With the RAMpocalypse in full swing and little relief in sight, we need to look at combo deals to take some of the sting out of these ridiculous prices. Newegg’s latest combo pairs the ‘new’ Ryzen 7 7700X3D gaming chip, a quality Asus ROG Strix B650-A Gaming Wifi motherboard, and 16GB (2x8GB) of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM, plus a free Cooler Master 240mm AIO, for only $609.99. A savings of $124 (not including the freebie), which, when applied to the RAM, brings it down to a reasonable-for-the-times price (~$136), making this an inexpensive entry into the AM5 platform.

• Check out this deal on Newegg

While the Ryzen 7 7700X3D isn’t quite as fast as the 9800X3D, the 8-core 16-thread Zen 4 processor is still one of the top gaming chips and is well ahead of the recently re-released (and expensive, $349.99 at Newegg) Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Performance-wise, the 7700X3D is squarely between the faster 7800X3D and slower 7600X3D, and it clearly holds its own among its peers and is a great 1080p/144 0p gaming chip while not paying for the more expensive 9000 series X3D chips. Newegg also throws in a free Cooler Master Elite Liquid 240 AIO ($80 value), which pairs nicely with the processor.

Along with the processor is a 16GB (2x8GB) kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 CL36 RAM in white to match the motherboard. This kit 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 if you choose.

Asus’ ROG Strix B650-A Gaming Wifi is a mid-range motherboard with a black PCB, silver/white heatsinks, and ROG RGB, providing a stark contrast of colors inside your chassis. The board offers capable power delivery, three M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0) and four SATA ports for storage, fast networking with integrated Wi-Fi 6E and 2.5 GbE, ample USB ports on the rear I/O including 20 Gbps Type-C port on the rear IO (8 other Type-A ports), a quality audio solution with the Realtek ALC4080 chip and Savitech SV3H712 combo, and finally, it offers a DIY-friendly design to help building your PC easier.

Together, this three-item combo can turn your AM5 upgrade dreams into reality without breaking the bank. At only $609.99, it’s a serious option for building or upgrading your gaming PC. And since it’s AM5, you can drop-in-upgrade to a 9000-series processor, AMD’s latest and greatest, like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in the future.

Building a PC is more expensive and thereby more stressful than ever in 2026. A good old-fashioned pre-built is a great way to save yourself some time and a ton of cash on parts, with exorbitant RAM, SSD, and GPU pricing yet to fully filter down to the pre-built market. As such, you can score this Intel Core Ultra 9 285-powered CyberPowerPC with an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 2TB SSD, and more for just $1,849, a $500 discount.

● Check out this deal at Walmart

Considering 32GB of DDR5 RAM alone costs $400 right now, stacking up the cost of parts in this build reveals its value pretty quickly. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285 is around $700 at the moment, with the 285K retailing at $514. A 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 drive will set you back around $250, and the GPU in this build is $460. That's nearly the entire cost before you've factored in a case, motherboard, PSU, and cooler, not to mention the build cost.

The spec of this PC is admittedly a slightly strange combination of GPU and CPU. Intel's 285 Arrow Lake CPU is the company's current-gen 24-core flagship. With eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, it performs extremely well in multi-threaded Windows 11 testing. While it can't match AMD's potent X3D Ryzen chips in gaming, it was still more than enough to average 153 frames per second in our 1080p testing suite of 17 games.

As you can see from our GPU testing data, the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is on par with the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, but lags behind the RX 9070 and RTX 5070, as is to be expected. With its 2048 shares and 16GB of VRAM, this card sustained averages of nearly 60 frames per second in our 1440p Ultra tests, making it a great mid-range card. You'll likely struggle at 4K without some compromise, but this is a great card for middle-of-the-road performance.

If you're not convinced, you could spend a little more for this slightly different spec, which gets you a less potent Core Ultra 7 265KF but the superior AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, again with 16GB of VRAM. You still get the same 32GB of DDR5 and 2TB SSD for $1,999. This is a trade-off that might get you some more FPS in gaming at the expense of general productivity performance for other tasks.

Thanks to Intel's Gamer Days promo, both come with two free games: Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Star Wars Galactic Racer.

In these days of expensive SSDs, high RAM prices, and gaming GPU stagnation, it’s not often that even we find a good reason to build a PC. So when Asus reached out asking if we’d be interested in building a system based around its extensive Edition 20 anniversary lineup, I instinctively said yes. Having seen most of the components at Computex 2026 earlier this summer, I knew I was going to be dealing with premium, high-end parts that would make for a striking, powerful PC.

What I didn’t expect was to receive five large packages, weighing over 150 pounds, and for the motherboard and cooler to come in their own ROG suitcase (yes, that’s a thing), or for the 3,000W PSU to sell for $899 all on its own. This was clearly going to be a unique PC building experience, but it’s certainly not for everyone. In fact, considering the high price of pretty much all of the parts here, this is a build for the select few. But that doesn’t mean the build process wasn’t interesting.

Let's just get this out of the way early on, though: Building any gaming PC right now is expensive. Building one with an RTX 5090 is prohibitively pricey. Building one with these specific parts will set you back roughly $15,000, including the matching peripherals and OLED monitor with a translucent back panel. Think of this as the PC build for Saudi princes, the Elon Musks of the world, or for those of you who, unlike me, were smart enough to use your GPU for Bitcoin mining starting sometime in 2010, and cashed out when the cryptocurrency was trading high.

So yes, this might just be about the most expensive PC you could build today – at least with consumer-focused parts and not maxing out the RAM and storage. But many of us are likely finding ways to deal with the PC hardware we have right now; let’s take a look at what piecing together a new build is like if money is no object and you want the cohesive design that comes from sourcing all (or at least most) of your components from one company.

We’ll go step-by-step through the rather unique build process of this Asus ROG Edition 20 build shortly. But first, here’s a look at the parts, their prices, and, in some cases, how much the components weigh. Because, gold accents or not, there’s a whole lot of heavy metal involved in this build.

PC Case

Asus ROG GR20 Edition 20 open-frame EATX PC case

Many of the components here are based on existing parts, with some new aesthetic accents and features, but the ROG G20 is a new open-frame chassis that supports large EATX motherboards and can be converted to stand vertically, horizontally as a testbed, and even diagonally for a striking leaning-back look.

It has a crossflow fan that mounts on the bottom to blow cool air onto the GPU, RGB light strips around the edges, and four fast USB ports (two 5Gbps Type-A and two 20 Gbps Type-C) that can be mounted near the bottom (default) or up top. It’s extremely solidly built, mostly from aluminum, and weighs 20.5 pounds. But some of the cosmetic covers, particularly around the edges, are plastic and magnetically attached. They have a tendency to move and become misaligned easily. In fact, one was stuck to a steel part, several inches from where it belonged when I first took the case out of the box.

It sells for between $650 and $730. If that sounds like a lot for a case, it is. But if you’re feeling sticker shock already, buckle up because we’re just getting started.

• Asus ROG GR20 Edition 20 open-frame EATX PC available at Best Buy

Motherboard

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20 motherboard with integrated ROG Ryujin 360 liquid cooler

Asus offers a few iterations of its Crosshair X870E E-ATX flagship board. This Crosshair X870E Edition 20 variant, apart from the gold accents of the Edition 20 lineup, supports up to nine M.2 SSDs (five on the board and four via two included add-in cards), and has more USB-C ports than any board I’ve seen outside of a trade show (six, plus two 20 Gbps front-panel connectors).

It also has large copper VRM heatsinks designed to specifically thermally mesh with the bundled Ryugin 260 Edition 20 AIO cooler. The cooler has a massive curved 6.7-inch AMOLED screen (actually two of the curved screens we’ve seen on some other AIOs, stacked on top of one another). The cooler also features a massive copper heatsink bigger than my hand. It’s arguably overkill for anything AMD has put out on AM5 to date. But of course, high-end motherboards and coolers are all about overkill. And when you’re paying $3,299.99 for a motherboard and cooler combo, some level of overkill should probably be expected.

• Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20 available at Best Buy

GPU

Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 graphics card

How do you top the record-setting ROG Astral 5090? If you’re Asus’ design team, you add a second back-connector power option so it can pull up to 800 watts, a glass backplate, and a curved OLED screen all its own. Unfortunately, since the Crosshair Edition 20 motherboard isn’t a BTF model, we can’t test the card’s performance with extra power here.

The GPU’s curved screen also requires you to run a USB cable from the back of the GPU to the motherboard for power and data, which feels a little lame given the sky-high $5,999 asking price.

• Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Edition 20 available at Best Buy

PSU

Asus ROG Thor Titanium III 3000W Edition 20 power supply

Most RTX 5090 builds don’t need anywhere near this much juice, but the dual-voltage ROG Thor Titanium III 3000W Edition 20 is a PSU monster designed to deliver up to 3000W of power, specifically for the above Astral 5090 Edition 20 GPU (or, I guess, any other PC with extreme power needs). At 190 x 150 x 86 mm, it’s large, but not massive, given its power rating. It’s fully modular (naturally, for this class). And it sports its own magnetic OLED display, which can be mounted on either side, or extended via a cable to somewhere more visible in your case.

At $899, this PSU is an option you can easily skip if you aren’t looking to push the most power possible through Asus’ singular Edition 20 RTX 5090. Without a 230V power outlet, you’re going to be limited to 1600W from the Thor, anyway. You can get a good 1300W ATX 3.1 power supply for less than half this price, which would be more than enough to run an RTX 5090 system. But then, of course, you would have one less screen.

• Asus ROG Thor Titanium III 3000W Edition 20 is available at Best Buy

You can grab the above components separately or, if you want to save about $80, you could buy the board, cooler, case, GPU, and PSU together in a bundle from Best Buy for the small sum of $10,849.

• Asus ROG Edition 20 Package including GPU, PC Case, PSU and motherboard with liquid cooler is available at Best Buy

Peripherals

Asus’ ROG Azoth Extreme 75% Edition 20 mechanical keyboard

We covered the Azoth Extreme 75% Edition 20 pretty extensively ahead of Computex. It’s a reimagining of the carbon fiber-adorned ROG Azoth Extreme we looked at in 2024, with a mix of transparent and partially transparent keycaps. It’s $100 more expensive than the launch price of the previous Azoth, pegging this keyboard at $599. There’s also a gold metal jog wheel, gold accents along the back, magnetic gold feet (in two sizes), and even gold screws holding the whole thing together. And, naturally, the RGB backlighting under the switches defaults to a gold color out of the box.

• Asus ROG Azoth Extreme 75% Edition 20 is available at Best Buy

Asus ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 gaming mouse

We also checked out the ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 mouse ahead of Computex earlier this year. It packs a 65K sensor, a gold scroll wheel and side buttons, and a transparent chassis with RGB that illuminates the ROG 20th Anniversary logo. There isn’t much to complain about in terms of specs, although many will balk at the $259 price. Having used it extensively for a couple of weeks, it feels and performs well. My main concern is what the transparent plastic will look like after years of regular gaming.

• Asus ROG Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 gaming mouse is available at Best Buy

Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W Edition 20 gaming monitor

We tested the non-Edition 20 version of this OLED earlier this year and gave it a perfect score. It can do 540 Hz refresh at its native 2560 x 1440 resolution, or a wild 720 Hz at 720p. It was also bright and color accurate. The Edition 20 variant looks to have generally the same specs, and costs about $100 more for the addition of some gold plating, stealth-black futuristic looks, and an undoubtedly striking transparent rear chassis panel that matches the look of the above Harpe II Extreme Edition 20 mouse.

Its tandem OLED panel is rated to 1,500 nits of peak brightness, and a button below the screen lets you easily switch between the panel’s 540 Hz and 720 Hz modes. It’s a nice gaming screen, to be sure, and Asus hasn’t tacked on as much Edition 20 tax here as elsewhere, but high-refresh panels tend to kick out a lot of heat, and I have to wonder how soon the pretty back panel will start to change from clear to yellow, or just cloudy.

• Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W Edition 20 is available at Best Buy

SSD and RAM

Along with the above parts, we were also sent a speedy Fury Renegade PCIe 5 SSD from Kingston, as well as 32GB of DDR5 for testing the system. We added our own 9950X CPU.

I was hoping to get my hands on some of the Asus-branded RAM we also saw at Computex, but I was told by a rep that the Asus RAM is solely destined for the Chinese market. Perhaps it’s made by CXMT.

Kingston Fury Renegade G5 M.2 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD

• Kingston Fury Renegade G5 M.2 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD is available at Best Buy

Kingston Fury Beast 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MT/s DDR5 CL30 RAM

• Kingston Fury Beast 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MT/s DDR5 CL30 RAM is available at Amazon

Building an Asus ROG Edition 20 PC: The good, the bad, and the AMOLED

Asus offers up a 17-step system build guide for putting together a PC with its Edition 20 parts, complete with a nearly 19-minute YouTube video, which it points buyers to via a QR code stuck on the upper-right corner of the motherboard.

For the most part, the two key things I needed for installation were lots of space (the build process alternated between my workbench and my coffee table) and my trusty Hoto screwdriver. But as we’ll see later on, there was one instance where I needed a long screwdriver to get screws into some recessed holes inside the case.

I haven’t followed instructions much when building a PC for decades now, but I did here, in part because I was pretty pressed for time, but also because some of these components, like the case, motherboard, and cooler, have pretty specific features and assembly steps. And I also didn’t want to be sorting through five or more different manuals every time I ran into a roadblock.

To Asus’ credit, the video is pretty thorough and clear. Only a couple of times (as I’ll detail below) did I have to jump back several seconds to catch something I missed or, on one occasion, something Asus missed in its assembly guide.

Starting with the motherboard, you’ll first need to remove several covers, the two largest of which (on the right in the image above) are magnetically attached, and basically there in case you want to display the board as “art” on its own at some point. The large windowed frame over the socket and RAM area, and the layered section covering the PCIe slots can’t be in place if you’re actually using the board – at least presuming you are using this board with a GPU or anything else in the slots.

There are also two M.2 heatsinks covering the five drive slots native to the board. Both have latches and come away easily.

The primary heatsink is quite large, with a gold-metal base and heatpipe that is visible from the top, around the black aluminum of the rest of the sink. There are thermal pads on the top and bottom of all the drive areas, and Asus includes small rubber stoppers for single-sided drives, which go in between the bottom heatinks, to prevent PCB flexing. I naturally checked after installing the sink to make sure the thermal pad made contact with the Kingston drive. Like we saw in previous motherboard testing of a few other Asus boards, the pad definitely makes contact with the SSD, but the compression looks a little light. Still, as long as the drive is connected to the pad, the cooler should be able to do its job. I’m only installing one M.2 drive, so next were the fairly typical steps of installing the CPU and RAM.

Note that I initially installed a Ryzen 5 7600X here, because it’s the chip I had on hand while taking photos. But I eventually grabbed a Ryzen 9 9950X from the office to install in the system, as it’s a much more appropriate CPU for this otherwise top-end build.

Asus’ guide actually doesn’t tell you to install the RAM until much later, but I installed it after the CPU, because PC building muscle memory told me it was the right time to do it. I didn’t run into any issues, so you could install the RAM here or later on. Just, of course, make sure you put the RAM into the correct slots if, like me, you’re only installing two sticks.

Case, cooler, and power supply

With the SSD, RAM, and CPU in place, I snapped the plate cooler back on, and it was time to start dealing with the GR20 chassis. This is when I really started to realize just how heavy most of these parts are, although I did have to haul all the boxes up two flights of stairs a few days before this. The case weighs just over 20 pounds on its own, and when you start adding the board (10.8 pounds) and the GPU (7.4 pounds), the system gets very heavy, very fast.

You have to lay the case down in order to install the motherboard, which, since the case is an open frame, I needed to remove some parts from the rear first. A large cable cover pops off with a switch, then I needed to remove a few screws to take off the PSU and radiator brackets. With those parts off, I could put the case on its side (with the base hanging off the edge of my coffee table). I moved the case to the table because it’s lower and therefore a lot easier to install the motherboard.

Once aligned to the standoffs, the motherboard drops onto the case (rather dramatically, thanks to its weight) and it’s time to screw it down.

I often skip a few motherboard screws when building PCs. But with the weight of this board and the expensive, heavy GPU that was going to hang off of it, I made sure to install and carefully tighten all nine screws here. Asus’ guide also points out the importance of this, but I didn’t need the warning. In all, motherboard installation was pretty simple, in part because the case is open, so I wasn’t reaching inside a big box to install several screws.

Next, it’s time to stand the case back up and break out the AIO. The cooling block is so heavy with copper that the process feels substantial in a way that most AIO installations don’t. Of course, the sheer cost of the board and cooler probably has something to do with that feeling as well. At least Asus includes the nicest cooling accessory box I’ve ever seen. It has the ROG 20 logo on the top, so you can always remember this very expensive important moment.

First, you need to attach the radiator bracket to the radiator, and Asus’ guide nicely points out that you need to do so with the mounting tabs facing left. This saved me from doing it wrong and having to fix it later. Then, I mounted the bracket and the radiator to the back of the case via four slide-in tabs and two screws, put the case back down on its side, and took the protective plastic covering off the very large and heavy water block.

There are a few things to note there. First, there’s Asus’ ROG branding in its paste application. I am not sure this quite qualifies as one of our preferred methods of how to install thermal paste, but it is at least fairly evenly arranged. The blue strips are pre-installed thermal pads that help ensure good thermal transfer from the VRM sinks on the board.

Also note the pogo pins at the bottom of this photo. That is the power and data connection that, corresponding to pads on the board, means you don’t have to plug in any cables for the pump or the screen (the latter of which comes in a separate box and will go on later).

Next, you need to remove the motherboard’s mounting brackets, and the cooler’s pre-installed posts will drop right into the screw holes (carefully, mind you; this thing is hefty). You then need to install four regular screws to install the cooler, and three more proprietary screws around two of the sides to make sure the VRM cooling mates well with the large copper of the cooling plate.

This is, by far, the most secure connection I’ve seen on a consumer cooler. But with all the metal and money involved, that’s a good thing.

Next, surprisingly, the guide told me I needed to disassemble the upper-right corner of the case, so I stood the system back up. This step is a little involved, as you need to remove a couple of plastic covers that hide access to four screws that need to be removed. Then you need to unplug an RGB cable for the lights embedded in the frame. This lets you pass the AIO tubes through from the back, where the radiator is, to the front motherboard area. Later on, you can tuck the tubes nicely into the space above the motherboard, so they’re a little less visible, although the space does feel a bit cramped.

A note on these corners, as it’s one area where the design doesn’t feel or look as premium as I would like (especially given the price). There are pretty large plastic screw cap covers, which magnetically attach just by snapping onto the corner screws. They’re designed to blend into the design of the aluminum frame.

