Tom’s Hardware Innovation Awards 2025: Surprise and Delight

The tech industry is facing some headwinds. Manufacturers, sellers, and consumers are more concerned than ever about prices and stock as a global trade war upends the supply chain.

But, even as we face these challenges, many companies continue to innovate in ways that surprise and delight us. It’s time to celebrate those who move the ball forward, even in tough times.

That’s why, as we do at this time of year, we present to you the 2025 Tom’s Hardware Innovation Awards: a set of products that set or expand the standard for others. This year’s list includes laptops with rollable screens, the fastest-ever consumer GPU, and a 3D printer that doubles as a laser cutter, among many others.

Nvidia RTX 5090

The Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50-series launch has been both incredibly exciting and horribly disappointing, and nowhere is that more apparent than with the halo GeForce RTX 5090. It comes with all the Blackwell architectural enhancements, which admittedly can feel more than a bit overhyped — looking specifically at Multi Frame Generation (MFG). But the GB202 chip at the heart of the 5090 offers clear generational improvements.

It comes packing 170 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), a 33% increase from the prior generation RTX 4090's 128 SMs. It also comes with a 512-bit memory interface and 32GB of VRAM, another 33% increase. Except that memory is now 28 Gbps GDDR7 instead of 21 Gbps GDDR6X memory, which means the net improvement in memory bandwidth is an impressive 78%. To help the GPU reach its full performance potential, the power limit also got a big 28% bump to 575W.

That's all good for performance, but the 5090 isn't without controversy. Deja vu: All that power, through the 16-pin 12V-2x6 connector, has again resulted in some melting adapters. As frustrating and concerning as that might be, the real problem has been a lack of availability and skyrocketing retail prices. Ostensibly carrying a $1,999 starting MSRP, retail cards have routinely been selling for closer to twice that much. Still, it's the dream GPU that gamers would love to own, assuming they could afford it and find it in stock.

—Jarred Walton

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

AMD’s 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X3D is designed to provide no-compromise leadership performance in both gaming and productivity application performance, and it delivers. Courtesy of its game-boosting 3D V-Cache technology, the 9950X3D ties the best CPU for gaming, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, in 1080p gaming performance, and even beats Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 285K by an incredible 37%, planting AMD’s flag as the uncontested leader in gaming.

Perhaps most impressively, the 9950X3D also preserves the full performance of the standard models’ performance in productivity applications, a first for the company’s 3D V-Cache models. That allows it to outperform the competing Intel chips in a multitude of workloads.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D costs a hefty $699, but it justifies the price tag with the performance served up from the 16 Zen 5-powered cores paired with the voluminous 128MB of L3 cache. The chip is also comparatively easy to cool, borne of its reasonable 170W TDP rating. The CPU cores also boost to 5.7 GHz, a surprising peak for this core-heavy model. AMD also enabled its full suite of overclocking bells and whistles for the 9950X3D, a first for its 16-core 3D V-Cache models, giving enthusiasts a plethora of options to tweak performance.

If you’re focused specifically on gaming, the lower-tier $480 Ryzen 7 9800X3D ramians the best option for most users. However, if you’re looking for fantastic performance in heavily-threaded applications and multitasking without compromising on gaming performance, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the best option on the market.

Read: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D review

—Paul Alcorn

Micron 4600 SSD / Silicon Motion SM2508

Two years is a long time to sit at the top, but that's precisely what Phison's E26 controller that powers some of the best SSDs has done. Now, thanks to drives like the Micron 4600, it finally faces some competition courtesy of the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller (which we previewed last September). It delivers equal to or better performance than the incumbent Crucial T705 in nearly every test we ran. Most critically, it also trims down the average and maximum power consumption by several watts.

The key advantage, for the time being, is that the SM2508 uses TSMC's N7 process node, while Phison's E26 uses the older TSMC 12nm FinFET node. Phison is readying its E28 controller built on TSMC N6/N7, but it's not out quite yet — the company appears to have prioritized its lower power DRAM-less E31T controller.

