Phison has been showcasing its data storage innovations at Computex 2025. Of particular interest, we attended a partner demo where the firm utilized 32 of its latest and greatest PCIe Gen5 SSDs in a RAID setup. During the demo, we saw CrystalDiskMark report data transfer rates as high as 113.6 GB/s for reads, and 104.6 GB/s for writes.

The PS5028 for AI Workstation Live Demo

This demonstration of extraordinary speed was enabled by a powerful modern workstation PC and a mix of cutting-edge storage components. Specifically, Phison utilized an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7978WX CPU, installed on an Asus Pro WS WRX90E-Sage SE motherboard, as the foundation of the system.

The storage subsystem consisted of 32 of Phison’s potent new E28 Gen5 SSDs installed across a trio of Apex Storage X16 Gen5 add-in cards. All these components were installed in a sweet-looking be quiet! chassis, as you can see.

Phison’s new E28 Gen5 SSD rubs shoulders with the best in consumer mid-2025 PC land. A single E28 Gen5 in a modern PC will be able to deliver data transfer speeds of up to 14.8 GB/s reads and 14.0 GB/s writes. The Phison E28 Gen5 is being marketed as “the weapon of choice for serious gaming and productivity,” so it is definitely targeting consumers. Its controller features a quad-CPU architecture, is fabbed on TSMC’s 6nm node, and supports up to 32 TB.

Here we had 32 of Phison’s new E28 Gen5 SSDs; however, each Apex Storage X16 Gen5 add-in card can fit 16 M.2 SSDs (there’s a clue in the name), so two would have sufficed for a 32x SSD demo. We guess three cards were installed for optimal performance, load balancing, or another nuance of the Threadripper-powered Windows system.

The storage performance in this setup seems remarkable. Witnessed data transfer rates as high as 113.6 GB/s for reads, and 104.6 GB/s for writes might seem amazing. However, it was confirmed by a Phison rep that the Windows kernel was actually holding back performance.

HighPoint launched the RocketAIC 6542AWW, an industry-first external RAID storage drive with 492 TB of storage. It achieves this through eight Solidigm D5-P5336 NVME SSDs that deliver 61.44TB each while delivering a 28-GB/s “real-world” transfer speed.

According to HighPoint, the most outstanding characteristic of this device is that it’s smaller than a shoebox, measuring just 9.25 x 8.27 x 4.84 inches (L x W x H). By comparison, a typical shoebox is 13 x 7.5 x 4.75 inches.

The RocketAIC 6542AAW could achieve its fast transfer speed via a dedicated host-to-device PCIe Gen4 x16 card attached directly to the server or workstation motherboard. This ensures that the external storage device can run at its optimum speed while ensuring that it doesn’t consume power or add additional heat to the host computer from its bank of SSDs. It’s also configurable in RAID0, RAID1, or RAID10 for the ultimate performance and redundancy.

At the back of the external storage device, you’ll find a rocker power switch, a mute button, a slide switch, a USB-C port, the PCIe Gen4 x16 outlet, an Ethernet port, the PSU socket, and a Kensington lock slot. It also has two large fans and one smaller fan for device cooling.

The eight bays are also hot-swappable, making service and system upgrades easier. Solidigm also plans to launch a 122TB version of the D5-P5336 in early 2025, which means that eight drives will have a total capacity of 976TB. However, we are unsure if that will be compatible with the HighPoint device.

This compact external storage solution would make high-performance data storage and backup more effortless and accessible for small and medium enterprises. The company says it is ideal for data-intensive applications like high-speed data acquisition, music & effects post-production, and rapid backup and recovery workflows.

However, you must be prepared to spend a pretty penny to get this device, as it costs $78,999. It comes with all the drives included, though, which cost more than $7,340 apiece, so you’re saving money on that.

Earlier this morning, HighPoint announced that its SSD7540 RAID Add-In-Card (AIC) is qualified for use with LiquidCool Solutions' immersion-cooled rack servers (and immersion-cooled server platforms in general). For those unfamiliar, immersion cooling is a version of liquid cooling where the entire PC (or most of it) is submerged in a non-conductive liquid, typically mineral oil, for stylish aesthetics, more efficient cooling, or both. In the data center space, where you often stack the equivalent of several fully-decked systems on top of each other, immersion cooling becomes a pretty viable solution for cooling servers.

While this is a definite win for HighPoint, considering the market its technology targets, we should note that immersion cooling typically works with most hardware without any real issue. Building and maintaining a PC using immersion cooling can be prohibitively expensive, particularly at home. However, as long as the liquid is non-conductive, your hardware shouldn't have any issues inside of it— though you'll get the best results removing fans since they are designed to push air instead of liquid. 

So, while this is the first time the NVMe Gen 4 HighPoint SSD7540 RAID AIC has been used with immersion cooling (to our knowledge), there was no reason to think it wouldn't work before it was certified. It is still nice to have it tested and validated in action, particularly since, according to its official product page, the HighPoint SSD7540 RAID AIC still costs a hefty $1,099.

Earlier this year, we reviewed a newer PCIe Gen 5-based HighPoint AIC, the HighPoint Rocket 1608A. For those unfamiliar with HighPoint's track record, HighPoint's RAID AICs allow for dramatically higher RAID speeds when using an array of SSDs. Testing with NVMe Gen 4 drives on that Gen 5 HighPoint card, we managed to achieve speeds of up to 56 GB/s — far faster than any currently existing single NVMe drive. The older HighPoint SSD7540 we're covering today is cheaper and last-gen but can still far outstrip any standard old NVMe Gen 4 drive in performance.

HighPoint has introduced its new SSD7749M2 RAID card, which can house up to 16 M.2 SSDs and install up to 128 TB of flash memory into a typical desktop workstation. The card offers sequential read/write performance of up to 28 GB/s over a PCIe Gen4 x16 interface. These are quite massive performance specifications that come at a rather whopping price point.

HighPoint's SSD7749M2 SSD RAID card relies on the company's PCIe 'x48 lane PCIe Switching Technology,' something that could be a very advanced PCIe switch (or several PCIe)  that allocates x16 lanes of upstream bandwidth to connect to the host platform and provides each SSD with x2 lanes of dedicated downstream bandwidth. This configuration offers decent signal integrity, minimizes latency, and enables the SSD7749M2 to achieve impressive data throughput, reaching real-world transfer speeds of up to 28 GB/s, according to HighPoint.

A notable design feature of the SSD7749M2 is dual-sided, vertically aligned M.2 trays, which can hold up to 16 M.2-2280 form-factor drives on a single side of the PCB. This opens doors to installing an SSD7749M2-based storage subsystem into regular desktop PCs and simplifies servicing. The beauty of such alignment is that these SSDs can carry a heatspreader to ensure this consistent performance; the wrong side is that it limits compatibility to several drives. HighPoint recommends the usage of Samsung 990 Pro or Sabrent Rocket 4Plus drives.

Speaking of cooling in general, the SSD7749M2 SSD RAID card comes with an active cooling system for its PCIe switch (or switches?) and two high-pressure fans to cool down the drives. This, of course, means that the storage subsystem is probably loud, but then again, if you need 128 TB of NAND memory at 28 GB/s, then there are disadvantages, too.

The SSD7749M2 is not exactly aimed at gaming desktops but rather at workstations and servers. The device features an advanced NVMe storage management and monitoring suite that allows administrators to configure and maintain the platform's NVMe ecosystem. It treats RAID arrays as single physical disks for versatile use as application drives, scratch disks, data archiving, or hosting bootable OSs and virtualization platforms.

Additionally, the SSD7749M2 is secured by the Gen4 Data Security Suite, which offers SafeStorage encryption and a hardware-secure boot to prevent unauthorized access and protect against malicious code during system boot-up. This ensures security even if the physical disks are lost or stolen.

The SSD7749M2, HHighPoint's RAID add-in card(AIC), will start shipping in late August 2024 with a base model priced at $1999. Additional configurations, which include pre-installed SSDs like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and Samsung 990 PRO, will be available, although their specific pricing details have not yet been disclosed.

Those searching for higher performance than the best SSDs can offer may be interested in hearing about HighPoint unveiling the brand's latest RAID controller card, the HighPoint Rocket 1608A. The HighPoint Rocket 1608A is a hardware RAID card that leverages eight PCIe 5.0 / PCIe 4.0 x4 slots (only four full-speed drives can be used at a time if Gen 5), all controlled by a Broadcom PEX89048 chip to drive up to 56 GB/s throughput.

According to Broadcom, the PEX89048 chip is a "48-lane, 48-port, PCI Express Gen 5.0 ExpressFabric Platform." ExpressFabric refers to the technology used to allow for rapid PCIe switching between otherwise standard NVMe drives, making speeds like this possible in a RAID 0 configuration. It is how you're achieving NVMe speeds faster than individual drives with the help of this RAID controller card.

HighPoint's NVME switching technology is currently achieving roughly 56 GB/s of PCIe Gen 5's theoretical maximum of 64 GB/s. According to their official Switching Technology page, this is because PCIe Gen 5 devices are "more sensitive to signal degradation," which is worsened by limited PCIe lanes and the best signal/stability being reserved for GPUs.

Further claims on HighPoint's page point toward their technology and the onboard Broadcom ExpressFabric chip, which is used to maintain signal integrity and low latency across all drives installed within these hardware RAID arrays.

Overall, this latest HighPoint offering does seem like it may be interesting— though it isn't that much better than its prior best 55 GB/s showing in 2022. Solutions like GraidTech's SupremeRAID cards— "GPU RAID"— may achieve even faster speeds of up to 80 GB/s. It's worth noting that most of these hardware RAID solutions— especially SupremeRAID— seem to be focused on improving RAID array speed and throughput, with minimal, if any, focus on enhancing RAID stability or redundancy.

It's still impressive that there are solutions capable of taking the modern-day blazing-fast SSDs and making them even faster, though. Our current top PCIe 5.0 drive, the Crucial T705 2TB, tops out at 14.5 GB/s in read speeds for your reference against  HighPoint's 56 GB/s showing and SupremeRAID's 80 GB/s.

It looks as though MSI is nearly ready to push its Spatium M570 Pro PCIe 5.0 SSD out the door. The company showed off its latest SSDs at its Computex booth in Taipei this week, and we were able to get up close and personal with two versions of the SSD. We first saw the SSD earlier this year at MSI’s CES booth, where it hit sequential read and write speeds of 12,000 MBps and 10,000 MBps, respectively. In the months since that early look, MSI was able to ratchet up performance to place it among the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs for 2023.

MSI showed off the Spatium Pro M570 Pro in Frozr and Frozer+ versions. The former has a massive, passively cooled heatsink with beefy pipes to dissipate heat. The company says that this arrangement reduces temperatures by up to 20 degrees Celsius. The Frozr+ ups the stakes with a Torx 5.0 fan and ARGB lighting. The fan helps reduce temperatures by a further 10 degrees Celsius. Performance is identical between the Frozr and the Frozr+, but the latter runs cooler under load.

MSI’s latest performance benchmarks from CrystalDiskMark show the Spatium M570 Pro surpassing 14,200 MBps in sequential reads, while sequential writes come in at well over 12,000 MBps. That puts the read performance slightly behind the T-Force Z54A but ahead in write performance. However, we must caution that there’s more to SSD performance than the raw sequential read/write speeds, but MSI is still looking very strong with this new entry into the PCIe 5.0 SSD field.

But that isn't all. MSI also showed off the Spatium Pro M570 Pro Frozr running in RAID 0, where sequential reads jumped to 22 GBps, while sequential writes climbed to 23 GBps.

The Spatium M570 Pro family uses the Phison PS5026-E26 controller, which we expect to see in the bulk of PCIe 5.0 SSDs released this year. The aforementioned T-Force Z54A used the Innogrit IG5666 controller. The SSD also uses 232-layer 2,400 MTs NAND. As with almost every PCIe 5.0 SSD we’ve seen so far, the M570 Pro features a beefy heatsink and a vapor chamber plate to maintain consistent performance under load. Without a sufficient cooling solution, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are highly susceptible to thermal throttling, which explains the elaborate setups in place. 

The less performant Spatium M570 (10,000 MBps for sequential reads and writes) is already available from retailers in 1TB and 2TB capacities. For example, the 2TB Spatium M570 costs $349.99 at Newegg. However, MSI has yet to elaborate on availability for the Spatium M570 Pro other than to say that it would be available in Q2, which is quickly coming to a close.

The Spatium M570 Pro Frozr and Frozr+ will be available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities when they launch in Q3 2023, and we’re expecting that it will come with a generous pricing premium over their “non-Pro” sibling.

Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus SSD is one of the best SSDs around. Now imagine glomming 21 of these PCIe 4.0 SSDs together, because that's precisely what Sabrent has planned for the company's next product. The upcoming Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer will arrive with 21 Rocket 4 Plus 8TB drives to offer unprecedented storage capacity and transfer speeds.

Sabrent is still conducting in-house testing on the Apex X21 Destroyer. However, the company said it easily achieved sequential read and write speeds of 31 GB/s. Sabrent's results even surpassed Apex Storage's figures, which rate the X21 with a sequential performance of 30.5 GBps reads and 28.5 GBps writes.

If you look at the brand's past products, such as the Sabrent RocketQ Battleship, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer, or Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, it's easy to see that Sabrent has a sweet tooth for big storage solutions. However, the Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer is on an entirely different level. Previous solutions saw Sabrent assembling a crew of eight SSDs. Now, the Sabrent Apex X21 Destroyer has enough landscape for 21 drives, offering almost three times the storage and significantly more performance.

Sabrent's Apex X21 Destroyer is based on the X21 from Apex Storage. While Sabrent's prior AICs leverage the HighPoint SSD7540 PCIe 4.0 x16 RAID card, the Apex Storage X21 doesn't feature a RAID controller. Instead, it utilizes a pair of unnamed PCIe 4.0 switches. This allows consumers more freedom to set up the AIC to suit their needs. Nonetheless, the Apex Storage X21 is bootable and supports RAID arrays through software or third-party hardware solutions, like the ones from GRAID.

The X21 features a passive cooling design because the riser card's primary target is the server market. However, when deployed inside a regular system or even a workstation, the X21 will require some form of active cooling assistance. This is because so many PCIe 4.0 SSDs packaged together will output a fair amount of heat. Apex Storage recommends at least 400 LFM of airflow for the X21. In addition, given the considerable number of drives on the X21, the AIC needs two 8-pin PCIe power connectors to feed the entire lot of SSDs. It's basically like a high-end graphics card when fully loaded, at least from the power requirements perspective.

It's worth pointing out that maximum performance ends up being limited by the x16 PCIe 4.0 connection to the card. A single Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB can hit peak transfer rates of just over 7,000 MB/s in our testing, so 21 of them in aggregate could theoretically deliver 147 GB/s. However, an x16 PCIe 4.0 slot tops out at 16 GT/s per lane, and with 128b/130b encoding you're limited to at most 31.5 GB/s of actual throughput.

Sabrent hasn't established a price tag for the Apex X21 Destroyer yet, and there's no estimated time frame for when the AIC will release. Considering that each Rocket 4 Plus 8TB SSD currently retails for $1,099 (down from an official MSRP of $1,999 at launch), it would be foolish to think that the Apex X21 Destroyer will sell for less than $23,000. Moreover, the X21 sells for $2,800, so we have to factor that into the pricing. Even if Apex Storage offers discounts on volume purchases, the X21 still costs an am and a leg.

Gaming laptops are getting tall. This year, an increasing number of the best gaming laptops have moved to loftier screens with 16:10 aspect ratios, showing more of your games and work than ever before. The MSI Raider GE78 HX ($2,999.99 as tested) has been redesigned around this new screen size, with a race car-inspired look, funky RGB light bar and room for both an Intel Core i9-13950HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU.

The redesign gets a lot right. The system performs well and has a colorful display. The keyboard, while set back further than I'd like, is comfortable to type on. And there areplenty of ports on the system for work and play alike.

Those who regularly upgrade their PCs might want to consider the surprising difficulty of getting the base off of the system (though it is definitely possible, and there are plenty of repair opportunities when you're in there).But you may want to get a pair of headphones to block out the fan noise.

Design of the MSI Raider GE78HX

 The GE78HX Raider is embracing its identity as a gaming machine. For the last couple of years, MSI's Raiders were restrained in their design (or at least as restrained as you can be with an RGB light bar), using a silvery-blue finish that could almost fool you into thinking the laptop wasn't designed to help you take down opponents in first-person shooters. But this year, the Raider looks like its more expensive sibling, the Titan, with a red-striped racecar detail and a shiny black aluminum lid with an RGB dragon shield. Yep, we're back to gaming PCs looking like they're meant for teens.

MSI's signature here is a lightbar on the underside of the front of the system. While previous light bars have diffused the individual LEDs into one amorphous blob of light, this time the design looks like a bunch of tiny square bubs. It's just as colorful, but it's also kind of retro, like something you might find on a jukebox. As far as RGB goes, this is at least unique.

The 17-inch, 2560 x 1600 display is flanked by minimal bezels, though the top has a bit of extra chunk to fit the 1080p webcam with a privacy shutter.

There are ports dispersed across both sides and the back of the laptop. The left side has a Thunderbolt 4 port, an SD card slot and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The right side has a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. In the back, there's an Ethernet port, HDMI 2.1, another USB Type-C port, and the power jack (which is shaped a bit like a USB-A port), but is not.
 

MSI's new Raider is 6.83 pounds and measures 14.97 x  11.73 x 1.13 inches. It just fit into my backpack — the mix of a taller screen and the ports on a bump on the back made it a squeeze. But it's far more portable than MSI's deskbound Titan GT77 HX, which is 7.28 pounds and 16.63 x 12.99 x 0.91 inches. If you want something a bit smaller, the Gigabyte Aorus 15X is 14.1 x 10.8 x 0.78 inches and 5.79 pounds, while the Asus ROG Strix G16 is 13.94 x 10.39 x 0.89 inches and 5.51 pounds

MSI Raider GE78 HX Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

The Raider is one of the first systems we've seen with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, which, paired with an Intel Core i9-13950HX, proved to be powerful in gaming tests.

I used MSI's laptop to play Deathloop, which worked well at the native 2560 x 1600. On very high settings, it ran between 87 and 94 fps as Colt pursued Egor through Array Y.

The Raider often came close behind its larger sibling, the Titan with an RTX 4090, and advanced ahead of its the Gigabyte Aorus and Asus ROG Strix (both toting RTX 4070 GPUs) in 1080p. Native resolution comparisons were more complicated though, as these laptops stretched across various resolutions and aspect ratios.

MSI's new Raider came in reliably behind the more powerful Titan in 1080p on Shadow of the Tomb Raider (177 fps), Grand Theft Auto V (157 fps), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (115 fps) and Borderlands 3 (153 fps). It did outperform on Far Cry 6, at 121 fps, though that game is notoriously CPU-reliant.

At its native 1600p, the RTX 4080 in the Raider beat the RTX 4070 pushing a lower 1440p in all of our gaming tests. In games with DLSS support, such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metro Exodus, quality mode upscaling can generally improve performance by 30–50 percent, sometimes more, and the resulting image quality often competes well against native rendering. DLSS 3 Frame Generation, where supported, can artificially boost the rate of frames sent to your display by 50–100%, but it causes additional latency and the actual feel of games with DLSS 3 doesn't improve nearly as much as the higher FPS would indicate. It's not a bad option to have, but personal preference becomes a real factor in what Frame Generation does to the overall experience.

To stress test laptops, we run the Metro Exodus benchmark on the RTX preset for 15 runs, simulating half an hour of gameplay. During the stress test, the Raider ran the game at an average of 75.37 fps (and was typically within two frames of that frame rate.) The CPU ran at an average of 2.85 GHz on the performance cores and 2.21 GHz on the efficient cores; the CPU package measured 53.09 degrees Celsius. The GPU ran at 1,190.38 MHz and measured 44.56 degrees Celsius.

Productivity Performance on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

The Raider, with an Intel Core i9-13950HX, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of storage, has the makings of a monster productivity machine.

On Geekbench 5, the Raider reached a single-core score of 2,121 and a multi-core score of 21,063. Interestingly, in single-core, it was beaten only by the Aorus 15X (Core i9-13900HX) at 2,705. The Raider took the top score on multi-core among the systems, including the Strix G16 with Core i9-13980HX boasting ever-so-slightly higher boost clocks.

All of the laptops were quick at copying 25GB of files in our file transfer test. The Raider copied the files at 1,715.14 MBps, just in range of the Gigabyte but slower than the Titan (2,299.26 MBps). The Strix was the slowest here, but still serviceable. 

The Raider completed our Handbrake video editing test in 4 minutes and 8 seconds, beating both of its smaller rivals. It was smoked, however, by the Titan, which completed the same task in 2:38.

Display on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

MSI's display is impressive. It's bright and colorful, with a 17-inch diagonal and a 2560 x 1600 resolution at up to 240 Hz. The 16:10 aspect ratio is new for the Raider, and allows for a taller screen, which I typically associate with being useful for productivity work more than gaming. That said, the RTX 4080 can likely push the extra pixels above 16:9.

When I played Deathloop, a sunset over Array Y cast a lovely golden glow over the level's wheatgrass fields. Shadows and reflections looked great, though in some dark levels I wished I could turn the brightness up slightly.

I used the Raider to stream the trailer for Power Rangers: Once & Always so that I could feel like it's the '90s again. The colors were excellent, and every ranger suit was exactly as I remembered it when I was in grade school. In some darker scenes in the Command Center, it would've been nice to make it slightly brighter, but it wasn't a major issue. (None of this can fix the trailer's bad CGI, but then again, I suppose that's loyal to the source material.)

The Raider's 2560 x 1600 panel covered 163% of the sRGB gamut and 115.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. That puts it on par with the Titan's Mini LED panel. But the Titan is way brighter, at 511 nits to the Raider's 412 nits, which makes a difference.

The Aorus and Strix were both similar, covering 106 and 107% of the sRGB gamut, respectively, and measuring 277 and 279 nits of brightness.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

While MSI didn't opt for a mechanical keyboard here as it did on the Titan, I like a lot of the work it's done on the Raider. The company has fit in a full keyboard and a number pad, for those who like the extra numbers for macros (or Excel — who am I to judge?). The right shift key is a bit short to fit it in, but that wasn't an issue for me.

With this redesign, MSI is highlighting both sets of arrow keys. The WASD keys are clear, allowing more RGB lighting to show through. The arrow keys also serve as shortcuts to add a reticle to the screen, change fan speeds, play or pause media or turn off the touchpad. Behind those icons, the arrows are lit up by RGB. It's a cool effect, assuming you like the colorful backlighting.

My experience with the keys was good. They have linear travel, but come down with a thunk, and I appreciate that feedback. My only real issue was that the 5.1 x 3.2-inch touchpad is so tall that I had to reach further than expected onto the deck to actually type, which wasn't the most comfortable feeling. Still, on monkeytype, I hit 122 words per minute at 98% accuracy.

That giant touchpad, which takes advantage of the extra room from a taller screen, is smooth, responsive and feels solid when you click it. I had no issues with it, including with gestures, during testing. But the big touchpad and long deck mean you have to reach in further than you do on 16:9 laptops. I was halfway to my elbows to reach the top row — it was like having my fingers sit in the front row of a movie theatre, they were so close to the screen.

Audio on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

The Raider's speakers, which appear to spell out MSI, are potent. The two top-facing speakers and the four woofers did justice to Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun," balancing Chris Cornell's crooning vocals with slow synths and wailing guitars. There's even some bass there, as well, and punchy drums on the low end. And the speakers get loud, easily filling a room before hitting 100% volume.

When I played Deathloop, I could hear faraway gunfire, which helped me decide which parts of levels to avoid. Music was clear, and my own weapons were plenty loud when it came time to fire them.

The pre-installed Nahimic software has a few profiles, like music (the default), movie and gaming. I used the sliders to increase the bass a bit, but I think most people will be satisfied without changing anything.

Upgradeability of the MSI Raider GE78 HX

To open the MSI Raider GE78 HX, you'll need to take out 13 Phillips head screws. One is hidden under a factory seal sticker, but there's no removing rubber feet, which is nice. 

Prying the base off requires intense patience. I used a guitar pick-style tool to carefully work my way around the base. Loosening the clips was an exercise in frustration, including carefully getting in between the light bar and the bottom of the laptop. Eventually, it did come off, though I was surprised that it left a part above the laptop behind the hinge feeling loose.

The upgrade options here are pretty standard for a gaming laptop. The Wi-Fi card, RAM, SSD and battery are all accessible. There's an extra SSD card slot (and some extra shielding for when you install it) on our unit, allowing you to expand your storage when you need it. The RAM, which is also under a shield, can also be easily swapped out.

Closing the laptop is its own headache. It took myself and a colleague working together to line up the bottom, which has to work its way over the hinge. Even then, the audio jack wasn't aligned right on the first try. So while you can upgrade this laptop, do it knowing you'll need to set some extra time aside.

Battery Life on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

MSI's 99 WHr battery didn't prove to be long-lasting in our testing. The Raider only managed to browse the web, stream videos and run OpenGL tests with the screen at 150 nits of brightness for 2 hours and 32 minutes. That's the lowest of the group, with the Titan coming in at 3:58 and the Strix lasting a surprising 8:49.

Heat on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

When the Raider gets going, the fans run loud. Heck, sometimes they run that way at boot. But can those fans keep the system cool? To find out, we measured skin temperatures while running our Metro Exodus stress test.

At the center of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, it measured 37.6 degrees Celsius (99.68 Fahrenheit), which may get toasty after prolonged gameplay. The touchpad was cooler at 26.6 C (79.88 F), though for gaming you're best off using a mouse.

The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop measured 44.6 C (112.28 F), while another hotspot hit 43.5 C (110.3 F). These weren't by exhaust, but rather in line with where the cooling solution is.

Webcam on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

The webcam on the Raider is a 1080p lens with an included privacy shutter. I don't see a ton of these shutters on gaming laptops, but it's an easy way to cover your camera without resorting to a sticker.

The standard camera works in conjunction with an IR camera to let you login with facial recognition using Windows Hello. In my experience, it let me log in quickly without issue.

The 1080p camera took detailed images and videos, showing off all of my hair and some developing wrinkles on my forehead. It was a bit dark, however, and my gray and blue shirt appeared to be almost in shadow.

Software and Warranty on the MSI Raider GE78 HX

There's no shortage of software preloaded on the Raider. The main app is MSI Center, which is supposed to be MSI's catch-all program for monitoring hardware status, grabbing serial numbers, switching power profiles and more. There are a number of optional modules to add, though the one I really wanted — Mystic Light to control RGB devices — kept failing to install.

