A computing enthusiast has repurposed a very noisy and largely obsolete enterprise GPU (with lots of VRAM) for local LLM inference purposes. They are now enjoying a system that has doubled its total VRAM quota to 32GB for just a $266 (£200) outlay. That’s a good result, especially in the midst of a RAMpocalypse.

Oscar Molnar explains that a cheap Tesla V100 SXM2 with 16GB HBM2 was sourced, as was an SXM2-to-PCIe adapter, and a PWM mod for the loud-as-a-lawnmower cooler, to complete this VRAM expansion for the hefty local LLMs project. Indeed, these GPUs do look cheap right now, as I can see them listed on eBay US for under $140 each, if you don’t mind buying from China.

As mentioned above, you can’t just get one of these Tesla V100 SXM2 cards with abundant VRAM and plug it into your PC. Molnar says they spent about $66 on an SXM2-to-PCIe adapter, also on eBay.

You might think that was enough. However, the PC and local LLMs enthusiast baulked at the noise of “the fan from hell,” which came as standard with the Tesla V100 SXM2. That shrieking cooler was measured outputting 82dB of noise. Molnar described it as “somewhere between a garbage disposal and a lawnmower.” This may be the most complicated tweak yet, but basically the existing fan wires just needed rerouting and plugging into the motherboard PWM fan header. You could also simply purchase a “2.54mm male to PH2.0 female jumper cable” for the task. Apparently, the fan only needs to run at 10% to keep the Tesla V100 under 50C at full load.

27 billion parameter LLM runs at 32 tokens per second

With the hardware all now fitted and finessed, Molnar had a 32GB VRAM system at their disposal – that’s a PC with RTX 4080: 16GB VRAM, Ada architecture and Tesla V100: 16GB VRAM, Volta architecture. They note you can get Tesla V100s with 32GB of VRAM, but they are double the price.

Getting the system to make use of this 32GB of total VRAM for LLMs wasn’t tricky, says the DIYer. They used NixOS with a legacy Nvidia driver that overlapped support for both Volta and Ada architectures. Testing a local LLM, they got a 27 billion parameter model running at 32 tokens per second, which they say is “fast enough for interactive use” and faster than most cloud API alternatives.

A Chinese reviewer on Bilibili by the name of 杰某 (Jie Mou) got his hands on a special RTX 4080 graphics card that uses a mobile core instead of a desktop one. These GPUs emerged after the Trump admin banned the sale of RTX 4090s in the region, which forced local sellers to resort to strange alternatives, one of which is the supposed "RTX 4080M." It's a custom, modded GPU that doesn't come with a warranty or official drivers, and the benchmarks show it doesn't offer world-beating value either.

The reviewer paid 2,000 RMB (~$300) for the tested card but remarks that it now costs close to 2,700-2,800 RMB (~$400) due to the ongoing component crisis caused by the AI rush. At that price, it's almost as expensive as AMD's RX 9070 GRE or Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti in China, both of which will be brand new, warrantied cards. However, a similarly-modded RTX 4090M in China would cost an absurd 10,000 RMB (~$1,470).

Before we go over the benchmarks, the test bench used here was comprised of an Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus mounted on a Maxsun Z890-A motherboard alongside 32GB of DDR5-8200 RAM. In 3DMark TimeSpy, the 4080M scored 18,600 points, which is a respectable result in and of itself, but underwhelming when you take its price into account. Someone in the comments showed the same card netting 19,500 points as well.

During the benchmark, the card only pulled around 100W, which is significantly lower than even the mobile RTX 4080's TGP. The mobile core can be pushed up to 175W as per Nvidia's own spec and you'd expect that in a discrete GPU form factor, but it's likely that the custom BIOS or the drivers are holding it back. Speaking of which, the drivers can be easily configured with one-click installers developed by the community.

Moving toward gaming, the reviewer compared the 4080M against the aforementioned RX 9070 GRE because of their similar price brackets in China, and both come packing 12GB of VRAM. PUBG was the only game where the 4080M was clearly superior, achieving a 100 FPS lead over the AMD option at 1440p resolution with Ultra settings. In Delta Force at 1440p Ultra, both cards performed the same, but the 4080M did manage to net 10 more FPS at 4K.

The reviewer then tested AAA titles where the RX 9070 GRE basically smoked the 4080M as the resolution scaled upward. We'll add a table below so you can see the exact numbers, but the closest the 4080M came to dethroning the Red Team was in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Running at 1440p with Low settings, the 4080M pushed 286 FPS on average, while the RX 9070 GRE still won with 274 FPS.

At the end, the verdict ultimately turns out to be boring: the RTX 4080M is not a sensible purchase at the current Chinese market prices because similarly-priced new GPUs outpace it with ease. However, since it only drew 100W in games, there's an argument to be made for SFF builds. There's limited thermal headroom in an ITX system and that's where the RTX 4080M could thrive.

Nvidia's rich driver suite and superior upscaling tech also add value to the proposition. At roughly $400 converted, perhaps the 4080M can power a DIY Steam Machine that truly undercuts Valve's pricing while delivering much better performance. After all, it's made from salvaged laptop GPUs and qualification samples that are cheaper to acquire, so a MacGyver-ed, console-busting rig is where it can meet its natural match.

A robotics and animatronic cosplay enthusiast known as Zibartas has made a real-life NUSA Infiltrator jacket. If you aren’t familiar with the jacket’s lore, it is a bomber jacket from Cyberpunk 2077 with a tall collar that houses a display, here recreated in the “super rare white version.” That feature collar alone packs in $1,200 worth of flexible OLED displays driven by a pair of Raspberry Pi 4 SBCs.

Zibartas begins the video by talking about the inspiration provided by Cyberpunk 2077. As a cosplay enthusiast, the now iconic game has provided a great deal of inspiration for him. With the NUSA Infiltrator jacket design in his sights, the obvious question was – how?

The finished collar is lined with a quartet of flexible OLED displays, costing ~$300 each. Zibartas began by trying to drive them from a pair of Raspberry Pi 5s for portability with enough graphics muscle. However, after a week of pixel wrangling found that the hardware decoders of the Pi 4 were better for this particular task.

Next, the work on syncing the two pairs of displays needed to be done. “At the start, I used direct gigabit network, but it added too much of an overhead. So, I moved to pure hardware GPIO pulses and Python,” explained Zibartas. “In the end, I think I got it to as close as it can get.”

With the techy side of the equation solved, Zibartas moved onto the scissors and sewing stuff cosplayers seem to do a lot of. However, the construction of the curved collar would soon precipitate a tech problem, as the first screen to be fitted was damaged when Zibartas attempted to slide it into its upholstered EVA foam housing. That was a $300 mistake.

After a purported few weeks of extra testing the cosplay fan came up with a semi-rigid understructure for the collar. This bendy new design featured side tracks that resist twisting, so it is expected to prevent the issues that broke one of the OLED screens previously.

With the collar feature of the NUSA Infiltrator jacket now ready to go, we see Zibartas work on other fine details of the design. For example he 3D printed a shoulder-mounted ‘radar jammer’ section in flexible resin. Four indicator LEDs are built into this section, too. All these extra jacket components are finished appropriately in black, chrome, and so on.

As the jacket is fully assembled and finessed we learn that the two Pi 4s and two power banks will be hidden in pockets on the mid-lower back of the jacket and provide about three hours of screen and LED power.

For simplicity, right now, the screens show a pre-baked animation loop. However, Zibartas notes that “since it is Linux and HDMI-capable screens, the sky is the limit.” To prove the point, the video then cuts to the maker and cosplayer enjoying a Cyberpunk 2077 gaming session on the collar display hooked up to a Steam Controller.

A retro PC enthusiast has modified the VBIOS of a vintage graphics card to embed a version of Snake – the game everyone used to play on their dumb phones. This tiny dose of serpentum fun is playable whenever the system is booted, and once exited, the PC will continue to boot as normal. Bits und Bolts completed this S3 ViRGE DX mod by hacking the VBIOS and injecting Snake 512, a free version of the game condensed into just 512 bytes and written in x86 assembly.

Before the Snake 512 embed was wrangled, Bits und Bolts decided to mod the S3 ViRGE VBIOS by adding a dynamic (text) splash screen to show the actual GPU frequency. This effort is bolted on to prior work where the TechTuber injected a graphical splash screen, and the task takes up roughly the first half of the video.

From 10 minutes 43 seconds in, we get to see the vintage computing enthusiast inject Snake 512 into the video card BIOS. Snake 512 was designed to fit in the 512 bytes of a disk boot sector and run in x86 real mode. Bits und Bolts thought this OS-independent assembly code was thus a great fit for wedging into a VBIOS.

The intrepid vintage computer fan couldn’t just copy the GitHub code and paste it into the BIOS. So, Claude Code was consulted to prepare the commented GitHub code and turn it into hexadecimal code suitable for injecting into a VBIOS.

With this code ready to be pasted, Bits und Bolts opens up the S3 ViRGE VBIOS in Ghidra, a reverse engineering framework developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. This tool is now free, open source, and available on GitHub.

Next, an empty section of the target file was found, just after the splash screen, and the new code was pasted. The code block needed referencing / patching, so it would be triggered after the splash screen rather than just be ignored at boot. Then the checksum needed fixing.

The way Snake 512 in a VBIOS was implemented was as follows:

• Power up the system
• Embedded modded image splash screen displays
• Prompt offers option to play Snake (press N) or skip (Esc)
• The prompt also times out, so boot will continue if there is no user input.
• N – play Snake game
• Esc – system reads and shows actual GPU clock
• Booting continues

Please note that USB keyboards don’t work with this implementation of Snake 512. Also, there is no sound. However, with everything running as intended, Bits und Bolts moves on to some further customization - editing the Snake 512 game colors (in Ghidra again). The vintage computing enthusiast had previously bookmarked sections of the code where colors for the border, background, snake head, snake body, and others were defined. Now these were edited to other values from the VGA color palette using hex values for appropriate rows/columns. At the end of the video, with everything working and colored as intended, the TechTuber quips, “Who says the ViRGE can’t play games?”

The last time we wrote about the escapades of Bits und Bolts was when they modded the S3 ViRGE DX VBIOS to disable the ‘pedestal bit,’ which caused S3 graphics blacks to be rendered as a dark grey. We’ve also previously reported on a Doom port that was released as a Coreboot BIOS payload (of course, it is too big to actually go in the BIOS).

An electronics, automobile, and DIY enthusiast has turned an old smartwatch into an interactive gear shift display in his 2001 Audi A4 (B5) luxury compact executive car. The project started as just a bit of digital bling for the gear stick, but inspired by fellow Redditor comments, Desmontei vibe coded a WearOS app to add gear indicator and media control gestures to the repurposed digital dial. The watch face was secured to the gear stick very carefully, using a 3D-printed mount with tight tolerances.

Don't throw away old smartwatches! 3D printed a custom housing to turn one into a Digital Shift Knob. ♻️🕹️ from r/3Dprinting

The video shared in Desmontei’s Reddit post shows the smartwatch display changing to match the current gear stick selection. It appears to work as expected, but it wasn’t easy to ensure it reliably reported the correct gear selection. The watch’s accelerometer and gyroscope read the angle of the stick to work out what gear the car is in. However, the data can be thrown off when going uphill or downhill, so dynamic calibration had to be added to the algorithm.

Desmontei’s repurposed TicWatch Pro 3 also doubles as an intuitive media controller. When driving, you can change tracks in Spotify with back, forward, and pause swipes on the screen. The techy DIYer intends to add yet more functionality in due course. Specifically, ‘Phase 2’ will link it up “to an OBD2 scanner via Tasker for live telemetry (RPM, Temp).”

For those who might wish to follow in Desmontei’s footsteps, there’s a lengthy (2 hrs) video to check out on the Desmontei YouTube channel. But, briefly, the DIYer “took an old TicWatch Pro 3 smartwatch and carefully cut the original casing with a rotary tool to extract just the OLED screen and motherboard. Then, I modeled a custom shift knob enclosure to house the electronics perfectly.”

The prototype’s tolerances had to be extremely tight “because I didn't want the screen popping out while shifting gears, and PLA was the easiest to test the fitment,” it is explained. If/when this prototype warps or breaks, “I'll use it as an excuse to reprint V2 in ABS or PETG,” Desmontei added. It’s a neat integrated solution, as the design bypasses the watch battery and is wired directly to the car’s 12V electrics.

Another change that may come in V2 could be the use of a second (reference) gyroscopic sensor in the car to make the gear shift position calculations more reliable. Desmontei's other exploits also include PlayStation and handheld modifications, as seen on their website.

A tech enthusiast has combined an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB) with defective memory and an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (16GB) with a damaged GPU. The result was a working RTX 3070 with 16GB of VRAM. While the mod by ComputerBase reader AssassinWarlord seems like a great success, especially in VRAM-hungry modern AAA gaming, there are a couple of small wrinkles to be aware of.

A memory boost for the RTX 3070 is an upgrade that would make many people happy. While the RTX 3070 GPU is significantly more potent than its little brother, the RTX 3060 12GB, modern titles have started to hit the boundaries of the VRAM more often. This may be one of the reasons that rumors are swirling about a reanimated RTX 3060 arriving in the coming months, rather than the RTX 3070.

Back to the mod details, and AssassinWarlord started by taking the eight BGA memory chips off both donor cards, then reballed the ICs. Desoldering and reballing chips like these isn't for the casual hobbyist, so we'd characterize AssassinWarlord as a high-level tech tweaker. They also 3D printed a bracket for a GDDR6 reballing stencil... Commenting on the hardware aspect of the process, the intrepid modder summed up that it was "actually not that difficult, the whole thing." (machine translation from German). However, a little bit more effort was needed, such as a resistor change to get the system to see 16GB of VRAM, and a VRAM config switch would be added later.

AssassinWarlord commented that, as well as jumpers for different VRAM chip brands, the original RTX 3070 design was fine with 16Gb Samsung memory ICs (so, 8x 2 GB chips), which are needed to configure the graphics card with 16GB of VRAM total.

No extra software or hardware mods were needed to successfully test the RTX 3070 16GB in modern Windows tools and games, but a wrinkle remained in this otherwise perfect mod, which works with standard GeForce drivers. In short, the system would black screen after closing a tool that stressed the GPU subsystem.