Competition benefits consumers, and the SM2508 brings a healthy rivalry back to the top-tier SSD realm. The biggest issue right now: There are no retail SM2508 drives available, as the Micron 4600 chiefly targets OEMs and system integrators. That means you can't actually buy the 4600 right now, as far as we're aware.

—Jarred Walton

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RDNA 4

Nvidia may control the lion's share of the GPU market, but the AMD RDNA 4 architecture and Radeon RX 9070 XT promised to bring some real competition to the upper-mainstream market segment. On paper, everything looks good, and our testing definitely showed real potential for AMD to recapture some lost ground. The problem, as with Nvidia's GPUs, has been retail availability and pricing.

The RX 9070 XT carries an official $599 starting MSRP, but such prices haven't been seen in the U.S. Even now, nearly two months after the initial launch, the lowest prices we've seen tend to be in the $850–$900 range — and those often go out of stock. It's not really worse than what we've seen from the competing RTX 5070 Ti, but neither is it clearly better.

AMD finally brought some real improvements to the Navi 48 GPU, with greatly improved ray tracing and AI performance. Nvidia still holds onto a raw performance and support lead in those areas, but FSR 4 looks promising and native RT performance ends up being competitive. Now we just need to see cards selling for closer to $599, rather than the 40% or more 'markups' that have plagued recent GPU launches from all the involved parties.

—Jarred Walton

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6

When you’re at home or at the office, you can connect your laptop to one, two or even four external monitors for more screen real estate. But when you’re on the road, you either need to lug one of the best portable monitors or live with a single screen. Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 offers a different way to get more pixels of workspace.

The ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 features a rollable screen that, with the press of a button, uses a motorized interface to grow from 14 to 16.7 inches, adding a significant amount of additional real estate along the way. You can use those pixels for an additional window or two, but Lenovo also has a utility to help you take advantage of them.

ThinkBook Workspace, an app which comes preloaded, lets you pin widgets such as a to-do list to the bottom of your screen, where that extra space lies. It also allows you to create a virtual display (a window that the OS treats as a separate monitor) or view Smart Copy – a history of your clipboard. You can even put any individual app you want – the browser for example – into a tab in Workspace so it stays pinned to the bottom of your screen while you perform other work at the top.

Read: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Hands-On

– Avram Piltch

Intel Battlemage and Arc B580

Intel has fallen on hard times, with massive layoffs and underwhelming new CPUs. It's not down and out by any means, but it faces an uphill battle. GPUs have taken over the data centers, powering huge AI clusters, and Intel has finally entered the dedicated GPU market with its Arc graphics cards. Too little, too late? Perhaps, but the second generation Intel Arc Battlemage takes a step in the right direction.

Headlined by the Intel Arc B580, it kicked off the current generation of new GPU architectures in late 2024. Oh, how naive we now look, praising the $249 starting MSRP — that was before we realized just how bad things could get, though there were definitely tremors already. Nearly five months later, the lowest price we can find is the $329 Onix Lumi Arc B580 (that's made by a sibling company to Sapphire, if you're wondering).

Generationally, the Arc B580 delivers an impressive 20% average performance improvement over the Arc A770 16GB, while using about 40W less power on average. That shows real progress, and when coupled with an attractive price, it proved almost too good to be true. It's still faster and costs less than Nvidia's prior-gen RTX 4060, thanks to having 12GB of VRAM. Let's hope Intel can improve the supply and continue to compete in the GPU realm.

—Jarred Walton

Asus ROG Ally X

Perhaps the best way to innovate is to straight up improve. The Asus ROG Ally X took everything its predecessor, the ROG Ally, did, and largely did it better.

While the Ally X uses the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip and 7-inch display, it has more, faster RAM to improve graphics performance, adds higher power profiles, a larger battery, and better build quality. All of these in combination make it the best PC gaming handheld that runs Windows out of the box.

The RAM is the biggest deal. Because the Z1 Extreme uses the same RAM for both the system and graphics, it lets the integrated GPU shine, and beat out the regular Ally in all of our gaming tests.

There was no successor to the Z1 Extreme when Asus released the Ally X. It could've let the original continue to sell unchanged. But the Ally X, if you can afford its $799.99 price point, feels so much better in every way.