Other MSI software includes True Color, to change screen temperature, toggle anti-blue light effects and switch to a movie mode, and MSI App Player, which lets you run Android apps in Windows (this seems wasteful when the Amazon Store is supported on Windows, though this does support the Play Store). Nahimic is on board for audio customization, while SteelSeries GG controls RGB on the keyboard and light bar.

Of course, there's a bunch of extra icons in the Windows Start menu, including WhatsApp, ESPN, Prime Video, TikTok and Instagram, which download when you click them.

MSI sells the Raider GE78HX with a 1-year warranty.

Configurations of the MSI Raider GE78 HX

We tested a $2,999.99 version of the MSI Rader GE78 HX with an Intel Core i9-13950HX, Nvidia RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage and a 17-inch, 240 Hz display. As of this writing, it's available at Micro Center, though the $2,9999 price is technically on sale. Micro Center originally had it listed at $3,299.99, but this sale price matches MSI's MSRP.

That's the cheapest version I saw. On MSI's site, a version identical to our review unit, but with a Core i9-13980HX 64GB of RAM, is $3,599.99 but out of stock, while a $4,000 option with an RTX 4090 and a Core i9-13980HX is also listed but not yet for sale (Amazon lists this version for $4,199, but actually has it in stock as of this writing).

Bottom Line

If you're looking for a gaming laptop that's powerful and just small enough to still be reasonably portable, the Raider GE78 HX is highly recommended. It offers strong performance, a bright display and plenty of ports, even if it gets kind of loud.

Those who want more power may want to consider going to even more premium laptops, like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 or MSI Titan GT77 HX, which are even larger and pack Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090, though those get a pretty serious price bump. Those who want something a bit smaller could opt for Asus' ROG Strix G16, though that has less power as we reviewed it, a 720p webcam and far more limited display resolutions.

That makes MSI's 17-inch powerhouse solid on paper, but also in our testing. It's a potent performer with a beautiful display. But if you're going to put a new SSD in, bring lots of patience along with with your screwdriver.

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Pimoroni's Tufty2040 is a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered color LCD badge, but it can do much more than names. Coder Pixylatte has coded the Atari classic River Raid in MicroPython for Tufty2040 — and it looks perfect.

For those of us too young to remember (I wish that were the case), River Raid was released in 1982 for the Atari 2600 games console (I remember playing it on a Commodore 64). The goal of the game is to fly your jet fighter down a river, attacking enemy vehicles as you fly. You have to dodge attacks and vehicles and make sure you have enough fuel to carry on your mission — "Don't shoot the fuel tanks," is what I would tell my younger self. 

The game never ends, but bridges act as checkpoints along the way to measure your progress, and each life lost returns you to the previous bridge.

Pixylatte's version of the game is coded entirely in MicroPython, and is added as a menu item to the default Tufty 2040 menu. This means that a simple name badge can be quickly turned into a game badge when we're taking a break at a conference!

The coding for the game is fabulous — it uses a sprite map (a large grid of sprites that are swapped as needed) for the game assets. The MicroPython code reacts to player input to control the direction and speed of the jet, along with a button to fire at your enemies. The enemy sprites fly left to right on the screen, dodging your fire as your fly further up the river.

Protecting Tufty2040 from the rigours of gaming is a 3D printed case — one that could be easily reproduced on any of the best 3D printers. The case, designed by Funkypiwy (aka Pierre-yves Baloche) provides great protection to the perimeter of Tufty2040 and also has an optional stand. It appears that Pixylatte has printed a different case back — one which has an integrated coin cell battery pack. You can also design your own case for the Tufty2040.

Pixylatte's project is great fun — you can find all of the details on their GitHub repository.

Intel surprisingly posted a product change notice on January 6 that it had decided to discontinue its important Virtual Raid on CPU (VROC) technology that is popular with its data center Xeon chips, including the fourth-gen Xeon models that launched last week. The feature is also present on some of Intel's consumer-focused Core models. Last week we reached out to Intel for details about the unexpected change, and today we're told the notice was posted prematurely.

“The PCN was prematurely posted while the decision was under evaluation. After discussing with the ecosystem and customers we realize there is significant demand for this product and intend to continue to support it.” — Intel Spokesperson to Tom's Hardware.

The VROC functionality is activated via different types of physical RAID keys that plug into the motherboard, each enabling a different level of RAID support. The keys cost between $100 for basic functionality to $250 for the full-featured model. Intel also offered these keys for consumer systems for some time, but they didn't gain much traction. 

Surprisingly, Intel originally posted January 23, 2023, as the last order date for the products. That's a mere 17 days after the initial posting that announced that "all support for VROC (Virtual Raid on CPU) software will be discontinued." Now we've learned that won't be the case.

This isn't the first time the company has issued a product notice in error — with a product stack as broad as Intel's, mistakes are bound to happen. Much like when the company put out a notice that its consumer chips were dying from a bus degradation issue, but later moonwalked the statement back to say the notice was in error.

The VROC feature debuted in 2017 to simplify and reduce the cost of high-performance storage arrays, and it has enjoyed broad uptake in enterprise applications. The feature brings NVMe RAID functionality on-die to the CPU for SSD storage devices, thus providing many of the performance, redundancy, bootability, manageability, and serviceability benefits that were previously only accessible with an additional device, like a RAID card or HBA. Thus, VROC gives users a host of high-performance storage features without the added cost, power consumption, heat, and complexity of another component, like a RAID card or HBA, in the chassis — not to mention extra cabling.

Pat Gelsinger's shift to focusing on the company's core competency — logic chips — has seen the company stepping away from several of its 'adjacencies,' like its storage business. It's unclear if the uncertainty that formed around the VROC tech stems from Intel's sale of its storage business to SK hynix, which also contributed to the company ceasing further development of its Optane-based products as it sells off its remaining inventory. Intel designed its VROC software to also work in tandem with its own storage products, so it's possible that the groups responsible for this software were within the storage organization that is headed to SK hynix as part of the sale.

In either case, users and OEMs alike have nothing to worry about, as Intel has decided to continue supporting the VROC feature. As such, the company has removed the original cancellation notice.

MSI is revamping its portfolio of gaming PCs at CES 2023, starting from its top-tier Titan down to a slew of new mid-tier and budget offerings. All of the laptops are jumping up to Intel's 13th Gen processors, and most of the laptop top offerings are coming with Nvidia's newly announced RTX 40-series. Almost every laptop has a Mux switch, and the top-end offerings are among the first laptops we're seeing with PCIe Gen 5 storage.

A refreshed Titan leads the pack. The Titan GT77 HX 13V will have up to 250W of power consumption between the CPU and GPU, and MSI says it will run the Core i9-13980HX on all eight P-cores at 5.2 GHz. MSI is leaving the Titan’s display at 16:9 aspect ratio, seemingly a rarity this year, but moving the 17-inch, 4K, 144 Hz display to Mini LED with support for DisplayHDR 1000. Next-gen Nvidia mobile GPUs, up to an RTX 4090, should increase performance 50% gen-over-gen. The Titan is also getting both DDR5 and PCie Gen 5 storage, which is new.

The Titan will also get a Cherry mechanical keyboard and will maintain its 99.9 WHr battery. It will start at $4,299 with an i9 and RTX 4080 with 64GB of RAM, and top out at $5,299 with an RTX 4090, 128GB of RAM and 4TB of storage.  It's expected in February.

The Raider GE series is getting a bit of a glow up with the GE78 HX and GE68 HX, which will top out at the same CPU and GPU and the Titan. A new design brings a 16:10 display and a light bar that lets you see each individual light, which is a neat retro effect. They have 1080p webcams, physical shutters and six speakers. They look a bit more like the Titan, though shouldn't be as heavy. These are also getting DDR5 and M.2 PCIe Gen 5.

The Raider GE68HX will start at $2,299 with an i9, RTX 4060, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD, and go up to $2,6999 with an RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. The GE78HX will begin at $2,999 with an i9 and RTX 4080, and to pout with an i9 and RTX 4090 at $3,999. It's expected in the middle of February.

At its CES booth in Las Vegas, MSI ran Crystal Disk Mark on a Raider GE78HX using its own Spatium 570 Pro. It showed blazing sequential read speeds of 12,301 MB/s and write speeds of 8,972 MB/s.

With the Vector GP78 HX and GP68 HX, you take a step down. There's RGB on the keyboard, but nowhere else. You still get the 16:10 displays at QHD+ and an i9, but the GPU stops at an RTX 4070, and the SSD is PCIe Gen 4. The Stealth 14 and 16 Studio are kind of outliers. They're getting Nvidia Studio drivers, but MSI still positions them as gaming laptops, with up to an RTX 4070, an i9 on the 16-incher and an i7 on the 14-incher, along with DDR5 and PCie Gen 4. These will come in two colors: "pure white" and "star blue," and include some RGB in vents in the shape of the word "Stealth," which doesn't seem so, well, stealthy to me. The Stealth 17 Studio will maintain the same chassis.

The Stealth 16 Studio will be available at Best Buy with a Core i7 and RTX 4070, starting at $1,999. The Stealth 14 Studio with a Core i7 and RTX 4060, will launch at $1,599. These are expected for late February, and pricing at other stores hasn't been finalized yet.

Budget and Mid-Range Options

MSI's budget and mid-range laptops are also getting a refresh. There's one new entrant: the Cyborg 15, using partially translucent materials, a Core i7 and either an RTX 4050 or 4060 (this is the only laptop in MSI's whole lineup without a Mux switch. It will start at $999.

The Pulse 15 and 17 will go up to an i7 and an RTX 4070, running at 140W, along with a QHD, 240 Hz display and four-zone RGB. Its top-cover is getting a new look, with a very large MSI logo. It will start at $1,449.

The Katana 15 and 17 will go up to an i7 and RTX 4070 as well, with a 1080p, 144 Hz screen. The Sword 15 and Sword 17 are expected to have very similar specs. The Katana will start at $999.

In addition to its gaming machines, MSI is adding 13th Gen Intel processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series graphics to its Creator line, including the Creator Z17 and X16 HX Studio (each with vapor chamber cooling) and is updating its Prestige business notebooks and Modern ultrabooks with 13th Gen Core.

Updated Jan. 5, 1:05 p.m. ET with more details about SSD benchmarks MSI ran on the Raider GE78HX.

Building a NAS box is one of the most popular things to do with a single-board computer, and this newly available carrier board from Radxa - known as the Taco - features plenty of SATA ports for you to connect hard drives too. Powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 or a compatible board such as the Radxa CM3, it just needs a suitable case to make a fine storage device.

As it uses a Compute Module, the carrier board has to supply all the ports, and this one has been neatly designed for network storage use with five SATA interfaces, each capable of taking a 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD up to 15mm (0.6in) thick. If you want to use 3.5in drives, that’s possible too with an extension cable. You can arrange the drives using software RAID in RAID 0, 1 or 5 configurations (with the last one requiring at least three disks). There's no mention of a maximum drive capacity.

In addition to this you get an M.2 M Key 2280 socket for an NVMe SSD, and a Micro SD card slot. There's another M.2 socket too, an E Key for a Wi-Fi module or a Google Coral AI accelerator. There's an optional OLED status screen too, and activity LEDs for all the drives.

The whole board hinges on a high-speed PCIe switch, so you get a pair of fast Ethernet ports to provide the wired connectivity more common in NAS boxes, one of them plain old gigabit and the other 2.5Gbe. You also get a USB 2.0 port that enables direct drive access from a PC, and an HDMI output, plus PWM fan control for cooling all those drives. Power comes from a 12V DC input, or an ATX power supply.

Measuring just 110 x 85mm (4.3x3.3in), the board is crying out for a case, as the drives plug into the bottom, leaving the Compute Module and other components exposed on the top. This could make an interesting 3D printing project, but a kit that includes one should be available soon. Right now the board itself is available from AllNet China for $95, but bear in mind you will have to source your Compute Module and drives separately.

There are alternatives, such as the Argon EON which we reviewed and gave an Editor's Choice award to. This all-in-one unit is made for the Raspberry Pi 4 and wraps all of the drives in a rather "Flatiron" looking package.

The Seagate SkyHawk AI hard drive is now available at up to 20TB for network video recorders (NVRs), AI video and imaging analytics, plus general server use. This HDD uses conventional magnetic recording (CMR) rather than shingled (SMR) to give the best performance for these workloads. Compared to Seagate’s Exos X20, the SkyHawk AI comes with three years of data recovery, ImagePerfect AI, and explicit support for up to 32 AI streams and 64 HD cameras. The regular SkyHawk has a shorter standard warranty, a lower workload rate limit (WRL), no explicit AI stream support, and is only available in smaller capacities.

The SkyHawk line of drives is set apart by Seagate’s surveillance-focused ImagePerfect firmware. It improves video and imaging workload performance and reliability through multi-tier caching (MTC), the ATA-8 streaming command set, write-intensive workload optimization, superior error correction code (ECC), and scheduler optimization. The latter two ensure that image quality remains high and that no frames are dropped. The rest help ensure that multiple sequential write streams can be maintained, perfect for HD video camera recording. The AI models tweak performance further for analytical workloads.

Specifications

The 20TB Seagate SkyHawk AI HDD is very similar to the 20TB Seagate Exos X20, with the regular SkyHawk being closer to the IronWolf Pro. This makes sense as the hardware is effectively the same, although there are firmware and support differences. At the time of review the 20TB SkyHawk AI was priced the same as the Exos X20 on Amazon at $459.99, making it the better deal. Cheaper 20TB drives from rivals, for example the 20TB WD Red Pro NAS, offer a general-purpose alternative.

The 3.5” 20TB SkyHawk AI only uses the SATA interface at 7200 RPM, and it can reach a sustained transfer rate of 285 MBps with a higher burst transfer rate. This is with CMR technology and 256MB of cache. Seagate states that this drive can handle up to 32 AI streams or channels with 120 real-time AI capture events per second or 96 compare events per second. The drive also supports up to 64 high definition cameras, as with the regular SkyHawk. Seagate also says this drive can do video analysis and recording simultaneously during GPU analytics workloads.

The standard 5-year warranty is backed by an additional 3-year +Rescue services warranty that includes data recovery. Seagate promises one attempt at data recovery with a claimed overall success rate of 95%. The recovered data is encrypted and returned. The drive also comes with SkyHawk Health Management (SHM) with RAID RapidRebuild. Other features include PowerChoice to improve efficiency and rotational vibration (RV) sensors to improve reliability, plus AcuTrac technology to improve functionality in multi-bay surveillance systems.

The SkyHawk AI has a workload rate limit (WRL) of 550TB, which is the threshold amount of data transfer per year to maintain the expected lifespan.

Software and Accessories

Beyond the recovery services, Seagate also offers multiple software downloads for this HDD. This includes SeaTools, an application designed to test the drive for health issues. Seagate offers a bootable version of these tools so you can boot from USB to test your drives. Seagate also offers a download for DiscWizard, an application that lets you backup and securely erase your data.

A Closer Look

The SkyHawk AI is an attractive HDD with a label that clearly indicates it is for video processing with the “surveillance” subtitle.

This drive has the typical connectors for SATA power and data. On-board we have DRAM for use as a write cache, a spindle motor controller, and Seagate’s main drive controller.

We see the three main components again. This is very similar to the Exos X20 internals. In this case, the memory is DDR3 rather than the DDR3L we found in the Exos. Seagate touts the size of this cache as being useful for buffering data streams. Traditionally, HDDs use volatile cache to buffer and merge writes to improve random write performance. Read performance improvements are more limited due to the relatively small size of the cache.

Seagate’s MTC is designed to add additional layers of caching with specialized roles, for example with a media cache (MC) layer to handle bursty workloads. The MC is not particularly useful with a drive like this as recording is sequential in nature, but MTC more broadly is the basis for the ImagePerfect firmware.

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Comparison Products

The 20TB Seagate SkyHawk AI is up against the 20TB Seagate IronWolf Pro and 20TB Seagate Exos X20, two drives we have also reviewed. We also have the 8TB Seagate IronWolf Pro, the 8TB HGST UltraStar He8, and 6TB WD Black.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The SkyHawk is the best in this test, although the 20TB IronWolf Pro comes close. The three older, less capacious drives fall behind. Given that this isn’t the intended workload for this drive, it is surprising to see such a strong showing.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The SkyHawk is right up there with the Exos X20 and 20TB IronWolf Pro in PCMark 10. That’s not surprising, as they have similar hardware. We can see that performance scales with capacity, but also that earlier drive technology was not as fast.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

Our test results are closer in Diskbench because the benchmark is sequential in nature. The WD Black has a strong showing. The He8, in particular, cannot keep up with the newer drives.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that storage vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The ATTO results demonstrate pretty clearly how HDD technology works, as compared to our SSD review results. Performance generally flatlines past 16KB. The exception would be the He8, which struggles, particularly with writes. We see this reflected in the sequential results.

HDDs simply have terrible random I/O performance in comparison to HDDs, particularly at the smaller 4KB size. The smaller drives actually show better latency with 4K, emphasizing this point. Of course, you will generally not use HDDs for workloads that rely on this type of performance — the SkyHawk AI is specifically tuned for sequential streams.

Sustained Write Performance

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most HDDs implement a write cache which is a fast area of volatile memory such as DRAM. Sustained write speeds directly hit the platters and tend to be consistent. There are exceptions to both of these statements as there are SSHDs (flash-containing hybrid HDDs), OptiNAND drives, and SMR drives that deviate from the traditional configuration. We use Iometer to detect the maximum sustained write speed of the HDD.

Sequential write performance is consistent and very close to the marketed values. The 20TB SkyHawk AI is very similar to the 20TB IronWolf Pro and Exos X20. The gains over older, smaller drives are not particularly massive. If you’re doing a lot of very large writes, like file transfers of large files, this level of performance can actually be superior to QLC SSD.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some drives can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We don’t expect miracles with power consumption, but the SkyHawk AI is the best of the tested drives. The WD Black does surprisingly well, again. Seagate rates the 20TB SkyHawk AI at 7.5W average under load with 3.5W idle and 1W standby.

This drive has PowerChoice which has default and configurable settings for power management. This includes three idle and one standby state with variable timer values with the extended power conditions (EPC) feature set, although modifying these can impact reliability.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

Conclusion

The 20TB Seagate SkyHawk AI hard drive is essentially an Exos X20 in disguise, although there are some improvements. Performance is equal or better, but Seagate also promises specific performance capabilities thanks to its ImagePerfect technology. The SkyHawk AI also comes with a better warranty as it has three-year data recovery services included. As this HDD is designed for video recording and processing, this is a very valuable feature, although no one wants to lose important data. 20TB with CMR technology also fits video and imaging workloads very well, even for complex systems, and this drive is designed to work in multi-bay environments.

This drive has a much higher workload rating (think of this as similar to an endurance rating with SSDs) than the regular SkyHawk and the analogous IronWolf Pro. The drive is backed up with software support as well as SkyHawk Health Management. Other expected features, like rotational vibration sensors, are included. Power efficiency is fair, although this can be tailored via PowerChoice for specific environments. Much of this appears to be simple marketing, but Seagate’s willingness to back the drive with data recovery services does at least offer peace of mind.

We reviewed the Exos X20 earlier this year and its pricing left quite a bit to be desired. The price on this drive remains higher, if you can even find it, which makes it difficult to recommend unless you really need this much storage capacity per drive. It is available in smaller capacities, of course, but higher-capacity drives are always in demand, particularly for the intended workloads. While this drive is useful for general purpose applications, it’s ideally suited to video work, which can help justify its cost, particularly if you need multiple reliable drives for critical tasks.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider just received a new update featuring support for Intel's new XeSS technology, making it one of the first games on the planet to publicly offer XeSS. If you own the game, you can try XeSS right now for yourself, and it works on many GPUs, including Nvidia's and AMD's best graphics cards. Or does it?

This is where things can get a bit confusing with XeSS. It was created by Intel for the Arc GPUs, more or less as a direct competitor to DLSS. However, XeSS is supposed to have a fallback mode where it runs using DP4a instructions — four element 8-bit integer vector dot product instructions. What the hell does that mean, and what graphics cards support the feature? That's a bit more difficult to say.

Officially, we know all Nvidia GPUs since the Pascal architecture (GTX 10-series) have supported DP4a. Intel says its Gen11 Graphics (Ice Lake) and later support DP4a, and of course Arc GPUs support Xe Matrix Extensions (XMX) — the faster alternative to DP4a. What about AMD? In theory, Vega 20, Navi 12 (?), and later GPUs have support for it.

Here's where things really get odd, because we did some quick benchmarking of Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1440p and the Highest preset (without ray traced shadows, so that we could run the same test on all GPUs). Guess which GPUs allowed us to enable XeSS: All of them. But the results of the benchmarks are telling, as XeSS didn't benefit quite a few of the GPUs and in some cases reduced performance.

What's going on? It looks like DP4a (8-bit integers) is being emulated via 24-bit integers on architectures that don't natively support it. Emulation generally reduces performance quite a bit, and so it would make sense that cards like the RX Vega 64 ran slower. The AMD Navi 10 (RX 5600 XT and RX 5700 XT) GPUs also lost performance with XeSS, and if the Navi 12 information is correct, only the Radeon Pro 5600M (used in some MacBooks and laptops) fully supports DP4a from the RDNA generation.

What about newer cards? Results were better, sort of, with most RX 6000-series benefitting — not a lot, but something is better than nothing. There were also some oddities with certain cards, like all the GPUs we tested that had 6GB VRAM. It may be that we were hitting some form of memory bottleneck, but this is a relatively old game and 6GB ought to have been sufficient.

Keep in mind that XeSS is a brand-new AI upscaling algorithm that aims to compete with the likes of Nvidia DLSS 2 and AMD FSR 2. As this is the first game we've been able to test with XeSS, there may be some early bugs that are still being worked out. As with DLSS and FSR, there are multiple upscaling modes: Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced and Performance. Ultra Quality aims to provide a "Nvidia DLAA" like approach, with a focus on image quality over frame rate, while the last three modes prioritize frame rate over image quality.

Anyway, let's get to the benchmark results. We tested native, XeSS Quality, and DLSS Quality (where available). We also tested a few other options on select cards, but those results aren't shown in the charts. We didn't test every possible GPU by any stretch, but we did include at least one card from quite a few different generations of hardware.

For the most part, XeSS ran quite smoothly in its current state with image quality overall being on par with the DLSS 2 implementation in the game. There were only a few area's that we've seen where image quality wasn't the best, like pixilation related to grated fences, and a bit of pixilation in Lara's hair from time to time. We'll dive deeper into XeSS' image quality comparisons at a later date, when more games support it.

The performance benefit of running XeSS varied quite a lot. It's no surprise that cards without DP4a were effectively useless. We tested several AMD cards that showed negative performance deltas — Vega 64, 5600 XT, 5700 XT, and even RX 6500 XT. XeSS in performance mode on the 5700 XT basically matched native performance, while rendering 1/4 as many pixels before upscaling.

Cards that showed improved performance with XeSS also showed some oddities. GPUs with less than 8GB VRAM barely improved at all — and that applies to DLSS on the RTX 2060 as well. Everything from the GTX 1060 6GB to the RTX 2060 6GB improved incrementally, by 4% to 8% at most. That doesn't make much sense, but perhaps something in the way Shadow of the Tomb Raider implements DLSS and XeSS is to blame. Intel's own Arc A380, another 6GB card, didn't benefit much either at 1440p Highest settings, improving by just 3%. So we tested it at 1080p High just to rule out memory capacity as a bottleneck. That showed a 7% improvement, still barely worth mentioning.

Low spec GPUs like the 4GB GTX 1650 Super appeared to benefit mostly because at native 1440p it ran out of VRAM. However, on the RX 6500 XT that also has 4GB VRAM, the opposite was true: it ran much better at native. Bug, underpowered hardware, lack of VRAM? We're not entirely sure, and it's too early to give any definitive statements.

But let's talk about the cards that did benefit. Nvidia's RTX 2070 8GB, RTX 3060 12GB, and RTX 3080 12GB showed performance increases ranging from 12% to 18% with XeSS in Quality mode, and Performance mode helped even more on the couple of cards we checked. Still, DLSS on those same cards improved performance by 24% to 28% in Quality mode. AMD's RX 6600 8GB and RX 6700 XT 12GB also showed improvements of 6% and 9%, respectively, so RDNA 2 with 8GB or more VRAM looks like you should see a net gain... just not a big improvement. It's too bad Shadow of the Tomb Raider didn't also enabled FSR2 support with the XeSS update, so that we could see another alternative to DLSS and XeSS.

Putting it straight, Shadow of the Tomb Raider hasn't been the best of launches for a new technology. XeSS didn't help much on the cards that 'properly' supported it, and even DLSS had odd performance results with cards that didn't have at least 8GB VRAM. The two are probably related. But now that the XeSS SDK has been released to the public, we could see quite a few more games adopt the tech, and we'll be keeping an eye on how they perform — Death Stranding for example just released its XeSS patch today (9/28/2022), and more games are certainly incoming.

Other bugs we encountered included at least one GPU (Aaron's RTX 2060 Super) where XeSS became completely unusable if the game was started without XeSS and then enabled inside the game. That didn't happen on every other GPU, though we didn't check every one that we tested.

Bottom line: XeSS is now available, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the first public release to get it. You can give it a shot on whatever GPU you might be running, but you'll be most likely to benefit if you have an Nvidia Pascal GPU or later, an AMD RX 6000 card, or an Intel Arc GPU. You'll also probably want 8GB or more VRAM or you may be limited to single digit percentage gains.

Nvidia RTX cards are still better off with DLSS, but GTX owners might appreciate the feature. Still, having choice isn't a bad thing, and hopefully XeSS adoption, performance, and compatibility will continue to improve.

If you do give Shadow of the Tomb Raider with XeSS a try, post your GPU and results in our comments. (We tested with our standard Core i9-12900K GPU test PC.) We used only the first sequence of the built-in benchmark if you want to compare your results with ours, capturing frametimes for 39 seconds using OCAT (FrameView and other utilities should also be fine).

UPDATE: MSI has now shown the MSI Spatium M570 Pro and M570 at CES.

MSI on Thursday announced its latest solid-state drive, this time with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface designed for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 and Intel's 12th and 13th Generation Core platforms. The Spatium M570 PCIe Gen5 M.2-2280 SSD offers the maximum performance enabled by Phison's E26 platform and will come in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB configuration. 

MSI's Spatium M570 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 HS is based on the Phison PS5026-E26 controller paired with 3D TLC NAND memory, possibly with a 2400 MT/s interface from an undisclosed vendor. We would speculate that this is Micron. However, it does not look like Micron will mass produce such memory this fall (at least not in high volumes), so drives with ~12.4/10 GB/s sequential read/write speeds could be several months off. The drive demonstrated by MSI offers a sequential read speed of up to 12,351 MB/s, a sequential write speed of up to 10,119 MB/s, a 1.3 million 4K random read IOPS (Q32T16), and up to 1.16 million 4K random write IOPS (Q32T16), which is significantly higher when compared to the best SSDs available today.

