controller to use TMR joysticks with higher sensitivity and greater precision.

This 8BitDo controller is fully customizable, too, thanks to its Ultimate V2 software, which lets you remap buttons, adjust stick and trigger precision, adjust vibration settings, and set up your preferred RGB lighting. You can also assign macros with long presses to certain keys.

A wireless controller means charging, but you don't need to swap out the batteries, as it comes with a charging dock. This looks good, works as a practical stand, and has a light to keep you updated on the charging process.

The $57.99 sale price for this 8BitDo Ultimate 2 game controller isn't the lowest we've seen, but it's still a good price with a decent discount for a gamepad that you can use across your devices. While it's rated for PC and Nintendo Switch, it'll work with your laptop for mobile gaming, and there's no reason why you couldn't use it with another handheld (with some setup) like the Steam Deck, too.

Walmart isn't the first choice you think of for computers and components, but it, of course, does stock them and is guilty of being a bit of a sleeper when it comes to hosting some great tech deals if you can find them. One of the main deals I spot at Walmart is on their gaming laptop selections, and today, we have a $350 saving on a little 15-inch gaming powerhouse for under a grand. MSI's Cyborg 15 with RTX 5060 graphics is just $949. That's a pretty good price for an entire gaming laptop in the current economic climate, and at a price that many can afford.

● Check out this deal at Walmart

The Cyborg has a 15.6-inch 1080p display with a 144Hz refresh rate, more than ample resolution for a small screen. Images will appear crisp thanks to the pixel density on the 15.6-inch IPS panel. Powering the display is an Nvidia RTX 5060 laptop GPU with 8GB of VRAM, plenty of memory for 1080p gaming. Rounding out the rest of the internal specs for the MSI Cyborg is an 8-core Intel Core 5 210H CPU, 16 GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, and a 512 GB PCIe 4.0 SSD.

The Cyborg 15 has a distinct aesthetic, with a slate gray coloring to its outer shell and a somewhat symmetrical pattern on the keyboard, with some transparent plastic cutouts. There's 4-zone RGB lighting on the keyboard, a fingerprint reader, a webcam shutter, and a healthily large 55.2Wh battery.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless networking, and an Ethernet port for a stronger cabled network. For your peripherals, there are fast USB ports that include USB-A and USB-C (DisplayPort and Power Delivery 3.0) ports, and an HDMI 2.1 (4k 60) port for hooking up to an external display.

The MSI Cyborg 15 in this deal is a 2026 model selling for just $949 at Walmart right now, making it one of the cheapest up-to-date RTX 5060 gaming laptops we've seen in a while, and a great counter to the ever-rising price barriers to jumping into PC gaming.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan has invested $12 million of his own money in Intel this week as part of the company's $19.7 billion stock offering, indicating his confidence in the company. Meanwhile, Bank of America analysts view the capital raise as an indicator of management's 'increasing foundry conviction,' suggesting growing confidence in Intel's foundry prospects.

"The capital raise […] is still a good leading indicator of management's increasing Foundry conviction (vs. defensive balance-sheet action)," reads an excerpt from BofA's note to clients published by John Intel. "We flag the capital raise also aligns with the recent step-up in capex (for internal customer) and ongoing 14A progress, with further capex increase expected on potential incremental external customer wins (18A-P, 14A, advanced packaging EMIB-T)."

Indeed, it is hard to believe that Intel's management would raise almost $20 billion without a more or less clear plan on how to spend it. In fact, Lip-Bu Tan has said repeatedly that he would not authorize building capacity for external customers unless there was a customer commitment. Of course, at some point, Intel will need additional 18A capacity for its own products as well, but $20 billion is a lot of money, which may indicate that the additional capacity will be aimed both at internal and external clients. This is by no means a confirmation that a formal deal has been reached with a big customer like Apple, AMD, Nvidia, or Qualcomm, but it is at least an indicator of management's confidence in Intel's performance going forward.

In fact, Intel's $19.7 billion stock offering was several times oversubscribed and about 33% of investors who submitted orders received no shares at all, reports @FirstSquawk, which indicates great confidence in the company by regular investors. Apparently, Intel's chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, was among the investors who managed to get $12 million worth of stock using his own money.

In March 2025, shortly after becoming the head of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan bought $25 million of Intel shares (approximately 1.04 million shares) through a family trust to hold them for five years as a required part of his employment contract. Since then, he neither bought nor sold his Intel stock, so the acquisition of $12 million worth of Intel shares is a significant deal.

"Overall, we view the raise as net positive given foundry scale and customer conviction driving longer term top-line and operational efficiency, more than offsetting modest near-term EPS dilution," the note by BofA reads. "We also flag positive read-through for both front-end and back-end packaging semicap vendors."

Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year. Nine PBS has been working with OSS and its predecessor since 2019 and intended to renew its contract on March 6 of this year. The company never responded and abruptly cut off the station’s data access even though it still had 30 days to retrieve its data after the contract ended.

The station dug a little bit deeper when it discovered that the OSS website no longer existed and was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State. It also discovered that OSS utilized Iron Mountain’s services, so it sent a demand letter to the latter to preserve its data and to "pay any reasonable costs associated with its demand." At the time, Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that it possessed Nine PBS’ data.

At the same time, the channel also sued OSS and its leadership, which it paused after someone who claimed to be a "managing partner of the group that officially acquired" the company reached out. The person, named James Tramel, initially communicated with Nine PBS for about a month. However, this also ended abruptly, with the channel eventually receiving an automated reply from Tramel stating he is no longer connected with OSS. The channel was able to get in touch with him, and he said that he had "been defrauded" into acquiring the cloud storage company and that ownership and operations have now reverted to the previous owners.

This left the channel at a loss, so it continued its case against OSS, and the court ruled that Nine PBS had all the rights to access its data stored with OSS and that the latter should "facilitate its transfer to a new vendor." The channel’s attorney also reached out to Iron Mountain to inform the company of the pending case in Colorado; Iron Mountain finally admitted to holding the data. Iron Mountain initially agreed to turn over Nine PBS’ data, but it eventually backtracked and claimed that OSS owned the data it stored. Because of this, Nine PBS now has no choice but to sue Iron Mountain, too, to ensure the data is not deleted.

The entire thing is a nightmare scenario for Nine PBS, especially as it’s still unclear what will happen to its data. The channel can only assume that its former cloud storage provider is no longer paying data center bills, so it’s rightfully concerned that its data might end up lost forever. And even if Iron Mountain is willing to give Nine PBS its data, it risks getting sued by OSS — it is simply protecting itself by refusing to turn over the said stored data.

It seems that the safest legal way to resolve this issue is for Nine PBS to get a court order requiring Iron Mountain to turn over its data. But the channel must act quickly to ensure that its data, which Nine PBS VP and CCO Leah Freeman said to Current represented "70 years of our organization’s history," stays safe.

It's not clear if the channel has backups of its data, but based on its determination, we suspect not. This is strange, though, especially for a major organization, as one can easily purchase a six-bay NAS on Amazon and populate it with the best HDDs. This also goes against the 3-2-1 backup rule, which says you should keep three copies of your files stored in two different mediums, with one of them running offsite. Hopefully Nine PBS will implement a better backup system once it regains access to its data. And at least there's still a chance — it's not like the fire that the South Korean government experienced last year, which saw 858TB of data go up in smoke.

Somerville in Morgan County, Alabama, is a quiet, idyllic town full of green pastures, grazing animals, and soon enough, a Bitcoin mining center. Despite the many protests from residents and moratoriums at both county and town level, the 50-MW facility from VoltCore is going ahead, due to a teeny weeny problem with the zoning laws: there aren't any, or at least, none that apply.

More specifically, Alabama is one of the many states where counties don't have any power over zoning (Dillon's Rule) until they hit at least 600,000 residents, which isn't the case in Morgan County. Municipalities and towns do have that legal ability, but many towns don't apply it, and when they do, they have limitations on how they apply it outside of town borders. That's precisely the situation that Somerville and its residents find themselves in, having had no need for zoning control until now.

Both the county and Somerville have enacted moratoriums against VoltCore's buildout, but those cannot legally stop the construction, since it's built on private land. According to Ray Long, Morgan County Commission Chairman, "We can’t keep them from doing anything right now because there's no laws at all in Morgan County in rural areas [...] There's no zoning, there’s none of that, so we really don't have anything to stand on other than what we can say is, 'We really wish you wouldn't do it.'"

There are also several petitions running, the largest with about 2,000 signatories, and a GoFundMe campaign to try and hire a lawyer to help with the situation. Alabama's Limited Self-Governance Act does predict having to deal with noise and pollution concerns, but it's written in such a way that specifically prevents it from being used to control zoning. The VoltCore build even has an approved energy connection from the Tennessee Valley Authority, and work is reportedly proceeding as usual, connecting water, gas, and AT&T lines.

Even if the Somerville town drafted a local law for zoning, it would take many months and multiple rounds for it to pass, and even still would almost certainly only apply prospectively and not to the VoltCore installation. Furthermore, the data center's location just outside the edge of town could put it outside legal reach regardless.

Other Alabama counties have taken notice of the problem, though, as a recent report indicates that data center bans will be a hot topic at an upcoming Association of County Commissioners. The dim view of data centers in general across the United States has rallied quite a number of states. South Dakota signed a law limiting installations of 10 MW or more, while New York, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and many others all have proposals in motion to hold or control new buildouts.

While the overall portable monitor market has exploded over the past few years, one sub-segment that has seen increasing attention is the dual-panel market. We’ve already reviewed entries from several players in this space, but the latest from JSAUX might be one of the most versatile that we’ve seen so far.

The JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro is a dual-screen portable monitor with a large footprint. Still, it’s highly configurable in how you position the display panels, and it even includes an integrated hub with multiple USB-A ports and a gigabit Ethernet port. Those features are rare among the best portable monitors, so let’s see what makes the FlipGo Horizon Pro tick.

Design of the JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro

A lot is going on with the design of the FlipGo Horizon Pro, and for good reason. It's trying to accomplish a lot with its various operating modes, and it employs a rather ingenious system to execute on its mission.

At the heart of the FlipGo Horizon Pro is its black aluminum frame. It consists of a wedge-shaped base, on which your laptop rests. Not only does the weight of the laptop provide an additional anchor point (and stability) for the base, but it also positions the laptop on a slight incline.

On the back of the base are several ports used for connecting the monitors and expanding port availability for your laptop. You’ll find two USB-C inputs for the monitors, a USB-C for power from the included 65-watt power adapter, and a USB-C port for data and video that connects directly to your laptop. In addition, there are three USB-A ports for peripherals and a Gigabit Ethernet port for networking.

Sprouting up from the base is a horizontal bar that forms the basis for mounting the monitors. Two sliding platforms attach to the horizontal bar: one for the left monitor and one for the right monitor. The sliders allow you to accommodate both large and small laptops. In addition, each slider can fold forward or back to suit your preferred viewing angle or enable a specific operating mode.

At the end of each slider are magnets that firmly hold each monitor panel in place, whether in landscape or portrait mode. The whole platform can then be adjusted for tilt thanks to the aluminum kickstand that attaches to the horizontal bar.

Each monitor is also constructed of aluminum and has two USB-C ports (one for video, one for power) and a micro-HDMI port. You’ll also find a jog wheel for the OSD and a power/menu button on each.

The whole setup comes in dual-carrying cases. A large, foam-padded carrying case opens to reveal a second carrying case that houses the two display panels. Elsewhere inside, you’ll find the 65-watt wall adapter, multiple USB-C cables to handle video and power, two HDMI cables, a MagSafe phone mount, and multiple power plug ends for global travel.

JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro Specifications

JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro OSD

Since each display is independent, each has its own on-screen display (OSD). You can access the OSD by pressing in on the jog wheel. Moving up and down with the jog wheel navigates through the OSD, while pressing in goes one level deeper until you select an option. A single press on the power button goes back one menu, while a long press turns off the monitor.

Once in the OSD, there are your typical adjustable settings, including brightness, contrast, and sharpness. There’s a separate menu for color temperature, saturation, and hue. You can also switch between HDMI and USB-C connections for the monitors.

JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro Operating Modes

The FlipGo Horizon Pro has an extensive array of operating modes that you can use with a laptop and even a smartphone. Its namesake mode is “Horizon Mode,” which has both display panels sprouting out from either side of your laptop’s display like a big pair of ears. Each display can be presented in landscape mode, portrait mode, or any combination of the two (i.e., one landscape and one portrait or both in portrait).

Stack Mode allows you to place the two panels standalone, side-by-side, in portrait orientation or on top of each other in landscape orientation. Solo Mode is for using just a single panel, while Creative Mode uses the included magnetic attachment to mount your smartphone in place of one of the monitors.

My preferred arrangement was to use Horizon Mode, with the two display panels in portrait orientation. Creative Mode just seemed like a waste to me, because the point of purchasing a FlipGo Horizon Pro is to have the expanded real estate of two monitors, and ditching one to use a smartphone in its place just rang hollow.

I had similar reservations about Solo Mode due to the unit's weight, even with one display, which is easily twice that of a traditional single-screen portable monitor due to the heavy frame.

With that said, we have to give JSAUX credit for providing a wealth of options for customers to choose from. In the end, having options is a good thing, even if they don’t align with my specific tastes.

Display Performance on the JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro

Before I get into the actual numbers, let me first talk about living with the FlipGo Horizon Pro. When I’m working at my desk, I use a 49-inch DQHD OLED monitor, which gives me plenty of real estate to have multiple Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge windows open, widgets strewn about my screen, along with my photo editing software. However, when I’m on the go, my go-to system is a 13-inch MacBook Air. Needless to say, the fall-off in screen real estate is jarring, which is why I usually travel with a 15.6-inch 1200p portable monitor.

With the FlipGo Horizon Pro, I was able to add two 15.6-inch 1080p monitors to flank my 13-inch MacBook Air. The extra displays are incredibly welcome, especially when I’m performing data entry or researching topics that I’m writing about. With that said, there’s room for improvement with respect to the actual panels that JSAUX uses on the FlipGo Horizon Pro.

JSAUX claims that each panel is rated for 300 nits of maximum brightness; however, our instrumented test showed just under 250 nits in its default picture mode. Even using the custom setting in User mode, we maxed out at 276 nits. Likewise, color performance was dismal at best. We recorded 79.9 percent coverage of sRGB and just 56.6 percent of DCI-P3. The numbers tell one story, but real-world performance was also rather lackluster. Photos looked lifeless, and colors (particularly reds) seemed off-kilter. In addition, the stark difference in color reproduction between my MacBook Air's native IPS panel and the two panels on the FlipGo Horizon Pro was stark. I saw similar disparities when using the FlipGo Horizon Pro with a HyperX Omen 16 gaming laptop.

With that said, my needs for a portable monitor while traveling aren't incredibly demanding. When I'm editing photos, I do so on my MacBook Air's native display, while the secondary display panels are used for spreadsheets, my word processor, and browsing websites. In other words, the relatively poor quality of the panels did not put a damper on the actual functional usefulness that they provided.

Bottom Line

The JSAUX FlipGo Horizon Pro is a do-everything mobile accessory, offering two screens, a built-in hub, and multiple configuration options. It seems as though JSAUX thought of everything, providing all the necessary cables and a two-tier storage case with separate padded storage for the two display panels.

I encountered no issues while using the displays, although the cable management can get a bit overwhelming. And despite the included suitcase, because of the weight of the entire apparatus, the FlipGo Horizon Pro is more of an accessory that I’d want permanently sitting on my desk than lugging around when traveling.

With that said, the FlipGo Horizon Pro carries a price of $449.99 direct from JSAUX, although the company is currently offering a coupon that takes off $40. For comparison, the KYY X90D is $224; while it doesn’t allow the screens to pivot independently into portrait mode, it represents a huge cost saving if all you want are two additional screens. But if you want the added versatility, including features like additional USB ports and an Ethernet port, there aren’t many options superior to the FlipGo Horizon Pro in the dual-screen space.

Elon Musk told employees of SpaceX that the power capacity of the company's xAI data centers will increase by 7x to 10GW by late 2027. If this happens, the company's data centers will bring the company some $300 billion – $500 billion in revenue per year, according to Musk. The claim comes as SpaceX's market capitalization dropped by nearly $570 billion in less than two months. Meanwhile, the combined performance of the cluster will by far outpace not only all supercomputers in the Top 500, but also all AI clusters running today.

"We have already built the most powerful AI training clusters in the world," Musk told SpaceX employees at a meeting. "What we expect to do by the end of next year is about 10 times more than what we have done thus far. […] So, we are aiming to get to 10 GW [of compute] by the end of next year. […] If the value per watt is probably going to be $30 to $50, which means if we bring 10 GW of AI compute online by the end of next year, it will be $300 to $500 billion a year in revenue. Big numbers."

A lot of power

At present, SpaceX's xAI data centers in Memphis and Southaven have a rated power draw of 1.4 GW. The company plans to increase the electrical capacity of its data centers to 10 GW by the end of 2027, or by around sevenfold in roughly 1.5 years. It should be noted that AI infrastructure with a 'nameplate power draw' of 1.4 GW by far does not offer compute capacity of 1.4 GW.

A large AI data center with a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of roughly 1.2 would have around 1.17 GW available to IT equipment (i.e., 230 MW is used by cooling, pumps, fans, humidification/dehumidification, lighting, power distribution losses, UPS losses, and other facility systems). Not all of that 1.17 GW goes to AI accelerators: CPUs, memory, networking, and storage consume a meaningful share. If perhaps 70% – 80% of IT power ultimately corresponds to accelerators, we might be looking at roughly 0.8 GW – 0.95 GW of accelerator power in the case of a 1.4 GW data center.

Loads of FLOPS

Compute capacity is not measured in Watts; it is measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). Keeping in mind that currently xAI uses a mix of Hopper- and Blackwell-based accelerators, it is hard to determine how much compute xAI has today. Since xAI seems to be betting primarily at Nvidia's Vera Rubin systems from now on, we can make a more or less educated guess about the company's Rubin-based compute capability the company will have by the end of 2027.

Assuming that all of the new 8.6 GW nameplate power draw will be based on Nvidia's NVL72 VR200 rack-scale systems and the PUE of around 1.2, the IT power budget of the new capacity will be 6.88 GW. Actual Rubin AI accelerators will get between 4.816 GW and 5.504 GW of power depending on how much of the IT power will correspond to these GPUs. Each Rubin GPU is expected to consume 2.3 kW of power in Max-P configuration. As a result, xAI's clusters will house between 2.094 million and 2.393 million Rubin GPUs in Max-P mode, or 29,083 and 33,236 NVL72 VR200 systems.

The performance of the NVL72 VR200 system is well known, so depending on the number of these machines that xAI will deploy by the end of 2027, we are looking at rather formidable numbers. NVFP4 inference performance of the cluster will be between 105 and 120 ExaFLOPS; NVFP4 training performance will range from 73 to 84 ExaFLOPS; FP6/FP8 training capability is projected between 37 and 42 EFLOPS, whereas native FP64 compute will total 70 – 80 EFLOPS. Of course, we are dealing with very rough numbers here as some systems may not work in Max-P configuration.

To put the numbers into context. The total combined FP64 performance of all systems on the Top 500 list is 18.73 EFLOPS. xAI will have 3.7X – 4.3X more than that if the cluster is deployed. As for AI performance, 105 – 120 NVFP4 EFLOPS inference and 73 – 84 NVFP4 EFLOPS training put this cluster in a whole different league from anything publicly operating right now, meaning that we are talking about dramatically more sophisticated AI models coming. Whether or not the combined xAI compute capability will enable the company to earn $300 billion – $500 billion per year is something that remains to be seen, as SpaceX is not the only company selling compute capacity to AI companies, and the competition will likely be rough.

Yet, it is about time for Musk to make comments like this, as after topping $2.44 trillion in market capitalization on June 20, SpaceX dropped to $1.43 trillion on August 1, but rebounded to $1.87 trillion on August 12.