But since these covers are only held on by a small magnet, they have a tendency to move around, and often don’t line up correctly on their own. In fact, when I first took the GR20 case out of its box, one of these covers was stuck to another part of the case, several inches from where it belonged. It’s not entirely clear if this happened during shipping or just in the act of removing the case from its carton.

But I often found myself having to nudge them back in place, in part because their corner placement puts them exactly where you instinctively want to grab the case/system to slide it around. And speaking of sliding: the bottom of the chassis has small rubber feet that had a tendency to come off during the build process. They pop into holes in the metal, so reinstalling them wasn’t a problem. But they feel like a bit of an afterthought. Again, given the cost, I would like to see far more substantial rubber feet that don’t easily come off. Because the case and system weigh so much, if the feet come off it’s pretty easy to accidentally gouge your desk or table during the build process as you’re moving things around.

These are both fairly minor quality complaints, but given this is the most expensive system I’ve assembled or tested, at least since the days of quad-SLI, it doesn’t feel great to see parts that clearly cost pennies marring what is otherwise a premium system experience.

Swinging the system around on the bench – which I learned to do by walking it on its corners due to the rubber feet and the system’s heft – it’s time to install the power supply and radiator fans. First, the Thor PSU screws into the cage that was previously removed with four screws on the power plug end of the supply.

Then the cage and PSU slot back into tabs on the side of the case and attach via a screw. Don’t forget, as I did here, to move the PSU screen to the side of the PSU facing out. Otherwise, you’ll need to remove the PSU or radiator cage again later. Because the opposite side of the PSU and the radiator cage sit close enough together that you can’t remove the screen after installation.

With the PSU in place, it’s time to install the radiator fans. This is made quite easy by the fact that the three spinners come as a single fused unit and, if you follow along via the installation video, Asus points out that the Asus logos on the fan hubs should be facing out.

Screw them in via the long screws in the pretty cooling accessory box, and connect them via the single proprietary cable and right-angle connector that extends a few inches out from the top of the radiator.

If the plug doesn’t insert easily, turn it around so it angles out. I spent a half minute or so attempting to plug the cable in backward before I figured this out.

Now it’s time to install all the modular PSU cables, and the video guide here just kind of vaguely tells you to thread them all from the hole near the top of the PSU side to the bottom. I did this, somewhat against my better judgement, knowing full well that the supplemental PSU cables were going to need to plug in up top, and I had to fish them out and re-thread them to the top later.

I was a bit confused at first at these plastic, somewhat chintzy-looking gold ROG blocks stacked above most of the plugs. Turns out, they’re pre-installed cable combs, and spacing them out along the cables can make things look a lot better. Don’t waste them near the PSU side of your cable runs, though, because now it’s time to reinstall the cable shroud that covers up this mess.

With the PSU, radiator and fans, and cable cover installed, this is one of the cleanest-looking ‘backsides’ of a system I’ve seen in a while. Considering this is also an open-frame case, that’s pretty impressive. Again, as long as you don’t think about price.

Walking the system back around on my bench, it was time to remove the cable shroud here as well. There’s a single screw on the bottom, and then you need to push the shroud up to release its top tabs. This was surprisingly difficult, and I was worried about pushing too hard, because this is one of the other pieces of the case that’s plastic. But it eventually popped off.

At this point, it’s a good time to remove a couple of screws and move the front panel ports up to the top section if you want. Since I can’t imagine anyone putting this system on the floor, I left it in its default orientation, with the ports near the bottom.

Now it’s time to connect all (or nearly all) of the PSU and other cables. This is fairly straightforward if you’ve built a PC more than a couple times before. The one snag that I ran into was that the video didn’t make it very clear where to plug in the fused front-panel connector, and where I thought it should go, in the lower-right corner of the motherboard, looked to be in the way of putting the plastic cable shroud back on.

I eventually downloaded the manual, saw that I was right, and just had to be extra careful when reinstalling the shroud, running the bottom connection over it rather than down past where the connector lives. The black-and-gold cables look pretty nice, with their cable combs positioned. But most will be hidden when you reinstall the cable shroud on the right side.

Blower fan and GPU

It’s almost time to install the GPU, but first we need to feed it some active airflow. The GR20 ships with a blower fan, again in its own box, that slots into a large horizontal hole near the bottom. Installation is pretty straightforward. You stick the fan in the hole on the bottom of the case, and insert two screws on each side.

There are also thumb screws that you can loosen to move the fan forward and back a bit, but mostly the fan is just going to blow up across the bottom of the board and onto the ROG Astral 5090 – once it’s installed. First, though, you need to plug in the blower fan, which you can do on any number of fan headers around the board. But since the cable is long enough, I ran it behind the motherboard area and up to the CPU fan header.

Another wrinkle before we get to the GPU: You also have to install brackets for the motherboard’s port area and the GPU port area. The former feels like a decoration. Since the board is secured by several screws, it’s effectively a decorative frame for connectivity. But the GPU port bracket supports half of the very heavy GPU.

These aluminum brackets poke into small holes on the frame of the case, and this is the one area where I feel like the video installation guide seriously misses the mark. It tells you to attach these brackets from the back with a screwdriver, but it doesn’t say which screws to use, or even show screws being inserted. And because the screw holes are recessed, they are very hard to see, and were deep enough that I had to break out the long screwdriver that I usually use for installing large air coolers.

Once I did that and used the same screws from the bag in the previous step (installing the blower fan), getting both of the brackets installed was fairly easy again, easy after I wasted 5-10 minutes figuring out what I was supposed to do here. Again, since the GPU bracket is going to support the port side of your GPU, make sure that the bracket's two screws are tightly torqued.

On the opposite edge of the case (shown on the right side of the image above), you’ll also need to attach a GPU support bracket. This one you’ll want to leave somewhat loose at first, since you’ll have to adjust it once the GPU is installed.

And now, finally, it’s time to install the ROG Astral RTX 5090 Edition 20 GPU. You’ll probably want to (again, gently) lay the system down for this. It, as should be obvious, goes into the x16 slot just below the topmost M.2 heatsink. But because the sink is large and the GPU itself is very large, getting it slotted in requires some extra finesse.

But once the card is fully seated in its slot, you secure it first with the typical bracket screws on the port end, and then with three additional screws on the GPU support bracket side, with holes that you’ll need to adjust so they line up with the holes on the card. If you happen to be using a different card, hopefully this bracket adjusts enough so that it can be placed under the card to support it. Once it’s in place where you need it and the card is secured from both sides, you’ll want to tighten the screw that holds the bracket at the back, so it securely supports your graphics card.

Now, of course, you can attach the 12-pin power connector that was previously threaded out the bottom center of the case into the graphics card. As always, make damn sure it’s fully inserted. But hey, at least with this build, you can see the connector when the system is running, in case it starts smoking or melting.

At this point, you can also attach the glass backplate cover if you so choose. It effectively just sits on a hole in the backside of the GPU, held in place by some magnets. It looks nice, but I wish it would drop down slightly to be more flush with the top edge of the card.

Time to deploy the AMOLED

With the primary components in place, it’s time to install the curved screens, in the penultimate addition to this build. Both effectively just snap in place. The larger cooler screen requires that you line up a U-shaped groove under the liquid cooling tubes, insert the screen mechanism into a couple of tabs, and then press down gently until the pogo pins make contact with the pads on the cooler.

Note that Asus markets this screen as swiveling, but it really only moves two or three degrees forward or back. That might be enough to reduce some glare, but you’ll generally want to have the screen angled toward you if you want to easily see what’s on it. It’s also not really a single screen, but clearly a pair of curved screens stacked on top of each other.

The GPU screen is far easier to install, snapping right into the end of the card in the area where you can see the metal connection pads. But it has its own wrinkle. For this screen to work at all, you need to connect an included USB cable from the Type-C port on the card to a Type-A port on your motherboard. This is easy enough to do, and the motherboard has 8 Type-A ports, along with two more on the front of the case, so I doubt you’ll miss one port. But for a GPU with a screen that costs $6,000, it feels kinda lame to have to run a USB cable to get the screen to work.

Lastly, and I would argue most optionally, Asus also includes a large magnetic ROG logo that you can attach to the steel front of the otherwise plastic cable shroud on the front. It is pretty detailed and matches the gold accents of the rest of the system. But personally, I think it looks tacky here in a way that (somehow) the rest of the design doesn’t. If you really want to show off your devotion to the Republic of Gamers, this big magnet might look better on your refrigerator or somewhere else than on a $15,000 gaming PC that’s already adorned with screens that, by default, display the ROG logo on the regular.

Personally, I’m going to stick this large ROG magnet on the side of the beer fridge that lives under my test bench, next to my magnetic Corsair external SSD and my Orkney Skull Splitter ale sticker. If any of my non-gamer friends ask what it means, I’ll tell them it represents the Republic of Guzzlers. Really though, I just like a nice lunch beer – I swear.

Using the Asus ROG Edition 20 PC

I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to benchmark this monster PC or get a long-term sense of what it’s like to use it as a gaming and productivity rig. I may add to this section in the coming days as I spend more time with the system, but after about a day of using it after it was built, installing an OS, drivers, and playing a few PC games, I did get some strong initial impressions.

First off, for a high-end rig in an open case, with the beefiest GPU I’ve ever personally used, this machine is surprisingly quiet. I didn’t do anything more strenuous than play Borderlands 4, and admittedly my air conditioner was droning away from a nearby window. But the cooler and blower fans remained quiet. And the four fans on the GPU were noticeable when I was standing in front of the PC, but remained at both a level and a pitch that I would expect from a mainstream gaming rig inside a traditional case, not a top-end monster rig with all its cooling inches from my ears. At some point, I’ll have to listen to the system again when it’s cool enough to live without my air conditioner.

On the topic of heat, though: this 5090 sure kicks out a lot of it when gaming. And to some degree that’s no surprise. My personal system with a 4090 sits below my desk, and when I’m gaming at high settings on my 4K OLED TV, the PC feels like a small space heater blowing on my legs. However, things were on another level when using the Asus PC on my bench. The blower fan was pushing air up from the bottom, and the GPU fans were busy dispersing the heat from rendering the menu screen of Borderlands 4. The taller-than-desk-height of my bench was also probably a factor. But all that heat was literally blowing in my face, while my air conditioner worked to cool me from one side, a few feet away.

After about 10 minutes, I needed a break from the hot air blowing on me. And while my setup isn’t typical unless maybe you tend to game at a standing desk, I think even in a typical gaming setup, you may want to put this machine a little further away from you than a typical gaming PC. It’s not that it generates more heat than other high-end rigs, but its open-frame nature and the bottom blower fan distribute that heat much differently than a more traditional case, where most of the heat is exhausted out the back or the top, away from you.

Here, most of the heat seems to come forward, directly off the motherboard. And if your desk is cramped, I don’t think that would lend itself to a comfortable gaming experience – at least during the warmer months. I’d suggest planning to position the system 3-4 feet from your monitor and your face. If that means you have to upgrade your desk, you should. The system also weighs nearly 60 pounds, so you might want to anyway – and if you spent this many thousands of dollars on a gaming rig, you can almost certainly also afford a new slab of furniture for it to sit on.

Also, I find it curious that Asus’ ROG 20th anniversary GPU supports two power connectors (a typical 12VHPWR and a back-connector power option, and yet the motherboard the company expressly pairs it with isn’t a back-connector board that lets you take advantage of the extra wattage the GPU can take and that the 3000W PSU can dish out.

Perhaps a couple of factors were involved in the pairing. U.S. households aren’t typically wired for the voltage required to pull significantly more than 1600W. And maybe the average well-off PC builder willing to spend over $10,000 on a GPU, motherboard, cooler, and power supply might not always be astute enough to play around with a GPU capable of drawing up to 800W all on its own. I could see the whole ROG 20th Anniversary line becoming a financial burden pretty fast if the company had to deal with a significant number of RMAs and customer complaints on what must be low-volume hardware that costs several thousand dollars. Those who really want to experiment with shoving 800W into an RTX 5090 can buy the GPU separately, along with one of Asus’ compatible BTF motherboards.

A cost-no-object, screen-packed powerhouse

Circling back to cost, there’s just no getting around the fact that this system is ridiculously expensive. Putting aside the peripherals, the RAM, the SSD, and the CPU, the core ROG 20 components here costOver $10,000. Even at today’s inflated prices, you can get a more typical RTX 5090, a capable 1300W power supply, a premium X870E motherboard, a good 360mm AIO cooler, and one of the best PC cases for well less than $6,000. Cut a couple of corners and wait for a deal here and there and you could get nearly the same level of performance for not much more than $5,000 – half the price of Asus’ ROG Edition 20 parts.

Of course, those components won’t have multiple curved AMOLED screens, several pounds of copper to cool your CPU and VRMs, or a unique open-frame case like the GS20. And Asus’ ROG line has always put performance, materials, and premium design over affordability. It’s not like anyone who has been paying attention to the brand for two decades was expecting it to celebrate its anniversary by putting out cheap parts. High-end ROG components have always demanded a premium, and now that nearly everything in this space costs more, the premium has increased as well – at least for this iteration of its product line.

Also, as much as I’m not typically the type to build a PC with parts from mostly the same company, it was refreshing to actually be able to control every bit of RGB lighting with a single piece of software. I just wish Armory Crate didn’t need to download and update what seemed like 12 different modules and require multiple reboots before it could recognize and adjust the lighting on all the components in this build.

• MORE: Best PC Builds for Gaming
• MORE: How to Build a PC
• MORE: Best Gaming PC Deals

The cheapest Nvidia RTX 5090 in stock and available to buy right now costs at least $4,799, and even then, you won't be buying one from a reputable vendor. That makes this Dell Alienware desktop discount all the more enticing. Right now you can save $1,550 off the potent Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop, and score one for $4,779, cheaper than the standalone cost of the GPU.

● Check out this deal at Dell

With graphics card prices continuing to rise, the bar for selling a 5090 PC for less than the cost of the card is admittedly a little lower than it used to be, but this is still a crazy deal. For less than the cost of a 5090, you get the card, plus a 20-core Intel Ultra 7 265K processor, 32GB of DDR5 7200 RAM, 1TB M.2 Gen 5 SSD, and a 1500W power supply, all housed inside a sleek Alienware case. Other bonuses include a copy of Windows 11 and a 240mm AIO CPU cooler.

The standout of this build, as you've probably guessed, is the absolutely monstrous RTX 5090. The best graphics card on the market by some distance, its massive 32GB GDDR7 VRAM pool and 21,760 CUDA cores mean it will chew through any title at 4K, or a local AI workload without breaking a sweat.

The rest of this PC, while not the most premium spec, is definitely not to be sniffed at either. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is arguably a little underpowered at this level, but the RTX 5090 will more than make up for any shortcomings. The Arrow Lake CPU has excellent single-threaded performance, and when paired with a 5090 in our CPU testing data, can pump out 150 frames per second at 1080p on average across our 17-game test suite. That being said, if you'd like a bit of a CPU boost, you could opt to configure a Core Ultra 9 285, with more cores, cache, and a higher boost clock speed.

While we'd have previously hoped for 64GB of RAM in a build of this magnitude, the AI-induced component crisis means that is no longer a reality. Fortunately, you can upgrade the DDR5 6400 to DDR5 7200 with Intel 200S boost — which our testing shows can boost gaming performance by 7% — for free in this particular deal. You also get a 1TB Gen 5 SSD and a 1500W power supply.

While it might not feature AMD's benchmark-busting X3D CPU range under the hood, buying any PC for less than the going rate of the 5090 is not to be sniffed at in the current PC market. Indeed, CPUs and motherboards remain some of the only PC components with healthy discounts in the current climate, so buying this rig and doing a bit of surgery to the processor isn't out of the question either.

Prebuilt PCs usually get a bad rep but during these difficult times, they're actually a beacon of light as we navigate the component crisis. We've found a great deal on one such system — the Acer Nitro 85. It comes with an RTX 5070 graphics card and a 20-core Core Ultra 7 265F processor for just $1,499 on Walmart right now. That's $600 less than it usually retails for, and you get 16GB of DDR5 RAM along with a 1TB Gen4 SSD on top.

• Check out this deal on Walmart

The Acer Nitro 85 is perfect for 1440p gaming at the highest settings, and even a bit of 4K gaming with upscaling tricks thanks to Nvidia's rich software suite. You get features like DLSS, multi-frame gen and RTX HDR which all contribute to a better gaming experience. The RTX 5070 is third on our list of the very best gaming GPUs you can buy because of its exceptional value proposition, and this deal only enhances that. The 12GB of VRAM, while not a lot, is enough for demanding titles today.

Alongside the 5070, you also get an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F with 8 P-cores and 12 E-cores and a max clock speed of 5.3 GHz. This is a high-end chip capable of driving even faster GPUs, so you're set for both gaming and professional workloads. It's cooled by a 240mm AIO liquid cooler. Talking to the CPU is 16GB of DDR5 RGB RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slotted inside a standard motherboard that supports Wi-Fi 7 and has a 2.5 Gbps ethernet port.

The whole system is powered by a 600W PSU and enclosed inside a sleek-looking panoramic case with RGB accents and three RGB fans. In terms of front panel I/O, you get 1x USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type-C Port, 2x USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type A Ports and 1x 3.5mm audio jack on the top. The entire system is also covered by a 1-year warranty, and you have plenty of room onboard to upgrade the PC beyond that when things normalize.

The Acer Nitro 85 is a powerful prebuilt that can easily cruise through whatever task you throw at it. We kitted out a very similar system on PCPartPicker and the total cost came out to over $2,000 and that's without a Windows 11 license. So, for just $1,499 on Walmart right now, you're really getting your money's worth. With no foreseeable end to the ongoing RAMpocalypse, don't miss out on a stellar deal like this.

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.

If you need a top-tier gaming system that delivers on performance and aesthetics, the Predator Orion 6000 (PO6-605-UR15W) should do the trick. While Acer's prebuilt gaming beast usually retails for $2,799.99 at U.S. retailers, Walmart is currently offering a massive 25% discount, bringing the price down to $2,099 for a limited time. That is savings of up to $700 that you can put toward a new gaming monitor or other gaming accessories.

• Check out the Acer Predator Orion 6000 deal on Walmart

The Predator Orion 6000 is an exceptional choice of gaming system for demanding gamers. It features a powerful Core Ultra 7 265KF processor, liquid-cooled by a 240mm AIO cooler. The chip has 20 cores and a boost clock speed of up to 5.5 GHz. Paired with 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5 memory, the Orion 6000 easily exceeds the requirements of today’s AAA games and is fully prepared for future releases.