Some investigative work indicated that memory timings set in BIOS were the underlying problem in the 16GB configuration. A RegEdit 'DisableDynamicPstate' solution to this issue was produced, meaning the GPU wasn't downclocked (or black screens) after being taxed, but this results in an idling power consumption of approximately 70W.

The forum source thread contains a few before and after synthetic benchmarks with various GPU and memory clocks tested. But it is only really in some modern games that we get to see the true advantage of the RTX 3070 16GB. Specifically, AssassinWarlord tested Marvel's Spider-Man 2 like-for-like (4K Very High) with the 8GB and 16GB switch modes. The frame rate doubles from the ~20 fps region to 40 fps+ with the 16GB enabled - see below.

We've seen a couple of RTX 3070 modded to 16GB VRAM projects before. However, AssassinWarlord's effort is admirable for making use of two non-working cards to make one very usable model. Moreover, the hardware switch, 16GB script, and the avoidance of any need for modded drivers are appreciated.

The wonders of miniaturization never cease to amaze in the tech business. A case in point is provided by a new video demo of the Nintendo Kawaii project – a GitHub project that had successfully shrunken a lumpen boxy GameCube down to a keychain. That’s just 2.36 × 2.36 × 0.62 inches (60 × 60 × 15.8mm). Moreover, the project has been completed in cool blue anodized CNC aluminum style.

In the above video, Tito from retro gaming channel Macho Nacho Productions goes hands-on with an original Nintendo Kawaii as created and fabricated by YveltalGriffin, Wesk and Ding. At the heart of this project is not the Raspberry Pi Zero, or similar, you might typically expect. Instead, the Kawaii relies on original Nintendo-used processors and ICs.

Vintage Nintendo console lovers will be aware that the firm’s Wii retained backward compatibility with the GameCube. Because of the former’s renowned extreme trimmability among the modding community a trimmed Wii motherboard is used in this project. Specifically, the Kawaii packs in the Omega Trim Wii. The GitHub source doesn’t compare the original and Omega motherboards, but the video shows the original GameCube next to the Kawaii.

Other tech tweaks to make this a successful project include the NAND Flex mods, to stack certain motherboard features / ICs. Then, the Thundervolt mod is used to undervolt the CPU so it doesn’t boil in the confined case. Thankfully the Wii processors can still handle GameCube titles with aplomb, even when power constrained.

A nice touch in this build is the CNC aluminum shell which elevates the finished look above similar projects, and on one side we’d like to think the organically ribbed metal fins might help a little with the passive cooling. It is still gratifying here to have original silicon to run your GameCube (and some Wii games that work with GC controllers) titles. Users are expected to load games onto a microSD card. One drawback of this neat design is the flash card becomes captive with the case assembled.

Clearly, the Kawaii isn’t a self-contained console. It has an elegant docking method, though, with discrete pogo pins. The dock actually looks larger than the keychain, and then you’ll need the hefty GameCube controller, a USB power brick, two sets of dongles, and a TV to plug it into.

Though the GitHub page is complete with MCAD, ECAD, and BOM files, the team hasn't gotten around to putting together instructions. Those wishing to replicate this meisterwerk are directed to a thread on BitBuilt that follows the assembly of two Kawaiis.

We previously reported on the Kawaii project, ahead of this hands-on demo, in July 2024.

Commodore fans were split earlier this month as an official document revealed the firm planned to prevent tinkerers from loading third-party firmware to the C64 Ultimate computer by locking down such upgrades to the FPGA. The iconic home computer brand has now backed down, reversing the decision but issuing a statement making it clear that users can enjoy “free experimentation, just no free support/replacement for bricked modded units.”

It is evident that the FPGA firmware gatekeeping decision had been a tricky one for the new Commodore. And telegraphing a change “preventing firmware not released by Commodore from being loaded onto the hardware,” split the user base, but we think most comments were on the side of user freedom. As social media and forum discussions heated up on the topic, Commodore published a detailed blog with a point–by-point defense of its new policy.

To be clear, the FPGA firmware flashing blocks were not rolled out yet. The 1.1.0 firmware release simply came with a statement that “A future update may introduce safeguards to help make sure incompatible firmware not released by Commodore does not damage your motherboard.” In the follow-up blog the seminal home computing firm highlighted that it had already seen non-functioning casualties of third-party firmware updates requiring support. This wasn’t sustainable, it reasoned. Servicing “hardware returns and replacements due to actions entirely out of our control” was a step beyond what Commodore was prepared to do.

The new Commodore “values freedom of choice the most.”

The official blog post update from Commodore regarding firmware is pretty clear about the change in policy. “We will not prevent you from installing other firmware on your Commodore 64 Ultimate,” states a key highlighted phrase in the post.

It goes on to say it remains worried about users bricking their C64U machines and then putting in return and replacement requests (under warranty, we guess). However, it admits “that's 'Ultimately' an "us" problem, not a "you" problem.”

In the firmware block policy's place, there will instead be a stern disclaimer. Commodore will insist that “community-installed firmware, patches, or other modifications are used at the owner’s own risk, and Commodore cannot provide free support, free warranty service, or free replacement for units bricked or damaged as a result.” Most retro gaming community and tinkerer folks will probably be pleased with Commodore gracefully bowing to popular pressure on this. It will be interesting to see how the new policy affects the warranty returns process.

For centuries, artisans have adjusted their tools to suit their preferences and work styles. In a similar spirit, software designer and engineer Kent Walters has used a metalworking file to round over the corners of his MacBook. On his blog, Walters shares that “people like to freak out about this,” but we think the DIYing and modding core of Tom’s Hardware readers will probably overwhelmingly support his right-to-disrepair stance.

If you’ve owned or used a modern Apple device, you may sympathize with Walters. “The bottom edge of the MacBook is very sharp. Indeed, the industrial designers at Apple chose an aluminum unibody partly for the fact that it can handle such a geometry,” explains the San Francisco resident. “But, it is uncomfortable on my wrists, and I believe strongly in customizing one's tools, so I filed it off.”

The idea seems fair, but the images Walters shares show that there’s more than a modicum of filing work done to increase the comfort of the palm rest area to an acceptable level. The eased profile is particularly rounded right below the touchpad area. Indeed, Walters says he was concerned that he might file through the unibody when doing this, but thankfully not.

MacBook bullnosing DIY tips

If you are also barely tolerating the sharp edges of your MacBook, Walters has some advice. Inspired DIYers should tape off the speakers and keyboard before lifting their metalworking file, he suggests. That will obviously minimize the ingress of aluminum filings. Clamping the notebook to a rigid surface is also recommended to help you work with accuracy.

To round the edges off the MacBook palmrest, as pictured, Walters started with “a fairly rough file, as that is what I had on hand, and then sanded with 150 then 400 grit sandpaper.” He notes that this work was done months before the pictures, so the finish has earned a few battle scars since – a few scratches and dings.

Finally, thrifty folks who will keep their devices as pristine as possible to maximize resale potential down the road probably aren’t the best match for this kind of project.

Billet Labs is back and has finalized its cast-iron Victorian radiator gaming PC build. Alex from the London-based PC cooling innovators shared a detailed hour-long video with insights into the build, which should answer all your what, why, and how queries. However, he thought that even for this impressive radiator-as-a-PC build, “cooling something like a 5090 is probably out of the question,” so an RTX 5080 and Ryzen 7 9800X3D combo were judged to be the sweet spot.

We covered a teaser for this incredibly stout Victorian-era cast-iron PC build just ahead of the New Year. Thankfully, we now have a lot more information about this fascinating build and the concept/process behind it.

The video begins with Alex explaining that this amazing-looking PC is destined - not for some showroom or exhibition - but for an “actual usable long-term gaming PC, for myself.” Previously, we saw estimates that the charming but portly radiator was 110 pounds (~50kg) in weight. Now we have a clearer set of figures. The radiator is actually about 178 pounds (81kg) empty, and 218 pounds (99kg) when filled with coolant.

Commenting on this hulking mass of metal, “the thermal mass is absolutely insane,” enthused Alex. “And, secondly, it looks %^&* awesome!”

The key approach to the design and build was to keep the Victorian artifact’s visual appeal intact, and mount PC parts “as invisibly as possible, on the bottom.” But an immediate challenge to this idea was the fact that “there’s not a single flat surface, and not a single hole that I can bolt anything to,” wryly commented the PC liquid cooling specialist.

The first practical step in the build process was the 3D scanning of the bottom of the radiator to create an accurate 3D model. Armed with this, Felix designed a highly accurate 3D printed mounting system for PSU, mobo, GPU, and so on. This 2-part plastic chassis was fixed to the central underlying spine of the radiator, with corresponding half-pipe fixings securing it in place.

Though we had the impression this was going to be a fanless radiator system, the below-decks chassis design included room for sliding in a trio of super-thin 120mm fans.

To mate the heat-generating components with the radiator and plumbing, Billet Labs chose an Alphacool water block for the RTX 5080, and its own prototype AM5 CPU cooling block.

On the topic of PC build components, the list was roughly as follows:

Another nice touch with this fantastic PC build project was the choice of the power button. Felix sourced a sprung antique brass gear lever to power up the PC stylishly. This was fitted into one of the side vents on the rad using a custom mount.

Before the end of the video, we see the antique cast-iron PC used for a bit of gaming and benchmarking. In a ‘torture test,’ drawing about 520W of power for over an hour, the water temperature appeared to stabilize at under 30C. Notably, the RTX 5080 peaked at 75 °C during the most extreme testing Alex could throw at it.

Finding an antique cast-iron radiator isn't that easy in 2026, but at least Amazon still sells some modern ones in various sizes.

A retro computer enthusiast has fitted a thermal printer into an ancient Apple Macintosh Plus. A short video clip shared on social media shows the mod is effective and, dare we say, practical. The otherwise redundant floppy drive in this Mac Mini brain transplanted desktop looks almost perfect for spewing forth coils of thermal copy paper.

The original Apple Macintosh has such iconic computing appeal that it is natural that enthusiasts repurpose the old chassis if or when the innards deteriorate beyond repair. But what do you make of the cutout where the floppy drive used to be?

The above perfectly valid answer is provided by Japanese pickle store manager and Mac enthusiast, Meinan, on X. Apparently, they were lucky enough to get this thermal printer in some kind of auction for ‘1 yen’, and were looking for a good way to make use of it. We don’t know how it is hooked up to the computer, but would guess it simply interfaces via USB, like printers have done for decades now.

Modern Mac Mini inside

A brief glance at the display of this Mac Plus, shows that it has been seriously ungraded in the processing department too. Gone is the low-res mono CRT, and a vibrant LCD display is fitted in the frame. Powering the modern mac OS system you see running is some version of the Mac Mini.

In some ways it is a shame that Meinan’s machine couldn’t be preserved in its original configuration, of course. But we don’t know what happened to this aged computer before its shell was reused. It seems to be a particularly interesting cross-generation sample. The shell mixes a Mac 128K facia, with a Plus 1Mb rear housing (and contents at one time) making it a possibly rare transition machine.

Overall, the thermal printer mod is a pretty interesting one. The project reminds us of the iMac G4 ‘lamp shade’ revitalization mod by Action Retro in 2024. Similarly, a Mac Mini was squeezed into the retro-shell in that project. Sadly, Action Retro didn’t reuse the vestigial optical drive during that mod, which seemed like a missed opportunity.

A developer has ported Doom to a pair of earbuds. That kind of statement might not have the impact it once had, after tales of high jinks and ports of Doom stretching from quantum computers, to USB chargers, to lawn mowers. However, as earbuds don’t have displays (yet), Arin Sarkisian also devised a canny method to stream the Doom action to another device, or even via the internet.

You can’t just use any earbuds for this latest Doom-on-x episode of development gymnastics. Currently, this Doom port only works on the PineBuds Pro, which Arin-S says are the only earbuds with open source firmware. And, yes, these buds are made by the same folks behind the RISC-V-powered soldering irons, like the Pinecil V2 we reviewed in Aug 2022.

In terms of improbable CPU horsepower, the PineBuds Pro are right up there. Inside their snug ear-fitting shells, alongside the audio drivers and battery cells, there is an Arm Cortex-M4F processor. Arin-S tweaked the open-source firmware to boost the CPU clock from 100 to 300 MHz (an astounding OC nowadays), and disabled the low-power mode for the most Doom-tastic experience.

Some more hurdles of using the PineBuds were the less-than-ample RAM and storage. The developer managed to get Doom to run in under 1MB by “pre-generating lookup tables, making variables const, reading const variables from flash, disabling Doom's caching system, removing unneeded variables.” Moreover, the shareware Doom 1 WAD assets file was 4.2MB, just over the 4MB storage on the PineBuds. This payload was reduced to 1.7MB after borrowing some pre-modded-for-size Doom resources.

Lastly, the no-screen conundrum presented its own set of challenges. Arin-S decided the PineBuds Pro’s UART connection was the best choice for achieving game visuals (the only other choice was Bluetooth). A mix of bandwidth, image compression shenanigans, and demands on the Cortex-M4F ultimately meant the best achievable performance was about 18fps, in practice. In theory, it should have been nearer 25fps, but the dev reckons the CPU hadn’t the grunt to keep up with converting the MJPEG stream at that rate.

No PineBuds Pro, no problem

Arin-S shares all the resources needed to get your own set of PineBuds Pro up and running, with Doom loaded. However, the developer has also generously decided to set up a website that streams Doom action from his own pair of PineBuds Pro.

Head on over to this nicely crafted webpage to join the queue (yes, it is popular) and partake in some online Doom powered by the remote earbuds.

Lastly, the developer says that he is currently looking for work if you think you might need someone with his unique set of skills.

A budding enthusiast on Reddit has just built their own PS4 handheld by taking a PS4 Slim's motherboard and shrinking it down to be portable. They slapped a screen on top and 3D printed a custom shell that houses a battery, some controls, and even an ESP32 microcontroller running custom firmware to monitor/manage temps. The project was shared across a bunch of subreddits by u/wewillmakeitnow, including the r/handheld community:

🎮 [Final Build] Fully functional & stable Portable PS4 Slim 🔥 from r/Handhelds

As you can see above, the device looks like the child of a Nintendo DS and a PSP. The ergonomics leave a little to be desired, but it does look like a finished product. It features seemingly original PS4 controls ripped straight from a legit controller. There's a small screen in the bottom-right corner for monitoring power and temps, and all the controls also have LEDs embedded behind them.