Cerebras on Wednesday reported its financial results for the second quarter, and while its earnings nearly doubled year-over-year, its shares plunged more than 18% in after-hours trading as it missed analysts' expectations, Reuters reports. Furthermore, the company's financial results suggest that Cerebras is increasingly succeeding at selling compute delivered by its hardware, rather than the hardware itself.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2026, Cerebras reported revenue of $180.11 million, up from $103.32 million in Q2 2025. Earnings of the company's cloud services totaled $125.99 million, up dramatically from 33.03 million in the same quarter a year ago, but sales of hardware dropped to $54.12 million from $70.3 million in Q2 2025. Wall Street analysts expected Cerebras to earn $194.23 million during the quarter.

During the quarter, Cerebras' operating expenses rose to $502.79 million (up from $89.28 million a year ago), its gross margin dropped to 14%, and it lost roughly $450.53 million. The main reason behind the company's skyrocketing operating expenses and losses is stock-based compensation triggered by its May IPO. Once the IPO happened, the company had to recognize the value of stock-based compensation as its expenses, as stock-based compensation jumped from $13.3 million in Q2 2025 to $377 million in Q2 2025. Without the stock-based compensation, the company's net loss would be $73.53 million.

That said, the analysts were not disappointed by the huge loss, but rather by the earnings miss, the rapidly dropping hardware sales, and uncertain returns generated by Cerebras' new business model.

Missing earnings expectations for an AI hardware company amid the AI market frenzy is not a thing that happens often. But perhaps more importantly is that Cerebras' hardware sales dropped 23% year-over-year, whereas cloud and other services revenue skyrocketed by 281%. On the one hand, this proves that the company's clients are more willing to buy its compute hardware in the cloud rather than own it, which means stable revenue streams. However, Cerebras' new business model requires Cerebras to put enormous amounts of capital into infrastructure before it can earn its cloud revenue.

Under its original hardware model, Cerebras has to manufacture its Wafer Scale Engines at TSMC, assemble systems on its base, and sell its CS systems to customers, which then own the machines, install them in their own or leased data centers, and assume the cost of operating the infrastructure. Under its new model, Cerebras retains and deploys the hardware itself, secures data-center capacity and power, and operates the infrastructure, while customers pay Cerebras for access to AI inference/training compute over time rather than buying the machines outright. Without any doubt, demand for inference AI compute is enormous these days, and Cerebras' results prove it. However, the question is whether the company can produce attractive and sustainable profits on the capital it spends on hardware and infrastructure.

The $20 billion OpenAI agreement is one example of the business model. Cerebras has committed to provide 750 MW of inference capacity over several years, and OpenAI has an option for another 1.25 GW. As a result, Cerebras must fund 750 MW of infrastructure buildout in advance and opt for another 1.25 GW well before it gets actual money from the AI giant. While OpenAI is assisting Cerebras in financing the project using a roughly $1 billion secured working-capital loan, still must spend money for quarters, if not years, before it earns any revenue.

The PCIe 6.0 specification was ratified in early 2022, but its actual implementation was delayed for years. Now, the spec is almost ready, with the first PCIe Gen6 platforms finally approaching, as are actual storage devices. Micron was the first with a PCIe 6 SSD in mid-2025, and Samsung caught up this July. Meanwhile, independent makers of SSD controllers — Marvell, Phison, and Silicon Motion — are also prepping their PCIe 6 SSD platforms.

For a full roadmap of PCIe, you can check out our dedicated page. In this article, we'll specifically focus on PCIe 6.0 controllers and devices and how they're soon becoming commercial products. For additional reading, you can also find our interview with Solidigm VP Avi Shetty, which covers the subject of PCIe 6.0 SSDs.

Per ardua ad astra

PCIe 1.0 through 5.0 used simple NRZ signaling (one bit per signal) with 128b/130b encoding, which was relatively simple to implement at the controller level. However, it required some complicated methods to ensure signal integrity at 32 GT/s per lane.

PCIe 6.0 now adopts PAM4 signaling (which encodes two bits per symbol using four voltage levels), which keeps the physical signaling rate at 32 Gbaud. However, it also doubles the effective transfer rate to 64 GT/s by transmitting two bits per signal instead of one. As a result, transmitter and receiver design became considerably more complicated, as it required sophisticated DSPs, equalization, FEC, and CRC-based retry mechanisms, which complicated the development of PCIe 6.0 controllers. Furthermore, PCIe 6.0 often requires retimers where PCIe 5.0 did not, which complicated the development of actual servers.

To make matters even more complicated, every new PCIe generation requires interoperability testing among CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, network cards, switches, retimers, and other devices from dozens of vendors. Since PAM4 behaves very differently from NRZ, PCI-SIG had to develop entirely new compliance procedures, test equipment, and interoperability programs. The development of those programs themselves slipped, which greatly delayed any commercial deployment. The very first PCIe 6 interoperability testing at 64 GT/s took place in late July.

Despite formidable implementation hurdles and interoperability program challenges, PCIe 6 is finally making its way into commercial platforms. AMD's 6^th Generation EPYC 'Venice' and Nvidia's Vera CPUs fully support PCIe Gen6, so companies from the adjacent industry sectors are catching up with their PCIe 6 products, and storage makers are among them.

For storage, PCIe 6.0 doubles host interface bandwidth to around 30.25 GB/s for a x4 link without the protocol's overhead (which is not that big with the 1b/1b 242B/256B FLIT encoding featured by PCIe 6). The new interconnect does not improve flash operation on its own. Meanwhile, PAM4 introduces Forward Error Correction (FEC), which slightly increases latency, but it also enables doubling throughput without doubling the signaling frequency to 64 Gbaud.

As a result, PCIe Gen6 generally delivers better bandwidth-per-watt than what an equivalent 64 Gbaud Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ) implementation would have required. Given that modern data center deployments (particularly for AI) tend to be large, a greater bandwidth-per-watt metric should always be welcome.

In this story, we will summarize what the first breed of merchant enterprise-grade PCIe Gen6 controllers from three popular vendors will offer, and what we already have on the market from Micron and Samsung.

Marvell Bravera SC6: 500TB or more of speedy storage

Matt Murphy's appointment as Marvell CEO in 2016 marked one of the most dramatic strategic shifts in the semiconductor industry. Marvell transitioned from being a large merchant chip supplier to a company almost exclusively focused on data infrastructure, and that transformation had significant implications for its storage controller business. Storage still complements the broad data-center portfolio alongside networking, custom silicon, switching, compute, and optical connectivity. However, gone are the days when storage was a major priority for Marvell. Yet, Marvell's Bravera SC6 (MV-SF1410) looks to be quite a significant contender for the PCIe 6 storage market.

The Bravera SC6 controller is powered by 15 Arm cores in total, including 12 Cortex-R82 cores arranged in two six-core clusters, three Cortex-M7 cores, and a dedicated Cortex-M3 secure processor. The controller is NVMe 2.2 compliant and features a PCIe 6.0 x4 host interface, thus potentially offering a maximum of 30.25 GB/s of throughput.

The MV-SF1410 controller features 16 NAND channels, eight chip enables (CE) per channel, and support for SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC 3D NAND with an up to 3600 MT/s interface. The part also supports Marvell's sixth-generation NANDEdge technology with LDPC error correction, a hardware RAID engine, end-to-end data protection, 5 MB of SRAM, and a 64-bit DDR5 interface with ECC. The security subsystem of the Bravera SC6 supports AES, SHA, RSA, and elliptic-curve cryptography (which seems to be among the industry's firsts), enabling compliance with Trusted Computing Group (TCG) security standards.

One of the things that strikes the eye about the Bravera SC6 is that its interfaces support data transfer rates of up to 3600 MT/s. While this speed bin seems a bit outdated now that 4800 MT/s devices have been announced, in eight- or 16-channel configurations, a 3600 MT/s transfer rate with raw bandwidth of around 3.6 GB/s per channel (38.8 GB/s and 57.6 GB/s in total, respectively) is more than enough to saturate a PCIe 6.0 x4 interface (30.25 GB/s without the overhead).

Another notable thing is that Marvell has not publicly disclosed the controller's maximum addressable NAND capacity or logical unit number (LUN) it can support within each CE, so we cannot derive an actual maximum addressable capacity or maximum usable capacity from the public specification we have at hand*. But we can make some useful estimates. The SC6 has 16 NAND channels and eight chip enables per channel, or up to 128 CE positions in total.

With upcoming 2 Tb 3D QLC NAND dies, each die stores 256 GB. Kioxia/Sandisk formally announced such devices last week, but did not disclose their availability timeframe. Since BiCS10 is aimed specifically at data center applications, Kioxia has indeed described this generation as suitable for very highly stacked packages, without disclosing the maximum number of NAND devices per package. Typical NAND packages carry between 1 and 16 NAND devices (though Kioxia/Sandisk probably meant more than 16 devices), though packages aimed at high-capacity drives tend to feature 8 or 16 devices. 16 2-Tb devices give 32Tb (or 4 TB) per NAND package.

If an SC6 implementation could populate 128 such package positions, that gives 512 TB of raw NAND memory. Of course, actual drives will have to reserve plenty of NAND for overprovisioning and other techniques required for reliability and longevity, so actual commercial SSDs will offer a lower capacity. However, they will remain in a 500TB-class. Meanwhile, if the SC6 can address 32-die packages, then we are talking about petabyte-class SSDs. Yet, 32-die NAND packages may require something other than formal controller support.

Marvell says that it will start sampling its Bravera SC6 (MV-SF1410) with its partners sometime in Q4 2026, which means that the first drives featuring the chip will hit the market in late 2027, but more likely in 2028. Given that actual SSDs featuring the controller are so far away, Marvell even refrained from disclosing the expected performance of these products and only told us to expect "multi-gigabyte-per-second throughput, millions of random IOPS, deep queue parallelism, and highly efficient DMA-based data movement."

*A CE may select a package containing many dies, and each die may contain multiple LUNs. To address all those dies and LUNs efficiently, the controller must be architected appropriately. If the number of supported LUNs is lower than the number of LUNs featured by all-flash devices in all-flash packages, this will affect performance and parallelism, which will lower the appeal of such drives for data center operators.

Phison X3: Up to 2PB of storage at 28.8 GB/s

Phison has yet to make a big formal announcement of its X3 — aka PS5303 — SSD controller, but it was demoed at both CES and Computex this year. At CES, the company only showcased concepts of its PCIe Gen6-based drives, whereas at Computex it showed off reference drives, clearly suggesting that it is in the final stages of development.

The Phison X3 (PS5303) is the company's first-generation PCIe 6.0 x4 enterprise SSD controller, and it happens to be specifically aimed at data center applications, which include AI, cloud, and hyperscale deployments. Normally, Phison would introduce an eight-channel controller that would target both high-end desktop, workstation, and server applications. But such controllers have not yet surfaced.

The X3 is a 16-channel and NVMe 2.3-compliant controller, which Phison rates for up to 28 GB/s sequential read and write performance, 6.8 million random read and write IOPS, and approximately 4 GB/s per watt, which doubles the performance and efficiency of the company's PCIe 5.0 enterprise controller. Keeping in mind that its current-generation controller is made on TSMC's N12 manufacturing technology, whereas the X3 is produced on the N4 fabrication process, this improvement is expected.

Perhaps the most intriguing specification is support for SSD capacities of up to 2 Petabytes, which likely suggests that the controller has been designed with multiple future generations of dense 3D NAND flash memory in mind.

The controller supports OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD Specification v2.6, advanced enterprise security features including TCG Opal 2.3, DOE, IDE, Caliptra, and CNSA 2.0, as well as 64 SR-IOV physical functions for storage virtualization.

Phison has indicated that reference designs — E3.S, E1.S, etc. — are expected to sample this November, while volume production is anticipated in 2027, if everything proceeds in accordance with the plan. If the company succeeds, the X3 (PS5303) will be one of the first merchant PCIe 6.0 SSD platforms intended for next-generation storage infrastructure in 2027. Then again, it usually takes a year before sampling and availability of the actual drives.

Silicon Motion's SM8466: A mystery at 28 GB/s

Silicon Motion was probably the first company to reveal many of its details about its PCIe Gen6 plans in an interview with Tom's Hardware in June '25, then a leak with some details about its PCIe 6.x SSD controller emerged in July '25. After then, SMI kept it pretty much close to the chest about the SM8466 unit, but let us recall what we know about the controller both from our interviews and from the leaks.

Silicon Motion's MonTitan SM8466 is the company's 2nd-generation enterprise-grade controller that is projected to support 16 NAND channels, next-generation TLC and QLC 3D NAND, NVMe 2.x, OCP enterprise SSD specifications, and enterprise security technologies such as TCG Opal, Secure Boot, and SR-IOV virtualization, based on our interviews with the company as well as leaks.

Just like its direct rival from Phison, the SM8466 is rumored to offer 28 GB/s of sequential throughput and 7 million random IOPS, though no official claims have been made so far. Just like the Marvell controller, the SM8466 supports SCA and other features of modern enterprise-grade SSD platforms.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the specification is support for SSD capacities of up to 512 TB, which clearly falls short of the 2 PB capacity advertised by Phison's competing PCIe 6.0 controller. Then again, this is based on leaks and rumors, rather than official information.

Now that we know something about PCIe Gen6 SSD platforms from Marvell, Phison, and Silicon, let us recall what is already on the market, or about to hit it.

Micron's 9650: First and furious

Micron's 9650 is the industry's first PCIe 6.0 x4 SSD that is based on an in-house controller and the company’s 276-layer G9 3D TLC NAND with a 3600 MT/s interface. The drive delivers up to 28 GB/s sequential reads, 14 GB/s sequential writes, 5.5 million random read IOPS, and 900,000 random write IOPS. Depending on the exact SKU, the drive offers up to 25.6 TB of storage.

Since the 9650 is aimed purely at AI servers based on Nvidia hardware, Micron has optimized the SSD for peer-to-peer PCIe 6.0 communication with Nvidia Blackwell GPUs using retimers and switches to enable storage to feed accelerators without CPU involvement.

Micron started sampling its 9650 back in Q3 2025, so by now this drive is likely already available to interested parties.

Samsung's PM1763: 16 TB at 28 GB/s

Samsung has never announced sampling of its first-gen PCIe 6.0 x4 SSD, but it officially began mass production of its PM1763 drive this July. The PM1763 drive is based on a proprietary controller made using Samsung Foundry's 4nm-class fabrication technology as well as Samsung's ninth-generation V-NAND.

When it comes to capacity, the PM1763 is offered in 4TB, 8TB, and 16TB capacities. The flagship 16 TB model delivers up to 28.4 GB/s sequential read and 21.9 GB/s sequential write speeds, though the company hasn't disclosed the random performance of either SSD. Then again, to maximize performance, the drive's design is optimized for direct-to-chip (D2C) liquid-cooled servers (Samsung has not divulged details, though).

When it comes to power efficiency, Samsung claims the drive delivers more than 1.8X higher power efficiency than its predecessor and enables it to sustain peak performance during prolonged AI training and inference workloads. Unfortunately, without hard numbers, we can only take Samsung at its word.

In addition, the SSD supports post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms to help protect against future quantum computing attacks, as well as the TEE Device Interface Security Protocol (TDISP) to secure data movement in virtualized server environments.

According to Samsung, the PM1763 has completed validation for next-generation AI platforms and is positioned as a storage solution for an AI data center near you.

Almost across the line

After years of delays caused by the transition to PAM4 signaling and the resulting ecosystem-wide validation effort, PCIe 6-class storage is finally approaching commercialization.

While Micron and Samsung already offer PCIe 6.0 SSDs, merchant controller suppliers —Marvell, Phison, and Silicon Motion — are prepping their next-generation enterprise platforms with up to 16 NAND channels, throughput approaching 28–30 GB/s, and support for capacities ranging from 512 TB to as much as 2 PB.

A Redditor shared their vibe-coded project, which added a 3D frontend to your Jellyfin HTPC. The app, called Halcyon Video and available on GitHub, is designed to bring back childhood memories when you spend weekend afternoons browsing video rental stores so the family has something to watch before going to bed. It’s open-source and self-hosted, so you can easily install it on your HTPC, and it also works with RomM if you have your own collection of retro video games.

“Wander the aisles, flip boxes over, rent at the counter, and the movie plays in your room (if you choose hardcore rental mode). TV series come shrink-wrapped as season box-sets,” u/halcyon-video said on Reddit. “‘Recently Added’ becomes ‘New Releases’ on the back wall. Everything has a purpose. There is too much to explain and you have to download and run it to find it all.” They also added, “Go use it, star it if you like it. This project has only just begun, and I will not rest until my childhood has been fully resurrected.” Aside from the GitHub repo, they also created a 45-second tour of the project on YouTube, as well as a demo so you can see how it works.

To complete the nostalgia, the box cover and plastic case pop up when you select a movie or TV series. You can even read warnings and tips at the back of the plastic case like “Please rewind after viewing,” and “If the picture rolls or has a lot of ‘interference,’ adjust the tracking device on your VCR.” Once you’ve chosen what you want to watch, you’ll have to walk out to the front counter to check it out, where the cashier will place it in a plastic bag so you can head back “home” to start watching. There are also several customizations that you can do, like picking a period from 1990, 1993, 2000, and 2010, setting different times like day, sunset, and night, and even choosing between VHS or DVD. We also can’t forget about the tape/disc return box that sits right by the entrance if you’re picking out another movie for tonight.

This isn’t just a random store where you pick out the movie or game that you like, and you’re instantly teleported back to your 4K TV. Instead, it’s a whole experience that you need to see for yourself to understand just how deep and immersive it is. To navigate inside the store, you can use the classic WASD and arrow keys on your keyboard, although Halcyon Video also supports controllers and HTPC remote controls, too. But, most importantly, this front end is all locally supported — it only uses the metadata from your library and does not make any outside calls to some external server.

So, if you’re tired of not owning your video library and are looking to build your own media server from leftover PC parts, consider adding this front end to make movie selection a little bit more exciting. That way, instead of spending hours scrolling through Netflix, you’ll spend a lot of time walking around this store from your childhood.

Qualcomm is getting into some of the nitty-gritty details of the Snapdragon C system-on-a-chip, the ARM-based platform it announced in June for laptops priced around $300.

The Snapdragon C is an 8-core Qualcomm Kryo CPU, with a single-core max frequency of 3 GHz and a multi-core max of 2 GHz. (In the fine print, Qualcomm claims you can get four cores at 2.0 GHz and three cores at 2.6 GHz, but doesn't note all eight cores simultaneously. We've reached out to Qualcomm for clarification. There is 2MB of total cache.

It also has an integrated Adreno GPU with a max frequency of 900 MHz, and a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, though Qualcomm hasn't listed how many TOPS it supports.

In updated slides, Qualcomm pits the Snapdragon C (in a reference design with 8GB of memory) against an Acer TravelMate with Intel's N250 and 8GB of RAM. The company claims you get 67% better battery performance than the Intel N250 and up to 2.1 times better battery efficiency, though that's measured with multi-threaded Cinebench. The company did not publish any benchmarks when the systems are plugged in.

Qualcomm claims that, on battery, the Snapdragon C is up to 44% faster in single-threaded Geekbench and 24% higher in multi-core. But its top victories were in Cinebench, running 50% faster single-threaded and 67% faster multi-threaded. But Geekbench and Speedometer 3.1 (+39%) are the real numbers to look at here, as they better showcase the type of work someone might typically do with a cheap notebook.

While Qualcomm is promising "all-day" battery life, it's leaving the number of hours up to its OEM partners. That's likely to vary depending on the display panels and other factors, but in Qualcomm's test reference device, it used a 16-inch screen. Qualcomm notes in its footnotes that the TravelMate has an 11.6-inch display, with "total power configured to match 16" screen."

Qualcomm instead is claiming battery power efficiency over the Intel N250 across all of its tests, from Netflix running in Microsoft Edge (106% better), web browsing (68% better), and a Teams video call (74% better).

Qualcomm is promising designs from HP, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo. At Computex, Acer showed a first look at the Aspire Go 15, its first notebook with Snapdragon C. We know that system has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and plenty of ports, but the company still has not unveiled a release date or pricing information.

It is possible that the timing of this launch will enable Qualcomm's OEM partners to unveil new systems at the IFA technology trade show in Berlin, unless they decide to wait until CES.

It's also unclear if the $300 guidance will hold, given the increase in cost of components — especially memory. But it's possible Snapdragon C laptops will significantly undercut the MacBook Neo and Windows laptops with Intel's Wildcat Lake. We'll have to test Snapdragon C to see how it performs.