MSI specifically notes that its upcoming ultra-high-end MEG Godlike and MEC Ace motherboards will come bundled with its M.2 Xpander-Z Gen5 Dual adapter that can house two PCIe Gen5 drives and therefore offer around 70% higher transfer speeds in RAID 0 configurations when compared to a single drive, according to a press release published by TechPowerUp. 

MSI did not reveal when it plans to start selling its Spatium M570 SSD and this might be the most important part of the announcement. As we know, some of the upcoming SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface based on Phison's PS-5026-E26 controller are constrained by the 3D NAND memory they use and can only hit around 10 GB/s sequential read speed, which is significantly higher than ~7 GB/s offered by drives with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, but lower than ~12.4 GB/s demonstrated by Phison using drives powered by Micron's 232-layer memory with a 2400 MT/s interface speed. 

Since we do not know when MSI's Spatium M570 products are set to hit the market, it is probably not good business to speculate about their prices, but they will naturally carry a premium for high performance.

YouTube channel Digital Foundry published a new exclusive video with an in-depth review of Intel's new XeSS AI image reconstruction upscaler. In the review, XeSS was a surprisingly potent competitor to slightly older versions of DLSS version 2, featuring similar or better gaming performance and image quality than the Nvidia counterpart.

For a deep-dive explanation of XeSS, check out our previous coverage here. But to briefly explain: XeSS is Intel's answer to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR intelligent upscaling technologies. XeSS upscales images from a lower native resolution to a higher resolution with as little degradation as possible to image detail.

Internally, XeSS functions very similarly to Nvidia DLSS; upscaling relies on the help of a temporal AI algorithm that intelligently adds detail into the upscaled image, where there is none, with the help of previously recorded image data. However, unlike DLSS, Intel's counterpart has three different variations to support all types of GPUs. These include Arc Alchemist Intel GPUs, Intel integrated graphics, and non-Intel GPUs (yes, this means XeSS will work on Nvidia and AMD GPUs).

For testing, Digital Foundry uses an Arc Alchemist A770 GPU running a specialized Shadow of the Tomb Raider build that supports Intel's new AI upscaler. Resolutions tested include 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions.

Performance was very good with XeSS with its implementation in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. In a best-case scenario, Digital Foundry saw a 88% frame rate improvement with the A770 at 4K resolution in XeSS' performance mode. The gains weren't as significant in other modes, but they were still very good. Balanced sees a 66% performance improvement, Quality mode 47%, and Ultra Quality 23%.

But it's worth noting that these tremendous gains mainly apply to higher resolution targets such as 4K, which puts more load on the GPU. For example, when testing a less demanding resolution such as 1440P, the maximum performance benefit Digital Foundry saw was 52% in XeSS' performance mode. Nonetheless, a 52% performance boost still deserves attention.

Image quality was just as impressive as the performance metrics. Compared to DLSS version 2.3.2, which ships with Shadow of the Tomb Raider right now, XeSS can go toe to toe with the Nvidia counterpart in all aspects. XeSS outperformed Shadow of the Tomb Raider's TAA implementation in some scenarios, despite the TAA test running at native resolution.

If you were to put XeSS and DLSS side by side without zooming in, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You can only notice the differences in image quality when zooming into the images. But even then, both AI upscalers look identical, with DLSS winning out only in a couple of situations. Images with motion also share an excellent quality with XeSS, with no actual ghosting or artifacting.

The only exceptions to XeSS's excellent image quality revolve around a couple of bugs that need to be ironed out by Intel. First, it includes unusual flickering with vegetation and clothing, which can sometimes be intense. Some areas with water and mud can also be problematic with intense jittering that is very distracting.

Besides these apparent bugs, Digital Foundry's review shows that Intel is now a serious contender in the AI upscaling market. But Intel is not out of the woods just yet; it will need to garner as much adoption as possible if it hopes to compete against DLSS and FSR, both widely adopted in the video game industry today.

Last week, Gigabyte was among the first companies to introduce a client solid-state drive (SSD) featuring a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface. Gigabyte's Aorus Gen5 1000 SSD is currently among the highest performing storage devices that currently exist, but there are applications and users who demand even higher speeds. Specifically for those workloads and users, Gigabyte on Tuesday revealed its 4-way PCIe Gen5 SSD adapter that in theory can quadruple storage performance and capacity.

Gigabyte's Aorus Gen5 AIC Adapter with PCIe 5.0 support is a full-height full-length PCIe x16 card that carries four M.2-2280 SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface that work in a RAID configuration. Depending on the RAID mode set by the owner, the Aorus Gen5 AIC Adapter can provide up to 16TB of storage (at least when used with four Aorus Gen5 1000 drives) and sequential read/write performance of up to 60 GB/s, which is significantly higher than even the best SSDs offer.

The Aorus Gen5 AIC Adapter is said to feature a separate PCIe 5.0 controller (or switch?) to ensure maximum performance. It also has a sophisticated cooling system with thermal sensors and a fan to ensure consistent performance under high loads.

The Aorus Gen5 AIC Adapter is meant to be installed into desktops featuring a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, so you'll need at least an AMD's Ryzen 7000-series or Intel's 12th or 13th Generation Core CPU platform, but there's a catch. Modern processors for client desktop PCs only support 20 PCIe 5.0 lanes, 16 lanes for a graphics card and four lanes for an SSD. Some systems feature two PCIe x16 slots with each working in x8 mode, so they can install a graphics board and Gigabyte's 4-way SSD adapter, but this means that neither of the cards will get full PCIe 5.0 x16 bandwidth.

Truth to be told, few people need a storage device with a ~60 GB/s of bandwidth. Perhaps workstation users who process ultra-high-definition videos would benefit from such a high sequential read and write speed. For most people, high random read and write performance will be enough for comfortable work. Those who buy 4-way SSD adapters are indeed looking for extreme storage performance.

Gigabyte has not disclosed pricing for its Aorus Gen5 AIC Adapter, but considering the fact that it has its own switch and an advanced cooling system, not to mention the target market, it will likely be a rather expensive product.

While Intel plans to pull in release dates of its 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake' processors for notebooks, and many of these CPUs are set to be released later this year, until today, no benchmark results of those chips have leaked. Yet as Intel's partners begin to test new processors, some of their findings inevitably hit the Web.

Today someone accidentally (or purportedly) published benchmark results of Intel's Core i5-13600HX processor in BAPCo's CrossMark benchmark (via @momomo_us). The CPU has 14 cores and can process 20 threads simultaneously, which means either a 6P + 8E configuration or a 4P and 10E cores configuration (we assume the latter). To add some context, Intel's Core i5-12600HX processor has 12 cores (4P + 8E cores).

The CPU was tested using Intel's AlderLake-S SBGA DDR4 SODIMM CRB (customer reference board) equipped with 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory and two 1TB SSDs running in RAID mode as well as plugged into a 4K display.

It is necessary to note that Intel's HX processors are aimed at desktop replacement laptops, and small form-factor desktops with good cooling as these CPUs feature base power of 55W and maximum turbo power of 157W. Since Intel's HX CPUs are not particularly popular among users of the general-purpose CrossMark benchmark, we had to compare the results of Intel's Core i5-13600HX (with a balanced power profile) with the Core i5-12600H. Meanwhile, the hitch is that all latter results were obtained on a system equipped with a Full-HD monitor, so the comparison is not fair. Nevertheless, we took the best (which used the best performance power profile) and the worst results of the model i5-12600H to give some additional perspective.

Another thing to point out is that BAPCo's CrossMark benchmark has three groups of tests (consisting of seven sub-scenarios) — Productivity (document editing, spreadsheets, web browsing), Creativity (photo editing, photo organization, video editing), and Responsiveness (application launches and the file opens taken from other sub scenarios) — designed to illustrate general system performance and responsiveness 'using models of real-world applications.'

All these scenarios are very general, so while they can quantify the difference between an entry-level Core i3-powered machine and a high-end Core i9-based system, we doubt that BAPCO's CrossMark can accurately illustrate the difference between Intel's Alder Lake and Raptor Lake.

Leading motherboard makers often supply SSD expander adapters that can house two or four M.2 drives for those who want to run them in RAID for performance, capacity, and/or reliability/redundancy. However, M.2 drives don't provide enough storage capacity for modern servers and heavy-duty workstations, so HighPoint has introduced its new SSD RAID controller card that can house up to eight E1.S drives providing unbeatable capacity and performance. We are talking about tens of terabytes of storage at up to 55 GBps. 

Speaking of performance, HighPoint says that when equipped with high-end E1.S drives, its SSD7749E E1.S RAID Controller Card can deliver throughput of up to 28 GB/s (which is likely the practical limitation of a PCIe Gen4 x16 interface with 128b/130b encoding overhead taken into account). Yet, when two SSD7749E E1.S RAID boards are installed into one system, they can work in Cross-Sync RAID configurations and deliver transfer bandwidth of up to 55 GB/s.  

The E1.S form-factor is used by datacenter SSDs that are designed to support consistently high sequential and random performance. The rated 28 GBps and 55 GBps sequential read/write speeds are peak performance numbers achievable for a limited amount of time depending on the size of the SLC cache. 

As for capacities, when equipped with eight 7.68TB E1.S SSDs, one SSD7749E E1.S RAID Controller Card will offer 61.44TB of usable capacity. Two of these boards will deliver 122.88TB of storage space.  

HighPoint's SSD7749E E1.S RAID Controller Card is a rather massive two-wide add-in-card with two fans and a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface that can be installed into a 2U server or a desktop workstation. The SSD7749E AIC can house eight E.1S drives and is based around HighPoint's proprietary chip, which acts like a RAID controller and an intelligent PCIe switch to maximize the performance of the SSDs. 

HighPoint's NVMe RAID controllers support RAID 0, 1, 10, arrays and single drives. In addition, they can handle a variety of mixed configurations of single-disks and arrays, multiple arrays, multiple bootable volumes, and boot + storage configurations. 

The availability timeframe and pricing of the SSD7749E E1.S RAID Controller Card have not been announced.

Silverstone has introduced a new product that will appeal to those who are M.2 slot rich but SATA port poor, or perhaps anyone who just wants to use more SATA drives. The new Silverstone ECS07 takes up one of your M.2 PCIe NVMe slots to provide five SATA 6Gbps ports, all wrapped up in a neat package with a JMicron controller kept cool under an alloy heatsink.

Silverstone has designed SATA expansion cards previously, typically using designs that plug into a PCIe slot, but this is its first model that relies on the increasingly ubiquitous M.2 port. Potential users will need an M.2 port with PCIe NVMe Gen 3 x2 interface. Doing the math, this port provides just about enough bandwidth to cope with five SATA 6Gbps ports.

The x2 PCIe connection tops out at a theoretical 15.76 Gbps, obviously a lot less than the five SATA ports. However, real-world throughput of SATA SSDs tends to be 550 MB/s at most, and that's only in sustained sequential accesses. Take out the 8b/10b encoding overhead and each SATA port would max out at around 4.4 Gbps, or a combined 22 Gbps. It's a bit odd that Silverstone didn't opt for the full x4 PCIe interface, which would have provided more than enough bandwidth even with a sixth SATA port. In real-world use, however, it's unlikely all five SATA ports will routinely end up fully loaded.

Silverstone says its aluminum alloy heatsink helps with heat dissipation, generated when the controller is working hard, to ensure stability. It seems such a controller wouldn't normally generate a lot of heat, but with the large SATA connectors it's not like the adapter would fit into cramped M.2 slots.

Folks with high-end motherboards bristling with SATA ports probably aren’t going to be interested in this adapter. Rather, it would fit in with someone building a compact NAS system, or a compact HTPC that could use a lot of local storage. Motherboards for such compact builds, often Mini ITX in form factor, don’t normally come with a lot of SATA ports but should have at least one fast M.2 PCIe NVMe slot.

The Silverstone ECS07 is pleasingly small, at 24.8mm (W) x 10.3mm (H) x 80.5mm (D) or 0.97" (W) x 0.41" (H) x 3.17" (D). However, one must remember that M.2 slots may be in places with little vertical clearance, like under a graphics card. While the device itself is only ~10mm tall, some angled cables might be useful to avoid clearance issues. Also purchasers will probably have to do some creative wiring to get power for the five extra SSDs / HDDs using these ports.

The ECS07 is plug and play, with no need for drivers or user-configuration. Storage device features such as sleep and power management are supported as well. With all the drives this little device enables, you might fancy implementing some RAID storage options for extra data security or performance, but the ECS07's controller doesn’t support RAID in hardware.

Silverstone has not yet announced pricing and availability.

When you think of countries that produce SSD controllers, Russia probably doesn't come to mind. However, this week at the Innoprom 2022 show, Russian vendor Kraftway demonstrated the company's latest ASIC v1 and ASIC v2 SSD. The PCIe 4.0 drives are the first of their kind to leverage a Russian SSD controller and may have what it takes to challenge the best SSDs on the market.

Both SSDs utilize the K1942VK018 SSD controller, Russia's first domestic SSD controller. According to Kraftway, the K1942VK018 is a product of TSMC's 28nm HPC+ manufacturing process and has eight memory channels. In addition, there is support for ONFI 4.0, soft LDPC decode, RAID, monitoring, and power management. The K1942VK018 reportedly has a power consumption of between two to four watts and will power a diversity of SSDs, including half-height/half-length (HHHL) add-in card, M.2, and Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) form factors.

The Kraftway ASIC v2 comes in an HHHL presentation and can house 3D MLC, TLC, and QLC NAND. The company has validated chips from Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory), Micron and YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Co.). In addition, the ASIC v2 specifically utilizes Russian GS Nanotech memory made from Micron and Kioxia NAND. The SSD adheres to a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface with capacities reaching up to 16TB. The sequential read and write performance exceeds 1,500 MBps, and random read and write speeds over 200,000 IOPS and 150,000 IOPS, respectively. In its demo, the ASIC V2 posted sequential read and write numbers up to 971.32 MBps and 476.65 MBps.

The Kraftway ASIC v1, on the other hand, focuses on data security features and accommodates 2D and 3D MLC or pMLC NAND. The M.2 drive is limited to a PCIe 2.0 x4 connection, and the maximum capacity is 2TB. The vendor rates the ASIC v1 with sequential read and write speeds of 830 MBps and 680 MBps, respectively. Random performance scales up to 55,000 IOPS writes, and 65,000 IOPS reads.

Kraftway didn't reveal the pricing for the pair of new SSDs. However, the manufacturer did confirm that the drives are already shipping in Elbrus-powered systems. Kraftway aims to commence mass production of its SSD controllers in 2023. According to a recent report from Habr, a representative from Kraftway told the publication that the Russian manufacturer has inked a deal with Chinese chipmaker YMTC for joint production. Kraftway partnered with TSMC before the financial sanctions imposed on Russia due to the latter's invasion of Ukraine.

In comparison to Kioxia and Micron, YMTC's production capability is significantly lower. The chipmaker's original plant outputs 100,000 wafers per month. Nonetheless, YMTC has already started preparing a second facility that would deliver up to 200,000 300mm wafers per month, bringing the foundry's monthly production up to 300,000. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out for Kraftway since one of YMTC's priorities is supplying domestic vendors in China's push for semiconductor self-sufficiency. But then, there's also a report that tech giant Apple is contemplating bringing on YMTC as a NAND supplier.

Thanks to a review by Hardware Unboxed, we have a quick look at the gaming performance of Apple's new M2 chip. The YouTube channel took an M2 Macbook and tested it against a Ryzen 7 6800U in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The M2 outperformed the AMD despite the Ryzen 7 6800U packing one of AMD's fastest gaming iGPUs to date, the Radeon 680M.

The M2 is Apple's successor to the groundbreaking M1 chip it released nearly two years ago. However, it is not a generational leap over the M1 but a refresh over the M1 with moderate performance improvements. Apple says users can expect an 18% performance improvement over the M1, thanks to a newer core architecture, slightly faster CPU clocks, and the move to LPDDR5 memory with up to 100 GBps of bandwidth.

But the only exception to the M2's mediocre performance is in the GPU. The GPU, on the contrary, has received a very respectable uplift over the M1, with a 35% performance improvement. Admittedly, it isn't the whopping 67% improvement like we hoped it would be from rumors, but it is better than 18% nonetheless. To do this, Apple has added two more cores to the GPU, giving the M2 iGPU 3.6 TFLOPs of computing performance.

Undoubtedly the addition of two GPU cores along with faster LPDDR5 RAM feeding the graphics engine is how the M2 beat the Ryzen 7 6800U in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

In Hardware Unboxed's gaming results, the M2 beat the Ryzen 7 6800U by 2 to 3 FPS on the Medium, High, and Highest (BTAO) graphical presets at a resolution of 1920 x 1200. With a 30 FPS average between the two chips, the "small" 2-3 FPS difference equals the M2 gaining a 7.6% to 10% performance boost over the Ryzen 7 6800U.

It is a massive upgrade over the original M1's Shadow of the Tomb Raider results of 32 FPS at 1920 x 1080 on the low graphical preset (according to LinusTechTips). It also outperforms the Ryzen 7 6800U, which has the Radeon 680M, constituting 12 RDNA 2 CUs and a maximum boost frequency of 2.2 GHz on the 6800U model.

The M2's gaming results are overall even more impressive considering it is not designed for gaming and is targeted toward content creation and productivity apps. Unfortunately, macOS is also not intended for gaming, so there is a chance a lot of performance is being left on the table due to unoptimized code within the graphics API.

The M2 also sips far less power than almost every single mobile APU on the market today, including AMD's new Ryzen 6000 (Rembrandt) mobile APUs, which were heavily advertised as ultra-efficient CPUs for notebooks.

But, 30 FPS isn't exactly ideal and most PC games on the market today are not compatible with macOS, which makes the M2 a terrible choice for PC gaming anyways. It's fantastic that Apple's M2 chip can game by integrated graphics standards, but you'd be far better served with a Ryzen 7 6800U equipped notebook if you actually want to play games. Or you could always use a cloud gaming service like GeForce Now if you really want to game on a Macbook.

Sabrent has launched the brand's Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, wielding eight spacious Rocket 4 Plus 8TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs for a whopping 64TB of high-speed storage. The Rocket 4 Plus is one of the best SSDs on the market. The 8TB model, which typically sells for $1,999.99, is now on sale at Amazon for a 25% discount, cutting the price to $1,499.99.

As its model name implies, the Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 is the replacement for Sabrent's previous Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer. The new AIC offers slightly better performance than its predecessor. We're looking at a transfer speed that breaks the 28,000 MBps barrier. The Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 leverages HighPoint's SSD7540 PCIe 4.0 x16 RAID card. It relies on a Broadcom PCIe 4.0 8 series PEX switch to manage the eight independent M.2 slots. The M.2 slots can accommodate M.2 2242, 2260, and 2280 drives regardless if they feature a single-or double-sided design.

Sabrent keeps the M.2 SSDs under control by cooling them with a full aluminum heat sink complemented with thermal pads and active cooling. The Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 sticks to a single-slot design and fits into a standard PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. As a result, the AIC's length is about that of the best graphics cards. The Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 isn't picky about power, either. It only requires a single 6-pin PCIe power connector for external power.

The Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 supports different RAID setups, whether you want RAID 0 for absolute performance or RAID 10 for improved data security. An all-kitted-out Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 represents a heft investment. The solution caters to content creators that work with 12K or 14K video files, high-end workstations, and servers. While you can use any SSD, including PCIe 3.0 drives with the Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2, you'd probably want to stick to a PCIe 4.0 drive for the ultimate performance.

Practicality is one of the Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2's selling points. You simply insert into a PCIe 4.0 x16 expansion slot inside your system, install the drivers, and create your RAID arrays via the web-based management interface. The best thing with the Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2 is that once you get the dirty work out of the way, you can transplant the AIC into any system you want, and it's good to go.

As reported by TechPowerUp, HighPoint has announced two brand new M.2 NVMe RAID controller cards, with support for up to 64TB of storage and speeds of up to 28,000MB/s on the top model. These would make a great pairing with the best SSDs on the market. The two models announced include the SSD7140A with Gen3 x16 support and the SSD7540 with Gen4 x16 support. Pricing starts at $729 for the Gen3 model.

As the name suggests, both cards are designed to handle massive M.2 RAID arrays including RAID 0, 1, and 10. RAID 0 mirrors everything for maximum speed, RAID 1 mirrors each data drive as a backup solution, and RAID 10 does a mix of both. Both controllers also offer JBOD capabilities, which doesn't boost speed or data integrity but gives you access to a large single drive.

While the controllers offer up to eight M.2 storage slots, only four (fast) drives are necessary to gain the maximum bandwidth output of each card. Each M.2 SSD uses four PCIe lanes, and each card maxes out at 16. The four additional M.2 slots are there for additional capacity, and with slower SSDs you can still reach the maximum theoretical throughput.

The controllers support Windows and Linux boot capabilities, which is great for users who want to use an M.2 RAID array as their primary storage solution.

The two cards are quite massive, with the length and height of a high-end graphics card to accommodate all eight M.2 storage slots. Both cards measure in at 11.22" x 4.37" x 0.83" (285 x 111 x 21 mm). The cards feature a massive black heatsink that spans the entire length of the card, helping keep the M.2 drives cool. The heatsinks are aided by twin "ultra-durable and near-silent" fans of unknown size, but they look to be in the 40mm range.

The SSD7140A is the weaker of the two solutions, with a maximum speed of 14,000MB/s due to its PCIe 3.0 interface. The SSD7540 doubles that with up to 28,000MB/s thanks to PCIe 4.0. However, if you want even more bandwidth, you can pair two cards in a "Cross-Sync" configuration — provided your motherboard supports twin x16 configurations, naturally.

That gives users double the bandwidth of each controller, with the Gen3 variant operating at up to 28,000 MB/s and the Gen4 model maxing out at 55,000 MB/s. (Apparently there's some rounding so it's not 56,000 MB/s.)

The SSD7140A with PCIe 3.0 speeds costs $729 and the PCIe 4.0 SSD7540 goes for $1099.00. That's not cheap, but then we can say the same for the requisite eight SSDs you'd want to put in the cards. Obviously, these are for servers with large data throughput workloads rather than typical home PCs.

MSI is bringing back the Titan. The company hasn't released an updated version of its flagship desktop replacement since 2019, and the new version is packed to the gills with the latest components and a complete redesign.

The new Titan will utilize Intel's 12th Gen HX mobile processors, up to a Core i9-12900HX, with graphics going up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. That's a big change from the last time we saw a Titan, which was then using an Intel Core i9-9900K desktop chip. But that 2019 laptop was 1.7 inches thick, while the GT77 is 0.91-inches thick, making for a pretty drastic reduction in size.

MSI's new design features an RGB light bar along the backside of the laptop as well as colorful lighting on the dragon logo, letting everyone and anyone know that it's a gaming notebook.

The company claims that its OverBoost technology allows for 250W of power delivery to the CPU and GPU, which it suggests offers "desktop-caliber performance." MSI also says you get desktop-level upgradeability, with four memory slots (up to 128GB) and four m.2 slots (one of which supports PCIe Gen 5, though it won't ship with those drives just yet) for up to 32TB of storage. To cool the components, MSI is using four fans (which we've seen only in some of Alienware's X-series laptops), along with seven heat pipes and six points of exhaust.

The Titan will also get a new, mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Ultra Low switches, backlit with, yes, SteelSeries RGB. An MSI rep suggested that these aren't the same Cherry MX keys that have shown up on some Alienware laptops, but with a new profile that offers 3.5 mm of key travel, so I'm eager to try them.

MSI is also maintaining the 17.3-inch, 16:9 screen from predecessors, but it's bumping the resolution to 4K and the speeds up to 120 Hz.

The Titan will start at $3,199 and go up to $4,949, with an expected release in mid-June.

MSI Raider GE67 HX/GE77 HX

MSI's Raider series, a mainstay on our best gaming laptops list, is also getting a bump up to Intel's HX processors. It also sounds like the GE66 and GE76, with H-series chips,  will continue to sell through retail channels.

The upgraded versions both use Intel Core i7-12800HX and either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or RTX 3080 Ti. The GE77 HX, however, has a 17.3-inch, 2560 x 1440 display with a 240 Hz refresh rate, while the GE67 HX gets a 15.6-inch OLED 2560 x 1440 screen at 240 Hz. Razer had previously announced a Blade 15 with a 240 Hz, 1440p OLED screen, though they haven't shown up for sale yet. It's possible MSI could beat it to market.

Like the Titan, MSI claims the 17-inch version can also reach 250W to the combined CPU and GPU. 

The new Raiders are expected on shelves in late June, with pre-orders open today. They  start at $2,499 for the 15-inch laptop and $2,599 for the 17-inch version.

MSI is also announcing two other laptops with HX chips today: The Vector GP76, which goes up to a Core i9-12900HX and RTX 3080 Ti, and the artist-focused Creator Pro X17, which combines that Core i9 and godes up to Nvidia's RTX A5500. Exact pricing, configurations and release dates wren't announced for these laptops, other than that they're expected this summer.

Lexar’s SL660 Blaze is the company's latest portable drive for gaming and comes in 512GB and 1TB capacities. The drive comes with resplendent RGB lighting and includes software support combined with a selection of materials and styling to sell as a 'gaming' drive that will compete for a spot on our list of best external SSDs. 

The SL660 Blaze reminds us a lot of the Kingston XS2000, they share the same hardware, but it comes with some additional features. It also competes with the ADATA SE900G, which also comes with RGB lighting but has a bulkier package. 

As with the XS2000, SE900G, and other portable drives, convenience is the name of the game. Alternatively, you could purchase your own drive and enclosure independently and save money by combining the two yourself. Of course, SATA-based options of both types also often remain viable, but sometimes it’s nice to have 2GBps of bandwidth at your fingertips.

Let’s see how that works out here.

Specifications

The Lexar SL660 Blaze has just two capacities: 512GB and 1TB. The price per gigabyte at the time of writing, which is for pre-orders, is around $0.20 per gigabyte. This is more pricey than the Kingston XS2000, which has fewer frills while being smaller and weighing less. The SL660 Blaze is rated for up to 2.0/1.9GBps for sequential reads and writes, in line with the XS2000. We would expect these write speeds to dip with extended writes once the SLC cache is exhausted.

As with the XS2000, the SL660 Blaze has a five-year warranty and is rated for shock resistance. In addition, the controller itself has typical data protection with SMI’s NANDXtend, a patented technology that has similarities to techniques used on other controllers. This gets the most endurance out of the flash through LDPC error correction and can correct errors through RAID parity. Lexar also offers 256-bit AES encryption, but this is software-based, so it won't be as performant.