This is not the first-ever PS4 handheld online, either, as YouTube is littered with project videos showcasing multiple attempts at shrinking down a PlayStation 4. One video by Restore Technique features a "PS4T" that even looks similarly boxy in its design to this one. Regardless, individual modding efforts are always worth highlighting, and this one includes a gorgeous 7-inch OLED screen, which is certainly something new.

The Reddit post is light on details, and there's no accompanying video to dissect and break down, but the OP has a somewhat rich post history. We can trace back the creation of this handheld to at least October 2025, when u/wewillmakeitnow first shared progress on the project. Even at the time, they said work on the device had started months ago, so it might've been a year-long operation at this point.

They said it was impossible... I'm building a portable PS4 (90% complete) 🔥 from r/psx

The portable PS4 Slim is inspired by Millomaker's portable Xbox 360, and just like that, this device also omits the disc drive to achieve a small footprint. The main challenge with building a handheld PS4 was cutting down the motherboard to be more compact while maintaining most of the essential features. Hence, there's an entirely new power delivery and cooling system inside.

The thermals are handled by a fan on the back, which has cut-off fuses wired to it, managed by an MCU that ensures safe temperatures. Whenever power reaches 10V, the controller will shut off power to protect the system and the battery. The OP says their goal was not just size reduction, but also "better power efficiency and thermal behavior."

The battery consists of 6x 21700 cells, each providing 6000mAh, totaling out to around 130Wh, which exceeds the 99Wh max allowed on airplanes — in case you were looking to travel with it. That translates to 2.7-3 hours of runtime under a moderate load playing lightweight games, consuming around 44W per hour. Jumping to demanding AAA titles will cut that endurance to just 1.3-1.5 hours.

In terms of connectivity, the handheld has an HDMI port to connect it to an external display, aided by a barrel jack to ensure full power when plugged in. You can use this thing as a normal PS4 when you don't need the portability. There are 3x USB-C ports on the device, with the original DualShock 4 antennae as well, for that seamless console-like pairing.

The hobbyist says this device was a "personal engineering challenge" rather than something designed for mass production. Its shell is 3D printed using a rather dark-looking ABS plastic with a glossy finish that rivals the original PS3. One of the older posts in OP's history shows off a much more comfortable shell, so clearly there's room for improvement even if the handheld is ready and stable for now.

A 20-year-old Nintendo Wii console has been demonstrated making an online Domino’s Pizza order in the U.S. This is quite a feat for several reasons. Firstly, the Wii’s online services were shuttered by Nintendo last decade. Secondly, as PCGamer notes, the service that has been resurrected to order at your local U.S. Domonio’s was previously a Japanese-only app called the ‘Damae Channel,’ which was deactivated in 2017. Lastly, the Wii app seemed to work very smoothly – we’ve definitely seen worse takeaway ordering apps on Android and iOS.

In the video above Pete from Retro Game Attic talks us through the surprisingly painless process of ordering a Domino’s Pizza online using the old but once revolutionary Wii console. Pete mentions up front that the ‘magic’ behind this Wii Food Channel is reliant on a WiiLink.

In the words of the team of tinkerers behind WiiLink, this software “attempts to revive all WiiConnect24 channels, region exclusive channels, and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.” WiiLink went into development in 2020 and supports nine channels, including the headlining Food Channel.

When you open up the Food Channel, though, the cupboard is a little bare. As of now, the only vendor in the channel was Pete’s local Domino’s . It isn’t mentioned in the brief video whether Pete populated that option, but it is explained that it integrates with Domino’s web API for digital orders. The WiiLink wiki confirms that Domino’s is currently compatible with the Food Channel for residents of the U.S. and Canada. Sadly, support for other online ordering APIs like Deliveroo and Just East seem to have come and gone, since they were added to WiiLink’s Food Channel.

Clicking the Domino’s icon in the Food Channel brings up a portal which shows your delivery address, order history, T&Cs, and the all-important ordering menu. Once into Domino’s you can browse the UI for all the currently available foodstuffs on the menu. Pete even goes and customized his Pizza toppings.

All throughout the process, the Wii doesn’t seem to skip a beat, which actually puts some modern food ordering apps to shame. Perhaps some notable restrictions that seem to be in place at this time, though, are that you have to use the pay on delivery option, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to input the discount codes that canny pizza pickers will be familiar with from Domino’s flyers and online offers.

Reassuringly, after the order goes through, the UI provides confirmation, including your phone number, address, and food order details. We didn’t see Pete input these details, and they were blurred for privacy. Thankfully it looks like you just set them once – using the Wii’s slow soft-keyboard input method, and they will be remembered.

As once-connected PCs consoles age, there is a lot of concern about preserving their access to games and apps that may have had an online element to them. Thankfully, community projects like WiiLink exist, so features don’t disappear and render once beloved old devices inanimate, irrelevant, old hunks of hardware.

Modders have already showcased some stunning achievements in Hytale, the hot new sandbox RPG that hit Early Access last Tuesday. Our headline singles out engineer Sadat Sahib (AKA iamcxv7), who has managed to get Windows 95 to run inside the new game. The Hytale experience and extensive creator toolset have led to some pundits describing it as Minecraft 2.0.

The above video shows Windows 95 seemingly running without any major hiccups. Interaction seems laborious, but we feel that’s because of a joypad being used as a controller. If a PC mouse and keyboard could be used instead, we’d see greater potential.

Sahib’s social media feed reveals that he’s been busy doing more than just shoehorning Microsoft’s legendary OS into this sandbox RPG. Earlier today, this pioneering Hytale modder managed the inception-worthy feat of running Hytale in Hytale…

The same modder has also managed to get Minecraft running in Hytale, delivering a fatal wound to its spiritual predecessor, perhaps.

Doomed before it was released

What about Doom, we hear you ask? It seems like emulating Doom is such a pushover nowadays that a modder managed to get it to run inside this sandbox RPG even before it was released.

With all of these amazing modding achievements under its belt, within one week of Early Access launch, there are surely many great things to come.

Introducing Hytale

Hytale is one of the hottest games of 2026, with obvious parallels between the sandbox RPG experience and Minecraft. It came about from efforts of the Hypixel Minecraft team, with roots stretching back to 2015. The development has been through some peaks and troughs, with the project even being cancelled in June 2025, but its subsequent revival by the original creator was clearly a canny move.

There is already a thriving Hytale modding community, and this is not by accident. Hytale has been built from the ground up for modding, with “creator‑first tools for making your own content, crafting minigames, and running community servers.” That’s in addition to the more traditional fun of “exploration, responsive combat, and robust building.” The game developer’s modding strategy was outlined last November.

Hytale made an almighty splash when it entered Early Access last week. Reports say there were 2.8 million Hytale players on launch day, and 420,000+ Twitch viewers made it the global No.1 watched game, too. The aforementioned cancellation/revival drama helped kindle the hype on the way.

A few weeks ago, we covered Russian enthusiasts' proposition of assembling their own DDR5 RAM using procured modules and PCBs to cut costs. At the time, it was just an idea put forth by a local modder, but now he's back with a finished build that successfully runs at 6400 MT/s. A single 32GB stick of desktop DDR5 memory with proper XMP support — one that doesn't even look homemade.

Modder VIK-on acquired the actual RAM chips from a couple of SK Hynix-branded 16GB laptop SO-DIMM sticks, priced at 8,000 Rubles (~$100) each, a bit cheaper than their desktop counterparts at the moment. The PCB was sourced from China for around 600 Rubles (~$7.50), while an aftermarket heatsink cost 415 Rubles (~$5.23) from AliExpress. From there, the process was as easy as just putting together the parts like Lego.

This is where we should probably interject and inform that soldering ICs is not a piece of cake, especially if reballing is involved. You need proper BGA reworking stations and a lot of skill to not mess this up. It might seem simple, but it's one of those delicate maneuvers that require ample experience, which VIK-on is brimming with.

After the new stick was ready, it was flashed with custom firmware from an Adata retail kit, allowing the memory to gain 6400 MT/s XMP support that any motherboard will be able to detect in BIOS. The entire project cost 17,015 Rubles, or about $218. That's quite a bit cheaper than a retail 32GB offering currently, which we found listed for at least $350 on Newegg right now. Prices are even rougher in Russia.

In the States, even if we don't take the 6400 MT/s speed into account, the cheapest 32GB stick goes for about $278, and that's an ugly, CL46 Dell OEM SKU. The RAM modules VIK-on used can be swapped with lower-cost parts, which the modder says he's exploring. For instance, instead of targeting 16GB laptop memory, 8GB sticks should be even cheaper.

At that point, one might even consider just using the SO-DIMM sticks as is with a desktop adapter that would add noticeable latency, but offer more convenience. This mod maintains signal integrity and also represents resilience. It's all about ingenuity in these trying times, and hacks like these will only increase in frequency (no pun intended) till markets normalize.

The Commodore History channel on YouTube has confirmed that the Commodore 1541 floppy disk drives electronics are powerful and capable enough to work as a standalone computer. This 1982 vintage peripheral, designed to add a 5.25-inch floppy disc to the equally ancient Commodore 64, actually has its own processor, RAM, ROM and I/O.

There’s a 1 MHz MOS 6502 in the floppy drive electronics, which is closely related to the C64’s MOS 6510, and exactly the same processor as in the VIC-20. However, Dave from the Commodore History channel did his work with minimal hardware modding, so the resulting ‘1541 computer’ ended up being rather limited.

The video starts with Dave explaining that a channel subscriber had asked about whether the Commodore 1541 floppy disk could work as a general purpose computer – as it was known to pack a MOS 6502 chip, its own RAM, its own I/O chips, alongside the ROMs which help it carry out its day job as a storage device. The CPU is very similar to the C64’s MOS 6510, which is just “a customized upgrade for the Commodore 64” based on the 6502. But the VIC-20 is actually a much closer match, and you can see a comparison in the infographic, below.

Turning the 1541 into a VIC-20-a-like was still too much of a stretch for this investigation, as Dave wanted to keep hardware modding off the menu. The VIC-20 owes a lot of its general purpose computing ability to its additional 6560 VIC chip – a custom IC for graphics and sound. It also offers lot more I/O for general purpose computing appeal.

Thus, Dave had to wind-back the Commodore clock even further for inspiration. And he decided the first way to demonstrate that the Commodore 1541 floppy disk could work as a general purpose computer was to look at the Commodore KIM-1, the firm’s first, and most simple computer, which would be described as a Single Board Computer (SBC) today.

The KIM-1 was programmed using an onboard keypad, punching in values in 6502 machine language, byte-by-byte. Its only display was a set of 6 segmented LCDs. This computer could also be used via Teletype (TTY) over serial connection, and this method was adopted as the way to interface and work with the Commodore 1541.

So, the KIM-1 became the new target of the Commodore 1541 as a computer project. Dave found the KIM-1 kernel had already been published, so set about modifying it with code to initialize the 1541, and tweak I/O routines so serial teletype would work. This code was burned onto an EEPROM, and is now available on GitHub.

To teletype interface with the pair of 1541 serial connectors, an adaptor / dongle was required. Dave brewed up a USB to RS232 to TTL dongle. The finished MacBook USB to 1541 serial adaptor looks a bit messy, but did the job.

Next up, Dave communicated with the 1541, with its freshly baked KIM-1 ROMs, and dongle, via a Minicom terminal on his Mac. His hand typed assembly Hello World code worked first time (as far as we saw in the video).

Before signing off, Dave wanted to get a bit nearer to making the 1541 into a VIC-20 by adding a BASIC interpreter. He ported Tiny Basic to the KIM-1 and burned it to a ROM to insert on the 1541's PCB. Again, this worked, making it much quicker to code a Hello World program.

The TechTuber made it clear that this 1541 ‘general purpose computer’ remained very limited without major hardware mods due to its lack of I/O – limiting it to serial terminal use. But we don’t blame him for not wanting to mess with this precious retro hardware too much.

This project makes us wonder about the general purpose computing abilities of modern drive controller electronics.

Well-designed PC cases with good airflow are mostly a solved problem these days, so builders who want their setups to stand out need to get creative. Corsair is giving tinkerers a fresh canvas to play with by offering its highly modular Frame 4000D LCD RS ARGB case with its Xeneon Edge wide-screen touch display built in.

We reviewed the Corsair Frame 4000D a while back and found it an excellent case for the money, praising its thermals and airflow options. At the time, we dinged it for the dearth of promised modular upgrades, but Corsair is taking a step towards fixing that today by mounting a Xeneon Edge beneath the case's main chamber.

The Edge's 2560x720 AHVA display is a nifty piece of kit that works as a standard monitor as far as Windows is concerned, so you can put basically any window on it you can imagine. It can be used for component monitoring, general information display, or for general utility shortcuts. It integrates with Corsair's iCUE software and is easily customizable.

The Xeneon Edge also has five-point touch functionality, it's not hard to imagine potential multi-tap gesture functionality, like swiping your fingers past it in one direction or another to change your system's power profile, fan settings, and RGB lighting all at once, like putting a car into sport mode. Or, hey, maybe slap a graph of DDR5 RAM prices on there so you can feel smug about what you've already got.

Indeed, there's already a SimHub plugin that some gamers are already making excellent use of, as well as a Spotify controller widget. We could also see the Xeneon Edge hosting live stream statistics or featured chat messages on a stream PC. Do you strictly need a screen on your case for those things? No, but as with so many other parts of PC building and customization, it would sure look cool.

If you're interested in this setup for your own build, Corsair is asking $399.99 for the case-and-display set, which it's calling the Frame 4000D LCD RS ARGB. That might sound steep, but that variation of the Frame 4000D is $109.99 to start with. Add the corresponding mounting kit for $39.99 and the Xeneon Edge itself at $249.99, and the grand total comes in at basically the same amount as the separate parts, minus the hassle of putting it all together yourself.