You can see Qualcomm's full slide deck below:

Oracle plans to cut more jobs this month, with reductions on some teams reaching double-digit percentages, Business Insider has reported, citing people familiar with the plans and an internal document. The company wants payroll lowered before its second fiscal quarter opens on September 1, and managers have been told to compile lists of affected employees. A new round would extend a year of deep cuts at the company, which shed 21,000 full-time positions, or 13% of its workforce, in the fiscal year that ended May 31 while borrowing $43 billion to fund AI data center construction.

Oracle's 10-K, filed June 22, capped the total expected cost of its Fiscal 2026 Oracle Restructuring Plan at $2.1 billion. The company recorded $1.8 billion of that in fiscal 2026, a 391% increase over the $374 million booked a year earlier, leaving roughly $300 million of headroom under the existing plan. Cuts at the scale Business Insider describes would either need to fit inside that remainder or push Oracle into its second new restructuring plan in three years; the filing describes the prior 2024 plan as substantially complete since May 2025.

Headcount stood at approximately 141,000 full-time employees as of May 31, with around 49,000 of those in the United States. Oracle attributed part of the fiscal 2026 decline to internal AI adoption and told investors that further reductions would follow as deployment grows, having already eliminated roughly 10,000 positions in a single wave earlier this year.

Company capex hit $55.7 billion in the fiscal year 2026, up from $21.2 billion the year before, leaving Oracle $23.7 billion short of covering its spending from the cash it generated. The company raised $43 billion in debt and $5 billion through stock sales during the year, and it expects to secure approximately $40 billion more through borrowing and equity issuance in fiscal 2027. Interest expense climbed to $4.6 billion from $3.6 billion a year earlier, so the annual growth in Oracle's interest bill alone now exceeds half of what it paid in severance and related restructuring charges all year.

Cloud infrastructure revenue grew 77% in fiscal 2026, and total revenue rose 17%, figures Oracle has previously pointed to when defending the spending. The stock is down more than 20% this year, and shareholders sued the company in January over statements about how much it would need to borrow to meet its $300 billion OpenAI commitment.

Oracle declined to comment and hasn’t confirmed the plans.

Nvidia has once again silently raised the price of its RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell on its US Marketplace website to $16,000. The card was previously listed for $13,250, which itself was a price hike earlier this year since it actually launched at $8,565. Workstation GPUs of this caliber don't really have an MSRP since no one's buying them at retail, but we saw pre-orders for this GPU as low as $7,673 back in March 2025.

• RTX Pro 6000 at Newegg: $13,998 (Old Price)

That's when the card was first announced, and it went on sale a month later, in April 2025, where initial listings had it up for $8,435 for bulk orders and $8,565 for single-unit purchases. This means the June 2026 change from $8,435 to $13,250 was already a 57% price increase, and now, from $13,250 to $16,000, we're seeing a roughly 20% hike. In total, from March 2025 to August 2026, the RTX Pro 6000 became almost 90% more expensive.

If you count the pre-order prices that were momentarily below $8,000 — we're seeing this card sell for more than twice what it debuted at. Keep in mind that we're talking about the boxed Workstation Edition, which is basically like the Founder's Edition for these professional cards, because otherwise it's also available in a 300W Max-Q variant with a blower-style cooler, and a server edition with passive cooling for rack mounts.

These price hikes were not officially confirmed by Nvidia at any point during 2025 and 2026. With the ongoing component crisis continuing to worsen memory prices, these changes are not a surprise, especially when you consider the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell has 96GB of GDDR7 VRAM.

Still, a nearly $7,500 increase from March 2025 listings to now is a sizeable jump. For what it's worth, we found the same SKU listed on Newegg for $13,998, so $2,000 less than Nvidia's official store and basically the same price as before. Perhaps this listing will rise to $16,000 the moment current inventory runs out, and prices always vary between retailers. Case in point, B&H has the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell up for $15,499 right now.

A few AI data center developers have started suing local governments after the latter either denied their application or passed laws that banned or put a moratorium on such developments. According to Bloomberg Law, some of the lawsuits alleged that officials exceeded their authority in banning data centers, while others say that their right to due process and equal protection has been violated by these moratoriums.

“If people just start to say ‘no, we’re never approving data centers anymore,’ especially in locations where they are needed and available, that’s going to be a problem,” John Crossley of K&L Gates LLP told the outlet. One example of this lawsuit is in Hill County, Texas, which was the first county in the Lone Star State to pass a one-year data center ban. The developer sued the local government, alleging that it did not have the authority to pass a ban. This resulted in the rescinding of the law a week after the case was filed, after which the case was dismissed. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently passed a moratorium on data center approvals, but it’s unclear if this project is affected or if other affected developers will sue the state government.

We see another case like this where a cryptocurrency mining operation sued Hawkins, Tennessee for banning data centers. It said that its right to due process and equal protection is being violated by the move, even as the county said that developments like this “sap valuable natural resources while spewing both environmental and noise pollution.” Hawkins County lawyers wrote, “In short, data centers take a lot more than they give in a place like Hawkins County.”

While many AI data center developers argue that they bring in significant benefits to the communities they enter, like tax revenue, construction jobs, and more, it’s widely reported that these projects have placed an unnecessary burden on the residents who live nearby. While Virginia has now required data centers to pay for all dedicated upstream electrical infrastructure that they need, it has only arrived after electricity prices in the PJM Interconnection region already have risen precipitously by as much as 76%.

Multiple Meta data centers have also caused water issues in various regions — from low pressure and muddied water supply to contaminating a city’s water system. Elon Musk’s Colossus data centers are also facing allegations of air pollution, although it has since promised to remove its 69 unpermitted power generators after an on-site 1.2GW power plant has replaced them. One data center in Michigan is also facing a lawsuit for emitting a loud, distressing noise 24/7, with residents saying that “It sounds like someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room.

Even an Amazon data center, which finally received its approval after years of processing and has begun construction recently, is in the middle of a controversy as residents alleged that they only knew about the project after the workers started pouring in the site. One Pennsylvania town offered a solution that protected both its people while allowing a data center project to proceed — it gave 43 specific demands that covered everything from noise, light, and air pollution concerns to water and power use, land use, taxes, and even the decommissioning of the data center. Unfortunately, the developer called these demands “too difficult,” which the council slammed as “approval by tantrum.”

These aren’t isolated reports and have been happening all over the country. This is probably the reason why even the Trump Administration, which has an aggressive AI policy, has made AI hyperscalers, state governors, utility providers, and data center operators agree to the “ratepayer protection pledge” and promise that they will “pay their own way” when it comes to their required infrastructure.

The negative news surrounding data center developments has definitely made it harder for projects like these to get off the ground without opposition. Data centers need to win the approval of their neighbors if they want to get their projects running quickly, but this has gotten exponentially difficult, especially with all the negative publicity that all the other sites have generated.

CoreWeave signed a contract for Nvidia A100 GPUs that runs into 2029, nine years after the Ampere-based SKU debuted, CEO Mike Intrator disclosed on the company's second-quarter earnings call on Monday. The company reported $2.58 billion in quarterly revenue, up 112% year over year, and a $104 billion revenue backlog that excludes more than $25 billion in new commitments booked since July. In remarks made during the earnings call, Intrator said, “pricing for prior generation SKUs is at or above where it was years ago.”

Michael Burry accused hyperscalers in November of understating depreciation by $176 billion between 2026 and 2028 by stretching GPU useful-life assumptions to five or six years against a chip cadence that now delivers a new Nvidia architecture roughly every year. Concerns that accelerating GPU obsolescence could unravel AI financing predate his estimate, and an unnamed Google architect put datacenter GPU service life at one to three years back in 2024.

Intrator told CNBC at the time that a batch of H100s coming off an expired contract was immediately rebooked at 95% of the original price, and Nvidia CFO Colette Kress countered Burry directly, saying A100s sold six years ago still run at full utilization. The 2029 deal stretches that record further, putting contracted revenue on 2020 silicon beyond even the six-year depreciation schedules defended by hyperscalers.

An air-cooled Nvidia DGX A100 system draws 6.5kW at maximum load and fits comfortably in legacy data center halls designed for roughly 20kW per rack. Nvidia's current GB200 and GB300 NVL72 racks draw 120kW to 140kW and require direct-to-chip liquid cooling, roughly six times what those older facilities can feed and cool. Blackwell therefore can't move into the halls where Ampere is currently deployed without a rebuild of power delivery and cooling infrastructure.

That mismatch is helping to keep A100 fleets in service regardless of how gracefully or not silicon itself ages. The energized, air-cooled capacity holding them has no higher-value use, and renting nine-year-old GPUs is a better alternative to leaving it in the dark.

CoreWeave's contracted power grew to 3.7 GW in Q2 and stood at 4.2 GW as of Monday, against just 1.5 GW online, so customer commitments already cover nearly triple the capacity the company can deliver. CFO Nitin Agrawal added on the call that capacity coming up for renewal represents a very limited share of CoreWeave's fleet, with older-generation ASPs at or above levels from a year ago.

Hackers with suspected links to China used publicly available AI tools to carry out what researchers describe as the first observed end-to-end autonomous cyberattack against a government target, compromising at least 85 user accounts and stealing more than 2,500 personnel records from Taiwanese government systems, according to an August 12 Financial Times report, citing researchers at Israeli cybersecurity company Dream. The researchers say the attackers assembled an autonomous hacking platform using open-source AI-agent frameworks, enabling multiple agents to simultaneously map networks, research vulnerabilities, attempt intrusions, and adapt tactics when an attack path failed.

The campaign reportedly ran for four days at the beginning of July and at times deployed as many as eight autonomous agents in parallel. Dream said the system mapped 21 government systems before compromising user accounts and extracting personnel information. The attackers subsequently expanded their activity to Taiwan's nuclear safety agency, at least seven energy companies, government suppliers, and other government systems.

Dream says it found the evidence inside a 160-megabyte (160MB) online archive that surfaced during its broader tracking of cyberthreat actors. The archive reportedly held 1,395 files showing that the tool was built on two open-source AI agent systems — Hermes and OpenClaw — both of which can be downloaded freely and are designed to let large language models carry out multi-step tasks on their own.

Researchers could not determine which underlying model powered the agents, but the data reportedly showed the model's safeguards had been sidestepped by presenting the intrusion as an authorized penetration test rather than a real attack. Of particular concern is that the toolkit for the hack comprised such easily available systems, neither of which was purpose-built for offense. The operators appear to have assembled a capable autonomous tool out of components any developer can pull down and run.

What the researchers describe as the tool’s most striking feature was its ability to continuously devise attacks on its own, rather than follow a preprogrammed route. The platform continuously assessed available evidence, ranked possible attack paths, and reprioritized them as circumstances changed. When one technique failed, the tool tasked another agent with searching the internet for information and developing an alternative approach.

Dream stopped short of attributing the campaign to a specific hacking group or country. However, the researchers said the operators’ internal communications were written in Simplified Chinese, suggesting what they called a high probability that the operator was connected to China. The company also declined to name the victim, citing policy, but confirmed that it had notified a country in the "Asia-Pacific" region. Also, the data pulled from the target was in Traditional Chinese — a script used on government sites in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Financial Times said a person with knowledge of the incident identified the target as Taiwan.

The incident highlights a growing concern within both the cybersecurity and AI industries over what the latest AI models can do autonomously. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta have reported instances of new AI models launching unexpected cyberattacks during internal testing, an infamous example being the recent OpenAI agent’s attack on Hugging Face. In another instance, OpenClaw wiped the inbox of Meta's AI Alignment director despite repeated commands to stop

Researchers have warned that AI agents are making it increasingly easy to automate portions of cyberattacks that previously required skilled human operators, another deadly feature in the era of AI hacking. Dream's chief strategy officer, Amir Becker, warned that the arrival of such tooling used in the Taiwan attack means every government should now assume it is under permanent automated assault.

The risk is stark for Taiwan, which was already facing a staggering volume of cyberattacks before agents entered the picture. The island's National Security Bureau reported in January that it faced an average of 2.6 million Chinese cyberattacks per day in 2025, up 6 percent from the previous year. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force if necessary to bring the island under its control. According to the Financial Times, Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs declined to comment on the specific incident, citing confidentiality. However, a ministry spokesperson acknowledged that the integration of AI has transformed the nature of security incidents.

The QIDI Plus5 goes toe-to-toe with Bambu Lab’s H2 series for nearly half the price. At first glance, the QIDI Plus5 looks pretty much like the QIDI Plus4, but it’s so much more. With TARDIS-like engineering, the Plus5 has a smaller footprint, yet gains 18% more build volume than the previous model by comparison. The Plus5 can go a little hotter on the nozzle, up to 370 °C, which makes it great for tackling engineering-grade filaments.

The UI on the Plus5 is sleek and feels like a more expensive printer. It has a helpful status light on the bottom of the bed, which you guessed it, looks a lot like the Bambu H2 series. If QIDI could just get their QIDI Box to swap colors consistently, Bambu will have a serious fight on their hands.

The debut price of the QIDI Plus5 is $749, which is $50 less than the Plus4 was at launch, and is considerably less than a Bambu Lab H2S, which is currently $1399. This is definitely my favorite high-temp workhorse and one of the best 3D printers we’ve seen.

Specifications: QIDI Plus5

QIDI Plus5 : Included in the Box

The QIDI Plus5 comes with everything you need to get started. Included is a tool kit for assembly, a scraper, a glue stick, and a USB stick with a copy of QIDI Studio and a PDF copy of the quick start guide. A paper copy of the manual is also included.

Design of the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 is a nice upgrade to the QIDI Plus4 with an extra 20mm of print area in all dimensions, with nearly the same footprint. The Plus5 is a hefty 64lbs, so you may need some help to get it in the door.

The Plus5 has a Core XY motion system, driven by a beefy 9mm 1.5GT belt, riding on a linear rail for the x-axis and linear rods for the y-axis. The z-axis runs on 4 linear rods and is driven by stepper motors turning two independent lead screws. The Plus5’s tool head is compact with an all-metal nozzle, which is shared by the QIDI Q2.

The nozzle includes the heat throat and features a hardened steel insert. The filament path is accessible in multiple locations, which should make clearing jams easy. The toolhead includes a cutter with a nearby waste chute and nozzle wiper, in case you want to try your luck with a QIDI Box for multimaterial printing. We were not provided one for this review, but we did test it out on the QIDI Q2 and found it lacking.

A black plastic tube is attached to the toolhead for an optional active cooling system dubbed the QIDI Polar Cooler. This is a little AC box which can be strapped to the side of the printer and pump cooler than room temperature air directly on the extruder. This is meant to prevent heat creep when you need to keep the rest of the chamber toasty. We didn’t get to test this add-on, but it sounds intriguing.

The chamber heater and the air circulation fan, with an activated carbon and HEPA filter, are located at the rear of the printer. The HEPA filter keeps the fumes from ABS and ASA trapped inside the machine. A large parts cooling fan on the left side augments the fan on the toolhead.

The QIDI Plus5 has an excellent 1080p chamber camera, which is accessible for monitoring the printer from the device page in QIDI Studio and from the QIDI Maker app. It can be used to make time-lapse videos and is for AI anomaly detection (aka the dreaded spaghetti monster).

The printer has a glass top that is designed to slide back for ventilation while printing lower temperature filaments like PLA and PETG, and the glass front door opens a full 180 degrees. This is a simple feature that I wish more companies would adopt.

Running lower temperature filaments in the PLUS5 seems like taking a race car on a shopping trip. With a bed that heats to 120 °C, an active chamber heating to 65C and a hotend capable of 370 °C, the PLUS5 was made for PPS, PA, and PC.

Assembling the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 is almost completely assembled. The only thing you need to do is attach the spool holder to the rear, then attach the bowden tubes to the spool holder and tool head. If you are assembling the printer in low light conditions, take care to avoid attaching the filament line to the inlet for the optional cooling system – they’re the same size.

The UI on the QIDI Plus5 does a great job of walking you through the removal of the packing screws and the shipping material, so you don’t forget anything.

Leveling the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 auto levels as part of the initial calibration and offers to relevel at the start of every print. The system worked perfectly.

Loading Filament on the QIDI Plus5

Loading filament on the QIDI Plus5 is both simple and frustrating. QIDI really took pains to make the UI on the PLUS5 intuitive and simple. Two clicks from the touch screen, and loading is right there. The annoying part is reaching around this behemoth to load filament into the Bowden tube located at the back. The filament will almost always catch on the coupler, which needs to be uncoupled to allow the filament to pass through it. Then if you are using a full spool, it’s super awkward to push a few centimeters of filament at a time toward the tool head.

Preparing Files / Software for QIDI Plus5

QIDI included a copy of QIDIStudio, which is based on BambuStudio, which is based on PrusaSlicer. If you are familiar with Bambu Studio or ORCA Slicer, you will feel right at home.

The device tab in QIDI Studio allows you to control the printer and monitor printing through the camera. It also allows you to skip parts of your print that might have failed. The QIDI Maker App offers the same functionality on your mobile device.

Printing on the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 does not come with a sample coil of filament, which is just as well. You’ll want to pick out a spool of filament from our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

To get warmed up, I printed the pre-sliced Benchy provided by QIDI using red Creality Hyper PLA. The print completed in 32 minutes and was technically flawless, with just a little stringing.

Next, I printed a vase I whipped up in Tinkercad, using a mystery spool of Fusion Filament PCTG. If you like the color, too bad, Fusion mystery spools are created when they change colors on their filament lines and thus are unique. It’s worth the gamble because these spools are also about $10 off, dropping the price from $26.99 to $16.99. This is printed in vase mode, with a .28 layer height and a chunky .65 line width. At an average speed of 65 mm/s, the print completed in 3 hours and 11 minutes. The quality of the print is excellent, and the PCTG makes it flexible enough to withstand use.

QIDI sent us a spool of their TPU GF 67D for the review, and I used it to print a plate of parts for my RC Death Racer. Using a .2 layer height and running at an average speed of 50 mm/s, the parts took 4 hours and 25 minutes to print. Using only 2 walls, the parts are light, yet very hard and darn near indestructible. These parts are, by their nature, a stringing test, and despite this, the quality is really good. I was pleasantly surprised when the supports popped right off, a blessing from the glass fiber.

I printed this bird feeder I found on Printables using faded desert brown and armored turtle green ASA from Ambrosia. I whipped up the hanger in Tinkercad. Using a .2 layer height and running at an average of 120 mm/s, the base of the bird feeder was completed in a little over 7 hours. The top took 5 hours 30 minutes running at an average of 100 mm/s. The hanger took only 2 hours running at an average speed of 180 mm/s. The print quality is really good, with just a little rough patch on the top where better supports could have helped. It’s currently hanging outside my office window, so I can see how well ASA holds up to the sun…and squirrels.

Jumping into the deep end of the pool, I printed this sanding block I found on Printables using QIDI’s PPS-CF filament. The Plus5 takes a while to heat up to 350 °C on the nozzle, 100 °C on the bed, and 65 °C on the chamber. I got out an infrared thermometer to read the temp on the printer’s top glass and decided not to store PLA there while the machine ran. It read 56C. I should point out that I did not get good results with the QIDI Plus4 when I tried to run this filament. The Plus5 printed this just perfectly, with a glorious surface finish and without a hint of a warp. The texture is from the carbon fiber, which also helps the PPS stay flat on the bed.

Bottom Line

The QIDI Plus5 printed everything we threw at it and is the best 3D printer we’ve seen from QIDI. This hits the sweet spot for makers and engineers who need a serious high-temp 3D printer without breaking the bank. The lack of color capability won’t disappoint you when all your filament only comes in black anyway.

At its current price of $749, it’s an attractive addition to the large-format printer market. Filament loading could be better, but it’s a trade-off we’re willing to deal with for a machine that’s otherwise very pleasant to use.

If you like what you see in the QIDI Plus5 and you want to compare notes, then check out the Bambu Lab H2S, which is pretty similar but with a more robust ecosystem and a functional AMS system. It’s $1,399 for a Combo and $1199 as a standalone printer. If you need a printer that’s just plain big, the Sovol SV08 Max with an enclosure can handle practical prints the size of a hubcap (500x500mm) for $1,298. And if you just want a bit of elbow room at an affordable price, then you should check out the Bambu Lab A2L, which can do four colors on a 330 x 320 build plate for $569.