Software and Accessories

The SL660 Blaze comes with more than a few items. It has both Type-C to Type-C and Type-C to Type-A USB cables and a detachable stand. These are both convenient as you can dock the drive when near your computer, and the drive will be compatible with two common types of USB ports. The drive also comes with a nice pouch for added convenience and protection, although this may increase overall bulk. The competing Kingston XS200, for its part, did include a rubber sleeve.

The drive also comes with an SSD toolbox, the Lexar SSD Dash, and support for software encryption through Lexar’s DataShield. We have previously stated that hardware encryption with a Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) tends not to be a priority for consumer drives and is otherwise potentially inconsistent. Lexar offers a software solution as a checkbox for their feature list, but it is actually usable and useful even if it’s something you could do yourself on other drives with the appropriate software. Likewise, we like to have a SSD toolbox even if it’s generally unnecessary.

A Closer Look

The USB interface can also be its own bottleneck regardless of the internal SSD. Portable drives are also usually streamlined and made to be efficient, which in other words means they often have a DRAM-less design that would benefit from the performance-boosting Host Memory Buffer (HMB) tech — but that doesn't work over the USB interface. Both of these issues present challenges for external drives: Most users use these types of drives for large files or image backups, which are essentially large, sequential file transfers. This type of work can be limited by the interface or by the sequential write speed of the drive, with the latter being impacted by the lack of HMB.

Most previous portable drives came with ASMedia’s bridge chips, such as the ASM2362 and ASM2364 for 10Gbps and 20Gbps, respectively. Portable units tend to have an independent drive with its own controller and a separate bridge chip to handle communication with the host, for example, with two lanes of PCIe 3.0 on one side and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, at up to 20 Gbps, on the other. The newer SM2320 chip from Silicon Motion, as used on the SL660 Blaze and XS2000, instead provides an embedded or hybrid design with everything in one package. This pairs very well with the streamlined intentions of a portable SSD.

The SL660 Blaze has a sleek, aluminum exterior that certainly lends itself to the gaming aesthetic, even without RGB enabled. It’s otherwise clean, with the rear side listing the capacity/model and serial number. The interior shares the black coloring with a bit of protection. Of course, this is not a drive you would have to shuck, given the nature of the prominent SM2320 controller. The black PCB has no DRAM but has four flash packages with two on each side.

The controller, labeled SM2320G, looks to have been manufactured about a year ago. SMI is proud of this quad-channel design, able to manage up to 4TB of flash in a tight 9x9 mm package. While there are disadvantages to having a single chip for a portable drive, the advantages of reduced size and cost generally outweigh them. We also see the four LEDs on the edge of the board, which, as tested, were not controllable but rather just shifted between various colors.

The flash modules are produced by Longsys and labeled 29F208EMLCER. From the “29,” we can tell this is Intel or Micron flash, as in MT29 from the IMFT days, at 2Tb or 256GB per chip in an 8-bit configuration for a total of 1TB. It’s similar to the 96-layer Micron TLC we saw on the XS2000. This is an older flash but is perfectly suitable for a quad-channel portable drive.

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Comparison Products

We compare the Lexar SL660 Blaze to other popular portable SSDs including SanDisk’s Extreme and Extreme Pro (both v2), the Samsung X5 and T7, the WD Black P50, the Adata SE900G, and of course the Kingston XS2000. Two of these drives are at the 2TB capacity but this should offer no advantage in this drive class.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The SL660 Blaze is marketed as a gaming drive, so it’s nice to see it delivers a very good result here. SSDs, in general, offer the best loading times, and it can be nice to have a portable option if you’re on the go or if you use a gaming laptop.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The 1TB SL660 Blaze is in the middle of the pack here, right alongside the Kingston XS2000. We see better results from the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, which has DRAM, and the Samsung X5, which utilizes Thunderbolt 3 and also has DRAM.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The 1TB SL660 Blaze, along with the XS2000, is on top of the USB-based portable drives. It offers very fast transfer times and is only beaten by the ThunderBolt 3-equipped X5.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Users transfer files of various sizes regularly with portable drives, so it’s important to look at transfer speeds for different block sizes in ATTO. The SL660 Blaze only comes up short for sequential reads versus the Samsung X5, which again has a ThunderBolt 3 interface. It also falls slightly behind the ASM2364-based drives at larger sequential write sizes, which points to a difference in controller limitations.

CrystalDiskMark, that most popular of SSD benchmarks, just shows the interface's limits for peak sequential reads and writes. We see a bit of a different story with random performance. Random write performance is quite good, and the SL660 Blaze again matches the XS2000 while falling behind only the X5 at low queue depth. Reduced write latency may be a product of the hybrid design, as writes require acknowledgment. However, we see the SM2320 drives falling behind along with Samsung’s T7 Touch during a low queue depth read workload.

This is likely due to the controller being DRAM-less - the same is also true of the T7’s Pablo controller - which can exacerbate the limitations of the interface. Low queue depth random reads are often utilized as a guideline for general user experience, yet we saw the SL660 Blaze do quite well with the Final Fantasy XIV benchmark - at least in comparison to other portable SSDs. There is simply a performance threshold where you get most of the gains of a solid state drive, but portables are limited by interface. This illustrates why a DRAM-less design like the SM2320 can still be optimal for a portable drive, and certainly so for gaming.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery and Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Continuing from the Crystal Disk Mark results above, we can then speculate that a DRAM-less SSD may still have significant shortfalls as a secondary effect. This is clearly the case in the write saturation test.

Our results are very similar to what we saw with the XS2000. The drive writes at maximum speed, or 1.8Gbps, for approximately 55s, for a total cache size of around 100GB. From what we understand these drives utilize a hybrid cache, with 6GB of static and the rest being dynamic.

After the cache is exhausted, the sequential write performance is very erratic. The drive is folding to native TLC which eventually frees up enough SLC for a brief spike in write throughput, before falling back down. Overall post-SLC sequential write bandwidth is around 200MBps, which is certainly not great and is reminiscent of some QLC-based desktop drives. The T7 Touch relies on a much smaller cache but then engages direct-to-TLC. For that reason, it is faster and its more consistent post-SLC performance can out-write the SL660 Blaze and XS2000.

DRAM-less drives tend to have weaker post-SLC performance due to larger SLC cache sizes, fewer flash channels, and an overall design philosophy that benefits from the slower folding state. While the T7 outpaces the SL660 Blaze and XS2000 it still falls behind the rest of the drives in sustained writes, and interface limitations squeeze it with shorter writes.

Cache recovery on the SL660 Blaze was similar to the XS2000, with the static portion recovering relatively rapidly and the dynamic portion requiring more time. However, it’s a fairly reasonable response given how this drive will be used. Those regularly doing large, sustained writes, which could include videographers, for example, might want to look at a different portable drive, but this cache should be adequate for gaming even in a fuller-drive state.

We had good thermal results from the XS2000 but we would expect them to be even better with the SL660 Blaze due to its aluminum case and interior design. This proved to be true as the surface was 5C cooler than the XS2000’s under load, at 31C, with the drive itself reaching around 7C less, or 64C, as measured by an IR gun. We certainly saw no throttling and idle temperatures were also good.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

It is difficult for us not to compare the Lexar SL660 Blaze to the Kingston XS2000 because the internal hardware is similar, and our test results point out plenty of similarities. The SL660 Blaze has a higher price point, which is sensible as it offers more than the XS2000. For example, it comes with an extra cable, a detachable stand, RGB functionality, and software support that includes encryption. It maintains shock resistance but is also larger and weighs more. In a sense, this makes it less portable, but the aluminum body and overall design make it more attractive. Plus, it remains sufficiently convenient.

This is being marketed as a gaming drive which tends not to mean a whole lot in the SSD space — for now. However, the angular design and presence of RGB are probably sufficient to match the requirements of such a moniker. The detachable stand is also a nice feature when considering the possibilities of portable gaming, even if used with a console. 

The Sl600's warranty is strong and the drive feels durable, particularly with the pouch, which we feel is a strong selling point if you’re moving the drive around a lot. Although we question the usefulness of software encryption with a gaming drive, software support is a nice touch, but there are other options available that don’t require Lexar's proprietary software. We wouldn’t mind some OEM software for drive cloning, though.

Aside from some minor pitfalls, the SL600's performance is actually not bad for a portable drive. The one area it does fall short is during sustained, sequential write workloads, which exhibit very poor post-cache performance. The cache design itself is robust even if the cache is not particularly large, but this issue will be more troublesome with a fuller drive. While this is not usually a problem for gaming, if you also want to also use this drive to transfer files, particularly larger ones, some alternatives are more attractive in terms of speed and consistency.

Therefore, the SL660 Blaze’s traits are a bit of a double-edged sword. You don’t really need anything special for gaming, so what you are really paying for — versus, say, the XS2000 — is basically aesthetics. The extra cable and the standalone dock are useful additions but may be of situational use. It’s possible to get a cheaper drive if performance is your top priority, making this a luxury item.

ADATA’s SE900G also offers RGB and the extra cable but appears to have a lower MSRP. Is it worth a premium for the dock and Lexar’s software package? Probably not, but we do feel Lexar did a good job of making a product with a premium feel, although we would have liked to see a 2TB option given the size of games these days. That being said, the dock might be useful for certain users.

If you want a portable SSD with a “gaming” feel, something that also feels a bit premium with the aluminum enclosure, pouch, stand, and RGB, then this is the ticket. We feel the market is inundated with gaming-oriented SSDs that are really an excuse to charge more for aesthetics and semi-useful features. We will say that it’s nice Lexar includes a ton of accessories, but someone willing to do a bit of legwork can likely find something just as good for less money. The Lexar SL660 Blaze is for the gamer who has everything.

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Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus family has long been a favorite for performance seekers, but the new 8TB model ups the ante with extreme capacity courtesy of 112-layer BiCS5 flash, promising to take high-performance, high-capacity SSD storage to the next level as it vies for a spot on our list of Best SSDs. 

Sabrent made a name for itself in the SSD market with the original Rocket, a ubiquitous SSD based on Phison’s competitive E12 SSD controller. The company has since enhanced its portfolio with an array of new drives, including the Rocket 4.0 and models with QLC flash, like the Rocket Q and the Rocket Q4.

But perhaps Sabrent is best known for its penchant for pushing the capacity limits with SSDs like the 4TB Rocket, the 8TB Rocket Q, and the 16TB Thunderbolt dock that includes two 8TB SSDs. The Rocket Q Battleship also hosts up to eight of those 8TB drives with a HighPoint RAID controller, providing a total of 64TB of flash storage. 

However, plenty of demanding users want higher capacities with their consumer SSDs but don’t want to compromise with lower-endurance and lower-performance QLC flash. So if the drive can use TLC flash and still push the limits of PCIe 4.0 technology, all the better. Those users are in luck as Sabrent now offers this 8TB version of the high-performance Rocket 4 Plus, and it comes with 112-layer BiCS5 TLC flash that the company didn't use in the original SKUs.

Putting this much storage capacity, especially with TLC flash, on an M.2 drive has lots of challenges that require tough design decisions to ensure the drive is reliable and remains within spec. Nevertheless, it's nice to see a company willing to reach this high on the capacity front. Let's see if the extreme capacity comes with performance compromises.

Specifications

The 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a standard M.2 2280, PCIe 4.0/NVMe 1.4 drive. It’s rated for up to 7/6 GBps of sequential read/write throughput, which is a comparatively slight 100/600 MBps slower than the 4TB model. The SDD is rated for 700,000 random read IOPS and a peak of 1,000,000 IOPS for random writes.

This drive has a nominal one-year warranty that you can extend to five years with registration. Endurance matches expectations at 6PBW (petabytes written), meaning it can absorb 6 petabytes of write data. Even with 8TB of flash, that's more than enough for the vast majority of users.

We see a surprise with pricing at an MSRP of $1,999.99, or about $0.25 a gigabyte. This premium stems from the challenges of cramming 8TB of TLC onto an M.2 stick. Additionally, if you absolutely need this level of performance and capacity, there is simply no competition at the moment.

Software and Accessories

One of the things we like about Sabrent is that their drives come with software. This includes three items: Acronis True Image, the Rocket Control Panel, and the Rocket Sector Size Converter. The OEM copy of Acronis allows users to clone their drive, which is useful when upgrading to a new drive. The Rocket Control Panel is similar to SSD toolboxes from other manufacturers, offering monitoring information and firmware updates. Finally, the Sector Size Converter allows you to format the drive in either 512e or 4Kn.

The original Sabrent Rocket came formatted as 4Kn with 4kB logical and physical sector sizes, which caused some issues for users trying to clone from 512e drives with a 512B logical sector size. Later drives came as 512e from the factory, but Sabrent also began offering a tool to allow users to format as they please. The 4Kn advanced format is more efficient with space usage and can improve performance for an SSD, although it’s more typically utilized in the enterprise space.

A Closer Look

The Rocket 4 Plus’s familiar copper sheen, as presented by its heatspreader, hides the anticipated Phison E18 controller. The back label offers basic details such as the model, serial numbers, and capacity. With both removed, eight NAND and two DRAM packages are visible, half of each on either side of the double-sided PCB. The PCB itself is black, and we can also spot the PMIC near the controller as it happens to stand out against that backdrop.

The Phison E18 SSD controller has proven to be quite the contender even when burdened by 64 dies. This one seems to have been manufactured during the 28th week of 2021. It’s likely the firmware has been optimized for this NAND as well as for managing that many dies.

The DRAM is labeled H5AN8G6NCJ by SK hynix - the “8G” lets us identify it as an 8Gbit or 1GB package while the “6” implies a 16-bit configuration, therefore 512M x 16b. As the other side of the PCB has another one of these packages, the total DRAM cache amount is 2GB. This should be more than sufficient for consumer use even with 8TB of storage. Looking up the designation, we discover this is DDR4, which can offer some power savings over DDR3.

The flash is labeled TA8IG85AYV with 8Tb or 1TB NAND packages. This should be in an 8DP configuration (eight dies per package). This means we have a total of 64 dies, and each die is 1Tb (128GB). This is quite dense for TLC but has been seen before and will be again; flash is only getting denser as the layer count increases. The rest of the designation tells us this is 112-layer BiCS5 from Kioxia.

This flash is more or less equivalent to 128-layer TLC from other manufacturers, such as that found on the 980 Pro by Samsung or on the Gold P31 by SK hynix. BiCS5 should come with a bit lower latency than the old 96-layer BiCS4 flash that’s been used in many products and often as an alternative to Micron’s 96-layer B27B TLC. We’ve seen good results from it on the SN570 and, especially, the SN770.

Kioxia originally demonstrated the technical specifications for BiCS5 at ISSCC 2019. The original design was a 128-layer quad-plane design with a CMOS-under-Array (CuA) configuration. However, the BiCS we tested here is a 112-layer dual-plane design without CuA. These compromises suggest a bigger focus on production efficiency (density and yield), which explains the 1Tb dies used here. These characteristics have potentially impacted other drives by WD that have had their flash upgraded or replaced.

The changes to BiCS5 are an important consideration when comparing this particular SKU to the older Rocket 4 Plus SKUs that were upgraded to 176-layer B47R TLC from Micron. This is, in fact, also a crucial bit of information when comparing to QLC of the same density that will have twice the planes and CuA in place.

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Comparison Products

We're comparing the Rocket 4 Plus 8TB to another 8TB SSD, the QLC-laden Sabrent Rocket Q, and several prominent 4TB PCIe 4.0 drives. These include the WD Black SN850, Seagate’s FireCuda 530, the Team A440 Pro, and the Rocket Q4. The last of these uses QLC flash rather than TLC and the Phison E16 controller rather than an E18. We are also comparing it to a single 4TB PCIe 3.0 drive, the Sabrent Rocket. Finally, we include the 4TB Rocket 4 Plus, although those results are not from our original review but rather an updated version of the drive utilizing B47R TLC flash.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The dense BiCS5 TLC flash in the 8TB Rocket 4 Plus falls behind competing smaller drives that come with B47R flash but otherwise performs adequately for an 8TB SSD, beating the 8TB Rocket Q that comes with QLC flash.

Except for loading times, games currently aren't influenced much by storage performance. These times do not vary much when comparing high-end NVMe drives. Nevertheless, the TLC flash here is more responsive than QLC, a factor to consider when looking at a high-capacity solution.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The PCMark 10 results are somewhat similar to the 3DMark results. Again, the 8TB Rocket 4 Plus does worse than the smaller-capacity SSDs but performs better than QLC and PCIe 3.0 drives. The 8TB Rocket 4 Plus might not be the very fastest OS and application drive, but it would be more than adequate in that role. Regardless, you probably have other priorities in mind if you’re buying this much capacity. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The peak bandwidth provided by the PCIe 4.0 interface, and particularly the E18 SSD controller, allows the PCIe 4.0 drives to pull away in this test.

As suggested by its lower sequential write rating, the Rocket 4 Plus 8TB is a bit slower than its E18-powered peers in the copy transfer test. This is an after-effect of cramming in so many dies.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

We see no surprises in ATTO as the E18-powered drives pull ahead of the rest, although again, we see a dip in write performance at the end with the Rocket 4 Plus 8TB. This type of result also appears in the CrystalDiskMark QD8 sequential write test. Looking back at the drive’s specifications, we also saw a lower maximum read IOPS rating, reflected in the random read tests in Crystal Disk Mark.

A lot of new and upcoming flash, particularly QLC, has improvements focused on improving multi-plane read performance. This is particularly true with high densities and capacities. Going for 8TB and TLC flash with the Rocket 4 Plus has a cost here, also demonstrated in random read latency, but this is unlikely to have a huge impact on the general user. However, certain scenarios may exacerbate this shortcoming, such as attempting read operations during sustained write workloads on a fuller drive.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The Rocket 4 Plus 8TB writes at around 6 Gbps for approximately 147 seconds, indicating an SLC cache size of around 880GB. This cache is dynamic, but far from spanning the entirety of the flash. Nevertheless, it hits a folding speed of around 1 Gbps after the cache runs out. This clearly falls behind the other E18 drives, including its B47R-using 4TB sibling, when it comes to sustained write performance. This is a result of using 8TB of BiCS5 TLC.

Cache recovery is slow on this drive, as with the model’s other SKUs. Other issues might crop up here with thermal throttling and also as a result of utilizing 64 dies, as elaborated in the section below. Addressing this much flash at such speeds could create a bit of a traffic jam between incoming I/O and garbage collection, given the correct conditions. However, generally speaking, this cache size is more than adequate.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best Ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Power is a significant issue with a drive with as much capacity as the 8TB Rocket 4 Plus, and the results show that this drive falls behind its peers in terms of efficiency. There are several possible explanations.

First, this drive uses less-efficient flash, with BiCS5 being a generation behind the commonly-used B47R and lacking CuA. It’s also difficult to drive this much flash efficiently. Additionally, there's a reasonable envelope for maximum power consumption, so some tweaking of the firmware was likely necessary. Overall power consumption on the spec sheet is indeed significantly higher than the 4TB SKU.

Going more deeply, running this many dies at such a high performance level can create signal integrity issues. It’s not uncommon for NAND packages to have redrivers to improve signaling, but also, a lot of effort is spent on having a clean clock “eye” at higher rates, that is, more MT/s with correspondingly higher bandwidth. Of course, it’s possible to improve the signal in other ways, such as with selective on-die termination, but this can impact flash operations in a way that could create additional bottlenecks. For the sake of brevity in this section, though, we can say that some balancing is required to make this work.

A related issue is, of course, heat generation. This drive can run exceptionally hot under a prolonged workload, particularly in a laptop. So it’s advisable to get a heatsink for this one if you want to prevent throttling during sustained loads.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a strong entry into Sabrent’s growing portfolio. Having the option for an 8TB SSD with a high-performance PCIe 4.0 controller is nice, and having that choice come with TLC flash is even better. This is a drive a lot of people have been waiting for, specifically if they don't want to pay the performance and endurance penalties of the QLC flash often used with high-capacity SSDs.

However, you'll have to pay for the privilege of owning such a large drive: The 8TB Rocket 4 Plus SSD does not come cheap. Demand is clearly there as the drive remains regularly sold out, but you might have to shop around to find this drive.

Performance in absolute terms is excellent. In fact, the Rocket 4 Plus is the fastest 8TB SSD we've tested, though that comes with the caveat that the only other models available use either a slower interface or come with QLC flash. This is a PCIe 4.0 drive, and a high-end one at that, so it will outperform most drives on the market. The BiCS5 TLC flash present on the 8TB Rocket 4 Plus, although it’s not all that we hoped, has proven to work well on other drives. Quite simply, running 64 1Tb TLC dies is challenging, particularly when pushing to such high levels of performance. However, in relative terms, it is slower than other E18-powered drives that use Micron’s 176-layer B47R TLC flash.

Sabrent and Phison obviously had design constraints with this SKU, including with power consumption and thermals. We think a heatsink is required for robust use. Power consumption is at the edge, and efficiency suffers — especially with this flash. The raw amount of dies and the use of BiCS5 rather than B47R also means that performance suffers in many cases in both random read and sequential write workloads. There are compromises made to offer this sort of capacity, but those aren't nearly as severe with the Rocket 4 Plus as we see with the QLC-equipped 8TB alternative, the Rocket Q.

The 8TB Rocket 4 Plus is a high-capacity TLC-driven SSD, which is something many users have requested in the consumer/prosumer SSD space for a long time. However, the bigger players have not been responsive. WD, Crucial, and Samsung, among others, have opted not to consistently offer higher-capacity offerings. Reaching the highest levels of capacity does come with some tradeoffs, but Sabrent continues to carve itself out a lucrative spot in the market with its high-capacity drives.

The Rocket 4 Plus 8TB pushes the envelope, and it delivers. That said, we would like to see the cost come down, even knowing the challenges. That should happen with time. We would also like to see what could be done with a newer type of flash, and that time will also likely come. In the meantime, the 8TB Rocket 4 Plus is the fastest drive we've tested at this massive capacity and it is an encouraging sign of things to come.

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Apple has started selling a three-meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable, complete with an eye-watering $159 price tag. That might seem like a lot of money for a USB cable, but there's a bit more to unpack here.

Three meters is approximately 9.8 feet. Right now, this is the longest Thunderbolt 4 cable on the market. Others, like OWC, Belkin, and Plugable tend to sell up to two meters (about 6.6 feet). That's the length Intel and its partners publish for the standard.

Those, however, are a mix of active and passive cables. Teardowns on Apple's 1.8 meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable revealed that it's an active cable, meaning that there are chips and retimers inside to boost the signal along a greater length. These chips can add to the cost, and technically push beyond the spec. Despite the fact that it's, well, a cable, some engineering went into this thing.

This cable is also braided, which is just a nice touch. Apple's latest Magsafe cables for its MacBook Pros are braided, albeit it in white sleeving, and they feel nice and durable. This sleeving also sometimes helps prevent tangling, which can be helpful when you're stretching a 9.8-foot cable across a room.

This is all to say that — despite the initial shock from the price tag — this cable isn't necessarily overpriced. Expensive, yes, but there's some extra tech and other niceties in there. Apple is currently the only game in town, but other vendors will eventually catch up with cheaper options. We can't say the same for a $19 polishing cloth.

Despite exceeding spec in length, Apple's other claims match up with what you expect from Thunderbolt 4, including a 40Gbps bandwidth. (Like Cake, Apple is going for both distance and speed.) This cable also supports up to 100 watts of power, meaning it can charge a MacBook or iPad Pro, as well as DisplayPort video output capabilities to connect to a monitor (such as Apple's own Studio Display or Pro Display XDR).

As of this writing, the three-meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable is available to pick up in some stores, and is shipping between May 13 and May 20 with standard free delivery. 

For those who don't need such a lengthy cable, Apple's 1.8 meter option is $129, while other vendors typically sell for even cheaper. A two meter active cable from Belkin, for instance, is $69.99.

But if you need to snake a cable across or around a room, Apple's the only place for a cable this long. That's the price of really stretching out.

GRAID Technology (via StorageReview) has launched the SupremeRAID SR-1010, touted as the "world's fastest NVMe and NVMeoF RAID card for PCIe Gen 4." The new SupremeRAID SR-1010 aims to take SSD RAID performance to the next level, ensuring there is no performance left on the table.

The new SupremeRAID SR-1010 is the successor to the company's previous SupremeRAID SR-1000, which was on the PCIe 3.0 interface. However, leveraging a speedier PCIe 4.0 interface, the SupremeRAID SR-1010 arrives with a substantial performance uplift. The sequential read performance remains unchanged at 110 GBps, but the SupremeRAID SR-1010 boasts sequential write performance of 22 GBps — twice as fast as the SupremeRAID SR-1000.

When it comes to random performance, the GRAID Technology rates the SupremeRAID SR-1010 with read and write speeds up to 19M IOPS and 1.5M IOPS, respectively. So we're looking at a 19% uplift in read performance and a whopping 83% in write performance.

The SupremeRAID SR-1010 is light years above even the most high-end hardware RAID arrays. According to GRAID Technology's figures, the SupremeRAID SR-1010 offers over 8X higher sequential reads and 5.5X sequential writes. In addition, random performance shows more than 5X better random reads and 8X random writes.

SupremeRAID SR-1010 Performance

The SupremeRAID SR-1010 features a dual-slot design and measures 2.713 x 6.6 inches (height x length). In addition, the NVMeoF RAID card utilizes a blower design with a single cooling fan to keep temperatures in check. According to StorageReview, the SupremeRAID SR-1010 employs Nvidia's RTX A2000 (Ampere) GPU — a significant upgrade over the SupremeRAID SR-1000, which has the Nvidia T1000 (Turing) at its heart.

The SupremeRAID SR-1010 fits into an x16 expansion slot, but to unlock its full potential you might want to make sure that it's a PCIe 4.0 interface. The maximum power consumption of 70W is only 20W higher than its predecessor. The SupremeRAID SR-1010 admits RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 arrays like the previous model. The card manages up to 32 directly attached NVMe SSDs and supports the most popular Linux distributions and Windows Server 2019 and 2022.

The SupremeRAID SR-1010 will be available starting May 1 through GRAID Technology's authorized resellers and OEM partners. The card's pricing is unknown.

Dr2mod, a Ukrainian maker whose Raspberry Pi work we’ve covered in the past, has developed an air raid siren monitor using a Raspberry Pi Zero W. This simple Pi project provides critical data regarding Ukrainian air raid sirens in real-time using the SBC along with an e-Ink display for visual output.

This isn’t Dr2mod’s first foray into Pi-powered monitoring systems. He recently created a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered sun tracker that predicts the location of the sun based on the user's physical location and outputs the data to an e-Ink display. He also created a Pi-powered SDR airplane monitor that could relay flight data in real-time to a Waveshare LCD. But this is arguably one of the most crucial Raspberry Pi monitoring systems he’s ever developed.