The system doesn’t cheap out on storage, either. It comes equipped with a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD that delivers lightning-fast load times and ample space to build your gaming library. In today’s market, with memory and SSD prices continuing to surge, a gaming system with 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD is a rare sight.

While the Predator Orion 6000 is clearly a powerful gaming system, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, one of the best graphics cards, is undoubtedly the component that draws the most attention. Powered by Nvidia’s latest Blackwell architecture, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti delivers great gaming performance at 1440p (2560x1440) resolution. Not only does it dominate at 1440p, but it is also an extremely competent performer at 4K (3840x2160) resolutions.

The Predator Orion 6000 is eligible for Intel’s Gamer Days campaign, running from August 10 through September 13. When you buy the Orion 6000, you’ll receive free digital copies of Star Wars: Galactic Racer and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, launching October 6, 2026, and February 12, 2027, respectively.

With prices for memory, SSDs, and graphics cards always fluctuating, building a custom PC may not always be the best route. Sometimes buying a prebuilt system is not just convenient; it can also offer big savings. When you factor in a significant discount, like the current deal that brings the price down to just $2,099, the Predator Orion 6000 is just hard to ignore.

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.

For a budget-priced 1080p gaming rig with decent enough specs, you're going to need over $1,000 in the current market. Right now, one of the best specs at this price point is this ABS Cyclone Aqua gaming PC for $1,099.99 at Newegg. You're saving $300 on its usual price, and you're getting a machine that will deliver enough juice for solid 1080p gameplay.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

This system features an Intel Core i5-14400F processor, along with a current-gen Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU, 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory, and a 1TB SSD. Right now, you'll struggle to find a competitor that offers similar performance for this machine at a lower price. The current state of the market has pushed 1080p budget machines like this above $1,000, with AI forcing RAM, SSDs, and GPUs to rapidly increase in price. ABS, a brand that Newegg owns and operates itself, is delivering good specs here for a price that still remains affordable.

This is inescapably a machine for 1080p gaming. First, the GPU, with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 shipping with 3,840 CUDA cores, along with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM. This is an entry-level GPU that sits above the RTX 5050, with Nvidia DLSS 4 support giving it the latest Nvidia software enhancements in-game. Multi-frame generation is the key DLSS 4 feature for gamers on this rig, as it'll give you a decent AI-generated frame rate boost in any resource-heavy games.

You're also getting the Intel Core i5-14400F with this ABS machine, and this Intel Raptor Lake Refresh CPU continues to be an option for gamers in budget pre-builts this year. It has 10 cores, six of which are the performance cores that you'll want for gaming, along with four efficiency cores for multi-threaded work, and a clock speed that can boost up to 4.7 GHz. Yes, the Intel i5-14400F falls behind its AMD rivals for performance these days, but at 1080p on a budget rig, the gap doesn't make much difference.

You're also getting 32GB of GSkill Ripjaws V Series DDR4-3200 memory in this rig. DDR4 is an unfortunate compromise at this price point, so no DDR5 here, but with RAM costs continuing to be as high as they are, we'll be expecting an extended lifespan for DDR4 machines anyway. You also get 1TB of SSD storage, thanks to the Kingston SNV3S M.2 2280, offering Gen 4 speeds and giving you enough storage for a couple of big game installations, at least.

RAM and SSD pricing means that even budget PCs are getting more expensive, but the $1,099 sale price for this ABS Cyclone Aqua RTX 5060 rig isn't a bad one in the current market. These specs will give you enough power for 1080p gaming for the next few years, at least, while the price makes it a competitive option that few other pre-built machines on sale can beat right now.

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.

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”).

You've got the chance to score a toolkit upgrade that's a firm favorite among Tom's Hardware staff. This Hoto screwdriver has proven to be a personal lifesaver of mine, helping me during DIY projects and PC repairs alike. It's genuinely impressed me with its functionality, along with its battery life, over the last few months. Thanks to Amazon, you can pick up this upgraded Hoto electronic screwdriver set for $29.99, saving you 40% on its list price for a limited time only.

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This particular kit is an upgraded version of the one we've seen Hoto sell over recent months, with more driver bits and a more robust case for users. The 40% discount isn't quite a record low, but it's on the lower end of the scale, and it's still a good price for the kit you're getting here. This is a good upgrade for a PC builder or hobbyist, as well as for any DIY tasks at home.

The 3.6V driver is the same model that several Tom's Hardware staffers own, and it comes with a 1,500 mAh battery that should reportedly allow you to drive over 1,000 screws without a charge. From my own use, that feels about right, as I've been using it almost every weekend since January and I've only needed to charge it once. USB-C charging is easy using the supplied cable, and it takes about two and a half hours to fully charge.

The driver is fully adjustable, with three torque settings, along with a sensor that stops driving as soon as you release control. It has a circular LED light at the top to help you see what you're driving, which is useful in those dark spaces, especially inside a PC case. The driver is magnetic, too, so you should find it easier to keep hold of any tiny screws.

The screwdriver and bits come with an upgraded storage case to help protect and organize the set while you're not using it. This is a nice upgrade over the circular casing that came with the earlier NEX O1 Pro kit, which, while compact, was a little tricky to open from time to time. You also get 24 different screw bits, along with an extended PH2 bit, which should cover all of the bases, giving you Phillips, Torx, flat, hexagon, and Pozidriv head options, which are all rated for 60HRC on the Rockwell scale.

This $29.99 25-piece Hoto screwdriver set is a must-buy for PC builders and DIYers, and the 40% discount makes it a good price. I wouldn't be without mine, and I've found it to be a particularly versatile driver to reach for when I need a lightweight driver with a bit of extra power.

If you're a content creator or a gamer that needs to have a whopping 32GB of VRAM to power either your software applications or run your favorite games on extreme fidelity settings, then you're looking to own an RTX 5090 graphics card. Unfortunately, these GPUs do not come cheap, with the current lowest price on an available-to-buy 5090 sitting at an eye-watering $4,399.99. However, with this amazing Dell deal on an Alienware Area-51 gaming rig for $4,779.99, you can bag a whole gaming PC that includes the RTX 5090 for just $380 more than purchasing the standalone graphics card.

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The Alienware Area-51 gaming PC in question comes packed with the aforementioned Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, but also includes the 20-core Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor, 32GB of high-speed DDR5 7200 MT/s memory, and a 1TB SSD for the operating system and game storage.

All of the above components are packed into Dell's own Alienware case with a tempered glass side panel to show off the internals of the system. A 240mm liquid AIO cools the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, and a beefy 1,500W 80 Plus Platinum-certified power supply has all the juice needed to run the RTX 5090. The Area-51 does away with Dell's old proprietary parts ecosystem and lets you add upgrades more easily, so you're able to add more memory or a bigger SSD down the line.

The RTX 5090 is the most powerful consumer GPU on the market right now. It comes with 21,760 CUDA cores, over double the RTX 5080's 10,752 count, along with a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, using a 512-bit memory bus with memory bandwidth up to 1,792 GB/s. In our benchmarking results from our review of the RTX 5090 we can see that this super powerful GPU dominates the competition in all performance metrics.

The Alienware Area-51 gaming PC in this deal has the ability to play any game at extreme frame rates and power high-refresh-rate gaming monitors, even at 4K resolutions. It's the best GPU to experience ray-traced graphics without severely compromising in-game graphics settings, and with the extreme pricing of the RTX 5090 at the moment, it's one of the best value ways to purchase an RTX 5090-powered gaming PC if you can afford one.

Yes, it should be $2000 cheaper, but thanks to the AI-boom ruining PC component prices for us enthusiasts, this is one of the best deals you will find on an RTX 5090 prebuilt gaming PC right now.

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.

20 years ago today, Steve Jobs took to the Apple WWDC stage to unveil the first-ever Mac Pro desktop computer. As well as marking the beginning of a whole new Mac line, this was the first Apple workstation desktop to transition from PowerPC to Intel x86. Apple had already introduced Intel-powered versions of its iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook at the start of 2006; now it was replacing the mighty PowerMac G5 tower.

While readers might remember most clearly, and even fondly, Intel-era Mac Pro computers like the ‘trash can’ or the ‘cheese grater,’ the first Mac Pro with an x86 chip looked almost the same as its G5 ancestor.

Of course, the Apple WWDC presentation was all about the new processors, and the new machine was crowned the performance king, claimed to “deliver up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G5 Quad.” The top configuration would come with two new dual-core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months — 210 days to be exact,” boasted Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

Key specs of the first Mac Pro were:

• Two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33 GHz front-side buses
• Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB GDDR3, configurable up to ATI Radeon X1900 XT and the Nvidia Quadro FX 4500, both with 512MB of video memory
• 1GB of DDR2-667 fully buffered memory, expandable to 16GB
• 250GB HDD, expandable to 2TB using the four bays
• 16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), with an extra bay for two ODDs
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet, Optional Wi-Fi 4, Optional 56k V.92 USB modem, Optional Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• 5x USB 2.0 ports, 2x FireWire 800 ports, 2x FireWire 400 ports, various audio I/O
• 4× PCIe 1.0 slots, one double–wide for the best graphics cards of the time
• Compatible with Mac OS X Tiger at launch, supported to 10.6 Snow Leopard

Three processor choices were available at release in early 2007. As well as the top-end model with a pair of dual-core Core Xeon 5160 CPUs running at 3.0 GHz, there was a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz), and a Core Xeon 5130 x2 (2.0 GHz) model. If an off-the-peg model wasn't quite right, Apple proudly claimed the online configurator allowed for "more than 4.9 million possible configurations."

To give you some pricing context, Apple released the Mac Pro with a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz) and base specs bullet-pointed above for $2,499, including a Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

Apple’s last Mac Pro was a 2023 model with the M2 Ultra chip. Then, in March this year, Apple confirmed there would be no future revisions of this desktop workstation flagship. The line had been effectively replaced by the Mac Studio, as a key reason for the Mac Pro to exist (upgradeability via PCIe expansion) had been sidelined by Thunderbolt 5.

When you're buying a pre-built gaming PC, you'll want to consider how many years the rig you're buying is going to be able to play the latest games. Luckily, this Newegg deal on an ABS Cyclone Aqua machine for $1,329.99 right now unlocks performance that should last for some time. Unlike plenty of other budget rigs that stick with 8GB GPUs, this machine from Newegg's own ABS brand features an RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB VRAM, giving you the option to game at 1440p for less than $1,400. You'll need to use the coupon code SSF72762 for $70 off to get the full discount, however.

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The PC hardware market has seen huge price increases, so a gaming PC with specs like these remaining at an affordable price is worth considering. While the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is the star of the show, you're also getting 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the 20-core Intel Core i7-14700F to sink your teeth into. The 14700F is still a popular choice in pre-builts, despite being a little older, with decent performance for gaming.

With this build, you're securing yourself one of Nvidia’s current mid-tier graphics cards, featuring a GPU with 4,608 CUDA cores and a boost clock speed of 2,527MHz. Unlike the RTX 5090, this RTX 5060 Ti only requires a single eight-pin PCIe connector to deliver power, so you're not expected to be guzzling huge amounts of power with this rig.

Our RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB review is clear about how impressive this GPU is for mid-tier builds, with the charts below showing how the card's ray-tracing power is especially formidable in comparison to its rivals. DLSS 4 support, meanwhile, unlocks the full software capabilities of this Blackwell GPU, with multi-frame generation helping to give your rig a frame rate boost in the most resource-heavy games, especially at the higher resolutions.

The big win, though, is that VRAM. 16GB of GDDR7 is a significantly better option for any build, but especially compared to the 8GB variants you'll usually find at this price point. It gives you much greater headroom for performance while playing the most resource-heavy games, especially if 1440p is in your sights.

The GPU isn't the only good part about this build, however. While the Intel Core i7-14700F is getting older, this Raptor Lake Refresh CPU is still a popular choice in pre-built systems at this price point. It ships with 20 cores, a max turbo clock speed of 5.4 GHz, and a 65W TPD. Those 20 cores are split across eight performance cores, which are the best options for gaming, along with 12 efficient cores for multi-threaded work. Performance-wise, the 14700F won't be a bottleneck alongside the RTX 5060 Ti at either 1080p or 1440p while gaming.

You're also not settling for outdated specs, either. This machine skips DDR4, which is still used in budget builds to reduce costs, and instead comes with 16GB of G.Skill Flare X5 DDR5-6000 RAM. While 32GB would be better, RAM pricing is sky-high at the moment, so it's a compromise. 16GB won't give you as much breathing room, but using DDR5 adds to the longevity of this machine, giving you scope to upgrade later.

As for storage, you're getting a 1TB Patriot P410 SSD included in this rig. It offers Gen 4 speeds and enough space, at least, for you to install a few big game installations, alongside plenty of indies. Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity are included, along with Gigabit Ethernet.

The $1,329.99 sale price for this ABS Cyclone Aqua gaming PC is hard to beat at the moment. The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU means you've got the power to game at 1440p if you choose to do so, but with PC hardware costs continuing to rise, there's no guarantee that it'll be around at this price for long. If you're interested, don't forget to use the SSF72762 coupon code to save that extra $70.

The Beelink SER10 Max might look like a standard Mac Mini-style mini PC, but this unit is fairly unique when compared to many of its other Mini PC compatriots – it comes dual-booted with both Windows 11 and Ubuntu, the latter of which also comes with OpenClaw and a lightweight local AI model pre-installed on the drive. Sporting AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, a light refresh that boosts performance over its predecessor by 100Hz and AI TOPS to 55 over 50, is the curious configuration a simple party trick, or is the $1,649 mini PC doing something actually useful?

Outfitted in a vibrant red, the PC comes ready to dual-boot between Windows 11 and Ubuntu with the additional boon of OpenClaw having been pre-installed on the system alongside a local AI model – Qwen 3.5-9B-Q4_K_M – on the Ubuntu install, meaning that setting the SER10 Max up for AI usage should be fairly straightforward. It’s important to note here that, despite the branding and usefulness of the setup, the HX 470 is hamstrung by a maximum memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, a far cry from the Strix Halo’s 256 GB/s, meaning that local AI performance will be somewhat limited.

Design of the Beelink SER10 Max

Beelink has taken a few notes from Apple’s playbook for the design of the SER10 Max. While the underside and rear of the chassis are both made from plastic, the rest of the shell is made from high-quality machined aluminum. Our unit comes in with a red anodized aluminum finish, which looks fantastic, though it might not be to everyone’s taste. The red finish is specifically for units that come with the “OpenClaw” feature pre-installed. For everyone else, there’s a silver finish, which makes the unit look even more Mac Mini-inspired.

One thing to note about the SER10 Maxis is that, unlike some other mini PC’s, the power supply is external, meaning that you’ll have to find a place for the power brick to live. Luckily, the unit we were shipped came with a fairly long cable. It’s a tight, well-made package sporting vapor chamber cooling and a single active fan that never gets too loud while under heavy loads, which is a rarity when dealing with PCs in this form factor.

Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Beelink SER10 Max

There’s some easy-access ports on the front, though I would have liked to have seen more Type-C ports over Type-A. The USB4 functionality might also come in handy for anyone looking to run an eGPU dock. On the back, 10Gbps Ethernet could make it a handy machine for running locally connected workstations for AI development (though on this machine, it's probably better for fast networking). There’s nothing special to write home about here, though the additional feature of auto-power on via LAN is incredibly welcome, cementing the way that this PC is specifically positioned as a satellite compute unit.

The SER10 Max can be quite easily opened up, once you get past the adhesives. There are four rubber feet at the bottom of the chassis, which are unfortunately glued to the heads of the four screws. These are quite strongly bonded, and when I removed one of the small rubber stoppers, it flew off my desk, and into oblivion, never to be found again. Once you’ve taken your handy spudger or guitar pick, all it takes is removing four Phillips head screws, and a tug of a rubber tag at the bottom of the unit to remove the plastic bottom panel. There, you’ll be met with a dust filter, which takes another two screws to access the components within.

Our unit came with two populated dual-channel DDR5 SODIMM slots, in addition to two NVMe drives (one for each slot, housing each OS), which are underneath a heatsink, which is partially taped to another part of the chassis. You can easily remove the two screws holding the SSD heatsinks in place and lift it up, revealing two populated M.2 2280 slots, each housing a Crucial 1TB drive. Beneath the one on the right is an additional M.2 2230 slot, which is shielded, housing the Intel AX200 Bluetooth and Wi Fi module. These core components are all very easily accessible, meaning that if you wanted to upgrade your storage or if anything goes wrong with your connectivity at some point, it’s all user-replaceable, which isn’t a given with this segment of small PCs.

Productivity Performance on the Beelink SER10 Max

The SER10 Max’s performance across productivity workloads squarely put it in the middle of the pack for our currently tested suite of mini PC benchmarks. That’s no bad thing – the system can handle everyday office and demanding CPU tasks thanks to its 12-core / 24-thread configuration, which shines in multi-threaded workloads. In everyday use, I was not wanting for any more power than what was already on offer here.

Kicking things off with single-threaded results, we see that the Beelink SER10 Max sits slightly ahead of the HX370-based Arctic Senza AI 370, though it loses out to the MSI Cubi AI+ 3MG NUC, the latter of which uses an Intel Core Ultra 386H. Both HX470 systems in our benchmarks were slightly edged out by the GMKtec EVO-T2, a Core Ultra X7 358H-based system. In Geekbench 6’s single-threaded results, we see that the system fares slightly better than our overall geomean ranking, leading at the top of the pack by a slim margin. Multi-threaded workloads also tell a similar story, with the Beelink SER10 Max sitting second in our list of benchmarks against other systems, but not far behind the Arctic Senza AI 370, which, in all fairness, is only a single point ahead.

In real-world tasks, such as video editing for Tom’s Hardware’s ‘Quick Takes’ using Capcut, I found that the Beelink SER10 Max performed admirably, loading and rendering video, cutting and rendering at a solid speed, so I wasn’t waiting around for effects to be rendered within the timeline. In the videos I edited on the Beelink SER10 Max, I didn’t feel as though I was waiting around for anything to be rendered, effects to be applied, nor was I wishing that I was editing on a more powerful system. However, editing using a “light” video editor like CapCut, against something more powerful like creating effects using After Effects and Premiere, are very different things. Throughout operation, we only heard the Beelink SER10 Max crank its single fan up to full tilt once, during a synthetic workload. Otherwise, the system was remarkably quiet throughout our testing.