The Frame 4000D LCD RS ARGB setup comes in black and white to fit the most common color-coordinated setups nowadays. If you have the larger Frame 5000D Airflow case and want to add a Xeneon Edge to your existing setup, the mounting kit to attach the display to your case is $49.99 on its own.

Many consider cars to be the most exciting thing out there. Those adrenaline-pumping feats of engineering, harmonizing cutting-edge hardware and software to push the boundaries of physics. A lot of people, though, are equally enthusiastic about PCs and how they contribute to the world of racing. After all, a car is technically just a computer on wheels, so why not combine the two to birth something truly unique that honors both cultures?

That's exactly what Nvidia did, in its latest episode of GeForce Garage, where it partnered up with modder JCustom (Justin Chu) to fit an entire gaming PC inside a wheel of a Porsche 911. The build also has a real key fob to turn it on or restart it, wirelessly.

Our journey begins with an HRE FF21 wheel (not acually Porsche, we know) that alone starts at $750 and that's before the custom paint job on top. See, this rig is being built for someone very special that we'll reveal at the end; they have a Porsche 911 Turbo S in the Python Green colorway, so our modder Justin decided to color-match the entire build to that. That meant power-coating the sides (barrel) of the wheel to be the same green, and even updating the silver to resemble what Porsche uses from factory.

The main PC is placed right behind the spokes and appears like it's floating because the custom-built motherboard tray is mounted directly to the wheel's barrel, with the help of some tabs that extend into the tray. You can see how that looks in the next set of pictures after this. The end-result is flawless, but achieving such elegance was only possible after Justin put the wheel inside CAD to iron out all the details and create the necessary parts himself.

Speaking of, the motherboard tray is what houses most of the cabling as it's actually quite thick — from the pictures, we can estimate ~3 inches. The tray is suspended from four sides via metal beams that provide rigidity, and to advance this magical appearance, Justin used a back-connect motherboard. This way all the wires would conveniently route through this tray compartment, and the motherboard assembly itself would be the only thing visible on the outside.

The tray includes an SFF power supply, too, and sleeved PCIe cables for the GPU, which is a Founder's Edition RTX 5080. Back-connect graphics cards have existed for a while, so it's interesting to see Justin stick with a classic choice here. You can check out the full specs of the PC in the table at the end to see what else he paired up with this GPU. Lastly, the tray also has little LED diffusers placed across the perimeter to provide a subtle ambient glow to the wheel, almost like underglow on a real car.

To cool the entire system, Justin separated the custom liquid-cooling into its own apparatus, sitting beneath the wheel assembly. This compartment fits the pump, reservoir, radiator and all the tubing for the loop, which is connected to the CPU and GPU via quick-disconnects at the back of the wheel. This is where you can also see that the rearside is entirely flush, implying that the PC can even be wall-mounted in the future.

If you look closely, the water block on the CPU is tubeless, which means the water actually flows through the block's mounts itself. You can also see a miniaturized version of the aforementioned Porsche 911 floating inside it, further paying tribute to the petrolhead this PC's owner is. The GPU block, on the other hand, is made by Modern Cafe and showcases a small trophy on one side (more on what that is later), along with a spinning wheel on the other side that doubles as a flow meter.

The cooling system essentially becomes a display stand for the wheel, complimenting each other both functionally and aesthetically. The build is finished off with a Python Green paint job on the stand as well, and Alcantara is glued onto the sides to simulate the luxurious feel of a Porsche's interior. A Porsche Knight badge is placed in the middle of this stand, while the wheel's center cap is upgraded with a screen for displaying telemetry data (playing what seems like custom animations), accompanied with a small GeForce Garage pin underneath.

Given how powerful the specs are, it was kind of surprising to see Nvidia test two games with multi-frame gen enabled. In Borderlands at 4K with max settings and DLSS set to performance, the PC achieved 160-180 FPS. Over in Cyberpunk 2077 with max settings, along with path tracing, we saw 160-170 FPS. Forza Horizon 5 maxed out with ray tracing set to high netted around 200 FPS; DLSS was set to high but no MFG.

So, who's the lucky recipient of this technological marvel? Well, that would be up-and-coming actor Micheal Rainey Jr., who recently won an NAACP award for his role in the Starz's Power franchise, where he plays Tariq. The mini version of that exact trophy is what was enclosed inside the 5080, highlighting Michael's accolades. When he's not winning over judges, though, you can find him obsessively playing videogames, like Call of Duty.

Interestingly, prolific filmmaker Steven Spielberg — the guy who made Saving Private Ryan — wanted to direct a COD movie but Activision turned him down; instead, selling the film rights to Paramount. It would be destiny's calling to see Paramount just hire Spielberg after all, where he ultimately casts Michael as a tank driver, bridging together his acting and gaming journeys in the most poetic way possible.

A PC enthusiast reports successfully shunt modding his Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile GPU for a ~15% performance uplift. An uplift of this scale would bring the RTX 2070 Mobile roughly to performance parity with its desktop counterpart. PC Games Hardware forum member HerrBolsch says he pushed the mobile GPU through its power-limited ceiling of 115W, all the way to 175W (h/t PCGH.de News, machine translated). The electrical tinkering was part of a larger conversion project to re-house and water-cool a Zotac Mini PC.

GPU overclockers find shunt mods hard to resist

Shunt mods are a relatively common PCIe graphics card hardware modification. In brief, the modder will swap out a shunt resistor on the graphics card PCB for one with a lower resistance value. This change allows more current to get to the GPU without fiddling with the vBIOS. However, the procedure and the results of the resistor change can easily cause damage to your precious GPU hardware.

Getting more power to the GPU can make a significant difference to its performance, especially if you see system tools reporting that your graphics performance is typically power-limited. With a re-housed mini PC and water-cooling plans, it is easy to understand why HerrBolsch was attracted to the idea of implementing a GPU shunt mod here. According to the sources, this particular mod required several resistor changes – five changed in various areas of the PCB, by our count.

Post-op assessment

To verify the hardware surgery had been successful, HerrBolsch checked a physical Watt meter, as with this kind of mod, software tools like HWInfo and GPU-Z will still report the pre-mod values.

Next, the modder sought to confirm that thermals would remain under control, despite the extra wattage, and that there was a worthwhile performance dividend. HerrBolsch shared some thermal camera images, which suggest there is nothing to worry about in the aftermath of the shunt mod, with top component temperatures around 80 °C under load.

YouTuber James Channel set himself quite a challenge: to transmogrify the “biggest, heaviest, power-hungry console anybody had ever seen” into a handheld. However, as you can see from the video below (h/t PC Gamer), his quest was a success. It might not be the most elegant conversion we’ve seen, with the cut-up and pared-down console largely held together using duct tape and hot glue, but it is a sight to behold. The bare DVD, spinning at ~10,000RPM, that sits central to the design, adds a bit of a danger-thrill to the retro gaming experience, too.

The video starts with James grabbing an original Xbox from his shelves stuffed full of iconic consoles in various states of disrepair. But the chosen black and green box from Microsoft isn’t ready to be converted, just yet. It has a number of faults that need repairing while it is in its native state, before the hacksaw and hot glue-driven modding begins. Starting with a known working sample will simplify any troubleshooting further down the line.

Once repaired, the original Xbox is cut down with a view to portability by James, who tosses unwanted components and shards of case to the floor. This isn’t going to be a mod that solely relies on the original Xbox, though. James also pillages an old iPod portable video dock for screen and speakers, replaces the "huge heavy" 3.5-inch HDD with a Compact Flash drive solution, and saws Xbox controllers in half to flank the central screen/console area.

James gave up on this project for three weeks, but reenergized, returned to it to complete the job. A hurdle that had stubbornly stood in the way of a success was overcome when he discovers that seven out of eight Xbox drives he bought as donors for this project were DOA... After putting this bad luck in the used components lottery (and a miss-crimped IDE connector) in the rearview mirror, the admitted "portable monstrosity" can come to life.

In an attempt to squeeze more performance out of their GPU, a user on Reddit has successfully flashed the BIOS of a Radeon RX 9070 XT onto their non-XT variant. As per a post by u/noVa_realiZe on the r/Radeon subreddit, they were pretty satisfied with the results, as their PowerColor RX 9070 Reaper gained an uplift of 25% in synthetic benchmarks, and around 8-12% while gaming.

The user notes that they performed the vBIOS flash using an open-source tool published on Overclock.net by user Benik3. If you’re interested in the full flashing process, you can follow the post here. Keep in mind, however, that flashing a GPU with the BIOS of another model may void your warranty and can potentially brick your card.

According to testing done by u/noVa_realiZe, the performance gains from flashing the BIOS were immediately noticeable in synthetic benchmarks. In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the stock non-XT card managed a score of around 5,821, while the same card with the XT BIOS went up to 6,461. After some more tinkering with the voltages and memory clock speeds, the card peaked at 7,277, which is a notable improvement over stock performance.

The performance uplift is reduced when it comes to actual gaming, though. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with a mix of ray-tracing settings, the undervolted stock card averaged 70 FPS. After flashing and tuning the card, the same setup pushed averages closer to 78 FPS, with noticeable improvements to 1% and 0.1% lows.

The increase in performance is primarily due to the ability to feed more power to the GPU after flashing the XT BIOS.

Not the first example

Back in April, a similar attempt was made, where a community member at leading German website PCGH (PC Games Hardware) took an Asus Prime RX 9070 and flashed it with the Asus Prime RX 9070 XT vBIOS.

After successfully flashing the BIOS, they were able to raise its power draw to 317W (up from the stock 220W) and increase the boost clock frequencies to 3.1 GHz. This translated into a consistent 15-20% performance uplift in synthetic benchmark tests, while additional tuning and overclocking resulted in scores that outperformed the stock RX 9070 XT.

It is interesting to know that the Radeon RX 9070 has a modicum of headroom to deliver more performance, but at the same time, these gains come with trade‐offs. This includes higher power consumption, increased heat, and a real risk of instability or damage, especially if the cooling solution and power delivery system are not adequate.

Data scientist Sam Wilkinson holds the Logitech MX Ergo trackball in very high esteem. However, he isn’t an MX Ergo flaw denier. And so, after eight years waiting for Logitech to upgrade this trackball, Wilkinson says he decided to take matters into his own hands and build “the mouse Logitech won’t make.” There's just one problem: Logitech actually upgraded the Ergo in 2024 with tweaks that fix most of its shortcomings without him realising, making the project a very unfortunate and rather expensive misstep.

Three aspects of the 2017 MX Ergo “where the sheen of perfection wears off,” according to Wilkinson, are its use of a micro-USB port, its loud and clicky microswitches, and Logitech’s bloated software. We feel those are very valid critiques.

Re-inventing the wheel

Logitech would very likely agree with Wilkinson’s opinions about the hardware wrinkles of the 2017 trackball. That’s why, in late 2024, it released the MX Ergo S. In an unfortunate stroke of luck, it turns out that Logitech had addressed Wilkinson's concerns about switches and USB-C, and he hadn't even realized it. "After first publishing this article a helpful commenter let me know Logitech released the MX Ergo S in late 2024, with quieter switches, USB-C, and a $20 price increase," he wrote. "Let's just pretend I wrote this article a year ago! Still, at least this project let me avoid some e-waste."

Before we go on, we have to point out, and are sure Wilkinson will agree, that this isn’t an entirely economically sound upgrade, even without factoring in the Ergo S launch (especially with the soldering equipment purchased to get the job done). Nevertheless, the dogged determination to upgrade existing hardware, with or without the help of the manufacturer, and even when it doesn’t make financial sense, is admirable in some ways.

In Wilkinson’s blog post, you can read through the whole process of making a DIY-upgraded MX Ergo trackball. One of the first steps taken was to order a small USB-C-equipped PCB for this particular trackball mouse, which he found was already shared through the user portal at PCBWay. Those parts would cost $55, though Wilkinson bought 10 PCBs, so he would have some spares. Around the same time, he decided he needed a $200+ hot-air rework station…

We have some opinions on the best soldering equipment if you are in the market for this kind of gear.

Satisfied with his port wrangling, Wilkinson moved on to microswitch switching. He seemed very happy with some Huano Silent switches, which he described as "almost completely silent, with a soft but satisfying tactile bump when pressed." Impressively, these microswitches only cost $2.99, and de/soldering guides for the MX Ergo are available online.

$20 Logi Options+ alternative championed - but it's only for Mac

A China-based computing enthusiast and modder has created a gaming handheld that pushes the envelope for the form factor. Qingchen DIY on Bilibili put together a massive 12.5-inch handheld, sporting a 4K screen (h/t VideoCardz). To power those abundant pixels, a beefy Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU was commandeered into action. However, the cherry on top of this delicious portable tech confection is undoubtedly the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU.

AMD dominates the PC gaming handheld marketplace with its awesome APUs packaging some of its latest desktop CPU and GPU technologies for pint-sized portables like the Asus ROG Ally X and Steam Deck OLED. Intel presented some fierce competition with MSI and its Lunar Lake handheld last year. However, the dominant PC desktop gaming combo of an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU has failed to get a look-in on this exciting new market. Perhaps Quingchen DIY wanted to see what was possible if the Blue and Green teams were to team up in this segment…

According to the Bilibili video, this physically imposing handheld was made possible by the modder skillfully crafting a Tongfang chassis into a handheld form factor. You are probably more familiar with Tongfang than you would be aware, as the Hong Kong-based company is reportedly an ODM for several well-known PC makers in the West – brands such as PC Specialist, XMG, Eluktronics, and Maingear.

Quingchen DIY packed two of the most potent processors available for laptops into this handheld creation. There’s the i9-14900HX CPU inside (8x P-cores and 16x E-cores), aided and abetted in modern 3D gaming titles by the powerful RTX 4090 Laptop GPU (9,728 CUDA cores and 16GB VRAM).

If you are struggling to conceptualize this amount of mobile performance in this handheld creation, we’ll make it easy for you. We’ve reviewed both the MSI Titan 18 HX and Alienware m18 R4 laptops. Both are thrusted into portable gaming greatness by the same Intel/Nvidia combo as here. Both were also 18-inch behemoths, making this 12.5-inch handheld feel not that huge, after all.