The air raid siren monitor works by displaying a map of Ukraine on the e-Ink display. A key is shown to the side, indicating what the different coloring patterns signify and how many territories are estimated to be affected alongside each. For example, if an area is reportedly sounding its air raid siren, the display will update with the location darkened and increase the number next to the darkened key block by 1.

The monitor is built around a Raspberry Pi Zero W, which uses less power than a full-sized Pi and offers wireless support. However, a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ or Pi 4 would work just as well. The display is a 2.13-inch e-Ink HAT from Waveshare designed specifically to attach to the Raspberry Pi.

According to Dr2mod, the data used to determine whether or not an air raid siren is activated is retrieved from Telegram. The e-Ink display updates automatically when an air raid siren confirmation message is submitted through a predetermined Telegram channel.

This Raspberry Pi project is totally open source for anyone who wants to recreate it for themselves. The best way to get started is to check out the project over at GitHub to get a closer look at how to set it up and get started. Be sure to follow Dr2mod for future Pi projects and any updates on this one.

It's no secret that the semiconductor shortage is affecting industries across the globe. The shortage hit the GPU market particularly hard, which resulted in wildly inflated prices across the board (although steady price erosion since the start of 2022 has been welcome news to gaming enthusiasts). Auto manufacturers have also faced dwindling chip inventories, which has forced some companies to leave thousands of vehicles sitting in lots, unable to be delivered to dealerships. However, ASML CEO Peter Wennink described on an earning's call how some companies take desperate measures to get their hands on highly sought-after and mature microprocessors.

According to Wennink, several large industrial companies have resorted to ripping chips out of consumer washing machines for industrial use. Typical household washing machines can range from $400 to thousands of dollars each, so that is a relatively expensive way to obtain chips manufactured on a mature process node. However, it's more likely that these companies are buying used machines or devices earmarked to head to a recycling center. Companies could get the washing machines at a significant discount and still grab the chips in this scenario. 

"Technology-wise, market-wise, geography-wise, it's so widespread that we have significantly underestimated, let's say, the width of the demand," said Wennink yesterday during ASML's Q1 2022 earnings call. "And [I don't] think it is going to go away." 

Wennink referenced a "very large industrial company, [conglomerate]" when talking about washing machine chip raiding. "Now, you could say, that's an anecdote. But, to be honest, it happens everywhere," Wennink continued. "It is — like I said, it is 15, 20, 25-year old semiconductor technology that is now being used everywhere. It's got — it's all driven by IoT type applications."

ASML, which previously stood for Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography, is headquartered in Veldhoven, Netherlands. It is currently the world's exclusive supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) photolithography machines. These machines produce advanced semiconductors from well-known industry titans like Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC.

Earlier this year, the company made headlines when a fire inside its Berlin factory disrupted its production lines. Then, in February, ASML got into a verbal tussle with China's Dongfang Jingyuan Electron Ltd. ASML accused the company of infringing on its intellectual property under the protection of the Chinese government's "little giant" classification.

It’s a new age for custom mechanical keyboards, and there’s never been a better time to jump into the hobby. It used to be difficult to assemble your own custom keyboard, sourcing parts from different websites or joining group buys that demand payment up front and months of waiting to see a final product. Those days are behind us, and there are few better examples of that than the Portico75 from TheKey.Company.

The Portico75 is a compact tenkeyless keyboard kit that retails for $140 without switches or keycaps. It includes a colorful plastic case, hot-swappable switches, per-key RGB, pre-installed gasket mount strips for a soft typing experience, and a thick silicone dampener to tune the sound and quiet your keystrokes. It’s also compatible with QMK and VIA for complete, open-source programmability. If you’ve been looking for an affordable way to try a custom keyboard for yourself, this is a solid option that’s well worth your consideration.

Portico75 Specs

Design of the Portico75

The Portico75 is a 75-percent keyboard housed in a polycarbonate case. It joins the likes of the Keychron Q1 and Glorious GMMK Pro as an affordable entry-level option that delivers custom mechanical keyboard features at entry-level prices. Unlike those two keyboards, its plastic case and internal sound damping offers an entirely different sound profile and feel.

The Portico75 is the follow-up to TheKey.Company’s (TKC) original Portico65. Like that keyboard, it’s intended to bring an enthusiast-grade typing experience to users who may never have built a custom keyboard before. It includes features that are usually reserved for more expensive keyboard kits, like a gasket-based mounting structure, screw-in stabilizers, and south-facing switches. It doesn’t include switches or keycaps, but does include a set of C3 Equalz stabilizers (plus a set of modding supplies C3 calls the “soulmate kit”) and a very nice travel case to keep your keyboard safe on the go. All of this retails for $140, which means with conservative choices for switches and keycaps, the whole keyboard could potentially be built for around $200.

While that’s still a lot of money compared to many of the best gaming keyboards, it’s quite reasonable in the world of custom mechanical keyboards and not far off from the cost you’d come to if you built a keyboard from separately purchased parts. The Portico75 is also one of the few entry-level keyboards to feature the 75% layout, which includes a full function row, arrow keys, and some navigation and editing buttons. The Novel Keys NK65 Entry Edition and KBDFans KBD67 Lite also come to mind, but both are more compact and don’t feature a full function row for productivity and games.

The Portico has a lot of personality. Its case comes in translucent plastic in clear, blue, lavender, or smoke. The blue and lavender in particular stand aout and absolutely pop on a desk. Each of these broadcasts the RGB LEDs underneath each key, as well as another 18 lights that fire downward from the bottom of the PCB. You can also see every piece of the mold and the gaskets along the top and bottom.

The design here can look great (I really like the blue sample I was sent), but I do think it may vary based on color. In reviewing the different pictures TKC has released, and the several videos posted to YouTube, the different colors aren’t equally eye-catching. The smoke color, for example, is almost too translucent and looks more like a washed out gray. None of the colors do a good job of diffusing the underglow LEDs either. You can see exactly where they are in clear hotspots. A little more frosting on the case would have done a better job of evening out the lighting.

TheKey.Company changed up the key layout a little, to create a cleaner overall look. 75% keyboards are sometimes called compact TKLs because they feature most of the same keys in a smaller form factor: a full function row, arrow keys, and a column of navigation and editing buttons along the right side. Traditionally, that right-hand column includes four buttons. The Portico cuts this down to two (I customized mine for Home and End) and offsets the arrow keys down and to the right. The added space reduces key count but looks less busy, which I like.

Because the Portico75 is budget-oriented keyboard, there aren’t many extra features on the exterior of the case. It features a rotary encoder knob that is mapped to volume by default. The encoder is milled from aluminum and features a knurled surface you can easily grab, but it’s very lightweight and clearly not as premium as the knob on, say, the Meletrix Zoom65. The rear edge of the keyboard features a centered USB Type-C port to connect with your PC, and it’s positioned low enough to keep the connector out of sight during normal use. There are no additional ports and no tilt feet, but the case is built with an 8-degree typing angle, so it really doesn’t need them.

Inside the case, things get more interesting. It uses an FR4 fiberglass plate, which is firm enough to easily install switches in, but less dense than aluminum or steel for a deeper typing sound. The PCB supports south-facing switches for instant compatibility with aftermarket keycaps, though this does mean that keycaps with backlit legends won’t be as bright since the LED is positioned on the opposite side. It also has hot-swappable switch sockets so you can try new switches without desoldering, and screw-in stabilizers for improved sound and stability.

The case also comes with two layers of sound dampening material. Between the plate and PCB is a layer of felt to help absorb typing sounds. In the bottom of the case, there’s a thick layer of silicone to remove any hollowness and absorb sounds even more. These both work wonderfully and, as I’ll discuss in the typing section, drastically reduce the volume of typing sounds. For this build, I used boutique SP-Star Marble Soda switches and their volume level competes with truly silent switches, like Cherry Silent Pinks.

TheKey.Company includes everything you’ll need in the boxes. This includes all of the tools, including a nice pair of tweezers and the best switch puller I’ve ever seen included with a keyboard, as well as some spare parts. In addition, you’ll also receive a nice semi-hardback travel case. I like it, but I’d love to see a version of this keyboard sold that didn’t include it for $110 or $120 to make it an even better value for people who will leave it sitting on their desk.

Assembling the Portico75

The Portico75 arrives partially assembled, but don’t let that fool you. You’ll still need to take it apart to install the stabilizers, then piece it back together to install switches and keycaps. This disassembly is an important process because it teaches you how each of its parts come together again. TheKey.Co also provides an assembly guide to walk you through each step of the process, but I appreciate this kind of hands-on learning in a board designed for newcomers to the mechanical keyboard hobby.

The assembly process is very straightforward. The longest part is preparing and installing the stabilizers. Since the kit comes with modding tools, I opted to use them all. This included installing pads onto the PCB to cushion bottom outs from the stem (band-aid mod, minus actual bandaids), foam support stickers to prop up the wire and negate any imbalance that might cause ticking, installing Teflon strips inside the stem for to holee mod, and then lubing each with Krytox 205G0 and Permatex dielectric grease. You can learn more about all of these mods in our mechanical keyboard tuning guide, as well as how they impact typing performance. But they culminate in a process called “tuning the stabilizers” to sound their best and eliminate all rattle.

With this done, the case can be reassembled. Once the stabilizers are installed, it's time to place the felt plate foam on top of the PCB and screw it together with the plate. This sets into the case with cut-outs for the pre-installed gaskets, so aligning everything is fast and easy. The hardest part of the entire process is plugging in the cable for the USB daughterboard, which is unnecessarily short.

From there, all that’s left to do is install switches and keycaps. Both of which are exceptionally easy. The PCB features hot-swappable switch sockets, so switches simply plug and unplug without the need for soldering. Keycaps press onto the top of the switches. With that done, all that’s left to do is test that each switch works using VIA or an online key switch tester, like this one from Keyboard Checker. Since the PCB supports 5-pin switches, they’re easier to align and avoid bent switches, so I only had to bend two switch pins back to have a fully functional keyboard.

For this build, I used TKC’s IFK 4800K keycap set. This is a basic black-on-white keycap set made of thick PBT plastic. The legends are made with dye sublimation, so they won't fade away. The design is minimalist and simple but matches with this build very well. I’m a big fan of the blue and white, and the color scheme came out well here. The switches also sound and feel great to type on.

Sound Test of the Portico75

Typing Experience on the Portico75

Since the Portico75 doesn’t come with switches or keycaps, the typing experience will vary based upon how you customize it. Given its construction, there will be some core similarities between builds, however, and some reliable traits you can count on. At its current price, the Portico75 delivers an impressive typing experience that stands apart from several recent competitors due to its plastic case.

The Portico is a very sound-dampened keyboard that rounds out the sharper typing sounds and makes linear switches sound almost silent. This is because of the thick silicone mat and felt plate. There is no reverberation or hollowness to the case at all. The effect is enhanced due to the gasket-based mounting structure, which isolates the plate from the case and creates a softer sound and feel. This effect can be somewhat divisive as the level of damping can remove some of the more subtle sound characteristics of different brands of switch, but is very pleasant overall.

The word that comes to mind when typing here is “gentle.” Because of the gaskets, there is no harshness to the typing experience at all. Any of the downward force and vibration from bottoming out hits the gaskets and stops. Those bottom outs also allow the poron gasket strips to depress imperceptibly under each keystroke. You can’t feel the plate moving when you type, but you do feel the resulting softness in your fingertips. If you press down, you can see the plate flex, but the silicone mat limits how far, and this isn’t something you’ll do in normal use.

The plastic case also makes a meaningful difference in the typing experience. While some competing keyboards in this space lean toward aluminum cases (see the Meletrix Zoom65 or QwertyKeys QK65), the Portico75 is much closer to the KBDFans KBD67 Lite and NovelKeys NK87 Entry Edition. Neither of those keyboards feature the 75-percent layout, however, and neither features a rotary encoder. The case gives the keyboard a deeper sound than aluminum, though the silicone mat and plate foam do temper this a bit. I applied the Tape Mod (explained here) to counteract this and deepen the sound even further.

For this build, TKC sent over a set of SP-Star Marble Soda switches. They’re a medium-weight linear switch that also happen to match the blue color of the case perfectly. These switches came pre-lubricated and were smooth out of the box and became more so with hand lubing. The eight-degree typing angle is fairly high, and I found it most comfortable with a wrist rest. Even though the keyboard is compact, the spacing between the keys is the same as a full-size TKL. My personal typing speed didn’t decrease at all switching over to it and remained steady at about 110 WPM on MonkeyType.

Gaming Experience on the Portico75

The Portico75 isn’t a gaming keyboard and doesn’t have any dedicated gaming features. That said, it worked very well for the mix of first-person shooters and RPGs I played with it. There was no discernible lag and pressing keys was consistently responsive. The inclusion of arrow keys and a full function row is also a boon for games that require them and leaves the door open for in-game macros and re-binds. Likewise, QMK and VIA support also mean you can have dedicated layouts for individual games if you choose.

The core of the keyboard is really how good it feels to use. There, the Portico is a winner and that feeling transcends any particular use case. I would rather game on its smooth and satisfying keys over a clacky and rattly keyboard with “gaming” in its name any day of the week. But, if you need advanced macros, you’ll need to look into a dedicated software solution, like AutoHotKey.

Software for the Portico75

Like most custom keyboards, the Portico75 supports QMK and VIA. QMK is an open-source firmware for keyboards which allows users to completely remap their keys and program multiple layers (additional keysets) for secondary functions. These remaps are programmed at the firmware level, which means they don’t require software to run and will work identically on any system you plug it into, regardless of any IT limitations or security programs that might be running.

QMK is powerful software and is quite beloved in the enthusiast community. There are two ways to program the keyboard. You can select all of your keymaps online using the QMK Configurator and then download a firmware file which then needs to be flashed (always a nerve-wracking process) or program your keymaps locally using VIA. VIA is similar to the QMK Configurator but changes are saved automatically, with no need to flash.

There are a couple of differences between these programs. The first is that VIA limits you to four layers of keymaps whereas the Configurator allows you to map up to 16. Typically, I’m able to map all of my macros and secondary functions to a single secondary layer, but if you’d like to have a separate keymap for each game and application, the QMK Configurator will give you more room to work with.

The other major difference is that VIA allows you to program macros while the QMK Configurator does not. Macro programming is much more limited and cumbersome than what’s possible in gaming software, so it’s not something I found very useful. You can’t simply press a record button and type in whatever you would like to be stored. Instead, it’s best suited for simple text strings. If you care to use key combinations (Alt+1, Ctrl+2, etc.), you’ll need to manually type in keycodes using a special syntax.

Another area where QMK and VIA differ from traditional software suites is how they handle lighting controls. Instead of being able to click a key and choose its color, lighting is handled on a whole keyboard basis. You can cycle through whatever presets are built into the board (there are ten to choose from on the Portico75) and then customize these with special keys mapped to hue and saturation controls. It’s possible to program more unique lighting layouts, but it requires writing your own code and then compiling your own firmware.

Despite those limitations compared to more mainstream gaming software, QMK opens the door to advanced keymaps and dual-function keys. For example, my Caps Lock key is mapped to shift layers when held, giving me access to all of my secondary functions without ever moving my fingers from Home Row. Being able to completely customize your keymaps without limit is freeing, allowing you to make your keyboard your own in a way that’s just not possible with most production keyboards.

Bottom Line

At $140, the Portico75 from TheKey.Company is a solid choice for a first custom mechanical keyboard. It offers a streamlined build process that provides an effective education on how mechanical keyboards come together. It also acts as a platform to explore the world of modding with included supplies to tune the stabilizers and easy access to the PCB.

Like most custom keyboard kits, it doesn’t come with switches or keycaps, so you’ll need to budget for those separately. If you’d rather have everything from the start, the Meletrix Zoom65 is a good alternative. The aluminum case does change the sound and feel of the keyboard, however, so if you’re looking for a deeper sounding option that also comes ready-made for a great typing experience, the iQunix A80 and L80 are two other excellent options.

Like the Portico65 before it, the Portico75 offers a lot for not very much. It won’t compete with some of the higher-end custom keyboards out there, but those kits often cost $100 or even $200 more. If you’re looking for a keyboard that looks, feels, and sounds good to use without spending hundreds, this is well worth considering.

The Sabrent Docking Station comes in a variety of capacities ranging from 2TB to 16TB and comes packing copious connectivity options, including dual 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 ports with power delivery and a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Type-C port, among many options.

Internally this device holds dual Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe SSDs, between 1TB and 8TB each. Since these are Sabrent Rocket Q SSDs, they each have the expected Phison E12S SSD controller with DDR3L DRAM cache paired with 96-layer Intel/Micron QLC flash, making for a potent combo that can deliver up to 1,500 MBps of throughput (and a theoretical 3,000 MBps in RAID 0).

The price per gigabyte ranges from $0.16 to $0.25 depending on the capacity, with the highest amounts coming for the 2TB SKU followed by the 16TB SKU. This makes sense as there is a static cost for the dock hardware, even at 2TB, while the 8TB drives in the 16TB model are more expensive given their high capacity. 

Specifications

Features include:

• 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports, up to 40 Gbps
• 2x USB 3.2 Type-A ports, up to 10 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2x1)
• 1x USB 3.2 Type-C port, up to 10 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2x1)
• 1x USB 3.0 Type-A port, up to 5 Gbps with BC1.2 5V@2.4A charging (USB 3.2 Gen 1x1)
• 1x DisplayPort 1.4
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45, 1x 3.5mm audio input, 1x 3.5mm microphone input
• 1x SD (UHS-II) card reader, up to 270 MB/s
• PD3.0-capability, up to 96W

The dock is rated up to 1,500 MBps for sequential reads and writes, but it can hit around twice that if the drives are placed in a striped software RAID-0 configuration. The latter performance metrics are not officially listed but reflect the nature of each drive being allocated two PCIe 3.0 lanes out of a total of four. This is thanks to the Intel JHL7440 controller that also supplies two Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) ports, rated up to 40 Gbps, and a single DisplayPort 1.4 output. One of these TB3 ports can provide power, and the other can daisy-chain devices.

The dock additionally has three USB 3.2 Type-A ports, one rated for up to 10 Gbps and two for up to 5 Gbps, and a single USB 3.2 Type-C port at up to 10 Gbps. USB terminology can be complicated, so we will outline these more precisely below. Additionally, there’s a gigabit ethernet RJ45 port, two 3.5mm ports for audio and microphone input, respectively, and a single UHS-II SD card reader rated for up to 270 MB/s. The dock can also provide power delivery of up to 96W via PD3.0.

The dock comes with a three-year warranty and an endurance rating (TBW - Terabytes Written) equal to one of the two drives. For example, as reviewed, the 16TB dock is warrantied to absorb 1.8 petabytes of write data, as would be the case with just one of its two internal 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q SSDs.

Software and Accessories

The Sabrent Rocket Dock comes with a 150W power adapter, including a detachable power cable and a single 27” ThunderBolt 3 cable. No software is included, but, as usual, we point to the myriad of free solutions available. For RAID, it’s possible to use Windows to build a software array either through Disk Management or Storage Spaces. Similar options exist with other operating systems, such as Disk Utility on OS X.

A Closer Look

Although we have already covered the available ports above, we can see that Sabrent has clearly labeled their ports for the ease of the user. We can, for example, determine which TB3 port provides power.

It’s worth pointing out again that the USB specification has been confusing for a while now - Sabrent labels all the ports as USB 3.2, indicating Gen1 or Gen2 and the speed. The USB 3.2 Gen1 ports are Gen 1x1, equivalent to USB 3.1 Gen 1 or USB 3.0, while the USB 3.2 Gen2 ports are Gen 2x1, the same as USB 3.1 Gen 2 or USB 3.1. The former is rated at 5 Gbps with 8b/10b encoding for an actual output of around 450 MBps, while the latter are 10 Gbps with 128b/132b encoding for closer to 1000 MBps.

The dock opens easily to reveal two separate boards, connected via PCIe slots in a folded manner to reduce volume, and a heatsink for the NVMe drives and structural support. There is also thermal padding and additional component protection.

Removing the heatsink shows that there is good contact with the SSD controllers and sufficient contact for the DRAM, although perhaps not sufficiently tight flash package engagement. Typically the controller on the SSD runs the hottest with regard to thermal influence - that is, the controller is the most significant contributor to throttling. We would not expect throttling to be an issue with this sort of contact, especially given that speeds will be limited by the interface.

A closer look at the main components gives us some idea about how the dock comes together. First, we have Intel’s JHL7440 Thunderbolt controller, a.k.a. Titan Ridge, which supplies the most significant features of the dock, including bandwidth and connectivity for the two internal SSDs.

The Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort video outputs support 4K displays at up to 60 Hz or 8K up to 30 Hz, with HDR, HDCP 2.2, and Adaptive Sync compatibility. TB3 also supports other devices, including four PCIe 3.0 lanes utilized by the internal SSDs. Daisy-chaining of up to six devices is supported, as is power delivery up to 96W or 15W for bus-powered devices. Thunderbolt is provided at either 20 or 40 Gbps and is bidirectional with connection support up to 10 Gbps for USB or ethernet.

The USB ports are provided by two 2-/4-port USB hub chips manufactured by VIA Labs, or VLI, with the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3.2 Gen 1x1) VL817 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB 3.2 Gen 2x1) VL820-Q8. In addition, these controllers support battery charging specification 1.2 (BC1.2), which would output up to 2.4A at 5V but can scale depending on device support.

Realtek’s RTS5329 SD4.0 controller provides the SD slot. In addition, the CMedia CM6533 is utilized for the two audio ports. Lastly, the Realtek ERL8153b is the gigabit ethernet controller.

Here we have the two Sabrent-branded NVMe drives. These appear to be standard 8TB Sabrent Rocket Qs with Sabrent-branded Phison E12S controllers, Kingston DDR3L - in 512M x 16b or 1GB modules - and 8TB of 96-layer flash provided by Intel/Micron. These are solid options if your goal is to maximize the amount of storage in a small amount of space, for example with a NUC or inside a dock. 16TB of total space is a substantial amount given the small footprint. There’s also always the option for RAID, for example, software RAID-0 to double the capacity and performance. RAID-1 or a mirror is also a compelling option for redundancy.

It’s worth mentioning that RAID-0 is technically prone to higher failure rates as an issue with either drive in the array will cause a loss of data due to striping. Likewise, RAID-1 should not be relied upon to secure your data as it is a form of redundancy and not a backup solution.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

We will be testing the docking station’s internal drives both in single-drive mode and in RAID-0. The competition includes other portable SSDs: the 1TB Samsung X5, the 1TB Kingston XS2000, the 2TB Adata SE900G, the 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, the 1TB LaCie Rugged SSD Pro, and the 1TB WD Black P50. Some of these drives are DRAM-less and it’s worth noting that the host memory buffer (HMB) function is not passed by USB bridge chips. It does work over Thunderbolt, but our docking station drives each has its own local DRAM.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The docking station SSDs come in last here because QLC flash can have higher latency than TLC flash. The drives are all close together, though, and all are slower than a native drive. In addition, there are no substantial gains from RAID-0 as game loading focuses on low queue depth and low-threaded random reads. This may change in the future with DirectStorage, which is officially on the way as Microsoft recently launched the API.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The Sabrent dock does well here in both bandwidth and latency, thanks to the TB3 connection. The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro, which also relies on TB3, does equally well. Utilizing RAID-0 helps eke out a bit more bandwidth. A USB connection typically has less bandwidth available as well as more overhead.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. First, we copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder, and then follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

Due to PCIe lane limitations, the dock has less bandwidth available in single-drive mode. In RAID-0, this limitation disappears, and the dock comes out on top in all tests. Notably, the Rugged SSD Pro falls behind with writes and copies compared to the dock’s RAID-0 configuration as it is limited to a single drive.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Again, the dock lags behind in single-drive mode but wins in RAID-0 for our sequential read/write ATTO tests. This trend continues with CrystalDiskMark, particularly with sequential writes. The dock also does well with latency and random reads and writes, particularly writes, only falling behind in areas where the QLC is a bit of a limitation. The RAID-0 especially helps at high queue depth with high threading, obviously with writes.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The Rocket Qs utilize full-drive SLC caching, which is around 2TB of QLC for the 8TB SKUs. This cache is doubled in RAID-0 mode. This makes it particularly difficult to show how the drives perform outside of SLC mode, given that the speed is limited in both modes to about half of what the native drives could achieve. This not only spreads the writes out but also gives the controllers more opportunities to do folding in the background. For realistic workloads, the SLC cache should not be limiting, although keep in mind the cache will become much smaller as the drives are filled.

We see more typical patterns with the other drives, including the great direct-to-TLC speeds we would expect on the Extreme Pro v2. Nevertheless, if we’re looking for maximum burst performance, it’s impossible to beat the dock with RAID-0.

Miscellaneous Testing - Ethernet and SD Card Slot Speed

Also worth noting is that speeds over Ethernet should be at the maximum allowed, that is approximately 112.5 MBps. This will never exceed QLC sequential write speeds even on a single drive. The SD card slot, when tested, peaked just shy of the rated 270 MBps, which is a nice option for content creators on the go.

Temperature

As tested the Dock remained generally cool, around 40C after sustained transfers. This may be warm to the touch but is relatively cool, all things considered. The internal drives reported maximum temperatures around 60C, well below the throttling point. It’s nice not to have to worry about thermals in such a small package, but more care would be necessary from the user in super-hot climates if the dock is used outdoors.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

This is a bit of a different product from our typical SSD reviews, even if you count portable products. However, it’s a useful product with plenty of storage offered in a small form factor with lots of connectivity. However, docks, while popular, inherently confuse many buyers due to how the interlocking components work. Sabrent has labeled the ports clearly, which helps.

Intel’s JHL7440 controller is now four years old, underlining how old the technology is in this dock. That's not necessarily a bad thing on its own, as it’s mature and a step above Alpine Ridge, but it challenges Sabrent’s pricing decision. Other components could be upgraded or added, such as having 20 Gbps USB ports, the addition of Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi, et cetera. That is not to take anything away from this product, as it checks all the basic boxes and should adequately meet most needs; TB4 and even USB4 support would not add much except more cost for many users. It’s just to say that there’s room to grow in this segment, but there may be some sticker shock as-is.

As another example of a potential change, Sabrent could offer TLC-based drives, although the Thunderbolt 3 and PCIe 3.0 interfaces are real-world limitations on performance. Going for capacity was, and is, a smart move. However, there’s no doubt people will wonder why the 2TB model, for example, is QLC-based. We suspect we will see faster internal drives in the future, but the reality is, the flash in these drives is obsolete, as there is 144-layer QLC from Intel and 176-layer QLC from other manufacturers on the way, along with 176-layer TLC being ramped up.

Overall, we were particularly impressed with the design and layout, which, while simple, ensures a tight and effective package. Cooling was more than adequate. Connectivity, again, is well done, with an eye on simplification for general use. Potential compatibility issues would be universal — for instance, and issues with the JHL7440 building block would be an Intel limitation. This means that products like this have a higher support burden for the manufacturer, but from the end user’s standpoint, this particular product would have similar limitations to what you would see from other competing devices with the same hardware. 