Gaming and Graphics on the Beelink SER10 Max

The Beelink SER10 Max is equipped with AMD’s RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 890M GPU, which features 16 CUs at speeds of up to 3.1 GHz. This isn’t going to suddenly be able to run every game perfectly, as the device out of the box is configured to dedicate only 4GB of its memory pool to VRAM. Given that we have a lot of memory in the system, those looking to game may wish to extend that RAM pool further for peace of mind that they won’t run out of VRAM throughout. All of our tests were run with the 4GB VRAM pool, as was configured out of the box, meaning that you’ll likely find some performance gains should you tweak it to be slightly higher.

In Cyberpunk 2077’s “Steam Deck” configuration at 1080p, the SER10 Max offers playable performance at 1% lows of 42 FPS and an average of 51 FPS, respectively. On Cyberpunk 2077’s High setting with all upscalers turned off, we see 1% lows of 25 FPS and an average of 30 FPS. In Cyberpunk, the Beelink SER10 Max is trailed only by the Arctic Senza AI 370, which has a faster memory pool, and the GMKTec Evo T2’s Arc B390, which also has faster memory.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the same pattern is echoed; faster memory is just as important for serving frames as the silicon within, though the Beelink SER10 Max achieves an average of 52 FPS and 1% low of 40 FPS. This isn’t going to become a AAA games machine, nor should you expect it to perform that way. Synthetic benchmarks confirm what our real-world testing tells us – the newer Gorgon Point silicon doesn’t make up for slower memory when compared to the Arctic Senza AI 370’s 32GB of soldered LPDDR5X-8000.

However, in smaller and simpler titles like Hollow Knight: Silksong, the SER10 Max managed to reach an average of 100 FPS at 4K with V-Sync off, Particle Effects set to Normal, and Blur Quality set to High. This is about as expected for a 2D game of this type, and aside from the odd hiccup when transitioning between areas, it ran extremely well. In Stardew Valley while tending to my crops, the SER10 Max at 4K maintained a steady 60 FPS throughout.

While those two are markedly lighter titles, I also played co-op climbing hit Peak on the system, where running things at a native 4K resolution came up against the reality of its default 4GB VRAM configuration with render scaling set to native, where the game struggled to reach a baseline of 30 FPS, with the rest of the game set to High. Punching all the settings, including render scaling to Medium, I managed to get things running at a steady average of around 70 FPS. So long as you keep your expectations in check regarding performance in heavier 3D titles, the SER10 Max is a performant “indie” machine. Just don’t expect to light the world on fire with all the latest bells and whistles, or run expect to run the newest titles at native 4K resolutions.

Dual Booting on the Beelink SER10 Max

Dual booting between Ubuntu and Windows 11 is one of this unit’s flagship features, isn’t quite as straightforward as you might be led to believe. Instead of being met with an option between the two upon booting the unit to switch between OS’s, you must instead switch the boot drives within the BIOS to get to your preferred OS. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but there are some more caveats to the feature that potential buyers should know about.

Ubuntu and Windows 11, even while running on different NVMe drives, don’t play well together unless you’ve set up Windows first. In particular, the networking chip wasn’t recognized by Ubuntu until I had booted up Windows 11, set up the device, and restarted the system to boot into Windows again, then switched to Ubuntu. No amount of driver installations or re-installations on Ubuntu managed to solve the issue on our end. That was the only real problem that we encountered when testing the Ubuntu installation on our review unit.

Secondly, the OpenClaw installation is remarkably simple to set up, with Beelink itself offering a setup guide for new users (like me) who had never used OpenClaw before. A well-documented setup guide, and 10 minutes later, I had my own local LLM running on the system, and communicating to me via Telegram on my phone. It’s worth mentioning that Beelink also offers a pre-installed LLM for OpenClaw usage on the device, in this case, Qwen 3.5-9B-Q4_K_M.

When querying the model in the llama.cpp front-end, we found that the model ran at 11.4 TPS, which is quite slow. A 1,350-token query took around two minutes in total to generate, which is a fairly slow speed for those looking for light, fast responses. Getting OpenClaw to learn new skills is a crucial part of having a model running on your phone. Without it, the model will just occasionally lie to you. That’s not the PC’s fault, but a byproduct of running a 9B model locally. During the setup of OpenClaw, you can also install other LLMs that fit into the system’s memory, such as Google’s Gemma 4 model or other lightweight LLMs. However, given that this system cannot quite manage to fit larger, more complex LLMs locally, you also have the option to use an API key for your provider of choice, which removes some of the load and opens the door to running more agents concurrently on the system.

The reality is that for Local AI and AI development, you’d be more suited to spending more on an AMD Strix Halo or Nvidia DGX Spark-based system, as those offer much more performant architectures and higher memory bandwidth for running larger, heavier local models. However, for those looking to simply dip their feet into the Local AI waters, the SER10 Max is capable of running some of those tasks, but you’ll be looking to upgrade your hardware sooner rather than later if this is the main reason behind your purchase.

Software and Warranty on the Beelink SER10

The SER10 Max comes with a delightfully lightweight and bloat-free Windows 11 installation, shipped with Windows 11 Pro 24H2, meaning that once you get the unit, you’ll likely want to upgrade it to 25H2 if yours hasn't already. Oddly enough, it took a few attempts to successfully install it, after several rounds of failed updates. Soon after, we were up and running with no issues, but Beelink should really update its Windows installation image to 25H2 to smooth onboarding for new users. Over on the Ubuntu side, you’re simply looking at having all the files for OpenClaw pre-installed. This is a pretty refreshing take, as the system is not filled with bloatware. Once you’ve installed all of your drivers on the system, then things are fairly nimble and lightweight.

Beelink offers a three-year warranty on its website, which covers manufacturing defects or if the product does not work as advertised. While you can go straight to Beelink’s website and purchase the system, many models of the SER10 Max are also available via Amazon.

Beelink SER10 Max Configurations

Beelink offers the SER10 Max in a multitude of flavors and configurations. The base model offers Windows 11 Pro, in 32GB/1TB and 64GB/1TB flavors with a silver anodized aluminum finish, priced at $1.299 and $1,599, respectively. The “OpenClaw” models ship with Ubuntu and come in the red colorway and can be specced slightly higher. The 32GB / 1TB will cost you $40 more than the Windows 11-based equivalent, while the 64GB / 1TB OpenClaw config retains pricing parity to its Windows 11-based brethren.

The OpenClaw configurations also ship with more DDR5-5600 RAM and 2TB of storage. The configuration we reviewed, the 64GB / 2TB OpenClaw model, will set you back $1,799, and is the only model that ships dual-booted. You can also equip yourself with a 96GB / 2TB variant, which tops out at $2,199.

Shopping around for other Gorgon Point Mini PC’s of this type, Geekcom’s A9 Max is $100 more expensive for the base model, whereas the MINISFORUM AI X1 Pro-470 in a 64GB/1TB variant costs $1,639, whereas Beelink’s SER10 model with the same RAM and storage capacities is slightly cheaper at $1,599.

Bottom Line

The Beelink SER10 Max’s appeal is curious. On one hand, you have a well-performing desktop PC that can churn through most productivity and performance tasks with ease, and is even well-suited for some light gaming. For the past week and change, it’s even acted as a suitable replacement for my desktop gaming PC in a pinch, and I’ve not been left wanting on the performance front in my day-to-day usage. The biggest weakness of the SER10 Max is in its fairly limited memory bandwidth, capped at 89.6 GB/s. We’ve seen this limitation crop up in some gaming workloads, where previous-generation silicon with faster RAM beat the SER10 Max’s HX470 out. We’ve also seen the unit butt up against this limitation when serving tokens for local AI models, as the system must communicate between the model weights stored in the RAM and push them through the APU for every single token generated.

Where the confusion comes is in the OpenClaw-based branding of the unit, as a result. The Ubuntu dual-boot is handy, but far from a difficult task to perform for someone familiar with the platform. For prospective AI developers, there is merit in being able to run a smaller model locally at lower token speeds, while also leveraging a more powerful cloud model. But you would need to take a hybrid approach. Don’t expect to suddenly abandon your Claude subscription for a model that this the SER10 Max can run – you’ll only set yourself up for disappointment. This makes the OpenClaw branding come across more like a marketing gimmick, rather than an actual day-in-day-out use case, unless you’re dedicated enough to set up a hybrid local and cloud AI setup, where you’re passing off smaller tasks to a slower locally-run model.

This makes the particular configuration that we’ve reviewed niche in its overall utility for AI enthusiasts. You have to go in understanding all of the limitations of the hardware before even considering purchasing it. For some, the configuration on offer here will suit just fine; for others, particularly those interested in running powerful local AI models – you should instead look toward systems with faster memory bandwidth, higher memory capacities, and speeds. Luckily, it’s not a dedicated AI box, and the SER10 Max is a quiet, performant desktop computer that’ll suit most everyday tasks incredibly well.

HP is offering a powerhouse pre-built with enough performance to last you for years. This huge deal on this HP Omen Max 45L gaming PC, fitted with an RTX 5090 and 64GB of DDR5 RAM for $5,599.99 right now, knocks a massive $1,400 off its current list price. This is a rig that will deliver you a machine able to handle high-end 4K gaming with good frame rates.

Compare and contrast to the current price for just the RTX 5090 right now. To buy a standalone Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, without the rest of this build, would cost you at least $4,499.99 right now for a card from a reputable seller. The extra $1,100 you're spending here gets you 64GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, and more. The current market price for this amount of RAM and storage means you'd almost certainly end up paying more to build an equivalent rig yourself.

● Check out this deal on HP's website

As our HP Omen Max 45L review shows, this is a build made for serious gamers. It's one of HP's flagship gaming machines, built quietly but with a formidable presence at your desk, thanks to its massive case, with three 120mm fans visible at the front. Our review model differs slightly in specs, but the design is exactly the same here.

It's the GPU that makes this build unstoppable for gamers. Our GPU benchmarks make clear what you already know about the RTX 5090: this is the best consumer graphics card you can buy, with performance that no other consumer GPU can match. It has double the second-place RTX 5080's CUDA count of 10,752, while other specs include a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, using a 512-bit memory bus with bandwidth speeds of up to 1,792 GB/s.

As for the CPU, you're getting the Intel Core 9 Ultra 285K. This is a 24-core CPU, eight of which are performance cores, which are the best for high-performance gaming. A further 16 efficient cores are great for multi-threaded tasks. The 285K is fully unlocked and overclockable, and the performance cores offer a standard clock speed of 3.7 GHz, which can boost up to 5.7 GHz.

The 285K, like other Intel Arrow Lake CPUs, admittedly didn't excite for gaming when they launched, trailing behind AMD's top-spec alternatives like the 9980X3D. Luckily, the raw power of the RTX 5090 is a formidable counterweight against any deficiencies in the 285K, offsetting and heavily compensating for any of its shortcomings. Meanwhile, updates since launch have helped to improve the 285K's gaming performance, too.

Either way, coupled with the RTX 5090, you can still expect to hit high frame rates, 4K, and ray tracing on Ultra graphics presets. Nvidia DLSS 4 is also there to fall back on in a pinch, should you ever need to, with multi-frame generation able to use AI to boost frame rates in the most intensive games.

Other features in this pre-built HP gaming rig include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 support. You're also getting a 2TB NVMe SSD with Gen 4 speeds included, which should leave a healthy amount of space for a big game collection. There's also a significant boost to memory with this rig, with Kingston Fury 62GB DDR5-5600 memory included as standard, split across four 16GB modules.

The $5,599.99 sale price for this HP Omen Max 45L machine is a good price in the current market for a high-end gaming PC, excluding those with a time machine that can head back to last year's prices. RAM, SSD, and GPU prices are all extremely high at the moment, so there's no guarantee that we won't see further price rises towards the end of the year. If you need an upgrade, the $1,400 saving offered by this HP machine might just be worth it.

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.

It seems the global component crisis has skyrocketed the prices of storage to the point where some alternative ways of utilizing a NAS have popped up. YouTube PC enthusiast TrashBench recently took a ZimaCube 2 NAS and modded it into a gaming PC, driven by an RTX 5060 graphics card. Despite the low-power laptop CPU inside the server, the results still showed an astronomical improvement in gaming performance across the board, improving frame rates by 828% in some tests and breaking the Time Spy world record for the Intel Core i5-1235U CPU.

For context, the ZimaCube 2 is powered by an Intel Core i5-1235U CPU, which is an Alder Lake chip featuring just two P-cores and eight E-cores, alongside Iris Xe integrated graphics. The iGPU is weak because that's all that's needed for a server (if it's needed at all). This system was never intended for gaming, but the motherboard inside has a vacant PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, making this NAS the perfect candidate to be liberated by some questionable mods.

At first, the tests showed the iGPU hitting around 18 FPS in Hitman 3 on 1080p with low settings. Cyberpunk 2077 was even worse with just 13 FPS, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider was the most promising title, achieving 31 FPS. Putting an AMD Radeon Pro WX5100 workstation GPU (a cut-down version of the RX 480) in the board's slot helped raise the numbers a bit, around 40% on average, but the updated performance was still not enough to be classified as playable.

TrashBench proceeded to connect an RTX 5060 to the x16 slot with a riser cable and just let it hang outside the case, since the card was way too big to fit inside. Of course, this wasn't ideal and would restrict airflow quite a bit, so he devised a 3D-printed frame that would hold the GPU in place, while zip-tying the other end to the case directly. The final result might not exactly look polished, but it was firm enough to conduct benchmarks.

Keep in mind that all this jury-rigging was possible due to the ZimaCube's unique design. The chassis has large cutouts across its chassis, allowing the riser cable to easily protrude from the left. To power the RTX 5060, TrashBench removed all the hard drive caddies so that the system's drive bay was left completely empty. He then fit a 750W SFX power supply inside with an extension cable that ran up to the GPU's power connector. The front cover of this NAS is magnetic, so everything was nicely hidden behind it.

TrashBench's retesting showed Hitman 3 running at 167 FPS on average, which is an 827% improvement over the stock 18 FPS, or more than nine times faster. Similarly, Cyberpunk 2077 got a 7x boost, going from 13 FPS to 90 FPS. Framerates in Shadow of the Tomb Raider "only" quadrupled, as the RTX 5060 achieved an average of 124 FPS compared to 31 FPS with the iGPU.

TrashBench didn't stop there and, true to his nature, wanted to freeze the CPU to try and see if he could get even better results. The issue was that the chip never throttled to begin with, and the GPU was already bottlenecked, so running an antifreeze loop actually worsened performance. The silicon designed to run a storage server had achieved its maximum potential.

Unfortunately, this variant of the ZimaCube 2 does cost $1,299 to start with so you're much better off just building a regular PC even today. It also doesn't come with Windows, and the BIOS was never configured to run a dedicated GPU, so you have to always have something plugged into the iGPU's display output for the dGPU to display anything. Still, as a wild experiment, we can call this one a success.

There's a great deal to be had right now on an essential starter toolkit for a PC builder or hobbyist. You can pick up this Strebito 144-in-1 screwdriver kit for $39.99 right now, which takes 20% off its usual price and gives you a set with both precision and electric screwdrivers, alongside 120 magnetic screw bits and 22 other maintenance tools for your hardware.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

If you don't already own a screwdriver set like this Strebito kit, you're missing out. It unlocks everything you could need for PC repairs or maintenance, and it's pretty useful for DIY tasks and hobbyist building. You're getting a full set with two drivers, a lot of bits, as well as built-in LED lighting, and tools to help you clean, scrape, and adjust anything you're working on.

You're getting two drivers designed for different types of repair or build tasks with this kit. First, the included mini electric screwdriver comes with a 350 mAh battery, which should let you charge it in under an hour using a USB-C cable.

This driver delivers 200 RPM speeds and has adjustable torque settings between 0.15 and 0.5 Newton-meters. The size and power make it a good option for those fiddly small repairs, especially with smaller screws to deal with, and the built-in LED light will help you inside a dark PC case, too.

As an alternative, you've also got an additional precision screwdriver. This is a bigger beast with more power, with the ability to unlock up to 7 Newton-meters worth of torque to deliver more pressure when you're dealing with tricky screws. You've got 120 different bits in this set to use with both drivers, too, across all the major head styles, including flathead, Phillips, Torx, and Pozidrive.

This Strebito set also has a magnetizer/demagnetizer tool to help you grab hold of screws in a crunch, but also weaken them if you're worried about electromagnetic interference in your PC case. You also get a 5.7 x 3.3-inch magnetic project mat, which will help you to keep track of your bits while you're disassembling (or reassembling). Meanwhile, the 22 additional repair tools in this kit include a number of brushes, scrapers, a suction cup, and more. This set will be particularly helpful if you're repairing a laptop or smartphone, for instance.

The $39.99 sale price for this Strebito 144-in-1 precision screwdriver set is a good price to pay for a beginner who needs a good, all-rounder kit for their projects. This is a must-own option for PC builders, hobbyists, and budding DIYers, but it'd also make a great gift for somebody, too. You've also got a lifetime guarantee, courtesy of Strebito, to help you if you run into any problems.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

RAM bundles are becoming one of the best ways to upgrade or build a new PC, as they help to bring down the effective cost for new memory modules compared to buying RAM separately. This powerhouse Newegg bundle is no exception, featuring the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, an MSI MPG X870E motherboard, and 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM for $1,308.99.

● Check out this deal on Newegg

This bundle saves you $259.99 compared to buying each part individually but, more importantly, it means you're effectively paying just $230 for the RAM, compared to its $489.99 list price. That's also a huge drop of $150 compared to the nearest, cheapest equivalent RAM kit on the market right now, and doesn't factor in the additional free $70 MSI cooler you're getting with this bundle, too.

The RAM isn't the only thing that stands out with this kit combo, however, as you're getting the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D for your next gaming PC with this deal. This Zen 5 CPU has 16 cores and 32 threads and ships with a huge 128MB of L3 cache capacity. It's built using the second generation of AMD's V-Cache technology, with a redesigned stacking layout that allows for better thermal performance. The extra cache means that the CPU isn't forced to drop back and use the slower system RAM as often, helping to ensure better and more consistent frame rates, especially in CPU-hungry games like Cyberpunk 2077.

The CPU benchmark data shows that the 9950X3D can match the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D's performance for gaming, especially when using AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive overclocking. It also has the advantage of unleashing its full 16 cores for multi-threaded performance when you need it to.

Alongside this powerhouse CPU is 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM. This is a popular kit for gamers, comes with adjustable RGB lighting, and offers speeds of 6,000 MT/s. That's about average for DDR5, and is a significant improvement over older DDR4 modules, too.

The two 16GB memory modules can be installed in the also-supplied MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi ATX motherboard. That's a decent board for gamers that gained a four-star review when we tested it, too. It has plenty of USB-C ports and includes 5Gb and 2.5Gb Ethernet connectivity, along with WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Along with the parts that are officially included here, you're also getting an MSI MAG Coreliquid A13 240mm AIO cooler thrown in for free. This cooler would set you back $72.49 if you bought it individually, and it will help you keep that powerful CPU cool during use.