Intel's upcoming Nova Lake CPUs have been a part of the rumor mill for months as excitement builds up for a potential CES 2027 announcement. The latest leak comes from reliable tipster Jaykihn, who's actually updating an older report that said SKUs with cut-down E-cores would also have reduced cache. Now, his new leak claims Intel will keep the L3 cache unaltered, even on chips with partially disabled E-core clusters.

Previously, it was rumored that some Nova Lake configs, such as the 8+12+4 silicon, would only have 33MB of L3 cache since the 12 E-cores are cut down from the 16 we expect on the full-fat variant of this SKU. Now, Jaykihn reports that this config will now have 36MB of L3 cache instead, just like the uncut 8+16+4 config. Similarly, the 4+4+4 config is said to retain 18MB of L3 cache instead of 15MB, same as the fully enabled 4+8+4 SKUs.

This does not apply to every SKU of Nova Lake, however. For instance, the leaker claims that the 6+12+4 config is still limited to 27MB and not 30MB, had the disabled E-core cluster retained its cache. If true, it seems there's no linear scaling at play here; rather, Intel just decides on its own which SKUs get to keep all of the L3 cache regardless of their disabled E-cores, and which ones are still relegated to lower amounts.

Nova Lake desktop CPUs are not the only ones reportedly affected by this change; Nova Lake-HX, the mobile lineup, is also said to follow the same methodology at this point. Therefore, we can expect some of the midrange SKUs to have more cache than previously expected. Keep in mind that all of this is preliminary, unofficial information and subject to change between now and the actual launch, as this very development proves.

Intel's big trick for Nova Lake is expected to be the introduction of bLLC in consumer CPUs, directly meant to challenge AMD's 3D V-Cache. Only mid- to high-end SKUs are expected to get it, including the 8+12+4 and 6+12+4 configs we mentioned earlier. They're said to feature 132MB and 108MB of bLLC, respectively, which is separate from the native L3 cache we've been talking about in this story, so those numbers won't change.

*non-bLLC variants of all the single-tile SKUs are also rumored. All specifications rumored, not confirmed by Intel.

As usual, there might be some level of internal segmentation that we aren't seeing here. Although leaked specs give us a glimpse at what Nova Lake could offer, it's always possible that Intel is testing various configurations, even if those chips won't end up in the main lineup.

The race to solve AI's copper bottleneck for scale-up and scale-out intensified last week, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is drafting a measure that would block imports of new Chinese transceiver models, with officials hoping to publish the rule before the end of 2026. Yesterday, we covered exactly how much of the Secure Networks Act might rely on Chinese-made optical module manufacturers.

The technology is currently driving billions in acquisitions among companies like Marvell and Nvidia, and sending stock prices for dedicated Western Photonics companies like Coherent and Lumentum skyrocketing, amid calls that key materials like indium phosphide are in short supply.

Following the FCC's Secure Networks Act proposal, the market reacted immediately, with shares of China’s Zhongji Innolight, Eoptolink, and TFC Optical tumbling in early Shenzhen trading. Meanwhile, U.S. rivals Coherent and Lumentum closed 12.4% and 8.9% higher. Before Wednesday ended, however, the Chinese companies had clawed back much of the ground, even as analysts downplayed the impact of such a ban. Innolight still finished 7.3% lower in Shenzhen, while TFC actually closed 2.3% higher.

The whipsawing market movement was an apt representation of the potential implications of such a ban. Photonics, the industry's answer to its latest bottleneck of moving data between chips, is arguably the hottest technology in AI infrastructure right now. It is also a market defined by deep mutual entanglement. However, the FCC's proposal conveniently overlooks the fact that the biggest customer of China's photonics hardware is the United States.

With a crucial U.S.-China summit looming in September, the AI supply chain is being weaponized, once again, for global trade and supply negotiations, turning Silicon Photonics into a bargaining chip.

AI's latest bottleneck is now a US-China tech wars battleground

As AI clusters scale into the hundreds of thousands of processors, the biggest problem is moving data between them. Computing tasks on frontier AI models are distributed across thousands of GPUs using parallel computing techniques. This setup requires the processors to exchange huge volumes of data multiple times a second. Copper interconnects still dominate, but as per-lane signaling climbs toward 200 Gbps, attenuation and crosstalk make passive copper impractical beyond a meter or two. Optical transceivers solve that problem by converting a chip's electrical signals into photons for transmission over fiber and back again, carrying far more data over longer distances at lower power.

As we examined in our recent detailed AI photonics roadmap, Vendors are racing from 800G modules to 1.6T parts while shortening electrical paths with co-packaged optics, which moves optical engines even closer to switch ASICs and, eventually, accelerators. The race to solve AI's photonics bottleneck is therefore becoming as strategically important as securing GPUs and HBM.

The money is already moving accordingly. Nvidia has reportedly committed $4 billion across Coherent and Lumentum to lock up supply. Elsewhere, Marvell agreed to pay $3.25 billion upfront for silicon photonics startup Celestial AI, with earnouts potentially taking the deal to $5.5 billion. At the same time, Elon Musk has received FTC clearance to acquire Mesh Optical. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI have teamed with Broadcom, AMD, and Nvidia in an optical interconnect alliance to develop an open optical scale-up interconnect.

China has been building its own stack. Wuxi's CHIPX pilot line — the country's first dedicated photonic chip fab — began mass-producing six-inch photonic wafers in 2025. Shanghai opened a state photonic computing laboratory in June alongside newly listed startup Lightelligence. Crucially, Chinese officials note photonic chips don't require the EUV lithography tools Washington has cut off.

Commercially, China appears to be currently leading the market. Chinese vendors account for nearly two-thirds of global transceiver unit shipments and roughly 60% of datacom transceiver revenue, according to Counterpoint Research. Innolight — fresh off a $6.8 billion Hong Kong IPO, the city's biggest this year — leads with a 27% revenue share, ahead of Coherent's 17%, with Eoptolink third and Lumentum at roughly 6%.

However, those figures do not reveal the deep-seated supply-chain entanglements that severely complicate any ban. Innolight and Eoptolink reportedly supply the majority of 800G modules in Nvidia's AI clusters, while pairing DSP chips from Broadcom and Marvell with laser components from Lumentum, Coherent, and Mitsubishi Electric. Western rivals, in turn, need Chinese indium phosphide — export-controlled by Beijing since 2025 — for their lasers.

The U.S. ban

It is amid the intense photonic race, marked by co-dependency between the two countries, that the FCC is seeking to ban related Chinese hardware. Reuters says the agency is drafting a rule that would deny new models of Chinese optical transceivers the equipment authorization they need to be imported, marketed, or sold in the US.

Washington fears the transceivers could become vectors for data theft, malware, or service disruption, with officials reportedly seeking to avoid another Huawei situation, in which Chinese telecom hardware became so embedded in U.S. infrastructure that removing it proved slow and expensive.

If enacted, the rule would be the latest round in a years-long technology conflict spanning security fears and market dominance, one that has extended squarely into AI. On the inbound side, the FCC has banned Huawei gear since 2019. It added foreign-made drones to its Covered List in December 2025, new consumer routers in March, and power inverters and advanced robots in July — each time citing national security. On the outbound side, Washington restricts AI GPUs, ASML's EUV machines, chipmaking tools, and manufacturing tech from reaching China, aiming to slow its AI ascent.

The Trump administration has argued that these bans have barely had any impact on the U.S. economy while enhancing national security. A photonics ban may be more consequential. The U.S. is effectively contemplating short-term disruption to prevent a scenario where the next generation of a critical AI technology, the optical layer of every future data center, would be Chinese hardware. On the other hand, the FCC appears to accept the current supply chain reliance, as the millions of Chinese modules already installed would stay put.

China’s response

For every ban the US issues, Beijing insists it emerges stronger. Officials credit the chip restrictions with forcing focus. Chinese firms delivered 1.65 million AI GPUs in 2025, with homegrown suppliers like Huawei and Cambricon ramping up production as Nvidia's local market share fell below 60%. Domestic firms are also developing alternative manufacturing approaches. Prinano recently claimed wafer-scale photonic-chip production using nanoimprint lithography instead of DUV, although important yield and volume data remain undisclosed. China now says it doesn't even want American chips, blocking Nvidia H200 imports while certifying domestic accelerators for state procurement.

The photonics response has been similar, this time with open displeasure. China's Foreign Ministry said it "firmly opposes" the potential restriction and accused Washington of overstretching national-security concerns. Chinese legal and market analysts told SCMP that existing approved modules should remain unaffected. They argued that Western suppliers lack the packaging capacity, cleanrooms, and manufacturing scale to replace Chinese production within the next few years.

Dai Menghao of law firm King & Wood, quoted in the SCMP report, called the measure "relatively mild," expecting a framework like the FCC's router and inverter rules, where approved hardware keeps selling, and only new models face denial. That comparison doesn't exactly match. Routers, unlike photonics, are a mature category. In a market right in the middle of a transition, almost everything shipping into next-generation builds would fall under the "new model" category.

Still, Chinese experts insist Washington is underestimating its own exposure. "The market and policymakers tend to underestimate how dependent the AI infrastructure ecosystem remains on Chinese optical-module vendors," said Neil Shah, vice-president of research at Counterpoint. "Replacing that capacity within the next couple of years would be very difficult."

For now, the rule that would affect a ban remains a draft, subject to comment periods, carve-outs, and court challenges. With a potential US-China summit looming in September, the world's most important AI component has now potentially turned into a geopolitical flashpoint.

Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) shipped 14% of the world's NAND flash in the second quarter of 2026, entering the global top three for the first time and narrowly displacing Kioxia, according to Counterpoint Research's Memory & Storage Tracker published today. Samsung led with 25%, SK hynix followed at 22%, and Micron rounded out the top five. The Chinese vendor's climb comes during a quarter when enterprise SSDs absorbed 48% of every NAND bit shipped worldwide, up from 26% a year earlier, and industry revenue grew fivefold year over year by Counterpoint's count.

In terms of revenue, however, YMTC sits fifth behind both Kioxia and Micron, with nearly all of its output going into consumer products. Consumer bits now sell for a fraction of what hyperscaler buyers pay for enterprise eSSDs holding KV caches and inference datasets. The company has been included on the U.S. Entity List since December 2022, which bars it from achieving Western server qualification, where the big bucks are earned, limiting its addressable market to the Chinese domestic channel plus whatever consumer demand the incumbents leave behind.

They're leaving behind plenty — Samsung's shipment share has dropped from 32% in Q2 2024 to 25% as it caps NAND output in favor of higher-margin DRAM, SK hynix subsidiary Solidigm grew bit shipments 40% quarter over quarter on server demand, and Kioxia's entire 2026 production is already sold out, largely to enterprise customers. Kioxia itself sends over 30% of its bits into servers, per Counterpoint, but its customers pulled back as prices climbed, and slower growth cost it the number three spot it held a quarter earlier.

With NAND contract prices up roughly 75% in Q2 alone, the vacuum in the consumer channel is a segment that YMTC is perfectly set up to serve. The company grew shipments 22% year over year and 5% sequentially while mass-producing 267-layer 3D NAND on its Xtacking architecture, with development underway on devices exceeding 300 layers. Meanwhile, its third Wuhan fab has cleared Beijing's 50% domestic-tooling threshold and is due to begin production late this year, with two follow-on fabs planned.

Counterpoint says that it expects eSSDs to pass half of all NAND bits by year-end, meaning the consumer pool YMTC dominates is shrinking as a share of the total market even as YMTC's slice of it grows. According to the firm, YMTC plans to shift its mix toward eSSDs in the second half, backed by what it called growing avenues for capital support. That shift depends on winning server customers it currently can't reach outside China, and holding a number-three spot earned on cheap bits will get harder if it can't.

Intel's Panther Lake processors have brought powerful graphics and efficient performance to laptops. Now, mini PC companies are packing them into small desktops. With the Evo-T2 GMKtec stretches the form factor by fitting it in a spacious - for mini PCs - twin fan chassis, and equipping one of the most capable of Intel’s 18A (laptop) processors with 64GB of fast DDR5. While GMKtec calls it an AI system in its marketing, the Arc B390 iGPU and OCuLink port mean that the potential gaming capabilities are one of the big focuses for this quiet, compact, and expensive device.

Design of the GMKtec Evo-T2

The GMKtec Evo-T2 is small, of course, but is rather more portly than the typical NUC, measuring in at 6.06 × 5.94 × 2.90 inches (1.72 liters). For context, a ‘standard’ NUC like the Asus NUC 14 Essential measures 5.31 x 4.53 x 1.42 inches (0.56 liters). Its functional plastic shell is lent extra style and strength thanks to a 2 mm-thick gold-colored anodized metal shell that wraps around three sides.

I had no issues with the form or construction of the Evo-T2. I like that it has rubber feet for both horizontal and vertical orientations. There’s even a VESA mounting plate in the box, so you can attach it to the back of a monitor. If you put it behind something, it may be tricky to reach the power switch, ports, and fan-mode switch button, though.

GMKtec Evo-T2 specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

GMKtec has made it pretty easy to open up the Evo-T2 for servicing and upgrades. However, the 64GB LPDDR5X-8533 RAM is soldered in, and that's the only option the company sells. If you need more RAM, you'll need to look elsewhere.

After taking off the wrap-around metal shell by removing three of the four thumbscrew feet by hand, you get access to the four screws that hold the two halves of the plastic case together. These are mini Philips screws, nothing esoteric, and once removed, you can lift the top-half of the case away to reveal user-serviceable areas of the motherboard.

In our photos, you can see there are two M.2 2280 slots, one with a Crucial PCIe Gen4x4 1TB SSD, the other one vacant. Then there’s an M.2 2230 slot with the wireless card installed. Those offer all your internal expansion / upgrade options. Thankfully, the case top with its integrated fan and fan controller is on a decent length of connector cable, making it easy to work inside this chassis without having to detach it. I didn’t try to disassemble the system any further, but I could see that the other side of the motherboard was fitted with a laptop-style fan and blower – which exhausts at the back of the PC, beneath the device’s rear ports.

For a very compact system, the Evo-T2 offers a good selection of fast connectivity. We’ve listed the entire number and variety of ports in the specifications table above, but there is no shortage of USB Type-A ports built-in. GMKtec has also been smart to put one of the two USB4 ports front and back, as well as a 3.5 mm audio jack front and back. The system allows for four screens to be attached directly via the pair of USB4 ports plus HDMI and DP ports, simultaneously. Then there is an OCuLink port for equipment like eGPU docks.

Lastly, two Ethernet ports are present for up to 10G wired networking. For wireless networking, there is Wi-Fi 7 on board, and Bluetooth 5.4 is also built-in – these run from an M.2 2230 card.

Productivity Performance on the GMKtec Evo-T2

Between the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H and 64GB of fast DDR5 RAM, you will have no issues with office productivity on this compact system. And this processor has the best iGPU available from Intel for accelerating certain parallel workloads too.

In our single-core CPU-stressing mini PC benchmarks suite, the Intel Core Ultra 300 chips outshined their AMD Ryzen AI 300 and 400 rivals, which is usually a good indicator for responsive performance. However, the Intel 16C/16T processors were predictably outclassed by the AMD 12C/24T chips that fill our mini PC comparison charts at this time when it comes to multi-threaded workloads.

Focusing on the Cinebench 2026 multi-core test shows that the GMKtec Evo-T2 trailed the AMD Ryzen AI pack in this popular visual rendering test. The Panther Lake machine’s score of 4,338 was respectable, but the trio of AMD competitors were between 7.5% and 17.5% ahead.

When tasked with a spot of video transcoding using HandBrake there’s a similar story to tell, but the Evo-T2 wasn’t left in the dust, as you can see. Transcoding at 16 frames per second isn’t a disastrous result when the AMD competition achieves 17 or 18 frames per second.

During our demanding tests, the GMKtec Evo-T2 stayed admirably cool and quiet.

Gaming and Graphics on the GMKtec Evo-T2

The GMKtec Evo-T2's Core Ultra X7 358H processor includes an integrated GPU, the Intel B390, with 12 Xe cores. We've seen similar graphics arrangements in handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, so we had high hopes.

Before moving onto our standard synthetic and iconic PC gaming tests, I decided to run around in Far Cry 5 using the Normal preset, 1440p, and no resolution scaling. The game ran smoothly at the native QHD resolution of my primary monitor at a consistent 60 frames per second with the settings mentioned. I enjoyed a half-hour rampage in this open-world first person doomsday cult-combating adventure set in rural Montana.

Our set menu of gaming benchmarks include a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two popular AAA PC games. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Steel Nomad targets higher-end gaming PCs and tests raw graphics performance with its heavy GPU load. Finally, Speed Way is a 2025 benchmark from UL that uses DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections. It is the most demanding test of the trio and mini PCs with iGPUs can currently only achieve single-digit frames per second performance in this test.

GMKtec’s mini PC achieves great scores for an iGPU. For example, its Steel Nomad score of 1,624 is almost 1,000 points better than the Arctic Senza AI 370 we reviewed recently, which packs AMD’s Radeon 890M iGPU supported by a fast LPDDR5X‑8000 dual-channel memory pool.

Moving on to more real games, let’s check the data provided by the multi-scene benchmarks built into Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on a humble iGPU. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really put the squeeze on even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the GMKtec Evo-T2 can perform.

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider High 1080p test score shows a comfortably smooth 90 FPS on average, with the low of 72 FPS, also pleasantly above the magic 60 FPS zone. Gamers might be able to squeeze a higher quality setting or move up and enjoy this title in 1440p High. This is a pretty good effort for integrated graphics.

As for Cyberpunk 2077, the Steam Deck + 1080p preset looked very fluid with only minor drops, comfortably remaining above the 60 FPS zone. Adjusting some of the graphics settings, and even applying some level of upscaling technology, using the High 1080p preset should also easily push the GMKtec Evo-T2’s average FPS from the mid-50s to over 60 but with a clear visual advantage over using the Steam Deck preset.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the GMKtec Evo-T2

When I left the GMKtec Evo-T2 to idle, my meter measured wattages around 13W from the wall for the whole system. In the middle of active productivity work, mixing desktop Word and having several browser tabs open, consumption increased to about 20-25W. When the system was pushed with simultaneous CPU and GPU benchmarks running, power draw seemed to peak at around 72W, measured at the wall.

System tools showed that during light activities like browsing the web and writing, the CPU temperature stayed around 44 degrees Celsius (in a 28 C room). Playing Far Cry 5 for 30 or 40 minutes, the reported CPU temperature seemed to oscillate between 80 C and 88 C. However, running a workload like Cinebench R23 multicore, the temperatures seemed to creep a smidgen higher over time, with the highest measurement I saw at 90 C.

GMKtec’s powerful Panther Lake mini PC was a quiet operator in general. My measurements from about a foot in front of the device show it runs idle at 32 dBA. Putting as much strain on the system as possible, with multiple heavy CPU and GPU tasks, the loudest volume the fans reached was 38 dBA. I didn't find the fans to be irritating. Even at the loudest levels, the sound produced is a kind of low-frequency hum.

Software and Warranty on the GMKtec Evo-T2

The GMKtec Evo-T2 ships with Windows 11 Pro installed. Customers are warned by GMKtec’s stickers over the Ethernet ports not to connect to the internet on first boot. This may help in avoiding some long update times and let you get straight to using your new device.

GMKtec includes AI and LLM software preinstalled. A PDF on the desktop alongside several utilities guides you through selecting some local LLMs, downloading, and installing them.

The first step was to run a pre-installed utility called Herdsman, which is where you pick some LLMs based on the software recommendations for different tasks. It also offered summaries of the chosen model’s response speed, capabilities, and memory use. Straight away I hit a slight roadblock with certain pages / dialogs popping up in Chinese. With Google Translate on mobile, I managed to navigate this, but it isn’t ideal.