Read: Asus ROG Ally X review

— Andrew E. Freedman

Mac Mini

Wow, is the Mac Mini tiny. The latest redesign is just 5 x 5 inches wide and deep and a petite 2 inches tall, taking up very little space on a desk. And starting at $599, with an M4, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, this is the first value Mac we've seen in a long time.

Shrinking down the Mac Mini didn't come without issues. The power button is on the bottom of the desktop, which is irksome to some, while others say they never shut their Macs off anyway.

There are some smaller Windows PCs out there, but they're often more expensive and come without RAM, an SSD, or an operating system.

Those looking for a family machine that don't need a laptop have a competitive choice in the Mac Mini, which is small, quiet, and stays out of the way so you can focus on your work.

Read: Mac Mini (M4 Pro) tested: Tiny titan

— Andrew E. Freedman

Tryx Panorama 360 AIO cooler

How do you innovate as an AIO cooler company when the latest generation of CPUs just aren’t as hard to keep cool as previous-gen flagships like the 14900K? If you’re Tryx, you borrow a page from high-end phone makers and slap a massive 6.5-inch curved AMOLED screen on your cooler to make sure it stands out, while also delivering excellent cooling performance (thanks to Asetek’s latest Gen8 pump). Not bad for a company I’d never heard of before seeing this cooler at Computex 2024.

While the screen on your AIO might not be your first priority, our reviewer was quite impressed, noting that the curved screen and absolute black levels created a “striking anamorphic 3D effect” using the pre-loaded visuals. You can of course add your own media using the company’s Kanali software.

A VRM fan is included to help chill components around the CPU, and when we tested it last September, the Tryx Panorama was in most ways the best-performing cooler we’d tested to date. But of course, class-leading performance and a curved screen don’t come cheap. The Tryx Panorama sells for around $350.

Read: Tryx Panorama 360 ARGB review

— Matt Safford

Be Quiet Light Base 900

At a Computex 2024 that was overflowing with multi-sided glass cases, Be Quiet’s Light Base stood out for its tasteful, almost retro-style RGB light strip, and for its ability to be oriented three different ways, horizontally, or vertically with the motherboard on the left or right edge. This is accomplished by some clever internal design and removable feet.

When we got it in for testing, we also appreciated its pre-installed ARGB and PWM hubs, as well as its support for back-connector motherboards. It’s solidly built, as we’ve come to expect from Be Quiet. Its thermal performance wasn’t the best, but we found it to be good enough for the vast majority of PC builders, especially gamers and general-purpose users.

Read: Be Quiet Light Base 900 DX review

— Matt Safford

Lian Li EDGE EG1000 ATX 3.1 power supply

Between rear-connector motherboards, the rise in popularity of dual-chamber setups, and the ever-increasing demands of modern GPUs, PC is still continuing to evolve — which is why we're glad to see products like the Lian Li Edge ATX 3.1 PSU evolving along with it. Designed for dual-chamber cases, its L-shaped, fully modular design gives you much easier access to key (and often tough to connect or disconnect) power cables.

The Edge also has a built-in USB header hub so you can connect more internal accessories, and its internals are well designed, as we saw in testing. It's also quiet until you tax it with a heavy load, and efficient. It won't work well for every case, but for dual-chamber designs where the PSU is mounted vertically, it can make building, cable routing, and maintenance much easier.

Read: Lian Li EDGE EG1000 ATX 3.1 power supply review

— Matt Safford

Corsair EX400U external SSD

After years of limited external storage advances, 2025 has brought us both the first Thunderbolt 5 SSD to land on our test bench, as well as the first truly great USB4 drive we’ve tested, Corsair’s EX400U. And while TB5 drives like LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 can be faster, unless you own a recent Mac, TB5 ports are exceedingly rare, while USB4 is much more common. That, plus the fact that Corsair’s EX400U is small and designed to magnetically attach to the back of your MagSafe or Qi2-ready phone, makes the Corsair drive feel a lot more innovative.