This $1,308.99 Newegg combo deal is a serious option for upgrading or building a new gaming PC. This bundle brings the effective cost of RAM down to just $230, which is simply impossible to beat if you buy the parts separately right now, so make sure to give it consideration before it sells out.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

There's a great bargain to be had right now on an RTX 5070 gaming PC that'll give you enough performance for gaming at 1440p. This MSI Codex R2 rig has a 10-core Intel CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, 1TB of SSD storage, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM for just $1,399.99 right now, knocking $900 off its list price in the process.

● Grab this MSI gaming PC deal at Woot

You'll struggle to find a comparable set of specs on any other pre-built at the moment at this price point. The RTX 5070 is the big winner here, delivering you the power you'll need to game at 1440p, bolstered by current-gen Nvidia features like DLSS 4, which'll give you access to upscaling and multi-frame generation to make your games even smoother to play.

Our RTX 5070 review is clear about the performance offered by this mid-tier Nvidia Blackwell GPU. Shipping with this pre-built means you've got a graphics card that makes our best GPU list as the best all-round Nvidia GPU for gamers from its current generation.

Specs-wise, the RTX 5070 comes with 6,144 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM operating on a 192-bit memory bus. What that means for gaming is that you can expect high frame rates at 1080p, even with high to ultra graphics presets. 1440p is an option here, too, but the most demanding games will require you to tweak your graphics settings to cope. The GPU benchmarks make clear that this is a GPU that is modestly better than its predecessor, the RTX 4070, while sitting below the more powerful RTX 5070 Ti.

Meanwhile, the Intel Core i5-14400F processor included in this MSI gaming PC isn't a bad option for 1080p gaming, and it continues to be well-sold in many pre-built rigs. It comes with 10 cores, of which six are performance cores that will deliver the best gaming performance. The other four, meanwhile, are efficiency cores, which are good to use for multi-threaded tasks. The i5-14400F has a clock speed that can boost up to 4.7 GHz, too.

We'd expect to see compromises at this price point, whether it's on RAM or storage, but there are none. You're getting 32GB of DDR5 RAM here, so you're not settling for lower capacity or slower DDR4 modules, which, given the rapid rise in memory pricing, is a nice surprise. Likewise, you're also getting a 1TB NVMe SSD with this build, which gives you enough space for a decent set of modern games alongside Windows.

The $1,399.99 sale price for this MSI Codex R2 gaming PC is a seriously good deal in the current market. It's a current-gen rig with the performance to deliver 1440p gameplay and should last for several years into the future. You've got less than a day to pick up this deal before it expires, and we'd expect this Woot deal to sell out fast, so if you're interested, make sure to pick it up quickly.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Our local AI explorations in 2026 have so far focused on two main platforms: Nvidia’s GB10, as seen in the DGX Spark and Dell Pro Max with GB10, and AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395, aka Strix Halo, as seen in the Corsair AI Workstation 300 and the Ryzen AI Halo. We’ve generally favored GB10 systems for these kinds of local AI development sandboxes. Their solid all-around performance and broad AI software compatibility make them easy to love, even if raw LLM inference throughput isn’t that high.

But Apple’s Mac Studio is another compelling option for local AI trailblazers who want systems with large unified memory pools, powerful GPUs, and high memory bandwidth to enable faster tokens-per-second throughput than either GB10 or Strix Halo can provide. And until someone builds another unified memory SoC with a memory bus as wide as what Apple uses for its Max and Ultra chips, Apple Silicon is, in fact, the only game in town for more memory bandwidth from a chip of this design.

Why focus so much on memory bandwidth for local LLM performance to begin with? To keep it very short, the decode phase of LLM inference is virtually always sequential. Every output token (starting with the first one generated as part of the prefill process) has to be run through every layer in a model in order to generate the next token, and so all the active model weights in a layer have to be streamed to the GPU from its memory as the token makes its way through each one.

Because the amount of computation required for each individual token at each layer is tiny, the speed of the entire decode process basically becomes dependent on how fast those model weights can be streamed in from GPU memory. That makes systems with large memory pools (for holding large models) and high memory bandwidth (for streaming those model weights to the GPU) appealing, and Apple Silicon is the only platform that lets you have both characteristics at a (relatively) reasonable cost.

Apple’s last Mac Studio refresh was in March 2025 and marked the introduction of two versions of the system. The higher-end version uses the M3 Ultra SoC with 819GB/s of memory bandwidth across both the 28-CPU-core, 60-GPU-core mode and the 32-CPU-core, 80-GPU-core model.

The M4 Max version of the Mac Studio encompasses two versions with greater divergence in specs than just core counts. The base M4 Max includes a 14-core CPU (10 performance cores and four efficiency cores) with 410GB/s of memory bandwidth, and it can be upgraded to a 16-core CPU (12 performance cores and four efficiency cores) with 546GB/s of memory bandwidth.

We reviewed both of these systems at launch, but Apple generously lent us another M4 Max with the 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, and 128GB of memory for LLM-specific tests. At the time, the price of that system was $3,699 or so, close to the DGX Spark’s $3,999 list price.

But as the RAMpocalypse has rolled on, the Mac Studio has become more limited in its configuration options and harder to find in stock. The M4 Max version we tested now tops out at 64GB of RAM, and lead times for that system are over two months out. Regardless, it’s the most comparable system that Apple has for the DGX Spark and GB10 platform more generally, at least back when dollar-for-dollar meant something in this market.

Before we get into performance results, we wanted to dig into the nitty-gritty of the M4 Max’s 40-core GPU, but Apple doesn’t share much (if any) detailed architectural information on its GPUs, including the number of shader ALUs that make up each GPU core, so it’s hard to directly compare the M4 Max to GB10 or the Radeon 8060S in the Ryzen AI Max+ 395.

The Radeon 8060S on board Strix Halo has 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units, each with 64 shader ALUs for a total of 2,560. AMD clocks the 8060S high, at 2900MHz, to achieve its roughly 14.8 TFLOPS of peak FP32 vector math.

Meanwhile, GB10 has 48 Blackwell SMs with 128 shader ALUs each for 6,144 total CUDA cores, and it too clocks relatively high, at 2450MHz in our testing. It offers a whopping theoretical 30 TFLOPS of FP32 vector compute.

Way back in the day when Apple first revealed the M1 GPU, however, the company disclosed that each core encompassed 128 execution units. Assuming that the same organization has carried through to current Apple GPUs, the 40-core M4 Max GPU would have 5,120 execution units or shader ALUs. That provides an idea of the scale of the GPU, at least, though without knowing clock speeds, we’re hesitant to speculate further about peak FLOPS or other theoretical performance measures.

Apple also only provides raw memory bandwidth figures for the M4 Max, but we can do some back-of-the-napkin math to surmise that the chip likely uses LPDDR5X-8533 on a 512-bit bus to achieve its 546 GB/s of rated memory bandwidth, twice as wide as both GB10 and Strix Halo. The lower-end M4 Max likely uses LPDDR5X-6400. In turn, the M3 Ultra likely uses a 768-bit-wide bus with LPDDR5X-8533 across both of its variants.

We covered the design of the Mac Studio in detail in our initial review, but it’s worth a quick tour to re-familiarize yourself with it. The top and sides of the system are largely featureless, save for an inlaid black Apple logo up top. The front panel has two 10Gbps USB Type-C ports and a UHS-II SD card reader.

The Studio’s thermal design uses a clever intake system that draws in air from vents around the system’s circular foot before exhausting it through a vent at the back of the chassis.

The M4 Max Studio we tested has a whopping four Thunderbolt 5 ports on its back panel with support for data rates up to 120Gbps. Although we’re not testing it today, you can enable RDMA over Thunderbolt 5 for low-latency clustering of Mac Studios using utilities like Exo. These ports also support Thunderbolt displays or DisplayPort 2.1 Alt Mode.

This system also has two USB 3 ports running at 5Gbps, 10Gb Ethernet, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headphone jack, so it’s got all the connectivity you could practically want out of a compact desktop in 2026.

With those basics out of the way, let’s get to testing.

To test LLM inference performance, we once again turn to llama.cpp, which includes native Metal/MLX support on Apple Silicon when built from source. We used the llama-benchy project as our benchmarking harness.

We tested three models of various memory footprints and architectures: Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B, a recent mixture-of-experts model; Gemma 4 12B, a small dense model, and OpenAI’s gpt-oss-120b, a large mixture-of-experts model. We used Unsloth’s four-bit quantizations of these models for our testing.

Out of the gate with Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B, the Mac Studio delivers prompt processing speeds that beat Strix Halo but are still behind GB10, especially with longer contexts.

Flip over to the throughput results, and the M4 Max pulls ahead of both GB10 and Strix Halo, turning in higher tokens-per-second throughput than both those systems at all context depths.

But despite having double the memory bandwidth of GB10 and Strix Halo on paper, the real-world improvement in token throughput on the M4 Max is just 25% on Qwen 3.6-35B-A3B. That’s certainly welcome, but it’s not nearly the speedup you might expect with twice the memory bandwidth on tap.

The dense Gemma 4 12B, on the other hand, really seems to let the Mac Studio’s bandwidth advantage shine. Tokens-per-second throughput scales more linearly with memory bandwidth with this model, and so the Mac Studio delivers a 1.8X increase in throughput over GB10 and a 2.26X increase over Strix Halo.

But prompt processing speeds are only in line with (or even slightly worse than) Strix Halo here, which isn’t a fantastic result for latency if that’s important to your application.

Finally, we’ll look at gpt-oss-120b. Prompt processing again lands between Strix Halo and GB10, and tokens-per-second throughput is far higher than with either of those systems. But the Mac Studio’s tokens-per-second throughput is, on average, 1.5x higher than GB10 and 1.6x higher than Strix Halo, despite its much higher memory bandwidth. Those are still impressive leads, but they show that memory bandwidth is just one component in judging the performance of an inference pipeline.

On the whole, our LLM inference testing shows that the M4 Max GPU can generate many more tokens per second than competing systems with large unified memory pools, but a memory bandwidth specification alone isn’t a good proxy for delivered performance. The actual boost you get from the M4 Max in LLM inference is highly dependent on the architecture of the model you want to run, so real-world benchmarking is still important.

Image generation performance

LLMs aren’t the only AI workload that one might want to run locally. Image and video generation also matter, and the performance of these diffusion models is generally bound by the compute throughput of the underlying GPU.

Running our Flux.2 Klein image generation test on the Mac Studio initially failed due to an apparent lack of GPU support for the FP8 data type that the ComfyUI workflow uses by default.

We were able to modify the ComfyUI workflow to use the base FP16 version of Flux.2 Klein on the Mac Studio, but that initial compatibility issue shows that you might not enjoy as smooth an image or video generation experience on Apple Silicon as you might on GB10 or even Strix Halo.

Compatibility issues aside, the M4 Max GPU requires even more time than the already pokey Radeon 8060S in this image generation test. Nvidia has repeatedly demonstrated the DGX Spark running as an image and video generation companion for Macs in its demos this year, and this result demonstrates why that pairing might make sense.

Image generation performance with the latest M5 GPU and its dedicated Neural Accelerators for matrix math might be better here, but we don’t have an M5-powered system at hand to compare against the M4 Max. Apple does claim that the M5 Max is “up to 3.8x faster” at image generation than the M4 Max, so take heed if this workload is important to you.

General CPU performance

We already gauged the CPU performance of the M4 Max in our initial review, but we wanted to stack it up against Strix Halo and GB10 directly to see how it performs against these popular platforms in the AI space. To establish a CPU performance ballpark for the M4 Max, we fired up the just-released Geekbench 7 and got to it.

In this benchmark, the M4 Max turns in a whopping 27% advantage in single-core performance and a 21% boost in multi-threaded performance versus the Ryzen Max+ 395’s 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 x86 CPU.

And comparing Arm to Arm, the M4 Max delivers a 39% single-threaded advantage over the Cortex-X925 “big” core on the Nvidia GB10, along with a 22% advantage in multi-threaded work.

Those results are seriously impressive on their own, but Apple has even more advanced CPU cores in its arsenal now on board the M5 series. We’d expect even larger advantages in general use from those chips.

Geekbench is fine for a quick synthetic test, but I wanted to make sure that its results held in a real-world task, so I compiled the CPU-only version of llama.cpp from source across all three of our test systems using the Clang 21 compiler running across all available physical cores.

With all 16 of its CPU cores in the game, the M4 Max finishes this compilation job in about 37 seconds, anywhere from 33% to 37% faster than the Nvidia and AMD competition here. That’s even faster than the M4 Max’s Geekbench multi-threaded performance delta would suggest.

At least going by these high-level tests, Apple’s CPU performance among SoCs with large unified memory pools is best-in-class, and by a wide margin. And again, that’s with the last-gen M4, not the latest M5.

When judging the efficiency of Apple Silicon or any other platform, one might be tempted to just glance at a power meter like a Kill-a-Watt with the system under load and leave it at that, but instantaneous power draw isn’t the right metric when judging the efficiency of a system for a given task.

Task energy (the amount of power consumed over time) is much more informative. A system that needs a lot of power but finishes a task quickly may consume less task energy and is therefore more efficient than one that consumes a moderate amount of power but takes much longer to finish a job.

To judge inference efficiency, we set up a fixed-length workload with gpt-oss-120b using llama.cpp and llama-benchy: first processing a 2048-token prompt against a 32768-token context depth, then generating 1024 output tokens. We chose that context depth to ensure that our test ran long enough to collect useful data. We recorded this data in watt-hours so that it reflects both energy consumed and time to completion.

At least in this synthetic workload, the M4 Max is more efficient than Strix Halo, but the sheer prompt-processing speed of GB10 lets it finish much faster and use less total power than the Mac Studio does, even though it’s outputting fewer tokens per second in the decode stage.

This test once again suggests that fixating on tokens-per-second throughput alone is perhaps not ideal for judging a system’s inference performance. An ideal LLM inference system would have both high prompt processing speeds and high tokens-per-second throughput for the shortest possible inference turn.

We’re curious how Apple’s latest M5 Max GPU would perform on this workload, as the company claims big gains on prefill compared to the M4 Max and has given that chip even higher memory bandwidth than the M4 Max. If that’s true, the combination of fast prefill and high tokens-per-second on decode would likely make the M5 Max competitive with GB10, if not an outright leader here.

We also gauged idle and load noise levels of these systems to see what it’s like to share space with them. For reference, the noise floor in our testing environment is about 32.6 dBA. We measure sound pressure levels at a distance of 18” from these systems to approximate what it’s like to work with them on top of a desk.

The Mac Studio is impressively quiet both at idle and under load. It barely raises the noise level in our testing environment at idle, and under load, its fans are barely perceptible. Practically any other noise you make or hear in your space will be louder. This is superlative performance.

Our time with a 128GB M4 Max Mac Studio demonstrates why these systems have been so popular among local AI trailblazers. For starters, the spec we tested has an incredibly potent 16-core CPU that’s leagues ahead of both Nvidia’s GB10 and AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 in both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.

The massive memory bandwidth advantage of the 40-core GPU configuration of the M4 Max versus Strix Halo and GB10—546 GB/s vs 273 GB/s—also translates directly to higher tokens-per-second throughput in local LLM workloads. The M4 Max’s LLM inference performance is by far the highest of any unified memory platform we’ve tested.

But our tests demonstrate that there’s much more to delivered performance than that raw bandwidth figure. Depending on the model you choose, you might see the M4 Max generate as few as 27% more tokens per second or as many as 82% more TPS than an Nvidia GB10 box, at least with the llama.cpp inference engine.

This result emphasizes that you can’t just eyeball memory bandwidth and conclude that twice the bandwidth means twice as many tokens per second for LLM inference. Testing actual workloads remains essential.

And the Mac Studio doesn’t totally wipe the floor with the competition in our tests. For work like image generation, the Nvidia GB10 GPU still holds a large advantage over the M4 Max. Apple claims this workload will perform significantly better on the most recent M5 Max with its latest GPU architecture.

Beyond its impressive raw performance with LLMs and in general processing tasks, the Mac Studio is a master class in industrial design. It looks distinctly classy on a desk, and its cooling design keeps it incredibly quiet. Under load, it’s barely louder than the Nvidia GB10-powered Dell Pro Max and Ryzen AI Halo are at idle. And when the Studio itself is idling, it’s practically silent. This level of performance in such a compact, quiet, and refined chassis is incredibly impressive.

There’s one major asterisk, though: the ongoing RAMpocalypse means that even if you do want to use a Mac Studio as a foundation for your local LLMs, these systems are no longer available in the configuration that we tested.

A Studio with the high-end M4 Max as seen in this review currently tops out at 64GB of RAM for $5299, and the M3 Ultra version tops out at 96GB (with an even higher 819GB/s of memory bandwidth) for the same price. But neither of these configurations are available from stock, and lead times for both are about two months out, meaning that you practically can’t buy a Mac Studio new right now.

If you really want to try out local AI on Apple Silicon with a large memory pool to match, the best current option may be a MacBook Pro with an M5 Max inside, which is still readily available from stock, still allows you to get up to 128GB of RAM, and benefits from Apple’s latest GPU architecture with dedicated Neural Accelerators for matrix math operations.

But depending on your SSD choice, a 128GB M5 Max MacBook Pro with the highest-end 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU is still a $7K to $10K system today. Even in today’s world of rising prices for access to frontier models, that’s a lot of tokens from the cloud – and, almost assuredly, more intelligent ones – than anything you can get from a single 128GB system from any vendor.

But if you’re dead-set on a single Apple Silicon system with the most memory possible, and you want it now in order to ride the local AI wave, a maxed-out M5 Max MacBook Pro is your only ticket at the moment. Given the refinement and flexibility of the Mac Studio as a desktop or server, we can only hope Apple brings that chip to this system, too.

When I had a kid, I found myself taking a lot more photos. When a baby lies on its back considering a ceiling fan for half an hour, you can suddenly find yourself with dozens of cute shots. And it doesn't stop when they grow up.

At a certain point, this bounty of photos weighed on me. I would look at my photo library on my phone or computer and worry about what would happen if something went wrong. It was time for a backup methodology more advanced than plugging in an external drive a few times a month.

At first, I thought about a NAS, which seemed like the obvious solution. But as I researched (and saw how expensive HDDs are these days), I opted for a mini PC. I was lucky enough to score a Mac Mini with M4, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage on Apple's refurbished store a few weeks before the company raised its prices. The best time to buy it would have been at $399 on sale at MicroCenter. The second best time was when I did it.