With the model downloads complete, I could now test out the pre-installed AIPC and GMKtec Claw software. My initial test queries were run using the Alibaba-developed Qwen3.6-35B-A3B / Balanced model. This hogged a little over 27GB of my memory, according to Windows, so the 64GB system total seemed well chosen for this LLM. Responses from queries were not slow, with metrics reporting an average Prefil speed of 500+ t/s, and Decode of 30 t/s. When asking it to “write a 500-word essay on the history of computing," it finished in 26 seconds. Watching the Windows system monitor when Qwen was busy showed that it solely relied on the GPU (using 90-95% utilization) for acceleration. The NPU was completely untaxed, and the CPU’s low ~10% utilization was probably mostly due to background tasks and housekeeping.

Other prompts I tried demonstrated that local AI was just as capable as online models at being totally wrong about a subject. Then, the agentic AI app also underwhelmed by failing in a pretty simple task I asked it to complete - checking an airline booking given the reference number.

Using Zimage Turbo (10.86GB) to generate 1,024 x 1,024 pixel images from prompts resulted in a wait of just over 20 seconds for each result. Again, this used the GPU.

These GMKtec-supplied tools may have potential, but the supplied software suite suffers from partial translations and fewer chat, reasoning, and coding models available than if you just went and downloaded the well-known LM Studio. (However, LM Studio users would also need something like ComfyUI to set up image generation models they wanted to use.)

GMKtec sells the Evo-T2 with a one-year warranty.

Configurations of the GMKtec Evo-T2

We tested the GMKtec Evo-T2 with Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, 64GB RAM, and 1TB SSD, which is listed at $1,959 on the firm’s US site. That chip is one of the best Panther Lake mobile processors with its 16C/16T CPU tile (4x P‑cores, 8x E‑cores, 4x LP E‑cores) running at up to 4.8 GHz. This is aided by Intel Arc B390 (12 Xe cores), which is muscular for an iGPU. Another section of the SoC features a dedicated NPU capable of 50 TOPS, says Intel. However, GMKtec likes to highlight that the total AI power of this Intel processor is 180 TOPS

GMKtec sells just two Evo-T2 configurations in the US, and both have 64GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory. There are two M.2 SSD slots inside, and the manufacturer provides a 1TB Crucial E100 PCIe 4x4 drive using Micron 176-layer QLC NAND pre-installed in the device we received. Windows 11 Pro is included, as are the aforementioned GMKtec local LLM software tools.

We reviewed the Evo-T2 in its $1,959 configuration with 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. On the U.S. web store, there is just one other configuration, a model with the same tech specs but with an “853GB AI SSD” (Phison aiDAPTIV+) instead of the regular 1TB SSD, with an MSRP of $2,399.

Customers ordering an Evo-T2 from the U.S. are told that they won’t have to face any additional import fees, though the store suggests that you should order now because price hikes are coming.

Bottom Line

GMKtec wants to call this an AI machine, and the 64GB of RAM certainly helps towards its local LLM aspirations. But the software it preloads for local AI needs more polish. I’d say that the GMKtec Evo-T2 is far from a one-trick pony, though, and I enjoyed using it as my daily driver for a few weeks.

This mini PC easily handled all the productivity workloads I threw at it. Gaming was excellent for an iGPU – and probably only the aforementioned Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU with Radeon 8060S graphics does better in a single package. Also, this machine is compatible with one of the best eGPU interfaces available, OCuLink, for connecting a desktop GPU of your choice if and when you feel the need. Many enthusiasts still find this interface works better than Thunderbolt 5 or USB4 v2.

GMKtec’s Evo-T2 is a quiet-running mini PC showcasing one of the best Panther Lake chips in the Core Ultra X7 358H. Having 64GB of fast memory on board feels like something of a luxury in the current climate. However, the $1,959 MSRP is just $40 less than the 64GB version of the GMKtec Evo X2 AI Mini PC with Ryzen AI Max+ 395, with integrated Radeon 8060S graphics that we reviewed in February (was $1,499, but now $1,999 with “price increase coming soon”).

The identifiability of AI-generated content is critical as more and more people use text and images from these services, and the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) set a deadline of August 2, 2026 for AI service providers to start implementing identifiability measures. To that end, Anthropic has published a guidance article detailing how new versions of Claude will comply with article 50 of the law specifically.

The legislation is accompanied by a Code of Practice with suggestions for implementation, and in keeping with that code, all new Claude models will watermark text and add provenance data to generated files, namely images (of SVG, PNG, and JPG file types). Anthropic's guidance is a bit late to the party, as OpenAI and Google already published their own versions a while back.

When it comes to text, unlike steganography in images that hides data in the picture content, the lab says that watermarking is performed by biasing the selection of tokens (parts of words) during generation. When the generated text is analyzed, it'll fit a determined statistical pattern, revealing the watermark. Anthropic says it'll provide detection tools that look for these patterns in "forthcoming technical documentation."

Text that is copied-and-pasted and only lightly edited should retain the identifiable pattern. Anthropic says that the quality and meaning of the generated text won't suffer as a result of the marking process. Slices of text under 200 tokens are exempt under the Code of Practice, as they don't carry sufficient data to reliably watermark.

As for images, the aforementioned file types support additional metadata attached to the picture itself, and Claude will start adding a provenance certificate using the C2PA standard. In simplified terms, the files will carry an associated digital certificate that will be invalidated if the file is altered in any way.

Attentive readers might note there's no mention of actual image watermarking, and indeed Anthropic made no mention of that feature, although it's a requirement of the Code of Practice for images, alongside the provenance information. It's expected the firm will implement image watermarks at some point, otherwise, just copy-pasting the picture content would make it untraceable.

Anthropic also says that it's working to add these capabilities to existing Claude models — as required by the AIA, with a deadline of December 2, 2026. The company's guidance starts by describing "models launched in the EU," but subsequent paragraphs clarify that "marking will apply to output from supported models wherever Claude is offered, worldwide."

The text further notes that direct quote content may be erroneously watermarked as part of a response, and that the lack of a text watermark is no indication that the content wasn't AI-generated or processed. The AIA also requires service providers to offer tools to detect watermarks, and Anthropic says it'll "share details in forthcoming documentation."

Sony lets gamers access their PlayStation consoles remotely through a couple of different tools. The Remote Play app lets gamers stream titles from their consoles to their phones, tablets, and PCs. The PlayStation Portal handheld has an extra trick. It can stream PS5 games both locally from a gamer's own console or directly from the PlayStation Plus Premium service's cloud gaming library.

Third-party apps like Chiaki have already brought PS Remote Play functionality over to Linux, but the new Asobi Remote Play app promises to make that functionality available directly from Steam. It also boasts an exclusive feature that can turn your Steam Deck into a virtual PS Portal, allowing you to play cloud games from the PlayStation Plus Premium library. The app is in a pre-release play test right now, but its capabilities are intriguing.

As long as you have a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, you can stream select PS5 titles directly from Sony's servers inside Asobi, even if you don't have a PS5 console. This hasn't been possible on any device other than the PS Portal until now. Only the titles Sony has approved are available for cloud streaming on PS Portal, and that same restriction will apply within Asobi.

That said, hundreds of games are already available through this subscription, so you likely won't run into any trouble finding something to play if you want to try the PlayStation library without committing to a PS5.

The Asobi team has just released the app for SteamOS (and, by extension, Linux), which means you can install it on a Steam Deck or Steam Machine and essentially turn your existing Steam Deck into a Portal, saving you from buying a $250 device just to enjoy PlayStation games without a console.

Asobi is not associated with Sony in any way, so there's no guarantees for future compatibility or even a stable experience, but the developer does promise 1080p 30FPS streaming with the app's free tier. The premium tier bumps that up to 1080p 60 FPS with HDR and 4K upscaling support, as well as manual bitrate selection, controller haptics, and lower latency.

All of these premium features are currently free on the Steam playtest, which is also why pricing for the premium tier hasn't been announced yet. Some users already part of the testing are reporting issues, which is to be expected for pre-release software.

But if the team can iron out the kinks, and assuming that Sony doesn't block whatever method Asobi is using to mimic the PlayStation Portal for cloud game streaming access, this app could become the most accessible way to play PlayStation games on the Steam Deck (apart from native PC ports, of course).

Samsung Foundry presented its updated fabrication technologies roadmap at the 2026 Next-Generation Lithography + Patterning Conference (NGL 2026) this week, revealing some major changes compared to the 2024 roadmap, reports ZDNet Korea. Instead of rushing its SF1.4 node (1.4nm-class) to the market, Samsung will focus on refining its SF2 (2nm-class) manufacturing processes in the next three years. And starting with its SF1A (1nm-class) fabrication node, Samsung intends to adopt High-NA EUV lithography tools, the first time the company confirms the plan.

Before moving on to 10-angstrom (or 1nm-class) node around 2030, Samsung will refine its SF2-series manufacturing technologies (which includes SF2P, SF2X, SF2A, and SF2Z with backside power delivery) and introduce its SF1.4 process in 2029.

The delay of SF1.4 from 2027 to 2029 indicates that the company is slowing its leading-edge cadence to focus resources on making its SF2 family more commercially competitive from yields and volumes point of view. Keeping in mind that Samsung has signed a long-term supply agreement with Tesla to supply AI5 and AI6 processors through 2033, the company's priority is to ensure that its major customer is happy.

Another reason for a long SF2 lifespan is the company's reported plan to finally adopt pellicles for EUV photomasks, which changes the usual routines at Samsung and likely forces it to reconsider process recipes for some of its future nodes.

Interestingly, but Samsung's 1nm-class node is said to co-exist with SF1.4+, an enhanced version of SF1.4 that uses an unusual nomenclature for Samsung. Such an approach indicates that the company will have both an "innovative" 1nm-class process that uses High-NA EUV lithography and a technology that relies on proven Low-NA EUV flows and materials.

Although Samsung has purchased an ASML Twinscan EXE:5000 EUV lithography scanner with 0.55 numerical aperture projection optics and has been using it for research purposes for well over a year, the company is not in any rush to adopt High-NA EUV lithography for its 2nm-class and 1.4nm-class fabrication technologies. Samsung only plans to insert such a tool for its 1nm-class process sometime in 2030.

"We wanted to apply High-NA EUV to mass production at nodes such as 2nm and 1.4nm, but the technology still requires further improvements," said Chang Min Park, Master VP of Technology at Samsung Electronics, at the conference. "We believe High-NA EUV will become necessary from A10 and below, and we are conducting joint development with various partners."

For chipmakers, the main challenge with ASML's High-NA EUV tools are substantially higher costs compared to Low-NA EUV systems used today, which greatly increases costs of fabs and can affect costs of chips. Meanwhile, High-NA EUV scanners introduce a smaller exposure field, which can require die stitching for large chips and complicate designs, which largely diminish their performance advantage over regular Low-NA EUV systems that stems on reducing the need for using multipatterning.

In addition, High-NA EUV needs improved photoresists, different masks, pellicles, metrology, inspection, and computational lithography, just to name some of the requirements. As a result, chipmakers must determine when it makes sense for them to use expensive single-patterning on High-NA EUV tools and when they can live with increasingly mature 0.33-NA EUV multi-patterning. For example, Intel intends use High-NA EUV tools with some of its 14A technologies, whereas TSMC looks at High-NA EUV lithography as on technology for the 2030s.

We've been highlighting the benefits of going down the pre-built gaming PC and laptop route a lot recently, thanks to the ever-rising prices of PC components. Today is another example of a price cut on a ready-made gaming computer that might be the saviour of those looking to buy into PC gaming in the current climate. Hitting a new all-time low price at Amazon is the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 AI, falling to $2,199.99. That's a saving of $600 from its most recent sale price of $2799.99, which we've confirmed via price comparison sites.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 AI features an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU with 12GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. These components power your gaming on the huge 18-inch IPS display with an insanely fast 240Hz refresh rate and 3ms overdrive response time.

The chassis of the Predator Helios Neo 18 AI is a mix of metal and plastic, with an abyssal black finish. There is room to upgrade parts in the future if RAM and SSDs don't become unaffordable, with two DDR5 RAM slots that support a maximum of 64GB and two M.2 slots. For that gamer aesthetic, there's plenty of bright RGB zones all over the laptop, so you can dial it up to 11 if you want to go for the full light show.

The RTX 5070 Ti is one of the more powerful laptop graphics chips, and although not comparable to a desktop version, it still has 12GB of VRAM and will be able to run games smoothly on the 18-inch 2560x1600 WQXGA+ screen. Being an Nvidia GPU, the laptop will be able to access Nvidia's DLSS software to increase or smooth out frame rates on more taxing titles. This is a large laptop at 18 inches, and quite expensive due to its size and amount of memory and storage used. So it's good to see it hit a new all-time low price at Amazon of $2,199.99.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Delta Flight 591 between Las Vegas, Nevada, and Atlanta, Georgia was carrying some passengers from the recently concluded DEF CON 34 hacking conference yesterday, and an attendee apparently didn't want to let the fun stay in Vegas. A passenger reportedly “jammed” the plane’s Wi-Fi signal. According to View From the Wing, that hacker then created their own Wi-Fi hotspot called “Delta WiFi Fast” that routed to a phishing website that harvested the Google credentials of any passenger who attempted to log in.

The pilots on the flight told the ground crew to alert corporate security as someone was tampering with in-flight Wi-Fi through ACARS, the digital communications systems airliners use for air-to-ground text communications. “Hey, alert corporate security. We have a passenger onboard that has created a scam Wi-Fi called ‘Delta WiFi Fast.’ We believe they are trying to scam the other passengers,” the pilots said in their first message. They followed this up 17 minutes later with, “No information as of now. We have a bunch of passengers that were at a cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. They were able to jam our Wi-Fi and broadcast their signal.”

While the exact details are unclear as the incident is still under investigation, the attacker (or prankster) apparently used a Wi-Fi Pineapple penetration testing device to launch Wi-Fi deauthentication attacks and then created an evil twin that other passengers could log into instead. This fake log-in page could have been used to harvest usernames, passwords, and other credentials. The plane was reportedly met at the gate by the authorities, although it’s unclear if any arrests were made.

Most in-flight Wi-Fi networks are unsecured, so a determined hacker could potentially use it for cyberattacks on their fellow passengers. Creating an “evil twin” network does not carry the same alarm, scandal, and potential lawsuit that a public network or device named “bomb” would on a flight, but it could still land you in hot water.

“Jamming” or interfering with in-flight Wi-Fi (or any Wi-Fi network, for that matter) is prohibited by the FCC [PDF], while the phishing log-in page could constitute wire fraud or identity theft. The passenger who created the fake in-flight Wi-Fi is also using social engineering, especially as more airlines adopt in-flight Wi-Fi and more passengers expect it, especially as they start switching to Starlink to provide reliable and fast internet.

Despite the potential threat to passengers’ cybersecurity, Delta reassured flyers that the safety of the flight was never threatened in any way. “Safety of flight was never in question, and no aircraft operating systems were affected. We are fully investigating to gather a complete set of facts, which will take time,” a Delta spokesperson told View From the Wing. “We will partner with federal law enforcement and aviation regulators to ensure the incident is thoroughly investigated. We thank our crew for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding.”

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has revealed that new memory architectures — once thought a commodity business — are now strategically interesting and one of his pet projects, while speaking about the comeback of the American chip industry. He further noted that the memory industry is ripe for innovation, and also hinted at exploring ways to stack memory on top of a CPU.

After years of being a commodity, memory became a strategic asset in recent quarters and will likely remain one for a while, so suddenly, leading makers of 3D NAND and DRAM became highly profitable companies, something the Intel CEO is keenly aware of:  "I used to be, 'do not invest in memory because it is a kind of commodity business,' but now it has become different," Tan said. […] "There is a lot of new technology coming out. So, we are kind of looking at one of my pet projects, some of the new memory architecture. I think you just saw the news: I hired my good friend, Seok-Hee Lee, who used to run SK Hynix. So, you kind of know something that I am thinking about. We are not ready to unfold it."

Tan did not reveal anything about the pet project and did not even specify whether the project is one of his personally favored strategic initiatives at Intel, or an initiative in one of the companies that he has invested in. He did mention that stacking memory on top of a CPU could make a lot of sense, though did not elaborate. Tan's remarks also follow the revelation of an Intel XBM patent that does away with the silicon interposer of HBM.

" I think CPU and memory, I think there are a lot of ways we can really do stacking together," Tan said. "And also try to find some new architecture for memory. I think in some way the memory, a lot of innovation are not there. So, there is some really good area."

Not everyone in the industry remembers, but Intel started as a memory company in 1968 and was quite a successful memory maker until the eighties, when Japanese companies took the lead, and Intel had to exit the market completely after suffering severe losses. Since then, the company has attempted either to return to the memory market with NAND and Optane, or at least to capitalize on a new type of memory with RDRAM. In all three cases, the company abandoned its memory initiatives without incurring significant losses.

Given the current profitability of 3D NAND and DRAM makers, producing memory is certainly a good business again and will remain profitable for some time. However, to re-enter it, companies like Intel would need capital to build at least one fab, R&D to develop competitive process technologies, and time. While licensing a technology — assuming that a company has capital — is an option, we strongly doubt that at this point Intel may be inclined to invest capital in memory and not in its core products and foundry businesses. Furthermore, it is unclear how investors react to such investments given the fact that the company struggles to become a strong competitor in the foundry market and has exited 3D NAND and 3DXPoint/Optane businesses after failing to achieve strategic targets.

Unfortunately, storage costs for PC builders have shot up into the stratosphere this year. AI has sucked up our RAM and SSDs and left us with inflated prices as a result, making it essential to find good deals in the current market when they appear. This 4TB Team Group T-Force G50 SSD for $389.99, thanks to a $106 discount code at Newegg, isn't a record breaker, but it's basically the lowest price you'll pay for this amount of storage for an SSD offering Gen 4 speeds, and $10 cheaper than we saw during Prime Day.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

The only drive you'll find cheaper with similar specs is the Silicon Power UD90, but only by a few cents, with the next drive costing you over $50 more for slower speeds. If you want it, you'll need to make sure you use the coupon code BTSF2997 at checkout to get the full discount applied.

The T-Force G50 is a PCIe 4.0 SSD, running over all four lanes, and offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 5,000 and 4,500 MB/s apiece. It won't be winning any speed awards, but if that was your aim, then the Samsung 990 Pro, which sits on our best SSD, is the better option. You'll need to pay almost twice the price, however, with the 990 Pro costing $789.99 right now, just $10 less than double what you're paying here for the same storage capacity.

The T-Force G50 comes with a graphene heatsink to keep things cool, ships with TLC memory, and features a memory controller from InnoGrit.

The $389.99 sale price for this Team Group T-Force G50 4TB SSD is a bargain under current conditions. We're in a troubled market for PC builders, and the $106 saving brings this SSD down to around 10.2 cents per GB, as low as you'll find right now for this capacity from a Gen 4 SSD. Don't forget to use coupon code BTSF2997 for the discount, however.

Commodore has brought back the “Totally Accurate Controller” joystick, better known by C64 and Amiga aficionados from the 80s as the TAC-2. In an email to Tom’s Hardware, a Commodore exec explained that used TAC-2s are becoming rare. “Secondhand units in decent shape go for $100 or more,” it was noted, so the decision was made to remake these controllers that have been out of production for more than 40 years. Commodore has sprinkled some worthwhile new and improved features on the TAC-2, too, pricing the new model at $49.99.

• See the new Commodore TAC-2 Joystick

In addition to the observed shortage/skyrocketing pricing of used TAC-2 units on marketplaces like eBay, Commodore surveyed its fans before deciding to remake the TAC-2. Apparently, it was one of the top two suggestions from fans. The other one was “something called an ‘Amiga,’ whatever that is,” teased Commodore in its official press release. Amiga talks are ongoing, so a revamped 16-bit home computer isn’t ready yet.

The original TAC-2 controller was released in 1983 by a firm called Suncom and earned a reputation for durability, backed by manufacturer claims that units had been tested for 3 million moves without failure. It also earned a reputation for accuracy, and fire buttons on its left and right front corners made the TAC-2 a great choice for both right-handed and sinistral folk.