If you’re looking for robust connectivity and storage in a portable package, given that Sabrent stands behind their products which include the SSDs, this is the ticket. It’s also possible to RAID the internal storage, which, while largely unnecessary, is a nice option not available with single-drive devices. Also, of course, performance is inherently superior to USB-based portable SSDs. Finally, this is an all-in-one design with portable SSDs and a dock, so it should be treated as such when looking at the price. With that in mind, it’s difficult not to recommend.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Update 4/8/2022 02:24 PT:

CapFrameX has tweeted "It was actually Ultra details and Ultra shadows to stress CPU/RAM. AF/AA/AO and post processing min." and we have updated the story to reflect this correction.

Original Article:

XanxoGaming released the first benchmarks for AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. The Peruvian news outlet followed up a quick gaming benchmark in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where AMD’s L3 cache-heavy chip outperformed the Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS.

XanxoGaming executed the benchmarks in conjunction with the developer of CapFrameX, a helpful tool to analyze frame times. The publication tested at a 720p (1280 x 720) resolution with ultra details and shadows to stress the CPU. It’s essential to consider that the Intel and AMD systems used different hardware, which XanxoGaming has admitted is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

The Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS systems have a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and DDR5-4800 C40 memory, whereas the Ryzen 7 5800X3D system was on a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with DDR4-3200 C14 memory. So despite the Intel testbed having a better graphics card, the AMD system won by a fair margin, making the feat even more impressive.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D delivered an average frame rate of 231 FPS, while the Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS finished with 190 FPS and 200 FPS, respectively. Therefore, AMD’s chip beat the Core i9-12900K by 22% and the Core i9-12900KS by 16%. Furthermore, let’s look back at AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D presentation. The chipmaker estimates that the processor offers up to 10% better gaming performance than the Core i9-12900K at 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution with high image quality.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a title that relies heavily on memory speed and is sensitive to memory latency, which favors the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. It’s necessary to put the AMD chip through more titles to see whether it can be the “world’s fastest gaming CPU,” as AMD has been calling it. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D will hit the shelves on April 20 for $449. Therefore, we’re less than two weeks away from finding out whether AMD can take away the crown for the “fastest gaming CPU” from the Core i9-12900KS, which recently debuted at $799.99.

A massive coordinated raid across several major cities took place in Taiwan on Wednesday. The targets of the raid weren’t distributors of illicit drugs or guns, or any other such criminal staple, but Chinese owned chip and component suppliers, reports Nikkei Asia . Detectives from the Investigation Bureau of the Taiwanese Ministry of Justice (MoJ) were looking for evidence of Chinese tech firms poaching local talent, and aimed to thwart activities seen as "China's attempt to weaken Taiwan's core economic competitiveness."

Over 100 investigators from Taiwan's MoJ swooped into offices at 14 locations across the island. The action mainly took place in technology industry hotspots and science park hosting cities like Taipei, Hsinchu and Taichung. After the site visits, more than 60 people involved in the Chinese companies were brought in for questioning.

We aren't familiar with the Chinese tech firms being put under scrutiny by Taiwan's MoJ, but that might be due to the very nature of these companies, according to statements gathered by Nikkei Asia. The MoJ asserts that many of the Chinese companies raided had set up R&D or other operations in Taiwan without following proper regulations, and some have even sought to disguise ownership, setting them up as local or other-foreign owned companies.

The companies raided on Wednesday had been observed closely for the last six months; their financial and other business dealings, and the personnel flow were under particular scrutiny. China's alleged activity is characterized as more serious than common-or-garden skulduggery, more as an orchestrated attempt to weaken Taiwan, and as a shortcut to bolster China's tech industry development.

China's "Villainous Efforts"

Taiwan's DoJ doesn't pull its punches in an official statement seen by Nikkei Asia. "These are unlawful and villainous efforts and need to be treated seriously," wrote the Investigation Bureau of the Taiwanese Ministry of Justice in a press statement. "This is not only a matter of economic and commercial competition but could be national security threats."

Warning Signs

In recent times Taiwanese authorities have become increasingly concerned about talent poaching and tech secrets being leaked by Chinese firms. This anxiety came to a head last month with a new law being drafted by the legislature which could mean up to 12-years imprisonment to those found guilty of acts classified as economic espionage.

Most would agree that Taiwan's crown jewels include its semiconductor and computer component makers. With the rapid expansion of these businesses in recent years the country can't train qualified engineers quickly enough and highly skilled staff are provided with good salaries and sometimes very significant bonuses to remain loyal.

It is natural to protect such a scarce and valuable resource, especially from what is often considered a hostile communist power, and one that is sanctioned by allies in the US.

Lastly, there are rumors that it isn't just the 'free market' for labor in action when a Taiwanese engineer is poached to work for a Chinese owned company. China is giving state backing to various companies seen as essential to its semiconductor industry progress, and sometimes these funds may be helpful in paying more than the norm to hire an engineer from Taiwan or, of course, other countries.

It's often the most premium laptops that excite enthusiasts, as they are showcases for what the latest and greatest components can do on the go. The 2022 edition of the MSI GE76 Raider  (~ $3,999 as tested), which we've seen on our best gaming laptops list in several iterations, pairs the Intel Core i9-12900HK with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the fastest mobile CPU and GPU from each company, respectively.

There are improvements in both CPU and GPU performance — especially the former — over last year's model, although I think this is a far more appealing upgrade for those who have waited a few years.

But between powerful gaming performance, a strong selection of ports and an RGB light bar that will either stun or annoy you, the Raider should get your attention.  

Design of the MSI GE76 Raider

MSI housed the latest components from Intel and Nvivdia in a chassis that slams together a minimalist aesthetic with all of the excesses of gaming notebooks. This is MSI's second year using a color it calls "titanium blue." When the light hits it ever so right, there is indeed a little blue in there, but frankly, it looks black. If MSI wants a blue machine, it should at least go as far as Acer does on some of its Predator laptops. Otherwise, call it black. There's no shame in staying stealthy!

The rest of that color comes from RGB lighting–and there sure is a lot of it! Besides per-key lighting on the keyboard, there is also a large, luminescent strip under the wrist rest. You can't miss it, and it definitely makes a statement. Both the keyboard and light bar can be customized using SteelSeries’ GG software, which comes preinstalled

MSI's aluminum lid is austere with the exception of MSI's dragon shield logo in silver. The only sign of the aggression you usually see in gaming notebook design is in the cut-off edges. Otherwise, you might think this thick PC was a workstation.

The 17.3-inch display has thin bezels on four sides, though the bottom is still a bit thick for 2022. MSI has branding on that section, but it's tone-on-tone to the point you might not even realize it.

There are plenty of ports along the sides and rear of the device. On its left flank, there is a Thunderbolt 4 port, USB Type-A and a headphone jack, while the right boasts two more Type-A ports and a full-size SD card reader. On the back there's a USB Type-C port, along with the power jack, HDMI, mini DisplayPort and Ethernet — the types of cables you're likely to leave alone when the Raider is set up at your desk.

And as a 17.3-inch gaming notebook, the Raider is definitely a desktop replacement. It measures in at 15.63 x 11.18 x 1.01 inches and weighs 6.39 pounds. It's the same chassis as last year's GE76 Raider, with the same dimensions. The Alienware x17 R1 is heavier at 7.05 pounds with a 15.72 x 11.79 x 0.8 footprint, while the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 is the lightest at 5.96 pounds and is 15.55 x 11.11 x 1.08 inches.

MSI GE76 Raider Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI GE76 Raider

The biggest question for people looking for a gaming laptop with the latest and greatest is how the Intel Core i9-12900K and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti work together. It's a potent combination, though if you have 11th Gen Intel and last year's RTX 3080, the difference won’t exactly be life-changing.

I used the Raider to play Halo Infinite's campaign on its ultra quality preset. The game ran around 130 frames per second at 1080p (the display's native resolution), but sometimes as high as 160 fps. When I moved to multiplayer, I switched the preset to low and pushed around 200 fps.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark on its highest settings at 1080p resolution, the new Raider G76 ran the game at 112 frames per second, up six frames from last year's model, which boasted an Intel Core i9-11900HK and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. It also surpassed Alienware x17 R1 with a Core i7-1800H and RTX 3080 (77 fps) and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733 with a Ryzen 9 5900HX and RTX 3080 (92 fps). 

Grand Theft Auto V was a piece of cake for the Raider, hitting 139 frames per second on very high settings at 1080p. That's eight frames ahead of last year's model, and also beats the Alienware by 10 frames and the Strix Scar by 30 frames.

The new components showed off on Far Cry New Dawn (ultra settings, 1080p), hitting 113 frames per seconds, handily surpassing the rest of the field. The closest was last year's model, at 99 fps.

We saw a similar trend on Borderlands 3 on "badass" settings at 1080p. The new Raider hit 106 fps, while the 2021 model achieved 98 fps. The Alienware was next up at 94 fps.

But everything came a bit closer together on Red Dead Redemption 2, where MSI's latest rig 82 hit fps, improving 5 frames over the old model, but just one frame over last year's Alienware.

On gaming notebooks, we stress test the system by running the Metro Exodus benchmark on RTX settings 15 times, simulating about half an hour of gameplay. The game ran at an average of 83.68 frames per second across the runs, staying largely in the 83 range, but occasionally popping up to 84 fps on some runs.

The performance cores on the Alder Lake processor ran at an average of 3.94 GHz on the stress test, while the efficiency cores hit an average of 2.88 GHz. The CPU package measured an average of 84.98 degrees Celsius (184.96 degrees Fahrenheit). The reporting tool HWinfo suggested the cooling wasn't enough for the processor, which did occasionally thermally throttle.

The GPU offered up an average clock speed of 1,505.26 MHz, with a temperature of 75.19 degrees Celsius (167.34 degrees Fahrenheit).

Productivity Performance on the MSI GE76 Raider

Intel's Core i9-12900HK, with six performance cores and eight efficiency cores is among Intel's first laptop processors to mix different cores (the first were in the Lakefield chips, while far more Alder Lake processors do so.) With 32GB of RAM in the GE76 Raider, I could see creatives using the laptop for other purposes in between gaming sessions. It certainly has the CPU muscle for it.

On the Geekbench 5 performance benchmark, the Raider notched a multi-core score of 13,456 and a single-core score of 1,833. Last year's model, with a Core i9-11900HK, had scores of 8,388 and 1,594, showing significant improvement in multi-core year over year. The Alienware x 17, with a Core i7-11800H scored 9,024/1,539 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX was the lowest in both respects at 9,231 and 1,487.

The GE76 Raider's PCIe Gen 4 boot drive copied a 25GB file at a blazing 1,774.47 MBps, surpassing the rest of the field. The Strix Scar was the next fastest at 1,449.66 MBps,

MSI's latest completed our Handbrake test, in which computers transcode a 4K video to 1080p, in 4 minutes and 44 seconds, more than a minute faster than the next closest, the Alienware x17 R1, at 5:51. That's also a significant increase over the last-gen Raider, which took seven minutes to complete this benchmark.

Display on the MSI GE76 Raider

We tested the MSI GE76 Raider with a 1080p, 360 Hz display. As of publication, it appears MSI will typically pair the Core i9-12900HK and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with a 120 Hz 4K panel or a 240 Hz 2560 x 1440p screen, so take this section for what it is: testing the display that we have available. Unless you're playing esports, those higher-resolution displays make more sense with the RTX 3080 Ti, as you're unlikely to hit 360 Hz at 1080p. Might as well get the higher resolution instead!

No matter which configuration you get, the screen is 17.3-inches with a 16:9 aspect ratio. I would like to see MSI consider 16:10 on its flagship gaming notebook so that it could also better cater to creators and possibly use some of the space the bottom bezel is taking up.

Still, on Halo Infinite's open-world map, the green fields were lush and the blue sky made me want summer to come already. I wanted slightly more brightness in gaming than elsewhere, but I was able to play without issue.

MSI's screen covers 105% of the sRGB color gamut and 74.5% of the DCI-P3 gamut, putting it largely on par with the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 and last year's Raider, which all offered similar numbers. The Alienware x17 outperformed at 164% on the sRGB gamut and 116.2% on the DCI-P3.

The Raider's display measured 259 nits of average brightness on our light meter, which is significantly lower than last year's model (319 nits). It's in the same ballpark as the Strix Scar, but the Alienware x17 was in a league of its own at 438 nits.

Frankly, I didn't have a particular issue with the display's brightness in my usage, but having the option to go brighter is better, and MSI should at least be maintaining previous levels here.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the MSI GE76 Raider

On the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I reached 102 words per minute, which is decent for me, though I'm often as many as ten words faster. I only had one typo on the test. I attribute the slowdown to slightly slippery, plastic keycaps. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but I'd l like to see something grippier. Otherwise, I was comfortable with the layout and the key travel.

The touchpad measures 2.6 x 4.3 inches, which is big enough to navigate Windows 11 and use even four-finger gestures. But MSI appears to be missing a trend in larger touchpads. You often see that on productivity notebooks, but MSI certainly has a bit of extra room here. Additionally, the plastic used for the trackpad feels a bit cheap compared to the aluminum used almost everywhere else on the laptop.

Audio on the MSI GE76 Raider

The Raider's speakers offer a bit of punch to them. When I listened to Haim's "Don't Wanna," the drums pounded, providing a nice percussive rhythm for the vocals and guitar to bounce off of. The bass, however, was pretty weak.

MSI's top-firing speakers get plenty loud, and it could easily fill my apartment with sound. That was especially the case when I played Halo Infinite, and I used the Wrangler to take out Grunts during firefights early int he game's campaign. The music in the game sounded nice, but the effects, while they brought the volume, could have been a bit deeper and more rounded.

The laptop comes with Nahimic Audio on board, with music mode set to default. Having played around with it, that's where most people should leave the settings. There is an equalizer for advanced users, and while moving the bass slider up a bit helped scratch the itch, it didn't solve the problem.

Upgradeability on the MSI GE76 Raider

You'll need some tools and a bit of patience, but the Raider has a handful of parts that are easy to replace, upgrade or repair with the right knowledge.

To remove the bottom casing from the laptop, you have to remove 13 Phillips head screws. (I used a PH0 bit for these.) All of the screws are the same length, which means you don't have to worry about remembering which goes in which holes. Then, you'll need a thin plastic tool — I used one the shape of a guitar pick — to make your way around the edge of the base to free it from the rest of the laptop.

Outside of the 99 WHr battery, the replaceable parts are all underneath heat shields.The two SSD slots in our unit were filled, but in many configurations you'll be able to use the second to add your own storage later. Those drives' shields are adhered to the drives, but can be carefully peeled back. There are also thermal pads under the drives.

The RAM's shield can be removed by simply lifting it off with your fingers. MSI is using slotted RAM here, so you can add more later (that is, if you're able to find DDR5 modules).

The Wi-Fi module has a simple, sticky-note style shield on it. Otherwise, it can be removed by unscrewing it from the board and disconnecting the antennae cables.

Battery Life on the MSI GE76 Raider

As is the case with many desktop replacements, and gaming notebooks in general, you'll want to take the charger with the Raider wherever you go.

On our battery test, in which laptops continuously browse the web, stream video and run OpenGL graphics tests in the browser, all while connected to Wi-Fi with the screen at 150 nits, The Raider endured for 4 hours and 5 minutes. On the bright side, that's an improvement over last year's model (2:40) and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (3:44). The Alienware x17 eked out an extra 26 minutes on the test.

Heat on the MSI GE76 Raider

The MSI GE76 Raider runs a bit toasty while gaming. We took surface temperature measurements while running our Metro Exodus stress test to get an idea of how hot the laptop gets to the touch.

The center of the keyboard (between the G and H keys) reached 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while the touchpad remained a cooler 25.3 degrees Celsius (77.54 degrees Fahrenheit). The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop got as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), so keep this one on a desk or table while it's under load.

The Raider's fans are clearly trying their best, and they run loud, as in hear-it-across-your-apartment loud. You may want to consider checking out one of the best gaming headsets.

Webcam on the MSI GE76 Raider

MSI's 1080p webcam is generally usable but still needs some improvement. The full-HD lens is generally color accurate, even under some warm lighting in my apartment. This included a burgundy shirt I was wearing and some of the plants I have in my apartment.

Details, like my beard and the wrinkles in the curtain behind me, weren't noteworthy but are good enough. The big issue is that the picture still has some noticeable grain to it, and I wish it were more clear.

Software and Warranty on the MSI GE76 Raider

MSI's software is a mixed bag. There's some helpful stuff in there, but also some odd apps with questionable utility.

For instance, MSI Center has slowly been replacing MSI Dragon Center. You can use it to check the speeds and feeds and monitor your hardware as well as change performance modes. But it also includes a ton of optional modules you can install later, some of which double features offered by other software.

MSI App Player lets you run Android apps on Windows. This effectively does the same thing as BlueStacks, which helped develop MSI's apps. This will likely be less and less useful as Windows 11 gets more Android app support.

Additionally, there's MSI True Color to change between a handful of display presets, including anti-blue light, gaming, and movies. You can also use it to put a crosshair on your screen for first-person shooters.

Norton Security should probably come off of your system, as long as you're comfortable with the production that Windows Defender provides. The free trial that comes with the system takes up a ton of system resources and even blocked a Windows update until I disabled it. I also don't know why Music Maker Jam made its way on here.

As usual, Windows 11 comes with some pre-installed software or links to the Microsoft Store, including Spotify, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Tik Tok, Facebook and Instagram.

MSI sells the GE76 Raider with a one-year warranty.

MSI GE76 Raider Configurations

We tested the MSI GE76 Raider with an Intel Core i9-12900HK, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and two 2TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. This version also had a 17.3-inch, 1080p display at 360 Hz.

MSI suggested to Tom's Hardware that this CPU and GPU wouldn't be paired with a 360 Hz display in the "first wave" of devices, but rather a 1440p or 4K screen. An MSI representative estimated that this device would cost around $4,000, though with more RAM and less storage.

The Raider GE76 will start at $1,599 with a Core i7-12700H, RTX 3060, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and 1080p, 144 Hz display.

The most expensive model will be $4,199 with the same CPU, GPU and RAM as in our model, a 1TB SSD, and a 4K, 120 Hz screen.

In between are several other variants, including the new 3070 Ti, and an option for 64GB of DDR5 RAM.

Bottom Line

With a powerful combination of the Intel Core i9-12900HK and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the new MSI GE76 Raider represents a step forward for gaming laptops, at least in terms of performance (and particularly in terms of CPU performance.)

With plenty of ports for peripherals and extra storage, plus a striking RGB light bar (that you can turn off if it's not your jam), the Raider makes for a strong desktop replacement for those looking for something a bit more svelte and portable than a desktop.

There's no way around the fact that the fans work overtime to cool these new components. Most gaming laptops are loud, but this one is quite notable. If you game with a headset or loud speakers, this is probably less of an issue.

We'll be reviewing more laptops with Intel and Nvidia's latest soon. But out of the gate, the Raider is proving to be a strong contender for those with the money and desire for a premium gaming notebook, though if you can do without DDR5 memory you might be able to find one for less without seriously sacrificing gaming performance.

Qnap has introduced the industry's first 4-bay NAS with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and 10GbE connectivity. The TS-464T4 NAS can house four 20TB 3.5-inch hard drives (80TB in JBOD mode), uses Intel's quad-core Jasper Lake system-on-chip, has two M.2 slots with a PCIe interface for SSDs as well as 2.5GbE and 10GbE connectivity. Perhaps the most critical improvement over TB3-supporting NAS is that this one promises to improve Thunderbolt bandwidth significantly. 

Modern 4-bay NAS devices with RAID 5 and SSD caching support tend to offer relatively high performance with premium drives. Still, when you need to load a large amount of data on them, their network interface becomes a performance bottleneck. Therefore, Thunderbolt 3/4-enabled NAS comes into play with their 40 Gbps interface. The problem is that some TB3-supporting NAS (including Qnap's previous-generation TS-453BT3) utilize outdated SoCs that can provide a TB3 controller with only about 1.6 GB/s of usable bandwidth (PCIe 2.0 offers 5 GT/s per lane and uses an 8b/10b encoding with a 20% overhead). It's far from saturating TB3's peak usable bandwidth of 25.92 GT/s (3.24 GB/s). 

Qnap's TS-464T4 brings numerous significant improvements over its predecessor in pretty much every aspect possible, including enabling higher TB3/TB4 bandwidth thanks to its eight PCIe 3.0 lanes.  

The new unit employs Intel's quad-core Celeron N5105/N5095 'Jasper Lake' SoC that has four Tremont cores at 2.0 – 2.9 GHz with 4MB of L3 and supports 16GB of dual-channel DDR4-2933. Other attributes include a Gen11 GPU, HEVC, H.264, VP9 encoding/decoding for 4Kp60 videos, eight PCIe Gen3 lanes, 2.5GbE MAC, and 10/15W TDP. As a result, it features considerably higher general-purpose performance than Apollo Lake (Goldmont) and Gemini Lake (Goldmont Plus) SoCs used for Qnap's more or less recent 4-bay NAS. That extra performance, along with support for 16GB of DDR4-2933 memory, will likely make performance-demanding workloads like rebuilding a RAID array faster. 

While eight PCIe 3.0 lanes is a significant improvement over six PCIe 2.0 lanes on the TS-453BT3, there are still some caveats. Assuming that Qnap uses four PCIe 3.0 lanes for its TB4 controller (Intel's JHL8440/Goshen Ridge, we presume), there are only four lanes left for the 10GbE controller and two M.2 slots for caching/Qtier SSDs. Probably, one PCIe 3.0 lane (8 GT/s or 0.985 GB/s with a 128b/130b encoding) is enough for the 10GbE controller, and we can speculate that one M.2 slot uses a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, while another uses a PCIe 3.0 x1 interface. Even TB4 provides 25.92 GT/s, but the actual bandwidth available will be limited to 16 GT/s to the end-user if this drive becomes a medium for writing/reading. 

Like other modern 4-bay NAS from Qnap, this one comes with an HDMI 2.0 output and may be equipped with a remote to work as an HTPC. In addition to two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the front, it also has a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port near them. 

Unlike some other Qnap NAS, the TS-464T4 no longer has a PCIe slot for expansion cards. It's a logical compromise as there are no spare PCIe lanes left, but this is a good thing since original Qnap accessories (10GbE adapter or M.2 to PCIe card converter) are pretty expensive. Besides, nobody guarantees that third-party hardware will work with Qnap's QTS operating system. 

Speaking of QTS, the manufacturer will ship the TS-464T4 with the latest QTS 5 version that improves performance, enhances security. It also supports Coral Edge TPU that can do image recognition and even attempt to predict hardware failures using cloud-based AI. 

Unfortunately, QNAP has neither announced its official MSRP for the TS-464T4 nor disclosed its launch window.

Always among the first to embrace new technologies and push mobile performance to its limits, MSI has unveiled a new lineup of gaming and content creation laptops based on Intel’s new 12th-gen Alder Lake H series CPUs and Nvidia’s mobile RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti GPUs. Several of the systems also feature a new “Phase-Change Liquid Metal Pad” cooling technology, which promises to boost performance up to 10 percent. 

The gaming laptops range from the relatively-light GS77 / 66 Stealth to the decked-out Raider GE76 / 66 and the all-new Vector GP76 / 66 series. The company also announced some new custom-themed laptops, including a Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six model. The three new content creation laptops include the Creator Z17, a 17-inch system that supports pen input.

 Staying Cool with MSI’s Phase-Change Liquid Metal Pad

It almost goes without saying that the cooler your computer stays, the faster it can boost its CPU and GPU clocks. That’s why it’s so important, when you build a desktop,  to get one of the best CPU coolers and use some of the best thermal paste. Because the design of laptops is proprietary, OEMs have to come up with some of their own unique cooling solutions. 

Enter MSI’s new Phase-Change Liquid Metal Pad, a technology that sits in between the processor and the cooler, taking the place of traditional thermal paste. When the temperature hits 58 degrees celsius, the pad melts and, according to MSI, provides better heat transfer to the thermal block. MSI claims that this superior cooling ups overall performance by up to 10 percent over other solutions.

MSI has also added a feature to the MSI Center software called “Smart Auto” which can decide when to turn up the fan speed for maximum performance or turn it down for peace and quiet. The system can even tune its fan speed based on ambient noise in the place you’re using it.

 MSI GS77 and GS66 Stealth

Starting at $1,799, the MSI GS77 Stealth is the company’s lightweight, 17-inch gaming laptop, tipping the scales at a reasonable 5.7 pounds while measuring a modest 0.79 inches thick. It features an updated design with a zinc-alloy hinge that adds increased durability. In addition, the laptop has a classy design with a black, sand-blasted metal chassis and per-key RGB lighting. 

Its 17.3-inch display panel is available with up to a 4K, 120 Hz panel that promises to reproduce 100 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut. It’s also available with a QHD, 240 Hz panel that offers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut and an FHD, 360 Hz panel. On the inside, the GS77 stealth has up to a Core i9-12800H, RTX 3080 Ti graphics, a 1TB SSD and 32GB of DDR5 4800 MHz RAM.

The similarly-designed, 15.6-inch GS66 Stealth tips the scales at 4.63 pounds while measuring a slimmer, 0.71 inches thick. It starts at $2,499 and comes with a choice of a 4K, 60 Hz, QHD 240 Hz or FHD 360 Hz panel. In addition, the laptop will have up to a Core i9-12900K, 1TB SSD, RTX 3080 Ti graphics and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Unlike the GS77, the GS76 can support USB PD charging.

 MSI Raider GE76 and GE66

Designed to compete with the best gaming laptops, MSI’s high-end performance series, the Raider, gets an upgrade to Intel 12th Gen Core and RTX 3080 Ti / 3070 Ti graphics. With plenty of room for components and airflow, the 17.3-inch Raider GE76 is a full 1.02  inches and weighs a desktop-like 8.8 pounds. The 15.6-inch GE66 is svelter 0.92 inches thick while weighing 7.25 pounds.

Both MSI Raiders have panoramic aurora lighting on their front lips and are made out of aluminum. They boast up to 220 watts of combined CPU and GPU power so they can operate at higher boosts and even overclock while staying cool.

Like the GS77 and 67 Stealth, both laptops are available with a choice of 4K, QHD or FHD panels, up to 12th Gen Core i9 CPUs, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1B SSD. While both models will be available with RTX 3080 Ti or RTX 3070 Ti graphics, some configs will also have RTX 3070 or RTX 3060 GPUs. The Raider GE66 will start at $2,249, while the GE76 will have a $1,599 base model SKU.