The EX400U also blasted past every other USB-based SSD in our testing, and sometimes even beat the technically faster Thunderbolt 5 drive in Windows over USB4. In our Crystal DiskMark sequential testing, it edged above 4,000 MB/s reads, and topped 3,700 MB/s writes, while the best USB 3.2 2x2 drives were roughly half as fast. We’re sure to see faster USB4 SSDs before too long, but Corsair’s drive is the first we’ve tested that’s easy to recommend, especially if you want a fast drive that’s designed to connect to your phone.

Read: Corsair EX400U review

— Matt Safford

Mechboards Hyper7 R4 Keyboard

In a world where keyboards keep shrinking their numbers of keys, the Mechboards Hyper7 R4 is a real standout. Loosely based on a 1970s keyboard called the Space Cadet, the Hyper7 has 178 keys and weighs a whopping 5 kg (11 pounds). That makes it three or four times heavier than a typical mechanical keyboard and gives it at least dozens of more keys to play with.

We were fortunate enough to get a late prototype of the Hyper7 R4, of which only about 500 units were made. The unique layout has six blocks of keys, many of which have very unique labels such as “SMOL,” “Hold Input,” ”Suspend,” and “Fun.” A lot of these match commands that no longer matter much in 2025, but the good news is that you can use VIA, a popular keyboard mapping software, to remap the keys into any macro you choose.

The symmetrical shape of the Hyper7 R4 takes some getting used to. Normally, keyboards have their spacebars offset a little to the left, not directly in the center. And if you want to use this with Windows, you’ll need to map yourself a Windows key and a CTRL key. However, once you’ve done the work, you’ll be gifted with more macros than you know what to do with.

Read: Mechboards Hyper7 R4 Review

– Avram Piltch

Asus ProArt PA32UCDM 4K 32-inch Gaming Monitor

The Asus ProArt PA32UCDM is a gaming monitor with a dual mission, appealing to two distinct groups of consumers. On the one hand, it’s a highly capable professional monitor with a 32-inch 4K QD-OLED panel, rich, accurate colors, excellent build quality, Dolby Vision support, and bountiful calibration options.

However, the PA32UCDM also caters to gaming enthusiasts by supporting a heady 240 Hz refresh rate at 4K, Nvidia G-Sync, and AMD FreeSync. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention the ultra-low input lag, which is critical for gamers looking for every slight advantage in twitchy online multiplayer games.

As if those fundamentals weren’t enough, the PA32UCDM also features HDMI 2.1 connectivity and Thunderbolt 4 ports, which turns the monitor into a professional-oriented peripheral hub with support for up to 96-watt power delivery.

Read: Asus ProArt PA32UCDM 4K 32-inch Gaming Monitor Review

– Brandon Hill

Asus ZenWiFi BT10 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router

If you’re looking for a high-end Wi-Fi 7 mesh router to upgrade your home network, look no further than the Asus ZenWiFi BT10. While it doesn’t sit at the tippy top of Asus’ mesh router lineup (that distinction belongs with the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro), it delivers scintillating performance, broad connectivity options, a rich web user interface with countless configuration options, and a full-featured smartphone app for those that like to tinker with router settings on the go (the BT10 support remote configuration).

We observed strong performance across 6 GHz, 5 GHz, and 2.4 GHz bands, with the former delivering over 2,600 Mbps throughput at close range. The BT10 supports the full Wi-Fi 7 spec, unlike lesser dual-band Wi-Fi 7 mesh routers, and even allows you to utilize up to a 10 Gbps backhaul between the satellites for improved network performance. When you throw in no-cost software features like AI Protection, which is powered by Trend Micro, support for Apple Time Machine backups, and smartphone cellular tethering in case of an ISP outage, and a street price of around $600, the BT10 is hard to beat.

Read: Asus ZenWiFi BT10 Wi-Fi Mesh Router Review

– Brandon Hill

Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 Dex

The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 Dex isn't necessarily the most innovative mouse we've ever seen, but it's a big innovation in Logitech's Superlight lineup, as it's the first non-ambidextrous Superlight mouse. The Superlight lineup has been highly popular with gamers since it debuted, so it's no surprise Logitech hasn't done much to mess with the style — the most recent G Pro X Superlight 2, which came out in Sept. 2023, was almost identical to its predecessor. But the G Pro X Superlight 2 Dex, which came out last September, is a whole different shape: a contoured, right-handed shape with a hump that's shifted toward the center-left.