After securing exclusive trademark rights, Commodore has set out to not just remake but meaningfully enhance the TAC-2 for 2026. Starting from the outside, there’s the chicken-lips logo integration… That’s not all though, as Commodore has also decided to reissue the TAC-2 in five colorways. These include three options that mirror the C64 Ultimate, providing BASIC Beige, Starlight, and Founders (gold) color options. It has added LEDs in the clicky fire buttons of these models, too, which is new. Two further color options are C= White (like the C64C) and Knight Black, and “for purists,” these eschew the LEDs.

Beyond the cosmetics, it is good to hear Commodore has actually strengthened the assembly at the heart of this joystick. Apparently the original design used an automobile TR-418 tire valve assembly, but as these are “made with weaker, thinner copper today,” Commodore has fabricated its own steel shaft, boasting “we think ours is even stronger.”

Just like the original, the TAC-2 connects using a 9-pin controller port so will work with your original retro gaming hardware, including the C64 Ultimate. Commodore reminds those eyeing this stick that USB adaptors are easily sourced via various outlets, so you can use joysticks like the TAC-2 with modern PCs and devices. This joystick measures 101 x 101 x 114mm, weighs about 300g, and the supplied cable is 2 meters in length.

You can purchase a new TAC-2 for $49.99, or $64 for a limited Founders Edition with gold PVD accents. Pre-orders are open, and shipping will commence on October 20, 2026.

One independent book retailer in Galway, Ireland, received an online order for 5,000 books, which would be elating for many shop owners, especially at a time when people prefer shopping online from major platforms like Amazon or ditch physical books altogether and buy eBooks instead. However, according to The Irish Times, it’s not the number of titles that went into the order that raised red flags, but the obscure books that went with the orders, prompting fears the books are being acquired to train AI, possibly resulting in their destruction.

“Some was high-quality non-fiction, like A History of Connemara, and the next thing might be The Eddie Hobbs Guide to your SSIA,” Tomás Kenny of Kennys Bookshop told the publication. In this example, the former is a history book that covers a region in western Ireland while the latter is about the Special Savings Incentive Account unique to the country. Berlin bookshops are also reportedly seeing similar orders that contain titles that wouldn’t make sense for a person to purchase today, like “Pass Your Driving Test, 2018 Edition.” It follows a report last month that AI companies are reportedly shredding millions of books after using them to train AI models, using destructive scanners to quickly digitize the books.

Massive orders like these aren’t that unique, with many private institutions looking to build libraries often ordering this huge number of books from independent bookstores. However, aside from weird titles included in the order, many large buyers connected with educational and other public institutions often negotiate a bulk price. When this is combined with the weird titles being included in the orders, the sellers cannot help but suspect that these orders are, in fact, made by AI companies looking to ingest more books to add to their training data.

The biggest AI companies have been hit with multiple lawsuits regarding book piracy — for example, court records revealed that Meta torrented 82TB of pirated books for AI training, while Nvidia is in hot water as a judge said that its NeMo Framework “have no other purpose” than to speed up infringement. More recently, Anthropic was hit with a $1.5-billion settlement for infringing the rights of authors and their publishers. Unfortunately, the penalty here is based on the startup’s use of pirated books — the court has ruled that the AI firms’ use of these written works to train AI is considered fair use.

This isn’t applicable in Germany, though. “Under German law scanning books – regardless of the purpose – would not be permissible and constitute a clear violation of copyright law,” said Thomas Koch, spokesperson of Germany’s Publishers and Booksellers’ Association. “That this is now happening with second-hand books is another highly troubling example of this practice.”

They’ve also surmised that the purchases are driven by AI bots that troll the internet for ISBNs (the unique numerical code assigned to each book title) that they don’t have in their library yet. The orders are shipped to local addresses, but because some European nations have laws that prevent book scanning, the association thinks that these are just collection points for eventual bulk shipping to the U.S.

It’s not clear if the bookshops are fulfilling these orders or not. On the one hand, these bulk orders are a lifesaver for these stores and could help make surviving society’s transition towards eBooks and readers much easier. On the other hand, AI is scaring them, and some fear it wouldn’t just be the end of bookstores but could also lead to the degradation of human critical thinking abilities.

A Steam Deck enthusiast and modder is close to finalizing the ‘SteamBoy.’ Of course, this WIP project shoehorns the brains and brawn of Valve’s Steam Deck into the form factor of the original Nintendo Game Boy. If it were the other way around, for some bizarre reason, it would be called the GameDeck. PhyFawkes’ project appears to be progressing splendidly, though the non-trivial hurdles of designing a custom display adapter PCB and fitting a new screen remain.

PhyFawkes’ SteamBoy project began after a handheld gaming lightbulb moment. “The Steam Deck motherboard seems pretty small,” the Redditor thought to themselves. “I wonder if you could make a Steam Deck the size of a Game Boy?”

As you can see from the embedded photos, a lot of the design already completed for this hybrid modern heart in a retro shell device seems spot on. We’d appreciate more beige, but that’s mere cosmetics and a simple 3D printer filament swap in the future, perhaps. PhyFawkes says that, as the project stands, “It has a fully functional LCD Steam Deck motherboard, battery, speakers, and all the face buttons you see here. No custom PCBs needed (so far), and all within the dimensions of a Game Boy.”

Elsewhere in their Reddit post, we learn that a 30 x 7mm fan and heatsink from AliExpress have been used, alongside a custom 3D-printed mount, to cool the new SteamBoy. Using this cooler design and a smidgen of undervolting, reasonable max temperatures of between 70 and 80 degrees Celsius have been observed when gaming.

Getting the screen to interface and fit doesn’t sound like an insurmountable task from the description. The Redditor admits it will be a challenge to fit the “1200x1080, 90Hz AMOLED panel, originally intended for VR” into the shell, but they have a plan. A custom adapter PCB, to be situated between the Steam Deck ribbon cable and the display, is in the making. Then, a BIOS mod will need to be implemented. PhyFawkes says this firmware change will be similar to those seen in the DeckHD and Deck Sight projects.

For those of you thirsty for more SteamBoy info, the modder has also just shared a Reddit post packed with teardown images, and another post demonstrating the unit. This video demo shows the SteamBoy operating while attached to a monitor. That’s the only way to use the device until the aforementioned screen integration challenges are met. “Hopefully it won't be too long before that's working as well,” added PhyFawkes in a comment.

The founder and CEO of Subco, a company that owns several undersea cables servicing Australia, said that two of its cables — Indigo-West, connecting Perth to Indonesia and Singapore, and Indigo-Central, which has endpoints in Victoria, Tasmania, and New South Wales — reported shunt faults in close succession, with the detected problems also appearing to be in close proximity to each other. According to Bevan Slattery’s LinkedIn post, the errors occurred at around the same time that a vessel was traversing the area. In a statement, Australian Federal Police told Tom's Hardware that it had received a report of a crime and was investigating, strongly hinting the cables may have been cut in an act of sabotage.

“Earlier tonight: Shunt faults on two systems (Indigo West and Indigo Central) straight after each other and in close proximity to each other. Remarkably this also happened in the Submarine Cable Protection Zone off Perth Australia. Coincidently some suspicious/coincidental activity from a vessel near the location and timing of the shunts occurring,” Slattery said in his post. “This is a concerning development. Partially because submarine cables are the digital lifeblood of our nation, but also because this could very well turn out to be the second such incidence in a Federally declared cable protection zone. This maybe a coincidence, but it’s important for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate the issue urgently.”

"The AFP has received a report of crime in relation to this matter," the force told Tom's Hardware. Further stating, "This report is currently being assessed based on the information provided. Further comment will be made at an appropriate time." 

Australia established the Cable Protection Zone in 2007, with the one near Perth extending 51 nautical miles from the shore at depths of over 6,500 feet (2,000 meters). Despite that, it seems that something has damaged the cables, as they reported shunt faults. A shunt fault is when the insulation of a conductor has been broken, allowing it to unintentionally contact another conductor or the ground, resulting in a short circuit. While there is no proof yet, Slattery shared the track of a marine vessel on his post, which was allegedly within the approximate area of the faults when they happened.

Nation states have been cutting undersea infrastructure as part of gray zone warfare, with Russia and China suspected of sponsoring these activities. For example, Finland has been hit twice by undersea cable disruptions in the past couple of years, which has led to the prosecution of some of the crew members of the suspected vessels. Taiwan has also increased its naval patrols around its undersea cables, especially as a Chinese “research vessel” has been seen lurking above a cable that connects the island nation to the U.S. It’s unclear what caused the shunt faults in two of Australia’s undersea cables, but the incident happened at around the same time that the National Security College of the Australian National University released a report highlighting the growing threat that submarine cables face in the modern world.

If you know anything about me, you know I love a mouse with 19+ buttons. That's why I've been using Razer's Naga V2 Pro as my daily driver for the past three and a half years — and I have no regrets; it's on our list of best gaming mice for a reason. Thankfully, Razer must've heard my V2 Pro begging for its life, because there's a new multi-button MMO mouse in town with up to 23 programmable buttons: the Razer Naga V3 Pro.

The Naga V3 Pro is very similar to its predecessor at a glance — because Razer hasn't changed the mouse's form factor at all. It still comes with three swappable magnetic side plates (in 2-, 6- and 12-button layouts), but that's where the similarities end. The new Naga V3 Pro sports Razer's latest Focus Pro 50K gen-3 optical sensor, which has a maximum sensitivity of 50,000 DPI and a maximum speed of 930 IPS, and can handle up to 90 G's of force. It's not cheap, as the Naga lineup never has been, with an MSRP of $180 — pricier than most premium flagship gaming mice because it is, after all, all about versatility.

Design and Comfort

Like some of Razer's other new mice, the Naga V3 Pro has the exact same shape as its predecessor — it's a shorter, wider mouse than most flagship premium mice, measuring 4.7 x 2.97 x 1.72 inches (119.5 x 75.5 x 43.5mm). It's still a larger mouse overall, just a different shape. It has a right-handed ergonomic shape with a contoured thumb area, with interchangeable plates and a curved ring finger rest on the right side. It has a matte black plastic shell and features three RGB light zones in the scroll wheel, the logo on the palm rest, and on the side panel.

The mouse weighs slightly less than its predecessor: 3.9 ounces (112g) without the side plate or cable attached; the side plates weigh 20g (12-button), 17g (6-button), and 15g (2-button). The Naga V2 Pro weighed 134g regardless of the side plate. Its side plates — which are the same 12-button, 6-button, and 2-button layouts as the side plates from the Naga V2 Pro — now feature more durable double-shot molded keycaps, so they should last longer and the legends should remain crisp and readable throughout the mouse's lifetime (not that anyone is really looking at the legends on their mouse buttons).

The mouse has three buttons the Naga V2 Pro doesn't have — in addition to its primary left/right buttons, tilt wheel, two buttons above the tilt wheel, and profile switch on the bottom. There are now two edge buttons on the left side of the left mouse button (set by default to scroll up and down through DPI steps) and the ring finger rest has also been turned into a button (set by default to activate Razer's HyperShift for multi-layer inputs). I didn't have any problems with accidentally pressing the ring finger rest button, but there is a locking switch that lets you quickly disable it (it actually stops it from clicking at all, which is nice) if you do have issues.

The Naga V3 Pro has a multi-mode tilt wheel with three distinct modes: tactile, free-spin, and precision tactile. The scroll modes can be toggled off, but they aren't fully configurable like the customizable scroll feature in the Naga V2 Pro. This seems fine, though — the customizable scroll feature in the Naga V2 Pro seemed like overkill to implement with very minor benefits, and I prefer just a few distinct modes to something that you can fully customize.

That said, I kind of wish the distinct modes had been slightly better implemented, as I found the free scroll to be especially over-sensitive — even just resting my finger next to the scroll wheel often caused it to activate. There's a setting in Synapse 4 that automatically switches over to free scroll mode when you're scrolling fast enough, but I didn't like this because there's an audible click every time it switches. The button directly next to the wheel is set to move through scroll modes by default, while the button above that is set to open up Razer's AI Prompt Master.

On the bottom of the mouse, you'll find a power switch, a programmable profile switch button, and the ring finger rest lock, as well as PTFE mouse feet and a dummy mouse puck that can be swapped in with charging pucks from Razer accessories.

In the box, the Naga V3 Pro comes with a 6-foot (1.8m) braided USB-C to USB-A cable, three interchangeable side plates, a USB-A dongle, and a USB-A to USB-C adapter. The cable is braided but it's fairly stiff — it's definitely not flexible or drag-free, like Razer's HyperFlux cables it usually bundles with its mice. You can use it as a mouse cable, but you probably won't want to.

Specs

Performance

The Naga V3 Pro features Razer's latest Focus Pro 50K Gen-4 optical sensor, which has a maximum sensitivity of 50,000 DPI and a maximum speed of 930 IPS, and can handle up to 90 G's of force. These are kind of crazy specs for a mouse considering most people won't use a DPI above 3,200 or so — what you need to know is that it's a great sensor that tracks across a variety of surfaces with excellent accuracy. It's speedy, too, though this is not the kind of mouse most people will be moving around lightning fast and picking up, as it's more than twice the weight of ultra-lightweight mice such as Razer's DeathAdder V4 Pro.

The mouse also features Razer's Gen-4 optical mouse switches, which are rated for up to 100 million clicks and offer crisp, tactile feedback. The feedback does feel slightly crisper and more deliberate than the switches in the Naga V2 Pro, but it's not a very significant difference and you definitely can't tell unless you're using both side-by-side. Still, at 100 million clicks they should last as long as the mouse does.

These switches are only in the primary mouse buttons, not the side panel buttons — though the side panel buttons still felt fairly crisp and gave nice tactile feedback. The only buttons I didn't love on the Naga V3 Pro were the edge buttons on the left side of the left mouse button — they were a little too far to the left to be comfortable, and they had a very soft, mushy, lackluster click.

The Naga V3 Pro ships with a 1,000 Hz polling rate and a 1,000 Hz polling rate is the highest you're going to get unless you make a separate purchase. The mouse is capable of getting up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate, but you'll need to purchase either Razer's Mouse Dock Pro or its HyperPolling Wireless Dongle in order to achieve polling rates higher than 1,000 Hz.

Features and Software

The Naga V3 Pro is programmable via Razer Synapse 4, and you'll almost certainly want to do some customizing since the default settings have the side panel buttons programmed to numbers (except for the two-button side panel, which is MB4 / MB5). Luckily Synapse 4 didn't give me too much trouble with calibration or bringing my Naga V2 Pro settings over to the Naga V3 Pro.

Synapse 4 lets you remap buttons, customize the tilt wheel, and adjust settings such as DPI steps and polling rate. It features a built-in automatic mouse calibration tool that lets you match your current mouse's DPI (this worked flawlessly for me, but I was matching the Naga V3 Pro to the Naga V2 Pro), as well as some surface calibration settings you can play with. You can also customize the mouse's RGB lighting zones, of which there are three — tilt wheel, side panel, and palm rest logo.

Wireless Experience and Battery Life

The Naga V3 Pro has 3 forms of connectivity — 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and wired (via USB-C). Razer rates its battery life at up to 155 hours over its 2.4GHz wireless connection, which is pretty solid for a wireless mouse with so much going on — though this will of course vary depending on your polling rate and lighting settings. It's compatible with Razer's HyperFlux V2 Wireless charging mouse pad, however, which makes its battery life technically endless.

Bottom Line

The Naga V3 Pro is a solid update to the Naga V2 Pro, which I've been using for (literally) years. It looks and feels almost identical to the Naga V2 Pro, which I appreciate — the Naga V2 Pro is a very comfortable, if not particularly speed-optimized, gaming mouse — and it's got some nice upgrades in the sensor, switches, and buttons.

These days, the market is mostly dominated by stripped-down, ultra-lightweight eSports-oriented mice, and so it's nice to see that there's still a place for MMO-oriented mice with buttons in the double digits. The Naga V3 Pro isn't the only mouse with a 12-button side panel, but there isn't a ton of competition — we weren't wowed by SteelSeries' Aerox 9 Wireless, and Corsair's Scimitar Elite SE Wireless has an uncomfortably concave side panel (though it does move forward and backward, if that's something you're looking for). If you're looking for a mouse with a ton of buttons — not counting inputs that are duplicated via software — the Naga V3 Pro is now your best bet.

SK hynix has resumed investments in its fab in Dalian, China, which is operated by its Solidigm subsidiary, and plans to boost its output by 50% already in 2027, reports Sedaily. Coincidentally, the company is mulling listing some of Solidigm's shares on NASDAQ to raise capital, but to retain control over its North America-based subsidiary, according to The Korea Herald.

After SK hynix acquired Intel's 3D NAND and SSD business in 2021 and formed its Solidigm subsidiary shortly after, it suspended any expansions of Solidigm's capacity in China partly due to the memory market downturn in 2022 – 2023 and partly due to U.S. export controls that curb exports of advanced fab tools to China. However, as demand for solid-state storage is setting records in general and demand for Solidigm's high-capacity SSDs is exceptionally strong, SK hynix is reconsidering its capacity plans for the Dalian fab just in time for Solidigm's initial public offering.

Following a four-year pause, Solidigm has reportedly resumed investment in its Dalian facility in China this year. The company has completed construction of the second phase of the fab and is preparing to start installing production equipment as early as November, the report claims. The facility is expected to begin mass production of floating gate 3D NAND flash in the first half of 2027, if the report is accurate.

The second phase of Solidigm's fab in Dalian is reportedly designed for a wafer output capacity of around 50,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM). Combined with approximately 100,000 WSPM at the existing first phase of the facility, the new phase would boost Solidigm's NAND production capacity in Dalian by roughly 50%, to around 150,000 WSPM.

Late last year, the U.S. government granted SK hynix and Samsung annual licenses to ship semiconductor production equipment that contains technologies developed in America to their Chinese fabs through 2026, which replaced their previous open-ended Validated End User (VEU) exemptions. As a result, both companies can now upgrade their fabs in the People's Republic and even use new process technologies there.

Solidigm, for example, intends to start making floating gate 3D QLC NAND memory with over 200 active layers at its Dalian facility in the second half of 2026, which was made possible by the timely tool upgrades. The additional capacity will further increase bit output of the Dalian campus, which in turn will enable Solidigm to produce its 245TB-class SSDs due to be introduced in the coming months in decent quantities, sometimes in 2027.

Solidigm, which controls roughly a quarter of the data center-grade SSD market, is a crown jewel in SK hynix's portfolio as it makes unique products that are sold at a premium and are in high demand. Listing Solidigm on NASDAQ would enable SK hynix to gain capital (up to $7 billion, if unofficial reports are correct), but retain control over the precious asset. The money that SK hynix will raise should be roughly enough to expand Solidigm's capacity and increase output of premium data center-grade solid-state drives.

It should be noted that SK hynix did not officially confirm the Solidigm IPO plan last week, as its regulatory filing on August 5 said that Solidigm was considering various ways to improve its competitiveness, but the final decision is yet to be made.

If you've ever stumbled upon the Amazon CPU best sellers list over the past few years, you've been greeted by a wall of red boxes. This list isn't a good source of data, without hard sales figures and heavily skewed toward what's available on Amazon at any given time. But AMD senior marketing director Saša Marinković recently shared a screenshot of the Amazon CPU best-sellers list, bragging on AMD's representation. The interesting bit is that the screenshot Marinković shared shows the $80, DDR4-based Ryzen 5 5500 at the top of the charts.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has since reclaimed the top slot — it is the best CPU for gaming, after all — but the screenshot touches on the prevalence of DDR4 platforms, nearly four years after the launch of Zen 4 and introduction of DDR5 to AMD's platform. It's not just the Ryzen 5 5500, either.

Of the 25 best sellers on Amazon, three slots are occupied by Intel, and one slot is claimed by the Thermal Grizzly AM5 contact frame. AMD holds every other slot, though it's nearly an even split between DDR4 and DDR5. There are nine Zen 3 CPUs on DDR4 platforms to 12 Zen 4/5 CPUs on DDR5 platforms.

It seems Marinković's screenshot is a bit out of date — currently, the split is even closer, with Intel picking up two extra spots and the split between DDR4 and DDR5 AMD CPUs moving to nine and 10 slots, respectively.

The irony here is that Marinković is highlighting AMD's representation on the best-sellers list while a four-year-old CPU is at the top of the charts, not one of the many performant DDR5 processors AMD has released since. It's not hard to draw a straight line between DDR4 popularity and current RAM pricing on your own. However, several motherboard vendors have previously confirmed to Tom's Hardware that they're increasing DDR4 motherboard production due to demand for older platforms.