 MSI Vector GP76 and GP66

Sitting between the slim Stealth and the chunky Raider, the MSI Vector series can deliver up to 210 watts of total CPU and GPU power. The 17.3-inch Vector GP76 weighs 7.65 pounds and is 1.02 inches thick, while the 15.6-inch GP66 tips the scales at 5.25 pounds and has a 0.92-inch thickness.

While the Vector laptops have up to a Core i9-12900H CPU, they top out at RTX 3080 graphics with no current 3080 Ti option. The GP76’s highest resolution panel is QHD, while the GP66 can go no higher than 1080p.

 MSI Crosshair 17 and 15 and Rainbow Six Edition

MSI’s mid-range Crosshair line is also getting a refresh. The 17-inch Crosshair 17 weighs a mere 5.73 pounds and measures 1.07 inches thick, while the 15-inch model comes in at 5.07 pounds and 1.06 inches thick. Both models are available with up to a Core i9-12900H CPU, but top out at RTX 3070 Ti graphics. Their panels max out at 1080p resolution with a 144 Hz refresh rate and they have DDR4 RAM instead of DDR5.

There’s also a special Crosshair 15 Rainbow Six Extraction Edition, which has yellow and black coloring and, instead of the MSI dragon, the back of the lid has the “Extraction Crest” from the game. It comes with a Core i7-12700H CPU, RTX 3070 graphics and, unlike other Crosshair 15 laptops, a QHD, 165 Hz panel.

 MSI Pulse and Katana: Affordable Gaming

MSI’s more budget-friendly Pulse GL76 and 66 are also getting upgrades to Intel 12th Gen Core CPUs. However, neither has RTX 3080 Ti or 3070 Ti graphics, with the top model having an RTX 3070 GPU. Panels for both the 17 and 15-inch models are limited to 1080p resolution, though the 17 incher has a 360 Hz display option.

The Pulse GL76 will start at $1,349 for a model with Core i7-12700H CPU and RTX 3050 Ti graphics, while the Pulse GL66 will go for as little as $1,299 with the same CPU but RTX 3050 graphics.

The affordable Katana GF76 and GF66 will start at just $1,249 and $1,099, respectively. Weighing in at 5.73 and 4.96 pounds, these systems will have up to a Core i7-12700H CPU and RTX 3070 Ti GPU. Their panels are both 1080p with 144 Hz refresh rates.

MSI Creator Z17, Creator Z16P and Creator M16: Professional Graphics

MSI continues to target graphics professionals with its creator line. The new Creator Z17 boasts what the company says is the world’s first 17-inch laptop with pen support. The 5.49-pound laptop is a mere 0.75 inches thick but finds room for up to a Core i9-12900H and RTX 3080 Ti graphics. Starting at $3,249, the Z17 sports a 17-inch panel with a 2560 x 1600 resolution, a 165 Hz refresh rate and the ability to reproduce 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

The Creator Z16P is a tad lighter at 5.27 pounds but the same thickness and offers the same CPU and GPU options. Starting at $2,999, its 16-inch panel is also 2560 x 1600 resolution with 165 Hz refresh rate and DCI-P3 at 100 percent. There’s also the nearly-identical Creator Z16 (no P) that starts at $2,499 and has a panel that’s only 120 Hz while going up to only a Core i7-12700H and RTX 3060 graphics.

Finally, the budget-oriented Creator M16 laptop starts at $1,499. For that price, you get a Core i7-12700H CPU, RTX 3050 Ti graphics, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 2560 x 1600 display that covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut but at 60 Hz. A $1,599 model ups the graphics to RTX 3060, the RAM to 32GB and the storage to 1TB.

The new disaster-resistant ioSafe 1520+ NAS announced this month could protect drives in temperatures of up to 1,550ºF/843ºC (in accordance with the ASTM E-119 testing standard) for up to 30 minutes as well as keep the drives safe for up to three days when submerged in up to 10 feet/3 meters of water. 

With modern high-capacity hard drives, storing loads of data locally is fairly easy and cheap. But what if you want not only to store data but protect it against natural disasters, fire or flood? This is exactly what disaster-proof NAS and servers from ioSafe are for, as they can withstand extreme heat, floods, and physical impact. 

As far as storage capabilities are concerned, the catastrophe-proof ioSafe 1520+ NAS can house up to five hot-swappable 3.5-inch hard drives, meaning that it can store up to 100TB using 20TB HDDs depending on the RAID configuration. Also, it can be further expanded with disaster-resistant expansion modules to host up to 300TB of data. Furthermore, the drives' contents can be encrypted using the AES-256 algorithm. 

The ioSafe 1520+ runs the Synology DSM operating system designed primarily for business users (so do not expect to run sophisticated multimedia or consumer-grade software on it). On the hardware side of matters, ioSafe's 1520+ NAS is based on the Intel Celeron J4125 system-on-chip (four cores, 1.5 GHz ~ 2.30 GHz, hardware AES-256 support) paired with 8GB of DDR3L memory. It can connect to a local network using four GbE ports (up to 2GbE is supported when two ports are aggregated) and supports various external storage devices using its USB 3.0 Type-A and eSATA interfaces. 

For a five-drive NAS, the ioSafe 1520+ is pretty large and heavy: it measures 406×483×534mm (16×19×21 inches, W×L×H) and weighs 29 kilograms without drives and 33 kilograms when fully packed. 

ioSafe positions its disaster-proof 1520+ NAS for those who want to protect their data, but do not want to store their information in the cloud. 

"The new 1520+ offers our customers data center-class storage while saving customers over 75% of the cost of one year of cloud storage," said Robin Wessel, Executive Vice President of ioSafe. "With unprecedented speed-to-recovery, media companies and creative professionals, businesses and government agencies can recover the massive amounts of data they generate without loss when a water leak, wildfire, or virtually any major disaster occurs." 

ioSafe plans to begin shipments of its 1520+ NAS in February, 2022. One diskless unit can be purchased for $1,919 (down from its list price of $2,399), whereas a fully populated NAS with five 14TB HDDs can be pre-ordered directly from the company for $11,999 (down from the list price of $14,999). 

Normally, the most powerful RTX 3080 laptops available today come with a massive price tag and zero chance of a discount — especially now we are clear of Black Friday.

But MSI seems to be on a different planet, as the company just dropped its top-of-the-line gaming system to a lower price than it ever was on the biggest sales day of the year.

Right now, you can get $600 off the MSI GE66 Raider with RTX 3080 and 11th Gen Intel Core i9 power. At Amazon and Newegg, the price is now down to $2,899, which is a seriously impressive discount for what you get!

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Of course, the big specs are the selling point here, but there is a lot more to love about this machine, which we cover in our MSI GE66 Raider review. This beast picked up our highly-coveted Editor’s Choice award for its “unapologetically extra” design and incredible performance.

Packed within the svelte and stylish design, atop a beautiful RGB bar, the 4K screen runs at an oh-so smooth 120Hz. That’s an impressive jump up from the usual 60Hz you get on laptop panels of this resolution and makes it great for high quality gaming — making the most of its RTX 3080 GPU with 16GB GDDR6 video memory.

Pair that with plenty of I/O for connecting this into your home setup or playing on-the-go, and the impressive thermal management consisting of larger fans and heatpipes than the last generation, and you have something pretty special for the price.

If you’ve been on the lookout for an awesome portable gaming experience this holiday season, the GE66 Raider is an impeccable --and now more affordable than ever-- choice.

China has reportedly brought multiple government agencies together to form a Joint Inspection Unit tasked with finding anyone defying its ban on cryptocurrency mining.

Sina Finance reported Tuesday on Baidu—the popular Chinese social networking site—that the Joint Inspection Unit conducted raids on 20 "state-owned units" associated with 36 public IP addresses connected to recent crypto mining activity. 

According to the report, one mining operation in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province relied on the resources of a vocational and technical college to power four mining rigs with 32 graphics cards, which are believed to have earned 2.4 ETH over about four months.

Sina Finance claimed this operation grossed "a temporary recruit" at the college roughly $6,753 (43,000 yuan). The math doesn't quite check out, given Ethereum's current price of approximately $3,777, but perhaps the ETH was sold as quickly as it was accrued. Regardless, a big part of the appeal of using the college's resources to power these rigs is the lack of operational costs, which means any ETH mined was pure profit. That's why the Joint Inspection Unit sought out illegal operations like this.

China has offered a few other reasons why it's cracking down on crypto mining as well. Perhaps the foremost is the tried-and-true "because I said so" that parents and authoritarian regimes alike can fall back on whenever their motives are questioned. But the most oft-cited reason why China has banned crypto mining is the practice's environmental impact. The country wants to reduce its carbon emissions, and power-hungry cryptocurrency mining operations make reaching those goals difficult.

Sina Finance echoed those arguments in its report: "Virtual currency 'mining' and speculation violate the new development concept, affect peak carbon neutralization, and disrupt the normal economic and financial order."

China recently found some allies in that fight. Swedish regulators said in November that the country wouldn't be able to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement if crypto miners were allowed to continue operating within the country. India has mulled banning cryptocurrency, too, and it would also take a page from China's book by simultaneously working on its own central bank digital currency (which in China's case has already been used in more than 70 million transactions).

Sweden and India have merely proposed banning cryptocurrencies, however, whereas China has actually done it. Moreover, this isn't even the first time it's gone hunting for illicit miners—similar operations were undertaken in September and October.

Sina Finance reported that the Zhejiang Branch of the National Internet Emergency Center had actually "found that 4,699 IP addresses in Zhejiang had 'mining' behavior, of which 183 IP addresses involved 78 state-owned units," as early as July.

Don't be surprised if similar reports are published in the months ahead. China has made its intention to play—and ultimately end—this game of cat-and-mouse with illegal crypto miners clear. It's only a matter of time before the mice decide to move.

Iodyne announced a new Pro Data Thunderbolt storage device that supports up to 12 NVMe SSDs and comes bristling with eight Thunderbolt ports. Iodyne designed the powerful high-speed storage solution for professional-class applications, like photo and video editing or software development. You'll pay for the privilege of owning one, though: The generously-equipped 24TB model has a $7,500 price tag to match the professional pedigree.  

The Pro Data's twelve M.2 slots can support up to an aggregate of 5GBps of throughput and a maximum capacity of 24TB. You can also combine multiple Thunderbolt ports to boost performance with the company's Thunderbolt NVMe Multipathing design. Protection and redundancy are provided by RAID 6, checksums, and encryption, though details are light on the latter two features. 

If you don't want to use the Pro Data purely as a storage device, you can also use it as a NAS of sorts. The device supports connecting up to four computers simultaneously and dividing its SSD space into storage pools for multiple users. You can even configure the storage pools with passwords, encryption keys, different RAID levels, and filesystem formats.

However, the unit is very expensive. Pricing starts at $3,950 with 12TB of NVME storage pre-installed. If you want even more storage, you can upgrade to the 24TB model for a whopping $7,500. You can choose from three colors, including Dark Space Gray, Silver, and Iodyne Violet. The unit comes with a 180W power supply and a vertical stand (Dark Space Gray version only), along with two complimentary 0.7m Thunderbolt cables. 

The inclusion of Dark Space Gray alludes to the fact that this storage device is geared towards the Mac community and its software is heavily optimized for macOS. While the Pro Data and its software suite fully support Mac and Linux, Windows support is currently in the beta stage.

It doesn’t get much better than the most recent iteration of MSI GE66 Raider (11UH-227). Designed to compete with the best gaming laptops, this model manages to cram in a lot of top-notch hardware into a relatively compact chassis, and thankfully, it’s offered at a big discount in the leadup to Black Friday. 

Amazon currently sells the GE66 Raider for $2,999, which is $500 (14%) off its usual $3,499 selling price. What you’ll get in return is the 8-core/16-thread Core i9-11980HK (2.6 GHz base/5 GHz boost), which is Intel’s fastest mobile processor – that is, until the Alder Lake-P family arrives in 2022. The processor is backed by 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory and, more importantly, a flagship Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. The GPU drives a 15.6-inch 4K display with a fast 120 Hz refresh rate, something you don't see very often.

Other specs for the GE66 Raider include a 2 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD and a massive 99.9 WHr battery (the largest allowable on an airplane by the TSA). In addition, MSI’s Cooler Boost Technology is onboard to keep temperatures in check, thanks to two system fans and six heat pipes.

The laptop also doesn’t disappoint on the connectivity front with three USB 3.2 Gen Type-A, one USB 3.2 Gen Type-A, SD Express, one Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, and GbE ports. You’ll also find RGB accent lighting on the keyboard and around the GE66 Raider’s chassis to liven things up. And this particular 5.2-pound laptop comes slathered in a rich Titanium Blue color.

We should note that the MSI GE66 Raider comes standard with Windows 10 installed but is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 11.

More MSI GE66 Raider Laptop Deals

You can find even more savings at our best Black Friday gaming laptop deals page. We're also tracking the best Black Friday monitor deals, best Black Friday SSD deals, , best Black Friday 3D printer deals, best Black Friday Raspberry Pi deals and the Best Black Friday PC hardware deals overall. We even have advice on where you might find RTX 3080 deals.

OWC today announced the Accelsior 8M2, which it claims is the densest, fastest commercial SSD ever to grace Earth's shores. Is it one of the best SSDs? Perhaps not, as the 8M2 features a PCIe add-in card design with an x16 connection and is geared toward Mac Pro desktops.

Most NVMe solutions make do with an x4 PCIe interface, via an M.2 or U.2 connector. The Accelsior 8M2 PCIe add-in card features a total of eight individual NVMe M.2 SSD slots, all running at their full x4 lanes of data throughput. The company announced drive compatibility with macOS 11 Big Sur, M1 Macbooks, Windows 10, and Linux systems.

But with great power comes an even greater price-tag: the densest, 64 TB configuration (8x 8TB SSDs) will set users back a cool $12,999. That's actually the cheapest price per GB of the bunch, at 'only' $0.20 per GB. The 2TB model featuring eight 240GB drives is actually the highest cost for the available storage at $0.68 per GB.

The PCIe add-in card has a thin, light, and relatively long design. It has an integrated heatsink and active fan, no doubt a requirement for a product that pairs eight separate NVMe drives under the same heatsink. OWC opted for a no-frills aesthetic, with dashes of blue in both the PCB and I/O plate. An additional 6-pin PEG power connector supplements the PCIe slot's power delivery, yielding a potential 150W of combined power.

OWC is quick to point out the performance fluidity one can expect from the absolutely gargantuan throughput. The company says that the Accelsior 8M2 is able both edit and playback 16 simultaneous streams of 8K ProRes444 content "without a glitch." The extreme performance should reduce the time to completion on any storage-dependant workload, bringing about increased productivity, efficiency, and even power savings.

OWC says the Accelsior 8M2 features support for RAID 0/1/4/5/1+0 (10) with Macs, as well as RAID 0/1 for Windows machines via SoftRAID. A plethora of software and firmware solutions were designed to work in tandem to guarantee the Accelsior performs volume validation, error correction, and disk checks.

The OWC Accelsior 8M2 SSD is available now in capacities ranging from 0TB (where you add your own drives) starting at $799. Different storage densities have been announced at 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, 16TB, 32TB and 64TB, with prices starting at $1,299 for the 2TB model and reaching the aforementioned $12,999 for the 64TB model, but you might get them for less with an OWC promo code. OWC appears to use its own Aura P12 Pro M.2 drives on the various capacities it offers. Included with any purchase is a free, one-year license to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office software suite. The Accelsior 8M2 SSD is covered by a five-years limited warranty.

Are you worried that your M.2 SSD is running too hot? Well, RaidSonic (via momomo_us) has released the Icy Box IB-M2HSF-705, a new cooler that's designed to keep even the best SSDs in check.

The IB-M2HSF-705 is RaidSonic's second M.2 SSD cooler under the Icy Box brand. The IB-M2HSF-702 may be too thick for many users' needs, so the new IB-M2HSF-705 could be a more appealing and less invasive option. Like its predecessor, the IB-M2HSF-705 is tailored toward M.2 SSDs with a length of 80mm. The cooler has a cooling capacity of 23W, which is overkill for most M.2 SSDs. According to the manufacturer, the IB-M2HSF-705 can reduce your drive's temperatures by up to 40% compared to passive M.2 heatsinks. That's only 10% lower than the IB-M2HSF-702.

Checking with dimensions of 75x30x50mm, the IB-M2HSF-705 arrives with an aluminum heatsink that consists of 22 cooling fins that are 0.5mm thick with 2mm air gaps between them. Unlike the previous IB-M2HSF-702 with twin 4mm copper heat pipes, the IB-M2HSF-705 relies on a single 6mm copper heat pipe. This design allows the IB-M2HSF-705 to support swivel adjustments so you can find the best position for the cooler and avoid eating up space for your graphics cards in compact cases.

The copper heat pipe makes direct contact with the M.2 SSD, so there should be excellent heat dissipation. To improve the cooling capacity further, Icy Box includes a thermal pad with a thermal conductivity of 1.5 W/mK and can withstand operating temperatures between -20 and 180 degrees Celsius.

A 30mm cooling fan dissipates the heat from the IB-M2HSF-705's heatsink. The fan comes with PWM support, so you'd want to ensure that your motherboard has a 4-pin fan connector near the M.2 slot. The cooling fan can hit 8,500 RPM and provide airflow up to 4.87 m³/h (2.87 CFM). Unfortunately, Icy Box didn't share the fan's air pressure, which is more critical when cooling heatsinks.

The IB-M2HSF-705 has already gone up on Amazon U.K.; however, the price isn't available at the moment. For comparison, the IB-M2HSF-702 retails for $29.99, so the IB-M2HSF-705 should have a similar, if not lower, price tag.

Intel has published a patch (discovered by Phoronix) that enables support for its Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) mechanism in Linux. The technology is meant for upcoming Intel Xeon processors and is designed to activate additional silicon features after a processor has been deployed.  

The patch does not mention any specific features it is meant to unlock or any specific Xeon Scalable processors it is meant to upgrade (we think Sapphire Rapids), yet it gives some general understanding how it is supposed to work. As it turns out, the whole process is purely software, so it does not require any manipulations with hardware. Therefore, it can be done relatively easily. 

Intel's SDSi initiative seems to be a major one, yet Intel is not new to offering software upgrades to its CPUs. The most recent example of such software upgradeability is Intel's Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel VROC) technology that relies on the Intel Volume Management Device (VMD) hardware built into the CPU and has to be activated using a special hardware key. The company also once offered its Upgrade Service software upgrade capability for its entry-level client CPUs that would increase their clock speed, unlock a previously unused portion of cache, and activate Hyper-Threading technology. 

Intel yet has to fully describe what it intends to offer under its Software Defined Silicon initiative, but the number of possible options is quite limitless. 

Originally, Intel's Pentium II/III/4 Xeon processors were essentially desktop parts with additional cache and SMP (symmetrical multiprocessing) support. But Intel's Xeon processors have gained quite a lot of functionality in the last 15 years that is not supported by client CPUs and is not required by client systems. In fact, Intel's latest Xeon Scalable CPUs support instructions that are not supported by client models.  

In more recent years, Intel began to differentiate features and performance of its Xeon Scalable processors with premium parts supporting more memory, eight-way SMP capability, the highest number of cores, and all technologies that the chip giant has to offer.  

With the launch of its 4th Generation Xeon Scalable 'Sapphire Rapids' processors, Intel will bring support for plethora of new instructions and special-purpose accelerators designed for emerging workloads. Yet, many of Intel's enterprise customers that use on-premise servers may not see any immediate value in technologies like Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), or CXL 1.1. In fact, even hyperscale cloud service providers may not need all the features on all of their systems. 

To meet the immediate needs of its clientele, Intel wants to offer them CPUs in the configurations they need now, but with SDSi it can leave the door open for future software upgrades should a client need additional functionality or just decides to repurpose a machine. Such upgradability ensures that Intel's clients do not go to AMD if they need an extra feature or two and will still pay Intel for its technologies. 

Here is the official description of Intel's Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) mechanism:

Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) is a post manufacturing mechanism for activating additional silicon features. Features are enabled through a license activation process.  The SDSi driver provides a per socket, ioctl interface for applications to perform three main provisioning functions:

1. Provision an Authentication Key Certificate (AKC), a key written to internal NVRAM that is used to authenticate a capability specific activation payload.

 2. Provision a Capability Activation Payload (CAP), a token authenticated using the AKC and applied to the CPU configuration to activate a new feature. 

3. Read the SDSi State Certificate, containing the CPU configuration state. 

The ioctl operations perform function specific mailbox commands that forward the requests to SDSi hardware to perform authentication of the payloads and enable the silicon configuration (to be made available after power cycling). 

The SDSi device itself is enumerated as a PCIe VSEC capability on the Intel Out Of Band Management Services Module (OOBMSM) device. The SDSi device is a cell of the intel_pmt MFD driver and as such has a build dependency on CONFIG_MFD_INTEL_PMT.

Link: https://github.com/intel/intel-sdsi

Sabrent has pushed the boundaries of fast flash and high capacity with its recent SSDs, even more so than the biggest names in the industry. We thought that 8TB of flash storage was niche and extreme enough for most prosumers and enthusiasts when we first reviewed Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q, but now the company is doubling down and pushing capacity to new limits with its 16TB model.  

The new variant doubles capacity to 16TB, but it isn’t quite as portable as the 8TB model due to its larger form factor and power requirements. While the original XTRM-Q contained one Rocket Q M.2 NVMe SSD within, the new 16TB model has two of them behind a slightly different Thunderbolt 3 bridge, providing a ton of fast flash storage and potentially bus-saturating performance for those who need it. However, it comes at a high cost, tipping the scales at roughly $3,000, making it even more of a niche buy for those who can afford it.

Specifications

Sabrent’s 16TB XTRM-Q offers up sequential read performance of up to 1.4 GBps or 2.8 GBps over Thunderbolt 3, depending on how you configure the device. It lacks an official sequential write performance rating, but based on our testing, it provides the same performance during write workloads as during reading tasks. It can be configured in RAID 0, RAID 1, or as JBOD to tailor the drive for performance, data reliability, or flexibility, respectively. 

Priced at $2,899.99, the XTRM-Q isn’t cheap, and the warranty is lacking. It comes backed by a three-year warranty, which is short for a product of this capacity and price point. It’s noteworthy that the three-year warranty is longer than Sabrent’s standard one-year warranty. The SSD also lacks an endurance rating, just like most portable SSDs, but don’t expect Optane-like endurance. Each SSD within is likely limited to a similar amount of endurance as the Rocket Q drives under the hood.

Software and Accessories

The 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q comes with a long 28” USB-C Thunderbolt 3 cable and a power brick to power the unit. The power brick is not optional — the device will not power on without it. Our sample also came with a vented silicone sleeve for drop protection. In addition, the company provides Sabrent’s RAID assistant software, enabling quick and easy configuration in RAID 0, RAID1, or JBOD setups. 

A Closer Look

The 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q measures 115 x 65 x 16 mm and weighs in at 233 grams. Given its capacity, it's a small and compact storage device. It is much smaller than the LaCie 2big RAID 16TB we reviewed in 2019, but not even twice as large as the portable 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q. 

The exterior is made of solid aluminum, leading to a quality feel in your hands. It also comes with rubber feet to prevent sliding around wherever you may place it. There are two power/activity indicator lights to the left of the Thunderbolt 3 port, and the DC-in is to the right, along with a power button.

Sabrent’s Rocket XTRM-Q is fully Thunderbolt certified by Intel. Internally, it is powered by an Intel JHL6340 Thunderbolt 3 controller with two PCIe 3.0 lanes allocated to each of the SSDs. The drives support Trim and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting, but as an Alpine Ridge-based controller, the drive is only compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and will not work when plugged into a standard USB C port. That’s similar to what we’ve seen with some Titan Ridge-powered Thunderbolt 3 devices.

Furthermore, RAID functionality is not built-in via a hardware controller; rather, the SSD uses software RAID functionality built into Windows or macOS.

As mentioned earlier, the XTRM-Q is powered by two 8TB Rocket Q M.2 NVMe SSDs. Each has a Phison E12S NVMe SSD controller and a DDR3L DRAM cache paired with eight NAND packages of Micron’s 1Tb 96L QLC flash. Additionally, each quad-plane die provides better interleaving capability (and thus performance) than the dual-plane designs found in competing flash. That’s especially important when considering the normally slow program times of QLC. 

The controller operates at 666 MHz, but the flash interfaces with the controller at slower speeds than the retail Rocket Q we previously reviewed. Instead of interfacing at 666 MTps, these models operate at 333 MTps to control heat, but fortunately, this is more than enough to maintain responsive performance for its intended external application.

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Comparison Products

We compared the 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q to the smaller and more portable 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q, as well as a few of the best portable SSDs on the market. These include the G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro, LaCie Rugged SSD Pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro (v2), Samsung X5, and T7.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Samsung’s X5 and G-Technology’s G-Drive mobile Pro come out on top in the game loading test, so we can see that the QLC flash may be holding back the Sabrent a bit. The 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q fell into last place when tested as a single volume and just inched ahead of the 8TB model by less than half a second in RAID 0.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

The Rocket XTRM-Q is fast during file transfers, but it isn’t enough to outperform the best. While RAID 0 provides twice the sequential bandwidth of a single volume, the drive’s RAID 0 performance wasn’t quite as fast as the Samsung X5 or the 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q. However, performance was roughly on par with the best when we read back the files.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage: Data Drive Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. To test drives that store files rather than applications, we utilize the Data Drive Benchmark.

Regardless if you configure it in RAID 0 or if you use the two SSDs within separately, the XTRM-Q should provide responsive application performance. RAID 0 gave the XTRM-Q a boost in overall bandwidth, but its PCMark 10 latency scores remained the same. 

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

Based on ATTO’s results, Sabrent’s Rocket XTRM-Q delivers responsive performance across most block sizes, but lagged slightly behind the TLC drives at a queue depth (QD) of 1. 

The SSD hit speeds of up to 2.8 GBps in both sequential read and write workloads when configured in RAID 0, and up to 1,650/1,474MBps read/write when configured as a JBOD. 

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash.

We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds as well as the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance.

The XTRM-Q has a huge SLC cache that spans one-quarter of each drive’s capacity. Configured in JBOD, it can absorb upwards of 2TB of writes before performance degrades, and up to 4TB of writes when configured in RAID 0.

Sustained performance, in all configurations, is very low once the SLC cache is full. In JBOD mode, the Rocket XTRM-Q’s sustained performance degraded from 1,450 MBps to an average write speed of 150 MBps. In RAID 0, sustained performance averaged twice that, 300 MBps. The drive recovered roughly 400GB of SLC cache capacity after just a few minutes of idle time.  

Operating temperatures ranged from roughly 35-40 degrees Celsius at idle and up to 42-45 degrees Celsius during most workloads. When configured in RAID 0 and bombarded with over 2TB of multiple sustained writes, the top surface temperature measured 47 degrees Celsius and the underside measured 53 degrees Celsius with no signs of thermal throttling.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Comet Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and testing is carried out with write caching enabled.