An M4 Mac Mini is overkill for my project. M1 would've done the job. Any number of older Intel- or AMD-based mini PCs would've been sufficient, and most homelabbers rely on Linux or even Windows for a reason. The M4 will future-proof this machine. It is, though, admittedly funny to me that one of the most powerful computers in my home is running headless in a closet.

But the Mac has other benefits. For one, my home has a lot of Apple products in it. While I'm equally comfortable with Windows and macOS, my wife is exclusively in Apple's ecosystem. So when I realized I would want this system to back up her photos and documents too, making that easy was important. I'm able to access it from either my MacBook Pro or my custom-built PC over VNC or SSH on the command line. There are a few other benefits of using macOS if you have other Apple devices in your home.

My overkill hardware

The M4 Mac Mini is far more than this project needs. But on the plus side, it should see support for a long time. And frankly, getting one during the shortage was just kind of a thrill.

The 256GB of storage is being used exclusively for the operating system and any applications. All of my actual data is on a series of external drives, most of which I already had lying around. That includes a 4TB PCIe NVMe SSD and 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD in enclosures (the former with Thunderbolt 3). But I also wanted a spinning hard drive for longer-term storage. For that, I opted for a Seagate FireCuda Vault X, which isn't the cheapest option, but can connect over USB-C bus power without the need for external power.

All of this is hidden on the top shelf of a closet. This isn't the ideal space, but it's the only one that will work. I live in an apartment, and that closet is where the sole Ethernet connection comes in. I already had my router and modem there. I've hooked up the Mac Mini to the router, connecting it to my home network.

The Mac Mini runs non-stop. That's good, because the power button is on the bottom, and I'd hate to have to pick it up every time I want to shut it off. (Also, I need a step-stool to reach that shelf.)

Backups and redundancy

The SSDs and HDD are all connected to the Mac Mini via the system's USB-C ports. The Thunderbolt enclosure and the HDD are attached to Thunderbolt 4 ports on the rear (the latter to ensure it gets the wattage it needs), while the 2TB SSD in the USB-C enclosure is connected to a 10GB/s USB-C port on the front.I've put too much thought into each drive's purpose.

The main drive is the 4TB USB-C drive, which has two volumes on it (unlike partitions, which macOS also allows, volumes are more flexible with free space). My main volume is for extra copies of important documents, my Apple Photo library, and also for backups of photos I keep outside of Apple's library (I have a tendency to clean house every few years). If I create any files I want to back up on my Windows PC, this is where I go to back them up on site. And lastly, I have a folder just to store files that aren't critical but that I might want to access from any machine. Why keep them on my laptop when I have terabytes of storage to play with?

But the second volume, which is just a small portion of the drive, is also for excess data I don't want to keep on the internal drive. At the moment, that's largely dedicated to macOS content caching (see below).

My 2TB SSD is for Time Machine backups. I can use macOS's built-in backup tool over the network to back up my laptop without plugging anything in.

The HDD is a redundancy play. That's currently split in half — one volume as an alternate Time Machine destination (letting me switch between the SSD and HDD), and the other volume is a copy of my important documents and photo library, which is cloned each night using Carbon Copy Cloner.

This is all in my home, of course, so if my computers and Mac Mini were in the same fire, much of my data would still be lost. Without an offsite backup, I would be in violation of the 3-2-1 backup rule (three backups on two storage devices, with one of them offsite). I keep many of my most important photos and files elsewhere in the cloud, in a mix of iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox. It's not a great system, and could use improvement, but it's better than nothing. If HDD prices were to go down, perhaps I could replace the Vault with another one and swap them once a month, keeping the other at a family member's home.

Running headless

I could put a monitor on the top shelf of my closet, but I've opted for a better model: running the Mac Mini headless.

Mostly, this meant setting up the Mini (with a monitor, naturally), to prepare it before booting it up. For me, this included removing a lot of the iCloud syncing it would normally do (I only want it downloading my original, full-sized photos from iCloud, but it doesn't need to get texts), preventing automatic sleeping, allowing for file and screen sharing on the network, and making security decisions that allow me to access the system and files remotely and securely while also deciding how often I want to have to take the thing down from the closet to log back in with a password.

From another Mac, it's very easy to use virtual network computing (VNC) via the built-in screen-sharing utility. From Windows, I can still use a program like RealVNC to access the desktop. I also reduced motion and graphics, set a solid color background, and made other tweaks in an attempt to reduce the amount of data or lag I might see over a remote connection.

There's also the option for SSH. I'm still working to be a bit more proficient at the command line, but you can do that either in macOS in the Terminal or Windows in the Command Prompt or PowerShell.

I've also seen that some people swear by running the Mac Mini headless by using an HDMI dummy plug to force high resolutions when remoting in. But using Mac Screen sharing, I haven't particularly had a problem.

Managing on the go

Typically, I'm more than OK with having what amounts to a backup server accessible locally. But what if I need a file that I'm storing on the server and I'm not at home?

For that, I've created a Tailscale network consisting of my laptop, the Mac Mini, and my iPhone. This gives each device a semi-permanent address I can access it through, as long as both are on the network.

That makes it easy enough from a laptop. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't have the super-easy Screen Sharing tool that macOS does. So on mobile, I have the RealVNC mobile app, which can access the Mac Mini either through the local address or Tailscale. Using a virtual desktop on a phone's touch screen isn't ideal, but it's not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

Mac benefits and drawbacks

Let's be clear: macOS is not designed for servers (macOS Server was discontinued in 2022). I am very aware that home networking purists would much rather use their preferred Linux distribution, or even Windows. And that's OK!

But if you have Apple devices in your own home, there are some benefits to having a Mac in your homelab.

My favorite of these is content caching, which can keep copies of macOS or iOS updates, App Store updates, or data stored in iCloud in the cache, so that they can be sent to other devices on a local network more quickly.

For those who are using macOS, it's nice to be able to use Time Machine, and mount other drives in the Finder the way you would with a Thunderbolt or USB-C drive and just have it on the desktop.

And yes, for management, the aforementioned Screen Sharing app is pretty solid, and it’s one less piece of software you need to worry about.

Additionally, the machine is whisper-quiet, rarely uses more than 3% of the CPU (and often less), and is efficient enough that I've noticed no substantial change to my electric bill.

The only real drawback for my use case is that while the M4 SoC will keep this project future-proof for a bit, adding RAM is impossible. I opted for the 16GB RAM / 256GB SSD model for budgetary reasons, but it's possible that, depending on what else I want to do with it, that could eventually hamper me down the line. It's especially the case if I ever want to get more into local AI.

However, once I get more advanced, there are some applications that would run more easily if I had gone for a Linux device. Instead, I'll need Docker or VMs.

What I need next

A project like this one is never truly finished. I have the Mac; I have it backing up my stuff (It ends up that after all this, I'm still working on getting my wife to back up her end). There's much more that I want to do down the line. Perfect, however, is the enemy of getting started at all.

One good item for this project would be a small uninterruptible power supply in the case of a power outage. Another would be a dock. A number of third-party companies make docks specifically for the Mac Mini that can fit an SSD, which might be a good way of organizing my cable mess. But if I ever switch computers, that dock will likely end up being less friendly for cable management.

There's also a whole bunch more I want to do with the Mac Mini. I don't have a ton of Smart Home equipment in my apartment, but what I do have is a mix of older Alexa-focused stuff. If I wanted to control that with Apple Home, I could try hosting Home Bridge. Or if I want to move to a more private system, I could install Home Assistant on the Mac Mini using a virtual machine.

I could also toy with PiHole, though again, I would have to use Docker or a Virtual Machine. That would let me block ads across my network (while whitelisting the ones I want to support, of course).

Further down my list are a Plex or Jellyfin server. I don't own that much physical media, but being able to access what I do have virtually could lead me to consider it among my subscription options. I could also use one of these to offload my MP3 collection from my laptop.

But for now, the file server and backups have given me some peace of mind. My photo library certainly isn't getting any smaller. I just hope storage prices fall before I need another drive.

Steam Machine fans who weren’t lucky enough to get a chance to buy the console on its first drop will have to wait until as late as December 2026 to get it. Valve said in its update that the reservation queue varies between products and regions, meaning Valve is already going through the waitlist for some versions of the consoles in select areas. However, it seems that others would have to wait longer if they chose a particularly popular trim of the Steam Machine in a region where there are many buyers, too.

“We’re fulfilling orders on a daily basis, sending out emails to reservation holders with the option to purchase in the order in which they landed on the list post-randomization. We expect everyone in the reservation queue will have the option to purchase by the end of this year,” Valve said in its update. It also added, “With each reservation queue and corresponding waitlist being per-product, per-region, they can move at different speeds based on demand. This means for some products in some regions, we've reached the end of the reservation queue and have started inviting folks from the waitlist.”

That means users who reserved the Steam Machine but haven’t had the chance to buy them yet can expect to get their hands on one before the new year. While this means that all the original reservations will finally be fulfilled in 2026, it doesn’t offer much comfort for those who want to have a new gaming PC console just in time for the holiday season.

Valve lets you 3D-print your own Steam Machine case, face plates

Users who haven’t received their Steam Machine yet (or even those who didn’t order one) could 3D-print their own shell for the console in the meantime. That’s because the company just released the CAD files for the “Gabe Cube” on GitHub in STP format. This lets you create your own face plates and case based on Valve’s own designs, ensuring that the cases or skins you create yourself will exactly match the PC console.

We’ve already seen some manufacturers offer custom plates and skins for the Steam Machine, although Dbrand had to drop the Portal 2-inspired Companion Cube after Valve threatened to sue the company for copyright infringement. With the release of these files, you can 3D-print or create your own skin (even your own Companion Cube skin) without worrying about getting sued as long as you follow the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license that Valve put on the PC console. ‘

If you’re brave enough, you can even make your own case for the Steam Machine and transfer the innards to that custom one you build. Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the Valve engineers who gave us in-depth details on the Steam Machine, warned that doing so might void your warranty, though.

“Your Steam Machine is yours, and you have the right to do with it what you want,” Griffais said on the GitHub post. “That said, we highly recommend you leave it to professionals. Any damage you do will not be covered by your warranty – but more importantly, you might break your Steam Machine, or even get hurt! Be careful, and have fun.”

Intel’s codename "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processors were designed for laptops, but now we are starting to see them trickle over into mini PCs. That includes the recently launched MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG (starting from $569, $1,999 as tested). This particular design is pleasingly compact and low-key in a traditional NUC manner, but can this matte black panther roar?

Design of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Simply put, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is a very compact roughly 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.5-inch design with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H chip inside.

The Core Ultra 9 386H delivers 16 cores and threads of processing power (6P + 8E + 2LPE) running at up to 4.9 GHz. MSI is also selling models with the Ultra 7 355, and Ultra 5 322 processors.

The Cubi’s shell is sturdy and pleasant enough in a matte black finish, made from recycled plastics. Inside, the motherboard is held firm inside what looks like a folded sheet aluminum frame.

Another welcome feature is the external power switch. This is a small power button puck on a slim connector that is 18 inches (45 cm) long. There’s a dedicated port for this on the left side of the Cubi, and the end of the puck is mounts with a little double-sided foam tape..

The power button dongle is a nice touch for those who might mount the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG somewhere out of view, like behind a monitor or under a desk. Those who keep the Cubi in reach can benefit from the fact that the power button on the unit has an embedded fingerprint reader. I found the biometric unlocking here to be hit and miss, however, and it often didn’t recognize my thumb.

MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

MSI has implemented a couple of physical convenience features in the build, starting with the three-step toolless access system.

All you have to do to pop the metal bottom off is turn a slotted screw, push a metal latch, and pull a ring. The trouble is I did need a tool to turn the first slotted screw, I fear my fingernail would have split if I hadn't grabbed a screwdriver. The force of pulling a tiny ring attached to the latch was also slightly concerning.

Beyond the Core Ultra 9 386H processor, our sample came loaded with 32GB of DDR5 (2x 16GB DDR5-5600 SODIMMs made by Samsung) and a removable 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2280 DRAM-less SSD from Phison. With these inserted, the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was fully populated. \The Wi-Fi card is also removable from its M.2 2230 slot.

On the front of the unit, there are three ports: USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 2.0 ports, and a 10 GBps USB-C port. On the back, there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with MSI PowerLink, which turns the PC on with a monitor), and a pair of 2.5G Ethernet jacks. Finally, on the side of the system, there's a Kensington lock slot.

I feel that the MSI is slightly stingy with ports here. Most notably, there is not even a single USB Type-A port in the rear. So I had to use a USB-C dongle to keep my wired keyboard connected at the back for the tidiest possible setup.

It is good to see various USB ports on the front, however. And I appreciate that this small device allows up to four displays at once (2x HDMI, 2x USB-C DP-Alt).

For wireless networking, there is Wi-Fi 7 on board and Bluetooth 5.4 is also built-in.

There is no 3.5mm audio jack here, which would have been welcome on the front. You'll need Bluetooth, or to use audio out through HDMI or USB Type-C ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

The MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG was built to be an office workhorse, so there won’t be many complaints about performance. It comes wielding Intel’s latest silicon, with 16 cores to take CPU-demanding tasks and multitasking in its stride. And the system does its job while sipping very low amounts of power, and rather quietly.

In Cinebench 2026, Maxon’s current-gen CPU rendering benchmark, the little MSI Cubi comes last in the rankings of our recent crop of mini PCs. Though low in comparison to its peers, its score isn’t disastrous here, as this is testing the kind of CPU muscle that won’t be called upon by a typical home or office user of a mini PC like this.

Similarly, in CPU-heavy benchmarks like Blender and Handbrake, the MSI Cubi lags behind the crowd. Even against the GMKtec EVO-T2, which also uses Panther Lake silicon and has fewer P-cores, the MSI still lags here. We are certain this is due to MSI’s default configuration maxing out at around 55W. The GMKtec machine was seen pulling over 70W at the wall.

On a more positive note, during our demanding tests, the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG stayed admirably cool and quiet. This feat was clearly aided by the chosen lower power limits and use of Intel’s newest energy-sipping mobile silicon in this form factor.

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Unlike some mini PCs, this one isn't squarely targeted at gamers. Still, with a mere quartet of Xe3 cores pushing the 3D visuals along, this compact and quiet mini PC can do some gaming.

I fired up Forza Horizon 5 for a bit of racing down in Mexico. I liked the High and 1080p settings, and the game managed 45-40 frames per second. The frame rate felt like it dropped precipitously every few minutes as I was driving around, though. This indicates that the game's suggested Low or even Medium settings would be a better choice for consistency.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, 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.

Next up, some real gaming courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little MSI Cubi can - and can't - play this game.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider performed quite nicely on the Intel Graphics (four Xe3 cores) fed by the dual-channel DDR5-5600 memory configuration we had. Using the High settings at 1080p makes for pleasing visuals, and I would argue the 37 FPS average was perfectly adequate for this solo-play atmospheric adventure.

Cyberpunk achieved a similarly playable frame rate using the Steam Deck preset at 1080p. On a big screen this is a little bit blurry / smeary. Moving up to the High preset at 1080p (with upscaling and frame gen turned off) dropped the frame rate below the magic 30 FPS, though, and below most folks' tolerance. If you had no other avenue to enjoy this demanding title, there could still be a spot in between these settings that would work for you.

In comparison to the other devices we have recently tested, the MSI NUC sat near the bottom of the pile. It only undercut the Geekom A9 Max 2026, which should have benefited from a great performing Radeon 890M iGPU but was kneecapped due to its single-channel memory configuration. This system is really made for work, and while you can technically play on it, you'll want something stronger for a good experience.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

According to system tools like HWiNFO, the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor inside this MSI Cubi has a TDP of 25W, with PL1 30W and PL2 65W. During testing, I measured total system power consumption with a plug-in power meter, as well as reading CPU temperature using a Windows tool.

In an idling state on the desktop, the system pulled around 17W consistently. At the same time, the CPU temperature would stick around 40 degrees Celsius.

During prolonged stress testing of the MSI Cubi, the highest consistent wattage consumed was around 55W. It seemed to stabilize at approximately the 75 degrees Celsius level.

I would characterize this as a quiet mini PC. Its MSI Frozr AI Pro fans were more or less unnoticeable in idle and light loads. My meter showed 30.8dB, and the meter doesn't measure below 30, so there's a possibility it may be even quieter. Meanwhile, the 37.3dB at max fans wasn't horrible, and it takes effort to tease this much noise out of the MSI.

Software and Warranty on the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

MSI’s latest NUC comes with MSI Center pre-installed. This is a suite of controls and extras wrapped up in a tabbed Windows interface. The main tab is packed with system monitoring information, but this new version of the tool offers to leverage AI to “automatically recognize various user scenarios, triggering appropriate adjustments in performance, sound effects, display mode,” and more. Elsewhere, MSI’s NUC was pleasingly free of bloat and third-party clutter, including a wonderful lack of short-lived free trials. Businesses really don't want to deal with that.

MSI sells the Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with a 1-year warranty as standard, but opting for a pre-built configuration with Windows 11 Pro on Amazon will also boost your warranty to 3 years of advanced tier coverage.

Configurations of the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG

Nosing around online retailers in the U.S. today didn’t uncover the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with the exact configuration, as tested. We got in touch with MSI about the 32GB RAM model, as tested, and were informed that it was only available business-to-business and its MSRP was $1,999 but that depends on factors such as order size.

On Amazon we saw a barebones version with the same Core Ultra 9 386H for $809. Upgrading to 16GB of RAM (single-SODIMM, single-channel) and a 1TB SSD, with Windows 11 pre-installed skyrockets the price to $1,661 (with Win 11 Home) and $1,767 (with Win 11 Pro), respectively.

MSI is also marketing Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG mini PCs with Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 355 and Ultra 5 Processor 322 configurations. You can find these on Amazon, both in 16GB/1TB/ configurations for $1,549 and $1,079, respectively.

Bottom Line

Though the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG is clearly aimed at businesses with its productivity focus . Its understated looks and quiet operation may attract those who want a small-form-factor productivity PC at home, especially if they intend on putting together a minimum-fuss multi-monitor setup.

If the MSI’s quiet, efficient, and compact form isn’t a killer combination for you, and you are open to less established brands, we have recently tested several other mini PCs from companies like Arctic, Beelink, GMKtec, and Geekom.

These less established brands definitely offer better value with more potent processors, and more generous memory/storage configurations, at better or similar pricing to the MSI. In the MSI’s favor, I’d say it quietly satisfies its target market more than adequately, and sprinkles attractive bonuses like fingerprint security, the remote power button, MSI Power Link, the touted ‘tool-less’ component access, and 3-years of advanced warranty coverage when you choose a Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG with Win 11 Pro.