We've taken a look at two successful repair attempts recently, a dead RTX 5090 and a dead RX 7800 XT being revived from the silicon grave. However, it's equally important to see the other side of the coin — what happens when the repair doesn't go right? What if the card is fated beyond a fix? That's what occurred with Northwest Repair's latest job, where a specially endowed RTX 4090 turned out to be more deeply dead-and-buried than initially imagined.

A heavily modified RTX 4090 with a rare 48GB memory PCB showed up on Tony's bench, courtesy of a customer who’d already tried fixing it themselves with a brutal 21-volt, 21-amp voltage injection. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well. This wasn’t a standard card either, this custom PCB had double the memory of a standard RTX 4090 but came with all the risks of poor cooling and cheap power components. Tony later called 48GB cards unreliable, due to the events that unfold.

Taking it apart, the first thing that jumped out was the terrible cooling on the back memory chips — held in place by a flimsy bracket that did little to keep temperatures in check. The fan cables were pinched, which screamed careless handling or some rushed, rough repair attempts before. Testing with a multimeter revealed a dead short on the 12-volt power rail and the 1.8 and 1.2-volt memory rails. Basically, this board was cooked (literally).

Thermal imaging and a cautious, low-voltage injection painted a clearer picture, since one memory chip literally glowed under power—a dead giveaway it was fried. The GPU core itself showed hot spots, meaning internal shorts were present there too. Some more probing by the technician revealed the real culprit, which was a failed driver MOSFET in the buck converter. Instead of stepping down 12 volts to the lower memory voltages, it had shorted and shoved the full 12 volts directly into the memory, roasting multiple chips and damaging the core.

Removing the faulty MOSFET cleared the 12-volt short, but the memory rail stayed shorted. Desoldering a couple of memory chips didn’t help either, as more were dead, and the core was probably shot too. Further voltage injection confirmed the worst, that the card was beyond repair.

TrashBench, an overclocking and BIOS tuning enthusiast, has pushed the old favorite Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 to 2,202 MHz using a DIY cooler. The Redditor and TechTuber stuck to the aging GeForce’s stock BIOS and stock voltage, but the home-made copper pipe cooling can only be reasonably described as ‘something else.’ Aesthetics aside, the cooler propelled this card to a stunning five-fold victory in the official 3DMark Fire Strike chart (for systems packing a Core i5-12600KF).

With their trusty old Asus GTX 1060 6GB in hand, TrashBench removed the stock cooler and prepared for the GPU refit by crushing an assortment of copper piping lengths, acquired from a home DIY store, for better component contact.

Next, the now adjusted lengths of copper pipe were positioned over strategic areas of the PCB (VRMs, VRAM), and G-clamped in place. A water block and pump were attached to the GPU, and flexible pipes included the copper lengths in a loop – fed by a sizable jerry can of iced water for the reservoir.

With the DIY cooler setup ready to roll, and sensibly attached some distance from the host PC using a lengthy riser cable, TrashBench started work. Fiddling with the curves in MSI Afterburner, they walked the GPU clocks up, while monitoring temperatures. “I ended up with a pretty clean 2,202 MHz on the core stable enough for a full Firestrike run, and a score good enough to crack into the global Top 5 for GTX 1060s and a 12600kf,” noted TrashBench. But we notice they subsequently got six of the top six scores – even better.

13% faster performance

Jace from self-confessed “silly tech” YouTube channel MetraByte has shared a video documenting their attempts to get Windows 95 and Doom up and running on the Sony PlayStation 2. In brief, Windows 95 eventually yielded to attempts to get it to boot, and it was possible to fiddle around in the standard apps, but there was no way Jace could get Doom to launch.

Both these platforms are very long in the tooth in 2025, of course. Windows 95 arrived in 1995, and the PS2 debuted in the year 2000. With its half-decade tech-age advantage, you might expect the PS2 to sail through the Windows 95 and Doom challenge. Indeed, it might have, but the hacky nature of getting x86 code to run on Sony's MIPS machine, plus the well-known foibles of Windows 95, built on DOS, meant there were lots of hurdles.

So, how did Jace do/not do it? It is quite a long story, but Jace condensed tens of hours of coaxing the PS2 to run Windows 95 into less than half an hour (video embedded above).

All Jace’s testing took place using a modded PlayStation 2, a game controller with a QWERTY keypad, plus a USB stick and a hard drive inserted into the fat PS2 for storage and data transfer. In parts of the video you can see Jace use a specially prepared USB stick or HDD which packed in the following contents:

• A PlayStation .ELF file. This is the homebrew code to run on the modded PS2. DOSBox and Bochs emulators for the PS2 were both tried.
• A virtual DOS boot disk or image file
• A Windows 95 install HDD or .ISO image file
• A free partition or image file for installing Windows 95 and Doom

Jace's initial time-consuming effort to use DOSBox to achieve their Windows 95 and Doom goals stalled, and after at least “47 attempts” to persuade the vintage OS to boot to desktop, our mad scientist decided to switch to another emulator called Bochs. The former is designed primarily for enjoying simple games, where the latter is billed as an accurate (and slower) general-purpose x86 emulator.

If you watch the full video, you will almost feel Jace’s pain. Such is the slow and frustrating process of getting an x86 OS onto this MIPS console. Nearly every process took an ungodly amount of time, hampered by limited and slow I/O on the PS2, the emulation layer, and these early editions of Windows sitting precariously upon DOS.

Using Bochs wasn’t plain sailing, either. Jace had to deal with a wide range of system hurdles, complaints about read errors, write errors, boot order, drive letter and mounting configurations, missing files, drivers, and more. However, they eventually saw the Windows 95 setup screen appear on their PS2 screen.

A modder has designed and put together what he reasonably describes as a DIY Steam Controller 2, or Steam Deck Controller. For a further useful twist, electrical engineer TommyB also folded in the appeal of the Nintendo JoyCon-like splittable controller(s) in his recently shared OpenSteamDeckController project.

Some might consider the original Steam Controller to have been ahead of its time. However, in 2025, its control scheme with a prominent pair of trackpads is no longer so alien and undesirable. We have the success of the Steam Deck to thank for that.

Frustrated with the lack of a similar style of controller available for PC gamers who don’t own a Deck, MakerTuber TommyB strode the logical step of a DIY solution.

Ahead of digging into the project, the engineer issues a warning. This project involved a lot of work using “a ton of off-the-shelf parts.” Tom’s Hardware readers aren’t so easily dissuaded, though, and we are sure many of you will want to follow in TommyB’s footsteps, anyway.

Tackling the hardest problem first

Work on the ‘Steam Controller 2’ began with the hardest thing to implement – the trackpads. As mentioned above, many parts are available off-the-shelf, even if you have to use multiple outlets to source all the correct components. There is no way to buy a Steam Controller or Steam Deck trackpad assembly, though. And TommyB didn’t want to cannibalize existing Valve hardware. Need we say, trackpads are a core part required for Steam Controller-style game interaction?

We learn that TommyB’s custom trackpad solution is based on the IQS7211E capacitive touch controller. To get a suitably performant and physically appropriate design for the touchpad component, some work in EasyEDA PCB, circuit design, and simulation software was required. The resulting assembly required the authoring of custom firmware to get everything to work as expected within the controller. The firmware has been shared at the top-linked GitHub repository.

Things get simpler now

Moving onto the less complicated phase of the build, TommyB talks us through all the off-the-shelf parts required to make this new controller. He reassures viewers that no Steam Decks were harmed in the creation of his device (we already know what lengths he went to create a custom trackpad).

That there are readily available replacement Steam Deck shells in lots of colors, ready to be repurposed, made the next steps easier. It is also pleasing that the DIY Steam Controller 2 features Hall Effect controllers – a significant upgrade on those found in many brand-name mainstream controllers.

Anyone who wishes to follow in TommyB’s footsteps can now do so, with full knowledge of this prior tried and trusted project. As well as making sure to watch the above embedded video in full, those interested should head on over to the OpenSteamDeckController GitHub page linked top. There, as well as the titular firmware, you can find the PCB details and schematics, plus the .STL files for the pair of controller connectors – essential 3D printer resources for outputting this design. Some other resources, for the controller PCB and wireless dongle, are yet to be uploaded at the time of writing.

An Asus ROG Astral LC RTX 5090 has been shunt modded, resulting in its performance eclipsing the $10,000 RTX Pro 6000. This kind of PCB surgery mod is notorious for resulting in damaged graphics cards, so please monkey-see monkey-do with extreme caution. However, the video of this particular feat was put together by overclocking legend Der8auer, so everything went extremely smoothly and to plan. Below, we will ponder over the process, the results, and consider whether the work and risks are worth it.

Shunt mod – a procedure to increase the hardware power limit

As briefly mentioned above, shunt modding can be dangerous to the life of your GPU. If mistakes are made, your $$$ GPU could degrade slowly, or become toast extremely quickly. As well as any concerns about the actual mod to the PCB, remember that any strain on the 16-pin power connector could become even more perilously high at 800W.

A great shunt mod candidate

Der8auer told viewers that he waited until he could get a capable AiO card for this shunt mod experiment, as it should be better at handling the greater power. And indeed, the Asus ROG Astral LC RTX 5090 runs quieter than the ‘vanilla’ Astral, according to the overclocker. All else being equal, the Astral cards offer a welcome degree of parameter adjustment and monitoring options via Asus GPU Tweak III – this will be useful later.

First things first, Der8auer set a baseline for out-of-the-box Astral LC RTX 5090 performance. During this initial assessment, he observed that it was hitting the standard 600W power target constantly when under load, but seemed “pretty quiet” and capable of handling more juice. It was concluded by the OC expert that the 600W limit was definitely reducing OC potential.

Now the decision had been made and baselines recorded – it was time to crack open the LC and mod the PCB. We won’t get into the details of how to shunt mod, but you can see an overview of the procedure in the video embedded above. But in brief, the mod is rather straightforward. It simply requires changes to be made to the resistors coming from the power connector to ‘fool’ the controlling circuitry into thinking less power is coming in to the PCB than there actually is... With the resistor replacements Der8auer chose, the mod would allow “us in theory to get about 30% higher power draw without the card noticing.” Thus, a separate piece of hardware, called WireView, would be used to see the actual power draw. In the case of the Astral cards, you also have pin sensing on the 16-pin power input, so that is another view of the incoming power that is available, and should remain useful.

Results and conclusion

A gaming peripheral developer and console modder has shared details of their SDEX2M2 Adapter project. Despite the cryptic name, the project goal is a rather simple one – to create a reliable adapter for using the Nintendo Switch 2’s MicroSD Express card port to attach an M.2 NVMe SSD. The SDEX2M2 project is open source, and though it is still a work-in-progress, interested parties can visit the NVNTLabs GitHub page and check out extensive details of the components and schematics used.

Nintendo typically likes to lock down its consoles rather strictly, so seeing this kind of project at an advanced stage, so early after the launch of its Switch 2, might cheer console hackers and modders.

This storage mod “is possible because the Nintendo Switch 2's MicroSD Express slot supports the SD Express 7.1 standard, which exposes a true PCIe Gen3 x1 interface and utilizes the NVMe protocol for communication,” explains developer NVNTLabs on the SDEX2M2 GitHub project page. And, because the hardware adapter simply maps the appropriate pins from the Switch MicroSD Express slot to a standard M.2 2230 NVMe SSD, “no protocol translation is required as the Switch 2 host controller handles everything.”

Potentially big savings on storage expansion

For performance, users should expect data transfers up to approximately the limits of the PCIe Gen3 x1 interface, which is roughly 1 GB/s. That’s on a par with freshly launched cards from the likes of PNY. However, instead of spending $56 on a PNY microSD Express UHS-I U3 V30 A1 microSDXC Flash Memory Card with a measly 256GB capacity, you can get double the capacity with a Sabrent for the same price. We also see 1TB M.2 2230 NVMe SSDs, like the Patriot Viper Gaming VP4000 Mini 1TB M.2 2230 PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD for just $66. You will need to make/buy this new SDEX2M2 device first, though.

As a work-in-progress, there are still a few aspects of the SDEX2M2 design to iron out. Probably the biggest factor to be wary of is damaging your Switch 2 due to the use of an M.2 SSD that is too power hungry. NVNTLabs warns that any fellow modders who want to pick up and roll ahead with the design as it stands should “only use low-voltage, low-power M.2 2230 NVMe drives.” Also, despite physical similarities, users are asked not to insert this adapter into legacy MicroSD card slot-equipped devices like the original Nintendo Switch.

Adding an eGPU?

For over a year, hardware enthusiast Daniel Simionescu (sdz) has been hard at work porting 3dfx's (now-defunct) Voodoo graphics to the mobile form factor. Now, the fruits of their efforts have materialized in the form of several designs, with one including a Voodoo4 GPU integrated into a Dell Precision M4800 laptop using a custom-designed MXM (Mobile PCI Express Module) card. YouTuber Omores got their hands on this exact setup and decided to take it for a spin in Windows 98 and XP. They encountered several compatibility issues, but eventually got the GPU up and running, at least partially.

Voodoo was all the hype in the late 90s, being among the first affordable and widely adopted 3D accelerators for the mainstream. As we mark the 25th anniversary of Nvidia's takeover of 3dfx, Voodoo accelerators are now mostly remembered for nostalgia. At the Vogons forums, dedicated modder sdz developed a PCB equipped with a Voodoo4 GPU, specifically the VSA-100 core paired with 64MB of SDR memory, mirroring the never-released Voodoo4 4800.

Bridging the gap between the VSA-100 and modern standards required the integration of an FPGA, an LVDS/eDP connector, and a RealTek Scaler on the carrier board. YouTuber Omores decided to put this design to the test with the Voodoo4 board connected to a Dell Precision M4800, chosen for its Haswell-based CPU and, crucially, its MXM slot.

Testing in Windows 98 yielded no significant results, as the BIOS flat-out refuses to use Voodoo4 as the primary GPU during boot-up. Likewise, the Voodoo4's BIOS isn't MXM-compliant, and the laptop's BIOS uses a whitelist, only allowing use with authorized cards. As a workaround, the YouTuber had to switch to generic VBE (VESA BIOS Extensions) drivers, which offer higher display resolutions and a basic display output with little to no hardware acceleration. The video goes over several VBE drivers, including VBESVGA, VB9X, and Scitech Display Doctor, each with its own set of limitations and quirks.