The Ryzen 5 5500 is one of the cheapest CPUs you can buy at only $80, and it comes with a Wraith Stealth cooler in the box, saving you some money on an aftermarket CPU cooler. It's based on the Zen 3 architecture with six cores and 12 threads and boosts up to 4.2 GHz. It has a cut-down L3 cache compared to other Zen 3 CPUs at 16 MB, however, and it tops out at PCIe 3.0.

We recently published a $100 CPU shootout comparing the Ryzen 5 5500 to some other options around the same price and found its performance lacking, particularly in games; the Intel Core i3-14100F consistently offered better performance with DDR4. That conclusion only holds up if you don't already have an AM4 motherboard, however. If you're in the market for the Ryzen 5 5500, you're already on a tight budget, so a new motherboard probably isn't in the cards.

Intel is set to raise $19.7 billion by selling new common stock in a bid to finance the building out of new production capacity, the development of next-generation leading-edge process technologies like 14A and others, and day-to-day operations. While the company does not assign money to a particular project, Intel needs to build capacity to land orders from large external clients, so capacity expansion will likely be a priority. According to Bloomberg, the share sale attracted $100 billion in demand.

Intel will sell 210,526,315 shares for $95 apiece through an underwritten public offering. In addition, participating banks have 30 days to acquire as many as 31,578,947 more shares at the same $95 price, minus applicable underwriting discounts. Should they exercise all their options, Intel could sell approximately 242.1 million shares altogether and increase the proceeds to roughly $23 billion. Without the additional shares, Intel expects net proceeds of approximately $19.7 billion after underwriting discounts, commissions, and estimated expenses. The transaction is scheduled to close on August 12, 2026.

Intel's market capitalization increased from roughly $90 billion last August to $491 billion at press time, so the time is right to sell some shares and raise some much-needed cash, as the company must compete against giants like TSMC and Samsung, which spend tens of billions of dollars every year on new fabs and advanced process technologies. Meanwhile, Intel's capitalization reached its all-time high of $673 billion on June 20, 2026.

Intel has not assigned the money it is going to raise to particular projects and says the capital can be used across the business, including for capital expenditures and working capital. The company is currently ramping up its Fab 52 in Arizona and is on track to start using adjacent Fab 62 when it needs to. In addition, the company still has to build its fab complex in Ohio, which is expected to cost over $100 billion when fully built, so it badly needs money.

In its risk disclosures, the company specifically mentioned Intel 14A — which is due to enter mass production in 2028 — and other advanced process technologies, manufacturing expansion required to support them, and the need to secure design wins and volume commitments from major external foundry customers. While Intel does caution that these long-term investments amounting to tens of billions may not generate adequate returns, it is impossible to land sizeable contracts from external customers without having production capacity readily available.

Interestingly, Intel also mentioned alternative financing arrangements, government grants, and the U.S. government's significant equity position in the company among relevant factors.

The AMD BC-250 has taken on a new life. It’s a PS5 APU that was repurposed for mining during the crypto boom, and now it’s being repurposed once again as a Linux gaming board. The BC-250 has seen some coverage in years past. It was originally a board you could pick up for less than $100, but now you’ll likely spend over $200 on one. We’re taking a closer look at the board and the performance it offers now for a few key reasons.

First, we have the Steam Machine. Valve’s long-awaited console-like PC is here and much more expensive than anyone expected at over $1,000. You can easily put together a BC-250 build for around $400 or $500, and even less if you have a power supply and SSD lying around. If you can get in the realm of Steam Machine performance for half the price (and the BC-250 can, based on our testing), that’s pretty compelling.

There have also been some significant developments among the BC-250 community. The board only works in the first place due to a community-developed BIOS and GPU driver, and developers have continued to experiment with what’s possible with the hardware. Now, there are tools that enable all 40 Compute Units (CUs) on the board (it defaults to 24 CUs), as well as tools to enable the two disabled Zen 2 cores, taking the six-core CPU to an eight-core CPU.

Now, the BC-250 isn’t a cut-down PS5 APU, at least from a hardware perspective. It actually patches two more graphics CUs compared to the PS5. Though, as should become clear throughout this story, relating the BC-250 to the PS5 on anything but the silicon on the board isn’t the best idea.

All in, we spent about $350 on the BC-250, with around $200 of that going toward the board (it’s currently listed for around $175 on eBay) and the additional budget going toward a 3D-printed case, fans, and a power supply. You could spend as little as the cost of the board if you can 3D print a case, bring your own fans, and repurpose an old PSU and NVMe SSD. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll spend between $400 and $500.

Even for “full” price, the BC-250 is significantly cheaper than what you can get elsewhere. The PS5 digital edition is now $600, while the Pro will run you $900. The newly-released Steam Machine starts at $1,050, and that’s with just 512 GB of storage. The BC-250 is significantly cheaper and offers performance that can rival these platforms. What you save in money, however, you spend in time.

The BC-250 is a great project if you like tinkering, but it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it gaming device, even after the initial setup. After a few weeks of using the board, that much became clear.

A PS5 APU, not a PS5: BC-250 specifications

The BC-250 is described as a cut-down PS5 APU, and that’s exactly what it is, but the “cut-down” portion of the description carries a lot of weight. It comes with eight Zen 2 cores, but two of them are disabled, and a 40-CU RDNA 2 GPU, though only 24 of those CUs work out of the box.

The community has been able to unlock all 40 CUs with good success. Ultimately, your mileage with unlocking all 40 CUs will vary; some boards will work just fine with all 40, others with 32 or 36, and some with the base 24. As I’ll dig into more later, I was able to unlock all 40 CUs and run them stably up to 1,850 MHz, much higher than the recommended 1,500 MHz max frequency.

Out of the box, both the CPU and GPU run at locked frequencies of around 3.5 GHz and 1,500 MHz, respectively. You’ll need to separately install a GPU and CPU governor for dynamic frequency scaling (a necessity in the case of the GPU, though optional for the CPU). Achievable frequency on the CPU and GPU is entirely determined by your thermals. Both governors allow for overclocking, but the BC-250 is thermally constrained, even with active airflow, so don’t expect to push far beyond the stock frequency, particularly on the CPU.

Unfortunately, storage is a big bottleneck for the BC-250, and one of the biggest points of divergence compared to a PS5. The M.2 runs at just PCIe 2.0 x2 speeds, delivering about 1 GB/s of maximum performance with an NVMe SSD. The good news is that, due to how slow the interface is, you can save some money and get a less-performant but larger drive for storage.

As of a few days ago, at the time of writing, some initial fixes to unlock the extra two CPU cores have rolled out, which I was able to get working after a bit of trial and error. Outside of the GPU and CPU, the BC-250 has a bit less L3 cache. The APU, from a hardware perspective, is very similar to the PS5. Though that ignores the complex I/O system present in the PS5, not to mention the various layers of software that Sony runs on the APU.

Given that the BC-250 wasn’t designed for gaming, it’s important to keep that context in mind. You could just as easily describe it as a crypto mining board that’s been repurposed for gaming as you could a PS5 APU that’s been repurposed for mining. The BC-250 is a mining board, and the only reason it works is due to a large number of enthusiasts trying to get the damn thing to work and sharing their advancements along the way.

Although Linux gaming broadly has made a ton of advancements over the past few years, the BC-250 has unique hurdles you need to overcome. It needs fixes to scale the frequency on both the CPU and GPU; otherwise, it’s locked at a fixed frequency. It needs a custom BIOS image to even boot, and a specific configuration in the BIOS to avoid immediately crashing. Those are all steps you need to take to get the BC-250 to work in the first place, let alone start optimizing it to squeeze out the best performance.

There is extensive community documentation for the BC-250, which I referenced ad nauseam throughout this process. It’s an excellent resource, but even still, I had to search out solutions outside of the documentation. This is cobbled together from community fixes, and the documentation seeks to cover as many distros as possible. But it’s nigh impossible to have complete documentation on the BC-250, as valiant as the effort linked above is.

Expect a bumpy (but rewarding) road. It’s better to think of the BC-250 as a project, rather than a commodity like the PS5. Yes, you can play games on it and get surprisingly good performance, but you’ll spend a good amount of time simply tinkering with the machine, at first to get it to work, and later to optimize it. And you will inevitably run up against games that either don’t work or have poor performance, prompting another investigation and optimization cycle. I find the process rewarding; others will find it frustrating.

Setting up and configuring the BC-250

Getting the BC-250 is only one part of the process here. At the least, you need a power supply that can deliver at least 20A on the 12V rail. A standard PSU will work, but FlexATX power supplies are a better fit. I ended up purchasing a 3D-printed case, along with a power supply, from eBay. The BC-250 documentation includes several PSU recommendations, along with case designs, if you want to go about choosing your parts piecemeal.

Here’s what I’d recommend at minimum:

• BC-250
• 300W+ PSU (at least 20A on 12V rail)
• 2x Arctic P12 high-pressure fans (if using CU unlock)

Regardless of the route you choose, double-check fan mounting points (there aren’t any mounts on the BC-250 itself) and case/PSU compatibility. Many small form factor BC-250 designs you can 3D print are designed around a FlexATX PSU. Before booting, verify your 8-pin pinout against the community documentation. If the 12V pins are in the wrong position, you can fry your board.

With the board ready, the first step is to flash a new BIOS from the shell. It’s straightforward enough, though without the modern conveniences of firmware flashback in the event of a failure. If you lose power, you’ll brick your board and need a hardware controller to reset it, so I recommend connecting to a UPS during the flashing process. You can grab the correct files from the documentation.

From there, you need to clear your CMOS by removing the battery and configure a few BIOS options to force the integrated graphics, set the UMA frame buffer size, and disable IOMMU. From there, you need to choose which Linux distro you’re going to use, which is very important. I’d recommend experimenting with a few different distros, especially if you’re new to Linux.

For gaming, the go-to options are Bazzite and CachyOS, the former of which I originally went with. There are some “optimized” images floating around for the BC-250 that supposedly rope in all of the configuration and fixes you need into a fresh OS image. I wouldn’t recommend using those. Setting up the BC-250 is getting easier by the day (I have found new fixes and scripts that automate installing several fixes just in the time I’ve been testing the board), so these optimized images are, at best, out of date, and at worst, not actually optimized at all. Tread carefully.

You don’t need an optimized image because, at least for Bazzite and CachyOS, scripts exist that can automate the entire setup process. Strictly speaking, the only thing you need is the GPU governor. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but a GPU governor via an SMU now exists and is what I used. The governor is what allows dynamic frequency scaling on the GPU, as well as overclocking.

You’ll also need a compatible kernel, which is easier to manage on rolling distros like CachyOS. 6.18.18 LTS is the recommended kernel at the time of writing, but 6.17.11+ works, along with 6.12.x to 6.14.x LTS. Other kernels may work, though some (such as 6.15.0) are broken and will trigger a kernel panic.

With your distro chosen and a correct kernel working, here are the optimization steps I took:

• Install GPU and CPU governor
• Unlock 40 CUs
• Setup Zswap with 32GB swap page
• Install ACPI fix
• Configure PWM sensors

Again, scripts exist for these patches, the most critical of which don’t even require kernel patching any longer. The exact fixes you need and the method to install them will depend on the distro you choose, however, so make sure to keep the setup documentation handy.

The list above is in order of importance. Once you have the GPU governor, the next step is to try to enable the full GPU. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but the bc250-cu-live-manager utility can enable the CUs via a User Mode Register (UMR) without the need for a kernel patch. Not only is this easier to do, but it also persists across updates, unlike a kernel patch, where new kernels will force you to go through the unlock process again. The end result is identical regardless of the path you choose.

I spent a good deal of time testing the 40 CUs before doing any other optimizations, and I’d recommend you do the same. Just because the board has 40 CUs doesn’t mean you can use all of them. I was able to unlock all 40, though not at the frequencies some others have reported. And some users aren’t able to use all 40, rooting out bad clusters for a 32-CU or 36-CU configuration. Overclocking-like trial and error is necessary here, though, as we’ll get to in the performance section later, experimenting is worth the hassle. Using all 40 CUs, even at suboptimal clock speeds, offers much better performance.

Although setting everything up on Bazzite should be easy, I ran into issues numerous times. It’s an immutable OS image, which can cause problems depending on the fixes you’re trying to apply. It’s a great choice if you want to quickly set up the BC-250, but it became clear that an immutable image isn’t optimal if you want to get the best performance. Further, some newer fixes simply wouldn’t work, such as unlocking the extra two CPU cores.

The CachyOS pivot

After a few days of optimizing, testing, and troubleshooting Bazzite, I made the hard decision to wipe the machine and start fresh with CachyOS. In hindsight, I should have started with CachyOS from the beginning for numerous reasons, but mainly because it’s a rolling Arch-based distro. Bazzite is a Fedora Atomic-based distro. It’s immutable, adding guardrails to make it difficult to break anything, but in the process, making it much more difficult to apply low-level changes like kernel patches.

If you’re not familiar with Linux and don’t care to become familiar, Bazzite is your best bet. It’s convenient, and it includes a ton of small community fixes right in the startup menu, such as the LSFG-VK project for Lossless Scaling. It became clear, however, that you’re trading performance for convenience with Bazzite. CachyOS is more hands-on, but it’s much easier to actually accomplish what you need to with the BC-250.

Most notably, CachyOS (and other rolling release distros) allow you to easily manage your kernel. There are alternative methods for critical setup items like the GPU governor and CU unlock that don’t require a kernel patch. However, having the ability to easily patch your kernel helps when you run up against compatibility or performance issues, allowing you to try alternative installation methods or community fixes.

Further, CachyOS has access to yay, or Yet Another Yogurt, the simple command-line call to search and install packages from the Arch User Repository (AUR). It takes some time getting used to living in the command line as often as you do on any Arch-based distro. But even knowing just a few basic commands allows you to accomplish what you want much faster than fumbling around with flatpaks, at least in my experience.

Getting set back up was simple thanks to a community script that automates nearly all of the configuration and optimization for the BC-250. The BC250-Toolkit script brings together all of the various community patches, including optional optimizations, and it just worked. Coming off of Bazzite, it was a treat not to run up against the immutable walls of the distro. I was able to accomplish in a few hours what took me more than a day with Bazzite.

CachyOS specifically has a few optimizations for gaming, as well. First, there’s the BORE, or Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer, scheduler that, as the name implies, is optimized for bursty workloads (Michael Larabel over at Phoronix has a great writeup on that). CachyOS also includes packages for x86-64 v3 and v4, the former of which is relevant to the BC-250.

These optimizations represent a substantial performance improvement. In Forza Horizon 6, for example, I went from 61 FPS at 4K with the Low preset to 72 FPS on CachyOS after it was configured properly (with 40 CUs in both cases). In Cyberpunk 2077, I went from 74.7 FPS on Bazzite to 82.2 FPS at 1080p with the Steam Deck preset, and perhaps more impressively, from 47.8 FPS to 56.5 FPS at 1440p.

I saw higher peak performance on Bazzite in Unigine Superposition, though that’s likely due to more thermal headroom for the GPU, as I wasn’t able to enable the extra CPU cores on Bazzite. I mainly wanted to show this chart to bring the “optimized” Bazzite image into the fold, which was supposedly an image that was already configured for the BC-250. Using a script to automate the installation of several tools (like the one available for CachyOS) is one thing. Using an entirely custom image is another. I’d suggest starting with a clean, official image regardless of the distro you choose.

Testing performance on the BC-250

The best touchstone for comparisons with the BC-250 is the Steam Machine. The Steam Machine is more powerful simply based on the spec sheet. I ran a truncated list of benchmarks to see how the BC-250 stacks up, as well as several additional benchmarks on the BC-250 alone. Performance here is tough to compare fairly. Even just with CachyOS and Bazzite above, we see large performance differences. And, as will become clear in this section, there were numerous tests that either showed performance issues inconsistently or simply failed to run at all.

Our best point of comparison between the Steam Machine and BC-250 comes in Cyberpunk 2077. Neither machine is capable of achieving a playable frame rate at 4K, but the fully-optimized BC-250 is just 6.7% behind at 1440p. At 1080p, however, the performance drop is 16.1%, exposing perhaps the biggest performance issue with the BC-250.

Forza Horizon 6 also highlights this issue; the CPU in the BC-250 is very weak. It’s not only weak because it’s using the aging Zen 2 architecture, but it also has only six cores (or eight, if you can enable them). It’s such a hurdle because the clock speed is severely limited to just 3.5 GHz, the same as the PS5. We are completely CPU-bound at 1080p and even 1440p in Forza Horizon 6, and then miraculously, at 4K, the larger GPU of the BC-250 is able to take over and actually beat the Steam Machine.

A system so hamstrung by the CPU makes sense in the context of a console. Sony has a performance target, and it makes sense to opt for a weaker CPU and a more powerful GPU. The CPU can reach that performance target. But in the context of a PC where you’re given more options, resolutions, and performance-enhancing features, the limitation of the CPU becomes clear. There’s an obvious performance wall you’ll run into with the BC-250 that no amount of tweaking can solve.

For a clear view of the CPU limitation here, look at the Forza Horizon 6 benchmark above. Running at 1080p with Low graphics is going to induce a CPU bottleneck in most systems, but the gap between GPU render performance and CPU render performance here is massive. According to the game’s benchmark, we were bottlenecked by the CPU entirely throughout the run.

Even at 4K, you can see that the CPU is still a significant influence on performance in this game, showcasing just how unbalanced this system is. Again, that imbalance makes sense for the PS5, but it’s a critical caveat with the BC-250.

In the gallery above, you can browse our other comparative results to get an idea where the BC-250 lands. I’m going to move past comparisons and look at the BC-250 in isolation. An apples-to-apples comparison really isn’t possible (nor fair) with the BC-250. That’s not only due to the wide performance window depending on your specific board and software stack, but also the clear performance limitations of the BC-250 that require certain workloads that wouldn’t make sense with other machines.

Chief among those limitations is VRAM, and memory in general. You have just 16 GB of GDDR6 for the whole system, which is much less of an issue on the PS5 where there’s careful memory management. As you can see in the chart above, I don’t have 4K results for Spider-Man 2 or Doom: The Dark Ages, and that’s due to a lack of VRAM.

In both cases, the games crashed at 4K, but worse, they wouldn’t start back up. I made the mistake of flipping to 4K before turning FSR on, which locked me out of starting the game until I manually edited the settings file prior to launch. 4K is possible on the BC-250, though it has a very narrow performance window considering the VRAM limitations and CPU performance.

Although FSR Performance mode is ideal for 4K (50% scaling, 1080p input resolution), I opted for Balanced to avoid the CPU bottleneck we can see present in other games (you can even see it here in some games, such as Spider-Man 2). However, turning up the input resolution also puts a greater strain on VRAM. You’ll need time and patience to experiment with these more demanding titles to find the ideal balance of settings on the BC-250; of course, if you’re just playing Silksong, none of this matters much.

The VRAM limitation is also relevant for frame generation. With such a narrow memory footprint, you’ll struggle to use frame generation at 4K if you’re already pushing the VRAM to its limits (those buffered frames need to live somewhere). Thankfully, Lossless Scaling is an option on Linux with LSFG-VK, which doesn’t strain your VRAM like in-engine tools.

An important aspect of performance with the BC-250 is cooling. Most governor profiles cap temperature at 80 degrees for multiple reasons. First, the heatsink of the BC-250 is closed on top. You can sit and rip apart the top of the heatsink for direct airflow with a pair of tweezers, but I left the heatsink on my board intact for now, using two Arctic P12 fans to assist with cooling.

Cooling is all the more important with the 40CU unlock and enabling the extra two Zen 2 cores. Stress-testing in Furmark over a 20-minute run, you can see how quickly the GPU throttles from 1,850 MHz back down to 1,500 MHz as it reaches the temperature cap of 80 degrees.

Remember, however, that Furmark is a stress test. I wasn’t thermal throttling in games, with the CPU and GPU settling around 70 degrees in Doom: The Dark Ages. I’ve included CPU and GPU power in the chart above, as well, and you can see that, combined, they rarely poked over 100W. Keep in mind that we’re exclusively looking at GPU and CPU power here, not whole system power. Whole system power can peak above 225W.