Correction, July 30:, 2026 This review originally said the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG includes vPro remote management. It does not. We regret the error.

With PC hardware prices going up and up, thanks to the AI boom, you'll need to score a bargain where you can. Luckily, Walmart has slashed the cost of two different versions of this iBuyPower Y40 gaming PC, both fitted with an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, with the 9800X3D model costing you $2,099 right now.

● Check out this deal at Walmart

iBuyPower builds custom and pre-built gaming rigs that are both powerful and gorgeous to look at. This Y40 rig is no different, using a black Hyte Y40 case with a wrap-around glass panel to give you full exposure of the powerhouse components within. This is an all-AMD affair, with the top spec build combining an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT.

These aren't mid-tier components. The 9800X3D is our top choice as the best gaming CPU on the market right now, fitted with eight cores, 16 threads, and boost clock speeds up to 5.2 GHz, but it's the 3D V-Cache that steals the attention here. This X3D chip comes with a boosted 96MB of L3 cache, ensuring that the CPU doesn't need to fall back on slower system RAM, boosting frame rates and performance as a result. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is no slouch, either, as it's currently AMD's top GPU, and one of the best value choices for a gamer, with performance rivalling the RTX 5070 Ti for a lot less cash.

The CPU benchmark data below is clear: the 9800X3D is a performance beast for gaming, and without massive power demands. It offers the best performance per watt compared to its rivals, including over the newer AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D. In fact, our data shows that the difference in FPS between the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 7 9850X3D is just 3%, and that's at 1080p. The gap is closed even further at 1440p and 4K, which we'd expect you to be playing at with a rig like this.

You can expect this X3D chip to continue to dominate charts like this for some time, giving this iBuyPower PC longevity for gaming well into the future.

The 9800X3D is paired well with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, as you won't be facing bottlenecks to hit high frame rates with decent graphics settings at 1440p. 4K is a possibility here, too, but you may need to adjust your graphics settings to cope if you see frame rates drop in any seriously intensive games. Luckily, the RX 9070 XT's 16GB of VRAM means you have more breathing room at the higher resolutions for more stable frame rates, especially versus cheaper GPUs with 8GB VRAM.

Other parts used in this build include 32GB of DDR5 memory, rated at 5,200 MT/s. That isn't the fastest RAM out there, but it's still faster than older DDR4, which would typically max out at 3,600 MT/s. You've also got a 1TB SSD for storage, enough for a couple of big game installations, and to keep the rig cool, you've got a 360mm AIO liquid cooler, along with several 120mm ARGB case fans. There's even a keyboard and mouse thrown in for free to get you started.

While we've seen this rig cheaper in the past, it's still a lot of spec for the $2,099 sale price, especially compared to rival builds on sale right now. That said, if you're happy to compromise on that X3D chip, you can go for a cheaper alternative. The same iBuyPower Y40 rig, but with the 9800X3D swapped out for a 12-core 9900X instead, is just $1,799 right now. That's $300 cheaper than the 9800X3D model, and a big $700 discount on its usual price.

The build, including GPU and case, is almost exactly the same otherwise, although this is an all-white build versus the black colorway for the 9800X3D model. The AMD Ryzen 7 9900X is a downgrade compared to the 9800X3D, as it loses the huge advantage offered by the 96MB L3 cache capacity, but it's no slouch. It can still deliver impressive gaming performance, however, sitting between the Intel Core i7-14700K and beating the newer Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus in our CPU benchmark results at 1080p. You'll see boosted performance if you decide to overclock it using AMD's built-in Precision Boost Overdrive on supported motherboards, too.

These are two powerful gaming PCs for 1440p and 4K gaming at prices that won't be around for long. You can pick up the all-black iBuyPower Y40 with the 9800X3D for $2,099 right now or, if you want an even cheaper bargain, the white iBuyPower Y40 with the 9900X is $1,799 instead.

With the AI boom continuing to push prices up, you'll need to take advantage of deals like this one if you're looking for the best spec'd machines for gaming. MSI has slashed the price of this MSI Aegis R2 gaming PC, featuring an RTX 5090, 62GB DDR5, and a 2TB SSD, along with an Intel Core i9-14900K, to $4,899. That's a $1,000 discount that makes it just 17% more expensive than buying the GPU on its own, with the cheapest RTX 5090 available on sale for a whopping $4,199 right now.

● Grab this deal at MSI's store

The MSI Aegis R2 C14NVZ9-1436US is nothing short of a powerhouse. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is clearly the MVP of this build, giving you the power to deliver 4K gaming at the highest possible resolutions, with added functionality like DLSS 4 that unlocks a full arsenal of performance in this Nvidia Blackwell GPU. 4K, ray tracing, and Ultra graphics presets are all easily achievable with this GPU installed.

There simply isn't a better consumer graphics card on sale right now, as our GPU benchmarks below will confirm. It ships with 21,760 CUDA cores, which is more than double what is available in the second-best RTX 5080. It also has 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, with a huge 512-bit memory bus. There won't be a game that this GPU can't handle.

The Intel Core i9-14900K you're getting is a little older these days, but it's still a popular choice for pre-builts. It continues to rank highly among our CPU benchmarks, delivering performance that beats plenty of its Intel successors. It has 24 cores, eight of which are the best-for-gaming performance cores, along with a top 6 GHz boost clock speed.

There aren't many compromises to spot elsewhere, either. 64GB of DDR5 RAM is generous in a pre-built these days, given the cost of memory right now. Meanwhile, that 2TB SSD gives you scope for a good set of game installations alongside Windows. This is an all-MSI affair, in a simple case with plenty of case fans to keep the build running cool, even under load.

This is a formidable rig for anyone, whether it's for gaming or productivity. The price alone makes it a sensible choice if you're looking to buy an RTX 5090: why buy just the GPU when you can pay 17% more for an entire machine? The additional cost of RAM, along with the SSD, will easily outstrip what you'd pay here. While we can't change the market, if you're looking for a gaming PC with one of the highest specs available, this MSI Aegis R2 rig for $4,899 is well worth considering, so make sure to grab it before this limited-time discount disappears.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

u/DaKrazyKid went on Reddit to exhibit their mini-ITX gaming PC build dubbed "RAM Machine," which features 36 RAM sticks. The OP said the Steam Machine, with its paltry 16GB of RAM, inspired the build, which has 16 RGB RAM sticks controlled through SignalRGB to give you all that RGB goodness, and they’re giving it away to one lucky commenter in the r/PcBuild subreddit. It’s unclear if the Redditor is affiliated with SignalRGB, although the giveaway seems to be sponsored by the company because of the disclaimer that excludes employees, affiliates, and subsidiaries of SignalRGB, their immediate family members, and persons living in the same household from the sweepstakes.

Although the PC itself isn’t a top-of-the-line unit, it’s a decent build that offers better specifications than the Steam Machine. The RAM Machine comes with an Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU, a single-fan RTX 5060 GPU, 32GB of Patriot DDR5-8200 RAM, and a 2TB Patriot SSD, all attached to a B860-I motherboard and powered by a 750-watt PSU. While this might not give you native 4K gaming, this is more than enough for 1080p gaming and could even handle some 1440p titles. We checked the cost of this mini-PC on PCPartPicker, and a similarly specced unit costs more than $1,500. This makes it 50% more expensive than the Steam Machine and quite a valuable giveaway.

This isn’t the first time that SignalRGB has sponsored a giveaway of a wild-looking PC if the company indeed sponsored this. Just last year, it turned a microwave into an all-in-one PC and gave it away to one lucky winner. It also had another raffle in 2023, this time a powerful gaming PC built inside a Starfield control panel case. The biggest thing these three PCs have in common, of course, is that they use SignalRGB to control the RGB lights in these systems. Although this is a free app you can use to control the RGB lights on your computer, no matter what brand they’re from, it also offers a Pro subscription which costs $5.99 a month or $45 a year. This tier gives you more advanced features like cooling control, system monitoring, macros, and more.

If you want to join the giveaway, all you need to do is head to the Reddit post and leave a comment. Don’t get your hopes up, though, as it already has more than 78,000 comments at the time of writing.

AMD introduced its mid-cycle Ryzen AI 400 chips for laptops at the beginning of the year. Predictably, mini PC makers have decided to update their Ryzen AI 300 designs from last year with the newest generation processors. While the gains from the new silicon might be politely described as incremental, Geekom here has also taken the opportunity to upgrade the cooling system.

The firm also decided to go with a single 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM configuration here. Considering the ongoing RAM shortages, it says it decided to do so to allow for less wasteful upgrades down the line. However, AMD iGPUs like the Radeon 890M here, are heavily impacted by the reduced bandwidth of using single-channel system RAM.

Nevertheless, the 32GB/2TB device configuration supplied looks like a relatively generous offering in the current climate.

Design of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom basically sticks to the classic 5x5-inch NUC design with its anodized silvery metal Mini PC. If you’ve seen a Geekom A-series Mini PC before, it will be immediately familiar, and it offers appealing, though derivative (NUC x Mac Mini), stylishness.

The A9 Max 2026’s dimensions are officially listed as 135 x 132 x 46.9mm (5.3 x 5.2 x 1.9-inches). Geekom’s spec didn’t mention the weight of the device, but it tipped our scales at 705g (~1 pound and nine ounces). These weights and measurements don’t include the external PSU or VESA mounting bracket supplied. Other bits in the box include a region-appropriate cloverleaf plug and cable for the PSU, screws for that mounting bracket, and an HDMI cable.

We’ve already mentioned the metal shell of this Mini PC, which has a UV coating to make it more durable. Geekom says that there is also an inner metal frame, and removing the black plastic bottom reveals a metal bottom layer. It suggests its selection of construction materials and techniques makes the A9 Max “extremely sturdy [and] it can withstand up to 200Kg of pressure.”

You power up the Geekom A9 Max with its front-mounted power button. It’s a simple button, which lights up to indicate power. There’s no built-in biometric sensor, and no Copilot button, either.

Geekom A9 Max 2026 Mini PC Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

Starting from the front, Geekom has chosen to put four USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) on the front panel, one of which is configured for fast charging any connected smart devices. To the right of these is a 3.5mm audio jack, and then there’s the flush and slightly convex power button.

Turn the unit clockwise, and you see the Kensington slot as the sole user port interrupting the neatly perforated metal vista. The rear is black plastic with sizable vents at the top. Below the vents are a DC barrel jack, twin HDMI ports, twin 2.5G Ethernet ports, twin USB4 ports (with DP-Alt support), another USB‑A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) port, and a USB 2.0 port. The other perforated side of the device features the SD 4.0 card reader slot.

There’s nothing else on the top of the Mini PC but the Geekom logo. On the bottom, there are VESA mounting screws and four rubber feet, which have to be removed to access the inside.

Once you pry the sticky feet off, there are four crosshead screws to remove. Then I used a guitar plectrum to flip the bottom off. The bottom comes away without any attached wiring. However, you can’t do much yet, as four more screws need to be removed so the metal shielding layer on the bottom can be removed. Rather than untaping all the antenna wires, which partly fix the inner metal underside to the rest of the inner components, I managed to open it up like a door.

With eight screws removed, I had access to the SSD and RAM slots. The Geekom A9 Max has two M.2 SSD slots. The 2280 slot was populated with a Kingston branded 2TB drive with a thermal pad on top. You can just about see that underneath it is the M.2 Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 card. To the side of this 2280 SSD is another slot, which it is claimed is usable for drives in the 2230 form factor. I noted a thermal pad was already stuck on the metal shell, which would run the length of a 2230 drive if installed and the unit screwed back together, that’s nice attention to detail.

More user-configuration options provided by this tiny motherboard were provided by the pair of SODIMM slots. Geekom had fitted a single Micron 32GB DDR5-5600 module, so one slot was left free. The decision to sell this device in a single-channel configuration was “mainly to provide better long-term upgrade flexibility,” I was told in an email. “Since the A9 Max only has two memory slots, a factory-installed 2×16GB setup would require users to replace both modules when upgrading to 64GB or 128GB in the future. With a single 32GB module, users can simply add another 32GB stick later to achieve 64GB dual-channel memory more easily and cost-effectively.”

I’d agree more with this idea if the Mini PC had 16GB of RAM in total, but I fear it will be a long time before buyers of machines of this type will be able to justify purchasing another 32GB SODIMM – to unleash rather than constrain the Radeon 890M. More on that later.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, with its Zen 5 CPU architecture and 24 threads running at up to 5.2 GHz, won’t be holding anyone back in office productivity, general computing, and similar day-to-day tasks. It also has a great reputation for efficiency, inheriting the mantle of its predecessor, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, which gathered many design wins for AMD. Here, the CPU is fed by an ample 32GB of system RAM, and the 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD storage equipped is pretty fast too, with read/write transfer speeds of up to 6,139 MB/s and 5,499 MB/s, respectively, according to CrystalDiskMark.

Single-Threaded

Multi-Threaded

In Cinebench 2026, the A9 Max 2026 scored 4,667 points in the multi-core test. That's very similar to the Beelink SER10 MAX with the exact same processor. No surprise. However, the Beelink has dual-channel RAM, which doesn't make a lot of difference in this kind of CPU-heavy rendering workload, as you can see. In the HandBrake video encoding test we see a similar story, with the Geekom middle of the pack, outpacing the Intel competition, but a smidgen behind its AMD brethren.

During our demanding tests, the Geekom A9 Max 2026 stayed admirably cool, but its peak noise level might make you want to move it to a less prominent area of the desk, or use the VESA mounting option to hide it behind your monitor.

Gaming and Graphics on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

In its marketing materials, Geekom pitches the new A9 Max as a computer for all niches, mentioning its CPU and AI compute power, as well as indeed gaming and being able to “conquer AAA titles with ease” thanks to the “Radeon 890M integrated graphics, clocked at a high frequency of 3.1GHz.” So, without further ado, let’s run through our standard set of synthetic 3D engine and gaming tests.

Before beginning the games benchmarking proper, I felt like firing up the old-but-gold Far Cry 5 for a bit of mayhem in Montana. After trying a few preset settings, I settled on 1080p Medium. The High preset was just a bit too slow, and Low settings seemed barely any faster. With Medium settings chosen as the sweet spot for this configuration, I adventured through the attractive wilderness and enjoyed eliminating a few crazy cult members. The average FPS of just above 30 FPS, with a minimum of 26 FPS (according to the built-in benchmark) was enough to enjoy the single-player game without being too distracted by performance issues. I am accustomed to 1440p gaming in this title with a higher quality level and a better frame rate. But it wasn’t insufferable on the A9 Max configuration we tested.

Our benchmarks included a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs. Last and definitely not least, 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.

3DMark Solar Bay tests seem like the best fit for this iGPU, with frame rates smooth enough that it doesn't hurt your eyes to watch. Sadly for the Geekom, it placed last in the pack in this test, even behind the office productivity targeted MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 3MG.

Next up, built-in real game benchmarks courtesy of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. The former scales well with processor resources and can still often look and run great on humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the little A9 Max 2026 can - and can't - play this game. High settings in this game resulted in a grating 17 FPS. Using the Steam Deck preset resulted in a far more playable 29 FPS.

Moving over to Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTTR), and the A9 Max 2026 as configured managed just a 26 FPS average. If you have no other avenues to enjoy this game, you’ll have to nudge settings lower to get above a consistent 30 FPS. Opting for 720p visuals could also help, if you were willing to do so.

We had a similarly disappointing gaming experience during the Minisforum X1 AI Pro 470 review, which also combined this exact AMD Zen 5 mobile processor with a single 32GB stick of DDR5-5600. Check the details of that article to learn exactly the difference reconfiguring the DDR5 to dual-channel can make (spoiler: equipping dual-channel memory made a very big difference in our 3D gaming performance tests). In our newest mini PC tests, the Beelink SER10 MAX comes with the same AMD  Ryzen AI 9 HX 470  processor but is kitted out with dual-channel RAM and can hit a far smoother 54 FPS in the SOTTR High preset.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Geekom A9 Max 2026

This little computer was pleasingly thrifty when it came to power use. Measured at the wall, I observed a mere 7W of power was being pulled by the system when idling in Windows 11. Under the heaviest loads I could muster, the system power consumption rose to about 79W. System tools showed that the idle / stress CPU temperatures were around 34C and 79C, respectively. Perhaps Geekom could quiet the IceBlast 3.0 fans, then? Or, if you buy this, you’d have latitude to slow the fan profiles in the BIOS.

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 was quiet at idle, with my readings showing it made about 29 to 30dB noise. The loudest it got was around 41dB, when I was trying to stress the system by running CPU and GPU benchmark tests simultaneously.

Geekom boasts about its new IceBlast 3.0 system here. I found that it works well enough as shipped, but it isn’t the quietest under load and may benefit from user tweaks. There’s no software for these kinds of adjustments, though, so it is a BIOS tweak / reboot process you’ll have to work through.

Software and Warranty on the Geekom A9 Max 2026

Geekom ships the A9 Max 2026 with no custom software at all. It's just clean Windows 11 Pro, as supplied. Also, we note that the marketing material boasts the system fully supports both Windows 11 and Linux. At the time of writing, there is only one fully populated option for would-be buyers of the A9 Max 2026 - identical to our test unit - so you can’t potentially save money by going barebone / Linux.

A 3-year warranty is provided with the A9 Max 2026.

Configurations of the Geekom A9 Max 2026

At the time of writing, there is only one configuration of the Geekom A9 Max 2026 is available, and that is precisely the one tested with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, 32GB / 2TB, and Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. Amazon currently has this machine on a 'limited time deal' with 10% off reducing the price from $1,599 to a more reasonable $1,439.

On some stores, you may still be able to find last year's model, with an HX 370.

Bottom Line

Geekom’s A9 Max 2026 is a handsome, durable, and performant all-arounder. However, we will say again that its Radeon 890M iGPU is seriously hamstrung by the single-channel RAM configuration it is sold with. This lack of bandwidth becomes painfully obvious when 3D gaming.

Pondering the A9 Max 2026’s pricing more carefully suggests that mini PC desktops like this are no longer the bargains they used to be. The very modest uplift provided by AMD’s AI 400 Gorgon Point chips doesn’t really make a strong case for the 2026 refresh models.

This updated 2026 release competes with Geekom’s own older editions, as mentioned in the above Configurations section. However, the Minisforum AI X1 Pro 470 which we reviewed in March seems to offer more expandability (3x M.2 SSD slots, OCuLink), a fingerprint reader, Copilot button, and is a little quieter under load. You can still grab that Minisforum Mini PC with a similar build but slightly larger footprint for $759 barebones, or 32GB/2TB + Windows 11 Pro for $1,399.