It's designed to be more ergonomic and easier to hold, and it feels a little like the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro, which is one of the best gaming mice we've ever used. While we didn't love the smooth finish as much as we like the DeathAdder V3 Pro's matte texture, it does come with precut grip tape in the box, which is perfect for adding extra friction. It's also superlight (of course) — weighing just 2.12 ounces (60g), while the DeathAdder V3 Pro is 2.22 ounces (63g). The G Pro X Superlight 2 Dex has top-notch specs: it sports Logitech's Hero 2 sensor with a maximum resolution of 44,000 DPI, a maximum speed of 888 IPS, and can handle up to 88 G's of acceleration. It also gets polling rates of up to 8,000 Hz, and up to 95 hours of battery life (with a standard 1,000 Hz polling rate).

Read: Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 Dex Review

— Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

Bambu Lab H2D

The Bambu Lab H2D is one of the most anticipated (and highly speculated about) 3D printers to come out this year and it does not disappoint. Similar to the popular X1 Carbon, the H2D is an amazing high-speed XY core machine that comes fully enclosed with multi-color and multi-material support — but it's so much more than that.

What makes the H2D better is its bigger build volume, the addition of a dual nozzle hotend, an upgraded heated AMS (Automatic Material System), and of course, a laser and cutter module that turns this 3D printer into every elite hobbyist’s dream machine.

Bambu Lab packed the H2D with great innovative features, such as a dual nozzle system, which makes multi-color printing easier and more efficient. It also saves time because you can print multiple colors, minimizing waste. You can even print using different materials, such as PLA with TPU, at the same time. The upgraded AMS is heated and provides the optimal environment for your filaments, keeping them dry and preventing cracking and storage issues.

And best of all, Bambu Lab has added a laser and cutter module that is easy to install and use, equipped with a laser, blade cutter, and pen plotter. It is available with 10W and 40W laser options. Add in a larger, 350 x 320 x 325mm build volume, and makers can complete bigger and more complex projects faster.

The H2D Laser Combo is available for pre-order at $3,499 (10W) and $4,399 (40W). The H2D AMS Combo is now available for $2,699, while the H2D stand-alone model, priced at $2,399, will be available in June 2025.

Read: Bambu Lab H2D Review

— Anj Bryant

Pimoroni Picade Max

A two-player arcade cabinet is hardly an innovation, but what Pimoroni has done with its latest iteration of the Picade series integrates the Raspberry Pi Pico’s PR2040 into multiple aspects of this DIY arcade cabinet kit.

We start with the controls. The dual arcade sticks and corresponding buttons can take the punishment when trying to land that kick, punch or shot in your favorite arcade game. But linking these controls to your choice of a Raspberry Pi 4, 5 or even an ITX based PC is a custom designed arcade controller to USB adapter.

Powered by the RP2040, Picade Max USB Controller handles 25 inputs for a two player setup, and it worked flawlessly with Recalbox. The Raspberry Pi 5 running Recalbox detected the controls as if it were a typical USB controller. Picade Max USB Controller can also work with StemmaQT devices, which means with some clever coding you could install a spinner for games such as Tempest.

Next is sound, and again the RP2040 powers another add-on board. The Picade Max Audio provides 3W of stereo sound output that really impresses. The “attract” screens, used to entice players to part with their quarters, really grab your attention when the booming audio starts to play. Speaking of the attract screen, the large 19 inch IPS display is a huge upgrade over previous models and it provides plenty of screen for two players to fight it out.

The build process is enjoyable, and it will certainly test your skills with a screwdriver. We had access to a beta unit and provided feedback on the build process which is now part of the final retail instructions. If you’ve got kids, this would be an ideal project to learn how to build electronics projects as the goal is just as exciting as the journey to get there.

This is my third Picade, and it just happens to be my favorite, as now I can play games, shoulder to shoulder with my friends and family, just like the old days.

Read: Picade Max Review

– Les Pounder

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