That being said, Windows XP cooperated slightly better, and the YouTuber was able to fire up the 3DMark 2001 benchmark and Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, without any major hiccups. Running games built using 3dfx's proprietary Glide API on this system might require using wrappers. Regardless, there isn't a definitive list of supported games, but we're sure the community might compile one soon enough. The original developer doesn't have any intention to commercialize this design, but instead plans to make it open-source.

Where most would buy a dedicated water block for their processor, crafty Chinese YouTuber octppus machined a cold plate directly from their CPU's IHS, via UNIKO's Hardware at X. Testing this approach to yield tangible data required some rather unwieldy strategies, like drawing water from a bucket to ensure a controlled environment. While the idea of carving a water block from your IHS seems ingenious, it carries the obvious risk of destroying your CPU and presents some quirky thermal characteristics.

Why would you even do this in the first place? Your CPU's die is connected to the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) by STIM or thermal grease. To liquid cool your CPU, a metal block (or cold plate) is essential to conduct heat from the IHS. Water blocks contain intricate microchannels or streams, where the heat from the block's metal is transferred to the coolant via convection. Since each interface or surface increases thermal resistance, serious overclockers typically remove the IHS and mount the water block directly onto the die.

What if you took this the other way around, and removed the external waterblock instead? With the help of CNC machines, in collaboration with a viewer, the modder was able to carve a series of interconnected channels or streams in the IHS of their Core i9-14900KS for the coolant. There are also visible areas for the inlet and outlet fittings, and the entire structure is enclosed in a screwed-in gasket to ensure a leak-proof design.

Since the US imposition of sanctions prohibiting the sale of high-performance GPUs to China, indigenous manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to mitigate these limitations by modifying existing solutions. One of the results of these modding endeavors is an RTX 4090 with 48GB of GDDR6X memory, which is now becoming commonplace among local circles. Russian YouTuber Мой Компьютер (My Computer) obtained a blower-style edition RTX 4090 48GB, later taking it apart to examine the PCB among other design features.

Both the RTX 4090 and RTX 3090 Ti's PCBs carry 12 available memory slots, which equate to 24GB of VRAM with one 16Gb IC populating each slot, and that's not the configuration we're looking for. The base RTX 3090, on the other hand, offers 24 memory slots (12 on each side of the PCB), suggesting a modified version of it could be used as a foundation here. It's hard to be certain, however. Either way, the RTX 4090 48GB we're examining today features a board design that strongly resembles RTX 30 series PCBs.

Matching the cooler's design, the YouTuber links this card to Peladin, a Chinese mini-PC/GPU manufacturer. The reviewer asserts the GPU's PCB is well-designed, with robust VRMs, and the added memory on the backside is covered with high-quality thermal pads and a backplate to keep temperatures in check. Unlike workstation-grade RTX 6000/5880 Ada GPUs, which stick with GDDR6, this RTX 4090 is equipped with GDDR6X memory, which is faster but also runs hotter.

Surprisingly, the GPU was recognized in Windows, and you can even use traditional GeForce drivers instead of relying on potentially risky third-party options. The YouTuber mentions a breach at Nvidia where hackers obtained internal tools, including MATS and MODS. Modders can employ these utilities to modify VRAM, disable non-working channels, and even flash new volumes on the GPU's firmware without violating any checksums or digital signatures.

The test bench used for the handful of benchmarks conducted featured the Ryzen 5 7600X3D, and 48GB of DDR5-6000 memory, on the Maxsun Challenger B650M motherboard. Under load, the GPU is quite loud, defined as "sounding like an airplane" at 65dB with fan speeds exceeding 5,000 RPM. That's one of the key drawbacks of blower-style coolers, but it was a necessary tradeoff to enable higher compatibility in servers. Even so, during a half-hour test in Superposition at 8K, the card maintained a relatively stable 2.7 GHz clock speed at 70 degrees Celsius with the memory at 86 degrees Celsius.

After extensively testing the GPU in synthetic benchmarks, LLMs, and games, the YouTuber revealed they were provided the GPU by XON, a local store specializing in workstations and servers. At the time of recording, the GPU was listed at $4,400 (370,000 Rubles). While expensive, this might still be one of the most affordable 48GB options on the market, at least until we see Nvidia's Blackwell workstation in action.

Repair technician "northwestrepair" on YouTube reveals the dangers of using copper memory cooling mods on GPUs. In a RTX 3080 repair video, the technician shows the damage done by a user who modded his founder's edition RTX 3080 with a copper mod. Extensive damage to the GPU's 1.8V rail, memory voltage, and other sub-systems was evident.

Copper modding, in this context, is a cooling upgrade for graphics card VRAM that can significantly improve memory temperatures. The mod involves replacing the stock memory thermal pads with a copper cooling plate (or copper shims) that sit between the memory ICs and the GPU heatsink. Thermal paste is then used to bridge the small remaining gaps.

While this mod can massively improve temperatures, northwestrepair reveals that copper mods can impose significant danger to the system components surrounding the GPU. Any component near the memory ICs is vulnerable to damage, as a result of copper's electrically conductive properties.

That is exactly what happened to the RTX 3080 northwestrepair fixed. Despite the original owner's attempts to protect the surrounding VRMs with Kapton tape, the GPU suffered immense damage making the GPU completely unusable.

The repair technician discovered a variety of issues with the GPU including a short in the memory power delivery system, and several knocked-out capacitors and components affecting the 1.8V rail, 5V VCC, and other systems. Other damage was also discovered including cuts to some of the traces near the PCIe finger, as a result of bad handling of the card which the technician also had to repair.

However, the most problematic issues were related to the GPU die and some of the memory ICs. The technician suspected thermal paste might have made its way underneath the GPU core and/or memory ICs. After reballing (reinstalling) and cleaning the GPU core and two memory ICs that failed memory testing, the card finally posted and passed a FurMark stress test. Confirming that thermal paste or some foreign debris was interfering with the memory and/or GPU core.

Northwestrepair noted that memory temperatures during the FurMark stress test were perfectly acceptable (after he swapped out the wrong pads with the right-sized counterparts), with the GDDR6X memory temps hovering in the high 70s negating any need for modding the cooler.

Copper shim and copper plate modding gained popularity a few years ago, when GDDR6X first debuted on the RTX 30 series and when crypto mining was still profitable on GPUs. These two factors created a massive overheating problem on many RTX 30 series GPUs, with several GPU models running upwards of 110C on the memory, while mining causing thermal throttling. This problem was especially troublesome on the RTX 3090 (not the 3090 Ti), with half of its 12 GDDR6X modules being on the back of the PCB, RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, and RTX 3080 Founders Edition.

Using copper mods drastically helped reduce temperatures on these problematic cards ranging from a 25C to a whopping 46C reduction in VRAM temps depending on the copper mod implementation and card model. However, it was only truly beneficial on mining cards, as games rarely caused these GPUs to thermal throttle.

Someone has stripped down and modded one of the popular Steam Deck handhelds into a minimal form factor dubbed the Steam Brick. "No screen, no controller, and absolutely no sense," quips Crastinator-Pro on GitHub, "just a power button and a USB port." Yet, it still delivers all the portable functionality the GitHubber needs as the device was (and is) invariably connected to either a TV or AR glasses for Steam-based fun.

For some, like Crastinator-Pro, the Steam Deck is a bit hefty, even ungainly. They explain that the handheld was often left behind when packing a backpack, as it was just a little bit too bulky. We guess the 'brick' is also rather more rugged and immune to mistreatment.

Crastinator-Pro followed the iFixIt Steam Deck Repair Guides to strip down the handheld to its bare essentials without rendering it useless in the process. They first pleasingly confirmed that the Steam Deck wasn't averse to starting up without its standard-issue control array, battery, or even the screen. Next, the system was safely disassembled to become just a mainboard and fan.

Finding that a rigid metal frame was also part of the Steam Deck structure, Crastinator-Pro cut off a couple of its protrusions to make a perfect reinforcement for the Steam Brick. A few measurements and CAD drafting minutes later, and the GitHubber had managed to 3D print a brick shell to snugly accommodate the frame, mobo, and cooling.

The result was that the newly formed Steam Brick was "about a 3rd of the size of the Deck, and about 4 times smaller than the Deck’s OEM case," says Crastinator-Pro. "As a bonus, it’s also 24% lighter!" It can also be tossed in a bag without any case or screen protection, and the creator claims there is nothing to worry about.

Now, in use, the Steam Brick is powered on using a single button, then a dock can provide power and monitor/headset connectivity.

There are a couple of small wrinkles that affect the GitHub-shared plans, as they stand, though. Crastinator-Pro noted that they aren't able to access the BIOS, as that function requires holding down the '+' while powering up. That issue can be sidestepped using a terminal command to enter BIOS at the next boot, though.

Secondly, the Steam Brick power indicator light doesn't differentiate between the system being on or off. This doesn't sound like a very serious issue, as the system is also stripped of battery power, so once unplugged, it isn't going to be left running by accident.

Cases, cooling, and power specialist Silverstone has uploaded the official product pages and manual for the upcoming FLP01 chassis. This beige desktop caught our eye last year as it seems perfect for sneaky sleeper PC builds – facilitating the easy DIYing of outwardly antiquated systems packed cutting edge internals.

Now we have all the official info, we can see that Silverstone's FLP01 beige PC case is rather flexible, with decent max compatibility figures, well-thought-out cooling, and even features USB-C on the front panel (hidden by a faux floppy door).

The FLP01 is quite stout for a desktop of yesteryear, sized roughly similar to three large pizza boxes stacked together. However, this 440 x 362 x 170mm (17.32 x 14.25 x 6.69-inches) and 27.08 liters beige box makes good use of this space to fit up to an SSI CEB or more common ATX standard motherboard, up to a 309mm GPU (and 133mm tall), up to a 170mm ATX standard PSU, up to a 138mm tall CPU cooler, seven expansion slots, and more.

Retro fans might also appreciate that behind the upper faux 5.25-inch floppy door you can fit an optical disk drive, or any other 5.25-inch device. Should you not need such a device, Silverstone's universal drive cage design is compatible with 3.5, and 2.5-inch storage devices, too. While we are on this front-panel topic, Silverstone has placed a USB Type-C, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and a combo audio jack behind the lower door.

Older PCs that looked like the FLP01 weren't built for masses of fans and/or radiators. While some may consider the FLP01 to have ample air cooling options, it would be interesting to test some of today's most powerful components in this case. Silverstone has prepared twin 80mm fan spots at the rear, twin 120mm fan spots to the right (one fan included), and the option for a single 120mm or 80mm fan to the left of the desktop.

We checked the Silverstone FLP01 manual and it shows that to gain access to the system internals the top cover slides back and off after the removal of a pair of rear screws. You'd probably then want to take out the flexible ODD and storage bay bracket, the structural crossbar, and pop off the front cover to give you plenty of room to build into.

Previously, Japanese tech media stated that the Silverstone FLP01 would hit retail in Q1 2025 and would be priced at a sum roughly equivalent to US$130.

Interest in this case outside of Japan might have inspired Silverstone to make this a worldwide product, and we are happy to report that the official FLP01 Retrofitted HTPC chassis product pages are in English on the firm's global site.

Commodore 64 devotee Side Projects Lab has released a video teaser showcasing a "true Full-HD HDMI" adaptor for the iconic 8-bit home computer. Apparently, the development of this slick HDMI solution with stereo sound routed through the HDMI cable has taken a full year. If you are interested in the new HD-64, there is still some wait time though, as the first production batch won't be ready until later in Q1.

Side Projects Lab (SPL) thanks fellow C64 video aficionado c0pperdragon early on in the video, as you will see the new FHD HDMI adaptor is built on that impressive prior work (which featured RCA YPbPr video outputs). SPL bought c0pperdragon's drop-in RF modulator replacement daughterboard about a year ago and while pleased with the RCA video output, felt the desire for a crisp HDMI option, with 1080p upscaling, and stereo audio via a single cable.

The C64's VIC-II graphics chip doesn't have a digital video output, and its analog video "is often noisy and distorted beyond repair," according to SPL. In other words, this is a GIGO situation that can't be fixed with filters or other image processing tech - after the fact. c0pperdragon knew this too, so made an interleaver that grabbed digital video signals before they got to the VIC-II graphics chip.

However, SPL wanted to output to the ubiquitous HDMI connector at true FHD. Moreover, for the utmost convenience, they decided to direct SID audio through the same HDMI port. This became the HD-64 project, now claimed to be "the definitive HDMI solution for the Commodore 64." You can read through the above-linked GitHub pages for deeper details on how all the necessary video frame and audio data was acquired and fed to a VIC-II emulator in the FPGA – with just <1ms latency added.

As well as its thoroughly modern convenience, the new HD-64 comes with some retro gaming niceties like scanlines, anti-aliasing, color tweaking, and aspect ratio adjustments in C64 software. Moreover, the developer promises to add adjustable overscan support in due course.

Pure retro vs modern convenience

Owning, cherishing, and making use of old computers comes with a convenience penalty, and that notion applies to the 1982 classic Commodore 64 as much as its contemporaries and 16-bit successors. This HDMI solution makes using the C64 with modern HDMI TVs and monitors so simple.

Ancient supporting hardware and peripherals like CRTs, tapes, floppies, and so on are simply wearing out or breaking with less and less hope for repair or service as we emerge halfway through the 2020s. Meanwhile, convenient and accurate emulation software for PCs, Macs, and consoles continues to be refined. This seems to be why Retro gamers have recently been observed to be backing away from overtly purist tendencies.

3dfx superfan Oscar Barea recently shared a couple of important VoodooX project updates about his quest to modernize the classic Voodooo graphics card. The Voodoo repairer, modder, and collector has been incommunicado since April, due to extensive home remodeling, but two new updates show Barea in in possession of a beautiful new gleaming white “Christmas design” graphics card PCB. Today, he even started assembling his brand new VoodooX “baby.” Perhaps he was inspired to act by the news of the 3dfx 24th death anniversary on Sunday.