If you want to dabble in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider with pleasing graphic details and reasonably smooth 30FPS+ frame rates, please budget to add a matching 32GB DDR5-5600 SODIMM to the retail configuration, or wait and see if there’s a barebones model arriving. A cheaper barebones model would allow buyers to source their own dual-channel memory kit (we’d go for at least a pair of DDR6-5600 16GB modules), and M.2 SSD - and don’t forget an OS.

If you're trying to build a gaming PC in 2026, you could be forgiven for just throwing in the towel. Pre-built PCs remain a consistent source of good value for gamers, and this CyberPowerPC offering at Newegg is one such deal. Right now you can score $460 off this Ryzen 7 9800X3D PC with RTX 5080, now just $2,829.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

Not only is this a nifty discount, but it's also the cheapest 9800X3D/5080 combo at Newegg from a reputable brand. This PC will make light work of any 4K title and set you up for years of future-proof PC gaming. The GPU alone in this rig is worth $1,300 right now.

As you can see from our testing data, the 9800X3D is one of the fastest gaming CPUs on the market and retains our crown as the best gaming CPU in 2026. This 8-core processor shines thanks to its generous 3D cache, which gets you much higher and more consistent frame rates compared to other CPUs, because it doesn't have to fall back on your PC's slower RAM as often.

As such, our testing registers absolutely blistering performance.

This is pretty much as good as it gets for a gaming CPU, and the powerhouse chip is complemented by Nvidia's hefty RTX 5080. This 16GB VRAM beast has 10,752 CUDA cores, capable of breezing through titles at 4K. As you can see, the 5080 is only overshadowed by the RTX 5090, which costs more than this entire PC.

Even in our 4K testing, the RTX 5080 is capable of sustaining 60 frames per second, and that's before you start using Nvidia's powerful DLSS suite of frame generation tools.

This potent one-two punch of CPU and GPU is well-supported by 32GB of DDR5 RAM, the sweet spot for AM5 gaming and a $400 commodity in today's market, as well as 2TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage, offering ample space for your Steam library.

There's also a 1000W power supply, and the B850 motherboard offers Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and plenty of ports.

So if you want a buy-it-once-and-forget-about-it PC you won't have to upgrade for the next five years, this is a substantial saving on a really solid and capable rig. The cost of the CPU, memory, storage, and GPU alone is almost $2,500 if you were to buy these parts separately, so if you factor in the motherboard, cooler, case, PSU, and Windows 11, plus the convenience, this looks like a pretty good deal.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Arctic's latest under-the-desk Senza PC design is using an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 mobile processor. Sure, the upgrade has also allowed Arctic to shove ‘AI’ in the product name, but this is a very appealing design with great build quality, good performance, a reasonable selection of ports, and silent operation as the cherry on top.

Design of the Arctic Senza AI 370

This definitely isn’t the smallest mini PC around. Its dimensions could probably fit more like three mini PCs in a row. The largest part of this device measures 21.10 (L) × 7.09 (W) × 1.97 (H) inches. In addition to the sizable main unit, there’s also a 120W external PSU and a front panel dongle with some handy ports and an LED-illuminated power button.

The central section of the main unit is where all the performance components are located. Its ‘wings’ are basically passive cooling radiators with heatpipes spreading out from the center, perforating a multitude of fins on either side.

The Senza, its front panel dongle, and PSU are designed to mount discreetly under your desk. After confirming that everything worked post-unpacking, I dutifully followed the instructions and used the printed template to mount the PC and front panel neatly beneath my oak desk. My desk is so heavy I had to work on it as if I were working under a car, lying on my back, but it slotted into place the first time thanks to the accuracy of the template and my deft use of an awl. All the fittings (screws, fabric fasteners, braces, and straps) are provided in the box with the Senza AI 370.

Arctic Senza AI 370 specifications

Ports and Upgradeability

On the PC back panel, there is a decent selection of ports. The mix includes a USB4 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports. Dedicated video out options are provided with HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.0 - but the rear USB4 port can also handle video out, too. Two 3.5mm jacks are also there for audio in and out. Wired networking support is provided with a 2.5G LAN port.

The rear is also where you plug in the supplied 120W PSU via a barrel jack. Lastly, there’s an unusual looking dedicated dual USB-C (two Type-C ports positioned at right angles to one another), which mates with the front panel I/O dongle cable supplying USB4 data and power.

The use of a front panel I/O dongle is a great idea, and it makes thepower button easy to reach. I would have liked to see more ports, here, personally.

As I am always plugging various peripherals into my PCs, I decided to connect the under-desk USB4 port on the main body of the Arctic Senza AI 370 to an above-desk dock. Specifically, I used StarTech’s driverless 208UE USB4 dock to give easy access to a host of fast connectivity options.

Inside the Senza AI 370, there is quite a lot of empty space but limited expandability. It’s easy enough to get in and see the guts of the device, with just four Phillips screws holding the metal panel in place. Under the panel there are no RAM slots, but you can see the soldered Micron DDR5-8000 chips surrounding the AMD processor. Before you buy, ensure 32GB of RAM will be enough for you for the foreseeable future.

I also found an Arctic heatsink atop an M.2 2280 slot. The sample device came with 1TB of fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage installed. System tools revealed it to be a Chinese YMTC PC411 SSD.

We also spied an M.2 2230 slot populated with a Mediatek Wi-Fi 7 (2x2 MIMO) + Bluetooth 5.3 card. You could swap that out for repair or upgrade purposes one day, if required. There are no further internal expansion ports.

Test System Setup

Productivity Performance on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Arctic Senza AI 370 doesn’t break a sweat with day-to-day productivity tasks, browsing, and similarly light workloads. AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a very capable chip with its Zen 5 CPU architecture featuring 12 cores and 24 threads, the integrated Radeon 890M graphics, and a power-efficient NPU for on-device AI.

Despite relying on an older AMD processor, the Arctic Senza AI 370 shows it can match and even beat the two Ryzen 9 AI HX 470 mini PCs that have also recently been subjected to our newest suite of tests. Let’s single out Cinebench 2026 multicore scores first. Here the Senza clearly leads the pack of newer AMD Ryzen and Intel Core Ultra mini PCs, at almost 7% faster than the second-placed Beelink SER 10 Max. In the Blender Monster render test, the Senza’s HX 470 rivals actually do win by a tiny amount, but the difference is small enough to be within the margin of error.

Another productivity test, targeting video encoding performance this time, shows that the Arctic won’t be usurped by its newer generation challengers. The Senza AI 370 proudly leads the Handbrake table, and a victory is a victory, but the actual difference is so small it is essentially a draw between the three AMD mini PCs.

I think the Arctic’s good performance in these productivity tests can be put down to the system’s significantly better memory bandwidth.

Gaming and Graphics on the Arctic Senza AI 370

The Senza AI 370’s APU should make it a decent enough performer in games, at least if you're realistic with the settings. Its Radeon 890M iGPU comes with 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs, and it is accompanied by fast dual-channel DDR5-8000 in Arctic’s silent machine.

Before moving onto our standard synthetic and iconic PC gaming tests, I decided to run around in one of my favorite 3D gaming titles, Ubisoft’s The Division 2. I enjoyed taking down a Bloodhound and its high-tech escort troops, and liberating an enemy control point. The action was fluid enough, without experiencing any stutters or other low-performance tells. I played in FHD using the High preset, and later saw using the built-in benchmark tool that the Arctic Senza AI 370 achieved an average of 53 FPS across a diverse set of game scenarios.

Next up, our benchmarks include a trio of 3DMark synthetics and two PC gaming standards. 3DMark Solar Bay is a great way to frame and compare cross-platform iGPU performance. Meanwhile, Steel Nomad turns to screws on raw graphics performance with its heavy modern GPU load, and will be better for comparisons when we start testing the higher-end mini PCs, some with dGPUs. Last and definitely not least, 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.

In 3DMark Solar Bay, which uses an engine / resolution most appropriate to the graphical firepower of most of this crop of iGPU-only mini PCs, the Senza AI 370 easily beats the newer-gen Ryzen competition. However, it is clearly outclassed by the Intel Arc B390 iGPU in the GMKtec EVO-T2.

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 humble iGPUs. As for Cyberpunk 2077, it can really push and tax even the strongest modern GPUs, so here we've used two settings to show how the silent Senza can perform.

A pattern seems to be established in the synthetics above, which continues into our real gaming tests. Specifically, the passively cooled Arctic Senza AI 370 is the best choice for iGPU gaming if you don’t want to spend far more cash on the potent Panther Lake GMKtec EVO-T2. The Arctic consistently outclasses both the newer HX 470 processor-based challengers, though we see the Beelink SER10 Max with dual-channel RAM do much better than the Geekom A9 Max 2026, constrained by a single stick of DDR5-5600.

On Cyberpunk 2077, the Steam Deck and 1080p preset felt noticeably more fluid than the High 1080p option. If I were to persevere with this demanding title on the Senza AI 370, I’d perhaps try some form of upscaling to see if I could maintain the High quality setting but with an improved FPS.

It's worth repeating, the silent Senza seems to outclass the newer AMD challengers across gaming tests thanks to its superior memory subsystem based on its soldered 32GB LPDDR5X‑8000 dual‑channel RAM.

Power, Heat, and Noise when using the Arctic Senza AI 370

When I left the Senza AI 370 to idle, my power meter measured wattages at or below 10W from the wall for the whole system. When the system was pushed with simultaneous CPU and GPU benchmarks running, power draw seemed to peak at a little under 92W.

System tools showed that during light activities like browsing the web and typing reports like this one, the CPU temperature stayed around 30 degrees C. Playing The Division 2 for 30 or 40 minutes, the reported CPU temperature seemed to stay between 60 C and 70 C. It didn’t constantly creep upwards; it would sometimes go towards that upper bound, and sometimes fall again. However, running a workload like Cinebench R23 multicore the temperatures seemed to creep inexorably upwards, with the highest measurement I saw at 96 C.

Between tasks, the reported CPU temperature would fall very rapidly. I saw it dive from 75 C to 45 C in under 10 seconds after one of the recent benchmarks I completed. That’s pretty impressive given that there’s no fan.

In my testing before installing it under the desk, oddly enough, I could actually hear a sound when the YMTC PC411 SSD was being accessed. I'm unsure what it was, but I did notice it.

Software and Warranty on the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic’s Senza AI 370 ships with a clean copy of Windows 11 Pro installed. That's it. There were no bundled utilities, dashboards, or custom monitoring and tuning software. Arctic sells the Senza AI 370 with a two-year warranty.

Configurations of the Arctic Senza AI 370

Arctic sells just a single Senza AI 370 configuration: the one we tested with a AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370,32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a 1TB SSD. Windows 11 Pro is included, but Arctic says that the machine is Linux compatible.

Those in Europe can head directly to the official company website and snag a Senza AI 370 for the MSRP of €1,199.99. Meanwhile, UK buyers can grab a device from Arctic’s official Amazon web store for £910.49. Compared with many of the other mini PC prices we are seeing, that seems very reasonable for a fully populated mini PC with fast memory and storage plus unique silent / passive appeal. Those German and UK prices include VAT at 19% and 20%, respectively.

I asked Arctic about the availability of the Senza AI 370 in the U.S. and was told that no official distributor had been set up for this device. The company is seeding the device to U.S. media, however, to gauge interest in devices like this.

Bottom Line

If you want a mini PC that you can't see or hear, the Arctic Senza AI 370 is for you. Many will be attracted by mini PCs for their minimal physical footprint, but Combine that with its silence, well-behaved thermals, plus solid performance, and there's really not much to complain about.

Concerning performance, Arctic’s choice of soldered 32GB LPDDR5X-8000 memory and a fast SSD gave this device equal or better application and gamingi performance compared to its newer-gen Ryzen 9 AI 470 HX equipped mini PC rivals we have tested recently. It is noticeably cheaper, too, but sadly not easy to grab if you live stateside right now.

3D printing is an amazingly popular hobby, with printing technology getting better by the day. The main limits are your imagination and how you transfer your ideas to print. Creality's latest product offers a portable solution to capture your projects in great detail and then upload them to your printer software for production. The Creality Pika is available for pre-purchase at just $629. Grab a 10% discount of $70 for a limited period. This offer is only available for the next 19 days.

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The Creality Pika is a portable 3D scanner that is pocket-sized for easy transportation and use. Measuring only 100 × 60 × 35 mm and weighing only 260 grams, this small scanner still packs a host of features.

View your scans on the 3-inch touchscreen, where the dual-optical 7-line blue laser captures fine details with 0.03 mm accuracy and a minimum scan volume of 10 × 10 × 10 mm. The Pika can even scan black and metallic surfaces without spray.

The Pika uses a Gaussian Splatting method to reproduce your scans, tracking textures, color, and spatial detail more realistically than some other older texture mapping methods. Once you have your scans, you can export them to STL, OBJ, PLY, and ASC for 3D printing and modeling.

Because of this scanner's size, you can take it anywhere. There's no need for a stand or static scanner. But if you're out in the field capturing your subjects without a mains power source - fear not - as the Pika comes with two hot-swappable 3,350 mAh batteries for uninterrupted scanning. Once your scans are complete, you can upload them using either USB 3.0 or a Wi‑Fi 6 connection.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

The pricing troubles of the Steam Machine make it easy to think that budget gaming PCs are dead, but this incredible ABS gaming desktop I've just found might convince you otherwise. Right now at Walmart, you can grab this ABS Flux II Aqua with Intel Core i5 14400F, Intel Arc B580, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD for just $849. That's a $150 saving on the $999 list price, for a PC with parts worth well over $1,200 in today's market.

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This PC features a Raptor Lake Refresh CPU worth $178, 32GB of Patriot DDR5 priced at $400, a $150 SSD, and a $309 GPU from Intel for unparalleled budget value. Fire those parts into PCPartPicker, and you'll see that, along with a motherboard, the cost is some $1,158 to build this rig yourself. And that's before you've added a CPU cooler, case, power supply, and Windows 11, all of which are included in this build.

Make no mistake, this is not a blistering gaming PC capable of 4K; there's no fancy X3D SKU or RTX 5080 inside. What you do get is a punchy budget CPU with a total of 10 cores, six performance and four efficiency, with 16 threads and boost clocks of up to 4.7 GHz. As you can see from our testing data, the 14400 can sustain 123 fps in our 1080p testing suite.

The Intel Arc B580 puts out respectable average benchmarks in our 1080p testing suite. Featuring 12GB of VRAM and 2560 cores, it's a great budget GPU capable of delivering an average of 80 fps in Assassin's Creed Mirage at 2560 x 1440 Ultra settings, better than the RTX 4060.

If you're looking for couch gaming on a budget, this might be the perfect Steam Machine alternative. When you consider that it gets you 512GB of SSD storage and 16GB of DDR5 RAM for $1,049, this $850 package for 1TB and 32GB, plus the aforementioned CPU and GPU combo, is really excellent value. Purely on the value of the parts contained alone, this gaming PC is honestly an absolute steal.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Prebuilt gaming PCs are looking like better and better value as the price of individual components rises. This Skytech Gaming King 95 Desktop Gaming PC is only $1,399 at Walmart, with a cool $600.99 knocked off the $1,999.99 list price. This is pretty good value considering the specifications of the hardware inside. It's certainly not bleeding-edge, but at $1,399, you would struggle to build this system yourself from individual parts.

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Contained inside the Skytech Gaming King 95 Desktop Gaming PC is the AM5 powerhouse Ryzen 7 7800X3D gaming processor with its potent 3D V-Cache and 360mm ARGB AIO liquid cooler, an Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti graphics card with a large 16GB of VRAM, a 1TB SSD, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM.

This machine will excel at 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K gaming on the cards if you use the appropriate settings. The 16GB of VRAM and the use of DLSS 4 will help with beefing up the frame rates and rendering textures and shaders.

The 7800X3D is the last-generation AM5 king of gaming CPUs, replaced by the 9800X3D. Both processors have eight cores, with access to a large stacked 3D V-Cache. This cache improves latency massively by limiting how often the CPU has to fall back on the slower system RAM during gaming, delivering much higher and more consistent frame rates. Its performance is still comparable to the current X3D CPUs, as you can see from our hierarchy benchmark charts.

If you're looking for a competent gaming PC at a very reasonable price, then you can't go too wrong with this $1,399 deal on the Skytech Gaming King 95 gaming PC. The only obvious negative of this prebuilt PC is the RAM. The amount is great, but it's only DDR5-5200 MT/s, which is a little slow. But the performance of the PC won't be massively impacted. This is something you can't easily upgrade anymore due to the insane cost of RAM these days. Not a deal-breaker, but certainly something to consider when looking at this machine.

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.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Finding a good deal on a prebuilt gaming PC isn't easy these days, especially with the ongoing global memory crisis. But what are the chances of stumbling across an unbeatable deal while you're out shopping for rotisserie chicken? Well, that's exactly what happened to one lucky Costco shopper, who walked away with a heavily discounted iBuyPower gaming PC for $1,140, down from its original price of $1,899.99. Now that’s a true winner winner, chicken dinner.

According to their post on the PC Master Race subreddit thread, u/klcp20 stumbled on one of the last display units at Costco during their weekly groceries run. While display units are generally sold at a discount to free up showroom space, buyers should keep in mind that such systems may have been on display for months and could be missing some accessories.

As per the shared spec sheet, the iBuyPower prebuilt PC includes an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is rated as one of the best gaming CPUs that you can purchase today. Other components include 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 2TB SSD, and an Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card with 12GB of VRAM.

The system also comes with an AIO liquid cooler, a keyboard and mouse combo, and a copy of Windows 11, making it a well-rounded gaming PC for modern AAA games at 1440p and even some 4K gaming with the right settings. The buyer also notes that they plan to swap the included power supply, suggesting they aren't entirely confident in its quality.

Such deals don't come around often, but this also isn't the first time a display PC has been sold at a massive discount. Just a few months ago, another Costco shopper reportedly picked up what seems to be the exact same iBuyPower prebuilt gaming PC for $1,000, down from its original retail price of $1,899.99.

It is important to note that such discounts are largely dependent on individual stores and their inventory. We highly suggest keeping an eye on display units and limited-period discounts, especially at big-box retailers. If you're already making a trip for groceries, it might be worth taking a quick detour through the electronics section.

The evolution of hardware has gotten to a point where tiny devices, such as mini-PCs, can offer excellent computing power in a small form factor. Kamrui, a specialist in mini-PCs, currently has the H1 and Hyper H2 for sale on Amazon. For a limited time, you can save up to 20% off these high-performance mini-PCs, which are also energy-efficient and designed to fit in even the smallest spaces.