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Sabrent’s 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q provides responsive performance in most workloads, but it isn’t quite the fastest Thunderbolt 3 SSD to have passed through our lab. While the SLC write cache is absolutely massive, sustained write performance can be quite disappointing depending on how full the device is. However, it is the highest-capacity external flash-based SSD we’ve tested, making it a great option for the modern data hoarder and prosumers alike. 

Not only would it make for a solid, high-capacity workspace, it is also potentially great for those looking to tack on more storage to their SFF build, or even for mini-NAS applications. As a matter of fact, that falls into my exact use case. I have connected the drive to an Intel NUC 11 Pro, and together these devices shrink my active NAS down from a large and power-hungry 24-bay 4U chassis to a compact, low-power, and easily hidden combo that is perfect for storing all my media and testing data.  

We would have liked to see the drive come with USB support, but those purchasing this unit are more likely to have Thunderbolt 3 support than not. Given the eye-watering price, we also would have liked to see it with a five-year warranty instead of three years.

The 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q is priced very high with most of the cost incurred by the flash media itself, which leaves it out of the price range of your average gamer or storage enthusiast.

With an Intel Optane-like cost of $2,899.99, the massive 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q is not just one of the highest-capacity storage devices we have tested, but also one of the most expensive. At this price, nothing else compares to the sheer capacity and performance that it provides. 

If you’re looking for something more portable, cheaper, but still fairly high capacity, the 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q is a solid alternative at roughly half the cost. If you don’t need quite as much storage but still want lightning-fast Thunderbolt 3 performance can’t go wrong with something like Samsung’s X5 or LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro. And if you just want something high-capacity and at a lower cost, Lacie’s 2big RAID may be up your alley instead, though it can’t come close to matching the speed of the Sabrent 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q. 

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If you're going to use a laptop to replace your desktop, the closest experience you'll get is opting for something big and powerful. With a 17.3-inch display, up to an Intel Core i9-11980HK and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, the MSI GE76 Raider is one of the best gaming laptops for those looking for a desktop replacement. It even brings excess amounts of RGB lighting courtesy of a full light bar under the wrist rest.

Of course, that all comes at a cost. As tested, the GE76 Raider is $3,399, which is no small (or even medium) price. That is, it costs that much if you can find it right now. The component shortage means we've seen this system fall in and out of stock while reviewing this laptop. 

Design

MSI's powerhouse is a 6.39-pound hulk of metal and plastic. But as far as hulks go, it's somewhat sleek. MSI hasn't changed the Raider a ton since we last saw it, but this time it has a 17-inch screen, boosting its size to make it more of a desktop replacement than a conveniently portable gaming rig.

In theory, the new Raider is "titanium blue," but it still looks pretty gray to me. The blue only shows up if you're at the perfect angle.  The lid has MSI's dragon shield emblem on it in a tone-on-tone design, but otherwise it's pretty sparse, minus a few angular elements that blend into the venting.

Don't worry, the rest of the laptop screams gaming. The 17.3-inch display has narrow bezels on three sides, with angles cut in the bezel to make it seem a bit more imposing. That bottom bezel is robust, which is common but unfortunate. The keyboard, including a full number pad, is RGB backlit, and so is the light bar under the palm rest. That's right, there’s a rull RGB light bar, just for those who want the full spectrum of lighting technology under their fingertips — and wrists. It's a lot of lights, but they can be turned off, for those times when you don’t want to game or work while bathed in an RGB glow.

The aluminum build feels strong, though there is just a bit of flex in the center of the lid. 

There are ports on three sides of the laptop: The left edge has both USB Type-A and USB Type-C ports, as well as the 3.5 mm headphone jack and a lock slot. On the right side, there are two more Type-A ports and a full-sized SD card slot.

The rest of the Raider's ports are on the rear of the machine, including mini DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 4, an Ethernet jack, HDMI and the power jack. Most of these rear ports are the types of things you'll plug in and leave there, like a charger or monitor connections

MSI's laptop measures 15.63 x 10.57 x 1.08 inches and weighs 6.39 pounds. I imagine that for most, this will stay in one space most of the time. Dell's Alienware m15 R4 is 15.74 x 11.56 x 0.87 inches and is a bit heavier at 6.6 pounds. Both the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733 and the Gigabyte Aorus 17G are 5.95 pounds. The former is 15.55 x 11.11 x 1.08 inches and the latter is 15.9 x 10.8 x 1 inches. 

MSI GE76 Raider Specifications 

Gaming and Graphics 

MSI outfitted our Raider with a top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 16GB GDDR6, 165W Max graphics power and a 1,710 MHz boost clock. Paired with the Intel Core i9-11980HK, it's a strong gaming rig. All of its competitors also use versions of the RTX 3080, though Nvidia's many different versions mean they have different speeds and power levels.

To see how the RTX 3080 could power the 360 Hz display, I booted up Dota 2 and used the console to allow for the maximum frame count. I turned the resolution down to 720p and render quality to 60%, and the game ran between 320 and 350 fps in smaller battles. There's room to make the game look better, but you'll lose some more frames. Frankly, I'm not good enough to make those extra frames worth it.

On the other end of the spectrum, I played Control, a demanding title, especially with ray tracing on. At 1080p on high settings and medium ray tracing, the game ran between 70 and 80 fps, including in combat situations. My fingers were a bit warm on the keyboard, but not so much that it was uncomfortable to play. 

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider (highest settings, 1080p), the Raider ran the benchmark at 106 fps, edging out the Alienware m17 R4 (103 fps) while the Aorus and Strix fell behind. MSI's laptop also won out on Grand Theft Auto V (very high, 1080p) at 131 fps.

The Raider came in a close second in the Far Cry New Dawn benchmark (99 fps), falling behind the Alienware's 105 fps and just above the Gigabyte and Strix.

The differences were even closer on Red Dead Redemption 2 (1080p, medium), where at 77 fps, the Raider was just 2 fps behind, and on Borderlands 3 (1080p, badass settings), where it hit 98 fps versus the Alienware's 102 fps.

We also ran our standard stress test: 15 runs of the Metro Exodus benchmark on RTX settings. The Raider hit an average framerate of 71.8 frames per second. It started with a few runs between 72 and 74 fps, before flattening out at 70 fps by the end of the test. The CPU reached an average of 3.7 GHz at 86 degrees Celsius (186.8 degrees Fahrenheit), with occasional thermal throttling. The GPU ran at an average 1.4 GHz at 80.7 degrees Celsius (177.3 degrees Fahrenheit). 

Productivity Performance

As one might expect, Intel's top mobile CPU, the Core i9-11980HK, along with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD makes the GE76 Raider a productivity workhorse, and an RTX 3080 sure doesn't hurt, either. 

On Geekbench 5, the Raider achieved a single-core score of 1,594 and a multi-core score of 8,388. Those were the highest scores in each class, which is to be expected, as some of MSI's 17-inch competitors here have 10th Gen Intel processors (a Core i9-19080HK in the Alienware m17 R4, a Core i7-10870H on the Gigabyte Aorus 17). It sparred closest with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX in the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733.

The Raider was blazing fast on our file transfer test, copying 25GB of files at a rate of 1,309.64 MBps. That's far faster than the Alienware and Gigabyte, though the ROG Strix was even faster, at 1,449.66 MBps.

The only productivity area where the Raider stumbled was on Handbrake, in which we transcode a 4K video to 1080p. The Raider took seven minutes, while the Alienware needed 6:44 and the Strix completed the task in 6:11, again thanks to its AMD Ryzen 9 CPU. 

Display

The GE76 Raider came equipped with a 17.3-inch, 1080p display at 360 Hz for some quick-twitch esports. 

During my testing, I used the MSI GE76 Raider’s display to watch the trailer for the upcoming Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Sure, the trailer is really bad, but it looked pretty decent on the Raider's panel. It's a challenging video with lots of dark scenes, but the screen gets bright enough to tackle Venom prowling on top of a building in the middle of the night.

Control is another game with a dark atmosphere, but even in a smoky room full of Hiss soldiers, the game's red lighting popped and let me clearly see the Oldest House's industrial rooms.

MSI's screen measured an average of 319 nits of brightness, just beyond the Alienware m17 R4 (316 nits) and brighter than both the Aorus 17G and Strix Scar 17.

The display on the Raider reproduces 73.3% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is decent but slightly less vivid than the rest of the field. 

Keyboard and Touchpad

For years, MSI has been using keyboards from SteelSeries for its gaming notebooks, and that continues to pay off on the Raider. For gaming, these keys press down quickly and pop right back up, ready for the next press. 

In typing, this made the keys ever so slightly bouncy, and they might take some time getting used to for some users. I'm a heavy typer, though, and hit 112 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test easily. If you like to "bottom out," this may not be for you, but it worked for me, and the lack of it kept my fingers from tiring.

Considering the size of the keyboard deck, the touchpad is almost Lilliputian. It's 4.1 x 2.5 inches. It's just enough for Windows 10's most complicated four-finger gestures. I imagine the RGB light bar below it likely takes up some vertical room, but MSI could at least make it a bit wider. Of course, I imagine that for gaming, people will use one of the best gaming mice. 

Oddly enough, neither the keyboard lighting nor the lightbar showed up in MSI Center for us. But installing SteelSeries' lighting software worked perfectly, should you want to change the brightness or turn off the patterns.

Audio

The MSI GE76 offers booming audio. Yellowcard's "Way Away" exploded from the top-firing speakers, with violins and guitars filling my living room, along with clear vocals. The bass was discernible, but not powerful.

In Dota 2, each character's repetitive phrases were clear, even in combat, and in Control, bullets rang out as Jesse fought off the hiss from a gangway above a storage room.

MSI includes the Realtek Audio Console in its Windows Installation. It offers very little in the way of options, but most people will never have any reason to touch it. 

Upgradeability

To get into the GE76 Raider, you'll have to remove 13 Phillips head screws (a PH1 will do the trick). Luckily, they're all the same size, so you don't have to remember which one goes back where. One of the screws is located underneath a factory seal, which is a crappy practice that basically narcs on you to the manufacturer if you need warranty support. 

To get the bottom off, you'll need a thin tool (a guitar pick will work in a pinch) to loosen the plastic clips holding it on.

Once it comes off, you'll have full access to the 99.99 Wh battery, as well as both SODIMM slots for memory, two SSD bays and the wireless card.

In our unit, only one of the NVMe slots was filled, leaving room for expansion down the line.

Battery Life

Unsurprisingly, the Raider, with its huge screen and powerful parts, didn't last very long on our battery test, despite a 99.9 watt hour battery (the largest you can travel with on a plane). While streaming video, browsing the web and running OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi, all with the display at 150 nits of brightness, the Raider ran for 2 hours and 40 minutes. 

That's 35 minutes longer than the Alienware m15 R4. But both the Gigabyte Aorus 17G and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 endured longer, with the former lasting more than two extra hours.

Heat

We took our heat measurements while running the Metro Exodus stress test to get an idea of how hot the Raider gets while gaming. 

At the center of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, the laptop hit 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 degrees Fahrenheit), which is a bit steamy. The touchpad reached 31.8 degrees Celsius (a comfortable 89.2 degrees Fahrenheit). 

The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop measured 59.8 degrees Celsius (139.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Webcam

The MSI GE76 has a 1080p webcam, and I wish that more laptops would use these. It's 2021, and it's time for full HD.

It showed far more detail than many other webcams. I could make out individual hairs in my head and some of the stitching in my shirt. For better or for worse, my skin didn't look as artificially smooth as it does on some laptops.

That being said, it's not perfect. I've seen other laptops with lenses that make for a brighter video or stills, and a 1080p camera doesn't inherently remove any graininess. 

MSI's camera light blinks when you're using it, rather than simply turning and staying on. It's distracting during video calls, so I hope MSI considers changing that with software if it is able.

Software and Warranty 

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of extra software on our review unit. The Raider we tested has one major piece of software: MSI Center.

This replaces MSI Dragon Center and MSI Creator Center. The company now has just one centralized application for hardware monitoring and some basic settings changes, like disabling the Windows key or changing the performance profile. Much of the software is otherwise broken into "modules," which need to be installed separately and are somewhat buried in the software. MSI Center could really use more time in the oven.

Surprisingly, the only other software was some bloatware that came with Windows 10, like Spotify, TikTok and Roblox.

MSI sells the GE76 Raider with a one-year warranty.

Configurations

We tested the MSI GE76 Raider with an Intel Core i9-11980HK, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD and a 1920 x 1080, 360 Hz display. That all comes with a hefty $3,399 price tag.

For the same unit with a Core i7-11800H and an RTX 3070, the system costs $2,599. A Core i7 and RTX 3080 is $3,099. Both have been going in and out of stock as we reviewed the system, though the RTX 3070 model was more common to find at retailers.

 Bottom Line 

For the most serious laptop gamers who are looking to replace a desktop with something slightly more portable, the MSI GE76 Raider should be on their shortlist. It offers a fast, bright display paired with some of the most powerful mobile components, resulting in a great esports setup or big-screen option for AAA games.

It runs a bit warm, though that tends to be an issue on most laptops of this caliber. Perhaps the biggest issue is if you'll be able to find one or not. Besides being extremely pricey, it's been going in and out of stock as I wrote this review. Cheaper configurations were more likely to be in stock.

For some more stock options, you might want to check out the Alienware m17 R4, which has been a bit more reliably in stock, at least for RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 models. If you're looking for the version with an RTX 3080 that stood toe to toe with the Raider, though, you may be out of luck: Dell isn't listing that on its site as of this writing. That system is also a bit heavier than the Raider.

Anything top-of-the-line is hard to find right now. But if you want as much gaming performance as you can get from a laptop today, the MSI GE76 Raider is where it's at. 

AOC has marked 2021 as the year of gaming peripherals, entering the market with new keyboards, headsets, RGB mouse pads and gaming mice. The AOC Agon AGM700 is the premium gaming mouse carrying a $40 MSRP compared to the AOC Agon AGM500’s $25. A $40 price tag still puts the AGM700 on the cheaper side of gaming mice, especially when you consider its features.

The AGM700 tempts with a 3.17-ounce build that can increase by 0.18 ounce increments up to 4.09 ounces, thanks to five removable weights. There’s also a sniper button for instantly dropping sensitivity to a low 200 CPI for quick headshots. You also get a braided cable and three onboard memory profiles and eight programmable buttons. But you might also find that the AGM700’s shape and the positioning of its side buttons, including that sniper button, prevent it from being the best gaming mouse.

AOC Agon AGM700 Specs 

Design and Comfort of the AOC Agon AGM700

With every company even tangentially related to PC gaming offering some flavor of gaming mouse, design and shape are critical differentiators. AOC is seemingly targeting the FPS crowd, equipping the AGM700 with a sniper button on the left side, which quickly drops the CPI (counts per inch, often frequently called DPI or dots dots per inch) when held, allowing for instant precision for headshots. 

Its other big design factor is its adjustable weight. On its own, the mouse is 3.17 ounces, but with the option to add up to 5 weights weighing 0.18 ounces (5g) each, the mouse can weigh up to 4.09 ounces (115g). On the mouse's underside is a battery-like compartment, where you can pop out each weight using gravity. 

A sniper button and adjustable weight give the AOC AGM800 pretty clear rivals. The Logitech G502 Hero, (as well the wireless version, the Logitech G502 Lightspeed) also has these capabilities but is heavier than our review focus (3.3-4.5 ounces). Corsair’s M65 RGB Elite is also heavier (3.42-4.09 ounces), as is SteelSeries’ Rival 600 (3.39-4.52 ounces). 

However, all three of those mice came out a few years ago. Today, FPS mice are getting much lighter, from honeycomb mice like the Glorious Model O (2.08 ounces) to wireless mice that are so light, it’s in their name (see the 2.12-ounce Logitech G Pro X Superlight).

A lighter weight can make it easier to flick the mouse around quickly and locate a target during an FPS game. But at its heaviest weight, the AGM700 feels solid -- which some prefer, especially if you’re not ultra-competitive and want something that’s a little more versatile. With all 5 of its weights in, the AOC Agon AGM700 felt more solid than a honeycomb mouse like the Model O, for example, and also worked well as a productivity mouse. 

In this state, it felt hefty toward the palm but not too exhausting to move, with partial thanks due to its five slippery feet. They’re not as successful as PTFE feet, also known as Teflon, which provide extra glide and are available on some premium mice. Movements were still smooth though. Unfortunately, the feet seem like they’ll peel easier than others. AOC backs the AGM700 with a 2-year warranty. 

The AOC Agon AGM700’s slightly weird shape looks like it was crafted with intention but has room for improvement. It’s symmetrical, save for the two side buttons and sniper button on the left side. Strong curves enter the sides, and there’s a large hump in the center that results in a deep, downward slope toward the mouse’s rear, where the sides also come in a bit more.

I have longer hands for a woman and typically use a claw grip, but it was more uncomfortable than normal here. The large hump is a little too far north for my liking and dig into my middle and ring fingers’ lower knuckles. Additionally, the deep curves on the mouse’s sides force my fingers into an angle where my ring and pinky fingers lack support. My palm grip fared a little better, but, again, I wished the hump was further back in order to be closer to my palm, rather than under my lower knuckles. The AOC Agon AGM700’s plastic here is smooth (but not grimey), making it even harder to get the palm to stay near the hump. 

Rubber-like sides also make it harder to find a reliable grip because, despite their triangular inserts, they’re generally slippery. It’s not so bad that it’d make a claw grip, (which depends on holding the sides), or any grip impossible. But it added a consistent, minor sense of instability to using the mouse. The scroll wheel is similar but with its triangles sticking out. Scrolls aren’t unpredictable but are slightly more slippery than preferred. It’s also easy for both areas to attract dust.

Exacerbating my grip struggles was the large, red sniper button that’s easy to hit accidentally. It’s directly south of the forward button, and if I used a palm grip, there was nowhere for me to naturally put my thumb without touching one of those three buttons. The forward/backward buttons stick out more than the sniper and have a decent amount of resistance. But the CPI switch is flatter, and I found myself hitting it accidentally on rare occasions. But very frequently I’d come closer than I’d like, distracting me from my task and making using the mouse more stressful. 

The good news is that the sniper button is reprogrammable, and you can deactivate it via software. You can easily bring it back, thanks to the mouse’s three onboard memory profiles. 

The AGM700 follows the styling of other AOC gaming peripherals, like the AGK700 keyboard, by bursting with red. The hue is represented by the sniper button and intertwined with black in the hearty, but stiff, braided cable. Speaking of, it’ll take some time to get the bends from packaging out of the cable, as it’s not very malleable.

Diagonally brushed lines top the left and right click buttons to make it look more metallic. You can feel the texture, but it’s not bothersome and adds dimension to the mouse’s appearance. An M key lights up green, blue or red to tell you which of the three onboard memory profiles -- or Modes, (hence the M) -- you’re currently using. There are also six lines near the left click, to remind you which CPI setting is in play. 

The AOC Agon AGM700 has RGB lighting in its scroll wheel and in the more complex Agon logo by the palm area. However, both area’s lighting is muffled by white plastic, so it’s not very bright or inspiring. You can pick different colors for each zone, but they have to have the same effect: static, breathing or blink.

Gaming Experience on the AOC Agon AGM700

The AOC Agon AGM700 sports a PixArt 3389 sensor with 200-16,000 CPI (adjustable in 50 count increments) a max velocity of 400 inches per second (IPS) and max acceleration of 50g. Those specs put the AGM700 on par with the best gaming mice, including some that are much more expensive. I’m glad AOC went with a respected sensor brand, rather than making its own with extreme specs most don’t need. 

Whether weighing 3.17 or 4.09 ounces it feels solid, especially for an FPS mouse. Some rival mice can feel cheaper than expected because of ultra lightweight plastic, but the AGM700 doesn’t have that issue. Pulling all of the weights out made the mouse require much less effort to manipulate, and I preferred it this way for long gaming sessions.

The mouse’s sniper button can be a helpful asset but will take getting used to first, particularly if you’ve never used one before. It’s a flatter button with minimal travel, making it initially hard to hold down for longer than 0.5 second while pressing the left-click button to fire. But with enough practice, it’s possible for this to become a true advantage. I was able to reach it with both a palm, and claw grip, although accidental presses were likely with the former, where my thumb was always resting on the side buttons. And again, the mouse’s more slippery grip makes every movement more tedious. 

Under the left and right click are Omron-brand mechanical switches that made for tactile, precise clicks during gameplay without much of a plastic noise. Overall, the buttons are on the heavier side with some mild feedback after depressing, depending on where I pressed the button. It’s not too distracting, but made clicking feel slightly clunkier than on other mice 

The stylish cable’s braided fiber is a plus for durability, but it’s inflexible and will likely arrive with crimps from packaging that are hard to eliminate. I had to ensure the cable was in a good position before playing because it’s hard to manipulate during my gaming sessions.

The mouse’s rubber scroll wheel has a satisfying click in that’s also programmable. But it sounds rattily when scrolling rapidly, and my review unit’s wheel can wobble if nudged to the right. The less distracting CPI switch is reprogrammable but south of the M button to start. The lighting indicator on the left click button makes in-game switches easier, and I never had an issue with accidentally pressing the raised CPI switch or M buttons.

Features and Software on the AOC Agon AGM700

AOC’s first lineup of gaming peripherals are complete with their own software, AOC G-Tools. It’s easy enough to understand and navigate and hasn’t crashed in my experience using it with two different AOC peripherals. That’s better than we can say for a lot of peripheral apps, especially from newcomers. G-Tools isn’t the best-looking app and isn’t as well laid out or provide as much functionality as the likes of Razer’s Synapse, for example. But it’ll get the job done. 

The mouse supports three onboard memory slots called "modes" and dubbed M1, M2 and M3. You can also create five “profiles” in the software, and each profile has three modes. The AGM700 will carry over the last used profile’s three modes to another PC, even without redownloading G-Tools. However, RGB settings won’t carry over and will instead stay on the effect last used in software. Each software profile, (as well as its three modes), can be set to launch when opening a specific app, but this only works if G-Tools is open. 

G-Tools’ Buttons menu is where you set the AOC Agon AGM700’s eight programmable buttons. A macro manager allows for more advanced programming and is simple to use. You also get options like media control, launching the calculator or showing the desktop.

The Sensitivity section lets you set up to five DPI settings to scroll through when pressing the button south of the M button (if you use the mouse’s default settings), plus “Smart DPI,” which, according to an AOC spokesperson “refers to the fact that the mouse adapts to how you are using it, office setting slow, gaming quick.” However, many gamers prefer playing with a low CPI, and I prefer to know my mouse’s exact settings. 

You can also pick between a polling rate of 1,000, 500, 250 or 125 Hz, but there’s no option for an ultra-high polling rate like some premium gaming brands have begun to offer, (such as the 8,000 Hz Razer Viper 8K Hz). Additionally, there are sliders for double-click, Windows pointer and scroll speed. The calibration tool claims to calibrate the mouse with the way you move and your mouse pad, but I didn’t notice any immediate improvements after using it. 

G-Tools’ Light FX menu lets you play with RGB but doesn’t have many options. The Breathing, Static and Blink effects let you pick between “Random” or a “Single LED” color, where you can enter red, green and blue values or select from a color picker. There are also sliders for brightness, which you'll probably want at its highest to make the shades more accurate through their white encasing. The Static and Blink effects have the same customization options. You can also sync RGB with theAOC’s limited number of other gaming peripherals.

Bottom Line

The AOC Agon AGM700 is a promising first effort. Compared to modern rivals, it’s a little heavy for its FPS target market, but that also helps it feel more substantial than rivals that can feel cheap, even if they’re not. The sniper button is a nice inclusion, but combined with a slippery chassis and side grips, maintaining a precise hold over the mouse that allows smooth leverage of the sniper button will take work. 

Adjustable weights give the AGM700 versatility for work and other tasks, but the most serious gamers will need something with better grip and comfort. If you don’t need a sniper button, there are many mice geared toward FPS titles that are lighter too. 

Thankfully, the AGM700 has many programmable buttons and onboard memory, so you can tweak settings to make the sniper button less intrusive in various ways. The mouse’s $40 MSRP is also appealing, and we’ve seen it on sale for even cheaper.

As of this writing, you can find the Logitech G502 Hero for around the same price as the AGM700, and it has a better-placed sniper button. Corsair’s M65 RGB Elite is slightly more, with its aluminum frame and more sensitive sensor (up to 18,000 CPI). Although both mice are heavier than AOC’s option. 

If you’re set on a weight-adjustable mouse and a sniper button, the AOC Agon AGM700 is worth considering, particularly for its lighter weight compared to rivals and quality cable.

Pliops, a relatively new startup company founded in 2017 concentrating on data processing, has finally taken the cover off its long-awaited product: the Pliops XDP. The XDP acronym is short for eXtreme Data Processor, which is designed to essentially represent a more modern RAID controller for servers with all-flash storage.

"Just as GPUs overcome processing inefficiencies to accelerate AI and analytics performance, the breakthrough Pliops Extreme Data Processor (XDP) overcomes storage inefficiencies to massively accelerate performance and dramatically lower infrastructure costs for today’s applications." - says the Pliops website about its XDP product.

The Pliops XDP processor is an easy-to-deploy, low-profile PCIe-based card that runs in any standard server configuration. It is home to a Xilinx FPGA, which is soon to be joined by an ASIC (as per ServeTheHome), which is programmed to manage NVMe storage in a way that provides up to a 3-15 times performance increase compared to existing solutions. As the company notes, it is a way for server system technology to finally keep up with the progress of storage technology and unite the two.

If you are wondering just how it works, the XDP card actually takes the applications running on the system and transports them directly to storage. This eliminates the need for a CPU for these applications, and it provides up to 80% less stress on the CPU, freeing up performance and giving the whole system a big boost. 

Pliops has designed the XDP processor to be used in two possible modes: NVMe block interface or key-value library API. The second method will reduce CPU overhead as the XDP handles query retrieval from the database.

The company website notes that "XDP seamlessly manages data flow from application to storage, shaping the data for optimal placement to the lowest-cost SSDs, enabling very high performance with fully offloaded data protection and inline transparent compression.", continuing that "XDP’s ultra-fast hardware-based storage engine leverages breakthrough data structures and algorithms to deliver the performance equivalent of hundreds of Intel Xeon Gold cores of common data processing and storage management functions. This eliminates bottlenecks, reduces latency, and greatly increases workload scaling of your existing infrastructure footprint."

Pliops already has some major customers implementing its XDP card in data centers across the globe, and the official company website includes quotes from the likes of Intel and Nvidia, stating a few words about the success that they have experienced using the XDP product. You can find that on the official Pliops website here.