Before we look more closely at the two December updates, it is worth stepping back and reminding readers of the purpose of the VoodooX project.

Barea began sharing this labor of electronic love on Twitter/X back in October 2022. The VoodooX was designed to make use of the 3dfx VSA-100 GPU, which was used in the final brace of 3dfx cards that reached consumers, namely the 3dfx Voodoo4 4500 and Voodoo5 5500.

Among the highlights of the VoodooX design is the provision of modern monitor interfaces. The aim is to end up with a VoodooX which works happily with VGA, DVI, and HDMI monitors.

The 3dfx devotee was very happy in March this year when the VoodooX first booted into Windows and ran the 3dfx Glide Donut Demo. “I can’t believe it,” enthused Barea. “It is amazing!!!”

With the major project milestone behind him, Berea still faces several niggling issues – as might be expected on a one-man project of this complexity. When we last reported on VoodooX, in April, Barea was working to implement a VRAM toggle switch (switching between 32MB and 64MB). The same month he seemed to be happy with most aspects of the VoodooX and shared lots of gameplay screens and project updates. This project is never going to rival the best graphics cards in 2024, but could be many a retro gamers' dream.

Fast forward to December, and after seven months of radio silence due to home remodeling, we see that the 3dfx enthusiast has a glistening new white PCB to progress his project. Besides the new color, Barea notes that he “fixed minor bugs and routed the memory signal in a different way.” Seemingly reenergized, he has quickly put time in to begin assembling the first white PCB VoodooX.

We recommend Voodoo fans keep an eye on Barea’s social media now, as the house remodeling distractions may be over, and he can again quickly advance VoodooX. Indeed, Barea today teased that updated performance info will be shared “very soon.”

Earlier this month, Raspberry Pi launched the Pi 500 keyboard PC, which takes the internals of a Raspberry Pi 5 and slaps them into a keyboard enclosure doubling as a PC once the user adds power input and a monitor. As noted in our review, this launch came with a baffling omission of NVMe M.2 storage support, an issue that modders are now fixing. Thus, it's no surprise to see that the Raspberry Pi 500 has been modified to allow NVMe Gen 3 capabilities akin to those in the Raspberry Pi 5, with that in mind — SD card storage is fairly slow, and entry-level working/casual PCs like Pi 500 can still benefit from NVMe storage snappiness.

An unnamed Raspberry Pi 500 modder speaking to developer and TechTuber Jeff Geerling was quoted in a December 13 blog post clarifying the nature of the empty, deactivated M.2 header present on the original Pi 500 board and explaining the steps needed to restore full functionality. Be mindful that if you're looking to take on this project for yourself, you will need to have appropriate soldering equipment and a microscope to do the job properly — but readers already comfortable with high-end tweaking and repair tasks may be willing to make that trade-off. Jeff Geerling is on the record hoping for a more powerful "Pro" or "Pro Max" Raspberry PI 500 kit outright, that will "give us everything", including the M.2 slot and PoE+ support apparently cut from the Pi 500 PCBs prior to release.

Considering the fact we already rate the Raspberry Pi 500 a clean 4.5/5 stars, we do agree that a "Pro or Pro Max" version of the Raspberry P 500 would be ideal for users who may otherwise be deterred by its few downsides, like lacking NVMe Gen 3 support without modding. For pretty much any workload we could reasonably imagine on a Raspberry Pi 500, NVMe Gen 3 support should provide more than enough throughput, particularly compared to slower, past forms of flash storage like SD cards.

Overall, it's an honest shame that M.2 isn't already included with a native empty slot on the final Pi 500 board...but the parts remaining still make it possible for a determined modder, and of course we can't expect everything users demand from a small form factor PC in this pricing range.

Earlier this month, YouTuber ChromaLock uploaded a video showcasing his "ultimate cheating device," which is almost indistinguishable from a TI-84 calculator. However, there are hardware modifications and an open-source suite of software modified for the TI-84 that he made, allowing the user to run ChatGPT. The software for the mod is shared on GitHub under the TI-32 repository, which is described as "A mod for the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition calculators to give them Internet access and add other features, like test mode breakout and camera support". And yes, these features include ChatGPT functionality.

Besides software modification, the hardware needed to truly complete this "ultimate cheating device" was a microcontroller small enough to fit inside the TI-84 shell with its original components. This is because all the best TI-84 software features require you to use the link port to connect to bulky external devices, and thus would be too conspicuous otherwise. A correctly selected Wi-Fi-enabled microcontroller, in this case, the Seeed Studio XIAO-ESP32-C3, modded into the calculator with the TI-32 PCB and suite of software installed is all you really need to get up and running.

In the full video, ChromaLock demonstrates exactly that functionality after tweaking voltages and adding his own 1K resistors between the microcontroller and link port appropriately. He designs a PCB for the TI-32 project which also makes the microcontroller able to impersonate another TI-84 for more easily sending communications and data to the real TI-84 calculator in your hands.

Before the video is complete, ChromaLock demonstrates the invisible nature of the modification and its varied functionality. This includes a chat function, a monochrome image viewer, and a ChatGPT input window. These all seem to work perfectly — and may not be the end of the project. A long list of "Features to be Added" on the GitHub page includes various improvements to GPT functionality, the addition of web browsing, email functionality, video playing, and even Discord access. If you want to get audacious with a TI-84 hacked in this manner, it seems the sky is the limit — though of course, none of those experiences are going to be better run on a calculator than a smartphone or actual PC.

The benefit of using faster video memory on Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics cards has been demonstrated by Brazilian YouTubers. Hardware tinkerer Paulo Gomes and the overclocking team at TecLab both memory-modded RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics cards and overclocked the GPU (using the stock cooler) to boost performance. Using the Unigine Superposition 8K benchmark to check their handiwork, it is gratifying to see that they could both achieve significantly better 3D benchmark scores than the higher-tier RTX 4080.

Tech site VideoCardz unearthed the two new Portuguese language videos, and noted that Paulo Gomes works with Manli, while TecLab is sponsored by Galax. As rivals, of sorts, this led to Gomes and TecLab competing over who could push the RTX 4070 Ti Super the furthest with the help of a memory mod.

These memory mods required more than ‘simply’ de-soldering and re-soldering faster VRAM chips on the respective graphics card PCBs. Work also had to be done to implement support for the new faster memory chips. Thankfully, the rival teams could rely on the support and expertise of their respective sponsors to get the modded cards up and running without firmware or software issues.

For their competitive testing, the teams agreed to use the stock coolers that their Manli and Galax graphics cards came with. Both firms equip quite beefy triple fan cooling shrouds, so no one had an obvious advantage here. The test comparison platform chosen was Superposition. This attractive benchmark with screen-space ray-traced global illumination and dynamic lighting uses the Unigine 2 engine and targets “extreme hardware stability testing.” Superposition also conveniently includes GPU temperature and clock monitoring.

Above you can see the collated competition results, showing that both Gomes and TecLab managed to achieve better Superposition scores than the higher-tier RTX 4080 (stock). If we focus on the TecLab results, we note that its memory mod and OC precipitated 30% better performance in Superposition. The result means that the modded Galax also performed over 7% faster than the stock RTX 4080 in the benchmark.

The latest ‘Blackwell’ RTX 50 series rumors suggest we could be getting a new GeForce line with GDDR7 memory delivering up to 28 Gbps at launch, with the memory maker roadmaps targeting up to 40 Gbps. Don’t expect the first RTX 50 cards until the last quarter of 2024 when the top RTX 5080 and 5090 models are likely to launch first.

A computer engineer and tech enthusiast has converted his Crucial BX500 512 GB SSD from quad-level cell (QLC) to single-level cell (SLC) NAND, reducing capacity to 120GB in the process. TechPowerUp database maintainer Gabriel Ferraz shared details of his feat, trading capacity for performance and durability, in the video below. Before the end of the video, he also charts the impacts on durability and performance.

The Crucial BX500 512GB SSD is a SATA connector drive that uses QLC NAND to provide a keenly priced half gig of storage for the consumer market. Many buyers will be happy with this product as it is, especially if they are replacing a slow HDD. However, enthusiasts don’t usually warmly embrace QLC storage as it has a reputation for lower performance and questionable durability. Sometimes drives feature DRAM or SLC caches (or use part of your PC RAM) to address some of these concerns.

Crucial’s BX500 512GB SSD contains the key components of a Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller and NAND flash dies from Micron (the parent company).

Ferraz noted that four NAND dies were onboard his drive and they had NY240 part numbers. This data is important for the QLC to SLC conversion process. For this delicate process, an app called MPtools for the Silicon Motion SM2259XT2 controller was downloaded from the USBdev.ru site, and the correct die reference numbers were carefully inputted. In the video, we get a walkthrough of the process which results in the system seeing a new 120GB SLC drive.

With the process complete Ferraz talks us through the benefits. Probably the primary benefit in the case of the BX500 is the boost in endurance. According to his tests and calculations, post-modification the SSD’s endurance jumps to 4,000 TBW. This is a sizable increase in TBW, in the order of about 3,000%.

In performance testing, using standard tools like ATTO and Crystal Disk Mark, many of the potential benefits of the modification didn’t show themselves due to the drive’s SATA III interface. Thus aspects of performance like data transfer speeds weren’t as impressively scaled as they could have been, but we see more promising uplifts in latencies and access times. However, Ferraz seemed most impressed by the efficiency gains he observed.

Please be very careful if you feel the impulse to try this SSD mod as Ferraz says you could “kill the drive” if something goes wrong during the process.

Silicon Motion has been in touch with Ferraz, and apparently, there may be some collaboration to deliver similar SLC mode conversion abilities to M.2 NVMe drives.

A retro computing enthusiast has successfully shoehorned 4MB of RAM into an Apple Macintosh Classic computer without using a daughterboard. Normally, this isn’t possible, but Adrian Black of Adrian’s Digital Basement compared the similar Motorola 68000 CPU-packing Mac Classic and SE models, and the inspired hardware hacking session paid off.

Black explains that he had a leftover Mac Classic motherboard with some chips missing after a repair session. He wanted to upgrade this from its standard onboard 1MB of RAM to an expansive 4MB. However, Mac Classics normally require the use of a RAM-packing daughterboard to accomplish such an upgrade.

After pondering over the schematics of the Mac Classic and the similar Mac SE, Black noticed that the latter could accept 4MB added to the motherboard via four SIMM slots — no daughterboard required. The Macintosh Classic schematics revealed it basically uses “a Macintosh SE motherboard — shrunk down.” That meant he could probably hack the Classic to 4MB onboard without ordering and waiting for a daughterboard.

A combination of convenience and inquisitiveness, rather than necessity, was the mother of invention here, but it still makes for a captivating video. Before he gets on with the modding process, Black admits that replacement daughterboards that can expand a Mac Classic to 4MB are quite easy to get and cost only $30 or $40. Thus, he notes, the mod is “probably kinda pointless,” except in the rare case that one of the two support chips is damaged, as those UL1 CAS PAL chips are harder to acquire.

The hardware hacking part of the video shows two redundant chips removed from the motherboard, along with a couple of other minor component changes, before swapping out the RAM chips that are already present on the Mac Classic motherboard. Specifically, the eight ‘44256 RAM chips’ are replaced by four ‘4400 RAM chips’ taken from a common 4MB 72-pin SIMM. Later, some wires had to be run and a couple of resistors were inserted to get the new RAM configuration to work and echo the Mac SE RAM subsystem design.

The first boot after the mod almost worked but ended with the ‘sad Mac’ error code. Black initially thought the error code pointed to a RAM issue, but some other ancient Mac tinkerers told him it was a non-volatile RAM settings issue. Those earlier suspicions turned out to be correct, though, as the schematics led him to switch around some of the bodge wires with a successful boot to the ‘Mac OS missing’ screen.

Black wraps up the video by successfully running the system through the Speedometer test suite, which would usually fail if any of the components had issues. And now, 40 years or so later, this Mac Classic how has quadruple the onboard memory.

Strangely enough, the past few months of 2024 have seen prominent discussions of a few modern-day AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) mods — the first is a mod of questionable practicality to get a GTX 960 working on an AGP board, which took considerable gymnastics. The second involves repurposing an AGP port on a Super Socket 7 motherboard for faster, more modern networking speeds.

Tercio_miranda recently posted a mod from a retro PC gaming community on Facebook. The process (pictured below) involved using both an AGP-to-PCI and a PCI-to-PCIe adapter to install a GTX 960 onto an ancient motherboard. 

The AGP interface is newer and, thus, likely faster than the PCI interface on the motherboard, so using the first adapter is highly questionable; however, the user probably didn't have a PCI to PCIe adaptor handy. The GPU is ultimately listed in an included AIDA64 screenshot, showing that it is functional. The user didn't share performance benchmarks, but this setup may be enough for Crysis.

For instance, back in August of 2009, Don Woligroski, writing for Tom's Hardware, used an OC'd CPU and a powerful native AGP card to get Crysis running at 65 FPS on Low Physics on an AGP board originally released in November 2005. PCIe debuted in 2003, so this was well after many faster boards with newer standards were already on the market. This means that, yes, AGP could run Crysis while it was still common, and it remained one of the most demanding games on PC for several years after its 2007 release.

People still test games with it these days, though Crysis: Remastered and its ray tracing are definitely the more intensive choice for modern, non-AGP graphics cards.

YouTuber RECNAS also has a minute-long YouTube video that highlights his Super Socket 7 motherboard and, subsequently, an AGP-to-PCI networking adapter. Since RECNAS wanted to repurpose this roughly late 90s-era Super Socket 7 motherboard as a NAS, he didn't want to be relegated to the slower, shared PCI bandwidth on the board.

This means that if he could get the NAS running through the fastest available port on the board, AGP, he could achieve the speed he's looking for. We've embedded the original video of him achieving this below.

After testing with the AGP-to-PCI adapter, he's achieved just over 200 MB/s throughput on his Super Socket 7 Board. The exact reading averages 198 Mebibytes per second, which converts to roughly 207 MB/s. This is compared to the reported shared PCI bandwidth of 133 MB/s, or more realistically, 92 MB/s, according to RECNAS.