The stock heatsink and dual Arctic P12S do a good job keeping the BC-250 chugging along, even with all of the silicon unlocked and a moderate overclock on the GPU. However, Furmark makes it clear that this current iteration of the system can’t sustain its performance over long periods of time. It would take longer for that drop to show up in the most demanding games, unlike in Furmark, where we can see the drop in just 20 minutes. But I plan on revisiting the cooling solution in this BC-250 build. Maybe I can even raise the temperature limit closer to the 100-degree TJmax.

The bad and the ugly of BC-250 gaming

Although the BC-250 offers compelling performance for the price, I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight the numerous quirks I ran into while testing. There are performance issues and limitations with the board that you can explain with hardware, and further compatibility issues that you can explain away with Linux. Then, there’s everything else: the weird bugs, quirks, and oddities that pop up when running a largely community-developed software stack on unofficial hardware that wasn’t built for this purpose.

The above image of Resident Evil 9 is a microcosm of what I’m talking about. The RE Engine is remarkably scalable, and that was on full display with my BC-250 testing. Requiem offered excellent performance, even all the way up to 4K. It didn’t feel like I was compromising much of anything with the BC-250. But then I turned on the “hair strands” setting, and the result is what you can see above.

No, it’s not due to the CU unlock, any overclock, or even the overlay you can see. It’s just something with this set of hardware, this software stack, and the hair strands setting in Resident Evil Requiem.

Similarly, in Doom: The Dark Ages, any resolution change I would apply necessitated a restart of the game. Otherwise, I’d get the ghostly streaking you can see in the image above. On one of these reboots, the game suddenly stopped rendering reflective surfaces, resulting in the strange black voids you can see below.

This isn’t a criticism of the BC-250, and certainly not of the remarkable work of the passionate developers and enthusiasts who’ve created fixes and workarounds for the hardware. The fact that this board boots at all and runs games is a minor miracle. The context of what the board is, however, is important.

You will, inevitably, run into strange issues that aren’t documented anywhere. These are two examples, but I also ran into strange problems elsewhere. The widely used MangoHUD overlay, for example, didn’t pull in my GPU’s clock speed correctly after an update, even after ensuring I applied the community fix through the GPU governor to map the reporting correctly. And once you add external devices, compatibility gets even more complex. The board doesn’t have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, for example, and an external adapter should work (this UGreen Wi-Fi 6 adapter I purchased does), but it’s just as likely that a driver for another adapter doesn’t work or isn’t available.

I don’t have an issue with these quirks, but the BC-250 also isn’t my primary gaming machine. You should just be aware of them. And, if you’re going to invest in a BC-250 build of your own, be ready to encounter some strange issues that you might not be able to easily troubleshoot.

What’s next?

The BC-250 is a project, and like any good project, it isn’t done here. Now that I’ve messed around with the configuration, tried out different distros, got the critical mods working, and measured performance, I want to actually use the BC-250 long-term. Maybe I can find some additional optimization steps I can take, or workarounds for some of the strange issues that I noticed during testing. Regardless of what it is, I’m confident that I’ll mess around with the BC-250 more outside of just playing games on it.

My clear next step is to work on cooling. I kept things conservative here in order to get valid data in a timely manner, but I want to dig deeper into what I can do on the thermal front, not only to raise the temperature limit, but also to push the GPU overclock further. That may involve some CU tinkering, as well; if I can get similar performance at 36 CUs and better thermal headroom, I may be able to push higher overall performance.

DeepCool has been delivering innovative, interesting, and often budget-conscious PC cases and cooling products for more than a decade. Its current lineup includes air and AIO coolers, computer cases, keyboards, power supplies, and other accessories.

We were impressed by the company’s AK620 and Assassin VC Elite air coolers in the past. In 2024, the Beijing-based company was banned from selling products in the U.S., but has continued to produce and improve its cooling products for markets elsewhere. US consumers also have the option of importing the cooler, if you don’t mind paying for extra shipping costs.

Here, we’re looking at DeepCool’s second-generation AK series coolers, the AK400 G2 and AK620 G2. These are available in two styles: one with woodgrain top covers, the other featuring a digital display.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the coolers, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks and decide if DeepCool’s AK G2 series coolers deserve to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

DeepCool AK620 G2/AK400 G2 specifications

Features of DeepCool’s AK G2 Air coolers

▶️ Heatpipes and heatsink

With the single-tower AK400 G2, four slightly staggered direct-touch copper heatpipes are embedded in the base to transfer heat from the CPU into the heatsink and its fins.

The larger, dual-tower AK620 G2 features six evenly spaced copper heatpipes.

The heatsink fin designs are similar in both models. The front ends feature a jigsaw-type design, shown below.

The exhaust side features the checkerboard matrix style DeepCool’s air coolers are known for, a design choice which the company says improves static pressure.

▶️ High-performance 120 mm fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink. The included fans directly impact noise levels and cooling performance. The fans included on both AK400 and AK620 G2 models are essentially the same – but the AK400’s single fan runs up to 10% faster than the two fans included with the AK620 G2.

▶️ Woodgrain and digital display styles available

Both the AK400 and AK620 are available in black or white, but there are two sub-choices for the aesthetic. The versions we’ve tested for this review feature woodgrain, a motif that’s been increasing in popularity in DIY PCs since the release of Fractal’s North computer case.

If you don’t like woodgrain, DeepCool also includes a checkerboard black cover that you can use in place of the woodgrain covers.

There’s also the Nyx version of the AK620 G2 available, which features a digital display showing CPU performance metrics – temperature, frequency, power consumption, and overall CPU usage.

▶️ RAM Clearance

The AK400 G2's design is such that it doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots, ensuring that all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible.

Standard-height DDR5 sticks 40mm tall fit well under the larger AK620 G2, but taller sticks won’t fit perfectly underneath. Our current CPU cooler test bench incorporates TeamGroup’s Sakura Rose T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7200 sticks, which are 48.8mm (1.92 inches) tall.

If you also use taller RAM DIMMs, you’ll have to raise the intake fan’s placement by a few millimeters for things to fit properly, as we did (see image, above). This might result in slightly lower cooling performance in certain scenarios. But even so, the AK620 G2 performed excellently, as you’ll see in the benchmarks section.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging is typical of DeepCool products: a basic brown box with a blue line and DeepCool’s logo, covered by a wraparound showing a picture of the cooler.

The heatsink and fans are protected by molded foam, and the accessories are contained in a small cardboard box. Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Alternative top covers
• Screwdriver (AK620 G2 only)
• The AK620 G2 includes a tube of thermal paste; the AK400 G2 includes pre-installed thermal paste
• Single-tower (AK400 G2) or dual-tower (AK620 G2) heatsink
• 120 mm fans and fan clips
• Installation manual

▶️ AK620 G2 AM5 Installation

You’ll need to first remove the default AM4/5 retention mechanism and then place the mounting studs around the exposed screw holes.

The next step is to place the mounting bars on top of the studs, securing them with the included screws, and then apply the included thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use. Afterwards, place the heatsink tower against the CPU and mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it.

Once the heatsink is secured, attach the 120 mm fans to the heatsinks. Lastly, connect the PWM cables of the fans to the corresponding headers of your motherboard.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on an open test bench, which has lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in weak coolers appearing stronger than they really are. Some have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I feel that these methods don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the Flova F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees Celsius (203 degrees Fahrenheit) and thermally throttle to some extent.

Results from the liquid coolers we’ve recently tested aren’t shown above because they are able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under TJ Max, and as such, power consumption figures aren’t quite comparable.

The performance of DeepCool’s AK620 G2 is simply excellent, outperforming every air cooler we’ve tested on our current test bench. Its little sibling, the AK400 G2, also does fairly well for a single-tower air cooler, slightly outperforming Sudokoo’s SK620V and only trailing ID-Cooling’s AK620 SLK by 2.4W!

To give a wider variety of comparison examples, I’ve included a chart of the same tests from our last AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D cooling test bench. But keep in mind these results aren’t 100% comparable, due to a different case and fans being used; the ambient temperature is also slightly higher with the results below.

Our newest test bench used for this and other recent reviews incorporates a Tryx crossblade intake fan as well as a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan, which results in better air cooling performance.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but require running loudly to maintain said performance, but that’s not the case with DeepCool’s AK G2 air coolers. With measurements of 42.4 and 41.9 dBA respectively, their maximum noise levels put them among the quietest coolers featured in our charts.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

With this thermal test, DeepCool’s AK620 G2 slips to the second best result we got from any air cooler. The single tower version, the AK400 G2, still performs well in comparison to dual-tower products, besting Sudokoo’s SK620V and just a bit behind Montech’s NX600 with its powerful E28 fans.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

At first glance, you might think the results above – when tied to the default fan curve of MSI’s X870E Carbon motherboard – are a little underwhelming compared to the competing coolers shown in the chart.

But thermals are only part of the story. Noise levels, especially when you’re gaming, are far more important here. With a noise level of only 38.9 dBA measured, the loudness of these coolers won’t be an issue while you’re gaming. Your GPU fans and / or your case will likely be making more noise in most setups.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but many prefer tests with the noise levels of coolers equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next benchmark has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

The results here are pretty good. With an average of 242.5W cooled during the course of testing, DeepCool’s AK620 G2 shows the second-best performance of the air coolers in this chart. The single-tower AK400 G2 is our bottom result, but even so, its performance is basically on par with Montech’s NX600. That’s fairly impressive for a single-tower air cooler.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing!

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

The DDR5 temperature recordings from this test seem to be within expectations compared to other dual-tower air coolers. Temperatures with DeepCool’s AK620 G2 were an average of 21.9C above ambient. Curiously, DeepCool’s single tower AK400 G2 showed the best RAM temperatures in this scenario of any air cooler.

The thermals of the CPU in this test were about as expected, with the AK620 G2 showing some of the best temperatures and the AK400 G2 running warmer than most of the dual-tower coolers here, but notably still outperforming Sudokoo’s SK700V.

Conclusion

DeepCool continues to impress with its second-generation AK air coolers, the AK620 G2 and AK400 G2, delivering strong thermal performance and low noise levels. Our only major complaint is that these coolers aren’t easily available for purchase in the USA. If you’d rather not go through the hassle of importing, our recommendation would be Thermalright’s Royal Pretor 130, which offers similarly strong thermal performance and low noise levels, at a more affordable price of $50 USD.

The FCC is drafting a proposal that would expand its list of equipment and services covered by the Secure Networks Act to include imports of new-model optical transceivers manufactured in China, according to a TrendForce report. Although the specifics are still unknown, such as what exactly constitutes a Chinese company and what is considered a "new model," this import block could have far-reaching implications. It's likely to impact hyperscaler AI companies, which are investing heavily in optical interconnect technologies, seen by many as the next battleground in the race for advancing AI performance, latency, and efficiency.

That's thought to be the core reason behind this potential blockade. With Chinese optical module manufacturers thought to make up around 56% of the global manufacturing capacity for this key technology in 2026, the U.S. administration wants to decouple U.S. reliance on this supply chain and strengthen its alternatives: Both domestic and international.

The long tail of this decision, however, could see the FCC refuse to authorize Chinese networking hardware entirely, following a ban on all foreign-manufactured routers in late 2025, and a ban on all advanced foreign-produced robotics in July this year.

Shifting bottlenecks

The story of the AI industry's rapid buildout in recent years has arguably been one of ever-changing bottlenecks and attempts to circumvent them. There are general GPU, CPU, and memory shortages that we've all had to contend with. But there have also been utility difficulties faced by hyperscaler companies, from power, to water, and local-infrasturcture.

There have also been more international key material bottlenecks, like shortages of glass cloth, of specialized PCB drill bits, and power inverters. Raw material shortages like helium, aluminum, and copper.

But those bottlenecks have also been felt within the servers within the data centers, too. And copper is a key feature there, because as modern data centers become ever more powerful, the new bottlenecks are the wires between them, more so than the raw speed of the processors or memory chips.

That's where optical interconnects come in. Designed to replace the simplicity, relative resistance, and physical limitations of copper wiring with lasers, optical interconnects can increase bandwidth, reduce latency, and reduce power consumption of existing networking hardware dramatically.

Although many of the world's largest optical interconnect developers, including TSMC, Intel, Samsung Foundry and Global Foundry, have different methods for the ways they plan to produce next-generation versions of these important networking interconnects, the underlying shift is much the same. Replace the bottleneck of copper wiring with optical communication lines and bring them as close to the processor as possible.

Within a few years, effectively integrating an optical networking interface into the chip itself, making latency all but disappear over distances up to several miles. That would allow for components to be located wherever they were best placed within a system, no longer needing to be near other components to reduce latency. That also allows for easy scaling up and out after deployment, as components from various servers could be co-opted as required. Multiple data center campuses within a few miles of one another could collaborate on particularly demanding workloads, too.

But at the moment China has a firm grasp on this emerging key technology, and the U.S. appears ready to respond with a heavy hand.

The ban and its impact

The FCC has banned the import of other products of specific types and from specific manufacturers before, but if it were to ban the import of optical transceivers, that would be the first time it had enacted such a measure. The term "new models" suggests such a ban would include the latest in interconnect technologies, including co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optics (NPO) integrated into network switches.

Although the U.S. may opt to deploy a transitional ban that only blocks the sale of new optical transceiver designs, leaving existing designs and contracts intact and saleable, it would still present a problematic disruption for American AI companies wanting to build cutting-edge data centers. China's optical module manufacturing, packaging, and testing are all key elements of the global optical interconnect supply chain, especially since a key raw material, indium phosphide, relies heavily on China's indium supply, with it controlling some 70% of the global market.

China restricted the export of indium in 2024, causing a reduction in global sales of the key material.

Even if the materials required can be sourced elsewhere, though, there's no suggestion U.S. manufacturing can scale up anywhere near quick-enough to respond, or indeed, at all. Key U.S. optical transceiver manufacturers, Coherant and Lumentum, are already running at capacity and are still around 30% overbought by their customers. A $2 billion investment from Nvidia will help, but the leaders there don't believe they'll be able to service the increasing demands of a hungry AI industry. Let alone if Chinese supplies are cut.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, except chip production

All of this assumes, too, that the Chinese authorities won't respond - and they certainly have a history of doing so. When America has restricted access to cutting-edge chips and chip design software, China has cut off raw material access. When the U.S. banned imports of Chinese hardware, China doubled down on investing in its domestic market and sources, as well as fighting to build friendly relations with other countries and markets.

That has already been happening in the optical interconnect space. In 2025, Chinese manufacturers only accounted for 16% of the global production capacity of electro-absorption modulated lasers (EMLs) and continuous-wave (CW) lasers. But in 2028, that capacity is expected to reach almost 28%. Will that additional production capacity go to help accelerate China's own domestic AI efforts, or will it end up being sold to major AI companies in Western markets?

It may be possible for Chinese suppliers and Western buyers to circumvent any new optical transceiver restrictions. Almost all the major bans and blockades from the Trump administration have included carve-outs for specific deals that can be struck — often seemingly at the whims of whatever official is involved in the deal-making. But they're there, and it may be that a phone call to the right person allows the right materials through, making any potential ban just the price of doing business.

But if not, it has the potential to put the brakes on the next phase of rapid AI infrastructure build-out that is making data centers more capable, campuses more efficient, and hinting at a future where even in consumer devices, the specific placement of components within them may no longer be constrained by the limitations of copper.

The Greenlink Connector, which costs $580 million (GBP 430 million) and connects Ireland to Wales via an undersea power cable, was rerouted after scores of Harry Potter fans complained that it would go through the grave of the beloved house elf “Dobby.” According to The Guardian, project manager Simon Ludlam pointed out in a BBC interview that the cable would transition underwater at Freshwater West. Unfortunately, Ludlam was unaware that this was the filming location for the site where the Harry Potter character was buried in the movie franchise. When the BBC aired the clip, the project began receiving hundreds of calls about the site.

Ludlam recounted to The Guardian a discussion with a colleague when they told him, “Apparently, we’re going to go straight through Dobby’s grave.” He answered, “Dobby? Who’s Dobby? I don’t know Dobby.”

It seemed that the project manager was in disbelief when it was finally explained that Dobby is the freed house elf who was killed in the process of rescuing Harry Potter and his friends in the last book. “He is a fictitious character in a fictitious book — the whole thing is fictitious. What are you talking about?” Ludlam said, after which his colleague replied, “No, it’s very, very serious.”

In the end, the company working on the project acquiesced to the demands and concerns of the Harry Potter fans and rerouted it. “A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead], and Dobby’s happy,” the project manager said.

The Shell Cottage, where Dobby is buried, is on the outskirts of the fictional town of Tinworth, in Cornwall, but the original film series shot the scene in Freshwater West. Many Harry Potter fans leave stones marked with “Here lies Dobby, a free elf,” as a nod to the epitaph that the titular hero left on his grave. The National Trust, which owns the land, has previously warned pilgrims not to do so, as the area is ecologically sensitive, but it seems that people still do so.

The fans’ resistance to having Dobby’s “grave” desecrated seemingly prevented the undersea cable from going through the area. It was instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns, which, ironically, are associated with human burial.

Undersea cables are crucial infrastructure connecting distant locations for sending information, power, and other crucial resources. Many of them face increasing threats, especially in areas that face geopolitical pressure, like Taiwan and the Baltic Sea, which is why companies are creating technologies to help detect intentional tampering. It seems the one thing this particular project's planners did not take into account is the passion of Harry Potter fans.

If you’re looking around for a good deal on one of the best gaming chips around and 32GB of RAM, we’ve found a worthwhile combo for you on Newegg. For only $969.99, they’re offering a powerful Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, 32GB of Corsair DDR5-6000 RAM, a quality mid-range Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 motherboard, and they even toss in a Cooler Master Elite Liquid 240 AIO. Saving almost $219 versus purchasing the components separately, this combo gives you a solid foundation for a speedy AM5-based gaming PC without breaking the bank.

• Check out this deal on Newegg

This combo begins with one of the most popular and fastest current-generation CPUs for gaming, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. This 8-core/16-thread Zen5-based processor has a base clock of 4.6 GHz and a max boost of 5.2 GHz, which is plenty of speed for any task. The 96MB of L3 cache on the X3D variant helps with gaming (among other things), making it one of the fastest gaming CPUs available. It is also a well-rounded performer that excels in games and is a good match for most applications. This combo also includes a free Cooler Master Elite Liquid 240 AIO, which allows you to get the most out of this awesome processor.

The RAM portion of the bundle, Corsair’s Vengeance RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 RAM kit, is currently available on Newegg for a painful $479.99 when bought separately. The good news is that the $218.99 discount brings this RAM down to a reasonable-for-the-times $261. This black kit matches the Aorus Pro board and features a frosted RGB light bar that runs the length of the sticks, drawing attention inside your case. Or, if RGB lighting isn’t your thing and you prefer a stealthy appearance, you can turn it off. The DDR5-6000 speed lands in the sweet spot for the AM5 platform and is a worthwhile, good-looking option. The SK Hynix ICs under the heatsink pair nicely with the board and offer plenty of overclocking headroom.

The Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite Wifi 7 is a solid mid-range motherboard and an excellent centerpiece for building your new AM5 gaming PC. The black board is sure to look good inside your chassis. The Aorus Elite offers plenty of connectivity, including 12 USB ports on the rear IO (2x Type-C USB4 40 Gbps), four M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0), Wi-Fi 7 and 2.5 GbE networking, several “EZ” features, and a 5-year warranty. For those who would like integrated RGBs on their board, there is a small strip under the chipset heatsink that gives off a subtle glow. Or if you don’t want them on, simply turn them off. Either way, it’s a good-looking motherboard and mates perfectly with the 9800X3D and RAM in this combo.

If you’re thinking of putting together a new AM5-based system, but don’t want to pay ridiculous prices, this Newegg combo is a good starting point. At just $969.99, you get an awesome gaming processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a quality mid-range motherboard, and a free 240mm AIO. The $219.99 off the combo essentially puts the RAM at a more reasonable $261. Offers like this usually don’t stick around for long, so grab it before it’s gone!

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, gaming chair, or CPU Deals pages.