Now, the maximum rate of the original AGP port is 533 MB/s, and AGP 3.5 eventually phased out at 2133 MB/s— but as the name implies, these ports were targeted at graphics expansions, not storage. The later stage of AGP graphics support could get pretty interesting, though, especially if you were willing to overclock your AGP-supported motherboard.

As you can see, the modding community is still hard at work wringing more functionality out of old gear, either for entertainment or out of necessity. 

Users of the original Steam Deck have a few major display upgrade / repair options: stick with the original screen, upgrade to a DeckHD, or buy a full Steam Deck OLED replacement. The folks at Digital Foundry were shipped a pre-assembled DeckHD unit, which they performed some hands-on comparisons with, alongside the other major upgrade options. We've included DF's original video in an embed below and will discuss its findings in due course.

Before we get too deep into this, though, it's important to establish that a higher resolution is not always a better thing, particularly in the handheld form factor. The Steam Deck is meant to target 30-60 FPS at 720p-800p in its Verified titles, and boosting the resolution target by 50% on a handheld may not always provide acceptable performance, especially in modern games. It nearly guarantees a 45-50% loss in GPU performance at the same settings, which is only acceptable if you have lots of headroom to start with.

Of course, the beauty of the PC platform means you can still use resolution scale and related settings to adjust ambitious titles to the limits of a higher-res display in a handheld form factor. 2D titles and less demanding games will still fundamentally benefit from a 1200p display, but generally speaking, 3D games look best at native resolution or with great scaling regardless of your native res.

In Digital Foundry's extended testing, the DeckHD proves to be a surprisingly adequate competitor to the Steam Deck OLED, at least when both are set to SDR and similar color temperatures. In this case, it's definitely a strong improvement over the original Steam Deck LCD screen, and the $99 cost of both an original Deck Antiglare Screen and the DeckHD Antiglare replacement screen points toward the DeckHD being the superior option in overall spec.

Technically, you can get a regular old replacement Steam Deck LCD screen for much cheaper than the DeckHD or original Antiglare LCD screen, but the existence of the full Steam Deck OLED upgrade makes that a slightly less-appetizing option. However, the DeckHD also comes with the major caveat of requiring manual installation and even firmware updates for the screen every time Valve updates the Steam Deck, which seems like it would get irritating very quickly.

Overall, people who don't already own a Steam Deck are still generally advised to go with the Deck OLED if at all possible, since it's still the best experience with the least headaches. However, if you want to repair or upgrade an LCD Steam Deck, Digital Foundry convincingly argues that the DeckHD is a very worthy option, albeit one that may only be suitable for the most determined hardware tweakers.

Professional repair technician Paulo Gomes and his team modded an EVGA GeForce RTX 3070, increasing its memory capacity from 8GB to a one-of-a-kind 12GB GDDR6 VRAM configuration. Upgrading VRAMs on GPUs may seem as easy as simply swapping the memory modules, but much work is involved. Depending on the GPU, it will need the proper hardware and VBIOS modding, which would sometimes be a trial-and-error process. 

This is where the skills of such skilled and knowledgeable technicians come in to give a new life to this GPU, as they will know what to look for and what needs to be changed. 

The YouTuber originally modded this RTX 3070 with 16GB, but many of his viewers said that's too much VRAM, claiming it would be underutilized. It should also be noted that the RTX 3070 has a limited 192-bit memory bus. Hence, he found a middle ground by modding it into an RTX 3070 12GB. He also believes this is ideal for these graphic cards as this memory configuration is as close as possible to an RTX 4070 with 12GB GDDR6X VRAM. 

Paulo also made it clear that he's modding an EVGA RTX 3070, which initially had 8GB with a defective memory channel that had to be disabled for the GPU to work properly. As a result, two VRAMs were disabled in the firmware, making it a 6GB GDDR6 card. They proceeded with the mod by using six Samsung 2GB GDDR6 chips but first benchmarked it with its earlier VRAM configuration to show its performance.

The team ran the Resident Evil 4 benchmark on this RTX 3070 high image quality setting and a 546.17 WHQL driver to demonstrate its performance. This graphics setting demands more RAM, showing it needs at least 13.81 GB. During this testing, it used the required memory from the system's RAM. Ultimately, the RTX 3070 with a 6GB GDDR6 VRAM yielded 40 to 50 FPS.

Since this GPU's firmware was modded earlier not to use VRAMs on the defective channel, the process shown in the video involved desoldering all eight Samsung 1Gb VRAMs and replacing them with six Samsung 2GB modules from another GPU. After the swap was completed, the card was tested to ensure there was a defect in the VRAMs during the memory strap test. Even after getting a pass, it needed further modding by changing the location of a couple of resistors on the PCB. 

Once all the necessary work was done, the modders booted the GPU, showing 12GB of memory. The Resident Evil benchmark showed encouraging results as it shows the GPU could provide 70 to 80 FPS.

Despite encouraging results, the modder says this GPU is a paradox as it loses and wins depending on what this modded RTX 3070 will be used for. However, the lesson here is that if a qualified person has compatible VRAM and the right tools, GPUs with a defect can be rescued and modded to have more VRAM. Many such repair professionals have employed similar techniques to expand the memory on devices like the ROG Ally.

VRAM Upgrade: Worth the Investment?

While giving a new lease of life on such hardware is nice, one would ask if it is even worth swapping memory modules to get that increased performance on a perfectly working GPU. One can easily recognize that such mods require a lot of work, knowledge, tools, and sourcing compatible VRAM, making it not a worthwhile investment for an average enthusiast. 

In some unique cases, it becomes a necessity, like the situation created by the sanctions imposed on China, resulting in modified GPUs. As one would say- Necessity is the mother of invention. 

YouTuber Doctor Volt has repurposed an optical mouse to create a camera (h/t Hackaday). The project relied principally on the mouse’s optical sensor, a third-party controller, some software wrangling, and a little bit of 3D printing to tidily secure a Raspberry Pi wide-angle lens in place of the prism. Though we congratulate the good Doctor on a successful project, he was humble enough to admit the camera feed images are only just recognizable.

Early in the video, Doctor Volt dissects a pretty old Logitech mouse. We saw that the optical sensor being used by this geriatric rodent was the ADNS 2610 made by Agilent in 2004. Further investigations revealed that this sensor features an 18x18 array of photodiodes. In the mouse, these would be mounted behind a lens and above a prism that directs light from an LED to your mousing surface. The project proposed this ADNS 2610 sensor would be the heart of the mouse-camera.

To make a neat mouse-camera solution, the YouTuber decided to add an ESP32-S3 chip to work as a microcontroller for the experimental device. Doctor Volt discussed the techniques he used to get meaningful data from the repurposed mouse sensor via the ESP32-S3. You can see in the video that there was desoldering required, and he also had to tinker with software. The software solution wasn’t entirely new, as Doctor Volt recycled a UI that he previously created to display images from a ‘Blu-ray microscope’ project he had worked on.

With the hardware and software in place we get to see the first evidence of the mouse-camera springing to life, the good Doctor decides to demonstrate the mouse ‘scanning’ a 20 Euro banknote in real-time. As the mouse is moved, the UI viewport shows the 18x18 pixels (324 pixels) the mouse sensor is seeing. We don’t know the color depth of the sensor, and the dynamic range seems poor. The YouTuber admits that the closeup image, and its resolution, don’t provide meaningful images at this stage. However, you could recognize some of the tiny European stars and similarly intricate details when they were carefully moused over.

As the YouTuber was satisfied with the progress so far, he wanted to complete the transformation of the mouse into a camera. A wide-angle lens, which was made for a Raspberry Pi camera, was selected to bring the wider world to the mouse sensor.

Powering up and turning the lens to himself, we got to see a pixelated representation of Doctor Volt. It wasn’t the clearest of images, with low contrast in addition to its low pixel density, but there was certainly a human head seen moving around. Doctor Volt mused that he may have become “the first person ever filmed by a mouse sensor.” It was found that the mouse-camera could run at about 3fps without errors of one kind or another.

Wrapping up the project, the YouTuber acquired some 3D printed parts to more securely and tidily mount the Rasberry Pi lens. The result remained a little ugly but we don’t have any other mouse cameras to compare it with. It would be interesting to know whether modern optical mice would have more capable sensors for "mouseography". A quick look over various mouse sensor data sheets seemed to suggest the photodiode array spec isn’t readily shared.

Fancy a memory upgrade on your ROG Ally? A technician running a "SlickBuys Mods and Repairs" YouTube channel seemingly did something truly impressive with his client's ROG Ally, upgrading the onboard RAM chips. Alas, it wasn't as easy as swapping some chips on the board, and more like how it's been demonstrated with some graphics cards.

Sadly, there are no benchmarks or game demonstrations at the end of the upgrade video. Just a bootup sequence and a brief glimpse of Windows showing the recognized RAM.

Asus' ROG Ally had some impressive specs for its form factor when we reviewed the AMD Z1 Extreme-enabled portable gaming device a few months ago. There were no complaints about its dual-channel 16GB 6400 MT/s memory, but if you could upgrade it, why wouldn't you? SlickBuys Mods and Repairs shows that it's possible, but far from simple, in the video below.

As the video shows, dismantling the ROG Ally down to its PCB with all the core components would be pretty simple for many enthusiasts. But this is where the easy part ends, as the modder prepares the PCB to desolder the 16GB Samsung K3LKBKB0BM 6400MT/s LPDDR5 memory chips. He then replaces all four chips with four Samsung K3KL9L90CM 7500 MT/s LPDDR5 chips. The process didn't stop there, as he had to work on altering the BIOS on the Winbond W25Q256JW 256-byte chip, to accept the new RAM upgrade via NeoProgrammer. This not only requires knowing both exactly what needs changing and how to how to change it.

With Great Upgrades Comes at a Great Cost

Slick Buys, who goes by the nickname Bortegaa on Reddit, said that this 32GB upgrade cost his customer $300 plus return shipping, with two to four days turnaround time. So, calling this an expensive upgrade is an understatement since you'd be paying almost half the cost of the ROG Ally for the memory boost. But considering the cost of manual labour, experience, parts, sourcing, BIOS programming, and checking if everything works fine, the $300 upgrade price doesn't seem so bad. Each of those 7500 MT/s chips costs $22 via Ali Express, adding $88 for four pieces without shipping. The BIOS flashing process isn't as easy as upgrading your motherboard BIOS or flashing a homebrew firmware on a PSP, either.

He also offers an upgrade from a 40Wh to a 90Wh battery for US$280. That may effectively double your playtime per charge, but combined with the cost of the RAM upgrade and shipping, it would also nearly double the price of your gaming portable. It would be so nice if companies would at least design in swappable battery options.

Regardless, it is impressive to see videos like this that push the boundaries of current handheld hardware. And while not many would consider this upgrade due to the cost, it's fun to see the entire, sped-up process. It also makes you wonder how much trial and error -- and years of experience -- went into making such a complex process reasonably achievable.

A self-confessed hardware hacker has presented an ergonomic and easy-charging solution for users of the Apple Magic Mouse. Ivan Kuleshov on Twitter / X has uploaded a thread that shows a step-by-step spirit of DIY correction of the Apple mouse’s major sins. However, he promises a more thorough recipe and guide will be uploaded to GitHub in the coming days.

Apple’s pancake-flat minimalist mouse became something of a meme in its second iteration (2015) when Apple made it rechargeable but put the charging port on the bottom of the device, facing down. The third generation device (2022) didn’t change this design aspect. Due to the charging port placement, users must stop work to recharge their rodent, placing it flat on its back.

Kuleshov shares a few pictures, videos, and various explanations of his Magic Mouse modification project. It is easy to get a grasp of his holistic solution. A 3D printed spacer section separates the original Magic Mouse’s upper and lower shells, with a slight right-hand twist plus palm heel. The added layer also makes it easier to rejig the mouse innards and change the angle of the power connector so this mouse gets a more traditional tail. While conducting such surgery, Kuleshov also changed the charging port from Apple Lightning (on its way to the dustbin of history) for a standard female USB Type-C connector.

There were a few underlying design changes that weren’t required but added finesse to the hardware hack. The most important was adding electronics so the mouse was still responsive and powered while connected to a charge source. A 3D-printed inner section also helped Kuleshov provide a desk-side base for the sensor (no gaps or mirrors).

RGB Version on the Way? 

In response to various inquiries, Kuleshov revealed several prototypes he tried before going public with his hack. He also confirmed to the Twitterati that "a variant with RGB lighting based on RP2040" has even been tested.

Kuleshov confirmed that he will provide instructions for replicating his mods, which could happen as soon as today (or tomorrow). You are asked to follow his Twitter / X profile for GitHub links or hit refresh on Kuleshov's Uptime Lab blog to learn more about the project.

Though we applaud the DIY spirit and re-imagining of the Apple Magic Mouse, very capable mice that don't need modifications are already available.

Modder Sebastian Stacks (known for his YouTube channel and website "There Oughta Be") decided he would like a wooden Game Boy, so much so that he made a Game Boy shell entirely out of walnut wood. He actually started by making wooden Game Boy cartridges before he moved onto the full unit, but you will also notice two Pokemon cartridges with fully wooden exteriors, replacing the original plastic casing.

Replacing the original Game Boy's plastic body with walnut wood and re-assembling the unit isn't the only thing Stacks did with this project, though. The D-Pad and buttons have all been replaced as well, and even the original Game Boy screen has been replaced in favor of an IPS screen mod that brings out the very best image quality this era of games can offer.

We've embedded a video breaking down the project and giving plenty of detail shots from the There Oughta Be YouTube Channel for those who want to see more. For those who want to make their own, step-by-step instructions are available on the There Oughta Be blog post.

Finally, a few of you may be wondering who this is for. Why waste all this woodworking and time on some ancient relic of a game system? There's obviously some demand for these types of custom handhelds; for instance, the Analogue Pocket, which is basically a $250 Game Boy with a 1440p screen, has almost always been sold out since it dropped in late 2019.

Truly great game design is timeless, even if the hardware isn't, and premium retro handhelds (especially custom projects like the Wooden Game Boy) help emphasize that. Plus, more naturalistic wooden designs are creeping into the PC space as well, so I doubt this is the last time we'll be seeing something like this.